Etaonsh wrote:
> An archaeologist can describe an attempt to revive Mayan numerals as
> tourism-inspired. However, he cannot prove it, [...]
He was an anthropologist, and he didn't try to prove his (sad) impression.
{{{<OT> BTW, you seem to have quite naive ideas about these part of the
academic world! It is much more likely than modern anthropologists have
quite radical opinions in exactly the opposite direction: they are more
often the kind of people who'd rather whole-heartedly encourage the use of
local languages and scripts. }}}
> There is even an argument
> that it could be inspired by anti-tourism, a desire to use a system
> unintelligible and prior to the outside world. [...]
I don't think so. First of all, because the dots-and-bar Maya numbering
system is far from unintelligible to tourists: the stalls around
archaeological places sold tons of booklests or postcards explaining the
numeric systems;
{{{<OT> secondly, because local people were very friendly to gringo
tourists, especially since most of them showed some form of political
awareness and solidarity to thir cause (lot of Zapatista T-shirts, etc.).
}}}
_ Marco