Lying close to the calendar stela at Tres Zapotes, Stirling also unearthed a giant head. I sat in front of that head now. Dated to around 100 BC,7 it was approximately six feet high, 18 feet in circumference and weighed over 10 tons. Like its counterpart in Santiago Tuxtla, it was unmistakably the head of an African man wearing a close-fitting helmet with long chin-straps. The lobes of the ears were pierced by plugs; the pronounced negroid features were furrowed by deep frown lines on either side of the nose, and the entire face was concentrated forwards above thick, down-curving lips. The
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