Reply #3: I have a theory about monument building.

[Cleita]

It seems to have arisen in agrarian societies. Since there are times of the year when tilling, growing and harvesting are not being done, I believe the chiefs or kings employed the idle farmers in building monuments whether temples, palaces or tombs to keep the tribe and later the nation cohesive. It also provided employment where there could be want. Sure slaves did a lot of the dirty work, but it seems monuments were pretty much built by free men for the most part who received stuff back in return like a place to live and food. Of course raiding other nations for metals, desirable goods and slaves brought us war as an institution as well because the kings raiding their own people for wealth wouldn't be kings for very long so conquering neighboring tribes and plundering their goods was a more acceptable way and spreading the wealth through employment of the farmers during the idle season seemed to be the way we started building things.

As far as religion, well any leader who wanted to remain king, had to make the people afraid of certain Gods, especially the ones he claimed descent from to retain power during bad times.