Deconstructing a Zapotec Figurine

The site of Atzompa in southern Mexico was a suburb of the great Zapotec capital city of Monte Albán 1,200 years ago, when a man and a woman were laid to rest there in an elaborately painted tomb (“High Rise of the Dead,” November/December 2012). Recently, a team from Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History finished excavating a colorful figurine from among the objects left with the deceased. Some researchers believe it may be an image of the man buried there, or of one of