A CHRONOLOGICAL LINK BETWEEN

MAYA AND OLMECA ART By S. K. LOTHROP

TUDENTS of Mexican archaeology, in recent years, have grouped to-

S gether a large number of stone carvings to which the name Olmeca has
been attached.’ The Olmeca were one of the Mexican tribes about whom
very little is known. According to legend, they made their appearance on the
Mexican scene in proto-historic times like the Toltec. Their language is un-
recorded and at various times has been postulated as Nahua, Otomi or Mix-
tec.2 Their traditional home was the southern portion of the State of Vera
Cruz and adjacent territory further inland.
Ancient stone carvings in the styles attributed to the Olmeca have been
found chiefly in the States of Vera Cruz, Tabasco, Guerrero and Oaxaca, but
examples are known, probably introduced by trade, from such distant lands
as Guatemala and Panama. Olmeca sculptures include colossal stone heads,
large statues in the round, ceremonial axes decorated in relief, and jade or-
naments of several distinct types. Most of these specimens have been dis-
covered accidentally and the associated data have not been recorded. Hence
their age remains undetermined, but the present consensus of archaeological
opinion is that they are relatively ancient as compared to surviving aspects
of the better known cultures.
One of the characteristic features of Olmeca sculpture is a head marked
by a curious type of partly open mouth with thickened lips. On account of
their infantile appearance, these heads are popularlyknown as “baby faces.”
It is the purpose of this paper to point out that such faces appear on a num-
ber of Maya stelae a t the ancient Maya city of Naranjo, located near the
eastern border of the Department of the Peten in Guatemala, and that they
therefore may be assigned a definite date in the Maya calendrical system.
“Baby faces” occur a t Naranjo not as the faces of the principal char-
acters on stelae but as ornaments attached to their belts. Presumably they
represent actual objects which reached Naranjo by trade and, for a time,
became fashionable. As they were carved by Maya craftsmen, however,
they have something of the characteristic quality of Maya art, but the pro-
totype from which they were copied is unmistakable. I n published photo-
graphs of Naranjo ~ t e l a e the
, ~ reduction is so great that detail is often ob-
scured. We believe, however, that the belt ornaments on stelae 6, 12 and 14

See appended bibliography.

aMason, 1940, p. 77.
Theobert Maler, Explorations i n the Departme& of the Peten, Guatemala, and Adjacent
Regions (Memoirs of the Peabody Museum, Harvard University, Vol. IV, No. 2, 1908).
419
420 A M E R I C A N ANTHROPOLOGIST [N. s., 43, 1941

must definitely be classed as “baby faces” and others might be added to this
group. The dates on these monuments are 9.18.0.0.0, 9.18.10.0.0 and 9.18.-
0.0.0 respectively (790-800 A.D., Goodman-Thompson-Martinez correla-
tion).
The accompanying illustration is an outline sketch of the belt ornament
on stela 14, idealized in that no attempt has been made to show the texture
of the stone. It was drawn by the writer4 in 1922 because a t that time the
head appeared to be non-typical of the locality, but its implication was not
realized until recently..
I n our illustration, various details are visible which are not clear in the
photograph previously published by Maler. No long description is necessary

Head of Olmeca type used as a belt ornament on stela 14 a t

Naranjo, Department of the Peten, Guatemala. Scale, x.
but we call attention to features which can be considered typically Olmeca.
These include the slanting eyes, broad nose with flaring nostrils, the outline
of the open mouth and the thickened lips with a small pendicle in the center
of the upper lip. The calculiform outline of the head corresponds to the nor-
mal outline of Maya glyphs, it is true, but this shape is also characteristic
of many Olmeca heads from Mexico.
Olmeca art styles exhibit marked variation and, as we have noted, are
widely distributed. It therefore seems probable that they existed for a long

4 When a member of the expedition of the Carnegie Institution of Washington under Dr.

S. G. Morley, who stopped a t Naranjo for a day en route to Uaxactun.

LOTHROP] M A Y A A N D OLMECA A R T 42 1

time and that they can be assigned to several chronological divisions when
they are better understood. The fact that a single phase of Olmeca style can
be pegged to the Maya time count is a step in this direction but it does not
date the group as a whole. Evidence a t presentavailable suggests that other
aspects are much more ancient than the examples disclosed a t Naranjo. A t
the same time, the Naranjo heads, in conjunction with specimens found with
Archaic remains a t Gualupita6 (which can be correlated with Teotihuacan)
and the recent discoveries of Sterling in Vera Cruz, indicate that a new ap-
proach is becoming available for the cross-dating of Mexican and Central
American cultures.
MUSEUM
PEABODY
CAMBRIDGE,
MASSACHUSETTS

BIBLIOGRAPHY
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19.31 Sculptured Figures from Vera Cruz State, Mexico. Man, 19, London.
MASON,J . A.
1940 The Languages of Middle America. In The Maya and the neighbors, New York.
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VAILLANT, G. C.
1932 A Pre-Columbian Jade. Natural History, Vol. 32, pp. 512-520, 557-558, New
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* Vaillant and Vaillant, 1934, pp. 50-51.