One thing that occurs to me pondering these questions is the contrast between our modern regemented concept of time as opposed to what I suspect was a far looser notion of time to the ancients. We are very time conscious, our day to day lives turning on deadlines and dates. It is hard to imagine not being time conscious, but at some point in the past the whole notion of time hadn't even been thought up. Our ancestors must have been totally reactionary in those times, blissfully ignorant of even the concept of time. I don't know if that was all the way back in the monkey days, Homo erectus days, or modern humans only, but there had to be such a point.
The cycles of day and night, of the moon, and of the seasons would have been noticed early on but a more organized notion of time leading up to our mordern concepts was slow in comming is my guess. Many primative societies have no calendar and even the age of an individual is only vaguely known.
It seems a resonable proposition that the developement of a more calendrical system would be associated with the advent of agriculture. Planting and harvesting demand it, really. It would then follow that it is no coincidence that ancient structures with celestial alignments are found only post agriculture.
I can picture our ancestors honing their precision in time keeping as societies progressed and more and more resources were available. This would allow for more people to be freed up to build the Stonehenges or these Thirteen Towers (hmmmm, 13 lunar months, 13 towers,...hmmm) instead of working to produce foods. I bet these projects seemed ultra modern to them at the time, akin to compters, space flight, or any other scientific wonder of today. No one studying ancient cultures (agricultural at least) should be particularly suprised when structures with astronomical alignments are found.
Today we are saturated with time conciousness. I am not so sure we are better off for it.
On a totally different subject: In the above writing I used three words - scientific, societies, and ancient. All three break the "I before E except after C" rule. There are lots of other words that break this rule too. What the hell good is a rule that has so many exceptions?
Towers points to ancient Sun cult
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FreeThinker
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Ancient Notions of Time
Science: the PROOF shall set you free
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This time concept or lack thereof explains why my monkey relatives could never remember a birthday or anniversary! 
The concept of time is subconsciously encoded into our brains. Humans are aware of the daily cycle of light and dark and even those peoples which keep no time or calendars, are aware, that it will soon be monsoon or soon be a dry season. Without trying we are aware of the relative height of the sun above the horizon which defines our seasons. The length and movement of shadows, the length of the day all click neurons in a systematic way and fire our internal clocks. Not to mention the so-called natural body rythmns of breathing, heartbeats, mentruation, alpha and beta cycles, etc.
It is indeed an interesting question nevertheless, at what point did early man gain a particular conscious awareness of cycles. When animals perform their seasonal migrations for example, is it through an awareness or is it a corporeal memory or reaction embedded into their survival instinct? I don't believe many people will say animals have a particular awareness of time which then suggests that such awareness is a peculiar trait of human beings.
Then if man is unique in this characteristic, an awareness of time must bring about an awareness of mortality. But that might be a discussion on another thread
The concept of time is subconsciously encoded into our brains. Humans are aware of the daily cycle of light and dark and even those peoples which keep no time or calendars, are aware, that it will soon be monsoon or soon be a dry season. Without trying we are aware of the relative height of the sun above the horizon which defines our seasons. The length and movement of shadows, the length of the day all click neurons in a systematic way and fire our internal clocks. Not to mention the so-called natural body rythmns of breathing, heartbeats, mentruation, alpha and beta cycles, etc.
It is indeed an interesting question nevertheless, at what point did early man gain a particular conscious awareness of cycles. When animals perform their seasonal migrations for example, is it through an awareness or is it a corporeal memory or reaction embedded into their survival instinct? I don't believe many people will say animals have a particular awareness of time which then suggests that such awareness is a peculiar trait of human beings.
Then if man is unique in this characteristic, an awareness of time must bring about an awareness of mortality. But that might be a discussion on another thread
A lot of things happened at roughly the same time with the development of agriculture/early cities/ hierarchical goverments and caste systems/ literacy/ civilization, etc.
That's why I think this big calendrical device, with all its "subdivisions" is related to the populace and social organizations, which were gradually developed in city iife, superimposed on the simpler and ingrained agricultural cycles.
That's why I think this big calendrical device, with all its "subdivisions" is related to the populace and social organizations, which were gradually developed in city iife, superimposed on the simpler and ingrained agricultural cycles.
Last edited by stan on Thu Mar 01, 2007 8:51 pm, edited 1 time in total.
The deeper you go, the higher you fly.
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Minimalist
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Then if man is unique in this characteristic, an awareness of time must bring about an awareness of mortality
Hmph. My wife was never on time in her life.
Something is wrong here. War, disease, death, destruction, hunger, filth, poverty, torture, crime, corruption, and the Ice Capades. Something is definitely wrong. This is not good work. If this is the best God can do, I am not impressed.
-- George Carlin
-- George Carlin
http://www.boston.com/news/world/latina ... _lateness/
HOW TIMELY!
INCREDIBLE!! Modern day Peruvian Gobernment launches
punctuality campaign!!!
HOW TIMELY!
INCREDIBLE!! Modern day Peruvian Gobernment launches
punctuality campaign!!!
The deeper you go, the higher you fly.
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Chronic lateness is often overlooked by Peruvians who consider it an endearing cultural trait. But President Alan Garcia thinks otherwise.
Damned Yuppies.
Something is wrong here. War, disease, death, destruction, hunger, filth, poverty, torture, crime, corruption, and the Ice Capades. Something is definitely wrong. This is not good work. If this is the best God can do, I am not impressed.
-- George Carlin
-- George Carlin
Morning FT, accepting that I have as much right to be utterly wrong as the next man I totally disagree with this statement-
It seems a resonable proposition that the developement of a more calendrical system would be associated with the advent of agriculture. Planting and harvesting demand it, really. It would then follow that it is no coincidence that ancient structures with celestial alignments are found only post agriculture.
Show me just one farmer/gardener who plants by a calendar!
Harvesting takes place according to the development of the crop and its condition, not some mystical date.
If early man lacked a concept of time or rotating seasons, which personally I doubt as being the case by the time these massive structures were created, then they were not necessary to achieve the result that accredited to them.
If a priestly caste, for example, were using them to advise farmers when to plant, one bad spring and their rep would shot to pieces!
Also, if a priest who came to me with advise as to when to plant I would be vastly more impressed if he acheived it without a damn great stone circle!
It seems a resonable proposition that the developement of a more calendrical system would be associated with the advent of agriculture. Planting and harvesting demand it, really. It would then follow that it is no coincidence that ancient structures with celestial alignments are found only post agriculture.
Show me just one farmer/gardener who plants by a calendar!
Harvesting takes place according to the development of the crop and its condition, not some mystical date.
If early man lacked a concept of time or rotating seasons, which personally I doubt as being the case by the time these massive structures were created, then they were not necessary to achieve the result that accredited to them.
If a priestly caste, for example, were using them to advise farmers when to plant, one bad spring and their rep would shot to pieces!
Also, if a priest who came to me with advise as to when to plant I would be vastly more impressed if he acheived it without a damn great stone circle!
Stan, I would only add "as far as we know" to this statement. Otherwise I completely agree with you.stan wrote:A lot of things happened at roughly the same time with the development of agriculture/early cities/ hierarchical goverments and caste systems/ literacy/ civilization, etc.
That's why I think this big calendrical device, with all its "subdivisions" is related to the populace and social organizations, which were gradually developed in city iife, superimposed on the simpler and ingrained agricultural cycles.
Time to the ancients meant food - as in seasons - not what week or day so much.
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marduk
in just about every ancient culture the story runs the same way
the god of the sun (male) and the god of the sea (female) got together and created the earth
wether the sea god is represented by a female serpent or other mythological monster its always those three elements that form the creation stories
water
+
fire
=
earth
Stonehenge I don't believe has anything to do with sun worship any more than the hundreds of other stone circles in the uk
I think its quite clear that the vast majority of people who think that is the case namely Druids and modern sun worshippers are all bonkers
these type of monuments are all firmly attached to one of those three elements though
thats the two things they all have in common
they are all built on the earth
and they all have a northeastern alignment
the further back you go into the study of any ancient culture the less they give a shit about whats moving around in the sky
but they all care about food
and food comes from the ground
not the sun
so the fact that these appear to align with the sun means what
that they were putting emphasis on the sun being great
or that they were putting emphasis on the fact that they could make the ground touch it
its divine mimicry gone fruitloops
"look at my power I can make the earth touch the holy sun in an interesting manner, therefore I am very holy indeed"
claiming its an observatory is complete bollox imo
who builds towers in a line and then claims it meets a scientific purpose
you could achieve better results with some sticks and a piece of string
the god of the sun (male) and the god of the sea (female) got together and created the earth
wether the sea god is represented by a female serpent or other mythological monster its always those three elements that form the creation stories
water
+
fire
=
earth
Stonehenge I don't believe has anything to do with sun worship any more than the hundreds of other stone circles in the uk
I think its quite clear that the vast majority of people who think that is the case namely Druids and modern sun worshippers are all bonkers
these type of monuments are all firmly attached to one of those three elements though
thats the two things they all have in common
they are all built on the earth
and they all have a northeastern alignment
the further back you go into the study of any ancient culture the less they give a shit about whats moving around in the sky
but they all care about food
and food comes from the ground
not the sun
so the fact that these appear to align with the sun means what
that they were putting emphasis on the sun being great
or that they were putting emphasis on the fact that they could make the ground touch it
its divine mimicry gone fruitloops
"look at my power I can make the earth touch the holy sun in an interesting manner, therefore I am very holy indeed"
claiming its an observatory is complete bollox imo
who builds towers in a line and then claims it meets a scientific purpose
you could achieve better results with some sticks and a piece of string
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Forum Monk
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marduk
