The Calima Dogs

The Calima Dogs

The Appleton Museum boasts a wide variety of ancient Meso-American and Pre-Columbian artifacts; many of which are stone carved vessels. Materials contained in these artifacts range from gold, jade, stone, wood, shell, bone, crystal, and feathers. Common types of artifacts seen from this period are weapons, wheels, masks, monoliths, and statuettes. One of the better-known Pre-Columbian artistic styles, “Colima” derives from Western coastal Mexico, dating between 300 B.C. and 1000 A.D.

An Example of these artifacts is a seated dog vessel with a stone carved chalice on its head as seen in Illustration 1. This piece was made by ancient artisans that resided in the Pacific coastal region of Mexico, an area shadowed by the 13,000 ft high volcano, Colima. This special breed of dog is known as the Mexican hairless. Its wrinkled gray skin was the color of stone, which has given it the ancient name of Techichi (Tetl,"stone"; Chichi, "Dog"). The Techichi is thought to have been the ancestor of the modern day breed of dog called the Chihuahua. Dog effigies have been found in the vast majority of tombs in the Colima region, however, the function of these sculptures is uncertain. From the 1500s to 1800s very little history was known of the Techichi and its successors, a time period in which very few artifacts existed to record the dog's presence. The first artifacts began to surface in northwestern Mexico during the 19th century. The Techichi has been found in carvings and ancient artifacts of the Olmec, Mayans, Toltec, and the Aztecs.

The form in Illustration 1 is three dimensional and appears to have been carved from stone. The figure has a humped back, fawn like body, short and rounded legs and is in a sitting position. The surface is shiny and has a glossy patina from considerable handling and perhaps libations. The vessel takes on a copper-like hue, characterized by a warm red glaze, which may have been caused by weathering or was the color of the stone in...

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