Re: Sacred Landscapes | Forum — The Modern Antiquarian

pure joy Jul 30, 2003 22:31:16

Replying to nigelswift

"As a non-believer par excellence I would have to disagree totally with the half-hearted and amateur non-believers above who claim there no such thing as sacred"

Oh, that's very broad brushed and so silly to say that passionate and well articulated views giben the limitations of this discussion are half-hearted and amateur. You don't even know what I believe in, because I haven't actually said it yet! I am arguing for baza's general belief in no belief, but I don't actually equate the word 'sacred' solely with religion, so I CAN accept the phrase 'sacred landscapes' if it means 'highly valued' - and this is obviously conjecture anyway because we don't really know how important these sites and landscapes were to people - I do strongly believe that we will never really get to the bottom of it because our society is so so different that it is basically impossible to really know what people were thinking then, and if we really think we can, then it's simply our modern ego (that we surely must be able to undertand things) overtaking reality.

morfe Jul 30, 2003 22:46:54

Replying to pure joy

But we have tribes and cultures (Irian Jaya? etc) that are still little-changes since before our stoneage, I believe the clues are all there? if we haven't Westernised everyone before we discover the 'truth' about ancient minds? But Northern ancient minds may have been SO different. My mind is different than my Latin neighbour, in many ways, but we still 'meet' on so many levels I'm sure clues to ancient land use exist in our collective and individual unconscious minds? A table is a table because of the idea behind it, not because of our perception of it (speaking ultra-literally). So our modern perceptions of Avebury could not feasibly, I agree, be appropriated with much approaching the historical truth.
I'm suspicious. Two graffitti artists living in the same street may 'tag' their respective space for very different psychological reasons. Archeologists finding these tags in many years may not distinguish this, they may not even know that the fact it is 'illegal' could be a motivating force, etc etc

nigelswift Jul 30, 2003 22:51:00

Replying to pure joy

Sorry, I'd only read Baza and Fw at the beginning of the thread, and was meaning to pull their leg in a light-hearted way. I hadn't read down to the more serious stuff.
(Memo to self: read whole thread before adding comment!).