In other cases, the head is sharply turned back, invoking growing corn. Quite frequently, this deity is depicted with an ear of corn emerging out of the center of his cleft head. The Olmecs existed at a time when maize agriculture had first developed, which stabilized and increased their economy – a transformative shift in the development of Mesoamerican civilization.ĭuring this period, they developed an elaborate religious system that emphasized the sacredness of corn and rain, including a maize god. In the case of Monument 9, it clearly pertains to the Earth, which in Mesoamerica was considered a sacred, living being. carved life-size jade masks that almost look like molded plastic, but which must have been the result of a laborious process to grind and polish this extremely hard, dense stone.Īll Olmec sculpture was created for a purpose, whether it be religious or political. I was involved in locating the original Olmec and Maya jadeite sources in highland eastern Guatemala, found in stone outcrops often located about 6,000 feet above sea level.Īrtisans beginning around 900 B.C.

The Olmecs were also masters in the carving of jade. Archaeologists believe these are individualized portraits of rulers, each with their own specific headdress: depictions of specific people, which is quite rare in New World art. By 1000 B.C., Olmec sculptors at San Lorenzo, Mexico, had fashioned no fewer than 10 colossal heads, all over 6 feet high. Of Olmec art that has survived the centuries, their carved heads are particularly striking and well known. Much of their influence was based on economic wealth from corn. The Olmec heartland was in what are now the Mexican states of Tabasco and southern Veracruz, along the southern coast of the Gulf of Mexico. Among the later Maya, for example, the gods of wind, rain and corn – or more precisely, maize – are clearly derived from the earlier Olmec culture. Many scholars regard the Olmec as the “mother culture” of ancient Mesoamerica, a civilization where particular types of monumental architecture, sculpture and gods originated. I have visited Chalcatzingo many times while researching the development of this rich cultural region.

I am an archaeologist specializing in Mesoamerica: an area that encompassed present-day southern Mexico, parts of Costa Rica and all of Guatemala, Belize, Honduras, El Salvador and Nicaragua. Chalcatzingo is closely related to Olmec culture, one of the earliest in ancient Mesoamerica. This sculpture was reportedly found at the base of a hill at Chalcatzingo, an archaeological site some 80 miles (130 kilometers) south of Mexico City, and dates to roughly 600 B.C. The monument features the head of a front-facing creature with a gaping mouth: a supernatural being that represented the living, animate earth to an ancient culture in Central America and Mexico. (THE CONVERSATION) An extremely important 1-ton sculpture, sometimes referred to by archaeologists as an “Earth Monster” or Monument 9, was repatriated to Mexico from a private collection in Colorado in May 2023, according to an announcement from Mexico’s Consul General in New York.

Ancient maya civilization map