Aztec-like European Civilization?

[GeneralChang]

Im thinking about a rather than hellenism and romanism have a culture similar to Aztecs develop in Europe. It has to be dominant and have very non-western characteristics like cannibalism, polygamy.
Im thinking
1. Celtic Wank and form aztec-like empire
2. Carthaginian Wank: spread cannibalism throughout europe
3. Mesopotamian and Egyptians colonize europe and merge with early celts, and become a very violent and bloodthirsty civilization.
4. Mycenaean greece survives and head hunting and cannibalism become part of greek culture
5. Persians destroy greece and Italy and the first two on the list happen.

 

[John7755 يوحنا]

Before, some preliminary questions, and I will attempt to provide an answer:

1. how would you define human sacrifice? Which sort of parameters are we setting and does scale matter?

2. What do you mean by headhunting in this case?

3. Does the religious war dogma of the Aztecs have to apply? The Aztec Triple Alliance operated upon a notion of religious war and world conquest that is not all to common in human history.

4. How widespread must the cannibalism become? Can it be simply for ritual purposes for instance?

 

[Mr_Fanboy]

The Carthaginians practiced ritualistic cannibalism?

 

[John7755 يوحنا]

The Carthaginians practiced ritualistic cannibalism?

I do no think so, from what I understand, they practiced a form of child sacrifice, but I had not heard of a ritual cannibalism.

 

[Richard V]

I do no think so, from what I understand, they practiced a form of child sacrifice, but I had not heard of a ritual cannibalism.

The Phoenicians came from Canaan where there was the old god Moloch who is known for requiring child sacrifice by fire. Moloch is depicted as a minotaur and in Greek mythology youths were sent into the minotaur’s labyrinth to be devoured.

 

[James Ricker]

Cannibalism was expressly forbidden by the Greek / Roman gods.
Human sacrifice was conducted in ancient Greece but fell out of fashion. An archaeological dig found evidence of a human sacrifice in progress in a Temple that was destroyed buy an earthquake. That is probably what caused human sacrifice to go out of fashion if there's some way to Butterfly a way that incident Human Sacrifice may have been continued

 

[Mort the Reaper]

Mycenaean greece survives and head hunting and cannibalism become part of greek culture

Um... are you implying the Mycenaean Greeks were cannibals?

 

[Richard V]

Im thinking about a rather than hellenism and romanism have a culture similar to Aztecs develop in Europe. It has to be dominant and have very non-western characteristics like cannibalism, polygamy.
Im thinking
1. Celtic Wank and form aztec-like empire
2. Carthaginian Wank: spread cannibalism throughout europe
3. Mesopotamian and Egyptians colonize europe and merge with early celts, and become a very violent and bloodthirsty civilization.
4. Mycenaean greece survives and head hunting and cannibalism become part of greek culture
5. Persians destroy greece and Italy and the first two on the list happen.

Very doubtful if the Persians could conquer Italy by sea. The Athenian backup plan was to evacuate to Corsica. So if Persia conquered Greece a lot of Greeks will go and colonize the western Mediterranean, including southern France and Spain where their crops will do well. So I’m not sure if destroying the Greeks was at all possible.

 

[Atterdag]

I don't know how either of your scenarios would lead to an "Aztec-like" society, by which I suppose you mean a society where the religion demands constant warfare and taking of captures.

 

[Richard V]

I wonder if the worship of the “golden calf” that Moses so disapproved implied his people were engaging in child sacrifice to Moloch. The Old Testament specified multiple times that sacrificing your children to Moloch was forbidden. The practice must have been seen as a serious problem to get that kind of attention.

 

[John7755 يوحنا]

I don't know how either of your scenarios would lead to an "Aztec-like" society, by which I suppose you mean a society where the religion demands constant warfare and taking of captures.

That part though is the easiest to achieve. The Aztec Triple Alliance and its religious war narrative has widely been compared to the Assyrian empire. Also, the Aztec system bares some resemblance to some Islamic notions of warfare. This part is otl achieved in Europe.

 

[Kaze]

Celtic Wank would be the fun...

There are many ways to go :
1. Vae victis of Rome. Gauls burn Rome to the ground 390 BC.
2. Successful Celtic / Carthage alliance. Leading to #1 -> Vae Victis of Rome
3. Julius Caesar dies early - say when he was a prisoner of pirates -> Britannia / Gaul unconquered for a long while.
4. No Claudian invasion of the British Isles -> Celtic Britannia develops under Druid leadership

 

[TRH]

That part though is the easiest to achieve. The Aztec Triple Alliance and its religious war narrative has widely been compared to the Assyrian empire. Also, the Aztec system bares some resemblance to some Islamic notions of warfare. This part is otl achieved in Europe.

I suppose we also want a polytheistic religion and better documentation of it than we have for Assyria.

 

[Philip]

I wonder if the worship of the “golden calf” that Moses so disapproved implied his people were engaging in child sacrifice to Moloch. The Old Testament specified multiple times that sacrificing your children to Moloch was forbidden. The practice must have been seen as a serious problem to get that kind of attention.

If the golden calf of Exodus is a reference to another god, it is probably Hathor or the Apis Bull. Maybe the lunar bull. But it is not even clear that they are worshiping another god. There is a good argument that they are trying to worship YHWH, but are doing so incorrectly.

There is no mention of child sacrifice, but there may have been an orgy.

All that being said, the story in Exodus may just be an indictment of Jeroboam, first king of the Northern Kingdom.

 

[dontfearme22]

I do want to just say that human sacrifice is not unique to the Aztec empire or even Mesoamerica. It was a common practice across *all* Mesoamerican peoples and many groups across the Americas. Human sacrifice is certainly more common to what we think of as Mesoamerican civilization than cannibalism is, which was a rarer practice. If cannibalism happened, it was a select, and rare ritual occurence while sacrifice, whether of other humans or self-mutiliation was much more common.

If you want a Aztec-style European civilization, find a way to work in self-mutilation, that should be fun.

 

[Mad Bad Rabbit]

Did the pre-Islamic Sabaeans and Himyarites practice human sacrifice or is that just propaganda?

 

[Kerney]

Part of what made human sacrifice more of thing in the new world was the lack of tame alternatives. No horses and bulls to substitute for people.

Even the Celts only sacrificed humans on a comparable level when they were facing the end of their world (Legions closing in, Brtian 1st Century). So I won't go and say it's ASB, but it's highly unlikely.

 

[John7755 يوحنا]

Part of what made human sacrifice more of thing in the new world was the lack of tame alternatives. No horses and bulls to substitute for people.

Even the Celts only sacrificed humans on a comparable level when they were facing the end of their world (Legions closing in, Brtian 1st Century). So I won't go and say it's ASB, but it's highly unlikely.

I am not sure. They had other animals, such as dogs, turkey, wild game and fish. It seems to me, that their theology revolved around sacrifice of self, namely the gods.

In Akkadian theology, there was a god, named Kingu who did this. Apparently, he slew himself and sacrificed his body and spirit to give life to man and to provide for his siblings, the Great Gods (the so-called true gods. This is a possible angle to work from.

 

[GeneralChang]

Before, some preliminary questions, and I will attempt to provide an answer:

1. how would you define human sacrifice? Which sort of parameters are we setting and does scale matter?

2. What do you mean by headhunting in this case?

3. Does the religious war dogma of the Aztecs have to apply? The Aztec Triple Alliance operated upon a notion of religious war and world conquest that is not all to common in human history.

4. How widespread must the cannibalism become? Can it be simply for ritual purposes for instance?

Forgive me for my vagueness,
I give Aztec as a good parallel to this speculative culture. Such sacrifices would be on a analogous scale to aztecs, along with ritual bloodletting and eating of flesh. Wars would be conducted to gain heads or captives and worldview would be a mix of mesopotamian and mesoamerican ideas, with the rituals obliging by a "contract" with a divine aristocracy and nourishing the Humanoid pillars of Earth(kinda like Atlas?). Without the sacrifices the aristocracy would loose favor with the lord of earth(alt-european ruler) and disaster and collapse would ensue. Tbh I'm not sure on this, it's quite a gruesome topic. On the third one yes.

 

[The Militant Doberman]

OK, I’m going to go outside the box and suggest a rather late POD:

OTL in 18th/19th century there was the “Frankism” movement among Eastern European Jews who’s leader “rejected religious norms, and said his followers were obligated to transgress as many moral boundaries as possible”. This seems to have been about having orgies and the like... but let’s say the movement’s leader, Jacob Frank, stays alive until Napoleon’s revolutionary troops enter Poland and set up one or more “Sister Republic(s)” there. Maybe then you can have Frankism synergies with the revolutionary & anti-clerical ideologies promoted by France (as well as maybe merge with other attempts to set up new religions at the time like the “Cult of Reason”) to create a society that prompts orgies, polygamy, cannibalism, etc.

Probably wouldn’t last very long until the revolutionary zeal dies down but hey, I think that should fulfill the OP.