Never Hurry A Surrey

‘CIVILISATION is continually being traced back to earlier and earlier periods of history, through the discovery of human-style skulls, early tools and metals, and all manner of pots, paintings and other artefacts.

Scientists display new Mayan find

But the Guardian carries news of the most extraordinary discovery yet. ‘Frothy chocolate ‘dates back to Mayans’,’ announces the headline, and the report goes on to say that crusty smears of hot chocolate have been discovered on the bottom of cooking pots in Colha in Belize.

The pots are dated as around 900 – 250 BC. This is clearly the earliest known example of what we now know as Terry and June culture – the agreeably refined rival to the ‘Benny Hill culture’ that co-existed alongside it in ancient times.

‘The discovery pushes back the use of chocolate as food by about 1,000 years,’ the paper concludes. All very impressive, but there’s more. The find also drives back the use of doilies, tartan shortbread tins and laminated hot drinks coasters by a staggering 2,873 years.

Warm salutations then to the agreeable Mayan people, whose solid domesticity has been proved right in the best way possible – by withstanding the ruthless march of so-called ‘progress’ and reaching its apogee in the leafy civilisation of mid-20th-century Surrey. ‘

Posted: 18th, July 2002 | In: Broadsheets Comment | TrackBack | Permalink