The young woman from Amajac, a woman between the orange tree (2021), a documentary that narrates the discovery of this enigmatic pre-Hispanic sculpture and the first results of its investigation, based on its iconography and the context where it was discovered, in the Veracruz municipality of Alamo Temapache, premieres this November in Mexican public media.
2021 was just starting when the town of Hidalgo Amajac, north of Veracruz, became a center of national and world attention due to the discovery of “The young woman from Amajac”In a plot dedicated to the cultivation of oranges and lemons. Ten months later, the reflectors remain on it, because as announced by the Government of Mexico City, a replica of this pre-Hispanic piece will replace the sculptural ensemble of Christopher Columbus that since 1877 presided over the roundabout dedicated to the Genoese navigator on Paseo de la Reforma avenue.
The sculpture is currently on display at the Anthropology National Museum, as part of the temporary sample The greatness of Mexico, and once it concludes, in April 2022, it will return to Álamo Temapache to join the archaeological heritage of its local museum, authorities report.
The documentary, a production of the Secretary of Culture, through the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH), by Ana Galicia Zamora and Gibran Huerta Castillo, intertwines the fresh impression of its discoverers: the settlers César Cabrera and Alejandro Céspedes, who found her on her plot, and the testimony of the researcher of the INAH Veracruz Center, María Eugenia Maldonado Vite, who in this documentary work offers the first lights on its origin, interpretation, symbolism and significance.
It also gives an account of the notice that the community makes to the municipal authorities about this finding and its future, which, among other things, breaks with the false idea that publicizing this type of discoveries implies the loss of their properties, and emphasizes that “ what it does allow is its study and conservation ”, assures the INAH.
The hypothesis that the sculpture found in the town of Hidalgo Amajac represents a woman who held power, is commented on in the documentary by the archaeologist Maldonado, who refers that in the Huasteca social and political structure, women could access the government when male succession was made impossible in the absence of offspring.
Hence the proposal that the sculpture alludes to an elite woman rather than a deity, since it is dressed like the sculptures that represent other high-ranking women from various populations in the region, with an annotation: the iconographic characteristics of “ The young woman from Amajac ”indicate the influence of the Nahua culture of central Mexico on the Huasteca sculpture tradition, which is justified considering the incursions that Texcoco and later Tenochtitlán had in the region, from the middle of the 15th century.
According to the researcher, the study of “The young woman from Amajac” will allow us to determine how the influence of central Mexico was taking place in the south of the Huasteca “.
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Reference-www.eleconomista.com.mx