The Tuxtla Statuette is a small 6.3 inch (16 cm) rounded greenstone figurine, carved to resemble a squat, bullet-shaped human with a duck-like bill and wings. Most researchers believe the statuette represents a shaman wearing a bird mask and bird cloak. It is incised with 75

glyphs A glyph () is any kind of purposeful mark. In typography, a glyph is "the specific shape, design, or representation of a character". It is a particular graphical representation, in a particular typeface, of an element of written language. A g ...

of the Epi-Olmec or Isthmian script, one of the few extant examples of this very early

Mesoamerican writing system Mesoamerica, along with Mesopotamia and China, is one of three known places in the world where writing is thought to have developed independently. Mesoamerican scripts deciphered to date are a combination of logographic and syllabic systems. Th ...

. The human face carved into the stone is unremarkable except for the long bill that extends down to chest level. This bill has been identified as belonging to the

boat-billed heron The boat-billed heron (''Cochlearius cochlearius''), colloquially known as the boatbill, is an atypical member of the heron family. It is the only member of the genus ''Cochlearius'' and was formerly placed in a monotypic family, the Cochlearii ...

, a locally abundant bird along the

Tabasco Tabasco (), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Tabasco ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Tabasco), is one of the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided into 17 municipalities and its capital city is Villahermosa. It is located in ...

and southern Veracruz Gulf Coast. Raised wings or a wing-like cape envelop the body while feet have been incised into the base. The Tuxtla Statuette is particularly notable in that its glyphs include the

Mesoamerican Long Count calendar The Mesoamerican Long Count calendar is a non-repeating, vigesimal (base 20) and octodecimal (base 18) calendar used by several pre-Columbian Mesoamerican cultures, most notably the Maya. For this reason, it is often known as the May ...

date of March 162 CE, which in 1902 was the oldest Long Count date discovered. A product of the final century of the

Epi-Olmec culture The Epi-Olmec culture was a cultural area in the central region of the present-day Mexican state of Veracruz. Concentrated in the Papaloapan River basin, a culture that existed during the Late Formative period, from roughly 300 BCE to roughly 250 ...

, the statuette is from the same region and period as

La Mojarra Stela 1 La Mojarra Stela 1 is a Mesoamerican carved monument (stela) dating from 156 CE (2nd century CE). It was discovered in 1986, pulled from the Acula River near La Mojarra, Veracruz, Mexico, not far from the Tres Zapotes archaeological site. The by ...

and may refer to the same events or persons. Similarities between the Tuxtla Statuette and

Cerro de las Mesas Cerro de las Mesas, meaning "hill of the altars" in Spanish, is an archaeological site in the Mexican state of Veracruz, in the Mixtequilla area of the Papaloapan River basin. It was a prominent regional center from 600 BCE to 900 CE, and a regi ...

Monument 5, a boulder carved to represent a semi-nude figure with a duckbill-like

buccal mask A buccal mask is a mask covering the buccal area and mouth. Often the mask will also cover the nose, in which case it may also be referred to as a naso-buccal mask. Buccal masks were a common feature in some ancient Mesoamerican cultures and ar ...

, have also been noted. The Tuxtla Statuette was discovered in 1902 by a farmer plowing his field in the west foothills of the Tuxtlas mountains in the

Mexican state The states of Mexico are first-level administrative territorial entities of the country of Mexico, which is officially named Mexico, United Mexican States. There are 32 federal entities in Mexico (31 states and the capital, Mexico City, as a sepa ...

Veracruz Veracruz (), formally Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave (), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave), is one of the 31 states which, along with Me ...

. It was acquired by the

Smithsonian Institution The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums and education and research centers, the largest such complex in the world, created by the U.S. government "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge". Founded ...

shortly thereafter, reputedly smuggled into New York hidden in a shipment of tobacco leaf. At the time, several Mayanists including

Sylvanus Morley Sylvanus Griswold Morley (June 7, 1883September 2, 1948) was an American archaeology, archaeologist and epigraphy, epigrapher who studied the pre-Columbian Maya civilization in the early 20th century. Morley led extensive excavations of the Ma ...

, could not believe that the statuette pre-dated the

Maya Maya may refer to: Civilizations * Maya peoples, of southern Mexico and northern Central America ** Maya civilization, the historical civilization of the Maya peoples ** Maya language, the languages of the Maya peoples * Maya (Ethiopia), a populat ...

and suggested that the date and text were inscribed much later than 162 CE. However, later discoveries, such as

and Tres Zapotes Stela C, confirmed the antiquity of the statuette. The Tuxtla Statuette is in the collections of the Department of Anthropology,

National Museum of Natural History The National Museum of Natural History is a natural history museum administered by the Smithsonian Institution, located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., United States. It has free admission and is open 364 days a year. In 2021, with 7 ...

, Washington, D.C. It is currently on display in the

exhibit "Objects of Wonder". File:Estatuilla de Tuxtla.jpg, A side view of the Tuxtla Statuette File:Duckbill pendant (Snite).jpg, A black jade duckbill pendant from the Olmec culture, dated from 1000 BCE to 300 BCE, or at least 400 years earlier than the Tuxtla Statuette.Snite Museum placard. According to the placard, "Ducks were closely associated with water and fertility among the Olmec and some human figural sculptures depict rulers wearing duckbills."

Notes

References

* * (2001
''Epi-Olmec Hieroglyphic Writing and Texts''
Austin, Texas. *

External links

{{commons category-inline
Photo of boat-billed heron looking quite similar to the Tuxtla StatuetteTuxtla statuette online record
in artifact catalogue database of Department of Anthropology,

Epi-Olmec culture Inscriptions in undeciphered writing systems Los Tuxtlas Mesoamerican artifacts Mesoamerican inscriptions