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Comment by hn_throwaway_99 | Hacker News Reader

So, perhaps a dumb question, but the article mentions that 14 steps have been added to the base of the Angel of Independence monument, and the Wikipedia article mentions the same things:

> Originally, nine steps led to the base, but due to the sinking of the ground, an ongoing problem in Mexico City, fourteen more steps have been added.

So why didn't the monument itself also sink? Does it have piles going down to bedrock or something?

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thousands of wooden piles to create a foundation with the first one even failing and the foundation being reconstructed

http://www.mexicomaxico.org/ParisMex/resumen.htm

Also from wikipedia: ... "The commission determined that the foundations of the monument were poorly planned, so it was decided to demolish the structure."

So yes, it has an engineered foundation, a double-engineered foundation. The roads around it almost certainly do not. So it is plausible that the monument is not sinking as quickly.

Angels don't sink, they rise! :)

Depending of what stories you want to reference with this: Lucifer, Belial, Beelzebub all did not 'rise'.

Surely The Angel Of Independence must ascend, no? :)

I don't know the actual Christian theology, but at least in modern popular interpretations, Lucifer is the Angel of Independence, so that would suggest no!

Probably depends on your frame of reference. Since we don't know where they started or where they are today it seems plausible that, relative to our own positions they may indeed have appeared to rise even though the text references state that they descended. We have no idea whether we might go up to heaven and down to hell or just across to them. We do know that everything in our universe is in motion and has been for a long time so it could be true that today we have to rise to get to both places if in fact either of them exist at all.

Useless trivia, but lucifer means “light bringer” in Latin (translation from the Greek phosphoros).

Also known as the morning star, also known as Venus.

There’s also the nocturnal / sunset aspect of Venus, noctifer/hesperus, so the evening star.

It all ebbs and flows so I guess everyone is right:)

(Also this not a uniquely Roman or Greek invention ofc)

One man's useless trivia is another man's ideas for a project name :).

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