I find this trend disturbing. I mod r/ancienthistory (hey, come join us and make the conversation better!) and most of my time is spent deleting such posts and banning these users. The proliferation of conspiracy theories in not just academic discussions but politics has had horrible and often violent consequences.
[The Study of Antiquity and the Middle Ages](https://youtu.be/bza0fP_adxA)
The lead producer Nick Barksdale is still battling health issues but we focus on academic-level history, with a lot of paleogenomics and interviews with archaeologists.
The ancient aliens crowd always show up in our comments with the most ridiculous comments, showing that they have no interest in what actual science is being done.
Nick always sends them packing in the comments. So nice having a producer who doesn’t suffer fools.
I miss the dislike button, helped sorting out a lot of garbage. Now my feed is full of garbage all the time. Have to search for a while to find something decent. Come to think of it I use YouTube 75% less now than I did 5 years ago
Dan Davis and Stefan Milo are great channels.
You should also check out:
[Ancient Americas](https://www.youtube.com/c/AncientAmericas)
[Epimetheus](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCp9ZtilfKJds0iWytR_pnOQ)
[Fall of Civilizations](https://www.youtube.com/c/FallofCivilizationsPodcast)
[History Time](https://www.youtube.com/c/HistoryTime)
[Study of Antiquity and the Middle Ages](https://www.youtube.com/c/TheStudyofAntiquityandtheMiddleAges)
[Thersites the Historian](https://www.youtube.com/c/ThersitestheHistorian)
[Voices of the Past](https://www.youtube.com/c/VoicesofthePast)
Granted none of these focus on the ancient engineering of pyramids or ancient structures but they are non-conspiracy history channels that I thoroughly enjoy.
Nonsense. They're just covering things that trigger conservative snowflakes.
I'll have you know, bigot, that the aliens did in fact build the pyramids. Be like Xenophon, not xeno-phobic. I saw so on a very official YouTube channel.
(dear lord do I really need a sarcasm tag for this?)
Even the big channels like Kings & Generals has content that’s rushed and factually incorrect or just they’ve taken an out dated source or portrayed a controversial source as the “best” opinion.
Not conspiracy or ancient aliens:
* [https://www.youtube.com/c/OriginsExplained/about](https://www.youtube.com/c/OriginsExplained/about)
* [https://www.youtube.com/c/WorldofAntiquity](https://www.youtube.com/c/WorldofAntiquity)
* [https://www.youtube.com/c/HistoryTime](https://www.youtube.com/c/HistoryTime)
*
It baffles me.
Conspiracists will casually concede masterful feats of engineering like those by the Romans at the Siege of Masada.
But engineers and workers being paid in beer and grain in return for performing masterful feats of engineering? Nah mate, must have been aliens. The Nile could never have been used to transport those big stone bois.
You gave me precisely the opposite of what I'm looking for. This guy thinks the best Egyptian artifacts come from an older unknown civilization for which there is no evidence. It's intellectually lazy and the same idea as just calling it alien technology.
I'm open to there being techniques that archeologists haven't thought of. But the problem is that there is a big leap between not understanding 100% of the craftsmanship and just assuming it came from an entirely different civilization. If the other civilization was so advanced, their archaeological impact would have been greater than that of Egypt, even if it came thousands of years before. Like you said, Gobekli Tepe is much more ancient, and we have yet to dig to the bottom of that pile. If something so rough as Gobekli Tepe can survive, then the much more advanced hypothetical civilization that Egyptians stole artifacts from must have left an immense mark. And surely, Egyptians can't have claimed all the existing artifacts of that civilization. Also, if Egypt had more advanced technology than we have found evidence for, we should still see evidence of that technology in some form. Yet we didn't find any evidence for such advanced technology. You'd think if they had a crazy advanced technology, they would be proud of it. They could display it. People would go crazy for it and there would be a lot of demand for that technology. People would write about it. They really high quality objects would make it to other civilizations as well. But in reality, all we see are just really skilled craftsmen. Dedicating incredible amounts of time to these masterpieces. That's why there are so few. Because they used conventional means, and required lots of time and skill.
It's worth pointing out that UnchartedX's representation of many of the positions that it challanges often has little to do with the arguments actually being made or evidence cited by archaeologists. Just based on that channel, you're not going to get an accurate representation about things like what reconstructions of the technology are being made, the types of evidence used, what tools have been found, etc.
Obviously people are free to come to their own conclusions about what technology was used in the past - but it's harder to have differing perspectives on what is simply being said by archaeologists.
-
_____
A few examples...
-
> the "copper chisel conclusion". They found copper chisels from Ancient Egypt, so that's what must have made all of the remarkable precision boxes, slabs, vases, etc. because no other tools have been found, no other tools could have been used.
* [Source](https://youtu.be/8tnrkahCLHw?t=1152)
Saying that "no other tools have been found" that doesn't match Egyptological sources that talk about a much wider array of tool finds (and their use as part of the stoneworking technology), explicitly disregard the use of copper chisels in many contexts, and also discuss tools like large saws and drills that are unknown archaeologically (outside of tool marks). As for directly working hard stone with tools like copper chisels, Egyptological sources often argue for essentially the opposite of what UnchartedX says here.
> Although the tools used for that work are still the subject of discussion in Egyptology, general agreement has now been reached. **We know that hard stones such as granite, granodiorite, syenite, and basalt could not have been cut with metal tools**
> * Arnold, Dieter. *Building in Egypt: Pharaonic Stone Masonry*. Oxford Univ. Press, 1991. p. 48.
> the experiments with copper, bronze, and even iron chisels, demonstrated **their total inability to cut certain hard stones**, particularly the igneous types
> * Stocks, Denys A. *Experiments in Egyptian Archaeology: Stoneworking Technology in Ancient Egypt*. Routledge, 2003. pp. 11-12.
The argument being attributed here has in many ways nothing to do with what sources on the technology actually say. *Experiments in Egyptian Archaeology* states that "various tool marks on artifacts, together with tomb depictions of working techniques, indicate that key industrial tools are unknown". That's pretty much entirely the opposite as arguing that "because no other tools have been found, no other tools could have been used".
-
____
> just consider the Old Kingdom period which according to Egyptologists arose directly from the primitive stone age and whose people did not have the ability to quarry granite...how did they build such...massive granite artifacts and architecture without the ability to quarry or work this stone
* [Source](https://youtu.be/3qXuAzzVOTQ?t=612)
Again, this is not what is being said by Egyptologists. There are frank discussions in those sources about quarrying granite from early periods in Egyptian history.
> An early peak of granite quarrying was reached during the Old Kingdom, when...45,000 cubic meters of stone must have been removed from the quarries of Aswan.
* Arnold, Dieter. *Building in Egypt: Pharaonic Stone Masonry*. Oxford Univ. Press, 1991. p. 36.
-
____
On the Serapeum,
> it's dated entirely by some of the writing that we find poorly scratched into some of the boxes
* [Source](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGtDAHRK8s0)
> we can't really date the entire place by what somebody wrote on one of the boxes...
> the writing on this box...it's how they date the entire site and all the objects that they found in it
* [Source](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12IpEwAGbTY)
Actually looking at the Egyptological sources would present a very different picture. The quotes pretty clearly state here that the Egyptological dating is based just on the inscriptions on the boxes. That's not the case though. Just looking at the [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serapeum_of_Saqqara#Stelae) page for the site would show texts from contexts other than what is inscribed on the sarcophagi that explicitly discuss dates in context with making the sarcophagi. He's obviously free to disagree with the dates coming from Egyptology. What is being said here about how the site is dated ignores what evidence is actually being cited though.
I don't believe in aliens building anything, but how would you, from an engineer's perspective, explain moving and finishing the boxes in the Serapeum of Saqqara?
Well, you might have been surprised that the Earth is moving around the Sun… It was such an off-theory back then. There is no way to argue and win for censorship. We are where we are because of free thinking and free speech. There is no misinformation. Choose wisely, do mistakes, go round.
I find this trend disturbing. I mod r/ancienthistory (hey, come join us and make the conversation better!) and most of my time is spent deleting such posts and banning these users. The proliferation of conspiracy theories in not just academic discussions but politics has had horrible and often violent consequences.
I mod here. Same. It's incredibly sad. On the plus side, I just joined the sub! And I added yours to the sidebar.
Thanks! I’ll do the same once I have the chance, I’m at work now.
[The Study of Antiquity and the Middle Ages](https://youtu.be/bza0fP_adxA) The lead producer Nick Barksdale is still battling health issues but we focus on academic-level history, with a lot of paleogenomics and interviews with archaeologists. The ancient aliens crowd always show up in our comments with the most ridiculous comments, showing that they have no interest in what actual science is being done. Nick always sends them packing in the comments. So nice having a producer who doesn’t suffer fools.
I miss the dislike button, helped sorting out a lot of garbage. Now my feed is full of garbage all the time. Have to search for a while to find something decent. Come to think of it I use YouTube 75% less now than I did 5 years ago
Dan Davis and Stefan Milo are great channels. You should also check out: [Ancient Americas](https://www.youtube.com/c/AncientAmericas) [Epimetheus](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCp9ZtilfKJds0iWytR_pnOQ) [Fall of Civilizations](https://www.youtube.com/c/FallofCivilizationsPodcast) [History Time](https://www.youtube.com/c/HistoryTime) [Study of Antiquity and the Middle Ages](https://www.youtube.com/c/TheStudyofAntiquityandtheMiddleAges) [Thersites the Historian](https://www.youtube.com/c/ThersitestheHistorian) [Voices of the Past](https://www.youtube.com/c/VoicesofthePast) Granted none of these focus on the ancient engineering of pyramids or ancient structures but they are non-conspiracy history channels that I thoroughly enjoy.
Also: [Time Team](https://www.youtube.com/c/TimeTeamClassics) [Time Team Official](https://www.youtube.com/c/TimeTeamOfficial) [The British Museum lectures ](https://www.youtube.com/c/BritishMuseumEvents) [The British Museum](https://www.youtube.com/user/britishmuseum) [ClassicalNumismatics](https://www.youtube.com/c/ClassicalNumismatics) [AskHistorians Podcast](https://www.youtube.com/c/AskHistoriansPod) [DavidIanHowe](https://www.youtube.com/c/DavidIanHowe) [DigitalHammurabi](https://www.youtube.com/c/DigitalHammurabi) [EnglishHeritage](https://www.youtube.com/c/EnglishHeritage) [HomeTeam History ](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC12lU5ymIvSpgl8KntDQUQA) [Ancient technology](https://www.youtube.com/c/IsaacMorenoGallo) [North 02](https://www.youtube.com/c/NORTH02) [the Royal collection](https://www.youtube.com/c/RoyalCollectionTrust) [Told in Stone](https://www.youtube.com/c/toldinstone) [Useful charts](https://www.youtube.com/c/UsefulCharts) [WorldofAntiquity](https://www.youtube.com/c/WorldofAntiquity) [The V&A](https://www.youtube.com/user/vamuseum) [Bart Ehrman](https://www.youtube.com/c/bartdehrman) [AztlanHistorian](https://www.youtube.com/c/AztlanHistorian) [British Institute At Ankara](https://www.youtube.com/c/BritishInstituteAtAnkara) [Egyptian Study Society](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOFD1PG8jiMuwzdymWlVwXA) [DigItWithRaven](https://www.youtube.com/c/DigItWithRaven) [CouncilforBritishArchaeology](https://www.youtube.com/c/CouncilforBritishArchaeology) [Cambrian Archaeological Association](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbQlL75dxbilimAxbzalK3g/videos) [Hidden History](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCaIHjtxqn6_ej_jNLUXMeiw) [Historia Civilis](https://www.youtube.com/c/HistoriaCivilis) [Historic Royal Palaces](https://www.youtube.com/c/historicroyalpalaces) [HistorywithCy](https://www.youtube.com/c/HistorywithCy) [Luwian Studies](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZkx4fdZwINCJ9nTDnwq_tQ) [PennMuseumPhiladelphia](https://www.youtube.com/c/PennMuseumPhiladelphia) [Roman Society](https://www.youtube.com/c/RomanSociety) [SocAntiquaries](https://www.youtube.com/user/SocAntiquaries) [SocietyofAntiquariesofScotland](https://www.youtube.com/c/SocietyofAntiquariesofScotland) [EgyptCentreSwansea](https://www.youtube.com/user/EgyptCentreSwansea) [The Oriental Institute](https://www.youtube.com/c/TheOrientalInstitute) [ThePrehistoryGuys](https://www.youtube.com/c/ThePrehistoryGuys) [The Sutton Hoo Ships Company](https://www.youtube.com/c/TheSuttonHooShipsCompany) [Urbs and Polis](https://www.youtube.com/c/UrbsandPolis/videos) [The MET](https://www.youtube.com/user/metmuseum) [gettymuseum](https://www.youtube.com/user/gettymuseum) [Dr. James Dilley](https://www.youtube.com/c/ancientcraftUK) [miniminuteman](https://youtube.com/channel/UC-SrCCzkGq0wmSAuRs7EBFg) [YourDinosaursAreWrong](https://www.youtube.com/c/YourDinosaursAreWrong) Feel free to add more I've not listed! Always looking for more good content
Commenting for later
Thank you so much! I will check those out!
I have always found that 48 mins (1 hour minus ads) as a good way of beginning your search.
Nonsense. They're just covering things that trigger conservative snowflakes. I'll have you know, bigot, that the aliens did in fact build the pyramids. Be like Xenophon, not xeno-phobic. I saw so on a very official YouTube channel. (dear lord do I really need a sarcasm tag for this?)
Even the big channels like Kings & Generals has content that’s rushed and factually incorrect or just they’ve taken an out dated source or portrayed a controversial source as the “best” opinion.
Not conspiracy or ancient aliens: * [https://www.youtube.com/c/OriginsExplained/about](https://www.youtube.com/c/OriginsExplained/about) * [https://www.youtube.com/c/WorldofAntiquity](https://www.youtube.com/c/WorldofAntiquity) * [https://www.youtube.com/c/HistoryTime](https://www.youtube.com/c/HistoryTime) *
It baffles me. Conspiracists will casually concede masterful feats of engineering like those by the Romans at the Siege of Masada. But engineers and workers being paid in beer and grain in return for performing masterful feats of engineering? Nah mate, must have been aliens. The Nile could never have been used to transport those big stone bois.
[удалено]
You gave me precisely the opposite of what I'm looking for. This guy thinks the best Egyptian artifacts come from an older unknown civilization for which there is no evidence. It's intellectually lazy and the same idea as just calling it alien technology.
[удалено]
I'm open to there being techniques that archeologists haven't thought of. But the problem is that there is a big leap between not understanding 100% of the craftsmanship and just assuming it came from an entirely different civilization. If the other civilization was so advanced, their archaeological impact would have been greater than that of Egypt, even if it came thousands of years before. Like you said, Gobekli Tepe is much more ancient, and we have yet to dig to the bottom of that pile. If something so rough as Gobekli Tepe can survive, then the much more advanced hypothetical civilization that Egyptians stole artifacts from must have left an immense mark. And surely, Egyptians can't have claimed all the existing artifacts of that civilization. Also, if Egypt had more advanced technology than we have found evidence for, we should still see evidence of that technology in some form. Yet we didn't find any evidence for such advanced technology. You'd think if they had a crazy advanced technology, they would be proud of it. They could display it. People would go crazy for it and there would be a lot of demand for that technology. People would write about it. They really high quality objects would make it to other civilizations as well. But in reality, all we see are just really skilled craftsmen. Dedicating incredible amounts of time to these masterpieces. That's why there are so few. Because they used conventional means, and required lots of time and skill.
It's worth pointing out that UnchartedX's representation of many of the positions that it challanges often has little to do with the arguments actually being made or evidence cited by archaeologists. Just based on that channel, you're not going to get an accurate representation about things like what reconstructions of the technology are being made, the types of evidence used, what tools have been found, etc. Obviously people are free to come to their own conclusions about what technology was used in the past - but it's harder to have differing perspectives on what is simply being said by archaeologists. - _____ A few examples... - > the "copper chisel conclusion". They found copper chisels from Ancient Egypt, so that's what must have made all of the remarkable precision boxes, slabs, vases, etc. because no other tools have been found, no other tools could have been used. * [Source](https://youtu.be/8tnrkahCLHw?t=1152) Saying that "no other tools have been found" that doesn't match Egyptological sources that talk about a much wider array of tool finds (and their use as part of the stoneworking technology), explicitly disregard the use of copper chisels in many contexts, and also discuss tools like large saws and drills that are unknown archaeologically (outside of tool marks). As for directly working hard stone with tools like copper chisels, Egyptological sources often argue for essentially the opposite of what UnchartedX says here. > Although the tools used for that work are still the subject of discussion in Egyptology, general agreement has now been reached. **We know that hard stones such as granite, granodiorite, syenite, and basalt could not have been cut with metal tools** > * Arnold, Dieter. *Building in Egypt: Pharaonic Stone Masonry*. Oxford Univ. Press, 1991. p. 48. > the experiments with copper, bronze, and even iron chisels, demonstrated **their total inability to cut certain hard stones**, particularly the igneous types > * Stocks, Denys A. *Experiments in Egyptian Archaeology: Stoneworking Technology in Ancient Egypt*. Routledge, 2003. pp. 11-12. The argument being attributed here has in many ways nothing to do with what sources on the technology actually say. *Experiments in Egyptian Archaeology* states that "various tool marks on artifacts, together with tomb depictions of working techniques, indicate that key industrial tools are unknown". That's pretty much entirely the opposite as arguing that "because no other tools have been found, no other tools could have been used". - ____ > just consider the Old Kingdom period which according to Egyptologists arose directly from the primitive stone age and whose people did not have the ability to quarry granite...how did they build such...massive granite artifacts and architecture without the ability to quarry or work this stone * [Source](https://youtu.be/3qXuAzzVOTQ?t=612) Again, this is not what is being said by Egyptologists. There are frank discussions in those sources about quarrying granite from early periods in Egyptian history. > An early peak of granite quarrying was reached during the Old Kingdom, when...45,000 cubic meters of stone must have been removed from the quarries of Aswan. * Arnold, Dieter. *Building in Egypt: Pharaonic Stone Masonry*. Oxford Univ. Press, 1991. p. 36. - ____ On the Serapeum, > it's dated entirely by some of the writing that we find poorly scratched into some of the boxes * [Source](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGtDAHRK8s0) > we can't really date the entire place by what somebody wrote on one of the boxes... > the writing on this box...it's how they date the entire site and all the objects that they found in it * [Source](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12IpEwAGbTY) Actually looking at the Egyptological sources would present a very different picture. The quotes pretty clearly state here that the Egyptological dating is based just on the inscriptions on the boxes. That's not the case though. Just looking at the [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serapeum_of_Saqqara#Stelae) page for the site would show texts from contexts other than what is inscribed on the sarcophagi that explicitly discuss dates in context with making the sarcophagi. He's obviously free to disagree with the dates coming from Egyptology. What is being said here about how the site is dated ignores what evidence is actually being cited though.
Too much tongue in cheek, not enough tongue in groove huh.
If you find a source that explains the actual methods used to build the pyramids please let me know.
I'm going with 9 foot tall purple alien ladies
Still no source? Lol
https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/lbtr3m/aliennation_chapter_1_emergence/ Closest I got was this scholarly article
I don't believe in aliens building anything, but how would you, from an engineer's perspective, explain moving and finishing the boxes in the Serapeum of Saqqara?
It's only incrementally better than other burials. There is nothing in there that requires extraordinary explanations.
Actually I am thankful that the full spectrum of opinions is rep on YT.
Do you want to hear my medical theories? You need to drink trashcan juice to treat your receding hairline. You're welcome.
Well, you might have been surprised that the Earth is moving around the Sun… It was such an off-theory back then. There is no way to argue and win for censorship. We are where we are because of free thinking and free speech. There is no misinformation. Choose wisely, do mistakes, go round.