A Sacrifice Fit for a Queen 

I think the greatest sacrifice would be to ask people to be given a perfect double scoop ice cream cone, and then being told to drop it into your grave.

There was this museum I visited in China where it built on top of a tomb of mostly horse carriages. It's determined it's made for an Eastern Zhou dynasty's Emperor because there's a carriage with six horses attached to it, which corresponds to an ancient rule then "the Son of Heaven shall have six horses for his carriage". Anyway horses were killed and put into the tomb, and I zoned out when the guide talked about actual histories, but the one thing I remembered was, there were 7 hunting dogs buried alive in the tomb. Those dogs were leashed to the carriages to stop them from moving. When workers shoveled the dirt in, the dogs hid under the carriage, and they were safe until the weight of dirt collapsed the wooden carriages onto them. That's how 6 dogs died. The last, which I suspect wriggled out due to its smaller size, tried to climb out. It was so close (judging by where it was excavated) until one of the workers throw a rock at it, killed the dog and left it buried where it was.

I wonder if advocates of this practice thought it was a good way to avoid power struggles when transitioning to a new leader. If everyone closest to the previous rulers (advisors and such) are buried with them, then the incoming leader doesn't have to worry about their authority being undercut by any high-ranking officials still loyal to the previous ruling standards.

Interesting. Once most could be forced into suicide, it no longer feels like an honor. Both to those within and without the victim pool.

2:00 I hope I’m not the only nerd who thought “periodic table”

The way you describe the sacrifices in the tomb of Puabi as having their injuries “hidden” to “look peaceful” makes me wonder who the audience was for that deception. Did they believe the gods could be fooled? Surely a murder victim would be a poor companion in the afterlife. So was it mostly a cynical show of power as you go on to discuss? Is that show for the people alive at the time, or might it have been a little for the people who discovered the tomb, for us, to make us imagine that beautiful procession, grieving and relieved to die, and the kindness and compassion of a ruler who would inspire such devotion. It’s very creepy to think that this might have been to give the impression of great goodness when it is so clearly an act of the deepest selfishness. Even creepier to think that performance is for my benefit.

Saw the thumbnail, thought "Puabi!", and was not disappointed. Love that you have dug into the more recent research on the skull fractures of the attendants! Great video as always, and a big thank you for including the Ur material. As an Assyriologist this makes me happy :)

Damn, I always love the art you put into videos. Your style is so unique and peaceful. I especially like the watercolors in this video, keep it up 😁

Woah great thing to open up youtube to

Right now I'm writing a paper on death in the ancient Middle East, so thank you for listing your sources! I've actually just reached portion in my paper on the sacrifices in Ur, so this video couldn't have popped up in my recommendations at a more perfect time.

The concept of mass sacrifices has always intrigued me just as a display of power. But in a story my friend and I started creating at the beginning of the year, we've reframed it as a way of ensuring peace too. Essentially, the monarchy in our empire handles succession in a way heavily inspired by how the Ottomans did it circa 16th century. The emperor dies and a son has to reach the throne so he can accept the royal sword. By doing so, he orders the deaths of all his father's male line descendants that aren't from his branch of the family. This started after an emperor 500 years ago won a civil war caused by infighting for the crown. So the deaths of all these princes, regardless of age, is seen as a necessary sacrifice on their part to prevent more civil war. The princes are raised knowing they're just as likely to die younger than most as they are to someday be emperor themselves. Possibly more likely, depending on how many brothers they have. The major downside of this system is that children inevitably get caught up in it. One emperor died unexpectedly, leaving a 9 year old to now rule in his place as well as a heavily pregnant wife. She didn't get to hold her younger son until the practice had already been carried out, completely unaware she was a widow. And then there's the main character who pretends he can barely stand his wife in order to protect their son by hiding his existence from everyone in his family. The plan thankfully works, allowing the kid to grow up even if he's fatherless after his uncle becomes the emperor. So yeah, exploring this topic in worldbuilding can be interesting. When it becomes normalised to the public in your world, they don't question the darker side of it too much. If it's framed as a necessary evil then of course it has to continue so that everyone else can benefit from it. You don't want to risk seeing the consequences if you don't go through with it, do you?

This reminds me a lot of what I have heard of some of the social theories of french philosopher Georges Bataille and his concepts of The Accursed Share, The Festival, and The Sacrifice. In short, when a society has an overabundance of a perishable resource it can be sacrificed. This is part of a display of wealth and power but also as a way of coping with and even finding transcendence and catharsis in proximity to death and annihilation. The more relatable and precious the sacrifice the more intense the feelings for those involved, making animal and human sacrifices especially spectacular in general. (The channel Esoterica, run by PHD Justin Sledge, has a brief but excellent video summarizing these concepts. His work is academically rigorous and presented through a lens of sympathetic skepticism.)

Your videos deserve so much more interaction-they show a lot of effort and are all so beautiful. I’m super glad I just found this channel The art is gorgeous and I love historical/worldbuilding channels like this

Came for the Puabi headdress, stayed for the awesome narrative style + art + history lesson + social commentary Instantly subscribed! ☺

A very interesting and thought-provoking video, well done! I think that the evolution of sacrificial killings throughout interesting is very interesting and you did a great job of showings its facade and reality. The recent death of Queen Elizabeth definitely makes this even more relevant-- seems like the overall message we can garner is that we shouldn't divinize authority, for both the living and the history that carries on.

This video was so entrancing and intellectually stimulating while maintaining succinct beauty that I subscribed on the spot.

Great video! Your videos are always inspiring me to add new interesting things to my D&D world

this was not what i thought it was gonna be when i clicked, but i’m so glad i did! amazing art, interesting history, and lots to think about in present day! very well made :]

7:13 To be fair, a mass killing to display dominance *would* make one hell of a show. I just don't want the tax payers having to pay for it.

Big kudos to whoever did the art for this video :) beautiful and gets the message of the story across perfectly

Love that the video just starts. That's how it should be.

That feels profoundly important in our era. It's sadly has been the case that we fear another Great war upon us. And examining how previous eras have been carved in stone by our society can allow us to try and brake the cycle. We must learn from what we can gather. We must try and reach for an era where we solve problems instead of creating new one. This been said, it's important to stress that from my point of view the way is accepting the other and trying to reach solutions without pointing a finger. Ego can lead the one to greatness, but we must reach the many! And for the art of this video. I have found it quite lovely. It has been both an historical journey and a art show of what we think was. It was a great aid to your point. Thank you for your time put onto this!

excelent video, the "heel turn" at the beginning was really impactful

Have you read “the Dawn of everything“ by David Graber and David Wengrow? They talk about the pattern of ritual killings at the beginning of monarchical traditions. They make interesting points about how the metaphysical implications of the mass killings turned individual sovereigns to come into being but are seen as singular into intergenerational power that can be passed down.

Another very informative video and beautiful art to accompany it too! 👏👏👏

Great video!! I'm very impressed that you dared to make this paralel with current events, and it, like the rest, was done in a clever and sensitive way. Beautiful artwork, too!

I missed your videos and soft voice, so I was so happy to see a new one ! You never fail to give me the nudge I need to continue my worldbuilding, thank you.

Excellent video and graphics. There are many things we don't know about PG1237 (the Great Death Pit) and other death pits at Ur but you've put it in a general context very well indeed.

I love your watercolour-esque images!

Wow this is so cool! I love how you present it too, your drawings are so beautiful!

What a beautiful and informative video! You definitely deserve more eyes on your channel

I love your videos so much. Take your time. I hope they get so popular that I see them in history class.

Subbed, this is some great content and the amount of work you put into it is clear. Please make more!

only 4 minutes in but i love the video! thank you! the art style is beautiful but simple instantly subscribed

You know, sometimes, I'm really grateful to RU-vid for recommending such unique channels as hers.

one of the cutest channels ive ever found--your research and knowledge is seen clearly in how you approach the topics you choose and the way you present these videos in these short-documentary style with this whimsical, colourful art has honestly made my month. i cannot imagine the time you must put into these! so lovely.

* in cutesy voice * "which suggests they were strangled"

The art and editing on this episode was an excellent concise study in contrasts and perceptions. Having the diffuse, ethereal spots of color synonymous with the peaceful, heartfelt feelings projected on the burials become spattered with blood really helped to drive the message home. It was an excellent choice to draw parallels with the recent death of the queen. Well done, Speardane.

2:18 I was aware of the ritualistic sacrifices of the Shang dynasty but was unaware that the Qin also practiced this before its conquest. Thank you for the lesson and great video!

I’ve watched your videos for a while now, it’s great to see one really take off! Your worldbuilding videos have become a guide for a collaborative worldbuilding project I’m on, it’s amazing that more people might do the same now. Congrats, and keep it up!

I just stumbled on your channel and I am immediatly happy to have foud you! Your calm gentle manner in wichyou talk about your topics are really soothing and much better than the usual "loud hype voiceover" that so many informational channels seem have. :3

This is really really good. I learned something interesting and it's very applicable to our current social climate. Your art is gorgeous, the watercolors are very nice and such good colors !!

I absolutely adore your storytelling technique and your art!!! It looks gorgeous!!!❤️🔥🔥❤️😍😍😍😍Good luck with your channel!!

amazing visuals and fascinating information, thank you for making this video 💕

Hi, just wanted to say I love your channel :) these videos are so interesting and informative. I look forward to seeing more! 😊

This showed up on my recommendations a couple of days ago and I have now watched every single one of your videos. Absolutely fantastic stuff. It really makes me both reexamine my world building settings and come up with whole new ideas. I love what you've put out and appreciate all the time and effort you put into it.

The danish queen doesn’t have control over anything in denmark, its all just ritual I think thats fair Our little mascot

The beautiful illustrations took this already intriguing video to another level :~)

Beautiful video, both content wise and delivery wise 👏💖

The RU-vid algorithm finally did some good by recommending this channel to me, you deserve way more views!

Very interesting, thank you for explaining this topic in a very unbiased and straight forward manner. I know if I had done it it would be far more opinionated. Very good quality!

I saw some of these artifacts (including a skull crushed by earth and debris) at the UPenn museum! Creepy stuff

What a lovely, deep and bright channel. Subscribed 💝

such a good video with such pretty art!

Both fun visually and educational! Subscribed

Thanks for a rad rational video or art and history. Hope yah good health/well wishes for future projects

I never properly studied history or any of the other humanities officially, but I just wanted to say your presentation of it here is absolutely marvellous! The art and the music pair really well with your reflective commentary, and it's really nice to see all the different cultural perspectives that might not be known to somebody living in a Western country :o

This is irrelevant but it makes me so happy that when you painted the world you included my home country which is that little tear drop dot under India. It's so small that I feel people don't notice it so it makes me happy.

This was very interesting! Thank you

Now this is some quality content!

Super interesting and beautiful video!

I won't be staying around to see this but MAGICAL JELLYFISH!?? YES PLEASE!

your art is so pretty :O

I like this. Thank you

God this video deserves more views. Beautiful illustrations. As a side note, did anyone else notice when you Like a video now the button doesn't highlight. Im not 100% sure if I liked the video lol

Great video as always! How do you do the water color looking art? Is that done irl then turned into pictures or done completely digitally? It's a very nice style

i love the new watercolour style!

Great job!🎉

I love the watercolors!!!

This is great!

I thought this was going to be about chess based off the title

is this digital watercolor? huh, woulda never thought.

Pretty new artstyle!

New subscriber and amazing video

Did you do the artwork? It’s really compelling and well done with the narrative!

Awesome video!

Just stumbled across this. I am so interested and will follow you for more. Where can I learn more about the pits?

I missed you 😭😭😭

rlly intresting video!!

It’s interesting being one of those struggling Brits when the queen died, I know the funeral was expensive and the coronation will likely also be but there’s still this sense that especially for the queen that it was appropriate for the nation she had served for 70 years and was still preforming royal duties until she died. The queen was someone I personally respected and the royal family run a lot of charities that aid the poorer people of the UK, I myself have benefited from one of these charities in the form of the prince’s trust run by the prince of Wales to help young people get training and employment even if they failed in school.

This reminds me of "Grave of the Lizard Queen", by Emily Carroll

Damn, did you do all the watercolour digitally, or use some really good paints? Is this done with procreate? I'm so curious how you got those colours since I do watercolour myself haha, the effect looks really good! Great video 😊👍

Very interesting

Really impressive original work. Keep it up! I really enjoyed reading "The Dawn of Everything" by David Graeber and David Wengrow recently. Looking at your channel I think you'd really enjoy it too.

I know this is a year late, but (2:25) the Qin came after the Spring and Autumn period, which itself was under the Zhou, which the dates in the subs do suggest. The location on the map don't line up with either the Qin nor the Zhou (though it might be highlighting something I don't know about).

I love your drawings! What did u use to draw???

im in love with your content, the effort you put into this is palpable

I thought archeologists weren't sure about if the death pits of Uruk were sacrificial in nature, some think they are merely tombs for high status individuals. Many of which would have been warriors in the military, not to mention the way geologic forces can break apart bones.

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Lol the algorithm just brought me here randomly, almost forgot to sub

I know this is unrelated but this comment has a better chance at being seen here than the videos worldbuilding the Sirksey culture. Anyway, I just watched a video recently about different types of animal milk in the animal kingdom, and it said that seals milk has a 60% fat content. Do what you will with that information.

I normally don't comment on anything but I just had to! I didn't know what to expect clicking on this video on a whim. It's such a wonderfully crafted lesson in history! Thank you so much for your hard work, had to subscribe immediately! 🤍

I wonder if monarchs used the practice as a way to clear the political opponents of their heirs. Or if the new monarch if they pushed for it in order to get rid of people they thought likely to oppose them, or try to control them.

i won't argue the lines between royalty showing off their power & them showing a down to earth human nature who are lucky to even to be royalty not lucky that's a matter of how you see that honestly some people seem like they honestly can't see the royalty families beyond their own their titles their fancy clothes or even beyond their scandals honestly some people really really can't see the person beyond the scandals even when they worked on not fixing the situation but healing the situation in ways that aren't misleading that's nearly impossible for some people honestly but that goes with the situations of dealing with royalty or you being royal yourself their's are usually no situations were people get to show their human natures both their good & their bad sides or even the harder balance of being a very very privilege people & they know it but they can't openly be a normal person or this is a thing we all usually want our privacy this even harder for royalty or even just really popular people their personal lives are actually not our entertainment for us this honest truth as gotten me into some trouble by dropping the human truth ball in my personal chats with other people but it's not wrong to love royalty in a real sense but we are all at base of all empires no matter what no matter what in the far ancient in current times now to be honest i think we need to be real king or queen or ruler or whatever their ruling titled is not each ruler is going to be a great person or a horrible person or that each royalty heir to their parents grandparents or the relative who the ruling monarch in the country that they live in will have the same type of royal like the monarch before them some try but each person is seriously different no matter how much they try to continue the prosperity or simple the hard work the ruler before them did but history does have it's very very weird up & down traditional habits of treating each other i'm not trying to be mean or harsh to each persons personal beliefs here i think in many ways we need to stop & to think more hear other out more actually try figuring out ways to help fix heal or try something new & also trying something new out doesn't give wonderful results most new things take time & learning from our past results but now i'm talking about politics my bad here what i really mean is here we all people all want different things in ourselves some people want to be celebrated like royalty when they die some want the royal families to not be power by the time they die & some people want to blame others for many things when it may be their choice at all how things turn out like i can't blame queen Elisabeth over certain things that turn to be bad for many people the same for many monarchs in the far far ancient past to the current situations as well it's easy to point out a bad ruler from the past because we have the advantage learning from the past & the hard issues learning the facts from the fiction history is not just made the actions of one individual history is both building the portrait of the events happening during those times we like sorta mostly write down the good the memories or be in the favor of the higher ups & plus honestly who wants to be renumber has the horrible monarch of this age they lived but to be honestly how we would feel plus this very common values in many lives of people & some people honestly have different ways they want to be seen compared now but even then each person has their right of their own opinions but in each era of human kind has always been different from us & yet not at the same time different values both how we see royalty or how royalty see the self in the process of the events they live in is well a hard to be sure honestly & having hindsight of a person's history doesn't always help even with so many different viewpoints during after it few generations after the events or few or many centuries can color the history the events the truth of this person or the personal truths this person had about them self how they died in honor how they didn't do in our opinions one of the hardest thing to be really real about because no one is born all knowing before anything happens we go though life not always knowing what our actions could do to the greater whole but the same goes for how celebrate people both when their live & when their dead thank you for creating this video & sorry if this comment seems weird & me just rambling here

Brilliant video

Since you're studying anthropology, I was wondering what your thoughts are on the book "The Dawn of Everything" by Graeber and Wengrow?

Hi! I was curious! What program do you use or do you use real water colours (sprry if youve said already)

When I die, I want a bunch of the little cute fake plastic candles in my grave cause I love the way the light fakishly flickers, and the fact it was safer for me to be near since I always wanna touch the cute flames.

I wonder why you're video keep getting recommended 🤔 I really like it it's interesting but the mystery remains

Neat vid, made me consider ritual mass killings in a different way