http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/12/22/1100-year-old-mayan-ruins-found-in-north-georgia/ This is kinda cool, unbeknownest to most Americans, the Gulf South is ripe with very old Indian Societies and structures, including hills in MS and AL.
I think whats interesting is how the greeks, and romans are seen as the top ancient civilizations. The more though they learn about other cultures it's becoming clear they weren't the only great civilizations around. The mayans and kush for example are being learned about, and starting to seem like really great civilizations.
Well Lucky, I suspect that the inventions that those W European cultures used that are still recognized today elevates them in the consciousness of most, not that the Americas cultures were backwards per se, it is merely their cultures have very little left to point out and recognize their greatness. Well that, and the ritualized human sacrifices.
Personally I think the biggest factor between the inventions of other ancient cultures and the romans/greeks, is the terrain & weather. Especially South America. Between the humidity and the rain forests not much is going survive to now.
That and they did not create books, they used mostly picture symbols that do not carry the same sort of information conveying capability.
i know mayans had books. As did the incas I believe. As for human sacrifices european cultures practiced it as well. I think it has more to do with available resources then anything. And fyi the people of kush were building large cities and pyramids long before the egyptians. That should tell you how advanced they were. One theory suggests they died after a climate shift.
Do you have some names of their written works Lucky? This has always interested me. And they were sacrificing people well into the middle ages Lucky.
No just google mayan codices. Keep in mind a lot of the cultures literature was destroyed when the spaniards conquered them. As for the human sacrifice I don't think it was that far apart from each other even if it did carry on into the middle ages. Keep in mind the romans used gladiator games as a form of human sacrifice.
I will, right now have other irons in the fire. As for the ritual sacrifices, there is a difference between games to the death, and cutting the heart out or the sun won't come up is there not?
the games to the death were just a fancier way of cutting the heart out or the sun won't come up. Keep in mind they had a whole ceremony/festival that went along with the games.
The period of time where this occured was quite long Lucky, from the Incas to the Aztecs, human sacrifice was a cultural milestone yr after yr for hundreds of yrs. The Incas, irrc, had a small sacrifice the aztecs were a bit more bloody handed so to speak, not sure about the Mayans tbh. Larger thing to keep in mind is those are but 2 cultures of a multitude of native Americas cultures, so I try not to get to wrapped up in simply those two or three
Of course we know vey little about the Romans given that everything that we know is taken from Livy. And about 75% of his work has been lost.
Netflix has a couple of really cool documentaries on breaking the Mayan code. Only a few of their books survived the onslaught of the Spaniards.
yes southern american cultures performed human sacrifice. My only point is so did some of the more admired cultures even the greeks. Yes the greeks and romans outlawed it at one point or another. But, other cultures such as the gauls still performed human sacrifices still. In fact, romans outlawed human sacrifice to be above their enemies, i.e. the gauls.
Not sure if the northern tribes had such traditions, I have not heard of the mohawk and alquenquins (sp) did so. The fascination for me is the advanced tribes in the Americas, are a curious blend of paleolithic traditions and a curious sort of cultural advancement. They share characteristics of Asian societies, and middle eastern societies, all in a sort of closed laboratory environment
this article is pure speculation. For example, when it says 'archaeologists found', it should should read 'some guy without any formal training in archaeology wondered, and then posted to an internet webpage with no formal editors...'. The named archaeologist in question is horrified by this piece. if you read the full piece at the examiner.com, the argument is all over the map.
The Greeks also had a nice little habit of having young boys learn or apprentice under the scholars of the day. Anyone care to guess how they reckoned the knowledge was passed along? Sodomy.
There's a room in a building in Merida, Mexico with a rendering of the cardinal who burned the Mayan books and the Spaniards also dismantled many Mayan and Incan buildings to build their own. Just because a Mayan city has been found in Georgia doesn't necessarily mean that they fled there. The Greeks established colonies around the entire Mediterrranean and cities such as Cadiz, Syracuse, and Marseilles were all founded by Greeks. They weren't fleeing Greece, they were merely spreading Greek culture.