Southwest American Indian, Arizona, Anasazi culture
Storage jar (Olla)
c. 1000 A.D.
Clay, white and black mineral paint
43.2 x 45.7 cm
Tillie C. Cohn Fund, 1976.307
This clay olla, a jug or storage jar, was used for cooking and serving food, and storing water. Its maker was one of the Anasazi Indians, whose home was the American Southwest about 1,000 years ago. The Anasazi lived in apartment-like dwellings called pueblos, which housed several hundred people each. The tradition of making and painting pottery was handed down from woman to woman. The potter shaped this olla by winding rolled coils of clay on top of each other, then smoothed the pot by scraping off excess clay. It was fired in an oven and painted with a brush made of chewed yucca leaf.
