Page 131 - Fingerprints of the Gods by Graham Hancock

Graham Hancock – FINGERPRINTS OF THE GODS

Tabasco. To get there we rejoined the main road running from Acayucan
to Villahermosa and by-passed the port of Coatzecoalcos in a zone of oil
refineries, towering pylons and ultra-modern suspension bridges. The
change of pace between the sleepy rural backwater where San Lorenzo
was located and the pockmarked industrial landscape around
Coatzecoalcos was almost shocking. Moreover, the only reason that the
timeworn outlines of the Olmec site could still be seen at San Lorenzo
was that oil had not yet been found there.
It had, however, been found at La Venta—to the eternal loss of
archaeology ...
We were now passing La Venta.
Due north, off a slip-road from the freeway, this sodium-lit petroleum
city glowed in the dark like a vision of nuclear disaster. Since the 1940s it
had been extensively ‘developed’ by the oil industry: an airstrip now
bisected the site where a most unusual pyramid had once stood, and
flaring smokestacks darkened the sky which Olmec star-gazers must once
have searched for the rising of the planets. Lamentably, the bulldozers of
the developers had flattened virtually everything of interest before proper
excavations could be conducted, with the result that many of the ancient
structures had not been explored at all. We will never know what they
8
could have said about the people who built and used them.
Matthew Stirling, who excavated Tres Zapotes, carried out the bulk of
the archaeological work done at La Venta before progress and oil money
erased it. Carbon-dating suggested that the Olmecs had established
themselves here between 1500 and 1100 BC and had continued to occupy
the site—which consisted of an island lying in marshes to the east of the
Tonala river—until about 400 BC. Then construction was suddenly
9
abandoned, all existing buildings were ceremonially defaced or
demolished, and several huge stone heads and other smaller pieces of
sculpture were ritually buried in peculiar graves, just as had happened at
San Lorenzo. The La Venta graves were elaborate and carefully prepared,
lined with thousands of tiny blue tiles and filled up with layers of
multicoloured clay. At one spot some 15,000 cubic feet of earth had
10
been dug out of the ground to make a deep pit; its floor had been
carefully covered with serpentine blocks, and all the earth put back.
Three mosaic pavements were also found, intentionally buried beneath
several alternating layers of clay and adobe.
11
La Venta’s principal pyramid stood at the southern end of the site.
Roughly circular at ground level, it took the form of a fluted cone, the
rounded sides consisting of ten vertical ridges with gullies between. The
pyramid was 100 feet tall, almost 200 feet in diameter and had an overall

8 The Ancient Kingdoms of Mexico, p. 30.
Ibid., p. 31.
9
10 The Prehistory of the Americas, pp. 268-9.
11 Ibid., p. 269.

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