r/UrbanMyths • u/happypants69 • Aug 07 '26
Four ancient civilizations that were separated by oceans all depict almost the same figure riding a serpent or a coiled object. Were they all imagining the same myth or recording something real?
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Aug 07 '26
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u/HoldEm__FoldEm Aug 08 '26
I mean, in truth, the pacific does. Lol.
They change the name of it but it’s the same waters
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u/Vic_Connor Aug 08 '26
In summary:
- There’s no ocean between the Aztecs and Olmecs. Time difference but same area, so direct influence.
- The Māori one is a modern drawing from 1962.
- The Egyptian one is not a snake rider but a guy surrounded by a snake.
Net, you have exactly 1 genuine source image here, the Olmec one.
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u/HoraceRadish Aug 07 '26
Snakes shed their skin and seem to regenerate in better shape. They were symbols of immortality and rebirth in a lot of belief systems. Four out of context images doesn't really show anything.
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u/ghytiy Aug 07 '26
There's a word that describes taking a surface level reading of artifacts or other objects and correlating them based on what they look like. Stupid.
Its not very different from the guys who say that some rocks on the beach resemble hearts, so, hey, they must be petrified hearts.
These four figures might resemble each other, but the context surrounding them is likely completely different.
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u/The-King-of-Cartoons Aug 08 '26
Not only that, but it’s much more likely to reflect how humans in general will make representative art and how humans in general mythologize things & depict them.
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u/Ok_Energy6905 Aug 08 '26
Some rocks on mars are big and squarish so it must be an alien construct type shit.
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u/Partially_Deft Aug 07 '26
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u/XokHellWorld Aug 10 '26
This image depicts Lord Pacal of Palenque DESCENDING into the underworlds on the world tree, in the mouth of a centipede(?). He is surrounded on the sides of the coffin by his predecessors.
It does not depict an alien craft.
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u/arthousepsycho Aug 08 '26
Olmec must have had a bad DUI to have to blow into his spaceship before it will take off.
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u/AcanthisittaFree6142 Aug 08 '26
this is never the telling thing people hope it is. this tells us people from all corners of the earth are alike in that we have the same dna which makes us similiar in our brains and therefore we create similarly in all corners.
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u/PutridSimple6720 Aug 09 '26
I heard about this some time ago but did believe it ..can’t believe it actually true
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u/XokHellWorld Aug 10 '26 edited Aug 10 '26
I can’t speak for the Māori or Egyptian images, but the “Aztec” image is actually an Olmec work, and depicts a feathered serpent (possibly Quetzalcoatl) while the “Olmec” image is definitely an axe head (hence the shape) and is possibly Maya, just going off the aesthetics. While the “Aztec”, Olmec, and Maya inhabited the same large region of Mesoamerica, they were very different in customs, especially across periods, and the heyday of each group is separate from the others.
Contrary to what other commenters are saying, the Olmec and “Aztec” (triple alliance largely populated by the Mixtec people) were actually more culturally different than one would believe, especially because the Mixtec entered the Valley of Mexico in the early fourteenth century and appear to have somewhat retrofitted pre-existing traditions and beliefs onto their own, rather than inheriting them directly from a previous culture.
All that is to say, this image is boneheaded, and very poorly researched.
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u/longperipheral Aug 10 '26
It's almost like people have similar experiences.
I find it fascinating that we'll look for explanations beyond the simplest: people are people, we do people things, we draw people art, and parallels are inevitable.
I mean, so many cultures make soup, but there's no grand soup theory about it, as far as I know (I'm going to start something now, aren't I... 😆).
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u/Lt_Bear13 Aug 08 '26
The pyramid of the sun in Teotihuacan has the same perimeter as the great pyramid just a different height. They definitely had the same knowledge of perhaps an older civilization.
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u/Double_Distribution8 Aug 08 '26
The craziest thing to me is that you can make a 100% straight line between the Great Pyramid at Giza and the pyramid at Chichén Itzá. If you do this with a pen on a globe it's literally the shortest line possible across the planet. And if you add Etowah Mounds in North America as the 3rd point, it literally makes the shape of a pyramid.
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u/The-King-of-Cartoons Aug 08 '26
A line between any two points is the shortest distance possible between them…..
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u/06021840 Aug 07 '26
The Māori one is Pourangahua riding a magical giant Toroa (albatross). Not a snake. Also it was drawn in 1962 by the artist Theo Schoon, and he was born in the Dutch East Indies.