Posted on 12/02/2004 5:58:20 PM PST by Betis70
Second, just 12 bodies? The Moche (of what is now Peru) were around at about the same time (100AD to 700AD or so) and make this look like a family picnic. They thought all those quite detailed scenes of sacrifice on their pottery were mythological until they found the graves of the people depicted on the pottery and some of the victims. Guess what happens when a culture has a god known to archaeologists as "The Decapitator" (picture a giant spider holding knives and heads). This article gives a pretty good summary of what they were up to.
Third, there is a bias in archaeology toward assuming that any culture is peaceful to the point of pacifism until proven otherwise. People like Lawrence Keeley and Steven LeBlanc have been working to debunk the myth of the peaceful savage. I highly recommend Keeley's book War Before Civilization on the subject. Simply put, there is plenty of evidence of ancient homicides out there, both murderous and as the rusult of warfare, that's frequently ignored by leftist academics who prefer their peaceful savage mythology.
You are correct about the Moche. Good point. El Brujo has depictions of some of their psychotic behavior.
This, by the way, is where I look the cultural relativists in the eye and say, "No, I don't shed a tear that their culture was wiped out. It didn't happen soon enough."
seems they moved to the middle east
" a necklace made of imitation human jaws" now that is interesting.
More detailed info here:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1293942/posts
Yes I know a little about the Moche. They were a seriously sick group of people down there. My undergrad arch advisor worked in Peru fairly often, well whenever Sendero Luminoso wasn't threatening to kill everyone in sight.
A big thank you to Spain for Christinizing the Aztecs.
You're probably thinking of the picture of the blood-drinking ceremony after the prisoners' throats were cut. I saw a display of Moche pottery at UCLA a few years ago, along with the amazing grave treasures of the "Lord of Sipan." The pottery was fascinating in many ways, including its skilled artisanship and lifelike representations of people and faces long dead.
The Moche, like most other South and Central American cultures, were in a constant state of war with neighboring city-states to find prisoners to sacrifice to appease their gods. A popular torture was skinning prisoners alive. One pot featured the agonized lipless face of such a sacrifice, its unprotected eyes staring pleadingly in a distillation of unbearable pain. Looking at it centuries after the fact was a powerful experience and I still wake up in cold sweats dreaming about it. Yet it was displayed along with playful pottery depictions of parrots, owls, sea lions, gourds and other subjects. Some of the pots were designed to whistle tunes as water was poured from them.
The Chichen Itza Mayan Pyramid is NOWHERE NEAR as large as either of the Teotihuacan monuments. I've climbed all 3. The Pyramid of the Sun seemed to go on forever.
My only question is, has anyone excavated the much larger Pyramid of the Sun yet?
Quite true. The Romans had the culture of the Colliseum, but the vast majority of those who died there were criminals, weren't they?
I think the Aztecs believed that without the endless blood sacrifices the sun would stop rising and the world would end.
It´((Chichen Itza)) is, however, far steeper than either and the steps are more narrow than the average foot size, making the ascent and descent more dangerous. But not for the average Mayan foot... especially the average Mayan foot of 800 BCE. Mayans are still prettty small people, but probably the strongest people I've ever met. I once saw a Mayan deliveryman pick up a refrigerator and carry it over his head without too much problem.
Great. Now they're gonna load up a van full of explosives and blow it up.
Yeah, that's right. The Aztecs conducted "Flower Wars" in which they would defeat another town, and extract x number of sacrificial victims. Sacrificing an adolescent doesn't have the same sting when it's a total stranger, I suppose.
The roots of the Roman "games" are probably somewhat analogous. The Roman spectacles / games grew out of Etruscan roots. This is pretty well known, but to flesh it out a little, there's an Etruscan tomb painting in which a man with a bag tied over his head (so that he can't see) has some kind of ineffective weapon in one hand, and is being attacked by a vicious dog.
According to Lionel Casson, in Roman times pork was a popular meat, but due to uncertainties of supply, price fixing, grain prices, etc, was sometimes too expensive for many. Typically there was a ready supply of unclaimed dead bodies from the Games, and since human flesh tastes so much like pork...
...suffice to say, one had to make sure the restauranteur was reputable. And preferably had a cafe not located near the arenas...
I can do that, too, so long as the refrigerator is one of those 2' x 2' dorm room models.
Human flesh 'tastes so much like pork'???!?!?! How do you know? BTW, that's the first I heard of that practice vis-a-vis the Roman 'Games'. Excuse me, but I have to go to throw up now. :0(
How do I know? Oh, stop being so suspicious. And pass the "lady fingers"...
Please FREEPMAIL me if you want on or off the
"Gods, Graves, Glyphs" PING list or GGG weekly digest
-- Archaeology/Anthropology/Ancient Cultures/Artifacts/Antiquities, etc.
Gods, Graves, Glyphs (alpha order)
Please FREEPMAIL me if you want on or off the
"Gods, Graves, Glyphs" PING list or GGG weekly digest
-- Archaeology/Anthropology/Ancient Cultures/Artifacts/Antiquities, etc.
Gods, Graves, Glyphs (alpha order)
Yes, imitation... Indians in Ohio were known to make imitation grizzly teeth ornaments from bon. Real grizzly teeth were found there too, probably traded from the west, but were probably pricey, thus the need to make imitations to fill “demand.”
Indians in ancient Cahokia on the Mississippi River made imitation shark’s teeth to mount in war clubs or ceremonial war clubs. They had obtained real shark’s teeth too, from their trading network with both coasts, but the real thing was probably difficult to come by and other high status individuals may have made or had imitations made from white chert to keep up with the Joneses.
Hopewell Indians in Ohio had a thing for jaws too...
They made ornaments from worked-down animal jaws and wolf masks which included the jaws, worked down so the wearer could hold the jawbone in his mouth as an extension of his own teeth. The wearers, probably shaman, would even have their own front teeth knocked out to make room for the wolf “dentures” to improve the realism of their effort to transform from humans to wolves before the eyes of their people.
Human palates with all the teeth were also made into ornaments though it is not known if these were the treasured remains of naturally deceased people, even loved ones, or trophies of war. They really weren’t known for their warfare as later people were, so it way well be a way of honoring their dead.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.