Comments

1
Cool Wikipedia browsing, I had never heard about Great Zimbabwe.
2
Here's hoping the frog-nuns resist the urge to capture and sell each other to the outsiders.
3
@2. You are not clever. You are a classic American with a bad education. But know that geography matters, even in Africa.
4
The island scenes in the movie are filmed off the western coast of Ireland, where those beehive shaped non-mortar stone structures are very common ruins. It would be fascinating to know if very early explorers exchanged the idea or if both the early Irish and the residents of Great Zimbabwe developed the concept independently. It's interesting that two groups of people so widely separated by geography and climate would end up constructing very similar architectures to live in. Though in the case of the Irish "beehives" they appear to be not as extensive as the Zimbabwe ruins (the Irish version are from villages, not cities)
5
As it happens, I have been to Skellig Michael, the island where those scenes were shot. And those beehive structures, yes, with stone laid upon stone without mortar to hold them, actually are to be found there. They are about a thousand years old, and were built by monks who lived on the island. The movie added three things to them: more size, more light (it's very dark inside each structure) and bigger entrances with doors (my 6'4" frame had to bend almost double to get inside. The largest of them, which served as a church, might have allowed half a dozen to comfortably fit inside. But the structures there are real, not a set.

As are the stone trails and stairs climbing the mountains. Each step was laboriously laid in place by a monk centuries and centuries ago.

Those monks eked out a threadbare existence, farming small terraces and doing daily battle with the devil. Skellig Michael was not a retreat for them, but the front line of a spiritual war. The monks were the special forces, if you will, of that spiritual army. In that sense, Skellig Michael was a very different place than what it was for Luke at the end of The Force Awakens (I won't comment on its use during The Last Jedi because spoilers).
6
Stacking rocks in a verdant valley isn't exactly an architectural triumph of the 11th Century. The Colloseum in Rome was nearly 1,000 years old at this point, and the Iron Age in Europe had begun 2,100 years before. (Though 6th Century monks clinging rock hovels to the side of a feeezing, barren island? Kind of bad-ass.)

Those persuaded to race talk will draw conclusions for both sides. Staggered developments have nothing to do with race, and everything to do with climate, societal structure and culture. Understanding how subsistence culture and tribal forces, (not just colonialism and 'racism') substantially shape and often frustrate contemporary development is the essay missing from Mudede's folio.
7
staking rocks to form anything would just be a natural thing any culture would do to build shelter or create some marker. Creating an arch with stone would also be a natural thing to do. An Igloo is an example of creating a structure with an arched roof.
I live on a farm built in the 1940's. All the buildings are staked stone that exists naturally. The land was cleared of stone to cultivate fields and buildings were built from stone. Makes natural sense to do.
I live in the Fraser Valley in Canada. The buildings are made from materials on hand and a need for shelter, a homestead built by a simple inventive reclusive individual. Why on earth or in this case a fictional galaxy far far away would I want to create an argument about race and insult "average Americans with arrogance.
I just don't get it, every butterfly that batts its wings is a reason to create a story about race.
Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar ?!?! in this case an ancient stone building is just an ancient stone building being used as a backdrop in a film.
10
I thought Luke's stone habitation looked like Irish Clochán structures. But then, different civilizations did converge on similar building styles sometimes.
13
@11 - Oh, I know. I have read Shelter....

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