Re: A Shang-Olmec connection ?

TERESA L CAREY (tcarey@MAILER.FSU.EDU)
Mon, 28 Oct 1996 21:28:09 -0500

Hi all. This is my first reply to the list so, please bear with me. I
have heard of this before. A professor of american indian ethnography
gave a lecture on this topic when I was an undergrad. I understand that
this is not an accepted theory and that many scholars are openly hostile
to the idea. I would have to dig out my notes for more details.

On Mon, 28 Oct 1996, Scott Holmes wrote:

> US News & World Report, November 4 has an article entitled _A tale of
> two cultures_. It seems that one Han Ping Chen, a scholar of ancient
> Chinese, has identified markings on Olmec artifacts as Shang dynasty
> symbols. The articles states that he was asked to examine an index of
> markings by Mike Xu, a professor of Chinese history at the University
> of Central Oklahoma. According to the article, Chen had no previous
> interest in the "Mesoamericanists' war" between "diffusionists" and
> "nativists" and had to be urged by collegues to even look at the markings.
> His examination convinced him to visit an Olmec exhibit at the National
> Gallery of Art in Washington DC.
>
> The exhibit includes "15 male figures made of serpentine or jade, each
> about 6 inches tall. Facing them were a taller sandstone figure and six
> upright, polished jade blades called celts." One phrase the article
> cites is translated as "Ruler and chieftains establish the foundation
> of a kingdom". The article also states that Chen speculated that:
> "After the Shang army was routed and the emperor killed, ...some loyalists
> might have sailed down the Yellow River and taken to the ocean. There,
> perhaps, they drifted with a current which skirts Japan's coast, heads
> for California, then peters out near Ecuador."
>
> I thought I'd post this both to see what the people of Anthro-L might
> have to say about this and also to contribute an example journalistic
> mention of things anthropological.
>
>
>
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