La Mojarra

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
classic sites on Mexico's Gulf Coast

La Mojarra is a small Mesoamerican archaeological site in the Mexican state of Veracruz near the coast of the Gulf of Mexico .

location

The archaeological site of La Mojarra is located in a swampy and humid environment at a height of about 11 m above sea level. d. About 20 km as the crow flies from the Mexican Gulf coast. The nearest Olmec archaeological site, Tres Zapotes , is about 30 km as the crow flies in a south-easterly direction. During the excavation work, which covered an area of ​​about one square kilometer, several heaped up mounds of earth, on which formerly probably made of branches, twigs, earth and reed temples or the huts of the upper class stood, and a square in the middle.

history

La Mojarra was from around 300 BC. Populated until around 1000 AD. The small town is famous for a stele found in 1985 in a river nearby with the two long count dates 8.5.3.3.5, which corresponds to May 19 of the year 143, and 8.5.16.9.7 (= June 23, 156). Approx. 70 kilometers away, the so-called Tuxtla statuette with the dates 8.6.2.4.17 (= March 12, 162) was found in 1902 , but it could only be dated some time later. All three dates are significantly older than those of the Mayas and are only undercut by a few earlier dates in the same region.

Stele 1

La Mojarra, stele 1, front side
La Mojarra, stele 1, reverse with the date 8.5.16.9.7

The 2.10 m to 2.34 m high and 1.10 m to 1.42 m wide monolithic stele made of volcanic basalt rock , which - like the famous Olmec heads - comes from the Sierra de los Tuxtlas about 35 km away , weighs approx. 4 tons and today belongs to the inventory of the Museo de Antropología in Xalapa . Some researchers support the hypothesis that the previously worked stele originally stood in Tres Zapotes and was only moved here much later; others reject such considerations.

The obverse shows on the left a priest-king with a rich headdress in which several masks - also with headdresses - are hidden; Above and to the right, at an exhibition of the stele in 1995, other hard-to-see glyphs were found ; in total there are now well over 500 characters.

The later of the two dates can be found on the back on the left; To the right of this, several vertical rows with glyphs in Epi-Olmec script can be seen, which have not come much closer to a final interpretation even due to the progress made in deciphering the Maya script and despite several attempts at translation - the investigations are being continued.

See also

literature

Web links

Coordinates: 18 ° 36'55 "  N , 95 ° 44'30"  W.