San Lorenzo, the early home of the Olmecs
is today called San Lorenzo Tenochtitlan:

There is a small museum at the site, one of three
villages in the area with Olmec sites.    There they
sculpted the famous stone heads, ten of which were
found at the site.  
The site was abandoned in 900 BC for unknown
reasons.
The Olmec builders incorporated stone drainage or water conduits constructed from basalt
and also erected massive sculptured heads of basalt weighing as much as 20 tons each. They
hauled these stones 50 miles from the distant volcano of the Tuxtla mountains near
present-day Catemaco.
At another site, Tres Zapotes, archaeologists discovered the first Olmec head and during a 1939
excavation archaeologist Mathew Sterling  discovered a stela bearing a long count date of 32
BC.
First excavated by Archaeologist Mathew Stirling in 1941 and later by Archaeologists Michael Coe and
Richard Diehl in 1967, the site as mapped by the Coe expedition shows artificial enlargement of plateaus
to 150 feet in height on which the Olmecs built their settlement
An extensive system of basalt tiles, some of which are in the small museum at the site,  have been
proposed as potable water carrying aqueducts.

At San Lorenzo excavators found ten Colossal heads sculpted from blocks of basalt that had been hauled
60 miles from the Tuxtla mountains to the site which at the time was an Island in the Coatzacoalcos River.  
Head # 1, of 17 so far found and numbered in the order of discovery,  is at the Museum of Anthropology in
Jalapa, the capitol of Veracruz State.
San Lorenzo, Olmec Ruin Site, Veracruz, Mexico
Colossal head # 10 sculpted from a
block of basalt brought 60 miles from the
Tuxtla Mountains in the museum at San
Lorenzo Tenochtitlan, Veracruz State,
Mexico. The Olmec city on the site was
active from  1200 BC to  900 BC  on the
Coatzacoalcos River drainage system.  
First excavated by Archaeologist Mathew
Stirling in 1941 and later by
Archaeologists Michael Coe and Richard
Diehl in 1967,
San Lorenzo
San Lorenzo is a village in the basin of the
Coatzacoalcos River where the Olmecs built their first
settlements.
One of three villages with Olmec sites, San Lorenzo
Tenochtitlan was home to the Olmecs from 1200 BC to
900BC.
There they built a complex of artificial plateaus reaching
150 feet according to the mapping of Archaeologist
Michael Coe.   
Mexico City Terminal Tapo.
Officially called  Terminal Oriente  This bus terminal serves the southern and southeastern parts
of Mexico including the States of Puebla, Oaxaca, Tlaxcala, Tabasco,  Chiapas,  Campeche,  
Veracruz,  and Yucatan.
Mexico City’s Terminal Norte also called Terminal Central Norte serves the country north to
the US border and includes Matamoros, Nuevo Loredo,  Juarez/ El Paso TX, Agua
Prieta/Douglass, AZ, Nogales/Nogales, AZ, and as far west as Tijuana/San Diego.  The states of
Mexico served to the north and west include Baja California, Sonora, Chihuahua, Coahiula, Nuevo
Leon, Sinaloa, Durango, San Lois Potosi, Tamaulipas, Nayarit, Zacatecas, Guanajuato,  Jalisco,
Hidalgo, Aguascalientes, Michoacan, Colima, and Queretaro.
Southern and eastern States served: Oaxaca,  Chiapas, Veracruz, and Puebla.

Mexico City’s Terminal Central Sur serves the central and southern States of Guerrero
Puebla, Morelos/Cuernavaca, Veracruz, Oaxaca, Tabasco, and Chiapas.

Mexico City’s Terminal Centro Poniente serves the central and western states of
Michoacan, Jalisco, Guerrero, Nayarit,  Queretaro, the State of Mexico DF, and northwest to
Sonora, and Sinaloa.  
Olmec Head number 10 is displayed at
the San Lorenzo Tenochtitlan Museum
Reaching San Lorenzo and the Olmec Homeland:
Bus out of Mexico City Tapo or Norte for Veracruz.  From Veracruz head to Coatzacoalcos or
Minatitlan south east of Catemaco.  Then head by local bus to Acayucan where you get a collective taxi
for the ten miles to the small farming village of San Lorenzo.  (San Lorenzo Tenochtitlan.   Just Tenochtitlan
on some maps)
From Oaxaca , ADO first Class bus to  Coatzacoalcos or Minatitlan bus to Acayucan, taxi to San Lorenzo.

Have lots of small change for taxis and water. (5 and 10 peso, 20 peso max.)  Cash is scarce in remote
areas of Mexico
San Lorenzo, Olmec Ruin Site, Veracruz, Mexico was the early
home of the Olmec culture.
San Lorenzo now has a small museum and a large sculptured head.
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