Pre-Columbian Ceramic Plaque
Chuchu,, Southern Peru, Inca Hinterlands
Found in Caves, Caches, Tombs, Sacred Places
Circa AD1000—AD1500
Fired Clay with Painted Polychrome Pigments
10.5”h x 10.75”w x .5” thick; slightly concave
26.7cm x 27.3cm x 1.25cm
The edges of these plaques have prompted speculation that huge pots were first handcrafted, then fired somehow and somewhere, then smashed to useful sizes, then painted on the inside (concave) surface. All these scenarios are extremely unlikely. If you study large painted-fragment examples and then geometrically extrapolate the size such a pot would have had to have been to yield such ‘fragments’, you will realize such a fired pot would have to be four to six feet across! I can find no evidence that such huge pots were ever fired, nor even could have been fired, in Pre-Columbian Peru.
SOLD
