Pre-Columbian - Ancient Pottery for Sale

Possibly first developed in Colombia or Ecuador, pottery succeeded baskets and gourds as containers in ancient times. Throughout the entire Pre-Columbian world, pottery became the most common surviving artifact. Both hand-modeled and molded pots and clay objects were made. Decoration involved incising designs, carving or molding reliefs, and employing various techniques of painting and polishing. Although polychromed ceramics were produced, most pottery was painted with one or two colors or left unpainted.

Large Chorrera Spouted Vessel From Ecuador, a large and finely modeled stirrup vessel from the Chorrera culture – Ca 1200 BC. Large rounded base with circular platform and typical mushroom-shaped... $1,495.00

Rare Bahia/ Manabi, Figural Vessel Coastal Manabi Province, Ecuador, Ca 1 to 500 AD, blackware vessel of saucer-shape with small cylindrical platform on which a reclining monkey rests on his elbow. $2,195.00

Huge Chupicuaro Bi-Chrome Tripod One of the largest and finest we have seen! From the Guanajuato region of Mexico, Ca 300 BC. Large and near-perfect Chupicuaro bi-chrome tripod vessel decorated... $1,295.00 SOLD

Costa Rica Decorated Vase Ca. 800-1500 A.D. Graceful, polychrome-decorated terracotta vessel having a wide central register containing two seated dignitaries with stylized feathered... $2,450.00

Pair of Panamanian Long Necked Amphoras Late Cocle, Ca. 800-1200 AD Pair of decorated pottery vessels, painted cream, ground with red and black banded necks. Both having a wide shoulder register containing... $3,950.00

Pre-Columbian potters created many plain, functional pottery for common use, but they also formed elaborate and intricate art for religious use that required great skill to produce. They buried pottery with their dead to accompany them into the afterlife, thereby demonstrating the predominance of pottery in their culture and their skill at creating it to modern archeologists. In Pre-Columbian times, kilns were not used; pieces of pottery were fired in an open fire or a pit in the ground. Potters did not use any type of glaze, but they did burnish the surface of their pots with stones. Pots were decorated with gods, animals, plants, everyday scenes and geometric designs.