Object Notes

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

Objects known as “spoons” may have functioned as trays from which hallucinogenic snuff was inhaled.

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.

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.

About 900 BCE, jadeite and other greenstones became the preferred material for precious small‑scale Olmec objects of symbolic importance. These stones derive ideological value from their rarity and color, which was often associated with water and maize fertility.

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

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 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.