Olmec Religion: A Key to Middle America and Beyond

Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1976. 1st ed. Green dust jacket, lime-green clothbound boards, xiv, 185 pages:i64 photographs and drawings(black and white), postscript, bibliography, index; 24 cm Jacket sunning to spine; minor scuffing on jacket, pages remarkably clean and white with no markings, illustrations crisp and fresh, minor discoloration on top edge but otherwise in excellent condition. Fine in very good(+) jacket. . Hardcover. ISBN: 0806112980

From the dust jacket: "Here is a new and revolutionary interpretation of the oldest religion in Middle American civilization. A historian of religion proposes that it was a serpent, not the commonly represented jaguar, that was the religious symbol of the ancient Olmecs, who occupied southeastern Mexico and are today generally considered the forerunners of the Mayas. His "primary objestive", says author Karl W. Luckert, "is an interpretation of the Olmec religious symbolism," as he emphasizes the history-of-religions approach rather than the scientific or archaeological interpretation previously used. And certainly, in the absence of written or spoken words, the best religious expression is physical iconography". Volume 137 in The Civilization of the American Indian series.

Contents: Religion and civilization. How to meet the Olmecs. Ridges and volcano heads. Volcanic serpent faces. The green reform. In the serpents mouth. How long a serpent?. A mythic postscript: Western scholar in Olmec paradise.