Large Bowl of the San Agustin Culture

Culture: San Agustin-Culture/Colombia

Period: around 500 A.D.

Material: Terracotta

Dimensions: 13 cm high; 20.5 cm in diameter

Price: 4 000 Euro

Ref: 11103

Provenance: Austrian private collection Prof Josef Mairitsch (1938-1994) with the inventory number M 32. Acquired between 1960 and the early 1980s. Thence in the family estate. With a collection note and a copy of the inventory list.

Condition: A minor wear on the rim, otherwise wonderfully preserved.

Description: Magnificently large terracotta bowl of the San Agustin culture with fine incised and dotted decoration. The brown polished vessel has a biconical body and stands on a rounded base. The short neck is concave, the rim is far protruding with a deepened middle ridge. The rim, the encircling ribs and the passage to the shoulder have finely notched chain bands. On the upper body three evenly offset squares with incised lines. The extremely high-quality vessel could have served as an urn. See the “Urna Funeraria” from San Agustin with similar incised and dotted decoration in the Museo Archeológico in Bogota with the number 20. San Agustin with the size of 2,000 square kilometres is considered as the largest necropolis in the world. Hundreds of stone statues, some up to over four meters high, were crafted and placed there.