Adobe Gallery Blog
Very Large Historic Cochiti Pueblo Storage Jar - C3758A
The historic period of pueblo pottery has been defined as beginning with the first contact with Europeans in 1540, the reasoning being that it was the Europeans who began documenting events, creating a history of the area, which was a logical beginning of the historic pottery period. At that time, pueblo potters made pottery for their own use and as a trade item to members of other pueblos or tribes.
With the arrival of the Spanish, the market for pueblo pottery greatly increased as it was easier and smarter to procure pottery from local pueblo potters than to wait for imports to arrive on the Camino Real from Mexico City, a journey that took over 6 months to complete. New shapes and new sizes of pottery were developed to satisfy the needs of the new markets. Large storage jars were standard measurements of volume to facilitate trade of wheat or grains to the market. In some cases, the historic jar in which the grain was stored was given with the sale of the grain as it was considered only a container of the product being sold. One wonders if the purchaser of a jar full of grain used the product then discarded the container.