Pot
date: label: Accession Date
content: 1895
name: label: Donor Name
content: Bureau Of American Ethnology
label: Site Name
content: Sikyatki
notes: label: Notes
content: From card: "Yellow ware decorated with butterflies. Publ. USNM Rept. 1896, p. 586, Pl. 60. Entomologist Dr. Ron Cherry says these look more like moths, 11-6-1991." Illustrated by Fewkes in Pl. CXXXV-b, after page 678, and in Fig. 271, p. 679, in BAE 17th Annual Report, Part 2. Also described pp. 678-680 of that publication. Also illustrated by Fewkes in Fig. 83 (a detail), p. 254, and Pl. 90, after p. 276, in BAE 33rd Annual Report. Described on p. 254. J.F. Gates Clarke, entomologist with the United States Department of Agriculture, 1954, identified the "butterflies" on the pot as sphinx moths (a.k.a. hawk moths, Sphingidae). Illus. p. 45, center right, in "Metaphors of Meaning in mural paintings, pottery, and ritual song" by Emory Sekaquaptewa and Dorothy K. Washburn, Plateau, Fall 2006, 3(1), and identified there as Sikyatki Polychrome jar depicting the Uto-Aztecan ideal of the beauty of fertility and life. Illus. Fig. 7.32, p. 176 in Hays-Gilpin, Kelley, and Polly Schaafsma. 2010. Painting the cosmos: metaphor and worldview in images from the Southwest pueblos and Mexico. Flagstaff, AZ: Museum of Northern Arizona Bulletin No. 67. Identified there as Sikyatki Polychrome jar depicting the Uto-Aztecan ideal of the beauty of fertility and life. On p. 175 it is described as embellished with fertilizing moths and prayer feathers on the shoulder. Illus. Fig. 7, p. 61 in Schramm, David S. 2014. "The pots that launched a revolution (or at least a revival)". American Indian Art Magazine. 40 (1) (Winter 2014): 56-59.
label: Notes
content: There is a plaster cast/copy that was made of this jar. The cast is marked on the base "Cat. 230091 Cast L.P.X. M.W.G." It appears to have been made for display at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition (commonly abbreviated as L.P.X. in Dept. of Anthropology records) of 1904 (a.k.a. the St. Louis World's Fair). "M.W.G." probably stands for Mrs. Mary Wright Gill (1867-1929), who was probably the painter of the designs on the cast. Mrs. M. W. Gill is credited with doing the illustrations in some Smithsonian publications, including in Fewkes, Jesse Walter. 1914. Archaeology of the lower Mimbres valley, New Mexico. Washington: Smithsonian institution; Mrs. Gill is listed in footnote 1 on p. 11 of that publication as doing the drawings of the pottery designs. She was the wife of De Lancey Walker Gill, who was employed as an artist/photographer by the Smithsonian Bureau of American Ethnology. Though the cast was given Catalogue # 230091, it is currently tracked under # A155681, the number for the original jar it is a copy of. See accession # 42425, the number for a group of casts that would include 230091, where the Anthropology catalogue ledger book lists the source as "Anthr and Mrs. Gill", which appears to indicate the casts were made in the museum's "Anthropological Laboratory" and then painted by Mrs. Gill.
label: Record Last Modified
content: 3 Dec 2021
label: Specimen Count
content: 2
place: label: Place
content: Navajo County, Arizona, United States, North America
topic: label: Topic
content: Archaeology
setName: label: See more items in
content: Anthropology
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: NMNH - Anthropology Dept.
identifier: label: Accession Number
content: 029889
label: USNM Number
content: A155681-0
objectType: label: Object Type
content: Pot / Cast