At La Venta, Mexico, the Middle Formative Olmec regional center, the existence of individual leaders is interpreted from the evidence of monumental stone portraiture and several tombs believed to house the bodies of a sequence of kings late in La Venta's history.

La Venta is a pre-Columbian archaeological site of the Olmec civilization located in the present-day Mexican state of Tabasco. Some of the artifacts have been moved to the museum "Parque - Museo de La Venta", which is in nearby Villahermosa, the capital of Tabasco. The Olmec were one of the first civilizations to develop in the Americas.

May 18, 2010 · Archaeologists in southern Mexico announced Monday they have discovered a 2,700-year-old tomb of a dignitary inside a pyramid that may be the oldest such burial documented in Mesoamerica. The...

The Olmecs (/ ˈ ɒ l m ɛ k s, ˈ oʊ l-/) or Olmec were an early known major Mesoamerican civilization, flourishing in the modern-day Mexican states of Veracruz and Tabasco from roughly 1200 to 400 BCE during Mesoamerica's formative period.

The Olmec colossal heads are stone representations of human heads sculpted from large basalt boulders. They range in height from 1.17 to 3.4 metres (3.8 to 11.2 ft). The heads date from at least 900 BCE and are a distinctive feature of the Olmec civilization of ancient Mesoamerica. [1]

Jan 31, 2022 · A stone basalt tomb from the La Venta archaeological site was relocated to the park of the same name in Villahermosa. Photo: Carlos Rosado van der Gracht. But what the Olmec lacked in the construction of monumental architecture, they more than made up …

Mar 6, 2017 · The Royal Compound of La Venta is the most important section of one of the four most important Olmec sites located and excavated to date. The discoveries made there - in particular at Complex A - have changed the way we see the Ancient Olmec culture .

Feb 7, 2025 · At the centre of La Venta is a 100-foot (30-metre)-high mound of earth and clay that may well house the tomb of a great Olmec ruler. Immediately north of the Great Mound is a narrow north–south plaza flanked by a pair of long mounds.

Dec 6, 2022 · At La Venta, Mexico, the Middle Formative Olmec regional center, the existence of individual leaders is interpreted from the evidence of monumental stone portraiture and several tombs believed...

In the same area, archaeologists found multiple elaborate tombs and the ornate, oversized mosaics (4.34) made from large blocks of serpentine rock, buried under several feet of soil. The Olmecs were the first people in Mesoamerica to create the massive stone monuments found on Mexico’s southern Gulf Coast.