Female Figure 12th-9th century B.C. Tlatilco This solid, hand-modeled ceramic figurine is made of tannish gray clay and may bear traces of a red pigment. The figure, which wears a ponytail draped over her right shoulder, has almond-shaped eyes, shortened arms, broad hips, and a narrow waist. The back is anatomically undifferentiated and no buttocks are indicated.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