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I absolutely adore this video. My dad has said regularly since I was a child, and I now say to my children, that people who give credit to aliens or magic based on new age stuff for things that ancient man did, they are saying our ancestors were stupid, which they were profoundly not. They were every bit as intelligent, they just had less of a knowledge base to draw from. They were PERFECTLY capable.

Some people would rather believe Aliens did it, than ancient civilizations managed it. Meanwhile 2000+ years ago, ancient Greeks calculated the size of Earths sphere, but 10% of the internet are convinced it's flat

There is actually a record from ancient Rome that seems to indicate they knew about micro-organisms. “Precautions must also be taken in the neighbourhood of swamps, both for the reasons given, and because there are bred certain minute creatures which cannot be seen by the eyes, which float in the air and enter the body through the mouth and nose and there cause serious diseases." Terentius Varro De Re Rustica, 1.12

Former district nurse here. We use honey with necrotic wounds, it has pretty amazing antibacterial properties. Silver and seaweed dressings also. Not to mention maggot therapy.

It always got me thinking of the possibilities when I consider my grandfather, who was born in 1892, saw the first airplanes take flight and then witnessed man landing on the moon.

I live in the US southwest region and I'm constantly amazed by the ancient dwellings that have survived hundreds or even a thousand years, such as Mesa Verde. Also building them halfway down cliffs is astounding. It makes practical sense for shelter and protection from enemies/animals, but it couldn't have been easy.

I think all of this goes to show how much innovation can be achieved if you give people the resources to not constantly work and be able to think for a little bit.

“No aliens necessary, it’s just human ingenuity.” I’m taking that quote

There is evidence that the Egyptians had at the very least a working knowledge of the Pythagorean theorem. They used a string of length a+b+c to make right angles, with a = 3 units, b = 4 units, and c = 5 units. As a²+b²=c², if the loop is closed, the angle where a touches b must be 90°. Simple and effective.

When Simon is 70, I hope he has a Merlin beard.

Impressive, but it still took until one generation ago to find a way to avoid going to school uphill both ways.

1:00 - Mid roll ads 2:25 - Chapter 1 - Mathematics 5:25 - Chapter 2 - The earth & astronomy 10:10 - Chapter 3 - City engineering 12:00 - Chapter 4 - Medicine

Can you imagine how advanced we'd be if he didn't have to keep rediscovering this stuff?

The importance of Pi can't be overestimated. Strawberry is my favorite.

Ancient people were just like us, just without the smartphones and dentistry.

I'm surprised he didn't bring up Roman concrete.

The Egyptian use of honey on wounds is very impressive, it's still used in modern medicine.

If Columbus had used Eratosthanes' figure for the size of the Earth, he wouldn't have set out at all. The existence of America was unknown to Europeans at the time. For all they knew, there was nothing but open ocean all the way across to Japan and China. There was no way for ships of the period to make such a long voyage all at a go. This was, in fact, the essence of the dispute between himself and accepted scholarship, and why he found it so hard to get his voyage financed despite the wealth that would have been brought by success.

But... the past was the worst...

There is only 149 years between the discovery of Antarctica, and landing a man on the moon.

Just a note that when the Maya was first mentioned it was Teotihuacan was shown. It’s in Mexico but it’s not a Mayan city.

Reminder, Babylonians had the approximation of the value of square root of two since the 2nd Millenium BC, and sumerians from the 3rd millenium had division, multiplication and geometrical excercises

Simon without sleeves got me all sorts of f*cked up right now… get this man a turtleneck sweater!!

"Standing on the shoulders of giants" and all that. There are a lot of things people today can re-learn from the past, but I've always maintained it's whoever did or invented something first, from first principles, who deserves the real praise.

I believe it was Socrates who said: "All Knowledge is Remembering"......

In ancient Rome, there were physicians/surgeons that were able to perform cataract surgery, without killing the patient, or blinding them. In fact, the patients not only survived, but were able to see clearly again.

The prehistoric cave paintings in southern France became animated under firelight. The paintings were done up to the ceilings of these caves, which go up to 10 feet in height.

Wow! Eratosthenes and his crew were definitely at the top of their game! Amazing stuff.

History is so important. It's constantly agitated that it might have to repeat itself because we don't listen.

Sad you didn’t go over Hattusa and it’s incredible pipe water system.

Pythagoras was not made famous for discovering the Pythagorean properties of triangles. Instead he was made famous for making the first geometric proof of the property. Thus proving it holds for all right triangles and paving the way for mathematical proofs

That last point is still good to remember when we are so isolated from other parts of the world seen as adversaries... Billions of people not normally collaborating day to day is a huge waste.

0:59 - yes. can you imagine people navigated by paper maps and mapquest before gps?

Very nice compilations of early advanced technologies. You mentioned communication towards closing, an excellent point, since it is in sharing and recording information we are able to pass on our advances to the next generation. During Alexander the Great's time, the Greeks also took advantage of the parabola to create the acoustic amplifiers and reflectors to communicate from mountain top to mountain top. A few of the rare examples to still exist were in Afghanistan and Macedonia, and still work when we tried them on deployment. Wonder why that idea was not continues and expanded back then? A modern equivalent would be the acoustic range detectors used in 1939 and 1940 Britain to track incoming raids. Radar of course soon surpassed that system but it did exist even in the 20th century. Excellent series and articles, Simon and crew! Thank you for making and posting them!

Just looking around me, today, I would wager that they were on the whole, more intelligent than we are....

"Given more priority than the Residences of the Elite", Damn I wish we was like that.

Another Simon Whistler production. Yay. Good that aliens weren't necessary for construction projects. Very interesting.

There are more egyptian papyri with medical content, like the Papyrus Ebers, which is kept in the library of the University of Leipzig. It contains generally the same set of advice and diagnostic methods as described in the Papyrus of Edwin Smith, but also adds a few magical prayers for a "medicine". The Edward Smith papyrus is the one among them, that omits such supernatural components.

Even earlier the knowledge of stone and what could be done with it is extraordinary, Pre-pottery knowledge of working with stone, still cannot be explained. From making cups and bowls to moving megalithic stonework, not to mention the precision that was used to create these objects. Our ancestors made good and creative use of what was around them. I was a seaman in the engine room on merchant ships in the late 60s, when something broke or stopped working, there was no place to go for parts or tools, we had to use what we had around us, or in a worst-case scenario have to abandon ship or even die.(In march 1966 in the North Sea after leaving Bremerhaven a rupture in the hall in the 5th cargo bay was letting sea water flood the the cargo space. The engineers on that ship worked and did some strange emergency fixes that saved our ship. They used what we had. Our ancestors did the same, they were wonderful and creative problem solvers.

My intro to philosophy professor spent more than half the semester on Plato and Pythagoras (since philosophers theorized about maths and science in order to understand the universe) and the amount of stuff I learned in that class about ancient knowledge was staggering.

Fascinating video thank you

I heard that the ancient Egyptians used 22/7, which is 3.1429 and much closer to the real value of pi. Other mathematicians calculated fractions that were even closer.

More people should know about Heron of Alexandria (C1st AD) who invented programmable wagons, vending machines, the hydraulic telegraph, automatic doors, the steam engine, the syringe, wind powered machines, and even constructed and directed an entirely automatic play.

this is fantastically interesting. I don't think this is talked about nearly enough!

perfect timing! Waiting for my oven cheese rn and this banger dropped

Thank you for this video! You can only hear about the horrible things people do for so long before it's all you think about. It happens too often in the media. Hearing about the great accomplishments of mankind is one of my favorite pastimes.

I can’t stop imagining Fact Boi silently screaming “THE PAST WAS THE WORST!” as his software glitches.

These sorts of videos are super interesting :O

Liu Hui was the 3.14 mathematician. Zu Chongzhi was the 3.1415926 mathematician.

"Medical honey" is still used for wound care even now.

Happy birthday week Simon!!!

I think that inventions by Heron of Alexandria, especially those related to use of steam, albeit relatively recent (1st century AD) should have been mentioned. In different social and economic environment they could have started the industrial revolution 1500 years before is actually started.

Navigation by stars is always mind-blowing and to think did it all the time

Ancient civilizations had a major advantage over us in astronomy because they could actually see the night sky.

What eyeglass frames are those?

I miss the less cerebral Simon. I remember when it was "I'm Simon from WhatCulture and these are the 10 best Jock Strap Related Incidents from the WCW era"

THANK YOU for using AD and BC !!! Makes SO much more sense .... I'm now 60 years old. I have been saying for decades that the Ancients were FAR smarter than we ever give them credit for.

You keep missing one syllable: EraTOSthenese, not Erasthenes.

Ancient ship building was super impressive

Hunter/gatherers have absolutely no need for a precise calendar. That’s A LOT of work for a novelty item.

"They certainly had more knowledge than they had wrote down." Jeez, Simon is so loaded from his 100 channels that he has a time machine now to confirm his statements!

I concluded that our ancient ancestors were way smarter than anticipated during a holiday tour of Ireland. When assessing the flagstone shallow pit that could have been a small grave, but filled with bog water, it became obvious that the Irish were having hot baths some 10,000 years ago. These things (fulacht fiadh = "full ach fear") could heat 40 gallons of water to boiling point in about 20 minutes. By dropping in hot stones, roasted in a nearby fire. How simple! Yet, how clever! We know they were used for cooking (boiling meat and veg for the original Irish Stew perhaps) but the shape and size also makes them perfect for bathing, too.

fun fact, the Egyptians also prescribed the use of "Mary jane" or "420" as a broncho-dilator to aid with flu, pneumonia and asthma.

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair"

Say what you will about the bagpipes, they are ancient! Anyone who looked at a sheep and thought “musical instrument” was thinking waaaaaaay outside the box. Scary brilliant. (I’m a novice piper)

Simon's out here breaking the hearts of the wEsTeRn MaN-types...😂

The history of mathematics is an ever-growing series of abstractions. Evolutionarily speaking, the first abstraction to ever be discovered, one shared by many animals, was probably that of numbers: the realization that, for example, a collection of two apples and a collection of two oranges (say) have something in common, namely that there are two of them. As evidenced by tallies found on bone, in addition to recognizing how to count physical objects, prehistoric peoples may have also known how to count abstract quantities, like time--days, seasons, or years.

Buddy that discovered the circumference of Earth wild bro how you Even come up with the ideas to look at they shadow!! That's crazy genius

Ancient people is us, we are them.

Simon should have mentioned the Mesapotamian Battery, the earliest known battery discovered within the Sumerians ruins in Babylon, Iraq.

His beard is looking AMAZING right now. Its so thick looking and looks super clean cut. Looking good man!

There are 13 Lunar Months, we use a Solar Calendar with 12 months. "The months of the Gregorian calendar do not correspond to the moon's phases, but the calendar does have leap years to account for the Earth's revolution being slightly longer than 365 days. " "Yes, the lunar calendar has 13 months, each with 28 days. The moon takes about 28 days to orbit the Earth, so in one year, the moon completes 13 orbits. The Celtic lunar calendar is an example of a 13-month calendar, with an extra day added at the end of the year."

I thank god everyday that I’ll never have to do the quadratic equation or factor polynomials ever again.

Simón, may I suggest some beard blaze.

The Romans began to settle around 15BC in the area today known as Xanten in Germany. They had running water and a function sewer system, a public bath house with under-floor steam heating and water flushed latrines. They had figured out that it is not a good idea to poop into one’s fresh water supply! Then came the ‘Dark Ages’, during which more than 1/3 of Europe’s population died from diseases caused by unsanitary conditions! 😮

Just a suggestion, you should consider working on the ending of your videos putting in some kind of short close instead of just leaving an abrupt end that leaves us wondering if part of the video got cut off.

I love the casual!

I want Simon to turn into The Wise Old Man when he gets older. Blue Phat and all, lol.

The biggest stumbling block for them was medicine. The physical sciences were pretty advanced: math, engineering, and astronomy. But the people were not living past their 30’s or 40’s, which prevented that gained knowledge from propelling them even further. Medicine has proven to be the toughest nut to crack. Even in the modern era, it is way harder to cure diabetes or cancer than it is to make an iPhone, a self driving car or to make a space station.

Honestly, look at all the historic buildings and then tell me the ancestors or even another civilization hadn't some technology we're not known to. I think it has to do with frequencies, sound, water and magnetic fields. Like the Pyramids are today known that they served as a battery and I think the historic building style also kind of uses the same mechanism. Probably has to do with "free energy" something that Tesla talked about.

5:41 Imagine a guy named Warren Field coming across this part of the video, lol

THEY had it rough? We used to go get our own groceries instead of delivery, and when I started school we only had black and white TV.

Splendid.

The papyrus at 5,000 years old is nowhere near the age of the pyramids

The ancient egyptian way of finding out the sex of your child before birth is something that always amazes me...

My nephew loves to go hiking and camping. At my suggestion he keeps packages of honey in his first aid kit and has actually used them on occasion. Science! Also. It absolutely amazes me that people assume ancients were less intelligent or advanced. All of our scientists, engineers, inventors, etc, and all of our gadgets had to come from somewhere. This stuff didn't just pop into existence out of the ether.

Given the scale and precision of a lot of what was built in Ancient Egypt, they would've had to have been pretty good at math

they knew more about the world than some people who claim to be experts, today.

I've always wondered just how much bird shit ended up in the aqueduct's drinking water.

Hey! Just wanted to say that the firsr picture you show of the Mayans at 9:18 is actually of Teotihuacan, which is a completely different culture. Just thought you should know :)

That blows my mind! 66 yrs to go from the first powered flight to walking on the moon!

Lui Hui … ‘cut’ 4:58

Simon you need to watch this very old TV show

The ancients had our intelligence but not our knowledge and unfortunately knowledge can be lost. An episode on the times that our knowledge was lost and set us back in our technological development would be great. Ignorance is not stupidity.

We are all truly blessed to be living in the Modern world.

I'm still waiting for the "how many channels does Simon Whistler have" episode...lol

Digital computers have about reached their limit, also RAM is almost obsolete because we hit it's limits years ago

Given some of his apparent attempts at the Greek names in this video, I’m starting to believe that Simon actually is purposefully butchering words to elicit more viewer engagement in the comments (you’re welcome, btw).

Simon's beard is becoming it's own being.