Recent Mesoamerican Findings
Posted: Mon May 04, 2009 1:17 am
Some cool recent information about horses and metal in Meso America:
Recent MesoAmerican horse finds:
From C. Ray, Pre-Columbian Horses from Yucatan, The Journal of Mammalogy, Vol 38, No 2, p. 278 (1957, I believe; I have the entire article but not the face page of the volume):
"It is now possible to report horse remains of probable pre-Columbian aage from a locality in Yucatan."
"Although the teeth and bones were in many cases heavily encrusted in lime, pottery occurred throughout the deposits and two foot bones present in the top of two layers in which horse remains occurred were identified as those of domestic ca[rest of the word cut off in copying]."
The author also reports horse finds in the cenotes (these are the natural cisterns in which the Mayans threw their sacrifices).
A Mayan guide identifies a horse on a cenote wall in the Yucatan in Deep Inside the Yucatan, The New York Times, Feb. 23, 2007. "In the depths of a limestone cavern, near a doorway to the Maya underworld, Filomeno Tomay took out a flashlight and held it up to the cave wall. ''Es un caballo,'' he said softly. (''This is a horse.'') Mr. Tomay, a stout 66-year-old Maya guide, stood deep inside Cenote Dzitnup, wielding a yellow beam for tourists to reveal a gestalt of conjured shapes on a wall of burled stone."
Metal:
Achaeologist (and Tennessee Supreme Court Justice) John Haywood, in Natural History and Aboriginal History of Tennessee reports from finds in Tennessee valley mounds, an iron sword: "There were also found pieces of iron from two to four feet long, straight and uncurved, the back of the blade flat, and one-half or three-quarters of an inch wide near the handle, regularly bevelled on both sides to the edge . . . etc." (P. 306.)
In the famous Marietta (Ohio) mound were found in 1819 "sword belts or a buckler composed of copper.oval, and with a thick plate of silver." (P. 324.) "Two or three pieces of a copper tube were also found, filled with rust. These compose the lower end of the scabbard, near the point of the sword."
Semitic Influence:
Cyrus Gordon's book, "Before Columbus," spends an entire volume summarizes a lifetime of research into the connection between Semitic cultures and MesoAmerica. He is a linguist and bases many of his conclusions upon language similarities. He was a highly respected professor at Brandeis; here are some more references to his scholarship and findings. Herschel Shanks, Against the Tide: An Interview with Maverick Scholar Cyrus Gordon, BAR 26:06 (Nov/Dec. 2000); Herschel Shanks, "Danaans & Danites" BAR 2:02 (Jun. 1976); "In America, Biblical Archaelogy Was -- And Still Is -- largely a Protestant Affair," (BAR 8:03, May 1982); BAR invited Gordon to debate Cross. Cross, Phoenicians in Brazil?" BAR 5:01, Jan/Feb 1979. His Mesoamerican work has been reviewed in the Atlantic, as well as in Carleton S. Coon, The American Historical Review, (June 1975); Eugene J. Fisher, "East and West," The Biblical Archaeologist, (Spring 1980); Bernard Ortiz de Montellano, "The Were NOT Here before Columbus: Afrocentric Hyperdiffusionsim in the 1990s", Ethnohistory, (Spring 1997); George Carter, "The Quest for America," Geographical Review (Jan 1973); Nl. Rosenstein, "How Wide the Biblical World" The Biblical Archaeologist (Spring 1978).
Recent MesoAmerican horse finds:
From C. Ray, Pre-Columbian Horses from Yucatan, The Journal of Mammalogy, Vol 38, No 2, p. 278 (1957, I believe; I have the entire article but not the face page of the volume):
"It is now possible to report horse remains of probable pre-Columbian aage from a locality in Yucatan."
"Although the teeth and bones were in many cases heavily encrusted in lime, pottery occurred throughout the deposits and two foot bones present in the top of two layers in which horse remains occurred were identified as those of domestic ca[rest of the word cut off in copying]."
The author also reports horse finds in the cenotes (these are the natural cisterns in which the Mayans threw their sacrifices).
A Mayan guide identifies a horse on a cenote wall in the Yucatan in Deep Inside the Yucatan, The New York Times, Feb. 23, 2007. "In the depths of a limestone cavern, near a doorway to the Maya underworld, Filomeno Tomay took out a flashlight and held it up to the cave wall. ''Es un caballo,'' he said softly. (''This is a horse.'') Mr. Tomay, a stout 66-year-old Maya guide, stood deep inside Cenote Dzitnup, wielding a yellow beam for tourists to reveal a gestalt of conjured shapes on a wall of burled stone."
Metal:
Achaeologist (and Tennessee Supreme Court Justice) John Haywood, in Natural History and Aboriginal History of Tennessee reports from finds in Tennessee valley mounds, an iron sword: "There were also found pieces of iron from two to four feet long, straight and uncurved, the back of the blade flat, and one-half or three-quarters of an inch wide near the handle, regularly bevelled on both sides to the edge . . . etc." (P. 306.)
In the famous Marietta (Ohio) mound were found in 1819 "sword belts or a buckler composed of copper.oval, and with a thick plate of silver." (P. 324.) "Two or three pieces of a copper tube were also found, filled with rust. These compose the lower end of the scabbard, near the point of the sword."
Semitic Influence:
Cyrus Gordon's book, "Before Columbus," spends an entire volume summarizes a lifetime of research into the connection between Semitic cultures and MesoAmerica. He is a linguist and bases many of his conclusions upon language similarities. He was a highly respected professor at Brandeis; here are some more references to his scholarship and findings. Herschel Shanks, Against the Tide: An Interview with Maverick Scholar Cyrus Gordon, BAR 26:06 (Nov/Dec. 2000); Herschel Shanks, "Danaans & Danites" BAR 2:02 (Jun. 1976); "In America, Biblical Archaelogy Was -- And Still Is -- largely a Protestant Affair," (BAR 8:03, May 1982); BAR invited Gordon to debate Cross. Cross, Phoenicians in Brazil?" BAR 5:01, Jan/Feb 1979. His Mesoamerican work has been reviewed in the Atlantic, as well as in Carleton S. Coon, The American Historical Review, (June 1975); Eugene J. Fisher, "East and West," The Biblical Archaeologist, (Spring 1980); Bernard Ortiz de Montellano, "The Were NOT Here before Columbus: Afrocentric Hyperdiffusionsim in the 1990s", Ethnohistory, (Spring 1997); George Carter, "The Quest for America," Geographical Review (Jan 1973); Nl. Rosenstein, "How Wide the Biblical World" The Biblical Archaeologist (Spring 1978).