Research Reveals How Olmec Rulers Used Art to Strengthen Political Power

The ancient Olmec civilization of Mesoamerica is known for their huge stone heads and related sculptures depicting human and animal figures, which have been drawing fascinated explorers, archaeologists and tourists to the region for decades. They also produced a lot of carved or painted rock art, and in a new study published in the journal Latin American Antiquity, an expert presents evidence of a previously unexplored connection between these two distinctive forms of Olmec artistic expression.

According to Dr. Jill Mollenhauer, an art historian from Metropolitan State University in Denver who specializes in the study of Olmec art, Olmec elites had a hand in determining the themes that were explored by their culture’s skilled sculptors. This was expressed in the harmony between certain aesthetic and ritual themes that were introduced in rock art and later repeated in the creation of the famous colossal Olmec sculptures.

This overlap in artistic style reveals that the Olmec ruling class wanted to associate themselves with the sacred landscape and with the potent powers of nature. Dr. Mollehauer argues this is what the rock art was meant to represent. The sculptures, which portrayed important and influential figures in Olmec society, were displayed in urban centers and occasionally at important ceremonial sites, and thus helped to legitimize the power of those individuals by demonstrating to everyone that they were the ambassadors of the gods and the eternal.

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A frontal view of Altar 5, from La Venta. (Ruben Charles/CC BY 2.0)

Exploring Sacred Art and Political Power in the Preclassic Olmec Realm

The Olmec people were a dominant power during the Formative or Preclassic Period (2,500 BC to 250 AD) of Mesoamerican history. Their civilization came to prominence during the middle part of that period, lasting from approximately 1,200 to 400 BC and ruling over territory that included the modern Mexican states of Veracruz and Tabasco in the Gulf-adjacent tropical lowlands.

Olmec rock art was carved on stone faces found in nature, inside caves, on rocky outcroppings on hills, or along routes of travel and migration. It was associated with the wild and uncontrollable spiritual forces of nature, which were respected because they were both potent and mysterious.

In contrast, the Olmec sculptures were specifically made to be put on display in human-centered environments, mainly in settlements that were under the control of the leaders who they portrayed. They were carved out of massive stone blocks made from volcanic rock, which were imported to Olmec urban centers from quarries in the Sierra Los Tuxtlas Mountains in Veracruz. They were essentially tributes to the men who were responsible for creating and maintaining Olmec culture and civilization, protecting it against the forces of anarchy and decay.

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Art in Harmony with Nature

The Olmec view of the universe was dualistic, divided between cosmic order and human organization on one side and the unpredictable chaos and creativity of wild nature on the other. But despite the differences, what Dr. Mollenhauer has identified in her study are commonalities between the rock art and the sculptured heads that suggest a unity of purpose.

For example, Dr. Mollenhauer highlights the interesting features of sculptures found at La Venta, an Olmec archaeological site in the Mexican state of Tabasco. Here the sculptors preserved the irregular surface shapes of the stone, adapting the human and animal figures on the sculptures to align with the stone’s natural contours. The same respect for the natural appearance of the stone blocks can be found in sculpted heads made from boulders found at various locations. Some of were placed in sacred areas associated with gods and ancestors.

Monument 19, from La Venta, the earliest known representation of a feathered serpent in Mesoamerica, with lines that follow the stone itself. (George & Audrey Delange)

The significant point here is that this style of stone carving matches the methodology of the Olmec rock artists. The latter were also concerned with preserving natural shapes and lines on the rock they used as a canvas. This meant they were acknowledging and honoring the natural processes that had created those shapes and lines in the first place.

Pit and Groove Technique

Another common feature linking rock art with sculptures was distinctive arrangements of pits and grooves often found carved into the faces of both. These markings are believed to be remnants of ritual practices, which apparently sanctioned the chipping out of sacred stone from artistic objects in the course of paying tribute to the gods and to revered ancestors.

Olmec Colossal Head 3 from San Lorenzo Tenochtitlán, Veracruz, Mexico. (Maribel Ponce Ixba/CC BY 2.0)

"There are some interesting ethnographic trends in the production of cupules and grooves that often relate them to rain and fertility,” Dr. Mollehauer noted in a report published by Phys.org.

“That is a possibility, but another is the collection of potent substances (i.e. pulverized rock dust) from the sculpture as a part of pilgrimage practices … although these aren't mutually exclusive."

Dr. Mollenhauer believes that the adaptation of rock art practices to sculpture creation emerged from a deliberate effort to use spiritual practices to legitimize political power. One way to establish the legitimacy of Olmec rulers would have been to associate them with gods, ancestors, and nature, and art would have offered opportunities to make such a connection more explicit.

In the context of the Olmec culture, pilgrimages to rock art sites would have paid homage to the power of the gods and nature, to which the people were expected to submit. Likewise, pilgrimages to the sites where the sculptures were displayed would have meant coming to pay tribute to the authority of the leaders whose exploits or greatness those objects celebrated.  When viewed in this way, Dr. Mollenhauer argues, it is easy to see why Olmec elites would have ordered their sculptors to mimic the styles of the rock artists.

In Mesoamerican Culture, Art and the State Were Not Separate

In Dr. Mollenhauer’s words, she hopes her work will “allow us to recognize the intentional choices of Olmec sculptors, in this case to connect their works to the ritually-charged spaces of rock art and its associations of sacred landscape and pilgrimage” and also “highlight the importance of rock art as a distinct and impactful form of art in its own right, one that continued to be produced and used by later Mesoamerican cultures alongside other forms of art-making."

While rock art and sculpture were both produced by later Mesoamerican civilizations, it seems the Olmecs were relatively unique in the way that they mixed the aesthetics of the two. Each society used art to legitimize the authority of their people’s leaders in one way or another, however, and this is a theme Dr. Mollehauer believes other scholars should explore as they study the artistic practices and customs of other ancient cultures in Mesoamerica and elsewhere.

Top image: Olmec ‘Grandmother’ rock carving sculpture, La Venta Park. Villahermosa, Tabasco, Mexico.  Source: Alexander Sánchez

By Nathan Falde