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Re:Tyrian purple: Ancient pigment that was more valuable tha... by smallnamespace on Monday December 04, 2023 @12:01PM (#38519784)
The Spanish also had many accounts of Mayan child sacrifice. These accounts were often dismissed by historians on suspicion of prejudice. We've more recently found archaeological evidence of the Mayan practice on a massive scale.

Sometimes dismissing evidence because of perceived bias is simply incorrect.

Re:Tyrian purple: Ancient pigment that was more valuable tha... by naremu on Monday December 04, 2023 @12:42PM (#38520333)
To be fair, I haven't ever heard suspicions of prejudice as an argument to discredit Spanish expedition's writings on the matter, presumably as I've heard the accounts were often eyewitnessed, unlike typical Roman/Greek depictions of distant places they were frequently declaring cultural and actual war on.

I also didn't dismiss potential evidence for Carthage's sacrificial culture, of which there's enough to make the accusation, but really, only that.

I don't actually have a horse in the races of dead people, but I do hesitate to perpetuate even ancient culture wars. It's usually just going to make more use of people's tribal desire than their deductive skills, though why people have emotions about ancient, dead societies, I'll never know.