1-7505 Zapotec Urn

This is an example of a Zapotec urn. These are commonly found in funerary settings in the Oaxaca valley located in Southern Mexico. A defining factor of these ceramics is the grey coloring of the ceramics, more commonly known as greyware (note that our color representation here is somewhat greener than the actual artifact, a calibration issue with our scanner). In scholarly analysis of these urns, there is descrepencies between scholars on what they symbolize. The two most common consensuses though, are that they either represent ancestors or, they represent gods (FAMSI). http://www.famsi.org/research/zapotec/index.html Foundation for the Advancement of Mesoamerican Studies, Inc. http://www.famsi.org/