How the Olmec Elite Helped Legitimize Their Political Power Through Art

In a recently published article in Latin American AntiquityDr. Jill Mollenhauer argues that the Gulf Plains Olmec, one of the first great civilizations of Mesoamerica, sometimes incorporated aesthetic and ritual practices associated with their rock art into their sculptures. She argues that this allowed Olmec elites to harness the spiritual and natural power of the wild and sacred landscape and bring it into domestic and urban centers, where it legitimized their political power.

The Olmecs were an ancient Mesoamerican civilization that existed during the Formative Period (1800 BC – 300 AD). Although they are often associated with the production of colossal heads, they also engaged in the creation of rock art.

Dr. Mollenhauer recalls her surprise at the abundance of rock art when she began her research. “I was surprised to discover an incredible amount of rock art in and around the Gulf Olmec region (particularly in Tuxtlas) that is locally known but rarely reported. It showed me how much work remains to be done to better document and understand its production and use (although I also learned about the challenges of studying it, including the dating and chronology issues for many rock art sites). I am extremely grateful to the many local archaeologists and experts who shared their knowledge of regional rock art sites with me.”

Rock art and sculpture are distinct art forms. While rock art is done in situ (in the original position), the sculptures were quarried and brought from different regions. In fact, since there are very few suitable stones in the local environment, large volcanic blocks had to be imported from far away.

Olmec rock art is intrinsically linked to the landscape in which it was created, delineating the inherent sacredness of that landscape. Often found along travel routes, caves, and rocky hills, it was linked to the wild and dangerous, often delineating the sacred homes of spiritual forces.

At the same time, the sculptures were often part of the built environment and were therefore associated with domestic spaces, morality, government and cosmic order, making them, in some ways, an antithesis to rock art which was associated with wild, dangerous and sacred nature.

Yet many Olmec sculptures share aesthetic and ritual practices with rock art. For example, many of the sculptures at La Venta retain the irregular natural surfaces and contours of the stone from which they are carved. Rather than shaping the rock to their needs, the sculptors adapted their images to the natural contours, as they would for rock art.

This same preservation of the natural contours of the rock is found in stone sculptures. These preserve not only the natural contour of the rock, but also its mass. These rocks were placed in areas associated with gods and ancestors, such as cave entrances.

Some contemporary Maya groups still make pilgrimages to such sites, which they see as entrances to the home of the lord of the earth.

Dr. Mollenhauer explains this point by saying, “There are several works that document ancient and contemporary Maya rituals at rock art sites. I am told that there is still ritual activity being conducted at the Cobata petroglyph field (where the Cobata colossal head was recovered), and there is documentation of pilgrimage to the Olmec sculpture originally located on the volcanic peak of San Martin Pajapan before it was moved to the state anthropological museum in Xalapa.

“There is therefore evidence of ongoing pilgrimage and ritual activity around Olmec-style rock art and Olmec sculptures, although it is difficult to draw a direct line between the ritual practices of the Formative period and these more modern iterations.”

Additionally, some rock art features grooves and pits, often associated with ritual activity near the artwork. These same grooves and pits are found on many sculptures. Although they were initially thought to be the result of later cultures re-sharpening their tools, it has also been suggested that they, like rock art, were also associated with ritual practices. The discovery of such grooves and pits on Olmec stone monuments may indicate that people began to treat freestanding sculptures in a conceptual manner similar to rock art.

While it’s not entirely clear, there are some hints about the significance of these cup-and-groove carvings, says Dr. Mollenhauer. “There are interesting ethnographic trends in the production of cup-and-groove carvings that often associate them with rain and fertility. That’s one possibility, but another is the collection of potent substances (i.e., pulverized rock dust) from the carving as part of pilgrimage practices, as Joel Palka suggests, although these two hypotheses are not mutually exclusive.”

“There are also documents from the mid-20th century showing local hunters from Popoluca striking one of the Estero Rabon sculptures with machetes before hunting for game, before it was again removed from the state museum.”

One of the questions Dr. Mollenhauer wanted to answer was why the aesthetics of rock art and ritual practices were adapted to sculpture. She argues that by adapting the aesthetics of rock art and ritual practices, the boundaries between the wild periphery and the domestic center were deliberately blurred.

Mesoamerican elites established their power and legitimacy by establishing ancestral connections with the landscape. By incorporating the aesthetics of rock art and the rituals intrinsically linked to the landscape into sculptures located on the borders of their territories and in their urban centers, they positioned themselves within this symbolic landscape. The ideological and spiritual power of the landscape was then integrated into the civic center and directly associated with Mesoamerican rulers and elites.

Just as pilgrimages to rock art sites marked humans as subordinate to deities, pilgrimages to carvings were linked to humans being subordinate to their political rulers.

By creating sculptures that referenced these places, the Olmecs were not only producing art; they were constructing tangible spaces of spiritual and social engagement within their cities.

If later Mesoamerican societies continued this practice, it was to a lesser degree, Dr. Mollenhauer explains. “Rock art and sculpture continue to coexist in later Mesoamerican societies, but there appears to be less intentional appropriation of the aesthetics of rock art, as freestanding sculptures begin to incorporate text, calendrical information, and elements such as celestial and basal registers to create a delineated narrative field that frames the imagery.”

Dr. Mollenhauer hopes his work will do two things: “1) allow us to recognize the intentional choices made by Olmec carvers, in this case to connect their works to the ritually charged spaces of rock art and its associations with sacred landscape and pilgrimage; and 2) highlight the importance of rock art as a distinct and impactful art form in its own right, one that continued to be produced and used by later Mesoamerican cultures alongside other forms of art-making.”

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