Olmec Seated Figure, Pre-Columbian Clay Sculpture. The Olmec figures are considered to be the most naturalistic renditions of the human form in Pre-Columbian Mexico. 

Size: 5 1/2 X 5 1/2 X 9 1/2 in. 

#3952 . 

The Olmecs were the earliest known major Mesoamerican civilization, flourishing in the modern-day Mexican states of Veracruz and Tabasco from roughly 1200 to 400 BC during Mesoamerica’s formative period. They were initially centered at the site of their development in San Lorenzo Tenochtitlán, but moved to La Venta in the 10th Century BC following the decline of San Lorenzo. The Olmecs disappeared mysteriously in the 4th Century BC, leaving the region sparsely populated until the 19th Century AD. Among other “firsts,” the Olmec appeared to practice ritual bloodletting and played the Mesoamerican ballgame, hallmarks of nearly all subsequent Mesoamerican societies. The aspect of the Olmecs most familiar now is their artwork, particularly their colossal heads. The Olmec civilization was first defined through artifacts which collectors purchased on the pre-Columbian art market in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries. Olmec artworks are considered among ancient America’s most striking and sought after. Pre-Olmec cultures had flourished since about 2500 BC, and it has been speculated that the Olmecs derived in part from the neighboring Mokaya or Mixe-Zoque cultures which developed during this time, possibly directly from the early farming cultures of the Tabasco region which began between 5100 and 4600 BC. Past finds of Olmec remains ritually deposited at the shrine El Manatí near the triple archaeological sites known collectively as San Lorenzo Tenochtitlán suggest that definitive Olmec culture was well on the way to developing by at least 1600 to 1500 BC. The name “Olmec” means “rubber people” in Nahuatl, the language of the Nahuas, and was the Aztec term for the people who lived in the Gulf Lowlands in the 15th and 16th Centuries, some 2,000 years after the Olmec culture died out. The term “Rubber People” refers to the ancient practice, spanning from ancient Olmecs to Aztecs, of extracting latex from Castilla elastica, a rubber tree in the area. The juice of a local vine, Ipomoea alba, was then mixed with this latex to create rubber as early as 1600 BC. Early modern explorers and archaeologists, however, mistakenly applied the name “Olmec” to the rediscovered ruins and artifacts in the heartland decades before it was understood that these were not created by the people the Aztecs were referring to. Despite the mistaken identity, the name has stuck, and it is not known what name the ancient Olmec used for themselves. Some later Mesoamerican accounts seem to refer to the ancient Olmec as “Tamoanchan,” and a contemporary term sometimes used for the Olmec culture is Tenocelome, meaning “mouth of the jaguar.”