Botijas

The paper presents the pottery collection recovered in the filling of the upper choir dome of Santo António’s church in Aveiro. The conditions and context of finding allow to assign this lot to a precise chronology (1524) associated with the first phase of construction of the building and the exhumation of numerous entire and defective containers testifies to their local production. In addition to the repertoire of utilitarian ceramics and sugar pottery already well known in Aveiro, it highlights the group of several olive jars (anforetas) that were practically missing from the local archaeological record and which are now categorically identified as produced in this city.
The size and constitution of the set, the accuracy of their chronological assignment and the determination of its local production, shows the relevance of the finding and justify this first exposure.


Apresenta-se a colecção de cerâmica recuperada no carrego da abóboda do coro alto da igreja de Santo António em Aveiro. As condições e contexto de achado permitem atribuir a este lote uma cronologia precisa (1524) associada à primeira fase de construção do edifício e a recolha de numerosos recipientes inteiros e com defeito de fabrico atesta a sua produção local. Para além do reportório de cerâmica utilitária e da cerâmica do açúcar já sobejamente conhecido em Aveiro, destaca-se o grupo composto por várias anforetas (olive jars) que se encontravam praticamente omissas do registo arqueológico local e que agora se identificam, categoricamente, como produções originárias desta cidade.
A dimensão e constituição do conjunto, a exactidão da sua atribuição cronológica e a determinação da sua produção local, substanciam a relevância do achado e justificam esta primeira exposição.

During the 15th to 16th century, Seville boasted a flourishing pottery manufacture, producing transport jars to be sent to America. At the beginning, the medieval 'cantimplora' was used as the main container, but technical requirements for long-distance tranding led to the development of 'botijas' as the standard type of transport jar. In the present paper, the mechanical performance and manufacturing technology of Seville transport jars is investigated in view of assessing potters' strategies and elucidating the underlying material reasons that ensured the long-term success of these vessels as transport containers for long-distance trade with the new continent.

A partir de los primeros años del descubrimiento de América, la Corona española promovió un continuo y creciente intercambio de productos comerciales con el Nuevo Mundo; diversos consumibles se empacaron en recipientes de cerámica y atravesaron el Atlántico para satisfacer las demandas de los ibéricos y sus descendientes que formaron parte de la nueva sociedad colonial. Dentro del campo de la historia y la antropología, resulta de interés el estudio del origen de dichos envases, mejor conocidos como oliveras o botijas, que al principio fueron destinados al comercio transoceánico desde los siglos xvi al xix y posteriormente con otros fines. Tal es el caso del uso documentado de botijas ibéricas en ceremonias nupciales en la comunidad de Xalitla y en otras localidades balsenses, donde su función primaria como contenedor de líquidos no ha cambiado a lo largo del tiempo, sino que adquirió un nuevo uso social, en este caso, relacionado con actividades rituales performativas.

This article approached the study of botijas or olive jars found in archaeological contexts of Mexico City, the former capital of New Spain, from a material culture perspective. Since the mid-sixteenth century, comestible products contained in olive jars were imported to New Spain and thus, olive jars have stood as a landmark of Spanish presence and identity in the New World. Despite their relative abundance in colonial sites, these vessels have been insufficiently studied in Mexico. The aim of this work was to explore the potential that these objects have to infer aspects of colonial society by undertaking an analysis of their function and the technology involved in their manufacture. It will be argued that the colonial context was critical in the cultural decisions of developing a new technique, which resulted in a particular type of vessel adequate for trans-Atlantic commerce. Moreover, the macroscopic analysis of botijas from four sites in Mexico City allowed to observe variability regarding their formal characteristics such as glazing colour, size, shape and seals. This in consequence challenged traditional approaches undertaken to the study of botijas by arguing that the large variability regarding the formal characteristics could be the result of different workshops. Finally, these formal aspects provided insights into the way in which Hispanic groups utilized material culture to define themselves and differentiate from others in the process of arming their cultural identities in the colonial scenario.

Within the scope of the TECNOLONIAL (HAR2008-02834/HIST) project, an archaeologi- cal and archaeometric research is being conduct- ed in order to clarify and systematize transport jars production in the Iberian peninsula and their distribution abroad, especially to the Americas, from the 15th to the 17th century. The production centre of Seville, in the Crown of Castile, produced large glazed and unglazed transport jars, called botijas, which were mainly devoted to the Atlantic trade network. The pres- ent study accounts for the first results obtained from an initial sample of 34 transport jars dated around the 15th-16th centuries from the produc- tion centre of Seville and the reception site of Santa María de la Antigua del Darién (gulf of Urabá, Colombia). This latter site is especially significant since it was the first Spanish founda- tion (1510) in continental America that obtained the title of town, and was the seat for the Governor of the new region called Castilla de Oro, as...