…“proves” that the Olmecs were African. Here’s a link to Sitchin’s page with a photo of the object in question. I feel sure it’s some perfectly normal Maya or Olmec artifact, a teapot or something, photographed from an odd angle to make it look like an elephant. Either that, or it IS an “elephant”, but of the modern era. Or else it’s a total hoax.
Anybody seen this objet d’art before? I can’t find anything “con” on Google, just “pro”. (“Africans settled Mesoamerica 5,000 years ago, but that fact was SUPPRESSED by the White Establishment…!” Uh huh.)
And it is conveniently forgotten that there are elephants in Asia. But y’know, to me, the head on that thing could just as well belong to either a mouse or an anteater - and from here, we learn that “the Giant anteater can be found in large parts of southern Central America.” I know this is not a definite refutation (there may never be a definite refutation for some people), but it could be a step in the right direction.
> Africans settled Mesoamerica 5,000 years ago, but that
> fact was SUPPRESSED by the White Establishment.
But they were so completely wiped out by the other inhabitants of Mesoamerica that no DNA trace can be found in the present inhabitants, leaving no sign of the fact that they once ruled Mesoamerica except for a few ambiguous artifacts. But the fact that blacks once lived in Mesoamerica so much bothers whites that they deny these pieces of evidence. Strangely, they don’t feel the same need to deny the fact that they conquered the land in the 16th century by wiping out most of the people who lived there then.
Hey, what about all those pyramids that prove that aliens once lived in Mesoamerica? Shouldn’t all of southern Mexico be declared off-limits for humans since it properly belongs to extraterrestrials?
Wasn’t there also an Aboriginal race who were wiped out by the American Indians when they arrived? I saw a doco with skulls. And there’s some tribe on an island off the south of Chile who are the last descendants of these Aboriginals. On surfact glance their faces appear Mongoloid, but their skulls show a heavy brow rather than a flat one.
Are these the same as the Africans, or are these supposed to predate even them? When did the American Indians arrive?
Except that of course this is not true. Both north and south america had numerous elephant species. Mammoths, mastodons, cuvieronius, stegodon, etc, etc, etc. America was practically infested with elephants. However, there probably were no surviving elephants by 3000 BC, except on Wrangell Island where dwarf mammoths survived. And that was waaaaaay up in the Bering straits.
However, there are many animals with long snouts that could be the model for that head. There are dozens of kinds of armadillos, there are anteaters, that could even be a coati.
And of course, it could also be a modern piece. After all, the campesinos make pottery in essentially the exact same way they did in pre-Columbian times. I’m sure if you asked nicely and had some cash you could find somebody to make you an elephant, or a dinosaur, or a spaceship, or whatever you want. Rub it with dirt, tumble it with some grit and you’ve got an instant artifact. The practice of making fake antiques is big business.
But of course, that doesn’t mean that this particular object is a fake. No way to tell, really. But just because it kind of looks like an elephant doesn’t mean it was supposed to be an elephant, and even if it was supposed to be an elephant that doesn’t mean that the maker was an african.
Don’t know if this is any help, but the first thing that sprang to mind when I looked at the long nosed artifact was the many images of the Mayan rain-god Chac (or Chaak) that cover the Codz-Poop building in the ruins at Kabah.
I’ve probably got better close up photos at home (from visiting there in '96) but this chap’s photosdo show most of the detail. Have a look at the 5th and 6th down the page. Every one of those masks would originally have had a long hooked nose that would have curved back into most of a circle (you can see part of a curve in one nose in the 4th photo).
Hmm. Trouble is, Sitchin’s object doesn’t look much like these Chaac masks. It’s got the “idea” of a long-nosed beastie, but it doesn’t have the big curling hooked-nose or “trunk” look. It’s just a straight “trunk” sticking out.
My brother looked at it earlier this afternoon and said it looked like an armadillo to him.
Yep, I realise that Chaac and the artifact don’t look much the same, but it’s a reasonable (partial) rebuttal to the idea that you can only make a long nosed model if you have a long nosed original to work from.
'Course following that logic may we presume that flying bulls with men’s heads were around in ancient Persia?
I tend to agree with the armadillo/anteater theory… but I certainly wouldn’t rule out hoax. IIRC von Daniken exhibited some “traditional” pots with mexican designs that also had little space men on them. Easy enough to do if you commission their manufacture.
Hmmm… The ‘elephant’ statue looks fairly compelling at first, but…
But, jeez, there’s no trunk. Surely the artist wouldn’t have missed this as a compelling feature of an elephant?? From the beveled appearace of the ‘snout’ it looks entirely intentional that the nose is supposed to teminate as we see it, and the trunk hasn’t just busted off the pottery at some point.
So what you’re left with is a creature with a long snout and big ears. Oh, yeah, note the upright tail, not visible in your average oliphant.
The only reason I’m over here is because of this Staff Reports Comments thread, on the Nephilim. I was browsing Sitchin’s website, basically looking for something concrete I could sic Google on, because all the rest of the stuff on Sitchin’s site is, like, so totally arcane that it isn’t hardly on the Web at all. All that Sumerian astronomy stuff.
So this beastie at least looked like somebody might recognize it from somewhere, if it was a real Mayan or Olmec artifact.
I think the pot is exceedingly cute. I want a replica for my “elephant” collection.
Possible hint: you might try searching for Jalapa under Xalapa.
And here’s an interestng link where it is claimed that “Elephant heads are prominent in art and sculpture from Mexico, Central American, and northern South America.”
Tried to follow up on that with a search on “precolumbian elephant,” but didn’t see anything else interesting.
So, am I buying it? Not really. I think we’re getting into murky waters here. Not the possibility of mastodons surviving into historic times, but whether elephants really are featured “prominently” in Central American art. A Google search for “xalapa elephant” turned up exactly 48 hits, none of which was remotely relevant. “Native american elephant” turned up zip, too. After looking at the pix of the Chaac masks, I’m 99.9% sure that George is looking at, but misunderstanding, those.
“Hoax” is starting to look better all the time.
BTW, Chaac is also found spelled Chak, Chac, and Chaak. Neat, huh? As if Google wasn’t enough…
Freakin’ pre-Columbian languages. I can never remember how to spell “Chicxulub”, either.
I wonder if there are any Dopers close enough to Veracruz to drive on over and see if there really are elephant “toys” in the museum? Sounds like a fun place to visit, even if it’s not in the interest of Science!
I assume the problem we have with his assertion that they are African is that we assume the South American tribe immigrated from Africa long before the time when he believes so? 'Cause otherwise I’m pretty confused.
The problem we have with his assertion is that it’s his “proof” of his other assertion that the Olmecs were actually from Africa, that Mesoamerica was originally settled by Africans who came over from Africa on log rafts or boats (or in UFOs). :rolleyes: The Olmecs are considered by serious archeologists to be the “Mother culture” for the Mayas and Aztecs who followed them, so it matters where they came from. It’s long been a Mesoamerican archeological mystery.
Sitchin is not the first person to speculate on this “African origin” theory. The Olmec heads do have a distinctly Negroid look to them. However, the Olmecs left very few traces of their civilization other than these giant, Negroid-looking stone heads, so the best that the various Mesoamerican archeologists can do is to say, “Well, it’s an interesting theory but there’s no evidence to support it.”
People like Sitchin don’t let a little thing like a “lack of evidence” stop them. They either ignore the problem, or they manufacture their own “evidence”.
So, no, the problem isn’t with quibbling over when the “African Olmecs” arrived–the problem is whether.
I think it’s highly significant that Sitchin says that when he went back to the museum, the “elephant” was gone.
It’s a classic method for perpetrating a hoax–find (or manufacture) an artifact, photograph it, and then “disappear” it. After all, it could be very awkward for his “African Olmec” theory if he ever did allow some expert to test his “proof” and it turned out to date from 20th century Taiwan.
Also, I think it’s significant that he doesn’t mention any dates for his visits to the museum when he and his fans supposedly saw the “elephant” there, in the museum’s collection. It would be too easy for the museum to bring out proof of what exactly they had on display during the time period. The Jalapa Museum of Anthropology is not some roadside attraction–it’s a serious museum. It’s a serious thing, to accuse a museum of “disappearing” objects from its collection, and I would think that if he really had some serious charges that they had “removed” something from their collection, that he would have been able to direct his inquiry properly to the museum, and that they would have been able to respond to it. That this was evidently not done, I think, speaks volumes.
In other words, I find it hard to believe that he really “was not able to find anyone in authority to obtain an explanation from.” If he had really wanted to know, I’m sure that sooner or later, if his inquiries had been directed through the proper channels (for example, asking the girl behind the counter at the gift shop doesn’t count), the Museum would have been happy to tell him. Unless, of course, it’s all a giant conspiracy…
And, of course, he’s perfectly safe in saying, “I was there in December 1999 and they were gone!” because, manifestly, they are gone.
True, although these features are not consistent with other pieces of Olmec art.
I’m sure there are better pictures available than these ones, but they’ll serve as examples. Have a look at the pictures entitled “Miniature Olmec Head”, “El Luchador”, and “Cranial Deformation”. The features here look (at least IMHO) more distinctly asiatic.
