Pre-Columbian Mesoamerican Nicaraguan Terracotta Drinking Vessel. Simple smooth clay-based red exterior and interior with a pronounced lip, the shape appears as if the vessel has slumped over during firing. However, this style was actually particularly popular among the Nicoya people who inhabited the region now known as Nicaragua in the 3rd Century AD before moving further south into Costa Rica and Panama. Two small lumps on the protruding end of the vessel represent a face, likely meant to be a fish, frog, or other creature with an ovoid body or bulbous eyes. 

Condition: Cracks throughout, and a hole in the top of the main body of the vessel. Commensurate with extreme age. 

Size: 9 x 5 x 5 1/2 in. 

#6705 . 

Numerous cultural exchanges and innovations occurred in the thin and pivotal land bridge area that is now modern day Costa Rica and Panama due to its crucial position for trade and military routes. The dominant Mesoamerican cultures here were the Nicoya and the Chiriquí. The first was characterized by polychrome ceramics, whose shapes are reminiscent of the Mayan classical era, with representations of characters and animals including feathered snakes and crocodiles, and their most common products were hard stone club heads and axe-shaped pendants in the shape of divinities, carved, engraved and polished, always in hard stone. The second culture, which developed in southern Costa Rica and western Panama between 850 and 1525 A.D. is characterized by small ceramics with very thin walls, in a great variety of shapes, unpainted or with incised decoration in negative, bi-chrome. Another type of ceramic produced was that of globular vessels and tripod cups with conical feet or with decoration applied with zoomorphic effects, as well as the works of goldsmiths made using a lost wax technique. Both of these cultures flourished in the waning pre-Columbian days, and vacated their respective regions before the conquests of the Spanish and other European cultures due to environmental factors including numerous volcanic eruptions in the surrounding lands and particularly devastating hurricane seasons, similar to the causes of the downfall of the Mayans and the much earlier Olmecs. 

Cracks throughout, and a hole in the top of the main body of the vessel. Commensurate with extreme age.