This seal was modeled by hand and the designs presented are achieved by removing the clay that was around the desired shape with a sharp instrument, and by forging deep incisions in a ductile and malleable material. Since clay is characterized as having plasticity when combined with water, it is mixed with other materials to give it greater strength and cohesion when working and shaping it.
In this piece it would seem that the potter stopped working because the marks of his tools can still be seen in the clay and the figure that emerges from the clay is unfinished. Its shape can only be seen in a schematic way, and it would even seem that because the clay became dry, the ceramist did not continue with the modeling, and that is why he chose to subject the piece to the high temperatures of the furnace where the firing was carried out.
However, the design of the seal is still important. Since it was more than a mere decoration, and undoubtedly it was a relevant symbolic element, like geometric forms (zig-zag, triangles, squares, circles, spirals, crosses), or naturalistic forms as plants ( flowers) and animals (butterfly, serpent, eagle, quetzal or lizard), the design that it has, in this case a batrachian, had an important symbolic value within Mesoamerican thought.
In this case we do not know the surface on which the seal was destined to leave its impression, but by the subject - perhaps a toad or a frog - it is possible to think that this singular seal was linked with fertility and the water.
Alfredo Lopez Austin has advanced some proposals on the symbolism of the batrachians. He tells us that they are the emissaries of the rain since their song announces the arrival of the rains, and finds that many of the testimonies of these beliefs in Mesoamerica are very old and that continue even today. Among the Tzeltals the toad is the wife of lightning, and the Zapotecs still believe that some frogs are generated by the rains, while archeology also demonstrates that frogs and toads were important.
In the early monumental sculpture of the Pacific Coast in Abaj Takalik and Kaminaljuyu, in Guatemala as well as among the Olmecs of the Gulf of Mexico, they were carved in stone stelae and in the shape of an altar among the Teotihuacanos and later in Cacaxtla, they were represented in mural painting. Batrachians also appear in Tenochtitlan, and the temple of Tlaloc has sculptures of toads in front of the staircase, they are the companions of the water god, his children or guardians, and the written chronicles record that they were very relevant in the celebrations and ceremonies held there, since they functioned as the representations of the helpers of the Tlaloques.
We find that references to the batrachians in Mesoamerican art are frequent, and are usually linked to the ceremonies that were carried out around the cult of water. To better understand them and to begin to understand the symbolism of frogs and toads, we must take into their behavior, and the eating habits and customs in the lives of the animals.
In Pre-Hispanic Mexico it was believed that not only was the croaking of frogs and toads associated with the arrival of the rains, but that their skin evoked the surface of the earth, and the fact that it is a nocturnal animal that lives near the water and wetlands was also relevant. Behaviors that reveal certain characteristics that define the animal and which allow us to know how the frogs and toads were seen in the minds of the men of Pre-Hispanic Mexico.
