In size, they have a wide range. The larger are often as much as fifteen inches in diameter, and twenty in height. There are a score or more of very large size in the Davenport museum.
Form.—The form characteristics are a full globular body—sometimes elongated, sometimes compressed vertically—a low neck, and a wide aperture. The bottom is very generally rounded. A few of the form modifications are shown in Fig. 392. The rim or neck is always short, and is upright or slightly recurved. Many vessels resembling the shapes here presented are placed with the succeeding group, as they appear to be functionally distinct from this. There are no examples with legs or stands.
Fig. 392.—Forms of pots.
Handles.—Looped handles are confined almost wholly to this class of vessels. They are generally ranged about the rim or neck. In a majority of cases there are four handles to a vessel. We rarely find less than that number, but often more. It is a usual thing to see fifteen or twenty handles set about the rim. Originally the handles may have been exclusively functional in character; they were so at least in antecedent forms. These potters have certainly, at times, employed them for purposes of embellishment. In some cases they are too fragile for use, in others they are flattened out against the neck of the vessel and united with it throughout their whole length. Again, they have degenerated into mere ridges, notched and otherwise modified to suit the fancy. In many instances their place is taken by incised lines or indentations which form effective and appropriate ornamental figures. A series of vessels showing gradations from perfect handles to their atrophied representatives is shown in Fig. 393.
Fig. 393.—Handles.
Origin of Handles.—Handles were doubtless originally attached to facilitate the suspension and handling of vessels and other articles. They probably had their typical development in basketry, and there are good reasons for supposing that certain forms of the handles upon pottery owe their existence to contact with the sister art. This idea is confirmed by their shapes, and by the fact that a large percentage of the pottery handles are useless as aids to suspension or transportation.
Ornament.—Rim margins are modified for decorative purposes, very much as they are in bowls. See Fig. 363.
The bodies of these vessels are often elaborately ornamented, mostly by incised figures, but often by punctures, nodes and ribs. The incised lines are arranged principally in groups of straight lines forming angular figures—a very archaic style—and in groups of festooned lines so placed as to resemble scales. The punctures are made with a sharp point, and form encircling lines and various carelessly executed patterns. A rude sort of ornamentation is produced by pinching up the soft clay of the surface between the nails of the fingers and thumb. Relief ornament consists chiefly of applied fillets of clay, arranged to form vertical ribs. Rows of nodes are sometimes seen, and in a few cases the whole body is covered with rude nodes.