What Can Monument 9 Reveal About The Mysterious Olmec Civilization?
AncientPages.com | June 30, 2023
AncientPages.com - Aztec and Maya civilizations are household names – but it’s the Olmecs who are the ‘mother culture’ of ancient Mesoamerica.
Jade Olmec warriors mask from Tabasco (Mexico). Musées Royaux d'Art et d'Histoire, Brussels (Belgium). Credit: Michel Wal - CC BY-SA 3.0s
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 . 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.
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. Chalcatzingo is closely related to Olmec culture, one of the earliest in ancient Mesoamerica.
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. I have visited Chalcatzingo many times while researching the development of this rich cultural region.
Elaborate art
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. Much of their influence was based on economic wealth from corn.
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