{"id":57018,"date":"2022-11-25T07:25:28","date_gmt":"2022-11-25T07:25:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/atlantipedia.ie\/samples\/?p=57018"},"modified":"2022-11-25T07:26:06","modified_gmt":"2022-11-25T07:26:06","slug":"archive-3316","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/atlantipedia.ie\/samples\/archive-3316\/","title":{"rendered":"Archive 3316"},"content":{"rendered":"

By LEONARDO VINTI\u00d1I<\/strong><\/p>\n

???????????????????????????<\/em><\/p>\n

There is an ancient culture that flourished in Mesoamerica<\/p>\n

around 1100 A.D. still baffling historians\u2014the<\/p>\n

mysterious Olmecs. Their religious rituals are far from<\/p>\n

completely understood, but so too are their origins. How<\/p>\n

did this culture that appeared seemingly overnight go on<\/p>\n

to exhibit such an enormous influence on the rest of the<\/p>\n

region?<\/p>\n

According to several authors, including Mike Xu,<\/p>\n

professor of Chinese studies at the University of Central<\/p>\n

Oklahoma, the Olmecs are descendants of ancient Chinese.<\/p>\n

The evidence? The Olmec culture began around<\/p>\n

1100 A.D., some years after the fall of China\u2019s Shang dynasty<\/p>\n

(1766 to 1122 B.C.). According to ancient chronicles<\/p>\n

of that era, when the Zhou were invading and plundering<\/p>\n

the Shang, records state that the son of the emperor<\/p>\n

brought 25,000 adepts toward the \u201ceastern ocean.\u201d According<\/p>\n

to Mike Xu, these were the first Olmec people.<\/p>\n

At that time in history, China\u2019s ocean fleet was the<\/p>\n

most advanced of the day. Some historians propose that<\/p>\n

these Chinese travelers could have arrived on the American<\/p>\n

coast thanks to the \u201cblack current.\u201d Known as Kuro<\/p>\n

Shiwo or \u201ccurrent of death\u201d in Japanese, this Pacific current<\/p>\n

would have been capable of navigating an ancient<\/p>\n

Chinese sailor to the Americas. In his article for the sailing<\/p>\n

magazine 48 Degrees North, \u201cAre We Living in the<\/p>\n

Land of Fusang?\u201d Hewitt R. Jackson writes that there is<\/p>\n

evidence of similar pre-Columbian Chinese sea voyages<\/p>\n

that have already been confirmed:<\/p>\n

\u201cProbably the best documented account that has been<\/p>\n

studied is that of Hwui Chan (Hoei Shin). He was a \u201cchamen\u201d<\/p>\n

or mendicant priest who had made his way from<\/p>\n

Afghanistan among the first of the Buddhist missionaries<\/p>\n

to reach China. This was a period of great expansion<\/p>\n

for Buddhism and extraordinary journeys by land<\/p>\n

and sea were common for the \u201ccha-men.\u201d Hwui Chan<\/p>\n

sailed to the Americas some five hundred years before<\/p>\n

Leif Erickson and a thousand before Columbus. His description<\/p>\n

of the land he visited seems to indicate that he<\/p>\n

passed by California and settled in Mexico. After a stay<\/p>\n

of forty years he returned to China in 499 A.D. and related<\/p>\n

the story of his labors and travels to Wu Ti, the Emperor.<\/p>\n

The story of Fusang was at that time well known<\/p>\n

in China. This eventually has been recognized and accepted<\/p>\n

by western scholars, but for some reason it has<\/p>\n

fallen out of fashion in our history and literature within<\/p>\n

the past century.\u201d<\/p>\n

While the black current explains the journey, ancient<\/p>\n

Olmec artifacts give the theory further substance. The<\/p>\n

written language found on the Olmecs\u2019 jars, pottery,<\/p>\n

and statues reveals what could be the actual influence<\/p>\n

of Chinese culture. Professor Xu points out that various<\/p>\n

words found on these decorative objects match exactly<\/p>\n

with those used in Shang China: Sun, Mountain, Artist,<\/p>\n

Water, Rain, Sacrifice, Health, Plants, Wealth, and Earth.<\/p>\n

In fact, the majority of the 146 characters used by the Olmecs<\/p>\n

are exactly the same as primitive Chinese writing.<\/p>\n

When Xu showed the Olmec artifacts to university students<\/p>\n

involved in analyzing primitive Chinese culture,<\/p>\n

they actually believed it was ancient Chinese script.<\/p>\n

While most Mesoamerican scholars do not accept<\/p>\n

Xu\u2019s theory\u2014critics have labeled him \u201cthe most dangerous<\/p>\n

person in Mesoamerican research\u201d\u2014it nevertheless<\/p>\n

offers insights about the mysterious Olmecs that more<\/p>\n

accepted theories cannot reach.<\/p>\n

In her letter to Science Magazine in 2005, Betty J.<\/p>\n

Meggers of the National Museum of Natural History at<\/p>\n

the Smithsonian Institution criticizes most Mesoamerican<\/p>\n

scholars\u2019 failure to acknowledge Xu\u2019s comparisons:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe invention of writing revolutionized Chinese society<\/p>\n

by facilitating communication among speakers of 60 mutually<\/p>\n

unintelligible languages and resulted in increased<\/p>\n

commercial interaction and social integration. The rapid<\/p>\n

diffusion of Olmec iconography and associated cultural<\/p>\n

elaboration suggests it had the same impact across multilingual<\/p>\n

Mesoamerica. The demise of the Shang Empire<\/p>\n

circa 1500 B.C.E. coincides with the emergence of Olmec<\/p>\n

civilization. Rather than speculate in a vacuum on the intangible<\/p>\n

character of Olmec society, it would seem profitable<\/p>\n

to compare the archaeological remains with the detailed<\/p>\n

record of the impact of writing on the development<\/p>\n

of Chinese civilization. What do we have to lose?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By LEONARDO VINTI\u00d1I ??????????????????????????? There is an ancient culture that flourished in Mesoamerica around 1100 A.D. still baffling historians\u2014the mysterious Olmecs. Their religious rituals are far from completely understood, but so too are their origins. How did this culture that appeared seemingly overnight go on to exhibit such an enormous influence on the rest of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5322],"tags":[110],"class_list":["post-57018","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archive","tag-olmecs"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlantipedia.ie\/samples\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57018","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlantipedia.ie\/samples\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlantipedia.ie\/samples\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlantipedia.ie\/samples\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlantipedia.ie\/samples\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57018"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/atlantipedia.ie\/samples\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57018\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":57019,"href":"https:\/\/atlantipedia.ie\/samples\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57018\/revisions\/57019"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlantipedia.ie\/samples\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57018"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlantipedia.ie\/samples\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57018"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlantipedia.ie\/samples\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57018"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}