THE OLMEC LA VENTA!

WHERE DID THEY LIVE?

• The Olmec lived in the southern side of Mexico, the Olmec did not have large city's, instead they had religious centre where they went to worship there gods.

LA VENTA

• The most famous Olmec centre is la Venta which lies in a swamp on a small island, it is said that no more than 150 people would live there at one time.

THE MOSAK PLATFORM

• Matthew sterling found a strange mosak platform made up of serpentine blocks, he found it in 1943 buried in the ceremonial centre of la venta.
• Some people think that from a different angle the mosak platform looks like the face of the jaguar, which is so common in Olmec art.
• From another different angle some people say that it looks like the tree of life, also very common in Olmec art.
• But even if it was one of these why was it buried... Know one knows

HOW BIG WAS IT?

• It is roughly 120m long 70m wide and 32m high.
• It isn't the biggest of the Olmec religious centres but it is one of them!

what was IN la venta

• There where quite a few different sculptures that the Olmec made, most of them had great detail and represented something important.