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Julian Spalding and the Spirituality of Pyramids

3/23/2015

10 Comments

 
Not long ago British art historian Julian Spalding made international headlines when he claimed that Stonehenge was never meant to be a temple or a calendar but rather a glorified pedestal. Spalding concluded that a wooden platform rested atop the site’s stones, allowing visitors to have a better view of the stars. How exactly that worked with the central stones being taller than those around them, I’m not sure, nor am I quite following why smaller stone circles preceded the current Stonehenge we know in love since they were impractical for holding up a platform. That’s not important, though, because Spalding published an article in the Guardian last week that made some claims about pyramids that suggest that he is less familiar than he thinks with the subjects on which he delivers such dramatic conclusions.
We still think the pyramids are mysterious, but actually they were products of common sense. They are virtually identical in Mexico, Egypt and China – not because one civilisation learned how to build them from another but because they thought alike.
Holy crap. He thinks the pyramids around the world are “virtually identical”? It may come as a surprise to Spalding, but the pyramids are very different in form and function. Egyptian pyramids were, in general, low-angled and smooth-sided true pyramids culminating in a pyramidion. Mexican pyramids were, in general, steep step-pyramids with external staircases and a temple surmounting the structure. The Chinese pyramids are not stone constructions but are smooth-sided earthen mounds, and they culminate in a flat platform. There are, of course, exceptions to the general rule, but they serve to prove that “pyramid” is simply a catch-all term for any raised construction that tapers as it rises. Other pyramids can be found in Peru and the Sudan (Nubia), and pyramid-shaped mounds occur throughout the Americas.

He is right, however, that the superficial similarities stem from the demands of ancient building techniques, which demand a tapering structure for stability. Spalding, though, take a psychological view of pyramid building, reducing the construction of pyramids to a question of cosmology:
Piles of stones or earth naturally form cones but there are no massive cones in ancient history. The reason is simple: cones form circles and, therefore, couldn’t be on the ground. A circle was the shape of heaven. The flat earth had to be square because it had four directions – north, south, east and west. That’s why all pyramids are four-sided, and, incidentally, extremely difficult to build.
Not all pyramids are four-sided. Los Guachimontones in Teuchitlán, Mexico contains a pre-Hispanic round pyramid in the shape of a series of concentric and diminishing circular steps. The great pyramid of Cuicuilco, infamous for fringe historians’ false assertion that it predates known civilization, is also round. There are several additional Mexican round pyramids: Structure 3 at Tecaxic-Calixtlahuaca, El Corral at Tula, and some in Veracruz, according to Emily Umberger and Cecelia F. Klein, writing in “Aztec Art and Imperial Expansion.” Some Mayan pyramids, like the Pyramid of the Magician at Uxmal, have rounded sides and thus lack corners. If we expand the definition of pyramid to include mounds, as Spalding’s citation of the Chinese pyramid-mounds demands, then we are bombarded with a plethora of round structures, from the cone-shaped Neolithic mounds of the British Isles to the rounded and cone-shaped mounds of the pre-Columbian Americas. 

I would hazard that when building in stone, shaping rocks into squares and rectangles is probably easier than finishing them on a curve to construct a perfect cone. I would argue that the four sided pyramid was the easiest way to work in stone, much easier than creating a cone and perfecting its curves.

Spalding, though, elides all of the many and varied reasons for building mounds, platforms, and pyramids—from tombs to temples to raised residences for elites—in favor of one quasi-mystical claim:
The reason for pyramid building was simple: they harnessed the mysterious forces that we believed held the world together – the sea’s flat horizon that ran through the earth, the invisible force of gravity that dragged us down to our graves and the spirit of life which, like flames that always rise, lifted us to our eternal, future home among the stars. The bigger and heavier we could build them, the more pyramids concentrated the powers of the universe against the ceaseless changes on earth that brought so many calamities. They weren’t symbols of celestial bodies but forces for permanence on earth. That’s why pyramids looked alike.
This fails to explain why Mesoamerican pyramids were built in stages, from small temples on which the gradual accretion of new layers turned them into pyramids. It fails to explain why the Maya and the Aztec discounted “permanence” to the point that they rebuilt their pyramids on a regular schedule, sometimes changing their very shape (from round to square, for example). And it fails to explain why so many pyramids are small. The Nubian pyramids, for example, wouldn’t be mistaken for the great weights holding fast the heavens. And if we count mounds, it fails to explain why many mounds aren’t pyramids at all but can take a bewildering array of shapes. 

In short, it’s hard to attribute a human universal to a phenomenon of startling diversity, much less one predicated on Western ideas about spirituality that don’t necessarily apply in non-Western contexts. It is astonishing how closely Spalding captures the essence of the medieval pyramid myths so popular with fringe historians.
10 Comments
Scott Hamilton
3/23/2015 08:37:17 am

This Spalding guy... I'm a bit more stuck on his weird fixation with pop psychological explanations for ancient (or even pre-modern) practices, based on his misunderstandings of history. Like in the article under discussion he claims the Sistine Chapel ceiling was painted to prove heaven was above us in the wake of the Columbus proving the world was a sphere. I'm pretty sure every part of that argument is factually wrong.

Or in the articles about Stonehenge theory from last week, Spalding is quoted as saying "In early times, no spiritual ceremonies would have been performed on the ground. The Pharaoh of Egypt and the Emperor of China were always carried – as the Pope used to be. The feet of holy people were not allowed to touch the ground." Wut? I'm pretty sure none of those personages were carried all the time or for spiritual reasons, unless there was some extenuating circumstance like ill health or extreme young age.

Reply
DrBB
3/28/2015 09:38:04 am

Oh fer cripesake--not the "Columbus proved the Earth was round!" horsepucky again. NO ONE--least of all seafarers--thought the world was flat. Just on a practical level, the fact that things disappear below the horizon with distance, which is more obvious at sea than most places on land, told them that. And of course Ptolemaic cosmology had it as round, and that was the model that predominated through the Middle Ages. The whole Columbus/flat-Earth canard seems to have been popularized by Washington Irving (A History of the Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus, 1828), and it's one of those zombie ideas that refuse to die. A lot of people who should know better toss it out there, but anyone presuming to be a historical expert is really stepping in it if he's basing conclusions about the design of the Sistine Chapel on it. Really a cringe moment there.

Reply
Brian M
3/29/2015 05:09:29 am

The roundness of the earth was posited at least as early as the sixth century BCE by Anaximander who may have been building on the ideas of Thales. Both resided in Miletus. Anaximander suggested the earth was a body floating in a void and did not fall because there was no such thing as up or down in the void.

Elmo Blatch
3/23/2015 08:38:49 am

Stonehenge was different things to different generations of priesthoods, just like Egyptian religion was modified and altered by different generations of priests. Nothing remains static in religious beliefs. That's why stuff like Stonehenge Decoded and The Orion Mystery is obsolete from the get-go.

Reply
Hypatia
3/23/2015 11:46:09 am

"I would hazard that when building in stone, shaping rocks into squares and rectangles is probably easier than finishing them on a curve to construct a perfect cone."
You nailed it there, 3.141592654.
Why do these people insist on elaborate mystical interpretations instead of looking at simple logistics?

Reply
Elmo Blatch
3/23/2015 11:48:16 am

Simple logistics were imbued with elaborate mystical connotations to the priesthoods.

Reply
EP
3/23/2015 12:22:24 pm

Julian Spalding's discussion of pyramids reveals two things: 1) he is ignorant of history and architecture and 2) he hasn't done a day's work in his entire life. These are necessary conditions for failing to grasp the obvious explanation for pyramids being shaped the way they are.

Reply
Shane Sullivan
3/23/2015 02:30:12 pm

"They are virtually identical in Mexico, Egypt and China ..."

Is he saying that La Venta's Great Pyramid is covered in shiny granite casing stones, or that the Pyramid of Khufu is covered in grass?

Reply
EP
3/23/2015 02:34:03 pm

In all fairness, they *were* all built with identical ancient extraterrestrial technology :)

Reply
Hypatia
3/23/2015 04:42:54 pm

A case of convergent evolution, perhaps?
And anyway, what loser ever wanted to compete with a volcano?

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      • Chariots of the Gods at 50
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        • Lost Cities >
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        • The Secret Doctrine >
          • Volume 1: Cosmogenesis
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        • Phoenicians in America
        • The Electric Ark
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        • Prince Henry Sinclair
        • Pyramid Prophecies
        • Templars of Ancient Mexico
        • Chronology and the "Riddle of the Sphinx"
        • The Faith of Ancient Egypt
        • Spirit of the Hour in Archaeology
        • Book of the Damned
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        • Richard Shaver's Proofs
    • Alien Encounters >
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        • "Flying Saucers"? They're a Myth
        • UFO Hypothesis Survival Questions
        • Air Force Academy UFO Textbook
        • The Condon Report on Ancient Astronauts
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        • Noah's Ark Cables
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      • Ancient Extraterrestrials >
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        • Plane of Ether
        • The Adepts from Venus
      • A Message from Mars
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      • Orville Wright on UFOs
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      • Flying Saucers Are Real
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    • The Supernatural >
      • The Devils of Loudun
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      • Science and Fairy Stories
      • The Cursed Car
    • Classic Fiction >
      • Lucian's True History
      • Some Words with a Mummy
      • The Coming Race
      • King Solomon's Mines
      • An Inhabitant of Carcosa
      • The Xipéhuz
      • Lot No. 249
      • The Novel of the Black Seal
      • The Island of Doctor Moreau
      • Pharaoh's Curse
      • Edison's Conquest of Mars
      • The Lost Continent
      • Count Magnus
      • The Mysterious Stranger
      • The Wendigo
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      • The Lost World
      • The Red One
      • H. P. Lovecraft >
        • Dagon
        • The Call of Cthulhu
        • History of the Necronomicon
        • At the Mountains of Madness
        • Lovecraft's Library in 1932
      • The Skeptical Poltergeist
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      • The Second Satellite
      • Queen of the Black Coast
      • A Martian Odyssey
    • Classic Genre Movies
    • Miscellaneous Documents >
      • The Balloon-Hoax
      • A Problem in Greek Ethics
      • The Migration of Symbols
      • The Gospel of Intensity
      • De Profundis
      • The Life and Death of Crown Prince Rudolf
      • The Bathtub Hoax
      • Crown Prince Rudolf's Letters
      • Position of Viking Women
      • Employment of Homosexuals
      • James Dean's Love Letters
      • The Amazing James Dean Hoax!
    • Free Classic Pseudohistory eBooks
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