Another theory is that the heads were used as powerful markers of rulership and distributed to declare political dominance in various territories.
Indeed, Almere Read (41) suggests that even the Olmecs themselves regularly moved the heads around for different ritual purposes. Many of the stones are difficult to place in their original context as they were not necessarily found in the positions the Olmecs had originally put them. Miller suggests that perhaps a specific ruler's throne was converted into a colossal portrait in an act of remembrance following that ruler's death. For example, San Lorenzo Colossal Head 7 was originally a throne and has a deep indentation on one side and Altar 5 from La Venta seems to have been abandoned in the middle of such a conversion. Some heads are also recarvings of other objects. The fact that these giant sculptures depict only the head may be explained by the widely held belief in Mesoamerican culture that it was the head alone which contained the emotions, experience, and soul of an individual.
The heads were sculpted using hard hand-held stones and it is likely that they were originally painted using bright colours. The heads can be nearly 3 m high, 4.5 metres (9.8 feet, 14.7 feet) in circumference and average around 8 tons in weight. The principal source of this heavy stone was Cerro Cintepec in the Tuxtla Mountains. The heads were each carved from a single basalt boulder which in some cases were transported 100 km or more to their final destination, presumably using huge balsa river rafts wherever possible and log rollers on land. Seventeen heads have been discovered to date, 10 of which are from San Lorenzo and 4 from La Venta two of the most important Olmec centres. Mary Harrsch (Photographed at the de Young Museum of Fine Arts, San Francisco) (CC BY-NC-SA)
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