|
|
Post by silverdragon on Sept 15, 2014 8:54:46 GMT
Phwatt?........ Get away with you. Ok, so, here, the Smithsonian cant be wrong can it?..... Link to the site is :- www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/oxford-university-is-older-than-the-aztecs-1529607/?no-istBut, the Myth is that Oxford Uni England is "Older than the Aztecs"..... Can someone here please be sensible and prove the Aztecs were around a heck of a lot longer than 1521. They must have built that civilization as much as we built ours. Just because they built a "City", doesnt mean its the actual date. Look at Milton Keynes, less than 100 yrs old, that doesnt "Date" our civilization to the date they started building that one city/town does it?... Yes I know, Oxford Uni is a lot older than we thought, but its not as old as that, and whats next, some going to try and tell me the ancient Egypts last pyramid was designed by Christopher Wren?... (St Pauls London architect.) |
|
|
|
Post by mrfatso on Sept 15, 2014 12:04:37 GMT
It s a bit like the statement that the Anglo Saxons did not form England until the 9th century, yes the land area existed, yes there where tribes of people that lived in that area, but the migration of people with a specific cultural identity that is called Aztec did not happen until that date when their city was founded.
|
|
|
|
Post by mrfatso on Sept 15, 2014 15:04:44 GMT
To expand on my Anglo Saxon example, there was a time when you might have said you where Cumbrian or Northumbrian, from Mercia or Wessex, Anglian or Sussex, but the idea that these were one place called England was not in anyone's mind. The idea that these where one Nation under one King did not happen until around the late 9th early 10th century.
Similarly I am sure the peoples of Central Mexico had their own ideas about who they where but only later became one people called the Aztecs.
|
|
|
|
Post by silverdragon on Sept 16, 2014 7:09:27 GMT
The Land of the Angles.
Oxford Uni was a place of learning before this kingdom was United?... true.
|
|
|
|
Post by memeengine on Sept 17, 2014 20:52:10 GMT
Oxford Uni was a place of learning before this kingdom was United?... true. If the OP is true then teaching had started in Oxford in 1096, the Norman conquest had happened 30 years earlier in 1066. So the unified Norman kingdom of England and Wales already existed. England had existed as a unified Kingdom since King Aethelstan had united it in 927. Of course, the University of Bologna supposedly dates back to 1088 and so beats Oxford to the title of the oldest university in the world. And if you're a Cambridge University student or alumni then you'll be quick to point out that Cambridge actually got it's Royal Charter (i.e. formal recognition of its status) 17 years before Oxford, in 1231. |
|
|
|
Post by the light works on Sept 18, 2014 2:36:39 GMT
so - if someone taught someone in the real estate that is now oxford before the Aztecs officially founded their capital city, it means that Oxford University is older than the Aztecs? sounds awfully Oxfordcentric to me. and it is about like saying that since I touched a wire in 1974, and they built a new federal office building in Salem within the last 5 years, my business is older than America.
|
|
|
|
Post by memeengine on Sept 18, 2014 5:54:03 GMT
The fact that "X is older than the Aztecs" isn't really about proving that X is old, it's to show that the Aztec civilization (as a political and cultural entity) is much more recent than people in general realise.
As mrfatso pointed out, the peoples that became the Aztecs were in the Americas long before the rise of the Aztec empire, in much the same way the the peoples of Britain were in the British islands long before the rise of the British Empire. However, they only became considered as Aztecs (as opposed to being the Nahua or Mexica peoples) after the 13th century. Correspondingly the British were only considered British after the Act of Union in 1707...and after today (depending on the referendum result) being British might mean something else...
|
|
|
|
Post by silverdragon on Sept 18, 2014 6:21:54 GMT
What it will mean is Alex Salmond has taken his toys home and doesnt want anyone else to play with them.
Dangerous times.
I know several businesses, including Banks, will be shifting headquarters away from Scotland.
Plus, this is a United kingdom, how come they get all the choice?....
My Wife is Scots, because she lives in England, she has no choice.
My Family is Half Scots, they dont get any choice.
That a bit like my Next door neighbour deciding he wants to erect a 20ft security fence between us an me having no choice in the matter.
|
|
|
|
Post by memeengine on Sept 18, 2014 7:17:11 GMT
Plus, this is a United kingdom, how come they get all the choice?... That's probably a discussion for the watercooler. My point about Britain was that changes in the political/cultural entities in a given location can happen without there being a change in the people of that location. The transition from pre-Aztec culture to Aztec culture was probably a gradual one and, for lack of a better reference, historians have arbitrarily chosen the foundation of their capital as the starting point of the Aztec civilization. |
|
|
|
Post by silverdragon on Sept 18, 2014 7:53:38 GMT
Olmec, I think, is the great culture pre-Aztec that "Suddenly Disappeared" but has a lot of similar culture, that many suspect was the same people but in a different place.
Political landscapes change, that could be climate change, it could be many things.But the Oxford "Place of learning", as far as we can gather, is a place that was set up for Education purposes before the term "University" was adopted, and was set up to be the place it is now, regardless of political leanings.
If the culture had collapsed, then the Uni would have gone as well, but if the culture had changed, I suspect it would still be a Uni, just ran slightly different?...
A School is a School, its still a school when they change headmasters teachers pupils and curriculum?....
I suspect the Olmec and Aztecs had places set aside for "Learning", its just we aint found them yet.....
Well, we may have, but properly identified is a difference?...
|
|
|
|
Post by the light works on Sept 18, 2014 13:07:45 GMT
I am still looking at the significant difference in metrics they use in determining the ages of the groups in question. Oxford University allegedly started the moment someone taught someone else something in the area of real estate, but the Aztecs didn't start until they hung the "welcome to Aztec" sign on their capitol city.
|
|
|
|
Post by memeengine on Sept 18, 2014 16:58:44 GMT
Oxford University allegedly started the moment someone taught someone else something in the area of real estate How else would you define the establishment of a university? The concept of a university didn't start with Oxford, so there was already an established idea of what level of education and structure constituted a university. So the founding of the university would have been with that standard in mind. the Aztecs didn't start until they hung the "welcome to Aztec" sign on their capitol city. What metric would you prefer? In the absence of historic documentation of the establishment of the Aztec civilization (which can be accurately dated), some historians have used the establishment of the first recognisably Aztec city as a founding date. It's an arbitrary choice but it would be the same for any other starting point. As I also noted above, the intention of the comparison isn't to say that Oxford University is old so much as to highlight that the Aztec civilization is comparatively recent. There is a temptation in many people's minds to lump all of the Mesoamerican civilizations together, and because of their perceived lack of technological sophistication (relative to the European invaders) to think of them as being pre-historic relics. |
|
|
|
Post by the light works on Sept 19, 2014 1:27:07 GMT
Oxford University allegedly started the moment someone taught someone else something in the area of real estate How else would you define the establishment of a university? The concept of a university didn't start with Oxford, so there was already an established idea of what level of education and structure constituted a university. So the founding of the university would have been with that standard in mind. the Aztecs didn't start until they hung the "welcome to Aztec" sign on their capitol city. What metric would you prefer? In the absence of historic documentation of the establishment of the Aztec civilization (which can be accurately dated), some historians have used the establishment of the first recognisably Aztec city as a founding date. It's an arbitrary choice but it would be the same for any other starting point. As I also noted above, the intention of the comparison isn't to say that Oxford University is old so much as to highlight that the Aztec civilization is comparatively recent. There is a temptation in many people's minds to lump all of the Mesoamerican civilizations together, and because of their perceived lack of technological sophistication (relative to the European invaders) to think of them as being pre-historic relics. I'd kind of like to see the same metric used for both examples. for example, if London was built before Tenochtitlan, that would be a valid comparison. |
|
|
|
Post by mrfatso on Sept 19, 2014 2:14:06 GMT
On that metric the comparison is even older, if you know where to look, the one most tourists will find is on Tower Hill by the tube station you will find the remains of the Roman city walls. archive.museumoflondon.org.uk/Londinium/Today/LondonWallWalk/But that is not the point, it is to show how the city the Aztecs built and the start of what archeology, and I am not going to wade through papers to find the evidence just believe the summary, of their culture and how recent it was compared to say the building of Caerphilly Castle for example or Oxford University, rather than what some people might think say the Pyramids of Giza. Pretty much what memengine has been saying. |
|
|
|
Post by memeengine on Sept 19, 2014 6:25:04 GMT
I'd kind of like to see the same metric used for both examples. for example, if London was built before Tenochtitlan, that would be a valid comparison. The problem is that any "X city was founded before Y city" comparison wouldn't illustrate what the authors of the article were trying to show. Most people are aware that different cities were founded at different times. We know that London is at least 2000 years old. Athens is probably 7000 years old and there are probably cities in the fertile cresent that can be dated back further than that. The point of the article was to show that (a) what we consider to be a modern institution, i.e. the university, is older than many people would think and (b) that the Aztec civilization, which many people believe is pre-historic, is actually much more recent. |
|
|
|
Post by the light works on Sept 19, 2014 15:01:59 GMT
I'd kind of like to see the same metric used for both examples. for example, if London was built before Tenochtitlan, that would be a valid comparison. The problem is that any "X city was founded before Y city" comparison wouldn't illustrate what the authors of the article were trying to show. Most people are aware that different cities were founded at different times. We know that London is at least 2000 years old. Athens is probably 7000 years old and there are probably cities in the fertile cresent that can be dated back further than that. The point of the article was to show that (a) what we consider to be a modern institution, i.e. the university, is older than many people would think and (b) that the Aztec civilization, which many people believe is pre-historic, is actually much more recent. it failed to make that point to me. the point it made to me was that the writers were very impressed with Oxford university and wanted to make it seem as old as they possibly could, by using the very loosest possible definition of "university" to define its start point. and wanted to minimize the Aztec culture as much as possible and used the strictest possible definition of "civilization" to define its start point. the end result was that I dismissed their article out of hand as a case of blowhard hyperbole. they would have been more effective if they had written "people know Oxford University is old, but most people don't realize there was a school there as early as 1096 AD" and "people think of the Aztec culture as ancient, but in fact, the Aztec culture was most dominant between the 14th and 16th centuries. for reference, the crusades were ending in the early 14th century. |
|
|
|
Post by OziRiS on Sept 19, 2014 20:08:53 GMT
I'm a little bit on both sides of the field of this argument.
I think the last passage of the article sums up the author's intentions quite well:
"None of this is intended to pit civilizations against each other. But it’s an interesting way to think about how skewed our understanding of history really is — we have these timelines in our heads that are distorted and compressed, and they don’t always agree with reality. To get a clearer picture of how the world really works, sometimes it helps to keep things in context."
The article doesn't say that Oxford was founded as a university as soon as the first person taught another person something and that's what makes it older than the Aztecs. It clearly states that Oxford was a fully functioning university with student housing and everything as early as 1249, which is still almost a century before the Aztecs built their city.
On the other hand, I can follow TLW's reasoning as well. Civilizations don't just suddenly pop up because a city magically appears out of nowhere. It's usually the other way around. The civilization forms first and THEN the cities are built, so for all we know, the Aztec civilization may have existed for hundreds of years prior to someone deciding they needed a capitol.
|
|
