QUICK ACCESS
The geographical extention
The human idealization
El espacio ceremonial
The sacered space
The interchange routes
The symbols of the power
Their Beeing and their environment
The Origin of time
Izapa - a town in evolution
The Art further than the fronteirs

The geographical extention:
The Olmecs were the first cultural civilization in the tropical region on the shores of the Gulf of Mexico. They created the first ceremonial centres like “San Lorenzo” and “La Venta”, which had governmental areas and areas for priestal monuments, marced by big stone sculptures.

The main area of the Olmecs is located in the actual states of Veracruz and Tabasco, as well as in the eastern part of the state Guerrero ( Teopantecuanitlan and Chalcatzingo) and at the coastal part of Guatemala (Pacific area), where the Abaj Takalik archaeological site is located.

Near the village of Olinala in Guerrero, jade deposits were located. From there comes a silhouette figure with typical features (2-A) the original of which is mutilated on the right arm and the left knee. Some of the first identified testimonies of this culture are: the smiling mask  (2-C) found by the investigator and artist Miguel Covarrubias in the middle of the 20^th century in Veracruz and the piece known as  the Kunz axe, found in the Mixtec region in Oaxaca at the end of the 21th century. The precence of the Olmecs has been identified with jade objects, found in remote sites, for example the pectorals (2-G) and the outstanding bird from the Nicoya Peninsula in Costa Rica (2-G) or the mask with tatoos found near the Caribbean Coast in Honduras. (H. Castellanos).

The Human idealization:  top
“Olmec” means in the nahuatl language: “inhabitants of the rubber land”. This name was coined in the middle of the 20^th century to denominate the enigmatic presence in the Mexican history of a tribe, who is distinguished by monumental stone buildings and little figures made of jade. The most characteristic representation were feline features, supposedly the deidification of the jaguar. For that reason the presence of feline features  in human figures is constant in the art of these people, who probably considered this animal to be like an ancient deity. Between these features we can note eyebrows in the form of flames, splits in “V” form on the forehead and features of crawls and fangs on the lips. These details are obvious in the jade pieces, which we show here: The pectoral with five faces (3-B), found in the Mixtec region in Oaxaca; in the details of the engravements of the earflaps (3-A), which were found at La Venta in Tabasco; and in the little figure of a man with a deformed head (3-C), who holds in his arms a baby with a jaguar face. (H. Castellanos)

El espacio ceremonial:  top
Los trabajos de exploración del centro ceremonial de La Venta en las márgenes del río Tonala  en la frontera entre Tabasco y Veracruz, los iniciaron  en  1942 los investigadores Mathew Stirling y Philip Drucker, con el patrocinio de la Institución Smithsonian y de la Fundación Nacional de Geografía -USA-.    

Las 22 figurillas, (Ofrenda 4) en la que se representan 6 estelas y 16 personajes, uno de ellos de terracota (4-G) fueron encontradas en la composición en que se presentan, entre una mezcla de arena y barro,  al pie de una plataforma del complejo A del sitio arqueológico de La Venta. 

Las seis estelas -o hachas-  (4-A/4-F) colocadas como un precedente de las esculturas Mayas, están dominando la escena.   La composición  sugiere un acto ceremonial o la reunión de un consejo de jefes, en que el personaje principal, para bien o para mal, parece ser la figura humana elaborada con un material más humilde; terracota cocida, a quien bien podrían estar pidiéndole consejo o juzgando. 

Tanto por la expresión de los personajes, tallados finamente con  los rasgos típicos de las esculturas Olmecas, como por las estilizadas deformaciones craneanas, así como por el misterio de la escena, esta ofrenda se considera como la realización más notable del arte Olmeca.

Sacred space:  Top
In the archaeological site of San Isidro, which was located at the banks of the Grijalva River (now it is in the depths of the Malpaso dam), the expedition for the archaeological rescue in 1960 was lead by Gareth W. Lowe from the NWAF of the Birmingham Young University. They found the offering (5-A) with two mytological fishes and a turtle, which can be understood as a cosmovision of the sky, which today we identify as the Orion constellation.

In the indigenous towns there are special places dedicated to the communicatien with the ancestral gods. The ceremonial centres are the centre of the world, the favourite places of worhip and veneration, where big monuments and steles were built. This places were controlled by the priests (5-B) of shamanes (5-C). They had the cbility to make an spiritual transformation into “nahuales” or protector souls, communicating with the heart of the sky (5-D) interpreting the wishes of the people.

For the Olmecs, the dwarf, like this figure (5-F) coming from the Cerro de las Mesas in Veracruz, was treated in a preferential way, as he was considered to have specila powers. (H. Castellanos)

The interchange Routes:  Top
The Olmec explorers have been imagined to be people with an extensive economic control of the commercial nets, which went further than the Mesoamerican borders. It is believed, that the commerce was based on the interchange. They exchanged ceramics, farming products, like corn, cotton and cacao; sea products, like fishes, shells, turtles and mantarraya bones; sumptuary products, like snimal skins, amber, pigments and minerals, such as obsidian, hilmenita and the most valuable of all: jade.

In the explorations on the whole Mesoamerican territory, lead by Mathew Stirling in 1941, a wonderful axe was found in a cave near Simojovel, Chiapas (6-A). This axe was probably used for ceremonial uses, it is engraved with the classical Olmec features: a head with a hairdo and on the front a scroll, perhaps an expression for encouragement or life.

The location of this axe and the presence of amber in “La Venta” are an evidence of the commercial interchange of the Olmecs at about 600 b. Chr. (H. Castellanos)

Los símbolos del poder:  subir

We believe, that in the Mesoamerican towns a small elite family controlled all the religious and civil powers. Actually in the Indigenous villages the power is represented by the “staff of command”. (7-A) In the prehispanic villages the power was represented by the possession of the most precious objects made of jade, like the big axe Votiva (the biggest jade object in the Olmec art), as well as the ceremonial sceptre, like the found in Cárdenas, Tabasco (7-C). Other attributes of power were for example the pectorals, which were hung on the chest, like the pectoral found near Coatzocoalcas, Veracruz, on which we can observe a personage in horizontal position or flying with a torch in front of it (7-B).

In “La Venta” Tabasco three burrials were found, with almost 100 m³ of jade and other green stones. These stones were put in an order, so that we can observe a face with feline features in the superior part to the south of the burrial.

To bury a lot of green stones was a way of keeping big treasures and keeping spiritually the workforce of all the community. These burials were like a economic backup, like vaults of a National Bank and the pices in form of ceremonial axes woud be like modern gold ingots.

In the Pesquero stream, near Las Choapas, Veracruz, were located two axes with engraved figures, symbolizing the universe, marked by the four directions; (7-D) one of the figures is carrying a  bundle of cane and the other one a scepter in snake form (7-E) (H. Castellanos)

Their Beeing and their enviroment:  Top

The masks rescued in the Pesquero River in Veracruz (8-A) and (8-B) are the exactest expressions of the olmec personality, which has the syncretism of living people with facial decorations; tearing the skin and making themselves tatoos to get the supernaturalism and the visible ostentation of the honour they had. These signpostings indicated to all the society the status and the rank (priests, warriors, etc.). The masks had a double function: To represent the vitality and the appearance and they were as well a funeral object.

The Olmec environment was a land crossed by mighty rivers, coverd with marshlands. Therefore they had to bring to perfection an aquatic transport system and they invented the cayucs or canoes. It can be understood, that for that reason those important objects were represented in little figures. A small jade canoe (8-C) located on  the Las Mesas mountain is decorated with the classical feline features. Another canoe is the only olmec piece, that shows us with detail the form of a human hand (8-D) with realistic engravin of fingers.

In this cosmic space, the little birds like the humming bird (8-E), represented the fertility; the monkey represented the creativity and the fishes the vital sustenance.  (H. Castellanos)

The origin of time:  Top

This figure (9-A), found in 1902 near the Catemaco Lake in Veracruz, represents a shaman with a shaved head, wearing a bird dress with engraved feathers of the wings and the tail. This figure has a media mask, which has the form of a duck beak. On the abdomen there is engraved with the points and bars system, the calendaric inscription 8 baxtunes, 6 Katunes, 2 Tunes, 4 Huinales and 17 Kines, which corresponds to the year 162 a.Chr. of our calender. This is one of the most antique dates, in the system that was common in the Maya history, but maybe it is a very late date in the development of the Olmec culture. Some investigators believe, that the calendar known as “Maya Calendar” has its origin in the Olmec culture. Others think, that the dates of the origin or beginning of the calendars of these cultures are different.

The symbols of this piece are similar to the ones in the “pendant bird”, located in Costa Rica, (H. Castellanos)

Izapa - A town in evolution:  Top

(10-A) This two strings and the four earflaps were located, as we show it here, in the investigations of the NWAF in 1962, associated to a burial in the archaeological site of Izapa at the coast of Chiapas. Unfortunately there is only the chain with little pearls and the face conserved in the National Museum.

As in other cases, these necklaces, due to their high value, offered relevance in life to the individual and as a symbol of politic and social status they accompanied the individual on his funeral.

Izapa, 15 kms from Tapachula, is one of few archaeological sites, that shows us a big occupation in that time; there are evidences, that its population startedlike a small village in about 1800 b.C., on the climax of the Makaya culture. At about 800 b. C. the region was already an Olmec chieftainship and at about 300 b. C. the site reached its climax as a Mayan ceremonial centre. The center had been inhabited until the XIV century, when the inhabitants established contact with the Nahuatl culture from Mexico Tenochtitlan.

The Soconusco area is the most exuberant of Mexico. There are a lot of evidences to secure, that in this region was reached, 7000 years ago, the comestication and the knowledge of the cultivation of corn. (H. Castellanos) (10-B) and (10-C)

The art further than the fronteirs:  top

After the Hispanic conquest, the figures of the prehispanic art have been considered as the exponent of the barbarian and wild art, for 3 centuries. To the priest Bernardino de Sahagun we owe the first interest to get to know the life style, the costumes and the belief of the recently conquered  people, however the art of these people was only object to a distant admiratio, because ti was different and incomprehensible to the European mentality.

At the end of the XVIII century some investigators start to value the art objects of the ancient Mesoamerican people. One of the most important collectors of the precolombian art is Robert Wood Bliss, who started the Dumbarton Oaks collection of the Harvard University, where we can find the amazing figure made of blue jade (11-A) representing the bust of a man with long hair. In the Metropolitan Museum of New York is exhibited the figure (11-B) found in Guerrero, loading a porter’s leather strap. The figure of a personage resting with a torch and mitten (11-C)is in the Art Museum of Cleveland.

Top