Span of Eternal Crossing
From ancient whispers,
futures call,
A link where epochs gently meet,
Binding eras in rhythm sweet.
Echoes forge the path ahead,
Where history's flame ignites the new,
Timeless flow in eternity
The breathtaking interior of the Église de la Madeleine in Paris, featuring the high altar and the semi-dome apse depicting the ascension and ecstasy of Mary Magdalene. 🇫🇷
This is an extremely fascinating rabbit hole. The Olmecs have an example here and there of characters that look like writing, like the Cascajal Block, but no real tangible written language. Some stories they are clearly communicating through stone, like the famous Olmec statue of Quetzalcoatl, but nothing like a comprehensive account of anything. The Mayans were among the first Mesoamericans to have written language and though the earliest examples we have of Mayan written language are more or less that of a fully developed writing, perhaps it is the result of an evolutionary process that begin with the Olmec proto-writing. Still I find it interesting that the one story the Olmecs very clearly did leave us with was that of Quetzalcoatl, arriving in what seems like a boat, holding a handbag. That’s got to be worth at least a thousand words right? 😉 for all we knew they might have called themselves the people of Quetzalcoatl