Amateur find of ancient 'goddess' stirs calls for more research in Mexico

The edge of a mysterious block of limestone began to peak out from the dirt after Cesar Cabrera cleared a stretch of his family farm in Mexico where he wanted to plant watermelon.

Several weeks later, he and five other men carefully hoisted it out of the ground, and found themselves face to face with a life-size statue that had likely been buried for centuries. The accidental archaeologists had made the country’s first big find of the year, Reuters reports.

“Look! It’s the image of a goddess!” said an overjoyed Cabrera, 52, recalling his first words after seeing her face.

The farmers carefully lifted the statue into a truck and took it to Cabrera’s house. Some internet sleuthing in the days that followed persuaded Cabrera that the statue, carved with elaborate ornaments and a flowing feather headdress, resembled the Huastec goddess of lust.

Experts think it’s more likely the more than 500-year-old sculpture represents an elite woman, possibly a queen, from the Huastec culture, one of Mexico’s lesser-known ancient societies due in large part to a paucity of research plus wide-scale looting over a century ago of its uniquely naturalistic art.

For centuries, thriving Huastec population centers dotted Mexico’s steamy southeastern coast, many clustered around rivers that flow into the Gulf of Mexico, stretching across six modern-day Mexican states including Veracruz, Tamaulipas and San Luis Potosi.