Could you comment on how the 260 day calendar was reconciled or integrated with the 365 day solar year? For some reason nothing I read makes this clear.

I don't like it. I would be 16 years older

How did other peoples from antiquity perceived the egyptians' mumification habit?

No, this has no bearing on anything said in Ancient Apocalypse.

Also, In general, I found the show's episode on Mesoamerica (Ep2) to be pretty terrible and misrepresenative: Hancock relies on the general public ignorance about Mesoamerica to present accepted info as extraordinary, and then acts as if that info totally undermines everything archaeologists say they know, when in reality it's not really a big deal

For example, with Cholula, he presents the fact that the Pyramid has layers as some sort of unexpected find, the implication being that it calls into question the pyramid's age. But pyramids being built sequentially in layers like a Russian doll is VERY common in Mesoamerica: with expansions built as new kings took power or during important cosmological milestones. And the specific layers of the Great Pyramid of Cholula is well studied in particular, due to fact that the structure wasn't destroyed by the Spanish (see below). Hancock even explicitly says he doesn't even dispute that dating (which makes this whole segment feel pointless and dishonest, since he's clearly still trying to make people skeptical)

I also found his segment of "What made these people build it here?" to be sort of absurd and confusing. Why is anything built anywhere? He's approaching it as if there MUST be a special reason (apparently in some of his books he outright thinks pyramids have some occult magic energy, so maybe that's why), but even sort of answers his own question by noting it was built over a spring. This is actually not uncommon in Mesoamerica: Pools of water, mirrors, caves, etc were all tied to underworld entrances in Mesoamerican cosmology, with Pyramids at Teotihuacan or Chichen Itza's Temple of Kukulkan also being over pools/caves. He tries to present this as some sort of global pattern, bringing up that the Giza Pyramid in Egypt and one in Southeast Asia was too, but he doesn't actually provide evidence those aren't isolated examples

This sort of comparison between different world pyramids (and his assertion that "all pyramids have connections to death and rebirth") also falls flat since as Mesoamerican pyramids were primarily temples, not tombs like in Egypt (I know Hancock disputes Egyptian pyramids were tombs, but Egypt sn't my area so I can't comment). Yes, there were occasionally buried remains and ceremonial goods left in Mesoamerican pyramids, but these were usually ritual offerings to consecrate the construction of new phases/layers of the pyramid's construction, not burials the monument itself was dedicated to. Fundamentally Meso. and Egyptian pyramids were different structures that just have a similar shape. (There's even Meso. Pyramids used as administrative buildings, sorta!)

The show also misrepresents Geoffrey McCafferty (the Cholula Researcher's) statements (something he has claimed himself): At one point, Hancock asks "Is that enough to be confident enough about the full story", and of course he basically says "No, there's a lot of work to be done to teach us more about Mesoamerica". That's not saying "Everything we think we know is wrong" (which is what Hancock implies it to be) it's just saying that there's still more excavations to do that will help fill in what gaps are left, as there's always more we can learn. And when he said something like "Knowing more about Cholula would let us rethink Mesoamerican as a whole": The researcher's point was likely that a better understanding of Cholula would give us a better picture of how social, political and religious trends changed in Mesoamerica over time (since Cholula existed as small village in 1000BC all the way to being a large city with 40k denizens as of Spanish contact) and since the city had widespread religious influence, that more info on Cholula would likewise yield insights into other parts of Mesoamerica

The 3d Cholula render the episode used is also pretty wrong: It just had buildings evenly spaced in a solid sheet around the Pyramid. No roads, city planning, etc: Mesoamerican cities usually had a central urban core with temples, palaces and other elite housing, civic buildings, ball courts, etc, all richly painted and decorated, organized around open plazas for communal activities and ritualistic alignment. And then around that you had suburbs of commoner housing interspersed with agricultural land, etc, with the suburbs gradually decreasing in density the further out you go (in some cases, covering hundreds of square kilometers). Both the core and in some cases the suburbs had roads, aquaducts, etc. The Pyramid in the render was also grey and mossy, in ruins. If this is meant to be at the Pyramid's apex, then it should be painted and adorned with sculptures, reliefs, etc. If it's depicting it as of Spanish contact (which is what the graphics suggest), then it would've been buried in soil: The entire reason it's intact today is the Spanish mistook it as a hill, as Cholua's denizens had switched to using a new Great Pyramid dedicated to Quetzalcoatl centuries before contact. The show also mislabels some Teotihuacan frescos as being from Cholula; gets some of the dating wrong; incorrectly claims the whole pyramid was adobe and straw when many construction layers had stone as either the outer facade or even for the inner structural fill

Moving onto Texcotzinco: Firstly, this is an INCREDIBLE site more people should know about: This was a royal estate/retreat for rulers of Texcoco, the second most powerful Aztec city. It sourced water from 5 miles of aqueducts (some elevated 150 feet off the ground) which brought the water to a series of pools and channels to control the flow rate on an adjacent hill, then across the gorge between there and Texcotzinco, where it flowed into a circuit around Texcotzinco's summit, into the site's painted shrines, pools, fountains, etc, and then formed artificial waterfalls which watered the botanical gardens at the hill's base, which had different sections to mimic different Mexican biomes. Of course it also had a palace at the top of the mountain's peak, etc. We outright have written sources discussing the site being designed in the 1460s AD by Nezahualcoyotl, Texcoco's most famous king who also designed levee and aqueduct systems at other Aztec cities. Now, It should be noted that these accounts are written by his descendant, Fernando de Alva Cortés Ixtlilxóchitl in the late 16th/early 17th century, for the specific purpose of glorifying Texcoco to the Spanish, and we do know he twisted details, like claiming he worshipped a monotheistic god and rejected sacrifice. There's a whole book on this, "The Allure of Nezahualcoyotl", but as far as I know it doesn't dispute he built the site. Dr. Susan Toby Evans has a lot of papers on Texcotzinco, but a lot of her faculty page's links are down: I did find one mention that the site probably had some shrines built under earlier Texcoca rulers before Nezahualcoyotl, and the papers do mention there being archaeological evidence for dating rather then just textual sources, but sadly no specifics are listed.

However, Hancock's points are still unconvincing: The guy he talks about Texcotzinco with pretty much gives zero actual scientific analysis or actual criticism of any sort of dating method, just vague commentary about weathering, so there's no real evidence to review, and isn't a specialist of the site like the Cholula guy was: this guy just runs an Atlantis blog. Hancock's other point is that there's Tlaloc iconography at the site, and uses a pre-Aztec Tlaloc sculpture from another site to imply Texcotzinco could be pre Aztec too... BUT WE ALL ALREADY KNOW TLALOC IS PRE AZTEC! The evolution of Tlaloc and other Mesoamerican rain gods from Olmec ""were jaguar" (there's some debate of what they're depicting) sculptures is VERY well documented, there's even full Digimon style charts showing the specific stages of development the iconography went through at different times in different parts of Mesoamerica! So the presence of Tlaloc iconography doesn't inherently suggest any time period, and if anything the Tlaloc depictions at the site are consistent with Aztec period examples. Even if Texcotzinco DID have Pre-Aztec construction, it would likely just mean it was from the dozens of Pre-Aztec civilizations in Mesoamerica we already know about. Again, Hancock relies on the fact that most viewers don't know much on Mesoamerica to present normal finds as unusual

Lastly (skipping Xochicalo as i'm at the char. limit) Hancock's telling of the myth with Quetzalcoatl mixes details from different accounts or just gets stuff wrong: The flood he references is from myths detailing the cyclical creation and destruction of the world (and was done by Chalchiuhtlicue, not Tlaloc), wheras Quetzalcoatl sailing on a raft of snakes comes from Aztec accounts about the 10th century Toltec lord Ce Acatl Topiltzin, who is tied to Quetzalcoatl: These are largely separate narratives eons apart. And even then, only SOME of the latter involve the raft, and in them, he is LEAVING rather then arriving. Even these versions recorded in the early colonial period we know have Catholic influences from Friars re-writing them to aid in conversion and to make their rule seem pre-ordained. Stuff like Cortes being mistaken for Quetzalcoatl (a myth invented for similar reasons) comes from these, too. Hancock's telling is, if anything, closer to even later and more nonsense versions that make Quetzalcoatl white, blond, etc. Some of the earlier ones do have him as bearded, but the Mesoamericans had facial hair! We know it was customary in Aztec society for everyone other then rulers (Moctezuma II had facial hair!) or the elderly to shave, and Topiltzin was both

I'll also post some links, images, etc of some of what I mentioned below in a follow up reply.

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So, this probably is related to the fact that the Soviets used a different gauge of railroad tracks than the rest of Europe. The Soviet tracks were about 5 feet wide, while the standard European gauge was 4'8.5". The Soviets desperately needed coal to power their trains, factories, and for heat. So it would make sense for them to lay Soviet gauge track to the mines instead of transferring loads from one train to another at the border.

The wikipedia page on 5' gauge has some info and if you look around you can find lots of websites talking about the issues with the gauge change and how it hindered the Nazi supply when they invaded. The Wehrmacht has this popular conception that it was highly mechanized but it turns out not to be true. They were heavily reliant on horses and rails. So, when they lost the rail link they began suffering significant supply issues.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5_ft_and_1520_mm_gauge_railways

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Funny, 'hof' is also the dutch word for court (like the kings court) and garden (typically luxurious ornamental gardens). And plural its 'hoven'. Hoven is quite common in dutch last names, like Van Vollenhoven.

Probably one of the many words we learned from our viking friends that came to visit the Netherlands so often.

I wonder if you can visit or if its closed to public

Can somebody ELI5 the story of how there were once three popes at once and how they all ended up excommunicating each other? Did that actually ever get cleaned up or??

TFW you go on reddit and learn about the biggest viking discovery in 10 years... Happening 30 minutes from where you live.

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Did Goofy consent?

Is it true that Stalin built wide tracks in Poland to transport coal from Silesia to cover the lakes. This is something my father tells me like a mantra, and that his father and the Silesians who lived under Stalin told him about it (father born in 1956, so he did not witness it).

Finding in title is quoted from the abstract in the research paper, https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.abq7675

>The orientations of complexes built between 1100 and 750 BCE, in particular, represent the earliest evidence of the use of the 260-day calendar, centuries earlier than its previously known use in textual records.

... and from the linked content by Brian Handwerk, 6 Jan. 2023:

>Newly uncovered ruins along Mexico’s southern Gulf Coast appear to have been designed in alignment with the ancient timekeeping system.

>Aerial surveys using lidar technology revealed that hundreds of architectural complexes were aligned to facilitate timed observations of the rising and setting sun, moon and other celestial objects in line with this 260-day cycle.

>Scientists had suspected that the calendar, which is tied to cycles of maize agriculture and human reproduction, dated back this far.

>But the earliest documented evidence for its use was a glyph depicting “7 Deer,” one of the days in the calendar, as part of a third-century B.C.E. mural in Guatemala.

> 

>Since these cultures didn’t leave written records from earlier periods, scientists have found it exceedingly difficult to establish proof of prior calendar use—until this new large-scale discovery.

>These monumental assemblages of plazas, pyramids and platforms, some stretching more than half a mile, indicate the 260-day cycle was likely of central importance to the Olmec, Maya and other cultures since at least the key period of time around 1000 B.C.E.—when more widespread maize agriculture began to take hold in the region.

>“It is obvious that the orientations reflect a complex worldview in which astronomical knowledge conditioned by practical concerns was intertwined with religious concepts,” says co-author Ivan Šprajc, who studies Mesoamerican archaeology and archaeoastronomy at the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts.

It was my dream to be an archeologist when I was young and I regret not following thru with that. This is an awesome find.

Viking Hall? As the hall used by sea travelers or another misuse of the term viking?

A "Thing" is a type of germanic/viking governing assembly.

Shocking! Thats solo far from where they lived!

I personally doubt that they knew about it. However, I also doubt they would have cared about the presence of French nationals if they were aware and cool with such a project

>So basically you're trying to tell me that an army's greatness is measured in K/D ratio?

Not at all.

You're the one who brought up performance. Which I called out as that’s an odd approach considering the well known performance issues of the soviets. So it pointed to extreme bias and or misinformation.

My original comment also included “By war's end the Soviet armed forces numbered 11,365,000 officers and men” - "In 1945 as the defeat of Germany and Japan neared, U.S. military personnel numbered 12,209,238”. That’s just pure numbers of people when you factor in equipment/training/allies the difference is stark.

"The Red Army could've rolled into Lisabon in the autumn of '45." 👀

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Do you have more info on those events/periods?

Moreso it begs the question why Gibbon, not writing in Latin, would use the ablative.

So basically you're trying to tell me that an army's greatness is measured in K/D ratio? That's so silly that I don't really feel the need to continue this discussion. The Red Army could've rolled into Lisabon in the autumn of '45.