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6,000-year-old temple with sacrificial altars discovered in Ukraine
- transfire 11y agoHow do they know it wasn't just a community kitchen?
- troels 11y agoThat doesn't sound as cool, so clearly can't be it.
- eponeponepon 11y agoWhen a developer doesn't have a clue how to fix a bug, he declares it "a feature". When an archaeologist doesn't have a clue what something is, he declares it to have been "for ritual purposes".
- NoGravitas 11y agoFormer archaeologist here, can confirm.
- jefurii 11y agoLike the part in "Motel of the Mysteries" where the discoverer tries to figure out what the toilet set was for. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/108831.Motel_of_the_Mysteries https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/108831.Motel_of_the_Myst...
- baldfat 11y ago> Sacrificial altars I fail to see how this is news worthy. No sacrificial alters would be news worthy.
- Cyph0n 11y agoUhh 6,000 years old? It's a probably a historical goldmine.
- baldfat 11y agoYes anything that is 6,000 years old is awesome. That there are sacrificial altars in a temple is just a horrible title. That is like saying 6,000 year old temple found with door ways and steps.
- meric 11y agoAnything involving human history 6000 years old is awesome. Otherwise I have a million year old rock in the river to sell you.
- padobson 11y agoI find the culture itself interesting. There's a wikipedia page for the Trypillians: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cucuteni-Trypillian_culture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cucuteni-Trypillian_culture These were the biggest cities in Europe at the time, and I tend to believe the altars were altars, because they also burned down their own cities every three or four generations.
- veddox 11y agoI was very surprised to learn about a city of that size in Europe that long ago! And I've never heard of the culture either - got to do some more reading... ;-)
- grardb 11y agoOut of genuine curiosity/confusion, could someone explain how something like this gets "discovered?" It's a two story building that's 66 feet tall according to the article. Is it something that locals have seen but never cared about? Or have people just not been walking around that immediate area for the past several thousand years? Perhaps because I'm from a super dense urban metro area, I don't fully appreciate how stuff like this works. I'd love to know!
- maaku 11y agoUsually buildings that old are under big piles of dirt.
- egeekuk 11y agoLooks like it hasn't been that tall for some time, having been burnt down after it was abandoned[0] [0] - http://www.livescience.com/48352-prehistoric-ukraine-temple-discovered.html http://www.livescience.com/48352-prehistoric-ukraine-temple-...
- etiene 11y agoI can get covered by dust, vegetation etc. and need excavation to be found, just like fossils underground
- etiene 11y agoIt can get covered by dust, vegetation etc. and need excavation to be found, just like fossils underground
- theklub 11y agoThere are also a lot of places that governments have restricted access too, or won't let anyone dig. They know there are ancient ruins in a spot but unearthing them would be illegal.
- dghughes 11y agoLayers accumulate over the years (rhythmite I think it's called), vegetation can take over, natural decay.
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- tibarun 11y agoWhat if it was just a slaughterhouse?
- progman 11y agoQuote: "With such a fascinating culture it would be a shame to remember them just for a purported prophesy that failed to pan out." A "fascinating culture"? http://mayaincaaztec.com/mateofhusa.html http://mayaincaaztec.com/mateofhusa.html https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacrifice_in_Maya_culture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacrifice_in_Maya_culture
- beefman 11y agoBetter links: http://www.archaeology.org/news/2650-141023-ukraine-trypillian-temple http://www.archaeology.org/news/2650-141023-ukraine-trypilli... http://www.jna.uni-kiel.de/index.php/jna/article/view/110 http://www.jna.uni-kiel.de/index.php/jna/article/view/110
- veddox 11y agoThe second link is a very solid scientific paper - not yet done reading it, but looks good.
- veddox 11y agoSeveral people have been commenting on how the archaeologists "know" that the raised structures were altars. Well, they don't. Not for sure, anyway. Here is an excerpt from a paper describing the find: "Three different interpretations have been proposed: as ‘altars’, as ‘hearths’ and as ‘platforms’ [...]. The notion of ‘altars’ presupposes some ritual function and would be supported by differential concentrations of figurines, or other so-called ritual objects. However, there is no such concentration of ritual finds. The expected evidence to support the notion of ‘hearths’ would be the identification of burnt fired clay fragments, allied to concentrations of charcoal and/or ash close to the features. The absence of burning near these features diminishes the likelihood that they were ‘hearths’. Nonetheless, short-term, low-temperature fires in the middle of a raised seating area for ritual participants may well have left few traces of ash or charcoal. The term ‘raised area’ is a more neutral term, indicating a proper concern with a feature that is raised from the ground-surface of the me- ga-structure, on which people could have sat or ritual objects could have been placed for short-term performances - objects which were then removed to other contexts [...]" Once again, the popular press slightly twists science to present a "more interesting read"... (Source: http://www.jna.uni-kiel.de/index.php/jna/article/view/110 http://www.jna.uni-kiel.de/index.php/jna/article/view/110)