Sometimes the learning curve isn't about how to chase the wind, force a solution, or give into defeat - sometimes it's about reassessment, resetting, & working with what IS.
Studying a situation from a different perspective.
Not giving up; just making the present work for you, too.
Looking for the silver lining - and following that vein, instead of fruitlessly panning for elusive gold.
Today's embracing on a personal level, seems also to be the theme of today's Cussler-Fargo saga …
Though Clive's novel is a fictional story … there is actual History driving it, and that's why I love Clive's Books. I am SO glad Bob brought one 📕 home with him from work, in his lunch box, in 2002: I asked if I could read it when he was done, he said yes - and I've been hooked, ever since 😁
The Cussler 'Eye Of Heaven' novel is an interesting globe-trotting tale; with historical tidbits, woven into the storyline:
{{Cē Ācatl Topiltzin Quetzalcōātl was a 10th-century Toltec ruler and high priest of Tollan, later mythologized as the human incarnation of the feathered serpent god Quetzalcoatl. Revered for fostering a golden age of cultural and economic prosperity, he promoted reforms such as ending human sacrifice in favor of self-bloodletting and animal offerings. His eventual exile to the Gulf Coast and vow to return became a potent legend influencing Aztec politics and the Spanish conquest narrative. According to the Florentine Codex, which was written under the direction of the Franciscan missionary Bernardino de Sahagún, the Aztecs had a legend that Quetzalcoatl would one day return, and Emperor Moctezuma II mistook Hernán Cortés for Quetzalcoatl. Other parties have also propagated the idea that the Native Americans believed the conquerors to be gods: most notably the historians of the Franciscan order such as Fray Geronimo Mendieta. Some Franciscans at this time held millennarian beliefs, and the natives taking the Spanish conquerors for gods was an idea that went well with this theology. Some scholars still hold the view that the fall of the Aztec empire can in part be attributed to Moctezuma's belief in Cortés as the returning Quetzalcoatl.
Archaeologists have not found the mummy of Quetzalcōatl Topiltzin. Any such remains would be a major discovery, but to date, the evidence for his existence is entirely mythological, and no physical remains have been uncovered. ~Various internet links
Did the myth of Quetzalcoatl originate with a Norse trip to Mesoamerica during medieval times?
~Jonathan Williamson, Updated: February 26, 2024/The Viking Herald
It is beyond a scientific doubt that the Vikings reached North America with a much-famed Viking settlement discovered in Newfoundland, Canada, over six decades ago. However, did they make it further south?
Norse sagas and legends are full of tall tales of Viking sailors going to a land beyond Ireland.
Could it be possible that Vikings were the basis for the Aztecs' belief in a "white-skinned" God, Quetzalcoatl, who Hernan Cortes ruthlessly exploited to such a bloody effect when Spanish conquistadors arrived in Mesoamerica in the 16th-century CE onwards?
Western expansion
Without any doubt, the Norse exploration, and colonization, of North America is surely one the most impressive feats of people in Viking societies.
The Viking Age (c. 793 – 1066 CE) saw an expansion of Viking raiders, traders, and settlers explode outward, from their Scandinavian homeland, from as far east as the areas surrounding the Black Sea to the fringes of the North American mainland.
The sagas are rich with the exploits of Viking adventurers and explorers. Whilst they may make for a fascinating read, it is problematic to try and establish any historicity within them.
Nonetheless, academics generally agree with the Saga of the Icelanders, which states that Norse settlers arrived, from Iceland, to colonize Greenland during the 980s CE.
Two settlements were established with high estimates of a population peaking at 24,000 spread over 1500 farms. Yet this was not the extent of their push into the western realms of the North Atlantic Ocean.
Vikings in America
From the settlements in Greenland (which lasted until the early 15th century CE), it is believed that Norse sailors – whether by accident or design – sailed westward until they reached what is now the modern Canadian island of Newfoundland.
Here, at L'Anse aux Meadow, they established a rudimentary settlement consisting of eight buildings (whose recent radiocarbon dating has given construction dates of between 990 to 1050 CE) and the remains of 800 Norse objects.
This Norse site, the first and only uncovered so far in North America, was discovered in the 1960s by a Norwegian husband and wife archaeological team and is scientific proof, beyond a doubt, that the Vikings beat other European "voyages of exploration" by more than five centuries and were the first European civilization to establish Pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact.
Further archaeological research in Newfoundland has, only recently, pointed to a possible second Viking settlement, further south on the island, at Point Rosse.
Despite the high hopes, an accumulation of bog iron ore – which scientists believed was the result of smelting used by Viking peoples – turned out to be nothing more than a natural process, nature slyly enticing us Viking enthusiasts.
However, if we turn to the sagas, there are tall tales of Vikings traveling even further south than "Vinland."
Vamos a Mexico!
Though the Vikings reached modern-day Canada, is it possible that they traveled as far south as the Yucatan peninsula in Mexico?
Now before we get accused of peddling theories as crazy as anything on Ancient Apocalypse, it was only until the 1980s that the Viking settlement on Newfoundland was scientifically proven beyond a reasonable doubt.
Before the archaeological and scientific evidence was proven, many academics pointed to the sagas, which were rich with stories of a Viking settlement in the Americans and a deadly confrontation with the indigenous population (named skrælings).
One epic saga, though, the Eyrbyggja Saga, has been seized on by some academics as proof that the Vikings may have made it as far south as the Yucatan peninsula in Mexico.
In this saga, we meet one Björn Breiðvíkingakappi, who flees Iceland after a deadly blood feud involving his wife and another man. He sails off westward, never to be heard of again.
That is, as the saga relates, until 30 years late, in 1030 CE, when Gudlief, the captain of a trade ship, was blown off course for many days and nights westward from Ireland and landed in a strange place.
Gudleif and his crew were apprehended by the locals and brought before a chief who... was a bearded white-skinned man and spoke Norse. The chief then asked about his wife and relations back in Iceland.
It was only when Gudleif and his crew were allowed to sail back to Iceland that they realized the "chief" was Björn, who had disappeared years before.
Some scholars have pointed out that this may point to a Viking exploration of Mexico, with the land "westward of Ireland" (named "Great Ireland") may very well be the Yucatan peninsula.
Furthermore, the presence of a "white-skinned and bearded chieftain" bears a striking similarity to the Toltec myth of Quetzalcoatl. Could it be possible that the Vikings were the origin of this Toltec myth?
The Toltecs and Quetzalcoatl
The Toltecs were just one of a handful of pre-Columbian Mesoamerican civilizations that dominated parts of what is now Mexico and northern Central America.
The Toltec Empire, though based around the modern state of Hidalgo, in the heart of Mexico, expanded to reach as far away as the Yucatan peninsula.
Though scholars disagree over its exact dating, it is believed to have flourished from the late 7th to early 11th century CE, making it roughly contemporary with Viking societies a world away.
One of the most important elements of Toltec mythology was the myth of Quetzalcoatl. It is through later European contact with the Aztecs that we know of the Quetzalcoatl.
This "contact" was, of course, the Spanish invasion of the Americas from the 16th century CE, which saw the tragic civilizational destruction of the Toltec's cultural successors, the Aztecs.
For the Toltecs, however, the myth of Quetzalcoatl was a key feature of their rich tapestry of mythology. He was said to be a warrior king, a real person, who once ruled the mighty Toltecs.
However, he fell foul of the Gods when he only offered animal, and not human, sacrifices to the Gods. He was, eventually, banished eastward for performing "black magic" and would go on an eastward voyage – mirroring the historicity of the Toltec invasion of the Yucatan peninsula.
He was to said to return after ten cycles of their calendar, which amounted to about five centuries.
Assessing the "evidence"
So, to recap. The Norse made it as far west as Newfoundland, in modern-day Canada, by the early 11th century CE.
At this point, the Toltec civilization was at its zenith and extended as far east as the Yucatan peninsula.
We then have a Toltec myth about a white-skinned and bearded God who sailed eastward and was prophetically destined to return to the Toltecs and later Aztec Empires.
Other than a few vague references in one Norse saga, is there any actual evidence that people from Norse societies made it as far as Mesoamerica?
The short answer: no scientific or archaeological evidence has been unearthed yet.
Even allowing the fact that the Vikings had unparalleled success navigating throughout the Western hemisphere, reaching and establishing a settlement in North America, journeying to the Yucatan peninsula appears to be simply too far.
Though a Viking ship was one of the most impressive pieces of maritime engineering in the medieval period, it would still have to travel, from the nearest permanent settlement in Iceland, over 3000 nautical miles (3400 miles / 5556 kilometers) to reach the furthest extent of the Toltec Empire.
The only "scientific" evidence we have is a mural on a temple at Chichen Itza of white figures that appeared to be enslaved by Toltec warriors. Pseudo-historians have used this as proof of a Viking presence in Mesoamerica, but the established academic world dismisses this as mere speculation.
Is it possible that there was European pre-Columbian contact with civilizations in Mesoamerica?
It could be possible but we, at The Viking Herald, like to deal with cold hard facts, and there simply has not been any substantial scientific, or archaeological proof found... yet.
The return of Quetzalcoatl?
Whilst the story of Gudleif to the land beyond Ireland is fascinating, there is a coda to this story. The European invasion of Mesoamerica is a tragic tale of when worlds collided.
Many people believe that the Aztecs, the cultural successors of the Toltecs, were defeated so easily because they believed that Hernan Cortes, leader of the Spanish invasion in the early 16th century CE, played on their beliefs of a white-skinned, bearded God "returning" from the east. He was Quetzalcoatl himself returning from exile.
The latest academic thought, however, is that this was a later Spanish invention, and there was no record of the Aztecs genuinely believing this.
Nonetheless, the ease at which the conquistadors subjugated the great civilizations of Mesoamerica would be a fascinating story if it wasn't steeped in blood, cultural genocide, pain, and suffering.
So, until there is actual scientific proof (other than a few figures painted white on a temple wall) that people from Viking societies traveled to Mesoamerica during the early medieval period, we simply must believe that the tale in the saga is just a source of entertainment and not a historical record.
However, the Viking colonization of North America was dismissed similarly before the settlement was unearthed at L'Anse aux Meadows in the 1960s. Perhaps the sagas will be proved right, a second time, about Vikings in America.
https://www.thevikingherald.com/article/did-the-myth-of-quetzalcoatl-originate-with-a-norse-trip-to-mesoamerica-during-medieval-times/405
Jade Mask, Discovered in Pyramid of the Sun
~Mark Milligan, February 3, 2012
Archaeologists that participate in the Pyramid of the Sun Project, conducted by the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH Conaculta), discovered a series of deposits at the interior of the Prehispanic construction; one of them may be the offering placed during the first 50 years of our era, to consecrate the beginning of the construction of the greatest monument of Teotihuacan
The team of researchers integrated by archaeologists Alejandro Sarabia, Saburo Sugiyama, Enrique Perez Cortes and Nawa Sugiyama, announced this finding registered during explorations conducted in the 65-meters high pyramidal structure from 2008 to 2011.
Using the 116-meters long tunnel excavated in the 1930’s decade by archaeologist Eduardo Noguera, the Pyramid of the Sun Project, directed by Alejandro Sarabia, excavated 59 stratigraphic wells and 3 short tunnels, in order to reach the mother-rock level and verify the presence of burials and offerings.
“We knew that if Teotihuacan people would have placed something inside the monument it would have been done at the tepetate level, so we made a probing well at the end of the tunnel and a short conduct to reach the center of the pyramid, since Noguera tunnel was carved approximately 6 meters to the west of the center of the monument”, commented Perez Cortes.
Over the course of the exploration were discovered – at different distances from the entrance of the tunnel - 3 architectural structures constructed before the Pyramid of the Sun, as well as 7 human burials, some of them corresponding to infants, that were buried before the construction of the building, as well as 2 offerings, one of them of great richness.
The sumptuous offering was discovered at the meter 85 of the tunnel, inside the constructive filling, “so we know it was deposited as part of a consecration ceremony of the structure, probably at the beginning of its construction more than 1900 years ago” mentioned Perez Cortes, researcher at Zacatecas INAH Center.
The rich deposit, where a greenstone mask outstands, was integrated by several levels of objects; since the area of archaeological material extended to the south of the limits of the probing well, they decided to expand the exploration.
Objects that integrate the offering “were elaborated with different materials and techniques; a considerable amount of obsidian pieces outstand, such as projectile heads, small knives, an anthropomorphic eccentric artifact and 3 anthropomorphic figures adorned with shell and pyrite eyes, also accompanied by projectile heads”.
Among the 3 greenstone sculptures found, outstands an extraordinary anthropomorphic mask carved out in one piece, with eyes inlayed in pyrite and shell, declared Perez Cortes; the serpentine mask, according to studies conducted by Dr. Jose Luis Ruvalcaba, from the National University Physics Institute (IF UNAM), is the only greenstone mask discovered until now in the ritual context of Teotihuacan.
The 11 centimeters high, 11.5 wide and 7.8 cm deep mask is different to other Teotihuacan masks because it presents smaller dimensions and has volume; it is possible that it was a portrait. A seashell was found next to the sculpture.
The offering also contained 11 Tlaloc vessels, most of them fragmented, placed in the center of it. Other objects deposited include 3 pyrite discs, being the one with 45 centimeters diameter mounted on a slate slab the greatest recovered until now in Teotihuacan.
An important amount of animal skeletons was found. The skull of a feline was placed to the northeast; a canine to the south, and an eagle covered with volcanic rock, to the southeast. The bird was fed before the sacrifice with 2 rabbits, as analyses reveal. This kind of fauna is similar to the one found at offerings of the Pyramid of Moon.
Researchers from the Pyramid of Sun Project at Teotihuacan Archaeological Zone (ZAT) remarked that the offering remained underwater, since humidity of the monumental structure concentrates on the base and central area.
Dr. Saburo Sugiyama, professor at Aichi University, Japan, and Alejandro Sarabia, director of the archaeological zone located in Estado de Mexico, indicated that for a long time before the discovery, the function of the pyramid was linked to the underworld because of the tunnel excavated by Teotihuacan people.
“Nevertheless, objects found would be indicating that the Pyramid of the Sun –which covers an approximate area of 5.6 hectares- was possibly offered to a rain deity, an early version of Tlaloc, during the first 50 years of the Common Era”.
“Until now, we can only offer a general interpretation of the findings, although it is evident that some of them present the same distribution pattern already observed at the Pyramid of the Moon burials”, concluded the specialists.
Background: The Pyramid of the Sun is the largest building in Teotihuacan and one of the largest in Mesoamerica. Found along the Avenue of the Dead, in between the Pyramid of the Moon and the Ciudadela, and in the shadow of the massive mountain Cerro Gordo, the pyramid is part of a large complex in the heart of the city.
The name Pyramid of the Sun comes from the Aztecs, who visited the city of Teotihuacán centuries after it was abandoned; the name given to the pyramid by the Teotihuacanos is unknown. It was constructed in two phases. The first construction stage, around 100 A.D., brought the pyramid to nearly the size it is today. The second round of construction resulted in its completed size of 738 feet (225 meters) across and 246 feet (75 meters) high, making it the third largest pyramid in the world, but being much shorter than the Great Pyramid of Giza (146 meters). The second phase also saw the construction of an altar atop of the pyramid, which has not survived into modern times. The Adosada platform was added to the pyramid in the early third century, at around the same time that the Ciudadela and Temple of the Feathered Serpent, Teotihuacan Pyramid of the Feathered Serpent were constructed.
Over the structure the ancient Teotihuacanos finished their pyramid with lime plaster imported from surrounding areas, on which they painted brilliantly colored murals. While the pyramid has endured for centuries, the paint and plaster have not and are no longer visible. Few images are thought to have been included in the mural decorations on the sides of the pyramid. Jaguar heads and paws, stars, and snake rattles are among the few images associated with the pyramids.
It is thought that the pyramid venerated a deity within Teotihuacan society but the destruction of the temple on top of the pyramid, by both deliberate and natural forces prior to the archaeological study of the site, has so far prevented identification of the pyramid with any particular deity. However, little evidence exists to support this theory.
https://www.heritagedaily.com/2012/02/jade-mask-discovered-in-pyramid-of-the-sun/24229
In late 2003 a tunnel beneath the Temple of the Feathered Serpent was accidentally discovered by Sergio Gómez Chávez and Julie Gazzola, archeologists of the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH). After days of a heavy rainstorm, Gómez Chávez noticed that a nearly three-foot-wide sinkhole occurred near the foot of the temple pyramid.
First trying to examine the hole with a flashlight from above Gómez could see only darkness, so tied with a line of heavy rope around his waist he was lowered by several colleagues, and descending into the murk he realized it was a perfectly cylindrical shaft. At the bottom he came to rest in an apparently ancient construction – a man-made tunnel, blocked in both directions by immense stones. Gómez was aware that archeologists had previously discovered a narrow tunnel underneath the Pyramid of the Sun and supposed he was now observing a kind of similar mirror tunnel, leading to a subterranean chamber beneath the Temple of the Feathered Serpent. He decided initially to elaborate on a clear hypothesis and to obtain approval. Meanwhile, he erected a tent over the sinkhole to preserve it from the hundreds of thousands of tourists who visit Teotihuacán. Researchers reported that the tunnel was believed to have been sealed in 200 CE.
Preliminary planning of the exploration and fundraising took more than six years.
Before the start of excavations, beginning in the early months of 2004, Victor Manuel Velasco Herrera, from UNAM Institute of Geophysics, determined with the help of ground-penetrating radar (GPR) and a team of some 20 archeologists and workers the approximate length of the tunnel and the presence of internal chambers. They scanned the earth under the Ciudadela, returning every afternoon to upload the results to Gómez's computers. By 2005, the digital map was complete. The archeologists explored the tunnel with a remote-controlled robot called Tlaloc II-TC, equipped with an infrared camera and a laser scanner that generates 3D visualization to perform three-dimensional register of the spaces beneath the temple. A small opening in the tunnel wall was made and the scanner captured the first images, 37 meters into the passage.
In 2009, the government granted Gómez permission to dig. By the end of 2009 archeologists of the INAH located the entrance to the tunnel that leads to galleries under the pyramid, where remains of rulers of the ancient city might have been deposited. In August 2010 Gómez Chávez, now director of Tlalocan Project: Underground Road, announced that INAH's investigation of the tunnel – closed nearly 1,800 years ago by Teotihuacan dwellers – would proceed. The INAH team, consisting of about 30 people supported by national and international advisors at the highest scientific levels, intended to enter the tunnel in September–October 2010. This excavation, the deepest made at the Pre-Hispanic site, was part of the commemorations of the 100th anniversary of archeological excavations at Teotihuacan and its opening to the public.
It was mentioned that the underground passage runs under Feathered Serpent Temple, and the entrance is located a few meters away from the temple at the expected place, deliberately sealed with large boulders nearly 2,000 years ago. The hole that had appeared during the 2003 storms was not the actual entrance; a vertical shaft of almost 5 meters by side is the access to the tunnel. At 14 meters deep, the entrance leads to a nearly 100-meter long corridor that ends in a series of underground galleries in the rock. After archeologists broke ground at the entrance of the tunnel, a staircase, and ladders that would allow easy access to the subterranean site were installed. Works advanced slowly and with painstaking care; excavating was done manually, with spades. Nearly 1,000 tons of soil and debris were removed from the tunnel. There were large spiral seashells, cat bones, pottery, fragments of human skin. The rich array of objects unearthed included: wooden masks covered with inlaid rock jade and quartz, elaborate necklaces, rings, greenstone crocodile teeth and human figurines, crystals shaped into eyes, beetle wings arranged in a box, sculptures of jaguars, and hundreds of metalized spheres. The mysterious globes lay in both the north and south chambers. Ranging from 40 to 130 millimeters, the balls have a core of clay and are covered with a yellow jarosite formed by the oxidation of pyrite. According to George Cowgill of Arizona State University, the spheres are a fascinating find: "Pyrite was certainly used by the Teotihuacanos and other ancient Mesoamerican societies. Originally, the spheres would have shown [sic] brilliantly. They are indeed unique, but I have no idea what they mean." All these artifacts were deposited deliberately and pointedly, as if in offering to appease the gods.
One of the most remarkable findings in the tunnel chambers was a miniature mountainous landscape, 17 meters underground, with tiny pools of liquid mercury representing lakes. The walls and ceiling of the tunnel were found to have been carefully impregnated with mineral powder composed of magnetite, pyrite (fool's gold), and hematite to provide a glittering brightness to the complex, and to create the effect of standing under the stars as a peculiar re-creation of the underworld. At the end of the passage, Gómez Chávez's team uncovered four greenstone statues, wearing garments and beads; their open eyes would have shone with precious minerals. Two of the figurines were still in their original positions, leaning back and appearing to contemplate up at the axis where the three planes of the universe meet – likely the founding shamans of Teotihuacan, guiding pilgrims to the sanctuary, and carrying bundles of sacred objects used to perform rituals, including pendants and pyrite mirrors, which were perceived as portals to other realms.
After each new segment was cleared, the 3D scanner documented the progress. By 2015 nearly 75,000 fragments of artifacts have been discovered, studied, cataloged, analyzed and, when possible, restored.
The significance of these new discoveries is publicly explored in a major exhibition at the De Young Museum in San Francisco, which opened in late September 2017.
A recent discovery of an 1800-year-old bouquet of flowers was made in 2021. The flowers, which were found in the tunnel beneath a pyramid dedicated to the feathered serpent deity Quetzalcóatl, date to between roughly 1 and 200 C.E. It is the first time such a well-preserved plant matter has been discovered at Teotihuacan.
The city of Teotihuacan was characterized by large and imposing buildings, which included, apart from the complexes of houses, temples, large squares, stadiums, and palaces of the rulers, nobles, and priests. The city's urban-ceremonial space is considered one of the most impressive achievements of the pre-Columbian New World. The size and quality of the monuments, the originality of the residential architecture, and the impressive iconography in the colored murals of the buildings or the vases with the paintings of butterflies, eagles, coyotes with feathers and jaguars, but rarely human figures, suggest beyond any doubt a high-level civilization, whose cultural influences were spread and influenced far beyond, what is now, Central Mexico. The main monuments of the city of Teotihuacan are connected to each other by a central road of 45 meters wide and a length of 2 kilometers, called "Avenue of the Dead " (Avenida de Los Muertos), which features a number of temples and grand residences. East is the imposing "Pyramid of the Sun " (Piramide del Sol), the third-largest pyramid in the world. It has an interior volume of more than 1 million cubic meters. It is a gradual pyramid, with a base dimension of 219.4 x 231.6 meters and a height of 65 meters. At the top of the pyramid, there was a huge pedestal, where human sacrifices were made. At the north end of the city, the Boulevard of the dead ends in the "Pyramid of the Moon " (Piramide de la Luna), the second largest of the temples in the complex. It is surrounded laterally by platforms-ramps and lower pyramids. In the southern part is the "Temple of Cetzalkokal" (Quetzalcoatl), dedicated to God in the form of a winged serpent, which gives life and fertility. Sculpture representation of the God in contrasting aspects of war and fertility adorn the two sides of the uphill scale of the temple.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teotihuacan }}
In the present - in real time, we drove to Rainier-OR to collect our mail … and on the way, Holland stopped by the little Don Pedro Mexican Restaurant, on Oregon Way, in Longview-WA; the taco treat fit perfectly with the Cussler-Fargo Adventure novel I'm immersed in right now:
Then, we did a bit of grocery shopping, & I got a little workout that put glute muscles, shoulder muscles, back muscles, & forearm muscles into play with a light cardio spike …
When we got back home & groceries were stored, I checked in on some of my Blogger friends; and saw that 2 of them had featured 2 of my posts on their Blogs:
I also saw that my Amaryllis leaves are getting pretty long; I had rigged a length of yarn as a slap-dash support for 1 of them, and I'm thinking the other will need to also be enclosed - sometime this week. And I think I'll let it go bone dry for a couple weeks; hoping for a 2nd rebloom this winter. I've never done that before, so I'm hopefully curious.
Keeping it in the dark won't be too difficult … keeping it cool, will be: Independence gets pretty hot - even with the AC; and it stays pretty warm even overnight. I'm going to really have to get creative in following these 2nd rebloom directions:
And, like the characters in Clive's story, Holland & I are also rethinking, readjusting, and moving forward trepidatiously with our Plans. We don't know what we'll be doing - or where we will end up when our business here in WA State has been finished. We know we want to continue being road gypsies - and we're trusting Elohim's leading in that.
And hopefully, the crazy weather will have settled down; traveling right now, for any reason, is a risky endeavor.
No comments:
Post a Comment