The BBC recently came out with a series covering the “history of humanity as told through one hundred objects from the British Museum in London.” One particular 15-minute segment that aired on BBC Radio 4 on July 9th, 2010 and can still be viewed on-line, focuses on a carved statue of a Mexican Huastec indian goddess, beginning with a commentary on the complexities of language in the interpretation of history and its artifacts.
As is explained in this audio presentation, the Huastec people were a group that settled along the gulf coast of Mexico from what is now the Veracruz area northward and flourishing between the 10th and 15th C. They were conquered by the Aztecs in the 1400s, their leaders eliminated and their society subjugated by their conquerors. Little is known of this group that hasn’t been filtered through the eyes and ears of the later Aztecs and then the Spanish, and the provenance and meaning of artifacts from the Huastec civilization, such as the goddess statue in question, often have to be interpreted through those filters.
The radio segment introduces and describes the statue, which measures about 5 feet in height and is carved from sandstone, in great detail. Experts speculate on the meaning and identification of the statue as possibly being the depiction of a Huastec mother-goddess with a correspondence to the Aztec earth or mother goddess and symbol of fertility, Tlazolteotl, or as being rather a representation of the “mode of the day” of the nobles and elite of the Huastec society rather than a divine image.
To listen to the educational and enlightening presentation, go to: A History of the World in 100 Objects: Meeting The Gods (1200 – 1400 AD): Statue of Huastec Goddess
To see a zoomable image of the statue, go to: http://www.bbc.co.uk/ahistoryoftheworld/objects/nhxe3gAeQ3KW5746ILnGmA
For further information on the Aztec goddess Tlazolteotl, see
Tlazoltéotl. (2010). In Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved July 14, 2010, from Encyclopædia Britannica Online: http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/597509/Tlazolteotl
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