Botija (container)
Botija is a term used by archaeologists for a style of ceramic vessel produced in Seville, Spain from early in the 16th-century through the middle of the 19th-century.
While the measurements of individual botijas vary, they tend to cluster around roughly standard sizes.
[3] Botijas were widest near the top with a rounded to pointed bottom and a narrow neck, resembling amphorae, from which they are believed to have been derived.
[12] John Mann Goggin created a typology in the mid-20th century for the ceramic containers found at archaeological sites associated with Spanish presence which are commonly called "olive jars" or "Spanish olive jars".
Goggin's Middle and Late styles are botijas, which appeared early in the 16th-century, overlapping with the cantimplora.
Form A is egg shaped, long, tapering slowly from the widest point just below the rim to a rounded bottom.
Form D, known only from the Late Style, is widest somewhat below the rim, tapers in quickly, and has a long narrow, tubular bottom.
[13] In 1988, Stephen James described more than 1,000 intact ceramic jars recoved from two ships, the Conde de Tolosa and Neustra Senora de Guadalupe, which sank in 1724 in Samana Bay on the north coast of Hispaniola after sailing from Cadiz, Spain.
Interior glazing is believed to indicate the jar was intended to hold liquids that could be readily absorbed by unglazed ceramics.
The jars have openings or mouths with an external diameter between 10 and 10.2 cm and a somewhat flattened rim with a lip.
[16] Form IV jars are "carrot-shaped", with a rounded top and a long body tapering to a point.
[18] Form I, III, and IV jars all have lipped rims, and probably all took the same type of cork stopper.
[19] In a paper published in 2020, Miguel Busto-Zapico analysed 40 jars found in Spain, all made in Seville.
The need for ceramic containers to hold merchandise sent to the New World led to development of potters' neighborhoods in Seville and Cádiz.
[23] Some jars with a distinctive red paste and a different style of rim marks may have been produced in Cazalla de la Sierra, 75 km north-northeast of Seville.
Such jars have been found at the Santo Domingo Monastery in Antigua Guatemala, the Huaco Palomin site in Peru, and Santa Elena (in South Carolina), in wrecks of ships in the Spanish Armada of 1588 and, possibly, in the Nuestra Señora de Atocha wreck in the Florida Keys.
[24] Botijas of all styles varied in all dimensions, indicating that the jars were thrown free-hand without the use of a template.
[25] Jar sizes tend to cluster around small fractions or multiples of traditional Spanish measures, which may indicate that potters used some sort of device like a rope or a piece of wood to roughly gauge the size of the jars.
[29] When production of botijas began in America in the late 16th century, the walls of the jars were frequently much thicker than the ones from Spain, so that an American-made jar full of wine or oil might weight as much as a Spanish-made one, but contain less wine or oil.
Authorities in Chile instituted fines on potters who consistently produced under-capacity botijas.
[31] The botija was designed for liquid foods, and was used primarily for shipping wine, olive oil, and vinegar.
The ovoid to elongated top-heavy design of botijas, with pointed or rounded bottoms, is evidence they were not intended for long-term storage of liquids while sitting on the ground.
[32] Vessels with flat bottoms and wider mouths, such as tinajas and orzas were more suitable for storing liquids.
Orzas were usually made with the same paste as ''botijas, making it difficult to assign many sherds to a particular style of container.
[29] Warehouse records from the early 1590s in St. Augustine show botijas were used to store olive oil, wine, vinegar, and turpentine.
Empty botijas and other containers were given to members of the presidio garrison and other residents in St. Augustine for their personal use.
[33] Botijas were also used to fill in domes over large spaces for acoustic enhancement, incorporated into roof vaults, walls, and gate arches, in drainage structures, and as finials on granaries, the last particularly in Asturias, Galicia, and Santiago de Cuba.
In 1567, a ship passing through Havana to Florida carried 2,939 half-arroba jars of olive oil.
[39] Lists of contents of botijas shipped from Seville to the New World included wine, olive oil, olives, vinegar, chickpeas, capers, beans, honey, fish, rice, flour, soap,[26] and pitch.
