Word: olmec
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More than 1,500 years before the Maya flourished in Central America, 25 centuries before the Aztecs conquered large swaths of Mexico, the mysterious Olmec people were building the first great culture of Mesoamerica. Starting in 1200 B.C. in the steamy jungles of Mexico's southern Gulf Coast, the Olmec's influence spread as far as modern Guatemala, Honduras, Belize, Costa Rica and El Salvador. They built large settlements, established elaborate trade routes and developed religious iconography and rituals, including ceremonial ball games, blood-letting and human sacrifice, that were adapted by all the Mesoamerican civilizations to follow...
...then, about 300 B.C., their civilization vanished. No one knows why. But they left behind some of the finest artworks ever produced in ancient America, the most spectacular of which will be on display at the National Gallery of Art in Washington starting next week. Titled "Olmec Art of Ancient Mexico," the exhibition is the first comprehensive survey of Olmec artifacts, ranging from palm-size jade carvings to a 10-ton, monumental stone head. For the next four months, visitors will be able to see treasures that have never before been permitted to leave Mexico. "It's amazing," says...
Together with the U.S. Customs Service, Josephson's agency has helped stem the smuggling of archaeological loot from one region: Latin America. Plunderers of pre-Columbian sites used to have a field day rifling covertly excavated Mayan, Olmec and Incan ruins and shipping the artifacts north to a voracious U.S. market. In 1970 the UNESCO convention on cultural property established an international framework to curb pillage and the illicit trade in artifacts. Among the rich countries that are the biggest markets for stolen works, however, only the U.S. and Canada signed the treaty. Britain, France, & Germany, Switzerland, the Low Countries...
...ultimate spiritual experience, no site could surpass the ancient Olmec pyramids at Cacaxtla, southeast of Mexico City. There a pallid re- enactment of Aztec dances failed to stir the crowd of 3,000, but the sun's pas de deux with the moon, lasting nearly six minutes -- a minute and a half short of the maximum duration possible -- led many to fall to their knees. With Mars, Mercury, Venus and Jupiter suddenly bursting into view in the afternoon, what else could they do but give thanks to the gods, ancient and modern, and pray for the opportunity to view...
...Mexican art is sacred art. There are rare moments of what one might call realism. One is the remarkable Olmec urn in the form of a hunchback, probably from La Venta; but its immense vitality suggests that in Olmec cosmology, cripples and dwarfs were invested with numinous power, along with jaguars and eagles. Another is the 7th century stucco head from the Temple of the Inscriptions in Palenque, which is clearly a portrait, perhaps of the ruler Pacal II. Yet even in this effigy of an individual, the great bladelike nose and the forward sweep of the headdress like...