[00:00.00]Listen to part of a lecture in an art history class. The professor has been discussing Mesoamerica, a region that covers parts of Mexico and Central America.[00:11.64]Professor We've established that ancient Mesoamerica culture shared unique art, architecture and technology for thousands of years. [00:21.21]What we're gonna talk about today is the art of another one of the early Mesoamerica cultures, the Olmec civilization.[00:29.66]Now, to analyze any work of art, it helps to know about the people who created it. [00:35.91]The problem here is that we don't know a lot about the people who created the Olmec civilization. [00:42.36]And much of what we know about them, we actually only know through their art. [00:47.94]Why do we know so little? [00:50.56]The Olmec civilization began around 1,200 BC and lasted for just 700 years by 400 BC Olmec society was gone.[01:03.38]We know that the people lived in small agricultural communities, in uh, the swampy low lands of southern Mexico. [01:11.64]They fished raised turkeys, had an extensive trade network of valuable materials like Jade. [01:20.00]They had a writing system as well. [01:22.34]We'll see their writing on various pieces of their art as we study it. [01:27.26]But it's their art, not their writing that they're known.[01:32.03]The Olmec created large stone sculptures, painted murals, fine pottery, and little figures carved out of Jade. [01:42.61]But their gigantic stone heads are the most famous of their art. [01:47.96]Here's a picture of one. [01:50.04]These heads are huge, approximately 3 meters high. [01:54.96]That's at least a whole meter taller than most of us, right? [01:59.00]They're almost just as wide. [02:01.61]They all have similar features. [02:04.57]The heads are really round, and they've all get broad noses. [02:09.41]And these very full down-turned lips. [02:12.47]It looks like they're frowning. [02:14.43]They're so characteristic. [02:16.72]It's easy when you see one of the heads to look at it and say that's Olmec. [02:22.80]Something really surprising uh astonishing, Really. [02:26.82]the heads were carved out of a very hard type of rock using only stone tools.[02:34.52]The Olmec didn't have metal tools. [02:37.26]And yet with just these stone tools, they created what many considered the best quality sculptures in ancient Mesoamerica. [02:45.98]It's really striking how they achieved such remarkable sophistication, with uh, such basic tools.[02:53.97]Student: What's that hat on its head? [02:56.39]It looks like some kind of helmet or something. [02:58.95]Did they wear armor for fighting wars?[03:01.92]Professor Well. It is a helmet and helmets like these probably did provide protection in battles, but most archaeologists and art historians think it was also used in a ballgame, a ceremonial ballgame of the Olmec culture. [03:19.14]Teams played the game with a rubber ball on courts that were built specially for those games, which brings up an interesting point. [03:28.37]Let's say you've come across an ancient sculpture in the jungle and carved onto its head is a helmet. [03:36.20]But you don't know anything about the culture it came from. [03:39.74]So you'd probably assume it was for protection during war. [03:44.41]But if you knew that other ancient people, groups in the area played a ball game, you knew they wore lots of protective clothing during the game, then you'd realize there might be another meaning. [03:58.40]It might not be a warrior, it might be the head of a ball player.[04:03.57]So you see, as an art historian, you must also study be knowledgeable about subjects like anthropology and archaeology, so that you can see how different cultures have influenced one another. [04:19.57]You have to understand a culture, its region, its neighbors, to really understand how its artistic style developed, what it symbols mean to come up with a valid interpretation of the art. [04:34.93]In other words, you can't study just art, because you have to have something to relate the symbols in art, too.[04:44.66]Now, let's see what's next. Oh yes the jaguar. [04:49.91]The jaguar is a common image in Olmec art. [04:53.75]This large predatory cat was prevalent throughout the Americans. [04:58.58]It was very important to Olmec, culture, and religion. [05:02.92]So it's not surprising that we see it so often in their art. [05:06.69]It was frequently used to represent that actually to glorify someone important like a ruler. [05:15.28]You even see it represented in the stone heads, like that stone head we just looked at. [05:21.98]You saw the mouth, the way the lips turned down, it looked a lot like the mouth of a big cat, a jaguar, didn't it? [05:30.50]This is one of the reasons why many researchers believe that these heads represent important rulers of the period. Jenny?[05:41.46]Jenny: I'm sorry professor, but now I'm confused, are these heads…are they ball players or rulers?[05:48.78]Professor Or Warriors? Rulers often fill many roles, some real, some ceremonial. [05:55.66]So these sculptures could symbolize more than one thing. [05:59.93]But regardless the similarities, the way all these heads look alike, makes them pretty easy to identify as Olmec.
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