Transformations in Representations of Gender During the Emergence of the Teotihuacan State: A Regional Case Study of Ceramic Figurines from the Basin of Mexico

Abstract

This paper investigates transformations in the construction and expression of gender ideologies in the Basin of Mexico from the late Middle Formative through Classic periods (approx. 800bc–ad600). Ceramic figurines from the sites of Teotihuacan, Axotlan, Cerro Portezuelo and Huixtoco are used to explore how elements of gender were constructed and communicated in the region over the course of a millennium, and how these practices underwent a transformation during the emergence and expansion of the Teotihuacan state. During the Formative periods, the selection, combination, or omission of sexual attributes in association with decorative elements such as jewellery formed a flexible strategy for depicting a variety of social identities across the Basin of Mexico. The emergence of the Teotihuacan figurine style in the Terminal Formative period brought with it significant changes to the way figurine bodies were formed—sexual attributes disappeared and were replaced with increasingly elaborate clothing and jewellery as the figurine corpus diversified into multiple types. Although relative rates of depictions of feminine and masculine figurines shifted over time, in no period were figurines limited to a binary set of depictions, indicating diverse social identities and gender ideologies in the Basin of Mexico over time.