Figure of a Woman in Ceremonial Dress
700–900
Possibly Totonac, Nopiloa Veracruz, south-central Gulf Coast, Mexico
Southern Veracruz
In the afterlife, it was the role of deceased noble ancestors to communicate with the deified forces of nature on behalf of their people. Presented as offerings at ancestral shrines, mold-made figures of this kind were sometimes reshaped while the clay was still moist to give them more individualized facial features.
Ceramic