Polished to a shine, this beautiful sculpture epitomizes the art of the Olmec culture. Created out of a light green jadeite, the artistic rendering and the iconography are most interesting. The anatomy shows that the artist had a basic understanding, yet kept the figure simple. The arms are outstretched at the elbow, yet they contain nothing. The features on the face are carefully detailed yet the ears are gently molded onto the face. Smooth to the touch, we realize that it still contains the beauty and elegance it carried at its first creation

This sculpture portrays the features commonly referred to as the “were-jaguar.” This name is used to describe a characteristic countenance of Olmec art generally exhibiting the puffy, fat cheeks and jowls of a human baby with the slanted eyes and curved mouth of a jaguar. The jaguar is one of the most potent symbols in Mesoamerican art. Often associated with the ruling power of the king, the jaguar was the most sacred beast in the animal pantheon. The veneration of this beast permeates the art of the Olmec. In this case, the were-jaguar statuette probably reflects (or is connected to) the Olmec belief that, in the distant past, a union between a woman and a jaguar had produced an earlier race of were- jaguars of which the Olmecs believed to be the descendants.

The Olmecs are generally considered to be the ultimate ancestor of all subsequent Mesoamerican civilisations. Thriving between about 1200 and 400 BC, their base was the tropical lowlands of south central Mexico, an area characterised by swamps punctuated by low hill ridges and volcanoes. Here the Olmecs practiced advanced farming techniques and constructed many permanent settlements. Their influence, both cultural and political, extended far beyond their boundaries; the exotic nature of Olmec designs became synonymous with elite status in other (predominantly highland) groups, with evidence for exchange of artefacts in both directions. Other than their art (see below), they are credited with the foundations of writing systems (the loosely defined Epi-Olmec period, c. 500 BC), the first use of the zero – so instrumental in the Maya long count vigesimal calendrical system – and they also appear to have been the originators of the famous Mesoamerican ballgame so prevalent among later cultures in the region. The art form for which the Olmecs are best known, the monumental stone heads weighing up to forty tons, are generally believed to depict kingly leaders or possibly ancestors. Other symbols abound in their stylistic repertoire, including several presumably religious symbols such as the feathered serpent and the rain spirit, which persisted in subsequent and related cultures until the middle ages.