Guides
Guides to pre-Columbian art
Plain answers to what people ask about pre-Columbian art: what a piece is worth, how its age and maker are judged, who the cultures were and how a piece is sold. Written by the people who buy it.
Value and appraisal
What decides what a piece is worth, what an appraisal is for and how a piece's documented history counts.
How much is pre-Columbian pottery worth?
The six things that decide what a piece is worth, and what to send to find out.
Pre-Columbian art appraisal: what you need and why
A formal appraisal, a first opinion and a buyer's offer answer different questions.
What is provenance in art? How to trace a piece's history
What an object's documented history can tell you, and how to follow the evidence.
Telling real from reproduction
How experts judge whether a piece is ancient, and what a laboratory test can and cannot show.
How to tell if pre-Columbian pottery is real
The evidence experts compare, the common copies and what a clay-age test actually establishes.
Selling
The routes for selling a piece or a collection, and who the buyers are.
How to sell pre-Columbian art: choosing a route
Compare the selling routes, prepare a useful enquiry and understand what an offer actually promises.
Who buys pre-Columbian artifacts? Buyers and intermediaries
Find the right kind of buyer and distinguish a purchase offer from a plan to find someone else.
Mexico and the Maya region
Olmec, Maya, Teotihuacan, Zapotec, Toltec and Aztec art, and the tomb figures of West Mexico.
Olmec art: jade, colossal heads and the meaning of its symbols
Distinguish Gulf Coast culture, the wider Olmec style and uncertain readings of familiar symbols.
Mayan pottery history: painted vessels, figures and glyphs
Read the shapes, painted scenes and glyphs, and distinguish a style from proof of age.
Teotihuacan pottery and figurines: what the names mean
Distinguish Thin Orange, painted tripods and figurine heads, and understand the city's many connections.
Ancient Zapotec pottery: gray ware, figures and effigy urns
Understand effigy urns and ancestor imagery, and tell ancient gray ware from modern Oaxaca black pottery.
Toltec artifacts: pottery, figurines and the Tula connection
Separate Tula's archaeology from later Toltec legends, broad pottery labels and the Arkansas mound site.
Aztec figures and meanings: gods, animals and pottery
Read deity attributes and animal imagery without turning every figure into the same god or symbol.
West Mexico tomb figures: Nayarit, Jalisco and Colima
A guide to shaft-tomb figures, regional styles and the limits of reading their symbols.
Colima dog meaning: pottery, history and tomb offerings
Why dogs appear in West Mexican tombs, and what their shapes and surfaces can tell you.
Peru, Ecuador and the Andes
Pottery, textiles and metal of the Andes, from Valdivia and Chavín to the Inca, and the desert lines of Nazca.
Valdivia figurines and the pottery traditions of Ecuador
Distinguish early Valdivia figures from Chorrera, Bahia, Jama-Coaque and Tolita-Tumaco art.
Chavin pottery and art: forms, fangs and the Early Horizon
Separate the highland centre, the wider Chavín style and coastal Cupisnique pottery.
Paracas pottery and textiles: resin paint, mantles and Topará
Post-fire ceramic colour and embroidered cloth, with the distinctions between Paracas, Topará and Nazca.
Nazca pottery history: colours, forms and painted beings
How Nazca potters made their colours, what the images show, and what a mouse label really means.
How old are the Nazca Lines? Their age, making, makers and meaning
How old the Nazca Lines are, what they are made of, who made them and why, and how many figures are known.
Moche portrait vessels: faces, making and meaning
Individual faces in clay: how the vessels were made, what the portraits may mean, and what to compare.
Wari pottery and Tiwanaku art: two Middle Horizon traditions
Two highland societies shared imagery but made distinct ceramics, textiles and ceremonial arts.
Chimu pottery: blackware, moulded vessels and coastal art
Why Chimú vessels are black, how their shapes were made, and what separates them from earlier Moche work.
Inca art and artifacts: pottery, textiles, metal and stone
What makes a piece Inca: standard pottery forms, textiles, miniature figures and misleading old labels.
Colombia, Central America and the Caribbean
Quimbaya gold and Colombian traditions, the pottery of Costa Rica and Panama, and Taíno art of the islands.
Quimbaya artifacts and Colombian art: gold and pottery
Separate Quimbaya gold and later pottery, and place neighbouring Colombian traditions on the map.
Pre-Columbian pottery: Costa Rica and Panama
Compare painted vessels, tripod forms and regional names without treating two countries as one culture.
Taino artifacts: pottery, zemis and Caribbean sculpture
Recognise Caribbean forms and distinguish a spiritual concept from a modern symbol chart.
Materials
Shell, gold, jade and textiles: what each is, how it was worked and what it can show about a piece.
Spondylus shell meaning: the thorny oyster in ancient art
What thorny oyster shell is, why it mattered, and why a red bead does not establish age.
Pre-Columbian gold and tumbaga: alloys, casting and value
Why a golden surface, an alloy recipe and an ancient attribution are different questions.
Pre-Columbian jade: beads, pendants, figures and masks
Separate jadeite from greenstone, and a stone's identity from the age and origin of its carving.
Pre-Columbian textiles: Peruvian cloth, weaving and identity
Read the fibre, weave and original garment before assigning a culture or trusting an ancient date.
Reference
What pre-Columbian art is, a timeline, a glossary, maps of the cultures, the museums to visit and the best-known works.
What is pre-Columbian art? Its meaning, regions, materials and history
What pre-Columbian art is: what the word means, the three regions, the materials and how it came to be collected.
Pre-Columbian art timeline: cultures, dates and regions
An approximate chronology that keeps overlapping cultures and different regional period names distinct.
Pre-Columbian art glossary: reading an object description
Plain definitions of the forms, techniques, periods and qualifications found in object descriptions.
Map of pre-Columbian civilizations: where the cultures lived
Three maps of the Americas: where the Olmec, Maya, Aztec, Nazca, Moche, Inca and others lived, and when.
Pre-Columbian art museum guide: where to see the great collections
Museums in Mexico, Peru, Colombia, Costa Rica, the United States and Europe, what each holds, and three maps.
Famous pre-Columbian artifacts: 15 works and where they are
Fifteen famous objects and monuments of the ancient Americas, with where each was found and where it is kept.
Have something to sell?
Send us photographs and whatever you know. You hear back within two working days.
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