HISTORY19 - Northwestern Chihuahua and the Rebirth of Casas Grandes Pottery
How I got to this subject for a blog article, needs a little discussion: I’ve collected contemporary Indian pottery for 35 years, mostly from the southwestern U.S., but a few pieces from northern Mexico. Along the way, I’ve studied and written about the history of southwestern Native American tribes and their art in various parts of three books on Arizona history. (See my website at ringbrothershistory.com, under “Bob’s Projects.”) The Mexican pottery I’ve collected comes from the village of Mata Ortiz in northwestern Chihuahua, 18 miles south of the prehistoric archaeological site of Casas Grandes (or Paquimé ), where extraordinary pottery was produced from about AD 1130-1450. Since the early 1970s, potters in Mata Ortiz have recreated the Casas Grandes style of pottery in beautiful pottery of their own. My Mata Ortiz pottery, collected between 1989 and 2012, has been consistently of the finest quality, equal to or superior to fine Native American pottery, and s