What do we know about Ancient Egypt?

Comments · 879

• KA

  @katseye_n_more · 2 years ago

  The amount of time we spend looking at cat videos and memes on the internet will probably make future civilizations think we worship cats too!

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• SA

  @saidtoshimaru1832 · 2 years ago

  Egyptologist: We don&apos;t know.<br>History Channel: Aliens.

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• OC

  @oceanbearmountain · 2 years ago

  i think it&apos;s important to note when he&apos;s saying &quot;we don&apos;t know&quot; he doesn&apos;t mean it&apos;s a mystery; he means there&apos;s a number of theories which can very well account for how they accomplished the thing in question, but it can&apos;t be said for certain which ones were used: it could be mixtures, it could be that certain methods and techniques were used at some points and others at others (which, given its over 3000-year history, seems almost impossible to not be the case), etc. other egyptologists will state with more confidence that we <i>do</i> know because they don&apos;t want the uncertainty regarding the aforementioned to be taken as &quot;we don&apos;t know&quot; and this taken as &quot;it&apos;s a mystery&quot; because the ancient alien people will then take this as a concession. in most areas of history this kind of epistemic modesty is refreshing, especially with regards to more modern history, but i fear that in this context it really is playing into the hands of ancient alien apologists :/

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• PR

  @pradeepmax1 · 2 years ago

  This is why Egypt is so fascinating: most of the answers end with &apos;we don&apos;t know.&apos;

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• TO

  @toastedmalteser3613 · 1 year ago

  It feels like the channel asked like 34 other people before asking this guy.

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• CM

  @CMch22 · 2 years ago

  It seems like when an expert says, “We don’t exactly know how they did xyz”, it’s assumed that it is a near impossible feat. It’s not. They’re just saying that it isn’t known <b>exactly</b> what method they used, that there could have been many methods, and that stating any particular process may have inaccuracies. It’s important to understand that a culture’s relationship with time can be very different from another’s, and that generally our modern relationship with time is very different from that of Ancient Egypt and so it’s hard for us to understand why so much time and energy would be devoted to building the pyramids. While I’m sure opinions varied, at the cultural level it was viewed as a worthy effort.

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• DO

  @doomtho42 · 2 years ago

  <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ou7PHQDL50&amp;t=126">2:06</a> - I misread “The Meidum Pyramid” as “The Medium Pyramid,” and I have to say that in looking at the picture, I actually think “Medium” is a much better name for it anyway.

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• TT

  @ttc3d · 1 year ago

  Best professor ever. I took his class and totally aced his exam by answering every question with &quot;we don&apos;t really know&quot;.

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• BA

  @bakoyma · 1 year ago

  Loved this video, liked the egyptologist here too. Hope they make more.

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• N.

  @N.I.R.A.T.I.A.S. · 1 year ago

  &quot;Not to be flippant...&quot;<br><i>is immediately flippant</i>

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• SH

  @shaha9 · 2 years ago

  There is a theory that in the image around the 3 min mark a worker is pouring liquid past the statue. So in theory - they moved some heavy objects via a liquid friction system along with the ropes to ease it up and down Egypt for projects.

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• GO

  @golwenlothlindel · 2 years ago (edited)

  &quot;Why were the Egyptians obsessed with cats?&quot; <br>Meanwhile the internet is 70% cat videos/memes.<br><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ou7PHQDL50&amp;t=1689">28:09</a> and getting paid to do work was a sure sight better than sitting at home bored and not getting paid. They worked in the off-seasons, farm for four months, pyramid work for four months, rinse and repeat. You said &quot;subsistence farming&quot; here, but Egypt was producing a massive surplus of grain from a very early era: to the extent that not only could they feed themselves during the off-seasons but they were also providing disaster relief to everyone else . When people say &quot;subsistence farming&quot; that&apos;s not usually what they mean.

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