Reading Letters From 2000 Years Ago

The ruins of the ancient city of Oxyrhynchus, located at the edge of the Egyptian desert, were first excavated by Bernard Grenfell and Arthur Hunt in 1896. The site had up until then been considered of relatively little importance, and the two didn’t have high hopes for what they would find. However, when they began to dig in the city’s garbage dumps of all places, they stumbled upon one of the most important archeological discoveries of all time. Because the city was located far from the Nile and depended on canals for its water, there was almost no humidity at all, and this allowed a massive amount of discarded papyri to survive in the dumps. They include anything from previously lost Greek plays, poems and works of philosophy to public documents, census returns, court records, leases, horoscopes and private letters, and in this video I will showcase a few of them!
Music:
“Pre Dawn Meditation” by Gerald Jay Markoe
“Hymn to Horus” by Michael Levy
“Immortality” by Gerald Jay Markoe

[@jellymop]

It’s amazing that no one makes a documentary on these things. These conversations are the real deal. Brings you right back. This is amazing

[@mortalclown3812]

Your channel is an absolute jewel. I feel most fortunate that one of your videos was in my feed this day. May the most fascinating lessons continue to find you. 🌍 🔭🌌

[@kingsandthings]

Thank you so much! More is on the way! :)

[@sagapoetic8990]

So many papyrii waiting to be assembled and deciphered. That's incredible -- ph D and grad students -- we need you!!!

[@HistorywithCy]

Great stuff as always, thanks!

[@georggroeg6014]

I am so glad to have found this great video! Sadly I didn't understand everything that was said in the letters since English is not my native language. Maybe you could display the text on the screen while reading it :)

[@IamwhoIam333]

I've thought for year's that they have been looking in the wrong spots. A friend of mine and myself were out in the Nevada desert and we saw this mound of over grown bushes that were out about a 100 feet behind a pile of stones and tin that was an old miners camp. So we started digging careful and found some pretty cool unbroken whiskey bottles. A few rusted tin forks and spoons and a few plates that were all rusty. You never know what people throw away.

[@Contact_Info]

You can use the forks for next chili dinner!

[@saibliss7976]

This is truly brilliant… Your fluency in deciphering, the art so beautifully depicts thought out and your voice like honey soothing. Love the exceptional standard here. Thank you 👌💜

[@magdimeekhail7866]

as a Coptic i felt sorry for Copts not published those documents ,if we care not about our history who will

[@honda6353]

I care very much about the coptic people and how you suffer under the Arabs.

[@PROWLER2103]

as a father i was taken aback by the letter of the son

[@slackjaw2643]

He was being dramatic same as kids today

[@Butttcheekius]

Always love your content

[@silvan3197]

Thank you 💗

[@henkstersmacro-world]

Thanks for this content, it's great and I've enjoyed it very much!! Also subscribed to your channel so please keep it coming!!

[@Suz-e-K]

Bravo! Excellent presentations. Beautiful graphics and narration.

[@HandattheHelm]

There should be subtitles, it's a real shame there aren't. The auto-subtitles are abysmally, unacceptably incorrect.

[@goognamgoognw6637]

I agree, i just posted a comment to that effect. This is germanglish a strange creation of speaking english using german pronounciation.

[@leftpastsaturn67]

@@goognamgoognw6637 His pronunciation is almost faultless, your inability to understand it is the problem.

[@robinbinder8658]

i am inexplicably sad about the fact the execution letter is never recoverable

[@justme8837]

I can picture these people writing these and imagine what is going on. I love it.

[@jesus2639]

My favorite is the boy throwing a tantrum.

[@neilreichenbach6526]

The blond man leaning against the tree aggressing the masses with the most Serene smile on his face letters from Pilate

[@eekee6034]

Historical garbage dumps have long been known as one of the best if not _the_ best places for archaeologists to dig. :)

[@tobygoodguy4032]

Just goes to show, the old empire had its share of boy-brats.

[@blugaledoh2669]

Can you talk about the rise of House Habsburg?

[@kingsandthings]

Thanks for the suggestion! I gave it a try: kzbin.info/www/bejne/i5jClqeArspsptU

[@meeeka]

will you not discuss the Persian Achemenids, Cyrus?

[@fredfredbuger27]

How have we discovered ancient documents 120 years ago and no one has translated them yet? What are classicists doing? This is the one time they could be useful

[@SamieCarvalho]

It would be nice to have the text in the video. Since I’m not a native English speaker is hard to understand the pronunciation sometimes

[@Fanofanime111]

From a guy multiple diagnosed hearing/processing disabilities that make it difficult to understand verbal communication: You English is perfectly understandable. The people who claim that you're bad at narration or English need to seek doctors.

[@manitheman0806]

Hurry up and disable those comments......The intellects are moving in

[@AMR_k400]

Kids are always spoiled

[@Contact_Info]

Find some papyrus describing Jesus Crist in front of Pontius Pilate.

[@JungleYT]

So, A.) Some people could *read and write?* B.) They had a *postal service?*

[@mortalclown3812]

It truly was an Empire. If you're interested in it, I recommend the old historians like Tacitus and Suetonius. Yes it's ancient but not dry! Truly riveting. Michael Grant wrote about the Caesars, as well, which is how I got hooked on Old Rome. Pax Humana.🌌🙋

[@meeeka]

The first ancient empire which had a systemic postal service --sort of like the pony express--was the Persian empire, which predated the Romans.

[@pierren___]

Are you serious ? All the books they wrote, the bridge they builts werent the product of lone imagination lol

[@JungleYT]

@@pierren___ So, what caused Middle Ages Europe to be so illiterate? That's why I was so surprised. Roman Catholic priests were literate, but average citizens illiterate...

[@Kenneth_James]

They found 2000 year old Google searches too?

[@melodym2538]

Why can't this channel be translated into Chinese?

[@ballhawk387]

So, rich, spoiled brats haven't changed all that much over the millennia.

[@technoteardown4481]

Could you please re-do this and also your other great videos, after practising your annunciating skills, because your narration is very bad.

[@zin153]

This would have been a pleasure to listen to but your accent, tendency to speak rapidly and, most of all, the music made listening very difficult.

[@iwantthetruthandnothingbut6521]

Your music is low-key, thank you, but none the less obnoxious

[@goognamgoognw6637]

Seems like a good video. Too bad your English pronunciation is very poor. You seem to make no effort at all to pronounce english correctly. Please provide subtitles if you won't make the effort for better elocution.

[@fredfredbuger27]

You sound like an horrible person

[@goognamgoognw6637]

@@fredfredbuger27 Let me see, someone says something i don't agree with, instead of using rational argumentation, I'm going to attack him on a personal level. Fk U !

[@fredfredbuger27]

@@goognamgoognw6637 criticizing someone’s English is an ad hominem. I don’t believe that my comment was out of place.

[@barneyh7014]

It isn’t too bad. You can still understand the overall message and English I imagine is not the easiest language to speak so credit to the man for giving it a try.

[@goognamgoognw6637]

@@fredfredbuger27 crisizing someone's english is absolutely not Ad Hominem, but your attack on me is.

[@MichaelGrylsk-sd5ow]

the divorce decree sounds like a practice write up but never enacted divorce was plus half of the dowery 7000 being abasic amountin that money drachma .was and half a standard amount of compensation.