Stuff to see at the Met (museum)

While living in NYC, art is always at your fingertips. Whether it be ancient, classical or modern—you always have something to be inspired from. There's some new stuff in the Met (I mean the museum, not the operah, duh!), so for anyone who's interested, I suggest you check it out. Particularly, this piece which was acquired a few years ago, but is on show now:

2000 year old bearer or something (the unknown)

It originated in Mexico, and much like most ancient South American art (called pre-Columbian as the time before Columbus "discovered" the place) it is very elegant, and unlike the traditional stuff we're used to seeing in the West, originating from the Old World of ancient Greece, Rome, Near East, that kinda stuff. This piece is from Colima, a state in south-western Mexico, at the coast of the Pacific Ocean, and it's elaborate history is detailed in the The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin of Fall 2008:

In the centuries on either side of the first millennium, much three-dimensional ceramic sculpture was made in the western Mexican region that now corresponds to the modern states of Colima, Nayarit, and Jalisco. The three states have given their names to the styles of three groups of ancient ceramics that have been identified within their borders. The Colima style, today the most popular of the three, is generally known for its contained volumes, simplified detail, and almost monochrome surfaces, which are most frequently a rich red-brown that at its best is brilliant in appearance. 

Substantial numbers of Colima ceramic sculptures like this one have been discovered in burials, where they were placed as funerary offerings. Some large, probably family tombs held dozens of them.The specific meaning of many of the depictions can only be conjectured. Warriors, for instance, are identified by the slings they carry and their pugnacious attitudes.This example may be a standard bearer. The raised right arm and empty fist that could well have supported a staff with a banner suggest that it might be. Standard bearers are more common in later Mexican sculpture, when they are frequently depicted in stone.