Turtle Vessel
Early artists from the Colima region of West Mexico crafted vessels depicting a variety plants, animals, and mollusks with realistic features (MMA: 1979.205.5). This ceramic container is in the form of a turtle, modeled with a protruding head and carved with small, rounded eyes, pointed noise, and a thin, sharp line to indicate an open, toothless maw. The contrasting textures of the creature's surfaces are also rendered with anatomical precision. Incisions were applied to detail the scales on its head while a series of alternating squares and hatch markings extend lengthwise to depict a naturalistic carapace, similar to that of the box turtle. Traces of paint are also evident, with a red slip applied to the turtle head while a blend of both red and black hues were used to differentiate each side of the carapace and the fleshy parts of its smooth body. The figure is modeled upright with rounded legs to provide practical support for the vessel but also to depict a turtle in the act of basking or grazing.
Colima ceramics are often produced using a local clay of orange or brown hues with applied red and black paint or slip. This figure would have been modeled by hand, using techniques of coiling and beating of malleable clay to produce its features. The artist would have used a stylus to cut into the surface, revealing the disparate grey colored clay to accentuate the turtle’s facial features and details of the turtle carapace. Like many Colima figures, this example is highly burnished, a technique in which clay sculptors carefully rubbed the exterior with a smooth stone or other abrasive materials to produce its luminous surface.
Beginning in the first millennium BCE, vessels like this one were part of funerary assemblages placed in shaft tombs. These are deep burial structures consisting of a series of tunnels and adjacent chambers for several interred individuals. They were likely utilized over many generations, with ceramic offerings representing vital vignettes to accompany the deceased into the afterlife. Additional offerings might include spondylus, strombus conch shell, jade, greenstone, tecomate (gourd), and woven textiles. During this period, this was a shared cultural process of ritual interment throughout what are now the western coastal states of Jalisco, Nayarit and Colima.
Archaeologists have posited that these animal effigy vessels could have represented offerings in sculpted form. Examples of faunal representations including dogs, ducks, and turtles would have represented part of the daily diet of Pacific Coastal communities (Schöndube 1998: 210–211). Modeled on the figure's left side, however, is a large, rimless spout—indicating this vessel could have also been used as a functional container for liquid, stored in the turtle's hollow body and shell. This sculpture could then have served many roles, fulfilling a pragmatic need as a serving vessel while also eliciting a spiritual nourishment as a vital provision rendered in clay.
Brandon Agosto, 2025
Further reading:
Beekman, Christopher S., and Robert S. Pickering. Shaft Tombs and Figures in West Mexican Society: A Reassessment. Edited by Christopher S. Beekman, and Robert S. Pickering. Tulsa: Thomas Gilcrease Institute of American History and Art, 2016.
Butterwick, Kristi. Heritage of Power: Ancient Sculpture From West Mexico: The Andrall E. Pearson Family Collection. New York, New Haven, London: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2004.
Hernández Díaz, Verónica. "Muerte y vida en la cultura tumbas de tiro", in Miradas renovadas al Occidente indígena de México, edited by Marie Areti Hers, pp. 79–131. Mexico: Mexico Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas, UNAM, 2013.
Meighan, Clement W., and H.B. Nicholson. "The Ceramic Mortuary Offerings of Prehistoric West Mexico: An Archaeological Perspective." In: Sculpture of Ancient West Mexico. Nayarit, Jalisco, Colima. A Catalogue of the Proctor Stafford Collection at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Revised edition, by Michael Kan, Clement Meighan, and H. B. Nicholson, pp. 29-67. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1989.
Olay Barrientos, María de los Ángeles, and Andrés Saúl Alcántara Salinas. "La tumba de las Fuentes, Colima. Notas sobre los contextos funerarios de las élites hacia el fin de la fase Comala. In Memoria I Foro Colima y su Región Arqueología, Antropología e Historia, edited by Juan Carlos Reyes G., pp. 1-34, Mexico: Secretaría de Cultura, Gobierno, del Estado de Colima.
Pickering Robert B., Cheryl Smallwood-Roberts and Thomas Gilcrease Institute of American History and Art. West Mexico. Ritual and Identity. Tulsa, Oklahoma: Thomas Gilcrease Institute of American History and Art, 2016.
Schöndube, Otto. "Natural Resources and Human Settlements in Ancient West Mexico." In: Ancient West Mexico: Art and Archaeology of the Unknown Past. Edited by Richard Townsend, 205–215, 1998.
Townsend, Richard, ed. Ancient West Mexico: Art and Archaeology of the Unknown Past. Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 1998.
Zavaleta Lucido, Marcos Trinidad and Rosa María Flores Ramírez. "The shaft tombs of Parcelas 12, 19, and 25 and their inhabitants: Funerary considerations on recent archaeological finds in Colima," in: Shaft Tombs and Figures in West Mexican Society: A Reassessment. Edited by Christopher S. Beekman and Robert S. Pickering, pp. 55–72 Tulsa: Thomas Gilcrease Institute of American History and Art, 2016.
Colima ceramics are often produced using a local clay of orange or brown hues with applied red and black paint or slip. This figure would have been modeled by hand, using techniques of coiling and beating of malleable clay to produce its features. The artist would have used a stylus to cut into the surface, revealing the disparate grey colored clay to accentuate the turtle’s facial features and details of the turtle carapace. Like many Colima figures, this example is highly burnished, a technique in which clay sculptors carefully rubbed the exterior with a smooth stone or other abrasive materials to produce its luminous surface.
Beginning in the first millennium BCE, vessels like this one were part of funerary assemblages placed in shaft tombs. These are deep burial structures consisting of a series of tunnels and adjacent chambers for several interred individuals. They were likely utilized over many generations, with ceramic offerings representing vital vignettes to accompany the deceased into the afterlife. Additional offerings might include spondylus, strombus conch shell, jade, greenstone, tecomate (gourd), and woven textiles. During this period, this was a shared cultural process of ritual interment throughout what are now the western coastal states of Jalisco, Nayarit and Colima.
Archaeologists have posited that these animal effigy vessels could have represented offerings in sculpted form. Examples of faunal representations including dogs, ducks, and turtles would have represented part of the daily diet of Pacific Coastal communities (Schöndube 1998: 210–211). Modeled on the figure's left side, however, is a large, rimless spout—indicating this vessel could have also been used as a functional container for liquid, stored in the turtle's hollow body and shell. This sculpture could then have served many roles, fulfilling a pragmatic need as a serving vessel while also eliciting a spiritual nourishment as a vital provision rendered in clay.
Brandon Agosto, 2025
Further reading:
Beekman, Christopher S., and Robert S. Pickering. Shaft Tombs and Figures in West Mexican Society: A Reassessment. Edited by Christopher S. Beekman, and Robert S. Pickering. Tulsa: Thomas Gilcrease Institute of American History and Art, 2016.
Butterwick, Kristi. Heritage of Power: Ancient Sculpture From West Mexico: The Andrall E. Pearson Family Collection. New York, New Haven, London: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2004.
Hernández Díaz, Verónica. "Muerte y vida en la cultura tumbas de tiro", in Miradas renovadas al Occidente indígena de México, edited by Marie Areti Hers, pp. 79–131. Mexico: Mexico Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas, UNAM, 2013.
Meighan, Clement W., and H.B. Nicholson. "The Ceramic Mortuary Offerings of Prehistoric West Mexico: An Archaeological Perspective." In: Sculpture of Ancient West Mexico. Nayarit, Jalisco, Colima. A Catalogue of the Proctor Stafford Collection at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Revised edition, by Michael Kan, Clement Meighan, and H. B. Nicholson, pp. 29-67. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1989.
Olay Barrientos, María de los Ángeles, and Andrés Saúl Alcántara Salinas. "La tumba de las Fuentes, Colima. Notas sobre los contextos funerarios de las élites hacia el fin de la fase Comala. In Memoria I Foro Colima y su Región Arqueología, Antropología e Historia, edited by Juan Carlos Reyes G., pp. 1-34, Mexico: Secretaría de Cultura, Gobierno, del Estado de Colima.
Pickering Robert B., Cheryl Smallwood-Roberts and Thomas Gilcrease Institute of American History and Art. West Mexico. Ritual and Identity. Tulsa, Oklahoma: Thomas Gilcrease Institute of American History and Art, 2016.
Schöndube, Otto. "Natural Resources and Human Settlements in Ancient West Mexico." In: Ancient West Mexico: Art and Archaeology of the Unknown Past. Edited by Richard Townsend, 205–215, 1998.
Townsend, Richard, ed. Ancient West Mexico: Art and Archaeology of the Unknown Past. Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 1998.
Zavaleta Lucido, Marcos Trinidad and Rosa María Flores Ramírez. "The shaft tombs of Parcelas 12, 19, and 25 and their inhabitants: Funerary considerations on recent archaeological finds in Colima," in: Shaft Tombs and Figures in West Mexican Society: A Reassessment. Edited by Christopher S. Beekman and Robert S. Pickering, pp. 55–72 Tulsa: Thomas Gilcrease Institute of American History and Art, 2016.
Artwork Details
- Title: Turtle Vessel
- Artist: Colima artist(s)
- Date: 200 BCE–300 CE
- Geography: Mexico, Mesoamerica, Colima
- Culture: Colima
- Medium: Ceramic, slip
- Dimensions: H. 7 1/4 × W. 11 × L. 13 1/2 in. (18.4 × 27.9 × 34.3 cm)
- Classification: Ceramics-Containers
- Credit Line: Gift of Joanne P. Pearson, in memory of Andrall E. Pearson, 2007
- Object Number: 2007.345.5
- Curatorial Department: The Michael C. Rockefeller Wing
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Colima artist(s)
1200–1500 CE
Colima artist(s)
1200–1500 CE
Colima artist(s)
200 BCE–300 CE
Colima artist(s)
200 BCE–300 CE
Colima artist(s)
200 BCE–300 CE
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