Then you have this Gem, which seems to make no sense.
From Cecil;
“They have to dig especially deep to find things like temples, because these generally were kept free of trash and in good repair, meaning that their grade did not rise with the surrounding city.”
If their grade did NOT rise with the surrounding city why would they have to dig deeper?
Could someone explain what he means here.
I can’t speak for everywhere, but in the Maya world it was common to build one pyramid on top of another. The older building would be decommisioned with a ceremony and often a cache would be placed. After that was done a new temple would be built using the decomissioned building as the core of the new one.
About the two foot walls not keeping anything out, some possibilities:
many walls are ‘formal’ – they keep people out because people agree not to cross them. Look at all the picket fences and corral type fences in use today – none of them would keep even a child out, but they still function perfectly for marking property lines.
some walls are in truth convenient places to dump unwanted materials, and never had any intent to serve as barriers. For example, all those zillions of miles of stone ‘fences’ in New England. The farmers had to do something with all the stones they came across, and piling them in lines around the edges of fields is what worked for them.
some animals can be kept out by amazingly low walls. For example, cows pretty much will follow the line of least resistance and follow along a wall they encounter rather than trying to cross it, no matter how low it is. Near where I grew up there are several miles long stretches of parallel low stone walls – no higher than 18 inches – with about 4-5’ space between the two rows. These were ‘cow runs’ that led from the owner’s barn yard past what was then a small town center and off to the outlying fields. The farmer could just start the cows moving down the lane between the walls and the cows would continue to walk along, staying very nicely between two walls that they could easily step over.
I guess cows just aren’t the rebellious type.
Very good points Starving.
Nice quote. Makes me picture a Gary Larson cartoon!
Two-foot high walls may also be due to the as yet unburied portions being “quarried” for later construction, leaving only the lower section which had already been covered up. Heavy objects can also settle and sink into the ground over time, due to soil movement from thaw/freeze cycles, etc., as well as the effect of earthworms on soil (which can cause quite large rocks to be buried in just a few years).
As far as villages and small cities are concerned, don’t forget the effects of fire. Fires would spread quickly and rebuilding consisted of smoothing out the rubble and building on top. That’s one of the main reasons archeological remains get buried. Do that 3 or 4 times in 1000 years, and you can get some depth.
It IS extraordinary though, isn’t it? I was in Europe a few months ago and found myself straining to imagine a world that was six feet lower than my own. I was visiting Bath where the orignal Roman bathes are 12-15 feet below ground standing there wondering “Didn’t anybody notice the town was getting higher?”
After the fall of the Roman Empire, many, many old Roman towns became deserted as sociological factors created flux in populations. People re-grouped around Medieval fortifications for protection, and many sites were reoccupied many generations later. Many buildings (and walls) were quarried for stone - so much easier to rob old buildings rather than cutting new blocks. Ampitheatres, by the way, were often used to contain livestock in the post-Roman period - just as some of the pyramids were used for housing during later periods.
I think what he means is that over time, the city surrounding the temple would gradually get higher and higher relative to the temple. This would result in the same general shape as if the temple was built in a depression in the ground. If the whole place was later covered over with soil, archaeologists would have to dig deeper to find the temple than to find the other buildings.