Painting the Cosmos
Painting the Cosmos
Art and Iconography of the Ceramics of Ancient Panama
The result of decades of study, Alan Grinnell’s Painting the Cosmos presents the spectacular and underappreciated art of Panama and its revealing iconography.Emphasizing brightly painted polychrome designs with complex iconography on myriad ceramic forms, the art of Central Panama (ca. 200 BCE–1500 CE) is highly distinctive compared to other pre-Columbian cultures. The book illustrates more than eight hundreds vessels in full color, many of which will be unfamiliar even to pre-Columbian specialists, and proposes interpretations of the iconography informed by the archaeology, history, and ethnohistory of the region. In these animistic cultures, much of the iconography reflected interactions of humans with the natural world. The author identifies persistent design themes that reflect the myths and beliefs of these ancient peoples.
Enriched by current scholarship, this beautifully produced volume fills a major gap in the knowledge of and appreciation for the art and cultures of the ancient Americas. It serves as both an introduction to this unique and relatively unknown culture and a resource for scholars in pre-Columbian history, art, and culture.
“Painting the Cosmos focuses on masterworks in pottery of the Indigenous culture of Coclé, representing one of the great art styles of the pre-Hispanic Americas. The ceramics of the Coclé culture of central Panama are comparable in beauty and sophistication to those of the Maya, Moche, Mimbres, and other Indigenous peoples of the Americas. This artwork represents a deep appreciation of the natural world and an effort to incorporate it into a comprehensive belief system that reflects the intellectual life of the ancient Indigenous artisans of Panama.”—John W. Hoopes, coeditor of Gold and Power in Ancient Costa Rica, Panama, and Colombia
Alan Grinnell has been on the faculty of the University of California Los Angeles since 1964, where he is now a Distinguished Research Professor and the Associate Dean of Life Sciences emeritus. His interest in ancient American cultures led to his being named a research associate of UCLA’s Fowler Museum of Cultural History in 1990.
Preface
Acknowledgments
Abbreviations
Introduction
Chapter 1. Pre-Columbian Panama and Its Peoples
Chapter 2. Dating, Classification, and Characteristics of the Ceramic Art
Chapter 3. A Survey of Central Panamanian Ceramics: The Early Phases (500 BCE–700 CE)
Chapter 4. A Survey of Central Panamanian Ceramics: The Late Phases (700–1530 CE)
Chapter 5. Specialized Categories of Ceramics
Chapter 6. Human Effigies, Humpbacks, and Shamans
Chapter 7. Animism and Shamanic Transformation
Chapter 8. Persistent Iconography: Conceptual Themes
Chapter 9. Persistent Iconography: Figurative Themes
Chapter 10. Animals: Snakes and Birds
Chapter 11. Iconography of Bats, Jaguars, Monkeys, and Other Mammals
Chapter 12. Iconography of Fish, Amphibians, Reptiles, and Invertebrates
Chapter 13. Humor, Emotion, and Discovered Faces
Chapter 14. Concluding Thoughts
Galleries of Additional Images
Characteristic Design Elements and Motifs
References
