Izapa gains its fame through its art style. The art found at the site includes sculptures of stelae and also altars that look like frogs. The stelae and frog altars generally went together, the toads symbolized rain.

The importance of Izapa is in its art style revealed on the numerous stelae and altars. The site is set on an axis about 21 degrees east of magnetic North, directed towards the Tacana volcano that dominates the landscape.

Mar 18, 2021 · Izapa-style art consists primarily of the upright stone stelae and associated frog-shaped altars carved in low relief from the site of Izapa, located near Tapachula, Chiapas, and surrounding sites.

Izapa art as "highly distinctive" but "obviously derived from the Olmec," its real importance lying in its role as "the connecting link in time and space between the earlier Olmec civili-zation and the later Classic Maya" (Coe 1962:99-100). He has noted the Maya borrow-ings of Izapan concepts (stela-and-altar com-

Mar 17, 2021 · Izapan-style art, named after the Mexican site of Izapa near the Guatemalan border and applied to works of art found primarily in the Chiapas-Guatemala highland and Pacific slope sites, usually occupies a peripheral position in studies of Mesoamerican art.

On this relief panel, created in the centuries before the Classic period, are elements of a remarkably enduring myth about the origins of the world. At left, an upended crocodile becomes a lush tree. To the right, a figure holds up a vertical element on which a monstrous bird is perched.

Jul 30, 2023 · Izapa is one of the largest archaeological sites in the state and is a must-see for anyone interested in the history of Mesoamerica. The site was occupied from 1200 BC to AD 100 and was an important center for the Maya and Zapotec people.

Izapa's extensive sculpture, part of a pan-regional public art style, demonstrates ties with both the Guatemalan Highlands and Isthmian traditions. Philip Drucker first brought Izapa to world attention during the 1940s in the pages of National Geographic Magazine.

Izapa, an archaeological site located on the Pacific coast of the Isthmus of Tehuantépec in the Soconusco district of the state of Chiapas, Mexico. It is a regional center famous for its hundreds of Late Formative Guillen (300–50 b.c.) sculptures.

Izapan-style art, named after the Mexican site of Izapa near the Guatemalan border and applied to works of art found primarily in the Chiapas-Guatemala highland and Pacific slope sites, usually occupies a peripheral position in studies of Mesoamerican art.