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When Cortez landed in Mexico and found the Mayan pyramids, they were ancient relics and the locals had no idea how they were created nor maintained. The knowled
by sethammons 2y ago
When Cortez landed in Mexico and found the Mayan pyramids, they were ancient relics and the locals had no idea how they were created nor maintained. The knowledge was lost. Similar with the Egyptian ones. We know they could be built; we still don't know how.
- dahart 2y ago> we still don’t know how. Sure we do. Humans today could easily build a new pyramid if we chose to. You might be conflating the question of proving exactly what they did with the question of whether we could achieve a similar result today, those are two very different things and we’re discussing the latter. There is written evidence about the construction of the pyramids in Egypt from 4500 years ago, and anthropologists have have multiple plausible techniques with evidence (in part because we know there were multiple different construction techniques employed). If the knowledge was lost at some point, it’s not anymore. Cortés and the conquistadors could have done it too, without knowing exactly how it was done before. Just having seen them, he’d know it could be done, and if he cared he could have figured it out. The Spaniards didn’t want to Mayan build pyramids, they were busy building castles and monuments - their own version of pyramids.
- dekhn 2y agoThe technology to build large stone monuments has been repeatedly rediscovered. Once you have stone chisels, a quarry, and a log supply, plus enough food to maintain a population of people to work the stone and haul it, and a stable leadership, you can rebuild these in a few hundred years.