‘Pre-Hispanic statue of elite woman found in citrus grove’

From The History Blog

On New Year’s Day, 2021, a farmer in the village of Hidalgo Amajac, in southeastern Mexico’s Veracruz region, unearthed a six-foot statue of a female figure in a citrus grove. On Monday, January 4th, archaeologists from the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) identified it as a pre-Hispanic statue of an elite woman, the first of its kind ever discovered in the area.

The limestone statue depicts young woman, elegantly garbed in a long-sleeved shirt and ankle-length skirt and adorned with an elaborate headdress rising high on both sides of her head. Her small face has hollow eyes that would originally have contained stone inlays. She wears a wide necklace with an engraved donut-shaped pendant known as an oyohualli, a fertility symbol.

It is two feet wide at its widest point and about 10 inches thick. It has survived the centuries in good condition, its features still sharp and complete with its spike, a long tapered structural element extending out from under the feet of the figure that was used to keep the statue upright. Most of the female Huastec sculptures have been interpreted representations of the earth and fertility goddess Tlazoltéotl, but INAH archaeologist María Eugenia Maldonado Vite this figure’s posture and attire suggests that she may have been a ruler rather than a deity.

 

http://www.thehistoryblog.com/archives/60427