🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <25311@oasys.dt.navy.mil> mulvihil@oasys.dt.navy.mil (Lawrence Mulvihill) writes:
>
>Anthropologists, and miscellaneous other ologists have studied
>the evidence of the Olmec art and agree that the the features
>are "negroid".  This is highly unusual.  The architectural,
>religious, and linguistic similarities between some Central
>American cultures and the Egyptian culture exist.   While there
>is no absolute proof (what that would consist of is not clear)
>that people from the old world traveled to and from the new,
>it is clear that it is indeed possible.

You can cite some articles that we can read about the Olmec faces having
Negroid features?  They don't look like it to me...

As for religious similarities, not what I've read.  The Egyptians did not
believe in bloodletting and public self-mutilation as religious ritual,
for one thing.  Their government was nothing like that of the Maya, say.
Heyerdahl showed that a reed boat could reach Eastern South America, but
the sophisticated cultures were on the *West* coast and in Central America.
The pyramids in South America are very different than those of Egypt, both
in construction and usage.  The architecture of the Aztec and Mayan cultures
was very highly developed and directly influenced by religion, and is 
*nothing* like that of Egypt.  The languages used in South America are not,
to my knowledge, at all similar to those of Egypt.  Many inventions used by
the Egyptians, like chariots and carts, were not used in South and Central
America.  The writing systems are completely different.

Please give me some references - I have read a lot on this myself, and I
would like to know what you are basing your statements on.
>
>The possibility is taken seriously
>by many scholars, and Thor Heyerdahl proved that it was entirely
>possible with the successful journey in Ra II.  Ra II was a
>reed boat built by Indians in a traditional way.  To ignore
>non-white transoceanic travel is to ignore the amazing navigational
>feats performed by the people of the pacific islands who
>can make landfall on tiny islands without benefit of sextants,
>charts, or tables.  It ignores the voyages of the Chinese fleets
>to Africa, a documented fact not found in the average
>high school textbook.  It ignores the settlement of the Hawaiian
>islands.  If an uncivilised barbaric (white) people
>like the vikings could do it, why not a civilised people?
>

So who is ignoring non-white navigation?  We have no records *from either
side* of contact between South America and Egypt, but we do from much smaller
societies.  This alone is suggestive.  And the Vikings were hardly 
uncivilized barbarians.

What leads you to conclude that one culture - the Vikings, whose law and
government and religion and technology are extremely well understood - is
uncivilized, while another - which is claimed by some to have had a different
racial background - is civilized?  Don't you worry about making such claims?

BTW, the idea that the Egyptians were uniformly Negroid is highly
controversial; they had a racially mixed society, not a uniformly African one,
as can easily be seen from burial pictures and statuary.  The blanket
statement seen frequently of late that the ancient Egyptians were Black
Africans is a corruption of the evidence; some Black Africans were part of
the Egyptian empire at some times, but that is all that can be said.
And yet we keep hearing from some sides that "They were Black Africans"...
as if the issue were completely resolved.

>If negro people did cross the (also unproven) land bridge from
>Asia, where is the proof?  Where are the negro skeletons from
>Canada down to the Gulf of Mexico?  Where were the negro tribes
>settled in the pacific northwest when Lewis and Clark made
>their journey?

Why would Negro people cross from Asia?  BTW, the land bridge is well-
documented and widely accepted...And not even really needed given how
easy it is to cross between the continents even today.  As for skeletons,
they are Asian derived American Indians.

Your whole argument is based on the fact that the Olmec faces - from one
culture out of many - look Negroid to some unspecified researchers?
Doesn't this raise any doubts in your mind?

>However, let us assume there was no trans-atlantic travel to
>bring seeds across to Egypt.  Is it not possible that plants
>could have become extinct in one region?

We have good illustrations of the plants considered important by the
Egyptians.  Surely plants used to pleasure the Pharohs are significant.
As well, such products as tea and coffee became very popular as exports -
why not tobacco and coca as well?  Why did they let them become extinct?
Why do we not find evidence of their existence in other burials?
>
>Finally, while the findings of the University of Munich have
>yet to be confirmed and detailed by other researchers,
>let us not allow the current
>distribution of flora, some two thosand years from the
>events, or our own racial/cultural prejudices stand in the
>way of discovering truth.

Let us not let wishful thinking stand in the stead of documented evidence.
Remember, people with a similar line taught the schoolkids in Seattle that
the Ancient Egyptians flew in gliders and used ESP to communicate.  Oh yeah,
they were Black Africans too.

Too bad the "PhD" who wrote the stuff turns out to be a non-degreed janitor
at a government lab in the Southwest.  A disturbing amount of "reinterpretation"
of archaeological data is being done by people with similar backgrounds.
That, and a tendency to cry "Racist!" at anyone who disagrees with them.
>
>P.S.
>No way is Elvis on Mars.  Black folk wouldn't take that
>white boy ;-).

Don't get me wrong.  I would be fascinated to find evidence of contact 
between the two cultures.  What bothers me is the presentation of the mostly
unfounded suspicions of a few fringe researchers as fact, in the face of a
hell of a lot of physical evidence, and the dismissal of that evidence as a
cultural bias or racist/culturalist prejudice.  Our educational system is
teaching some kids some really whacked out stuff.  I worry about our future
sometimes...Seems like we are intent on maintaining a racially divided
culture.  At least, that is what people would accuse me of if I spoke of
things like "uncivilized (black) Egyptians" compared to civilized Vikings,
right?  We can't allow either view to take over; that way lies segregation.

David Pipes
robear@digex.com