This fallacy is called "appeal to authority". Just believing someone because of his title doesn't make it true. You still need evidence. I should know - I studied ancient history (though my main focus is on medieval history). One "archaeologist" for example claimed that celtic armrings were fixed to their wearers arms by recasting them straight onto them. He had no evidence, just his gut feeling but he was an archaeologist. Was the metalworker with no academic degree wrong or arrogant for calling him out because of his "gut feeling" of hearing total nonsense? (Of course he wasn't. Celts just as modern people valued the integrity of their arms more than having some fancy jewellery around the rests of their molten flesh.)Ungrevling said:Being sceptical is good, but thinking you know better than archaeologists because of your gut feeling is arrogant.
One of us cared to ask for evidence instead of blindly following a theory someone apparently made up. What is so arrogant in asking for evidence?
I didn't deny that. I even wrote:Ungrevling said:If you leave something as an offering to the dead, how is that anything other than ritual?
Look at the funny eye rolling smily in my post! I even acknowledged that I called offerings "ritual" after questioning it for the "killing of the sword".RC-1136 said:These swords weren't laying around but were used as ritual () offerings or burial objects.
Of course their is a ritual meaning behind sacrifices and burials. But these meanings can have their limits.
Absolutely. They may have.Ungrevling said:Both preventing theft and some kind of magic effect may have been considerations when destroying votive objects.
But the thing is, we know very little about rituals and customs of the Celts because they didn't have a literate culture. So especially in cases of illiterate cultures we should be sceptical about claims concerning their believe system and cultic behaviour.
One more thing: Calling something cultic and magical is a good publicity stunt in underfunded fields like history and archaeology. Calling some golden branch "Kultbäumchen von Manching" instead of "an example of superb Celtic craftsmanship we know very little about" just has a far better ring to it.