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Olmec Style Sculptured Head

A Chapala resident was moving some of the rocks piled on his patio area around a planting box. One of rocks looked a bit odd though ...

Chuck took the rock indoors and cleaned off the years of accumulated dirt -- only to discover an enigmatic face staring back at him! It had a wide nose and thick lips, almost African in appearance. And above the forhead was carved a cross, and next to it some lines that looked like they might be some lettering or other figures.

Later, he showed the strange rock to a neighbor who remembered hearing that the husband of the woman running the Brunch Coffeeshop in Chapala had been an archaeologist before moving to Mexico. He might know what this weird head represented.

And so I was invited to look at the artifact. As you can see from the accompanying photos, it is a carving of a head in the Olmec style. Roughly 8.5 inches high, 7 inches wide and 5 inches deep, the back side is flattened on two sides, giving the rock a triangular cross-section, and there is no carving on the back side. The face is somewhat like the classic Olmec style, though the typical helmet-like headgear is missing, and instead a dentate pattern suggests a hairline. Where those patterns are less distinct, expecially on the upper-right side, it almost looks like lettering, but I think it is just the dentate pattern, partially obscured.

Could it be prehispanic? I doubt it. The original Olmec carvings were done in jade or basalt, while this appears to be limestone. Most of the Olmec heads are massive - 5 to 11 feet tall, while this is very small. And the cross in the forhead is not typically found on Olmec head sculptures. Nor is the workmanship of the same high quality one associates with Olmec work. The Olmec culture was never prominent in this area, their region was centered around the modern-day states of Veracruz and Tabasco, 400 to 500 miles East and South-East of here. There is always the slight chance that the sculpture represents an attempt by a prehistoric resident of this area to show what he has seen while travelling in the East, but that is a not very likely.

Does that mean it isn't old? Well, not exactly. Local artisans have been working in cantera (generally limestone) for hundreds of years. The old cathedrals of Guadalajara are decorated with statues and figures of limestone, many of them dating back to the late 16th century. The craze for duplicating Olmec styles is not that old, but probably began toward the end of the 19th century and continues today as can be seen from this example done by Juan José Contreras of Guadalajara within the past few years. So given the provenience of the stone, I would not be surprised if it were 50 or 100 years old.

Disclaimer: My training and experience as an archaeologist centered on the Northwestern and Great Basin U.S. cultures, so mine is just an educated guess. If anyone has better information, or would like to see the stone, you are welcome to contact me and I'll get in touch with the owner.