Mexico Holiday AAR

[alfred russel]

Malthus, have you been to Teotihuacan? If so--even if not on this trip--I'd be interested in your thoughts in comparison to the other temples you've seen in Mesoamerica (mainly because the Mexico City area temples are the only points of reference I have).

I agree about the Museum of Anthropology--I think it is one of the great museums of the world. Which was a surprise to me because I found Mexico City to be a horrible place (I used to have to go there for work). Some really good attractions for history nerds though.

[Malthus]

Malthus, have you been to Teotihuacan? If so--even if not on this trip--I'd be interested in your thoughts in comparison to the other temples you've seen in Mesoamerica (mainly because the Mexico City area temples are the only points of reference I have).

I agree about the Museum of Anthropology--I think it is one of the great museums of the world. Which was a surprise to me because I found Mexico City to be a horrible place (I used to have to go there for work). Some really good attractions for history nerds though.

Sadly, I did not. If I had another day in Mexico City, I would have. It is supposed to be an amazing site, and allegedly not too hard to get to on the subway line. Though I heard it was usually covered in thousands of Mexican tourists. 

I was pretty reluctant to go to Mexico City at all, fearing the horrible traffic, pollution and crowds - but it was necessary to stop over to get to Palenque. Figured might as well have some fun there. The traffic was, indeed, horrible.

[Syt]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPW48Y8mHUw

Sounds like a great trip. The Mayan sites are high on my "things to see before I die" list.

[Malthus]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPW48Y8mHUw

Sounds like a great trip. The Mayan sites are high on my "things to see before I die" list.

Did anyone mention that the Mayans used to sacrifice the losers of their ball-games? 

[lustindarkness]

Any crystal skulls? 

[Syt]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPW48Y8mHUw

Sounds like a great trip. The Mayan sites are high on my "things to see before I die" list.

Did anyone mention that the Mayans used to sacrifice the losers of their ball-games? 

IIRC they also used a very heavy rubber ball that ideally wasn't played with hands and could shatter bones if fast enough.

[Malthus]

Any crystal skulls? 

Actually, yes - little tiny ones in the Mexico museum. Though my favorite were the earrings which had a skull on them - and the skull was depicted as wearing earings of the exact same shape!  Modern fashion designers, take note.

[Malthus]

Oh yeah, I forgot - one of the odder experiences in Mexico City itself was while trying to find a short-cut to a restaurant we could see, but not easily get to, from the Tempalo Mayor. We ended up going through a sort of shopping mall of religious trinkets for Mexicans - doing a truly roaring business in stuff like votive candles, big statues of Jesus and the pope, etc. plus some more, um, "traditional" religious stuff - odd herbs and wierd little devil-charms. What was amazing about this place was that it wasn't one store, but literally hundreds of them, on six levels - we were the only non-Mexicans there.

[lustindarkness]

Tempalo? Or Templo?

[Maximus]

Any crystal skulls? 

Actually, yes - little tiny ones in the Mexico museum. Though my favorite were the earrings which had a skull on them - and the skull was depicted as wearing earings of the exact same shape!  Modern fashion designers, take note.

What kind of skulls have ears?

[Malthus]

Tempalo? Or Templo?

Templo. Evidently, my spelling in Spanish is just as good as that in English. 

[Malthus]

Any crystal skulls? 

Actually, yes - little tiny ones in the Mexico museum. Though my favorite were the earrings which had a skull on them - and the skull was depicted as wearing earings of the exact same shape!  Modern fashion designers, take note.

What kind of skulls have ears?

Fashionable ones, evidently. 

[alfred russel]

It is supposed to be an amazing site, and allegedly not too hard to get to on the subway line. Though I heard it was usually covered in thousands of Mexican tourists. 

I can't say how hard it is to get to by subway, but I'd never do that. It is well outside of the city.

I know I've posted this before, but visiting that site was a perspective changing experience for me. My father is a history buff. Growing up we went to a fort used in the indian wars, with a tour by a state ranger. The ranger put an emphasis on how primitive precolumbian societies were, and a couple in the tour group flipped out saying that calling them primitive was misleading propaganda. They were asked to leave the tour, and the guide assured us they were cranks, as did my father later on. it was explained to me that precolumbians didn't even have the wheel, and only very limited use of writing. Media and recent academics often presented them as more advanced because of PC multiculturalism, but that wasn't factual.

So when I went to Mexico City, I had limited interest in seeing the pyramids, as I figured they were the output of a very basic society. My taxi driver convinced me to check them out the pyramids on a free weekend. I had low expectations, which were dramatically exceeded, to say the least.

[Malthus]

It is supposed to be an amazing site, and allegedly not too hard to get to on the subway line. Though I heard it was usually covered in thousands of Mexican tourists. 

I can't say how hard it is to get to by subway, but I'd never do that. It is well outside of the city.

Apparently, you can take a bus straight there from one of the subway stations - though I have no idea how hard it would be, or how long.

I know I've posted this before, but visiting that site was a perspective changing experience for me. My father is a history buff. Growing up we went to a fort used in the indian wars, with a tour by a state ranger. The ranger put an emphasis on how primitive precolumbian societies were, and a couple in the tour group flipped out saying that calling them primitive was misleading propaganda. They were asked to leave the tour, and the guide assured us they were cranks, as did my father later on. it was explained to me that precolumbians didn't even have the wheel, and only very limited use of writing. Media and recent academics often presented them as more advanced because of PC multiculturalism, but that wasn't factual.

So when I went to Mexico City, I had limited interest in seeing the pyramids, as I figured they were the output of a very basic society. My taxi driver convinced me to check them out the pyramids on a free weekend. I had low expectations, which were dramatically exceeded, to say the least.

Advanced the precolumbian natives of mesoamerica certainly were, in terms of building in stone and urban planning. No-one visiting the ruins of their cities could think they were unsophisticated primitives. The Pyramid of the Sun is one of the largest in the world.

[Malthus]

Chiapas, Palenque, part 3

Another site is the so-called "Temple of the Mad Count". Apparently, or so the story goes, this pyramid temple got its odd name because one of the early explorers of Palenque lived in this place for two years (!) and claimed he was a "Count" - evidently, the locals thought he was insane to live for two years in a jungle-grown ruin in Palenque, when he could be living in his mansion in Paris.

This man, Frederick Waldeck, was indeed a strange fellow. Apparently, he was a quite compulsive liar and pervert - almost nothing he claimed about himself can be verified, including his alleged title of "Count" (at times he claimed to be a duke or baron). He was notable for two "achievements" in the noble art of bullshitting:

(1) After living in Palenque for two years, he produced a book complete with illustrations that "proved" that the ancient Palenquians were Egyptians. One of his obsessions was with elephants - he saw elephants all over the place in Mayan art (none are there in reality). His fakery had a long after-life: for some eighty years, so-called "diffusionists" were arguing, on the basis of his "research", that the Mayans had immigrated from Egypt or India (those elephants).

(2) He produced a famous and best-selling book of hardcore pornography he claimed was the original of a famous lost Renaissance work, which he alleged to have discovered in a convent near Palenque (!!) [there was no convent anywhere near Palenque].

His death was of a piece with his life: he is alleged to have died, at the age of 109, of a heart attack, caused by excessive leering at a particularly a beautiful woman on the Champs-Élysées.