Mask
Mexico, state of Veracruz, Río Pesquero, Gulf Coast Olmec culture
c. 900–500 B.C.
Jadeite
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Eugene McDermott and The Eugene McDermott Foundation and Mr. and Mrs. Algur H. Meadows and the Meadows Foundation, Incorporated, 1973.17

Mesoamerica, or Middle America, is a vast culture area that encompasses most of what is today central and southeastern Mexico, all of Guatemala and Belize, and the western areas of Honduras and El Salvador. Scholars have given the name Olmec to Mesoamerica’s first highly developed civilization, the archaeological culture that emerged about 1200 B.C. in Mexico’s Gulf Coast states of Veracruz and Tabasco. The Olmec built Mesoamerica’s earliest planned ceremonial centers, San Lorenzo and La Venta, and carved the first monumental stone sculpture. Through colossal stone heads and a range of figural sculpture, they established the tradition of portraits of rulers. They created a sophisticated symbol system and a coherent art style. Their long-distance trade networks provided access to many of the raw materials for their art.

This life-size mask is one of a number recovered from Río Pesquero, near the town of Las Choapas, Veracruz, after fishermen discovered hundreds of Olmec jade and serpentine objects there, underwater, in the late 1960s. The quantity and quality of the ritually cached objects, together with nearby evidence of ceremonial architecture and monumental sculpture, suggest that Río Pesquero was an important Olmec ceremonial center from about 900 to 500 B.C. A distinctive feature of many objects from the site is an alteration in surface color, which may indicate that they were burned, possibly in ritual cremation. The mottled white of the Museum’s mask represents such altered color. The Río Pesquero masks are predominantly human faces. With pierced eyes and holes at the top and sides, they could have been worn by living men.