Tres Zapotes

Tres Zapotes is an archaeological site and a village in the municipality of Santiago Tuxtla, on the plain of the Papaloapan river at the western edge of the Los Tuxtlas mountains, about 22 km west of the town of Santiago Tuxtla. The site lies just north of the present village, on the banks of the small Hueyapan stream; the village had 3,670 people at the 2020 census. The land once belonged to the Hacienda Hueyapan de Mimendi, which grew zapote fruit, hence the name. The extinct El Vigía volcano, about 10 km east, supplied the basalt for most of its sculpture.

Tres Zapotes was founded some time before 1000 BC and became a regional centre around 900–800 BC, as San Lorenzo declined. It is sometimes called the third Olmec capital after San Lorenzo and La Venta, but unlike La Venta it was not abandoned around 400 BC: it carried on into the Epi-Olmec period, when it produced some of the earliest Long Count dates and the Isthmian script, and remained a regional centre into the Classic, perhaps until about 900 AD. Some 2,000 years of occupation is very unusual in Mesoamerica. More than 160 mounds and platforms have been mapped, grouped in four main plazas about 1 km apart, which archaeologists read as a sign of power shared among rival factions. The first Olmec colossal head ever recorded was found here in 1862 by José Melgar, and Matthew Stirling's excavations from 1938 began the scientific study of Olmec culture. In 1939 he found the lower half of Stela C, carved with the Long Count date 7.16.6.16.18, which corresponds to 3 September 32 BC; the top half, found in 1969, confirmed the reading.

The mounds themselves are low, grassy and mostly unexcavated, so the visit centres on the site museum in the village, opened in 1974 and remodelled in 2007 by the state government and INAH, when Olmec tombs were added to the display. Its main pieces are Monument A, the colossal head found by Melgar, about 1.47 m tall and 7.8 tons, and Stela C, of which the museum holds one half (the other is in Mexico City), along with other stelae, monuments and pottery. The second colossal head from Tres Zapotes stands on the main plaza of Santiago Tuxtla.