Chinese Figurines in Mesoamerica

Abstract

In a recent article J. Alden Mason (1951) called attention to 2 small Chinese figurines found in local archaeological collections in Mesoamerica. One was from Azqueltan, Jalisco, Mexico and is now in the University Museum, Philadelphia (catalog number NA- 11808), and the other was in the Vitalino Robles collection of Quezaltenango, Guatemala. Both are of a soft stone and were described as “crawling infants.” While browsing through a collection of archaeological objects in an antique shop in Guatemala City I came across another small Chinese figurine similar in most respects to the ones described by Mason. The shop owner, unaware of the Oriental origin of this specimen, was sure that it must have come in with the other artifacts from Kaminaljuyu, a large archaeological site on the outskirts of the city. The figurine has been presented to the University Museum (catalog number 54-4-1).Like the Quezaltenango specimen (Mason 1951 Fig. 1, a), the stone figurine from Guatemala City is an opaque yellowish-amber color with reddish veins and has a very soft, soapy texture (Mohr scale 2.8).