Parque Museo La Venta

Parque Museo La Venta is an open-air museum in Villahermosa, Tabasco, Mexico, created in 1958 by artist Carlos Pellicer Camara to preserve Olmec artifacts threatened by petroleum development at the original La Venta site. The museum displays three of the four colossal Olmec stone heads from La Venta, carved from basalt weighing up to 15 tons, believed to depict Olmec rulers. Other notable pieces include carved stone altars with ruler effigies, the 'Stele of the Bearded Man,' and a serpentine mosaic of 485 stone slabs forming a jaguar face. La Venta itself, founded c. 900 BC, was the largest Olmec settlement with approximately 18,000 inhabitants and housed Mexico's first pyramid.