donald r raab Wrote:
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> 1. Mr. Payon was a serious archaeologist. The
> initial site dig was extensive. If this was a
> prank by a student then why was the prank
> continued. That would only discredit the entire
> excavation.
Garcia Payon was a serious archaeologist BUT the techniques in the 1930's left a lot to be desired. In this case he did not write up and publish the results well as mentioned by Smith (website cited) who has done a new dig and also revised and studied Garcia Payon's work. Why do you think that the prank continued for 70 years. The dig was salted once andthat was it.
> 2. it would also discredit Mr. Payon as an
> archaeologist.
Probably what the prankster intended.
> 3. The excavations took place in the 30's. Mr.
> Payon supposedly CONTINUES the prank 30 years
> LATER.
Garcia-Payon died in 1977. Why do you say he continues the prank? The prankster supposedly was a Mr. Moedano, a student at the time.
> 4. And Mr. payon involves another individual to
> TL date the object YEARS later.
Garcia- Payon died in 1977. The person who revived the question of the head and asked for the dating was Roman Hristov.
> 5. if it was a prank and known as such why the 30
> year maintenance of it. This prank stuff smells
> to high heaven.
There is no
Maintenance. When Hristov revived the claim, he also revived the story about Hugo Moedano planting the head in the 1930s. It only smells to high heaven to you, a number of my Mexican archaeologist friends have told me that the planting of the head was widely known.
> 6. In fact this whole script is almost chapter
> and verse of Mr. Camacho at a place called
> Valsequillo.
Valsequillo is your cause celebre and there has been exhaustive discussion here already with no converts.
>
> >this object cannot be considered a valid or
> well-documented archaeological find<
>
> 1. It exists. It has been photographed. It
> leaves NOTHING to the imagination. No one sees a
> picture of Jesus in a potato chip. It is a roman
> head.
What Smith is saying is that, in fact, this head does not have a well-documented provenience, i.e there is no record of exactly where it was located. It does not have a photograph, or drawing of it in situ at the dig which is what a good provenience is. A well-documented controlled archaeological dig means that you should be able to replace ever object in exactly the location it was found in during the excavation. Read an archeology textbook on how to conduct a controlled dig. You set up coordinates in 3- dimensions and record everything you find with the coordinates in 3-dimensions.
Smith also says that just because soomeone says it is a Roman head is not proof that it is.
> 2. It has been dated and the DATE is not in
> question.
The date is certainly in question, you obviously have not read Dr. Wagner's (the guy who did the dating).
"In the article about an allegedly Roman terracotta head found in Mexico, it was said that the Max Planck Institute of Nuclear Physics in Heidelberg used thermoluminescence (TL) analysis to estimate that this head was fired 1800 years ago (12 February, p.7).
This is not correct. A couple of years ago, drilled powder from this head was submitted by anthropologist R. Hristov and geoscientist P. Schaaf to our laboratory for thermoluminescence dating.
For methodological reasons, one can only apply an “authenticity TL test” to such drill powder, resulting in larger uncertainties than in proper TL dating. However, even when applying this authenticity procedure to the sample powder, major difficulties were encountered, since the material did not pass the so-called plateau test. We finally concluded that the figurine has an apparent TL age range of between 730 years and 2880 years."
When you cannot determine a date within a range of 2200 years, you certainly have a dating problem. Ask any scientist if this is an acceptable error range. What Hristov was saying is that the head dates to AD 150 +/- 1080 years (once you put in what Wagner is saying). If anyone submitted such a date to a journal the editors would be rollingon the floor with laughter before summarily rejecting the paper.
Bernard
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