The remains of a once vibrant culture are now submerged under a lake. Fortunately, excavations in the 1940's on the site were able to uncover sufficient artifacts to give us...
The remains of a once vibrant culture are now submerged under a lake. Fortunately, excavations in the 1940's on the site were able to uncover sufficient artifacts to give us an intriguing picture of people who lived there centuries ago. Chupicuaro was the elaborate burial ground of a village above the Lerma River in the state of Guanajuato, eighty miles northwest of the Valley of Mexico. The abundant offerings of pottery, jade, and figurines discovered there attest to a flourishing artistic culture. One of the most endearing types of the clay objects is the small female figures, or 'pretty ladies'. They typically show a naked female with short arms, extended stomach and a fancy coiffure or headdress. This delightful, diminutive figure has very wide, broad face. Her lenticular eyes and the bridge of her nose project outwards from the flat contours of her face. She wears two large circular ear ornaments and an elaborate headdress from which her long parted hair falls out onto her shoulders and over her arms. An ornamented necklace containing an oval object in the center completes her finery. She was probably intended as a fertility figure, perhaps as part of the belief that life is cyclical and re-generation continues into the afterlife. In this sense she has indeed returned from the other world into our world, and is as charming and intriguing as ever.