Olmec civilization emerged roughly 3,000 years ago in the eastern lowlands along Mexico's Gulf Coast in what is today the region of Veracruz and Tabasco. In many ways it provided the foundation for all Mesoamerican art, much the way ancient Greek art did for subsequent European culture.

Still, Olmec society today remains very much a mystery. For example, no one is quite sure what the monumental, 10-ton stone sculptures of helmeted human heads were used for -- although it is certain that anybody who came upon one at a time when the wheel was not yet in use and carving implements were rudimentary would know he was in the jaw-dropping presence of extraordinary power.

So it's exciting to learn that a major Olmec exhibition will inaugurate the new Lynda and Stewart Resnick Exhibition Pavilion when it opens in October (exact date TBA) at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Only two major exhibitions of Olmec art have been seen in the United States -- one at Princeton, the other at the National Gallery -- both in the mid-1990s. Many American museums, including LACMA, have some important Olmec objects on view, but the great survey collections are all in Mexico.