A giant pyramid hidden inside a mountain(bbc.com)
bbc.com
A giant pyramid hidden inside a mountain
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20160812-the-giant-pyramid-hidden-inside-a-mountain
55 comments
The claims are... controversial, to say the least, and probably bunk.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bosnian_pyramid_claims
"He believes the Mesoamerican pyramids and Egyptian pyramids are built by the same people as the Visočica hill... Osmanagić wishes to excavate in order to "break a cloud of negative energy, allowing the Earth to receive cosmic energy from the centre of the galaxy""
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bosnian_pyramid_claims
"He believes the Mesoamerican pyramids and Egyptian pyramids are built by the same people as the Visočica hill... Osmanagić wishes to excavate in order to "break a cloud of negative energy, allowing the Earth to receive cosmic energy from the centre of the galaxy""
Because we aren't receiving enough cosmic energy from the center of the solar system.
ad hominem. don't shoot the messenger...
The wikipedia article contains plenty more attacking the content of his assertions, including this letter:
"We, the undersigned professional archaeologists from all parts of Europe, wish to protest strongly at the continuing support by the Bosnian authorities for the so-called "pyramid" project being conducted on hills at and near Visoko. This scheme is a cruel hoax on an unsuspecting public and has no place in the world of genuine science."
His gobbeldegook about cosmic energy is a lot more fun and a shorter quote, so I went with that instead.
"We, the undersigned professional archaeologists from all parts of Europe, wish to protest strongly at the continuing support by the Bosnian authorities for the so-called "pyramid" project being conducted on hills at and near Visoko. This scheme is a cruel hoax on an unsuspecting public and has no place in the world of genuine science."
His gobbeldegook about cosmic energy is a lot more fun and a shorter quote, so I went with that instead.
There seem to be a lot of crackpot ancient civilization theories in Bosnia... This one[1] was on the front page a few months back.
[1] http://www.forbes.com/sites/shaenamontanari/2016/04/18/that-...
[1] http://www.forbes.com/sites/shaenamontanari/2016/04/18/that-...
It's depressing when even the BBC is full of click bait and contentless garbage: http://i.imgur.com/n482Pze.png
Two or maybe three are fine. The rest is total shit, though.
Two or maybe three are fine. The rest is total shit, though.
I was here back in February. You can walk through some of the excavated tunnels, but most are closed off.
Wikipedia has a good image showing the sizes of different pyramids compared: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3e/Comparis...
Note that Cholula has the largest base, but isn't the tallest.
Wikipedia has a good image showing the sizes of different pyramids compared: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3e/Comparis...
Note that Cholula has the largest base, but isn't the tallest.
Tangent: that's really cool that wikipedia has interactive graphics and not just static images. In fact, and maybe I'm stupid, but I had no idea that svgs could be interactive until this moment. I thought they were just a vector image format.
SVGs can contain CSS and Javascript, and even without that, you can make all kinds of animations completely in SVG markup, using SVG-SMIL. I'm just saying this as trivia, and emphatically do not recommend that you go down this collapsing rabbit-hole.
Ignore that the Wikipedia page currently calls it "a recommended means[1][2][3] of animating SVG-based hypermedia" (lol). It's a complex feature that browsers have been dragging along for years while nobody's using it. Though it seems that Chrome is finally taking the initiative of dropping support, or at least discouraging its use.
Ignore that the Wikipedia page currently calls it "a recommended means[1][2][3] of animating SVG-based hypermedia" (lol). It's a complex feature that browsers have been dragging along for years while nobody's using it. Though it seems that Chrome is finally taking the initiative of dropping support, or at least discouraging its use.
They aren't interactive, but since their XML can be directly embedded in an HTML document they can be manipulated through the DOM.
It is interactive. Hovering over different pyramids fills in the shape of just that pyramid, and you can interact with any of them by clicking on it to bring you to the Wikipedia article on it.
I too didn't realize that this was possible in SVGs. It's awesome.
I too didn't realize that this was possible in SVGs. It's awesome.
It's just CSS.
CSS styles
I wish that image included La Danta at El Mirador in Guatemala. It is possibly the 2nd largest by volume after the one in Cholula. Although because neither are excavated, there seems to be disagreement on which is larger.
The Transamerica, the Shard, and the Ryugyong are considered pyramids?
Is there a common definition those buildings fullfill? Or are they on the graph for scale?
Is there a common definition those buildings fullfill? Or are they on the graph for scale?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyramid:
"A pyramid (from Greek: πυραμίς pyramis)[1][2] is a structure whose outer surfaces are triangular and converge to a single point at the top, making the shape roughly a pyramid in the geometric sense. The base of a pyramid can be trilateral, quadrilateral, or any polygon shape"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyramid_(geometry):
"In geometry, a pyramid is a polyhedron formed by connecting a polygonal base and a point, called the apex. [...] When unspecified, a pyramid is _usually_ assumed to be a regular square pyramid"
Note the _usually_.
"A pyramid (from Greek: πυραμίς pyramis)[1][2] is a structure whose outer surfaces are triangular and converge to a single point at the top, making the shape roughly a pyramid in the geometric sense. The base of a pyramid can be trilateral, quadrilateral, or any polygon shape"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyramid_(geometry):
"In geometry, a pyramid is a polyhedron formed by connecting a polygonal base and a point, called the apex. [...] When unspecified, a pyramid is _usually_ assumed to be a regular square pyramid"
Note the _usually_.
> The Transamerica, the Shard, and the Ryugyong are considered pyramids?
If you shrink a side elevation of the Shard to 10% of its actual height, it looks like an eight-storey tall pyramid: http://imgur.com/a/Vslkl
If you shrink a side elevation of the Shard to 10% of its actual height, it looks like an eight-storey tall pyramid: http://imgur.com/a/Vslkl
It'a amazing that more than half of those are in the BC era.
- the pyramid in Chichen Itzá (mayan) also has a smaller pyramid inside
- the spanish continuously built church temples on top of the natives' pyramids. Like a cruel switch of religions. The Mexico City Basilica sits on top of aztec ruins.
- the spanish continuously built church temples on top of the natives' pyramids. Like a cruel switch of religions. The Mexico City Basilica sits on top of aztec ruins.
While that's true in general,
> Certainly, by the time Cortéz and his men arrived, it was already a thousand years old and entirely concealed by vegetation.
> Certainly, by the time Cortéz and his men arrived, it was already a thousand years old and entirely concealed by vegetation.
Very, very common for conquering people to build religious buildings on the religious ruins of the vanquished.
Or converted, like Hagia Sophia and others: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hagia_Sophia
Similar thing happened in Rome: the marble from the Colleseum was stripped and used to build St Peters.
That is just about reusing materials, something very common back when producing such materials was very expensive.
Constructing religious buildings on top of pre-existing ones, or repurposing them, is about signalling evolution and domination, about co-opting sensibilities. Christian basilicas in a lot of cases were born as Roman civil buildings, altered to suit the new religion; Hagia Sophia, the Pantheon and a number of other religious buildings were "switched" between religions at various points; and it's fairly common for churches to be built on top of "pagan" shrines.
It's like religious festivities "curiously" overlapping pre-existing celebrations, or saints exhibiting characteristics typical of other faiths: one way for new cults to achieve legitimacy is by repurposing existing elements and claiming they fit a grand scheme from the beginning. In a way, both Christianity and Islam do it right from their holy texts.
Constructing religious buildings on top of pre-existing ones, or repurposing them, is about signalling evolution and domination, about co-opting sensibilities. Christian basilicas in a lot of cases were born as Roman civil buildings, altered to suit the new religion; Hagia Sophia, the Pantheon and a number of other religious buildings were "switched" between religions at various points; and it's fairly common for churches to be built on top of "pagan" shrines.
It's like religious festivities "curiously" overlapping pre-existing celebrations, or saints exhibiting characteristics typical of other faiths: one way for new cults to achieve legitimacy is by repurposing existing elements and claiming they fit a grand scheme from the beginning. In a way, both Christianity and Islam do it right from their holy texts.
"Constructing religious buildings on top of pre-existing ones, or repurposing them, is about signalling evolution and domination"
It also may be cheaper to build on top of an existing foundation, or the location an existing church stands on simply may be one of the few locations one can build a heavy building on. In some regions (e.g. peat areas) solid ground or even ground that is solid less than ten meters below ground level can be hard to come by.
It also may be cheaper to build on top of an existing foundation, or the location an existing church stands on simply may be one of the few locations one can build a heavy building on. In some regions (e.g. peat areas) solid ground or even ground that is solid less than ten meters below ground level can be hard to come by.
While it may also be that, toyg's point about 'evolution and domination' is the primary reason.
For example, "The location of Viracocha's palace was chosen for the purpose of removing the Inca religion from Cusco, and replacing it with Spanish Catholic Christianity." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cusco_Cathedral#Basilica_Cathe...
See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianized_sites .
For example, "The location of Viracocha's palace was chosen for the purpose of removing the Inca religion from Cusco, and replacing it with Spanish Catholic Christianity." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cusco_Cathedral#Basilica_Cathe...
See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianized_sites .
I would agree with the comments that the locality was chosen for political, not so much pragmatic reasons regarding construction. It would have been important for them to send a signal that the 'old gods' were not important, and there was 'a new order'.
But again context: from antiquity to the modern era, when civilizations clash, one dominates the other and you don't get just 'parts' of the new administration. You get agriculture, domestication of animals, the new science, literacy, 'medicine', ideas, civil administration and religion. Not just one thing. And by this time Christianity and Buddhism also represented a huge step forward in metaphysical though vis-a-vis polytheistic and animist religions previous to them. People forget that religions are not 'arbitrary' - they represent the metaphysical thinking of the era. Religions in the Common Era were often founded with moral principles regarding good behaviour, charity, selflessness etc., as opposed to thinking of 'those above' as merely a soap-opera of superhuman like people, with human like characteristics, as in many of the pre-Common Area faiths. I'm not advocating it, I'm describing the context.
My family members go down to Central America every year to help build homes. I'll bet in 200 years, academics of the era will look upon that as some kind of 'cultural destruction' as well (i.e. putting people into brick homes instead of 'native huts') - but again I think that description would lack context. We look at history through our own cultural order, which is I think a problem sometimes.
But again context: from antiquity to the modern era, when civilizations clash, one dominates the other and you don't get just 'parts' of the new administration. You get agriculture, domestication of animals, the new science, literacy, 'medicine', ideas, civil administration and religion. Not just one thing. And by this time Christianity and Buddhism also represented a huge step forward in metaphysical though vis-a-vis polytheistic and animist religions previous to them. People forget that religions are not 'arbitrary' - they represent the metaphysical thinking of the era. Religions in the Common Era were often founded with moral principles regarding good behaviour, charity, selflessness etc., as opposed to thinking of 'those above' as merely a soap-opera of superhuman like people, with human like characteristics, as in many of the pre-Common Area faiths. I'm not advocating it, I'm describing the context.
My family members go down to Central America every year to help build homes. I'll bet in 200 years, academics of the era will look upon that as some kind of 'cultural destruction' as well (i.e. putting people into brick homes instead of 'native huts') - but again I think that description would lack context. We look at history through our own cultural order, which is I think a problem sometimes.
The context is ap3's comment: "the spanish continuously built church temples on top of the natives' pyramids. Like a cruel switch of religions. The Mexico City Basilica sits on top of aztec ruins."
snovv_crash believed it was similar to reusing marble from the Coliseum to build St. Peter's.
toyg pointed out that why it isn't similar.
User 'Someone' thought reuse was more to do with pragmatism.
I reaffirmed that it was deliberate Spanish/church practice. (Other religions do the same: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conversion_of_non-Muslim_place... )
I fail to see the need for a larger context, at least not when it contains so many topics which have nothing to do with the given thread, and with flamebait topics like the proposition that Jesus was not a "superhuman like" person who could perform miracles and walk on water, or that Muhammad did not split the moon.
snovv_crash believed it was similar to reusing marble from the Coliseum to build St. Peter's.
toyg pointed out that why it isn't similar.
User 'Someone' thought reuse was more to do with pragmatism.
I reaffirmed that it was deliberate Spanish/church practice. (Other religions do the same: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conversion_of_non-Muslim_place... )
I fail to see the need for a larger context, at least not when it contains so many topics which have nothing to do with the given thread, and with flamebait topics like the proposition that Jesus was not a "superhuman like" person who could perform miracles and walk on water, or that Muhammad did not split the moon.
???
+ We're talking about where and why the new temples were built. 'Why' there were built there is a pretty important part of the overall question.
+ My proposition was to support the theory that they were built there for geopolitical reasons, not architectural reasons, and I gave some reasoning behind why this was - and to contextualize the misplaced statement regarding a 'cruel switch of religions'
+ You're not reading my comments regarding religion correctly - they are an historical articulation of the social development of religion based on evolving metaphysical premises, specifically from pre-Common Era polytheistic faiths to Common Era faiths, and it has nothing to do with what 'magical' those people happen to believe.
+ We're talking about where and why the new temples were built. 'Why' there were built there is a pretty important part of the overall question.
+ My proposition was to support the theory that they were built there for geopolitical reasons, not architectural reasons, and I gave some reasoning behind why this was - and to contextualize the misplaced statement regarding a 'cruel switch of religions'
+ You're not reading my comments regarding religion correctly - they are an historical articulation of the social development of religion based on evolving metaphysical premises, specifically from pre-Common Era polytheistic faiths to Common Era faiths, and it has nothing to do with what 'magical' those people happen to believe.
"Similar thing happened in Rome: the marble from the Coliseum was stripped and used to build St Peters."
Oh please - this is really out of context.
'The Coliseum' was a place of mass murder, moreover, at the time that any materials may have been salvaged or 're-purposed' nobody in the world was concerned about the historical significance of much at all.
Oh please - this is really out of context.
'The Coliseum' was a place of mass murder, moreover, at the time that any materials may have been salvaged or 're-purposed' nobody in the world was concerned about the historical significance of much at all.
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I just want to clarify that we are talking about mass here. In terms of height, it's much much lower than the pyramids in Giza.
When I first heard about that pyramid, I was a little confused because it took me a while to realize this.
When I first heard about that pyramid, I was a little confused because it took me a while to realize this.
No not mass. Volume and base area.
I think I remember reading a fictional book about this. Something about the pyramid being a necropolis and there being a machine taking you up to a different area that was supposed to be the "heaven" in the duality. Alien God thing with blue skin... I think it was related to the "Excavation" series.
I watched the tunnels found recently under it in "Expedition Unknown - Lost Mexican City". They're stunning!
This is pretty common in Mexico. Go to the Mayan village of Coba on the Yucatan Pensinsula and you will see hundreds of small mountains. What used to be pyramids, are now hills as trees and bushes have grown through them. When I was there some years ago they told me only 5-10% have been restored and made back into pyramids. It's an extremely time-consuming process involving large teams to ensure each brick is put back into the right place. Most times you just see a pile of bricks with no sign of a pyramid structure.
I was in Lima recently, and there was a ruin right in the nice Miraflores area (with plenty of high-rises) that had been a temple complex of some sort. Where they hadn't excavated, the outer layer of brick had just crumbled to dirt, and looked like nothing special. Apparently part of the temple complex had been leveled and used as a soccer field as recently as the 1980s.
Even the structures built from stone were dismantled for the materials over the years. It's why Machu Picchu is such an amazing find--the locals didn't know about it and thus didn't tear it apart over the centuries. Compare this to grand sites like Saksaywaman that were picked apart down to the foundation by people looking for building material.
Do you mean Huaca Pucllana by any chance?
Which is perfectly fine. They will be there forever and being encased in earth will preserve them.
There's no reason to do a roughshod job exposing them.
There's no reason to do a roughshod job exposing them.
> Within three hours they had murdered 3,000 people. October 12th 1519 was a bloodbath on an unprecedented scale...
Not in global terms. Genghis and his Mongol army allegedly despatched up to hundreds of thousands to over a million people each in campaigns such as in Nishapur, Merv and Urgench, in the 13th century.
Not in global terms. Genghis and his Mongol army allegedly despatched up to hundreds of thousands to over a million people each in campaigns such as in Nishapur, Merv and Urgench, in the 13th century.
In three hours?
It would absolutely shock me if they didn't exceed 1k/hr at times. Nobody really did what Ghengis did again, thank god.
A follow up, Ghengis's campaign put multiple cities to the sword, executing everyone not of direct use to the campaign. Death tolls are hard to estimate, but you're looking at anywhere from on the order of tens of thousands to a million people executed at the same time—over the course of hours. Famously, the Tigris ran black and red from ink and blood after the sacking of Baghdad (the ink came from the Grand Library of Baghdad), and the destruction of the Khwarezmia dynasty was particularly bloody.
Who knows if we'll ever get accurate numbers, but it's one of the most gruesome period of human history. The institutional hate towards Ghengis only disappeared in the 20th century.
Who knows if we'll ever get accurate numbers, but it's one of the most gruesome period of human history. The institutional hate towards Ghengis only disappeared in the 20th century.
Maybe their murders went to 11?
Its not the largest man made monument. Kofun are bigger https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kofun
This is some new and useful info. All my life i thought Egypt had the largest Pyramid.
The Egyptian ones are still the tallest. This one has a wider base.
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There seem to be the larger one in Europe - Bosnia: http://piramidasunca.ba