Continuity and change in a domestic industry
Subtitle: Santa María Atzompa, a pottery making town in Oaxaca, Mexico
By: Mary Stevenson Thieme
Contributors: Field Museum of Natural History
Series: Fieldiana. Anthropology -- new ser., no. 41; Publication / Field Museum of Natural History -- 1553.; Fieldiana -- new ser. no. 41.; Publication (Field Museum of Natural History) -- 1553.
Publisher: Field Museum of Natural History
Published: 2009
Place of publication: [Chicago, Ill.]
Language: eng
Number of pages: 80
Subjects: Potters; Mexican Pottery; Antiquities; Glazed pottery
Description: The potters of Santa María Atzompa, a town in the Valley of Oaxaca in southern Mexico, have been making pottery for at least 500 years, and the town has been widely known for its production of green lead-glazed cookware and ornamental pottery. This study, conducted in the 1990s, looks at how Atzompa pottery production changed since studies made in the 1950s and 1960s. Beginning in the mid-1990s, to a large extent as a result of public concern, publicity, and legislation about the lead glaze, the potters changed the style, distribution, and social context of their ceramic production. Also examined was the dynamics of household production and the choices that the potters made. A third element of the study was compositional analysis of the various ceramic materials and pastes used by the potters.

Los alfareros de Santa María Atzompa, un pueblo en el Valle de Oaxaca en el sur de México, han fabricado cerámica desde hace 500 años, y el pueblo ha sido ampliamente reconocido por su producción de utensilios de cocina de cerámica verde vidriada y cerámica ornamental. Este estudio, realizado en la década de 1990, trata de la producción de cerámica de Atzompa y como cambió desde los estudios realizados en los años 1950 y 1960. A mediados de la década 1990, hubo una gran preocupación pública y legislativa acerca del vidriado con plomo, y los alfareros modificaron el estilo, la distribución y el contexto social de su producción de cerámica. También examinamos la dinámica de la producción doméstica y las opciones disponibles a los alfareros. Un tercer enfoque es el análisis de composición de los distintos barros, materiales de desgrasante y pastas utilizados por los alfareros.
Notes: "Accepted August 11, 2009; published December 4, 2009."

Includes bibliographical references.

English with abstracts in English and Spanish.