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User talk:CJLL Wright/Archive XIX
Jan '08Talk pageThanks for the talk page help. Hard-banned Primetime (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) was recently discovered to snuck back and he's angry about being found-out. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 22:24, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
Teo EditsHi CJLL, I think we may have corresponded a bit - I know I have with Madman. Anyway I keep my eye on the Teo page, mostly just to keep it from getting radically inaccurate. It could do with a longer overhaul but that may take a while for me to get to! cheers --Mhrobb (talk) 00:51, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
This svg results in errors on my and other wikipedians browsers when viewed. XML Parsing Error: prefix not bound to a namespace Location: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/ca/Lake_Texcoco_c_1519_.svg Line Number 7, Column 1: ... Kagee (talk) 20:16, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
The Virtual Turistic Guide of Honduras and WP:COIUser Honduristica originally posted an external link on the Honduras wikipedia page that pointed to a commerical advertising supported website ( http://www.honduristica.com The Virtual Turistic Guide of Honduras, in Spanish ) which user Kww deleted as WP:COI (and I agree it is). There have been two subsequent attempts to add the link back to the page posted from the IP address 190.4.46.6. I deleted the first attempt but its back again. Rather than start a delete war I thought I'd ask for another opinion. I visted the site and found almost no content and lots of advertising so I'm of the opinion its not an appropriate or useful link, and that its been posted to generate "clicks". Should this link be included? Rsheptak (talk) 21:48, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
Sorry for reverting your edits. There have been a lot of changes today. Please keep an eye on the article.J Bar (talk) 07:45, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
Sahagun citationThanks for bringing this to my attention. I don’t remember where the “new weds” claim came from when I massively copyedited and cleaned it. But the number of the page is the correct one. I already modified the article accordingly. Cheers and happy new year :) —Cesar Tort 06:32, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
Central America Project templateThanks for the assistance. I just got the admin tools, so I though the lock icon was included in with the new tools for some silly reason. I'm fixing corresponding banners as well. Sorry for the screwup, but I'm still learning. I shouldn't repeat the mistake, though. John Carter (talk) 01:21, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
ChocolaHi. A comment and question about the entry I have been writing on Chocola. The comment: because present knowledge of Chocola originates almost entirely from my project there (Proyecto Arqueologico Chocola), I would suggest to you that if you have questions about the content, professional scholars of Mesoamerica should be invited to review the entry. Some controversy exists between Mayanists who work in the northern Peten, on the one hand (Richard Hansen, for example), and Southern Maya area scholars such as myself. Of course, there is always disagreement among professional scholars; however, a genial but definite disagreement continues to stimulate debate about the origins of Maya civilization. The fact that Chocola, and our work at the site, is reviewed at some length in Robert Sharer's The Ancient Maya (Stanford U Press, 2005), the standard synthetic work on the Maya, warrants my assertion that, in general, scholars do accept the significance of Chocola, even if much remains to be discovered at the site. I do not know your bona fides with respect to the specialty scholarship of the Maya, but if you do have such specialty training, I would assume what I say here will not surprise you. My question: an enormously longer entry could be composed, which would, conceivably, reprise Mesoamerican and Maya civilization (obviously in brief and summary fashion), with another section on the Southern Maya area, with subheaded sections on the highlands of Guatemala, the Pacific coast, and the piedmont; within these subsections, major sites such as Kaminaljuyu and Takalik Abaj would be discussed. Conceivably the bases for our knowledge of the Southern area, with the subsections I have described, would be discussed, as well - ceramics, figurines, monumental sculpture, settlement pattern, and so forth. In addition, theoretical issues could or also should be aired - sociopolitical complexity (how is this defined, origins, and so forth), culture history, the "ancient city," from a comparative prehistory perspective, and in Mesoamerica, linguistics, etc. My question is if an entry on one site, albeit in my view a potentially extremely important one not only for Maya studies but for the study of prehistory, in general, but one where archaeological investigation much continue for many years before we can say for sure exactly what Chocola comprised and meant in the various contexts of discussion possible, are such further sections and subsections warranted? I am sure there are many or will be many entries about Mesoamerica and its ancient cities, cultures, and so forth, so it would seem to me there might be some danger of redundancy, as well as some significant differences of opinion. I do not see, frankly, how all of this could be properly refereed. To sum up, I am more than willing to enlarge the entry on Chocola, but would appreciate guidance. By the way, my doctorate is from Yale, and my advisors were Michael D. Coe and Mary Miller, two of the greatest Mesoamericanists alive today. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jonathan Kaplan1938 (talk • contribs) 03:38, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
Dear CJ, Though, like any active scholar, my plate is full, I will try to expand the Chocola entry with short reprises as discussed, as background, specifically with a section on the "Southern Maya Area." Can you tell me - being somewhat dysfunctional with the composition mechanisms - how to create headings and subheadings? I do agree an entry might be created on the Southern Maya area, and, given time, I can try to come up with something. - Jonathan —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jonathan Kaplan1938 (talk • contribs) 02:32, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
TaggingCame across your comment, completely on accident :) Just wanted to let you know, I've replied, and, I'll stop the process, until we work out the issue presented here. SQLQuery me! 08:48, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
sample draft of expansion of Chocola entryThe following represents a start at a longer entry. It gives you some idea of the complexity of the ideas and subject matter to be tackled; obviously a very compendious bibliography would have to be appended, as well as very numerous links to other topics, such as "Northern Peten sites," "Pacific Coast," "Maya languages," and so forth, to say nothing of many links to more general anthropological and archaeological topics. “Maya Civilization” Controversy continues about the origins of Maya civilization as scholars continue vigorously to search for and engage in debate about the roots or first impulses of what became an ancient civilization that traditionally is considered to have been one of the greatest of the world, that of the ancient Maya. In considering the question, one risks falling into ultimately meaningless arguments about how “origins” might be considered or defined – essentially arguments about inevitably subjectively rendered entities or topics, giving way to questions such as, What is “Maya civilization”? What is “Maya”? What is “civilization”? What allows us to call this or that civilization “great”? and even, What constitutes “ancient” as opposed to “modern”? (This last question is not so hair-splitting as one might think with regard to the Maya since, contrary to popular misunderstanding, the Maya did not disappear in the 10th century AD but continued, albeit in very different yet conceivably more “complex” ways, socially and culturally, until the coming in the 16th century of the Spanish conquerors of the New World.) Despite these seemingly terminologically pitfall-laden inquiries, the research question about Maya origins does contain certain innate justifications for professional focus and elaboration, since all historical topics are, by their very nature, constituted not only by ascriptions weighting the given topic in importance and cast by this or that interpretation or interpretative context but, also, by “fact.” Of necessity, these kinds of questions are rooted in the history of scholarship about this or that topic, and (to use the word even in Foucault’s sense or a critical or reflexive sense) an “archaeology” of the scholarship is undertaken often or inevitably with different or new emphases or de-emphases, usually generationally or paradigmatically determined. “Maya civilization” is both a reality and a construct, with strands in the weave composed of actual patterns and “emergent” entities and characteristics but also of patterns and agentive decisions in the scholarly world, these, themselves, retroactively considered and reconsidered in the same way, more or less, that a great author’s “importance” can enjoy waxings or suffer wanings of estimation. While discussions of “origins” of this or that entity in history is inevitably postdicted – that is, constructed in varying degree by the inquiry and the inquirer, with his or her presuppositions, prejudices and predilections inevitably in play – yet another possible confound is the very equally balanced options of consideration based on ascent or descent, configured in anthropology as between cladistics and genetics, or between overdetermination (per Marx, as in many causes leading to a single result), and multiple determinations from single causes. Again, for reasons of space, this article will not discuss such conceivably unanswerable questions, even though not to do so risks taking archaeology into the realm of armchair story-telling. The author of this article admits to the inclination to consider “cultures,” “peoples,” and “civilizations” in rough agreement with the views of Fustel de Coulanges in the 19th century and Wheatley in the 20th century of the “ancient city” as similar in many ways to the individual organism, with a birth, a life, and a death. Hence, Maya civilization was organic, with its own trajectory of rise and fall, albeit influenced or created in whatever degree by environmental and contextual factors: physical ecological impacts, non-Maya neighbors and rivals, and unique or historically acute contingencies such as earthquakes and volcanic eruptions that decimated ancient polities, rulerships and ideologies, and economic systems and networks. For reasons of space and to avoid spiralling down into unanswerable debates the scope of this article will not nor cannot be expanded to include such topics as “civilization” – although this term and concept has been debated in many different contexts including that of anthropology (see, for example, Kluckhohn and Kroeber’s famous dissection [1952]). The “facts” about the “Maya” – that “Maya” is a distinct and discrete entity in the reality of history, that it is an “emergent” with sufficiently stark and dramatic characteristics to justify its continued emphasis as such – derive from such varied observed inner cohesions as language and “culture” (this term, too, controversial and having many meanings and applications – in the context of this article, it is interchangeable with “cultural traits” and “cultures,” although – somewhat maddeningly – the very notion of fixed “cultures” is somewhat controversial, as well. Indeed, only with misgivings does the responsible prehistorian, historian, or archaeologist seek to avoid such otherwise glaring problems as the notion of “ethnicity,” since ethnicity, according to the work of Barth, Cohen, and others, refers to an entity – an ethnicity – as the product entirely of ascription of identity by a group of itself, and by other groups of that group, according at the most basic level to an existential requisite to distinguish Self from Other). The “Maya” and “Maya civilization” first began to coalesce as distinct topics in history and intellectual discourse with the development of Western, Enlightenment-based intellectual enterprises such as historiography, social science, anthropology and archaeology. Indicative of the “archaeological” nature of the development of the inquiry into the Maya is the fact that the first accurate descriptions and characterizations came from a travel writer, John Lloyd Stephens, a New York lawyer, romantically fascinated explorer, and amateur diplomat assigned the difficult task by President Martin Van Buren of locating for the purpose of presenting diplomatic credentials to the almost completely fictitious “government of Central America.” The difficulty of Stephens’ task derived from the fact that there was no single Central American government, despite very brief manifestations of efforts to create such an entity, efforts which quickly faltered and failed. Ironically – and to the great benefit of Maya scholarship – the very difficulty of Stephens’ mission served as a justification for Stephens to travel widely throughout what in the 1820’s was a true terra incognita to Western eyes, sensibilities and knowledge, and, in most practical respects, to allow him to discover Maya civilization for Western comprehension as a distinct entity spread out over much of Guatemala, southern Mexico, Yucatan, and parts of Honduras and El Salvador. In astonishingly prescient fashion, Stephens noticed a unity to and internal integrity in the jungle-covered edifices of ancient cities, carved monuments, and even Maya hieroglyphic writing, as he travelled, with great difficulty and often at great peril, through Yucatan, Mexico, and Honduras; his descriptions of travelling through some of the most difficult terrain in the world, enduring all sorts of hardship, and eventually succumbing to malaria contracted during his journeys, remain today as breathtakingly exciting as they were when first published – the occasion, indeed, nothing less than the discovery of Maya civilization as a whole. Accordingly, the Maya as a subject that remains wholly fascinating not only to scholars but to millions around the world are due in no small part to Stephens. His uncannily accurate observations and absolutely fresh and original assumptions – uninfluenced and untrammelled by the conclusions of others – not only have held up virtually to the entirety of Maya scholarship after him but have been resorted to nearly continuously by succeeding generations of professional scholars. His partner in travel and in the production of what became bestselling books in the 1830’s was the great illustrator, Leslie Catherwood, whose drawings of hieroglyphic-bearing sculptures and of jungle-choked buildings are prized even today for their depictions of now lost objects and perspectives. While Stephens and Catherwood were not the first Westerners to visit and record their observations of evidences of ancient Maya civilization, they remain unarguably the proper claimants to the title of its discoverers both because of the panoramic view they provided, integrating observations from areas as far distant from one another as Yucatan and northern Honduras, and because of the extraordinary accuracy of their detail and presciently correct conclusions. They remain at least on a par in importance with other great early modern scholars such as Brasseur de Bourbourg, Alfred Maudslay, Alfred Tozzer, and Ernst Förstemann, and later pioneers such as Sylvanus Morley, J. E. S. Thompson, Yuri Knorosov, Tatiana Proskouriakoff, and the extraordinary archaeologists of the Carnegie Institution of Washington. The point behind this detour into the origins of the discussion of the Maya and of Maya civilization is that there were “real” components allowing scholars to consider whatever it is that “Maya” was as a distinct and anciently unified entity, notwithstanding also the very real impacts and influences of scholarly biases, prejudices, presuppositions and predilections that have gone into the construction of the subject; with respect to these latter forces in scholarship, just as they are impactful in the popular mind and imagination for any topic, for the Maya the romantic allure continues to swell the ranks of Mayanists sometimes almost to absurdity and the fine-grained nature of the inquiries almost to the nano-level. The allure of the Maya to the public may be measured by the great proliferation of amusingly if not outrageously nonsensical tracts claiming to interpret the hieroglyphics and Maya calendar according to “New Age” teleologies and eschatologies. The pertinence of this observation for the present article on Chocolá leads into the next a discussion of the Southern Maya Zone, in the very heart of which lies the site of the ancient city of Chocolá. The Southern Maya Zone Maya scholarship long has considered the ancient Maya in a temporal and geographic sense to have come into being, thermometer-fashion – as things began to “warm up,” socially and culturally – at the “bottom,” that is, in Southern Mesoamerica. In other words, events and processes coalesced in the coast, piedmont and highlands of southern Guatemala and the Pacific coast of Mexico. Mayanists principally from Brigham Young University’s New World Archaeological Foundation but from other centers as well have pioneered the efforts to discover the radix of Maya civilization from work at such sites as Izapa and Chiapa de Corzo, building on extraordinary efforts by scholars such as Michael Coe at La Victoria, on the southern Pacific coast of Mexico, and followed up by the work of scholars such as John Clark, Barbara Voorhies, Barbara Stark, and others. Notable, as well, is the work of Franz Termer at Palo Gordo. Work by Carnegie archaeologists, A. V. Kidder and E. M. Shook, at Kaminaljuyu has been fundamental in moving attention to the origins of Maya civilization to the South. Since their work, many other sites have been studied, including Paso de la Amada, El Sitio, El Jobo, La Blanca, and Ujuxte. The notion of an aboriginal Maya stimulus – linguistic, cultural, and ethnic strands interweaving together early on, that is, from late in the Paleoindian or Archaic periods – derives from two primary but not exclusive considerations, reconstructions of Maya linguistics and the Olmec. Beyond these two “emergent” factors, processual archaeology continues to look at functionalist and highly theoretized aspects of social and cultural process, including egalitarian-to-hierarchical communities and other cultural evolutionary sequences for example, those of Service and Fried, and of environmental-based, “man-land interactions,” and zero-sum finite resource responses (e.g., “carrying capacity”). Rough and sometimes illogically and erroneously inspired characterizations of social and development derived from evolutionary biology threaten to muddy the discussion just as traditional yet persistent cultural historical characterizations leave many questions unanswered, given their emphasis on description as opposed to explanation. Discussions of the Southern Maya Zone as important if not essential to the rise of Classic Maya civilization must be related to discussions of the putative primacy of developments in the Northern Petén, and vice-versa. Fundamentally, the debate is between those who put more weight on the temporal priority and complex cultural and social achievements in the South as opposed to those who favour northern Guatemala for these developments. Conclusions based on absolute dating, especially when events are dated by 14C (“calibrated” or “uncalibrated”) – still the most widely used absolute dating method in Mesoamerica – cannot be rendered more fine-grained than ca. 100 years and often are much less precise. Accordingly, the temporal priority debate will remain unresolved unless and until other absolute dating methods such as archaeomagnetics and luminescence (hitherto, thermoluminescence), are applied more widely. While relative dating methods, principally ceramic, are highly reliable, having been cross-referenced from many sites, and with sophisticated statistics available, unless anchored to absolute dates these remain uncertain especially when the scholar’s focus is on the early periods of development in Mesoamerica. “High traits” of ancient Maya civilization prominently include hieroglyphic writing and the Maya Long Count calendar, with the former constituting one of a handful, worldwide, of pristine inventions of writing and the latter comprising the invention of the concept of zero and other mathematical achievements unequalled at the time in Europe as well as extraordinary achievements in astronomy. Beginning in the Late Preclassic period and proliferating exponentially during the Classic Maya period, Maya texts are dateable because correlation can made between Maya Long Count dates and the Gregorian calendar. Accordingly, with great certainty we can speak of the Classic Maya as framed by the large-scale appearance throughout the Maya world of dated texts on carved monuments by the third-fourth century AD, and by the disappearance of these texts on monuments by the 10th century AD. (Consensual acceptance of one correlation between the Maya Long Count and the Gregorian calendar – known as the Good-Martinez-Thompson “or G.M.T.” correlation – has come only fairly recently. In this correlation, a beginning date of August 12, 3114 BC gives the Maya calendar its arrow-of-time character, just as the 0 date for the Christian calendar divides Western time-keeping into an absolute divide and, at the same, permits an infinity of both past and future time to be considered as opposed to “cyclical time.”) One of the arguments in favor of the Southern area as “more seminal” to those of the Petén is based on the thus far inarguable fact that by far the greatest number of hieroglyphic texts and a few of the earliest calendrical texts as well are found in the South, although the very earliest – by ca. 100 years – known thus far are found at Chiapa de Corzo and Tres Zapotes, that is, from sites with an Olmec (or “epi-Olmec”) identity. Calendrical origins, themselves, from the most compelling evidence, must be attributed to a thin latitudinal band stretching across southern Guatemala, and including sites such as Chocolá and Tak’alik Abaj. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jonathan Kaplan1938 (talk • contribs) 06:26, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
Chocola...moreWell it is all in my head and just pours out, the product however of many years of study and thinking about these matters. I do appreciate your feedback and will continue working on this as it seems a good thing to do for the sake providing accurate information for web-surfers around the world! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jonathan Kaplan1938 (talk • contribs) 13:21, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
ChocolaHi. I have added considerably to the Chocola entry. A contemplated final and short section will detail the two most interesting things about Chocola, cacao and hydraulics. I hope my entry is meeting muster. Jonathan (talk) 19:19, 19 January 2008 (UTC) chocola, a bit moreIn answer to Madman's observation that much of the added material is better suited to an entry on the Southern Maya area or on other larger Maya topics, I would argue that Chocola needs to be understood within its context. Given the elaboration of research detail now available, an entry on the Southern Maya area should have its own take on matters. Although I could start this entry, this would have to wait since my plate currently is full. If I were to write it, it would have both more, and much more specific, content and its own large set of references. I tried to send this comment to Madman but could not find a way to do it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jonathan Kaplan1938 (talk • contribs) 19:25, 19 January 2008 (UTC) Celt?I have used the word celt in the article on Sitakunda Upazila, but it is creating some confusion as the word generally means a group of people, not an implement. If you can clear this confusion, please, leave a note on Talk:Sitakunda Upazila. Aditya(talk • contribs) 04:12, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
Chocola stuffHi CJ. I will add page refs to my cits as soon as I can access my library - now in storage after a couple of years with me in Guatemala at Chocola. I appreciate your prefs for how the cits and bibliographies are handled and will try to amend accordingly.Jonathan (talk) 23:38, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
Kaminaljuyu entryDear CJ, The Kaminaljuyu entry is woefully scant, out-of-date, and inaccurate. I did my doctoral thesis on Kaminaljuyu, and, when time permits, with your permission, I would like to try to make it better.Jonathan (talk) 03:04, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
Southern Maya AreaHi CJ. I appreciate your comments and hope you will continue to monitor and advise. It is my professional business, by the way, to be "up" on these matters, although I do not claim to have all or all of the most accurate information. Saying that, there are but a few Mayanists working diligently in the Southern area and I am one of them. At any rate, I will keep pecking away. Cheers!Jonathan (talk) 23:27, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
KaminaljuyuHi CJ, I have worked on the Kaminaljuyu entry and think it pretty fairly complete, given the brevity necessary for an encyclopedia. I sent a table to Madman showing the ceramic sequence of the Highlands/KJ, which is an important part of any entry on the city. I am hoping he can remake it into a web-friendly image and insert it. (I also sent him a map to be used as a basis for a Web map showing the Southern Maya area, and am hoping similarly he can fashion this acceptably to put into the SMA entry.) At any rate, please take a look at it and let me know if it suffices to raise it to a higher level in the Wiki ranking. Jonathan —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jonathan Kaplan1938 (talk • contribs) 17:18, 27 January 2008 (UTC) Takalik AbajHi CJ. The Takalik Abaj entry is woefully inadequate. Example: the text states that TA is the only site known thus far with both Maya and Olmec art and artifacts. This is very far from the fact. I do not have the time at the moment to fix this. If you have on your Meso committee folks like Michael Love, Barbara Arroyo, John Clark, or, best, one of the directors of the Proyecto Nacional Takalik Abaj - Christa Schieber de Lavarreda, who is English-fluent - it would be probably be better handled, although I can do the chore to a minimum of adequacy. But not right now.Jonathan (talk) 21:00, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
Votan NOT WodenI need some help in changing the way that Votan redirects. It currently points to Woden, a Norse god, but really merits a new entry. Votan in Mesoamerican history is the name of a legendary grandson of Noah who reportedly migrated with his family to Mexico after the Flood. His story is recounted in La Historia Antigua de México (1780) by Francisco Javier Clavijero. However, for more than two centuries, this character has been confused with Wotan, Odin, or some other Nordic white guy when in fact he's someone totally different. The current Wikipedia entry is perpetuating that confusion. I'd like to create a separate entry for Votan that would include comments on the mythological figure as well as other entities in popular (and pseudoscientific) Mesoamerican lore, such as "Pacal Votan" and "Valum Votan", who are derived from Clavijero's reference. How do I do that (and also change the relevant redirects)? Hoopes (talk) 07:22, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for your help and suggestions! I had also heard of "Votan" only through pseudoscientific sources (Donnelly first and then later Arguelles), but found more information while doing some research on Brasseur de Bourbourg. I still haven't tracked down a reliable reference to the original late 17th century work by Bishop Nuñez de la Vega that is cited by Clavigero, but his is the earliest reference to Votan I've been able to find so far. The story is repeated by Clavijero in 1780, who is cited in turn by Charles Étienne Brasseur de Bourbourg in 1857 and then Ignatius L. Donnelly in 1882. Both of them mention Palenque, but I suspect that Donnelly, whose work on Atlantis had renewed popularity in the 1960s and 1970s (remember Donovan's "Atlantis"?), is the source for ideas that resulted in the "Pakal Votan" mythology. Any further suggestions on how to improve this entry would be great. Hoopes (talk) 03:11, 31 January 2008 (UTC) Votan's an intriguing character who appears in a great deal of 19tn century literature but all but disappears from everything but pseudohistorical and pseudoscientific discussion in the 20th century. From his first mention, his story is encumbered with speculation about Noah and migrations from the Old World to the New. Over time, due primarily to the similarity of "Votan" and "Wotan", there is even more speculation about his being a "white" wanderer from Europe. I'm guessing that many academics began avoiding discussion of Votan with the rise of the Third Reich, Nazi archaeology, and references to Votan in SS lore, and this continued as his mythology expanded with New Age speculation. Despite his prominent mention in early literature, his name is absent from the index of Morley's "The Ancient Maya" and he didn't rate an entry in Miller & Taube's ""The Gods and Symbols of Ancient Mexico and the Maya". I decided to create this entry to try and head off some of the mystery that fosters wild speculation. Furthermore, there may well be an interesting story behind the original Votan. Hoopes (talk) 03:55, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
Michael E. Smith is again active on WikipediaCJLL, I wanted to alert you, in your role as the Official Greeter and Ringmaster of WP:MESO, that Michael E Smith is again active here at Wikipedia. In fact, I just posted to his Talk page responding to a rather unhelpful editor who accused Dr Smith of a conflict of interest. FYI, Madman (talk) 17:57, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
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