The Heads of the Olmecs

Just above South America is Central America, which is sometimes called Mesoamerica. Earlier, we read that Mesopotamia means “between the rivers” because potamia means “rivers” and meso means “between.” (Remember the hippopotamus? Hippo means “horse” and potamus means “river,” so a hippopotamus is a “river horse”!) Well, since meso means “between,” Mesoamerica means “between the Americas.” Central America is between North America and South America.

The Olmecs were the first civilization in Central America. They built a big city, now called San Lorenzo, in the country that we now call Mexico. The city stood up on top of a huge hill. The most important people—leaders, priests, and rich men—lived up in the city. Poor people and farmers lived down at the foot of the hill, on the plain. They grew crops on the plain and sent them up for the important people to eat. If you were an Olmec, it was much more fun to be rich than to be poor.

At the center of the city, on top of the hill, the Olmecs built a huge pyramid of dirt and clay. The platform was so high that it could be seen by someone standing miles away. Every single bit of clay that was used to build the pyramid had to be hauled up the hill in baskets. The Olmecs built the dirt pyramid basketful by basketful, just like the Egyptians, who built their stone pyramids by hauling stone blocks one by one.

Up on top of this clay and dirt pyramid, the Olmecs built a temple to their gods. That means that the temple was the highest place in the whole city. We don’t know what the Olmec gods were called, but we know what they looked like. One was a snake with feathers. Another was half-human, half-jaguar. A third was a dwarf-like creature who lived in waterfalls.

The temple of the Olmecs disappeared long, long ago.

The Olmec heads are probably sculptures of important rulers. But none of these stone rulers has a body. The heads sit directly on the ground, as though an enormous stone person had been buried in the dirt up to his neck. And the heads are enormous—as big as nine feet tall. That’s taller than the biggest person you know, and probably higher than your ceiling. The eyes of the heads are bigger than your whole head. You could put your entire hand up their noses! If you were standing next to one, your head would only come up to its cheek.

What if these huge heads had bodies? They would be stone giants, as tall as a four-story building. Their hands would be big enough for you to sit in. A grown-up’s head wouldn’t even reach to one of their knees.

The huge heads sat in a circle around the temple on top of the clay pyramid. What were they for? No one really knows. Perhaps the Olmecs, like the Egyptians, thought that their rulers were gods and wanted to honor them. Maybe they carved the giant heads to remember their rulers, the same way that we name airports and roads and buildings after our own leaders. Some archaeologists have suggested that the giant heads were used for altars, or for thrones. But we will never know the answer. The Olmec heads, like the Nazca drawings, will remain mysterious.