The Olmecs & their Connection with Atlantis

[Qoais]

Beautiful rendition of Posidion's chariot Bianca.  What an artist it was to depict it.

However, I don't think those "horses" could swim with those front feet, and I doubt they could travel on land with that hind end!

Great pictures for the gigantic heads.  

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http://www.micahwright.com/olmec/colossal.html

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http://www.micahwright.com/olmec/colossal.html

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                                                     Welcome To Mexico...





                   

                                                       Land of the Olmec!





The magnificent colossal stone heads, massive altars, and sophisticated anthropomorphic and zoomorphic statues found at Olmec sites in southern Veracruz and Tabasco, are the oldest known monuments in Prehispanic Mexico. Those beautiful carvings are also a distinctive identifying trait of the Olmec, an archaeological culture that has slowly come to light over the past fifty years.

When Matthew Stirling began explorations at the Olmec site of La Venta, Tabasco, in 1942, almost nothing was known about the Olmec or their position in the sequence of Mexico's many Prehispanic cultures. Most of La Venta was hidden by tropical forest, and petroleum geologists were just beginning to explore for oil in the area of Tabasco.

At La Venta, Stirling and his associate, Philip Drucker, began excavations in a plaza area, Complex A, on the north side of La Venta's 32 meter-tall (106 ft.) earthen pyramid mound. They soon made astonishing discoveries. Their trenches uncovered caches of polished jade celts, colored clay floors, and several royal burials. One burial was in a large sandstone sarcophagus carved to depict a supernatural caiman. Two other burials occurred in a tomb chamber constructed from basalt columns. All the burials included offerings of beautiful greenstone figures, jewelry, and celts.

When Stirling presented his discoveries at the meeting, held by the Mexican Society of Anthropology (Sociedad Mexicana de Antropologia) at Tuxtla Gutierrez in 1942, disagreements immediately arose over the dating of La Venta and the Olmec. Drucker believed that La Venta was contemporaneous with Classic period Maya civilization, while Alfonso Caso and Miguel Covarrubias eloquently argued that the Olmec precede the Maya and Mexico's other great civilizations. Stirling agreed with Caso and Covarrubias.

Because the meeting had raised so many questions about the Olmec, historian Wigberto Jimenez Moreno wrote that same year about "El enigma de los olmecas." It took another 15 years to resolve the question of the antiquity of the Olmec. In 1957 the first radiocarbon dates from La Venta, 800-400 B.C., proved Caso, Covarrubias, and Stirling to be correct, and recent research and radiocarbon dating now places the time range of the Olmec from 1200 to 1500 B.C.

Today the forest is gone at La Venta and a large Pemex refinery is located near the site, but archaeologists now have a clearer understanding of the Olmec. The Olmec no longer seem as enigmatic as they did in 1942.

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                                                     The Olmec Domain





The Olmec domain extends from the Tuxtlas mountains in the west to the lowlands of the Chontalpa in the east, a region with significant variations in geology and ecology. Over 170 Olmec monuments have been found within the area, and eighty percent of those occur at the three largest Olmec centers, La Venta, Tabasco (38%), San Lorenzo Tenochtitlan, Veracruz (30%), and Laguna de los Cerros, Veracruz (12%).

Those three major Olmec centers are spaced from east to west across the domain so that each center could exploit, control, and provide a distinct set of natural resources valuable to the overall Olmec economy. La Venta, the eastern center, is near the rich estuaries of the coast, and also could have provided cacao, rubber, and salt. San Lorenzo, at the center of the Olmec domain, controlled the vast floodplain area of Coatzacoalcos basin and riverline trade routes. Laguna de los Cerros, adjacent to the Tuxtlas mountains, is positioned near important sources of basalt, a stone needed to manufacture manos, metates, and monuments. Perhaps marriage alliances between Olmec centers helped maintain such an exchange network.

Many early scholars were reluctant to believe that a society as sophisticated as the Olmec could have developed in the tropical habitat of the Gulf coast, and some hypothesized that the Olmec had originally migrated from elsewhere. However, recent excavations by INAH archaeologist Rebecca Gonzalez at La Venta, and at San Lorenzo by archaeologist Ann Cyphers Guillen of UNAM, have provided valuable new information on the antiquity of those sites, and on Olmec ways of life at those centers. Their radiocarbon dates inform us that La Venta and San Lorenzo were inhabited as early as 1700 B.C., by peoples who were the direct ancestors to the Gulf coast. They were corn farmers who supplemented their diets with fishing and hunting. Linguists suggest that they spoke a language related to the Mixe and Zoque languages of today.

We now know that the great Olmec centers that soon developed at La Venta, San Lorenzo, and Laguna de los Cerros, and the smaller centers such as Tres Zapotes, were not simply vacant religious sites, but dynamic settlements that included artisans and farmers, as well as religious specialists and the rulers. The Olmec architecture at San Lorenzo, for example, includes both public-ceremonial buildings, elite residences, and the houses of commoners. Olmec public-ceremonial buildings were most typically earthen platform mounds, some of which had larger house-like structures built upon them. At La Venta we can see that after 900 B.C. such platform mounds were arranged around large plaza areas and include a new type of architecture, a tall pyramid mound.

An important feature at Olmec centers was their buried network of stone "drain" lines -- long U-shaped rectangular blocks of basalt laid end to end and covered with capstones. The new San Lorenzo research suggests those systems were actually aqueducts used to provide drinking water to the different areas of the settlement. Some of the aqueduct stones, such as San Lorenzo Monument 52, were also monuments, indicating that the aqueduct system had a sacred character as well.

Rubber ball games have great antiquity throughout the Americas, and the recent discovery of several rubber balls at the Olmec site of El Manati, near San Lorenzo, confirms that the game was played by the Olmec. Archaeologists working at La Venta twenty years ago discovered what they hypothesized were the remains of a ball court there, and it is possible that such ball courts were also part of the architecture at Olmec centers.

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                                              Access to the Underworld





Monuments were also an important characteristic of Olmec centers, and today they provide us with some idea of the nature of Olmec ideology.

The colossal heads are commanding portraits of individual Olmec rulers, and the large symbol displayed on the "helmet" of each colossal head appears to be an identification motif for that person. Colossal heads glorified the rulers while they were alive, and commemorated them as revered ancestors after their death.

"Altars" were actually the thrones of Olmec rulers. The carving on the front of the throne shows the identified ruler sitting in a niche that symbolizes a cave entrance to the supernatural powers of the underworld. That scene communicated to the people their ruler's association with cosmological power.

Almost all Olmec monumental art is found damaged and mutilated. The portrait statues of rulers are decapitated, and massive fragments are missing from the corners of altars. Only the colossal portrait heads survived relatively unharmed.

Although that damage was once blamed on invaders or internal revolutions, it was an action that occurred repeatedly throughout the 700 years that the Olmec created monuments. Therefore, most scholars now believe that monument mutilation was carried out by the Olmec themselves for sacred or ritual reasons. Perhaps when a ruler died his monuments were destroyed.

New evidence indicates that some monuments were broken and the pieces recarved to make other monuments. It is now known that two colossal stone heads from San Lorenzo had originally been large rectangular altars that were later resculpted into colossal heads.

When a ruler died, was he venerated by converting his throne into his colossal portrait head?

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                                                    The Second Enigma





Geologists have determined that the basalt used to make most of the monuments at San Lorenzo and La Venta came from the area of the Tuxtlas mountains.

In 1960, archaeologist Alfonso Medellin Zenil discovered Llano del Jicaro, an Olmec basalt quarry site and monument workshop. The quarry, near the Tuxtla mountains, is only 7 kilometers (4 miles) from the Olmec center of Laguna de los Cerros, and was controlled by it. Excavations at Llano del Jicaro in 1991 provided data on the process of monument manufacture. A large unfinished altar there demonstrates that the monuments were given their basic shape at the quarry site, and then transported to the centers for finishing.

However, an important question could not be answered: how were the huge stones for altars and colossal heads transported from the Tuxtlas across the hills, rivers and swamps of the Olmec domain to San Lorenzo and La Venta?

Although archaeology has answered many questions about the Olmec, many more still remain.

Research has concentrated primarily on the centers of San Lorenzo and La Venta, and very little is known about Laguna de los Cerros, or smaller Olmec centers, or Olmec life in small farming hamlets. We also have very little archaeological information about the 500-300 B.C. time period in southern Veracruz and Tabasco and, therefore, we do not know how the Olmec culture ended. San Lorenzo and La Venta declined in importance, perhaps due to major change in the river systems that helped support those centers.

However, in the northern area of the Olmec domain there was some cultural continuity long after 500 B.C. Tres Zapotes became an important post-Olmec center, and Laguna de los Cerros continued as a major center into the Classic period.


http://www.micahwright.com/olmec/olmecs2.html

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                                             A Link between Egypt and Americas?





According to the official view there was no contact between the Old World and the New World before Columbus.



Yet numerous similarities have been found that suggest a link between Egypt and the Americas:

Both have huge pyramids, aligned to the cardinal points

Both have structures built with megalithic stones and extremely fine joints

Both exhibit intriguing bumps on many unfinished stone blocks (Picture 1)

Both employed a unique style of construction using "L" shaped corners

Both use the same style of metal clamps to hold the huge stones in place

Both used the process of mummification to preserve and honor their dead



These compelling similarities suggest that both ancient cultures were influenced by a sophisticated
common source.



http://www.world-mysteries.com/mpl.htm#Link

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                                                    Atlantis in South America





The most powerful theory that locates Atlantis in South America is J.M. Allen's theory. Allen's research was shown on Discovery Channel and his work was published as "Atlantis, the Andes Solution".

He first stumbled upon his theory when studying ancient measuring systems. He didn't believe that Atlantis could be an island that sank in one night, so he searched for Atlantis in South America, focusing first on finding a plain as described by Plato.

Allen places Atlantis in the Andes. This shouldn't make us wonder, given that the scientists continue fighting over the Maya and Olmec mystery. The region is so full of question marks, that one more can only help.

 His first focus is Altiplano, a plain found in Bolivia. To verify his research, he uses Plato's "Dialogues".

If you remember, Plato mentions a man-made channel used for ships. Allen finds the channel which is indeed man-made and is cutting the plateau in two. The plain has a rectangular shape, as described by Plato. Allen finds a new length for a 'stadia', and the pieces of his puzzle fall correctly into place. Using the new measurements, he traces on his map the place where the wall surrounding the city should be. Afterwards, using the map and the calculations he has made, he looks for the wall on land, and finds ruins of it, just where they should be.

South America is prone to floods and the plain was indeed flooded in 9000 BC. Earthquakes are common also, which leads us to think that a calamity could have struck the area thousands of years ago.

Allen also mentions the number of 'tribes' of Atlantis, which was, according to Plato, ten. Atlantis is not only the name of the continent, but of the city itself. So Allen went for Tiahuanaco and its mysteries.

Another thing which follows the 'Dialogues' is the plain (Altiplano), that is indeed enclosed by the mountains. It contains volcanoes of similar size to those upon which the city was built. The region faces south, as seen on the Inca map (another good point). As in any other volcanic area, hot and cold springs exist. The mountains contain gold, copper, silver, tin, and a natural alloy of copper and gold that could be 'oricalcum'. This alloy can be found only in this part of the world.

In the Aztec language, "atl" means "water", and in Peruvian Quechua, "antis" means "copper". Besides, Antis is the correct name for the Andes Mountains.

A section of a 600 feet wide channel is found on the rectangular Altiplano. Square irrigated plots also exist. The plain measures 3,000 x 2,000 "stades", which would be 300 feet.

Plato talks about temples and statues of gold built to Poseidon and Cleito. Local legends in South America talk about the "golden city" of El Dorado. It was the same El Dorado that brought the Spanish to conquer the Incas.

The sea of those parts (Lake Poopo) couldn't be searched because of shoal mud.


http://atlantis.haktanir.org/ch12.html

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Writings




                                                               I. The Lost Island




This chapter can be found more or less on the Internet, but sometimes it's disorganized (even my old Atlantis page was disorganized), so I will try to put it together for you. Also, I am trying to read and locate the exact passages dealing with Atlantis in these writings, so once I find them, I will quote them for you.

I want to draw your attention to a few facts though: if the old civilizations haven't witnessed or haven't gathered the information from  someone that had witnessed an earthquake or volcanic eruption, then I must say they had a very exact imagination of the phenomenon.




In Meso- and South-America, Aztecs and Mayans are said to have mentioned Atlantis in "Chilam Balam", "Dresden Codex", "Popul Vuh", "Codex Cortesianus", and "Troano Manuscript". Pretty impressive list I'd say... They also talk about Lemuria, another continent thought to have sunk even before Atlantis.

In "Chilam Balam" I have found this: "Then they were buried in the sands, in the sea. There would be a sudden rush of water when the theft of the insignia  <of Oxlahun-ti-ku> occurred. Then the sky would fall, it would fall down upon the earth, when the four gods, the four Bacabs, were set up, who brought about the destruction of the world." Like the Mexicans, the Maya believed that the present order was preceded by other worlds which had been destroyed. According to the former, the fourth of these worlds, or "Suns," was destroyed by a great flood of water (Seler 1923, p. 40).





The Mayan "Popol Vuh" ("The Collection of Written Leaves") says: "Over a universe wrapped in the gloom of a dense and primeval night passed the god Hurakan, the mighty wind. He called out "earth," and the solid land appeared. The chief gods took counsel; they were Hurakan, Gucumatz, the serpent covered with green feathers, and Xpiyacoc and Xmucane, the mother and father gods. As the result of their deliberations animals were created. But as yet man was not. To supply the deficiency the divine beings resolved to create mannikins carved out of wood. But these soon incurred the displeasure of the gods, who, irritated by their lack of reverence, resolved to destroy them. Then by the will of Hurakan, the Heart of Heaven, the waters were swollen, and a great flood came upon the mannikins of wood. They were drowned and resinous thickness descended from heaven. [...]

There was heard a great noise above their heads, as if produced by fire. Then were men seen running, pushing each other, filled with despair; they wished to climb upon their houses, and the houses, tumbling down, fell to the ground; they wished to climb upon the trees, and the trees shook them off; they wished to enter into the grottoes (eaves), and the grottoes closed themselves before them. . .  Water and fire contributed to the universal ruin at the time of the last great cataclysm which preceded the fourth creation."

Also the "Popol Vuh", speaking of the first home of the Guatemalan race, says that "black and white men together" lived in this happy land "in great peace," speaking "one language."[1] The Popol Vuh goes on to relate how the people migrated from their ancestral home, how their language became altered, and how some went to the east, while others traveled west (to Central America).





In "The Myths of Mexico and Peru" (1913), Lewis Spence says: "Ere the earth was quite recovered from the wrathful flood which had descended upon it there lived a being orgulous and full of pride, called Vukub-Cakix (Seventimes-the-colour-of-fire-the Kiche name for the great macaw bird). His teeth were of emerald, and other parts of him shone with the brilliance of gold and silver. In short, it is evident that he was a sun-and-moon god of prehistoric times. He boasted dreadfully, and his conduct so irritated the other gods that they resolved upon his destruction. His two sons, Zipacna and Cabrakan (Cockspur or Earth-heaper, and Earthquake), were earthquake-gods of the type of the Jotuns of Scandinavian myth or the Titans of Greek legend. These also were prideful and arrogant, and to cause their downfall the gods despatched the heavenly twins Hun-Apu and Xbalanque to earth, with instructions to chastise the trio.





The Aztec book, "Codex Chimalpopoca", translated by Abbé Brasseur de Bourbourg, says:

"This is the sun called Nahui-atl, '4 water.' Now the water was tranquil for forty years, plus twelve, and men lived for the third and fourth times. When the sun Nahui-atl came there had passed away four hundred years, plus two ages, plus seventy-six years. Then all mankind was lost and drowned, and found themselves changed into fish. The sky came nearer the water. In a single day all was lost, and the day Nahui-xochitl, '4 flower,' destroyed all our flesh. And that year was that of cé-calli, '1 house,' and the day Nahui-atl all was lost. Even the mountains sank into the water, and the water remained tranquil for fifty-two springs."


http://atlantis.haktanir.org/ch12.html

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                                  American Indian Myths and the End of a Culture






Columbus‘ (re)discovery of America opened one of the darkest chapters of today’s historiography. In the name of the cross, the Spanish and Portuguese conquerors killed thousands of natives and erased their culture.

As cruel as the conquest and suppression of the American Indian tribes was – how could a few people subjugate a whole continent and in what way is this related to Atlantis?

According to the “Historia general y natural de las Indias“ (ca.1550 AD), the Medieval Spanish thought

“Hesperus, a prehistoric Spanish king, was the brother of Atlas, ruler of the land opposite Morocco. Hesperus also ruled over the Hesperides. These island were situated in the west and could be reached after a fourty days‘ long sailing.“


The Spanish used this farce to justify both their legal rights on the recently discovered continent and the subjugation of the American Indians. But as unlikely as it may sound, the Spanish regarded America as their long-lost colony (the Hesperides) while the American Indians took the Spanish for their ancestors coming from the an empire called Tlapalan or Aztlan, located east of the ocean.

Finally, both the Aztecs and Toltecs thought that Quetzalcoatl, their god of creation, had returned. Unfortunately, this assumption led to the doom of their culture.

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                                     Quetzalcoatl – a European, an Atlantean or Venus?





Quetzalcoatl 1:

Toltecan hero, inventor of crafting, calendars and farming. Quetzalcoatl was the fifth Toltecan priest king from 977 to 999 AD. He disgusted the human sacrifes made by the Toltecan people and therefore left the Toltecans heading east. The American Indians thought that the Spanish leader Cortés was in fact returning Quetzalcoatl. The very hint on Quetzalcoatl’s loathing for human sacrifices indicates an occidental immigrant to America. Adding to this the fact that the newer empires in America did not regain their heydays until 900 to 1100 AD leads to the assumption that seafarers east of the Atlantic Ocean introduced their knowledge to these lands and, as a result, became personified as gods and bearers of culture.



Quetzalcoatl 2:

Atztecan creator and wind god. He is regarded as the founder of the fifth world age and personified as the east. He had a twin brother, Xolotl, who was the god of monstrosities and had the evening star as his symbol. It might be interested to learn that the Zapotecs regarded Xolotl as the god of lightning who split the earth. This invites the inference that Atlantean refugees who managed to make it to America processed their ancient knowledge in myths.

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Quetzalcoatl means ‘feather‘ and ‘snake‘ – that invites me to go far afield and step into philosophy:

If Quetzalcoatl was a seafarer the word ‘feather‘ could symbolize the huge sails of the boats. Accordingly, the word ‘snake‘ might stand for the long hulls of the vessels.

In the American Indian myths, Quetzalcoatl sprang from the virginal earth goddess with the sun as his father:

The sun rises in the east and from the east the seafarers came. Thus the sun brought Quetzalcoatl to the earth and there he disembarks.

Did I solve the riddle? Was Quetzalcoatl a seafarer? God only knows – myths allow for various interpretations.

Rather, the situation seems to be as follows: Quetzalcoatl, the personified east, represents Venus as the morning star while his twin brother, Xolotl, embodies the evening star, for Venus is associated with both morning and evening star.

Today, it is assumed that myths are nothing but complex systems dealing with the movement of the planets. Hence, regarded as bearer of knowledge and female warrior in the shape of Venus is Athena (Greek), Venus (Roman), Ishtar (Accadian), Ianna (Sumerian), ... . The goddess Venus embodies both fine and martial qualities – the same pattern applies to Quetzalcoatl (fine) and Xolotl (bad).

Accordingly, the Aztecs forgot their ancient knowledge for the Maya, the prior rulers, were experts in the field of astronomy. Also, both the complex myth system and the calendar dating back to 3 100 BC (!!) are based upon Mayan knowledge. If the Aztecs had known that Quetzalcoatl was nothing but a synonym for Venus, they would surely have welcomed the Spanish people in a rather different way.

Apparently, several authors in the field of dubious sciences and phantastic literature keep the true Quetzalcoatl a secret. They say that Quetzalcoatl was white (skin type) and omniscient, but actually he was wise in the sense of omniscient and the colour he embodies is green.

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Nonetheless, both nations kept a memory of themselves, the Europeans with Atlantis or the Hesperides and the Aztecs with Aztlan or Tlalapan. If Atlantis is not a possible opportunity, ancient European seafaring nations like the Phoenicians or Minoans are very likely to have discovered America much earlier. That would explain the memories on both sides of the ocean.

Many ancient maps show the Antarctic region without its present ice coating. Where did the cartographers at that time have their knowledge from?

Did the ancient seafarers take these notes when the Antarctic outskirts were still accessible?

Is Atlantis or are the Hesperides just a memory of prior trade relations with America?





The Pri Reis map of 1513 AD gives a rough illustration of the coast lines in the Antarctic region – free of ice.


http://www.mythenlexikon.de/atlantis_english/myth/myth/atlantis_quetzalcoatl_columbus.htm