Long Hidden, Vatican Painting Linked To Native Americans

[jakeXT]

Source: NPR

For close to 400 years, the painting was closed off to the world. For the past 124 years, millions of visitors walked by without noticing an intriguing scene covered with centuries of grime.

Only now, the Vatican says a detail in a newly cleaned 15th century fresco shows what may be one of the first European depictions of Native Americans.

The fresco, The Resurrection, was painted by the Renaissance master in 1494 — just two years after Christopher Columbus first set foot in what came to be called the New World.

Antonio Paolucci, director of the Vatican Museums, told the Vatican daily L'Osservatore Romano that after the soot and grime were removed, in the background, just above the open coffin from where Christ has risen, "we see nude men, decorated with feathered headdresses who appear to be dancing." One of them seems to sport a Mohican cut

Read more: http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/05/05/180860991/long-hidden-vatican-painting-linked-to-native-americans

[DavidDvorkin]

2. This is surely in the wrong place

[gtar100]

3. oops, thank you

[Spitfire of ATJ]

4. You just KNOW the Mormons are going to use this.

[The Blue Flower]

5. Book by Jack Ford on Native American trade w/Europe before Columbus

I heard about the book from the Thom Hartmann show. Very, very interesting.

[Berlum]

6. That ain't all they are hiding

Native Americans of yesteryear had many sacred artifacts, and writings (yes) that the Catholic Patriarchy either burned or hid away deep in the Vatican bowels. The Invading Hordes did their best to snuff the peoples and the rich cultures of North America so they could CLAIM all the land for themselves ...

[Blue_Tires]

11. +1

I've wondered what finds from continental Africa they've got squirreled away in Rome...

[vanamonde]

7. correct me if im wrong but

I thought Columbus did not reach the mainland continent on the first journey, only landing on what is now Hispaniola. The Mohican tribes did not live there. Further, Wikipedia says that the hairstyle has been in existence in many parts of the world for millennia.
Also, feathered headdresses were worn by plains Indians. Surely Indians of this description would not have reached Europe until after 1494. Yes? No?

Sounds like wishful thinking to me

[Aristus]

8. The Indians Columbus would have been in contact with we're most likely

Carib Indians, for whom the Caribbean Sea is named. The depiction of the Indians in the fresco is not unlike other depictions of the Caribs.

[iemitsu]

9. Columbus only visited parts of the Caribbean on his first voyage

but he wrote of many fantastic and exotic peoples and things. He was trying to sell his voyage as a good investment for a return trip. According to Columbus, at this time, nearly every island was populated by peoples of different sorts. Some had only one leg and others one breast. I am not familiar with the whole text but one can imagine this sort of depiction of Americans conjured by the mind of an European artist.

[Pterodactyl]

10. What a cool discovery!