Olmec: Colossal Masterworks of Ancient Mexico

Le Saboteur

Active member
If you're on the West Coast over the next couple of months, take a trip over to San Francisco. Starting on the 19th of February, the deYoung Museum in Golden Gate Park will be featuring an exhibit of those colossal stone heads, as well as 100 additional artifacts culled from Mexican national collections and 25 other museums!

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Some of the large-scale works on display will be

* Monument Q (colossal head) from Tres Zapotes??carved from a distinctive porphyritic basalt and weighing over eight tons, this was the second colossal head to be discovered at Tres Zapotes.

* Colossal Head 5 from San Lorenzo??discovered in 1946, it was created using a combination of polishing and fine and rough hammering.

* Stela 1 (female figure) from La Venta??standing over eight feet tall, the stela presents a surprisingly naturalistic female figure in a pleated skirt standing in a niche.

* Monuments 7?9 (twin figures and jaguar) from Loma del Zapote-El Azuzul??a sculptural representation of two young Olmec rulers, twins, paying homage to a feline-jaguar deity.

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The Kunz Axe (votive axe) depicting a supernatural being whose physical features are drawn from multiple sources in the natural world.

Full press release can be read here. It also includes a listing of the lectures to be held opening day.

The Latin American Studies site has a nice collection of Olmec art and writings for your edification. Check it out here.

Wikipedia entry is here.
 

Le Saboteur

Active member
Kenneth Baker said:
We do know the people did not call themselves "Olmec," a Nahuatl word that denotes dwellers of the rubber-producing region. Nothing of their own language survives, except perhaps in the still-undeciphered glyphs adorning items such as the stone "celts" that belong to a miniature sculpture ensemble known as "Offering 4."

The exhibit opens today at the deYoung, and received a nice write up in the San Francisco Chronicle. You can read it here.
 
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