MU Archeologist Finds Oldest 3-D Statue In Western Hemisphere

Robert Benfer, a professor emeritus of anthropology, said the mud plaster bust -- a bust of a figure blowing a trumpet and another mask-like image flanked by foxes -- was found at the "Buena Vista" site in the Andes...

..."Even today, the Andean people still tell stories about the fox as they explain the gift of the first cultivated foods. The Andean legend says the fox found a rope that led to heaven where it found an abundance of new foods. When the fox fell from heaven, it split open, providing a variety of new foods for the Andean people."

The 4,000 year old bust is fully exposed, although the legs are not visible because they hang over the edge of a wall. The fingers of the hands can be seen on the flute.

The Andeans had their own Zodiac signs, and the constellation of the fox is still associated with the timing of agricultural events such as planting and irrigation, Benfer said. At sites like Buena Vista, ancient astronomer-priests directed the construction of platform pyramids and art in their temples based on astronomical alignments of the sun, moon and other figures in the Andean Zodiac.

On the 4,000-year-old statue, it appears that the horn player is announcing the priests when they enter the Temple of the Menacing Disk, a site first discovered by Benfer in 2004. On the left, the female foxes around the menacing disk mask-like central figure face the June solstice sunset with two eyes shaped like the moon, indicating gathering darkness Benfer said. On the right, the male fox has one eye shaped like the sun, looking to the rising sun of the December solstice.

"If you google The Temple of Isis in relation to America you will see they had missionaries all over the world in ancient times...and evidence of such thru various records of antiquity. Though these sometimes may have not benn called “Temple of Isis” in all the cultures that adopted that religion."

That might be the CLAIMS of the some modern "new agers", claiming in this day and age to have some descent from the original Temple of Isis, or claiming "worldwide" records for such "missionaries" exists, but there is in fact no evidence that such people alive today have any factual connection to the original "Temple of Isis" or that the original temple had missionaries or followers "worldwide".

"Pagan religion and genealogy were actually more widespread in the ancient world than Christianity is now."

And the evidence for a single "Pagan Religion", and IT - as a singularity - being "widespread" is where, other than in modern "new age" writings? Nowhere.

If you look at the religions and cultures of pre-Columbian Central American ...civilizations were intimately related to the Pagan religion and culture of Egypt.

Really? How so? What you must understand is that bearing similar features does not identify a cause or source from a common, or pre-existent culture or religion. The commonality is human nature, and from it humans develop many things similar to each other.

"We know Spanish priests identified the Mayas, Aztecs, and Incas as “Pagans.”"

And by that you want to imply that they meant that such persons had the "same religion" as other persons such priests might have identified as "pagan"? Quite factually, the answer is no. The "Spanish priests" identified anyone as "pagan" whose beliefs were neither Christian nor any other religion known to the priests. In truth, from first century Romans all the way to Western Hemisphere natives, there is far too much difference in beliefs and religious practices for the use of the term "pagan" to mean a single religion or single set of beliefs or a set of beliefs of common origin. It does not. The Spanish priests knew that.

The “isolationist” scholars of today who deny pre-Columbian contact between the Americas and Mediterranean civilizations are in deep denial..... All of the evidence is clearly there for anyone who wishes to see it.

So why is it not produced?

It is not produced because those who use the term "contact" in reference to it; are actually attempting to morph the meaning of it into "influence", although they actually know that while the merely anecdotal evidence of mere "contact" - (random, occasional, disbursed, unsystematic, not sustained) - is true, evidence of widespread influence is not. The actual evidence poses more questions than answers.

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