A case that was particularly fascinating to me was Augustus Le Plongeon’s claim that Jesus spoke a Maya language. Le Plongeon believed that the last words Jesus had said before he died on the cross were not spoken in Aramaic but had been said in a Maya language. The theory is farfetched and completely fabricated. Not to mention he is another perfect example of someone who is unqualified and had no evidence to support his claims. Augustus Le Plongeon was a British archaeologist and a photographer who believed in hyperdiffusionism. (Desmond, 1999) In fact, Le Plongeon believed the Maya sites in Yucatán had been the “cradle” of civilization, and that the Maya had then traveled east first to Atlantis and later to Egypt. Le Plongeon suggested that Maya and Aramaic languages were similar to each other, and had made contact. The theory states that the Maya language was probably acquired in Egypt, brought over by Maya colonists way before Jesus’ time. He believed that the Maya had built the Egyptian pyramids. According to Le Plongeon the Maya language contains and is composed of various Greek words, which is also false. Pseudoarchaeologists who support this particular theory agree that the sentence last said by Jesus, “hele hele lamah zabac tani,” was in Maya. As a result the people who stood near Jesus could not understand what he had said. Much like other pseudoarchaeologists we have studied this semester Le Plongeon used structures, artifacts, and documentation that belonged to Egypt and the Maya and took them out of context. Because he believed in hyperdiffusion the argument that Jesus spoke a Maya language would have given his theories validation. For this claim to be considered or taken seriously by experts and archaeologists there should be some foundation, which it lacks. If Aramaic and the Maya language had in fact ever interacted not only would there be documentation but we would have seen mixing of the two languages and as a result there would have been loan words. We would also see records of both groups mixing and the Maya people would probably be mentioned in the Bible. The story of Jesus and his life were documented, it’s hard to believe that if he did speak Maya it would have been kept a secret. There would be evidence on how and from who he learned it. These are the details that Le Plongeon leaves out, and was not able to do much else because his theories were discredited. Another interesting detail was that Le Plongeon also was an accomplished linguist, whose expertise in Yucatec Maya was acknowledged even by colleague who disparaged his ideas about Maya history. (Gosner, 1993) It’s difficult to understand his motivations or what he was hoping to achieve other than to validate his own ideas. However, because this is clearly not true there is no evidence for any interaction and zero contact. Le Plongeon was a celebrated photographer who was innovative and his documentation of the ruins found during his expeditions in Central America. For a while he was a respected photographer and archaeologist. But eventually not only were his theories of hyperdiffusion proven false he also became ridiculed and ostracized for them.
References
The American Antiquarian and Oriental Journal. (1912). United States: F.H. Reveell.
Desmond, Lawrence Gustave. “Augustus Le Plongeon: A Fall from Archaeological Grace.” In Assembling the Past: Studies in the Professionalization of Archaeology, edited by Alice B. Kehoe and Mary Beth Emmerichs. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1999.
Fritze, R. (2010, September 8). How two well-intentioned archaeologists mangled the origins of history. Ron Fritze: Augustus and Alice Le Plongeon and Ancient Mayans. Retrieved December 13, 2021, from https://www.corndancer.com/fritze/fritze_040059/fritze041.html.
Kevin Gosner; A Dream of Maya: Augustus and Alice Le Plongeon in Nineteenth-Century Yucatán. Hispanic American Historical Review 1 August 1993; 73 (3): 532–533. doi: https://doi.org/10.1215/00182168-73.3.532
The American Antiquarian and Oriental Journal. (1912). United States: F.H. Reveell.
Salisbury, S. (1988). Dream of Maya. Dream of Maya: Epilogue. Retrieved December 13, 2021, from http://maya.csueastbay.edu/archaeoplanet/LgdPage/Dream/Epilog.htm.