A good example of the larger pots is illustrated in Fig. 404. It is engraved a little less than one-fourth the dimensions of the original. The height is seventeen inches and the greatest diameter eighteen inches. It is very well made. The walls are even and only moderately thick. The dark, unpolished surface is profusely speckled with fragments of white shell. There are four wide, strong handles. The rim and neck are ornamented with encircling lines of finger-nail indentations.
Fig. 405.—Pot: Pecan Point, Arkansas.—⅓.
A masterpiece of this class of work is shown in Fig. 405. It was obtained at Pecan Point. It is not quite symmetrical in form but is carefully finished. The color is gray, with mottlings of dark spots, the result of firing. The height is eleven inches, and the aperture is ten inches in diameter. There are ten strong, well-proportioned handles, each having a knob resembling a rivet head, near the upper end. The margin of the rim has a circle of indentations. There are a few red vessels of this shape which have figures of reptiles attached to the neck.
WIDE-MOUTHED BOTTLES OR JARS.
Vessels of this class were probably not devoted to the ordinary uses of cooking and serving food. They are handsome in shape, tasteful in decoration, and generally of small dimensions. They are found, as are all other forms, buried with the dead, placed by the head or feet, or within reach of the hands. Their appearance is not suggestive of their original office, as there is no indication of wear, or of use over fire.
Form.—I include under this head a series of forms reaching from the wide-mouthed pot to the well-developed bottle. They really correspond closely to the high-necked bottles in all respects save in height of neck, and the separation is therefore for convenience of treatment only. The following illustration (Fig. 406) will give a good idea of the forms included.
Fig. 406.—Forms of jar-shaped bottles.
There are also many eccentric and many extremely interesting life forms included in this group. A number of vases, modeled after the human head, are, by their general outline, properly included.