Desert Hawk Books

 

Talking Birds, Plumed Serpents
and Painted Women
Ceramics of Casas Grandes

Edited by Joanne Stuhr

 

 

80 Pages
75 Illustrations
9 x 10
Hard Cover

 

The Casas Grandes civilization of Chihuahua in Northern Mexico flourished from approximately 1300–1450 AD. While the cultures of western Mexico and the American Southwest have been the focus of tremendous scholarly attention, the Casas Grandes culture has received scant recognition, largely as an accident of geography and the arbitrary placement of border. A great renaissance of archeology is now focused on this area of Chihuahua, with thrilling new discoveries being made every year.

The material culture of Casas Grandes is unique in style and symbolism, as this new book demonstrates. Talking Birds, Plumed Serpents and Painted Women is a richly illustrated and informative bilingual volume that features striking color photographs of 75 of the finest pieces of this exquisite and unusual pottery. Bold ceramics in red, black, and white polychrome incorporate rich iconographic elements derived from the Casas Grandes cosmology. Macaws, snakes, birds and transformation imagery, interspersed with complex geometric designs, offer insight into the ritual and cultural life of these ancient people.

The volume also includes interpretive essays by Joanne Stuhr of the Tucson Museum of Art, Christine and Todd Van Pool of the University of New Mexico, Eduardo Gamboa Carrera of Instituto Nacional de Arte y Historia and John Ware of the Amerind Foundation.

Joanne Stuhr is Chief Curator at the Tucson Museum of Art.