Arts of ancient West Mexico from the University of Iowa's Stanley Museum of Art now on display at the Figge Art Museum in Davenport, Iowa.

Arts of ancient West Mexico from the University of Iowa's Stanley Museum of Art now on display at the Figge Art Museum in Davenport, Iowa.
This collection is focused on the ceramic sculpture of ancient West Mexico, which is famed for its rich stylistic variety. The collection also contains objects from other ancient Mexican cultures, including brightly painted Mayan ceramics, stone figures from Guerrero, and delicately worked figures from Teotihuacan and Tlatilco. Other regions are represented as well, including the great textile traditions of ancient Peru and the jade and gold jewelry of Colombia. Objects in the collection include human figures depicted in their finery, animals fashioned into containers and whistles, stone markers used in ceremonial ball games, jewelry made of jade and gold, and elaborately painted vessels as well as ceramic sculpture that depict both ritual practices and aspects of daily life.


Image: Fragment of a polychrome Ñuiñe effigy vessel 300-800 CE. The Ñuiñe were a lowland Mixtec culture that flourished in the Valley of Huajuapan, meaning Place of the Brave, in what is now the modern state of Oaxaca.

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