Large, important ceremonial site and type site of a culture in Chiapas, Mexico, built about 3500 years ago (Middle-Late Preclassic). Izapa is famous for its art style, which is distributed in Chiapas and parts of Guatemala. The relief art, carved on altar stones and stelae, was influenced by the Olmec and Maya traditions. The style falls mainly within the Late Pre-Classic period (300 BC-300 AD), intermediate in time between Olmec and Maya. Dates were written in the long count system; a pure Izapan stele from El Baul, Guatemala, carries a figure equivalent to 36 AD. Most of its 80 temple-pyramids, courts, and plazas were built in the Late Preclassic. The center's economic base may have been cacao, which is featured in Izapan iconography.