I found this article that has a ton of super cool crap about an ancient archaeological find that dates to 11,000 years ago, which might be the world's first temple. Here's a savory quote:
Hodder is fascinated that Gobekli Tepe's pillar carvings are dominated not by edible prey like deer and cattle but by menacing creatures such as lions, spiders, snakes and scorpions. "It's a scary, fantastic world of nasty-looking beasts,"
What did I write back in June...hmmm thinkin' thinkin'...umm, can't remember exactly what I...ummm (opens new browser window, searches...ahhh yes, here it is!)
One of the great things about pre-history is that there is so very little to find out. What you see is what you get. The stuff that anyone finds in these places, regardless of sophisticated technological analysis, has been so reduced by time, that it's practically like analyzin' nature.
I find myself fascinated by the discovery of something super-ancient. But deep in my heart, I know most of the interpretations of said discoveries is total crap. I respect those who have a chunk of my (above) statement to heart when they're dealing with stuff from 11,000 B.C.
The gulf that separates us from Gobekli Tepe's builders is almost unimaginable. Indeed, though I stood among the looming megaliths eager to take in their meaning, they didn't speak to me. They were utterly foreign, placed there by people who saw the world in a way I will never comprehend. There are no sources to explain what the symbols might mean. Schmidt agrees. "We're 6,000 years before the invention of writing here," he says.
That's pretty good!
Hodder is fascinated that Gobekli Tepe's pillar carvings are dominated not by edible prey like deer and cattle but by menacing creatures such as lions, spiders, snakes and scorpions. "It's a scary, fantastic world of nasty-looking beasts,"
What did I write back in June...hmmm thinkin' thinkin'...umm, can't remember exactly what I...ummm (opens new browser window, searches...ahhh yes, here it is!)
One of the great things about pre-history is that there is so very little to find out. What you see is what you get. The stuff that anyone finds in these places, regardless of sophisticated technological analysis, has been so reduced by time, that it's practically like analyzin' nature.
I find myself fascinated by the discovery of something super-ancient. But deep in my heart, I know most of the interpretations of said discoveries is total crap. I respect those who have a chunk of my (above) statement to heart when they're dealing with stuff from 11,000 B.C.
The gulf that separates us from Gobekli Tepe's builders is almost unimaginable. Indeed, though I stood among the looming megaliths eager to take in their meaning, they didn't speak to me. They were utterly foreign, placed there by people who saw the world in a way I will never comprehend. There are no sources to explain what the symbols might mean. Schmidt agrees. "We're 6,000 years before the invention of writing here," he says.
That's pretty good!
-anyhoo-
I have the impression that humans have a really, really, bad sense of scale when it comes to time. As an example, I'll give you this further quote to wrap your brain around.
"There's more time between Gobekli Tepe and the Sumerian clay tablets [etched in 3300 B.C.] than from Sumer to today,"
I have the impression that humans have a really, really, bad sense of scale when it comes to time. As an example, I'll give you this further quote to wrap your brain around.
"There's more time between Gobekli Tepe and the Sumerian clay tablets [etched in 3300 B.C.] than from Sumer to today,"
Got that?
Okay, cool. Now lemme give you another example. Good 'ole Shakespeare...yaknow, English playwright, Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth...possibly the greatest storyteller in the English language...that guy. When was the last time you saw a play of his performed? I say this because what tends to happen is the language is so foreign at first that it's nearly incomprehensible. However, the language becomes understandable in context with the situation and inflection and action, and by the end of a performance the resolution is totally comprehensible...perhaps even evoking an emotional response.
Yet, read the text of an actual Shakespeare play, and without the context of actors preforming them, and it's obvious the language has mutated and changed so much over the last 400 years that it's really hard for someone in the 21st Century to understand. Still, there is an institutional memory in the theater that perpetuates the context into comprehensibility for a current audience.
(actually, it would be interesting to compare the institutional memories of theater and government and determine which is more powerful...hmmm, potential doctoral thesis?)
Anyhoo - the idea I'm getting at is time and context. Using Shakespeare as a baseline for the change of words and meaning, 400 years...is practically a different world. It's not just the change in language, it's a change in everything. From kings to democracy, cavalry to fighter jets, Gutenberg's bible to the internet, that's what's changed in 400 years, everything.
The distance between now and 11,000 B.C. measured in 400 year increments is 32.5. A single 400 years pushes our understanding to the limit, and there's still another 31.5 to work back through to get to this place, where somebody found some carved rocks. See, scale.
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