The site that best exemplifies the articulation of sacred space during the Middle Formative period is undoubtedly La Venta. La Venta rose to power c. 900 BC when San Lorenzo went into decline. It flourished on a small island in a swampy region about 10 kilometers from the Gulf of Mexico until about 400 BC. La Venta site plan (opens in another window)

Marking the southern end of La Venta's ceremonial precinct is an enormous pyramidal mound. Standing at the base of this symbolic mountain was Stela 25/26. This stela depicts a bundled zoomorphic creature with foliage at the top that represents a World Tree or axis mundi.

The Enclosed Courtyard
The northern end of Complex A is defined by an enclosed courtyard, whose massive underground serpentine deposits mark it as a place of the primordial waters of creation. Inside the enclosed courtyard is a triadic arrangement of small mounds that Kent Reilly suggested represent a Middle Formative version of the Three Hearthstones of Creation, a concept later associated with the Classic Period Maya.

Buried beneath the enclosed courtyard was Offering 4, illustrated here in the formation in which it was found. The 6 celts and 15 of the figures were carved from jade. The single figure that faces the others was carved from granite. Although the significance of this tableau is not known, it eloquently demonstrates the conceptual relationship between the forms of the celt and stela.

Two large adobe platforms guard the entrance to the enclosed courtyard. Beneath these platforms, enormous deposits of serpentine were placed in layers above alternating floors of colored sand. Although buried almost immediately after completion, these massive greenstone pavements must have invested the ground with cosmic power. Moreover, the top layer of greenstone on each of these two flanking deposits was arranged into a quincunx pattern that marked the four corners of the universe and included a central bar, or axis mundi, marking the center of the world. A third pavement, almost identical to the first two, was located between the two parallel mounds that frame the central courtyard or alley that ran from the main pyramid to the enclosed courtyard. Unlike the other two mosaic pavements, however, this pavement showed signs of abrasion, as if it had not immediately been buried. Its design also was missing the central vertical bar, or axis mundi, which gives us a powerful clue as to how it might have been used in ritual performances during the Middle Formative.

Although called an "altar," La Venta Altar 4 probably functioned as a throne. It depicts a ruler wearing a bird headdress and seated within a niche. He holds onto a rope that stretches around to the sides of the altar. On the side of the altar that has not been defaced is a seated individual whose hands are bound by the rope. The rope binding these two figures may symbolize captivity or, perhaps, ancestral lineage. Above the seated ruler on the front of the altar is the enormous open maw of a feline creature. This gaping jaguar mouth is metaphorically related to the open portal below, through which the ruler emerges.

Bibliography

Freidel, David A., Linda Schele, and Joy Parker. 1993. Maya Cosmos: Three Thousand Years on the Shaman's Path, pp. 132-137. New York: William Morrow and Company, Inc.

Grove, David C. 1973. "Olmec Altars and Myths." In Archaeology 26: 128-135.

Reilly, F. Kent, III. 1994. Visions to Another World: Art, Shamanism, and Political Power in Middle Formative Mesoamerica. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Texas at Austin.

______. 1995. "Art, Ritual, and Rulership in the Olmec World." In The Olmec World: Ritual and Rulership, pp. 27-45. Princeton: The Art Museum, Princeton University.