Burnished Ceramic Tourist Pot. NA? SA? Mars?

This looks new. Question is: where do you think it's from? About 3 1/4" high, 4" across. The only mark is an incised letter "B".

 

I think we need Taupou for this one... I like the stylized birds.

 

Are they birds, or are they anteaters?

 

Do these photos look blue?

 

The design is stylized parrots. The form itself, and the design style is certainly Hopi, and you can tell by the orange fireclouds that this was fired traditionally in an outdoor fire.

The only reason I would have any doubts about this piece, is that it has an incised signature. Hopi pottery is either unsigned, or the signature is painted on with the same black slip used to decorate the pot. I have never seen an incised signature on a Hopi pot. This actually looks like it was added after the pot was fired.

That still doesn't mean that the pot isn't authentic, just that the incised "B" may not be, which does cast a little concern on the whole piece.

 

Lots of good info there Taupou. Thank you. I never would have guessed Parrots, and it's not a bird I would think of in connection with the South West, but apparently the Hopi traded for them and there was even a Hopi Parrot Clan.

Maybe the incised letter is somebody's inventory control.

 

The parrot design is sometimes so stylized that it is hard to recognize, unless you look for tail feathers or the curved beak. It was often used by Hopi, Acoma, Laguna, and Zia potters, and actually dates back to prehistoric times in the Southwest.

Pottery Mound, an archaeological site in New Mexico that dates ca. 1200-1400 AD, has a kiva site with a painted mural of a woman holding two parrots. Here's a reproduction of the painting: http://www.nmia.com/~jaybird/ThomasBakerPaintings/pottery_mound_girl.html

 

That is very interesting. Makes you wonder about pre-Columbian trade in the Americas. There must have been some remarkable travelers. If there were people supplying parrots in trade, I wonder what they were getting in return.

 

Research has shown that turquoise and turquoise artifacts were the main items traded by the Ancestral Puebloans, in exchange for parrots, copper bells, and chocolate.