Olmec Heads Poster

A vintage-style 1930s-1940s illustrative archaeological diagram of the 17 known colossal Olmec Heads.

"The enigmatic Olmec civilization is the oldest known, fully fledged civilization of North America. Widely considered to be a “mother-culture” of the Mesoamerican world, the Olmecs acheived some of the high marks of artistic, iconographic, & government power in the ancient American world - long before the rise of the Classical Maya or Aztec Empire. We do not know their true name, what they called themselves, how their religion functioned, how they rose to power, or how they commissioned these enormous monuments to be erected across such vast distances. We do not know who these basalt Olmec heads represent - only that they must be portraits of extremely powerful figures of some kind - some fierce, some stoic, some angry, & a couple heads even smile. Nowhere throughout the entire ancient world are there any monuments quite like the Olmec Heads, which represent a truly lost civilization."