Mesoamerican Archaeology
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Exactly, beyond their being pyramidal for obvious reasons. Furthermore, aside from looking quite different, they have been used across the globe for quite different purposes, whether it be tombs, monuments, temples or whatever. Sometimes I feel like I'm the only person in the universe who isn't constantly hoisting an eyebrow at the possibility of different cultures having built superficially similar structures.Minimalist wrote:A wheel is a bit like an oar. The shape determines the function. An oar without a wide end is basically a stick and not terribly useful for moving a boat.
Egyptian, Mesoamerican and Mesopotamian "pyramids" really don't look alike, though.
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Minimalist
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Great Pyramid
Ziggurat of Ur
Pyramid of the Sun
Chinese Pyramid
Oh, yeah....they are different.
Ziggurat of Ur
Pyramid of the Sun
Chinese Pyramid
Oh, yeah....they are different.
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
Yes, they are the same and they are also different.
Some Stepped and some straight sided.
But always a square base. No triangles or circles. (would that make it a cone and not a pyramid?)
In NA some have been found that have a rectangular base.
But it seems always with a star or polar alignment. (I guess that may be hard with a circular base. Even with a triangular base.)
But the basic question is not the engineering of them but the WHY of them.
What is the common thread of doing it in the first place.
Why pick the same basic shape? A square base with sides of apx 45 degrees.
If the goal was just to get close to heaven, a trangle base or a circle base would work just as well.
In fact it would be a more efficient use of material.
Some Stepped and some straight sided.
But always a square base. No triangles or circles. (would that make it a cone and not a pyramid?)
In NA some have been found that have a rectangular base.
But it seems always with a star or polar alignment. (I guess that may be hard with a circular base. Even with a triangular base.)
But the basic question is not the engineering of them but the WHY of them.
What is the common thread of doing it in the first place.
Why pick the same basic shape? A square base with sides of apx 45 degrees.
If the goal was just to get close to heaven, a trangle base or a circle base would work just as well.
In fact it would be a more efficient use of material.
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Leona Conner
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A circle, or cone, might make it. But could the square have something to do with the four cardinal points. We know the Egyptians used them but haven't heard if they were important to the other cultures that built theirs with a square base. Hey Beags, here's something for you to research, since my IP is slow (and I do mean slow) and you're really good at it .
From a structural stand point square is far easier to build than either triangular or circular with significantly less stone dressing or brick casting required.
The designers would presumably understood that.
The designers would presumably understood that.
First people deny a thing, then they belittle it, then they say it was known all along! Von Humboldt
For a start there are a number of pyramids with a circular base in Mexico, notably ones dedicated to Ehecatl - as can be found at Calixtlahuaca, Pino Suarez metro station (el DF) and Chichen Itza - all worth a visit, though the first entails being escorted by a huge 17 year oild Mexican with uniform and a big, big gun who chuckles to himself and smokes your cigarettes... an unsettling experience. Square makes more sense in terms of ease of design for those building the thing. As for the stars... well... common preoccupation of the ancients for fairly logical reasons. Plenty of old cultures were preoccupied with the cardinal directions - all just things that crop up as important to those making their first steps towards an understanding of the universe and their environment. I would suggest that a knowledge of time and the seasons became important to early farmers with regards to planting and so on, and a working knowledge of either the sidereal or solar year (as informed by observation of stars) was a big help in this respect. There's no point planting or sowing when Spring has already sprung.
Yes there are exceptions to all rules.
Some of the “Mounds” in North France and the Isles are cones, not pyramids. And we have some of the same cone style in N A. (Although most of these, with the exception of the Monks Mound complex, are in animal shapes.)
I don’t subscribe to the idea that farmers, at any time or any place, need to know the exact date of the spring equinox to know when to start planting. I spent too much of my youth in farm country to agree with that concept. With a few years of experience, a farmer can just look out the window or go out to smell the wind. Some of the old timers would wait for a certain phase of the moon, but nobody paid any attention to the stars. You can have an “early” or “late” spring for planting purposes that has nothing to do with the stars.
I will have to look up the exact reference, but I said before that I read about a battle that didn’t happen in Aztec times. By the time the Kings and Priests had decided on a favorable place and time to fight, the armies of both sides faded away in the night. They were conscripted farmers and it was time to go home and plant. They didn’t need the Priests to tell them. They just knew. They could literally smell it was time.
My question is why did this same basic form of worship, with the same kind of symbolgy, keep popping up earth wide and across such a wide time span. There are just too many similarities for it to be locally derived in every case. Feathered snakes around the world a coincidence?
This was a Sun and star worship. Not fertility worship.
(plant, animal, or human)
And is it my imagination, or does the pyramid thing seem to be very equatorial? With square base pyramids in equatorial cultures, and cone or other shape at higher latitudes?
Some of the “Mounds” in North France and the Isles are cones, not pyramids. And we have some of the same cone style in N A. (Although most of these, with the exception of the Monks Mound complex, are in animal shapes.)
I don’t subscribe to the idea that farmers, at any time or any place, need to know the exact date of the spring equinox to know when to start planting. I spent too much of my youth in farm country to agree with that concept. With a few years of experience, a farmer can just look out the window or go out to smell the wind. Some of the old timers would wait for a certain phase of the moon, but nobody paid any attention to the stars. You can have an “early” or “late” spring for planting purposes that has nothing to do with the stars.
I will have to look up the exact reference, but I said before that I read about a battle that didn’t happen in Aztec times. By the time the Kings and Priests had decided on a favorable place and time to fight, the armies of both sides faded away in the night. They were conscripted farmers and it was time to go home and plant. They didn’t need the Priests to tell them. They just knew. They could literally smell it was time.
My question is why did this same basic form of worship, with the same kind of symbolgy, keep popping up earth wide and across such a wide time span. There are just too many similarities for it to be locally derived in every case. Feathered snakes around the world a coincidence?
This was a Sun and star worship. Not fertility worship.
(plant, animal, or human)
And is it my imagination, or does the pyramid thing seem to be very equatorial? With square base pyramids in equatorial cultures, and cone or other shape at higher latitudes?
I'm sorry WA but I must totally disagree with that statement.I would suggest that a knowledge of time and the seasons became important to early farmers with regards to planting and so on, and a working knowledge of either the sidereal or solar year (as informed by observation of stars) was a big help in this respect. There's no point planting or sowing when Spring has already sprung.
I have never come across a farmer, or a gardener, who did anything by a calender. Apart from paying his taxes that is.
The start of the growing season is totally unconnected to the astronomical seasons, and any farmer would be able to note a suitable time to sow by looking at the growth of plants about him. The same with harvest time, this has nothing to do with a calender and everything to do with the state of the crop.
The early use of calenders, season markers, astronomical observations, all seem to be connected to ceremonial requirements. In the Christian faith arguments raged for years as to the 'true' date of Easter, and the Venerable Bede was the man who settled it, after that some form of time measurement was essential to keep the date correct as it moves of course. And frankly Bede didn't have a pyramid anywhere near him! He was born in Jarrow!
First people deny a thing, then they belittle it, then they say it was known all along! Von Humboldt
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Forum Monk
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The gizamids, so accurately polar aligned, were never designed to serve calendar functions. They are mortuary structures connected to a fairly complex religious system. Somehow, the polar alignment must be connected to stellar positions as a function of after-life beliefs. - at least for the egyptians.
I am not aware of other cardinally aligned pyramids.
I am not aware of other cardinally aligned pyramids.
Not only are many ancient pyramids astronomically aligned, so were many ancient cities.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ar ... by_country
It seems to me that a pyramidal structure makes the most sense for ancient structures, given the building materials. Wide at the base and increasingly smaller toward the top, it's the most stable.
I saw something the other day about them: The tallest is the Great Pyramid of Giza, the most ornate were in mesoamerica, and the most massive, in terms of overall mass and size of base, is the ziggurate type mound at Cahokia, outside of St. Louis.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ar ... by_country
It seems to me that a pyramidal structure makes the most sense for ancient structures, given the building materials. Wide at the base and increasingly smaller toward the top, it's the most stable.
I saw something the other day about them: The tallest is the Great Pyramid of Giza, the most ornate were in mesoamerica, and the most massive, in terms of overall mass and size of base, is the ziggurate type mound at Cahokia, outside of St. Louis.
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Forum Monk
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Just reviewed most of your reference, Beag and not a single cardinally aligned pyramid in the lot, outside of Egypt.
As for the other megalithic structures, some are aligned to solar or lunar events which would have northeast or southeast orientation. I tend to think these may be associated with sun worship (or moon as the case may be) since, for example, the winter solstice marks the most southerly rising or setting point of the sun. If the sun would ever withdraw his blessing and continue south, it would have been a disaster for these cultures. And so they could happily mark the sun's "decision" to return northward again, as a sign of their having sufficiently pleased their 'god'. (or some such reasoning)
As someone has already pointed out, and I tend to agree, this is a ceremonial function associated with a religious purpose and has nothing really to do with calendars.
Some sites may have been erected to observe certain planetary events (i.e. Venus) but these are speculative at best. I tend to be very skeptical of stellar alignment theories. I am even skeptical of Kate Spence's famous stellar alignment methodology she hypothesizes for the alignment of the gizamids. Clearly the "stretching of the cord" seemed to have a ceremonial function but I am not convinced that it was the method used for laying out the pyramid bases.
For reference, I recommend browsing through James Q. Jacobs websites on archaeastronomy and archaeogeodesy. Example this on Mesoamerican structures:
http://www.jqjacobs.net/mesoamerica/meso_astro.html
While I don't agree with all of his conclusions, he is knowledgable and presents the information in very readable format.
As for the other megalithic structures, some are aligned to solar or lunar events which would have northeast or southeast orientation. I tend to think these may be associated with sun worship (or moon as the case may be) since, for example, the winter solstice marks the most southerly rising or setting point of the sun. If the sun would ever withdraw his blessing and continue south, it would have been a disaster for these cultures. And so they could happily mark the sun's "decision" to return northward again, as a sign of their having sufficiently pleased their 'god'. (or some such reasoning)
As someone has already pointed out, and I tend to agree, this is a ceremonial function associated with a religious purpose and has nothing really to do with calendars.
Some sites may have been erected to observe certain planetary events (i.e. Venus) but these are speculative at best. I tend to be very skeptical of stellar alignment theories. I am even skeptical of Kate Spence's famous stellar alignment methodology she hypothesizes for the alignment of the gizamids. Clearly the "stretching of the cord" seemed to have a ceremonial function but I am not convinced that it was the method used for laying out the pyramid bases.
For reference, I recommend browsing through James Q. Jacobs websites on archaeastronomy and archaeogeodesy. Example this on Mesoamerican structures:
http://www.jqjacobs.net/mesoamerica/meso_astro.html
While I don't agree with all of his conclusions, he is knowledgable and presents the information in very readable format.
Hi Monk. Both myself and the Wiki article says "astronomical" and not cardinal orientation. Also, spanning a long time, from Caral to Teotihuacan, we see these cities and pyramids aligned to the northeast, or to Venus. Venus worship and and it's use in the Mayan calender is not a theory as far as I know. I'll look that up but I thought that was common knowledge for many years.Just reviewed most of your reference, Beag and not a single cardinally aligned pyramid in the lot, outside of Egypt.
Check out these cities on a web site that shows true north. The northeast orientation spans more than one culture.