PRE PR E-COLUMBIAN ART
Selections from the Tucson Museum of Art Permanent Collection
PRE-COLUMBIAN ART Selections from the Tucson Tucson Museum of Art Permanent Collection Collec tion This online catalogue has been made possible by a generous grant from the Arizona Humanities Council and support from the Latin American Art Patrons of the Tucson Museum of Art ©2014 Tucson Museum of Art. All rights reserved CATALOGUE CAT ALOGUE DESIGNED BY BY:: INTRODUCTION BY: ESSAYS BY:
Melina Lew, FreshCutGrass Branding+Design Julie Sasse, Ph.D., Chief Curator Curator and Interim Curator Curator of Latin American American Art Anna Seiferle-Valencia, Ph.D., Independent Curator Alexander Tokovinine, Ph.D., Department of Anthropology, Harvard University
CATALOGUE CAT ALOGUE ENTRIES BY BY:: PHOTOGRAPHY BY BY::
Rebecca Mountain, M.A., School of Anthropology, The University of Arizona David Longwell Rachel Shand
CATALOGING BY: COPY EDITING BY:
Susan Dolan, Registrar and Collections Manager Katie E. Perry
COVER : Maya Culture, 600 – 900, Mexico, Incense Burner Fragment with Egy Head, bu clay with red slip, Gift of Frederick R. Pleasants. 1971.27 1971.27 ABOVE : Maya Culture, 700 – 900, El Salvador, Tripod Cylinder
Vessel with Underworld Scene, polychrome clay, Gift in memory of Joseph and Matilda See. 1991.15
Contents
4 INTRODUCTION Julie Sasse, Ph.D. Ph.D. ESSAYS
5 Stories Made of Earth: Moche and Nazca Pottery at the Tucson Museum of Art Anna Seiferle-Valencia, Seiferle-Valencia, Ph.D. 14 Two Vessels in the Tucson Museum of Art Alexander Tokovinine, Tokovinine, Ph.D. 23 Frederick R. Pleasants: A Curator and Steward of Pre-Columbian Art Anna Seiferle-Valencia, Seiferle-Valencia, Ph.D. 31 EXHIBITION CHECKLIST
Introduction Julie Sasse, Ph.D. The Tucson Museum of Art’s Pre-Columbian collection features nearly 600 objects including jewelry, ceremonial vessels, gurines, masks, sculptures, textiles, and feather arts. Collectively, the works represent approximately 3,000 years of history and 30 cultures spanning Mesoamerica (Mexico south through Central America, today’s Guatemala, Honduras, Belize, and El Salvador), the Intermediate Area (Panama, parts of Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Colombia, and Ecuador), and Central Andean region (Peru and Bolivia). The aim of this online catalogue is to provide a widely accessible, digital resource to support humanities-based scholarship centered upon the Museum’s permanent collection and to highlight the collection’s diversity and scholarly value. Included in this catalogue is an analysis by Dr. Alexandre Tokovinine of two signicant vessels in the Pre-Columbi Pre-Columbian an collection. Analysis of the imagery on these vessels entailed identifying the nature of the depicted scene and protagonists and comparing this with the available corpus of Classic Maya pottery. The epigraphic analysis includes transcription, transliteration, and translation of the readable sections of the inscriptions. Dr. Tokovinine also examined the style of the imagery and writing and identied a specic stylistic tradition. Also included in this catalogue is an interpretive essay by Dr. Anna Seiferle-Valencia on the topic of Moche and Nazca ceramic vessels in the permanent collection. Her approach to the interpretation of these vessels, rooted in anthropology and archaeology, addresses the questions of who created these objects, how they were made, and what their iconography tells us about the cultures that produced them. Dr. Seiferle-Valenica also discusses the signicance of the objects and individuals depicted in painted scenes and the connections of these representations to broader ideological themes in the Andean world. Additionally, Dr. Seiferle-Valencia contributed an informative essay on Frederick Pleasants, who donated the Museum’s rst major gift of Latin American art that serves as the core of the collection. Pleasants, one of the noted “monuments men” who helped to recover the looted art of Europe, moved to Tucson in 1958 to become the rst art history professor at the University of Arizona after an early career in the Northeast. Various highlights of the Pre-Columbian collection are also featured, with images and descriptive text by Rebecca Mountain. Together these essays, images, and texts showcase a major era of the rich cultural heritage of Latin America and provide an unprecedented opportunity for researchers and the general public alike to benet from the study of one of the most treasured collections of the Tucson Museum of Art.
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STORIES MADE OF EARTH: MOCHE AND NAZCA POTTERY AT THE TUCSON MUSEUM OF ART Anna Seiferle-Valencia, Ph.D.
Stories Made of Earth: Moche and Nazca Pottery at the Tucson Museum of Art Anna Seiferle-Valencia, Ph.D.
SEEING POTTERY Imagine for a moment a world in which an ordinary object is imbued with what we might call extra-ordinary signicance. This object, created by a human artist, is a manifestation of divine creative energy that has been transferred through the artist but does not belong to him or her. The skill of the artist, and the delicacy and beauty of his or her craft, reect this connection with the divine creative essence. The artwork itself may further depict images, narratives, beings, and individuals that exist in the natural, physical, or astronomical worlds, or in other realms. The transformational capacity between human and animal and the physical and spirit realms are embodied in the art itself. An ancient ceramic vessel, carefully crafted from clay and temper, collected at particular, named, and respected places on the earth, passed through the living social dynamics of artists, families, and communities, decorated with pigments and plant extracts that possess their own unique living qualities, and solidied through cataclysmic, transformative transformative re, is more than a decorative object. It is more than a functional object. It is more than an artwork. To call a ceramic vessel any of these – “object,” “artwork” – is to reduce it, in some way, by applying our worldview. Each ceramic vessel is greater than the sum of its aesthetic parts. As simple, elegant, and beautiful as it strikes us today, an ancient ceramic vessel is also an embodiment of a distinct and separate world. Though these objects stand in our world they insistently remind us that they are of another. The ceramic vessels you look at today are literally a portion of an ancient people’s sacred earth that has come to settle in this gallery. The images that make up and embellish each vessel tell a story and are that story, simultaneously. As you make your way through this collection, take your time to listen to these stories, to ponder how the soil of Peru now rests in Tucson, to consider the generations of individuals this vessel has outlived, and to ask yourself in what way you will let the story told by each of these vessels interact with t he narrative of your own life.
THE CERAMICS OF ANCIENT PERU Ancient coastal Peru was an ethn ic mosaic, occupied by dierent ethnic groups that sometimes overlapped chronologically and geographically and sometimes did not. Each of these groups developed and retained its own distinct culture, thriving in the inhospitable conditions of the Peruvian desert plains, located between the Pacic Ocean and Andes Mountains. As a result, they were dependent on the sea, annual rainfall, and the El Niño phenomenon for their survival. Their worldviews, as reected through their ceramics, convey their intense focus on the natural world. Keen observers, their depictions of fruits, vegetables, owers, birds, animals, and individual people are exceptional. Additionally, their ceramics reveal the extent to which warfare and struggle were a part of daily life. They also reveal the belief that the natural world had to be continually rebalanced. 6
Without this balance, that which sustained life could easily destroy it. A sense of fluidity permeates this art, as composite beings illustrate combinations of various animal and human characteristics. These creatures are not simply chimera. Instead, they reect the idea that certain creatures could, under extra-ordinary circumstances, circumstances, combine not only physical but spiritual aspects. Each composite creature represents a particular aspect of an ancient worldview. This essay focuses on a selection of ceramic vessels produced by two distinct cultures in ancient Peru – the Moche and the Nazca. Studying quotidian objects – ceramic vessels – that were widely produced, owned, and used within these societies oers insight into the worldview, cosmology, and artistic traditions of both cultures. Both of these cultures ourished during what is known as the Early Intermediate Period, and both produced highly signicant, richly nuanced, beautiful ceramics as part of their artistic canons. The Moche inhabited what is now northern Peru from about 100-800 CE. Numerous Moche sites seem to have been organized somewhat like city states, retaining their independence while sharing a culture of iconography, material objects, and architecture. Moche culture developed in three major phases – Early Moche (100-300 CE), Middle Moche (300-600 CE), and Late Moche (500-750 CE). The Moche are particularly well-known for their gold work, monumental constructions called huacas, elaborate irrigation systems that sustained communities in the desert, and elaborately painted ceramics, such as those seen here. In southern Peru, the Nazca culture lasted from roughly 100 BCE – 800 CE. Like the Moche, the Nazca adapted to the natural conditions of their desert environment and developed a thriving culture. The Nazca are known for their elaborate textiles, the famous Nazca lines that depict images of animals on the desert oor itself, underground aqueducts that are still functional, and beautiful ceramics. Nazca ceramics are divided into as many as seven distinct phases, each reecting the changes made in iconographic motifs. Despite these changes in the artistic style of Nazca ceramics, many major motifs and themes persist throughout most of the Nazca periods.
MOCHE POTTERY Moche ceramics exist in a variety of forms including bowls, jars, dippers, cups, and crucibles. The Moche also had a strong predilection for the stirrup-spout bottle, in which the stirrup handle forms part of the spout of the vessel. This handle form is a hallmark of Moche pottery but also occurs in other ancient South American and Mesoamerican cultures. In the Moche culture, the body of the ceramic vessel was often produced in a ceramic mold. The spout was then formed by hand coiling and attaching it to the mold-form mold-formed ed portion of the vessel. The subject matter for Moche ceramics is highly variable, reecting a keen observation of and deep engagement with the natural and spiritual worlds. Commonly depicted animals include deer, felines, foxes, monkeys, rodents, bats, birds, sea creatures, reptiles and the distinctive camelids (llamas, alpacas, and vicuñas). Plant forms are equally diverse, including the staple domesticated plants of corn, beans, squash, and root vegetables. Human forms include rulers, priests, and warriors. Historic personages – most often rulers – were depicted in realistic, three-dimensional portrait
vessels. Finally, composite beings, mythical gures, and deities are also depicted on Moche ceramics. All of these subjects may be depicted with the actual form of the vessel or may occur as painted decoration on the surface of the vessel. Originally believed to be limited to elite usage and included primarily in burials, scholars have recently determined that these ceramic vessels were part of daily life for ordinary Moche individuals. These vessels were used in household rituals, domestic use, and were an integral part of everyday life. Thus, the iconographic and ideological content of these vessels can be understood to have been integrally woven into the daily interactions of Moche society. The Moche vessels described here are both representative of Moche ne line painted ceramics. This Moche Culture, 600–800, North Coast Peru, Monkey Stirrup Spout Vessel,, red clay, white slip, red paint, Gift of Richard and Nancy Vessel Weiss. 1998.425
ceramic type is characterized by a creamy white slip over which motifs were painted in red. Moche ceramics are typically bi-chrome, exhibiting only the use of these two colors.
The rst Moche vessel is a stirrup vessel that represents a composite creature that exhibits the physical features of both a monkey and a feline (1998.425). This creature has the ears and facial shape that characterize Moche depictions of monkeys but notice that it also has whiskers and feline fangs. This composite creature was undoubtedly believed to possess the spirit and personality of both a monkey and feline in addition to their physical characteristics. Notice also that the spout is attached to the back of the head. In lieu of a double spout on this vessel, the ceramicist chose to connect the spout to the depicted form. A nearly identical strategy was used in one of the Nazca ceramics, below. The second Moche vessel (1971.14) depicts a battle between two individuals and two fantastic monsters. Even at rst glance, it is obvious that the ideological and iconographic content in this vessel is more complex than in the rst vessel. In one scene, a warrior wearing a rayed headdress battles a creature that is a composite of a jaguar and shelled animal. This monster is known to scholars of Moche art as the Strombus Monster. The Strombus Monster has a spotted coat, the head of a jaguar, erce claws, and is emerging from a conch shell. The conch may not add to our modern understanding of the ferocity of this creature. For the Moche, however, the conch shell was an important ritual object. As a people dependent on the sea for their livelihood, the Moche were in awe of the sea – both respecting and fearing its generative/destructive capacity. Thus, sacred natural objects could arise from the sea, as could fearsome composite animals. Notice that the Strombus Monster has three eyes protruding from its head – these represent another aspect of the conch characteristics of this creature.
Moche Culture, 400–500, North Coast Peru, Stirrup Spout Vessel with Fine Line Painting, Painting , clay, cream and red slip, Gift of Frederick R. Pleasants. 1971.14
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Given the ferocity of this foe, we might expect that the individual ghting the monster is not a mere human. If we draw an example from a better-known myth, we might remember that it is often demi-gods who confront and destroy monstrous composite beasts. The same was true in Moche cosmology. This individual is most likely a hero-god, an archetype that is well-established in the known creation myths of many Indigenous New World peoples. This hero-god is known among Moche scholars as “Wrinkle Face.” Undoubtedly, this appellate does not adequately reect the status, respect, and importance that this gure must have had in Moche belief. Since the Moche had no writing system, however, modern scholars are at a loss to apply the proper Moche name to this individual. The hero-god wears the clothing characteristic of Moche warriors. Similar depictions are found in numerous ceramic vessels. His tunic, headdress, and the two-headed serpent that appears as his animated warrior belt all reect the signicance of this individual to us but would have encoded particular narrative and/or ideological ideological content to a Moche viewer. Notice that his headdress includes a portion of jaguar pelt, with the same pattern as the pelt of the Strombus Monster. He holds a knife in his right hand, raised to strike the monster. On the reverse of this vessel, a second scene unfolds. In this scene, the hero-god ghts a giant monster that shares the jaguar characteristics of the rst monster but combines them with the stripes, and ridged back and face of a caiman, a kind of alligator native to South America. Thus, this monster also combines jaguar characteristics with aquatic characteristics but, in this case, the aquatic characteristics arise from a fresh water animal. In the hero-god’s headdress, a portion of the pelt of this animal can be seen where previously there was jaguar pelt. The precise meaning of these narrative scenes, which are commonly repeated on many Moche artworks including murals, remains unknown. Based on comparisons with other New World creation narratives, however, it is most likely that these scenes represent two battles undertaken by the hero-god (“Wrinkle Face”) against two monsters. These battles may represent the conquering of primordial forces, astronomical events, or both, as similar battles have these kinds of signicance in other New World creation stories.
NAZCA POTTERY Unlike Moche ceramics, which employ a rather limited color palette, Nazca potters decorated their ceramics with as many as fteen separate colors. Additionally, Nazca potters used dierent ceramic painting technology. Previously, potters of the Paracas culture (which immediately pre-dates the Nazca culture in southern Peru) applied painted decoration to ceramic vessels after the vessels had been red. These paints were usually resin based, combining mineral and plant pigments. The Nazca, however, innovated slip painting. Slip is a suspension of ne clay particles in water that can be painted, dipped, or splashed onto a ceramic vessel. The vessel is then red, and the slip hardens to the surface of the ceramic. The resulting decoration demonstrates brighter, more permanent color and more sheen in comparison to resin painted ceramics. The diversity in colors employed by Nazca potters is the result of careful control of precise slip mixtures involving dierent clay and mineral sources.
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Nazca pottery occurs in many forms that reect the dierent uses for the ceramic vessels. Bowls, cups, and vases are all easily recognizable. Double-spout bottles are a characteristic form of Nazca pottery. In these vessels, two individual spouts arise from the body of the vessel. The spouts are connected by a bridge or handle. These vessels have a unique property – when liquid is poured from them, the vacuum created by the two spouts creates a gurgling, sloshing, or chugging noise. This acoustic aspect of the vessels was undoubtedly intentional and most likely was part of the appeal. Nazca potters created their pots using the coiling method, in which a portion of clay is rolled and then coiled into the desired shape. The coils are then pressed and smoothed together and, after nishing, are no longer visible on the surface or interior of the vessel. This method allowed the Nazca to produce imaginative forms that are truly sculptural, depicting animals, composite animals, fruits and vegetables, and deities in three dimensions. The Nazca vessels shown here represent the degree to which the iconographic decoration on Nazca ceramics is a reection of the Nazca worldview. The themes of Nazca ceramics can be grouped into three major categories: 1) naturalistic motifs including owers, birds, reptiles, sh, and sea creatures; 2) religious or mythical motifs that include numerous composite creatures; and, 3) geometric designs including circles, bands, and cross-hatching. Additionally, the Nazca did not create ceramic portraits of individuals. This stands in stark contrast, for example, to Moche pottery, which includes beautiful and detailed portraits of individuals. Furthermore, very few indications of social rank are found on Nazca pottery, and portrayals of daily activities are scarce (again, in contrast to Moche ceramics). Nazca ceramics, as a group, are predominately with concerned symbolic, religious, or ideological depictions. The rst Nazca vessel under consideration is vessel 1977.176, a vessel that depicts a rotund bird, most likely a kestrel or Inca tern. This vessel illustrates the attention and sense of animism that characterizes Nazca naturalistic depictions. The bird is alert and carefully poised. This vessel, though it depicts a non-human creature, is imbued with a sense of lively animism that makes this particular bird endearing to the viewer. Animistic belief was an important part of the Nazca worldview, with creatures and plant forms perceived as having particular spiritual qualities. As will be discussed for the additional Nazca vessels, this belief led to the creation of beings that combine elements of multiple signicant animals. These composite, divine beings therefore embody the spirit qualities (and personality) of each of the constituent animals. Additionally, the Nazca potter who produced this vessel made an interesting adaptation so that the form of the vessel aligns with the naturalistic depiction of the bird. As mentioned previously, the coiling method for building ceramic vessels allowed Nazca potters tremendous exibility and creativity in the overall form that their vessels took. In this case, the vessel has an essentially globular form. Notice, however, that the head of the bird is in the place that we might expect to see a second spout. The head is connected to the singular spout of the vessel using the customary bridge, which, in this case, projects o the rear of the head of the bird. This is a beautiful demonstration of how form follows intent in Nazca art. Nazca Culture, 1 – 450, South Coast Peru, Stirrup Spout Vessel: Kestrel or Inca Tern , clay, slip, Gift of Dr. and Mrs. Henry E. Butler, Jr. 1977.176
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Looking now at a vessel that depicts the Anthropomorphic Mythical Being (1990.8.42), we can see how the Nazca combine animal and human characteristics to produce composite beings (anthropomorphism). In this open form vessel, most likely used for drinking, a creature that resembles a cat faces the viewer. Scholars know this being as the Anthropomorphic Mythical Being who does, in fact, have strong feline associations. This being is the most widely depicted and, presumably, an important being in the Nazca culture. The Anthropomorphic Mythical Being has a human body that wears a shirt and breechcloth. What appear to be whiskers is, on c loser examination, a mouth mask not unlike those produced in gold by the Nazca people. Additionally, the being wears a forehead ornament and a headdress. Human mummies in southern Peru have been found wearing gold mouth ornaments and forehead ornaments, suggesting that elite males dressed in the image of this being. The most common depiction of this being shows it holding a club in one hand and a human trophy head in
Nazca Culture, 200 – 300, South Coast Peru, Polychrome Vessel Warrior Deity, Deity, clay, painted slip decoration, Estate of Virginia Johnson. 1990.8.42 1990.8.42
the other. That is exactly what can be found on this vessel. Notice that the mouth of the trophy head has been pinned shut. From the back of the head of the being, a spiky cloak extends along the length of the body. The nal ornament at the end of the cloak occurs in a variety of forms including feline elements, birds, animals, sh, and plants, suggesting that there are subtle variations in the nature of this being depending on the chosen iconographic element. Additionally, Additionally, note that the horizontal depiction that wraps around the body of the vessel is the most common orientation for this gure and indicates ying. Taken together, we can understand this to be a being that embodies the characteristics of the constituent elements that make up its physical being and attire. A second vessel (2000.50.2) also depicts the Anthropomorphic Mythical Being. Notice the similarities in this depiction to the rst vessel, and also the artistic dierences. Taken together, these two vessels represent a perspective on the degree to which Nazca depictions of the same being can vary. What similarities and dierences do you notice? What might the dierences signify?
Nazca Culture, 450 – 550, South Coast Peru, Double Spout Vessel with Feline Deity Deity,, clay, polychrome slip, Gift of Alan and Alice Fleischer. 2000.50.2
It is important to remember that Nazca culture developed out of the earlier Paracas culture. As such, some of the concepts we see represented in Nazca ceramics can be traced back to the Paracas culture, where divine beings are depicted in ceramics and, particularly, particularly, textiles. The Anth ropomorphic Mythical Being is one such entity that is well established and formulated in the Paracas culture. By tracing the gradual change in the depictions of this being, ceramics such as this one can be dated to one of many archaeological ceramic phases. Notice in in both vessels described here that the Anthropomorphic Mythical Being is somewhat geometricized. This is an intermediate phase, known as Phase 5, in which the depiction of the Anthropomorphic Mythical Being is no longer as round as in earlier phases but has not become fully geometricized as in later phases.
Looking to another Nazca vessel, we see many of same principles of animism, anthropomorphism, and composite animals all at work in the depiction of a second composite being. In vessel 2000.50.3, we see what was once believed to be an otter deity, called this due to facial characteristics of the being and the water lily ower held in its hand. It is now known that this is actually a depiction of the Mythical Spotted Cat. This being is based on the pampas cat ( Felis
colocolo), a small feline that is characterized by semi-lunar markings on the coat, a striped tail, and small ears separated by what appears to be a “cap.” This being also wears a mouth mask, like the Anthropomorphic Mythical Being. In the hand of the Mythical Spotted Cat is a water lily ower. In harsh desert conditions, a water lily ower such as this symbolized water and fecundity. The Mythical Spotted Cat seems to have been a being that pertained to agricultural fertility. The association between the pampas cat and agricultural abundance may have originated, in part, because Nazca Culture, 100 – 200, South Coast Peru, Double Spout Vessel with Otter Deity,, clay, pigment, Gift of Alan and Alice Deity Fleischer. 2000.50.3
they preyed on the small vermin that visited Nazca agricultural elds. The vessel depicting the Mythical Spotted Cat is a double spout and bridge vessel. As such, liquid poured out of this vessel would have made a distinctive sound. This sound was most likely an important aspect of this vessel.
RETHINKING ANCIENT AMERICAN ART The beautiful objects you see in this catalog and exhibit are all that they appear to be – nely and beautifully crafted, symmetrical, and full of presence. Additionally, they embody many concepts that were of deep signicance to the cultures that produced them. The sacred and the secular were not separated in the Ancient Americas to the degree that they are in our modern society. Divisions that we impose upon experience, language, and art may not be assumed to carry over to the art produced by other cultures in other time periods. In the worlds in which these vessels were created, relationships between spirit and body, between plants and animals, and between humans and the cosmos were viewed in radically dierent a ways. Thus, each object serves as a window into the past and a dierent cultural world. We gaze at the past through these objects. They gaze back.
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REFERENCES Benson, Elizabeth 2012 The Worlds of the Moche on the North Coast of Peru . Austin: University of Texas Press. Donnan, Christopher B. 2004 Moche Portraits from Ancient Peru . Austin: University of Texas Press. Proulx, Donald A. 2006 A Sourcebook of Nasca Nasca Ceramic Iconography: Iconography: Reading a Culture Through Its Art . Iowa City: University of Iowa Press. Quilter, Jerey 2011 The Moche of Ancient Peru: Media and Messages . Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Stierlin, Henri 1984 Art of the Incas and Its Origins. New York: Rizzoli. Stone, Rebecca 2002 Art of the Andes: Andes: From Chavin to Inca . London: Thames & Hudson
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TWO VESSELS IN THE TUCSON MUSEUM M USEUM OF ART ART Alexander Tokovinine, Ph.D.
Two Vessels in the Tucson Museum of Art Alexander Tokovinine, Ph.D.
1971.20 This elegant beaker with slightly everted walls and a nearly at bottom is decorated with a horizontal band of hierohiero glyphs and two image cartouches cut through the dark exterior slip (burnish?) into the ne grey paste of the vessel’s body. It appears that it was stuccoed at some point, obscuring the carved and incised designs, but the stucco has been largely removed from the decorated areas. Apart from that, there is no other obvious sign of modern intervention, although the author did not have a chance to examine the vessel in person. The shape, text, and iconography of the beaker resemble the Chochola style of ne serving vessels produced in Eastern Yucatan, particularly in the area of Tiho (Merida), Chochola, Oxkintok, Uxmal, Xkipche, and Xcalumkin in the seventh and eighth centuries of the Late Classic period (Coe 1973; Tate 1985; Werness 2010). Iconographic and chemical analysis, however, indicates that some broadly similar vessels lacking the strongest attributes of the Chochola style came from the lower and middle Usumacinta River region (Reents-Budet and Bishop 2012:292). The unusually Plumbate-like surface nish and paste of the beaker in the TMA collection are shared by only a few Chochola-style vessels (Werness 2010:72, g. 41). The bottom of the beaker is at compared to the usually rounded bottom of Chochola-style beakers. The image cartouches of Maya Culture, 600 – 900, Mexico, Yucatan Peninsula, Carved Vessel, Vessel, clay, Gift of Frederick R. Pleasants. 1971.20
Chochola-style pottery are characterized by low relief and
rather aggressive background removal resulting resulting in deeply recessed areas, while the imagery tends to overow the cartouche boundaries (Houston 2012; Tate 1985:124). The cartouches on this vessel are in low relief but more shallow with very little background removal. The imagery stays within the boundaries of the cartouches. The text is arranged in a horizontal band along the rim and not in a diagonal band on the side of the vessel. That said, Chochola-style pottery exhibits a large variation in forms and surface decorations (Werness 2010), although this vessel clearly does not belong to the same subset of Chochola style as most beakers illustrated by Tate (1985). One of the two cartouches on the vessel shows an upper torso of a deity facing right and gesturing with the left arm in the same direction. The deity may be identied as the Classic Maya Rain God, Chahk or or God B in Schellhas’ classication (Taube 1992). The visible attributes include reptilian facial features, shell earares, a shell crown, and a long braid of hair that goes under the crown and extends above the face. There are also T24 “shiner” marks on the torso highlighting the luminous or perhaps snake-like surface quality of Chahk ’s ’s skin. The other cartouche features a deity seated cross-legged facing and gesturing to the left. His snake-like facial features, “shiner” body marks, and a prominent torch in the forehead indicate that it is a representation of the Classic Maya lightning deity, K’awiil or or Schellhas’ God K (Taube 1992). One unusual feature is the presence of wing feathers on K’awiil ’s ’s arms. This attribute may point to K’awiil ’s ’s role as a deity who goes to and then rises from the Underworld in order to retrieve the seeds of cultivated plants including maize and cacao. Simon Martin who reconstructed dierent parts of that mythical narrative (Martin 2006, 2012; Miller and Martin 2004:62-63) points to a s cene on a now-lost capstone from the Temple of the Owls at Chichen Itza that shows K’awiil rising rising into the sky from the jaws of the Underworld (Martin 2006:g. 8.14; Miller and Martin 2004:g. 27). That K’awiil has serpent-wings under his arms. The pairing of Chahk and and feathered K’awiil alludes alludes to the moment when the rain deities split the turtle shell of the Maize God’s earthly prison enabling his resurrection (Taube 1993:66-67; Zender 2005:8-10). References to parts of this mythical narrative, usually as combined images of God L and K’awiil , are found on many Chochola-style vessels (Tate 1985:129-130; Werness 2010:171-183). The dedicatory inscription on the vessel (Figure 1, Table 1) consists of 23 glyphs arranged in ten or eleven glyph blocks in a horizontal band along the rim. The text contains readable sections and most characters are identiable. However, some spellings are either senseless or contain previously unattested lexical items (see below). A few characters are heavily altered including at least one case of a 180° rotation. The implication is that part of the inscription may be dened as “pseudoglyphs,” although such characterization is inherently problematic (Calvin 2006). The author of this inscription clearly had some knowledge of the conventions of the script, but perhaps struggled to produce clauses beyond the most basic formulaic expressions. It is important that some Chochola sub-styles and similar vessels from the Usumacinta River region may feature pseudoglyphs (Werness 2010:120-121, 212, g. 98). The possibility of scribal error, however, substantially complicates any identication of potentially new glosses because any unusual spelling may also be discarded as simply erroneous.
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Table 1 Inscription on the vessel 1971.20 the ne vessel of
a-ku ta-ba
u-jaay a[j]-kutab
C
?
?
?
D
XOOK
Xook
E
?CH’OK-ch’o-ko
youth
F
ke-le-ma
xook ch’ok keleem
G
sa-T533
?
?
H
NAAH
house / north / rst
?
A
u-ja-?yi
B
I
AT-yu
J
MAN-le
naah[al] ataay manel
K
?lu (turned 180°)
?
he of the drum
young man
count (?) buying (?)
Despite spelling irregularities, most characters in the inscription are well-executed. Stylistically, the inscription does not readily align with the core Chochola style set, but resembles some contemporaneous carved texts from the Xcalumkin area. The sa syllable in Block G (with an unusual wavy rather than straight central double line) is remarkably similar to the sa variant on Columns 1 and 2 at Xcalumkin (Graham and Von Euw 1992:173-174) and on an incised vessel (K8017) signed by a Xcalumkin carver (Grube 1990:328, g. 8). Like most Chochola-style dedicatory texts, the inscription begins with ujaay “his “his ne clay vessel” (Grube 1990:322-323), although the execution of the yi sign is very unusual. The name and titles of the owner follow, beginning with an enigmatic a[j]-kutab, “he of kutab”, where kutab is probably a noun
derived with the –ab nominalizer or the – Vb instrumental sux. Potential cognates in Ch’orti’ suggest that aj-kutab could mean “he of drumming”
or “he of the drum”: kut “beating, “beating, tapping”; kuti “beat, “beat, tap, strike”; kutin “large native drum” (Wisdom n.d.:499); ahkes taka inte’ kutin “make a noise (clamor) with a drum” (Wisdom n.d.:446). The next block probably contains the rst word of the personal name of the owner, but the glyph cannot
(xook ).). More titles follow, be read or even identied as a known character. Block D concludes the personal name clause with a word for “shark” xook although instead of the usual chak ch’ok sequence sequence in Block E, one nds the word ch’ok spelled spelled twice: with a half of the Tlaloc-eye CH’OK logogram and
[chak] ch’ok keleem). The next block contains an enigmatic the syllabic ch’o-ko. The word keleem spelled (ke-le-ma) concludes this common formula ( [chak] combination of sa and T533 where one would expect a more straightforward spelling of a title like sajal . After that the text becomes increasingly hard to understand (perhaps, a reection of the limitations of the carver’s literary skills). Block H appears to feature a full version of the NAAH logogram, but the context of the word naah and, consequently, the best translation option are hard to establish because of the problems with reading the words before and after the block. The spellings in blocks I and J may be tentatively read as ataay and and manel . It is tempting to link the rst word with a Tzeltalan gloss for “counting numbers” (Kaufman 1972:94) and the second one with a Ch’olan and Tzeltalan word for “buying” (Kaufman 1972:109; Kaufman and Norman 1984:125). Merchant activity-related titles would be highly appropriate given the abundance of reference to the divine patron of commerce, God L (Tokovinine and Beliaev 2013:184-189), on Chochola-style vessels. The problem is that the ataay-manel sequence sequence will be otherwise unique in the Classic Period corpus and that it comes from an inscription with possible pseudoglyphs. The latter issue is highlighted by the last glyph in the inscription that looks like a typical Chochola lu syllable variant turned upside down. Once again, it may be an otherwise unique character, but it is just as likely that the carver ran out of known spellings and simply lled the remaining space with a random selection of signs. In summary, the beaker may be tentatively identied with the Chochola-style sphere, but not with the core sub-set. Specic paleographic features point to the Xcalumkin region. The imagery in the cartouches evokes K’awiil ’s ’s journey to retrieve the maize and cacao seeds facilitated by Chahk who splits the earth surface allowing the lightning deity to enter and leave the underworld. The dedicatory inscription is relatively well-executed but features many unusual or aberrant/erroneous spelling. spelling. Even if the spellings faithfully record previously unattested glosses, such departure from the more typical content of the dedicatory formula implicates a dierent or unusual social context in which this vessel was commissioned and produced.
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1980.12 This ne Saxche/Palmar polychrome vessel belongs to a well-known subset of painted Late Classic vessels characterized by idiosyncratic dedicatory texts and frequent depictions of supernatural scenes on a red background. The production of this type of pottery has been attributed to the region around the archaeological site of El Zotz because of the link between the term “ pa’ chan ne vessel” found in the dedicatory texts on these pots and the ancient name of the site – Pa’ Chan – which is also occasionally mentioned in the titles of the vessels’ owners (Houston et al. 2007). The chemical analysis of some vessels has also pointed to El Zotz as one of the production locales (Reents-Budet 1994:155). 1994:155). Uaxactun had been identied as another production center of this pottery (Reents-Budet 1994:125, 135, 155), but it was largely based on an erroneous link between the Pa’ Chan toponym and Uaxactun (Houston et al. 2007:413-414). Uaxactun still boasts the highest quantity of vessel fragments which belong to the stylistic group (Smith 1955:g. 32b, 37a, 38b, 41a, 72b), but t hese are still too few to serve as a strong indicator of local production. Archaeological investigations at El Zotz have not yet exposed large deposits of such pottery. Table 2 Inscription on the vessel 1980.12 DEDICATORY TEXT
A B C D E F G H I
a-AL-ya
?T’AB yi chi u tz’i ba li ?u
alay t’ab[aay] y-ich
here it ascends (is dedicated) the surface of
u-tz’i[h]baal
the decoration of
u-
his/her …
CAPTION 1
J1 J2 J3 J4 J5
bo-bo HIX u wa-?yi
?
CAPTION 2
bob hix u-wa[h]y
coyote jaguar [is] the demon of
?
?
K1 K2 K4 K5
u-?ki-li u
ukil u-wa[h]y
? [is] the demon of
?
?
wa-WAY
?
The dedicatory inscription occupies a horizontal band along the vessel’s rim. Most hieroglyphic blocks are occupied by single head variants of glyphs, which is typical for this style. The choice of “bat” tz’i and “skull” ba allographs is another characteristic trait. The inscription ends abruptly with an 19
unnished word as if the artist ran out of space, a feature also present on other vessels in the group (e.g. K5647, K7980). Neither the type of the vessel nor the name of the owner is specied. The scene on the vessel’s body shows two wahy supernatural supernatural creatures: demons of the night or personied evil spells who could be sent to cause disease and death to one’s enemies (Houston and Stuart 1989; Stuart 2005). The creatures on the TMA vessel are rather unique and are not listed in the comprehensive overview by Grube and Nahm (1994). One of them looks like a jaguar with a jade necklace. Caption 1 identies it as a bob hix , but the name of the owner cannot be discerned. The gloss bob possibly means “coyote” as bojb “coyote” in Ch’orti’ (Hull 2005:11). Hix is is a common term for jaguar and feline creatures in general. So the name of this wahy implies implies a supernatural hybrid of a coyote and jaguar (hix ). ). The second wahy demon looks like an unknown animal with feline paws wearing a scarf. The gloss ukil in in Caption 2, however, eludes secure translation. The toponym of Ukuul “place “place where uk abounds” abounds” in the vicinity of Yaxchilan (Boot 2009:183) suggests that ukil might might well be a designation for an animal, but the author has not been able to nd a suitable translation. The owner of this demon also remains undeciphered.
Maya Culture, 600 – 900, Guatemala, Vase, Codex Style with Three Gods , clay polychrome, Gift of Robert and Marianne Hyber. 1980.12
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REFERENCES Boot, Erik 2009 The Updated Preliminary Classic Maya - English, English - Classic Maya Vocabulary of Hieroglyphic Readings . Mesoweb Resources, URL http://www.mesoweb.com/re http://www.mesoweb.com/resources/vocabulary/Vocabulary-2009.01.pdf. sources/vocabulary/Vocabulary-2009.01.pdf. Calvin, Inga E. 2006 Between Text and Image: An Analysis of of Pseudo-Glyphs on Late Classic Maya Pottery from Guatemala. Ph.D. dissertation, dissertation, University of Colorado, Boulder, Boulder, 2006. Coe, Michael D. 1973 The Maya Scribe and His World . Grolier Club, New York. Graham, Ian and Eric Von Euw 1992 Corpus of Maya Hieroglyphic Inscriptions, Volume 4, Part 3: Uxmal, Xcalumkin . Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. Grube, Nikolai 1990 Primary Standard Sequence in Chochola Style Style Ceramics. In The Maya Vase Book , Kerr, Justin, ed., pp. 320-330. vol. 2. Kerr Associates, New York. Grube, Nikolai and Werner Nahm 1994 A Census of Xibalba: Xibalba: A Complete Inventory of Way Characters on Maya Ceramics. In The Maya Vase Book: A Corpus of Rollout Photographs of Maya Vases , Kerr, Justin ed., pp. 686-715. vol. 4. Kerr Associates, New York. Houston, Stephen D. 2012 Carved Vessel. In Ancient Maya Art Art at Dumbarton Oaks Oaks , Pillsbury, Joanne, Miriam Agnes Doutriaux, Reiko Ishihara and Alexandre Tokovinine, eds., pp. 394-397. Pre-Columbian Art at Dumbarton Oaks. Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, Washington, D.C. Houston, Stephen D., Héctor L. Escobedo, Zachary Nelson, Juan Carlos Meléndez, Fabiola Quiroa, Arroyave Ana Lucía and Rafael Cambranes 2007 A La Sombra De Un Gigante: Epigrafía Y Asentamiento Asentamiento De El Zotz, Petén. In Xx Simposio De Investigacione Investigacioness Arqueológicas Arqueológicas En Guatemala, 2006 , Laporte, Juan Pedro, Barbara Arroyo and Héctor Mejía, eds., pp. 395-418. Museo Nacional de Arqueología y Etnología, Guatemala. Houston, Stephen and David Stuart 1989 The Way Glyph: Evidence for “Co-Essences” among the Classic Maya . Center for Maya Research, Washington, D.C. Hull, Kerry 2005 An Abbreviated Abbreviated Dictionary of Ch’orti’ Ch’orti’ Maya . FAMSI report. http://www.famsi.org/reports/03031/inde http://www.famsi.org/reports/03031/index.html. x.html. Kaufman, Terrence 1972 El Proto-Tzeltal-Tzotzil; Fonología Comparada Y Diccionario Reconstruido. Reconstruido. Versión Española E Índice Español . [1. ] ed. UNAM Coordinacíon de Humanidades, México,. Kaufman, Terrence S. and William M. Norman 1984 An Outline of Proto-Cholan Phonology, Morphology Morphology and Vocabulary. In Phoneticism in Mayan Hieroglyphic Writing , Justeson, John S. and Lyle Campbell, eds., pp. 77-166. Institute for Mesoamerican Studies, State University of New York, Albany, NY. Martin, Simon 2006 Cacao in Ancient Maya Religion: First Fruit from the Maize Tree and Other Tales from the Underworld. In Chocolate in Mesoamerica: A Cultural History of Cacao , McNeil, Cameron L., ed., pp. 154-183. University Press of Florida, Gainesville. 2012
Carved Bowl. In Ancient Maya Art at Dumbarton Oaks Oaks , Pillsbury, Joanne, Miriam Agnes Doutriaux, Reiko Ishihara and Alexandre Tokovinine, eds., pp. 108-119. Pre-Columbian Art at Dumbarton Oaks. Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, Washington, D.C.
Miller, Mary Ellen and Simon Martin 2004 Courtly Art of the Ancient Maya . Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco and Thames & Hudson, San Francisco and New York. Reents-Budet, Dorie 1994 Painting the Maya Universe: Royal Ceramics of the Classic Period . Duke University Press, Durham, N.C. Reents-Budet, Dorie and Ronald L. Bishop 2012 Classic Maya Painted Ceramics: Artisans, Workshops, Workshops, and Distribution. In Ancient Maya Maya Art at Dumbarton Oaks , Pillsbury, Joanne, Miriam Agnes Doutriaux, Reiko Ishihara and Alexandre Tokovinine, eds., pp. 288-299. Pre-Columbian Art at Dumbarton Oaks. Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, Washington, D.C.
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Smith, Robert E. 1955 Ceramic Sequence at Uaxactun, Guatemala . Publication No.20. 2 vols. Middle American Research Institute, New Orleans. Stuart, David 2005 The Way Beings. In Sourceboook for the 29th Maya Hieroglyphic Forum, March 11-16, 2005 , Stuart, David, ed., pp. 160-165. Department of Art and Art History, The University of Texas, Austin. Tate, Carolyn E. 1985 Carved Ceramics Called Chochola In Fifth Palenque Round Table , 1983, Fields, Virginia M., ed., pp. 123-133. Palenque Round Table (5 Session, 1983). Pre-Columbian Art Research Institute, San Francisco. Taube, Karl A. 1992 The Major Gods of Ancient Yucatan Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, D.C. 1993 Aztec and Maya Myths. University of Texas Press, Austin. Tokovinine, Alexandre and Dmitri D. Beliaev 2013 People of the Road: Traders Traders and Travelers Travelers in Ancient Ancient Maya Words and Images. In Merchants, Markets, and Exchange in the Pre-Columbian World , Hirth, Kenneth G. and Joanne Pillsbury, eds., pp. 169-200. Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, Washington, D.C. Werness, Maline 2010 Chocholá Ceramics and the Polities of Northwest Yucatán, Department of Art History, University of Texas, Austin, 2010. Wisdom, Charles n.d. Materials on the Chorti Language . University of Chicago Microlm Collection of Manuscripts of Cultural Anthropology 28, Chicago. Zender, Marc 2005 Teasing the Turtle from Its Its Shell: Ahk and Mahk in Maya Writing. PARI Journal : quarterly publication of the Pre-Columbian Art Research Institute 6 (3):1-14.
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FREDERICK R. PLEASANTS: A CURATOR AND STEWARD OF PRE -COLUMBIAN AR ART T Anna Seiferle-Valencia, Ph.D.
Frederick R. Pleasants: A Curator Cu rator and Steward of Pre -Columbian Art
Anna Seiferle-Valencia, Ph.D.
Frederick R. Pleasants was born in Montclair, New Jersey in 1906 to Frederick and Blanche Rhodes Pleasants. Over the course of his life he would make several signicant contributions to the art and museum worlds. Of particular relevance to this catalogue, Pleasants would eventually donate a number of Latin American artworks, including Pre-Columbian Pre-Columbian artifacts, to the Tucson Museum of Art (henceforth TMA or the Museum) that would form the kernel of the Pre-Columbian art collection at the Museum. In order to understand the artworks collected and donated by Pleasants, it is necessary to understand his academic and intellectual background. Pleasants was very much (to use his term) a “museum man” of his time, educated at prestigious universities in the United States and Europe. His selection, representation, and discussion of Pre-Columbian and other non-Western art objects is reective of broader concepts of what was then called “primitive art,” especially in academic and museum circles. Pleasants was well educated, completing his undergraduate studies at Princeton University in 1930, where he graduated with a Bachelors of Arts degree in Fine Arts. At the time, Princeton and the Ivy League were, even more so than they are today, elite institutions of higher learning that trained many leading scholars, politicians, and lawyers. Princeton was a male-only institution: the university would not admit women as undergraduates until 1969. In Pleasants’ day, students at Princeton and other institutions beneted greatly not only from an excellent education but also from the professional and personal connections they forged during their years of study. These connections often lasted throughout the professional and academic lives of Ivy League graduates. Following the completion of his studies at Princeton, Pleasan ts went on to complete a degree in languages at the Sorbonne, in Paris, France, and a masters degree at Harvard University in 1938, with a particular focus in primitive arts and museology. As can clearly be seen from his educational background, Pleasants was an intelligent man with an intense and long-standing interest in art and languages. Fred in the market section of town, Ica, Peru, c. 1960
While Pleasants was at Princeton, he argued that the undergraduate attitude towards art was beginning to change due to “a dierent and perhaps broader emphasis on the part of our art departments” (Pleasants 1929:21). In particular, he cited Professor Charles Morey as being of great inuence. Morey served as the chair of the Department of Art and Archaeology at Princeton from 1924 to 1945 and was a prolic scholar who greatly advanced the standing of the department at Princeton and the prole of the discipline as a whole (Stohlman 1978). It is worth pointing out that Princeton’s
24
department combined both art and archaeology, whereas other universities elected to give each discipline its own departmental status. Morey’s denition of art was expansive, including art and architecture, and invoked an almost Platonic concept of art as “the expression of truth in sensible form as each age sees it” (Pleasants 1929:21). This expansive denition of art would stay with Pleasants, who would engage with this idea later on in his graduate studies. From Morey and others in the department, Pleasants learned to draw connections between the art of many cultures and time periods. He argued that art courses were moving away from the purview of “the long haired aesthete” and were “becoming of real interest even to… artistically unsusceptible students” (Pleasants 1929:21). This increasingly broad appeal of art history as manifested at Princeton must have had a great inuence on Pleasants, who would go on to devote a great deal of his personal and public life to art and making art appealing and accessible to the general public. As early as 1929, Pleasants expressed a dawning awareness of personal aesthetic, collecting, the relationship between monetary support and displays of artwork, and the role that a museum could play in invigorating research (Pleasants 1929:21). That he would become a curator could hardly have been a surprise to those who knew him. Pleasants completed his masters degree at Harvard University in 1938, with a focus in so-called “primitive art” and museology. Pleasants’ studies at Harvard in non-Western art traditions, and what would now be called museum studies, further developed his inclusive denition of art. At the same time, his approach to primitive art straddled the disciplines of art history and anthropology. As remembered by artist and collector Alfonso Ossorio, who learned from Pleasants at the Peabody Museum, “there was no sharp line drawn between ne arts and the primitive artifacts” at the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology at Harvard University (Levin 2011:10). Broadly reective of the anthropological approach in which non-Western art was (and is) viewed as art that is as fully and equally valid to Western art, this attitude carried over into Pleasants’ professional work as well. Ossario’s comment, however, also conveys the degree to which “primitive artifacts” were still categorically separate from ne art. While there may have not been a sharp line drawn between them, there was certainly a categorical understanding that gave rise, as least broadly speaking, to the notion that artifacts were primitive and somehow still separate from ne art. Throughout his adult life, recurring chronic health problems troubled Pleasants. These health issues barred him from ghting in the Second World War. Instead, he served in the Oce of Strategic Services, interpreting spy photographs. He would later work for the Red Cross in the Pacic until the end of the war. The close of the Second World War found Pleasants working as a Monuments Man. The Monuments Men were a group of approximately 345 men and women assembled from 13 nations who volunteered for the newly created Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives (MFAA) program. Many of these individuals had experience, as did Pleasants, as curators, art historians, architects, professors, and museum directors. The goal of the MFAA was to protect and preserve the cultural riches that had been stolen by the Nazis. The Monuments Men worked to track, locate, and return more than ve million individual artworks that had been stolen by Hitler and the Nazis (Monuments Men Foundation 2014). In order to accomplish this mission, they remained in Europe for six years following the conclusion of the war. When they returned to the United States, many went on to prominent positions in well-known museums. 25
A photograph at the Getty Research Institute shows a Monuments Man holding the 40,000th picture to be recovered at the Central Collecting Point in Munich. A man wearing round glasses holds a framed canvas and looks at the camera. A pipe between his lips interrupts his partial, somewhat crooked, smile. He wears a military uniform and a military haircut, and his tie is perfectly jostled. This man is, of course, Frederick Pleasants. In 1941, Pleasants had been appointed as assistant to the director of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology at Harvard. He would later be described as a “vital cog in keeping the Peabody Museum functioning smoothly during the 1930s and 1940s, although he [was] little recognized” (Browman and Williams 2013:455). Among other duties, Pleasants began curating in earnest while at the Peabody. Pleasants was responsible for curating a new exhibition hall and two galleries of permanent exhibitions that “represent[ed] the application of the most modern methods of museum display to anthropological objects” (Harvard Crimson 1941). These rooms were intended to show how anthropological objects could be “dramatized so that they have interest for the general public and yet stimulate the visitor and the student to further research in the study collections nearby” (Harvard Crimson 1941). This attitude that anthropological objects had to be “dramatized” in order to be interesting is a reection of prevailing attitudes towards anthropological collections in museum settings in the 1940s. There was clearly developing interest in displaying anthropological objects. Still, there was also prevalent concern that these objects would not garner attention in and of themselves without dramatization. Pleasants left the Peabody Museum in 1949 after he was named assistant curator of the Department of Primitive Art at the Brooklyn Museum. He was promoted to full curator in 1950. His scholarly interests were ocially noted as “Native American arts and the nature and function of anthropological museums” (Brooklyn Museum of Art:4-7). This trajectory from the Peabody Museum at Harvard to the Brooklyn Museum had actually been completed by a scholar senior to Pleasants, Herbert Spinden. Well known as a scholar of Pre-Columbian and Mesoamerican Mesoamerican cultures, Spinden, like Pleasants, rst served as a curator at the Peabody before working at the Brooklyn Museum (Brooklyn Museum of Art:4-7). Pleasants’ health problems resurfaced and in 1956 he resigned his curatorship. He then traveled extensively throughout Latin America and worked as an independent curator and appraiser. Restrictions on curators were not the same then as they are now, and the lines between private collection, curation, and appraisal were often thin and blurred. This was well in keeping with professional standards of the day and is a pattern that is reected in the curation and collection activities of other scholars from the same time period. Pleasants’ rst visit to Tucson was in the 1930s (Carter 2012:13), but he made a permanent move to Tucson in 1958. In Tucson, the University of Arizona was a good match for Pleasants’ interests in anthropological museums, museum practices, and Native American arts. Pleasants took a job at the University of Arizona as a lecturer, teaching “primitive arts.” He also curated for the Arizona State Museum, the anthropology museum associated with the University. Following his arrival in Tucson, Pleasants would also make substantial donations to the Tucson Museum of Art. At the time, TMA was a developing museum, inaugurating a permanent collection in 1967 on the basis of several donations, some of which came from Pleasants (Carter 2012:15).
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The donations made by Pleasants include Pre-Columbian artifacts that he had collected during his travels throughout Latin America, many of which remain on display in the Museum’s galleries today. His donations to the Museum also include books (1,500) and a large slide collection (21,000). An additional 600 items were given to the Museum’s library in 1976 following Pleasants’ death. Pleasants’ appreciation for the native arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas was both aesthetic and intellectual. In 1963, the Arizona State Museum (ASM) at the University of Arizona featured an exhibition entitled Primitive Art from the Collection of Frederick R. Pleasants . This exhibition marked the formal opening of a newly established Primitive Art Gallery at the ASM (Arizona State Museum:2). In the preface to the exhibition catalog Pleasants states that the collection “was assembled primarily for teaching purposes” (Pleasants 1962: Foreword). He further explains that the art of “primitive and prehistoric peoples” reects the “conditions of life” of these people. This is undoubtedly true and is, in part, a reection of the academic and curatorial perspective Pleasants developed and maintained over the course of his career. His understanding of the daily lives of Native peoples reects widespread academic attitudes of the day toward Indigenous peoples and their art: Living in comparative isolation, they are dependent upon their immediate environment for solutions to the problems of existence, as well as for ways of expression in the arts. Religion and social function provide the subject matter; to a great extent material at hand determine the style. Thus, the character of the material is clearly felt—the columnar form of wood, the blockiness of stone, the strength of metal, the plasticity of clay and the angularity resulting from the weaving process [Pleasants 1962: Foreword]. Pleasants provides a tidy explanation of these art objects for viewers. His explanation is primarily environmental, environmental, the natural environment being seen as the driving motivation motivation and source of artistic creation. In Pleasants’ view, style was determined by the availabili availability ty of materials. The subject matter—religion matter—rel igion and social function—is suciently general to include any number of possible activities without requiring the anthropolog anthropological ical perspective that would facilitate more specificity. Taken together, this perspective does a great disservice to the aesthetic sensibility of indigenous artists who created art within the social and aesthetic framework of their worldview. Few anthropologists today would argue that the aesthetic of indigenous art is simply dictated by the availability and physical characteristics (columnar, (columnar, blocky, strength, plasticity, angularity) of raw materials. Nevertheless, if Pleasants’ statement is taken at face value, a second problem is created. If this was true, that indigenous art was simply a kind of raw materiality ltered through the lens of ritual and social need, then how would an American (or any non-indigenous) audience engage with these artworks? Pleasants explains that “[t]he arts of native people are of particular interest today. Although they are basically realistic, they have have the distortion, simplication, and inner vitality which appeal to the modern taste” (Pleasants 1962: Foreword). Here, Pleasants presents something of a contradiction. This contradiction is characteristic of the work of many scholars who were working at the time to promote the visibility and popularity of non-Western artworks. Pleasants, with his experience and interest in museology, was undoubtedly well aware that an eective 27
exhibition must engage the public. This process of appeal is particularly pronounced in artworks produced by another culture, in which the viewer must often cross an aesthetic and cultural bridge between his or her own culture and that of the artist who created the artwork itself. As is the case with many archaeological and non-Western artworks, Pre-Columbian artworks reect an entire worldview as much as particular aesthetic or material considerations or constraint of an individual artist. Suciently explaining a worldview in an object label, gallery text, or an exhibition catalogue is extremely challenging. Additionally, all of the archaeological objects collected by Pleasants had been removed from their archaeological context. This unfortunately disconnected these objects from their broader historical contexts and greatly reduced the amount of anthropological interpretation interpretation that could successfully be done with each object. As a result of both of these dynamics—the need to appeal to a public audience and the lack of provenience for the objects—the aesthetic quality of the individual object comes to the foreground, as it is both immediately and visually accessible to any viewer and is a way to discuss the artwork despite the lack of more substantial archaeological context. The exhibition organized at the Arizona State Museum (ASM) in 1963 included 27 objects, some of which were included in Pleasants’ donation to TMA and are now in its permanent collection. Reading the object descriptions in the catalogue produced for that exhibition demonstrate the degree to which understanding and interpretations these artworks have changed. The Stone Yoke Fragment (TMA 1971.31) in a Classic El Tajin style, for example, is described in the ASM catalogue as follows: A complete yoke resembles a horse collar. Although its use is unknown, it has been suggested that they were worn around the waist of a player in the ceremonial ball courts. An alternative suggestion is that they were used to support the victims of sacrice, facilitating the removal of the heart. The design is of a conventionalized jaguar with head and jaws at the curve and legs at the
Veracruz Culture, 200 – 500, Mexico, State of Veracruz, Site of El Tajín, Stone Yoke Fragment, Fragment, stone, Gift of Frederick R. Pleasants. 1971.31
side. A human face decorates the corner [Pleasants 1962: Object 2]. This single object description reveals the desire to reach an audience that might be alienated by the object by making a familiar analogy (a horse collar). The interpretation of the object is functional, as can be seen in the rst suggestion that the yoke was used in the ball game. The next interpretation presents the most dramatic possible, suggesting that the yoke was used to facilitate heart sacrice. Drama is used to garner and deepen t he viewer’s interest. Other objects in the exhibition have similar descriptions, though few are as sensational as the one provided for the El Tajin yoke. A Mayan vase, which Dr. Tokovinine discusses in his essay elsewhere in this catalogue, is described simply: “Two carved medallions on this Fine Gray Ware vase represent Maya gods” (Pleasants 1962: Object 4). Refer to the essay in this catalogue to compare the signicant dierences in approach, knowledge, and interpretation between today and the past. Undoubtedly, future scholars will continue to contribute to the state of knowledge and advance it beyond where it currently is today. 28
The donations of artworks Pleasants made to the Museum es tablished the core of a Pre-Columbian collection. Pleasants felt that TMA had “a great opportunity to develop a distinguished collection of both pre-Columbian and Latin-American Colonial art and to have both permanent and temporary exhibitions of the nest examples of those arts” (Carter 2012:17). He served on the museum board, no doubt contributing to the early vision of how these collections could be established and built. Between 1966 and 1972 Pleasants donated 68 Pre-Columbian art objects (Carter 2012:27). Following his death, TMA purchased additional works from his estate. These items were arranged in a new exhibit hall and the collection displayed almost in its entirety in 1976 (Carter 2012:27). Pleasants died in 1976. The nature of archaeological objects is to outlive their creators, excavators, and curators. Objects can survive for thousands of years if properly cared for. This is one of the paradoxes of archaeological objects, which are the subjects of much human interest and care. Ultimately, their incredible longevity means that an individual object is experienced, used, displayed, and explained in many ways over the course of its many years of existence. Archaeological objects, such as the Pre-Columbian objects presented in this catalogue, remind us that we are simply temporary stewards of the past, charged with caring for and properly handling these art objects. Many of these objects were never intended by the original creators to be exhumed from their resting places for display. Others, such as the stela fragment (TMA 1965.32), were collected or removed in a way that destroyed the original monument. Particularly for archaeological objects with no provenience, there is usually little or no possibility of re-establishing the context in which these items were created, used, or buried. At the same time, they were collected in a manner that was legal at the time of the collection. Acknowledging these dicult and sometimes conicting aspects of archaeological objects is part of responsible curatorial practice. The intersection of these facts places tremendous responsibility on the individual curator or collector and on the museum that holds the collection. Throughout his life, Frederick Pleasants worked and lived closely with many extraordinary art objects produced by cultures from other time periods around the world. While the methods, collection standards, and interpretative models have changed signicantly since Pleasants’ day, the importance of preserving ancient objects, treating them carefully and with respect, and restoring, to whatever extent possible, their connection to t heir original cultural contexts was part of Pleasant s’ life work. This stewardship remains one of his most lasting contributions to the world of Pre-Columbian art.
Late Formative/Early Classic Era, 100 BCE – 250 CE, Mexico, Orizaba Region of Veracruz, Stela, carved serpentine, Gift of Frederick R. Pleasants. 1965.32
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REFERENCES Arizona State Museum 1962 Primitive Art from the Collection of Frederick R. Pleasants (Exhibition Catalog). Arizona State Museum, University of Arizona, Tucson. Brooklyn Museum Guide to the Records of the Departments of the Arts of Africa, the Pacic Islands, and the the Americas (AAPA) , 1926-2001. Museum Libraries and Archives of the Brooklyn Museum of Art, New York. Accessed May 2014. http://www.brooklynmuseum.org/collections/libraries_and_archives/uploads/aapa_nal.pdf Browman, David and Stephen Williams 2013 Anthropology at at Harvard: A Biographical Biographical History, 1790-1940. Peabody Museum Press: Cambridge. 455-6. Carter, Carson T. 2012 Advent of a Civic Civic Space: A Case Study on the Tucson Museum of Art 1924-2002. University University of Arizona Honor’s Thesis. Collier, Donald and Harry Tschopik Jr. 1954 Wenner-Grenn Foundation Foundation Supper Conference: The Role of Museums Museums in American American Anthropology. American Anthropologist 56 (5: pt. 1), 768-779. Anthropologist 56 Cone, Gerritt 1974 Tucson Museum of Art Library. Art Library Society of of North America Newsletter Newsletter October 1974. Art Library Society of North America, St. Louis. Harvard Crimson 1941 University Names Six New Men to Its Sta. Harvard Crimson. December 4, 1941. Accessed May 2014 http://www.thecrimson.com/article/1941/12/4/university-names-six-new-men-to/ Levin, Gail 2011 The Extraordinary Interventions Interventions of Alfonso Ossorio, Ossorio, Patron and Collector of of Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner. Archives of American American Art Journal 50(1): 50(1): 4-19. Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C. Monuments Men Foundation 2014 The Monuments Men. Monuments Men Foundation Foundation for the Preservation of Art . 2014, accessed May 2014. http://www.monumentsmenfoundation.org/the-heroes/the-monuments-men Pleasants, Frederick R. 1929 Recent Art Activities at Princeton Princeton University. University. Parnassus 1(4): 21. College Art Association. 1962
Foreword. Primitive Art from the Collection of Frederick R. Pleasants . Arizona State Museum, University of Arizona, Tucson.
Stohlman, Martha Lou 1978 “Morey, Charles Rufus.” A Princeton Companion Companion. 1978, accessed 15 May 2014. http://etcweb.princeton.edu/CampusWWW/Companion/morey_charles.html Tucson Museum of Art
TMA Research Library Notes on Frederick R. Pleasants . Tucson Museum of Art, Tucson, Arizona.
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EXHIBITION CHECKLIST
Exhibition Checklist
Olmec Culture, 1150 – 550 BCE Mexico Seated “Baby” Figure clay, slip Gift of Alan and Alice Fleischer. 2002.39.1 This sculpture is a typical example of the hollow “baby” gurines common in Olmec art. Despite the name, it is unclear whether these baby gures are really meant to represent infants, or if they are individualized portraits, sacricial victims, deities, or part of a shaman’s transformation sequence. As in this example, these gurines are frequently shown nearly life-sized with individualistic features, seated with their arms and legs outstretched, head upturned and lips parted. Alternative poses not seen in this piece depict the individual sucking its thumb, crawling, or with a raised arm. This gure possesses evidence of a hat or headdress that is often found in the baby gurines. The features of these gurines appear quite variable in age and may reect the importance of the life cycle in Olmec cosmology.
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Olmec Culture, 800 – 300 BCE Costa Rica Spoon in the Shape of a Bird Monster Prole Head jade Gift of Frederick R. Pleasants. 1968.11 This nely carved jade pendant, commonly called a “spoon” for its shape, depicts one of the major supernatural beings often s een in Olmec art. Known as the god of the sky and sun, the Bird Monster was closely associated with kingship, and this pendant may have served an important ceremonial function. Olmec jade objects were highly prized by many cultures, including the Maya and Aztecs, although the specic sources of the stone are still uncertain. A gift of Frederick Pleasants, this piece is an exceptional example of a jade spoon pendant. Almost all Olmec spoons are known from private collections, and therefore their function remains unclear. They have variously been interpreted as literal spoons, receptacles for hallucinogenic powders or blood from self-sacrice rituals, painters’ pallets, and ritual amulets. The perforations at the top of the piece make the last scenario probable, although they likely served multiple functions.
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Olmec Culture, 800 – 300 BCE Mexico, State of Puebla Vessel with Supernatural Prole clay Gift of Frederick Pleasants. 1973.20 This cylinder-shaped vessel, given to the museum by Frederick Pleasants, portrays the Olmec “Banded-Eye God” (God VI) incised in prole. This supernatural being is one aspect of the commonly depicted Maize God. The Olmec cosmology and pantheon is still not well understood, and this deity is no exception. Dierent supernatural beings are dicult to distinguish, particularly when depicted in prole, and their signicance is even less clear. The Banded-Eye God is only known from prole depictions and is distinguished by the narrow band on the side of the face and around or through the eye. Scholars have disagreed about whether this truly represents a unique god, an aspect of the Maize God, or a dierent god with additional decorative banding. While the current consensus identies the Banded-Eye God as a form of the Maize God, new discoveries may clear up this issue in the future.
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Olmec Culture, 900 – 600 BCE Mexico, Pacic Slope Region Transformation Figure stone Center for Preservation and Education of Ancient Western Civilization Art and Artifacts. 2000.62.6 Transformation gurines, portraying portraying a man or shaman in the process of becoming a were-jaguar, gure prominently in Olmec art. The transformation process is believed to have protected the shamans in their journey to the spirit world. Alternatively, it may refer to the belief that all humans evolved from animals, while only priests could reverse the process. These gurines are typically seated and possess a combination of human and jaguar features, although transformation gures span the entire continuum between complete human to animal form. In this example, the crosslegged gure still retains all of his human features, his hands clenched at his knees, f ace upturned and lips parted. He possesses a beard and a partially shaved head typical of the human transformation gures, with incised markings in his hair that may refer to hallucinogenic substances used in a shamanistic trance. This gure may represent an early stage of the transformatio transformation n process or a shaman about to perform an important religious religious ritual.
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Veracruz Culture, 200 – 500 Mexico, State of Veracruz, Site of El Tajín Stone Yoke Fragment stone Gift of Frederick R. Pleasants. 1971.31 Along with the palma and the hacha, the yoke is one of the components of a ballplayer’s equipment frequently shown in ancient depictions of the Mesoamerican ballgame. Originally named by scholars for its resemblance to yokes used for livestock, the yoke would have helped the ballplayer to hit the rubber ball with his hips. The palma, or chest protector, attached to the yoke in front. Hachas may have also attached to the yoke, although the function of these pieces is still debated. The yokes worn in actual game play were most likely constructed of perishable leather, leather, while stone yokes such as this piece were probably for ceremonial purposes. This yoke fragment is sculpted in the El Tajín style, showing a human head emerging from a jaguar jaguar mouth mouth on the left side. The center portion c ontains abstrac t serpents, while the far right end depicts a large open-mouthed serpent with a pointed fang. The jaguar and serpent are two of the most common motifs in Mesoamerican art. The jaguar in particular was consistently associated with the sacred or supernatural beings since the beginnings of the Olmec and throughout the Maya civilization.
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Veracruz Culture, 700 – 800 Mexico, State of Veracruz, Site of El Tajín Palma volcanic stone (basalt) Gift of Frederick R. Pleasants. 1971.28 The Mesoamerican ballgame is an ancient sport known from many regions throughout Mexico and Central Central America. America. The game specifics have varied in time and space, but forms of the game have been played by different cultures since the second millennium BCE to the present day. The palma, along with the yoke and the hacha, were essential components of a ballplayer’s gear during the Classic Veracruz period along the Gulf Coast of Mexico. The palma would be inserted into the yoke or girdle and act as a chest protector for the player. This piece, a stone palma with intricate scrollwork in the classical El Tajínstyle, was likely ceremonial rather than functional. A gift of Frederick R. Pleasants, the front of the palma depicts a human upper torso emergin g from the underworld, while the reverse side shows t he lower torso plunging down into the underworld. This likely represents the descent of the sun every night into the underworld and its reemergence every day at dawn.
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Veracruz Culture, 600 – 900 Mexico, State of Veracruz Remojadas Style Female Egy clay, pigment Center for Preservation and Education of Ancient Western Civilization Art and Artifacts. 2000.62.16 This clay gure is a simple rendition of the Remojadas-style sonrientes, or “smiling gures.” Her triangle-like face is turned up, lips parted displaying her front teeth. She lacks hands, but her arms hang by her sides and her feet sweep behind her allowing her to stand upright. Her dress details are painted on in red pigment, and she possesses the jewelry and headdress typical of these gures. Some theories as to the identity of the sonrientes suggest they may represent deities of dance, performers, or individuals in altered states of consciousnes s due to hallucinogens or an alcoholic drink made of fermented agave. Interestingly, many more sonrientes heads than bodies have been recovered archaeologically, suggesting ritual sacrice of these objects, perhaps in association with funerary rituals.
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Veracruz Culture, 900 – 1100 Mexico, State of Veracruz Seated Figure with Headdress and Cape clay Frederick Pleasants and Miscellaneous Funds. 1993.17 This animated gure is an unusual example of Veracruz sculpture and may in fact be a composite of several works. The unusual pose gives the piece a jester-like feel, with his gesturing arms, cupped hands, and raised left leg. His belt contains a medallion surrounded by cordage, a tasseled tunic rests on his shoulders, and he wears a pointed helmet, contributing to his jester-like appearance. While unusual, his pose closely resembles a Classic Veracruz ceramic gure in El Museo de América in Madrid, Spain (85/01/128). He also possesses the upturned face and open mouth with exposed teeth typical of gurines from this culture.
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Remojadas Culture, 900 – 1100 Mexico, State of Veracruz Female Figure clay, asphaltum Gift of Frederick R. Pleasants. 1973.34 The Remojadas culture is perhaps best known for their sonrientes, or “smiling gures.” Sonrientes typically have triangular upturned faces with smiling mouths displaying teeth and sometimes tongues. W hile not a stereotypical stereotypical sonriente , this piece has many of the features frequently seen in other Veracruz Veracruz gurines gurines including including the open mouth, narrow eyes, outstretched arms, and b ow tie belt. The applique details including braids, ankle rattles, and clothing suggest her role as a dancer. Dancers are known to have been associated with the underworld in Veracruz mythology, and this gure may represent a specic female of importance or the goddess of dance.
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Maya Culture, 600 – 900 Mexico Incense Burner Fragment with Egy Head bu clay with red slip Gift of Frederick R. Pleasants. 1971.27 The cruller-like line under the eyes and single tooth indicate t his incense burner depicts the Maya Jaguar God of the Underworld, also called the Night-Sun Jaguar. This deity is closely associated with kingship and re and is often found on incense burners like this. He is also associated with war, possibly alluded to by the trophy heads below his chin. Alternatively, the trophy heads may specifically refer to the hero twins, two very prominent gures in Maya mythology, after the underworld gods have decapitated them. Incense burners had an important ritual function serving to transfer oerings from the worshippers to specic gods. They created a portal between the mortal and sacred realms. As such, they were an important part of the ritual paraphernalia used by kings to publicly assert their divine authority by directly linking them to the gods. These incense burners became both more elaborate and standardized in iconography during the Classic Period in conjunction with the increase in power and authority of the Maya kings.
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Maya Culture, 250 – 750 Ear Flares jade Estate of Frederick Pleasants. 1977.48.1-2 These beautiful ear spools or ares are fashioned out of jade, a rare stone precious to the ancient Maya. Ear ares have a long history in Mesoamerica, for they were as common among the Olmec as they were among the Maya. They were fashioned from a broad range of materials into a wide variety of sizes and shapes. Stone, shell, bone, and wood were all used to create ares, but the type of material and size of the are was likely dependent on the status of the individual. In Maya art, rulers, deities, and other important gures are often depicted wearing large jade ear ares such as these.
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Maya Culture, 700 – 900 El Salvador Tripod Cylinder Vessel with Underworld Scene polychrome clay Gift in memory of Joseph and Matilda See. 1991.15 Tripod cylinder vessels, such as this piece, were adopted by the Maya from the neighboring Teotihuac an c ulture and became popular elite vessels by the 5th Century CE. The tall, straight walls of the vessel allowed for narrative style painting that earlier Maya vessels could not accommodate. Eventually, this form also fell out of favor and was replaced by the simple cylinder vessel by approximately 600 CE. This tripod cylinder depicts an underworld scene containing two gures with large beaks in the upper portion and three struggling gures, including one human gure and two monsters, in the lower portion. The monsters in the lower section possess jaguar coloring and have several tongues emerging from their mouths ready to devour the human gure.
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Maya Culture, 600 – 900 Mexico, Campeche, Island of Jaina Standing Figure bu clay and traces of pigment Gift of Richard and Nancy Weiss. 1998.398 This gurine originates from the island of Jaina in the Gulf of Mexico. Jaina was an important burial site for the Maya during the Late Classic period, and it is known for the lifelike clay gurines, gurines, such as this piece, commonly found in burials of the period. This gure is a ne example of the pastillaje technique, where gurines were either completely hand made, or, as in this case, partially mold made and then nished by hand. A press mold was used to form the face and head with the oblique cranial deformation characteristic of the Maya elite. The torso of the individual is hollow, while the limbs are solid and attached separately and exed. The gurine, which wears a loincloth and poncho-like garment, has its arms extended and bent. The fringe of the poncho may represent small discs attached to the garment or simply knotted fringe. He wears a considerable amount of jewelry with with necklaces, cus, ear ares, and decorative decorative bands below the knees possibly possibly made out of shell or jade. The piece has traces of pigment suggesting it was originally painted, which would have originally made the piece even more striking.
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Maya Culture, 600 – 900 Mexico, Campeche, Island of Jaina Standing Priest Figure bu clay and traces of pigment Gift of Dr. Ronald C. Feise. 1978.141 This piece is an exceptional example of a Jaina gurine, a type of funerary statue from an island o the coast of Campeche, Mexico. Jaina was a major burial site for the Maya during the Late Classic period. Located in the West, it may have been associated with death and symbolized the entrance to the underworld in Maya cosmology. While now a separate island, Jaina may have been directly connected to the mainland in the Classic period, or connected by a bridge or causeway. Jaina gurines, like this one, are predominately found on Jaina proper, but have also been found on nearby islands as well as on the mainland. The source or workshops that originally produced these gurines are still uncertain. This particular gurine’s face was formed with a press mold as was typical of most Jaina gurines, and also possesses a distinctly attened forehead. This cranial deformation was a type of beautication commonly seen among the Maya of high rank as well as in other Mesoamerican cultures. The gure also has both arms extended and a sta in his left hand, which symbolizes power.
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Maya Culture, 500 – 600 Mexico, Yucatan Peninsula Shallow Bowl clay, slip Gift of Frederick R. Pleasants. 1971.25 The deer was an important gure in the art of many Mesoamerican cultures and represented both food and a connection to the supernatural. As one of the major sources of protein in the region, and possibly an early domesticate for the Maya, deer are often shown in hunting scenes or as funerary oerings, as may be the case in this piece. They are also associated with the gods, and human gures will often be shown wearing deer headhead dresses during important ceremonies or ballgames in Mayan art. In many images of Maya ballgames, deer and vulture headdresses distinguish the opposing teams. Anthropomorphized deer are also seen in underworld scenes, and the deer is often associated with the Sun God. This vessel, with a geometric fret design around the rim, depicts a large deer in the center with a twisted line emerging from its mouth, possibly symbolizing foliage. Small hatch marks representing fur cover the body of the animal. The style of the deer painted on this vessel is also reminiscent of some of the wheeled ceramic deer gurines known from the Classic Veracruz culture.
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Teotihuacán Culture, 100 BCE – 700 CE Central Mexico, Site of Teotihuacán Male Face clay, pigment Gift of Frederick R. Pleasants. 1973.25 This ceramic face exemplies the Teotihuacan tradition of mold-made ceramics, a major advance in the development of mass production. Masks like this one have been recovered during excavations of a workshop at Teotihuacan and likely served a ceremonial function. The masks are also nearly identical in style to the stone masks discovered at the site. Teotihuacan is known for its stone masks as more have been recovered from the site than from any other Mesoamerican culture. They may have served a funerary function, although they have never been recovered in burial contexts. It is possible they were attached to perishable gures meant to resemble more costly stone statues, while the gures themselves have not survived. The stone and ceramic masks are of the same basic style, which can be seen in this piece from the Teotihuacan III phase. The face has a wide straight forehead, parallel oval eyes and mouth, and naturalistic nose. This face also has traces of cream and yellow paint, and it was not uncommon for Teotihuacan masks to be painted or inlayed.
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Teotihuacán Culture, 500 – 700 Central Mexico, Site of Teotihuacán Cylinder Vessel clay Estate of Frederick Pleasants. 1977.46 Cylinder vases are a signicant cultural development that appear to have originated at the site of Teotihuacan and spread to other Mesoamerican cultures including the Maya. They are known to have served domestic and ceremonial functions. This simple vessel likely originates from Teotihuacan’s Metepec phase (Teotihuacan IV). This period was marked by a decline in ceramic quality and decoration in general, particularly as Teotihuacan itself began to decline around 550 CE. Cylinder vessels from this period are typically pale brown to brown, with polished exterior and interiors. Parallel Parallel lines, as seen on this piece, are common, as are triangles, scrolls, scallops, and cross-hatching. This vase is unusual in that it lacks the bud-like supports common to other cylinder vases of this period. This may indicate it served a domestic function rather than ceremonial ceremonial..
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Chupicuaro Culture, 500-100 BCE West Mexico, State of Guanajuato Standing Male Figure clay, pigment Virginia Johnson Fund. 1991.204 This male gure is a typical example of a Chupicuaro ceramic gurine. Of the slant-eyed thin variety, he possesses the large nose and slanted, coee-bean eyes common to these gures. He wears a typical necklace, large earrings, and a somewhat unusual cone-shaped hat. These gures were rst discovered at the late Preclassic site of Chupicuaro, before it was later ooded by a modern dam project. Frequently painted with red and white paint, the Chupicuaro gurines depict both males and females and are generally associated with burials.
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Chupicuaro Culture, 500-100 BCE West Mexico, State of Guanajuato Female Fertility Figure clay, pigment Gift of Frederick R. Pleasants. 1973.32 The construction of a dam in the late 1940s prompted a short period of intensive archaeological excavation at the site of Chupicuaro. While these excavations found little in the way of large structures, they recovered over 300 burials and many artifacts, including male and female gurines similar to this piece, for which the site became well known. These gures generally fall into either black polychrome or red-on-bu categories, and many are painted with red and white paint. This piece is a ne example of a female Chupicuaro gurine. She wears a necklace and large earrings and has incised details on her arms and headdress. Her rounded eyes are a less common feature than the slanted coee-bean variety. These gurines have been recovered mostly from burials and likely served some sort of function for the deceased in the afterlife.
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Mixtec Culture, 800 – 1200 Mexico, State of Oaxaca Openwork Hand-held Incense Burner clay, slip Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Kelley Rollings. 1970.2 The ancient Mixtec culture was composed of a large number of cultural groups within the modern Mexican states of Oaxaca, Guerrero, and Puebla. Much emphasis in Mixtec religion was placed on those rituals associated with forces of nature. Tripodal censors, like this deep orange and cream piece, may have been carried in processions. The elongated handle would protect the priest’s hands from being burned while the openwork scroll design of the bowl allowed the burnt ash to fall out and served as decoration. The short knobs below the bowl combine with the long handle to form the tripod legs of the piece and prevent the potentially hot bowl from coming into direct contact with a surface.
Mixtec Culture, 1200 – 1400 Mexico Tripod Bowl with Skeletonized Forms clay, slip Virginia Johnson Fund. 1991.5 This vessel illustrates the importance of the underworld in ancient Mixtec religious ideology. Rather than focusing on specic deities, the religious system emphasized the forces of nature and the veneration of ancestors. They also believed that life was generated in the underworld. This tripod polychrome bowl depicts skeletonized forms, death skulls, and crossed femur bones. These designs likely refer to the underworld aspect of Mixtec cosmology and its importance in the perpetuation of life.
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Mezcala Culture, 1000 – 500 BCE Mexico, State of Guerrero Standing Figure stone Gift of Alan and Alice Fleischer. 2006.28.2 This type M-26 gurine, according to Gay’s classication of Mezcala gurines, represents a signicant departure from the more typical gurines of this culture. While Mezcala gurines are noteworthy for their decidedly geometric form created with straight cuts, this gure instead shows a much more rounded form, particularly in the hips and arms. The slender gure also wears a topknot or stylized hat. This style of gurine may represent the inuence of another Guerrero culture, the Chontal, who practiced more naturalized imagery and other techniques often found on the type M-26 gurines.
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Mezcala Culture, 1000 – 500 BCE Mexico, State of Guerrero Standing Figure stone (andesite) Gift of Alan and Alice Fleischer. 2006.28.1 Originating in Guerrero, Mexico, the Mezcala culture is well known for its stone gurines, such as this piece. While human gurines can be classied into one of thirteen types according to Carlos Gay’s 1967 classication, they share some common features. The individuals are generally shown with their arms at their sides or resting on their torsos or stomachs. Their legs are separated and straight, with a few exceptions of bent knees and stump feet. Fingers are often carved, but toes are usually lacking, and sexual c haracteristics are rare. The gures are generally carved in a green stone such as serpentine using straight cuts, resulting in an abstract and highly geometric design. This andesite gurine, with its prominent split brow, thin arms resting on its chest, and thin slit eyes and mouth, may belong to the type M-12.
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Mezcala Culture, 1000 – 500 BCE Mexico, State of Guerrero Maskette stone (serpentine) Gift of Alan and Alice Fleischer. 2006.28.3 Mezcala “maskettes” are extremely rare compared to human gurines. Among Mezcala material, this term is used to refer to any two-dimensional representation of a human face, rather than a true mask with cut out eyes and mouth. They were probably only made in the later phases of the Mezcala culture as most maskettes fall into the latest types, types M-22 and M-24, of Carlos Gay’s classication of Mezcala gurines. Like this piece, they are generally carved of serpentine, slightly concave in the back, and rarely larger than six inches. This maskette has lug style ears, prominent brows, a large forehead, a long broad nose, thin lips, and almost no chin. The maskette also has suspension holes above the brows on the edge of the mask. These features indicate the mask likely belongs to the type M-24.
Shaft Tomb Tradition, 100 BCE – 250 CE West Mexico, State of Jalisco Seated Female Figure clay Virginia Johnson Fund. 1993.14 This highly polished female gure is a typical representation of a Jalisco style gurine. Part of the Shaft Tomb Tradition, Jalisco female gurines are typically shown kneeling, a pose possibly related to their domestic role. They are also often depicted with one hand to the side of their head and the other extended. The meaning of this arm pose is unknown, but it likely has some symbolic meaning. Female gurines often possess more expressive faces than their male counterparts. In this piece, the kneeling woman wears a skirt and displays the typical arm gesture, with one hand on her head right above the ear. Her expressive eyes are carved in relief and her mouth is slightly open to expose her teeth.
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Shaft Tomb Culture, 200 BCE – 300 CE West Mexico, State of Nayarit Ceremonial Dancer with Rattle polychrome clay Virginia Johnson Fund. 1993.15 This Nayarit style musician or dancer is depicted with the broad forehead, long thin arms, and colorfully painted clothing typical of Nayarit gurines. The gure wears a red and black vertically striped tunic with molded cus, a red loincloth, a red cap in relief, and nose and ear plugs. He stands holding a rattle in his right hand, while his left hand is held to his mouth, which possibly indicates the consumption of a substance like peyote. Male gures consuming peyote, smoking cigars, and ingesting substances out of globular jars are not uncommon in Colima, Jalisco, or Nayarit art, and this gure may similarly be ingesting some kind of hallucinogenic substance as part of ritual.
Shaft Tomb Tradition, 200 BCE – 300 CE West Mexico, State of Colima Tuxcacuesco-Ortices Style Male Figure bu-colored clay Gift of Mr. and Mrs. H. Kelley Rollings, in memory of Frederick Pleasants. 1976.215 Small Tuxcacuesco-Ortices slab gures, such as this piece, are found near the border of Colima and Jalisco and are considered part of the Shaft Tomb culture of Western Mexico dating to the rst century CE. This piece possesses the elongated form and coee bean eyes typical of these gures. The ne decoration, including bracelets, necklace, sash, and headdress, was all created using an applique technique. Other incised ornamentation is also present. These standing male gures are common of the Tuxcacuesco-Ortices style. They are usually shown either with their arms crossed in front of their chest, or, as in this piece, hanging loose at their sides. They also frequently have some type of breechcloth or loincloth as seen incised on this gure.
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Shaft Tomb Tradition, 200 BCE – 300 CE West Mexico, State of Colima Tuxcacuesco-Ortices Style Male Figure bu-colored clay Gift of Mr. and Mrs. H. Kelley Rollings, in memory of Frederick Pleasants. 1976.213 This ballplayer gure is of the Tuxcacuesco-Ortices type. Tuxcacuesco-Ortices gures are small solid Colima gurines generally found near the border between the states Colima and Jalisco. These gures commonly possess elongated bodies, coee-bean eyes, elaborate horned headheaddresses and jewelry, tasseled belts, and sometimes loincloths. Warrior and ballplayer gures are also common and wear the same clothing as shown on the hollow Colima gures. In this piece, the ballplayer possesses hip padding, groin protection, a horned headdress, a “Chac” necklace, and other ornamentation all formed from applique details.
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Shaft Tomb Tradition, 200 BCE – 300 CE West Mexico, State of Colima Colima Style Dog burnished clay Gift of Dr. and Mrs. Henry E. Butler, Jr. 1977.171 This vessel is a beautiful example of a Colima style dog gurine. Highly burnished, these gurines appear to represent hairless dogs such as those later bred by the Aztecs. Colima dogs are also short and fat, and often have spouts in their heads, bodies, or as in this piece, their tails. The dog likely played an important role in Colima cosmology. Scholars believe that the dog was associated with the god of re, lightning, and thunder. The dog also accompanied the dead on their journey through the underworld. It may have been an important gure in their creation myths, although much of this information has simply been extrapolated from the current indigenous occupants of the region. Alternatively, these dog gures may represent food oerings meant to accompany the deceased on their journey to the afterlife.
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Shaft Tomb Tradition, 200 BCE – 200 CE West Coast Mexico, State of Colima Colima Style Hunchback red-slipped clay, burnished, with manganese spotting Bequest from the Estate of Edward D. Jacobson. 2006.7.1 Hunchback gures are quite common in Colima art and make up the vast majority of images of diseased individuals. They are frequently shown in a seated position, naked, and without any obvious signs of a specic sex. They typically have a spout on the head or back. The vast quantity of these hunchback vessels in the region would seem to suggest that these individuals had an important social role or function, rather than being evidence of an epidemic or heavy disease burden. While deformed individuals in Mesoamerica do not appear to be associated with any deities, historically they have often been associated with supernatural powers and good luck. They may have also been employed as jesters in the courts of the Colima. This piece is a slightly atypical representation of a dwarf hunchback gure. While the body position and proportion are normal, the open mouth and lack of spout are unusual. The open mouth and downcast eyes seen in this piece may indicate it is a death variant of the usual hunchback gure, as these features later become strongly associated with a god of death.
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Shaft Tomb Tradition, 300 – 100 BCE West Mexico, State of Colima Colima Style Water Bird Egy Vessel clay, red slip Gift of Frederick R. Pleasants. 1972.11 The Colima culture, along with the Nayarit and J alisco cultures, is part of a cultural tradition of West Mexico known as the Shaft Tomb Tradition. The three cultures all buried their elite individuals in shaft tomb complexes, many of which appear to have been used for generations. Figures representing humans, animals, and models of daily life often accompanied the dead in these tombs. Colima gures are distinct from those of the Nayarit and Jalisco by the red-slipped, highly burnished surface of the gures, as seen in this vessel, possibly depicting an ibis or heron. Although other animals and birds, including ducks, are fairly common subjects of Colima gurines, the long-necked heron-style seen here is less common.
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