New Perspectives on Gulf Coast Olmec Iconography and Scripts via the Mesoamerican Corpus of Formative Period Art and Writing

Summary

The rich visual culture of the Formative period Gulf Coast Olmec has long been recognized as playing a foundational role in the origins and development of subsequent Mesoamerican writing systems and artistic traditions. Nonetheless, Formative period visual cultures remain relatively understudied, as does their role in and impact on the emergence of regional script systems, the developmental dynamics of which continue to elude adequate explanation. To advance the field’s understanding of script development, since 2010 the authors have been constructing a comprehensive database of Middle Formative iconography and scripts. This database builds on the work of colleagues to expand—and expand access to—the known corpus of Formative period art and writing. Further, the Corpus project is developing a mobile device application and website for visualizing complex relationships among datasets, including multimedia, spatial, and temporal information. Finally, the project has employed new imaging and digitalization techniques on archaeological objects, which has, in some cases, revealed previously undetected iconographic details on monuments such as La Venta’s iconic Altar Four. This paper presents examples of ongoing work, project outcomes, and insights gleaned from efforts to date.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 81st Annual Meeting, Orlando, FL (2016)   •
• Incidencia, articulación e innovación del conocimiento arqueológico en la Costa del Golfo mesoamericano: Organización Ideológica, Política y Ritual.

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