Listened to part 1 of Columbus. While I’m waiting for parts 2-4 to be free (yes, I’m that cheap) I started the the double episode on the examination of Jesus. Pretty interesting thus far.
I saw something that said Cleopatra's existence was closer to the invention of the iPhone than to the construction of the Great Pyramid of Giza and my mind was fucking blown
One of the fascinating things about this to me is that after the fall of rome, societies all over Europe were still using these same roads centuries later, because they couldn't build anything better. It's almost unfathomable for a group of people to be that much further advanced technologically than most of the rest of the world.
You’re Dead to Me is another great pod. They have a person on the show that is an expert in the topic discussed as well as a comedian and they talk about specific topics in regards to ancient history
I listened to Part 1 too. These hosts have a great rapport and do a great job of not being comedians the whole time but still being entertaining.
Which segues into island dwarfism. The last of the Mammoths ventured onto Wrangell Island in Russia during the last ice age and as the ice melted and the water rose, were cut off and stuck. Since there was fewer resources for them to eat they got smaller and went from normal elephant size to like 4 feet tall. We also see the opposite where species are introduced onto islands, like say foxes, who have no natural predators there and eat the shit out of bird eggs and get huge. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insular_dwarfism
Aren’t Kodiak bears some sort of outlier with this? They are massive also, this is another wild thing to me https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allen's_rule
I watched some show where they thought an island in Alaska had a line of Kodiaks that still carried a decent amount of an extinct bear's DNA that made them much larger than average. Think it was on Discovery.
I got one of Tom Holland’s books on audible and was disappointed that it was someone that read it. Holland has such a pleasant voice to listen to.
Mansa Musa was an interesting guy. His pilgrimage to Mecca was insane, the amount of gold he set out with, and the gifts he gave along the way reported caused inflation in some of the cities he stopped in. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mansa_Musa and the potential attempt at transatlantic travel by his predecessor is also interesting. 2000 ships directed to go straight west off Africa, never to be seen again. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_voyage_of_the_predecessor_of_Mansa_Musa
Also the mummy priestess who had cocaine and nicotine in her hair. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henut_Taui Basically I’m into all the pre Columbus/pre Viking evidence of trans Atlantic contact.
The Ancients and Fall of Civilizations podcast are my go to sleeping material. It's on spotify and youtube.
https://www.historydefined.net/ancient-inventions-that-we-still-dont-understand/ This one reminds me of Game of Thrones There's 10 more
Ancient, intact tomb resides under the tumulus of this ancient site. Still plans to find a way to enter the tomb. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Nemrut Sealed treasure vaults in temple in India. https://www.forbes.com/sites/jimdob...red-at-indias-sree-padmanabhaswam-temple/amp/
Checked this out after I saw this post last week and I'm loving it so far. I did their series on the Civil War first and thought it was great, especially coming from an "outsider's" perspective. Lots of interesting topics that I look forward to listening to.
Glad you like it, and I also enjoy when they touch on American topics. With that in mind, listen to their on Watergate. Dominic used to teach a course about Nixon and it’s a real “tour de force.”
I feel like I watched something recently where they feel like they figured out largely how the Romans made their concrete. Need to go back and see what it was. It’s something to do with these large imperfections in the limestone.
Kodiak bears would be the example of the opposite, island gigantism. Salmon is aplenty. There’s fewer humans so less predation. Also Kodiak bears have adapted to be less likely to fight each other since there are so many in a small area, especially around when the salmon are running.
I bet if you bring up the question whether the Romans invented or perfected anal bleaching, I’m sure the conversation would heat up.
Cleopatra died 25 years before the historical Jesus was born. Ptolemy (founder of Cleopatra’s ruling house and Alexander’s chum is one of my favorite historic figures but is often overshadowed by Alexander and everyone’s natural infatuation with Ancient Egypt. So much of our knowledge of Ancient Egypt hinges on Ptolemy being a Greek speaker who invented auto-translate on tablets.
Just stumbled upon this. There’s an underground grotto in England that was randomly found in the 1830s. 2000 sq ft and completely covered in 4.6 million shells. No one knows how old it is or who made it https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shell_Grotto,_Margate
I did a ctrl + f search on the wiki article and would have been stunned had the term I was searching for wasn’t mentioned. Nothing stunning happened, “Knight’s Templar” got a mention as the possible explanation for its existence.