Fig. 69.—Pottery vase from Ococingo, Chiapas.
(After Seler)
Designs are frequently found engraved in slip, and the most interesting of such vessels come from the Vera Paz district. Beakers with expanding foot, exactly similar to the specimens from Sacrificios, are found here, with incised patterns from which, in some cases, the background has been cut away. Such vases have been found also in the neighbourhood of Chacula, but the engraved pots most characteristic of Guatemala belong to the type of which a fine specimen is shown in Fig. [68]. Here the design is cut in a thick white slip, and represents the sky-god emerging from a shell, probably symbolizing his connection with the moon. A vase of interesting type and ornamented in somewhat similar fashion, is illustrated in Fig. [69]. This specimen was found at Ococingo in Chiapas, and is furnished with a cover. Vases found with covers are rare, but no doubt the covers of many have been lost; three vessels however with covering plates of black ware have been discovered at La Cueva near Coban, and with them were found certain vases of a type unique in this region, representing a human figure of which the head could be removed and constituted a lid. Pots somewhat similar in design are known from the lower Amazon in South America. A certain proportion of the pottery is mould-made, and this method appears to have been most extensively employed in the Alta Vera Paz area, where moulds for the manufacture of whole pots have been found. Some of the mould-made vases are of good quality and shape, and the design often includes a row of glyphs. Vases of this type have been discovered also at Copan and in the Uloa valley. From Vera Paz also come plaques with excellent designs, including figures holding the “ceremonial bar,” together with the moulds in which they were made. These are in hard terra-cotta coloured clay, and are not furnished with a slip. Many details to serve as applied ornament to vases and censers were also made in moulds (e.g. the sun-face which forms the cover-design), while a great proportion of the figurines and whistles throughout the Maya region were similarly constructed.
Fig. 70.—Pottery vase from Coban, Guatemala.
(After Seler)
Fig. 71.—Pottery censer from Nebaj, Guatemala.
(Fleischmann Collection)
Relief ornament moulded by hand is common throughout the Maya area, and in the Vera Paz region vases are frequently found in the shape of birds and beasts, sometimes with a human face enclosed in the jaws (similar to Pl. [XVIII, 5]). The combination of human and animal forms is characteristic of Yucatan, but interesting specimens of this type have been found in the Vera Paz region, as well as the plain bird and beast forms (Fig. [70]), though here both types bear a striking similarity to the Sacrificios vases. An extremely interesting vase, with a human head moulded in relief, has been found near Coban. This is exactly similar to certain Zapotec pots, and the head and head-dress are in true Zapotec style; but the paste is different, and the vase is coated with the slate-coloured earth-glaze, mentioned above, which has never been found in the Zapotec area. All indications seem to prove that it was made locally, and if this is so, it affords a striking instance of the borrowing of forms and illustrates the danger of basing arguments as to tribal migration on pottery types alone, though it provides a valuable hint of cultural contact. It is worthy of remark that the animal forms seem borrowed from the fauna of the Tierra caliente, a fact which goes far to indicate that the potters of Alta Vera Paz borrowed from the Totonac and people of Tabasco and not vice versa.