San Lorenzo was a regional capital by 1400 BC, up to 13,000 people across 690 hectares. Workers moved 2 million cubic meters of earth by hand—no wheels, no animals. Basalt came 50-150 km from the Tuxtla Mountains. The unfinished La Cabata head weighs 40 tons, the largest known Olmec colossal 🗿
San Lorenzo: massive Olmec capital built by hand with no draft animals
MexicoGeneral
Key facts
- San Lorenzo sits on a ridge above the Coatzacoalcos River in southern Mexico
- People lived there from about 1,800 BC; by around 1,400 BC it was a regional capital
- Between 500,000 and 2 million cubic meters of earth were carried in basket by basket to level and extend the site
- Underground water system of U-shaped basalt channels capped with stone slabs fed by a spring
- Basalt sourced from the Tuxtla Mountains, 50 to 150 km away across swamp and river
- The Olmecs had no draft animals and no wheels; moving one midsized head took hundreds of people working for months
- Largest known head, La Cabata, weighs around 40 tons and was never finished
- At its peak, San Lorenzo covered about 690 hectares with an estimated 5,000 to 13,000 inhabitants
Site mentioned
Sources
allthatsinteresting.com
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mayaztequemexique.fr
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education.nationalgeographic.org
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archive.archaeology.org
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worldhistory.org
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San Lorenzo (archaeological site) | Anthropologyebsco.com
The site of San Lorenzo, situated in the hot, swampy lowlands of the Coatzacoalcos River drainage in southern Veracruz, Mexico, represents one of the earliest ...
San Lorenzoencyclopedia.com
San Lorenzo, the premier Early Formative Olmec capital, overlooks the tropical lowlands of southern Veracruz, Mexico, meandering water courses of the ...
San Lorenzo Tenochtitlánen.wikipedia.org
San Lorenzo proper occupies the slopes and summit of a plateau that rises 50 m above the floodplain of the Coatzacoalcos River.
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