After listening to a webinar on Mimbres Pottery, offered through the Crow Canyon Archeological Center on June 11 (available as a YouTube recording at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKReeOR_6e8), I contacted Dr. Lekson to ask some questions about topics he discussed. Dr. Lekson referred me to the Mimbres Pottery Images Digital Database (MimPIDD), a digital collection of Mimbres pottery images (and data associated with the pots) available to the public with a simple registration. The link to MimPIDD is: https://core.tdar.org/collection/22070/mimbres-pottery-images-digital-database-with-search.
The introduction to MimPIDD states, in part:
“The Mimbres Pottery Images Digital Database (MimPIDD) is a collection of over 10,000 images of Mimbres ceramic vessels, among the most spectacular and renowned prehistoric pottery in North America. The Mimbres archaeological culture, concentrated in southwest New Mexico, is particularly noted for its stunning black-on-white style bowls, which were often decorated with naturalistic designs (especially ca. A.D. 1000-1130)…. Numerous collections of Mimbres pottery vessels exist, scattered across many countries and dozens of museum and private collections. …. The MimPIDD image collection and database brings together visual and descriptive information from many of these collections, allowing easy access to a wealth of disparate data. Created by Harvard Peabody Museum Curator Steven LeBlanc and Arizona State University Professor Michelle Hegmon, MimPIDD contains images and data from more than 75 collections and more than 140 archaeological sites.”
Although designed for academic research, the site affords anyone the ability to view Mimbres pottery while Coronavirus travel restrictions persist. It also allows the viewer an opportunity to refine his/her search criteria for subsequent in-person visits to museums. Typically, when requesting such in-person visits, a museum asks either for specific item numbers
you want to view, or for key object criteria (such as period of time, historical phase, identifying marks or styles, etc). This resource can help you answer some of those questions.
JTW Ceramics 