How were they found?

In the first half of the 20th century, a great number of graves were found by brickmakers mining clay in the Tlatilco area of Mexico City. These brickmakers would often sell the objects that came out of these graves —many of them figurines— to interested collectors.

Art historian Miguel Covarrubias provided a first-hand account:

“There is no better hunting ground for archaeological specimens than the great pits of the brickyards around Mexico City, where the brickmakers must constantly weed out pottery sherds and fragments of clay figurines from the clay used to make bricks. Occasionally the brick workers encounter an ancient burial with offerings of whole pots, complete figurines, and even small bits of jade, which they sell to collectors who make a habit of visiting the brickyards. … Going to Tlatilco with a pocketful of cash and returning with an archeological puzzle or an artistic masterpiece became a weekly habit… [Later] the prices skyrocketed and making bricks became secondary to treasure-hunting, before the feverish digging could be brought under control and systematic exploration begun.”⁹

Beginning in 1942, four seasons of systematic excavations were undertaken, by Covarrubias and others, though Michael Coe and Rex Koontz write that “only a tiny fraction of Tlatilco was ever cleared under scientific conditions.”¹⁰

The Tlatilco excavations documented more than 500 known burials. Some included complex burial tableaux featuring arrangements of ceramics and large clusters of figurines. Interestingly, figurines were found more often in the graves of children and young adults, and ”decline markedly for burials of individuals older than thirty.”¹¹ One burial of an infant included 14 figurines.

The figurines in the Tlatilco burials were found lying in piles, but Joyce Marcus suggests they may have originally been arranged in standing tableaux.¹² Complex figurine arrangements, including funeral scenes, have been found in burials elsewhere in Mesoamerica.¹³

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