Painted bowl

The people of Amazigh descent who inhabited the Canary Islands remained virtually isolated until the Castilian conquest in the 15th century; as a result, their cultural development differed significantly from the rest of Spain, and even from one island to the next within the same archipelago. This diversity is illustrated by their ceramics and the traditional pottery-making techniques that have endured to the present day.
This small vessel with painted geometric decoration was part of a set of four ceramic pieces found in the late 1930s at El Roque de Telde. These vessels were carefully made from fine paste and bear no traces of exposure to fire, indicating that they were not cooking wares but rather intended for serving or eating food. The pottery pieces were locally made, probably by women, based on ethnographic and anthropological information. The painted decoration is unique to the archaeological pottery of Gran Canaria and was more abundant in periods close to the European Middle Ages.