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(More customer reviews)Diane Wirth has collected an impressive number of cultural parallels between the Old World (Near East) and the New World (Mesoamerica). She presents a large number of examples that show bearded figures in the early cultures of Mesoamerica which have usually been considered as beardless. These examples parallel Near Eastern cultural and physical features. She shows a close parallel between the characteristics of the Egyptian god Osiris and the Maya Maize god. She draws parallels in creation and renewal beliefs as well as in birth and resurrection as revealed in the iconography. She demonstrates how the World Tree (Tree of Life) is common to both Near Eastern and Mesoamerican beliefs. She reveals the similarities between the Egyptian and Mayan scribal traditions. Both hieroglyphic writing systems were highly developed and both used logograms, syllabic signs and determinative markers that aided in determining the meaning of ambigious glyphs. She uses the glyphs and the icons from works of art and sculpture to explain the complexity of these parallels. Diane is very qualified to do this kind of comparison. She has studied these things for many years and has been a student of many of the leading Mesoamerican scholars. I recommend this book to anyone interested in furthering their knowledge of the diffusion of culture from the Old World to the New. There are many excellent references cited that can lead one to a more comprehensive understanding of these two cultural areas.
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