Ancestral Pueblo: Greater Upper Rio Grande ValleySouthern Rio GrandeMiddle Rio GrandeMiddle-Southern Rio Grande Glaze WareKotyiti Glaze Red-Yellow-Polychrome

Type Name: Kotyiti Glaze Red-Yellow-Polychrome

Period: 1640 A.D. - 1720 A.D.
Culture: Ancestral Pueblo: Greater Upper Rio Grande Valley
Branch: Southern Rio Grande
Tradition: Middle Rio Grande
Ware: Middle-Southern Rio Grande Glaze Ware


First posted by C. Dean Wilson 2012

Glaze F or the Kotyiti Glaze types were defined by Mera (1933). These types are characterized by bowls that became increasingly narrow and even across the entire profile (Franklin 1997; Morales 1997; Schleher 2010). Vessel profiles are often reflected by a sharp vertical angle or keel commonly evident in vessel and sherd profiles of seventeenth century ceramic types. The common occurrence of such angles reflects the increasing occurrence of shouldered bowl forms characterized by a rounded lower body and a prominent straight at the vessel midpoint. While the straight walls near the rim in Glaze F superficially exhibit Glaze A forms, it is usually easy to distinguish Glaze F from Glaze A forms based on the steep and angled walls and poor quality of paint and design execution.

Characteristics noted for Kotyiti types also reflect a return to the common production of bichrome and polychrome types using a wide range of slips. Some examples are painted on both surfaces, while decoration in others may be limited to the interior or exterior surface. Thus, Kotyiti Glaze as described here commonly includes glaze-on-red, glaze-on yellow, glaze polychrome, and Colono ware forms. Examples assigned to this type also reflect the continual deterioration of the quality of glaze paint. Paints on Kotyiti types are characterized by thick application and have a tendency to run to the extent that designs are often difficult to impossible to define. Slips are often unevenly applied, and surfaces are often irregular. Variations in temper indicate that forms assigned to this type were produced and distributed over a wide area (Dyer 2010).

Design elements include thick parallel lines, zigzag lines, triangle elements, stars, crosses, double barrel crosses, and simple stylized birds. In some cases the dripping of the glaze is so extreme, that it is sometimes not possible to identify the style associated with a particular painted decoration. Because of the poor quality of paint, designs tend to be simple often representing thin panels bands which may or may not be divided into segments as well as small isolated motifs. Painted bands are often limited to the thin shoulder of bowls. Motifs may be extremely simple and scattered, particularly on the interior of soup plates, consisting of isolated occurrences of simple motifs. Designs may be so sparsely executed that large portions of vessels may exhibit no decorations, and it is sometimes impossible to distinguish plain wares and glaze wares without examining temper. Kotyiti Red-on-glaze usually exhibits a dark red slip on both surfaces.

All assemblages with Kotyiti Glaze pottery exhibit some forms indicative of Spanish influence and a date sometime during the early part of the Colonial period, possibly just before the mid-seventeenth century, is indicated. Snow (2012) argues that demographic changes occurring from 1680 to 1696 resulted in the abandonment of glaze pigment sources and that glaze pottery production was abandoned before A.D. 1700. Others have argued that small amounts of glaze wares may have been produced into the mid-eighteenth century (Boggs and Hill 2008). Based on observations of changing ceramic distributions for sequences from various sites near the Palace of the Governors in Santa Fe, I feel that glaze wares continued to be produced into the very early eighteenth century.

References:
Bogges, Douglas and David Hill
2008 LA 149323: Evidence for the Production of Rio Grande Glazeware during the Early Eighteenth Century7. Pottery Southwest 26(4):2-11.

Dyer, Jennifer Boyd
2010 Colono Wares in the Western Spanish Borderlands: A Ceramic Technological Study. Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque.

Franklin, Hayward
1997 Valencia Pueblo Ceramics. In Excavations at Valencia Pueblo (LA 953) and a Nearby Hispanic Settlement (LA 67321), Valencia County, New Mexico. edited by K.L. Brown and B.J. Vierra, pp 125-257. Office of Contract Archaeology Report No. 185-400F, Albuquerque.

Mera, H. P.
1933 A Proposed Revision of the Rio Grande Glaze Paint Sequence. Laboratory of Anthropology Technical Series Bulletin No. 5. Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Morales, Thomas M.
1997 Glazeware Pottery Production and Distributionin the Upper-Middle Rio Grande Valley. Ph.D. Dissertation, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque.

Schleher, Kari L.
2010 Ceramic Production at San Marcos Pueblo New Mexico. Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque.

Snow, David H.
2012 Through the Glaze, Darkly: The Decline and Fall of Pueblo Glaze Ware Traditions. In Potters and Communities of Practice; Glaze Paint and Polychrome Pottery in the American Southwest, A.D.> 1250-1700 edited by L. S. Cordell and J. A. Habicht-Mauuche, pp. 137-148, The University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque.




Related Photos

Kotyiti Glaze-on-yellow bowl sherds (interior surface)

Kotyiti Glaze-on-yellow bowl sherds (exterior surface)

Kotyiti Glaze-on-red bowls

Kotyitii Glaze Polychrome bowl (interior surface)

Kotyiti Glaze-on-polychrome (exterior surface)

Kotyiti Glaze Polychrome bowl

Kotyiti Glaze Polychrome bowl sherds

Kotyiti Glaze Polychrome bowl sherd

Koyiti Glaze-on-yellow bowl

Koyiti Glaze-on-yellow

Koyiti Glaze-on-red bowl

Kotyiti Glaze Ware Bowls

Kotyiti Glaze-on-yellow bowl

Kotyiti Glaze Polychrome Bowl

Kotyiti Glaze Polychrome bowl

Kotyiti Glaze Polychrome bowl

Kotyiti Glaze Polychrome bowl

Koytit Glaze Polychrome square jar

Koyiti Glaze-on-red closed bowl