Pre-Columbian, West Mexico, Colima, ca. 300 BCE to 300 CE. A charming ceramic figure, a seated, probably male person who seems to be depicted as disabled, with no arms below the elbow. His face is slightly twisted, with one eye and one side of the mouth that are lower than the other side. He wears some kind of bright red, raised item on his chest and back. His wide ears are pierced, as if the figure once wore rings through them, and he has a pointed cap whose top forms the spout of the vessel. Size: 5.75" L x 5.6" W x 8" H (14.6 cm x 14.2 cm x 20.3 cm)
Colima, located on Mexico's southwestern coast, was during this time part of the shaft tomb culture, along with neighbors to the north in Jalisco and Nayarit. In this culture, the dead were buried down shafts - 3 to 20 meters deep - that were dug vertically or near vertically through the volcanic tuff that makes up the geology of the region. The base of the shaft would open into one or more horizontal chambers with a low ceiling. These shafts were almost always dug beneath a dwelling, probably a family home, and seem to have been used as family mausoleums, housing the remains of many related individuals. This is a figure made to be placed inside those mausoleums, perhaps to mediate between the worlds of the living and the dead.
Provenance: private Guy Waters collection, Clearwater, Florida, USA, acquired over the last forty years
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#125067
Condition
Intact, with fine manganese deposits on the surface.