Bottle -- red and white painted scroll pattern. Many vessels painted with red and white geometric designs portray interlocking scrolls. It is has been suggested that the design represents opposite power in balance.
Much of this pottery was painted with red, white and black pigments in elaborate interlocking designs or in stripes. Other pottery was finished as black or dark grayware that was incised and/or engraved with curvilinear and rectilinear designs. This vessel is an example of the Avenue Polychrome pottery type. The use of shell temper, and black, red and white pigments in painting the design is characteristic of the Avenue Polychrome.
Curatorial Remarks:
Avenue Polychrome (Phillips 1970:41) polished bottle with out-flaring rim and flattened lip. Insloping neck painted in red. Ovoid body with two painted red scrolls and two whites, with black background. Rounded circular base. 7.5YR 7/6 Reddish Yellow (paste). 10R 4/6 Red (paint). 10YR 7/2 Light Gray (paint). 7.5YR 4/1 Dark Gray (paint).
Phillips, Philip. Archaeological Survey in the lower Yazoo Basin, Mississippi, 1949-1955. Vol. 60. Papers of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology. Cambridge, MA: Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, 1970.
