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Comments on Incense Burners from Copan, Honduras

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Stephan F. de Borhegyi
Stephan F. de Borhegyi*
Affiliation:
University MuseumUniversity of OklahomaNorman, Okla
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Extract

John M. Longyear, in his excellent presentation of the ceramics of Copan (1952), describes a vessel which he tentatively labels an incense burner. The vessel in question belongs to his Archaic period (?-A.D. 300). He considers it to be the only vessel from this period with possible ceremonial connotations. Quoting Longyear (p. 24): “It is a thick-walled, rough-finished vase, set on three solid cylinder legs (fig. 42 a [reproduced here as Fig. 86, a]). The body is pierced by a number of large, horseshoe-shaped holes. This may very well have been an incensario of some sort.” Longyear gives more details about the same vessel (p. 92). “Other thickwalled, coarsely finished sherds appear to come from incensarios of jar type, only two of which could be reconstructed. One is a large jar, of ‘hourglass” silhouette, supported on three long solid cylinder legs. The walls are pierced by an undetermined number of horseshoe-shaped windows, and the basal angle bears indentations made by the fingertip (fig. 42a).

Type
Facts and Comments
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 20 , Issue 3 , January 1955 , pp. 284 - 286
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for American Archaeology 1954

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References

Borhegyi, Stephan F. DE 1950 Rimhead Vessels and Cone-shaped Effigy Prongs of the Pre-Classic Period at Kaminaljuyu, Guatemala. Carnegie Institution of Washington, Notes on Middle American Archaeology and Ethnology (CIW, NMAE), Vol. 4, No. 97, pp. 60–80. Cambridge.Google Scholar
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