Olmec art

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c. 1200 BC – 400 BC · Americas · sculpture, architecture, painting · origin: San Lorenzo, Veracruz

Mesoamerica's first great sculpture: basalt ruler heads and were-jaguar infants

How to recognise it

• Colossal heads wearing helmets
• Broad nose, thick down-turned lips
• Were-jaguar baby with a cleft head
• Jade celts and masks
• Altar-thrones with a figure in a niche

Why it emerged

Maize harvests on the Gulf Coast floodplains fed Mesoamerica's first chiefs. Rulers immortalised themselves in basalt dragged dozens of kilometres from the Tuxtla Mountains.

Examples

Olmec colossal headsc. 1200 BC–900 BC17 basalt ruler portraits up to 3 m — the Americas' first monumental sculptureLa Ventac. 900 BC–400 BCEarthen pyramid and buried mosaic offerings — a template for Mesoamerican city plansLas Limas Monument 1c. 1000 BCA youth holds a were-jaguar baby; Olmec deities are incised on his bodyJuxtlahuacac. 900 BCMesoamerica's oldest sophisticated painting — a ruler in jaguar skin

Meanwhile elsewhere

• Mesopotamian art Middle East
• Ancient Egyptian art Africa
• Aegean art Europe
• Shang and Zhou bronzes Asia
• Nok terracottas Africa
• Ancient Greek art: Archaic and Classical Europe
• Scythian animal style Eastern Europe & Russia

Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English)

← Shang and Zhou bronzesNok terracottas →