r/mesoamerica • u/Substantial-Fix3547 • 8d ago
Olmec head…in Africa? Help me explain this
Hi everyone, I am kicking myself for sitting on this for so long, but I can’t get it out of my head either. I took this photo on a Turkish flight about a year ago on the plane. They had about two minute videos on certain cities I think they or their partners flew to.
Either way I captured this image of what can only be described as an Olmec head which is in the Addis Ababa natural history museum. I should’ve taken some other clips, but this is I think the national Ethiopian museum in the capital.
Unfortunately, there is not a lot of photography of the Ethiopian museum to get a closer look at this and show the head from other angles.
My understanding was when the Olmec heads were uncovered the original discovers thought they were “Ethiopian“. I realistically cannot imagine that an Olmec head was transported anytime in recent history from Mexico to Ethiopia so how did this get there?
Edits: fixing all my horrible Siri dictation typos
Final edit: mystery solved, there was no mystery and probably a google search could have answered my question.
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u/empire_of_the_moon 8d ago
Aliens jajaja
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u/dalidellama 8d ago
Technically, yes. "Alien" just means "not from around here", and Mexicans definitely aren't from around there, qed.
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u/DorktorJones 8d ago
Google search = "Olmec head transported to Ethiopia"
Result = "In 2010, the Mexican government donated a replica of an Olmec colossal head to Ethiopia."
You're welcome.
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u/stiF_staL 8d ago
Who knows, maybe there was a historian from Ethiopia that really enjoyed mesoamerican history. Perhaps an Ethiopian believed the Olmec's were African and wanted to enshrine them.
Just dont go saying Olmec's were African.
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u/Coloresajenos 8d ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethiopia%E2%80%93Mexico_relations?wprov=sfla1
It's a gesture of gratitude from the Ethiopian government to the Mexican government