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Largest Known Maya Structure Found

insidescience.org

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Re: Largest Known Maya Structure Found

#81

Post by hliyan »

dntbnmpls wrote: post #73
nkoren wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey, I'm neither a Catholic nor a monotheist. I've got no personal dog in this fight, except that as a rule, my sympathies are generally aligned with indigenous peoples. And yeah, people can be super hypocritical: mote in your eye vs. the beam in my own, et cetera. And yeah, I agree that the genocidal excess commited by the conquistadores was, taken as a whole, the worst thing happening in the Americas at the time. B…

[flagged]

> There is no justification for this inquisition

I believe you may be confusing cause with justification.

Re: Largest Known Maya Structure Found

#82

Post by mkl »

Azametzin wrote: post #78
spaced-out wrote: post #27

It's tragic how little we know about the Maya compared to what we could have known. Thousands of books were destroyed, primarily by one Spanish bishop, and only four survive today[1]. If that hadn't of happened, it's possible we could have known as much about the Maya as we do about the Ancient Greeks. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_codices

As far as I know, the Incas had a lot of books, not the Mayans. The Spaniards burned them for considering heresy.

The Incas didn't have writing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inca_Empire

(They did have a knotted string message system, but it couldn't contain full language: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quipu .)

The Maya did have writing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_script

If you don't know, and don't want to spend a few seconds searching, asserting things doesn't contribute to the conversation.

Re: Largest Known Maya Structure Found

#83

Post by mkl »

elboru wrote: post #9
meddlepal wrote: post #7

It's kind of impressive they accomplished so much without inventing the wheel... or has that been debunked and is just long outdated information?

Some wheeled toys have been found in Mexico, it’s not like the wheel was never invented. But The Americas didn’t have domesticable large animals that could be used to pull wheeled carriages (bisons were not domesticated at the time), that’s why the wheel was never used for that purpose. Indeed it’s very impressive how much they accomplished by themselves without the wheel, without big domesticated animals and without…

> The Americas didn’t have domesticable large animals

... by then. They could have had horses, camels, and various others: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_North_American_animals...

Re: Largest Known Maya Structure Found

#84

Post by [deleted] »

kilroy123 wrote: post #68
nkoren wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The destruction of those codixes is, without a doubt, one of the greatest acts of cultural vandalism in history. Absolutely tragic. At the same time, I've read a bit more about that incident, and... this is probably not politically correct to say, but I did develop some sympathy for that bishop. Yes, he was a religious zealot who couldn't distinguish other cultures from "satanism". But also, well, the Maya were in a…

That's a pretty fair stance. I've actually been to Southern Mexico where their descendants live today. Even today, to my American frame, the indigenous people are strange. But that's what drew me to check out some of their villages. I highly recommend these places out! Their churches which mix Catholicism with their own believes are very far out.

[deleted]

Re: Largest Known Maya Structure Found

#85

Post by mkl »

stan_rogers wrote: post #29
ratfaced-guy wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did the Inca genetically engineer llamas? Clearly they were around before the Inca, just like they are still around, even after the Inca.

It's a domestic species, just like, say, modern cattle are domesticated aurochs. The wild equivalents are the guanacoes. They may be physically very similar, but they're different behaviourally.

It's a domesticated species, but it was domesticated well before the Inca civilisation.

Re: Largest Known Maya Structure Found

#87

Post by knolax »

nkoren wrote: post #67
spaced-out wrote: post #27

It's tragic how little we know about the Maya compared to what we could have known. Thousands of books were destroyed, primarily by one Spanish bishop, and only four survive today[1]. If that hadn't of happened, it's possible we could have known as much about the Maya as we do about the Ancient Greeks. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_codices

The destruction of those codixes is, without a doubt, one of the greatest acts of cultural vandalism in history. Absolutely tragic. At the same time, I've read a bit more about that incident, and... this is probably not politically correct to say, but I did develop some sympathy for that bishop. Yes, he was a religious zealot who couldn't distinguish other cultures from "satanism". But also, well, the Maya were in a…

> Given his own cultural frame, and what he witnessed

This type of fashionable moral relativism can be used to justify any atrocity. From an objective point of view, he could've stopped the child sacrifices without committing genocide, both cultural and literal. Sure, it may be that from his perspective that the genocide was necessary, but that is the case for every perpetrator of genocide in history. I take it that many in this forum feel no connection to the Maya people, and are therefore comfortable empathizing with their abusers. I have seen your exact same logic used to express sympathy for the Nazis by people who have no personal connection to the West. If that bothers you then you should reconsider your perspective on what happened to the Mayans.

Re: Largest Known Maya Structure Found

#88

Post by stinos »

Again shows what you can do with lidar images. I'm not sure how widely they are publicly available but if you can get lidar footage of an area you (think) you know definitely check it out. There's a lot of man-made things to discover.

E.g. here's a little story from my area: we were on a walk once and someone pointed to a certain plant which is known to only thrive on very limey soil. And acoording to her used in the past by people as indicator for figuring out where they could get lime for making mortar. Nothing special to see though. A couple of months later, unrelated, a geologist showed lidar images of that area and in a spot close to where said plant was found, there was obvisouly a quite huge round sink in the terrain. Turns out this was once, many centuries ago, essentially a lime mine (which the geologist knew because of history). Nice how history, biology, geology can all come together like that. Yet if you don't know it it's pretty much invisible. Sattelite also doesn't give even the slightest hint. But with a height model and applying some shade it suddenly becomes quite obvious.

Re: Largest Known Maya Structure Found

#89

Post by Retric »

knolax wrote: post #87
nkoren wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The destruction of those codixes is, without a doubt, one of the greatest acts of cultural vandalism in history. Absolutely tragic. At the same time, I've read a bit more about that incident, and... this is probably not politically correct to say, but I did develop some sympathy for that bishop. Yes, he was a religious zealot who couldn't distinguish other cultures from "satanism". But also, well, the Maya were in a…

> Given his own cultural frame, and what he witnessed This type of fashionable moral relativism can be used to justify any atrocity. From an objective point of view, he could've stopped the child sacrifices without committing genocide, both cultural and literal. Sure, it may be that from his perspective that the genocide was necessary, but that is the case for every perpetrator of genocide in history. I take it that…

You’re mixing cultural genocide with actual genocide.

Going from the other direction, if all information on Nazi ideology where removed from history, would we have Neo Nazis today? That may seem abhorrent and or impossible, but other ideologies have been erased from history and outside of the academic context that could be a net positive.

Ideology’s that promote ritual human sacrifice could be inherently dangerous by attracting a tiny number of people to actually carry through with such acts. Diverse cultural history has real value, but those cultures can come with heavy baggage.

Re: Largest Known Maya Structure Found

#90

Post by cwbrandsma »

hymnsfm wrote: post #56
spaced-out wrote: post #27

It's tragic how little we know about the Maya compared to what we could have known. Thousands of books were destroyed, primarily by one Spanish bishop, and only four survive today[1]. If that hadn't of happened, it's possible we could have known as much about the Maya as we do about the Ancient Greeks. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_codices

I suggest reading the Book of Mormon. It's a fascinating record of the peoples of ancient America, specifically the Nephites, Lamanites and Jaredites. Where these civilizations lived and fought (there are lots of battles in the book) is uncertain, but it's believed to be mainly Central and South America. Keep in mind that The Book of Mormon is a primarily a spiritual book: another testament of Jesus Christ. The Lord…

Good grief, even the Mormons in my town (I'm a few hours from Salt Lake City, my area is heavily LDS) don't try to use the Book of Mormon as a history text. Nothing has been validated, none of the cities listed have been found. Keep in mind, we have the Mayan writings and can read them...it is nothing like what is written in the Book of Mormon. Then there is DNA evidence, and nothing matches up there as well.
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