[Aztlan] El Mirador on CNN

[David Hixson]

Listeros

I saw this report on "The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer" last night.

http://inthefield.blogs.cnn.com/2009/10/15/uncovering-a-masterpiece-the-mayans-left-behind/

While it suffers from the typical overstatements of certain facts, and a subtle implication that
the site of El Mirador and its Danta complex are somehow new discoveries, I can't begrudge
an archaeologist the chance to reach out to a wide public audience (I just wish more of us
could get this kind of coverage!).

Have the stucco friezes mentioned in this piece been fully published (either in print or online)?
It sounds like Hansen is trying to push this imagery ahead of the San Bartolo murals for the
earliest depictions of characters from the Popol Vuh.  As El Mirador's apogee is later than
the proposed dates for the San Bartolo murals, has he presented evidence that these friezes
are in fact the oldest known examples of scenes from the Popol Vuh (as he stated to the
CNN journalist)?

BTW, El Mirador's sacbe network was certainly not the "first freeway system in the world"
(there are so many things wrong with that statement).

-Dave

 __________________________________________________
David Hixson
Ph.D. Candidate
Tulane Anthropology
chunchucmil at yahoo.com
www.mesoamerican-archives.com


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