sentences:  Based on their closed eyes and wide open mouths, and also on the nearby shrine of a death god and on the surrounding burials, the latter have been identified as deified women who died in child birth, more or less corresponding to the much later Aztec "cihuateteo" ('female gods') also known from the Codex Borgia.Otherwise similar ceramic statues of earth goddesses, however, standing or seated, do not have dead faces and should therefore not be compared to the Aztec "cihuateteo".The ball court reliefs of El Tajin prominently depict a death god, a rain god and what may be a sun god and are important for their narrative quality perhaps related to the origin of pulque.