Objects without Texts: Mimbres Painted Bowls and the Problematics of Interpretation

The painted bowls of the Mimbres culture ( c . 1000–1130 CE) provide a uniquely expansive iconographic record for the American Southwest. In the absence of a closely associated textual record, their imagery has often been interpreted through accounts originating from geographically or temporally removed cultures, an approach that merits critique. Although an iconological understanding of the images might not be possible, a phenomenological account has the potential to illuminate other important aspects of these bowls. In this regard, this essay argues that, in addition to the unrecoverable primary referents of the images, some Mimbres painted bowls self‐referentially draw attention to the material, structural, and contextual conditions of their own apprehension.