The huge basalt heads recovered from Tres Zapotes included two which turned out to be the second earliest New World artefacts to bear a date, in this case 32 bc In the early days of excavation most of the finds from the site were distributed around several different museums, but for some time now Tres Zapotes has had its own excellent collection
(24km/15mi from Santiago Tuxtla via Villa Isla). The large stone sculptures, which include (Monument A) the first colossal head ever found, will prove absorbing to anyone interested in Olmec culture. Equally fascinating The Mojarra Stela are three stelae, Stela A, very ancient but not yet definitively dated, Stela B, and the upper portion of the famous Stela C which was only uncovered in 1972. The lower part of the stela, bearing the date in dot-and-dash numerals, is now in the National Anthropological Museum in Mexico City. There is very little left worth seeing at the excavation site itself.
In 1986 a 4ton basalt sculpture known today as the Mojarra Stela ("La Mojarra Stela") was discovered on the marshy banks of the Rio Acula west of Tres Zapotes. On the top and sides of this immensely important find were carved 22 rows of hitherto unknown glyphs, 465 in all, together with the figure of a ruler whose name has since been deciphered as "lord of the mountain harvest". He, it is thought, may have reigned during the period covered by the text (21.5.143-13.7.156). The script, unravelled by philologists and dubbed "Epi-Olmecic", is essentially a Mixe-Zoque-Mayan language (a modified form of which is still spoken by some 150,000 Indians) reminiscent of the glyphs on the "Tuxtla statuette". Its discovery showed that, contrary to prevailing assumptions, an older system of writing was in existence before the emergence of Mayan script, pre-dating the latter by between 100 and 150 years and continuing in use among the successors of the Olmecs.
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