Female Figure 12th-10th century B.C. Tlatilco This solid, hand-modeled ceramic figurine is tan in color and painted with a red pigment. No buttocks are indicated, but the upper thighs swell noticeably on the back of the figure. The hairdo and headband continue to the back of the head, but no anatomical differentiation is offered. Sculpted some three millennia ago in the Valley of Mexico, this figurine belongs to a group of ceramic effigies known collectively as the Tlatilco "pretty ladies." Depicting females with large heads, small waists, and prominent hips, these handheld sculptures present a fairly standardized body type and are typically fired to red, buff, or brown tones. As the popular embodiments of an ideal feminine form, the Tlatilco "pretty ladies" are part of a centuries-long tradition in which eccentricities and religious imagery predominate. Featuring hunchbacks, dwarfs, contorted acrobats, two-headed women, and conjoined twins, the corpus of Tlatilco figurines encompasses