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> “The pyramids seem like pretty monumental work” You don't say...
by marshallward 2y ago
> “The pyramids seem like pretty monumental work”
You don't say...
- pavlov 2y ago“Cutting-edge psychological research suggests that pharaohs may have suffered from megalomania”
- loceng 2y ago"Breaking news - older civilizations than currently have been found may have had most evidence of their existence wiped out by major events"
- s1artibartfast 2y agoMegalomania is characterized by delusion.
- bqmjjx0kac 2y agoI'm willing to entertain the idea that the god kings had some delusions
- nkrisc 2y agoIf they're indulged by society as a whole, are they delusions?
- krapp 2y agoIt's the "god" part of "god king" that was the delusion, and all of the wasted effort that went into ensuring the Pharoah's resurrection and immortality after death. And yes, it's a delusion regardless of how many people believe in it.
- abduhl 2y ago>>all of the wasted effort that went into ensuring the Pharoah's resurrection and immortality after death. How do you know that it didn’t work? What if it wasn’t a waste?
- krapp 2y agoGods aren't real, neither is the soul, nor an afterlife.
- spiderice 2y agoI don’t believe gods are real, but I can still see the irony of making absolute statements regarding unfalsifiable ideas.
- krapp 2y agoIf I die and find my soul being weighed on the scales of Anubis you can say you told me so. What a fool I was to doubt!
- roywiggins 2y agoBuilding a big thing because you think it would be neat is not really a waste. It's a big thing, everyone knows it's not strictly necessary, but whether it's for the glorification of your nation or your people or your God doesn't matter so much. If people don't have gods they build big monuments to other stuff.
- ethbr1 2y agoTo some degree, the practice of state religion exists to ensure the stability of the state, especially in pre-mass communication times. To that, so what if the "god" part was a lie? A stable society built on an unfalsifiable lie is still a stable society.
- krapp 2y agoThat's all well and good until a really bad drought or a plague blows through and people start to wonder if maybe, just maybe, the inbred jackass on the golden throne doesn't control the weather after all.
- elliottkember 2y agoDoes believing someone to be a god make them a god?
- RajT88 2y agoWhen someone asks you if you're a god, you say YES!
- makeitdouble 2y agoWhen a category of godness is defined as being a pharao, well yes...
- nkrisc 2y agoFirst define “god”.
- vasco 2y agoWe like to think everyone was dumb but I'm pretty sure if those dudes could build pyramids, a lot of them also knew the Pharaoh wasn't a God even if lots of people believed, same as today with religions or cult of personality leaders.
- nkrisc 2y agoThey didn’t need to actually believe it to indulge the pharaoh.
- samirillian 2y agoI think you might be bringing our mindset a little too much into a different context. Religion served a lot of purposes for the ancients.
- soco 2y agoThen there's the crown family of the UK or GB or whatever the proper calling, which claims to believe the same divine touch. You may call them ancients if you want, but they still get to make headlines.
- prox 2y agoYou are missing the point here, while you might see a similar concept “divine right of kings” the lived experience was a lot different from modern times vs anything BCE. That there similar social mechanics might be more appropriate.
- ants_everywhere 2y agoWhy "lived experience" isn't all experience lived by definition? And how do you know what their experience was like? And why are you hypothesizing a completely distinct experience when we're the same biological organism?
- mitchdoogle 2y ago
- NeuroCoder 2y agoI thought they had all sorts of in breeding going on in royal lines. That does tend to cause somes issues including mental ones.
- aquova 2y agoIf I recall, there was a bit of sibling marriage here and there, but it wasn't until the Greeks took over that they really started inbreeding.
- lolinder 2y agoI was under the impression that the Greeks leaned into a practice that was already well-established as part of rulership in the region. At the very least it seems we have evidence that Tutankhamun's parents were brother-sister and he appears to have had some severe abnormalities as a result: > The results of the DNA analyses show that Tutankhamun was, beyond doubt, the child born from a first-degree brother-sister relationship between Akhenaten and Akhenaten’s sister (see Fig. 3). ... Pharaoh Tutankhamun suffered from congenital equinovarus deformity (also called ‘clubfoot’). The tomography scans of Tutankhamun’s mummy also revealed that the Pharaoh had a bone necrosis for quite a long time, which might have caused a walking disability. This was supported by the objects found next to his mummy. Did you know that 130 sticks and staves were found in its tomb? https://blogs.ucl.ac.uk/researchers-in-museums/2018/08/16/consanguinity-and-incest-in-ancient-egypt-2/ https://blogs.ucl.ac.uk/researchers-in-museums/2018/08/16/co...
- mcmoor 2y agoAnd then we have Cleopatra the last Ptolemy and she seems normal. Even the famous inbred Charles Habsburg have relatively normal sister. Nature really plays dice sometimes.
- bluGill 2y agohttps://acoup.blog/2023/05/26/collections-on-the-reign-of-cleopatra/ https://acoup.blog/2023/05/26/collections-on-the-reign-of-cl... gives a good overview of Cleopatra parents as we understand them. Note too different family trees - the official one which is so inbred as to believe it isn't possible her parents could survive; and the unofficial one that recognizes nobles often sleep around and so we have no clue.
- bheadmaster 2y ago"I tell you, Winston, that reality is not external. Reality exists in the human mind, and nowhere else. Not in the individual mind, which can make mistakes, and in any case soon perishes: only in the mind of the Party, which is collective and immortal. Whatever the Party holds to be the truth, is truth. It is impossible to see reality except by looking through the eyes of the Party."
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]