Figuration and Fragmentation: Observations on the Life Histories of Figurines and Other Sculpture in Mesoamerica

Preclassic Mesoamerican clay figurines were made in large quantities across much of the region, serving as one of the chief vehicles for the presentation of the human body in Mesoamerican visual culture. Many of these figurines were transformed by deliberately fragmenting the body via ritual acts. We argue that such ritual acts highlighted the human body’s partibility as a deep and lasting trope in Mesoamerican culture. We briefly sketch two case studies of figurine body fragmentation and its relation to the partibility of actual human bodies and figuration/fragmentation in other media, especially monumental sculpture. On the south coast of Guatemala a vibrant and important set of figurine traditions may be found across the region by the Middle Preclassic period (or c. 900-400 BCE). By the Late Preclassic period, figurine traditions began to wane at the same time that a monumental stone sculpture emerged, but the practices established via figurine traditions may be mapped as key structural elements in the new figured world of stone. We then trace a comparable dynamic in the adjacent southern region of Classic Veracruz culture at the dawn of the Classic period.