Guernsey, Julia, 1964-Reilly, F. Kent2015-09-032018-01-222015-09-032018-01-222006-12http://hdl.handle.net/2152/30533Currently there are eight thrones at La Venta, marking the site as the largest repository of Olmec thrones. These large block style monuments differ stylistically from other Mesoamerican bench style thrones, but share fundamental function as objects of rulership validation. To date, Altars 4 and 5 have received much of the scholarly focus, creating the impression that they have greater importance within the corpus. This thesis analyses each throne equally within a cosmological landscape of La Venta's ceremonial core to demonstrate that the thrones, both individually and within their surrounding monument programs, functioned as a cohesive projection of rulership validation from within the multiple levels of restricted site access points.electronicengCopyright © is held by the author. Presentation of this material on the Libraries' web site by University Libraries, The University of Texas at Austin was made possible under a limited license grant from the author who has retained all copyrights in the works.La VentaOlmec thronesMesoamerican thronesThesisRestricted