They find ancient female sculpture in eastern Mexico

Mexico City – Farmers digging in a citrus orchard in the Mexican state of Veracruz found a nearly 6-foot-tall female sculpture that could represent an elite woman rather than a deity, or a mixture of both, experts said Friday.

It is the first statue of its kind found in the Tuxpan River Basin, south of the Huaceca Veracruz, according to the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH).

The woman in the carved sculpture has an elaborate headdress and other signs of her social status, and could be traced back to between 1450 and 1521, the INAH claimed. Although the piece was found near the pre-Hispanic ruins of the Tajín, it shows some Aztec influence.

Farmers digging on the farm found the sculpture on New Year’s Day and quickly alerted authorities. The area where it was found was not considered an archaeological site, and the stone statue may have been moved from some unknown location.

It is not known for sure who the statue represents, who has large eyes and an open mouth.

Maria Eugenia Maldonado Vite, an INAH archaeologist, wrote that this piece depicts a young woman “possibly ruling for her posture and attire, rather than a deity.”

The figure could be “a late fusion of the Teem goddesses with representations of women of high social or political status in the huasteca,” Maldonado noted. These goddesses were part of a fertility cult.

Elsewhere have been pre-Hispanic figures representing women rulers or high-ranking women in Mexico.

In 1994, at the site of Mayan ruins in Palenque, archaeologists found the tomb of a woman whom they called the Red Queen because of the color of the pigment that covered her grave. But it has never been firmly determined that the woman, whose tomb dates from between 600 and 700 AD, was a ruler of Palenque.