Ancient Discoveries.....0_o

[Centurio]

There's probably upwards of a thousand graduate students in the field of history that would love to make a History Channel documentary for free, just for something to put on their resume. The problem with that is that it doesn't have enough religious conspiracy theories or aliens for the HC's standards.

I really liked that show Decisive Battle though, where they recreated ancient battles using Rome: Total War. That's the proper way to mix historical fact with sparkly lights that plebians can watch without falling asleep. You can see most of the episodes of it on YouTube.

I agree; however, Decisive Battles would have been a thousand times better if used with Europa Barbarorum.

 

[kulade]

History Channel : History :: MTV : Music

 

[Eran of Arcadia]

This is diverging more off topic but.....

I can personally testify that Catholic school religion and theology classes are terrible and teach the subject very poorly.

Most of the Catholic schools (where I live at least) are very tightly knit communities and as a result the teachers often come from their own former students and the administration is usually very reluctant to fire them or force them to retire. This of course meant we had a lot of senile and plain old incompetent teachers that also felt their job was extremely secure. As a result, many of the teachers of the subject were not the least bit shy of mixing in their own personal beliefs and politics into their curriculum. I actually stopped going to Church before I was even in high school and I probably understood the religion better than most of my peers simply from reading a general history book every now and then...

Well, in my entire experience with Catholic education (stretching from 7th grade to, so far, 1 semester of grad school) I can't necessarily say that's my experience. Admittedly, at no point in this process was I Catholic (also, admittedly, the fact that my grad school is Catholic hasn't meant anything, not so far) but that probably didn't make a huge difference. The teachers were probably no better or worse than public school teachers, and not all were Catholic (presumably not the openly lesbian math teacher I had in high school, for example).

I did like having the top grades in my religion classes in high school, and I also like being able to distinguish between the Immaculate Conception and the Virgin Birth (which, apparently, lots of Catholics don't). I also liked my college theology course in which the professor - a priest - showed us Life of Brian. True story.

 

[Plotinus]

My splitting of the thread mangled some of the discussion a bit: he was responding to a comment of mine about the theological awareness of Catholics in my experience and my conclusions regarding the quality of theological instruction within the church. So it was about catechetical instruction in the Catholic faith rather than education in Catholic schools in general.

 

[Eran of Arcadia]

Well, it had looked to me like he was talking about religious instruction, which is more specific than Catholic education in general but less specific that catechetical instruction, which was only ever a small part of my religion classes. But I still learned some Catholic doctrine from Catholic school that some Catholics seem not to know.

So . . .

 

[Brohz]

I actually liked it when it was just WWII black and white footage 24/7. Now it is just crap most of the time.
I hated how some years ago the History Channel became so "biblical", so to speak. Now there are one hour shows about sins. The Discovery channel turned this way too, with so many programs about jesus and stuff like that.

 

[Lord Baal]

Now to get back on topic a bit...What are some actual good theories or readings on the first human voyages to Australia (and Tasmania)? I've heard some theories (both plausible and crazy) but what is actually the consensus (if there is one) these days on the boats used?

Do you mean how the Aborigines arrived there? Or the first non-indigenous explorers millenia later?

If it's the former, there is one theory that seems to be mostly accepted in my experience. This theory has it that Aborigines and Indians (Dravidians, I think, though the ethnic groups of India are not something I know much about) were among the first modern humans to migrate out of Africa. They went east, through Arabia, Southern India and Indonesia until they reached Australia. At the time, much of Southeast Asia was still linked together by land bridges due to the lower sea levels of the ice age, so while the Aborigines had boats - there is evidence from Northern Australia that the original Aborigines were fishermen, some of whom eventually migrated inland - they didn't need to use them for migratory purposes terribly much. Tasmania was linked to the Australian mainland at the time, so it was inhabited in much the same way. One problem with this theory is that most of the areas that Aborigines are believed to have migrated through are actually under the surface of the ocean now, making it next to impossible to find corroborating evidence.

If it's the latter, most people accept that the Dutch were the first European people to discover Australia. There is a distinct possibility that the Portuguese had stumbled across Australia earlier, but the Dutch were almost certainly the first to land here. That's why an old name for Australia is New Holland. The first European I know of to visit Tasmania was Van Dieman, again a Dutchman, which is why the previous name for Tasmania was Van Dieman's land (I've probably spelt his name wrong).

As for non-European people, there was probably some limited migration and trade between Aborigines and Melanesians in New Guinea through the Torres Strait Islands, but not much, and probably through the local Islanders as intermediaries. I don't know anything about such trade though. Other than that, there was some trade between a tribe in the Northern Territory (their name starts with a 'y' but I can't think of it) and some Malay fishermen from Sulawesi, but the evidence suggests this didn't begin until after the British had arrived in Eastern Australia. The Chinese certainly never came here.

The dilemma of the history channel is their desperate need for content. it is a constant problem for all the cable shows. If you could provide a regular source of good content to them, I'm pretty sure you could make a good living.

There are millions of hours of historical documentaries out there. It's the channel that's the problem, not the content. Australia's commercial stations have better historical documentaries than The History Channel, and it's not their stated mandate to have them.

Am I really the only one? I'd better go see the doctor...

The only person seeing them, or the only monster?

There's probably upwards of a thousand graduate students in the field of history that would love to make a History Channel documentary for free, just for something to put on their resume. The problem with that is that it doesn't have enough religious conspiracy theories or aliens for the HC's standards.

I really liked that show Decisive Battle though, where they recreated ancient battles using Rome: Total War. That's the proper way to mix historical fact with sparkly lights that plebians can watch without falling asleep. You can see most of the episodes of it on YouTube.

That show sounds awesome. And I'd love to make a documentary for The History Channel. I'll need to mention Nostradamus in there though, despite him having no part in it, if I want them to pick it up.

 

[innonimatu]

If it's the latter, most people accept that the Dutch were the first European people to discover Australia. There is a distinct possibility that the Portuguese had stumbled across Australia earlier, but the Dutch were almost certainly the first to land here.

I recall reading that there was reference in a letter from the governor of India to the portuguese king of two captains being sent to explore the coastline of a southern large landmass a few years after the conquest of Malacca and contact with the Moluccas (I'll try to find the source of that, and their names). The reports which they may have produced seem to have been lost. That such exploration would be kept secret is easy to understand, as those lands were suspected to fall into the "castillan half of the world" according to Tordesillas treaty. The line dividing the world in the east was indeed not clear and not described in the treaty, but it was assumed by both crowns to exist. The haste with the conquest of Malacca in 1511 was also because of that: as measurement of longitude was extremely hard, it was unknown in which half that city fell, so whoever grabbed it first would keep it.

It's unfortunate that much of the documentation from that time is missing or only available second-hand, from chroniclers writing a few decades after the events or references in letters. However I'm skeptical that maps or Australia were ever produced by portuguese explorers and then kept secret. Information about exploration spread very quickly, despite all attempts at secrecy. German trade firms in 1514 had reports about spice prices in India. Maps spread just as fast, as the Cantino Map shows. One other particularly intriguing reference, for example, shows up on a letter from Afonso de Albuquerque to Manuel I, where he announces that a "large chart" depicting the eastern coats and also the inland Asian kingdoms and their borders, plus the indian ocean, the Cape of Good Hope and Brazil (!), was captured from a javanese pilot during his 1511 expedition and was to be sent to Lisbon, but was lost with the Frol de la Mar. Gavin Menzies actually fount that little detail and used it in his infamous book. Left unsaid by Menzies was that by 1513 Piri Reis, for example, already had a map also depicting Brazil and Central America in detail, and therefore a map of the americas could well be available to muslim sailors in the indian ocean, and be merged with eastern maps, by 1511. That was after the ottomans hired Venetians and wrestled for control of the indian ocean with the portuguese, after 1506. Francisco Rodrigues, the portuguese cartoghapher who studied the map for Albuquerque, went on to produce a collection of charts in 1515 (now in the Bibliothèque de la Chambre des Députés, Paris), based on those oriental sources, which did not depict Australia (nor, I can add, any of Menzies' fanciful chinese discoveries around the world). So either portuguese secrecy somehow improved vastly after the 1520s, or Australia was left unexplored.

 

[Lord Baal]

I have come across the same reference myself several times. I don't doubt that the Portuguese knew of Australia - it's actually pretty likely, given the areas they were traveling in and the ocean currents - but I also have no doubt they didn't even attempt to map it. It was too far out of the way during that rapid expansion phase, and the areas they may have stumbled across were very unlikely to appeal to them. There were no obvious sources of wealth or trade, so areas like Malacca would have taken precedence.

 

[Bowsling]

Funny, I actually watch that show on a regular basis.
Another ridiculous one:

Ancient New York
Talks about the Colossus, the Rome Coliseum, and some ancient European building used to determine the time and date. Constantly goes on about how the things in New York was actually already achieved by the ancients. Mostly a load of crap, but there was some good stuff about the Colossus and the Coliseum.

Cars & Planes
I still can't stress enough about how much garbage there was in it.
Featuring:
-An Egyptian toy that they believed was a small-scale model of an airplane
-A carving in an Egyptian tomb that resembles faintly a helicopter, so they think the Egyptians had helicopters. They also found a hieroglyphic nine in the same tomb, so the Egyptologists went on about how the Egyptians actually landed on Mars because Mars is planet #9.
-A little sculpture of a bug that they believed was a model fighter plane because the wings were on the bottom.


In defense of History TV, it is all about ratings. Not enough people watch just History, what can you do?
They have to have redneck shows about trucks driving through Alaska to get the money to keep themselves on the air. sure, all the good stuff is on at bad times, but a DVR helps. I can't remember the last time I actually watched a History TV show when it was actually on.

 

[ParkCungHee]

Funny, I actually watch that show on a regular basis.
Another ridiculous one:

Ancient New York
Talks about the Colossus, the Rome Coliseum, and some ancient European building used to determine the time and date. Constantly goes on about how the things in New York was actually already achieved by the ancients.

How were their bagels?

 

[civ_king]

How were their bagels?

you can't forget the lox!

 

[Plotinus]

They also found a hieroglyphic nine in the same tomb, so the Egyptologists went on about how the Egyptians actually landed on Mas because Mars is planet #9.

That's just stupid.

Obviously they landed on Pluto.

 

[Masada]

Pluto isn't a planet Plotinus, the Egyptians knew that. They obviously landed on Alpha Centauri.

 

[Steph]

Reminds of a very old astronomy book I have, printed in 1870, that says things such as
"There are cloud on Venus, therefore there is water, therefore there is life".

 

[Jarlaxe Baenre]

Pluto isn't a planet Plotinus, the Egyptians knew that. They obviously landed on Alpha Centauri.

They won a space victory in the BCs?

 

[Bowsling]

Just remembered from another episode, they thought that the Assyrian inflatable goat skins that they used to cross rivers were re-breathers...

 

[Ajidica]

Reminds of a very old astronomy book I have, printed in 1870, that says things such as
"There are cloud on Venus, therefore there is water, therefore there is life".

I love old books like that. At my school we have an 'Intro to Science' encyclopedia dating from the late 40's/early 50's and it is hilarious. Full of near racist crap (Negroid-Asiatic Man subjugates Caucasian Civilization. I think they were referring to the Persian conquests.) and wierd sci-fi. Apparently we should all have personal rocket suits, submarine cars, alien schoolteachers, robotic dogs, vacuum tubes to take us anywhere in the city, and floating, gravity-defying buildings. Coupled with pictures of Earth lacking clouds makes the book a riot.

 

[Luckymoose]

Let me hop aboard this History Channel hatewagon.

Basically they've become a complete trashy channel, because they seem to figure that sensationalism to the Nth degree gets ratings. When they're not airing Ice Road Truckers (which I swear is on at least five hours a day), it's all conspiracy theories now; "the Roman Empire didn't exist, it was aliens," "Catholicism inherited its beliefs and traditions from pagan religions," "JFK's murder was predicted by Nostradamus," and other putridities.

I'm a catholic and I believe this...

 

[Ajidica]

What the History Channel means by 'Catholicism inherited its beliefs from pagans' is that everything was borrowed from the pagans. They make every possible, tenuous link to show how Hellenistic polythiesm made the Catholic/Christian Church while completly ignoring the role Zoroastrianism played. IIRC the Three Magi were likely Zoroastrian. I saw a PBS broadcast on this and they tend to have pretty decent history.