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Making Pottery and Learning About Mimbres Designs! Flipbook PDF
Making Pottery & Learning About Mimbres Designs Teacher Resource Guide ©2014 WNMU Museum ! vessels including, the wi
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Making Pottery and Learning About Mimbres Designs! Pre-Visit Information One aspect of Mimbres Culture known around the world is their beautiful painted pottery. However, the Mimbres made various different types of pottery as well including plainwares, textured wares (includes corrugated pottery), and slipped wares. Mimbres Mogollon and General Mogollon Pottery Production It is presumed that Mimbres Mogollon and general Mogollon groups produced pottery using the same methods certain Pueblo (Hopi, Zuni, Acoma, and others) potters do to this day. Clays used to make pottery would have been collected from traditional local outcrops and sources. If the clay was hard, very dry and contained foreign matter, the clay would have been ground on metates and the foreign matter removed prior to and during soaking. After the clay was dried, water and a tempering agent such as quartz sand or ground volcanic rocks would be added through hand mixing to ensure the clay was of the correct consistency for the kind of vessel being made. Some clays that were collected may have been used without much preparation except the addition of some water because they contained tempering agents in the correct proportion to the clay—these are called self-tempering clays. The purpose of temper is to reduce cracking as the clay shrinks during drying and firing, and to dissipate heat so as to reduce thermal shock during firing and use. The paste (the clay/temper combination seen on the fresh broken side of a pottery sherd) of painted Mimbres vessels, the temper used is fine, small, and less angular, and often rounded quartz sand whereas the temper of corrugated jars is generally coarser, larger and more angular. Mimbres Mogollon pottery is made through the building up of the vessel through the addition of coils or ropes of clay. The pottery is all hand built and a wheel and/or a puki (a small shallow bowl into which clay is pressed to form the base of a pot) is not used. Coils begin at the base and are gradually added by winding the coil/rope of clay around in a spiral and pinching each coil together as they were added. When the vessel was built, the pinched coils would be scraped and smoothed on the interior and exterior using a tool, like a broken pottery sherd, shaped for the purpose. If the potter is making a seed jar, the opening of the seed jar is too small to scrape the interior of the vessel so as the vessel is made the potter must be careful and smooth the interior as best as possible with her fingers. The making of corrugated jars is a bit different. These vessels and other textured vessels are still made by coiling up in a spiral and pinching the coils together, however the coils may be retained in an unsmoothed state on the entire exterior of the corrugated jar or vessel to just below the rim, or they might be partially obliterated or slightly smoothed, or the neck and shoulder part of the
Making Pottery & Learning About Mimbres Designs Teacher Resource Guide
©2014 WNMU Museum
vessel will have unsmoothed coils with the coils from the shoulder down smoothed with a scraper. The interior of jars and the rim of corrugated vessels and bowls are generally smoothed. Once the vessel form was completed, the vessel would be set aside to dry until it was leather hard. If the vessel were to be painted, a clay slip (clay suspended in water) would be applied to the interior or exterior of the vessel using their hands or a cloth or a skin. The color of the slip depended on the type of pottery being made. Mimbres painted pottery is known for its distinctive white clay slip made from kaolin clay that is found on the interior of bowls or the exterior of ollas. Rarely were both sides of bowls slipped and painted. The white clay slip was applied in sufficient thickness to cover the base ware of Mimbres painted pottery—a brown clay—and provided the surface to be painted. For the most part, the unslipped exterior of a bowl was left untreated from its original smoothing although residual slip might drip or be visible just below the rim. Once the clay slip was dry, the potter would burnish the slip with a pebble or polishing stone. Polishing brings the fine particles to the surface giving the vessel, which gives a polished appearance to the surface. It also provided a smoother surface on which to paint. Mimbres pottery paint was made of a mixture of minerals such as iron oxide and perhaps some clay as well as some sort of vegetable binder. Once the paint was dry the pottery was fired. It is unknown how the Mimbres actually fired their vessels since no prehistoric kilns have been found. It is thought that they fired in open pit kilns like those used historically by Pueblo women. Bowls, which were to be black-on-white in appearance were fired upside down, and ollas were covered with large sherds to ensure no oxygen would get to the painted surfaces. Bowls and ollas to be red-on-white were placed upright so oxygen could get to the painted surface—oxidization. Mimbres pottery, whether painted, corrugated, textured, or plain brownware, was not made by a group of craft specialists, but by females in every household. Some women were more skilled than their peers and produced delicate, exquisitely painted vessels, or thin, well-constructed corrugated vessels, or thin, delicate and highly burnished textured or plain brownware vessels. Archaeologists believe that young girls learned pottery making from females in the Pueblo, possibly mothers, aunts, grandmothers, or other clan relations. Mimbres Pottery Types Through Time Designs on prehistoric Southwestern pottery are often considered ethnic identity markers by archaeologists, providing clues as to the makers and the time period in which the pottery was made. This is because designs on prehistoric pottery follow set cultural rules varying somewhat from one household to another, one community to another, and through time. When painting their vessels, individual potters could apply their own interpretations of these set rules, but only within certain parameters. Archaeologists developed the pottery type sequence for the Mimbres area presented below over years of scientific excavation, dating of materials associated with the pottery, and analysis of the vessels. Different pottery types are distinguished by the treatments to the exterior and interior of
Making Pottery & Learning About Mimbres Designs Teacher Resource Guide
©2014 WNMU Museum
vessels including, the width and placement of unsmoothed or partially obliterated coils, by painted designs on the interior or exterior of the vessel, and/or other treatments to the vessel (e.g., clay slip, different methods of texturizing exterior, burnished interior, painting on top of slip, slip and/or painting on top of corrugations, painting within burnished interior, firing— oxidized or reduced). Subsequent investigations of the NAN Ranch Ruin ceramics by Robbie Brewington and Harry Shafer produced a refined stylistic sequence that included defined microstyles within Styles II and III. The Mimbres Black-on-white stylistic sequence developed (see illustration in The NAN Ranch Collection: The Legacy of Margaret Ross Hinton exhibition at WNMU Museum) by Brewington and Shafer in 1995 has become an important tool for archaeologists enabling dating periods of occupation at archaeological sites yielding Mimbres painted pottery. Early Pithouse Period Pottery The beginning of the Mimbres Mogollon Culture dates to the Early Pithouse Period (A.D. 200550). The pottery made was a plain brownware pottery called Alma Plain. The coils were scraped and smoothed for a plain surface and no other further treatment was applied. Alma Plain vessels are fired in an oxidizing atmosphere turning the sides of the vessels exposed to oxygen to various shades of light brown, sometimes with an orange cast. The different types of vessel forms for Alma Plain include jars (ollas), seed jars (the orifice/opening is narrower than the width of the body), plates, bowls, and effigies (figures made out of clay). See Figure 1 for vessel forms. Late Pithouse Period Pottery During the Late Pithouse Period (550-1000) the first decorated pottery pieces appear. Alma Plain brownwares continue to be made while different types of texturing are introduced to vessel exteriors, including the retaining of coils. Alma Scored, Alma Black Burnished, and Alma Neckbanded are common types that appear. Alma Scored is an Alman Plain pot that has been scored on the exterior with a tool (a stick for example). Alma Black Burnished are bowls where the interior has been highly polished and then during the firing process the bowl is turned upside down on top of burning organic material like a bunch of grasses. The exterior of the vessel is oxidized light brown while the interior is highly polished intense black from the smudging process (burning organic materials during firing). Retained, flattened coils around the neck of ollas/jars is characteristic of Alma Neck-banded. Slipped redwares are introduced during the early part of the Late Pithouse period. San Francisco Red is an Alma Plain brownware vessel covered with a deep red to orangeish-red clay slip, both on the interior and exterior of vessels. Prior to firing, the slip on the exterior of jars and on the interior of bowls would be highly polished using a polishing stone or other tool. Firing would be in an oxidizing atmosphere so the slipped areas would be red in color. Firing mistakes are visible in the rims of ollas that are fired black (reduction, no oxygen) or black amorphous smudges on the exterior called fire clouds. Another redware, Mogollon Red-on-brown was made for a short time during the mid-Late Pithouse period. Mogollon Red-on-brown is made similar to San Francisco Red with the exception that bowl interiors and olla exteriors were not slipped with red clay slip. Instead, bowl interiors and olla exteriors would be
Making Pottery & Learning About Mimbres Designs Teacher Resource Guide
©2014 WNMU Museum
Figure 1. Mimbres Pottery Forms (J.J. Brody, Mimbres Painted Pottery, 1st edition, 1977, Figure 65. School of American Research, Santa Fe.
Making Pottery & Learning About Mimbres Designs Teacher Resource Guide
©2014 WNMU Museum
highly polished creating the appearance of a light brown slip from the brownware clay base. The red clay slip would then be used to paint broad linear designs prior to firing. Bowl exteriors would still be slipped with red clay. At the end of the San Francisco Phase and the beginning of the Three Circle Phase, A.D. 730A.D. 770, of the Late Pithouse Period Mimbres potters began experimenting with a white clay slip on bowl interiors. In many cases the white clay slip was anything but a brilliant white. The first attempts ranged from pinkish-white to brownish-white. Broad linear designs were painted on the white clay slip and the pottery was fired in an oxidizing atmosphere. This type is called Three Circle Red-on-white. During the Three Circle Phase of the Late Pithouse Period the white clay slip was refined to a brilliant white. It was made from kaolin clay that was locally collected. This white-slipped brownware pottery known as Mimbres Black-on-white has been divided into three major styles by archaeologists (e.g., Style I, Style II, Style II). These styles are based on changes in designs through time. Style I was produced during the Three Circle Phase between A.D. 800 to 900 and is characterized by bold line designs that extend to the rim of the vessel and not framed by rim bands. The designs can be linear or can include interlocking motifs or curvilinear elements. Wavy lines are generally used as filler although thick hachure is also used. Style II Mimbres Black-on-white pottery begins to appear in the A.D. 850s to 900. Many of the characteristics of Style I continue, but the distinguishing characteristic is the use of fine line hachure in elements bordered by bold, thick lines. Style II designs continue to the rim without any rim banding until late Style II around A.D. 950 when designs begin to be framed within the bowl by a band just below the rim. The design extends to this framing band rather than to the rim. The first use of naturalistic (zoomorphic or anthropomorphic designs) motifs in the painted design begins during Style II. Style II is produced until A.D. 1000 or 1010. Three Circle Neck Corrugated was made during the Three Circle Phase of the Late Pithouse Period. This corrugated brownware is distinguished from Alma Neck-banded by finer coil corrugations around the neck to the shoulder of ollas and a pinching design of the last coil that looks similar to a piecrust. Sometimes other decoration would be applied to the last coil. Classic Period Pottery Style III Mimbres Black-on-white pottery is produced during this time. This style is characterized by multiple thin or several thick rim bands just below the rim and the separation of the design from these rim/framing bands as well as separation between solid black and hachured elements. Changes in the rim bands through time define the different microstyles of Style III into early, middle, and late. The same width fine lines as those that make up the hachure border hachured elements. Style III pottery was made from A.D. 1010 to 1140. The height of Mimbres Style III pottery is considered by many to be from A.D. 1060 to 1100 or Middle Style II. Multiple fine framing lines below the rim are characteristic along with the center of bowl painted with zoomorphic or anthropomorphic (people) motifs or a detailed geometric pattern. It is during Middle Style III when some potters begin to incorporate a third color into their designs. The resulting Mimbres Polychrome vessels are very rare and are estimated to make up
Making Pottery & Learning About Mimbres Designs Teacher Resource Guide
©2014 WNMU Museum
to only 1% of all Classic Period painted pottery1. Due to their rarity and generally exquisitely painted designs it is believed that only the most skilled Mimbres potters make Mimbres Polychrome. During the Classic Period several Mimbres corrugated/textured brownware types were made. These include Mimbres Partially Corrugated (very fine corrugations retained around the neck and upper shoulder with the bottom corrugation tooled to set it apart and the bottom of the vessel smoothed and slightly polished), Mimbres Fully Corrugated Pitchers, and Mimbres Fully Corrugated (very fine corrugations from the base to just below the rim that can be partially obliterated). Functional Contexts of Mimbres Pottery: Private-practical vs. Public-presentational vs. Ritual-sacred Prior to the work carried out at NAN Ranch Ruin, it was believed that Mimbres painted pottery was made solely for mortuary purposes, a ritual- sacred function. This was based on the fact that the majority of Mimbres pottery in existing private and museum collections had been recovered from mortuary contexts. A functional study of the NAN Ranch Ruin mortuary pottery by Robyn Lyle showed that many of the bowls had wear that resulted from everyday household uses, a private-practical function. Rim nicks, fine cracks, soot from fires, and abrasions that removed the design, and in some cases, removed the white slip exposing the brown clay body, were caused from preparing and serving food, and cooking. Her study of the larger NAN Ranch Ruin ceramic assemblage confirmed that exquisitely painted pottery were found in other domestic contexts such as storerooms, outdoor areas, and on house floors, and used as storage jars and as lids for storage vessels. Lyle’s study showed that the majority of bowls found in mortuary contexts were taken from household assemblages, and that the last function for these vessels was inclusion in a burial. What her study could not answer, and what still puzzles archaeologists who study Mimbres culture, is why particular vessels were selected for this final ritual-sacred function from existing private-practical household assemblages. Based on the wealth of information derived from the excavations, Harry J. Shafer (2003), who was the principal investigator at NAN Ranch Ruin, suggests that elaborately painted Mimbres pottery had other functional roles in Mimbres culture having to do with public-presentational display. This includes display outside the household, such as carrying a water jar to and from a water source. This is a very public display of the skill of the potter to others—her ability to craft a fine water jar and to paint a beautiful design. At the same time, the design style conveys to viewers messages about the overall belief systems—cosmology—or how to be Mimbres. Another form of public-presentational display for Mimbres painted pottery would have been in plaza ceremonies and feasts. Shafer (personal communication 2011) believes Mimbres women would have displayed their pottery, perhaps as the Hopi display baskets during the basket dance. After the ceremony the vessels would be gifted to those assembled for the ceremony and feast similar to the Hopi gifting of baskets at the conclusion of the dance. NAN pueblo peoples or 1
Harry J. Shafer, Mimbres Archaeology at NAN Ranch Ruin, 2003, p. 184
Making Pottery & Learning About Mimbres Designs Teacher Resource Guide
©2014 WNMU Museum
Mimbres visiting from other villages could have received these gifts. Supporting his notion are studies of the distribution of Mimbres pottery, where the site the pottery was recovered from is compared to where it was originally made based on the trace elements in the vessel’s clay body matching a similar trace element signature of clay from known manufacturing areas. A study conducted by Eleanor Dahlin indicates that Mimbres painted pottery made at NAN Ranch Ruin had wide distribution within the Mimbres drainage and on the east side of the Continental Divide, and was dominate in the ceramic assemblages at Cameron Creek Ruin, near the modern town of Bayard, NM, and Elk Ridge Ruin in the Upper Mimbres Valley. It is likely that these vessels would have been acquired through gifting during feasting events. Setting up your WNMU Museum Experience Please complete fully the Core Experiential Learning Program Selection and School-to-Museum Transport Application. Additional directions are provided in the Transport to the Past: Museum Adventures in Archaeology and History general information. Pre-Visit Activities The pre-visit grade-level appropriate activities associated with this Core Experimental Learning Program are presented below. A basic description of the grade-level appropriate pre-visit activities is presented along with how it is designed to support New Mexico Common Core standards and New Mexico Content Standards with Benchmarks and Performance Standards; emphasize inquiry, observation, critical thinking, and interpretation by integrating math, science, social sciences, and language arts; and promote executive function skills (memory focus, selfregulation, mental flexibility, communication) is detailed below. These activities are available on WNMU Museum’s website as downloadable PDFs unless otherwise noted. Pre-K through 1st The pre-visit activity provided for PK-1st grade is a look at different types of pottery vessels made by the Mimbres people. Students will make comparisons to determine which of the vessels appears to be the tallest and which the smallest. The students will also have three interesting facts that relate to the Mimbres people and their pottery. Common Core: Math Standard, K M D A1-A2; Common Core: Speaking and Listening, Comprehension and Collaboration 1-1a 2nd and 3rd Grade The pre-visit activity provided for the 2nd and 3rd graders is a challenging fill in the blank handout related to Making Pottery the Mimbres Way. The steps on the handout are in sequence helping students understand the order of steps. The WNMU Museum on-site experiential learning activity will be making a small bowl or olla following these steps. Common Core: Reading, Key Ideas and Details, 3 4th and 5th Grade Fourth and fifth graders have a pre-visit activity showing images of four Mimbres Bowls. There is a brief discussion of the Mimbres people painting a variety of animals and insects on their
Making Pottery & Learning About Mimbres Designs Teacher Resource Guide
©2014 WNMU Museum
bowls. Students will write a descriptive paragraph about what they see in the designs. Students can check their answers during the WNMU Museum on-site experiential learning activity Common Core: Writing, Text Types and Purposes, 2a Pre-Visit Activities for All Grades (no downloadable PDFs) Female children growing up in Mimbreño families learned to make pottery from their female family and clan members. In the WNMU Museum collections we have small animal shaped figures that are believed to have been made by young girls learning to make pottery, although the possibility exists that young boys and men made such figures as well as part of a “pre-hunt ceremony.” If your school has Play-Doh or clay, ask your students to make small figures representing their pets or animals their family members might hunt, such as mule deer. Let your students know that the animals do not need to be perfectly sculpted. Instead, it is a learning experience about how to make figures out of clay or Play-Doh to prepare them for the WNMU Museum on-site core experiential learning program, and to experience how young Mimbres kids their age learned about working with clay and making clay figures and pottery. State Benchmarks: History I-D Post Visit Activities The post-visit grade-level appropriate activities associated with this Core Experimental Learning Program are presented below. A basic description of the grade-level appropriate post-visit activities is presented along with how it is designed to support New Mexico Common Core standards and New Mexico Content Standards with Benchmarks and Performance Standards; emphasize inquiry, observation, critical thinking, and interpretation by integrating math, science, social sciences, and language arts; and promote executive function skills (memory focus, selfregulation, mental flexibility, communication) is detailed below. These activities are available on WNMU Museum’s website as downloadable PDFs unless otherwise noted. Pre-K through 1st Pre-K-1st grade student post-visit activity is one where each student picks the Mimbres design on the handout he or she likes the best. Each student will draw or color that design in a bowl. Then the students get together and explain to their classmates why they chose that particular design. This is activity promotes the executive function skills of memory focus, self-regulation, communication, and Common Core/State Benchmarks skills in speaking, listening, comprehension, and citizenship skills. Common Core: Speaking and Listening, Comprehension and Collaboration 1-1a State Benchmarks: Civics and Government III-3 2nd and 3rd Grade Second and third graders have an activity that focuses on creative writing and leading students to identify their thoughts and emotions they experienced when they made their bowl during the WNMU Museum on-site core experiential learning program. The list of words they produce will then be used to write a paragraph about their experience and answer the questions posed. Common Core: Writing, Text Types and Purposes, 1
Making Pottery & Learning About Mimbres Designs Teacher Resource Guide
©2014 WNMU Museum
4th and 5th Grade The fourth and fifth graders activity focuses on creative writing based on their experiences during their WNMU Museum on-site core experiential learning program. Students select an animal or person on a Mimbres bowl that they saw at the WNMU Museum that will be the basis of their story in which they will create characters and a setting. Common Core: Writing, Text Types and Purposes, 3 Post Visit Activities for All Grades (no downloadable PDFs) Possible post visit activities include painting the bowl or jar they made at WNMU Museum during the on-site core experiential learning program. Students should be encouraged to paint a Mimbres design, but before they paint it is important to remind them that they cannot erase their design if they do not like it. They must think carefully about the design they want to draw and the space they have to draw it in. By asking them to think carefully before drawing they will be learning the full extent of making pottery and experience the decisions that Mimbres potters needed to make before painting. Encourage them to be confident when painting—just like Mimbres potters would have been! An activity for older children would be to have them conduct research on modern ceramic production and compare that process with the manufacture of Mimbres pottery. What is the different between the types of bowls and jars made out of clay that they use at home and Mimbres pottery? Are there cultural messages in the designs and forms of the ceramic plates and bowls they use at home like there are in Mimbres pottery? How did they differ in the way they are made? Are different types of clay used to make the ceramic plates and bowls they have at home versus Mimbres pottery? Compare and contrast the firing of modern ceramic pieces and Mimbres pottery. What is the difference between modern day china and Mimbres pottery? State Benchmarks: History I-D Common Core: Writing, Research to Build and Present Knowledge 7, 8 Additional WNMU Museum Opportunities WNMU Museum is offering the opportunity for your class to participate with other PK-5th grade classes from your school to create a temporary exhibition of your students’ projects that are related to Transport to the Past: Museum Adventures in Archaeology and History. WNMU Museum would host an opening reception for teachers, parents, and other museum visitors to see the hard work produced by your kids and keep the exhibition on display for several weeks. These events are very memorable for students. To take advantage of this opportunity, please call Phillip Cave, Assistant Director/Curator of Education & History at WNMU Museum, 575-538-6386, or email [email protected]. Assistant Director Cave will be happy to assist you with making arrangements. Teachers participating in Transport to the Past: Museum Adventures in Archaeology and History programs at WNMU Museum will a receive 10% discount in the WNMU Museum Shop. The Museum Shop has a wide selection of books that complement WNMU Museum’s CELP offerings to enhance learning about prehistoric groups and cultures living in Grant County and Southwest New Mexico, and the history of Silver City, Grant County, and Southwest New Mexico.
Making Pottery & Learning About Mimbres Designs Teacher Resource Guide
©2014 WNMU Museum