Site of sacrifices: This ancient artwork depicts what human sacrifice might have been like during the hey day of the Inca culture.Courtesy Peru ArcheologicalJust in case you thought Mel Gibson’s movie Apocalytpo was a complete work of fiction, you might now want to reconsider. Researchers in Peru have uncovered the oldest-known Inca plaza, 5,500-year-old site was found in northern Peru.
Through carbon dating of items found at the site, researchers figure that plaza was in use between 3500 and 3000 B.C.
Much like today’s sites of spiritual gathering and rituals, the plaza was an impressive structure made of stone and adobe. It is circular in shape and sunken in to the ground of the Sechin Bajo archeological site in the Andes foothills about 200 miles northwest of Lima, Peru.
Next door, archaeologists also found a life size frieze depicting a sacrificer holding a knife in one hand and a human head in the other. That art piece as been dated as being about 3,600 years old.
All of the dating work on the Peru site gives further evidence that a very advanced society was bustling in the Americas at the same time that other urban cultures were thriving in Egypt and Mesopotamia.
Mel Gibson's Apopcalypto is as based on real Central American history as Braveheart is on real Scot history. I think that's actually what the real danger is. It is (very) loosely based on actual events, but the interpretation of those events is complete fiction - Gibson even admitted as much. The idea of the European's coming in to save the natives from themselves!?!?
But that's not was you're writing about. I just got off on a rant sorry. I suppose if it does encourage more students (and people) to study the ACTUAL history of native peoples, then that is all for the better.
Just a thought for you: in case you don't want to sound, um, ignorant to the rest of the world, take note that Mel G's movie was about the jungle/savanna dwelling MAYAN people of the Yucatan Peninsula--several hundred miles to the north of Peru....
And who said that Mel's use of Europeans in the final scene of Apocalypto had anything to do with 'saving' people? The ending could just as likely have meant that the cycle of capture/conquest/slaughter was about to repeat itself.
Oh umm this kinda something i have never heard of. I guess learning new stuff everyday.
how do they found out such an old thing out????
omG!!
I love that movie...
But the sacrifices were kinda disturbing to me...
If the last thing i saw was my heart...
I'd be trippin'...
Like give me my heart back you fools... I need that.... LOL!!! ^_^
Post new comment