> The concept of "religion" was formed in the 16th and 17th centuries. Sacred texts like the Bible, the Quran, and others did not have a word or even a concept of religion in the original languages and neither did the people or the cultures in which these sacred texts were written
That said, GrowingSideways is mistaken. He is confusing the thing with the category of the thing.
Religion the category is only a few hundred years old. The things that fall under that category go back at least as far as Neanderthal times.
I’m so intrigued - what was going on inside Hansen's brain?
Victory/elation/worship corresponds to extending the arms above the head or in a "V" shape, sorrow/grief corresponds to dropping to the knees and holding the head in the hands, etc. These associations seem to persist despite language barriers and great spans of time.
Its nice to see that some people still care about creating such thoughtful art for modern constructions. It seems that most building of our time are just optimized for fast and efficient construction.
I hope there are many more out there, so that Earth's Graham Hancock of the year 16000 has something to explore on his/her ayahuasca trip.
> Due to the precession of the equinoxes (as well as the stars' proper motions), the role of North Star has passed from one star to another in the remote past, and will pass in the remote future. In 3000 BC, the faint star Thuban in the constellation Draco was the North Star, aligning within 0.1° distance from the celestial pole, the closest of any of the visible pole stars.[8][9] However, at magnitude 3.67 (fourth magnitude) it is only one-fifth as bright as Polaris, and today it is invisible in light-polluted urban skies.
> During the 1st millennium BC, Beta Ursae Minoris (Kochab) was the bright star closest to the celestial pole, but it was never close enough to be taken as marking the pole, and the Greek navigator Pytheas in ca. 320 BC described the celestial pole as devoid of stars.[6][10] In the Roman era, the celestial pole was about equally distant between Polaris and Kochab.
Only in the northern hemisphere.
The statues in OP's article are absolutely beautiful examples of Art Deco / 1930s Americana (my local post office was built then, too, and has eaglettes of similar [but smaller] design). I had no idea they were out there until stumbling upon them, and they definitely leave a lasting impression of our forefather's imposing presence. America, fuck yeah!
Wish I had then-known about this "clock," which is definitely hidden in plain sight. Wish we had similarly-lavish federal budgets, today. But worth visiting, both article, statues & dam.
We will quite plausibly be known as the dam builder civilization, as these artifacts could very easily outlast the memory of what we call ourselves. It is fitting to embellish them in this way.
ifh-hn•1h ago