Editing Atlantis (section)

====Impact of Mayanism====
Much speculation began as to the origins of the [[Maya civilization|Maya]], which led to a variety of narratives and publications that tried to rationalize the discoveries within the context of the [[Bible]] and that had undertones of [[racism]] in their connections between the Old and New World. The [[Europeans]] believed the [[indigenous people]] to be inferior and incapable of building that which was now in ruins and by sharing a common history, they insinuated that another race must have been responsible.

In the middle and late nineteenth century, several renowned [[Mesoamerica]]n scholars, starting with [[Charles Étienne Brasseur de Bourbourg]], and including [[Edward Herbert Thompson]] and [[Augustus Le Plongeon]], formally proposed that Atlantis was somehow related to Mayan and [[Aztec]] culture.

The French scholar Brasseur de Bourbourg traveled extensively through Mesoamerica in the mid-1800s, and was renowned for his translations of [[Mayan languages|Mayan]] texts, most notably the sacred book [[Popol Vuh]], as well as a comprehensive history of the region. Soon after these publications, however, Brasseur de Bourbourg lost his academic credibility, due to his claim that the [[Maya peoples]] had descended from the [[Toltecs]], people he believed were the surviving population of the racially superior civilization of Atlantis.<ref>{{cite book |author=Evans, R. Tripp |year=2004 |title=Romancing the Maya: Mexican Antiquity in the American Imagination, 1820–1915 |location=Austin |publisher=University of Texas Press |isbn=978-0-292-70247-9 |page=113 }}</ref> His work combined with the skillful, romantic illustrations of [[Jean Frederic Waldeck]], which visually alluded to [[Egypt]] and other aspects of the [[Old World]], created an authoritative [[fantasy]] that excited much interest in the connections between worlds.

Inspired by Brasseur de Bourbourg's diffusion theories, the pseudoarchaeologist Augustus Le Plongeon traveled to Mesoamerica and performed some of the first [[excavations]] of many famous Mayan ruins. Le Plongeon invented narratives, such as the kingdom of [[Mu (lost continent)|Mu]] saga, which romantically drew connections to him, his wife Alice, and [[Egyptian mythology|Egyptian]] deities [[Osiris]] and [[Isis]], as well as to [[Heinrich Schliemann]], who had just discovered the ancient city of [[Troy]] from [[Homer]]'s [[epic poetry]] (that had been described as merely mythical).<ref>{{cite book |author=Evans, R. Tripp |year=2004 |title=Romancing the Maya: Mexican Antiquity in the American Imagination, 1820–1915 |location=Austin |publisher=University of Texas Press |isbn=978-0-292-70247-9 |pages=141–146 }}</ref>{{Page range too broad|date=August 2021}} He also believed that he had found connections between the [[Greek language|Greek]] and [[Mayan languages]], which produced a [[narrative]] of the destruction of Atlantis.<ref>{{cite book |author=Brunhouse, Robert L. |url=https://archive.org/details/insearchofmayafi00brun/page/153 |title=In Search of the Maya: The First Archaeologists |publisher=University of New Mexico Press |year=1973 |isbn=978-0-8263-0276-2 |location=Albuquerque |page=[https://archive.org/details/insearchofmayafi00brun/page/153 153] |language=en-US}}</ref>