Mimbres. <em>Bowl</em>, 550–1150 C.E. Clay, pigment, 4 3/4 x 11 3/4 x 10 1/2 in. (12.1 x 29.8 x 26.7 cm). Brooklyn Museum, By exchange, 73.35.2. Creative Commons-BY (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, CUR.73.35.2_view1.jpg)

Mimbres. Bowl, 550–1150 C.E. Clay, pigment, 4 3/4 x 11 3/4 x 10 1/2 in. (12.1 x 29.8 x 26.7 cm). Brooklyn Museum, By exchange, 73.35.2. Creative Commons-BY (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, CUR.73.35.2_view1.jpg)

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Beautiful stone work! What tools would Hopewell artists use to chisel the stone with such detail and smoothness?

The Hopewell likely would have used other stones for their carvings. The smoothness indicates the use of rubbing, wet polishing, or sand.

Thanks! Is the bird made of a soft kind of stone, like limestone?

Though the Hopewell didn't develop bronze technology, they sure did accomplish great feats in stone and ceramics. This is a loan item and we haven't yet done extensive material analysis on this work. We do know that it is made of a harder stone.

Are there any other works nearby that catch your eye or mystify you with the way they were produced?

All of them in fact! I'm continuously amazed at the purely manual craft skills of people who lived several thousand years back!

I am as well! I couldn't imagine developing this technology myself! I'm always taken by the nearby Mimbres bowl. (It has an antelope and a man depicted in the center.)

The Mimbres people were some of the earliest people to develop reduction firings to achieve the black on white decoration, building an open kiln fire that was so hot it actually reduced the amount of oxygen within the fire. (If you're a ceramic nerd this is a big feat.)

Cool! And thank you for directing my attention to this beauty, its patterns and figures are incredibly delicate, the graphic parts reminds me of Art Deco almost!

I love the imagery of the Mimbres people myself. It's so mysterious because they vanished long before European contact, nearly all of their bowls depict these strange dreamlike scenes and a majority of them have these holes in the bottom.

Many have been found in graves, although we are not certain where this particular bowl was found, and scholars can only speculate what the holes might mean, or what the strange images are. One at the Met has a deer putting on an armadillo mask on for example.

That's fascinating! I bet it carries deep meaning that we just don't know today.

Can you tell me about the 1903 museum expedition where this was collected? Did Brooklyn Museum do digs in pueblos or how did they acquire these?

Stewart Culin, an ethnographer and curator for the Brooklyn Museum, traveled to the Southwest and purchased many objects while there.

At time time, there were already some regulations on the purchase and excavation of Native American objects, both imposed by the United States Government (if the object was found on federal land) and through tribal authorities. Culin noted that objects of major significance were not for sale.

The Museum today fully complies with North American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) and tribal authorities/governments in relation to our Native North American collections.

Bowl

Arts of the Americas

All that remains of Mimbres villages are rubble mounds with scattered pottery shards. No one knows if the Mimbres moved or who their descendants might be. Mimbres potters, probably women, created sophisticated designs for six hundred years. The pottery objects that have survived are primarily executed in black and white with complicated designs. Some of the best pottery pieces apparently had holes deliberately punched into their centers before they were placed in burials underneath house floors, but we do not know why.

CULTURE Mimbres

MEDIUM Clay, pigment

Place Made: Mimbres Valley, New Mexico, United States

DATES 550–1150 C.E.

DIMENSIONS 4 3/4 x 11 3/4 x 10 1/2 in. (12.1 x 29.8 x 26.7 cm) (show scale)

COLLECTIONS Arts of the Americas

ACCESSION NUMBER 73.35.2

CREDIT LINE By exchange

CATALOGUE DESCRIPTION Bowl with white exterior and black on white interior design consists of a central figure of a man with a mountain goat or a longhorn sheep on his back. A quadrilateral design of angular solid and striped figures surrounds the figures and a band of thin horizontal lines encircles the rim. The bowl has been ritually "killed" which is indicated by a hole in the center of the bowl. There is black writing on the side that says, "13254." Condition: Previously reconstructed.

EXHIBITIONS

American Art

MUSEUM LOCATION This item is not on view

CAPTION Mimbres. Bowl, 550–1150 C.E. Clay, pigment, 4 3/4 x 11 3/4 x 10 1/2 in. (12.1 x 29.8 x 26.7 cm). Brooklyn Museum, By exchange, 73.35.2. Creative Commons-BY (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, CUR.73.35.2_view1.jpg)

IMAGE overall, CUR.73.35.2_view1.jpg. Brooklyn Museum photograph, 2014

"CUR" at the beginning of an image file name means that the image was created by a curatorial staff member. These study images may be digital point-and-shoot photographs, when we don\'t yet have high-quality studio photography, or they may be scans of older negatives, slides, or photographic prints, providing historical documentation of the object.

RIGHTS STATEMENT Creative Commons-BY

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