Nazca Pottery at Florida State University

Abstract

THE discovery of the first site of the Nazca ware is particularly illustrative of the fact that pottery, literally, can be the guide to a civilization. Prior to 1901 the archaeological world knew of only some half dozen pieces of pottery of the type now known as Nazca. During a visit to a Berlin museum, Dr. Max Uhle, a German archaeologist who had long worked in South America, saw four pieces of the beautiful ware and noticed on the museum card the location in Peru from which they had come. In 1900 Dr. Uhle led an expedition to the south coast of Peru and, by means of the evidence furnished by a simple potsherd of the Nazca type which he perceived lying on the sand, he was able to uncover a new part of the mysterious history of Peru., The Nazca culture that Dr. Uhle found in the early years of the century remains one of the most interesting representatives of the early civilizations of the Peruvian area.2 Its center is in the dry coastal valleys of the Nazca and Ica rivers on the south coast. Perhaps the most interesting remains are the textiles and the pottery. The brightly colored Nazca textiles are intricately woven and they show a variety of complex designs. Like the textiles, the pottery is original in its conception. In shape the Nazca ware is rather distinctive. Low bowls and cups, goblets, tall vases, bell shaped jars, and vessels with two projecting parallel spouts connected by a flat bridge comprise the most common shapes, although there is pronounced variation within each of these shape categories. Modeling is of only secondary importance in the Nazca pottery since it is used mainly to heighten the design rather than to alter the shape of the ware. Although the earliest Nazca designs are essentially naturalistic and are easily recognizable, they are not pictorial. It is common to find the designs outlined in black and to find human heads, birds, mice, llamas, fruits, seeds, anthropomorphic and zoomorphic creatures, and a variety of geometric patterns represented on the Nazca ware. The naturalism of the early designs tends to become increasingly conventionalized in the later phases of the culture. While shape and design both characterize Nazca pottery, its vivid colors which include white, black, two shades of red, two of yellow, two of brown, grey, flesh, and violet are perhaps its most distinctive features. From three to eight colors are used on each piece, with white, black and red predominating in the designs. Mainly by the use of shape, but by the use of design and color to a lesser degree, Nazca pottery breaks down into three main classes, Nazca-A, the early style, Nazca-X, a transitional style between Nazca-A and Nazca-B, and Nazca-B, the late style.3