Egyptologist Fact Checks Egyptian History Slop

[00:00] The headdresses that these guys are wearing [light thoughtful music] What's wrong, however, is this sort of yellow hat.

[00:15] This has nothing to do with ancient Egypt. Let's fact-check some AI slop. Okay, first video.

[00:30] - No one ever builds statues of me smiling. - I find this line hilarious because, in fact, most statues We as Egyptologists recognize a particular era

[00:46] when statues are frowning, where they weren't smiling, - Well, I lift stones all day

[01:01] - So the whole construct of "What's your job? This is a very modern way of understanding - What's your role in society?

[01:16] But I also run the fish stall on weekdays. and the people who would have served as priests for the gods who are selling fish in the marketplace.

[01:31] - Well, the Nile gave us water, took the house, - And this is, of course, hilarious way of putting it, but the importance of the flood in ancient Egypt was real.

[01:45] and brought not only water to irrigate crops, but also fine silt, which was basically nature's fertilizer in which to plant barley indeed,

[01:59] - Made three sales, got accused of sorcery, and my goat ran off with the change, so could be worse. in ancient Egypt, although they must have existed.

[02:13] that there was change that goats could have run away with, Money had not been invented yet in ancient Egypt. It was a barter system, so people worked out exchanges

[02:26] in a marketplace context. - Chloe, welcome to my home. Cleopatra knows my name. [gasps]

[02:39] because of the stereotypes of women in our [gasps] I can tell this is all gonna be about makeup and clothes. - Okay, I have to ask, what is the actual beauty routine?

[02:55] - Beauty routines in ancient Egypt. that is an exclusively women's world here, Cosmetics in ancient Egypt were actually used by everyone.

[03:10] as heavily jeweled as women were. - These murals depict the great victories of my ancestors. We do have images of warfare

[03:25] and these are not they. This is not what you would expect in a palace. of great victories in a palace.

[03:38] [Cleopatra speaking in foreign language] so I cannot evaluate whether or not that was accurate Greek. and that's actually a point that's important.

[03:50] She spoke multiple languages. from the Greek-speaking world. is shown in a classically pharaonic idiom.

[04:05] and we have outfits that look like New Kingdom outfits. These are from Egypt from many hundreds of years earlier?

[04:19] Probably the latter. Everything the world has ever known - So here we are on the coast of Alexandria.

[04:32] We do know approximately It was in the Royal Quarter, which is on the coast here. It was one of the most important collections of books

[04:46] But the building we actually see in the background here was one of the wonders of the ancient world. It is not shown here as enormous at all.

[04:59] This lighthouse was a working lighthouse. and how visible this was from far away. Alexandria was an incredibly significant trading hub

[05:12] and the coast of the Mediterranean is very treacherous. through underwater excavations in the harbor of Alexandria. It fell down because of earthquakes over the centuries.

[05:25] You want to try it? Oh, my God! Yes! Not all of this is amazing. was used much earlier than this in ancient Egypt as well.

[05:38] This is a powdered carbon-based or galena lead-based pigment as well as sort of sunglass protection properties, - I look incredible.

[05:53] - Okay, let's talk about mirrors in ancient Egypt though. and the mirror is a perfect glass we have in ancient Egypt at all.

[06:07] are of bronze and sometimes silver. So it would've been, in fact, This is something you're relying on your best friend,

[06:19] Next. Here we have the procession of a bark or a boat, that are being carried by priests through a crowd.

[06:34] and we can see a temple here as well. for what an Egyptian procession, When gods traveled on procession,

[06:46] put in a bark shrine on a boat like this, carried by priests through the city. as you can see here, but they're usually going somewhere.

[07:01] They're going to visit another god in a different temple, So while the basic idea of a procession When we actually look at

[07:14] it looks totally like Ark of Covenant stuff. This is a scene of embalming, He's getting the full works here, being turned into a mummy.

[07:29] They've got trays of things like salt, as they're drying it out and wrapping it in linen. is the priest who is standing at the head

[07:44] We can see that he is wearing what looks like a helmet or a headdress that has a long snout and big ears. who takes the form of a jackal.

[07:58] We do know that priests engaged in aspects of mummification did actually wear headdresses like this,

[08:10] they were themselves Anubis. We have in the foreground, we can see these jars These are in order to hold the viscera.

[08:25] Those wet bits, they're your internal organs. and you're gonna want them in the afterlife. There are only four of them in an actual Egyptian burial,

[08:39] Here we have a Nile scene with a temple in the background, The shape of the pylon here And in the foreground, we have boats,

[08:52] and some don't have sails up. and in fact, they used them principally When ancient Egyptian boats sailed south,

[09:04] would have propelled the boats. but the flow of the river is with them. Next video.

[09:18] and you wake up on your mat looking out over the pyramid, They did use beekeeping in ancient Egypt, They didn't have sugar, so it was a major sweetener.

[09:33] not so probable. Again, pyramid in the background, not so likely. of carefree ability to explore and learn on your own

[09:50] The idea that childhood was even a separate a ton of evidence for in ancient Egypt. We have evidence of the domestication of the donkey in Egypt

[10:06] Board games. All of our evidence is that these are actually used by adults, sometimes ritually, sometimes to pass time.

[10:18] and play was not considered important, as far as we know, As soon as they could, they were being engaged in and involved in the productive economic life of a household.

[10:32] - School in ancient Egypt. Only very elite people were expected to learn to read

[10:44] Very elite children would've then gone to the palace. or very favored courtiers as well. by writing down what a teacher is speaking.

[10:56] They're not pre-written on, as you've seen here. We do have school texts, so we have the bad handwriting Okay, next video.

[11:10] Here we are at Giza, that we're finding in a lot of the AI slop. and we have some agricultural land

[11:22] [lively upbeat music] is that they are represented as bright white

[11:35] The bright white is quite accurate. would have been cased in fine limestone and really valued for its whiteness.

[11:48] This glowing whiteness would have been characteristic They would have been quite smooth as well. Pyramids were capped with stones, but from far away,

[12:02] We don't know if they were gilded or another color. Most of these were removed in the medieval period, and were used as building stone for other buildings.

[12:16] and that is on top of Khafre's pyramid. And so today, Khafre's pyramid the once bright white limestone

[12:31] Let's talk about warfare in ancient Egypt. have elements that are accurate. One thing that's jumping out to me as unlikely, however,

[12:45] Really large armies We have here a chariot with two people in it, This is accurate.

[12:58] We have actual chariots preserved They were disassembled, but all the parts are there. that show chariot warfare on the walls of temples.

[13:12] This has no relationship to what we think while going into battle. [bells chiming]

[13:25] We have triple-decker boats, not a thing in ancient Egypt. We have a line of temples on the bank of the Nile. but particularly let's look at this temple.

[13:39] to get to this temple, and they're entering through Steep staircases leading to temple entrances to an ancient Egyptian temple looks like at all.

[13:56] The doorway into an Egyptian temple is quite narrow. not to allow big crowds to walk in. Most people were not allowed to go into the temple at all.

[14:10] not a place where the crowds are gathering in most cases. the facade of this stone gateway, We would expect a pylon in ancient Egypt

[14:25] The two sides are higher than the middle. which represents the horizon [bells chiming]

[14:40] two different places in Egypt, but I'm not entirely sure. We have no depictions of boats that look like this. We have a really good idea

[14:56] because we do have them carved in relief scenes on temples. For instance, we excavated a boat The way background, we have an urban sprawl.

[15:10] these must be skyscrapers. is really this pyramid. It was the second of the very large pyramids at Giza,

[15:24] And by the time the top there were, in fact, all three pyramids at Giza. Here, we have an urban setting.

[15:36] that this is a place where life is taking place. which is not where most cities were. don't look like the urban fabric of ancient Egypt.

[15:49] They're really dense. Here we seem to be in the courtyard of a temple, that is not so off in one of these videos.

[16:02] in a temple courtyard. were allowed to come into the god's precinct, if not actually into the rooms where the god himself lived.

[16:16] and what the crowd itself actually looks like. [bells chiming] and the temple is big stone architecture.

[16:32] We have a lot of sculpture on the sides here, In particular, I would note So we are walking down the middle of the temple

[16:46] which is small. from at least the New Kingdom onwards, and manifest in a statue that is in the back.

[17:01] being able to walk out of his temple The straightness also mirrors the rising [bells chiming]

[17:14] The more I look at this, the more ridiculous this is. They look more like cats. Thanks for watching.

[17:27] [light gentle music]