Dublin Core
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The Nasca culture created several types of ceramics, but the most popular shape is their double spout bottles.[1] Such ceramics with multiple colors usually did not require any tempering, and the double spout and bridge were attached once the bottle chamber was sealed.[2] Some of their most common religious motifs were represented through this form,[3] but the Nasca also used their ceramics to represent naturalistic motifs of their lives such as fishes, harvesters, plants, and birds.[4] This ceramic is a polychrome double spout with a bridge bottle that depicts images of birds. The main slip paint colors include black, white, orange, and a dark red, which are characteristic of the expansive color palette that the Nasca used for their ceramics.[5] The black color is used for the body of the birds, while the white color has been used for the background and to draw a spot on the birds’ chests. The orange serves a decorative purpose, being used for the beak and legs. Finally, the dark red is only utilized on the bridge and two spouts.
Geometric forms make up the rendering of the birds on the pot. This can especially be seen in the abstracted wings, which are two black triangles and an orange triangle for the beak. The eye is a white circle with a smaller black circle in the middle. The white spot on the chest is represented as a half circle or moon shape, and the two legs are orange/yellow straight lines. The tail is also a black triangle that finishes the shape of the bird. Traditionally, Nasca artisans were meant to represent their environment in their ceramics by painting figures that were abstract but still recognizable.[6] Given these characteristics and the geographic location of the Nasca, this bird could depict a swift, which are usually found in the south coast of Peru. The bird can be recognized as such because the painting maintains key features of this bird like its black color, wing shape, white collar, and whiskers on the beak.[7] Furthermore, as the Nasca settled in the south coast of Peru, it would be natural for them to find swifts around their environment and represent them in their ceramics. The Nasca tended to incorporate elements of their daily lives in their artwork, which were inspired by their closeness to the Pacific Ocean and their agriculture.[8]
Swifts play an important role in the natural environment since these birds feed off insects that resurge with the increase in humidity, marking the start of the rainy seasons.[9] As the Nasca were a culture which paid close attention to agricultural practices, the swift could also symbolize the start of the agricultural season and could have been interpreted as an omen for good crop yield due to its link to increase rain, high humidity, and the flow of the rivers.[10] The representation of the swifts could also be related to the religious beliefs of the Nasca people. In the Nasca worldview, humans and nature were interconnected in a sacred relationship, in which supernatural forces can dictate the life of the humans and control their resources through natural phenomena.[11] These forces are often represented in their ceramic work by incorporating iconography of natural resources such as creatures of the earth, ocean, and sky.[12] Thus, the painting of swifts could go beyond an iconographic element and could represent the respect the Nasca had for natural forces, particularly those associated with rain and crops, given that this culture was highly concerned about food sustenance and feared natural forces like droughts.________________________________________________________________
[1] Donald A. Proulx, “Nasca Pottery and Its Artistic Canons.” In A Sourcebook of Nasca Ceramic Iconography: Reading A Culture Through Its Art (University of Iowa Press, 2009), 14.
[2] Proulx, “Nasca Pottery”, 14.
[3] Proulx, “Nasca Pottery”, 14.
[4] Proulx, “Nasca Pottery”, 18.
[5] Proulx, “Nasca Pottery”, 16.
[6] Richard F. Townsend, “Deciphering the Nazca World: Ceramic Images from Ancient Peru,” Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies 11, no. 2 (1985): 119.
[7] Townsend, “Deciphering the Nazca World”, 126.
[8] Christina A Conlee. “Nasca Culture Integration and Complexity: A Perspective from the Site of La Tiza.” Journal of anthropological archaeology 35, (2014): 235.
[9] Eugenio Yacovleff, "El vencejo (Cypselus) en el arte decorativo de Nasca," Wira Kocha 1, (1931).
[10] Yacovleff, “El vencejo”.
[11] Donald A. Proulx, “Overview of the Nasca Culture.” In A Sourcebook of Nasca Ceramic Iconography: Reading A Culture Through Its Art (University of Iowa Press, 2009), 8.
[12] Proulx, “Overview of the Nasca Culture”, 8.