Evidence of New World religious dialogue found in Caribbean cave

[rug]

Anglo-Puerto Rican team discovers Latin inscriptions and Christograms next to spiritual iconography by indigenous peoples

Tuesday 19 July 2016 09.07 EDT
Last modified on Tuesday 19 July 2016 17.00 EDT

Early European colonisers of the Americas are generally seen as religious zealots and violent oppressors, but the discovery of a cave on an uninhabited Caribbean island may lead to a rethink.

A team led by the British Museum and the University of Leicester have found evidence of an early religious dialogue between Europeans and Native Americans. In a cave deep inside the remote island of Mona, archaeologists were astonished to discover Latin inscriptions and Christograms next to spiritual iconography left by indigenous peoples.

“It is truly extraordinary,” said Jago Cooper, the British Museum curator who, with the University of Leicester’s Alice Samson, led the research team. “It is proof that the first generation of Europeans were going into caves and being exposed to an indigenous world view. I can’t think of another site like this in the Americas.”

Since 2013, the Anglo-Puerto Rican team team have been exploring about 70 cave systems on the uninhabited island, a place visited and claimed for Spain by Christopher Columbus on his second voyage in 1494.

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/jul/19/evidence-religious-dialogue-europeans-native-americans-caribbean-cave-mona

[Igel]

1. Two comments.

First, what's the evidence they were made by Europeans? Sounds like an assertion, but not substantiated by anything other than "the marks are there".

Second, the first thing that colonizers typically did was try to engage and teach. Preach first, persecute later. Only when preaching didn't work and either the preachers became frustrated or a zealot was found among the preachers did that change to persecute instead of preach. (Yeah, there are claims that the "Requirement" entailed forced conversion; that's a self-serving view based on what a text might say, not on the range of things it might mean and what it meant on the ground. There were cases of forced conversions, but that usually ended badly.)

[rug]

2. From the date, it's either the earky Europeans or indigenous poeople who adopted the symbols.

Are you thinking it was done by indigenous people who met the Spaniards?

[Angry Dragon]

3. earky??

[rug]

4. early.

I'm surprised you had difficulty.

http://www.brainhq.com/brain-resources/brain-teasers/scrambled-text

[Angry Dragon]

5. just making sure you were not creating new words