Standing female figure

This life-size, standing female figure is shown with her hands gently resting on her abdomen, palms down. She wears an elaborate headdress featuring a lower, rectangular component surmounted by a cone in front of a fan-shaped element at the back. Other than the headdress, the body is unadorned except for circular ear ornaments with petal-shaped elements that descend to the shoulders. The face is delicately carved, with oval eyes and a small, down-turned mouth.

The Huasteca, a region on the northern Gulf Coast of Mexico, was home to a succession of important polities over many centuries before it was eventually enveloped into the expanding Mexica (Aztec) Empire. Elite women and men appear to have enjoyed equal status in Huastec society, and were often portrayed at an equal scale as men, and with similar headdresses. The scalloped design of the headdress represents solar, lunar, or stellar rays, elite insignia connecting these figures with political authority.