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Source Description
Ancestral Pueblo ceramics feature striking black-and-white geometric motifs, here interconnected spirals interrupted by jagged lines. Meaning is unknown, but the complex pattern is reminiscent of water that eddies as it runs over rocks. With recent exceptions, pottery is a women’s art among modern Pueblo peoples who descend from the Ancestral Pueblo; the same was likely true in the ancient past. As today, the potter created her wares by coiling ropes of clay atop one another, smoothing and further shaping them, and then applying decoration with brushes made of maguey (agave) or yucca leaf chewed until the fibers formed bristles.
Scholar Source Context
Document identity
localId
151830
label
Water Jar (Olla)
core
obj
dtoType
object
pageCount
1
Source metadata
id
151830
contentType
object
title
Water Jar (Olla)
description
Ancestral Pueblo ceramics feature striking black-and-white geometric motifs, here interconnected spirals interrupted by jagged lines. Meaning is unknown, but the complex pattern is reminiscent of water that eddies as it runs over rocks. With recent exceptions, pottery is a women’s art among modern Pueblo peoples who descend from the Ancestral Pueblo; the same was likely true in the ancient past. As today, the potter created her wares by coiling ropes of clay atop one another, smoothing and further shaping them, and then applying decoration with brushes made of maguey (agave) or yucca leaf chewed until the fibers formed bristles.
date
1150–1325
rights
CC0
rightsUri
CC0
language
en
wikidata
Q60758919
genreSpecific
Ceramic
imageCount
1
source
import
dimensionsRaw
Overall: 30 x 40.5 cm (11 13/16 x 15 15/16 in.)
cul
Southwest, Ancestral Pueblo, Tularosa Black-on-White style
accession
1984.159
Source extras
tec
Ceramic, slip
tombstone
Water Jar (Olla), 1150–1325. Southwest, Ancestral Pueblo, Tularosa Black-on-White style. Ceramic, slip; overall: 30 x 40.5 cm (11 13/16 x 15 15/16 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund, 1984.159
collection
AA - Native North America
citations
citation
Turner, Evan H. “The Year in Review for 1984.” <em>The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art</em> 72, no. 2 (April 1985): 163–207.
page_number
Mentioned: p. 205, no. 150; Reproduced: p. 172
citation
Sims, Lowery Stokes. <em>The Persistence of Geometry: Form, Content, and Culture in the Collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art</em>. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2006.
page_number
Mentioned and reproduced: P. 87, no. 18
creditline
Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund
updatedAt
2026-05-29 07:50:20.272000
sourceId
151830
dept
Art of the Americas
coll
AA - Native North America
med
Ceramic, slip
thumbnail_url
image_url
Single page context
seq
1
pageIndex
0
type
photo
mediaId
38d3041e729c412b