Accidentally Inspiring Colonialism | Marco Polo 

Great video! It really goes to show that even when two channels inadvertently cover the same topic a week apart, there are still so many different aspects to discuss! I'm glad I could lend my voice to this video as a medieval Google Maps :D -Blue

"No guys I'm serious I was hanging out with some serious babes on my trip. I even have a girlfriend now....she lives in Cipangu...totally a real place."

hey dude my book does not have fabrications, embellishments or dismembered facts. You will hear further from my lawyers.

It would be silly for someone today to call a rhino a unicorn, but words shift meaning over time. Unicorn literally means one horn and this was before all those tapestries with the snow white horsey goaty critter were woven. At the time, the word fit the animal he saw.

In his defense, a lot of temples are covered in gold and it would not take many reiterations to make some people claim they are made out of gold...

Cipangu has entire cities built of gold. *Europeans have entered the chat*

So should Tartar sauce be called Mongolian sauce?

“Dogs to hunt tigers...somehow”. Dude, there are lots of dog breeds used to hunt large predators like lions tigers and bears. Rhodesian ridgebacks were used to hunt lions. Pit bulls weigh less than 100 lbs and used to fight bulls that can weigh a standard ton. Blue heelers are less than 50lbs and intimidate cattle 20 times their size.

I used to think his name was mark o'polo and he was irish

Having been to Yangzhou many times for business, the locals told me that Marco Polo was the salt commissioner not the governor/mayor of Yangzhou. However, I don't know where they got their information from and if credible sources or that it is just a local legend.

I am from Dominican Republic and the north part of the island is call Cibao. the are some theories about the name Cibao comes from the word Cipangu. Do that in the beginner colon thought that he was in cipangu.

FYI, giraffes ARE camelopards. That’s where their species name comes from - Giraffa camelopardalis. Yes, a lot of it cannot be substantiated as of HIS journeys. But, not everything is outside of possibility. Hawks that can carry elephants? No. Siberia being the “land of darkness” - it can very well be (if that’s how you see a barren expanse of cold)

"Hey guys look at all this cool stuff I saw in the far east!" "Hmm that's cool let's take it over." "Shit no wait-"

My wife and I walk at vastly different speeds as well, she also walks at the Formula 1 level and gets quite angry that I... don't.

Some rhinos ARE unicorns though... the only have the one horn.

Is the fact you make references to King Arthur in this video multiple times, in context of your recent works being reviews of "historical fanfiction" a hint, or just you being weird?

you have an awesome channel. since i cut down drinking i enjoy watching your episodes at night to keep my mind occupied

I know I'm two years late for this, but as I was listening to this video I thought I kept getting texts, but it turns out it was your phone in the video. You and I have the same MMPR ringtone dude

Nitpick, but the paper money shown at 4:43 isnt from the Yuan dynasty, but the Ming dynasty after it. You can tell from the text at the top which reads '大明通行宝抄' which means 'circulating currency of Great Ming'. Otherwise great video!

0:18 "It's not that hard; in fact, children have been doing it in swimming pools for decades" r/nocontext

I disagree because you have the benefit of Modern globalize world where you can go to Mongolia or China in a matter of hours, or at least watch dozens of documentaries you can if you live in a modest size city try chinese food. You also are used to living in a world where hinduism or buddhism or animism are known concepts. because he was only familar with Christianity Islam and Judaism. Also not knowing America existed and having the great Khan describe Japan as a large or several large islands is fair because they couldn't take over Japan. I'm usally a huge fan of your work sir but I think we take advantage of the fact that we already know this and are taught this in elementary school

Quality video, KB. Thank you for the interesting topic!

Given that there wasn’t a Wikipedia back then, listing things and what to buy there would actually be pretty interesting to people (particularly merchants) wanting to learn of far off places. I would bet many of us read random Wikipedia articles all the time for fun.

I'd like to point out that the legend of "Prester John" had existed long before Marco Polo. Europeans thought his kingdom was in India or Persia at first, and anytime they heard of a non-muslim (such as the Mongols) defeating muslims in the east they theorized that it was him. The even theorized Timur (who was very much Muslim) may have been Prester John when he defeated the Ottomans. Eventually the Portuguese became convinced his realm was actually in Africa, helping to inspire journeys like Vasco da Gama's. Despite the fact that Ethiopia had already been known to Medieval Europeans (though contact was sparse and limited) and travelers such as Marco Polo describe Ethiopia as a separate christian kingdom from Prester John's, the Portuguese, and eventually Europeans in general, settled on Ethiopia as the location of the legendary realm (despite protests from the Ethiopian royal court insisting that "Prester John" was not one of the Emperor's titles).

@8:18-.-“🎶El Doraaaado, El Doraaaado🎶”

I have been a fan since earlier this year. Do you take requests? How about your take on the homeless problem in San Francisco? It is a hot topic, likely to get a lot of views and may even have an impact. Thank you.

Camelopardis and Monoceros are the names for the constellations of the Giraffe and the Unicorn. Just thought that bit of latin-derived naming might be interesting.

So El Dorado was based on Marco Polo's account of Japan? I wonder how history would've changed if the conquistadors somehow made it to Japan.

Marco's description of "Cipangu" sounds like he somehow got to Kyoto, saw the Kinkaku-Ji and extrapolated that all temples there looked like it.

The proper plural of "Rhinoceros" is "Rhinocerotes." It is a 3rd declension noun.

Another great video from this absolute legend of a man 👏👏

I usually find your videos you be fine, but this one was.... not so. Are you really criticizing a 13th century Venetian for not spelling something correctly in modern day English? I'm not very knowledgeable at all about Chinese history but even I know that the "Qin" dynasty is the first Chinese dynasty, possibly where the name comes from. Also, the whole "contemporary cartographers should have known better then to use Marco Polo's book to draw maps" as acting as if they had access to GPS satellite imagery and went "nah we'll use this book instead". What source would you wanted them to have used? I first thought you were being sarcastic, but watching the full video it doesn't seem to be the case. I'm kinda shocked at the lack quality of this video honestly.

Nice work on the Segway.

Did you read Umberto Eco's "Baudolino" where Prester John also plays an important role? Great read and great fun, too!

Rhinos being called Unicorns is actually in the Bible. In the Bible the "unicorn" actually describes a Rhino very accurately. Like dragons, it's a good example of a fantasy creature being created out of a centuries long game of telephone.

Thanks KB!

Nice, I totally miss these history videos

Is no one going to mention how his ringtone is from Power Rangers? that had me guessing until about the 3rd time it came up. Love the easter eggs!

to be fair, el Dorado was kinda true with the muisca in Colombia, especifically in Lake Guatavita were they threw gold and gold dust in worship

Knowing better video: exists Me: *noti squaaaaad*

I did a double take when I heard blues voice. I wasn't phased at first cuz i'm so used to blue talking about history and shit but damn

While the Netflix series isn't necessarily all that accurate to the book, I'd bet it's actually more historically accurate to what Marco's experiences actually were. Not that it was all that accurate either. I still enjoyed it though.

Love your content keep it up!

“Marco!” “Genocidal colonization!” “Erm, Polo...”

7:13 Well, being a Muslim, I have to agree with Marco. According to our religions, he is correct.

Marco Polo describing cities of gold...Chuckling secretly while he imagines greedy people searching for it...

The Oldest Surviving Globe in the world, we call it... POTATO

Each person added their own flare; hmmm what other long lasting book of stories can that discribe?! 🤔

I would just point out something, not only did Marco polo not write this book, it is also not the original one, but the rewritten version of monchs (which usually rewrote books. I think that explains a few things). Oh and I should also add, as you pointed out for Colombo, the tranltion will have mistakes. You are reading it in english, likly tranlated from either Italian, Spanish or French, which itsef was tranlated from whatever Italian dialect (or latin possibly) it was originally written in.

So happy to finally hear Prester John in one of your videos, I am endlessly curious about those stories. It would be interesting to see a video comparing the Columbian exchange to the Zhang He treasure fleets.

I come here just for the entertainingly seamless segues into the ad. Not really...love your pets, USaen chap.

I'm new here, and this is the first video of you that I've watched. But first despite whether the book is accurate or not, for the whole video, your tone and the way you speak seems like you don't believe in any of part of it and you're being super sceptical about it. It's like you prefer the arguments that are against the accuracy of the book. Kinda unpleasant to watch.

Prestor John was actually Ghengis Khan...Just as it travels from the east through to the west on the other side of the Caliphates land, it got distorted to a christian warrior fighting for Christendom, when it was just the Khans wiping out any opposition to their rule. Love the mongel history, Dan Carlin does an amazing series on the subject if you ever want some more great and historical insight on the greatest warrior civilization to have ever lived. Love the shows!!!! I know better on so many things because of you good sir!

Travelling to the Far East from Europe via America is around 25000 kilometers give or take 5000 kilometers. So he was way off by almost an order of magnitude.

Rhinos are unicorns. It's why they're mentioned in the bible... set in Africa! Ask a bunch of people from Europeans who've never seen a rhino to describe a unicorn and that horse-like creature is what they came up with!

At 12:37: I think I found four other books (if "Mein Kampf" counts).

So that's how El Dorado happened.. makes sense :D Very interesting video!

7,000 is pretty close to the actual number of Japanese islands. There are 6,852 according to Wikipedia. Of course, Russia, South Korea and China would disagree with that number.

"now, I know what you're all thinking after hearing that" you knew that I was thinking that gold Is a really Impractical building material?

To be honest, maps being totally wrong is understandable. I mean maps locals used were probably very inaccurate, let alone describing that stuff from memory to text, or that he might have heard these descriptions from someone else. It wouldn't surprise me if locals he talked to embellished their stores as well or they were just wrong.

7:35 most modern mountain lion hunters use tracking dogs to get the big cats up trees because mountain lions are so good at hunting you dont see them i could imagine the same for tigers back then.

6:19 waaaait Is that Blue from Overly Sarcastic Productions who just so happened to make a video about Marco Polo a few weeks prior?

I wonder if Marco Polo took a skillshare class

Thank you knowing better, now I know better as always, but I'm in love with Soph's Notes. Including her channel. Edit: Nah.. Ahh....

The gian eagle sounds like a Rho.

Qin actually would make a little sense compared to a lot of other stuff. The Qin were the first Chinese dynasty and so he might have heard some use it as a short hand for the Chinese or the Sea of Japan. This would not have been entirely atypical as even though the Han dynasty fell almost 1800 years ago, the majority Chinese ethnic group is known as 'the Han.' Almost as if all Mediterranean peoples were known as and referred to themselves as 'The Romans'

3:00 For some additional info on this part about Noah's Ark, many people think that the mountain Noah's Ark landed on after the flood was Mount Ararat, in modern day Turkey. However, in the past, Armenia was a much, much bigger area that comprised a good chunk of eastern modern Turkey. The Ottoman Turks pushed east and the country was eventually wiped off the map for a while, but the people remained. Until around 1915, when they suddenly disappeared and you can bring up with any Turk you want to get into a fist fight with.

History videos for the win

"When I took French, my nickname was Serge"... Sorry, but that made me laugh! (I am french canadian, my partner's name is Serge, but it is considered as an old man's name...)

Ah Marco Polo, makes me think of Zelazny and Sheckley, I think it was If at Faust You Don't Succeed.

10:25 q is ch pronounced with tongue pointing down.

So The Travels of Marco Polo is basically The Hobbit.

The real Travels of Marco Polo was the friends we made along the way

Listen, the reason I walk so fast is because every place I go is just a quick detour on the way to Hamid’s for some of that falafel I've read so much about...

Nice try but we know you are just keeping all the gold for yourself.

Marco Polo: China is amazing, except from the green salty water

The part about dogs in Siberia is a actually accurate. The Caucasian mountain dog has been breed in the Caucasus mountains for centuries. They're fairly common in Russia and Georgia are are notable for their large size and they were historically used for bear hunting.

7:57 Now here I am actually gonna defend Marco Polo. The word unicorn as we know it comes from the Latin “unicornis” meaning having one horn. Rhinos can also be called “Bicornis” meaning having two horns. Hell the scientific name for the Black rhino is“Diceros Bicornis”. What we currently know as a unicorn is a perversion of the word which was actually very commonly used in the past and did not refer to any kind of horse. TL;DR Unicorn is just a really old timey way of saying one-horned rhino. You know you really shouldn’t demonize a guy for something that’s not his fault. He spoke Medieval Venetian, probably heavily accented due to his time in Asia. I’m sure he’s guilty of some crimes but knowledge of 21st century English should certainly not be one of them

Sea of Qin means Sea of China. The first Chinese dynasty was the Qin dynasty. Qin is also the origin of the word China

3:00 In Biblical lore, the Ark is said to have landed in the Mountains of Ararat, far to the north of Mesopotamia. Armenia is mountainous country, including one Mt. Ararat. If Marco Polo mentions this, he's probably just trying to create a frame of reference for the land by connecting it with places and events a medieval audience would already know about.

I use to conqueror the world like you, but then I took a arrow to the knee. -Genghis Khan

12:43 Say what you will about this show, but casting Benedict Wong as Kublai Khan was a spark of genius.

7:52 "He also describes giraffes which he calls 'camelopards'". Yes, that's another word from giraffe that has Greek etymology, and seems like has been used in English in the past as well

Hol up I clicked on the video AS SOON as I got the notification but these comments are three days old

Europe: Alright Marco we got some maps made on your very accurate book, so mind helping us find that gold? Marco Polo: About that...

_oops looks like I just inspired colonialism_

Yellow is symbol of the emperor of China so the roofs of Chinese imperial buildings were painted yellow which could have been mistaken for gold

Marco? Accidentally inspiring masses of people to explore the unknown? Polo?

Wait... this actually makes a lot of sense as to why everyone thought there was gold in the Americas and why all the maps were so wack. Great video KB!

There were giant birds in madagascar. They were not eagles but it is undestandable how tales of a giant bird would get distorted through verbal accounts and translations into a giant eagle. These giant flightless birds went extinct between 1000-1200 CE so it makes sense their, existance although distorted, was still present in culture in a way that might have seemed plausible during Maro Polo's time since he was born in 1254 CE. The roc (rukh) is known from Sindbad the Sailor's encounter with one in One Thousand and One Nights. Some scholars think the roc is a distorted account of Aepyornis. Historical evidence for this can be found in Megiser (1623).

I love the smell of colonialism in the morning.

10:23 Just FYI, 'Qin' is actually indeed the correct spelling of that word. Qs have a 'ch' sound in Chinese. That's why 'China' is named after Emperor 'Qin'.

Shoot, found this video a few minutes after it was posted and now I have to come up with something clever to say

Marco Polo: Ah yes, Madagascar has plenty of unicorns and long necked camelopes and elephant snatching hawks, and the Himalayas have very naughty, epic women and weird mountain monks that can do dope stunts jumping off the mountains... Also, Cipangu is a very rich island with tons and tons of gold, so much that their houses are literally gold, go west Colombus

Great video about one of my fave themes, ancient and medieval geography. But there's a few things I have to nitpick: 1) Camelopards/Unicorns: Both were pretty common Latin names for these animals at the time. 2) The journey of 15 days: In travel books of that it was common to not mention which mode of transport you'd need for a journey. 3) Qin is still a pretty common spelling of ancient China (e.g. qin dynasty) Although he might have been the origin of the spelling. I still highly doubt that he went to China but these points are not what make his accounts ridiculous.

I really like your Chanel and most of your videos but this one is so full of inaccuracies and a failure to understand medieval POV, that it might be even more inaccurate than Marco Polo's book. 1st. In the 13th century the Great Wall was much smaller than today, and broken up in many segments, miles apart. Also, it's only a "great wall" to us because we can see it from the air, but from the ground there's nothing particularly impressive about it. Nor would have the locals known how much of it exists beyond their village. European city walls back then were generally taller, so there is no reason why Marco Polo would have noticed it for having some significance. 2nd Merchants travel guide??? What's wrong with that? He was a merchant promoting his trade. 3rd Major failure on POV. In the13th century people had no concept of religion like we do today. People were raised with ABSOLUTE CERTAINTY that god was real. There was NO religion, just the local cultural link to God. There was only ONE god, and different "civilized" cultures each had a different "link" to God, Christianity in Europe, Jews and Muslims in the near east. Everyone else was "ignorant" of God(aka the truth). They were deprived of that knowledge thus, animalistic, not quite human yet. Sure, that sounds terrible from our POV, but we've had the benefit of some very impressive philosophers and scientists over the last 800 years to improve our understanding. How can you expect and fault a medieval man for not thinking like us????? 4th Siberia "region of darkens" Well the sun doesn't get very high in the sky, and in the winter hardly at all, and it's rarely ever sunny even in summer, so yes it is generally dark. I'm pretty sure he was being literal, which proves that he was there, or at least spoke to someone who was. 5th All human societies use dogs for hunting, even against large predators, lions, tigers, bears, etc. 6th Check out the Elephant Bird of Madagascar. Giant birds existed there until about a thousand years ago. Maybe he never saw them himself, and exaggerated their description, but giant 10foot plus birds did exist in Madagascar very close to his time period. 7th Why are you judging medieval people who had not yet developed the concept of "accuracy"? This is a modern scientific idea, precision, accuracy, that evolved out of the scientific method. 8th Again, why are you criticizing a man who rode on the back of donkey on his lack of clear geographical knowledge. How could he know? It took hundreds of years and the invention of actuate measuring devices in the 17th and 18th centuries to finally give people the tools for accurately measuring coastlines. You might as well "accuse" MP for being silly wasting 20 years on a donkey when he could have driven a car to China. and gotten there much faster. Come on now. 9th Isn't that how kowlege works? The words of one inspire another. We credit the Greeks for inspiring modern science, but if you look at actual Greek science, in it's time, it was a mess. Totally inaccurate about everything, but the method is what mattered. They were logical, not mystical, but still inaccurate. And after more than 2000 years, by improving the method, it's how we got modern science. 10th Isn't history full of war and conquest. How many did the Mongols kill? And why did they do it? What difference does it make where a conquest is sourced from? The deeds of Cortez have no more to do with Marco Polo than the deeds of Hitler. Both of these evil men could have chosen to achieve their goals without the mass killings. This video is a perfect example of everything wrong with the modern ethnocentric-western-POV., and the projection of these "localized cultural biases" on other cultures. Today, as in 2019, this SJW/PC western culture... is just that, the very current local philosophical culture of the West. And it is in transition, as all things are. Current philosophies on "social justice" will die with the millennials who practice it and will be looked upon no different than we look upon 60's hippies, thus projecting it into history makes this video just as inaccurate, and limited in facts, as Marco Polo's book. And that's sad, because YOU SHOULD KNOW BETTER.

Cipangu's golden city reminds me of something: Only a few years ago, the Swedish tourist board was bombarded by calls from Chinese men who sought information about 'Chako Paul City' - a supposed grand walled metropolis made up entirely of lesbians.

Qin (pronounced Chin) is how it would be spelled in modern times too. Makes me wonder if they had an Arabicized Chinese that Polo pulled from when transliterating words.

I get how idolatry sounds to modern ears, but did marco have access to the word pantheism? I don't think it's meant to be insulting, but descriptive. They do not worship one god, they have a lot of figurines that they seem to worship. What other word would he use?

Bold of you to assume that Arthurian writers let characters drive the plot