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Dawnawaken92 t1_ix88myg wrote

A friend of mine keeps saying the Aztecs built their temples on even older temples that even they had no idea who built. And apparently their writing say as much. Anyone got any sources to prove or disprove this.

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RolowTamassee t1_ix89hn4 wrote

This is often true of any major historical site. For the Aztecs and Mayans, they often built pyramids over/atop other (previous) smaller ones. Generally the site location is what was important; either a source of water, a spring, specific fault lines, etc.

The old saying about real estate was true even for them: Location, location, location!

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Gemmabeta t1_ix8g5qy wrote

They found something like 9 different "Cities of Troy" built right on top of each other dating back all the way to the early Bronze Age.

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DiscotopiaACNH t1_ixarrz9 wrote

This is a really silly question but how does this work, exactly? Are they directly on top of one another? Is there just some weird midway period where everyone's house is half buried and they build another story? I've always been puzzled by the mechanics of this

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Nobelissim0s t1_ixbk9g8 wrote

These are usually long periods of time apart, sometimes centuries. In the case of Troy it's been burnt down/destroyed a few times. I guess over time the remains get eroded or new dirt ends up ontop of the old and people just build ontop of that.

It always seems like somehow these things fall down under the floor and im sure there is someone who understands this stuff better than I that can explain how buildings end up being below ground level over time other than "dirt gets on it"

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open_door_policy t1_ix8crgk wrote

I liked Pratchett's comment on it. Something like, "It ends up that what cities are built on is mostly older cities."

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miasabine t1_ix8k92t wrote

Yup. A lot of churches were built over pagan temples when Christianity swept through the world. For the location and convenience mostly. Also, it would probably be easier to convince vikings to start adopting a radically different religion if going go church is as similar an experience as possible to going to whatever temple they used to have. The cynic in me imagines “dear vikings, come to our church, it’s where your temple used to be. We preach love and tolerance and we’re keeping things as “normal” as possible, we won’t tell you about eternal damnation until we’ve hooked you in with everlasting life in paradise” would be the best tactic.

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tkdch4mp t1_ix8uns9 wrote

It also helped to rebrand the holidays they already knew and practiced

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miasabine t1_ix8x2i1 wrote

Absolutely, I think that’s a part of keeping things “business as usual” as much as they can. Enticing or convincing someone is a lot easier if you do it bit by bit, rather than completely up-ending their view of the world in one fell swoop. You start with the positives, then you get to the negatives once they’re already pretty much on board.

It’s manipulative, but it’s also effective.

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emperor_scrotum_II t1_ix9c48y wrote

Interestingly, the stigma against eating horse meat in European culture actually came to be as it was considered a delicacy with religious connotations among various pagan peoples in Europe (if I recall correctly - can’t be fucked to google that). So instead of co-opting the horse meat tradition it instead became shunned, in contrast to many other traditions which were integrated into Christianity

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schleppylundo t1_ix99usw wrote

For a lot of religions providing a schedule and set of meanings for holidays feasts and festivals is arguably more important to how followers interact with the religion than almost any other factor. Especially in an agricultural society where those holidays and festivals frequently serve to remind people when planting and harvest seasons are beginning and ending, which is why most religions following solar calendars tend to have a few holidays near solstices and equinoxes, and even with lunar or lunar-solar calendars like Hebrew you tend to get fairly close shots to that part of the solar year.

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lilwayne168 t1_ixag2u4 wrote

google the olmec people its widely believed they came way before the Aztecs and had very similar architecture and stone carving as pacific islanders and the religion mirrored the hindu beliefs. Many of the facial features of the carved statues resemble african features which people have also contemplated.

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spiritsonacid t1_ix8h36y wrote

Thats pretty much Graham Hancocks argument in Ancient Apocalypse. Im pretty sure you can google and find some sources yourself...

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Dawnawaken92 t1_ix8irl1 wrote

Ancient Apocalypse sounds interesting. I'm interested in the subject of pre-flood civilization. What could they have achieved. I wanna don't go off the deep end but like Atlantis and crystal tech. In the field of quantum science time crystals are becoming a real science. Basically perpetual motion engines. Wonder if the ancient could have achieved something similar. I watched a video over how the pyramid could have truly been a giant battery. They got down to the science of it. And it would have rung like a bell. Wonder what that coulda been used for. Link to real life time crystals https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_crystal?wprov=sfla1

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