Human Skull Trophies Help Uncover the Maya's Mysterious Collapse

[mopinko]

5. probably is connected. vaguely recall

that the skins were thought to have come from defeated enemies.

i have this notion that art is necessary for religion to grow. that it is necessary to embody an idea in a tangible way to explain an intangible.
old white male archeologists always attributed early art to worship, but i am positive that is bass ackwards.
i do think it was pretty quickly appropriated to weave origin stories, at least.

i have used the jaguar as an example of how i think it works-
artist- i have captured the power of the jaguar. see?
citizen- wow! i have never seen anything like that before.
a- it carries the power of the cat.
c- well, it sure is amazing.

etc, etc. a new piece of art is an amazing thing today. imagine the first piece of art a whole town had ever seen?

makes me wonder if they wandered into a sort of rabbit hole like religious insanity.