Inca Pottery

The inca pottery origins start long before the incas; 3000 years before the incas other cultures master the pottery art, with superb designs and technics, it is proper to say that the inca culture, copy or take as its own, several methods to create ceramics and generations after, the stolen knowledge became inca technology.

The most common pottery shape was a long-necked pitcher and conical base, that use to be call macka o puyñun, today the name of this style of ceramics is Aryballos, name that came from the Greeks that create similar pottery in the 9th century, the only reason of the similarity is because both cultures came with the same solution to the same problem.

The problem of the inca pottery master was, how to empty the content of the ceramic vase without broken it?; The solution was the creation of this large shape container, with a conical base; The transport of the aryballos happen by, tying a rope from the handles of the vase to the back of the person, when he arrive to his destiny, it was an area with holes in the ground, where the transport guy place the Aryballo to pour the content into smaller containers.

The inca pottery was simple and functional, they produce two kind of ceramics, the ceremony style and the massive production ceramics, they were in limited shapes and with a very simple geometrical decorations with stylized images of animals and day by day activities.

The ceramics had the characteristic of been polychrome, precooked with polished surface, they did not know the technique of the Potters wheel, in instead they use molds with the shape and design of the ceramic, after finish they polish the surface of the ceramic and they were commonly painted in brown, orange, cream, white, yellow and red colors.

The most beautiful inca pottery was specially made for religious ceremonies in the inca temples, this pottery was commonly made with incisions of gold and gemstones; The incas made special aryballos of great perfection, with the only purpose to be buried with important authorities or great inca warriors; Most of the pieces in the museums today came from burial places, reason why they are so perfect and with great beauty.

The second type of inca pottery was made for the day by day basis; The incas master the process of massive production and distribution, because the pottery was made in different provinces of the inca empire and after finish, the inca authorities ship them out to all kingdom; The artisans were making dozens or even hundreds or aryballos, pots for cooking, jars and plates of all kinds and sizes every day to fill up the requirements of the inca government.

There is a third type of unofficial pottery; This pottery was a renegade art expression made by the conquered tribes, that still try to keep their own identity; This pottery was hidden from the inca government, use for its own ceremonies, personal purposes, sexual wishes, histories and adventures; This unauthorized pottery art was keeping the internal identity of the conquered tribes alive.

Besides this three types of pottery, there are few other mixes of the incas style with other cultures but always keeping the inca symbols, today many people confuse the real inca pottery with pre inca cultures pottery; The most precious pottery art was made long before the incas, several cultures before them were masters in the pottery art, for example the Cupisnique culture that is one of the oldest known cultures, the cupisniques live almost 4000 years before the incas.

If you will keep seeking for more information about the inca pottery, keep in mind that the incas create a simple style, or in other words, they simplify all other styles of pottery from all the cultures that they conquer before, but applying their own inca symbols; The real incas pottery designs has no animal shapes, faces, or other images, nothing more than simple aryballos, pots for cooking, jars and plates, it was a simple pottery for a massive kingdom.

Anything else that you will find that is call inca pottery, that is not inside of the parameters that I have explain you, is not inca; I can almost guarantee you that it belong to a pre inca culture; The pre inca cultures are another complex subject because in the Peruvian history, before the incas, you can find 14 great civilization and at list 23 other small societies, that create their own cultures, most of them disappear conquered by other cultures and so on until the inca empire arrive and conquer them all.

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