check out the pics in the first link, it is truly awesome.



http://www.delange.org/Cholula/Cholula.htm

http://www.geocities.com/atlantis01mx/pueb...ala/cholula.htm

http://www.panoramio.com/photo/294395

those first pics are nice man. good job
never heard of cholula before. gonna go find more stuff on it.

It's a little off the beaten track, about 2 hours from Mexico City to Puebla. There are a fair amount of turists, but still largely ignored compared to Teotihuacan and Chitizenitza, Tula, La Venta, Palenque etc.


Here's a photo I took last week from the central Zocalo looking toward the pyramid.Click to view attachment

You should take a trip.



You would think so, but the Church is hundres of years old. The people wouldn't stand for that.

yeah i know you are right, but regarding the church, example. if a very rare chippendale table was discovered and a person had painted it white, wouldent it be obvious to carefully take the paint off to reveal the beauty that is underneath that was orignally there. but yeah i can only dream they will never move that church, lets pray for an earthquake. lol.
South america has so much to show us about our ancient history, this place opens more ideas. and i belive there is a lot more in south america we yet have to discover.
Thanks for showing us this aztecwarrior.

Lovely Pictures.. A friend of mine went to Teotihuacan and Chitizenitza a couple of months back... I don't think this one is on the main tourist trails which must have been nice...

Happy to enlighten you L.....Mexico is in North America, by the way.

If a painting was done by Pablo Picasso and underneath is was a Leonardo Di Vinci....tough call. Still, I agree with you that the pyramid should be restored to its full glory.

Yeah sorry man, my bad. But you know what i mean regarding these structures.

i dont know , i can see the pyramid being a Picasso or a Di Vinci. but i dont think the church compares, not in its present location. somewhere else sure it would be a Picasso or better, but where it is now, excuse my rudness, its in the way.
no offence, hope you know what i mean.

i thought they were TEMPLES in S and N America not pyramids ???

on sites where the majority of people have studied American cultures they are known as temples
sites like this one pyramids will do
after all theres a few threads here where a hill is being called a pyramid ("just like those pyramids in latin america" (quote Osmaganic))

Although these look like temples, these are refered to as pyramids. Guimar pyramids


http://www.ferco.org/ferco_pyramids.html

pyramid is merely a reference to the shape of a structure
strictly speaking the only true ancient pyramids on earth are in egypt
the rest are either Mausoleums (you remember them louie) temples or ziggurats (though strictly speaking ziggurats are also temples)

the Cholula pyramid isn't ancient
for that it has to predate the Roman civilisation (technically)

tell that to the archelogists who termed these structures pyramids, rember that apolloyn,
is the spelling killing ya yet

straw man alert
which archaeologists have stated that those structures are pyramids ?
please provide a list with quotes and links
other wise I shall just presume you are talking about Graham Hancock
again

the spelling isn't killing me
but everytime you type it like that after being shown its incorrect that people will presume you're an idiot
or just being difficult
or probably both

Zesus ghost, so ure telling me that all the structures around the world that are termed as pyramids, are not. is that what ure saying. are u saying structures named as pyramids( not by me i might add) by archelogists, are all wrong, and now you want me to provide you with a comprensive list of structures, so you can dispute them.


ok lets start
i start u finish..
south american.......
north american.......
sudanese......
chinese......
canary islands........

as a very famous man once said. you sir are an ass with a hole wrapped around it.

the spelling isn't killing me
but everytime you type it like that after being shown its incorrect that people will presume you're an idiot
or just being difficult
or probably both
Oh when im dealing with post whore know it all, its most definitly the latter.

I asked you to provide a list of comments by qualified archaeologists where they named any of those sites as pyramids
couldn't do it could you

see thats exactly what I thought youd say
Archaeologists don't say that those sites are pyramids
the only sites calling them that are the ones with links to ufo.com or Aliensdidit.nut

did you just call me an a******
did it make you feel better about your dwindling credibility to call me that ?

south american.......temples
north american.......mounds/temples
sudanese......pyramids (modelled on those in egypt)
chinese......mausoleums (you still didnt get that yet ?)
canary islands........ step pyramids (named as pyramids by Thor Heyerdhal who wasn't qualified to name them)
in future use this

if what youre ranting about isn't this shape then it isn't a pyramid

apollyon and louie, please cut out the childish personal attacks and insults. If you can not post in a mature manner please refrain from posting at all.

excuse me
I have not posted any childish personal attacks or insults of any kind
I am not the one here calling another poster an a******

lets alll take few deeeep breaths and try to get back on topic ?? what do you say ?

Gentlement,
The word "Pyramid" is of greek origin. The closest thing in the ancient egyptian writings or glyphs is "Perimus" referring to heights.
Yes the structures in Mesoamerica are called pyraimids by some archeologist.



Mexican Pyramids

more pyramids

then please name them and provide links to them saying so

the english word pyramid is derived from the french word Piramide which in turn is derived from Latin Pyramides which is derived from the greek word Pyramis which is an adaption of the egyptian word Pimar which meant pyramid

the shape known in geometry is derived from the greek word Pyramis
so the shape in geometry is based on the egyptian pyramids
so anything not looking like the great pyramid at Giza basically is not technically a pyramid

Wikipedia:
“The word “PYRAMID” may refer to the Greek word “PYRAMIS” whose plural is “PYRAMIDES.” When we tried to know the origin of this word in the hieroglyphic language, we had two suppositions, first either it is derived from the word “PEREM-US” which means in the hieroglyphic language the vertical height of a pyramid in math and it seems the Greeks have changed it till it became Pyramid, or (and this is the second supposition) this word may be of Greek origin and does not have an origin in the hieroglyphic language. As you see this subject doesn’t have any importance at all, but it should have been mentioned.”

please give your source for Pimar?

Wikipedia:
“The word “PYRAMID” may refer to the Greek word “PYRAMIS” whose plural is “PYRAMIDES.” When we tried to know the origin of this word in the hieroglyphic language, we had two suppositions, first either it is derived from the word “PEREM-US” which means in the hieroglyphic language the vertical height of a pyramid in math and it seems the Greeks have changed it till it became Pyramid, or (and this is the second supposition) this word may be of Greek origin and does not have an origin in the hieroglyphic language. As you see this subject doesn’t have any importance at all, but it should have been mentioned.”

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=pyramid

sometimes wiki isn't enough, the part you are quoting is based on an article at http://library.thinkquest.org/C0116484/eng.../pyramid001.htm
which was written by a student
the actual ancient Egyptian hieroglyph used to denote pyramid was "Mer"
so the differences are probably to do with the time frame
the ancient egyptian word of Mer eventually became pimar during the Hellenic period
couldn't have been earlier than that could it

btw you double posted

http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary

Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary defines a pyramid as stated above. The part important regarding the Cholula pyramid is the second part, "A structure or object of similar form." The key word being similar. Could not a pile of rocks be called a pyramid?

ok i have nt the time to source every comment on every pyramid, but seeing that you are right , i feel its your moral duty to email these people and tell them they are misinforming the public with the words pyramids. ive gathered a list where you can start. have fun, and let them down gently.

http://www.google.fi/search?hl=fi&q=So...amids&meta=


http://www.google.fi/search?hl=fi&q=no...amids&meta=

http://www.google.fi/search?hl=fi&q=su...amids&meta=

http://www.google.fi/search?hl=fi&q=bl...amids&meta=

http://www.google.fi/search?hl=fi&q=ch...amids&meta=

http://www.google.fi/search?hl=fi&q=gr...amids&meta=

http://www.google.fi/search?hl=fi&q=au...amids&meta=

all you've proved is that there are people as ignorant of the true nature of a pyramid as you are whose comments you can acess via google
tell me something I don't know

this was the question

now this is the third and last time I will ask you it
seeing as you've attempted to avoid answering it twice already I don't expect you to do any better this time

What? Who told you that?


Oh really!

A pyramid is any three-dimensional structure where the upper surfaces are triangular and converge on one point. The base of pyramids are usually quadrilateral or trilateral (but generally may be of any polygon shape), meaning that a pyramid usually has three or four sides. The measurements of these triangles uniformly classify the shape as isosceles and sometimes equilateral.

A pyramid's design, with the majority of the weight closer to the ground, means that less material higher up on the pyramid will be pushing down from above. This allowed early civilizations to create stable monumental structures. For thousands of years, the largest structures on Earth were pyramids: first the Red Pyramid in the Dashur Necropolis and then the Great Pyramid of Khufu, the only remaining Wonder of the World. The largest pyramid ever built, by volume, is the Great Pyramid of Cholula, in the Mexican state of Puebla. This pyramid is considered the largest monument ever constructed anywhere in the world, and is still being excavated.



Just because the pyramid of Khufu is the oldest, doesn't make it the only pyramid in the world. Jeeze.......... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyramid

READ the first part of my last post an you got ure answer, are you even reading peoples post or just getting ready to hear your own voice.

i asked for specific quotes from Archaeologists
you linked to pages from Google
what is it about english you don't understand ?

ADMINSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Ok thats it, im done with you know. you irritate me. ok dont quote me dont follow me around threads like you have been doing, ignore me, just like i dont exist ok.
ok you understand you rude little man. if you keep refering to me i will report you every time, ok got it, bye bye now.

so in other words you admit that calling south american temples, pyramids is an act of ignorance
is that it ?

Hey Aztec warrior, have you any more of your pics of this place, and any news on the alignment.

Those are some nice pictures of the site, I've been there a handful of times myself; it's one of my favorite places in mexico. You seem to be getting a hard time about calling it a pyramid so let me see if I can help. Officially, it is called The Great Pyramid of Cholula, even in archaeological textbooks, however I'm sure my saying so isn't a "direct quote from an archaeologist" so how about these..I can get more if need be:

Romero, Javier
1935 "Estudio de los entierros de la Pirámide de Cholula." In Anales del Museo Nacional de Antropología, Historia y Etnografía, Época 5, tomo 2.


also from an archaeological report published on the FAMSI (The Foundation for the Advancement of Mesoamerican Studies, Inc.)----I know its a bit long but it uses the words pyramid and cholula many times and is written by 2 archaeologist.

QUOTE

The "Dating Cholula" project was designed to develop an independent chronological sequence for Cholula based on radiocarbon dates derived from excavated archaeological contexts. Funding provided by FAMSI paid for an initial suite of 16 14C dates from a number of distinct contexts in Cholula: fill inside the earliest construction phases of the Great Pyramid (samples obtained by the Tetimpa Project), fill from two buried adobe platforms to the northeast of the Pyramid (samples obtained by the Sondeo Arqueológico Rancho de la Virgen 2002), strata with Early Postclassic ceramics on the north side of the main square of San Pedro Cholula (sample obtained by the Sondeo Arqueológico Colegio Coley B. Taylor, 2002), and a bell-shaped pit with Middle Formative ceramics on the Universidad de las Américas campus (samples obtained by the Rescate Arqueológico UA-03A, 2003). These initial dates allow us to confirm an early Middle Formative occupation along the southern edge of the swamps, the emergence of monumental constructions during the second century A.D., and evidence of a major volcanic event that separates the Classic and Postclassic in Cholula.

Dr. Patricia Plunket

Dr. Gabriela Uruñuela

Patricia Plunket and Gabriela Uruñuela, professors of anthropology at the Universidad de las Americas in Puebla,
Javier Romero Molina Department of Physical Anthropology of the National Museum of Anthropology
so
did you check these sources in your rush to prove yourself wrong ?

It is truly a beautiful site, id love to see it restored to its original state.
Ignore the rude ones in here, i dont think itll be long before people get tired of him and start reporting him.
Welcome to UM

They may not be archaeologists, but they are probably archeologists, or possibly arkyologysts.

Harte

Why do you insist the the Great Pyramid of Chulula is not a pyramid? Now your saying these professors don't exist, or are not worthy. Patricia Plunket is the Department Head.

I suggest you find one Archeologist who says it is not a pyramid, since it is so commonly accepted. Your contentiousness is absurd and more than childish.

Inicio » Investigación » Miembros del SNI



En la Universidad de las Américas Puebla, uno de cada cinco de los profesores de tiempo completo son investigadores acreditados por el Sistema Nacional de Investigadores del CONACYT, lo cual asegura que contamos con personal calificado a nivel internacional para llevar a cabo proyectos de investigación, tanto básica como aplicada, y así mantener nuestros posgrados en la frontera del conocimiento.

Los investigadores acreditados por el Sistema Nacional de Investigadores son los siguientes:

No. Escuela Nombre Nivel
S.N.I.

1 EDNE Aguilar Ochoa José Arturo 1
2 EDIC Alarcón Waess Olegario 1
3 EDIC Anaya Berrios Cecilia 1
4 EDIC Ayala San Martín Gerardo 1
5 EDIC Báez López José Miguel David 1
6 EDIC Bárcenas Pozos María Eugenia 1
7 ECSAH Barrientos Lavin Gustavo Ernesto 1
8 EDNE Buendía Luna José Fernando 1
9 ECSAH Castells Talens Antoni 1
10 ECSAH Cisneros Espinosa José 1
11 EDIC Corona Vásquez Benito 1
12 EDIC Díaz García Juan Antonio 1
13 EDNE Freije Rodríguez Samuel 1
14 EDIC Garces Eisele Solon Javier 1
15 ECSAH Garduño Estrada León Rafael 1
16 EDIC González Oreja José Antonio 1
17 EDIC Guerra Vázquez Francisco 1
18 EDIC Guerrero Beltrán José Ángel 1
19 EDNE Ibarra Niño Carlos Alberto 1
21 ECSAH Knab Herbes Timothy James 1
22 EDIC Kozanoglu Diblan Bulent Umur 1
23 ECSAH López Vázquez Esperanza 1
24 EDIC Majewski Szymiec Tadeusz 1
25 ECSAH Mena Alemán David 1
26 EDIC Méndez Rojas Miguel Ángel 1
27 ECSAH Mendoza Velázquez Alfonso 1
28 EDIC Osorio Galindo Mauricio Javier 1
29 EDIC Palou García Enrique 1
30 ECSAH Porras Hernández Laura Helena 1
31 EDIC Quiroz Alfaro Marco Antonio 1
33 EDIC Reyes Mazzoco René 1
34 ECSAH Reynoso Angulo Víctor Manuel 1
35 EDIC Rodríguez Asomoza Jorge 1
36 ECSAH Santos Moreno Antonio 1
38 ECSAH Stanton Zielke Travis William 1
39 EDIC Starostenko Basarab Oleg 1
40 EDIC Sudhakara Katapadi Vadirajara 1
41 EDNE Valdez Muñoz Raúl 1
42 EDIC Velez Ruiz Jorger Fernando 1
43 EDIC Vergara Briceño Carlos Hernán 1
44 ECSAH Vilar Payá María Luisa 1
45 ECSAH Alonso Herrero José Antonio 2
46 ECSAH Azor Hernández Ileana 2
48 EDIC López-Malo Vigiel Aurelio 2
49 ECSAH Marchand Westerman Marianne Helena 2
50 ECSAH Marván Garduño María Luisa 2
52 ECSAH Plunket Nagoda Patricia 2
53 EDIC Raynal Villaseñor José Ángel 2
54 ESCAH Rich Miller Paul John 2
55 EDNE Rojas Herrera Luis Mariano 2
56 EDIC Rosales Medina Marco Antonio 2
57 EDIC Rückmann Jan-Joachim 2
58 ECSAH Salinas Amescua Bertha 2
59 EDIC Sobczyk Wyrzykowsky Garret Eugene 2
60 EDIC Todorov Maxim Ivanov 2
61 ECSAH Uruñuela Ladrón de Guevara María Gabriela 2
62 EDIC Welti Chanes Jorge Santos 2
63 EDNE Zukowski Poplawska Ryszard Antoni 2
64 EDIC Vysloukh Enisova Victor Andreevich 3
65 EDIC Alarcón Aquino Vicente C
66 EDIC Castro Pastrana Lucila Isabel C
68 ECSAH López Cuenca Alberto Javier C
69 EDNE Luna Reyes Luis Felipe C
70 ECSAH Magallanes Blanco Claudia C
71 EDIC Navarro Cruz Reyla Areli C
72 ECSAH Norman Emma Rebecca C
73 EDIC Reyes Ramírez Rosemberg C
74 EDIC San Martín González María Fernanda C
* * Ruiz Argüelles Alejandro 3
* * Ruiz Argüelles Guillermo 3


DAN - Department of Anthropology

Dra. Patricia Plunket Nagoda
Department Chief
phone: +52 (222) 229 2048
extension: 2048
e-mail: patricia.plunket@udlap.mx
office: HA-106

Through its two undergraduate programs: Cultural Anthropology and Archaeology, and its graduate program of Anthropology of Mexico Studies, the Department of Anthropology promotes the comparative study of human being in every cultural and biological aspect, both in the past and in the future. Anthropology is one of the broadest disciplines in the contemporary academic world, since it has important relationships with physical sciences and humanities, apart from all the social sciences. The Department provides its alumni with a solid theoretical, methodological and practical anthropology formation, so that they have the ability to take advantage of their knowledge in the discipline’s applications, or as foundations of a graduate career that enables them to devote themselves to high level research.

There are multiple interest areas and they cover development, usage and protection of cultural wealth; the study of the different groups that constitute the country besides the design, operation, monitoring and assessment of the problems affecting them; working on problems that influence biological aspects of the population and the analysis of communication and knowledge transmission forms. Its work fields include the government at its different levels, higher-education institutions, museums, the private sector and non-government organizations.

Academic programs
Cultural Anthropology Undergraduate Program
Archaeology Undergraduate Program
Anthropology of Mexico Studies Graduate Program

Staff of the UDLA, an Southwest accredited University. Link to UDLA

Sorry L, almost forgot. Here you go!

A cosmic parallelogram formed by congruent triangles

To the north of the pyramid of Cholula is a small hill known as Montero, which also aligns with the solar zenith (69.67 degrees) that passes over La Malinche, the hill Teoton and Popocatepetl.At this hill there is also an archaeological site with ceramic remains from the Preclassic period, as well as caves, a large rock on its summit with inscriptions, and a cross. With the use of a GPS unit, a cartographic reading of the hill gives an elevation of 2, 189 meters, with a latitude of 19.08'12" and a longitude of 98.17'40".

With regards to the importance of this site in the vernacular geography, lets cite the words of the archaeologist Ismael Arturo Montero, with whom we visited at the said hill in May of 1996:

“The landscape surrounding the cross of the hill Montero is impressive; the alignments are astounding: first, a straight line links the volcano the Malinche to the northeast with the cross of the hill Montero, which serves as a marker at the center, with the hill Teoton to the southeast, and the summit of the volcano Popocatepetl; this lines orientation is 250 degrees.From Montero to the peak of the volcano Popocatepetl (approx.); the second alignment corresponds to the south, exactly at 188 degrees (taking into account any magnetic deviation) and, at a distance of 8.30 km from Montero, stands the pyramid of Cholula.”

The following image (Figure 5), having a departure point at the pyramid of Cholula, better represents the foregoing statement:



Figure 5.From C (pyramid of Cholula) to P (volcano Popocatepetl), a M (hill Montero) and back to C, forms a scalene triangle.Note that the line PM intersects T, the point corresponding to the hill Teoton.

Directly to the north of the volcano Popocatepetl with a bearing of 0 degrees, there is a site called Apatlaco, located on the eastern flank of Iztaccihuatl, approximately 1, 600 meters to the west of Cerro Gordo.Figure 6 demonstrates how the sites of Cholula-Apatlaco-Montero-Cholula form the following triangle:



Figure 6.A line that goes from C (pyramid of Cholula) to A (Apatlaco) to M (hill Montero) and back to C.Note that the line AC intersects T (Teoton) creating a figure that in shape and dimension also corresponds to a scalene triangle

Both scalene triangles have the same shape and their corresponding sides and angles are equal.Both pairs of opposite sides are parallel, thus creating a parallelogram.The parallelograms diagonals intersect each other.This in turn places T (Teoton) precisely at its center.Thus, making the pyramidal hill Teoton and its ancient shrine an axis mundi, such as is illustrated in the following model:



Figure 7. The parallelogram of the hill Teoton.

In this way we observe that the axis mundi or navel of the earth, located at the hill Teoton, constitutes a radial center for a cosmic quadrangle, better described as a cosmic parallelogram, having vertices of

NW
Apatlaco:Situated directly to the north of Popocatepetl and at 1, 600 meters to the west of Cerro Gordo.Located under the alignment of 97.90 degrees
NE

Cerro Montero:Situated to the north of Cholula.Located under the alignment of the zenith passage of the sunrise over La Malinche and intersects the hill Teoton and Popocatepetl

TEOTÓN

Popocatépetl:Located directly to the south of Apatlaco.It lies under the alignment of the zenith passage of the sunrise over La Malinche and intersects the hill Teoton and Popocatepetl.
SW
Cholula: This great pyramid is situated to the south of the archaeological site of the hill Montero. It lies on the alignment of 97.9 degrees.During the last twenty-five centuries, Cholula has been a religious Mecca and a commercial center.
SE


Link for the graphs.

thanx a lot for the informations AZTEC WARRIOR
great work
you are good informed
may i ask you something?
Do you believe that all these amazing pyramids were build from mayans,inkas,aztecs?
I think there s no possibility for them

Good question Alex. Some of the pyramids predate the Mayans and Aztecs. The Inkas are from S. America...Peru, by the way. The Olmecs are pretty much the first recognized civilization from Mesoamerica. The inhabitants of Teotihuacan had already departed by the time the Toltecs came. The Aztecs were still a little later and they ruled Central Mexico for quite a while, hundreds of years. The Toltecs built a temple in Tula and erected giant statues which face East towards the Atlantic. They called these beings, Atlante's.

Go figure. Some say the inhabitants of Atlantis may have played a role in the history of Mesoamerica. Ignatius Donnelly wrote a fantastic book just about that, called.... Atlantis: The Antediluvian World by Ignatius Donnelly (1882). I have that book in my library.

Anyways you should start by reading about the Olmecs and proceed forward in time. Here is a photo of the giant Olmec head.



Here are some good books.
Healan, Dan M. 2001. Tula de Hidalgo. Pp. 775-777 in Archaeology of Ancient Mexico and Central America. Ed. Susan Toby Evans and David L. Webster.

Smith, Michael E. and Lisa Montiel 2001 The archaeological study of empires and imperialism in pre-hispanic central Mexico. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology

Here is good research web site

http://www.mc2-map.org/foundation-i.htm

ipromise to look for those books...in greek translation
it will be difficult:(
i hope there s a greek edition of them
I ve read that some of the pyramids in latin america were built about 8 000 BC.
One of them was buried under lava of a close volcano that exploded thousand of years before
My theory is that all of these great monuments were not built from human hands.
Gods built them for sure.
I dont think that there s no other explanation.
I m looking at the pyramid of Sun now
its amazing,isnt it?What a shape man....increddible

Alex, I'm not sure about any of those books in Greek, but you might find some stuff in your Greek Encyclopedia's. And I don't think any of the known ruins have been dated beyond 4000 BC. More than one pyramid was buried in lava and ash. I will try to look that up for you.

I personally don't think they were built by gods, but perhaps extraterrestials played a role. Who knows.

Here you go Alex.

The Cuicuilco pyramid
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Author: * Cuauhtemoc Acamapichtli -
Date: Apr 5, 2007 - 07:07

The tiered Cuicuilco pyramid is the first large-scale stone monument on the Mexican plateau. It has a base about 370 feet (110 meters) in diameter and currently stands at a height of 60 feet (20 meters), though it was originally much higher.

It is not a true pyramid, being rather a truncated conical mound, with a clay-and-rubble core faced with river boulders and basalt slabs. The summit was reached by ramps on two sides. The circular pyramid is surrounded by smaller structures and rectangular buildings with well-finished floors which may have been houses. Lava from eruptions of the nearby Xitle volcano covers the lower part of the round pyramid.

Radiocarbon dating of finds buried beneath the Xitli lava flows date the initial construction of the "pyramid" to be between 800 to 600 BCE, later remodeling until about 200 BCE, and total abandonment before 150 CE.

A good selections of photographs can be seen here: Cuicuilco Pyramid Archaeological Ruins

The Cuicuilco Pyramid Controversy

Do a search for "Cuicuilco pyramid" on Google and you'll turn up hundreds of pseudoscience/New Age websites claiming that the Xitli lava flows that cover Cuicuilco date to around 6050 BCE, thus making the city itself much older than official dating, and almost as old as the earliest prehistoric dweller found in Mesoamerica.

This dating of the lava deposits was put forth by pseudoarchaeologist Graham Hancock in his book Fingerprints of the Gods, as evidence to support his theory of highly-advanced civilizations existing in prehistory, and seems to have derived from a garbled (and since disproven) estimate made by Byron Cummings prior to the development of radiocarbon dating.

The debunking of this 'revisionist' dating for the pyramid is covered by Paul V. Heinrich of Louisiana State University in his The Wild Side of Geoarchaeology summary.


This dense volcanic lava field that covers the site of Cuicuilco, over 10 meters deep in places, was a major factor in its preservation but also makes the true size and complexity of the prehistoric city difficult to ascertain. The site is also partially covered by a modern town which has damaged it, and only partial archaeological investigation has been possible. Linky

There is serious contention of this idea in archaeological circles:
Source


No, they didn't. The Spanish gave them that name, which is only an architectural term and has nothing to do with Plato's fictional "lost continent."

Source: wiki

A neat trick for a nonexistent fantasy culture.


This book is available free at Sacred-Texts.com: "Atlantis, the Antediluvian World."

If you actually read it, even you will recognize a massive amount of erroneous material. This is not all Donnelly's fault, since when he wrote this book very little was known about the ancient world.

Harte

Ok Harte, let's go. And yes I read it, thank you. *What a snide remark*

"Massive" amounts of erroneous material. Some perhaps, but you answered your own statement by admitting that in the late 1800's less was know of the modern world. Still, his book was generations beyond anything prior and it is very detailed, even if you don't agree with some of his theories. As for the actually naming of the statues, I should have been more clear. Those idols are referred to as Atlante. In fact, we don't even know about the Toltecs language.

There is very little agreement among the “authorities” about the people who lived in central Mexico two millennia ago known as the Toltecs. Some say they built the city and pyramid complex at Teotihuacán, and others say they came there after the decline and abandonment of that mysterious site. Some sources call the Toltecs a peaceful and spiritual society, and others imagine it as bloody warrior culture. The Toltecs left behind no written language, and the art that has survived offers few clues to their lives. The conflicting mythologies and histories about them have come mainly from the Aztecs, who came after them and found their city in ruins, the Spaniards who settled the area much later, and recent archeological explorations.

More than 2000 years ago, small tribes and villages lived in settlements throughout the central plains of what we now call Mexico. They farmed and hunted, and generally lived peacefully. For reasons that will probably never be known, there were individuals among these scattered peoples with a desire to form a new community of artists and spiritual seekers.

These seekers were drawn to an area with large caverns north of present day Mexico City, surrounded by old volcanic mountains. As their numbers grew, so did the size and sophistication of their city. In time, they began to build a complex of plazas, temples, and pyramids that grew and changed throughout the centuries. We now know these people as the Toltecs, and their city as Teotihuacán-- which means “The Place Where Humans Awaken and Remember Their Divinity.” In that Teotihuacán the mile long Avenue of the Dead with its temples and plazas, and the Pyramids of the Sun and Moon, shimmered white in the bright sun of the high plains. The sound of flutes and drums, and the smell of copal incense were always present in the air. Priests and masters trained their apprentices in the spiritual and physical crafts in this beautiful place. Link

Who else contends that the Olmecs were not the first civilization in Mesoamerica? Stoltman, never heard of him.
"At issue here is trade pottery," says Stoltman, an emeritus professor of anthropology and an archeologist more familiar with the ancient native cultures of the Southeastern and Midwestern United States.

If you want to debate the clovis first model, well that's another subject. Although, I happen to agree with you that other cultures were abundant at the time of the Olmec, including those in Oaxaca, Puebla and Tlaxcala. Nevertheless, the Olmec are still, in most circles, currently recognized as the first real civilization.
I will be exploring La Venta next month, and I'll describe all about it.

Thank you for clearing up the water that you yourself muddied with your innuendo about the fantasy that the "Atlantians" were involved in South America. Regarding Donnelly, of course his book was "generations beyond anything prior," since there wasn't anything prior beyond the theosophist ramblings of the con artist Madame Blavatsky.


Don't have time right now to get into this - gotta get my son off the bus in 5 mins or so.

Aztec, if I don't get back to you, post here again so the thread comes back toward the top of the list. I have a hard time keeping up with my posts here otherwise.

Harte

The first signs of complex society in Mesoamerica are that of the Olmec civilization who were prominent in Mesoamerica from as early as 1500 BCE through 100 BCE, although there is evidence that the Olmec culture existed into the Common Era.

In March 2005, a team of archaeologists used NAA (neutron activation analysis) to compare over 1000 ancient Mesoamerican Olmec-style ceramic artifacts with 275 samples of clay so as to "fingerprint" pottery origination. They found that "the Olmec packaged and exported their beliefs throughout the region in the form of specialized ceramic designs and forms, which quickly became hallmarks of elite status in various regions of ancient Mexico.

In August 2005 another study, this time using petrography, found that the "exchanges of vessels between highland and lowland chiefly centers were reciprocal, or two way." Five of the samples dug up in San Lorenzo were "unambiguously" from Oaxaca. According to one of the archaeologists conducting the study, this "contradicts recent claims that the Gulf Coast was the sole source of pottery" in Mesoamerica.

The results of the INAA study were later defended in March 2006 in two articles in Latin American Antiquity. Because the INAA sample is much larger than the petrographic sample (a total of over 1600 analyses of raw materials and clays vs. approximately 20 pottery thin sections in the petrographic study), the authors of the Latin American Antiquity papers argue that the petrographic study cannot possibly overturn the INAA study.
Link

Go to your home page and under posts, next to topics you will see your last five.