Did Ancient Civilizations Have Their Own Ancient Civilizations?

In history class we all learn about "ancient civilizations", like Greece, Persia, Babylon, and Rome. Recorded history, however, starts several thousand years prior to Greece or Rome, for example, being around. So, what did they know about the past? Did ancient civilizations have any ancient civilizations of their own?
Sources:
A History of the Ancient Near East, Marc Van De Mieroop
A History of Babylon, 2200 BC - AD 75, Paul-Alain Beaulieu
Reign of Nabonidus, King of Babylon, Paul-Alain Beaulieu
Babylonian Archaeologists of the(ir) Mesopotamian Past, I. J. Winter

[@johnbeans2000]

Welcome back! You've been truly missed!

[@priyazu4000]

Why are comments disabled on his other videos?

[@TheFallofRome]

@@priyazu4000 Stuff was getting clogged with election related bots etc so I turned them off while I was away. I want to turn them all on again now that I'm back, but the settings arent' adjusting so it looks like I have to go through and manually do each video. I'll do it in chunks when I have time unless the general reset setting actually updates for me in YT studio

[@michaeldichael9978]

I couldn’t agree more. So glad to have you back!

[@MooShaka89]

This is literally the type of history content I breathe for. Finished some stuff after Milton in FL now can relax to some history.

[@TheFallofRome]

Glad you're safe!

[@MooShaka89]

@@TheFallofRome TY!

[@DianaStevens42]

I love that there’s no obnoxious music in the background. Just history

[@1TakoyakiStore]

Hopefully you're not in Hillsborough County. Us in Orlando got lucky.

[@MooShaka89]

@@1TakoyakiStore St Petersburg :'(

[@bap3986]

Classical Greek understanding of Mycenaean Bronze Age civilization is very cool, I don't know if you cover it here because I haven't watched the video yet. This is a great idea to discuss!

[@TheFallofRome]

Not here, no, but I'm going to do multiple versions of this, more or less. At least one will feature that topic. There's dozens of examples, if not hundreds, so one giant video would probably be impossible to produce

[@DevinDTV]

​@@TheFallofRome this topic is endlessly fascinating, so don't be afraid to keep pumping out the videos

[@wyattw9727]

What fascinates me most on this topic is how some cultures managed to maintain at least partially, oral traditions going back to the lithic periods. I forget if it was mentioned in one of your videos or not, but there's one tribe in Canada that has oral historic memory of a memory of there being something akin to mammoths (memory of a memory). Likewise while not having ancient civilizations in how we think of them, Australian Aboriginals have oral traditions back to the lithic periods with mention of things that are most likely marsupial megafauna long gone. In regards to Greece, and keeping in mind how accurate Homer's Iliad is to the Mycenean era in regards to warfare and equipment, it leaves me wondering if classical Greek lost something in the translation to written language (or we lost the texts over centuries) preserving memories of the early settlement of the region or oral histories of the earlier faiths such as of the 'primordials' in hellenic mythos. Oral histories overall seem to be stronger at preserving incredibly old knowledge.

[@andrzejnadgirl2029]

Frankly, I don't think that writing them down was as critical issue though definitely it makes for more inaccuracies as well but just how Greeks interacted with a lot more cultures and that means that their language chnaged more. And when it comes for preserving oral traditions it matters a lot as usually myths, stories were musical or at least quite melodic - it really just makes it easier to remember. Change language more often then story needs to adapt for the changes in speech, new melodies need to be created to fit new rythms etc.

[@abdullah.a.nahyan]

Just imagine... there is almost a 3,000-year gap between the first unified Egyptian dynasty and the last. That's 1,000 years more than the gap between the last Egyptian dynasty and our time!

[@Katharina-rp7iq]

Just remember, eastern rome or the byzantine empire was still around a few hundred years ago. The minoans on crete on the other had a lively trade network especially trading olive oil with objects from as far away as asia being found when rome was just a bunch of villages. The hittites who lived in modern turkey forged iron and traded with egypt before the rise of greece. Babylon and Uruk were cities in a time when world population was so low you could travel for months without finding another proper settlement.

[@trojanthedog]

Imagine a Roman collector of artefacts going to Egypt in 30 BC. The wars are finished, pax rules, the seas are free and open, and our Roman can try and buy things that are 1000 yrs older than the gap between us and the Romans.

[@yt.personal.identification]

Just think, Australia's First Nations societies existed 50,000 years before ancient Egypt. Not 5,000... 50,000 YEARS MIND BLOWING

[@idinneken209]

You're back! :) Hope you're doing well

[@TheFallofRome]

Yes, much better than several months ago! Glad to be back

[@chiron14pl]

Sumer, the oldest of the Mesopotamian civilizations, was so ancient, it had been forgotten even by ancient times and was a surprise when the archaeologists discovered it

[@duncanluciak5516]

@@chiron14pl Their oldest story starts with "Remember when we first tasted bread?"

[@MichaelLeBlanc-p4f]

Sumer or later (if our civilization doesn't die) those missing ones will be found, studied and inspirest channels like this for folks like us.

[@chiron14pl]

@@MichaelLeBlanc-p4f Let's hope we thrive a while longer, and that our remnants could be made intelligible by future generations. All our digital past is now compromised by being in media and languages that we are rapidly losing. How many important docs still lie on floppy disks or old hard drives? Oh well, that's a problem for the future to solve

[@yt.personal.identification]

And Australia 's First Nations predate that society by 50,000 years.

[@arw000]

THE GOAT HAS RETURNED

[@30035XD]

Baaaahhhhhhh

[@benchild1339]

You don’t know how much I’ve missed your uploads. Glad to have you back, hope all is well.

[@michaeljfoley1]

Good to see you back, and looking sharp 👍 This is a topic that has always fascinated me.

[@johannageisel5390]

Fun fact: There are two Bronze Age prince's graves in my area (Leubingen and Helmsdorf in central Germany) that contained very similar grave goods. Some golden jewelry and weapons, a special stone that was associated with bronze making, some ceramic vessels and... * _drumroll_ * ...a stone axe from the Stone Age. The stone axes were both more than a thousand years older than the graves. The hypothesis is that those ancient axes were used to legitimate the "old" right to rule for the respective prince.

[@TheFallofRome]

I believe those graves belong to the Unetice Culture, if I'm remembering correctly! It's my favorite part of Bronze Age Europe. Haven't read about the Unetice in a while but there's some excellent work being done on it. You're lucky that you get to live so close to two such fascinating sites!

[@johannageisel5390]

@@TheFallofRome Correct, they are Únětice culture. I don't have a car, so all those sites are still unreachable for me. They are usually not serviced by public transport. ^ ^ But yes - my region has a buttload of history. From Neanderthals who butchered a 4m high elephant*, over a mesolithic shaman**, over the Sky Disk of Nebra°, to the bones of Queen Editha°°... All pretty sensational finds here in the region. And that's just the outstanding ones - there are so many more. Pömmelte, for example, which is a Bronze Age woodhenge with an extensive settlement around it. * Neumark-Nord 1 (ok, not quite as spectacular as the Schönigen spears) ** the "Shaman of Bad Dürrenberg" ° also from the Únětice culture °° 10th century queen, wife of first Holy Roman Emperor Otto I., whose bones have been discovered in the Magdeburg cathedral

[@kawadashogo8258]

I'm so glad you're back, it's great to see you posting again. You're one of my favorite channels on KZbin. I hope your life is going better and you're doing well.

[@laurelsilberman5705]

Amazing as usual! Glad to get a wonderfully informative and thought provoking upload like this from you.

[@relaetsecyr]

Glad to see you back. Your the best history channel on all of KZbin.

[@MenwithHill]

So happy to have you back, you ask the most interesting questions.

[@deadtoallnohonornohope]

There were archeologists in ancient times, which is honestly just mind-blowing but simultaneously unsurprising because some people have always been driven with the curiosity of our collective history

[@perceivedvelocity9914]

I imagine that a lot of people's tall tales and campfire stories were inspired by the ruins of forgotten civilizations.

[@thealkymyst]

There are a lot of tribes with a myth of a hero killing the demon snake with a lightning weapon.

[@codybowen929]

Good to see you alive your videos are sorely missed Ive literally watched most of the other ones you’ve made in the mean time

[@TheDanEdwards]

Thanks for doing this, glad to see you back.

[@JMM33RanMA]

Your opening question immediately brought to mind Plato's reference to information about ancient civilizations' ideas about more ancient civilizations. He credited the story of Atlantis to an Egyptian priest's translation of an ancient temple inscription. In addition, Greek medical knowledge is attributed to Egypt. I hope you will be covering this at some point. Also, a long time ago, I was introduced to the theory that the Greeks encountered skeletal remains of mega-fauna and attributed them to their mostt ancient myths, especially the skull of one with a large hole being the source of the cyclops story.

[@NostalgiaforInfinity]

A lot of Greek philosophy also comes from the Egyptian Mystery Schools. Many Greek philosophers lived as initiates in Egyptian temples for years and sometimes even decades to learn all their sciences (of the material and spiritual world), before establishing their own schools in Greece. Many of them even faced opposition from their own countrymen for trying to spread weird foreign knowledge in Greek lands.

[@TheMysteryDriver]

Considering the Romans took tours of Egypt to look at their impressive and ancient pyramids and statues and buildings the short answer is yes.

[@danukil7703]

This is quite a fascinating topic! I have usually heard a variant of this question in relation to the widely-circulated fact that Cleopatra is chronologically closer to the 21st century than the construction of the Pyramids. I look forward to watching the rest of the video! :)

[@LuDux]

Ennigaldi: "Dad, let's burry the ruins so people with better technology can learn more" Nabonidus: "Brilliant!" Modern people: "We don't know where the capital was"

[@TheFallofRome]

Literally, lmao

[@Invictus_Mithra]

I really missed your videos! It was such a pleasant surprise to see this pop up in my subscription feed

[@TheFallofRome]

Hope you enjoyed it!

[@crayzmarc]

Have been here I think before you reached 10k so happy to see all your hard work paying off and about to reach 100k. Well done buddy. Well earned. And here is to 200k!

[@TheFallofRome]

Thank you! Would love if this video was the one to blow up and push me past 100K

[@wheezesanchez5661]

@@TheFallofRomeLet me help with that. Nice video

[@MeatGoblin88]

Man I was worried you ditched for good because the comments were turned off. I even searched on Reddit and Twitter for mentions of you. Glad to see you back!

[@TheFallofRome]

Nah just had real life intrude in some rough ways, and I needed to step back and take care of some stuff. My wife and I are in a good place now so it's back to YT I go!

[@duncanluciak5516]

"In those days In those distant days When we first made bread..."

[@doesthisusername]

Welcome back!! Hope you're doing well :) interesting video as always

[@keeganlammert7173]

Welcome back❤ I have missed you well researched content.

[@qboxer]

Welcome back Mike, and hope that all was well with your last few months and family ! Happy to see new videos from your channel.

[@TheFallofRome]

Yup things are much better, thank you for asking. Happy to be back!

[@Filip-pz7wu]

Welcome back! Glad to have you back. Hope all is well!

[@Lumsdenguy]

Awesome video. I am jealous of your capability to speak so clearly for such a long time.

[@dariustiapula]

"Between the time when the oceans drank Atlantis and the rise of the sons of Aryas, there was an age undreamed of." - Some wizard dude.

[@Archangelm127]

History became legend. Legend became myth.

[@GnomaPhobic]

Good to have you back dude. I admit I found the camera on you was distracting. I prefer your voiceovers accompanying pictures and maps, but that's just me.

[@shubhadeepdasgupta6525]

Welcome back! You've been missed. Needed to thank you for your exemplary analysis of Late Antiquity through your videos, that have helped me massively this year in my studies. Really grateful, and was hoping that you would return soon! Thanks man! 🤍

[@TheFallofRome]

You're welcome!!

[@absurdist9609]

Great to see you back!

[@Andarion00]

Yessss, I missed your videos.Welcome back!

[@marcusott2973]

Ancient archaeology, ancient museums, and ancient forgeries love this content.

[@stooge_mobile]

Haven't even watched the video. Just wanted to reiterate what the others have said. Missed you a lot man! So happy to see there's another video up. Take it easy! Hopefully the community won't demand too much from you.

[@Moosyfate]

Great analysis, missed your fantastic work!

[@deiansalazar140]

Can you do more of this? Perhaps analyzing specific civilizations and how their mythology could have been a warped mythologized version of history?

[@michaelyeas9294]

I bow to the master of the nuance of histories.

[@Sean.Cordes]

I'll be the one to say I miss your hair already :( But great to have you back, as always your analysis and complexity is superior to so many other channels. Very few meet the level you reach!

[@Archangelm127]

My favorite history KZbinr returns! I assume you have a great deal on your plate, but just FYI I am still hoping for an eventual return to the Medieval Warfare series. ❤

[@gastgedal]

Hello! Great to see you’re back. 😀

[@lobstereleven4610]

great video! glad you're back!

[@kierangraulich5762]

Very happy to see you back 😄

[@danukil7703]

Thank you for the very interesting video! It is fascinating how the Neo-Babylonian rulers harnessed restoration efforts to bolster their own claims to power. It makes one think of other politically-motivated restoration efforts, such as those of Mussolini's Fascist regime. It is good to have you back :)

[@Egilhelmson]

This sounds like when the Peisistratos, the last Tyrant of Attica, invited the Sons Of Homer (the school of Oral Poetry supposedly founded by him) from Chios on Asia Minor to come to Athens (supposedly the last never-conquered city from the Mycenaen Period) and set the poems down in then-modern Greek script.

[@MarcusAgrippa390]

YES! Welcome back man! Bro got a new 'do

[@FourOf92000]

_From Cyrus to Alexander_ begins thus: > When Cyrus entered Babylon in 539 B.C., the world was old. More significant, the world knew its antiquity. that whole first page is one of my favorite book openings

[@TheFallofRome]

It's an excellent book! I'm going to be drawing on it for a future video

[@simon2493]

He's back!

[@michaelmcnally9737]

Who's this well lit, well groomed man? Welcome back!

[@michaelmcnally9737]

Not that I had a problem with your past look. Just a different vibe

[@tauceti8341]

This title of the video really got me. Was just scrolling, wait till I get home to watch this! So excited! How fascinating! I've always been interested in the whole 'antiquarian' like napoleon's fascination to go to Egypt

[@SkyFly19853]

Btw, I just noticed your new hair style.

[@eternityhalo]

I think your conclusion is right on point. In the British Isles there are neolithic burial mounds with much later Roman burials as well. It seems fairly clear that the Romans believed these were sacred places appropriate for burying their own dead, even though they most likely had no clue who had built them originally.

[@MogofWar]

The Historian's Craft Guy: "Did ancient civilizations have ancient civilizations?" Gilgamesh: "Hold my beer."

[@peterdore2572]

I hope you put an Intro to your videos. This one started too Instantaneously. Maybe a: ''Hello, Welcome to Historian's Craft, today we will...'' would be NICE :) Im only suggesting, because your Content is Top Notch. Thanks!

[@JoanieDoeShadow]

Hey, good to see you again!

[@gregb6469]

A discussion of what the later dynasties [Song, Yuan, Ming, Qing] thought of the earlier Chinese dynasties [Qin, Han, Tang] and of the pre-imperial dynasties [Xia, Shang, Zhou] would be interesting.

[@lezardvaleth2304]

Love the new haircut. Love the new video even more!

[@RYwoodview]

Fascinating discussion. I would rephrase your conclusion, however. We, like ancient civilizations, do not necessarily understand accurately what our ancients' lives meant either. I think the difference is really that the ancients you discuss doing archaeology were motivated by justifying their rule & religion on their forefathers' while in the modern era we do archeology in order to understand previous civilizations as they were, not to justify our own. Thank you!

[@electroflame6188]

I'd be interested in the perspective of ancient China on this question

[@claudedavid1729]

He has returned! Truly we are blessed!

[@amandacollyer645]

Fascinating; thanks!

[@mechalincoln]

welcome back sir. I need my fix.

[@TheAdeybob]

WB man. Btw, I always thought of you with craggy lines and a beard for some reason

[@TheFallofRome]

Nah man I'm thirty lmao, I joke about being old and my wife tells me to shut up

[@trojanthedog]

I think Herodotus talks of oldest civilizations with the Egyptians and the Scythians where the later always won the argument with the Egyptians agreeing.

[@johnberry3824]

Thank you for this.

[@silviuilie3518]

Welcome back !

[@Baptized_in_Fire.]

Love this line of inquiry

[@geordiejones5618]

Some of your think pieces just tickle the amateur historiographer and anthropologist within me. You and few other channels have made me create a General Reference playlist all concerning knowledge or culture for projects that I need a lot more money and/or time to tackle.

[@rockinbobokkin7831]

That's an exciting question

[@1TakoyakiStore]

Memory still can fade within 200-300 years. A notable example is the Turnbull Ruins in New Smyrna Beach Florida. There are guesses as to who built them but there exists no paper trail or clear evidence as to really built them.

[@RYOkEkEN]

funny this morning i was " how long since this dude dropped?"😻

[@matt-xo2vr]

it says something about us that we classify human progression by the weapons we made

[@wlouet6335]

Nice to see u again.

[@paulpursell4177]

When the Spanish encountered the Incas and their amazing cities and stone work, the Spanish asked them how did they possibly build something so incredible and advanced. The Incas replied "this was here before us". And still today you can look at the Inca ruins and see their stone walls on top of a more advanced stone wall from a previous civilization. We think of ancient Egypt being ancient. But we are closer in time to the last Pharoah then the last Pharoah was to the building of the great pyramid of Egypt. So to the last Pharoah of Egypt "Cleopatra" the building of the great pyramid must have seemed very ancient.

[@Bosscheesemo]

The more I dig into it, the more I'm convinced that, indeed, ancient people really evidently were that much more advanced than we generally give them credit for. You gotta remember: the Greeks learned their mathematics from the Babylonians much the same way we learn our maths from the Greeks. If you went to the Great Library of Alexandria and looked into their most advanced mathematics section, you would see Babylonian script and maybe even more ancient. A lot of the stuff that has Greek names to us, had Babylonian names to the Greeks. And we lost the great Library of Alexandria. Considering all of the ancient Babylonian stuff we lost, we probably were set up from then on to forever underestimate our own academic achievement.

[@ArtisticlyAlexis]

Excited for this from a real historian! I adore videos like this, but sadly most online go towards conspiracy filled _"alt-history."_

[@FeHearts]

The Aztec folklore says they came from a northern land known as as Aztlan into central Mexico with them viewing the classical Mesoamerican civilization as greater than themselves.

[@brian7android985]

I like your bookshelves.

[@antonnurwald5700]

He's back!!!

[@lildromio21]

Welcome back!!!

[@yt.personal.identification]

As all these "ancient" societies rose and fell, the First Nations people of Australia continued just as they had for tens of thousands of years before any of this. This video covers around 6,000 - while in Australia their societies were there 50,000 years before any of that. A true "ancient society"

[@Mtonazzi]

Ah, welcome back!

[@paulwilson3057]

Brah! Historians Craft is back!!!

[@paulwilson3057]

I'll be watching for his cat

[@GoldenShowers_43]

I recall a verse from the epic of Gilgamesh where he is bragging about the temples he had built for his city and he mentions something curious, he says something along the lines of using bricks from ancient times...ancient times? Of course, the epic is a work of fiction from several different sources and periods of time as is my understanding, but still, the authors had a concept of civilizations much older than their own.

[@LCR-iy6xq]

The man, the myth, the Historian 🖤

[@rift8966]

Just recently watched a video by "Kings and Generals" about the "Anabasis of Xenophon". :D

[@deiansalazar140]

Di you have a discord?

[@longcastle4863]

Have there been any studies on whether we find in the myths a resemblance or any traces of near, but forgotten, histories?

[@kevinmccarthy8746]

WOW, your knowledge of these ancient civilisations is amazing. I am a fan of pre Romen early mid evil perods. The Neolithic perod is very interesting a pre Iron age, pre Romen perod 800 bc to 55bc and caesar arrives in my dear England.

[@twonumber22]

very interesting

[@faithlesshound5621]

Hearing of Xenophon and the Ten Thousand's ignorance of the Assyrian Empire of only 200 years' earlier, I wonder if a troop of foreign soldiers finding themselves sent to Paris for some reason would have much awareness of Napoleon and his Empire.

[@davidgonzalez-herrera2980]

The title of this video is awesome

[@TheFallofRome]

Let's hope it goes viral so more people can see how awesome it is!

[@SkyFly19853]

Wow... it's been a long long time since the last video...

[@reeyees50]

why were the comments locked for all videos

[@reeyees50]

Why are comments off in other videos?

[@fredjohnson9833]

Welcome Back

[@Matatabi6]

“Towards the end of 2024” Me: “wait he recorded this in the future, oh yeah that’s now”