Dinnerware Archives - Taino Museum

Ceramic pot with bilateral anthropomorphic handles

This vessels were manufactured to contain meals. Meals were cooked with meat, corn, tuber etc.. The meals were a mixture of various ingredients and prepared like a soup. Manioc was the principal ingredient. The shortcoming of manioc is its low protein content so other sources of protein had been added to the garden as protein…

Chican pot with incised decoration and anthropomorphic bilateral handles

The society of the Taino who made ceramic vessels which style the archaeologist called chicoide, emerged as a continuation of the cultural development that had characterized Caribbean history for several thousand years. They fused the aspects of their heritage into something altogether new.

Double bodied pot with incised decoration and lateral handles with anthropomorphic representation half bat half human from Chicoide style. The bat is a common motif in Taino representational art. These bat – head adornos were affixed to the sides of pots where they communicated the Taino worldview while serving as handles. The importance of bats…

This is a boat shaped earthenware pot with bilateral anthropomorphic handles and incised decoration below the rim. This one is of Chicoide style, however boat shaped vessel were developed during the Ostionoide culture which appeared in Puerto Rico around the seventh century AD.

Earliest Caribbean farmers originated in the Orinocoan – Amazonian rain – forest areas. The societies who developed through time as their successors shared common belief systems, traits, styles, and conceptions of nature, although with slight but noticeable variations. The patterns of daily life are often similar so big open pots like this one appears in…

Possibly fishers and collectors had acquired the knowledge to make earthenware and thus developed simple forms. The first well made ceramic to arrive in the Antilles was probably between 500 and 0 BC. This ceramic style has been called Saladoide. From this style several kinds of changes appeared in the ceramic of the successors of…

Ceramic bottle as a mixture of Chican and ostionoid style. This bottle is representing the divisions of the Taino universe into male - female, living - dead, and cultural – super supernatural spheres. The vessels shoulders represent female breast, and the spout represents a male phallus. Faces representing twins, look off in opposite directions to…

This shell scraper was a part of the bivalve codakia orbicularis. This was utilized in natural shape, taking advantage of the round end of the bivalve. With this the indigenous people peeled of the rind from the manioc before shredding the root, extracting its poisonous juice, and cooking it on a flat, clay griddle. The…

Shard of flat earthenware circular dish for cooking. Manioc was the main crop of the Taino. The roots were grated on a grinder, put through a large wicker strainer called a cibuacan to squeeze out its poisonous juice, and finally cooked on a buren. The result was a kind of bread called casabe. There were…

Portfolio Category: Dinnerware

Ceramic pot with bilateral anthropomorphic handles

Chican pot with incised decoration and anthropomorphic bilateral handles

Double bodied pot with incised decoration

Chicoide style ceramic vessel

Simple earthernware pot ostionoid style

Ostionoid style ceramic vessel

Ceramic bottle

Shell scraper for food preparation

Food preparation on Buren

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