Originally posted by kdog1982
reply to post by PerfectPerception
There is also mentioned the The Olmec script pre-dates the Mayan script,which,according to my sources ,is not true.
Winters, an expert on Olmec script, which pre-dates the rise of the Maya, quickly recognized that one particular brick (T1 452 R16) was very special, since it had both Olmec and Maya script side by side.
Take a look at this timeline of scripts,go to the bottom were they show meso america.
www.ancientscripts.com...
edit on 25-11-2011 by kdog1982 because: (no reason given)edit on 25-11-2011 by kdog1982 because: (no reason given)
I will admit that I am no expert when it comes to Meso- America but I am under the impression from what I know/read is that the Olmec is considered the "mother culture" and pre-dates the Maya,Aztec -
The Olmecs were said to predate the Mayans, and their civilization declined around 400 BC. Very little information about them exists, but some believe that the Mayan calendar originated with the Olmecs. They are said to have had a major influence on the Mayans and the Aztecs.
They were stone carvers, and some of their enormous stone heads can be seen in the Smithsonian museum. A ball game played by the Aztecs, ullamaliztli, was believed to have been started by the Olmecs and their religious beliefs were believed to have been adapted by the Mayans and Aztecs.
Link
Here is a chronological time-line-
Source
Many ancient artifacts of the Olmec when they were originally found were first thought to be Mayan-
The ancient Olmec civilization is believed to have been centred around the southern Gulf Coast of Mexico area (today the states of Veracruz and Tabasco) - further south east than the heart of the Aztec empire. The Olmec culture developed in the centuries before 1200BC (BCE), and declined around 400BC.
We know far less about the Olmecs than we do about, for example, the Aztecs and Mayans. There are very few written records to tell us about the culture.
In fact, at first Olmec artifacts were thought to be Mayan, and the Mayans were thought to be the first great culture in the area. The generally accepted belief is that the culture arose from people in the area, although some have suggested that the Olmecs may have originally come from Africa.
www.aztec-history.com...
A lot is not known yet about the Olmecs and speculations & different theories are still argued over their origins.
many people may not be aware that it is speculated that the Olmec were the ones who originally created the long count not the mayan -
Located on the back of Stela C from Tres Zapotes the second oldest Long Count date yet was discovered. The numerals written in Maya glyphs; 7.16.6.16.18 translate to September 3rd, 32 BCE in the Julian calendar. The glyphs surrounding the date are one of the few surviving examples of Epi-Olmec script.
The Long Count calendar used by many subsequent Mesoamerican civilizations, as well as the concept of zero, may have been devised by the Olmec who could have had it a very long time. As the six artifacts with the earliest Long Count calendar dates were all discovered outside the immediate Maya homeland, it is likely that this calendar predated the Maya and was possibly the invention, or something possessed of and by the Olmec.
Three of the six artifacts were found within the Olmec heartland later taken over by the Maya. An argument against an Olmec origin is the fact that the Olmec civilization had ended by the 4th century BCE, but we see this as no problem due to the active trade in virtually all other areas. The Long Count calendar required the use of the zero as a place holder within its base-20 positional numeral system.
A shell glyph, was used as a zero symbol for these Long Count dates. The second oldest of of these long counts was found on Stela C at Tres Zapotes and is dated to 32 BCE. This is one of the earliest uses of the zero concept in history on the par with the Hindus who also had a zero and vastly predates the Muslim mathematical system that also had a zero concept.
Link
The more I have come across, the more interesting it all seems to become,definitely need to look more into everything,this originally started just with mention of the second known reference of 2012 and has taken off from there,I would recommend everyone to look further & deeper into the Olmec,very interesting stuff indeed.
edit on 26-11-2011 by PerfectPerception because: (no reason given)
