Nayarit Pottery Seated Nude Male Figure on Stool with Headdress

Pre-Columbian, West Mexico, Nayarit. A hollow pottery figure of a nude man seated on a low stool. His legs are spread wide before him and his long, tubular arms reach down so that each hand rests on a knee, with the fingers cut in as simple grooves. The face is a long, flat plane with slit eyes, a narrow ridge of a nose, and a small mouth. Above it sits a banded headdress topped by a notched crest. Coiled earrings are stacked in tiers at each ear, appliqued armbands circle the upper arms, and the phallus is plainly modeled between the thighs. The whole body is covered in a burnished red slip, flecked across the chest and face with dark manganese deposits. Seated figures on stools are thought to represent people of rank, perhaps chiefs or ancestors, and were likely placed in shaft tombs as part of the burial. From about 300 BCE to 300 CE, the peoples of what are now Nayarit, Jalisco, and Colima buried their dead in tombs cut deep into the volcanic bedrock. A vertical shaft led down to one or more side chambers, and each tomb held many burials along with offerings, including the hollow ceramic figures that West Mexico is best known for. A man seated on a stool is a recurring type in this tradition. Because stools often marked rank in Mesoamerica, the type is often read as showing a person of authority. The tiered ear ornaments and armbands seen here carry the same message of status. Item # 205628

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