Pyramids

Discussion in 'Human Science' started by timojin, Nov 28, 2016.

  1. timojin Valued Senior Member

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    Is there a relationship between Egypt and central America ?
     
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  3. Janus58 Valued Senior Member

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    Pyramids are not only found in these two locations. Pyramids and pyramid-like structures are found all around the world. This is not unusual as it is the easiest way to build a large structure with limited technology and it not surprising that different cultures would discover this independently.
     
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  5. timojin Valued Senior Member

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    Can you mention some of the places that you can think. I remember well the ones in Mexico and Central America and Egypt I understand there are structures in many places in the world ,
     
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  7. DaveC426913 Valued Senior Member

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    This is an example of convergent technology.

    With materials such as stone, the only way they could build to any height is to have a wide base. (This is also why sand and rock piles are cone-shaped.)

    So, anyone, anywhere in the world who wanted to build high strctures would invariably build pyramidal (or at least conical) shapes.

    Does make one wonder, though, why we don't see more examples of conical structures. They wouldhav the advantage of using less material.
     
  8. James R Just this guy, you know? Staff Member

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    It's easier to make square bricks or blocks than it is to made curved ones.
     
  9. DaveC426913 Valued Senior Member

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    Agreed, but one doesn't need curved bricks to make a curved megastructure.

    Hm. Though I guess the gaps would make for a weaker structure.
     
  10. Seattle Valued Senior Member

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    Also consider that the pyramids in Mexico came thousands of years after those in Egypt.
     
  11. timojin Valued Senior Member

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    Do we really know if it was thousands or less . Here is the additional question why such structure were not build in North America or further south America , even the builders in Peru or Bolivia were magnificent.
     
  12. Sarkus Hippomonstrosesquippedalo phobe Valued Senior Member

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    Depends upon the type of structure... the Pont du Gard, for example, was largely constructed without any mortar, and has lasted 2,000 years.
    Admittedly it's not curved in the same sense as being discussed but certainly has curved elements.

    Additionally, concrete was in use by numerous cultures in the BC era, and by the Romans from 300 BC. This would have allowed curved structures for more easily.
     
  13. Seattle Valued Senior Member

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    If we are comparing the Egyptian pyramids with those at Teotihuacan the difference is thousands (3ooo BC vs roughly 500 BC). They Mayan structures were older and maybe similar in age to the Egyptian structures.
     
  14. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    It's been suggested that the relatively slow pace of civilization in the Western Hemisphere is largely due to its north-south axis, compared to the east-west axis of Eurasia. During the Neolithic Era (characterized by the cultivation of plants and the domestication of animals), if a community in Eurasia discovered a fabulous way to increase food production, the neighboring communities to the east and west could often copy it because they were in a similar (or even identical) climate zone. This led the communities to trade with each other: plants, animals, natural resources and ideas. With so many people working on the same projects, new ideas were flying around all the time.

    But in the Americas, this was very difficult. An animal or plant that thrived, for example, in (what is now) central Mexico would very likely not thrive (or even survive) in (what is now) Louisiana.

    As a result, the people of the Americas kept to a hunter-gatherer society for several thousand years after the Asians and Europeans had developed farming and animal husbandry, and had even learned to mine minerals and invent bronze metallurgy.

    The Bronze Age began around 7000BCE in Eurasia and had spread throughout most of the region within another millennium or two... even to its nearby islands such as Britain, Ireland, Japan and Indonesia. (Even the Native Australians traded their hunter-gatherer societies for farming, although the continent was so fertile that hunting was still an easy way to get meat.) But it wasn't until around 1500BCE when metallurgy was discovered in Central America, and about another thousand years in the Andes.

    Africa, of course, also has a north-south axis, and its people had the same problem. But before they developed an agriculture-based civilization, explorers from across the Red Sea established colonies in the continent's northeastern region and began developing a civilization in Egypt, using the agricultural technologies (and crops) that had worked for them in Mesopotamia.
     
  15. timojin Valued Senior Member

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    I have noticed the structure in Uxmal might be older then at Chichen Itza . The one in Uxmal stones are not well fit as in Chechen Itza at same time at chechen they have well rounded columns.
     
  16. Seattle Valued Senior Member

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    I've been to the pyramids at Teotihuacan and the structures at Copan (Honduras).

    The stellas at Copan are quite beautiful although the size of the Temple of the Sun at Teotihuacan is very impressive.
     
  17. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    NA has hundreds of pyramids - the largest now available was built near St Louis, Missouri, smack in the middle of North America. It's quite sophisticated in its internal structure, although basically a pile of dirt (not much appropriate rock handy in the Mississippi River valley around there). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cahokia
    https://www.google.com/imgres?imgur...M3QAhUHwYMKHXyhAK0QMwhjKDswOw&iact=mrc&uact=8
     
  18. timojin Valued Senior Member

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    I meant pyramid a structure made by man by laing stones and making a structure . I have been by the burial mount by St Louis . If you drive in Mexico by Victora you can see a lot of mounds.
    Natives American even the Siberian Native form burial grounds mounds
     
  19. sculptor Valued Senior Member

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    and
    the pyramids were burial mounds
     
  20. timojin Valued Senior Member

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    I don't doubt , but one are dirt based and the other are stone fitted
     
  21. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    They are sophisticated structures, carefully engineered and carefully constructed by people with generations of experience - if you just pile dirt any old way it will collapse on you long before it reaches the heights of these things. (As did the early attempts at pyramids in Egypt).

    And the big ones were not - or at least not only - burial mounds. They had buildings on them, ritual and ceremonial fields and functions, much like the Aztec and Inca et al structures.
     
  22. RuneSpider Registered Senior Member

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    It's a good point that the pyramids in Egypt and the ones in MesoAmerica differed in function.
    Though they also differed in construction as well. The temples here in the Americas tended to be continuously renewed, a newer structure being built over the older structure.
    The only time that happened that comes to mind was the collapsed pyramid at Meidum.
    Though in that case it was probably part of Sneferu's work towards what would become the true pyramid .
    The American structures are I think more similar to the ziggurats of Mesopotamia .

    As far as there being other pyramids, I always found the Nubian pyramids to be more aesthetically pleasing, personally.
     
  23. sculptor Valued Senior Member

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    All stone is not created equal. Choosing the best stone for both the base and tops of pyramids seems problematic?
     

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