Figure Item Number: Ni85 from the MOA: University of British Columbia

Description

A red figure sitting with its legs curved around a cylindrical object, possibly a drum, with its arms bent outward at the elbows and its hands resting on top at the sides of the cylindrical object. Wearing a headdress which has three tall vertical pieces surrounded at the bottom with a large horizontal band wrapped around them. Rounded nose with a nose ring. Large circular earrings.

History Of Use

These types of hollow, naturalistic redware ceramics have been found in (often elaborate) shaft tombs, a mortuary structure unique to the western Mexican states of Colima, Nayarit and Jalisco. Some experts think the main figure found in such burials may represent a powerful, elite member of the society; other figures may depict retainers sacrificed to accompany that person in the afterlife. Other figures commonly depict warriors, pregnant women, acrobats, male and female couples both seated and standing, and women with children. (The end date of the period is in dispute.)