A small fragment of fired clay, no bigger than a hand, has begun to draw attention away from the grand stone monuments usually associated with ancient Mesoamerica. It was picked up decades ago from the remains of La Blanca archaeological site, a place once stitched into a network of early towns along Guatemala’s Pacific coast. At first point, the object does not look like much: a broken figurine, its upper section flattened, its face never really formed in any realistic sense. But on that upper surface sit eleven shallow impressions, each pressed into the clay before it went into the fire.
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