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COLOSSAL HEAD This colossal head is designated as monument 4. It was discovered in 1939 by Mathew Sterling on the La Venta site in Tabasco. Both ears are missing but one side still displays an earspool in the form of a rounded square with a cross motif. There are also teeth present within the shadow of the mouth. The top center of the headdress is decorated with the clawed foot of a bird of prey. Both ears are eroded away and there is also damage to a portion of the "helmet" and some of the mouth. Stirling wrote about the damage in 1940: "Like some battle scared veteran, this one has lost most of his jaw and his nose has been flattened, probably the work of enemies who deliberately tried to destroy all evidence of this ancient culture long before the white man came to America." This colossal head is made of basalt and measures 7.41 feet (2.26 m) high and weighs 19.8 tons.
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