This object is similar to a piece at the Hudson Museum at the University of Maine, United States, which previously belonged to a private collection in the same country and has been attributed to the shaft tomb culture of Western Mesoamerica, which was established in Nayarit, southern Zacatecas, Jalisco, Colima and areas adjacent to Michoacan, from 300 B.C. to 600 A.D.
Both pieces represent what I interpret to be a burial, and given that the large majority of pieces from the art of the shaft tomb culture exhibited and stored at the Amparo Museum are related to burials, in the sense that they were offerings to the deceased, and are highly likely to have come from shaft tombs and chambers, means that the fact that this museum is exhibiting a scene that I identify to be a burial ritual that could have taken place inside the burial chamber of the shaft tomb, becomes more interesting and pertinent. In other words, this piece recreates a key moment for this society as it captures part of the religious context of its sculptures and Burial vessels.
In comparison with the piece in Maine, our piece is simpler, it retains the basic elements for a ceramic sculptural scene, with a circular composition with tiny figures, in a solemn pose, around an individual lying down and covered with a blanket, stuck onto a circular base. The inverted triangular shape of the head, in particular, allows us to conclude that they were created in the Lagunillas or “chinesco” style from southern Nayarit, because this was a stylistic feature of one of the many artistic schools of the region, which developed within the context of this culture.
The piece in Maine has a total of 14 figures (one piece is now missing the upper part), all of them have eyes; four of them are more closely aligned with the reclining central figure. Also, close to this figure's head, two recipients can be made out, which appear to contain food. In contrast with the first one in our piece, there are eight figures without eyes and with flattened heads tilted backwards, making the nostrils more visible. The dishes with food are missing.
Iconographically speaking, I would conclude that the scene does not just represent a simple gathering around a sick individual, and the key is in the vessels containing food, because they constitute the offering that Mesoamericans used to leave for their dead so that they could eat during their next life and journey through the underworld, because for them death was not the end.
Thus, including this piece into the museography discourse gives us the opportunity to achieve a fuller understanding of the burial context in the art of the shaft tomb culture, their profound religiousness and its powerful collective and family characteristics. This is achieved in an exceptional way, because it is not an academic reconstruction, but an artistic recreation handed down to us by this same thousand-year-old people of the ancient West.
This object is similar to a piece at the Hudson Museum at the University of Maine, United States, which previously belonged to a private collection in the same country and has been attributed to the shaft tomb culture of Western Mesoamerica, which was established in Nayarit, southern Zacatecas, Jalisco, Colima and areas adjacent to Michoacan, from 300 B.C. to 600 A.D.
