Seated Deity (Macuilcoatl) 15th-early 16th century Aztec This sculpture depicts a seated male with his legs drawn up to his chest. His posture is straight and open with his left forearm resting across both knees. The figures right hand, which was likely broken in antiquity or during the early Colonial period, is modeled around a small void. The figures open hand likely once held a banner, or flag-tipped staff.Bearing the image of a hand carved in shallow relief across its lower jaw, this Aztec standard bearer represents one of the pre-Hispanic deities known as the Macuiltonaleque, or "lords of the five souls" (macuil, "five" + tonalli, "soul"). By reading the glyph sculpted on the reverse of the statues head, which depicts a coiled serpent surrounded by five dots, we are able to identify this figure as Macuilcoatl, or "5 Serpent." Associated with feasting, gambling, and games of chance, the youthful Macuiltonaleque embodied notions of pleasure, excess, and disease in pre-Hispanic Ce