La Venta

From Coatzacoalcos in Veracruz head south-east for 40km/25mi to where the MEX 180 crosses the Río Tonalá and with it the state boundary into Tabasco State. Some 4.5km/2.8mi further on a road branches off north-west to the little town of La Venta (5km/3mi), situated in an oil-rich region of swampland. On the outskirts of the town is an Olmec archaeological site, also known as La Venta. The first excavations were undertaken here in the 1920s by Frans Blom and Oliver La Farge of the University of Tulane, their pioneering research being followed up some fifteen years later by M.W. Stirling. The site turned out to be almost certainly that of the principal Olmec political and religious centre (which is why the Olmec period is often referred to as the La Venta culture). The influence of this first advanced Meso-American civilisation spread from the Gulf coast into central Mexico (e.g. Tlatilco, Tlapacoya and Chalcatzingo), across to the west coast (Guerrero) and south to El Salvador, leaving its mark on the early phases of Monte Albán culture and Mayan civilisation. The Olmec people themselves remain an enigma, known only through the magnificent works of art bequeathed to posterity, some of the most important of which were found here. Although La Venta's heydey was between 900 and 600 bc, it is known to have been still inhabited at the beginning of the Christian era. In addition to the great temple pyramid made of argillaceous clay, now overgrown but once standing more than 32 m (105 ft) high, archaeologists uncovered four of the famous basalt colossal heads, also stone altars and stelae, ceramics and figures in jade some of which can be seen in a recently opened museum. Virtually all finds from the site connected with the mysterious Olmec culture are now in museums, principally the La Venta Open Air Museum in Villahermosa.