Bound Prisoner
Unknown Colima artist, Mexico. Bound Prisoner, 200 BCE - 300 CE. Earthenware with colored slip, 12 x 9 x 12 inches. Museum Exchange, 1963.141.
Bound Prisoner
Colima, Comala style
About 200 B.C.–A.D. 300
Mexico, Colima
Earthenware with colored slips
Acquired by exchange, 1963.141
This dejected, tightly bound figure represents a prisoner – probably an enemy warrior, or a captive taken in a surprise raid. In many Mesoamerican societies, defeated warriors were stripped of their weapons and protective gear before being marched to their captor’s city for display and sacrifice. Blood offerings were essential to propitiating deities and maintaining the balance of nature necessary for human survival. West Mexican ceramic art lacks explicit scenes of human sacrifice, but trophy head depictions (1991.487, 1991.498) imply the practice of decapitation (and perhaps head-shrinking).
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