Tripod bowl

Boldly painted deities and zoomorphic creatures are the focal point of polychrome plates, bowls, and tripod vessels that were produced in the Sierra de Tuxtlas region of south-central Veracruz during the Late Classic period. Known collectively as Los Tuxtlas polychromes, the ceramic type is characterized by low-rimmed flat-bottomed bowls, with interior paintings in black, yellow, white, and sometimes orange, the central image providing a sharp contrast to the cream-colored background slip. Pairs of mirrored U and S-shaped elements frequently adorn the vessel sides. While archaeologist Michael D. Coe codified these traits in 1965, a photo of the first vessel fitting this description, from the site of Ranchito de Animas, was published in the late 19th Century by Hermann Strebel.

In addition to their production locus in the Sierra de Tuxtlas, shards from polychrome vessels like this one have been discovered archaeologically in Veracruz as far north as the Mixtequilla region, to Hueypan in the southwest, and Teotepec to the southeast. Found in association with musical instruments, figurines, or in ballcourt contexts, Los Tuxtlas polychromes likely played a part in feasting and other ritual activities, and according to archaeologist Philip J. Arnold, III, were a symbol of power specifically identified with the area.

Animals, including deer, serpents, monkeys, coyotes, rodents, and several species of birds occupy the central images of Los Tuxtlas polychrome bowls. Subjects also include denizens of the Underworld and a host of surreal composite creatures. Certain Los Tuxtlas vessels, including the tripod bowl here, contain images that can be viewed in multiple ways. While the image on many of the plates or bowls are meant to be seen from a single vantage point, in others new images can be viewed simply by turning the bowl and looking at it upside down. A bird viewed from one perspective, becomes a turtle when the bowl is turned 180 degrees. Classic Veracruz artists often invited multiple readings using inverted pairings, contour rivalry, imbedded imagery, and the merging of profiled and full-frontal figures. These playful and inventive devices are not only clever, they may have held deeper symbolic meaning.

On the interior base of this bowl, the artist uses broad red outlines, filling the delineated forms with opaque orange, black, red, and white pigment, along with evenly stippled black dots. Orange and white lobed shapes resembling feathers are affixed to the rounded shapes at the center of the composition. What could be a crocodilian snout is seen in orange to the viewer’s right, a pointed hook in white extending before it. However, what may be a bird can be detected by focusing on the white, three-lobed plume at the top of the composition, which contains an arch shape, resembling an eye, and what could be an orange beak just below the upper portion of the bird’s head. The bold colors, busy composition, and contour rivalry challenge our ability to make out the stylized animal, who in all likelihood represents a composite or mythological creature.

Using the same palette of red, white, orange, and black found on the central image, the artist painted abstracted creatures on the bowl’s interior side walls. When placed on the tripod supports, the calligraphic brushstrokes surrounding the bowl’s interior walls show what appears to be a reptilian creature with a diagonal snout and a U-shaped protrusion in front of its eye. A thick line of red paint forms the back of the creature’s head. When viewed upside down, the red paint forms the snout of another mythological animal.

Red and black outlines surround the painted surface planes, demarcating the interior base, interior side wall, exterior side wall, and flattened upper rim, and in so doing heighten the impact of the earth-tone pigments and cream-colored background. The painted lines also create a series of registers, guiding the viewer through each section of the vessel. Designs on the flattened rim of the bowl, including U- shaped elements, are possibly further abstractions, although their precise meaning is unknown. These include short bands interspersed by the U-shapes, identified by earlier scholars, as well as an equal number of similar asymmetrical U-shapes, with one end longer and pointed. These latter designs resemble the pointed instrument or curved tooth (depending on orientation) associated with the central image of the vessel. Short vertical bands and geometric shapes also adorn the exterior side wall.

Multivalent imagery may have been designed to draw in the viewer, whose own visual revelations were enhanced by psychotropic-induced experience, fasting or ritual bloodletting, and imagination.

Cherra Wyllie, 2024

Further Reading

Arnold, Philip J., III 2014 “Of Polychrome and Politics in Southern Veracruz, Mexico,” Social Dynamics of Ceramic Analysis: New Techniques and Interpretations, Papers in Honor of Charles C. Kolb, Sandra L. Lopez-Varela, editor, BAR International Series 2683, Archaeopress, Oxford, UK

Arnold, Philip, Amber VanDerwarker, and Nathan Wilson 2016 “Teotepec y el Paisaje Geopolítico en el Oeste de los Tuxtlas,” Arqueología de los Tuxtlas: Antiguos Paisajes, Nuevas Miradas, Arqueología de Paisaje y Cosmovisión UV-CA-258, Facultad de Antropología, Universidad Veracruzana.

Coe, Michael D. 1965 “Archaeological Synthesis of Southern Veracruz and Tabasco”, Handbook of Middle American Indians, Volume 3,

Wardwell, Allen 1972 “Notes on Los Tuxtlas Style,” Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies, Volume 7, The Art Institute of Chicago