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King Tut Exhibit Prompts Debate on His Skin Color
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[QUOTE]Originally posted by Tyrann0saurus: [QB] ^ LOL at Evergreen's parody. Let me try it myself. [b]Olmec Exhibit Prompts Debate on Their Skin Color by Joel Rose NPR Stories[/b] Morning Edition, August 28, 2028 · The Olmec exhibition has drawn millions of visitors to museums across the country since it opened two years ago. But some Native American scholars believe the exhibition makes the Olmecs look too Spanish. The debate over Pacal's race led the Franklin Institute Science Museum in Philadelphia, where the show is on display, to sponsor a conference on the subject. The show, The Golden Age of the Olmecs has drawn a steady stream of protesters since it opened in Los Angeles. But nowhere have they been as persistent or vocal as in Philadelphia. More than 500 people showed up to hear scholars discuss the Olmecs' race at the Franklin Institute. The auditorium couldn't hold them all, so the museum had to set up big-screen TVs in the lobby. The three speakers said the exhibition on display upstairs gives the false impression that the Olmecs were Iberian. And worse, says Temple University professor Dancing Moose, it implies that Mexico is not part of Mesoamerica. "We asked the students as they were coming out of the museum, you've seen the exhibition of the Olmecs, 'Where are they from?'" Dancing Moose said. "You would discover that people can see the exhibition of the Olmecs, and come out and not know that they have seen Native America." A forensic reconstruction of an Olmec king's head and shoulders at the Franklin Institute exhibit is remarkably lifelike, until you get right up close to it. On the side of the glass case, there is a disclaimer that reads, "The features of [this Olmec guy's] face are based on scientific data. But the exact color of his skin and the size and shape of many facial details cannot be determined with full certainty." "Our best guess is that he was neither lily white nor coppery brown. He was probably somewhere in between," said Nina Jablonski, author of Skin: A Natural History. Jablonski teaches anthropology at Penn State University. She also served as an advisor to the team from the National Geographic Society that produced the forensic reconstruction of the Olmec chief that's currently on display. Jablonski points out that it's only a working hypothesis. Scientists have not been able to retrieve much DNA evidence from Olmec corpses. But they do have a good idea of who lived in Mexico 3,000 years ago — and she says they probably looked a lot like Mexicans today. "Modern Mexicans are a very heterogeneous group," Jablonski said. "Some of them have very Southern European features. Others of them have very Native American or so-called 'Mongoloid' features. This is because Mexico itself was a tremendous byway for movement of people in the past and present." Jablonski says the Olmec king's skin probably looked like a mixture of those people, only lighter, because the king would have spent most of his time inside his palace, protected from the sun. The speakers at the Franklin Institute rejected that hypothesis. In fact, they seemed to enjoy making fun of it. "Okay, now let's look what this really is about. This is shocking. See if you recognize the person on the right," said activist Soaring Wolf, who remain best known as the founder of National Powwow Day. He got a big laugh by comparing the reconstructed image of the Olmec chief with a picture of a young Antonio Banderas. The panelists believe the Olmecs had, for the most part, coppery-brown skin, like pre-Columbian Native Americans. Blind Owl is the director of International Health at Morehouse School of Medicine in Atlanta. "Whenever ancient writers, Mayan or Spanish, make any reference to ancient Olmecs' color, it's always red," Owl said. "There was no issue back then. There was no discussion. There was no debate. It only became a debate in the last 200 years." For example, Mayan historian 13 Death's Head wrote in the fifth century BC that the Olmecs were "red with straight black hair." But as anthropologist Nina Jablonski points out, it's hard to say exactly what ancient historians meant when they described the skin they saw as "red." Jablonski speaks with the patience of someone who has answered this question many times before, and expects to keep answering it until more definitive evidence comes along. That's why she hopes the Olmec exhibition will inspire students to become interested in reconstructing the past. That could let the students, Jablonski says, "make a better stab at this in 20 or 25 years' time." Until then, we'll have to make do with an educated guess. [/QB][/QUOTE]
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