IAR Blog Post 2

QUESTION:  DO ENVIRONMENTS INFLUENCE RITUALS, OR DO RITUALS INFLUENCE ENVIRONMENTS?

ANSWER:  Mesopotamians and Egyptians, despite being thousands of miles apart, were similar in their ritual beliefs.  Both had extensive pantheons, and both believed that food was necessary not only for humans, but for their gods as well.  Thus, both societies sacrificed food to their respective gods.  However, there is a striking difference between the food that was sacrificed.  Egyptians were able to hunt animals such as various birds, antelopes, and gazelle; therefore, their sacrifices included much more meat and animals.  However, Mesopotamians did not have the same luxury, due to the scarcity of animals in their region--their food sacrifices consisted much more of crops and breads.  This indicates that the environment influences the ritual:  the presence or scarcity of meat was reflected in the Egyptians' and Mesopotamians' sacrifices, respectively.  Does this mean that rituals have no influence on the environment?  The answer, quite simply, is no.

     Stonehenge supports the idea that rituals influence environments.  While it is not the only such structure in England, it certainly stands out, and its very presence is perplexing.  The stones that remains today came from a quarry 30 kilometers (18.5 miles) away, and since the average weight the stones is 26 tons, a great effort must have been put into transporting them.  Since it is highly unlikely that such energy would be expended on something insignificant, we must assume that there was some great purpose to Stongehenge's creation.  The general consensus is that Stonehenge is a ritual site, but what these rituals might have been has been lost to time.  Thus, the society that built Stonehenge did so because of powerful ritual beliefs.  They modified their environment to meet their rituals; therefore, the belief that rituals influence environment also holds true.

     The only conclusion we can draw, therefore, is that both statements are true.  Both the environment and the ritual influence each other equally, in a symbiotic relationship where neither aspect has the upper hand.