Tripod vessel

A complex motif which combines a number of symbols commonly found in Teotihuacan art is repeated four times along the outer surface of this cylindrical tripod vessel, framed by a thin border above and a continuous band of interlocking scrolls below. The large, feathered border surrounding the top half of the motif resembles a headdress type reserved for the high-ranking individuals frequently depicted in Teotihuacan art (see MMA 2012.517.1). Here it frames a feathered medallion crowned with a half star. Below are pairs of tassels to either side of a symbol known as the “reptile-eye”. The dark, ovoid shapes separating each motif may represent drops of water. This method of combining individual elements to form a glyphic-like unit is typical of the Teotihuacan visual language system and here may represent a deity, an individual, or an abstract religious or social concept. While the identical motif is repeated four times, the hand of the artist is evident in minor variations, such as the number of feathers and or width of the contour lines.

The design has been created utilizing a technique known as plano-relief. The artist has cut away the polished, coffee-colored surface of the clay so that the design stands out against the background which has been rubbed with red ochre. This technique is labor intensive and time consuming. Perhaps for this reason vessels like this one were gradually replaced by stucco and painted ones, which were quicker to produce and better suited to detailed imagery and narrative scenes like those seen in the frescoes adorning the walls of Teotihuacan’s apartment compounds.

While plano-relief carving may have been imported to Teotihuacan from the Gulf Coast region, the widespread style of tripod vessels, cylindrical bowls with three flat or rounded feet, seems to have originated in the central highland metropolis itself. They are found elsewhere in Mexico and even in the Maya Lowlands, where contemporary city-states claimed political or commercial connections to the faraway city. Teotihuacan tripods were made in a wide range of size, color, and surface treatment variations - including painted stucco - and were widely disseminated by trade and emulated by local potters. The present example is reported to be from a burial site in the Basin of Mexico called Santiago Ahuizotla, excavated in the 1940s by local inhabitants.

Patricia J. Sarro, 2024

Further Reading

Berrin, Kathleen, and Esther Pasztory, eds. Teotihuacan: Art from the City of the Gods. New York and San Francisco: Thames & Hudson Inc., 1993.

Carballo, David M., Kenneth G. Hirth, and Bárbara Arroyo. Teotihuacan: The World Beyond the City. Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 2020.

Conidas, Cynthis. Made to Order: Painted Ceramics of Ancient Teotihuacan. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2018.

Cowgill, George L. "State and Society at Teotihuacan." Annual Review of Anthropology vol. 26 (1997), pp. 129–161.

Headrick, Annabeth. The Teotihuacan Trinity: The Sociopolitical Structure of an Ancient Mesoamerican City. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2007.

Manzanilla, Linda R. "Cooperation and tensions in multiethnic corporate societies using Teotihuacan, Central Mexico, as a case study." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America vol. 112, no. 30 (July 28, 2015), pp. 9210–9215.

Matos Moctezuma, Eduardo. Teotihuacan: The City of the Gods. New York: Rizzoli, 1990, p. 97, pl. 24.

Metropolitan Museum of Art. Art of Oceania, Africa, and the Americas from the Museum of Primitive Art. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1969, no. 578.

Murakami, Tatsuya. "Entangled Political Strategies: Rulership, Bureaucracy, and Intermediate." In Political Strategies in Pre-Columbian Mesoamerica, edited by Sarah Kurnick, and Joanne Baron. Louisville, CO: University Press of Colorado, 2016, pp. 153–179.

National Museum of Anthropology, Mexico: Guidebook. Mexico City: Lunwerg Editores, 2004, pp. 75–104; see especially pp. 92, 97.

Pasztory, Esther. Teotihuacan: An Experiment in Living. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1997.

Rattray, Evelyn Childs. Teotihuacan: Ceramics, Chronology and Cultural Trends.Mexico City: Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia; Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh, 2001.

Robb, Matthew, ed. Teotihuacan: City of Water, City of Fire. San Francisco: de Young Museum, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, 2017.

Ruiz Gallut, María Elena, and Jesús Torres Peralta, eds. Arquitectura y urbanismo: pasado y presente de los espacios en Teotihuacan: Memoria de la Tercera Mesa Redonda de Teotihuacan. Mexico City: Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, 2005.

Solís Olguín, Felipe, and Ted J.J. Leyenaar. Art Treasures of Ancient Mexico: Journey to the Land of the Gods, edited by John Vrieze. Amsterdam: De Nieuwe Kerk, 2002, p. 271, pl. 237.

Schaeffer, D. Bryan. "Reframing the Tripod: A Foreign Form Adopted by the Early Classic Maya." In Interregional Interaction in Ancient Mesoamerica, edited by Joshua D. Englehardt, and Michael D. Carrasco. Louisville, CO: University Press of Colorado, 2019, pp. 149–175.