By Geoffrey McCafferty (2008; updated 2013)
Cholula's polychrome pottery has been described as among the most beautiful of pre-Columbian Mexico. Beginning in the Early Postclassic period (c. 800 CE) polychromes utilize elements of the highly symbolic Mixteca-Puebla stylistic tradition. However, since Cholula sits atop an excellent source of clay-rich tepetate, it has been an important production site of ceramics since its early occupation in the Middle Formative period (c. 1000 BCE), and in fact is still a major producer of ceramic bricks that are exported throughout Mexico.
Cholula polycromes were described by Eduard Seler and George Vaillant in the early 20th century, but it was Eduardo Noguera who began the first detailed analysis in the 1930s and culminating in his excellent volume La Ceramica de Cholula (1954). The use of color plates to illustrate the different polychrome types made this a very influential study, and enhanced the fame of Cholula polychromes. During the secong phase of the Proyecto Cholula, Florencia Muller analyzed 2.3 million pieces of pottery, resulting in her La Alfareria de Cholula (1978). This volume takes a more functionalist approach to the pottery, with greater emphasis on vessel form. It is the standard that has been used for much of the recent ceramic classification by INAH archaeologists.
Coapan Laca biconical bowl
In the 1980s another ceramic classification began under the supervision of Michael Lind at the Universidad de las Americas (UDLA) in Cholula. Lind and Charles Caskey studied the pottery from Late Postclassic contexts from the UA-79 excavations, and Caskey expanded those categories with a huge assemblage excavated from a rescue project at the future site of the Villas Aqueologicas hotel. These projects created a new system specifically for the Postclassic that was distributed in manuscript form. Later, Lind created another classification system, with new names, that he used in an important study of polychrome design elements (1994); this system is currently used by archaeologists from the UDLA (e.g., Hernandez ).
My own ceramic classification grew out of the UDLA system, but was based more specifically on the Early Postclassic UA-1 assemblage excavated by Daniel Wolfman (1968). Thus it combines terminlogy from the original Lind and Caskey typology plus some new terms that I added as I discovered new types. This classification was presented in my PhD dissertation (1993) and published as The Ceramics of Postclassic Cholula, Mexico:
To make sense out of this cacaphony of classifications, I created this correlation table:
CORRELATION OF CHOLULA POLYCHROME CERAMIC TYPOLOGIES
NOGUERA (1954) MCCAFFERTY (2001) LIND (1994)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Decoración negro sobre Cocoyotla Black on Natural, Xicotenco Black on Orange
color natural del barro Sencillo subtype
Cocoyotla Black on Natural,
Banded subtype
Cocoyotla Black on Natural,
Chalco subtype
Policroma mate Cuaxiloa Matte Polychrome
Cocoyotla Black on Natural,
Elegante subtype
Ocotlán Red Rim, Cristina Polychrome
Cristina Matte subtype
Policroma firme Torre Red and Orange on White Albina Polychrome
Polychrome
Aquiahuac Burnt Orange
Polychrome.Santa Catarina
subtype
Ocotlán Red Rim, Estela Polychrome
Elegante subtype
Policroma laca Coapan Laca Polychrome Catalina Polychrome
San Pedro Polished Red,
Elegante subtype
Apolo Black and Red on Orange
Polychrome, Elegante subtype
Decoración negro o rojo Apolo Polychrome,
sobre anaranjado Geometrico subtype
Aquiahuac Polychrome, Diana Polychrome
Zocalo subtype
Decoración sencillo Apolo Polychrome, Nila Polychrome
Sencillo subtype
Aquiahuac Polychrome, Silvia Polychrome
Sencillo subtype
Ocotlán Red Rim, Marta Polychrome
Sencillo subtype
Ocotlán Red Rim,
Banded subtype