Ancient World Review

"Three-Cat" Monolith Discovered In Mexico

A massive carving of three seated cats over 2000 years old has been discovered at Chalcatzingo in Mexico.

"Carved in a vaguely Olmec style into a stone monolith, the seated jaguars—or possibly mountain lions—may have been part of a decorative hillside wall that was crawling with big-cat carvings," according to National Geographic News.

"The circa 700 B.C. carving, dubbed the 'Triad of Felines' by archaeologists, was found about 60 miles (a hundred kilometers) south of Mexico City at Chalcatzingo, an archaeological site known to have had ties to the Olmec civilization."

Mayan Pyramids of Chichen Itza

Mystery of the Canary Islands

Similarities between the pyramids, bas reliefs and religious symbolism found in Egypt, Peru, Polynesia and the Canary Islands suggest that all of these civilizations, at least in their earliest stages, may have been originally founded by a very ancient Indo-European culture which migrated all over the planet.

2700-Year-Old Tomb Found In Mexico

"Archaeologists in southern Mexico have discovered the 2,700-year-old tomb of a dignitary inside a pyramid that may be the oldest such burial documented in Mesoamerica," according to the Guardian. "The tomb held a man aged about 50, who was buried with jade collars, pyrite and obsidian artefacts and ceramic vessels. Archaeologist Emiliano Gallaga said the tomb dates to between 500 and 700BC."

"'We think this is one of the earliest discoveries of the use of a pyramid as a tomb, not only as a religious site or temple,' Gallaga said."

"Pre-Hispanic cultures built pyramids mainly as representations of the levels leading from the underworld to the sky; the highest point usually held a temple.

"The tomb was found at a site built by Zoque Indians in Chiapa de Corzo, in southern Chiapas state. It may be almost 1,000 years older than the better-known pyramid tomb of the Mayan ruler Pakal at the Palenque archaeological site, also in Chiapas."

Video From The Kon Tiki Expedition 1947

This is original footage taken during Thor Heyerdahl's Kon-Tiki expedition in 1947.  During the expedition, Heyerdahl and his crew sailed over 4000 miles from Peru to Polynesia in a a wooden raft, demonstrating that long distance sea voyages could have been made by the neolithic South American people he thought could have originally settled the Polynesian islands.

Collapsing the Maya by Roger Sandall

A great essay by the Australian writer and anthropologist Roger Sandall, author of "The Culture Cult: Designer Tribalism and Other Essays", Westview Press, 2001.

Michael Crichton, reviewing Culture Cult for the Wall Street Journal, wrote:

"In 'The Culture Cult: Designer Tribalism and Other Essays,' anthropologist Roger Sandall explores romantic primitivism--the myth of Eden and the Noble Savage. Mr. Sandall's histories of utopian communities (Robert Owen's New Harmony, John Humphrey Noyes's disastrous Oneida) are vivid, and his portraits of leading primitivists, from Rousseau to Mead to Levi-Strauss, are sharply drawn. This ignorant nostalgia for our tribal past ignores the truly horrific reality of tribal initiation, warfare, mutilation and human sacrifice." (Source: WSJ Opinion Archives)

Arsenic Found In Chilean Mummies

"Poison-laced drinking water killed some of the world's oldest mummies, which are found in the harsh northern deserts of Chile," according to National Geographic news. The eerie picture here is of a "naturally mummified Chinchorro child" found in the desert.

"Arsenic, which occurs in high levels in drinking water in Chile's northern Camarones Valley, the deadly element likely poisoned the coastal Chinchorro people for centuries, starting at least 7,000 years ago, mummy-hair analyses show.

"'I believe [these] ancient people were continuously exposed to arsenic by drinking contaminated water with high arsenic levels [that is] endemic to the Camarones region,' said study leader Bernardo Arriaza of Chile's Universidad de Tarapacá de Arica."

"The Chinchorro, who wouldn't have been aware they were ingesting the tasteless and invisible toxin, may have suffered from skin, lung, bladder, and kidney cancers, among other serious effects of long-term arsenic exposure."

Another Lost City Discovered In Mexico

"A Colorado State University archaeologist and his team have discovered the ruins of an ancient urban center in the heart of the Purépecha Empire in Lake Pátzcuaro Basin, located in the central Mexican state of Michoacán." (Source: Colorado State University News & Information) "At the time of European contact, the Purépecha Empire - sometimes called the Tarascan Empire - controlled much of western Mexico with a mutually fortified frontier shared with their rivals, the Aztecs to the east." The settlement apparently dates to 1000-1520 A.D.

The Ruins Of Pumapunku In Bolivia

This video is from a History Channel program on Ancient Aliens, but it's still a good introduction to Pumapunku, one of the most mysterious archaeological sites in the world. Pumapunku was supposedly built by the Tiwanaku Culture, a Stone Age, pre-Columbian people who also built the site at Tiahuanacu--estimated (by some) to be over 17,000 years old, which would make it the oldest city on the planet. Mainstream archaeologists still can't explain the sophisticated construction techniques used at Pumapunku. Maybe the place WAS built by aliens. Who knows? Personally, I think that if the construction techniques were beyond the capabilities of the Stone Age Tiwanaku, then it's more likely that Pumapunku was built by a more advanced culture yet to be discovered.

Headless Man Found Under Mayan Torture Murals

"The tomb of a headless man adorned with jade has been discovered beneath an ancient Mexican chamber famously painted with scenes of torture," according to National Geographic News. "Found under the Temple of Murals at the Maya site of Bonampak, the man was either a captive warrior who was sacrificed—perhaps one of the victims in the mural—or a relative of the city's ruler, scientists speculate..." Shades of Apocalypto?

"Discovered by the outside world in 1946, the Bonampak murals eviscerated scholars' long-held belief in an ancient Maya Empire ruled by kindly astronomer-priests. The new tomb find may only add to the aura of violence." To say the least. The tomb was apparently discovered during a radar survey conducted as part of a restoration project carried out at Bonampak after a series of earthquakes in 2005-2007.