Socorro black-on-white storage jar

Ancestral Pueblo, Native American

On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 746

The abstract pictorial painting on this water vessel was developed by ancestral Puebloan potters in the Southwest in the late first millennium. The bold color scheme consists of a black iron-rich slip made from diluted organic materials and minerals on white clay. The imagery likely references water’s circulation beneath the earth and its precipitation from the sky, reflecting the society’s primary concerns around water management and their observation of the seasons.

Socorro black-on-white storage jar, Clay and pigment, Ancestral Pueblo, Native American

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