Ed Barnhart: evaluation

Transcript context

…What do you think is the motivation to build a pyramid? The fact that it can withstand the elements structurally, that kind of thing? Why do humans build pyramids and why do they build it in all kinds of different locations in the world? Well, my rude answer is pretty boring, really. A lot of people ask me, “Why are there pyramids all over the planet? Is that a coincidence?” I think that when people wanted to build a big building without rebar or cement, you end up building something with a fat base that goes up to a skinny top, and that turns into a pyramid. Any kid who’s playing with blocks on the floor builds a couple towers and his brother knocks them down, and if he wants one that’s going to stay and be tall, he ends up making something with a fat base and a tiny top. And I think that building something big and tall together is one of those human things like, “We built that. That will be here after we’re gone. People will remember who we were.” If there’s any human commonality, it’s fear of our own deaths and that we were nothing and no one will ever remember us. I think that the first big monuments like that were probably a group of people saying, “We’re going to do something that people will remember forever.” Now, that being said, remember we were just talking about Huaca Prieta and this one that’s almost 6000 BC now, is the first one, that one’s a funny case. We just talked about all these lofty goals, but actually I’m pretty sure that Huaca Prieta’s first pyramid was about capping a smelly pile of trash. I think everybody piled up their trash in the middle of town and it stunk. It’s on the coast. It stunk like fish. And somebody said, “If we just bury this thing with dirt, it won’t smell anymore.” And then it was a big mound where people could get up and talk to everybody and then said, “Well, it’s squishy. If we cap it with clay, then it will really not smell.” I really think that the very first pyramids in Peru were about trash management. Talk about deflating, huh? Yeah. But then they probably saw it and they were impressed and humbled by the enormity of the construction, and they were like, maybe the next guy thought, “Maybe we should keep building these kinds of things.”…

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