this post was submitted on 06 Jan 2025
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Wasn't Khemet a completely seperate civilization than the Egypt in the same place today? I think it's totally reasonable to differentiate between them. We don't say Mexicans built Chichen Itza
Even the ancient Egyptians said they where a legacy civilisation.
Honestly how the fuck do you get progressively worse at building pyramids.
The aliens who built the first pyramids gradually noticed that the we're a fucked up species and went back home to Alpha Centaury. Less alien input, less good pyramids, obv. /s
in this case /s clearly means science
Look around you. We're getting progressively worse at building houses, infrastructure, cars, appliances, electronics and software.
Well, I also doubt Hackney chavs kicked off the industrial revolution.
Mexicans did build Chichen Itza. Mayans are Mexicans. They still live there. They still speak the language.
And genetically, the Egyptians who live there today have been shown to be the descendants of the ancient Egyptians. Where do you think they went?
Mexicans didn't build Chichen Itza, the ancestors of some Mexicans did. And those ancestors weren't called Mexicans. We say Mayans built Chichen Itza because that's the name of their civilisation. Their descendants can acknowledge that heritage by calling themselves Mayan, but what they call themselves isn't what determines what their ancestors should be called, much less their citizenship today.
Sorry... are you saying modern Mayans are not the same people as ancient Mayans?
Is this true about other indigenous peoples in the Americas?
So the British made Hadrian's wall and Italy built the Colosseum? Or perhaps a genetically linked but wholly different group of people made those.
Okay, so none of the indigenous people of the Americas today are of the same people who were there before European contact. I see.
I guess we should take away all those reservations. They don't deserve them.
Edit: Also, no, the Romano-British did not make Hadrian's Wall. Legions from other parts of the empire did. That's a poor argument.
What a deranged take.
Edit: Nice edit. That's the point, they're not the same people even if map borders after conquest would lead one to believe they were.
I'm going by your own claim. Are the Mayans today of the same people as the Mayans who built Chichen Itza or not?
According to your claim, they are not. Therefore why does any indigenous person need a reservation? Or even deserve to call themselves indigenous?
Oh Squid.
The Mayans of today are as similar to ancient Mayans as Italians are to ancient Romans.
I don't know why you keep trying to bring up reservations, not sure how that's relevant.
Okay, so then why does any person descended from any indigenous American group alive today have the right to call themselves indigenous or live on a reservation? Please explain it.
I really don't get what you're trying to get at with the reservation thing. Please explain it.
Are you making the argument that ethnic Romans should have reservations...?
I was under the impression the reservation system is far from ideal, at best executed terribly, and is a small concession for the destruction of culture hundreds of years ago from colonial endeavors.
You are saying that modern indigenous people are not of the same people as their ancestors.
So why should they be given ancestral land and autonomy? According to you, the modern Sioux aren't of the same people as the ones who were there before Europeans got there, they're just Americans.
So why do they get special reserved land and autonomy? Why do they deserve it based on your rationale that they are not the same people?
No, I'm saying they are not the same people. They are ancestors.
Because it was brutally taken from their ancestors and caused a great change in their culture, land, and way of life?
Again this "of the same people." I'm saying they are not THE same people, they are ancestors.
This is your argument that you're having with yourself. I don't know why you're so hung up on reservations or "deserving" land. The question was, are the people of today the same as the past and the simple answer is no. Time has dramatically changed the language, culture, and borders of these civilizations... Which is why even in your question you had to delineate between the modern Sioux and the pre-colonial Sioux.
Wait, so your whole argument has been that the Mayans aren't immortal? Yes, I'm aware.
That's literally been this whole conversation. Reread your own posts.
For the nth time, yes they are different. You went on a tangent about reservations for some reason but the point remains, ancient Mayans are not modern Mayans. They are clearly distinct but that doesn't mean we shouldn't attempt to rebuild and preserve the ancient culture.
Dear Quetzalcoatl, this is all because I accidentally left out the word "of" in one post?
This. This right here Squid. You're being disingenuous and you know it. Mexicans or modern Mayans as you consider them, did not build Chicken Itza. Ancient Mayans did. They are not the same. Mayan culture may live on but, to bring this full circle, Italians did not build the Colosseum.
In what way are they not the same apart from not living at the same time period? Again, you're making the argument that indigenous people today are no longer indigenous.
Who built the Colosseum?
Romans? And many of their descendants live in Rome and call themselves Romans. What do you think people in Rome call themselves?
And I already explained that the Romano-British, who are called that, did not build Hadrian's Wall because Hadrian had legionnaires from other parts of the empire do that.
The only reason they're called Romano-British is to show what time period they're talking about. As for who built Stonehenge? Neolithic British people. Any archaeologist will tell you that.
So the Italians didn't build the Colosseum? I'm glad we agree. Mexicans did not build Chichen Itza, ancient Mayans did.
Are you saying Romans aren't Italians? Are you suggesting the Italian Peninsula isn't the Italian Peninsula? Because if you are, we do not agree. Especially when the Romans themselves called it Italia, just like modern Italians do.
Also, Teotihuacan is in the Valley of Mexico. Did Mexicans build it?
People have lifespans, they die? As individuals they most definitely are not, and as a people they are only so long as they claim to be
Edit: what I'm trying to say is (most) Egyptians don't even identify as Khemetians much less call themselves so. So it doesn't make sense to retroactively call that civilisation a name only its successors are called by other people
Many Egyptians today claim to be of the same people as those who were there in the old kingdom. Genetically, they are correct.
So what's the difference?
Is that true? I thought not even the people that lived there thousands of years ago considered themselves to be the same as the old kingdom.
Regardless, the difference is that what their descendants are called doesn't change what they were called. And by calling themselves a different name than their ancestors, their descendants are acknowledging that there is a distinction between the two peoples
Many indigenous groups now call themselves names others used to call them. Because they didn't have a name for themselves, they were just "the people."
Incidentally, that includes the Maya people.
There was never a united Mayan empire. It was a collection of city-states that shared a culture. Eventually the descendents of the people of those city-states were referred to by others as Mayan.
So, again, according to your own rationale, the Mayan people of today are not the same people as their indigenous ancestors despite sharing a language and many cultural links.
I think you may be a bit out of your depth here.
TIL, although Wikipedia also says Maya is derived from their historical capital Mayapan, which tracks as far as civilisations go. It's the next best thing they can be called if there isn't a word they called themselves.
That's not what I wrote at all? My point is that a civilization shouldn't be referred to by
I made no comments about who gets to claim heritage. I said you can only claim to be the same people as your ancestors, not claim your ancestors were the same people as you.
Again- it is not one single civilization. If you told someone from Tulum that they were the same as the people from Tikal, he'd kick the shit out of you for daring to say that.
And yet we call them both Mayan.
So should we actually refer to each city's name individually? Even though we don't actually know what some of them were?
Or maybe we should just call them collectively by the same name we call their descendants as they are inextricably linked to the point that you can say they're as close to someone from Tikal as someone from Tulum was at the same time.
And then there's the point when Teotihuacan may or may not have invaded and taken over Tikal and some other cities and maybe made them part of their empire for a while before they gained autonomy again.
Teotihuacan is literally in the Valley of Mexico. That would make them literally Mexican.
I really think you need to learn more about the topic of the Mayans.
This isn't about Mayans. I don't need to know more than the fact that historians and Wikipedia editors found it more appropriate to call it 'Maya civilization' instead of 'city states around Mayapan'. If the experts decide it wasn't a shared civilization after all, I'll go with what they call the people that built Chichen Itza.
Civilizations can have multiple descendants that claim its legacy, why call it anything other than 'built by humans' at that point? But that's not useful right? Perhaps it's best to make an effort to get as specific as possible?
No I don't mean specific to the point of counting people's names. Specific enough to encompass only the people who would've thought the structure to be an achievement of their people.
If it isn't about Mayans, why bring them up?
Is it proper to say Teotihuacan was built by Mexicans? If not, what should we call people who come from the Valley of Mexico?
Do you not know what an example is?
I thought it was what we were discussing. And I hope I've shown you why it was such a poor example.
You can make the argument, but then you'd have to fence off at least 6 or 7 different "Egypts". The precise division would depend on what point you're trying to make.
The flip side, though, is that that implies you'd only ever draw the lines to make a point, which would mean the reply here isn't "that's not true", but "So? What are you trying to say?".