Goast posted:

I was think more of mecca being hidden inside everyone's rear end but that works too

twoday posted:

So, let's figure out what's going on with that wax covered in Greek letters at the shipwreck.

The idea of a Greek ship being shipwrecked on Mauritius in the 16th century is insane. Before the Suez canal was constructed in 1869 and allowed ships to travel from the Mediterranean to the Red Sea, the only route from Greece to Mauritius would have been across the entire Med, around the western and southern shores of Africa. Such a voyage would not have been pretty much impossible for anyone except the maritime empires of Europe at the time, and even then these voyages were only possible with massive amounts of financial support and state-level planning. Shipwrecks don't linger on a beach for thousands of years, so that wreck could not have been ancient Greek, and the 16th century Greeks didn't really have the resources to do this sort of thing. Who did?

quote:

FRAGMENT OF AN ANTHROPOMORPHIC BRAZIER

The Aztec were known not only for their sculpture, but also for their expressive and sensitive poetry. The sculpture and poem below provide a glimpse into ways that the cycles of life were portrayed. Look carefully at the sculpture. The three faces represent the cycle of life. In the middle we can see the face of a young man, with all his teeth and wearing an ornament between the nose and upper lip. On either side are two halves of the face of an old, toothless man; these two faces are framed by the symmetrically divided face of a corpse with its eyes closed. The thirteen decorative rings (four on the young man’s head, nine on the corpse’s) represent the parts of a calendar cycle.

Nezahualcoyotl, the poet-king of Texcoco writes:

I, Nezahualcoyotl, ask this:
Is it true one really lives on the earth?
Not forever on earth, only a little while here.
Though it be jade it falls apart, though it be gold it wears away,
Not forever on earth, only a little while here.

twoday posted:

Platystemon posted:

If they weren’t morons, why did they so massively overengineer that ring of supports?

They’re protected by the roof, so wood supports would last an awfully long time.

If stones are used, they needn’t be nearly so thick. Think of the concrete columns holding up modern buildings. That’s an upper bound on how large the verticals need to be.

In moderation, stone is an O.K. choice for the verticals
for the same reason concrete columns are used today—it’s very strong in compression. It’s a poor choice for the lintels because it’s weak in tension and the bottom half of the lintels are under tension.

Ancient people may not have put it in the same words, but people who could shape and transport stones of such immense size knew a thing or two about its properties. They knew they didn’t need such a volume of stone for support. They knew that the stone could be stacked rather than in monolithic blocks without compromising its strength. They knew that spanning a gap with a stone was kind of daft. They built like they did at Stonehenge not because it was the most practical way to build but because it pleased them to do so.

I mean maybe it pleased them to overbuild internal supports for a wood roof, but I tend to think that they didn’t quarry and move dozens of Davids just to hide them under a wooden façade.

Centrist Committee posted:

Actually after reading the thread it sounds like a lot of ancient structures were clocks?

Gareth Gobulcoque posted:

they definitely weren't. it's one of the things that drives me batshit insane. like why the gently caress would you spend 200 years moving stones to do something you already know how to do.

monumental structures almost certainly embody a bridge between an earthly and heavenly realm, and mirror astronomical phenomenon as a result. they're recreating heaven on earth. why the gently caress would you spend so long making a calendar for poo poo you already know is going to happen. I'm pretty drunk.

Centrist Committee posted:

Actually after reading the thread it sounds like a lot of ancient structures were cocks

Tjadeth posted:

I think there's something very human about the fact that, even though I know the Mithraic mysteries were probably just some astrological cult stuff based on their burgeoning understanding of the precession of the equinoxes, or something equally useless to my modern life, I'm still desperate to know what the secret was


edit: also if anyone else has cool historical astronomy/astrology facts I've been on kind of a wiki binge for the past month or so and would be delighted to hear them

twoday posted:

Chucat posted:

2) Prior to the Battle of Pydna, there was a lunar eclipse. The Macedonians proceed to freak the gently caress out and treat it like an ill omen. Meanwhile, the Roman commander tells all his soldiers beforehand "There's gonna be an eclipse, so don't panic, it'll last like 30 minutes" and all the soldiers think he's a loving badass. (You might want to take this one with a grain of salt though).

mycomancy posted:

Lol I like this one, got a source for it?

mycomancy posted:

Lol I like this one, got a source for it?

quote:

When the fortification of the camp was completed, C. Sulpicius Gallus, a military tribune attached to the second legion, who had been a praetor the year before, obtained the consul's permission to call the soldiers on parade. He then explained that on the following night the moon would lose her light from the second hour to the fourth, and no one must regard this as a portent, because this [6??] happened in the natural order of things at stated intervals, and could be known beforehand and predicted. [7] Just in the same way, then, as they did not regard the regular rising and setting of the sun and moon or the changes in the light of the moon from full circle to a thin and waning crescent as a marvel, so they ought not to take its obscuration when it is hidden in the shadow of the earth for a supernatural portent. [8] On the next night-September 4-the eclipse took place at the stated hour, and the Roman soldiers thought that Gallus possessed almost divine wisdom. It gave a shock to the Macedonians as portending the fall of their kingdom and the ruin of their nation, nor could their soothsayers give any other explanation. [9] Shouts and howls went on in the Macedonian camp until the moon emerged and gave her light.

Chucat posted:

Yeah Livy has it.

Mr. Dick posted:

Are there any notable books or fairly recent articles discussing the main thread running though the Socratic dialogs as being the struggle to overcome the perverse values instilled by an education based mostly on Homer?

It seems relevant, with the trend in popular politics seeming to favor a speaker's ability to "pwn" their opponent rather than holding to consistent morality or a thought out plan of action. Guile, smooth deception, implacability, these seem like Homeric virtues and the exact sort of thing Plato was critical of.

mycomancy posted:

Wow, that implies that the dude had some sort of (at least partial) model of a heliocentric solar system. That's loving crazy!

Real hurthling! posted:

the weed kicked it at the end someone tell me if i trailed off or made sense, sorry

Centrist Committee posted:

I'm glad I'm not the only one who gets high as poo poo and pretends I can relate to people from thousands of years ago

SEX HAVER 40000 posted:

i miss this thread but am too stupid to contribute please help

Speleothing posted:

I ecpected this thread to be more about ancient attempts at socialism (early christian communities, the Gracchi?) and less about conspiracy theories.

Mr. Dick posted:

Pick a field of study so obscure that there are only one or two books written about it. Read those books and you're done.