This work gives us the basis for talking about the remarkably unique character of each human image, as well as the conventions and possible ideas about the body in Tlatilco art. The Tlatilco culture inhabited territories to the west and south of the great central lake basin of Mexico during the middle phase of the Preclassic period of Mesoamerican history.
The work has been restored, the head and a leg have been reattached. They have some attributes of the D2 ceramic sculptural style, such as the less narrow waist (compared to the famous D1 style), breasts without nipples and tubular legs with intimated feet; the red engobe they present makes them a recognized variant of the D2 type.
The work shows schematic features, with toes separated from each other, outlining the figure's feet. Eagerness to represent anatomical details continues in the puncture to mark the pupils and nostrils, the half-open mouth with highlighted lips, and in the suggestive sinuosities that indicate the musculature of the arms, legs, and buttocks. These are also separated by an incised line, and their volume is different from that of the legs. The ts of the armpits, elbows and knees are indicated by incisions or slight depressions in the modelled body. Attention to the rear view is also evident in the five-lobed design carved into the tight headdress that covers her head.
The modeling technique (in which the work is formed by hand, without molds, and with greater or lesser skill and sensitivity on the part of the artist) and, above all, a determined creative intention to particularize the attributes of each image, led to Tlatilquense art expressing an enormous variety of identifying features of or characters with relevant functions and symbolism in their society.
They are mainly slender or robust women, naked or with skirts or cloths covering their genitals, and in which the hair and headdresses are delicately depicted. The woman appears young, standing firmly on her strong legs, with her arms our from her sides and adorned with disc-shaped ear pieces. The eyebrows are seen as a fine linear highlight that crosses the entire forehead, framing the gaze and the other sensitive and communicative organs of the face, expressing vitality together with the three-dimensional anatomy and bodily posture of the images.
The figuration of the sunken navel also stands out. Regarding the umbilical zone, authors such as Alfredo López Austin have emphasized that it is the central part of the body, analogous to the center of the earth, according to the worldview of Mesoamerican societies.
This center implies a sedentary way of life and the idea that the sun delineates, orders, and geometrizes the earthly horizon. This is because from a fixed point in the territory, which constitutes the center, it is possible to capture the apparent annual transit of the Sun, whose winter and summer solstices give rise to another four points (in each case the rising and setting of the Sun on those dates) placed equidistant from the central point on a square or circular surface. This design, called a quincunx, represents a concept about terrestrial space. In this way of thinking, if the navel is the center, then the arms, and legs of the human body refer to the other four points that make up the middle layer of the cosmos.
