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So-Called Jaguar-Human Copulation Scenes in Olmec Art

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Whitney Davis
Whitney Davis*
Affiliation:
774 Wellington Street North, London, Ontario, Canada N6A 3S3
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Abstract

Three Olmec sculptures are frequently thought to represent copulation between human beings and jaguars, an important element in what we are able to reconstruct of Olmec belief, but evidence and parallels discussed here suggest that this interpretation of the sculptures is incorrect. Alternate explanations which are consistent with a new view would assign an aggressive, ritual, or allegorical meaning to these sculptures and to certain other related Olmec representations.

Type
Reports
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 43 , Issue 3 , July 1978 , pp. 453 - 457
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for American Archaeology 1978

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References

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