Olmec. History of civilization

First great culture Central America originated in the swampy jungles of the south. 1250 BC e. people began to build majestic religious centers where there were only miserable villages. Even more surprising are the surviving stone sculptures that adorned these centers.

Olmec is the name of the tribe mentioned in the Aztec historical chronicles.

It is about the Olmecs that we will tell you now.

San Lorenzo, the first ceremonial center, was built on a huge mound 45 m high (like a 15-story building). At this level, the builders created additional earthen mounds grouped around rectangular courtyards.

Huge heads carved from stone were installed in the courtyards; the largest is 3.4 m high and weighs 20 tons.

Since the Olmecs did not know wheeled transport, the stone blocks from which the sculptures were made were delivered on rafts from the mountains located 80 km away. Then they were processed with stone tools, since the Olmecs also did not yet use metals.

Scientists believe that these sculptures could be images of deceased rulers. Some heads are “put on” helmets, very similar to those used by American football players.

This parallel may not be accidental - it is known that the Olmecs invented a ritual game with a ball; subsequently it was adopted by all the civilizations of Central America.

Players were prohibited from touching the ball with their hands and feet, and they acted with their elbows, shins and thighs. Judging by the fact that figurines, jewelry and other items were found both in northern Mexico and in El Salvador and Costa Rica, the Olmecs carried out extensive trade throughout Central America.

In addition to artisans and traders in their society, apparently, there was a rich ruling class and peasant farmers, from among whom supplies were supplied. work force for the construction of religious centers.

Perhaps the peasants rebelled against overexploitation. San Lorenzo was deliberately destroyed around 900 BC. e., the faces of the sculptures were disfigured, after which they were buried in the ground.

A small female bust, carved from rare blue jade, well illustrates the high skill of Olmec stone carvers.

Their sculptors made figures using only stone tools.

On the left you can see a photo of a female bust found in the territory where the ancient Olmecs lived.

Subsequently, other centers arose, first La Venta, on an island in the middle of the river. Tonals, and then Tres Zapotes, which also fell into disrepair around 200 BC. e.

This time is considered the end of the Olmec civilization.

However, Olmec influence persisted in subsequent cultures. The Toltec and Aztec peoples borrowed from the Olmecs not only the ball game, but also astronomical calendars, architecture using large stone elements, and pictographic writing.

Cult of the Jaguar

Olmec sculptures and reliefs often depict people whose faces were given a resemblance to the muzzles of jaguars - with narrow eyes and a large mouth, slightly open, as if in a snarl.

There are also images of children with a cat's paw imprinted on their foreheads. Scientists called these figures “jaguar people” (meaning werewolves).

The presence of such images indicates the existence of a cult of jaguars, the most powerful and dangerous predators of the Central American jungle.

It is possible that the Olmec aristocracy traced its family back to the mystical ancestor, half-man, half-jaguar, and therefore attributed to itself such inherent qualities of this predator as ferocity and cunning.

In one of the rich burials, the skeletons of a child and two jaguars were discovered, which reinforces the hypothesis that the Olmecs saw a direct connection between a child from a noble family and these animals.

Olmecs in brief

The most important dates in the history of the ancient Olmec civilization. All dates are given with relative accuracy.

Now you know who the Olmecs are and what is remarkable about their ancient civilization. If you liked this article, share it on social networks.

Civilizations of Mesoamerica

Absolutely everyone has heard about the Mayan civilization. Many have heard about the Toltecs. And about their rebellious Aztec mercenaries. But almost no one remembers the Olmecs when we're talking about about ancient Indian civilizations... But in vain - it was these people who gave culture to the Mayans, Aztecs, and Toltecs. The Olmecs were a people of warriors, priests, and possibly gods for subsequent civilizations. They can be compared to the ancient Egyptians for the civilizations of the Mediterranean - the influence of the Olmecs on the development of Mesoamerican peoples is so strong.

Olmec art

INSTEAD OF A FOREWORD

In the annals of world history, quite often there are peoples whose entire genealogy is exhausted by two or three phrases, seemingly thrown out by some ancient chronicler or conqueror. These are ghost nations. What do we know about them? Perhaps only an outlandish name and a few facts of a semi-legendary nature. Like foggy visions, they wander through the yellowed pages of ancient manuscripts and tomes, robbing many generations of researchers of peace and sleep, teasing them with their impenetrable mystery. In the New World, the dubious honor of being the first among such mysterious peoples of antiquity belongs, of course, to the Olmecs. The history of their study simultaneously serves as a clear illustration of the successes of modern archeology, which has greatly expanded the possibilities of historical search and reconstructions remote in time.

COUNTRY OF TAMOANCHAN

At first there was a legend, and only a legend. “A long time ago,” the Aztec sages said to the Spanish monk Sahagun, “in a time that no one remembers, a powerful people came and founded their kingdom called Tamoanchan.” Legend says that great rulers and priests, skilled craftsmen and keepers of knowledge lived in this kingdom. It was they who laid the foundations of that brilliant civilization, the influence of which was experienced by all the other peoples of ancient Mexico - the Toltecs, Aztecs, Mayans, Zapotecs. But where to look for that mysterious kingdom? The word "Tamoanchan" literally means "Land of Rain and Fog" in the Mayan language. The ancient inhabitants of Mexico usually called the wet tropical plains on the southern coast of the Gulf of Mexico (Veracruz and Tabasco) by this name. Before settling in Tamoanchan, its inhabitants wandered for a long time along the seashore (“the edge of the waters”) and even sailed in their fragile boats across the sea, reaching Panuco in the north.

In other ancient Indian legends we find mention that the Olmecs have long lived in this area. "Olmec" in Aztec means "inhabitant of the country of rubber" and comes from the word "Olman" - "Country of Rubber", "Place where rubber is mined." Medieval chroniclers turned out to be absolutely right: the Mexican states of Veracruz and Tabasco are still famous for their excellent natural rubber. Thus, if you believe the ancient legends of the Indians, the Olmecs - the first civilized people of Central America - have long settled on the coast of the Gulf of Mexico.

THE BIRTH OF A HYPOTHESIS

Bizarre figurines of jaguar people and jaguar people, dwarfs, freaks with strange, elongated heads, axes with intricate carved patterns, various jewelry (rings, beads, amulets-pendants) - all these ancient objects bear a clear imprint of deep internal kinship. Scattered across many museums around the world and private collections, they were long considered indeterminable, since they could not be associated with any of the cultures of pre-Columbian America known to science at that time. But the creators of all these masterpieces couldn’t have disappeared completely without a trace, leaving no tangible evidence of their former heyday?

These little things are skillfully carved from hard green jade, polished to a shine. Before the arrival of Europeans, this precious mineral was valued more than gold by the natives of the New World. The Aztec ruler Montezuma, giving Cortes gold and jewelry from his storerooms as ransom, said: “To this I will also add several pieces of jade, and each of them is equal in value to two loads of gold.”

If it is true that the Indians valued jade above all else, then another thing is no less true: most of the products made from this precious mineral come from the southern coast of the Gulf of Mexico (Veracruz and Tabasco); Moreover, on many of them the ancient master depicted some strange deity or monster, combining the features of a man and a jaguar. It was here that, back in the 19th century, the Mexican traveler Melgar found the amazing head of an “African”, carved from one huge block of black basalt. Associated with the same territory is an equally sensational find—the “figurine from Tuxtla.” In 1902, an Indian farmer accidentally discovered in his corn field an elegant jade figurine depicting a priest wearing a duck-beak mask. The surface of the object was dotted with some incomprehensible symbols and signs. Upon closer inspection, it turned out that this was nothing more than the Mayan calendar date corresponding to 162 AD. e. The shape of the signs and the entire style of the image were generally reminiscent of Mayan writings and sculptures, although they were more archaic. But the nearest ancient Mayan city was no less than 150 miles east of the discovery site! Moreover, the figurine from Tuxtla turned out to be almost 130 years older than any then known dated Mayan monument! The result was a strange picture: a certain mysterious people, who inhabited Veracruz and Tabasco in distant times, invented Mayan writing and the calendar much earlier than the Mayans themselves. But what kind of people are these? What is the shape of its culture? Where and when did he come to the swampy jungles of southern Mexico? It was these questions that the famous American archaeologist George Vaillant took up. Having compared all the facts known to him, he decided to act by the method of elimination. Vaillant knew well the culture of many ancient peoples who once inhabited Mexico: the Aztecs, Toltecs, Totonacs, Zapotecs, Mayans. But none of them had anything to do with the mysterious creators of the style of fine jade products. And then the scientist remembered the words of the ancient legend about the Olmecs - “inhabitants of the country of rubber”: the area of ​​​​distribution of jade figurines of a jaguar man completely coincided with the supposed habitat of the Olmecs - the southern coast of the Gulf of Mexico. Thus, in 1932, thanks to an ingenious hypothesis, another ghost nation acquired quite material features. This was not only a triumph for the scientist, but also a triumph for the ancient Aztec legend.

Figurine from Tuxtla. Nephritis.

EXPEDITIONS GO ON THE WAY

Vaillant carried out the “resurrection” of the Olmecs from oblivion on the basis of just a few scattered things, relying mainly on the logic of his scientific assumptions. But for a deeper study of the newly discovered civilization, these finds alone, despite their unique character and artistic skill, were clearly not enough. Systematic excavations were required in the heart of the supposed Olmec country. The first to go to the jungles of Veracruz and Tabasco were US archaeologists - a joint expedition of the Smithsonian Institution and the National Geographic Society led by Matthew Stirling. Over the course of several years, from 1938 to 1942, the expedition visited at least three major centers of Olmec culture: Tres Zapotes, La Vente and Cerro de Las Mesas.

For the first time, dozens of stone sculptures and sculptures, step pyramids, tombs and houses of the disappeared people were excavated and carefully examined. Interesting discoveries awaited scientists literally at every turn. But perhaps the most precious of them was a modest fragment of a stone slab from Tres Zapotes, which later became widely known as the “C” stele. On the front side of the monument is carved in low relief the mask of a popular Olmec deity - a combination of a jaguar and a human. The other side, facing the ground, is decorated with strange signs and a column of dashes and dots. Experts easily established that they have the date of the Mayan calendar corresponding to 31 BC. e.

The priority of the Olmecs in the invention of writing thus received new serious confirmation. In two Olmec centers - La Venta and Tres Zapotes - six giant stone heads were discovered. Contrary to widespread rumors among the Indians, these stone colossi never had bodies. The ancient masters carefully placed them on special low platforms, at the foot of which there were underground caches with gifts from pilgrims.

All giant heads are carved from blocks of hard black basalt. Their height ranges from 1.5 to 3 meters. Weight - from 5 to 40 tons. The broad and expressive faces of the sculptures are so realistic that there is hardly any doubt that these are portraits of real people, and not pagan gods. Some of them look at the world cheerfully and openly, hiding a sly smile in the corners of their stony lips. Others frown menacingly with their brows furrowed, as if they are trying to scare away an unknown danger with their very appearance. Who do these stone idols represent? Matthew Stirling believes that these are portraits of the most prominent Olmec leaders and rulers, immortalized in stone by their grateful subjects.

Another thing is no less surprising. How could people, who were essentially still living in the Stone Age and had neither carts nor draft animals, deliver huge blocks of basalt, the nearest deposits of which were 50 and even 100 kilometers away, to their cities through disastrous jungles and swamps?

The discoveries of North American archaeologists have excited the entire scientific world. And for a closer look at the Olmec problem, it was decided to convene a special conference

Giant stone head from La Vente

"ICE AND FIRE"

It took place in 1942 in the city of Tuxtla Gutierrez, the capital of the Mexican state of Chiapas, and attracted many specialists from all over the New World. Giant basalt head from San Lorenzo. Literally from the very first minutes, the conference hall became an arena of fierce disputes and discussions. The struggle was mainly between two irreconcilable camps. Ironically, this time they were divided not only by scientific views, but also nationality: Mexican temperament collided here with Anglo-Saxon skepticism.

At first, the North Americans set the tone. Matthew Stirling and Philip Drucker, in restrained tones, presented to the audience the results of their excavations in Tres Zapotes and La Venta and put forward a scheme for the development of Olmec culture, equating it chronologically to the Ancient Mayan Kingdom (300-900 AD). It must be said that at that time the majority of archaeologists, especially in the USA, were entirely in the grip of one tempting theory. They were convinced that all the outstanding achievements of the pre-Columbian Indian civilization in Central America were the merit of only one people - the Mayans. And, obsessed with this idea, Mayan scientists did not skimp on magnificent epithets, calling their favorites “Greeks of the New World,” a unique, chosen people, marked with the stamp of special genius.

And suddenly, like a sudden hurricane, the passionate voices of two Mexican scientists were heard in the hall of a decorous academic meeting. Their names - Alfonso Caso and Miguel Covarrubias - were well known to those present in the hall.

One of them became famous for his discovery of the Zapotec civilization of Monte Albana. Another was considered an unrivaled expert in ancient Mexican art. Having identified the characteristic features and high level of the new artistic style, they declared with all their conviction that the Olmecs should be considered the most ancient civilized people of Mexico. “There, in the jungles and swamps of Southern Veracruz,” said Miguel Covarrubias, “archaeological treasures lie everywhere: funerary mounds and pyramids, giant statues of gods and heroes masterfully carved from basalt, magnificent figurines made of precious jade... Many of these ancient masterpieces belong to to the beginning of the Christian era. Appearing suddenly, out of nowhere, in a fully mature form, they undoubtedly belong to a culture that was, in all likelihood, fundamental, the mother culture for all later civilizations.” A. Caso echoed him: “The Olmec culture... had a significant influence on the development of all subsequent cultures.”

The Mexicans supported their views with very convincing facts. “Weren’t they found in Olmec territory? ancient objects with calendar dates? - they said. “And the earliest Mayan temple in Vashaktun is Pyramid E-VII-sub.?” After all, it is decorated with typically Olmec sculpted masks in the form of a jaguar god!” “But, for mercy’s sake,” objected their opponents. “The entire Olmec culture is just a distorted reflection of the influences of the great Mayan civilization. The Olmecs simply borrowed the Mayan calendar system and wrote down their dates incorrectly, making them significantly older. Or maybe the Olmecs used a 400-day cycle calendar or counted time from a different date than the Mayans? However, attempts to present the Olmec culture as a degraded copy of the magnificent Mayan civilization were extremely unconvincing.

Giant basalt head from San Lorenzo

PHYSICISTS HELP ARCHAEOLOGISTS

The conference is over. Its participants dispersed. But the unresolved problems regarding the Olmecs did not diminish after that. Many were worried about one cardinal question, on the solution of which almost everything depended—the exact age of mature Olmec art. But, as a rule, attempts made in this direction have invariably failed. And when it seemed that there was no way out, help suddenly came: in the early 50s, archaeologists adopted a new and very promising method of absolute dating of antiquities - radiocarbon analysis of organic remains.

In 1955, Philip Drucker, at the head of a large expedition of the Smithsonian Institution (USA), again began excavations at La Venta in order to gain a complete understanding of the nature of this ancient city. La Venta is located on a large sandy island (12 km long and 4 km across) rising from the vast mangrove swamps of the state of Tabasco, near the Gulf Coast. The city has a clear layout.

All its most important buildings once stood on the flat tops of the pyramids and were oriented strictly according to the cardinal points. In the very center of La Venta rises a huge thirty-three-meter pyramid made of clay. To the north of it lies a wide, flat area, bordered on all sides by vertically standing basalt columns. And further, as far as the eye can see, hills overgrown with grass and bushes are scattered in separate groups - the remains of the once majestic buildings of the Olmec capital that perished in time immemorial.

16 "men" from La Venta

The findings this time pleased the researchers. During excavations of the main square of La Venta, almost six meters deep, archaeologists discovered a perfectly preserved mosaic in the form of a stylized jaguar head. The total dimensions of the mosaic are about five square meters. It consists of 486 carefully hewn and polished green serpentine blocks, attached with bitumen to the surface of a low stone platform. The beast's empty eye sockets and mouth were filled with orange sand, and the top of its angular head was decorated with diamonds. Here lay the richest gifts in honor of this deity - a pile of precious things and jewelry made of jade and serpentine. When the mosaic was completed, the Olmecs carefully hid it, pouring an almost six-meter layer of yellow clay on top. According to experts, it was at least 500 tons.

On the eastern side of the same square, under a clay platform covered with several layers of bright red pavement, workers unexpectedly came across a group of strange jade figurines. Small stone men with pear-shaped, artificially deformed heads, so characteristic of the Olmec ideal of beauty, are apparently performing some important religious ceremony. Fifteen of them stand opposite a lone character, his back pressed against a fence of six vertically placed axes, and stare at him. Who is he? A high priest performing a solemn ceremony, or a victim whose life will be given over to the almighty pagan god in a moment?

We can only speculate on this matter. Another thing is interesting. Many years later, after these little people were buried underground, someone dug a narrow well above them through all the built-up layers, examined the figures and then again carefully disguised the hole with clay and earth. Thanks to this incomprehensible ritual, we now know for sure that the Olmec priests had very accurate records, drawings and plans of all the religious buildings and shrines of their city.

But the most important discovery was still awaiting researchers. Charcoal samples from La Venta sent to US laboratories for radiocarbon dating yielded a completely unexpected series of dates. According to physicists, it turned out that La Venta flourished in 800-400 BC. e.!

The Mexicans were jubilant. Their arguments in favor of the Olmec ancestor culture were now supported, and in the most solid way! On the other hand, Philip Drucker and many of his US colleagues admitted defeat. The surrender was complete. They had to abandon their previous chronological scheme of Olmec antiquities and completely accept the dates obtained by physicists. The Olmec civilization thus received a new “birth certificate”, the main paragraph of which read: 800-400 BC. e.

Sculptures on the side of the altar from La Vente

SENSATION IN SAN LORENZO

In January 1966, Yale University (USA) sent the famous American archaeologist Michael Ko to the jungles of Southern Veracruz. The purpose of his expedition was to explore as completely as possible the new Olmec center of San Lorenzo, located in the Coatzacoalcos River basin. By this time, the scales in the great dispute between the Maya and the Olmecs about the priority of one or another civilization were already clearly tipping in favor of the latter. However, more convincing evidence was needed to link early forms of Olmec pottery to magnificent stone monuments. This is what Michael Ko wanted to do in the first place. For three years he carried out intensive work in the area of ​​the ancient city. And when the time came to sum up the preliminary results, it became clear: the world was on the threshold of a new scientific sensation. Judging by the rather archaic-looking pottery and an impressive series of radiocarbon dates, most of the typically Olmec sculptures of San Lorenzo were produced between 1200 and 900 BC. e., that is, much earlier than even in La Venta. Yes, there was a lot to puzzle over here. For any specialist, this message would immediately raise a lot of puzzling questions. How did M. Ko manage to establish the relationship between archaic ceramics and Olmec stone sculptures? What is San Lorenzo like? How does it relate to other Olmec centers, most notably Tres Zapotes and La Venta? Moreover, how to explain the strange fact itself? unexpected appearance fully mature civilization in 1200 BC. e., when in the remaining regions of Mexico only primitive early agricultural tribes lived? It turned out that all the buildings of San Lorenzo, totaling more than two hundred, stand on a steep and steep plateau, rising almost 50 meters above the surrounding flat savannah. The length of this peculiar “island” is approximately 1.2 km. Narrow “tongues” extend in different directions from the plateau in the form of continuous chains of hills and hills.

When excavations began, Michael Ko discovered, to his great surprise, that at least the top seven meters of the plateau at San Lorenzo were man-made! How much labor had to be spent in order to move such a gigantic mountain of earth! Analysis of the finds allowed the researcher to identify two main stages in the life of the city: the earlier one - San Lorenzo (200-900 BC) and the Palangan stage, which generally coincides in time with La Venta (800-400 BC). e.). Thanks to one witty guess, Michael Ko was able to establish an absolutely amazing fact: one fine day, the ancient inhabitants of San Lorenzo broke and damaged most of their stone idols, and then “buried” them in special places, placing them in regular rows, oriented strictly to the cardinal points. From above, this unusual “cemetery” was covered with a multi-meter layer of debris and earth, in which shards of clay vessels only from the San Lorenzo stage are found. Consequently, the burial of the broken statues took place precisely at this time. In any case, this is what Michael Ko himself and the staff of his expedition thought.

Another inevitable conclusion followed from this: the Olmec civilization existed in a fully developed and mature form already at the end of the 2nd millennium BC. e. Michael Ko supports his hypothesis with two arguments: a series of radiocarbon dates for ceramics from the San Lorenzo stage (1200-900 BC) and the fact that only early types of shards are found in the backfill hiding the Olmec stone sculptures.

But the same fact can be interpreted in another way. It is possible that the residents of San Lorenzo took the land and debris for the “burying” of their statues from the territory of an abandoned settlement of an earlier era, located either in the city itself or in its environs. It is known that the so-called “cultural layer” - soft black earth formed in the place of permanent human habitation - is much easier to dig than clean soil. This is especially important considering that the Olmecs only had wood and stone tools.

Along with the soil, the ancient objects contained in it were brought to the “cemetery” of statues: ceramics, clay figurines, etc. As for radiocarbon dates, excessive credulity in them has failed archaeologists more than once in the past.

First of all, it is necessary to clearly understand one undoubted fact: the vast majority of stone sculptures from San Lorenzo are no different from the monuments of La Venta and, therefore, date back to 800-400 BC. e. But this last date was also obtained using the C-14 method and cannot be considered absolutely accurate. On the other hand, we have at our disposal one completely reliable chronological milestone - the stele “C” from Tres Zapotes with a calendar date equal to 31 BC. e. On its front side there is a typical Olmec mask of the jaguar god.

Moreover, the three major Olmec centers (San Lorenzo, Tres Zapotes and La Venta) have, among other impressive sculptures, giant stone heads. The stylistic similarity of the latter is so great that they were undoubtedly made at approximately the same time. The entire complex of archaeological finds from Tres Zapotes (including the “C” stela) dates back to the end of the 1st millennium BC. BC - first centuries AD e. This suggests that at least part of the stone monuments of San Lorenzo and La Venta and, in any case, the giant basalt heads are of the same age.

Stele "C" from Tres Zapotes with a 6m boa jaguar, 31 BC. e.

If we take a look at other areas of ancient Mexico, then upon closer acquaintance with them it will become obvious that at the end of the 1st millennium BC. e. they were not much inferior to the Olmecs in their development. As excavations in Mayan territory have shown, the first examples of writing and calendar also appear here in the 1st century. BC e. Apparently, the Mayans, Olmecs, Nahua (Teotihuacan) and Zapotecs arrived at the threshold of civilization more or less simultaneously - at the end of the 1st millennium BC. e. Under such conditions, there is no longer any room left for the ancestral culture.

The decades-long dispute between opponents and supporters of the priority of the Olmec civilization has not been fully resolved to this day. But the wait is not long now. Numerous teams of archaeologists, fully armed with modern technology, are now storming the swampy jungles of Veracruz and Tabasco.

After excavations and discoveries in the 30s and 40s of the 20th century, it became clear that in the first millennium AD, in the swampy and humid jungles of the Gulf Coast, there was an unusual high culture, created by the Olmec people. They built tall pyramids and magnificent tombs, carved massive ten-ton heads of their rulers from stone, and many times depicted the figure of a ferocious jaguar god on huge basalt steles and elegant jade objects.

We still don’t know where the Olmecs came from to Veracruz and Tabasco, whether they were the original inhabitants of these places.

No less mysterious is the death of the Olmec culture, the creators of which suddenly disappeared without a trace from the historical arena seven centuries before Columbus saw the shores of the New World.

Later, in the mid-50s, when archaeologists began to widely use the radiocarbon method in their work to determine the age of ancient things, the Olmec civilization suddenly received a completely new light.

The fact is that, judging by a series of radiocarbon dates obtained during the excavations of La Venta in 1955, this most important center of the Olmec kingdom existed implausibly early - in 800-400 BC. e., that is, in an era when the cultures of early farmers still dominated in other areas of Mexico.

Based on this data, a group of Mexican scientists hypothesized that the Olmecs were the creators of the oldest civilization in the Americas and had a decisive influence on the origin and development of other civilizations in this area.

In turn, other archaeologists, citing the unreliability of radiocarbon dates, which have often failed archeology in the recent past, defend the idea that the Olmecs as a whole developed in parallel with the other peoples of Central America - the Mayans, Nahuas, Zapotecs, and so on. The future will show which of them is right.

Thus, the problem of the origin and death of a large people who at one time inhabited vast territories of Southern Mexico still remains the main problem for all archaeologists, for all scientists involved in the ancient history of the New World. There are more than enough bold theories here. But everything is genuine Scientific research based on hard work. The work of a scientist is also impossible without elements of fantasy, but the main thing in it is a solid foundation of real facts and evidence.

The beginning of excavations in Mexico.

In the late autumn of 1938, from the port town of Alvarado, which stands on the ocean shore, near the mouth of the large Papaloapan River, an antediluvian paddle steamer set off up the river on its next voyage. On board, in addition to the usual passengers - Mexican peasants, merchants and minor officials - there was a group of people whose clothing and appearance identified them as foreigners. American explorer Matthew Stirling, the head of a joint archaeological expedition of the Smithsonian Institution and the US National Geographic Society, and his few employees, crowded along the side, eagerly examined the rapidly changing exotic landscapes of the tropics. The steamer passed emerald meadows with tall grass and entered an endless green tunnel formed by the spreading crowns of giant trees, closing their branches over the middle of the river. Jungle, endless jungle for hundreds of kilometers around. Sometimes they are cheerful, strewn with scarlet and white flowers, with the chirping of birds and the perky cries of monkeys, sometimes, on the contrary, they are dark and gloomy, immersed up to their shoulders in the viscous mud of bottomless swamps, where only snakes and huge iguana lizards patiently wait in the cool twilight for unwary prey.

Finally, after several days of travel, the misty peaks of the volcanic mountain ranges of Tuxtla appeared far on the horizon, at the foot of which were the ruins of unknown ancient cities. It was these that archaeologists had to study. There, on the fertile lands of the foothills and adjacent plains, many centuries ago a large and industrious people lived and flourished. An impregnable wall of mountain ranges protected this area from fierce hurricanes and winds from the Gulf of Mexico. And the fertile soil, even with minimal labor, produced incredible harvests, and twice a year.

History of the Olmec region.

What did we know until recently about the past of this region? The notes of the Spanish soldier Bernal Diaz, an eyewitness and direct participant in all the vicissitudes of the bloody epic of the Conquista, say that the Papaloapan River was discovered in 1518 by the brave hidalgo Pedro de Alvarado, the future associate of Cortes. At that time, the country was inhabited by warlike Indian tribes that came from somewhere in the west. The formidable legions of Indian warriors, lined up on the river bank in strict battle formation, were so impressive that the Spaniards (it was an exploration expedition under the command of Grijalva) hastened to leave.

From ancient Indian legends we also know that even before the arrival of the conquistadors, the entire coast of the Gulf of Mexico was under the rule of the great Aztec ruler Montezuma. One of the many duties of the local residents was that they had to deliver fresh fish daily to the court of the formidable emperor.

To cover this huge distance of several hundred kilometers, along the entire route - both in the jungle and on mountain passes - fleet-footed and hardy messengers were stationed, who, like a relay race, passed baskets of fish from one post to another. In one day they managed to run from the coast of the Gulf of Mexico to the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan.

According to other legends, the first inhabitants of these places were the Olmecs (the word “Olmec” literally means “inhabitants of the land of rubber”) - the creators of the ancient civilization of Central America. “Their houses were beautiful,” says legend - home with mosaic inlays of turquoise, gracefully plastered, they were wonderful. Painters, sculptors, stone carvers, feather craftsmen, gong-nars and spinners, weavers, skilled in everything, they made discoveries and became capable of finishing green stones, turquoise... »
But this prosperity did not last long. Unknown enemies who came from the west poured into the flourishing cities and villages of farmers in a black stream. The high Olmec civilization was destroyed, and the green jungle absorbed what the foreigners had not managed to destroy.

It fell to the lot of Matthew Stirling and his comrades to open the first page in the study of the mysterious Olmec culture, which was forcibly erased from human memory by the swords of the conquerors and the onslaught of the merciless jungle. In 1939, excavations began on the ancient Olmec city near the already familiar village of Tres Zapotes, in the state of Veracruz.

Olmec civilization. A city lost in the jungle

At first everything was mysterious and unclear. Dozens of artificial hills-pyramids that once served as the foundations for palace and temple buildings, countless stone monuments with bizarre faces of rulers and gods, fragments of painted pottery. And one hint as to who owned this abandoned city. The words spoken by the famous American traveler Stephens involuntarily came to mind about another ancient city lying in the jungles of Honduras, three hundred miles to the south:
“Architecture, sculpture and painting, all types of art that decorate life, once flourished in this virgin forest. Orators, warriors and statesmen; beauty, ambition and fame lived and died here, and no one knew of their existence or could tell about their past. The city was uninhabited. Among the ancient ruins there are no traces of the disappeared people with their traditions passed on from father to son and from generation to generation. He lay before us, like a ship wrecked in the middle of the ocean. Its masts were broken, its name was erased, and its crew died. And no one can say where he came from, who he belonged to, how long his journey lasted, or what caused his death.”

The mystery of stone sculptures

Nevertheless, archaeologists stubbornly continued their painstaking work, bringing to the surface more and more traces of the lost culture. First of all, the famous stone head was excavated, which, as it turned out, lay only 100 meters from the expedition camp. Twenty workers spent the whole day working around the fallen giant, trying to free him from a deep forest grave. Finally it was all over. The head, cleared of earth, seemed to come from some fantastic, otherworldly world. Despite its impressive dimensions (height - 1.8 meters, circumference - 5.4 meters, weight - 10 tons), it was carved from a single stone monolith. Like the Egyptian sphinx, she silently looked with her empty eye sockets to the north, to where magnificent barbarian ceremonies were once performed in the wide city square, and the priests made bloody sacrifices in honor of the ugly pagan gods. Oh, if the stone lips of the idol could open and he could speak, many interesting pages American history would become as well known to us as the history of Egypt, Greece and Rome.

But how did the ancient inhabitants of Tres Zapotes deliver this huge block of basalt to their hometown, if the nearest stone deposit is located several tens of kilometers away? Such a task would baffle even modern engineers. And 15-20 centuries ago, all this was done by the Olmecs without the help of wheeled transport and draft animals (they, like the rest American Indians, there was simply neither one nor the other), only the muscular strength of a person. And yet, a giant monolith, delivered by some miracle - and not by air, but by land, through the jungle, rivers, swamps and ravines - now proudly stands in the central square of the city as a majestic monument to the perseverance and work of unknown masters of antiquity.

Did the Olmecs invent the Mayan calendar? Sensation

On January 16, 1939, an event occurred in the life of the expedition that eclipsed in its significance all previous discoveries and finds. On this day, Matthew Stirling and a group of Indian workers went to look at the newly found stone stele, the edge of which barely protruded from the ground.

They had to tinker a lot before they managed to pull the heavy monument to the surface. “The Indians, on their knees,” recalls Stirling, “began to clear the surface of the monument from viscous clay. And suddenly one of them shouted to me in Spanish: “Señor, there are some numbers here!”

These were indeed numbers. I don’t know how my illiterate workers figured this out, but there, on the smooth surface of the stele, were clearly carved perfectly preserved columns of dashes and dots - signs of the ancient calendar.

Choking from the unbearable heat, covered in sticky sweat, Stirling began feverishly copying the mysterious inscription. A few hours later, all the expedition members eagerly crowded around the table in their leader’s tent. Complex calculations and calculations followed, and now the full text of the inscription is ready: 6 Etsiab 1 Io. According to the European calendar, this corresponded to November 4, 31 BC.

No one dared to dream of such a sensational find. On the newly discovered stele (later called “Stele C”), a date was carved according to the Mayan calendar system, which was more than three centuries older than any other dated monument from the Mayan region!

And there could be only one conclusion from here: the proud Mayan priests borrowed their amazingly accurate calendar from their western neighbors - the unknown Olmecs.

La Venta is the capital of the Olmecs.

On the coast of the Gulf of Mexico, among the vast mangrove swamps of the state of Tabasco, several sandy islands rise, the largest of which, La Venta, is only 12 kilometers long and 4 kilometers across. Here, next to a remote Mexican village, from which the entire island took its name, the remains of another Olmec city were discovered.
The ancient builders of La Venta knew the laws of geometry well. All the most important buildings of the city, standing on the tops of high pyramidal foundations, were oriented strictly to the cardinal points. The abundance of palace and temple ensembles, elaborate sculptures, steles and altars, numerous giant heads carved from basalt, the luxurious decoration of the tombs found here indicated that La Venta was once the largest center of Olmec culture, and perhaps the capital of the entire countries. Using calendar dates found on many stone sculptures, as well as the results of art historical analysis, scientists have established that the city’s greatest prosperity occurred in the 1st-7th centuries AD.

Then, like Tres Zapotes, he becomes a victim of an enemy invasion and perishes in the flames of fires amid the jubilant cries of the victors. Everything that could be destroyed was destroyed. Everything that could be robbed and carried away was carried away. The uninvited aliens sought to destroy literally everything that reminded them of the culture and religion of the defeated people. But the huge stone heads, columns and statues, sculpted from basalt as hard as steel, were not so easy to destroy. And then, in helpless rage, the ancient vandals smashed small sculptures, and deliberately disfigured and damaged the beautiful and expressive faces of large statues. Nevertheless, most of the amazing creations of the artists and sculptors of La Venta survived the centuries, and they were rediscovered for humanity in the middle of the 20th century by the skillful hands of archaeologists.

In the very center of the city, from the foot of the high pyramid and further to the north, there is a wide, flat square, bordered on all sides by vertically standing basalt columns. In the middle of it, above the thick grass and bushes, rose some strange structure in the form of a platform made of the same basalt columns. When the platform was completely cleared, a kind of basalt house, half buried in the ground, appeared before the archaeologists. Its long wall consisted of nine vertically placed stone pillars, and the short one - of five. From above this rectangular room was covered with a ramp of the same basalt pillars. The house had no door or windows. The ancient builders fit the giant stone columns together so skillfully that not even a mouse could slip between them. But each of them weighed almost two, or even three tons!

Using a hand winch and strong ropes, workers began to pull away the roof of the mysterious building. After removing the four columns, the hole in the roof became so wide that one could venture downstairs to where the thick black shadows hid the inside of a spacious room walled up by the priests of La Venta 15 centuries ago.

“First,” writes Matthew Stirling, “we came across an elegant little pendant in the shape of a jaguar’s fang, carved from green jade ... Then an oval mirror appeared from a carefully polished piece of obsidian. And further, in the back of the room, rose some kind of platform made of clay and lined with stone. A large spot of bright purple paint stood out clearly on its surface. Inside it we found the remains of human bones belonging to at least three of those buried.”

Next to the skeletons lay in a pile all sorts of items made of precious jade in green and bluish tones: funny little figurines in the form of sitting men with childish faces, dwarfs and freaks, frogs, snails, jaguars, strange flowers and beads.

In the southwestern corner of the burial platform, a strange headdress was discovered, more reminiscent of a “crown of thorns” than a symbol of the power and high position of its owner. Six long needles were strung on a strong cord sea ​​urchin, separated from each other by elaborate jade decorations in the form of outlandish flowers and plants. There were also two large jade spools - ear decorations and the remains of a wooden funeral mask, inlaid with jade and shells. Not far from the platform, workers came across a cache hidden in the ground, which contained 37 polished jade and serpentine axes.

According to a legend still prevalent among the inhabitants of La Vepta, the last Aztec emperor Montezuma was buried here, among the ruins of the ancient city. And when night falls on the earth, he leaves his tomb to dance in the ghostly rays of moonlight with his entourage in the wide squares and deserted streets of the forever asleep capital of the Olmecs.

And although all this is just a figment of popular imagination, wonderful legend, the scientific significance of the basalt tomb is in no way diminished by the fact that instead of Montezuma, some other powerful ruler who lived 9-10 centuries before the Aztecs appeared in the Valley of Mexico is buried in it.

Olmec civilization. The Mystery of Sixteen Men.

In 1955, after a long break, excavations continued in the Olmec capital, La Venta. One after another they were born amazing finds: reliefs, mosaics, magnificent sculptures, steles and altars. And suddenly the worker’s shovel, having broken through the hard layer of cement covering the surface of the clay platform, fell down into the emptiness of a narrow and deep pit. When archaeologists finally got to its bottom, green spots of polished jade shone brightly in the sun’s rays against the background of yellow clay. Sixteen little stone men - participants in some unknown dramatic performance - solemnly froze in front of a fence of six vertically placed jade axes. Who are they? And why were they hidden at the bottom of a deep hole, arranged in a certain order, but incomprehensible to us?

It is possible that the key to solving this archaeological puzzle can be provided by the sixteenth participant in the ancient pagan ritual.
His solitary figure, carved from granite unlike the others, stands with his back to the flat surface of the fence. The remaining fifteen figures are made of jade and have a purely Olmec appearance. All of them, turning their heads in one direction, look intently at the person opposing them. From the right, a procession of four gloomy figures with frozen masked faces is approaching him. Who is this lonely man? The high priest presiding over a solemn pagan rite, or a victim who will be thrown down in a moment on the bloody altar of an unknown god?

And here the description of a terrible custom that was once widespread among many peoples of antiquity involuntarily comes to mind. According to their ideas, the king was considered the center magical powers that control the life of nature. He is responsible for a good crop harvest, for the abundant offspring of livestock, for the fertility of women of the entire tribe. He receives almost divine honors. He tastes all the blessings of life, enjoying luxury and peace. But one day the day comes when the king must pay a hundredfold for both his wealth and his exorbitant power. And the only payment that he is obliged to give to his people is his own life! According to ancient customs, the people cannot tolerate a weakened, sick or aging king for a minute, since the well-being of the entire country depends on his health. A tragic ending comes. The old ruler is killed. A. in his place they choose a young, full of strength successor. And this terrible cycle of murder and coronation continued in many countries for hundreds of years.
Who knows, maybe by chance we also managed to see in all its tragic completeness this terrible ritual performed by sixteen stone men from La Venta?

Olmec. Gold and jade

Among the civilized peoples of pre-Columbian America, unlike the Egyptians, Assyrians, Greeks, Romans and other inhabitants of the Old World, the main symbol of wealth was not gold, but jade. This fact so struck the imagination of the first Europeans who made their way into early XVI centuries through the ocean barrier to the unknown shores of the New World, that they repeatedly returned to it in their historical narratives and chronicles.

When in 1519 Cortez landed on the desert coast of Mexico, near the modern city of Veracruz, the local Indian ruler hastened to send a message about this extraordinary event to his supreme ruler, Emperor Montezuma. And a few days later, a magnificent procession of ambassadors and nobles from the Aztec emperor appeared in front of Cortez’s camp tent. Silently spreading several mats at the entrance to the tent, they laid out many expensive gifts on them.

“The first was a round dish,” recalls Berial Diaz, “the size of a cart wheel, with an image of the sun, all made of pure gold. According to the people who weighed it, it was worth 20,000 gold pesos. The second was a round dish, even bigger size than the first, made of solid silver, with the image of the moon; very valuable thing. The third was a helmet filled to the brim with gold sand worth no less than 3,000 pesos. There were many golden figurines of birds, animals and gods, 30 bales of thin cotton fabrics, beautiful feather cloaks, and in addition, four green stones, which are valued more among them than emerald among us. And they told Cortes that these stones were intended for our emperor, since each of them was worth a whole load of gold.”

If it is true that jade was valued more than gold among the Indians, then it is also true that the largest number of jade products is found in the Olmec country. And this is all the more striking because there were no jade deposits on the marshy shores of the Gulf of Mexico, where the main Olmec cities are located. It was mined either
in the south, in the mountains of Guatemala, or in the west, in Oaxaca. Be that as it may, a large amount of this precious and unusually hard mineral found its way into the Olmec country, where rough pieces of stone were transformed under the hands of skilled Olmec jewelers into elegant statuettes of gods, intricate jewelry, beads and ritual axes. And from there, from the Olmec centers of La Venta, Tres Zapotes, Cerro de las Mesas, these magnificent jade items dispersed throughout Central America, from the northernmost regions of Mexico to Costa Rica.

Olmec - Fans of the Jaguar.

If all the works of ancient Olmec art were exhibited in the halls of one large museum, then its visitors would immediately pay attention to one strange detail. Of every two or three sculptures, one would necessarily depict either a jaguar or a creature combining the features of a human and a jaguar.

When you find yourself in the mysterious green twilight of the Mexican jungle, it is easy to understand why the Olmec masters tried with such fanatical persistence to capture the image of this ferocious beast.

One of the most powerful predators of the Western Hemisphere, the formidable ruler of the tropical forest, the jaguar was for the ancient Indians not just a dangerous beast, but also a symbol of supernatural powers, a revered ancestor and god. In the religion of various tribes of ancient Mexico, the jaguar is usually considered the god of rain and fertility, the personification of the fruit-bearing forces of the earth. Is it any wonder that the Olmecs, whose economy was based on agriculture, revered the jaguar god with special zeal, forever capturing him in their monumental art.

Even today, four centuries after the Spanish conquest and a thousand years after the destruction of the Olmec civilization, the image of the jaguar still evokes superstitious horror among the Indians, and ritual dances in its honor are widespread among the inhabitants of the Mexican states of Oaxaca and Veracruz. What tricks did the ancient Olmecs resort to so that the formidable ruler of the forests and heavenly waters would provide them with a good harvest. They built magnificent temples in his honor, carved his image on reliefs and steles, and gave him the most precious gift on earth - human lives.

During excavations of the main square of La Venta, almost six meters deep, archaeologists found a perfectly preserved mosaic in the form of a stylized jaguar's face. The total dimensions of the mosaic are about five square meters. It consists of 486 carefully hewn, polished blocks of bright green serpentine, attached with bitumen to the surface of a low stone platform. The beast's empty eye sockets and mouth were filled with orange sand, and the top of its angular skull was decorated with stylized diamond-shaped feathers.
Exactly the same mosaic was subsequently discovered at the other end of the city’s sacred square. But there, in addition to the image of the predator himself, in the depths of the stone platform, they managed to find the richest gifts in his honor: a pile of precious Things and jewelry made of jade and serpentine.

The earthly rulers, wanting to somehow strengthen the already extensive royal power, considered the jaguar their divine ancestor and patron. On reliefs, frescoes and steles they are constantly depicted wearing clothes made of jaguar skin or sitting on thrones made in the form of a figure of this beast. Jaguar fangs and claws are constantly found in the richest and most magnificent burials, not only among the Olmecs, but also among most other cultural peoples pre-Columbian Mexico.

Olmec- an ancient people who lived in Central America in the 16th - 2nd centuries. BC. in the territory of modern Mexico. They created the first civilization in America, which gave rise to all other Indian cultures of the pre-colonial era. For this reason, the Olmec culture is called in Latin America.

The Olmecs invented the first writing in America, the first calendar and method of measuring time, tamed the dog and turkey, and were the first to begin collecting rubber and cocoa beans.

Civilization arose in the east of what is now Mexico. on the coast Caribbean Sea. Evidence of the presence of the Olmecs is found during excavations in Guatemala and El Salvador.

The origins of the Olmecs and the reasons for the decline of their civilization are unclear. In 1979 Clyde Winters proposed a way to read the Olmec letter, based on the hypothesis of the African origin of this people. Winters admitted the idea that the Olmecs spoke the language of the Malinke family, common in Senegal and Mali. By 1997 Winters deciphered a significant part of the Olmec texts. However, many experts do not share the hypothesis about the African origin of the Olmecs.

About three thousand years ago, an Indian culture arose on the shores of the bay, called Olmec. They were named after the Olmecs, a small tribe who lived in this territory much later in the 11th - 14th centuries. The word Olmec itself means rubber people. The Aztecs named them after the area where rubber was produced and where the modern Olmecs lived.

The ancient Olmec civilization dates back to 2 thousand BC. and ceased to exist in the 1st century. AD The most amazing thing is that neither in North America nor in South America are there any traces of the origin of this ancient civilization. It’s as if this people appears already formed. It is also unknown about social organization the Olmecs, nor their beliefs, nor about their language.

Due to the high humidity in the Gulf of Mexico region, not a single Olmec skeleton has survived. It is known that the Olmec culture was a corn civilization, the main branches of the economy were agriculture and fishing. There were rituals of human sacrifice. The ancient Olmec civilization was culturally advanced. Many jade figurines, pyramids, steles, and statues have survived to this day.

The biggest mystery of the remaining Olmec monuments is the huge heads carved from stone. The weight of one head reaches up to 30 tons. The faces look very natural and the most interesting thing is that they depict people with Negroid facial features. These are almost portrait images of Africans in tight-fitting helmets with a chin strap. The earlobes are pierced.

The face is carved with deep wrinkles on both sides of the nose. The corners of the thick lips are curved down. It is these facial features that separate the Olmecs from the Indians of all Mesoamerica. This leads to the conclusion that the Olmecs could not have been an indigenous population. Then the question arises, where could they come from? There is an ancient legend about the origin of the Olmecs. She tells that a mysterious tribe of people arrived by sea and possessed all sorts of magic. Then they settled in a village called Tamoanchane. But one day the sages of the arriving people boarded ships again and sailed away, promising to return before the end of the world.

The remaining people settled the lands surrounding them and began to call themselves by the name of their great leader and magician Olmec Wimtony. Interestingly, the Olmecs identified themselves with the jaguars and considered themselves the descendants of the union of a divine jaguar and a mortal woman. This is how the Olmec tribe appeared, sons of heaven and earth at the same time.

Who are the Olmecs?

At the end of the 2nd millennium BC. e. a sedentary lifestyle becomes dominant and ceremonial centers appear on the Gulf Coast and in the highlands. The flourishing of the culture of the Atlantic coast of the current state of Veracruz, called Olmec, begins. The Aztecs named them after the region on the Gulf Coast, where rubber was produced and where the contemporary Olmecs lived. So the Olmecs themselves and the Olmec culture are not at all the same thing.

By ancient legend, The Olmecs appeared on the territory of modern Tabasco about 4000 years ago, they arrived by sea and settled in the village of Tamoanchane. According to the same legend, it is said that the sages sailed away, and the remaining people settled these lands and began to call themselves by the name of their great leader Olmec Wimtoni.

According to another legend, the Olmecs appeared as a result of the union of the divine animal jaguar with a mortal woman. Since then, the Olmecs considered jaguars as their totems, and they began to be called the Jaguar Indians.

However, despite all the efforts of archaeologists, no traces of the origin and evolution of the Olmec civilization, the stages of its development, or the place of its origin have been found anywhere. Little is known about the social organization of the Olmecs, and about their beliefs and rituals - except that they, it seems, also did not disdain human sacrifice. It is unknown what language the Olmecs spoke and what ethnic group they belonged to. On top of this, the high humidity in the Gulf of Mexico has meant that not a single Olmec skeleton has survived, making it extremely difficult for archaeologists to shed light on the culture of Mesoamerica's oldest civilization.

Olmec culture and art had strong influence on the culture of other Indian peoples of Central America. Wonderful sculptural monuments have been preserved; Many of them depict a jaguar, the main deity of the Olmecs. The reasons for the Olmec's disappearance have not been established; it is assumed that this is the result of large ethnic movements.

The ancient Olmec people lived about three thousand years ago in the territory of modern Mexico, the states of Veracruz and Tabasco.

They were farmers and developed a fairly high civilization, as well as merchants and exchanged their goods with peoples living in distant lands.

The Olmecs were excellent stone workers. They made painted walls, carved gravestones and stone altars, created axes that they used as offerings to the gods, and sculpted small figurines and masks from clay. Undoubtedly, the Olmec civilization became known thanks to the unusual monumental sculptures that have survived to this day.

The Olmecs were called the corn people because this crop formed the basis of their diet. Their daily meal usually consisted of corn cakes. They also ate beans and pumpkin.

Archaeologists have been able to restore many Olmec household items. The main finds were discovered during excavations in San Lorenzo, La Venta and Tres Zapotes.

Was the jaguar the sacred animal of the Almecs?

The jaguar is a carnivorous mammal common in South and Central America. It does not attack people and feeds on large game, particularly deer.

The Olmecs valued jaguars very much because they ate herbivores that destroyed maize plantations.

The Olmecs had only two domestic animals: the dog and the turkey. Olmec dogs were similar to Chihuahua dogs because they were very small. The Olmecs raised them for food.

The Olmecs were a very creative people. They invented the calendar, a form of writing and a number system, as well as a form of government and religion.

The Olmecs did not use fertilizers and did not know irrigation techniques. Farming was very primitive: they planted fields until they were fertile and then left them to rest, although in reality the Olmecs were lucky to live in a region with many rivers and therefore there was no need to leave fields to rest for long periods of time. When the rivers were high tide, the water flooded the coastal lands and fertilized them, so that the fields produced two or three crops annually. To know when floods occurred and when to sow, the Olmecs invented a means of determining the passage of time, that is, a calendar.

In their study of the passage of time, they reached a year length of 365 days.

The Olmecs were undoubtedly great sculptors. They processed stone with great skill, creating tombstones and altars decorated with human figures.

The most characteristic are the colossal heads, perhaps reproducing the faces of great leaders. These monumental heads were made of basalt, a very hard stone.

Many of these huge heads are preserved in the La Venta Archaeological Park in Mexico.

The Olmecs were the earliest civilization of Central America, consisting of many small settlements that flourished along the Gulf of Mexico in central Mexico from 1200 to 600 BC.

The origins of the Olmec culture are unclear, with some scholars favoring the theory that it was local farmers who transformed into tribes and later into cultural societies, and others that the Olmecs are the result of migration from Guerrero or Oaxa. High levels of agricultural production were key to their success. Olmec settlements were based mainly on the banks of slow-flowing rivers, which, when in flood, fed fertile alluvial soils.

San Lorenzo, occupied from 1,200 to 900 BC, is considered the main Olmec settlement. Along with it there were two other centers: Tenochtitlan and Portero Nuevo. All Olmec ceremonial centers were complexes of platforms on which were built ceremonial palaces, mounds, stone statues and large conical pyramids.

Huge stone heads seem to be the most extraordinary product of architectural thought. They reach a height of three meters and are believed to be portraits ruling families and the Olmec elite. To build these things, it took the labor of villagers living in low-lying areas.

Trade was a very important matter and was again concentrated in ceremonial centers, where obsidian, serpentine, mica, magnetic iron ore and other materials were exchanged. There were both local retail chains and regional chains. Thus, the Olmec way of life and their complex cosmology spread, along with the objects of exchange, over a fairly large area.

The Olmec priests came up with a 260-day calendar, and a set of beliefs that included the werewolf jaguar and the burning serpent. The Olmec style of art is especially evident in sculpture, and is very realistic in its representation of natural and supernatural forms. Crafts are represented by works made of shells and jadeite.

By 600 BC, the Olmec culture had declined and the systems of exchange had decreased in intensity. But still, thanks to the existence of the Olmecs, further civilizations of Central America received a good cultural heritage.

Sources: www.vokrugsveta.ru, www.tradiciadrevnih.ru, otvet.mail.ru, pochemuha.ru, secretworlds.ru

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As a civilization, the Olmecs began about three thousand years ago. Archaeological finds certainly provide confirmation of their existence, however, scientists have not yet unraveled the secrets of either their origin or death. The Olmecs lived on the modern Gulf Coast. This Indian empire is believed to have been the earliest culture of Central America. Legends confirm that the Olmecs were the ancestors of other Meso-American civilizations.

Culture of ancient civilization

Translated from the Mayan language, from whose historical chronicles the name “Olmec” was taken, literally means “inhabitants of the land of rubber.”

Over the course of several hundred years, this civilization developed scientific knowledge. Having existed for quite a short time, they were able to develop science to unprecedented heights. Her inventions included the Olmec calendar, based on unique ideas about mathematics and astronomy. It was built based on the cyclical nature of the universe, including long epochs of 5000 years, as well as knowledge about the cycles of other planets, the length of the day and year. It was the prototype of the famous Mayan calendar, which also interpreted astronomical phenomena. Unfortunately, the rich cultural and mythological heritage, the crown of which is considered to be the crown, has practically not been preserved: the Olmecs moved from the worship of various totemic animals to the veneration of gods - humanoid images that are the embodiment of the forces of nature.

Giant stone heads of people with Negroid features and weighing 30 tons each have been discovered since 1930. Carved from monolithic basalt, they have ideal proportions, are processed with the highest precision and have carefully drawn facial features. The sculptures rest on a platform made of untreated stone layers. Scientists in the process of research came to the conclusion that the heads were carved around 1500 BC, and possibly earlier. Experts say that these are images of idols, the memory of the great masters of that time, which was created by the Olmec civilization. The Olmecs looked up to and followed the established orders of other Indian tribes.

However, as already mentioned, there is no evidence left of the evolution of this mysterious civilization: any drawings, records or just things. The conclusion suggests itself is that this civilization appeared out of nowhere fully formed. Scientists are literally searching bit by bit and trying to structure information about their social organization, mythology, and rituals. Still, it was possible to discover that the Olmecs were agricultural, like more and more later cultures Ancient America, civilization. Their areas of activity also included fishing and farming, which allowed them to prosper. Time and history have mercilessly destroyed the Indian heritage. Neither the linguistic nor ethnic affiliation of the Olmecs is known, only hypotheses. The architectural structures found and studied indicate that the Olmecs were remarkable engineers.

Cult of the Jaguar

It is believed that it was the representatives of this civilization who were the first to worship the jaguar. Later, this cult is also found among other ancient civilizations of both Central and Northern and South America. The jaguar was revered as the patron of agriculture, believing that he unwittingly contributed to the preservation of crops by scaring away other animals that preferred a plant diet. Among ancient peoples, this predator was considered the master of the Universe, and accordingly, it was deified. The cult dedicated to this supreme deity became a completely new mythological system. The Olmecs represented all their gods in the form of a jaguar. This animal personified strength, royalty and independence, became a symbol of fertility and natural phenomena and, importantly, was a guide to the world, since it led a predominantly nocturnal lifestyle.

The Olmecs themselves equated themselves with the jaguar, according to the legend about the union of the jaguar-deity with earthly woman. The giant sculptures depicted an image that contained both the features of a ferocious jaguar and the features of a crying child.

There is a legend that has survived to this day about the appearance of the first jaguars. In one village there lived a woman and she had two sons. One of them was a good hunter, the other was cunning and enterprising. So he made a mask of a ferocious animal, painted it and began to hunt in it. Then, bringing the prey to the hut, he took off his mask and stuck an arrow into the carcass. Another brother decided to find out what was going on. I followed and did everything the same, and then decided to go through the village, instilling fear in its inhabitants. And then the incredible happened - the mask fused to him. The brother-hunter flew into a rage and tore to pieces all the inhabitants of the village, except his mother. She persuaded him to go and live in the forest. This son became the ancestor of other jaguars, which could sometimes turn into people and back. The gods who ruled over people and jaguars were also common.

Also, the were-jaguar was represented as a rain deity, one of the most famous gods of that time. Shamans used the image of a jaguar in totems. The totem was believed to symbolize forests. Not all shamans obeyed such a totem. Only a strong and powerful shaman could transform into an animal in a ritual dance and had the ability to control it. Shamans also knew how to cure diseases, bring good luck in hunting, and even predict the future. Since those ancient times, jaguar people have simply been terribly afraid. A mysterious cult appeared, associated with possible reincarnation, whose followers were cruelly branded with a special needle, the marks from it were similar to the marks from the claws of an animal.

Another legend was somehow connected with the jaguar. In one of the tribes, a young unmarried girl miraculously became pregnant. The elders of the tribe did not believe in the miracle and were looking for someone who should be punished for seduction. However, the oldest and wisest elder confirmed a miraculous conception from heaven itself - a lightning strike. Everyone began to look forward to the birth of the sacred children. But one day trouble happened, a jaguar attacked the girl and tore her apart, but the children managed to be born, they fell into the river. The Jaguars' grandmother, and it was she, found the babies and raised them as atonement for killing their mother. She named those extraordinary babies the Sun and. The children grew up and became the founders of a new tribe - the Olmecs appeared.

The civilization disappeared over time, its mythological images were absorbed by the Mayans - the next great civilization. Their jaguar deity also became the patron of war and hunting. The royal Mayan dynasties considered this animal a sacred ancestor. The most popular names they had Jaguar Cedar, Jaguar Night, Dark Jaguar. The leaders wore the skins of jaguars, as the supreme power, and helmets in the shape of the heads of this beast. Representatives of another powerful civilization, the Aztecs, believed that the first of the four eras of the Universe was the era of jaguars, who exterminated the giants inhabiting the earth at that time. There were also temples dedicated to the Jaguar god, whose spotted skin resembled the celestial star pattern.

In Olmec mythology there were also other motives - the acquisition of maize, here God is the benefactor of humanity, obtaining maize grains hidden in the mountains. A motif develops about the confrontation between the old god and the deity of maize.

Unfortunately, the theory that the Olmecs are a structural civilization has not been factually confirmed, but is a statement of the guesses of specialists. But even from the few data that have reached us thousands of years later, we can assume that this civilization did not disappear without a trace - its legacy was assimilated and absorbed by the subsequent great civilizations of the Mayans and Aztecs.

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Legendary civilization. Olmec

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As a civilization, the Olmecs began about three thousand years ago. Archaeological finds certainly provide confirmation of their existence, however, scientists have not yet unraveled the secrets of either their origin or death. The Olmecs lived on the modern Gulf Coast. This Indian empire is believed to have been the earliest culture of Central America. Legends confirm that the Olmecs were the ancestors of other...