The Legacies of the Olmec, Zapotec, and Chavin
Olmec Art
Zapotec Art
The Wrestler is an ancient basalt statuette that is one of the most important sculptures of the Olmec culture. The near life-size figure has been praised not only for its realism and sense of energy, but also for its aesthetic qualities. The creator is unknown. This Mesoamerican statuette was discovered in 1933 by a farmer in Arroyo Sonso, in the Mexican state of Veracruz near the Rio Uxpanapa and not far from its confluence with the Coatzacoalcos River, an area now known as Antonio Plaza.Being a work of stone without archaeological context, it has been difficult to date the sculpture.Despite its name, it is unlikely that the figure represents a wrestler and it is thought that the mustache and goatee connect the subject to the "political-religious hierarchy".
The Indigenous deity of the Chavin civilization known as Raimondi Stela is a sacred object and a major piece of art of the Chavín culture of the central Andes in present-day Peru. The stela is seven feet high, made of highly polished granite, with a lightly incised design which is almost unnoticeable on the sculpture. For this reason, the design is best studied from a drawing. It is housed in the courtyard of the Museo Nacional de Arqueología Antropología e Historia del Perú in Lima.This technique speaks to larger Andean concerns of the duality and reciprocal nature of nature, life, and society. This theme is found in the art of many other Andean indigenous civilizations. The headdress can be "read" as a stacked row of smiling, fanged faces, while the deity's face has turned into the face of a smiling reptile. The deity's staffs also appear to be rows of stacked faces.
This is a painted ceramic funerary urn depicting a seated figure. IT was influenced by the Zapotec culture in the phase Monte Albán III. It was created during the Early and Middle Classic Period (100-700 AD) in Mexico. The sculptor is unknown.
Zapotec Art
Olmec Art
Chavin Art
Funerary art is any work of art forming, or placed in, a repository for the remains of the dead.A funerary urn in the shape of a "bat god" or a jaguar, from Oaxaca, dated to AD 300–650. Height: 9.5 in (23 cm). "The Bat God was one of the important deities of the Maya, many elements of whose religion were shared also by the Zapotec. The Bat God in particular is known to have been revered also by the Zapotec ... He was especially associated ... with the underworld."A funerary urn in the shape of a "bat god" or a jaguar, from Oaxaca, dated to AD 300–650. Height: 9.5 in (23 cm). "The Bat God was one of the important deities of the Maya, many elements of whose religion were shared also by the Zapotec. The Bat God in particular is known to have been revered also by the Zapotec ... He was especially associated ... with the underworld."
Las Limas Monument 1 is a greenstone figure of a youth holding a limp were-jaguar baby. Found in the Mexican state of Veracruz in the Olmec heartland, the statue is famous for its incised representations of Olmec supernaturals and is considered by some a "Rosetta stone" of Olmec religion. What these sculptures symbolized to the Olmecs is not clear. Carver is unknown. Some researchers, focusing on the symbolic cave surrounding the figure on Altar 5 believe that these sculptures relate to myths of spiritual journeys or human origins. Others find that the limp depiction of the were-jaguar baby denotes child sacrifice. It was probably carved during the Middle Formative Period, some time between 1000 to 600 BCE).
The Lanzón is the colloquial name for the most important statue of the central deity of the ancient Chavín culture of the central highlands of Peru. The Chavín religion was the first major religious and cultural movement in the Andes mountains, flourishing between 900 and 200 BCE. The Lanzón takes its name from the Spanish word for "lance," an allusion to the shape of the sculpture.The sculptur is unknown.
The Lanzón is housed in the central cruciform chamber of a labyrinthine series of underground passages in the Old Temple of the ceremonial and religious center of Chavín de Huantar. The central image of the Lanzon functions as axis mundi, or pivot linking the heavens, earth and underworld. Position within the building also suggests centrality of image.