Amazing Ancient Feats

.

Really. I am impressed by "Amazing Feats of the Ancients", but I am not amazed.

People write and talk about things like Stonehenge, the Pyramids, the Mayan Calendar, as if there is something mysterious about their construction. "How did they do this? Where did they get their information?"

There's nothing amazing about any of it. It's impressive, but not amazing.

First, feats of construction:

The only people who are amazed live in industrialized parts of the world. They have forgotten just how much can be done with plain brute force. They also underestimate how strong people used to be.

The people who built the Pyramids, and who raised the stones at Stonehenge, did physical labor all their lives. They not only had the muscle and bone, they had the physical knowledge of how to use it efficiently. You can meet people like that today. Here in New Mexico, you can go to the Pueblos, and meet people who have done traditional farming or herding all their lives. They are like living rocks. They can snatch a fleeing 200 pound sheep with one hand and stop it short. They can pick up 50 pound bales of hay and toss them around like nothing. And they can do this ALL DAY.

Get a bunch of well built people like this together, and you don't need mysterious forces to raise great hunks of stone. Add one person with some ideas on how to focus the energy of a group of people and you get Chichen Itza.

Astronomical Feats:

Some people are amazed by the accuracy of ancient calendars and astronomical information. These calendars are all produced by agrarian cultures who depended for their lives on accurate predictions of the seasons. They were motivated to have accurate calendars.

What does it take to have an accurate calendar? Careful observation and recording. That's all. These people had unpolluted skies, undimmed by artificial lights. It does not take a telescope to observe such skies.

Why should one be amazed, then that these people had accurate calendars?

I think these attitudes are based in the idea that "primitive" cultures are stupid.

Just because they did not have the advantage of hundreds, or thousands of years of previous research and design, does not mean they were stupid.

As I said, I am impressed, but not amazed.
.
.