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- 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

by ap3 10y ago

- 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.

themartorana 10y ago
Very, very common for conquering people to build religious buildings on the religious ruins of the vanquished.
- malkia 10y ago
  Or converted, like Hagia Sophia and others: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hagia_Sophia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hagia_Sophia
bpodgursky 10y ago
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.
snovv_crash 10y ago
Similar thing happened in Rome: the marble from the Colleseum was stripped and used to build St Peters.
- toyg 10y ago
  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.
  - Someone 10y ago
    "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.
    - dalke 10y ago
      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_Cathedral_of_our_Lady_of_Assumption https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cusco_Cathedral#Basilica_Cathe... See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianized_sites https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianized_sites .
      - jomamaxx 10y ago
        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.
- jomamaxx 10y ago
  "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.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

by ap3 10y ago

themartorana 10y ago

Very, very common for conquering people to build religious buildings on the religious ruins of the vanquished.

malkia 10y ago
Or converted, like Hagia Sophia and others: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hagia_Sophia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hagia_Sophia

bpodgursky 10y ago

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.

snovv_crash 10y ago

Similar thing happened in Rome: the marble from the Colleseum was stripped and used to build St Peters.

toyg 10y ago
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.
- Someone 10y ago
  "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.
  - dalke 10y ago
    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_Cathedral_of_our_Lady_of_Assumption https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cusco_Cathedral#Basilica_Cathe... See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianized_sites https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianized_sites .
    - jomamaxx 10y ago
      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.
jomamaxx 10y ago
"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.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]