The Olmec, predecessors to all the major Mesoamerican civilizations, are perhaps most popularly known for the ‘Olmec heads’, colossal stone effigies representing plump, fleshy heads with flat noses and crossed eyes, that range in size from 1.17m to 3.40m. The Olmecs were the first civilization in the Americas to build monumental architecture and to settle in cities. From their heartland on the Gulf Coast, the Olmec spread to cover much of modern-day Mexico. They introduced a number of Mesoamerican practices which later became emblematic, including ritualized bloodletting and the ‘Mesoamerican ball-game’.

But Olmec art also included the unusual as well as the sublime. Perhaps the most unusual of all are the so-called ‘stargazers’, images of men with their heads craned back, staring at the heavens. This singular stargazer figure depicts the individual in question as a Were-Jaguar, a supernatural being from Olmec myth whose purpose and origins are unknown. The Were-Jaguar is often, as here, represented as a baby. He has short, stocky legs, bent slightly at the knee; a rotund belly that hangs over his hip; soft, undulating pectorals; and thick arms bent at the elbow. Just like a baby, his head is large, though it is un-naturalistically shield-shaped. The close parallels between Were-Jaguar iconography and babies is sometimes used as evidence to hypothesise a creation myth in which a women copulates with a jaguar, producing offspring that existed in Mesoamerica in the generations before the Olmec. The face of the figure is also characteristic of the Were-Jaguar. His slender eyes, which point up at the ends, are bright and alert. He has deep, pronounced glabellar lines (the folds from the eyebrows to the top of the nose). His cheeks are chubby and baby-like, and he has dimples under his eyes. His pyramidal nose connects to his top lip, like the muzzle of a big cat; his mouth is downward turning and bares his undefined top-teeth. His rectangular ears are pierced, and ear spools made of precious or perishable materials might once have hung from them. There is a small amount of damage to his right foot, but otherwise he is in exceptional condition.

The ritual or social significance of the stargazer figures is unknown. The commonly adduced idea that the individuals depicted are in a gesture of prayer takes for granted the Judeo-Christian notion that God is in the heavens, and therefore prayers should be directed upwards. Such an idea holds no currency for the Olmec, about whose religious practices we know very little. This figure is made from serpentine, a greenstone. Greenstones (chalchihuitl in Nahuatl), a category of green and bluish hardstones that includes serpentine alongside jade and other precious stones, were especially sacred to the Olmec. The colour was tied to water and to the fresh shoots of maize, which was the staple food of Mesoamericans. It was also believed that greenstones were water-retentive, and could emit vapours that would be beneficial to neighbouring vegetation. So it is possible that, rather than appealing to the heavens, this figure may be looking up to the rain clouds which will bring with them abundance to the Olmec maize-growers.