The carved stone images Olmec kings wore on their foreheads and chests projected supernatural power.

The carved stone images Olmec kings wore on their foreheads and chests projected supernatural power.

Hollow pottery baby figurines are a common theme in Olmec art, where they represent the capacity of kings to regenerate life out of death. They are known as baby-face figurines because they exhibit plump bodies and facial features similar to an infant. They are normally depicted in a seated position, with arms raised and legs spread, and nude with no indica

This massive stone axe embodies the power of man to clear the land, dig and shape the earth, and make the world a habitable place. The cleft in the forehead represents the opening of a path from the human world to the otherworld. Its blade, wielded by the king in ceremony, was a means of cleaving such a path and bringing spiritual force into the world.

This small, carved figurine depicts a crouching man. His genitals are exposed, and he has a pronounced beard, both of which are rare in Olmec art. The wrinkled-face, elderly man wears a fitted cap, and there are small holes on the earlobes, though further costume details are absent.

Objects that are Olmec in style have been found in such distant areas of Mesoamerica as Tlapacoya and Tlatilco in the Valley of Mexico, Chalcatzingo in Morelos, and Teopantecuanitlan in Guerrero.

The Olmec site of Las Bocas, near the modern town of Izúcar de Matamoros in western Puebla, is a source of ceramics in the Olmec style. A refined naturalism, characteristic of the Las Bocas style, is present in this example. Many Mesoamerican peoples believed that the present world emerged out of a primordial sea and that the souls of the dead returned to such a watery place.

During the late 2nd millennium BCE, ceramic female figures were a popular theme among the peoples of central Mexico. They often share a number of characteristics including unnatural limbs and distinctive, sometimes abnormal, facial features.

The carved stone images Olmec kings wore on their foreheads and chests projected supernatural power.