Hearted Youtube comments on World of Antiquity (@WorldofAntiquity) channel.

  1. You know the part that really confounds me? That nobody seems to get how garbage dumps are so important to archeology. Just places where people toss broken pots or dead animals accounts for some of our strongest accounts of how people in the past lived, largely because afterwards they didn't mess with what was in there anymore. It's one of the reasons broken pottery is so central to our understanding to most early civilizations; their garbage is most of what we know about them. Our society makes such a massive amount of functionally indestructible refuse that if nothing else, the sheer chemical impossibility and sporadic placement of the deposits of our garbage dumps is going to mystify first geologists, then archeologists, in the event that records of what they are are lost. We're leaving miles-long compacted deposits of artifacts, spent resources, and indestructible polymers; by no means going to be unnoticeable if anybody digs at all in the future. The idea that a society like ours is going to return to the earth and be forgotten is romantic. I appreciate the Arcadian aesthetic. But it isn't true. And it's self-defeating and irresponsible to assume that our changes to the environment are ultimately without consequence and our accomplishments are futile.
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  2. When they Romans needed to build a mountain (ramp) to siege Masada (1,500 feet), it only took them between 4-7 months. About half a year to make a small mountain and attack it with battering rams. So of course they could build Ba'albek.
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  3. Fellow academic in Psychology here. As a Brit I'm embarrassed by the tone and language of Sweatman. As a Scot I'm embarrassed that an academic at a Scottish University would speak to another academic like that. Sweatman, you published a book for popular consumption. While you may have peer reviewed publications of this "stuff" (citations? IFs?). We both know that we don't have to worry about all that nonsense with a ÂŁ8.99 from WHSmith's in Edinburgh Airport, do we? These types of books allow authors the "freedom" to "flesh out" their ideas (aka you can say whatever you want so long as it doesn't get you arrested or sued). So why on earth would anyone attempt to get a critique of this "stuff" published in a peer reviewed journal? Of course, you'd practically have a freebie pub on your hand. My suggestion would be to go to a journal that gives the original author final reply. You published one of these books for mass consumption so the popular arena of mass critique, YouTube, seems fitting. Sweatman throws "science" around like there is an agreed definition. He might want to familiarise himself with philosophy of science. The experimental method is one way of defining it but there isn't consensus that THAT is THE definition. Likewise, "hypothesis" was referres to a lot but what about the null hypohesis? What exactly is Sweatman trying to disprove? I am just appalled by Sweatman's attitude. Sweatman is insulted at being referred to as a Chemical Engineer? Sweatman stomps into a completely different discipline, insults an academic of ancient history's intellect, training, education, and knowledge of their own discipline, and infers the historian is ignorant about antiquity to the point of knowing nothing, infers that historians and archaelogists are ignorant of history, archaeology, "science" and "maths", and infers that archaeology is not a "science". Thank the lordee that a guy wiv a spanna an' knows nuffin about some old rocks n stuff came along to save us
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  4. Within woodworking mass produced items use large tools, individual woodworkers use an array of power tools. That's the camp I'm in. Then there are people who build only using hand tools. It is a completely different skill. Finally there are folks who build with only antique hand tools. Just saying you are a woodworker does not mean that you would have expertise or be able to weigh in across all these practices.
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  5. Butterflies migrate thousands of kilometers: cool Ancient humans have long trade routes or travel far for raw materials or religious purposes: they must have had charging stations for their Teslas.
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  6. So many cool things being uncovered by underwater archeologists! What a neat job that must be
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  7. Great work! As an Indian, i appreciate your extensive research and hard work, many thanks for this extremely informative video.
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  8. When a person starts his argument with Aryan "invasion" theory we can straight away assume what he is going to speak in the rest of his video.Mere presence of Dravidian languages in the Indian subcontinent, side by side with Sanskrit based languages,indicates two distinct populations.To assume,development of two unconnected languages at the same place without common grammer or syntax is practically unimaginable.
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  9. Thank you Professor Miano and Professor Natalie and Happy Holidays to you and your familes and your colleagues for extraoridinary videocasts that have broadened our knowledge and shown a light in the dark corners of our past.
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  10. Y'know what's always the amusing part to me about this sort of thing? These people always Assert that "mainstream archeologists ignore evidence that is Inconvenient to their viewpoints' as they proceed to ignore Evidence inconvenient to their viewpoint.
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  11. I find myself thankful to my mom for getting me so interested in archaeology and ancient anthropology by taking me to her college courses when I was younger. The professor was more than happy to let me sit in as long as I wasn't disruptive. I started going and just playing on my Gameboy Color but after a while started actually listening when the subject of Egyptology came up. I was amazed at all the things that weren't taught in basic education despite how important it is to know. The professor even had an Egyptologist come in and talk to the class about some ancient tombs they found under some local shops in Cairo's main market too. I'll always be excited when "new" things are discovered that can rewrite history
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  12. I'm so happy that you make videos like this, it's so unfortunate that many pseudoscience and misinformation/conspiracy videos are posted on this platform with millions of views yet real archeologists rarely get the same privilege. KEEP FIGHTING THE GOOD FIGHT!
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  13. You answered my question perfectly. Changing my opinion on this was hard as it sounds so much cooler to think this stuff is much older. I tried to find some of this info out on my own but Google likes to point at the alternative resources. Thank you you are super helpful in clarifying these details. Now if only you will answer my question about the Temple of man 🙂
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  14. Only 25 kms from my home, this group of cave is unreal. The polish inside the cave is still shiny and it's built is cylindrical. I'm glad a group of caves that is not even popular outside few districts let alone India got your attention.
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  15. Sir I am an Indian class 12 student and biology is my one of the main topic in our bio text book there is a section about genetics and it is probably my favourite topics from class 12 biology and this video has greatly helped me to not only gain experience about how much detailed and complex and really""COOL"" genetics is but also helped me to understand just how rich and complex the history of my country is.. in India history plays a major role in politics and that's why politicians alter or present history in such a way that it supports their views so that they can remain in power( both left and right wings ) but I am really happy that you have explained this topic in such a detailed and neutral way ..
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  16. These dudes are setting aside logic in order to prove an unproven (and likely unprovable) hypothesis. It kills me that the airplane bro asks why everything wasn't made to the same standard once the technology had been discovered. That's like asking why all jewelry isn't manufactured to the same standard as Harry Winston, Cartier, or Tiffany's (and even these so-called luxury brands vary greatly). Not everyone can afford Harry Winston or even Tiffany's, but jewlery is a significant social marker, so even those with limited funds feel a need to own some jewlery. They can do that when said jewlery is made to a lower standard, duh. This quality diversity can even be seen in a single collection of jewlery. Maybe you own ONE Tiffany tennis bracelet or a single Cartier brooch, maybe you even inherited it, but then everything else comes from Jared's or your local Jewlery store. Why would the Egyptian not also have degrees of quality based on affordability and why wouldn't a sorta wealthy Egyptian maybe buy some nice pieces but then fill in the rest with tat? It's just silly the arguments they're making.
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  17. Thank you for not being a raging conspiracy theorist but actually making well researched videos, really appreciated
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  18. Its weird to see myself in one of these videos haha, thanks for covering the excavations at Vulci Dr. Miano!
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  19. Lugalbanda II: Electric Lugaloo On a serious note when I think of all the literature that has been lost to time I always flash back to 1 particular piece of writing, "Thunder, Perfect Mind." (TPM) While not nearly as old as some of the books mentioned here, and a shorter form poetic work, it reminds me of the magnitude of what we are missing. I find TPM amazing; it comes from a voice not as often heard in ancient literature, what could certainly be understood to be the divine female. It is as beautiful as it is impactful. In fact it speaks to much of what women face in modernity regarding what actually is a woman's role, how she is perceived, and if others can hold the contradictions concerning womanhood in their minds as easily as women must contain all of those often disparate facets in their very being. This brilliant poem was completely lost to history before the discovery of the Nag Hamadi library. A story so wonderful, that holds just as much meaning in every day life as it did nearly two millennia ago, that had blinked out of memory and therefore existence, but that roared back to public consciousness once found, translated, and made available to the masses. TPM just always gets my mind racing about what other immense works of creativity and knowledge that remain lost and if any are still out there somewhere, waiting to be found while time slowly destroys them and the virtual timer for finding them ticks lower and lower. Thanks for the great video, as always, Professor Miano! You do some of the best work on the platform in your field and seeing there is a new video from you is always exciting. I always have to drop what I am doing and take a history break whenever one of your upload notifications go off.
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  20. Everyone is missing the point at the end. The tales of "large snakes" that scared the Portugese infidels are obviously about Anacondas and Boa Constrictors. They can obviously be found in Brazil as well as Argentina (at least anacondas are native there). Plus, the Portugese calling it a very hot waste and in ruins leads me to believe they were describing the jungle. You can easily make out some geographical features of Argentina as well. BTW, this is the first time I've seen someone actually translate the words on the map. THANK YOU.
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  21. I just wanted to leave a comment saying for some reason this video really inspired me to continue pursuing a PhD in Ancient History. Thank you so much Dr. Miano for bringing attention and care to something you love that it inspires the same feelings in others!
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  22. Oh man, these debunks are always so awesome.
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  23. Checking historical claims with facts is hard work. That's probably why many people don't bother to do it. They know that hardly anyone will, so they just go with it and make whatever claims they feel like making. I'll admit that I don't want to do all of that work, but I also won't just accept whatever claims I hear. The fact that you are willing to work so hard to clarify things is extremely helpful! Thank you for that!
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  24. I love that I finally found this, the 'possible' answer to how they carved the stones to fit so perfectly. People have been amazing for 100,000 years and we shouldn't just say it was aliens and dismiss there skills and efforts. The strength and smarts of 1000s of men should never be under estimated.
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  25. I’m 13 minutes into this video and had to thank you for the very balanced telling of the history of my people. India has been a melting pot since ancients times, genetically, linguistically, and culturally.
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  26. Your academic rigor, good faith engagement, and quality content is genuinely a breath of fresh air and I appreciate your channel a lot.
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  27. This guy clearly selectively remembers the "Life After People" show. Several episodes go over stuff that is left behind. One even speculates millions of years in the future, alien geologists finding the strata some geologists want to call the "anthropocene" with high amounts of plastics and unusually higher radiation. It was a cool show. Recommend it for fans of this channel tho they focus on studying places that have been abandoned in modern times because they want to show the methodical study, so no ancient sites. Their main recurring expert was actually a civil engineer if i remember right
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  28. Dr Sweatman asserts at 10:00, that his expertise in statistical mechanics, and background in the configurations of atoms and molecules “is exactly the kind of expertise that you can use in decoding the symbols at Göbekli Tepe”. This is utter tosh. I’m a linguist and also an artist, I use my linguistic skills to decipher foreign language texts, and my artistic skills to draw pictures. If you gave me a chemistry question to solve, I wouldn’t have a clue, likewise if you gave Dr Sweatman a page of the Greek New Testament to translate and interpret, he probably wouldn’t have a clue, or if you asked him to decipher the hidden symbolism in a Hieronymous Bosch painting, etc. Scientists don’t have a monopoly of science: linguistics is a science, as is archaeology, and art is highly technical. The science of symbols is called “semiotics” from the Greek “semeion” meaning a symbol. Dr Sweatman needs to do a course in this subject, as well as sculpture, drawing, zoology and archaeology, plus a few ancient languages, before he opens his yap on topics he knows nothing about. He’s making a complete fool of himself.
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  29. Even as a medical professional, I was drawn in by the likes of Graham Hancock...I am so relieved to have stumbled across this incredibly underrated channel, which is astoundingly well researched and wholly transparent. The only way this channel can be created whilst maintaining a day job (in the same field) is a deep-seated and enduring passion for the subject of ancient history. Truly inspiring❤
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  30. I’m obsessed with these videos. As a history major in college I like how you use actual academic methods to debunk popular history myths
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  31. I only have a Bc in History, more specifically in World Comparative History Specialization, but honestly.... I would LOVE if the idea of an ancient technologically advanced civilization existed before us, who were the architects of their own undoing, and from the ashes humanity started a new, it makes for a great story. Would love to read a novel about this, but this is what all it remains, a fantasy... I was really into this theory during my middle-school years, and not gonna lie, it had a great part in me going to study History at the Uni. What we see in these videos and what we read in these kind of books are just attempts at explaining something that the writer cannot understand... "If I don`t understand how it was done, than the ancient, less intelligent people couldn't understand it either..." I think this is the base of this kind of thinking... I do think though that no matter how ridiculous an idea might be, experts should investigate it... because the biggest letdown for me was at the Uni, when I learned that History is not really scientific, it is very, very based on personal emotions. Well, mostly when it comes to more recent history, national pride comes in the way of rational thinking. That's why I believe that one should not research their own nations history, for it will come with a biased view... people think that it is easy to be objective in these cases, but oh boy.... this is especially a problem with neighboring countries, each claiming something different about a common event...
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  32. You’re such an underrated channel! Keep fighting the good war against pseudoscience!
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  33. Hooray, someone who knows what he's talking about. Thanks for doing the legwork and keeping us informed!
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  34. I really love your channel. I'm glad to see the direction you are going. It's smart to lean a little bit more into the concept of "mystery" and the unknown. Lots of channels you have debunked do nothing but that and capitalize greatly so it's nice to see you fight fire with fire so to speak. I also like that this content is not divisive or alienating in any way and I think that is needed in the historical and archeological community. No finger pointing just telling the story of what we know so far. Anyway great job and I think this content series will do very well and maybe even change some minds along the way. So many people are getting into ancient history now that it's become a content type that the content farms are producing relentlessly. I even discussed it with a random stranger at the airport which blew my mind that we would even talk about it. And he also parroted a lot of misinformation I know he heard on Joe Rogan and UnchartedX like the ancients couldn't have produced the artifacts we found in their graves etc. It's sad that narrative is sticking because it's so disrespectful of our ancient human ancestors. Like somehow we are superior to them because of 3000 years. Anyway great work I'm here for it.
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  35. Hero's steam engine was a novelty display. He created staggering special effects for Alexandrian temples and never developed that technology for any other use. It might never have occurred to him that he could use the pressurized steam for anything except spinning the boiler, and one large enough to (say) open huge temple doors using pulleys would have been difficult and impractical.
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  36. Well done on the MOHs Scale explanation. Yes, it’s a scratch test and only for individual minerals/crystals. Nothing can scratch a diamond but you can certainly shatter one with enough force.
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  37. Ive never been sucked into any of the alternative history theories, but I did used to really love watching ancient aliens, and still find the idea of ancient alien theories to be really intriguing and entertaining. What I really like about your approach is that you respect their opinion and calmly and gently explain your side. It's much more persuasive than having some snide, sarcastic ass ripping them apart to make the point.
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  38.  @WorldofAntiquity  I don't agree at all, I think the more knowledge brings Greater Joy on the subject
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  39. That's a great list, I would also add the discovery of the Casarabe culture in the Bolivian Amazon Forest made by LIDAR if I'm not mistaken, together with previous findings on the Upper Xingu River it implies that there is still much to be discovered in the Amazon Basin and that complex urbanization is not an Andean exclusivity in Pre-Columbian/Cabraline South America
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  40. 1. Heavy metals are durable. Black Sabbath's first albums are still great. 2. I find it quite telling that Rogan's first answer when asked what would survive is Mount Rushmore. I distinctly heard patriotic music and fireworks in the background when he said that. 3. What bothers me sometime (and probably shouldn't) is not that material remains of the current civilizations may not last (and I agree with you they would), it's more... well, will there be anybody, human or not, to look for them and know where and how to look? I'm quite pessimistic about this. But that's a personal bias.
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  41. I hope people appreciate the level of contextual detail you have compiled in this 45 minute video. Excelsior!
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  42. I appreciate your patience in going through a responding most of these comments. It takes a dedicated amount of effort to sit down and rigorously engage with pseudo-science/history.
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  43. I am a GPR/EMI technician (not a geophysicist). However, the map shown at 11:00 appears to be a EMI map showing various electromagnetic signatures at approximately 8 meters spherically from the EMI itself. The map could be showing you both above and below ground objects. Without context (Google earth overlay/site photos/gps coordinates), it doesn’t mean much. Typically, when attempting to locate underground man made structures such as building foundations, one would look for straight lines, uniformity, and roughly equal on center distances. I see none of that in the data. Also, the colors represent different density levels of objects. There is no uniformity to these either, and one would need to at least provide a summary and basic explanation of the colors as the EMI can be adjusted for assumed densities of expected objects. GPR and EMI technology are always interpretive ventures. This is why you need experienced experts knowing what they’re looking for the begin with, performing the work, and assessing the results. I would love to see a giant man made labyrinth in the results. That would be amazing. But, it’s just not there. If I had to guess, this map likely represents both above and below ground naturally occurring objects or perhaps some debris.
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  44. Wow, I learned a TON from this video. Literally everything I knew about this topic was wrong, lol. Thanks for the knowledge!
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  45. Interesting and useful information. It's good to have someone haul me out of the rabbit hole every now and then.
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  46. I would like to point out how much quality work is showcased here. Not only all the historical research but adding additional context to the places and discussions while staying respectful and giving sources. Great work Dr. Miano
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  47. Reminds me of Dr. Jackson Crawford had a video talking about history you can learn from the Norse Sagas about how Norse people may have lived with some of the details about there culture and daily life but then basically explains (I’m paraphrasing) , “remember these were for entertainment the main characters are larger then life they are smarter, more handsome, more amazing then anyone else is or possibly could be and deal with great adventure constantly to compare them to the actual lives of the people during the Viking age it’s romanticized stories by there great great great grandchildren, it would be like judging average life for someone in 2011 by the main characters in fast and the furious 4”
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  48. There were “advanced” ancient peoples, we call them Neolithic humans, and there is boat loads of archeological evidence for them. They had thousands of years of experience (and most certainly oral tradition) related to working with stone. They knew which stone was better for different things. They knew where to find this stone. The knew how to work it. They even developed all the technologies required for the Bronze Age to happen. It’s clear that non-academics tend to underestimate how “advanced” Neolithic humans were. But I also think academics haven’t done the best job communicating on this subject either. The gap between these two is a fertile valley for all kinds of pseudo-intellectuals to plant their seeds.
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  49. This is why I am subscribed to you. I too am subscribed to Abhijit because when he's not getting political a lot of his content is decent. But I understand where most of his viewers live. For me, I actually like it when people give me detailed criticism on anything I do. I've read enough to know I'm flawed and listening to criticism allows me to check those flaws. With that said, however, doesn't give anyone a right to recklessly walk through life knowing their peer criticism has "got your back". Thanks David, good listen!
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  50. "the writing is never polished" yes. like on modern gravestones, where the letters are sometimes left rough, so that their different texture stands out against the polished stone. I guess our society must not have the advanced technology needed to polish the letters on all of our graves.
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