“Teapot” Bottle
Engraved bottle, pottery
Quapaw (Menard complex), 1400-1600
Menard-Hodges site (3AR4)
Hodges 77-1 / 44-11
This bottle has a short neck at the top, a spout on one side, and a small node or bump on the other side. Early archeologists found examples of this form at contact-period sites near the mouth of the Arkansas River and called them “teapot” bottles because of their resemblance to the European version. Other researchers have interpreted this form as an effigy of a gourd, or an animal with head/node and tail/spout.
The bottle is engraved with interlocking scrolls of cross-hatched bands repeated three times around the upper portion of the pot. There is a unique cross-hatched motif on one side of the bottle, but that area was broken and reconstructed in the past, and part of the design is lost.
To learn more about Quapaw history and culture, visit the Quapaw Nation website. Explore more 3D models of ancestral Quapaw artifacts at the Virtual Hampson Museum.