Rio Grande Glaze Ware is a late prehistoric and historic pottery tradition of the Puebloan peoples of New Mexico. The tradition involved painting pots with black paint made with lead ore; as the pots were fired the black paint fused and sometimes ran. The tradition lasted from AD 1315 to 1700. Rio Grande Glaze Ware was made or used in a number of villages from the Santa Fe area to the north end of Elephant Butte Reservoir, and from the valley of the Rio Puerco east to the upper Pecos River Valley.
Archaeologists divide Rio Grande Glaze Ware into arbitrary types with much shorter life spans, primarily to help them date sites. Individual potsherds are assigned to types based on a combination of attributes, beginning with vessel rim profiles and proceeding to painted designs or vice versa.
Overview and cautions
Rio Grande Glaze Ware was first made about AD 1315 (based on tree-ring dating at Tijeras Pueblo). It partly displaced an earlier tradition of black-on-white pottery and was inspired by the White Mountain Red Ware tradition (Carlson 1970) centered on the upper Little Colorado drainage of eastern Arizona and western New Mexico. The apparent ancestral type for Rio Grande Glaze Ware, Los Padillas Polychrome, was a local variant on a White Mountain Red Ware type, Heshotauthla Polychrome (Wilson 2005:43). Los Padillas is found at sites dominated by black-on-white decorated pottery (Mera 1935:33), a pattern predating the glazeware tradition, and Wilson (2005:43) dates Los Padillas from AD 1175 to 1300. Habicht-Mauche (1993, Table 2) dates it from AD 1300 to 1350, however. The type is sometimes called Los Padillas Glaze Polychrome.
Rio Grande Glaze Ware was fired in an oxygen rich atmosphere. The lead-based pigment yielded a black glazing paint despite the presence of oxygen, while iron-based, non-glazing pigment yielded a matte red paint. Red design elements were most often outlined in black. On most pots, background colors ranged from red to olive to yellow, achieved with clay slips containing iron. A white slip was sometimes achieved by using slip clay imported from the Acoma-Zuni region to the west.
Rio Grande Glaze Ware was no longer made after 1700, because the Spanish cut off Pueblo access to the lead ore used in making the glaze paint (Wilson 1995:10). The Pueblos continued to make polychrome pottery but used all matte paints (Harlow 1973), as they do today.
The ware was made in the Rio Grande Valley and adjacent valleys, from roughly Santa Fe south to the north end of Elephant Butte Reservoir, and from the Rio Puerco east and northeast to the upper Pecos River. Unlike Old World glazed pottery and its derivatives, Rio Grande Glaze Ware used the glaze material as part of a decorative scheme, never to coat and waterproof the entire vessel.
Spielmann (1998) argues that the new pottery was part of changing religious practices among the New Mexico Pueblos, and specifically that "large glaze ware bowls were used... for communal feasting, with each household contributing to the feast. The smaller white ware bowls continued to function as vessels for domestic food consumption. During the fifteenth century, white ware bowls were replaced by a smaller form of the Rio Grande glaze ware bowl, and thus glaze ware bowls came to be used in both ceremonial feasting (large size bowl) and domestic food consumption (small size bowl)" (Spielmann 1998:258).
Archaeologists divide Rio Grande Glaze Ware into a number of types, primarily to estimate the age of a site (based on what pottery types were found there). In this article the first approach to the named types begins with rim profiles. It is followed by a breakdown that begins with paint styles. Both approaches can be useful in understanding why a specific piece of pottery was assigned to a specific type. What follows is not an exhaustive typology (those can be found in the references provided). Rather, it is just extensive enough to allow non-specialists to understand the existing named distinctions.
Approach based on rims
The most time-sensitive attribute of Rio Grande Glaze Ware pottery is the rim profiles of bowls, so most archaeologists sort potsherds beginning with the rims. In doing so they refer to Glaze A through Glaze F pottery, A rims being the earliest and F rims being the latest (Hawley 1950; Wilson 2005). This letter-based key was first developed by Harry Percival Mera (1933), drawing on an earlier, number-based key developed by Anna O. Shepard and Alfred V. Kidder (Kidder and Shepard 1936). Here, the first question is: what rim profile is present?
Glaze A
Glaze A bowl rims are in-curving and of a consistent thickness. The lips are rounded or squared. Glaze A is often dated from AD 1315 to 1425 (Wilson 2005:47), but the end date applies only from the Albuquerque area north. In the southern part of the range, bowls with Glaze A rims were made until AD 1500 or later (Franklin 2007).
Glaze A pottery was first made in the Albuquerque area (the earliest directly dated examples being from Tijeras Pueblo) and was dominated by red-slipped examples with black interior designs. The exteriors are sometimes painted with isolated elements such as crosses. Pottery of this description is classified as Agua Fria Glaze-on-red. In some of the earliest examples, however, simple white paint designs appear on the exterior; such pottery is classified as Arenal Glaze Polychrome (with crushed rock temper) or Los Padillas Polychrome (with sherd temper) (Wilson 2005:47–48).
As Glaze A pottery spread north, yellow-slipped examples appeared and are known as Cieneguilla Glaze-on-yellow. Yellow-slipped pottery with red matte paint elements outlined in black glaze paint are known as Cieneguilla Glaze Polychrome (Wilson 2005:49–50).
On some Glaze A pottery, the interior slip color differs from the exterior slip color (so that the background colors are different on each side of a potsherd). If the painted design was executed with black glaze paint, the type is known as San Clemente Glaze Polychrome. If the design also includes red matte paint elements (usually outlined in black), the type is known as Pottery Mound Polychrome (Wilson 2005:51–52).
Although most Glaze A rims were quite simple, one contemporary variant has a slightly flaring rim (Honea 1966). Examples with one slip color are classified as Sanchez Glaze-on-red or Sanchez Glaze-on-yellow. Examples with contrasting white (interior) and red (exterior) slips, and with black glaze paint, are termed Sanchez Glaze Polychrome (Wilson 2005:52–54).
Glaze B
Glaze B bowl rims are also incurving but become thicker towards the lips, which are flat. The resulting profile is somewhat wedge-shaped. Glaze B was made almost exclusively in the region north of Albuquerque; farther south, potters simply continued with the Glaze A rim style. Glaze B dates between AD 1400 and 1450 (Wilson 2005:55).
Glaze B vessels with one slip and black glaze paint are classified as Largo Glaze-on-yellow or Largo Glaze-on-red, the yellow-slipped type being more common. Examples with one slip, and red matte paint outlined in black, are classified as Largo Glaze Polychrome. In this type, the lower portions of bowl exteriors are often unslipped (Wilson 2005:55–57).
Rarely, examples are found with two contrasting (interior versus exterior) slip colors and black glaze paint designs; these are termed Medio Glaze Polychrome.
Glaze C
Glaze C bowl rims have everted lips. Glaze C was made between AD 1425 and 1500. This rim group has one named type, Espinoso Glaze Polychrome, which includes red matte paint elements outlined in black glaze paint. The contrast between the red paint and the other colors gives Espinoso pots a "gaudy" look. Jar necks are near-vertical and display red designs outlined in black. The bottom of vessel exteriors may be unslipped. In the Glaze C through E periods, vessel designs were almost exclusively polychrome (Wilson 2005:57).
Glaze D
Glaze D bowl rims date between AD 1470 and 1515. In profile, rim exteriors exhibit an inward bend (or close to it). The rims themselves are either fairly consistent in thickness, or taper slightly to both the body and the lip. This rim group has one named type, San Lazaro Glaze Polychrome, which includes red matte paint elements outlined in black glaze paint. Some examples lack the red matte paint but are also classified as San Lazaro. Bowl interiors and exteriors both have designs in panels or bands. The black paint is thin but non-runny (Wilson 2005:58).
Glaze E
Most Glaze E bowl rims are substantially thicker than the bodies of the bowls, and "breaks" (discontinuities) in the exterior curve of the bowl are common. After the Spanish colonized New Mexico in 1598, some glaze ware bowls took on distinctly European shapes, for example, soup plates. Glaze E black paint ran during firing. Glaze E was made from 1515 until 1700 (Wilson 2005:59).
Glaze E bowl rims fall into three named categories. Puaray Glaze Polychrome is characterized by thickened rim profiles reminiscent of willow leaves, above a marked break in the exterior profile. The designs included red matte paint elements outlined runny black (or off-black) glaze. When the rims are instead somewhat rectangular in profile, the type becomes Escondido Glaze Polychrome. In the Pecos Pueblo area, Glaze E rims are sometimes instead somewhat "stubby," meaning that the break is near the rim, and that the thickened portion of the rim is correspondingly short. This variant is known as Pecos Glaze Polychrome (McKenna and Miles 1996; Wilson 2005:59–61).
Glaze F
"Glaze F ... exhibits a significant decline in the glaze and quality of workmanship" (Wilson 2005:62). Glaze F bowl rims retain a break in the exterior profile, but the marked thickening of Glaze E disappears. European-inspired shapes become more common. The glaze paint then in use usually fired to runny brown or green rather than black.
Glaze F vessels with one slip and "black" glaze paint are classified as Kotyiti Glaze-on-red or Kotyiti Glaze-on-yellow. Several design variants are subsumed by Kotyiti Glaze Polychrome. Some examples of that polychrome type have one slip color and red matte paint elements outlined in "black" glaze paint. Others have two slip colors and either "black" glaze paint examples or red-and-black paint examples (Wilson 2005:62).
Approach based on paint styles
Under the Mera system of classification, all types based on painting styles fit neatly as subtypes of the types based on rim forms. In practice, specific painting styles do not form neat subsets of groups defined on rim forms, particularly in the southern portion of the production range. Here, the first question is: does the painted design consist of black elements, or of red and black elements?
Black painted designs
The first examples of Rio Grande Glaze Ware carried on a centuries-old tradition of black painted designs on a lighter background. The next question is: was the slipped background (1) red, (2) yellow, or (3) contrasting colors, one on the inside of the vessel, the other on the outside?
Red slip backgrounds
Arenal Glaze Polychrome and Los Padillas Polychrome feature red-slipped bowls with simple interior designs painted in black glaze paint; the former has crushed rock temper while the latter has crushed sherd temper. The bowl exteriors include simple designs in white matte paint. The overall layout (black-on-red interiors, white-on-red exteriors) is a carryover from White Mountain Red Ware. Arenal dates from AD 1315 to 1350(?) and is found from Albuquerque south—the same area of its supposed ancestor, Los Padillas Polychrome.