[Aztlan] Suspension Bridges of the Americas

[Elaine Day Schele]

Thank you Michael, for that fascinating article on the Inca bridges and the experimental archaeology being conducted by the scholars of MIT.  My best wishes for a successful outcome.  Looks like a swinging time is in store for all <grin>.

I have what I think is a correction to the writer's statement of suspension bridges where he writes "The Inca were the only ancient American civilization to develop suspension bridges." 

There is also evidence that the Maya also used suspension bridges, although not across canyons, but across the Usumacinta at Yaxchilan (perhaps other places yet unknown), which means that it was a combination of rope suspension and pier suspension.  See the following article where engineer was applied to archaeology to come up with a computer model. http://gtalumni.org/news/ttopics/win97/bridge.html.  

For the Maya, ropes and cords were symbolic of the "sky umbilicus", and the bridge may also have had spiritual meaning in addition to economic importance.

Elaine