Plumbate and Imitations

Summary

Plumbate is a lustrous hard-paste ware characterized by small effigy vessels, some of which bear Central Mexican ideological influences. It was widely traded during the Terminal Classic/Early Postclassic across ethnic, political, and linguistic boundaries. Its widespread distribution and luster mark plumbate as unique among contemporaneous wares. It is sometimes found alongside locally produced wares that bear superficial resemblances, leading to the belief that they are imitations of plumbate. This research focuses on differences between imitation and plumbate wares with the goal of refining established criteria for distinguishing them. A secondary goal of this research is determining the production process of plumbate and both its luster and that of the imitations. In order to do this, compositional data (obtained via electron microprobe analysis) and recovery contexts of imitations and plumbate are compared.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)

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Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 14537