30 May 2025 / 10 House
Article suitable for older students
Find out moreWhat’s the meaning of this ‘Mayan’ statue?
ORIGINAL QUESTION received from - and thanks to - Juan Aviles: In 1985 my then wife purchased this Mayan statue of a woman with no arms or legs. Can you tell me what the statue means. We bought it in Cozumel. Thanks (Answered by Ian Mursell/Mexicolore)
It isn’t Mayan, it comes from the ancient cultures of Western Mexico, best known for the large hollow clay figurines and vessels from the states of Colima, Nayarit and Jalisco. Many years ago Paul Kirchhoff established three categories to represent ethnic groups among the ancient population, and this particular figure belongs to what he called the ‘Naked Group’, figures without dress and lacking a tribal name. An interesting characteristic of this group is that, as Hasso von Winning describes in his major work Pre-Coiumbian Art of Mexico and Central America ‘Scarification on shoulders and arms, forming clusters of circular spots, was a common adornment of this group.’
Your piece is very similar in style to the one we show here, alongside yours, reproduced from von Winning’s book.
Von Winning gives the following details:-
’The short arms and stunted hands are stylistically related to features of small solid figurines of the Ortices phase (Early Classic) from the Tuxcacuesco region in Jalisco... She wears a short apron-like skirt. The elongated head with the high flat forehead is a mark of beauty induced by cranial deformation during infancy’ (in this sense, similar to the Maya tradition).
The figure shown is catalogued as follows:-
’Woman. Vicinity of Etzatlán, Jalisco. Burnished brown and red clay with black and cream paint. Height, 19”. Collection Dr. and Mrs. William F. Kaiser, Berkeley, California’.
We hope this is helpful...
Info source:-
Pre-Columbian Art of Mexico and Central America by Hasso von Winning, Harry N. Abrams, Inc., New York, n.d.
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