Page:Mexican Archæology.djvu/243

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
POTTERY
191

nimal heads (Fig. 40) or small pierced handles, and the designs are sometimes furnished with an engraved outline, though I believe both these features to be characteristic rather of Totonac art. The legs of tripod bowls, which are found in numbers, are usually moulded in the form of grotesque faces, or the heads of birds, beasts and snakes. Peculiar to Tlaxcala are interesting vases of black ware in the form of a Tlaloc face or figure, the details of which are applied. The

Fig. 40.—Polychrome pottery vase from Tlaxcala.
(After Seler)

scroll-work which constitutes a feature of the painted art bears a close analogy to the Xochicalco designs, and it is not surprising to find similar pottery in Oaxaca. It is quite true that Cholulan pottery may have found its way in some quantity to the last-named region, by the great trade-route which ran from Teotitlan to Oaxaca, but I am inclined to think that much at least of it must have been manufactured locally, especially as a certain form of tripod vase (Fig. 36, 4; p. 185) seems peculiar to this country. Most remarkable of the finds in the Oaxaca district is that of pottery