Wednesday, December 14, 2005

Earliest Known Mayan Painting

Whatever it may say about Pre-Classic Mayan culture - namely that these people were more sophisticated at an earlier time than previously thought - this 2,100 year old painting from Guatemala is a dazzling work of art.

This leads me to reflect on how art is so intrinsically woven into us as a species. We really seem to be driven to it. The earliest art that we have from European caves shows a high degree of skill and imagination - reinforcing my old dictum that our early, "primitive", H. sapiens ancestors were just as intelligent as we are.

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