Social space is superimposed on the civilization map of the world whereas the social time is correlated with the duration of civilization existence. Within own civilization the concept space is non-homogeneous, there are “singled out points” — “concept factories”. As social structures, cities may exist rather long, sometimes during several millennia, but as concept centres they are limited by the duration of civilization existence. If civilization is a “concept universe”, nobody and nothing may cross the boundaries, which include cities as (...) well. Death of civilization leads to reboot cultural and historical space-time. On the other hand, reformatted olds concepts are not preserved, but there may be reception of old concepts and their new interpretation. However, even in case of genetic links presence, they are the other concepts and not modified old ones. Under certain circumstances may take place “rebranding” when attractive name is connected to the concept of absolutely different order to attach to it authority of the past. (shrink)

The article is devoted to the issue of history comprehension of the ancient societies in the context of their religious identity. Religion is one of the fundamental elements of civilization idea (“ontological project”); it constructs “universe” that is distinguished by the “laws of nature”, specific only for it. To make “communication” with ancient people maximally authentic, the researcher should not only recognize their right to look at the “world” in its own way, but also accept its “laws”, that means – (...) religion as well. Since the latter is almost impossible, the scientist is deprived of the possibility to comprehend another cultural and historical reality as vivid establishment of human spirit; he/she will see only scheme or fable in it. The proposed in this paper method of “epistemological polytheism”, based on thought experiment, gives the possibility to bypass difficulties of perception and to approximate the understanding of meanings that define the ancient people worldview. (shrink)