I find it laughable when anyone says that whites were the ‘original race’ and that every other advanced civilization like the Chinese or the Indians (the real ones, not the native americans) must be descendants of white people even though they were building monuments and infrastructure long before Europe produced the Romans. It’s downright fucking stupid to think that only white people are capable of technological advancements. The Koreans and the Chinese had the print press and paper long before Europe did. But that’s not to denigrate Europe’s efforts - the Greeks were building clockwork devices long before the birth of Jesus. See: Antikythera Mechanism
Likewise, it’s very silly to even suggest that Mayans are emigrated Jews just because they were capable of constructing somewhat sophisticated buildings. Ziggurats (both Babylonian and Mayan) aren’t anywhere as complex as the Pyramids at Giza, much less a modern skyscraper, as the construction of a step pyramid is pretty ‘elementary’ by comparison; you stack bricks on top of each other. I don’t know why people get so surprised when they read about the similarities between these step pyramids. There’s only one way to build them.
So while some civilizations wasted their time to build gigantic pyramids and monuments to honor their gods, others were making advancements in education, military technology, literary and social advancements, infrastructure and building roads. I’ll take the Romans or the Chinese over the Mayans, thank you very much.
As an archaeologist, I agree that there’s not much reason to think that Mayan as it was spoken before A.D. 1492 had anything other than purely coincidental similarities to Aramaic. Monumental architecture appears in Peru by about 3500 B.C., less than 1000 years (and possibly MUCH less) after monumental architecture appeared in the Near East. So, in theory, Sumerian mariners could have built ocean-going vessels and crossed the Atlantic, but there’s zero evidence for such activity. The only parsimonious explanation for the first complex societies in the western hemisphere is that they are the independent development of people who descended from the folks who colonized the Americas around 10,000 B.C.
For whatever reason, people like to make huge piles of dirt and rock, and it’s a lot easier to build a pyramid with sloped sides than it is to build something with vertical sides. If cultures could independently develop written language (and they did), they could certainly come up with the “put dirt in a pile” concept without technology transfer.
Sarkus you’re doing the right thing by trying to help your mom see the unlikelihood of her “discovery.” Don’t listen to the haters. Good luck.
Sometimes people become so enamored with the idea that they’ve done something important that they’re apparently willing to make complete fools of themselves
There’s an episode of This American Life where they talk to an electrician who became convinced, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, that E = mc rather than E = mc^2
Of course not. But many “thinkers”, past and present, include the semetic peoples in the European cultural tradition by default. Since the Judeo-Christian religion originated with them, and since that religion is considered the hallmark of Western tradition by many, they get a pass (hence the many attempts to find the lost tribes of Israel in the Americas). I wasn’t “bashing Europeans”, Chris, I was bashing the silly and racist attempt of both modern and older folks to explain away the achievements of native Americans by saying that they had help from slumming western gods. I’m afraid Sarkus’ Mom is falling into this centuries old trap herself.
I think he said that his mother used (and is using) a lot of money to further her crazy theories. Sounds like a bad investment, to me, and if he loves her, he’ll stop her from doing it any further.
What’s up with this tentatively condescending yet strangely rubbery rhetoric? “Many”? “Thinkers”? “Get a pass”? What?
The Jewish religion is indeed one of the roots of modern Europe, and so are other fertile crescent cultures via transmission through Greece and Rome. Those are historical facts. Accepting these facts does not somehow equate being racist against other cultures or believing that everything must have come from the Bible. Only crackpots and members of weird fringe sects really believe that, and you should stop seeing them everywhere as if they were the Spanish inquisition.
I was bashing the silly and racist attempt of both modern and older folks to explain away the achievements of native Americans by saying that they had help from slumming western gods. I’m afraid Sarkus’ Mom is falling into this centuries old trap herself.
Congratulations on your valiant fight against an army of one, consisting of a harmless if somewhat confused old lady. Let me know when the dangerous world conspiracy of Mayan haters makes its next move!
There’s this book, which talks about an advanced civilization that predates all others.
No support for them being white or any other race, just that most of the surviving structures they built happen to be in the UK.Though if I remember right they did find some structures somewhere in the middle east that conformed to the architecture of the unknow builders.
The authors of Civilization One return, bringing new evidence about the Moon that will shake up our world. Christopher Knight and Alan Butler realized that the ancient system of geometry they presented in their earlier, breakthrough study works as perfectly for the Moon as it does the Earth. They found a consistent sequence of integer numbers that they can apply to every major aspect of the Moon; no such pattern emerges for any other planet or moon in the solar system. In addition, Knight and Butler discovered that the Moon possesses few or no heavy metals and has no core—something that should not be possible. Their persuasive conclusion: if higher life only developed on Earth because the Moon is exactly what it is and where it is, it becomes unreasonable to cling to the idea that the Moon is a natural object—an idea with profound implications.
Ooooh! Why, I believe I will just ignore everything I’ve ever learned!
