Dr Jacques COULARDEAU

The Maya and the World, An Update

https://jacquescoulardeau.medium.com/the-maya-and-the-world-an-update-fac790ad8bb8

Native American civilizations were vastly destroyed by history particularly when the Europeans arrived. Diseases, wars of conquest, the eradication of religions and cultures that were not seen as compatible with Christianity, the thirst for gold and other precious metals or gems, and the systematic looting of natural resources caused a depletion of the Native American population by between 50 and 75%. Some say even more in some areas. Today, book after book, pyramid after pyramid, glyph after glyph we are rediscovering the greatness of these civilizations, even if some overdo it in this reevaluation. The Mayas had the concept of zero as a voided empty box containing nothing, though they did not have the concept of zero as the completion of a decimal, in their case a vigesimal group. Yet their mathematics was a lot ahead of what we had in Europe, though probably a lot less than what they had in the Arab world or China. We voraciously devoured the Americas and today these very same Americas are the scene of a new plague, pandemic, or whatever, and this time it also kills more native Americans or Blacks or Browns than whites. History has a tendency in some situations to repeat itself.

Medium.com, 2021

# posted by Dr. Jacques COULARDEAU @ 5:08 AM