Bigger, not better
There is an interesting discussion by Jared Diamond of Los Angeles in Nature for 21 August on the state of mind of some of the great ones of the earth when they marked their passage through history by building impressive monuments.
He notes that often the most extravagant edifices were raised during the early
days of a state’s history, before it reached the pinnacle of fame. Such
structures, Diamond argues, were erected for propaganda purposes, to conceal
the real lack of political competence and grandeur. And he hints that our current
leaders may not be averse to similar vainglorious measures in their attempts
to paint themselves larger than life to satisfy a starving ego.
 Among the three great pyramids erected in the Egyptian desert at Giza the biggest
is that of Khufu, with a base area of 5 hectares, height 146 metres, and weight
6 megatons. The pyramids erected by Khufu’s successors, Khafra and Menkaura,
are much smaller. Yet Khufu in his day commanded no greater resources than his
descendants. Indeed, later Egyptian dynasties had far more power, but left lesser
monuments. They invested their resources in other ways, largely favouring trade
and conquest. In this light the Great Pyramid itself must be looked upon as a
great political and egoistic bluff.
In the same vein are the great rulers of Mexico and Peru. The great Pyramid of
the Sun at Teotihuacan has a base area the same as that of the Great Pyramid
but only half its height. Diamond speculates on the significance of the 5 hectares,
which recurs several times in antiquity. Under the Aztec rulers, state revenues
were invested in military or trading channels, as in later Egypt, rather than
in impressive edifices. In Peru under the Moche, the Huaca de Sol pyramid also
spanned 5 hectares, although its height was only one fifth that of Khufu’s
monument. The later cultures of the New World favoured roads, irrigation canals
and storehouses rather than pyramids.
One clue Diamond finds when looking at the strange giant statues of Easter Island.
There the later statues are larger than the earlier. It seems, he thinks, that
some civilisations were governed by rival clans rather than by a united government,
and that this precluded the design of enormous buildings. Certainly among the
Maya cultures the later, and larger, edifices were created by usurpers or else
relatively weak kings, who sought through ostentation to magnify their doubtful
power and boost their personal egos.
Diamond quotes an apt sentence from the work of Joyce Marcus on which he has
based much of his argument, ‘Theory and practice in Mediterranean archaeology:
Old World and New World perspectives’: “We should be as sceptical
of ancient propaganda as we are when dealing with modern politicians.” The
idea is well worth meditating upon.
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