Seated Figure Playing a Rasp c. 100

This seated figure playing a rasp was made by an artist from Nayarit, Mexico, sometime in the distant past. The sculpture's performative aspect is fascinating – a figure frozen in the act of making music. Visual codes such as the seated posture, the hat, the protruding tongue, and the striking face paint evoke specific social roles in ancient Mesoamerican culture. As historians, we ask: Who was this person? Was it a priest? What kind of music did he make? Was it part of a ritual? Sadly, without more information about Nayarit society, it's difficult to reconstruct the original context of this sculpture. We can research similar objects to better understand its meaning. We might ask, for example, what role did music play in pre-Columbian religious life? In this way, we begin to see this sculpture as a document of a lost society, one that can only be glimpsed through the art it left behind.