[Aztlan] Plaster & Echoes

[Sam Edgerton]

Listeros: As a frequent critic of David Lubman's and Wayne van Kirk's 
acoustical theories because, given the fact that the ancient builders did 
not employ measured drawings to scale by which to anticipate such sacred 
bird-call echoes a priori, there is no way they could have erected such 
huge stone monuments shaped from the ground up to reflect sound waves in 
such precise imitations. However, given the possibility that some structure 
somewhere in the Mayab did just happen to produce such an echo by accident 
(and indeed it would have aroused quite a sensation!), it is also possible 
that by careful molding of plaster surfaces over the stonework, the 
mystical  sound might not only have been enhanced but the same acoustically 
receptive sculpted shapes repeated in other structures.  We have still no 
proof that this was ever done, but can never be sure that it wasn't. So 
many Maya ruins exist today in only their ragged stone "underwear" as it 
were - the original plaster veneers with all there    intriguing forms - 
aesthetic if not also acoustical - have long since been weathered away.
Sam Edgerton