A SMALL MOHAVE BOWL
About 1908 I was given or purchased as a souvenir a small bowl which is now Peabody Museum no. 54-41-10/34461. It is a typical bowl except for being smaller than any in the University collection.
It is 123 mm. in diameter, 64 in height; H/D ratio is therefore 52 per cent. The ridge is finished with a horizontally flat edge 4-5 mm. wide. I estimate the mean thickness of the ware as around 4 mm. The weight is 7 oz. There is a mesquite lashing below the rim with three knots in it.
The inner side is worn by use, and parts of the design are no longer plain. The basic element is the raccoon hand, of which there were originally 20 to 24 units. Each of these consists of a solid red triangle, isosceles or equilateral, with sides of 15-20 mm. From each triangle project four digits—bars 6-12 mm. long. The hands are scattered rather evenly over the field, but pointing in all directions: toward the center, toward the rim, or across the circle. Between the hand units there are red dots 2-3 mm. in diameter.
The under side carries 41 vertical (radiating) lines 1-2 mm. wide and 30-80 mm. long.
APPENDIX III
GRANITE TEMPER AND LIMONITE PIGMENT EXAMINATION
By
PROFESSOR CHARLES MEYER
The piece of granite, no. 4326, used for temper is high in quartz (20-25 per cent) and potash feldspar (35-40 per cent), with perhaps 10 per cent of black mica now chloritized. The remainder is probably soda-rich plagioclase, a feldspar. This is a very acid granite, silica probably constituting around 70 per cent of the total mass. As a result, as the rock surface weathered, it would not wash off as clay but would maintain hard spicules and sharp angles of quartz useful as temper.
The limonite pigment, no. 4295, Fe2O3·n(+)H2O, has mostly crystallized on exposure to become toethite, Fe2O3·nH2O. If originally derived from a sulphide, none of this seems to remain. Some clay is contained and a little quartz silt; also some carbonate in the form of calcite, which acts as a cement for the whole; but the total of silicates and carbonates, that is, noniron oxide, is not over 10 per cent. On roasting, the water content is driven off, and the remaining Fe2O3 is red. A reducing heating with carbon however produces magnetic powder Fe3O4, a black pigment.