Fish Bottle, Chorrera Culture (1300 - 300 Bc), Ecuador, Pre-columbian Ceramics

Ceramic bottle covered with a reddish-brown glaze. Decorated on the side with two representations of solid plastic fish, with faithfully rendered scale or tail details. At the top, a double spout with handle.

Ecuador, Chorrera culture (1300 - 300 BC). Length 15.7 cm, height 13.5 cm, width 15 cm.

State of preservation as seen in the photographs, cracks, chips on the spout.

The vessel comes from the large collection of a Polish engineer who worked on road construction in Ecuador in the 1970s-80s.

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The Chorrera culture (c. 1300–300 BC) is, after the Valdivia and Machalilla cultures, the culture in which artists made ceramic vessels. However, it was not until the Chorrera culture that artists developed so many types of vessels and diverse representations of people and animals. Ceramics could have a practical use, such as bottles to hold drinks, but they very often had a religious or ritual significance. Figurines or bottles with small additional holes also served as musical instruments: they could produce a sound similar to a whistle, and the two-chambered vessels also produced a sound when liquids were poured between the compartments. The representations of animals and people by artists of the Chorrera culture are quite naturalistic, but with some simplifications and more or less stylization. In the region of present-day Ecuador, the Chorrera civilization was followed by a period of regional development, during which several civilizations developed, including La Tolita-Tumaco, Jama Coaque, Bahía, and Guangala. The ceramics of each of these cultures developed many characteristics, often moving away from the "classic" and naturalistic ceramics of the Chorrera culture.