A "great city" was built by Lib midway through the historical account of the Jaredites, and it was located "by the place where the sea divides the land" (Ether 10:20). According to Warren, this city was La Venta, in the state of Tabasco, Mexico. The Tonala River forms the boundary between the states of Veracruz and Tabasco very near the Isthmus of Tehuantepec through which the ancient travel corridor called "the Kings Highway" conveyed most of the traffic from the lands southward to the lands northward. As the Tonala river approaches the Gulf of Mexico, there is a region of swamps interspersed with dry land. About ten miles from the coast, the ancient city now called La Venta was built. It occupied a total surface area of about two square miles, but it had a great amount of water surrounding it (Drucker and Heizer, 1960:36). Sisson has shown that during Olmec times the river courses were different than today. In fact, much larger volumes of water were carried to the coast from the Grijalva river which at that time had a much different course. This led to substantial economic advantages. La Venta was located at the hub of the principal communication routes. These were east-west and north-south, within the labyrinth of rivers and navigable coastal lagoons of Tabasco. La Venta must have begun as a store for San Lorenzo. With the decline of San Lorenzo, La Venta converted itself into an important center of its own right. From its strategic position, its inhabitants could exercise control over the travels of both merchants and ideas. This control must have accentuated the social differences already existing, and led to the accumulation of unequal amounts of riches and power (Sisson, 1983)
The most dominant feature on the site is the large central pyramid. It has a series of ten ridges which proceed up to the top. The diameter is 420 feet, and its height is 103 feet. From the top it is possible to see almost over to the seacoast. Now cleared off, the pyramid looks like a volcano. Nothing like it has ever been discovered anywhere in the world. In fact, it looks similar to dozens of volcanic cinder cones in the Tuxtla mountains. Even more interesting is the fact that most of the basalt for the enormous stone heads, burial chambers, thrones, and other monuments at La Venta was quarried from the slopes of the pliocene volcano, Cerro Cintepec (Corn Hill) in the Tuxtlas. The excavators of La Venta, Heizer and Drucker speculated as follows:
We suggest, purely as a hypothesis, that the La Venta Pyramid was an artifact made in imitation of a Tuxtla cinder cone, and that it was erected at this major ritual centre . . in order to serve as a surrogate for a familiar and ritually important form (Heizer and Drucker, 1968:52-56).
[Bruce W. Warren and David A. Palmer, The Jaredite Saga, pp. 8-27--8-29, unpublished]
Ether 10:20 They built a great city . . . by the place where the sea divides the land ([Illustration]): Central Pyramid at La Venta, constructed one millennium before Christ by the Olmecs. It is over thirty meters high and gives a commanding view of the countryside. It is shaped like one of the volcanoes in the Tuxtla Mountains. Basalt columns in the foreground were hewn anciently and transported perhaps a hundred kilometers to La Venta] [David A. Palmer, In Search of Cumorah, p. 143]
Ether 10:20 They built a great city . . . by the place where the sea divides the land ([Illustration]): The ruins of La Venta, thought to be the city of Mulek. (Photo by Daniel Bates. Courtesy David A. Palmer and the Society for Early Historic Archaeology] [John L. Sorenson, An Ancient American Setting for the Book of Mormon, p. 215]