Set between the central mexican plateau – the cradle of the Aztec culture – and Maya’s Yucatan, the geographic and cultural area of Veracruz is, nowadays, a huge repository of testimonies, mostly unexplored by historical and anthropological research about prehispanic civilizations of Mesoamerica. This book about the Civilizations of the Gulf features essays written by the most important archaeologists of this area, which highlight a clear cultural identity as a root of a large range of stylistic differences related to the ethnic variety of people living in the center of the Gulf’s region. The text shows the cultural development started with the Olmecas and their specific features, and studies the particular modifications this development underwent following the different ambiental conditions: from the arid climate of the “altas montañas” to the flourishing lowlands near the cost. The top of this development is mainly represented by the city of El Tajìn, in which the higher level of splendour reached by this culture shines in its architecture, sculpture and painting asset. The iconographic evidences and their dislocation here presented reveal myths and rituals born from the cosmogonic conception bloomed in Veracruz, and properly inserted in the wider context of the prehispanic world of Mesoamerica.