Not satisfied with these simple ideas of decoration, the fancy of the potter led him to add embellishments of most varied and often of extraordinary character. The nodes and ridges have been enlarged and prolonged, and fashioned into a thousand natural and fanciful forms. Shells, fish, birds, beasts, human and impossible creatures have been utilized in a multitude of ways. Many illustrations of these are given on subsequent pages.
The body of the bowl is somewhat less profusely ornamented than the rim. The interior, as well as the exterior, has received painted, relieved, and intaglio designs. In the painted ones the favorite idea for the interior is a series of volutes, in broad lines, radiating from the center of the basin. Groups of festooned lines, either painted or engraved, and arranged to give the effect of imbricate scales, form also a favorite motive. The exterior surface of the incurved rims of globular vessels offers a tempting surface to the artist and is often tastefully decorated in all the styles.
Illustrations.—Ordinary forms.—I have not thought it necessary to present many cuts of simple undecorated vessels, as their shapes are repeated numberless times in elaborated forms. The crude examples teach nothing as to stage of culture. They are of the same time and people as the finer specimens.
Fig. 364.—Bowl: Arkansas.—⅓.
The small bowl given in Fig. 364 is unusually well made, and is peculiar in having its interior surface decorated with a rather chaste incised design consisting of festooned lines. This was a favorite idea with the ancient potters and may be seen on both exterior and interior surfaces of a variety of vessels. The rim is beveled on the inner edge and has a beaded or indented fillet encircling the outer margin. The bottom is somewhat flattened. This specimen is from Arkansas.
Fig. 365.—Bowl: Arkansas.—⅓.
In Fig. 365 we have a good example of the dark, nicely-finished ware of Arkansas. The widely expanding rim is neatly scalloped on the margin and is finished on the inside with a pattern of incised lines. These lines appear to have been engraved in the hardened clay. The form is rendered graceful by a shallow encircling depression or groove at the base of the rim. The bottom is somewhat flattened.