I've always hated the concept of, "To advanced for their times." It is so reductive of ancient cultures, remember they were people and people had needs so they would invent things to fill those needs. I swear some people think that we went straight from banging rocks together to Ancient Rome...
The stupidest thing about that statement is a) clearly the evidence proves otherwise, and b) those making such statements have no idea how the thing would be made
@@KaiserMattTygore927 finally somebody said it lol. Ancient aliens is such a garbage show that does nothing but push the bullshit idea that only the modern west could ever invent anything or be advanced enough to do anything that influenced history. It's colonizing nonsense through and through.
@@AshleyBrown-fj3wh You are talking such bullshit. That whole idea comes from people having a hard time imagining, that ancient people could built big things with their level of technology. Plus, it feeds from astrology, other pseudo crap and the general believe that humans could have not been able to build technology without having knowledge beforehand. It doesn't have anything to do with colonization or whatever kind of bullshit you were blabbering on about.
"Its far past their skill" I've heard this about so many artifacts. As a maker myself, I can say, if you're determined enough, you'll find a way to make what you want with what you have. Want something round, you'll find a way to do it and make sure it's perfectly round.
The skill is not even the biggest problem, that would be the reason for making those spheres. I bet it was something religion related since i dont see a secular use for those things... at least iam not alone with such conclusions.
Might've been just because it's such a cool thing, it takes such skill to do it, and it's so hard to move them around, that only the rich could afford them, and/or it was to just say "I got big stone balls, haha" [insert male genitals joke here] ... or they were just bored and they just did it to just... do it. People have done strange and/or elaborate things out of raw boredom as well. Graffiti is a good example.
@@aaronyoung8301 About the male genitals joke, there was an archeological excavation in Italy that showed ancient graffiti in house walls that read "*insert name* is an eunuch" and things like that. So yeah, the idea of "they did it 'cause they could" isn't so farfetched
Perhaps the "too advanced for their time" is actually why such artifacts do survive and become out of place. If something was an advancement compared to the common technology of its time, it would've likely been kept it better condition due its scarcity, so as to preserve its use for longer. It would've also been only available to the top of the social hierarchy and likely represented prestige, one more reason to be preserved. Now its probably impossible to asses wether this would apply to all pieces of ancient technology, however these factors likely skewed how often advanced technology was preserved. Even if it was preserved for only a couple of generations more, it would offer a statiscal advantage to this kind of technologies overall, which may explain why we happen to find them.
eh, what you say does make sense and might well be a factor, but quite honestly almost always "too advanced for their time" is just average people (as in, not historical experts) vastly underestimating the intelligence and ability of ancient peoples
Also, to add something to this comment, (this came from some other guy in this comment section, not from me) is that without any sort of modern conveniences, that we have now like: education, guaranteed rights to life and lack of fair opportunity, meant that people had to rely on whatever they knew best or had, not just for fun, but to live, and master whatever craft, they knew and became experts or in some cases, become the ahead of their time.
Edit: y'all can stop commenting if you disagree. I really don't care anymore. the Roman Dodecahedrons are for knitting gloves. the traces of wax are likely from the yarn, helps it move more smoothly. waxed yarn still exists today.
I like the idea of a far future civ discovering our school bulletin and thinking to themselves: "they couldn't do that! it was beyond their capabilities!" XD
kinda like the drawing test you have to "pass" to get into one of those for-profit art institutes that almost exclusively air ads during "the people's court"
This reminds me of a post where they had the pic and the description played out an idea of what would happen, apparently the writer came up with the idea that an ancient DnD Campaign involved an Egyptian rolling to seduce Anubis. For Romans they could probably go to combat with Neptune.
Just imagine: one day, that day will come to pass...a thousand years from now. And it'll be just as real and feel just as real as the present does for whoever is around to experience it...and it will come...with 100% confidence that day WILL come to pass, just as tomorrow is known with 100%accuracy that too shall come to pass. And you my friend, all your struggles, your triumphs, your loves, your losses, accomplishments and regrets, fears and dreams and goals and thoughts, your entire experience, the sum total of all your life, the culmination of your entire existence, will long have ended. Just as it is known that tomorrow shall surely come, also, it is known, there you will be, an inanimate object. What is this crazy thing we call life? What does it all mean? It may as well be tomorrow.
Unless internet goes into dumpster and all data from current era will be lost no one will be mistaken about fidget spinner. We simply collect and store data way better than ancient people so it will easily survive thousands of years.
Indeed. The Southern indian regions were where the Damascus blade steel was developed and exported (now called wootz steel) and they made a lot of money off that trade
once one math teacher i had said, people back then had nothing better to do that they created something like the pitagoric table... and that domino effect means you have to learn it now
I feel like people underestimate what is possible with enough dedication (or slave labour...) even with very primitive tools. What I find more astounding is how early civilizations got to the point that they could dedicate the time and resources to making such abstract objects without direct practical use.
@@volgawolfhounds741 No they didn't get trophies to show up because back then if you weren't skilled you LITERALLY DIED. Idk about you but I'm glad life has changed for the better a bit.
@@dirrdevil They were instead held back by old-fashioned imperialism where you were owned by a lord whose whims dictated where resources go and you were glad if you were left enough to avoid starvation.
Regarding the Dodecahedron. There is an argument to be made that these could possibly have been multi use objects. Something you use for multiple purposes. So, yeah, maybe they indeed were used as a candle holder, but one could design a much simpler one. But then, they might at the same time have been used as a knitting aide in a pinch. And so on. The widespread use and practical design imply a very utilitarian use.
The space-man looking dogus you showed earlier I believe are related to a formerly banned God in Japan called Arahabaki. He's often shown like that and was a former God of travelers.
Do you think the damage done by Japan's enforcement of cultural unity will ever be undone? We only know of the Jomon period because of their distinctive pottery.
Same honestly don’t understand how someone could think that past humans couldn’t have done or invented stuff and just not documented it or written and drawn stuff that came from their imagination and never happened or existed
@@taylorpower3862 Because that's boring. Jokes aside it's because people like to think they're special so when they have a dumb thought like "This thing looks like an alien made it", they convinced themselves they've figured out a secret thing that no one else can see the truth of
2:14 I'm not convinced the one on the right was a candle holder for obvious reasons. I remember hearing about a knitter that showed how these help make patterns, the bumps hold a loop of yarn. Some of the others absolutely look like they were made to also hold different sizes of candles, and the shape is very stable, so maybe a multitool of sorts?
Imagine finding a quotidian object like a fidget spinner 2000 years from now with no context and no mention of what it is. It would be as baffling as the dodecahedrons. but the reality is that it's simply a toy. Today, we make a great many objects that serve absolutely no purpose other than amusement. Were ancient people any different?
Huge respect for approaching the topics in your videos with scepticism and logic. Proves they can be interesting without wild conspiracy theories and misinformation.
Utah lore includes a coin said to have been dug up in a 10 foot hole by an early pioneer digging a well. It was called the Nephite Coin thinking it was evidence of inhabitants found in the Book of Mormon. After being sent to a specialist it was found to have been a coin from India that was common for trade in Canada and made its way into the hands of a Utah settler.
I've always loved these types of topics, but the most popular videos would always delve into the possibility of the supernatural. This channel is a breath of fresh air.
It seems like people think that all "ancient civilazations" were just plain stupid and weren't able to think out of the box. Maybe the reason why those perfect spheres exists is that they found a simple way to form a perfect sphere and just used it over and over lol
Pretty much. Add racism and ignorance of how stone-age tools actually worked (surprisingly many things were possible but were not usually done due to it requiring massive amount of time and effort to do it, ie, like build a giant pyramid) and you've found out why so many ancient aliens conspiracy theories exist.
I wonder how many of these strange artifacts were just art pieces. We have countless pieces of art out there without well documented meaning, purpose, or author. It doesn’t seem like a stretch to think our predecessors also made lots of art for art’s sake too. Really fun video
Fun fact about the Pillar of Delhi: hypothetically, if someone was trying to find information and pictures of the Pillar Edicts of King Ashoka Maurya, Google would also suggest information on the Iron Pillar, and in doing so, lead to half an hour of research accidentally including the Iron Pillar in a research paper about Ashoka, which could culminate in a frustrated student deleting a quarter of their paper. Hypothetically, of course. (Pro tip: check your sources)
I imagine the dodecahedrons had the same cultural significance to the Romans as anime figures or funko pops are to us today; cool collectables and nothing more. Granted, it'd likely take really good craftsmanship to make, so they'd be rare and cool. Idk, I'm not an anthropologist or an archeologist.
In my opinion, the Roman Dodecahedrons are part of a perfume dispenser. One places a candle inside the metal frame, and a cup of wax on top. The heat of the wick would then melt the fragrant wax. The light of the candle would also flicker through the other holes of the device, providing some moody lighting.
Some Roman must've woken up one day and thought, "you know what, I'm going to convince the entire Roman empire to make funny looking dodecahedrons to confuse people in the future"
I've heard the dodecahedrons and icosahedrons could have been a sort of proof of a metalworker's skill. They can point at it and be like, "I made that weird-ass thing, of course I can make [normal thing they want]".
The difference between modern and ancient construction had little to do with skill or know-how, and more to do with materials and infrastructure, or lack there of. Figuring out how to make something is less of a challenge than actually having the stuff necessary to make it. Charles Babbage invented the computer long before it was actually possible to build a computer.
A TV program called Strangest Things on the Science Channel here in the U.S. recently did a story on the Roman Dodecahedrons. They covered all the theories mentioned here and added one of their own - that they might have been used to measure distances as they laid out their famous system of roadways - but they could not come to a conclusion.
Another artifact that comes to mind is "The Tamil Bell" a bronze bell found being used as a cooking pot by Māori in New Zealand, they said they found it in the roots of a fallen tree one day, so it must have been there a long time. Exciting theories aside, it's likely such an out of place object was from a drifting derelict ship.
"Too advanced for their skills" always seems to be code for "I see these cultures as primitive". I feel like if Europeans didn't destroy so many cultures we would have a lot more context for this stuff
We sometimes don't give some cultures their proper respect. I remember watching a show about a badly injured CIA officer who was burned in a plane crash and trapped in the jungles of the Congo. The locals were trying to get him to a hospital to treat him, but when this proved difficult they essentially gave him some "witch-doctor" medicine, a paste they covered his burns with and it worked. It turned out the paste was the same as the "space age" medicine modern hospitals would have used to treat burns.
Thank you so much for explaining what these objects were used for. There are a lot of these videos and most try to make it seem like they're so mysterious that "aliens must have made them." Totally takes away the accomplishments of ancient civilizations.
1000 years from now if you found a candle holder from this time you'd probably wonder what the heck it was too. Just imagine how many little tools and objects we use today that would be unidentifiable for their purpose to someone else.
Just imagine: one day, that day will come to pass...a thousand years from now. And it'll be just as real and feel just as real as the present does for whoever is around to experience it...and it will come...with 100% confidence that day WILL come to pass, just as tomorrow is known with 100%accuracy that too shall come to pass. And you my friend, all your struggles, your triumphs, your loves, your losses, accomplishments and regrets, fears and dreams and goals and thoughts, your entire experience, the sum total of all your life, the culmination of your entire existence, will long have ended. Just as it is known that tomorrow shall surely come, also, it is known, there you will be, an inanimate object, the fire of life long since extinguished...that tomorrow has long since became yesterday. What is this crazy thing we call life? What does it all mean? It may as well be tomorrow right now.
2:36 the fact they are so mundane that no one talked about it makes me think that some dumb shit like truck nuts will be looked at by future scientists with the same intensity
Just imagine: one day, that day will come to pass...a thousand years from now. And it'll be just as real and feel just as real as the present does for whoever is around to experience it...and it will come...with 100% confidence that day WILL come to pass, just as tomorrow is known with 100%accuracy that too shall come to pass. And you my friend, all your struggles, your triumphs, your loves, your losses, accomplishments and regrets, fears and dreams and goals and thoughts, your entire experience, the sum total of all your life, the culmination of your entire existence, will long have ended. Just as it is known that tomorrow shall surely come, also, it is known, there you will be, an inanimate object, the fire of life long since extinguished...that tomorrow has long since became yesterday. What is this crazy thing we call life? What does it all mean? It may as well be tomorrow right now.
@@curiodyssey3867 i guess your right, but is that gonna stop me from righting some wrongs, wronging some rights, and maybe having some fun in between. Wether i die and go to heaven or die and embrace the void this is my one life, and im not gonna let the infinite void ruin that for me.
The dodecahedron being a candle holder would make sense, as the Romans probably didn't have standardized diameter candles. If you look closely, each hole of the dodecahedron has different diameter, so that you can pick a side which fits your candle best (or is just a little too small, and hammer the candle in), and the nubs on the corners would make it more stable when standing.
Vikings likley had trade settlements/outposts half the way down the Eastern seaboard. L'Anse aux Meadows in NFLD is a confirmed Viking habitation, as well as Baffin Island. There is also good evidence pointing to a presence in Labrador as well.
Also the Native Americans traded extensively. It would not be a surprise if some pretty objects got traded all the way down the seaboard. They have found sea shells from South America being worn as jewelry in the graves of people all the way up in Canada, after all. Not too far for a coin to travel.
Ahh it was so satisfying that you gave an actual answer to these and didn't just leave it open-ended like some of those conspiracy and mystery video channels.
bro imagine you're diving off the coast of cape horn and then your transceiever goes all *"Alright, we got another funky hit for ya here on Deep Sea Radio!"*
This is basically the equivalent to finding some odd looking thing among your grandparents possessions and having no clue of what it's used for, except the thing is centuries old and everyone who knew what it was meant for is long dead
I don't want to sound like some stupid conspiracy theorist, but there is an interesting coincidence that has to do with the Vikings that may be interesting to think about: In the mythology of the Iroquois, who live in upstate New York, the spirit/god of thunder, Hé-no, has legends associated with him where he defeats a serpent living in Lake Ontario and another where he defeats some stone giants. And in Norse mythology, the god of thunder, Thor, has myths where he defeats a sea serpent and fights the giants. I think there may be a possibility that some Vikings landed in North America, shared their myths of Thor with some locals, and the stories ended up around Lake Ontario where they combined with local mythology and changed over time into what we know now. Or it could just as easily be a coincidence, we'll never know.
This channel and James Michael Godier are the most UNDERRATED and fascinating channels out there. Absolutely beautifully executed videos and great great topics. I love it.
My theory on the roman dice. They are alarm clocks. Different size hole for different time. Slide it down the candle neck. After a certain time the candle will burn and the dice fall making a bang.
Technically, no. Access to nutrition, clean water, education, and preventative medicine increase the average baseline IQ. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect Which isn't to say ancient peoples weren't capable and innovative. They were. They just had a lower baseline intelligence, under our current definitions of intelligence. This is also why it's so important for developed nations to do everything in their power to ensure that their citizens have full access to these factors. If a nation neglects to provide these, it results in an artificial systemic inequality and loss of opportunities. Then once a society is demographically stratified, other problems follow.
I think the dodecahedron was used as a skeleton basis for a football made by wrapping some sort of string around it. The wax was probably used to make it less flimsy. I figure it out as I've see this game: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zen_Bound.
I was afraid this video was going to be some alien conspiracy theory shit to human advancement but I am delightfully surprised at the aim of authentic historical education and emphasis on factual and logical theorization
What's really strange about these objects is on how many I guessed the same purpose as the videomaker later said. As soon as I saw the dodecahedrons, my brain said "candleholder." As soon as I saw the antenna, my brain said "carnivorous sponge."
This is seriously refreshing to see a video about these things that is not "I can't explain it therefore Aliens". We often underestimate the knowledge and craftmanship of our ancestors and it's a shame. I mean we've got some cities more than 2000 years ago with plumbing or heating, we've got insane metal, stone and precious rocks craft from all periods and places, we've got impressive art and buildings made in the name of countless gods and goddesses, the greek steam engine, the chinese compass more than 2000 years ago, maaaaybe a battery used for electroplating (still highly debatable and unprooven), and I can go on and on. Our ancestors were just as crafty and skilled as some of us are. If you take artifacts out of their context, sure, they might clash with the image you've got of this civilisation or era; but with the context, they show really good craftsmanship that fits right in the time period.
It's easy to say that past civilizations couldn't have made these things without outside help. But those statements are always framed from a modern point of view. One thing you have to consider is that back in the day people didn't have phones, social media, Netflix, etc. -- They didn't have an overwhelming amount of distractions like we do. When people did something back then, or they had to do it for someone else they would tinker until they did eventually do something. Of course not everyone would just invent stuff, that's just like modern times too, not everyone in modern times is an inventor. A couple of capable minds back in the day inventing things that the average person couldn't fathom. Same goes for astounding architecture, a lot of people with simple lives, having very little to do other than to survive essentially. Throw all of those bored people at a construction project and in due time with all of that peoplepower it will eventually happen.
2000 years in the future: Archeologists have found hundreds of these bowls full of metal balls. As far as we've been able to uncover, the ancients from the early 2000's never bothered to record what the purpose of these metal balls were. The lack of explanation lends the objects a certain mystique.
@@afjer ...I haven't the slightest clue what you mean. The only metal balls I remember from a decade ago were from fragmentation warheads... Though I was in Israel at the time, they were lying in the streets everywhere. Maybe they had something different in Scandinavia?
The presence of wax in one dodecahedron isn't a proof that it is its primary function. It's an object that could easily be repurposed. One could imagine without stretching the neurons too much that a sewing tool, or anything else, could be used to hold a candle, if it happens to be available when you need it.
Nebra Disk Acambaro Figure Crystal Skull Cabrera Stone Emerald Tablet Baghdad Battery Istanbul Rocket Esperanza Glyph Stone Mayan Golden Airplane Shroud of Turin Piri Reis Map Vimana Dendera Light Saqqara Bird Meister Print London Hammer
Antikythera mechanism probably wasnt even a one of a kind thing at the time. more stress bearing parts were made with higher quality materials, which might suggest the maker was trying to maximize their profits by cutting cost.
The Romain dodecahedron is used to make gloves watch mysteries at the museum. A man man made a 3D replica and found its used to make gloves as they were found mainly in regions where winter and snow was. He got the idea after he comparing it to a scaf making mold. Look it up.
I've always hated the concept of, "To advanced for their times." It is so reductive of ancient cultures, remember they were people and people had needs so they would invent things to fill those needs. I swear some people think that we went straight from banging rocks together to Ancient Rome...
Same. one of the reasons why I detest the "ancient aliens" show.
The stupidest thing about that statement is a) clearly the evidence proves otherwise, and b) those making such statements have no idea how the thing would be made
@@KaiserMattTygore927 finally somebody said it lol. Ancient aliens is such a garbage show that does nothing but push the bullshit idea that only the modern west could ever invent anything or be advanced enough to do anything that influenced history. It's colonizing nonsense through and through.
“just Cus white people couldn’t do it doesn’t mean it was aliens”
@@AshleyBrown-fj3wh You are talking such bullshit. That whole idea comes from people having a hard time imagining, that ancient people could built big things with their level of technology. Plus, it feeds from astrology, other pseudo crap and the general believe that humans could have not been able to build technology without having knowledge beforehand. It doesn't have anything to do with colonization or whatever kind of bullshit you were blabbering on about.
"Its far past their skill"
I've heard this about so many artifacts.
As a maker myself, I can say, if you're determined enough, you'll find a way to make what you want with what you have. Want something round, you'll find a way to do it and make sure it's perfectly round.
The skill is not even the biggest problem, that would be the reason for making those spheres. I bet it was something religion related since i dont see a secular use for those things... at least iam not alone with such conclusions.
Might've been just because it's such a cool thing, it takes such skill to do it, and it's so hard to move them around, that only the rich could afford them, and/or it was to just say "I got big stone balls, haha" [insert male genitals joke here]
... or they were just bored and they just did it to just... do it. People have done strange and/or elaborate things out of raw boredom as well. Graffiti is a good example.
@@aaronyoung8301 About the male genitals joke, there was an archeological excavation in Italy that showed ancient graffiti in house walls that read "*insert name* is an eunuch" and things like that. So yeah, the idea of "they did it 'cause they could" isn't so farfetched
@@ABW941 Could just be artistic or something the elites wanted for decoration.
Sometimes it's just as amazing to find out the techniques used by ancient civilizations without modern technology.
Perhaps the "too advanced for their time" is actually why such artifacts do survive and become out of place. If something was an advancement compared to the common technology of its time, it would've likely been kept it better condition due its scarcity, so as to preserve its use for longer. It would've also been only available to the top of the social hierarchy and likely represented prestige, one more reason to be preserved. Now its probably impossible to asses wether this would apply to all pieces of ancient technology, however these factors likely skewed how often advanced technology was preserved. Even if it was preserved for only a couple of generations more, it would offer a statiscal advantage to this kind of technologies overall, which may explain why we happen to find them.
That's a brilliant analysis and among my favorite explanations.
I agree
eh, what you say does make sense and might well be a factor, but quite honestly almost always "too advanced for their time" is just average people (as in, not historical experts) vastly underestimating the intelligence and ability of ancient peoples
Also, to add something to this comment,
(this came from some other guy in this comment section, not from me)
is that without any sort of modern conveniences, that we have now like:
education, guaranteed rights to life and lack of fair opportunity, meant that people had to rely on whatever they knew best or had, not just for fun, but to live,
and master whatever craft, they knew and became experts or in some cases, become the ahead of their time.
Edit: y'all can stop commenting if you disagree. I really don't care anymore.
the Roman Dodecahedrons are for knitting gloves. the traces of wax are likely from the yarn, helps it move more smoothly. waxed yarn still exists today.
How would one wear that tho?
Quite interesting
Here's a playlist of the step-by-step procedure for those curious: playlist?list=PLrcUrvayabVubi-atz0O47G2m6MjFTgQ8
@@TweedRiver you....you don't wear it. There are TH-cam videos of these being used.
@@overlorddantei think there's a misunderstanding, didn't you say that that was a knitting glove?
i feel like the stone globes were the test you took to be a professional sculptor in that society.
I like the idea of a far future civ discovering our school bulletin and thinking to themselves: "they couldn't do that! it was beyond their capabilities!" XD
Lol hence their sheer numbers. That makes sense 🤣🤣
kinda like the drawing test you have to "pass" to get into one of those for-profit art institutes that almost exclusively air ads during "the people's court"
As a professional sculptor, I'd bet you are not far off. (BTW: I can make one of those spheres using stone tools and sand and my eyes).
Well, it makes sense actually
The Romans must’ve loved playing dnd.
*BRUH*
Truth
jacta alea esto
in candle light~
This reminds me of a post where they had the pic and the description played out an idea of what would happen, apparently the writer came up with the idea that an ancient DnD Campaign involved an Egyptian rolling to seduce Anubis. For Romans they could probably go to combat with Neptune.
Imagine finding a fidget spinner 1000 years into the future
Just imagine: one day, that day will come to pass...a thousand years from now.
And it'll be just as real and feel just as real as the present does for whoever is around to experience it...and it will come...with 100% confidence that day WILL come to pass, just as tomorrow is known with 100%accuracy that too shall come to pass.
And you my friend, all your struggles, your triumphs, your loves, your losses, accomplishments and regrets, fears and dreams and goals and thoughts, your entire experience, the sum total of all your life, the culmination of your entire existence, will long have ended.
Just as it is known that tomorrow shall surely come, also, it is known, there you will be, an inanimate object. What is this crazy thing we call life? What does it all mean?
It may as well be tomorrow.
Do you not know how to use a comma
@@curiodyssey3867 life means Playing video games
"Clearly used for 'ritualistic purposes'."
Unless internet goes into dumpster and all data from current era will be lost no one will be mistaken about fidget spinner.
We simply collect and store data way better than ancient people so it will easily survive thousands of years.
This is the total opposite of an ancient aliens episode.
Yes very refreshing
All that's mising is a bald saying humans all the time
@@lee-jj1js Or that curly hair dude.
God bless him. Lol
I remember an episode of Ancient Aliens actually speculating the Diquis stone spheres as some type of game played by celestial beings back then.
6,000 pounds of iron is an incredible fortune. Even today something like that would be very expensive to create and install.
Indeed. The Southern indian regions were where the Damascus blade steel was developed and exported (now called wootz steel) and they made a lot of money off that trade
"Far past their skill".
People really underestimate the obsessive hyperfocussing power of ancient people with ADHD and nothing better to do.
Absolutely love the idea of some guy decades ago with adhd thinking “fuck it. Gonna make some shit today.”
@@cooper9099 "STACK ROCK. MAKE TRIANGLE."
once one math teacher i had said, people back then had nothing better to do that they created something like the pitagoric table... and that domino effect means you have to learn it now
Past their skill, such a diss to our ancestors.
Dude I can't lmao. As an engineer with adhd I totally understand this haha
I feel like people underestimate what is possible with enough dedication (or slave labour...) even with very primitive tools. What I find more astounding is how early civilizations got to the point that they could dedicate the time and resources to making such abstract objects without direct practical use.
It was a time when people wanted to be part of something bigger than they were as individuals. Those people never got trophies just for showing up.
@@volgawolfhounds741 No they didn't get trophies to show up because back then if you weren't skilled you LITERALLY DIED. Idk about you but I'm glad life has changed for the better a bit.
They weren't held back by capitalism and could devote time to other things besides work for employers to generate them profits.
@@dirrdevil They were instead held back by old-fashioned imperialism where you were owned by a lord whose whims dictated where resources go and you were glad if you were left enough to avoid starvation.
@@dirrdevil uh oh capitalism bad moment
Regarding the Dodecahedron. There is an argument to be made that these could possibly have been multi use objects. Something you use for multiple purposes. So, yeah, maybe they indeed were used as a candle holder, but one could design a much simpler one. But then, they might at the same time have been used as a knitting aide in a pinch. And so on. The widespread use and practical design imply a very utilitarian use.
It was used to measure the amount of servings of pasta
clearly they were anicent roman plumbus.
Ancient multitool basically
The Plumbus of the Roman world
No
The space-man looking dogus you showed earlier I believe are related to a formerly banned God in Japan called Arahabaki. He's often shown like that and was a former God of travelers.
The God is THICC though.
Yeah, and they're pretty cool looking demon in SMT/Persona series
Do you think the damage done by Japan's enforcement of cultural unity will ever be undone? We only know of the Jomon period because of their distinctive pottery.
@@jackkraken3888 that's not a dump truck, that's in international cargo freighter he has for a but
Glad that I discovered this one gem of a channel.
same! im currently binge watching
Same, I’m down the speculative zoology rabbit hole
I’m not sure how I feel about your profile picture XD
@@Cybermat47 LMAO 😂
I can explain the sphere
"Hey bro wouldn't it be funny if I built a stone ball"
“Yeah bro BUT two stone balls if you get me”
It's just dudes one-upping each other back and fourth about how big their stone balls are
@@jek__ "Guys, guys, hear me out. 3 stone balls"
@@dimsum3329 rooky numbers, dude. We'll make ALL the stone balls!
phew, thank god , I finally found a scientific channel of these so called mysterys , not a conspiracy theorists one
Same honestly don’t understand how someone could think that past humans couldn’t have done or invented stuff and just not documented it or written and drawn stuff that came from their imagination and never happened or existed
@@taylorpower3862 Because that's boring.
Jokes aside it's because people like to think they're special so when they have a dumb thought like "This thing looks like an alien made it", they convinced themselves they've figured out a secret thing that no one else can see the truth of
@Daniel Marinho We also know that the Megalodon was also spotted by the Romans.
@Daniel Marinho must be in the mariana trench with the meg, no doubt lmao
"Top 10 Cursed Objects, number 7 will amaze you!"
I so appreciate videos like this that delve into the curiosities of the world without saying "aliens"
2:14 I'm not convinced the one on the right was a candle holder for obvious reasons. I remember hearing about a knitter that showed how these help make patterns, the bumps hold a loop of yarn. Some of the others absolutely look like they were made to also hold different sizes of candles, and the shape is very stable, so maybe a multitool of sorts?
Imagine finding a quotidian object like a fidget spinner 2000 years from now with no context and no mention of what it is. It would be as baffling as the dodecahedrons. but the reality is that it's simply a toy. Today, we make a great many objects that serve absolutely no purpose other than amusement. Were ancient people any different?
They were a little different, but I can imagine the same throughline
Huge respect for approaching the topics in your videos with scepticism and logic. Proves they can be interesting without wild conspiracy theories and misinformation.
Utah lore includes a coin said to have been dug up in a 10 foot hole by an early pioneer digging a well. It was called the Nephite Coin thinking it was evidence of inhabitants found in the Book of Mormon. After being sent to a specialist it was found to have been a coin from India that was common for trade in Canada and made its way into the hands of a Utah settler.
I like the fact that you give the curious and fantastic vibe of what you cover but still being accurate and objective.
I've always loved these types of topics, but the most popular videos would always delve into the possibility of the supernatural. This channel is a breath of fresh air.
It seems like people think that all "ancient civilazations" were just plain stupid and weren't able to think out of the box. Maybe the reason why those perfect spheres exists is that they found a simple way to form a perfect sphere and just used it over and over lol
Pretty much. Add racism and ignorance of how stone-age tools actually worked (surprisingly many things were possible but were not usually done due to it requiring massive amount of time and effort to do it, ie, like build a giant pyramid) and you've found out why so many ancient aliens conspiracy theories exist.
I wonder how many of these strange artifacts were just art pieces. We have countless pieces of art out there without well documented meaning, purpose, or author. It doesn’t seem like a stretch to think our predecessors also made lots of art for art’s sake too. Really fun video
Fun fact about the Pillar of Delhi: hypothetically, if someone was trying to find information and pictures of the Pillar Edicts of King Ashoka Maurya, Google would also suggest information on the Iron Pillar, and in doing so, lead to half an hour of research accidentally including the Iron Pillar in a research paper about Ashoka, which could culminate in a frustrated student deleting a quarter of their paper. Hypothetically, of course.
(Pro tip: check your sources)
“It almost looks like a space suit”
No it doesn’t..
I think it looked like Smough armor. Dark Souls confirmed 2000 years ago.
I was thinking deep sea diving pressure suits.
I imagine the dodecahedrons had the same cultural significance to the Romans as anime figures or funko pops are to us today; cool collectables and nothing more. Granted, it'd likely take really good craftsmanship to make, so they'd be rare and cool. Idk, I'm not an anthropologist or an archeologist.
In my opinion, the Roman Dodecahedrons are part of a perfume dispenser.
One places a candle inside the metal frame, and a cup of wax on top. The heat of the wick would then melt the fragrant wax.
The light of the candle would also flicker through the other holes of the device, providing some moody lighting.
They're for knitting gloves, the wax helps the yarn move smoother.
Some Roman must've woken up one day and thought, "you know what, I'm going to convince the entire Roman empire to make funny looking dodecahedrons to confuse people in the future"
I've heard the dodecahedrons and icosahedrons could have been a sort of proof of a metalworker's skill. They can point at it and be like, "I made that weird-ass thing, of course I can make [normal thing they want]".
The difference between modern and ancient construction had little to do with skill or know-how, and more to do with materials and infrastructure, or lack there of. Figuring out how to make something is less of a challenge than actually having the stuff necessary to make it. Charles Babbage invented the computer long before it was actually possible to build a computer.
This channel is just fantastic :D
It deserves far more views and subs
A TV program called Strangest Things on the Science Channel here in the U.S. recently did a story on the Roman Dodecahedrons. They covered all the theories mentioned here and added one of their own - that they might have been used to measure distances as they laid out their famous system of roadways - but they could not come to a conclusion.
Another artifact that comes to mind is "The Tamil Bell" a bronze bell found being used as a cooking pot by Māori in New Zealand, they said they found it in the roots of a fallen tree one day, so it must have been there a long time. Exciting theories aside, it's likely such an out of place object was from a drifting derelict ship.
"Too advanced for their skills" always seems to be code for "I see these cultures as primitive". I feel like if Europeans didn't destroy so many cultures we would have a lot more context for this stuff
We sometimes don't give some cultures their proper respect. I remember watching a show about a badly injured CIA officer who was burned in a plane crash and trapped in the jungles of the Congo. The locals were trying to get him to a hospital to treat him, but when this proved difficult they essentially gave him some "witch-doctor" medicine, a paste they covered his burns with and it worked. It turned out the paste was the same as the "space age" medicine modern hospitals would have used to treat burns.
Modern medicine has its roots in the usage of plants, most medication has a vhemically similar form found in plants
Thank you so much for explaining what these objects were used for. There are a lot of these videos and most try to make it seem like they're so mysterious that "aliens must have made them." Totally takes away the accomplishments of ancient civilizations.
1000 years from now if you found a candle holder from this time you'd probably wonder what the heck it was too. Just imagine how many little tools and objects we use today that would be unidentifiable for their purpose to someone else.
Just imagine: one day, that day will come to pass...a thousand years from now.
And it'll be just as real and feel just as real as the present does for whoever is around to experience it...and it will come...with 100% confidence that day WILL come to pass, just as tomorrow is known with 100%accuracy that too shall come to pass.
And you my friend, all your struggles, your triumphs, your loves, your losses, accomplishments and regrets, fears and dreams and goals and thoughts, your entire experience, the sum total of all your life, the culmination of your entire existence, will long have ended.
Just as it is known that tomorrow shall surely come, also, it is known, there you will be, an inanimate object, the fire of life long since extinguished...that tomorrow has long since became yesterday. What is this crazy thing we call life? What does it all mean?
It may as well be tomorrow right now.
my nephew & her friends doesnot even know what kerosene lamp is
and it make me feels like ancient man
Man, sometimes I'll find a piece of something I used ages ago and question what the hell it even is.
The concept of candle will be a strange thing.
Not really. We have text references and images that document the appearance, existence and use of such objects
Roman dodecahedrons are like the Plumbus of their times. "Everyone has a dodecahedron in their home."
Subscribed. Thanks for the honest journalism!
2:36 the fact they are so mundane that no one talked about it makes me think that some dumb shit like truck nuts will be looked at by future scientists with the same intensity
“This must’ve been their god..”
Looking at a statue of DaBaby
Just imagine: one day, that day will come to pass...a thousand years from now.
And it'll be just as real and feel just as real as the present does for whoever is around to experience it...and it will come...with 100% confidence that day WILL come to pass, just as tomorrow is known with 100%accuracy that too shall come to pass.
And you my friend, all your struggles, your triumphs, your loves, your losses, accomplishments and regrets, fears and dreams and goals and thoughts, your entire experience, the sum total of all your life, the culmination of your entire existence, will long have ended.
Just as it is known that tomorrow shall surely come, also, it is known, there you will be, an inanimate object, the fire of life long since extinguished...that tomorrow has long since became yesterday. What is this crazy thing we call life? What does it all mean?
It may as well be tomorrow right now.
@@curiodyssey3867 i guess your right, but is that gonna stop me from righting some wrongs, wronging some rights, and maybe having some fun in between. Wether i die and go to heaven or die and embrace the void this is my one life, and im not gonna let the infinite void ruin that for me.
So it's like a plumbus
The dodecahedron being a candle holder would make sense, as the Romans probably didn't have standardized diameter candles. If you look closely, each hole of the dodecahedron has different diameter, so that you can pick a side which fits your candle best (or is just a little too small, and hammer the candle in), and the nubs on the corners would make it more stable when standing.
It has a logical explanation
History Channel: *Aliens*
Vikings likley had trade settlements/outposts half the way down the Eastern seaboard.
L'Anse aux Meadows in NFLD is a confirmed Viking habitation, as well as Baffin Island. There is also good evidence pointing to a presence in Labrador as well.
Also the Native Americans traded extensively. It would not be a surprise if some pretty objects got traded all the way down the seaboard. They have found sea shells from South America being worn as jewelry in the graves of people all the way up in Canada, after all. Not too far for a coin to travel.
Ahh it was so satisfying that you gave an actual answer to these and didn't just leave it open-ended like some of those conspiracy and mystery video channels.
Scp foundation: display scp-184 in the open and people think it is an artwork.
Romans: made alot of decoys and declare it as a normal household item.
I was looking for SCP-184 related comments hahaha
When I first heard about the Antikythera mechanism, I almost shouted with joy! We can make such wonderful things.
bro imagine you're diving off the coast of cape horn and then your transceiever goes all *"Alright, we got another funky hit for ya here on Deep Sea Radio!"*
Tl;dr: the ancient people were way smarter than we give them credit for.
I'm pretty sure the roman dodecahedron is SCP 184
Oh, THAT'S the number. I couldn't quite remember.
Is that the one which makes infinite rooms and halls?
@@yourfriendlyneighbourhoodo436 yes
@@lizard7553 ok thx
I knew that i saw that object somewhere before this.
This is basically the equivalent to finding some odd looking thing among your grandparents possessions and having no clue of what it's used for, except the thing is centuries old and everyone who knew what it was meant for is long dead
I don't want to sound like some stupid conspiracy theorist, but there is an interesting coincidence that has to do with the Vikings that may be interesting to think about: In the mythology of the Iroquois, who live in upstate New York, the spirit/god of thunder, Hé-no, has legends associated with him where he defeats a serpent living in Lake Ontario and another where he defeats some stone giants. And in Norse mythology, the god of thunder, Thor, has myths where he defeats a sea serpent and fights the giants. I think there may be a possibility that some Vikings landed in North America, shared their myths of Thor with some locals, and the stories ended up around Lake Ontario where they combined with local mythology and changed over time into what we know now. Or it could just as easily be a coincidence, we'll never know.
I mean...there are literal viking village ruins in Newfoundland, so I think it's a little more than a theory at this point.
Seriously, if you see something really weird underwater, it's most likely just a weird critter.
Loving this channel. 👍
Good job with this video
Love this channel. It's about to blow up forsure
This channel and James Michael Godier are the most UNDERRATED and fascinating channels out there. Absolutely beautifully executed videos and great great topics. I love it.
It’s good to have a healthy balance of fact vs supernatural
Imagine if one day people are theorizing over what the purpose of fidget spinners or rubix cubes was XD
My theory on the roman dice. They are alarm clocks. Different size hole for different time. Slide it down the candle neck. After a certain time the candle will burn and the dice fall making a bang.
So the Romans were the ones who made SCP 184.
Haha was gonna say
this implies there's more than one scp 184, too.
remember us when you're famous
The stone spheres were just those red balls outside of targets
Yeah they were some of the first Targets in recorded history.
the spheres are for keeping vehicles from getting too close to buildings
The pillar of Delhi is just Alloy, not a pure iron. That is why its corrode slowly.
Sometimes there are just prodigies too, cant deny that.
Everytime from everyone: its this or this!
Science: No it was humans, we have ingenuity and purpose.
awesome video 👏👏
People in ancient times: we do a little trolling
When the dodecahedron came on screen, my instant first thought was that it looked like a candle holder.
it looks like some tacky item from an overseas souvenir shop
Really….? The pillar of “Dell Hee?” Lol
There was a Viking colony in Canada called Vinland, i don't know why a Viking coin in Maine would be weird.
some people forget that ancient people arent stupid. we have had the same behaviors for atleast 50,000 years
Fax
Earth has been only here for 6000 years lol.
@@x.r.d7744 lmao
Technically, no. Access to nutrition, clean water, education, and preventative medicine increase the average baseline IQ. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect
Which isn't to say ancient peoples weren't capable and innovative. They were. They just had a lower baseline intelligence, under our current definitions of intelligence.
This is also why it's so important for developed nations to do everything in their power to ensure that their citizens have full access to these factors. If a nation neglects to provide these, it results in an artificial systemic inequality and loss of opportunities. Then once a society is demographically stratified, other problems follow.
@@x.r.d7744 troll
I think the dodecahedron was used as a skeleton basis for a football made by wrapping some sort of string around it. The wax was probably used to make it less flimsy. I figure it out as I've see this game: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zen_Bound.
I was afraid this video was going to be some alien conspiracy theory shit to human advancement but I am delightfully surprised at the aim of authentic historical education and emphasis on factual and logical theorization
Very interesting video.
10 thousand years later when people uncover fidget spinner, they will spend years figuring its purpose.
What's really strange about these objects is on how many I guessed the same purpose as the videomaker later said. As soon as I saw the dodecahedrons, my brain said "candleholder." As soon as I saw the antenna, my brain said "carnivorous sponge."
This is seriously refreshing to see a video about these things that is not "I can't explain it therefore Aliens".
We often underestimate the knowledge and craftmanship of our ancestors and it's a shame.
I mean we've got some cities more than 2000 years ago with plumbing or heating, we've got insane metal, stone and precious rocks craft from all periods and places, we've got impressive art and buildings made in the name of countless gods and goddesses, the greek steam engine, the chinese compass more than 2000 years ago, maaaaybe a battery used for electroplating (still highly debatable and unprooven), and I can go on and on.
Our ancestors were just as crafty and skilled as some of us are.
If you take artifacts out of their context, sure, they might clash with the image you've got of this civilisation or era; but with the context, they show really good craftsmanship that fits right in the time period.
2:02 Everyone has a plumbus
No no no, the Roman Dodecahedron is actually just a disfunctional SCP-184 variant
Oh my God! So that's where those two pokemons from third generation are from! I always wondered where the idea came from.
It's easy to say that past civilizations couldn't have made these things without outside help. But those statements are always framed from a modern point of view. One thing you have to consider is that back in the day people didn't have phones, social media, Netflix, etc. -- They didn't have an overwhelming amount of distractions like we do. When people did something back then, or they had to do it for someone else they would tinker until they did eventually do something. Of course not everyone would just invent stuff, that's just like modern times too, not everyone in modern times is an inventor. A couple of capable minds back in the day inventing things that the average person couldn't fathom. Same goes for astounding architecture, a lot of people with simple lives, having very little to do other than to survive essentially. Throw all of those bored people at a construction project and in due time with all of that peoplepower it will eventually happen.
Imagine how freaky must have been the photo of an apparent "antenna" standing alone on the sea floor between Cape Horn and Antarctica.
I like how he could have shown any picture of maine but he choose one that I know exactly where was taken
2000 years in the future: Archeologists have found hundreds of these bowls full of metal balls. As far as we've been able to uncover, the ancients from the early 2000's never bothered to record what the purpose of these metal balls were. The lack of explanation lends the objects a certain mystique.
Ball bearings? Magnetic toys? Buckshot? Missile warheads? I'm not sure what you're talking about.
@@levb258 I'm talking about all those bowls full of decorative balls that were everywhere about a decade ago.
@@afjer ...I haven't the slightest clue what you mean. The only metal balls I remember from a decade ago were from fragmentation warheads...
Though I was in Israel at the time, they were lying in the streets everywhere. Maybe they had something different in Scandinavia?
The Roman Dodecahedron. Something so common in ancient Rome they never bothered to record its purpose. The Plumbus of the ancient world.
The presence of wax in one dodecahedron isn't a proof that it is its primary function. It's an object that could easily be repurposed. One could imagine without stretching the neurons too much that a sewing tool, or anything else, could be used to hold a candle, if it happens to be available when you need it.
The spheres could be a Mason apprenticeship test. Metalurgists and machinists use this as a test, filing a sphere out of a cube
You have creative pronunciations.
Imagine 500 years from now, people said VR porn was too ahead of our time 😂
Nebra Disk
Acambaro Figure
Crystal Skull
Cabrera Stone
Emerald Tablet
Baghdad Battery
Istanbul Rocket
Esperanza Glyph Stone
Mayan Golden Airplane
Shroud of Turin
Piri Reis Map
Vimana
Dendera Light
Saqqara Bird
Meister Print
London Hammer
Dodecahedrons are the coolest. I've been fascinated by this shape since I was a child.
Antikythera mechanism probably wasnt even a one of a kind thing at the time. more stress bearing parts were made with higher quality materials, which might suggest the maker was trying to maximize their profits by cutting cost.
THANK YOU for not feedig sensationalist conspiracies and giving to those cultures the credit they deserve
Respect
You know, if we wanted to we could just start making a bunch of weird stuff to freak out future historians, and just never talk about it.
When the coin was first discovered in 1957 the idea of Vikings crossing the Atlantic Ocean was pretty new.
Kensington Runestone: Excuse me?
The Dequís were building a Target parking lot
The Romain dodecahedron is used to make gloves watch mysteries at the museum. A man man made a 3D replica and found its used to make gloves as they were found mainly in regions where winter and snow was. He got the idea after he comparing it to a scaf making mold. Look it up.