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Ishmael
In: Toronto
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| Brian Ambrose wrote: | | This would imply that megalithic structures were indeed primarily religiously motivated. |
Applied Epistemolgical Rule #26: For anthropological artifacts, "Ritual Significance" is always an insufficent explanation.
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Brian Ambrose
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| Applied Epistemolgical Rule #26: For anthropological artifacts, "Ritual Significance" is always an insufficent explanation. |
Correct, how could anyone forget rule #26, eh? Still, don't forget rule #75.3 which says that "an insufficient explanation is better than no explanation at all inasmuch as it makes no claim to completeness" (sorry, I've misplaced my copy of the rulebook, but it's something like that).
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Grant
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| Had the design (adopted by two remote cultures) been some other geometric shape, less abundant in the natural world, I too would assume a link. But the common or garden spiral?...I don't think any significance can be justifiably attached. |
That was my first thought too. But then I realised that a spiral would be a bugger of a thing to inscribe onto stone.
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Oakey Dokey
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BrianAmbrose wrote: | This would imply that megalithic structures were indeed primarily religiously motivated. We'd be looking at the earliest universal religion, a Satanic megalith-building religious culture that spread over the world, built to last. But which suddenly disappeared. |
That's a hell of a lot of info extrapolated from what may be early wall-paper.
| The snake, the original serpent, guardian and provider of the light of knowledge to man, therefore a religious symbol of worship worthy to be repeated at every opportunity. |
The snake, originally speaking, was an un-named and un-deified animal. At what point did it become the "guardian and provider of the light of knowledge"?
It's an old problem: How do we know what earlier men truly believed?. Archaeologists tell us this stuff all the time and they show no working hypothesis.
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Ray
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| At what point did it (the snake)become the "guardian and provider of the light of knowledge"? |
Simple question; (very) complex answer.
In one form or another the Adam-n-Eve-type myth crops up in every corner of the world, which suggests that it must be extremely ancient. In most versions the snake stands for immortality because instead of dying he repeatedly sloughs his old skin to reveal the new one beneath.
Obviously the ancients knew that the snake was mortal, so I see it as a way of putting it - as a representation of er ... the nature of Life the Universe et al.
Then there's the Aboriginal Dreamtime snake....
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Ishmael
In: Toronto
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| Brian Ambrose wrote: | | Correct, how could anyone forget rule #26, eh? Still, don't forget rule #75.3 which says that "an insufficient explanation is better than no explanation at all inasmuch as it makes no claim to completeness" |
No. Sorry. That is exactly wrong. And it's for this very reason our rules were written (though we've never got round to writing them, I admit).
Temporary, partial explanations have a habit of becoming permanent and complete with the addition of time. The rules are meant to stop us from offering inadequate explanations and to help us identify those explanations that have only the appearance of authority, acquired from age.
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Chad
In: Ramsbottom
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| Grant wrote: | | Had the design (adopted by two remote cultures) been some other geometric shape, less abundant in the natural world, I too would assume a link. But the common or garden spiral?...I don't think any significance can be justifiably attached. |
That was my first thought too. But then I realised that a spiral would be a bugger of a thing to inscribe onto stone. |
So you reckon the guy doing the inscribing would have turned to the designer and said:
'You'd better have a serious, symbolic significance for them bloody spirals...they're a bugger of a thing to inscribe'.
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Grant
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Chad wrote
So you reckon the guy doing the inscribing would have turned to the designer and said:
'You'd better have a serious, symbolic significance for them bloody spirals...they're a bugger of a thing to inscribe'. |
Yes!
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Grant
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Ishmael wrote
| No. Sorry. That is exactly wrong. And it's for this very reason our rules were written (though we've never got round to writing them, I admit). |
I remember from THOBR that the first one is "What is is what was."
I've just learnt that another one must be "an insufficient explanation is no better than no explanation and will mislead."
What are the others?
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Ishmael
In: Toronto
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| Grant wrote: | | What are the others? |
We're makin' 'em up as we go along.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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No, I make 'em up as we go along. Remember the Fundamental Law: Don't Follow Leaders (or Parking Meters).
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Brian Ambrose
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Grant said: | But then I realised that a spiral would be a bugger of a thing to inscribe onto stone. |
Very true, and thank you for pointing this out. It provides significant support that the spiral is more than just any-old motif, leaving us still with the questions: what does it mean, or what does it represent, and what is its origin? Please ensure you obey rule #26 (although I suspect this might be waived given a sufficiently novel insight).
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Chad
In: Ramsbottom
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| Brian Ambrose wrote: | Grant said: | But then I realised that a spiral would be a bugger of a thing to inscribe onto stone. |
Very true, and thank you for pointing this out. It provides significant support that the spiral is more than just any-old motif... |
Sorry guys but this is a pretty feeble argument. The spiral would be no more difficult to inscribe than any other non-linear geometric design.
If you look at what the Egyptians, Greeks and Romans were carving into stone a short time later (not to mention Renaissance sculptors) why do you assume their megalithic counterparts would find a few spirals such a bugger of an undertaking?
The fact that they did manage to do it, shows they had the tools; and their manual dexterity would have been no different to our own.
Even if it was a bugger of a task, the guy with the chisel would have had little, if any, say in the matter.
This wasn't a self build project; being undertaken by some utopian workers' cooperative for Christ sake...if the bloke in the 'big house' (or temple) wanted spirals on his megalith, he sure as hell would have got 'em....symbolic or not.
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Brian Ambrose
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| Sorry guys but this is a pretty feeble argument. The spiral would be no more difficult to inscribe than any other non-linear geometric design. |
Maybe, but as soon as you accept that a spiral is not a trivial option, you have to start on the questions. Why choose any non-linear geometric design? Why bother? Why not just chisel something a bit easier, a cross for example? And why do we see this particular awkard design in multiple locations? Coincidence? (there's probably an AE rule for that).
| if the bloke in the 'big house' (or temple) wanted spirals on his megalith, he sure as hell would have got 'em....symbolic or not. |
Well, again... why did he want that particular design?
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Chad
In: Ramsbottom
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| Well, again... why did he want that particular design? |
Perhaps we should ask my mother. - - She used to have embossed wallpaper in her living room...covered in that particular design.
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