Fourmile Polychrome Ware bowl (earthernware with mineral pigments). Ancestral Puebloan, AD 1325–1400. Manufactured in east-central Arizona and collected at Homolov’i I, northern Arizona. North American Archaeology, Corbusier Collection. UMMAA 25503.

When this bowl broke, its owners, who lived in the 14th-century pueblo settlement of Homol’ovi I (northern Arizona), chose to repair rather than discard it. Using a stone drill, they bored holes on each side of the crack and used leather or twine to tie the sides together. The mended vessel would no longer have held liquids but could still have stored dry materials. This bowl was not produced at Homol’ovi, but was made in east-central Arizona, more than 100 miles away; its exotic origins may have given the vessel particular value to its owners.The vessel came to UMMAA through a circuitous route. Frank Wattron acquired it in Arizona around 1900. He sold it to Stanley McCormick of Chicago’s Field Museum of Natural History. The Field Museum deaccessioned part of its collection, including this bowl, in 1932. Dr. Harold and Mrs. Louise Corbusier eventually acquired the bowl, and their daughter donated it and other objects to U-M in 1966. 

Back to Day 19 or continue to Day 21.

In honor of the University of Michigan’s 2017 bicentennial, we are celebrating the remarkable archaeological and ethnographic collections and rich legacy of research and teaching at the Museum of Anthropological Archaeology by posting one entry a day for 200 days. The entries will highlight objects from the collections, museum personalities, and UMMAA expeditions. The Kelsey Museum of Archaeology is also posting each day for 200 days on Twitter and Facebook (follow along at #KMA200). After the last post, an exhibition on two centuries of archaeology at U-M opens at the Kelsey. Visit the exhibit—a joint project of the UMMAA and the Kelsey—from October 18, 2017 to May 27, 2018.

 

Interior, Fourmile Polychrome Ware bowl (earthernware with mineral pigments). Ancestral Puebloan, AD 1325–1400. Manufactured in east-central Arizona and collected at Homolov’i I, northern Arizona. North American Archaeology, Corbusier Collection. UMMAA 25503.