https://tomhaeg.substack.com/p/when-mosques-replace-churches-islams

https://www.christiantoday.com/news/french-churches-becoming-mosques-isnt-the-big-problem-its-rabid-secularism

There are plenty more on the internet, a lot of them warning the US about what’s down the road if the Christians don’t get on the ball.

However, this is a promising trend, and probably not well known to MSM readers

https://www.christianity.com/wiki/cults-and-other-religions/why-are-thousands-of-muslims-converting-to-christ.html

https://cbn.com/news/world/irans-jesus-revolution-mosques-close-1-million-muslims-accept-christ

Not exactly a safe option there, and I doubt any mosques will be converted to churches.

AesopFan, as part of that same trip to England, we saw many small (usually stone) churches across the countryside. I understood there was limited if any attendance at many of them. Mostly attracted more tourists than congregants. I presume if current day Muslims were numerous enough to afford buying them, they could also become mosques, even outside of city centers.
But I also wonder how in the US, if our Muslim population is less than 3 million adherents(?), there is enough money to buy and convert all that many churches, unless either they are going for fire sale prices or there is foreign money being added to the contract offers?? Do you, or Kate, have any insight into that possibility?

https://pjmedia.com/raymond-ibrahim/2025/05/21/video-mosques-are-replacing-churches-in-america-but-whos-to-blame-n4940026

https://granitegrokcom.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/church-to-mosque.jpg

The Fresno scraper is a horse-drawn machine that replaces pick, shovel and crappy wheelbarrow.

Not one that used metal, or the mines wouldn’t have been there for the civilizations we’re aware of that we know mined them out.

One example, besides the Irish gold I mentioned. In Spain the Romans broke apart mountains to mine the gold there, using shafts filled with water to apply hydraulic pressure. A previous civilization in that area could not have been that advanced as the Romans, or it wouldn’t have been there for the Romans to do it. And the Romans wouldn’t have gone to that trouble had the Carthaginians or Greeks or Celts left them any easier mining. Likewise the kind of mining we do in Europe today, we do because the Romans didn’t leave anything easier for the Middle Ages miners, who didn’t leave anything easier for us.

That Roman mining even put lead in the atmosphere that can be detected in ice cores. There’s more than one way to establish what people could possibly have been doing in ancient times, they leave clues behind that people with purely casual interests in ancient history might not have thought of or heard of.

Of course, this constant grade was achieved by the old roadway meandering much more than the newer roadway, in which the builders used modern earthmoving equipment to cut and fill through elevation changes to achieve a straighter route alignment.

This phenomenon can also be observed in the older canals of England, such as the Oxford Canal, on which I have also journeyed. They tend to meander excessively, following the land contours to avoid the necessity of building locks where possible. A notable exception that I recall was the Somerton Deep Lock, that was cut extremely (and scarily) deep in order to do in one lock what might have been done in two or three at a later date.

David Macaulay has it covered.
https://www.academia.edu/97616140/Motel_of_the_Mysteries

“Motel of the Mysteries, written by David Macaulay, is a satirical exploration of archaeology through the fictional character Howard Carson. Set in the distant future, Carson mistakenly excavates a modern motel, interpreting everyday items as sacred artifacts from a bygone civilization. The narrative humbly showcases the potential for misinterpretation in archaeology while delivering humor from its absurdity and its reflection on the nature of historical understanding.”

PDF available at that site.
Or read it here.
https://onlinecampus.fcps.edu/media2/Social_Studies/WHGII_2010/Era1Topic2/Resources/Motel_of_Mysteries.pdf

The book is better, along the same lines as his “Pyramid,” “Castle,” and “Mosque” explanations, with drawings, of the typical example of each.
Excellent additions to any library if this sort of thing interests you.
Obviously, it does me!

Gobekli Tepe has gotten mixed up with the Neolithic. If they didn’t have effective farming, then there was a lot of hunting to feed the workers. The hunting part of the effort, including families, had to eat. And then the workers. Wouldn’t the place get hunted out? If the hunting team had had to schlep a dead deer three or four days because that was how far they had to go to find one, there might have been a strike.

The Armenian stones are a lot more work than sticking up and saying, “HERE’S WATER FOR IRRIGATION!”. Gratitude to….Somebody for the water? A lot of work providing no local version of bullets, beans, or beer. Quite a sacrifice. If you could live fatter and better by putting this effort into material welfare…and chose not to….

Years ago, I happened on a book promising to be about Britain’s prehistoric stone works. Turned out to be mostly the name of some stone thingy and its angle and declination. And references to the moon and certain stars. Over and over. Did speak, however, to somebody keeping records over sufficient time that the stones could be oriented in a fashion as to mean whatever they meant. Not only was somebody making the observations, possibly every night it wasn’t raining, but the records were preserved long enough against war, cockroaches, lack of interest, to allow for conclusions as to their necessary–for what–orientation.

Wonder if, in various situations, the food producers were voluntarily handing over some of their produce. Or was there sufficient organization to collect it, regardless of the producers’ views on such things. The organizing folks didn’t produce, either.