"Xipe-Totec"

Male figure, standing, with closed eyes and half-open mouth. He has multiple orifices in the upper part of the head and has earrings and nose rings. He has two ropes crossing the chest and holds, in one hand, a kind of mirror, and in the other, several small bags. He seems to be fully dressed and has a prominent sexual organ. It is a sculpture of the Mesoamerican god Xipe-Totec (Our Skinned Lord), to whom they were particularly devoted in Veracruz and on the Gulf coast during the Classical Period. He was the god of fertility, of seasonal renewal, and of spring. Because he was a deity associated with fertility, representations of him have a prominent sexual organ. As symbol of nature’s renewal, he was represented dressed in human skin, an aspect that we can see in this sculpture in which the god is fully dress which is in fact the skin of a sacrificed person.