Plate with Crocodilian Creature600–900 CE

On view:

Geffen Galleries

Shallow terracotta ceramic bowl with wide flaring form, painted interior showing a stylized bird or creature in brick red and dark brown on a cream slip ground

Ceramic bowl viewed from above, with a cream slip ground and painted decoration in dark red-brown; a central concentric diamond motif surrounded by radiating curvilinear forms with feather-like hatching, spirals, and circular eye elements along the rim.

Title: Plate with Crocodilian Creature
Culture: Greater Coclé
Place Made: Panama, Veraguas Province, Conte style
Date Made: 600–900 CE
Style: Conte
Medium: Engobe-painted earthenware
Dimensions: Height: 3 1/4 in. (8.26 cm); Diameter: 11 1/2 in. (29.21 cm)
Credit Line: Gift of Drs. Alan Grinnell and Feelie Lee
Accession Number: M.2006.170.10
Classification: Ceramics
Collecting Area: Art of the Ancient Americas
Curatorial Notes: The Coclé artist here depicted what may be a stylized crocodile, with splayed claws, a diamond-patterned torso, a thick tail, and a long head that ends in a curled nose. The symmetrical body is shown from above, the head from above and in profile. The head’s flattened and split rendering allows the viewer to see the reptile’s many sharp teeth and its entire body simultaneously. The crocodilian creature’s nostrils have been elongated and wildly exaggerated to curve sideways, resembling the barbels of a catfish. The fantastical depiction is suggestive of a watery and supernatural realm.

Crocodiles were hunted and eaten in the region in earlier time periods, and their teeth were used as ornaments. However, the iconographic preeminence of crocodilians after 750 CE contrasts with the total absence of their bones in kitchen middens of later periods. Pascual de Andagoya, a sixteenth-century Spanish conquistador, noted the abundance of crocodiles and the threat they posed to human life in eastern Panama, and today the high number of crocodilians around Parita Bay remains a serious menace to fishers and bathers.

Camille Neira and Julia Burtenshaw

2024

Related Exhibitions

Plate with Crocodilian Creature600–900 CE

On view:

Geffen Galleries

Title: Plate with Crocodilian Creature
Culture: Greater Coclé
Place Made: Panama, Veraguas Province, Conte style
Date Made: 600–900 CE
Style: Conte
Medium: Engobe-painted earthenware
Dimensions: Height: 3 1/4 in. (8.26 cm); Diameter: 11 1/2 in. (29.21 cm)
Credit Line: Gift of Drs. Alan Grinnell and Feelie Lee
Accession Number: M.2006.170.10
Classification: Ceramics
Collecting Area: Art of the Ancient Americas
Curatorial Notes: The Coclé artist here depicted what may be a stylized crocodile, with splayed claws, a diamond-patterned torso, a thick tail, and a long head that ends in a curled nose. The symmetrical body is shown from above, the head from above and in profile. The head’s flattened and split rendering allows the viewer to see the reptile’s many sharp teeth and its entire body simultaneously. The crocodilian creature’s nostrils have been elongated and wildly exaggerated to curve sideways, resembling the barbels of a catfish. The fantastical depiction is suggestive of a watery and supernatural realm.

Crocodiles were hunted and eaten in the region in earlier time periods, and their teeth were used as ornaments. However, the iconographic preeminence of crocodilians after 750 CE contrasts with the total absence of their bones in kitchen middens of later periods. Pascual de Andagoya, a sixteenth-century Spanish conquistador, noted the abundance of crocodiles and the threat they posed to human life in eastern Panama, and today the high number of crocodilians around Parita Bay remains a serious menace to fishers and bathers.

Camille Neira and Julia Burtenshaw

2024