We are used to seeing artifacts from ancient cultures in museums...cleaned up, put back together, and labeled with the best information expert archeologists and curators have to offer. Rarely, if ever, do we think of what it must be like to see these same artifacts as they would have been found...jumbled, broken puzzles waiting for someone with that expertise to unravel their mysteries.

These are the shards of Mayan pottery.

Basic utilitarian pots, yet look at the craftsmanship of these pot's walls. These thin walls and symmetrical forms were attained without the use of a potter's wheel. Just in these few shards we can glimpse a mastery of clay and a level of craftsmanship that is truly anything but "primitive".

Image Courtesy of astuder / Abbey Studer