More than meets the eyes: The decoration and deposition of ceramic vessels from the Sitio Conte cemetery, Panama

The people of ancient Panama, many of whom lived in chiefdom societies, buried some of their deceased at a cemetery known as Sitio Conte between approximately 750 and 950 CE. The survivors left in the graves various kinds of objects made of clay, metal, stone, bone, and fiber. This study concerns on the interior and exterior surfaces of the mortuary vessels. This study Previous researchers clarified that the figural paintings portray creatures are equally as common as the figural ones, are not as well understood. The set of motifs raises important art historical problems regarding the identify relationship between the figural motifs and the socio-political context of the chiefdom societies. In other words, they discussed the function and value of the zoomorphic motifs for a chiefdom's members. The archaeological data indicates another perspective on the funerary context: the physical deposition of the decorated ceramic vessels. The ways that the vessels were physically prepared for interment and placed in the graves played a role in their significance.; This study proposes that Sitio Conte ceramic vessel painting cannot be fully understood without comprehensive identification, analysis, and interpretation the ceramics as they existed in the graves need identification, analysis, humanity at large and specifically the community of living and deceased people involved with the cemetery. The motifs accomplished this through their formal and iconographic ties to ceramic anthropomorphic effigies and body decoration practices. The forms of physical deposition, including fragmentation and grouping, engaged the relationships between the living and dead. Furthermore, they drew the non-human cosmological realms into the relationships. Ceramic decoration and deposition thus indicated more completely the visual and physical resources the Sitio Conte community deployed in funerary spaces.