4 Chiriqui Armadillo Ware Tripod Vessels, Diquis Delta, Panama, Biscuit Ware

Pre-Columbian, Costa Rica / Panama, Greater Chiriqui, Diquis-Chiriqui. A quartet of feather-light earthenware vessels in the pale, chalky fabric collectors call Tarrago Biscuit, thin-walled and unslipped, their buff surfaces dusted with the soft blush of a low, oxidizing firing. Three stand as tripods on slender solid supports, each terminating in a modeled zoomorph, snouted heads with banded, carapace-like ribbing that most likely represents armadillos, the creature so persistently rendered on this ware that early scholars simply called it Armadillo Ware. The fourth, largest of the group, is a round-bottomed globular jar with paired lug handles worked into similar animal heads and incised, punctated bodies. Made by the Chiriqui-phase peoples of the Diquis delta and the Pacific slope of Panama, such vessels served both domestic and mortuary ends, accompanying the dead in the region's stone-lined graves. Tarrago Biscuit, also known simply as Biscuit or San Miguel Biscuit, is the signature fine ware of the Chiriqui phase, the last Pre-Columbian cultural complex of the Greater Chiriqui region spanning southwestern Costa Rica and western Panama. It is distinguished by an exceptionally thin, porous, and light-toned paste that feels almost weightless in the hand, and by the widest formal repertoire of any local ware, from plain hemispherical bowls to elaborate tripod vases. Tripod supports are frequently hollow and charged with clay pellets to rattle, though not all examples were made this way, and appliqued heads of armadillos, felines, birds, and stylized humans ornament both legs and vessel bodies. The Chiriqui tradition persisted into the early colonial era: European glass beads and iron implements have been recovered alongside vessels of this type, a quiet archaeological record of first contact. Minor divergences in shape and frequency distinguish assemblages from the Panamanian Pacific side from those of the Costa Rican Diquis highlands and delta, though the two share a common ceramic vocabulary. Item # 204187

估價:$350

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