Journey to Olman 21 nov - 6 dic 2014

(starts: Villahermosa, Tabasco, ends: Mexico City)

The Olmecs chose the fertile region in the southeast of Mexico, between the states of Veracruz and Tabasco, a country that is also called "Olman". On this trip we'll unravel its secrets, which are not yet in the textbooks: of a peaceful civilization, led by priest-kings and their superior knowledge, probably navigators of the oceans, skull deformers as a symbol of beauty and intelligence. Read more:

The Olmec culture was formed by people of different races and languages and was a culture that built large ceremonial centers, such as San Lorenzo and Tres Zapotes in Veracruz and La Venta in Tabasc. The Olmecs established trade routes to the state of Guerrero and the Mexican Plateau, as well as to Guatemala and Costa Rica, and colonized in a peaceful manner through its outstanding culture at that time. Only slowly nowadays their significance that they have as Mother culture of Mesoamerica since 2000 BC is recognized, as the forerunners of the great cultures of the Mesoamerican classic period, such as the Mayas, Zapotecs and Teotihuacanos, when later Olmec culture decayed and merged with the salient features of each cultural field, to where they had been expanded.

Whatever was the origin of the culture of the Olmecs, their trade network between different areas of Central America has contributed to the spread of many cultural elements that are identified with the Olmec culture, including the cult of mountains and caves, the cult of the Feathered Serpent as a deity associated which agriculture, the religious symbolism of jade and even the artistic style itself, which has been intensively developed in the centuries after the decline of the major centers of this society. It is believed that the Olmecs were the first Americans with a glyph font to represent their language. In 2007 an inscription was discovered from the year 900 BC, what makes the Olmec writing the oldest of the Americas. "We are all Olmecs", as the Mexhicas tradition says today.