Egyptologist Answers Google’s Most Popular Questions About Ancient Egypt 

The amount of time we spend looking at cat videos and memes on the internet will probably make future civilizations think we worship cats too!

i think it's important to note when he's saying "we don't know" he doesn't mean it's a mystery; he means there's a number of theories which can very well account for how they accomplished the thing in question, but it can't be said for certain which ones were used: it could be mixtures, it could be that certain methods and techniques were used at some points and others at others (which, given its over 3000-year history, seems almost impossible to not be the case), etc. other egyptologists will state with more confidence that we _do_ know because they don't want the uncertainty regarding the aforementioned to be taken as "we don't know" and this taken as "it's a mystery" because the ancient alien people will then take this as a concession. in most areas of history this kind of epistemic modesty is refreshing, especially with regards to more modern history, but i fear that in this context it really is playing into the hands of ancient alien apologists :/

Egyptologist: We don't know. History Channel: Aliens.

I went to Egypt and asked all 3 of our guides about the history of cat worshipping, they all told me that cats were never worshipped lol. This is something school drilled into us in the US so was quite shocked to hear that from 3 separate Egyptologists, born and raised in Egypt!!

This is why Egypt is so fascinating: most of the answers end with 'we don't know.'

The cat sculpture at 5:26 is brilliant! It's like a grumpy old git of a cat. "Now get thee down t'ut co-erp an buy us some't whiskers! Ma food berl's empteh"

"Why were the Egyptians obsessed with cats?" Meanwhile the internet is 70% cat videos/memes. 28:09 and getting paid to do work was a sure sight better than sitting at home bored and not getting paid. They worked in the off-seasons, farm for four months, pyramid work for four months, rinse and repeat. You said "subsistence farming" here, but Egypt was producing a massive surplus of grain from a very early era: to the extent that not only could they feed themselves during the off-seasons but they were also providing disaster relief to everyone else . When people say "subsistence farming" that's not usually what they mean.

It seems like when an expert says, “We don’t exactly know how they did xyz”, it’s assumed that it is a near impossible feat. It’s not. They’re just saying that it isn’t known *exactly* what method they used, that there could have been many methods, and that stating any particular process may have inaccuracies. It’s important to understand that a culture’s relationship with time can be very different from another’s, and that generally our modern relationship with time is very different from that of Ancient Egypt and so it’s hard for us to understand why so much time and energy would be devoted to building the pyramids. While I’m sure opinions varied, at the cultural level it was viewed as a worthy effort.

Ok, some of the answers were lacking. Even I, someone who has but a passing interest in Egyptology, know that they wore Kohl to protect them from the sun and from eye infections (of course, they didn't call them that). Even how the pyramids were built could have been elaborated on. Egyptologists have some theories on how they did it so he could describe some of those. Leaving it to "we don't know" invites pseudoscience to invent things.

Didn't cats keep the grain suppies free of rodents and that is why they revered them?

Thank you Dr. Chris Naunton. I have enjoyed many of your RU-vid lectures and read your book Searching for the Lost Tombs. As a history professor for 40 years, I congratulate your explanations and spreading of this information to the general public. Finally making my first ever Viking Cruise to Egypt in September.

There is a theory that in the image around the 3 min mark a worker is pouring liquid past the statue. So in theory - they moved some heavy objects via a liquid friction system along with the ropes to ease it up and down Egypt for projects.

The eyeliner was practically used to keep the sun out of their eyes. It’s the same reason why a baseball player would have those black marks under their eyes. It helps keep the sun from eyes. I’m surprised he didn’t think of that

my favorite Egyptologist,I will always listen...😊

It'd be interesting to hear a presentation on the development of the afterlife "story" over time in Ancient Egypt. It seems like the Book of the Dead didn't exist during the old kingdom.

To the ancient Egyptians not being obsessed with cats- for some reason it reminds me of Phoebe from friends. If you watched a few select episodes you would think she obsessed with cats (smelly cat, thinking the cat is her mom) but in the context of the show she seems to like cats as much as any other animal.

Hi, I’m once again begging for more series on the HistoryHit app (with video) with Kate Lister. I love her so much and will literally watch anything with her in it at this point but I suck at paying attention to podcasts so I’m struggling through Betwixt the Sheets bc I keep zoning out and having to go back 😅 Give us more Kate in video, I beg.

re - How long did they live? When correcting for infant mortality skewing the mean, the median life expectancy would have been around the 50s, not "40 at most." Even so, the median has confounding variables, just as the mean, since "armies" were normally press-ganged from the local populace and almost exclusively made up of men aged 20-30. Since many of them would never come home again, it's reasonable to conclude that: If you survived childhood and the various military expeditions, then you could reasonably expect to live to around 60 years of age. Sometimes a bit more, sometimes a bit less. Seeing a Pharaoh live into his 90s would have seemed like incontrovertible evidence that he was indeed a "Man-God."

I think some of the answers were too simplistic and ignoring the context of the publication a bit - like talking as if this was a conversation between egyptologists, not general audience. E.g. "We don't know how they built the pyramids" means we weren't there, there are no photos of it and the pictures and texts don't describe every single detail. It DEFINITELY doesn't mean "we have absolutely no idea how they did it". We know how to quarry the stone and cut it - because it was successfully demonstrated with the tools available at that tie. Same goes for moving the stones, also shipping the stones on the Nile. (There are notes from a supervisor describing the daily jobs, houses, tools, food remains etc. of the builders were found and so on. Also, we have several means of how to actually build a pyramid (also demonstrated, so we know they could have used several methods - but we may not know exactly which ones they did). As a matter of facts, with one of the best organised method using many zigzagging ramps, Kufu's pyramid could have been built using a bi, but not enormous force of professional builders in 3-5 years, depending on the number of shifts. Yes, it required skill and knowledge, but if you look at the history of pyramid building, you'll see the first attempts were quite primitive, but as they learnt from their mistakes and invented better techniques (as humans usually do), the results are better and better. (In the case of the great pyramid, actually too perfect, the outer casing stones were too precisely stuck together, and the thermal expansion damaged the stones, so they fell and got taken away.)

Interesting you showed King Tut's tomb when talking about pyramids... when he wasn't buried in a pyramid!

I’m a barber, we learned in school they also shaved their heads as a spiritual thing. They believed spirits were attached to your hair, so you cut the hair, you rid yourself of the spirit.

WRT to the incestuous royal marriages: I understand your aswer that they may have thought it kept the bloodline pure and such more or less idealistic considerations. But wasn't it also just a way to keep wealth and power within the ruling family? Any dynasty will always need to keep their rivals in check, and if as a king you allow other nobles to marry into your family they might get ideas for themselves.

The people want Dr Joann Fletcher! 😅 great video, very informative, thank you!

Scientists Against Myths have demonstrated how they could've cut and drilled various rock. And mechanical advantage seems like an obvious method of moving large stones.

We learned some of these stuff in school, yet he said he ‘thinks’ they shaved because of purity? Yes! Egyptians were obsessed with being clean and thought that body hair is considered filthy. So they wore wigs.

'We don't know.'

King Tut Pea is my favorite pea. The 'story' is that they regrew this type of purple pea from one found on his tomb.

You lost me in cutting granite with copper😂

I love these educational videos! I would love to see more Egypt content that isn't sensationalized or that demeans their advanced culture by claiming aliens did everything. So many interesting things to share like their laws, cultural traditions, family structures, etc. More than just the mummies and death!

This was awesome!

First a Question for future reference: do any of the surviving texts say what a"service" in a temple was like? Were participants limited to priestly and higher levels only? Second is just a thought: we could use a more modern phrase to describe much of what was built back then : Public Works Projects. Same could be said for most Cathedrals in Europe.

If the pyramids were tombs why hasn't anyone ever found anyone buried in them?

Why did the Egyptians think the gods have animal heads? Well Timmy it’s because of their idea of representation, the same way Athena would have an owl on her shoulder in our depictions they would show her with an owl head. Oh, you really wanted to know if they were all furrys? And now you want to go back to the electricity question? Still no.

See... this is what I do not get... The question is about pyramids and footage of Tutanchamun is shown... whoms mummy was not buried in a pyramid, but in the Valley of Kings. If one wishes to truly inform, perhaps it's better not to mix things up like that. It's really irritating sometimes, especially due to the misinformation that has been going in on in the past years thanks to social media. We do not need to adapt that trend.

I’ve never heard the Arab conquest in the 7th century chosen as “end” of ancient Egypt civilisation. Specially when described as the civilisation of pharaohs, gods with animal heads,… most of the time it’s 1st century with the Roman or a bit later with Christian and closing of temples. Interesting point of view, I wish I could hear more.

The first two most important questions" we don't know" 😂

I know the idea to a degree is to a more casual answer from experts. However, as an anthropologist when you going to ask about topics as broad and/or debated as many of these questions were it would be a courteous to give them before hand. A decent a amount of the people in the comments are frustrated by him saying "I/We don't know" to what seem like relatively basic questions, which is unfortunate because as academic it usually means consensus on an issue /topic not that we literally do not know. Doing so would give the experts time to come up an answer includes different POVs on topics.

Props to this guy for saying, we don't know. That's good

I feel like I could have given these answers.

Ohhh. I thought this was a Wired interview. OK it all makes sense now.

We don’t know. We don’t know. Oh…and… we don’t know.

As much as I love learning about ancient civilizations and History Hit in general, I gotta admit that I wasn't crazy about this expert. He didn't really seem to want to be here and share his knowledge, but seemed more annoyed at questions the general population had about this field. "When did the Egyptians live?" could have been brushed off with "well, ANCIENT Egypt took place between these years...." but his answers just came across as curt and like "ha, how could you be so dumb?" Maybe I'm being too picky 😅 but I've liked so many of their other experts so much more

While explaining why Pyramids are tombs why use footage from burial crypts in the valley of the kings?

Can you explain Chris Dunn’s work on the pre dynastic granite and diorite vases that are accurately machined to within a human hair of completely flat and circular. Also some have tiny handles. How did they do that? You don’t sound like you believe your own spin on how they cut granite.

I'm Australian, but my ethnic heritage is Egyptian. My mother would take me to Egypt with her, at the end of each school year, to visit with her family. During one such visit, mum and I went on one of the Nile cruises that stop at all the Pharaonic monuments and temples and such. At some site or other, I heard the familiar twang of the Aussie accent and went to investigate, being immeasurably glad to have someone I could speak to in English (but who also spoke English with the same accent as me, so we'd have no problems understanding one another). Anyway, he claimed to be an Egyptologist from Melbourne (we lived in Sydney [when we were in Australia] at that time). He believed that the Ancient Egyptians had some form of "acid" (ie - something very caustic), which they would use to melt through granite and other igneous rocks. As evidence, he pointed to some marks in the granite that could be found, replicated precisely, at regular intervals. in fact, if you examined ANY large block of granite that had been worked, you could find these same marks, replicated precisely and once again appearing at regular intervals. While I hated to do it, I HAD to suggest to him that these marks may have been made more recently. Perhaps in the 60s, when- after building the Aswan High Dam, many of these ancient relics and even some temples, had to be moved, lest they end up underwater, in the newly forming Lake Nasser (forming as a direct consequence of the high dam). These marks could have been left by the tooth of a forklift, or whatever tools they were using to be able to move such enormous lumps of rock... ANYWAY, he still might have been correct about the use of a caustic agent to dissolve the rock...

That was very interesting 🤔

Again music ruins a video hope the sound editor is proud of them self

I think they might have been obsessed with cats because the whole "Growing a ton of grain so you dont need to eat raw boar meat that you killed yourself" was sort of a new trend, and storing all that grain long term came with a massive mouse infestation. So having this little mouse killer around stopped you from dying. Also see: The invention of beer, also by egypt, when some stored grain got wet and some mad lad decided to drink the grain juice and it just happened to have fermented sucrose in it from the grain and it made you feel funny and killed bacteria.

They took out the brains as well... quite an omission for an expert.

Ancient Egypt developed agriculture along the Nile plain. The abundance of food available caused a large population growth. With agriculture now only occupying a fraction of the large (and growing) population, other work would become necessary to keep the people busy. In addition to the various craftspeople, repair persons, clerks, shopkeepers, shoemakers, tailors, and all the other occupations needed for a large population, there were large public works projects like roads, bridges, and yes, pyramids. Remember, we didn't have "money" as we know it now, or even as the Romans knew it. The wealth of the nation came from the food they produced, and from the population that food enabled, who could create substantial other objects. Slaves also have to be fed, and you then also need to provide guards to corral the slaves. Employ the people and give them enough to satisfy their needs, and a little bit more for barter to improve their lives.

same reason we're obsessed with cats. cats are rad.

The complicated way of answering the first question-- I still don’t know the answer.

I heard they had places where they bred cats just to kill them and give them as gifts or something to place into tombs. Did they do that with other animals or is that just not true?

Thanks to my heritage, I have a VERY identifiable "Egyptian" appearance. Usually a girl will ask me "Are you Egyptian?" rather than asking me what my ethnic heritage might be. Guys have rarely ever asked me any such things. Conversely, I've had complete strangers (who were girls) approach me on the street to ask me if I'm from Egypt. The most flattering instance, however, was when I was at some ancient temple or other In Egypt (the one with an excessive number of statues of Ramases all about it, along with a large number of Lion statues). Anyway, a French girl started talking very excitedly at me. She was very intent and very animated, but she was also speaking French, which I couldn't understand for the life of me. Her brother was nearby, though and unlike her, he spoke English. When she paused to take a breath, he offered to translate (to English) for me, if only I could speak English. I suspect that he was as surprised as was his sister, when I told him that I could indeed speak English, that it was in fact my native tongue and that I'd dearly like to hear this translation. As he related it, the gist of what his sister was -babbling about- enthusiastically saying was "Holy Shit!! You look just like one of these statues, if it had come to life!!!" There's a point to all of this: Even though Egypt was conquered by the Persians in about 500 BC. And even though the Greeks evicted them (and then stayed on, in their place) about a hundred years later. And even though the Romans tossed out the Greeks, another 400 years later and then the Arabs had their turn to invade and so forth and so on... So, even though there's a LOT of ethnic variance in Egypt, due to the LARGE number of invaders, who weren't shy about spreading their genes, I don't have to wonder about my genetic heritage. Nor do I need to pay 23-And-Me/ Ancestry.Com/etc a modest sum to lie to me about DNA and technobabble (Vox, I think, did an expose on the industry, having twins send in their samples separately [to the same company], only to get back some 'DNA Ananlysis' which was nothing like the analysis that the other twin was sent. Seriously, you should watch that special)... I know where my genes are from, because I look just like the statues of my ancestors. It makes me just as identifiable as the unique Asian appearance does for Asians. Anyway, I say all this because I was unsatisfied with your answer to the question "What did they look like?" Well, it turns out that the art work and the sculptures and statues and such, are actually a very GOOD indicator as to what Ancient Egyptians looked like. Because if they didn't, then that would mean that they made all those statues to look like ME, rather than having it look like them, which is especially impressive when the artist in question lived some 5,000 years before me.

If I had to make a huge pile of stones, I'd hire a crane.. or a couple of them. If I had to do it without modern technology, and had plenty of manpower, I'd build barges. Build a lock system that runs along the exterior all the way to the top, and just float them up. All you need is a river, some wood, pitch, and a lot of guys with buckets. It's a lot easier to pull a barge on water than a stone on the ground.

I just came back from a trip to Egypt. The guide had told me that the pyramids were more like lighthouses for vessels on the Nile River. What truth do you think this has? Thank you for taking the time to answer some of the questions from Google.

This is definitely not my favorite expert thats been on here. Usually they seem really excited to talk about their expertise. He seemed more annoyed, even laughed at simple questions as if he was thinking "wow they dont even know THAT?". At least that's how it seemed to me.

Were the Pharoahs robbing royal tombs? The state needs money and you can get that by reading the tomb of a Pharaoh from a previous dynasty. Weakening him so you don't have to deal with him in the afterlife.

Got to love Egyptology… How old are the pyramids…we don’t know. …5000? How….we don’t know. Give elaborate answers that obviously are not right…ok. We don’t know.

ever hear of the mamluks?

Not one of my ancestor pharaohs were buried in a pyramid! 😂 imo they may have been used as a power source, but i can’t prove it.

That thumbnail would make one hell of a soyjack

When did the Egyptian live? Your answer was not flippant. I had to get past the "huh?" stage of the question.

so no aliens?

23:31 The Egyptians may not have had electricity, but neighboring civilizations did. It was not functional in the way we have electricity now, but they did have the capability of creating a current in the form of batteries. See the Baghdad Battery.

I don’t care for mummies, but I do like mommies

I thought the Pyramids were massive, but it looks like you could nearly lift one, I fucken love science, learning is gud, I can lift a pyramid mum! Watch me

Do the measured and informed answers of an 'expert' infuriate you? Please jam whatever you definitely reckon about ancient egypt in the comments! No references please.

Ok, but you were asked specifically if the Egyptians had slaves, not whether slaves built the various monuments. And the answer that you beat around the bush and never gave is...YES. Why didn't you just say that, THEN go into detail about how the monuments of the old and middle kingdoms were built by regular Egyptians for both religious but also administrative reasons?

such a shame that those outside this culture did not care enough to write extensively about them before they became wiped out in the conquest. so much of this fascinating history has been lost. and they lasted so long they didn't even write so much about themselves in a way that outsiders could discover

Impurities is definitely NOT the right word. Now de-toxers are gonna go ballistic.

this guy lowkey feels like the opposite of Neil DeGrasse Tyson

History hit ripping all the good youtube concepts without an ounce of shame.

Anyone could read a book and produce more detailed and interesting answers than this ‘expert’ did. As for spreading misinformation on the narrative of Pyramid tombs- I think that should have been abandoned when it was conceived a hundred years ago

They wanted to look like that, they were gods. Basically a cult of personality. Kinda like north Korea?

How did he get the first question wrong? Most scholars and historians mark the end of ancient Egyptian civilization with the Roman conquest in 30 BCE. I have never heard of anyone saying ancient Egyptian civilization ended in the 7th century AD with the Arab conquests.

3:20 very odd how he answers the question IMHO. We dont know how specifically the egyptians cut or moved large stones, may it be granite or something else, but we definetly know how people cut and moved stone in ancient times. Methods that are still in use today by traditional craftsmen. Also it always helps if you got 20.000 slaves which you dont have to pay and without labor protection and such.

Watch on 1.5x speed, you're welcome

We don’t know 😢😂

Finds ancient bong........"ritual"

Kingdom of Kush xDDDDDDDDDD

Perhaps instead of conspiracy theories, maybe we should respect human ingenuity and man power that created the pyramids, instead of aliens?!

Damn, Chris… how vague and boring was this! But I’m relieved to know that the ancient Egyptians looked like human beings and ate bread made from grain.

better title would be """""Egyptologist""""""" Evades Every Google’s Most Popular Questions About Ancient Egypt"

Who wants to go egypt hhhh

Bet they didn’t have ginger cats.

Immediate bollocks, it's well established the Egyptians used copper tools and iron was used in the middle kingdom. King tuts dagger is meteorite iron. Egyptians also worshipped cats as a representative of the goddess Bassett. There's probably more nonsense but I got fed up and turned it off.

Almost half an hour of we don't know and not open to other ideas. Such a shame.

Mmmm so many questions unanswered 🧐🧐👽👽

This was like watching a hostage video. He was terrified to say anything un-woke. My favorite: "What did Egyptians look like?" "They looked like people" Yes, he actually said that. With the "Did the Egyptians have slaves?" question, he had the opportunity to explain the corvee (mandatory but paid work). He punted on religious questions and engineering questions. Sad.

Hebrew slaves? Nope.

But I am not a paid scientist.

Couldn't even answer the most important questions! Instead the ones that are so trivial. Completely pointless other questions, anyone can read that anywhere.

Who built the Giza pyramid?? That’s the question!! There is no No pyramid in the world is like Giza!!

The ancient Egyptians never claimed rhe pyramids 🙄

Is it just me or are Egyptologists the most clueless of all the historians?

This guy sounds very unenthused about the Egpytians and seems to be remembering things he read in a text book. Yes, I understand that he probably went to a University and studied Egyptology, but he really doesn't seem to have a deep passionate understanding of Ancient Egypt at all.

If this guy goesmto egipt, he will melt.

They had 2 cat goddesses Bastet and another one. They mummified cats the families shaved their eyebrows when acat died . I t was a sin and crime to kill a cat . THey were obsessed with cats , no other animal had these !!

Aliens without a doubt visited ancient Egypt and created the pyramids for them. I know this guy is too cowardly to say that, but I will. If you consider the way the stones are cut perfectly, the way the pyramids are aligned, how they're built, logically it all points to extraterrestrial intervention.