Figure Wearing Flayed Skin, Attribute of the God Xipe Totec

Figure Wearing Flayed Skin, Attribute of the God Xipe Totec
Mexico, Central Veracruz
Early Classic, ca. 300-600
Terracotta
(70.18)
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Stanley Marcus

Xipe Totec, "Our Lord the Flayed One," was the god of springtime and regenerative power. Impersonators of the deity donned the flayed skin of human sacrificial victims in a twenty-one-day religious ritual that concerned vegetation life cycles. The edges of the flayed skin can be seen on this figure at the wrists and ankles and around the mouth. The small hands around the pedestal probably represent sacrificial victims.

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