This incredible bowl C. 1100AD measures 6.4" in diameter is without question one of the greatest, if not the greatest, Mesa Verde ceramic bowl extant.

In order to fully understand the magnitude of this bowl one has to understand that the Mesa Verde culture virtually never included images of animals on their ceramics. If they did it was generally one image, sometimes indistinct, and was not the predominate feature of the piece. Two quote one dealer who has been in the business for over 30 years and has seen tens of thousands of pieces "Mesa Verde never put animals on their pottery. This bowl had to have been made for a very special reason - things had to have been bad with the hunts and they probably created this to enrich the hunts. I have never seen anything like it."

The bowl has a horn toad image in the bottom and around the inside images of 27, yes, 27 deer. If that was not enough there are additional 13 deer images on the exterior for a total of 40 deer!

When we purchased this bowl there was a crack that had been filled with Elmer’s glue. We have had a professional conservator remove the glue and the crack has been naturally closed and properly glued. The crack was further cleaned with hydrogen peroxide to help deemphasize the darker carbon core in the crack. A light trace of wood ash was also worked into the crack to soften its appearance. This can be removed with acetone in under five minutes if the new owner wishes.

With respect to condition, the bowl is intact without the addition of plaster or paint. The bowl was once in the collection of Ed Harris who is recognized as the greatest collector of prehistoric Native American ceramics.

Kinishba is the rarest of all the White Mountain redwares. It came from only two sites, the Kinishba ruin which is now on the White Mountain Apache Reservation and the Pinedale ruin. ie. There are no more. This bowl is a famous bowl known to have been in the major collections since the 30’s; Ex. Cross, Dr. Thomas, Skousen, Schenck, Lyon. It measures 10.5” x 5”, mint condition. The bowl does not have any cracks, addition of paint or restoration of any kind. This bowl is pictured in the 1974 Arizona Highways magazine, Vol. 50, No. 2, p. 31 which is iconic in the collecting of Southwest Pottery (see attached scans). It is also pictured in Bill Schenck’s book Re-Creating The Word, Plate 74. I have been told it is pictured in a couple of other books but I have not seen them. Kinishaba is really the anchor of the White Mt redwares and this bowl is a solid ’10.’

Offered here is a Four Mile Bowl, Mint and Pristine, 8.5” x 3.65”. This bowl was dug by Bob Skousen of Mesa Arizona in either 1982 or 1983 at the Double Circle Ranch which he owned at the time. Bob sold it to Lee Cohen, former owner of Pueblo 1 Gallery in Scottsdale Arizona, in 1988 or 89. In 1989 Lee sold it to the fellow I recently purchased it from.

This incredible Mimbres geometric bowl measure 10.4" wide and 4" deep and is as pristine condition as the day it was made.

The interior exhibits two completely separate complex geometric forms. The first in the center has four elements arranged in an opposing patterns of bars each feathered to a center point. This design is very reminiscent of a woven basket. The second element is on the wall of the bowl - it is a negative pattern white line that extends through three different mazes and three different solid elements. The white line is continuous in such a fashion that it becomes a single element returning upon itself. In doing so it becomes a single element itself.

Without question this is one of the finest Mimbres geometric bowls extant - if that is not enough it is in perfect original condition.

This exceptionally large Hohokam, C. 400 - 1100AD, slate pallet measures 9 inches in length and exhibits a wonderful lizard form with extended appendages and a well defined face.

The majority of Hohokam pallets known are rectangular in form which sometimes have small handles in the forms of a rattlesnake or other lifeforms. A small number of pallets are in the shape of a lizard or horn toad; virtually all of them though are not very demonstrative having the legs being formed against the body or central pallet. Records indicate that there are three very special lizard pallets in private hands where the legs are stretched out as this example is.

The condition is excellent with the tail rejoined from a clean break as well as the front right leg - there is no breakage in the central body area.

There are prehistoric ceramics and then there is this canteen. One of the great joys in handling, over the years, many great mint pieces of pottery is the realization that every once in a while an example comes along which defies all reason and sets a new standard of excellence ....in condition, design and execution. So it is with this wonderful canteen.

The surface of the canteen has been polished to such an extent that the white achieves almost a pearl finish; the black is jet black and the overall feel is that of an enameled stove.

Homolovi pottery comes from only two sites near Winslow Arizona and is one of the important types that bridged the gap from Anasazi to Hopi pottery. The area was popular for cotton farming, as evidenced by the weaving looms, spindle whorls and massive amounts of cottonseed that have been found at the ruins. The nearby Little Colorado River provided water for the inhabitants, the cotton and their other crops. The site was along the prehistoric Palatkwapi Trail, which ran from Montezuma Castle to the Hopi mesas. Trading of cotton, pottery and parrots was common between the many prehistoric sites in northern Arizona. At the peak, it is estimated, 5,000 people lived at Homolovi. Homolovi II, the largest of the four pueblos, it had three plazas and stone walls rising two to three stories, and housed several thousand people. In the 1400s, the area was abandoned, just as were many other Southwest ruins.

This wonderful bowl is in perfect condition measuring 8 5/8 inches by 3 inches while exhibiting a classic Homolovi design in black on a deep orange-red clay body. Pieces from the Homolovi tradition are very scarce and down-right rare when in perfect mint condition.