Cleveland Museum of Art

Bowl with Spider Decoration

Date

c. 750–1250

Medium

ceramic, slip

Culture

Colombia, Highland Nariño region, Piartal style, 8th-13th Century

Department

Art of the Americas

Institution

Cleveland Museum of Art

In the Nariño region of southwestern Colombia, the dead were buried in shaft tombs, the most elaborate up to sixty feet deep and furnished with offerings such as these bowls. Colombian ceramics are not much studied and little can be said about their imagery, which reveals a keen interest in geometric abstraction. Depicted here are a row of figures with thatch-roofed huts, humans attacked by birds, and spiders.

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