All these heads are carved from solid blocks of basalt. The smallest ones are 1.5 m high, the largest is about 3.5 m. Most of the Olmec heads are about 2 m. Accordingly, the weight of these huge sculptures ranges from 10 to 35 tons!
When you look at the heads, a lot of questions immediately arise, to which the omniscient science wants to get a clear answer. The facial features of each of the 17 giant heads are not individual and they all have one thing in common - the characteristic Negroid features. Where did the Negroes come from in pre-Columbian America, if, according to official science, there could be no contacts between Africa and America before Columbus? And the Olmecs themselves did not at all look like blacks, which follows from the numerous other statuettes and figurines. And only these 17 heads are endowed with Negroid features.
With the help of what tools, in the absence of metal (again according to the official version), basalt, one of the most durable stones from which heads are made, was processed with such precision and detail? Could it be another stone?
How were multi-ton boulders, some up to 35 tons in weight, delivered to the processing site 90 km from the place of their extraction through the jungle over rough terrain? Despite the fact that (according to the same version) the Olmecs did not know the wheels (by the way, it has already been proven that they knew).
Why make them so big? After all, the Olmecs have many other sculptures, including heads, of a completely normal size and a completely American (Indian) appearance. And only these 17 black faces are an exception. Why are they so honored? Or is it life size? Isn't it the same here as with the Island, which was visited by aliens?
Now we will try to answer these questions …
The Olmec civilization is considered the first, "mother" civilization of Mexico. Like all other first civilizations, it arises immediately and in a "finished form": with a developed hieroglyphic writing, an accurate calendar, canonized art, with a developed architecture. According to the views of modern researchers, the Olmec civilization arose around the middle of the 2nd millennium BC. and lasted for about a thousand years. The main centers of this culture were located in the coastal zone of the Gulf of Mexico in the territory of the modern states of Tobasco and Veracruz. But the cultural influence of the Olmecs can be traced throughout Central Mexico. Until now, nothing is known about the people who created this first Mexican civilization. The name "Olmecs" meaning "rubber people" is given by modern scientists. But where did this people come from, what language they spoke,where did he disappear after centuries - all these main questions remain unanswered after more than half a century of studies of the Olmec culture.
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The Olmecs are the oldest and most mysterious civilization in Mexico. These peoples settled along the entire Gulf Coast around the third millennium BC.
The Coatsecoalcos was the main river of the Olmecs. Its name in translation means "Sanctuary of the Serpent".
According to legends, it was in this river that the farewell to the ancient deity of Quetzalcoatl took place. Quetzalcoatl or the Great Cuculan, as the Maya people called him, was a feathered serpent and a mysterious person. This snake had a powerful physique, noble features, and, in general, a completely human appearance.
I wonder where he came from among the red-skinned and beardless Olmecs? According to legends, he came and went on the water. It was he who taught the Olmecs all crafts, moral foundations and the counting of time. Quetzalcoatl condemned sacrifice and was against violence.
The largest monuments of the Olmecs are San Lorenzo, La Venta and Tres Zapotes. These were real urban centers, the first in Mexico. They included large ceremonial complexes with earthen pyramids, an extensive system of irrigation canals, city blocks and numerous necropolises.
The Olmecs have achieved real excellence in stone processing, including very hard rocks. Olmec jade products are considered to be masterpieces of ancient American art. The monumental sculpture of the Olmecs included multi-tone altars made of granite and basalt, carved steles, sculptures of human height. But one of the most remarkable and mysterious features of this civilization is the huge stone heads.
The first such head was found back in 1862 in La Venta. To date, 17 such giant human heads have been discovered, ten of them come from San Loresno, four from La Venta, and the rest from two more monuments of the Olmec culture. All these heads are carved from solid blocks of basalt. The smallest are 1.5 m high, the largest head found at the Rancho la Cobata monument reaches 3.4 m in height. The average height of most Olmec heads is about 2 m. Accordingly, the weight of these huge sculptures ranges from 10 to 35 tons!
All heads are made in the same stylistic manner, but it is obvious that each of them is a portrait of a particular person. Each head is topped with a headdress that most closely resembles an American football player's helmet. But all hats are individual, there is not a single repetition. All heads have elaborate ears decorated with large earrings or ear inserts. Earlobe piercing was a common tradition in all ancient cultures of Mexico. One of the heads, the largest one from Rancho la Cobata, depicts a man with closed eyes, all the other sixteen heads have eyes wide open. Those. each such sculpture was supposed to depict a specific person with a characteristic set of individual features. We can say that Olmec heads are images of specific people. But despite the individuality of the traits, all the giant heads of the Olmecs are united by one common and mysterious feature.
The portraits of the people depicted in these sculptures have pronounced negroid features: a wide, flattened nose with large nostrils, full lips and large eyes. Such features do not fit in any way with the main anthropological type of the ancient population of Mexico. Olmec art, be it sculpture, relief or small plastic, in most cases reflects the typical American Indian appearance characteristic of the American race. But not on giant heads. This negroidity of features was noted by the first researchers from the very beginning. This led to the emergence of various hypotheses: from assumptions about the migration of immigrants from Africa to statements that this racial type was characteristic of the most ancient inhabitants of Southeast Asia, who were part of the first settlers to America. However, this problem was rather quickly "let on the brakes" by representatives of official science. It was too inconvenient to think that any contacts could exist between America and Africa at the very dawn of civilization. The official theory did not imply them.
And if so, then Olmec heads are images of local rulers, after whose death such original memorial monuments were made. But the Olmec heads are truly a unique phenomenon for ancient America. In the Olmec culture itself, there are still similar analogies, i.e. sculpted human heads. But unlike the 17 "Negro" heads, they depict portraits of people of a typical American race, are smaller and made in accordance with a completely different pictorial canon. In other cultures of ancient Mexico, there is nothing like this. In addition, you can ask a simple question: if these are images of local rulers, then why are there so few of them, if we speak in relation to the thousand-year history of the Olmec civilization?
And what about the problem of negroid traits? Whatever theories prevailing in historical science assert, besides them there are also facts. An Olmec vessel in the form of a seated elephant is kept in the Anthropological Museum of Xalapa (Veracruz State).
It is considered proven that elephants in America disappeared with the end of the last glaciation, i.e. about 12 thousand years ago. But the Olmecs knew the elephant so much that it was even depicted in figured ceramics. Either elephants still lived in the Olmec era, which contradicts the data of paleozoology, or the Olmec masters were familiar with African elephants, which contradicts modern historical views. But the fact remains that you can, if not touch it with your hands, then see it with your own eyes in a museum. Unfortunately, academic science diligently avoids such absurd "trifles". In addition, in the last century, in different regions of Mexico, and on the monuments with traces of the influence of the Olmec civilization (Monte Alban, Tlatilco), burials were discovered, the skeletons in which anthropologists identified as belonging to the Negroid race.
The giant Olmec heads are asking researchers a lot of paradoxical questions. One of the heads from San Lorenzo has an inner tube connecting the ear and mouth of the sculpture. How in a monolithic basalt block with a height of 2.7 m was it possible to make such a complex internal channel using primitive (not even metal) tools? Geologists who have studied the Olmec heads have found that the basalt from which the heads were made at La Venta came from quarries in the Tuxtla Mountains, which, if measured in a straight line, are 90 kilometers. How the ancient Indians, who did not even know the wheels, transported monolithic boulders weighing 10-20 tons over rough terrain. American archaeologists believe that the Olmecs could have used reed rafts, which, together with their cargo, were floated down the river to the Gulf of Mexico,and already along the coast they delivered basalt blocks to their city centers. But the distance from the Tuxtla quarries to the nearest river is about 40 km, and it is a dense swampy jungle.
In some myths about the creation of the world that have come down to our days from various Mexican peoples, the emergence of the first cities is associated with newcomers from the north. According to one version, they sailed by boats from the north and landed at the Panuco River, then walked along the coast to the Potonchan at the mouth of Jalisco (the oldest Olmec center of La Venta is located in this area). Here the aliens exterminated the local giants and founded the first Tamoanchan cultural center mentioned in the legends.
According to another myth, seven tribes came from the north to the Mexican Highlands. Two peoples already lived here - Chichimecs and giants. Moreover, the giants inhabited the land to the east of modern Mexico City - the Puebla and Cholula regions. Both peoples led a barbaric lifestyle, hunted for food and ate raw meat. Aliens from the north drove out the Chichemeks and exterminated the giants. Thus, according to the mythology of a number of Mexican peoples, the giants were the predecessors of those who created the first civilizations in these territories. But they could not resist the aliens, and were destroyed. By the way, a similar situation took place in the Middle East and it is described in sufficient detail in the Old Testament.
Mentions of the race of ancient giants that preceded the historical peoples are found in many Mexican myths. So the Aztecs believed that the earth was inhabited by giants during the era of the First Sun. They called the ancient giants "kiname" or "kinametine". The Spanish chronicler Bernardo de Sahagun identified these ancient giants with the Toltecs and believed that it was they who erected the giant pyramids at Teotehuacan and Cholula.
Bernal Diaz, a member of the Cortez expedition, wrote in his book "The Conquest of New Spain" that after the conquistadors had established a foothold in the city of Tlaxcale (east of Mexico City, Puebla region), the local Indians told them that in very ancient times people settled in this area enormous growth and strength. But because they had a bad character and bad customs, the Indians exterminated them. In support of their words, the inhabitants of Tlaxcala showed the Spaniards the bone of an ancient giant. Diaz writes that it was a femur and its length was equal to the growth of Diaz himself. Those. the growth of these giants was more than three times the height of an ordinary person.
In the book "The Conquest of New Spain" he describes how the Indians told them that in ancient times people of huge stature settled in these places, but the Indians did not get along with them in character and killed everyone. Quote from the book:
Russian translation of the book: https://www.gramotey…140358220925600 quote taken from the chapter "Friendship with Tlashkala".
There was no point in lying to the author, matters were discussed much more important than the long-extinct and not dangerous giants, and it was said and shown by an Indian in passing, as a matter of course. And the book is about something else entirely. And if a modern TV channel can still be suspected of falsifying facts in order to raise the rating, then a person who publicly promised to send "non-existent" giant human bones to the king 500 years ago can only be suspected of idiocy. Which, after reading his book, is very difficult to do.
Found traces of giants in this area and in the manuscripts of the Aztecs (Aztec codes), who later lived in the same places, in the form of drawings, and in many Mexican myths.
Drawing from an Aztec manuscript. Judging by how many people pull one big man, he is also very heavy. Could it be his head etched in stone?
In addition, from various sources it is clear that the ancient giants inhabited a certain area, namely the eastern part of central Mexico up to the coast of the Gulf of Mexico. It is quite legitimate to assume that the giant heads of the Olmecs symbolized the victory over the race of giants and the victors erected these monuments in the centers of their cities in order to perpetuate the memory of their defeated predecessors. On the other hand, how can such an assumption be reconciled with the fact that all giant Olmec heads have individual facial features?
Maybe those researchers who believe that giant heads were portraits of rulers are right? But the study of paradoxical phenomena is always complicated by the fact that such historical phenomena rarely fit into the system of familiar logic. That's why they are paradoxical. Moreover, myths, like any historical source, are subject to influences dictated by the current political situation. Mexican myths were recorded by Spanish chroniclers in the 16th century. Information about events that happened tens of centuries before that time could be transformed several times. The image of the giants could be perverted to please the victors. Why not admit that the giants were the rulers of the Olmec cities for a time? And why not assume also that this ancient people of giants belonged to the Negroid race?
The ancient Ossetian epic "Legends of the Narts" is imbued with the theme of the struggle of the Narts with the giants. They were called waigi. But, what is most interesting, they were called black waigs. And although the epic never mentions the color of the skin of the Caucasian giants, the adjective "black", in relation to waig, is used in the epic as a qualitative, and not as a figurative concept. Of course, such a comparison of facts relating to the ancient history of peoples so distant from each other may seem too bold. But our knowledge of distant eras is too scarce.
It remains only to recall the great poet A. S. Pushkin, who used the rich heritage of Russian folklore in his work. In Ruslana and Lyudmila, the protagonist encounters a giant's head, standing alone in an open field, and defeats it. The same theme of the victory over the ancient giants and the same image of a giant head. And such a coincidence cannot be a mere coincidence.
Graham Hancock writes in Traces of the Gods: “The most amazing thing was that Tres Zapotes was not a Mayan city at all. He was completely, exclusively, undoubtedly Olmec. This meant that it was the Olmecs, and not the Mayans, who invented the calendar, that it was the Olmec culture, not the Maya, that was the “progenitor” of the cultures of Central America … Olmecs are much older than the Maya. They were a skillful, civilized, technically advanced people, and it was they who invented the calendar with dots and dashes, in which the starting point is the mysterious date of August 13, 3114 BC."
Most of the Olmec stone heads depict a person with negroid facial features. But 2000 years ago, there were no black Africans in the New World, the first of them appeared much later than the Conquest, when the slave trade began. However, there is firm evidence from paleoanthropologists that as part of one of the migrations to the territory of the American continent during the last ice age, people of the Negroid race did indeed fall. This migration took place about 15 thousand years BC.
In San Lorenzo, the Olmecs built an artificial hill over 30 meters high as part of a huge structure 1200 meters long and 600 meters wide. Archaeologist Michael Coe, during excavations in 1966, made a number of finds, including over twenty artificial reservoirs connected by a very complex network of basalt-lined troughs. Part of this network was built into the watershed. When this place was excavated, water began to pour out of there again in heavy rains, as it had been for over three thousand years. The main drainage line ran from east to west. Three auxiliary lines were cut into it, and the joints were made very competently from a technical point of view. Having thoroughly examined the system, archaeologists were forced to admit that they could not understand the purpose of this complex system of water conduits and other hydraulic structures.
The Olmecs still remain a mystery to archaeologists. It was not possible to find any traces of the evolution of the Olmecs, as if this people appeared out of nowhere. Nothing is known about the social organization, rituals and belief system of the Olmecs, what language they spoke, what ethnic group they belonged to, not a single Olmec skeleton has survived.
The Maya inherited their calendar from the Olmecs, who used it for a thousand years before the Maya. But where did the Olmecs get it? What level of technical and scientific development of a civilization is required to develop such a calendar?
