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The Learning Kingdom's Cool Fact of the Day for September 22, 1999
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Who sculpted thousands of huge heads in Mexico?
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The Olmec society flourished for several hundred years in central
Mexico, starting around 1200 BC. During that time, they created
thousands of gigantic head sculptures out of stone. Some of them are
3 meters tall (ten feet), weighing as much as 50 tons.
Most of the stone blocks were mined and sculpted in the Los Tuxtlas
Mountains, then carried on sledges and rafts as far as 60 miles (100
km) to their final resting places on the coastal plains.
It is thought that the giant heads were likenesses of the rulers of
the Olmecs, but no one is sure. Because there are few Olmec
artifacts, archaeologists disagree about many aspects of their
culture.
More about the Olmecs:
http://www.tribalarts.com/feature/olmec/index.html
http://www.woodburyu.edu/dcremer/the_cube/wldciv1/olmec/index.htm
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/9608/bts/a061.html
http://www.stevensonpress.com/Maya/Olmec.html
Just for fun, a Colossal Head Hunt on the web:
http://www.cultures.com/contests/heads/heads.html
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