the dominance of religion in the ancient world

[Guest]

ever since I read Spyridon Marinatos' daughter's comment, 'why does everything ancient have to be determined religious' (or close to that) i have been wanting to explore the the area of religious domination in the ancient world.

obviously this is not a christian topic but an examination of pre-christian religious life in the ancient world. so please don't get flippant and treat this seriously, plus i am not looking to turn this into a religious venue later on. i would like to explore what we know and what proof do we have. I have 3 books of ancient texts at home but i am not convinced they contain all the information we have that leads archaeologists in this direction.

what texts do we have that lead us to believe that religion was more dominant then than now? what leads us to believe that the ancient people did everything with a religious connotation? we in the modern world do not so why would the ancient world be any different?

why can't art and statues just be done for the sake of art and because a person had talent? or that they decorated a home because ancient women were like modern women and wanted pretty things around the house?

then why do we have such a limited perspective of the ancient world? what are we missing?

[Minimalist]

I, for one, applaud you for starting a thread which actually may have some merit.

[john]

I, for one, applaud you for starting a thread which actually may have some merit.

i'll add my vote. go for it arch.

john

[marduk]

then why do we have such a limited perspective of the ancient world? what are we missing?

youre missing the fact that in every ancient culture up til greece the king was considered a god incarnate
take for instance the early dynastic sumerian kings
they were considered to be embodiments of Enlil the god who sent the flood that devastated the steppe areas (which in sumerian is called EDEN) and forced the steppe dwellers (which in sumerian is spelled ADAM) to leave what was up til then an area of natural abundance. after the flood the God enlil appears in a spirit form so hes the son of the father and the son of the son of the sun god and the holy spirit of the son of the son of the sun god and also the holy spirit of the son of the sun god and the holy spirit of the sun god as well (did you get that first go or would you like to go back and read it again ) apparently the steppe was the source of many rivers and the survivors of the flood escaped down two of these rivers to a country called mesopotamia (which in greek means the land between the rivers).
The father of Enlil was Anu the sun god and the King was considered to be the son of the son of the sun god. there are many texts that describe this religion. the country was owned in its entirety by the king who in turn allowed the temples to control sections of it which they leased out to the citizens. they repaid the lease by giving the temple part of their harvest or some of the money that they made from the harvest. it was in this way that commerce was born. commerce required an ability to keep track of these amounts so that people didn't have to pay what would later be called taxes twice or get away with not paying it. this bought about the invention of writing. the cities all had a central temple as a focus point so the religion of the son of the son of the sun god in a way actually bought about civilisation in the first place.
but now its here
and the temples no longer control all the land
and the king no longer controls all the temples
and the son of the son of the sun god is just a poor attempt at a humourous tongue twister
so why bother having religion at all
the answer is simple
to keep control of the people a long time ago the temples started the belief that the God king could control what happened to you after you died.
and you know
some people still actually believe that today
despite the fact that everyone today knows thet the king of these lands was fully human
and despite the fact that they know he couldn't control floods
and despite the fact the last one died before 2800bce
but hey
if they want to be slaves all their lives thats up to them right
more freedom for the rest of us, yayayay
you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it religious unless you indoctrinate and brainwash it first

what texts do we have that lead us to believe that religion was more dominant then than now? what leads us to believe that the ancient people did everything with a religious connotation? we in the modern world do not so why would the ancient world be any different?

every single text that has come out of Sumer mentions Gods and the way that they interact with society
but then
every text from Sumer was written by a scribe
and every scribe in sumer was trained at a temple scribe school
so they were all monks basically anyway
with a little less of the sexual restrictions than modern ones
this is the same in most cases where texts are concerned wherever you look in the ancient world as the only schools were religious ones which means that the only really educated intelligent people in the society were believers which is obviously the complete opposite of the situation today


you wouldn't like to know what happened at the temple of inanna to raise funds in those days Arch
but you'd probably have enjoyed it if you were there

[Leona Conner]

This is going to be a hard topic to come up with any facts. So far all the archaeologists have found are some figurines and of course the cave paintings. It really is more of a cultural anthropology subject. After all pre-historic man did not leave us any writings; and even if they did we probably wouldn't be able to read them, yet. Many anthropologists believe religion started when early men began to wonder about the world around them. By studying primitive societies that exist today, we can get a pretty good idea of how early man thought. Many still believe that everything has a spirit; animals, air, water, plants, etc. Native Americans still believed that way when the first Europeans arrived on this side of the pond.

As far as "art for arts sake," yes I would like to think that people, even back then, made things just because they could and it was pretty. The Venus figurines are obviously must have some religious meaning. But as for the cave paintings, they could have been painted just to show what kind of animals they had in those days. It would be great to find out that they had some idea of the concept of the future and wanted to leave a record. Maybe modern people put a religious attachment to all these things is because we are so absorbed with the subject.

[marduk]

ooh youre way off Leona
we're discussing the ancient world not the prehistoric one
imo those venus figures are just early hard core porn

[Guest]

youre missing the fact that in every ancient culture up til greece the king was considered a god incarnate

no i am not missing the fact, i am throwing these questions out just to get the topic started. we needed some place to begin and those were as good as any.

leona made a good point about the cave drawings and it backs up spyridos' daughter's assertion (i forget her name) when she was looking at a painting of ships leaving the harbor.

my theory is that maybe in the smaller cities, peer pressure helped keep people in the temple but in the larger ones i would think that only the faithful attended the services or did the sacrifices while others just went about their normal everyday life.

it would be nice if you could put links with your points to help present a clearer picture of what you are saying.

[Minimalist]

Oh, I disagree, marduk.

By the time a civilization reaches the stage where it has kings and caste systems and a department of motor vehicles it usually has also evolved some parasitic priest-class which feeds off the labor of the peasantry by telling them that "god" wants them to do something. In the case of the Sumerians it merely seems as if the priests and the ruling class cemented the bargain by having the priests declare the king a "god" as well.

But, it was always when annoying when I saw shit like this, from Wikipedia.

A stone circle is a circular space, delimited by purposely erected stones and often containing burials. They should not be confused with henges or isolated monoliths, although all these features are often encountered together. Nor should they be confused with earlier rings, such as the Goseck circle in Saxony-Anhalt, that may have served similar religious/calendrical/astronomical purposes, though at a much earlier epoch. Archaeological evidence, coupled with information from astronomers, geologists and mathematicians, implies that the purpose of stone circles was connected with prehistoric peoples' beliefs and that their construction can shed light on ancient engineering, social organisation, religion and, for want of a better word, science. Their precise function however will probably always remain open to debate.

Bold text added.

Archaeology has an annoying tendency to ascribe to ritual ANYTHING which it does not immediately understand. For all we know, those circles were corrals for nomadic herders to keep their reindeer safe for the night.
All you'd have to do is fill in the gaps around the stones with brush and you'd have a ready made pen to use for a while and then move on. After a few centuries of not being tended the brush would rot away leaving the circle. And, by the law of averages, one stone in the circle would always be roughly where the sun was on the summer solstice and another would be near the Winter solstice.

Now, I ascribe this inherent insistence on ritual by archaeology to the tendency of The Club to never want to say "we don't know, yet." But, that's just me.

[john]

This is going to be a hard topic to come up with any facts. So far all the archaeologists have found are some figurines and of course the cave paintings. It really is more of a cultural anthropology subject. After all pre-historic man did not leave us any writings; and even if they did we probably wouldn't be able to read them, yet. Many anthropologists believe religion started when early men began to wonder about the world around them. By studying primitive societies that exist today, we can get a pretty good idea of how early man thought. Many still believe that everything has a spirit; animals, air, water, plants, etc. Native Americans still believed that way when the first Europeans arrived on this side of the pond.

As far as "art for arts sake," yes I would like to think that people, even back then, made things just because they could and it was pretty. The Venus figurines are obviously must have some religious meaning. But as for the cave paintings, they could have been painted just to show what kind of animals they had in those days. It would be great to find out that they had some idea of the concept of the future and wanted to leave a record. Maybe modern people put a religious attachment to all these things is because we are so absorbed with the subject.

why paint in a cave? which is, after all, the earliest embodiment of the total absence of light. i can tell you, from experience, that caving, with or without light, can only be described as a visceral experience.

unless there was a prelingual avant garde of artists who were making a point of painting in a lightless environment, then we've got ourselves a pretty conundrum here.

i have a suspicion that cave paintings have a symbolic aspect. i emphasize the word "symbolic" as apposed to "religious".

by symbolic i mean that these people were using the ability to communicate "horse", for example, by means of an unrelated physical thing, a painting of "horse". but why, why in a cave, of all places?

it may be that the ability to think in the abstract was not universal during those times. knowledge limited to a few.

and/or it may be that one was initiated in some way to the path of abstract thinking.

if i had never seen or experienced a painting, and was led in darkness into a cave, then, when the torches were fired up, first saw a "herd of horses", what would have been my first response?

joyful shock of recognition?

terror created by the sight of horses where they simply cannot be?

confusion, a sense of delusion?

awe? acceptance of the symbolic as real?


from my side, many questions and no answers.


john

[Minimalist]

why paint in a cave?

What if you live there? I've painted the walls in my house.

[Guest]

every text from Sumer was written by a scribe
and every scribe in sumer was trained at a temple scribe school

please post some source for this assertion. but my point is what stops people from learning outside the scribe school? why wouldn't friends teach other friends outside of school?

thus how do we know that education was limited to a formal setting as this?

[john]

why paint in a cave?

What if you live there? I've painted the walls in my house.

difficulty there is that the painted chambers do not appear to have been lived in - no signs of occupational housekeeping have been found. only the remnants of painting and lighting materials.


john

[Minimalist]

To be serious, this is a culture that we know almost nothing about.

Were they matriarchal or patriarchal? Did they have a sense of what either of those concepts meant? Did they have mates or just screw whoever happened to be available?

What did they do on long winter nights in a glacial environment? We'll probably never know.

Who is to say that those paintings did not serve the same purpose as this guy's "trophy room?"




A place to go to get away from the women for a while?

[john]

To be serious, this is a culture that we know almost nothing about.

Were they matriarchal or patriarchal? Did they have a sense of what either of those concepts meant? Did they have mates or just screw whoever happened to be available?

What did they do on long winter nights in a glacial environment? We'll probably never know.

Who is to say that those paintings did not serve the same purpose as this guy's "trophy room?"




A place to go to get away from the women for a while?

min -

then why did they not hang the actual heads on the wall?

also, there is no evidence of a bar.


john

[Minimalist]

There you go again. Assuming that every detail has to be identical.

They probably stood around admiring their painting and longing for the day when someone would invent "Beer."