Storage Jar with Horizontal Bands of Interlocking Scrolls

Arts of the Americas

875–1130

Ancestral Pueblo (Anasazi), Black Mesa Black-on-white
Kayenta area, northeastern Arizona, United States

Ancestors of the modern Pueblo Indians, the Anasazi people flourished in the southwestern United States beginning about two thousand years ago. Ruins of their spectacular cliff dwellings and multistory towns of sandstone masonry are widely scattered in northern New Mexico, Arizona, and southern parts of Utah and Colorado. Skilled farmers, the Ancestral Pueblo (Anasazi) were also creative artisans, as seen in this large, striking olla, a storage vessel. Dramatically decorated in the black-on-white ground of the Black Mesa style, the vessel displays a continuous swirling band of barbed, interlocking S shapes. This strong rhythmic pattern is best perceived from above, suggesting that the olla’s usual placement was on the floor. Like most ollas, this vessel originally had a taller neck, which broke off and was ground down by its owner. In Ancestral Pueblo (Anasazi) tradition, as among the Pueblos today, ceramic vessels were primarily made by women. The potter’s wheel was unknown, and skilled artisans created the evenly thin walls of their vessels by the coiling method. In this technique, the pot is built up with successive coils of clay that are then patted and thinned to achieve the final globular shape. Designs are painted using liquefied clay slips with mineral colors before firing the vessel in an open environment instead of a kiln.

Status: Currently Off View
Department: Arts of the Americas

Culture: Ancestral Pueblo (Anasazi)
Title: Storage Jar with Horizontal Bands of Interlocking Scrolls
Place: Southwest (Object made in:)
Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.: 875 CE–1130
Medium: Ceramic and pigment
Dimensions: 43.2 × 45.7 cm (17 × 18 in.)
Credit Line: Tillie C. Cohn Fund
Reference Number: 1976.307
IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world. Learn more.: https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/51185/manifest.json

Pueblo One Indian Arts, advertisement, American Indian Art Magazine (Autumn 1976): 8 (ill.).
Evan M. Maurer, The Native American Heritage: A Survey of North American Indian Art, exh. cat. (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 1977), 208–209, cat. 272 (ill.).
Art Institute of Chicago, The Art Institute of Chicago: The Essential Guide, revised ed. (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 2003), 16 (ill.).
Art Institute of Chicago, Art Institute of Chicago The Essential Guide, revised ed. (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 2009), 20 (ill.).
Richard Townsend with Elizabeth Pope, Indian Art of the Americas at the Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 2016), 46, cat. 12.

Art Institute of Chicago, The Native American Heritage: A Survey of North American Indian Art, July 16–Oct. 30, 1977, cat. 272.
Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago’s Dream, A World’s Treasure: the Art Institute, 1893-1993, Nov. 1, 1993–Jan. 9, 1994.
Art Institute of Chicago, Casas Grandes and the Ceramic Art of the Ancient Southwest, Apr. 22–Aug. 13, 2006.

Charles F. Cleland, Pueblo One Indian Arts, Scottsdale, AZ, by Aug. 1976 [correspondence from C. Cleland, Aug. 30. 1976; invoice, Pueblo One Indian Arts, object no. CG-X, Sept. 9, 1976; and incoming permanent receipt RX10718, Sept. 21, 1976, copies in curatorial object file, Arts of the Americas]; sold to the Art Institute of Chicago, 1976.

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Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

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Storage Jar with Horizontal Bands of Interlocking Scrolls

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Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

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IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world.

Learn more.