Abstract
WHEN I wrote my letter on this subject to NATURE (November 25, p. 340) I was not aware of the fact that another interpretation of the Copan elephants was being seriously adopted in America. The admission of the proboscidean nature of the sculptures in question would place those who indulge in speculations as to the wholly indigenous origin and local evolution of the pre-Columbian civilisation of America in so critical a dilemma that from time to time efforts have been made to discredit the obvious view of regarding them as elephants. In my previous letter I directed attention to the attempts which had been made to convert them into tapirs or tortoises. Certain American ethnologists are now suggesting that the Copan reliefs in question were really intended to represent blue macaws!
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SMITH, G. Pre-Columbian Representations of the Elephant in America. Nature 96, 425 (1915). https://doi.org/10.1038/096425a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/096425a0
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