Olmec colossal basalt heads, about 20 tons each, found along Mexico's Gulf coast

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Key facts

• Giant basalt heads weighing roughly 20 tons began to be found from the early 1940s in the oil-exploration areas of Mexico's Atlantic/Gulf coast, some uncovered by bulldozers in swamps.
• The heads show broad noses, thick lips and helmet- or turban-like headgear; the presenter repeatedly notes their African-like features.
• One head was found almost entirely buried with a footpath crossing it before archaeologists dug it out; a head is held in the Xalapa museum.
• The Olmec heartland lies in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec in southern Mexico, the narrowest part of the country between Pacific and Atlantic, and one of three routes considered for the Panama Canal.
• Olmec sites included pre-planned cities with sewer and water systems.
• The presenter argues the Olmec, rather than the Maya, are credited with the number system, hieroglyphs, the ball game and jade use, and dates the Olmec to about 1300 BC.
• For comparison, the video cites Egyptian royal depictions of Merneptah, daughter of Akhenaten and Nefertiti, and of Tutankhamun with elongated crania, and notes the practice persisted among Kurds in northern Iraq until the 1960s, in Vanuatu, and in the Belgian Congo in the 1920s.

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