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The most significant and largest temple-pyramid in the Tenochtitlan or the Aztec imperial capital was a ceramic figurine. Although these ceramic figurines were easy to transport and were widely available, they have often been recovered broken from household debris in various villages. These figurines have been found in various places such as in household shrines, wall niches, and even in sweat baths. However, these figurines were excluded from Templo Mayor offerings, probably because the figurines included in such offerings were often made of copal. Copal primarily comes from trees of the species Bursera bipinnata. The resin emits a pleasant-smelling white smoke when burned, and it is often believed that this pleased the gods. This chapter attempts to examine the iconographic and historical relationship between the ceramic figurines and the copal figurines.

The Sechín Alto Polity, centered in the Casma Valley on the north coast of Peru, constructed the largest mound structures in the New World during the Initial Period (2100–1000 B.C.). The polity united at least six inland sites and three coastal satellites into a political and economically cooperative unit within which different sites and different monumental structures had distinct, but complementary, functions. Prominent among the artifacts that define the Sechín Alto Polity are ceramic figurines. Examples are consistently from domestic or residential contexts; most (more than 350 fragments) were recovered from Sechín Alto site, the polity capital, where they were likely manufactured. Iconography within Andean archaeology of the figurines connects them with warrior figures and victims depicted in the Cerro Sechín stone carvings and by extension with anthropomorphic friezes that adorn the temple mound of Moxeke within the Sechín Alto Polity. These data suggest that the Casma figurines may represent distinct groups of people who in turn reflected sacred vs. secular aspects of Casma Valley society.

Compared to examining gender, age groups, social political structures, and other such concepts of ancient cultures, looking into how these concepts are incorporated in Gulf Coast Olmec material culture is especially difficult because no ethnohistoric or ethnographic resources, as well as hieroglyphic or pictographic texts, are available. Since the area is a tropical rainforest environment, only the Formative period glyphs that are made of ceramic and stone survive. The handmade ceramic figurines are found to be the most common form of Olmec sculpture, and these have to be thoroughly examined in order to arrive at an adequate understanding of these cultures. Looking into the iconography attributed to these ancient sculptures may help us to gage relevant insights into imagery. This chapter attempts to focus on how the imagery reveals sex, gender, and age groups.