VERACRUZ STONE HEAD HACHA LATE CLASSIC, CIRCA AD 550 - 950

Stylized skeletal heads were one of the main genres of stone hachas from Veracruz and the Southern Highlands. Skulls were emblems of power and prestige given the intensity and outcome of the ballgame. This extremely slender section was carved with exposed jaw and teeth, with the fleshless nose curving into the thick ribbon-like cheekbone and brow. The deeply recessed ear, eye and back of the jaw has been abraded into a roughened texture.

See Shook and Marquis, Secrets in Stone, Yokes, Hachas and Palmas from Southern Mesoamerica,  Philadelphia, 1996, pp. 176-181 for Southern Highland examples.