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Tres Zapotes ceramics are divided into three phases, Lower, Middle and Upper Tres Zapotes, in ascending order. This sequence exists independently of sculpture and architecture and is therefore of little use in sculptural studies. However, Drucker uncovered sherds of mold-made "Lirios" fine paste ceramics in trench 20 (Drucker 1943:29, Plate 25 g-i) which may provide a link between the ceramic and the sculptural sequences. He notes the paucity of Lower to Middle Tres Zapotes sherds in the trench 20 collection and inferred that the "Lirios" complex consists of Upper Tres Zapotes ceramics (Drucker 1943:109).
One of Drucker's Lirios sherds was stamped from one mold and three others were all stamped from a second mold. His Plate 64 illustrates a "Lirios" sherd, stamped from the first mold and bearing a relief scene (Sherd 1, Plate 63 a., Figure 51). His Plate 25 g-i illustrates three "Lirios" sherds, all stamped from the second mold and bearing portions of a second relief scene (Sherds g-i). Recently, an employee of the site museum has discovered a "Lirios" sherd, bearing a nearly complete impression of the same mold used to form Sherds g-i (Sherd 2, Plate 63 b., Figure 52). A description of Sherds 1 and 2, the best impressions of each mold, follows.
The scene on Sherd 1, shows a human figure, kneeling in right profile on the snout of a grotesque. The figure wears a loincloth which is knotted at the rear, a neck cloth which is knotted at the front and an avian helmet. Within the jaws of the avian helmet the figure's face is well preserved, showing a round nose bead and a round earflare.
The avian helmet encompasses the figure's head with its jaws and its nose is represented by a scroll at the base of the beak. The eye is enclosed to the left and the top by a curving supraorbital feature. The bird's ear ornament is to the left of the supraorbital feature and a feather crest is above. To the right of the crest is a scroll with feathers on the outer edge.
The Basal head is an up-ended grotesque in right profile. The cheekplate and snout are a single element which undulates up the center and turns to the right. To the left of the cheekplate is the eye with a supraorbital element still further to the right. Above the supraorbital element is a scroll nose. To the right of the cheekplate is a toothband with a bead at the center.
The mold from which sherd one, and sherds g-i, was made was old and none of the four impressions retains crisp detail. The scene on Sherd 2, shows three figures along the bottom edge and a medallion in the upper left corner. The figure at the right, Figure A, takes up nearly half the sherd, leaving the left half to Figures B, C and the medallion.
Figure A is seated in full left profile with legs crossed wearing an elaborate headdress, an earflare, a thick belt with loincloth knots at the front and back and a body wrap of four or five bands with two thick uprights at the spine. The headdress rests upon a horizontal bar with a small head crowned by a trefoil at the left. A hooked upright passes through the right end of the horizontal bar and secures unidentified angular elements to the top of the bar. To the right of the upright is a feather wing element, while a long panache terminating in a cartouche and trefoil falls forward from another cartouche at the top of the headdress. Figure A's face is not well preserved and may be skeletal. The hair, under the lower edge of the horizontal bar on the headdress, is longer in front of the forehead. Figure A's hands? project to the left of the body binding and hold two streamers.
Figure B sits with knees bent and hands on knees in full left profile with his back to Figure A. Figure B wears a skirt with a wide hem, a thick belt, wristlets, a small round nose bead, a buccal mask, ear ornaments hair which is longer in front of the forehead and a headdress which has all the features of the headdress of Figure A except the panache and the wing element. Figure B's face is well preserved, showing a large nose and almond shaped eye.
Figure C is an animal which sits in full right profile with all four feet in the air to its right. The type of animal is difficult to determine, though it may be a hare. The hind legs are very curved with long feet and there may be long floppy ears at the back of the head.
On the left edge of the frame is a vertical element with a scroll at the upper end and a larger scroll at the lower end. This element may represent a simple serpent head.
In the upper left corner of the scene is a medallion which contains a squared cartouche with an incised "U" element in the center. A long bead with a final element radiates from each of the four rounded corners of this central cartouche. A triangular tab is affixed by its base to each of the upper and lower edges of the cartouche.
The ceramic relief scenes stamped on Sherds 1, 2 and g-i are comparable to stone relief sculpture at Tres Zapotes. Such comparison enables a linkage between the ceramic and the sculptural sequences at Tres Zapotes which was not previously possible.
The human figure on Sherd 1 shares a number of iconographic features with Figure E on Side A of Monument 3, including the crested helmet enclosing the face, the loincloth knotted at the rear, the round nose bead, the knotted neck cloth, the ectomorphic body type and the kneeling pose. More telling than these iconographic similarities are the affective similarities created by the flat relief depictive mode and the compressed image within the picture plain with only a minimum of back plain remaining visible.
Sherd 2 shares the affective qualities of Sherd 1, yet its iconographic affinities recall Stela C as well as Monument 3. The medallion in the upper left of Sherd 2 is virtually identical to the central medallion in the headdress of Stela C, lacking only the square tabs which are affixed by one side to each of the right and left sides of the cartouche on Stela C. Other iconographic similarities are similar to Sherd 1 though the headdress of the two human figures on Sherd 2 specifically recalls the headdress of Figure E on Side B of Monument 3. However, the small heads with trefoils on the horizontal headdress member, the buccal mask of Figure B and the hair of both Figures A and B all have their nearest relatives at Cerro de las Mesas.
The relationship of Sherds 1 and 2 with Stela C and Monument 3 suggests that the Lirios component of Upper Tres Zapotes ceramics is contemporaneous with Sculpture Group 5, which the 31 BC Initial Series date of Stela C places at the beginning of our era. The relationship between Sherd 2 and Cerro de las Mesas Stelae 3 and 8 suggests that the Lirios component of Upper Tres Zapotes ceramics may have persisted into the early years of Cycle 9.
