Because dinosaur fossils were the basis for Chinese dragon legends.
Posted on 09/25/2007 12:19:09 PM PDT by blam
Snake-bird gods fascinated both Aztecs and pharaohs
Mon 24 Sep 2007, 17:05 GMT
By Robin Emmott
MONTERREY, Mexico, Sept 24 (Reuters Life!) - Ancient Mexicans and Egyptians who never met and lived centuries and thousands of miles apart both worshiped feathered-serpent deities, built pyramids and developed a 365-day calendar, a new exhibition shows.
Billed as the world's largest temporary archeological showcase, Mexican archeologists have brought treasures from ancient Egypt to display alongside the great indigenous civilizations of Mexico for the first time.
The exhibition, which boasts a five-tonne, 3,000-year-old sculpture of Egyptian pharaoh Ramses II and stone carvings from Mexican pyramid Chichen Itza, aims to show many of the similarities of two complex worlds both conquered by Europeans in invasions 1,500 years apart.
"There are huge cultural parallels between ancient Egypt and Mexico in religion, astronomy, architecture and the arts. They deserve to be appreciated together," said exhibition organizer Gina Ulloa, who spent almost three years preparing the 35,520 square-feet (3,300 meter-square) display.
The exhibition, which opened at the weekend in the northern Mexican city of Monterrey, shows how Mexican civilizations worshiped the feathered snake god Quetzalcoatl from about 1,200 BC to 1521, when the Spanish conquered the Aztecs.
From 3,000 BC onward Egyptians often portrayed their gods, including the goddess of the pharaohs Isis, in art and sculpture as serpents with wings or feathers.
"The feathered serpent and the serpent alongside a deity signifies the duality of human existence, at once in touch with water and earth, the serpent, and the heavens, the feathers of a bird," said Ulloa.
Egyptian sculptures at the exhibition -- flown to Mexico from ancient temples along the Nile and from museums in Cairo, Luxor and Alexandria -- show how Isis' son Horus was often represented with winged arms and accompanied by serpents.
Cleopatra, the last Egyptian queen before the Roman conquest of Egypt in 30 BC, saw herself as Isis and wore a gold serpent in her headpiece, Ulloa added.
UNCANNY SIMILARITIES
In the arts, Mexico's earliest civilization, the Olmecs, echo Egypt's finest sculptures. Olmec artists carved large man-jaguar warriors that are similar to the Egyptian sphinxes on display showing lions with the heads of gods or kings.
The seated statue of an Egyptian scribe carved between 2465 and 2323 BC shows stonework and attention to detail that parallels a seated stone sculpture of an Olmec lord.
There is no evidence the Olmecs and Egyptians ever met.
Shared traits run to architecture, with Egyptians building pyramids as royal tombs and the Mayans and Aztecs following suit with pyramids as places of sacrifice to the gods.
While there is no room for pyramids at the exhibition -- part of the Universal Forum of Cultures, an international cultural festival held in Barcelona in 2004 -- organizers say it is the first time many of pieces have left Egypt.
They include entire archways from Nile temples, a bracelet worn by Ramses II and sarcophagi used by the pharaohs.
Mexico has also brought together Aztec, Mayan and Olmec pieces from across the country.
"Any visitor to Egypt and Mexico might be disappointed by the gaps in the museums. The only thing Egypt declined to loan were the mummies," Ulloa said.
If the pyramids at Caral, Peru aren't the oldest in the world, they're a close 2nd.
psssssssst! They all came from Atlantis!
Pssssst!..................StarGate...............
Voyages Of The Pyramid Builders
"The great pyramids of Egypt provide a wonderful glimpse of the artistry, skill and imagination of the ancient world. But pyramids can be found in India, China, Peru, Bolivia, Mexico and Ireland. In this provocative book, geologist Schoch (noted for his work in redating the Sphinx, which was recounted in his Voices of the Rocks) wonders how so many diverse cultures built such similar structures with similar purposes. Using geological, linguistic and geographical evidence, he contends that a protocivilization of pyramid-building peoples was driven out of its homeland, the Sundaland, which geologists believe connected Southeast Asia with Indonesia, by a rise in sea level caused by comet activity between 6000 and 4000 B.C. Fleeing their homeland, these peoples took their knowledge of pyramid building with them into Sumeria, Mesopotamia, Egypt, China and Peru. Schoch hypothesizes that the pyramids were built to reach into the skies and to penetrate the mystery of the heavens, source of catastrophe. Schoch also asserts that the pyramids point to unity and symbolize the deep concerns shared by all humans. Schoch builds his engrossing case on geological details of the pyramid sites he has examined around the world. In the end, however, even he admits his evidence of a Sundaland protocivilization is speculative. As controversial as this book is bound to be, Schoch's evocation of the pyramids forcefully reminds us of their enduring power as monuments to the spirit of human creativity.
Yeh -- but those snake-bird gods were able to fly back and forth between them, probably accumulating a lot of frequent flyer miles in the process.
Plato was right!
Gott in himmel! Das ist gigantihugimongouseries!
They both were able to COUNT!
Stune me with a moose beeber; von Danegan was right!?!
Oh, and wouldn't the Mexican pyramids be more akin to Mesopotamian ziggurats?
If ya ask me, it looks like — it’sunda water!
and a few million Americans worship another feathered-serpent devil goddess....HILLARY
Meet Ganesh, the most popular diety in my neighborhood.
...And America HAD to hold its national nose yesterday so that another feathered-serpent devil god could go and speak on a college campus yesterday, PRESIDENT NUTJOB OF IRAN.
No, tobacco is a new world plant. The Mexicans may have had ziggurats, but the Mesopotamians had to wait until after Columbus to light up.
They're called anhingas and they act just as weird as they look.
Actually there are pyramids throughout the world. Just a relatively easy structure to build (with the Egyptian ones being why I say “relatively.”) If the Mexicans and Egyptians communicated, as the article implies, why are the pyramids completely different?
And this fascinates me as much as any other member of the Archaeological Institute of America, but why is it a Reuters news story? Haven’t we known this for a few hundred years already?
Nah.
American Drugs in Egyptian Mummies: A Review of the Evidence
I’ll bet they traded homing snakes with each other.
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