Miami archaeologist Bobby Bermudez discovered today that the world famous Miami Circle is an ancient giant "Smiley Face."
Originally uncovered in 1998 when a developer was clearing the land to erect twin condo towers, it has taken Mr. Bermudez eight long years of tedious scholarship to decode the mysterious holes in the ground at the mouth of the Miami River. "Although some experts believe the holes are a septic tank, through an arduous process that involved such disparate fields as computer mapping, Mayan studies, and channeling, I have been able to determine that the Miami Circle is a monumental ceremonial mask to the pre-Columbian Tequesta's god of mirth."
"Not very much is known about the Tequestas except that they were tall, naked, and dead before the Conquistadors ever set foot on Florida," Mr. Bermudez continued. "But it's good to know they had a sense of humor. In fact, this is the earliest known example of humankind possessing a sense of humor. Except for some erotic art found on the walls of Pompei, most artifacts depict us as a violent, blood-letting superstitious lot so, in that regard, this is one of the most important discoveries ever made, if I do say so myself."
Depending on where you live and how desperate you are for a little piece of history, digging up the past can be expensive. At that time, to appease a small but vocal minority of preservationists, "new age" wackos, members of the Mayan Huichol tribe and representatives of the "Taino people" who set up camp at the site for a 24-hour tom-tom-athon, County government wrote a check for $26.7 million dollars to the developer to stop developing. Soon after, to preserve the holes, the excavation was covered up with sand and will remain so until funding can be found to develop an educational exhibit.
Despite Mr. Bermudez's assertions, MVB suspects the Miami Circle really is nothing more than the remains of a septic tank and that the original archaeologists who discovered it came to the same conclusion after-the-fact and chose to cover it up with a couple of dump truck loads of sand to avoid any embarrassment to their careers.
UpDate (11/8/2008): AP reports the discovery of a "dinosaur dance floor" by University of Utah scientists was recently proven by paleontologists to be nothing more than a "collection of potholes caused by erosion in the sandstone." This jump to conclusions by "experts" reminds of us of the travesty that happened here.
2 comments:
Sure, "pave over paradise and put up a parking lot." The Miami Circle may not be monumental like the pyramids in Egypt, but saving it means one less building to pollute our environment and to challenge our finite resources. In my opinion, that was money well spent.
Well, Verticus disagreesacus. First off, it's embarrassing to see us getting crazy over a bunch of holes. It makes us look like a bunch of provincial, knee-jerk reactionary hot heads grasping at whatever rolls out of the rubble because they don't have a clue about what is worth saving and what isn't. A circle of holes which may or may not be a septic tank, doesn't do anything for me. And it is far from inspiring. Secondly, instead of jumping into shelling out nearly $27 million public dollars to buy the land from the developer, the county should have insisted on making the celebrated circle part of the complex planned for the site. The Circle could have been part of a vast lobby, the focal point of a giant atrium where people if they were having a real slow day could lean over a railing and look down at the Circle-- all in air-conditioned comfort. Can't you just hear them pondering the pockmarked surface: "What the hell is that?" Of course, I can see in time the Circle would become nothing more than a giant ashtray: "I don't know but seeing all of those cigarette butts down there, I guess it's some kind of giant ashtray artwork. Or something."
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