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"Olmec-style" face mask in jade. The Olmec civilization developed in the lowlands of southeastern Mexico between 1500 and 400 BC. [3] The Olmec heartland lies on the Gulf Coast of Mexico within the states of Veracruz and Tabasco, an area measuring approximately 275 kilometres (171 mi) east to west and extending about 100 kilometres (62 mi) inland from the coast. [4]
Seventeen colossal heads have been unearthed in the Olmec area, four of them at La Venta, officially named Monuments 1 through 4. Three of the heads—Monuments 2, 3, and 4—were found roughly 150 meters north of Complex A, which is itself just north of the Great Pyramid. These heads were in a slightly irregular row, facing north.
The aspect of the Olmecs most familiar now is their artwork, particularly the colossal heads. [2] The Olmec civilization was first defined through artifacts which collectors purchased on the pre-Columbian art market in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Olmec artworks are considered among ancient America's most striking. [3]
The Olmec heartland.. Tres Zapotes is a Mesoamerican archaeological site located in the south-central Gulf Lowlands of Mexico in the Papaloapan River plain. Tres Zapotes is sometimes referred to as the third major Olmec capital (after San Lorenzo Tenochtitlán and La Venta), but the Olmec phase is only a portion of the site's history, [1] which continued through the Epi-Olmec and Classic ...
English: Permanent exhibition of Olmec artefacts in the regional museum of Santiago Tuxtla. Monument Q from Tres Zapotes (also known as Nestepe Monument 1, the Nestepe Colossal Head and Tres Zapotes Colossal Head 2). This is the smallest of the Olmec colossal heads.
Through subsequent research, it became apparent that not every cleft head nor every downturned mouth represented a werejaguar. [9] Some researchers have therefore refined the werejaguar supernatural, specifically equating it with the Olmec rain deity, [10] a proposition that artist, archaeologist, and ethnographer Miguel Covarrubias had made as early as 1946 in Mexico South.
San Lorenzo was the first Olmec site that demonstrates state level complexity. The site dominated the gulf coast lowlands, creating Olmec cultural diffusion throughout the rest of Mesoamerica. The iconic finds at the site are the famous colossal heads. The colossal heads stand up to 340 centimetres (130 in) tall.
The first archaeological investigations of Olmec culture were carried out by Matthew Stirling at Tres Zapotes in 1938, owing to the discovery there of a colossal head in the 19th century. Seventeen confirmed examples of stone heads are known, all from within the Olmec heartland on the Gulf Coast of Mexico, in the states of Veracruz and Tabasco.