A Nazca Bird Bowl

Clifford C. Richey
December 2018

It would be helpful to refer to:

https://www.academia.edu/11314798/Ancient_Depicted_Sign_Language
when reading this paper. It explains the use of Form, Imagery, Gesture Signs,
Stance, allusion, position and incorporation as used in composing glyphs.

For a direct application of the gesture signs to a composition (with illustrations of the gestures) see:
https://www.academia.edu/13193557/The_Mimbres_Bat_Bowl
 Galleria Vergès

https://www.trocadero.com/stores/
mezza/items/1385664/Pre-Columbian-
NAZCA-NASCA-Large-Terracotta-
Bird-BOWL

Figure 1: Original

Figure 2: Color Coded

A NAZCA Terracotta Polychrome Bird BOWL from Peru, ca. 200 - 400 A.D. 7 1/2" X 7 3/4" X 3"
( 19.1 cm X 19.8 cm X 7.7 cm )

The Birds depicted on the Bowl represent no particular species of bird. The sign for Bird and Flying
are synonymous in ancient sign language.1 The general meaning is, the one that flies.

Viewed frontally one sees Four Birds meaning, in all four directions, or everywhere.

This Birds were created by compounding at least seven signs:

1. Pictorially the Beak of the Bird is its Mouth. As determined through context a Mouth
represents, a source of water. The sign is positional, on the side, and is the sign for, a
doorway or portal (a lintel and its supporting sides).

1 Tomkins, William Indian Sign Language Dover Publications, Inc. New York 1969 16-17
 2. The Head of the Bird is formed by the (light blue) “U” shaped sign that has been
determined through context to mean, turning

3. The Concentric Circles are based on the historically documented gesture sign for, the
center.2 The Circle in the center is dark and indicates, the one, in the darkness.
Pictorially the dark center creates a pupil for the Eye. The sign also alludes to the usual position for
an Eye. In many ancient compositions the Eye represents, the Eye of the Sun, or Venus. Although
not spelled out in this composition it is part of the ancient cosmology and may be alluding to it. The
dark area around the sign represents, surrounded by darkness.

Figure 3: Gesture Figure 4: Prairie or Broad Land

sign for the Center

4. The (green)”V” shaped sign has been determined to mean, the opening. It is
positional, on, the Straight Line made by the back of the Bird. It is the sign for, the surface,
(usually, the land’s surface).

5. A (yellow) “V” shaped, the opening sign, positional, on the side. The Center Line
indicates, the one, (a single finger as used in a gesture sign), positional, within it.

6. The (tan) Legs and Feet are alluded to by their Form as Arms and Hands of
the Bird. The Legs, the long, and Feet, walk or journey, are positional, below. In many ancient
cosmological compositions the Arm, refers to, the warrior, while the Hand refers to, the Hand of
the Sun, the steward of the Sun. The one who does the bidding of the Sun perhaps a kind of Sun-
priest. The Hands are positional, Left and Right that in sign language indicates, in the east and in
the west.3

2 Tomkins, 20-21
3 Ibid 23
 Figure 5: Gesture Sign for Bowl Figure 6: Bird and Fly are Synonymous

It seems that the Birds, the spirits of the warrior-stewards, were intended to be perceived as within
the Bowl4 that, presumably, held water. We have learned from previous translations of other
compositions that the Bowl was a reference to a pool of water associated with a spring site.

Most Moche ceramic compositions bear cosmological messages that may not be complete in and of
themselves. One must view many of them before gaining any knowledge regarding the overall
cosmology. For the purposes of this paper we need to explain that the cosmology was based on an
understanding of the water cycle and framed in metaphorical terms.

Spring sites on mountain or hillsides were revered as the doorways or portals between the under-
world, the middle-world, and the upper-world. The spirit of the deceased were thought to plunge
into the underworld upon death. The spirit of the deceased was caught up and carried by a Serpent
that represented a stream or current of water. Eventually the spirit was carried to the surface of the
earth where it awaited its flight to the supper-world, the sky. Apparently, the spirits of great warrior-
leaders ascended to Venus that was considered a companion spirit to the Sun. In this manner the
stewards of the Sun continued their service to the Sun in their afterlife. This cosmological
conceptualization made spring sites revered places for the culture. They were even considered as the
focal point, the center for a given culture.

4 Ibid 16-17
The spirits that waited, as if in bowls of water, were awaiting the Sun to “drink up” the water found
at the spring thus the spirits were taken up to the sky through evaporation. Evaporation was often
portrayed through imagery of Feathered Serpents (streams of water with their parts (feathers) in
flight) or Winged Serpents among some other paraphrasing through signs and imagery. In ancient
Peru such bowls of water could have been left out in the Sun where the evaporation of its water
would have “proven” the truth of the cosmology.