Jacques Coulardeau & the Mayas at Academia.edu (41)

LATEST UPDATE

Now the Clovis hypothesis has been pushed aside, that theory that said noHomo Sapiens came to the Americas before something like 12,000 yearsago, some 7,000 years after the peak of the Ice Age, with the evidenceHomo Sapiens crossed the Bering Strait before the Ice Age somethingaround 25,000 years ago, it becomes possible to consider the digs insouthern Chile that have already reached that time and promises to go evenfurther back are the proof of another migration from the Southern Pacific, amigration that would have gone beyond Easter island. 

The two migrations would have met in Central America. The southernmigration very competent in stone building, the northern migration verycompetent in adapting to non-sedentary living conditions. 

The meeting of the two, and probably their mixing, would explainAmazonian Indians as connected to Northern American Indians, and thecommon mythology based on the mathematical knowledge of the SouthernAmerican Indians (Incas, Aztecs and Mayas) and re-written in more drasticnon-sedentary and migrant figures and patterns. 

The turtle in the middle of the ocean is a good metaphor of the earth forpeople who do not build pyramids on the land or cities four or fivethousand meters high in the mountains. The common elements in twoclearly different mythologies seem to show there are two traditionsmeeting there.

The Clovis theory of Northern American scholars was blocking any otherapproach with what some considered was autocratic institutional manacles.Now we can start thinking and some are going to get a headache.

Jacques

THE MAYAS

LANGUAGE & DICTIONARYQUAI BRANLYMUSEUM & MUSIC

LES MAYASLANGUE & DICTIONNAIREQUAI BRANLY & MUSIQUE

+LATEST NEWS further down

THE GUARDIAN, Saturday 6 August 2016 17.28 BSTLastmodified on Saturday 6 August 201617.55 BST

THE MAYAS-LANGUAGE& DICTIONARY-QUAI BRANLYMUSEUM &MUSIC

https://www.academia.edu/17222509/THE_MAYAS-LANGUAGE_and_DICTIONARY-QUAI_BRANLY_MUSEUM_and_MUSIC

1. JOHN MONTGOMERY – DICTIONARY OF MAYA HIEROGLYPHS – 2002 -SECOND PRINTING 2006

2. JOHN MONTGOMERY – HOW TO READ MAYA HIEROGLYPHS – 20023. MUSEE DU QUAI BRANLY – MUSIQUES ET CHANTS – MAYAS – LESAMERINDIENS, PEUPLES MAYA, TOTOMAQUE, CORA – MEXIQUE –FREMEAUX ASSOCIES, 2014

4. MUSÉE DU QUAI BRANLY – MAYAS, RÉVÉLATIONS D’UN TEMPS SANSFIN – 2014

I am here finding elements that can be connected to many othersystems in the world, both languages and rituals. Maya as a language isnot an isolate. The point is that the written system is so complex and thecalendar calculations are so complicated that we cannot consider theyappeared like that, ready to be used in about 1000 BCE and certainly notlater.

These systems must have required many milennia to be inventedand refined, just like Mayan architecture and Mayan technology capableof producing a durable material medium for their language and stories.

It is the same thing with corn that had to be completely geneticallymodified to become what we know it is that CANNOT reproduce withouta human hand to get the grains out of the husk. And we could speak oftheir ritualistic beverages that are so complicated that they look like some

fine art perfume produced by today's chemical laboratories.I think here that the Mayan culture, the Aztec culture, the Toltec

culture, the Inca culture could not have evolved from a population comingalong with the Clovis migration. If it took 5,000 years for the Sumerians todevise their writing system which is child's play when compared to theMayan system, I believe these Homo Sapiens must have arrived in theAmericas before the Ice Age and certainly not late after it. To devise thiswriting system when the language would have stabilized enough, not tospeak of the calendars, the Mayans must have needed at least 15,000years, probably more.

Except of course if you consider language is a gift fromextraterrestrials or angels and gods, which is not within my frame of mind.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU

LATEST NEWSMaya 'snake dynasty' tomb uncovered holding body, treasure andhieroglyphsFind is ‘one of the largest burial chambers ever discovered in Belize’Hieroglyphic panels, skeleton and offerings hidden for 1,300 years

 Xunantunich, in western Belize, where archaeologists found a tomb andhieroglyphic panels depicting the history of the ‘snake dynasty’. Photograph:Jaime Awe

Alan Yuhas in San Francisco @alanyuhas

THE GUARDIAN, Saturday 6 August 2016 17.28 BSTLastmodified on Saturday 6 August 201617.55 BST

Archaeologists have uncovered what may be the largest royal tomb foundin more than a century of work on Maya ruins in Belize, along with a puzzling setof hieroglyphic panels that provide clues to a “snake dynasty” that conqueredmany of its neighbors some 1,300 years ago.

Liquid mercury found under Mexican pyramid could lead to king's tombRead more

The tomb was unearthed at the ruins of Xunantunich, a city on the Mopanriver in western Belize that served as a ceremonial center in the final centuries ofMaya dominance around 600 to 800AD. Archaeologists found the chamber 16ft to26ft below ground, where it had been hidden under more than a millennium of dirtand debris.

Researchers found the tomb as they excavated a central stairway of alarge structure: within were the remains of a male adult, somewhere between 20and 30 years old, lying supine with his head to the south.

The archaeologist Jaime Awe said preliminary analysis by osteologistsfound the man was athletic and “quite muscular” at his death, and that moreanalysis should provide clues about his identity, health and cause of death.

In the grave, archaeologists also found jaguar and deer bones, six jadebeads, possibly from a necklace, 13 obsidian blades and 36 ceramic vessels. Atthe base of the stairway, they found two offering caches that had nine obsidianand 28 chert flints and eccentrics – chipped artefacts that resemble flints but arecarved into the shapes of animals, leaves or other symbols.

The excavation site at Xunantunich. Photograph: Jaime Awe

“It certainly has been a great field season for us,” said Awe, who led ateam from his own school, Northern Arizona University, and the Belize InstituteofArchaeology.

AdvertisementThe tomb represents an extraordinary find, if only for its construction. At

4.5 meters by 2.4 meters, it is “one of the largest burial chambers ever discoveredin Belize”, Awe said. It appears to differ dramatically from other grave sites of theera. Most Maya tombs were built “intrusively”, as additions to existing structures,but the new tomb was built simultaneously with the structure around it – acommon practice among cultures such as the ancient Egyptians, but uncommonamong the Mayas.

“In other words, it appears that the temple was purposely erected for theprimary purpose of enclosing the tomb,” Awe said. “Except for a very few rarecases, this is not very typical in ancient Maya architecture.”

Many Maya societies ruled through dynasticfamilies. Tombs for male and femalerulers have been found, including thoseof the so-called “snake dynasty”, named for the snake-head emblem associatedwith its house. The family had a string of conquests in the seventh century, andruled from two capital cities. Awe said the newly discovered hieroglyphic panelscould prove “even more important than the tomb”, by providing clues to thedynasty’s history.

The third hieroglyphic panel discovered at the Maya ruins in Xunantunich, withJaime Awe holding a flashlight. Photograph: Christophe Helmke

The panels are believed to be part of a staircase originally built 26 milesto the south, at the ancient city of Caracol. Epigraphers say the city’s ruler, LordKan II of the snake dynasty, recorded his defeat of another city, Naranjo, on thehieroglyph, to go with his many other self-commemorations. On another work, herecorded a ball game involving a captured Naranjo leader whom he eventuallysacrificed.

Naranjo apparently had its revenge some years later, in 680AD, havingthe panels dismantled and partially reassembled at home with gaps and incorrectsyntax – possibly deliberately, to obscure the story of the snake dynasties’conquests. Fragments have been discovered elsewhere in Caracol and at afourth site along the Mopan river, but Awe said the new panels could be“bookends” to the story of war and sacrifice in the ancient Maya world.

According to the University of Copenhagen’s Christophe Helmke, theresearch team’s epigrapher, the panels provide a clue for Kan II’s conquests – heappears to have dedicated or commissioned the work in 642AD – and they notethe death of Kan’s mother, Lady Batz’ Ek’. The panels also identify a previouslyunknown ruler from the Mexican site of Calakmul, Awe said.

Helmke said the panels “tell us of the existence of a king of the dynastythat was murky figure at best, who is clearly named as Waxaklajuun Ubaah Kan”

. This ruler reigned sometime between 630 and 640AD, and may have beenKan’s half-brother.

“This means that there were two contenders to the throne, both carryingthe same dynastic title, which appears to have been read Kanu’l Ajaw, ‘king of theplace where snakes abound’,” he wrote in an email.

The panels clarify what Helmke called a “tumultuous phase of the snake-head dynasty” and explain how it splintered between cities before dominatingMaya politics in the region.

The panels identify the origin of the snake dynasty at Dzibanche, in theYucatan peninsula of modern Mexico, and refer to the family’s move to theircapital of Calakmul. Awe said Lady Batz’ Ek’ “was likely a native of Yakha, a sitein neighboring Guatemala, who later married the ruler of Caracol as part of amarriage alliance”.

The nine eccentrics. Photograph: Kelsey Sullivan, courtesy Jaime Awe

The researchers have had their work peer-reviewed for publication in theJournal of the Precolumbian Art Research Institute.

Awe said it was not clear why the panels appeared in Xunantunich, butthe city may have allied itself with or been a vassal state to Naranjo. The citiesboth fell into decline, along with other Maya societies, around 800 to 1,000AD,for reasons still mysterious but possibly including climate change, disease andwar.

The city was called Xunantunich, meaning “stone woman” in the YucatecMaya, long after its abandonment by original residents. The name derives fromfolklore around the city about a hunter who saw a ghostly, statuesque woman,dressed in indigenous garb, standing near an entrance to a temple called ElCastillo – a storytouted by tourist sites today. The site was also once called MountMaloney, after a British governor.

The temple is impressive in its own right, a stone structure that towers130ft above the city’s main plaza, adorned with a stucco frieze that represents thegods of the sun and moon.

Great Blue Hole off Belize yields new clues to fall of Mayancivilisation