The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1908-10-11
CLIFF JEWELLERS
I. SHOWED SKILL
A. v. Kidder of Harvard Lee
lures at University on Work
of the Ancient P0tterS.

The first of the lectures 20 be given
under the auspices of the Utah
Archaeological society this winter wa
delivered last evening at the Univer-
sity of Utah by A. ". Kidder of Har-
ward. MI. Kidder was one of the par
ty of explorers sent out by the society
last spring, under the leadership of
Professor Cummings, to explore the
cliff dwellings in a Juan county.
Utah.
Judge H. P. Henderson presided at
the meeting. Professor Cummings made
a few remarks on the work of the So
ciety made possible through the kind
ness of Colonel E. A. Wall, who fur
nished the funds with which TO carry
on the researches. Professor Cum
mings said that the last expedition had
accomplished much. good, and had
made possible the correct mapping of
Montezuma canyon. The excavations
had revealed a great many relics of
great interest, and a short exploration
trip was made into the extreme south
ern part of Utah, where white man
had never before travelled. The relics
were exhibited in their various forms
and designs explained. After the lee
ture refreshments were served. Mr..
hlUQST SPOKE DIS IOllOWS.
THE cliff jewellers were a people who
once inhabited the more arid parts of
the southwestern United States. Their
range. included. the southern part of
Utah, southwestern Colorado and large
sections of Arizona and New Mexico.
They are to be distinguished from
other southwestern tribes by the fact
that they built permanent houses of
stone or adobe, Invariably associated
with which were semi-subterranean
ceremonial rooms or kivas. They de-
pended largely for s~ustenance on the
cultivation of corn, beans and pump
kins, and reached a degree of excel
lence in making pottery far in advance
OF any of their neighbors-
The development of pottery-Tnakins
among the clift-dwellers is one of the un-
solved riddles of American archaeology,
and the same is true of their culture as
a whole. 1t is a culture without a begin
ming. We find their remains scattered
over the whole southwest, and everywhere
their houses are well built, their ceremo-
NAL rooms all follow a certain carefully
wOrked-Out scheme, and their pottery is
of an excellence which could only be
reached. by centuries of growth. We find
no rough, undecorated, badly-shaped pot
terry, no experiments. These people seem
to have sprung up fully matured, flour
ished for a time, and then mysteriously
been reduced to a mere handful, who now
lnhabit the puebloS of Arizona and New
Mexico.
The ancient potters of San Juan. Utah,
made as fine examples of the great class
of black and Write ware as aan be found
in the whole southwest. Red pottery, ex-
cept in lower San Juan, is rather IN
common and not very well make, being
thin and brittle
THE great art of the San Juan potters
lay in the wonderful way in which they
could, ~freehand. paint in a complicated
design, make it encircle the pot and join
itself again so accurately that il is often
impossible to tell where it begins. say
freehand, because you can never find
scratches, guidelines or preliminary divi-
sions on the surface which would help
in the accomplishment of the design. The
whole surface of the pottery Is not
marked over with figures, as is so COM
mon in primitive art. Certain effective
areas, such as the border under the rim,
are picked out and decorated. AS to the
symbols themselves, it is not yet pos
sible to give any real explanation. Some
link between the ancient pottery, whose
symbols are yet a riddle to us, and the
modern. which. of. course, can be studied
is absolutely necessary, and if such a
link can be found it is possible that We
may vet discove the fundamental mean
ing of at least some of the designs. II
is of the greatest Importance that a thor
ough exploration of these virgin fields ir
San Juan county should be made at once