And now for something completely different ..

[Jay Vaughan]

>> As an academic I can weigh in on this a little.  To me, these
>> "coincidences" are really forced.  I could go to Mall of America and take
>> pictures of some of these same kinds of things but that wouldn't show a
>> connection between the Mayans and late 20th century American retail.  

A specious argument.  Mall of America's artists most definitely would have had some influence from the art-schools interest in Mayan/Ancient cultures, so its not a big surprise you could find this similarity.

>> The
>> main way to attempt to connect disparate groups together is via linguistic
>> and cultural similarity.

Are the languages of the Mayans and Balinese, of the time period of the carvings/temples being discussed, fully accessible to us?

No.  We only have the physical artworks these peoples left behind.

>>  On these two grounds, the Mayan / Balinese
>> connection falls completely flat on its face.  


Not really, but it was a fair attempt.

>> The author's claims that
>> scholars of the past had it right and has been suppressed is wide of the
>> mark.  

Perhaps the idea is just too abhorrent to the Christian cultures whose academies and institutions have formed our contemporary view of the subject..


>> Past scholars made such claims because they did not do the
>> extensive cultural and linguistic research and thus made connections based
>> on the slimmest of evidence.  

Its based on actual comparisons with real evidence you can see and touch for yourself - not some treatise on what 'languages of the period' may have sounded like.

Besides which, there is actually a study on the subject of common languages of the ancients, and .. yeah .. Protong.

>> His claim that there is a current political agenda
>> suppressing this is hysterical to me as  the colonizer's model and view of
>> the world in the past was a far more powerful political force that
>> precisely shaped the past scholars to make these facile claims in the
>> first place!
> 
> Thank you, James, for getting some sense back into this discussion. :)

I'm thinking you're seeing rationalization that wasn't, factually, presented, Peter. 

Look outside the box.  There may be more to learn.

;
--
Jay Vaughan