Politesse
Lux Aeterna
- Joined
- Feb 27, 2018
- Messages
- 12,220
- Location
- Chochenyo Territory, US
- Gender
- nonbinary
- Basic Beliefs
- Jedi Wayseeker
What we know about any sort of ritual activities in ancient Meditterranean or Indian worlds, let alone specific rituals, doesn't fill a book (unless you're trying to fill a book).It'd be interesting to see a comparative analysis on the extent of drug use, and a comparison of the qualities of the drugs used, but I imagine such a thing isn't possible. My bet is on Soma being a stronger drug than that used in different regions, and that it did have an influence, but that's going to remain a guess.
When I teach Intro to Archeology, and it's time for the week 1 "lab", instead of a standard lab exercise I dump out a 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle onto the table at the front of the room, then give each lab group seven puzzle pieces to analyze. No peeking at the box, or at other students' assemblages. Their task is to determine as best they can the content, subject, and artistic qualities of the fully assembled puzzle. Then all the groups compare notes, to see whether they have reconstructed similar portraits of the whole. I think you've done enough reading on archaeology and cultural studies to guess correctly what the moral of the exercise might be. Indeed, I'm far too generous in setting up the game, as what we posess for a material or written record before 1000 BCE comes nowhere remotely near a sample size like 7 in a thousand.