La Mojarra Stela 1
La Mojarra Stela 1 is a limestone carving from Mesoamerica, dating to around 156 CE. It was found in 1986 pulled from the Acula River near La Mojarra, Veracruz, Mexico, not far from the Tres Zapotes site, and today it is in the Xalapa Museum of Anthropology. The monument measures about 1.4 meters wide and 2.0 meters tall, weighs around four tons, and contains roughly 535 glyphs in Isthmian script. It is one of the earliest known written records from the region, linking a ruler’s deeds to calendars and astronomical events.
The right side of the stone shows a full-length portrait of a man in an elaborate headdress and costume, though the bottom part is worn away. Above the figure, there are 12 short columns of glyphs on the left and eight longer columns to the right. The stela includes two Long Count dates that correspond to May 143 CE and July 156 CE, helping to place the ruler in history. The figure’s portrayal is intricate: the headdress forms a bird-like supernatural, with a Jester God mask, a stylized shark motif, and several other bird masks around the chest and arms. Some scholars think the shark imagery represents the Olmec Fish/Shark Monster and that the headdress echoes the Principal Bird Deity, a common theme on monuments of this era.
The nearby Tuxtla Statuette, a small greenstone figure of a person dressed as a bird, comes from the same culture and period. The two artifacts—found about 70 kilometers apart and bearing closely spaced Long Count dates—may refer to the same ruler and share the Isthmian script.
After its discovery, the stela was stored in Xalapa. In 1995, a previously eroded row of glyphs on one side was recognized. In 1993 and again in 1997, John Justeson and Terrence Kaufman proposed a decipherment naming the figure as “Harvester Mountain Lord,” describing his rise to kingship, a solar eclipse, appearances of Venus, warfare, an attempted usurpation, human sacrifice, and his own bloodletting. This interpretation has been disputed by scholars such as Michael D. Coe and Stephen D. Houston, and further evidence is needed to settle the debate.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 09:15 (CET).