Photos of Nicaragua: Ometepe Island Indian Pottery

Indigenous artifacts from Ometepe Island, Nicaragua are showcased in a museum that is just outside of the town of Moyogalpa, the largest pueblo of this volcanic island. The museum, El Ceibo, contains these artifacts and a numismatic section as well. To the right is one example of Pre-Columbian pottery recovered from the Ometepe period. More photos are shown below. These artifacts cover the eras known as Orosi (3,000-500 B.C.), Tempisque (500 B.C. - 300 A.D.), Bagaces (300-800 A.D.), Sapoa (800-1350 A.D.) and Ometepe (1350-1550 A.D.).

Other types of artifacts left behind by the early inhabitants of this Island include statues and petroglyphs. Four of the statues are in Altagracia and one is shown to the right. Many petroglyphs have also been found on the island. During a survey period from 1995 to 1999 around the Maderas Volcano, volunteer workers found 72 sites that contained about 1400 boulders with petroglyphs.

During the Sapoa period, tribes in the region used burial urns that were, more or less, shaped like a large, inflated shoe with an opening above the ankle region. The opening of the urn was covered by an inverted bowl. These urns were called Sacasa-striated Shoe-pots. The shoe-pots are decorated in the toe-region with different designs, some looking like dragon flies and others which are difficult to describe. Check out this link for a detail photo I took: RandyM RedGage.

On Ometepe Island these burial urns could contain skeletal remains. In some cases, the bones would surround the urn. In surrounding areas of Nicaragua, the urns could be used exclusively for burial of young infants and children, or they may contain only skeletal remains and teeth. Cremation practices seem to be associated with the lack of skeletal remains in many discovered urns in the Rivas region of Nicaragua.

1. McCafferty, S, et al. 2011. Raising the Dead: Mortuary Patterns in Pacific Nicaragua. Pre-Conceptualizing Nicaraguan Prehistory. Soc. Amer. Archeol., Sacramento, California.

2. Wikipedia Espanol. Museos El Ceibo