About the Object

This ceramic work represents a female standing upright with hands on her hips. Given similar examples throughout the pre-colonial Mesoamerica (and beyond), this indicates that the work may have held importance as a fertility symbol or deity/spirit. This work may have been believed to channel supernatural forces that sustained the Zacatecas’ agricultural-based society.

Additional Information

The Zacatecas culture developed in regions encompassed by the modern Mexican state of Zacatecas as a synthesis of traditions and/or peoples such as the Chalchihuites, Suchil, and Guadiona. The Zacatecas were located between the more widely known cultures of Mesoamerica and civilizations that would later arise across what is today the southwestern U.S. and northwestern Mexico.

In sites such as La Quemada, these peoples created impressive centers with large public architecture such as plazas and pyramid structures in ways that reveal contact between the Zacatecas and neighboring cultures, including the Chinesco (partially located in Nayarit) and other Mesoamerican civilizations.