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AI slop is littering your feed and spreading misinformation, so WIRED’s here to set the record straight. Join Egyptologist Professor Laurel Bestock as we fact check the internet, egyptology edition.
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00:00Let's take a look at this scene. Where to start?
00:02The headdresses that these guys are wearing are completely nuts.
00:11Where are the other pyramids here? What's wrong, however, is this sort of yellow hat.
00:15This has nothing to do with ancient Egypt.
00:19I'm archaeologist Laurel Bestock. I study ancient Egypt. Let's fact check some AI slot.
00:27Okay, first video.
00:30What's the most difficult part of being a pharaoh?
00:32No one ever builds statues of me smiling. I'm divine, not miserable.
00:38I find this line hilarious because in fact most statues of ancient Egyptian kings do have a slight
00:43smile on them. We as Egyptologists recognize a particular era late in what we call the 12th
00:48dynasty when statues are frowning and we have an enormous difficulty explaining why these kings
00:53made statues where they weren't smiling because most kings did smile in their statues.
00:57What's your job like?
00:58Well, I lift stones all day so a dead man can feel tall forever.
01:03So the whole construct of what's your job, how do you make a living, doesn't really apply
01:08to ancient Egypt. This is a very modern way of understanding what professions are and how we
01:13work in the world.
01:14What's your role in society?
01:16I am Ra, bringer of the sun, but I also run the fish stall on weekdays.
01:22This is nonsense. Ra is a god and the people who would have served as priests for the gods are
01:27definitely not the guys who are selling fish in the marketplace.
01:30How's the flooding season treating you?
01:33Well, the Nile gave us water, took the house and drowned the goat, but the barley is optimistic.
01:38This is of course a hilarious way of putting it, but the importance of the flood in ancient
01:43Egypt was real. The Nile flooded annually for several months a year and brought not only water to irrigate
01:50crops, but also fine silt, which was basically nature's fertilizer so that there was fresh ground
01:57in which to plant barley, indeed, as well as wheat every year.
02:01How's business today?
02:02Made three sales, got accused of sorcery, and my goat ran off with a change, so it could be worse.
02:09We don't know that much about marketplaces in ancient Egypt, although they must have existed,
02:13but the idea that they were selling things for money, that there was change,
02:17that goats could have run away with is nonsense. Money had not been invented yet in ancient Egypt.
02:22It was a barter system, so people worked out exchanges of what was of similar value to them
02:28in a marketplace context. Okay, next video.
02:32Chloe, welcome to my home. She knows my name. Cleopatra knows my name.
02:39Before we get to ancient Egypt, this is driving me crazy because of the stereotypes of women in our
02:44own society and what we're interested in. And I can tell this is all going to be about makeup and
02:49clothes. Surely we have better questions to ask about ancient Egypt.
02:52Okay, I have to ask, what is the actual beauty routine? Because your eyes are, I mean, how?
02:58Beauty routines in ancient Egypt. This is set up in this way that is an exclusively women's world
03:04here and that this is something the girls are going to talk about. How do you get so pretty?
03:07Cosmetics in ancient Egypt were actually used by everyone. Men were as heavily decorated,
03:12as heavily painted, as heavily jeweled as women were.
03:16These murals depict the great victories of my ancestors.
03:20I don't see any victories depicted in these great murals. We do have images of warfare that
03:25come from scenes on temple walls in ancient Egypt, and these are not they. These are temple scenes.
03:30They show gods and kings here. This is not what you would expect in a palace. You also wouldn't expect
03:35to find scenes of great victories in a palace.
03:42I don't speak Greek, so I cannot evaluate whether or not that was accurate Greek. But here it looks
03:46like these guys are speaking Greek to one another, and that's actually a point that's important. So
03:50Cleopatra was definitely a polyglot ruler. She spoke multiple languages. Greek was one of them. Her own
03:56ancestors were, in fact, from the Greek-speaking world. What's really interesting about this is that we
04:01have everything around her here is shown in a classically pharaonic idiom. So we have walls
04:06that look like a New Kingdom temple, and we have outfits that look like New Kingdom outfits. These
04:11are from Egypt from before Egypt was conquered by Alexander the Great. Alexander the Great was
04:16one of Cleopatra's ancestors, and the fact that she spoke Greek is because she was descended from him.
04:22Would she have dressed like an ancient Egyptian from many hundreds of years earlier, or would she
04:27have dressed like a proper Greek queen? Probably the latter. The library is there. Everything the
04:34world has ever known lives inside those walls. So here we are on the coast of Alexandria. Cleopatra is
04:40showing her where the library is. We do know approximately where the Great Library of Alexandria was. It
04:46was in the royal quarter, which is on the coast here. It burned in the ancient world. It was one
04:51of the
04:52most important collections of books anywhere in the classical world. But the building we actually see in the
04:56background here is the lighthouse. The lighthouse of Pharos was one of the wonders of the ancient world.
05:02It was enormous. It is not shown here as enormous at all. This looks like a little dinky lighthouse
05:08on the coast of New England. This lighthouse was a working lighthouse. We have descriptions of the fire
05:13and how visible this was from far away. It was very important. Alexandria was an incredibly significant
05:18trading hub on the Mediterranean, and the coast of the Mediterranean is very treacherous. We have recently
05:24even found pieces of it through underwater excavations in the harbor of Alexandria. It fell down because of
05:30earthquakes over the centuries. Coil. It protects the eyes from the sun and from infection. You want
05:35to try? Oh my god, yes. Oh my god, can we stop saying oh my god? Not all of this
05:40is amazing. Coil as a type of
05:43cosmetic was used much earlier than this in ancient Egypt as well. This is a powdered carbon-based or
05:48galena lead-based pigment that is painted around the eyes and we do think it likely did have medicinal
05:54as well as sort of sunglass protection properties as well as making the eyes look very dramatic.
05:59I look incredible. I look unhinged. I look like both at the same time and I think that's the point.
06:03Okay, let's talk about mirrors in ancient Egypt though. Here she is applying her makeup in a mirror
06:08and the mirror is a perfect glass with silver backing mirror. This is not a type of mirror we have
06:12in ancient
06:13Egypt at all. Mirrors when we have them are of bronze and sometimes silver. They would not have
06:19given you a particularly clear reflection so it would have been in fact a very social thing to
06:24put on makeup. This is something you're relying on your best friend or if you're the queen your
06:28servants to achieve for you. Next. This scene is rather great. Here we have the procession of a bark or
06:36a
06:36boat, a ceremonial boat that is on poles that are being carried by priests through a crowd. We see in
06:42the
06:42background we see an obelisk and we can see a temple here as well. This is actually pretty accurate for
06:47what an Egyptian procession, a divine procession would have looked like. When gods traveled on
06:53procession the statue of the god was taken out of the temple room, put in a bark shrine on a
06:58boat
06:59like this and then the bark shrine was carried on poles carried by priests through the city. Gods go on
07:04procession to be amongst the people as you can see here but they're usually going somewhere. They're going
07:09to visit another god in a different temple or they're going to another temple of their own across
07:14the Nile for instance. So while the basic idea of a procession with a bark shrine being carried by
07:19priests is quite accurate, when we actually look at what's going on inside this bark shrine it looks
07:23totally like ark of covenant stuff. That detail is not what we would expect in ancient Egypt. This is a
07:29scene of embalming and it's the embalming of somebody really important. He's getting the full works
07:34here being turned into a mummy. We can see multiple people working on the body. They've got trays of
07:40things like salt and it looks like aromatics to put on the body as they're drying it out and wrapping
07:46it in linen. The detail I really like about this scene however is the priest who is standing at the
07:51head of the body that is being mummified. We can see that he is wearing what looks like a helmet
07:57or a
07:57headdress that has a long snout and big ears. This is a representation of the god Anubis who takes the
08:04form of a jackal. And weird as this looks this is actually quite accurate. We do know that priests
08:09engaged in aspects of mummification and the burial process for important people did actually wear
08:16headdresses like this. Masks that covered their heads and when they were wearing that mask they were
08:21themselves Anubis. On the other hand we have details that are also bonkers. We have in the foreground
08:26we can see these jars that are what we call canopic jars. These are in order to hold the viscera
08:32so
08:32you've got to take the wet bits out of somebody before you can mummify the body. Those wet bits
08:36they're your internal organs. Those get mummified separately and you're going to want them in the
08:41afterlife. They're going to be put in jars to go with you in your tomb. There are only four of
08:45them
08:45in an actual Egyptian burial and here we have five. Here we have a Nile scene with a temple in
08:50the
08:50background and the depiction of the temple is relatively accurate. The shape of the pylon here is
08:55what the entrance to a temple would have looked like. And in the foreground we have boats and you can
08:59see
08:59that some of the boats have sails up and some don't have sails up. The Egyptians did have sails
09:05on their boats and in fact they used them principally when sailing southward. When ancient Egyptian boats
09:10sailed south the wind which is predominantly from the north would have propelled the boats. When ancient
09:15Egyptians sail northward the wind is against them but the flow of the river is with them so you drop
09:21the
09:22sail and you can sail that way. Next video. You're a kid in ancient Egypt and you wake up on
09:28your mat looking
09:29out over the pyramid and you have your breakfast of honey. Well honey is accurate. They did use
09:34beekeeping in ancient Egypt and they harvested honey both as a food. They didn't have sugar so it was a
09:39major sweetener. It was also used medicinally. That you could see the pyramid at your window
09:43not so probable. And let's keep following this day of a child in ancient Egypt. Again pyramid in the
09:50background not so likely. The idea that childhood is a time of carefree ability to explore and learn on
09:57your own is an extremely modern construct. The idea that childhood was even a separate sort of phase
10:02of life is not something we see a ton of evidence for in ancient Egypt. We also see a donkey
10:08trotting
10:08down the street. This is accurate. We have evidence of the domestication of the donkey in Egypt going back
10:14to 3000 BC. Board games. We do have board games from ancient Egypt. All of our evidence is that these
10:21are
10:21actually used by adults sometimes ritually sometimes to pass time. But in fact children wouldn't have
10:27had much free time and play was not considered important as far as we know for ancient Egyptian
10:32children. As soon as they could they were being engaged in and involved in the productive economic
10:37life of a household school in ancient Egypt. What schools we know of were conducted within the palace.
10:47Only very elite people were expected to learn to read and write at all. Very elite children would have
10:54then gone to the palace. This is mostly members of the king's family or very favored courtiers as well.
11:00And they would have learned mostly by writing down what a teacher is speaking. They would have been using
11:05boards to write on. They're not pre-written on as you see here. We do have school texts. So we
11:10have
11:11the bad handwriting of people who are learning to write for instance. Okay next video.
11:19Here we are at Giza and in some ways this is a better depiction of Giza that we're finding in
11:24a
11:24lot of the AI slop. Look we actually have the river and we have some agricultural land between the river
11:30and the pyramids. This is great. Let's take a look at Giza here. What's really striking me about the
11:40pyramids is that they are represented as bright white with yellow caps on them. The bright white
11:45is quite accurate. In ancient times the outside of the pyramids would have been cased in fine limestone
11:51quarried across the river at the site of Torah and really valued for its whiteness. This glowing
11:57whiteness would have been characteristic of the pyramids in the ancient past. They would have
12:01been quite smooth as well. What's wrong however is the sort of yellow hat that is sitting on the
12:06pyramid. Pyramids were capped with stones but from far away you wouldn't really even have been able
12:11to see this. It's a single stone. We don't know if they were gilded or another color. Most of the
12:16casing stones have been removed. Most of these were removed in the medieval period if not earlier and
12:20were used as building stone for other buildings. The casing stones are only left in one place at Giza
12:26and that is on top of Hrafre's pyramid. They just weren't quarried away on that top piece and so
12:31today Hrafre's pyramid does look like it's wearing a hat and because of weathering over time the once
12:37bright white limestone now itself is much more yellow. Let's talk about warfare in ancient Egypt.
12:43A lot of the depictions of battle we're seeing here have elements that are accurate. Some of the shield
12:48shapes for instance are are even pretty good. One thing that's jumping out to me as unlikely however is
12:53the scale of battle we're seeing here really large armies are not usually the case in ancient Egypt.
13:00We have here a chariot with two people in it one of whom is controlling the horses and one of
13:04whom
13:04is firing. This is accurate. This is what Egyptian chariots would have been like. We have actual
13:09chariots preserved in the tomb of Tutankhamun. They were disassembled but all the parts are there we can
13:13put them back together and we have numerous scenes from the new kingdom that show chariot warfare on the
13:18walls of temples. The headdresses that these guys are wearing however are completely nuts. This has
13:23no relationship to what we think people would have actually worn on their heads while going into
13:28battle. Next. Where to start? Let's take a look at this scene. We have triple decker boats. Not a thing
13:38in ancient Egypt. We have a line of temples on the bank of the Nile. They're not really in the
13:43right place
13:43with regards to the Nile but particularly let's look at this temple. We have people going up this enormous
13:48steep staircase to get to this temple and they're entering through a portico that has these columns
13:54on it. Steep staircases leading to temple entrances come straight from the classical world. This is not
14:00what the approach to an ancient Egyptian temple looks like at all. Then the doorway that we get to
14:05is all wrong. The doorway into an Egyptian temple is quite narrow. This is designed to restrict access
14:10to the temple not to allow big crowds to walk in. Most people were not allowed to go into the
14:16temple at
14:17all. The temple is a very restricted place, not a place where the crowds are gathering in most cases.
14:22Even the design of the temple itself, the facade of this stone gateway, what we would call a pylon in
14:29ancient Egypt, is really wrong. We would expect a pylon in ancient Egypt to have different sides. The two
14:35sides are higher than the middle. So the middle actually has a gap in it which represents the horizon
14:40over which the sun rises every day.
14:47I think this landscape is supposed to combine two different places in Egypt but I'm not entirely sure.
14:53In the foreground we have a totally impossible boat. We have no depictions of boats that look
14:58like this. We have no remains of boats that look like this from ancient Egypt. We have a really good
15:03idea of what boats looked like in ancient Egypt because we do have them carved in relief scenes on
15:08temples. We even have the remains of ancient boats. For instance, we excavated a boat still in excellent
15:13condition near the Great Pyramid. The way back around we have an urban sprawl and from this distance
15:18for buildings to be this tall, these must be skyscrapers. What are we looking at? Cincinnati?
15:23But what's funniest to me in this scene is really this pyramid. We absolutely have the Pyramid of
15:28Chafre here. It was the second of the very large pyramids at Giza so it never existed without
15:33another big pyramid there and by the time the top of Chafre's pyramid looked like this there were in
15:38fact all three pyramids at Giza. Where are the other pyramids here? Here we have an urban setting. You
15:44can see from the marketplaces that this is a place where life is taking place. However, we're out in the
15:48desert which is not where most cities were and we are looking at buildings that themselves don't look
15:55like the urban fabric of ancient Egypt. These are stone carved buildings. They're really dense. We would
16:00expect people to be living in mud brick houses. Here we seem to be in the courtyard of a temple
16:05and
16:05this is maybe one of the things that is not so off in one of these videos. This might be
16:10something like
16:11a festival in a temple courtyard. A time when ordinary people were allowed to come into the
16:18god's precinct at least into the forecourt if not actually into the rooms where the god himself lived.
16:23But let's not talk about what the crowd is wearing and what the crowd itself actually looks like.
16:27This has nothing to do with ancient Egypt.
16:33Here we are clearly inside a temple and the temple is big stone architecture. There is some light
16:40coming in but it's quite dark. We have a lot of sculpture on the sides here and elements of this
16:45are relatively accurate. In particular I would note that we're on a very straight axis here so we are
16:51walking down the middle of the temple towards what looks like it's a statue in the back room which is
16:57small. And this is the basic structure of Egyptian temples from at least the new kingdom onwards where
17:02we do get the god being resident in the temple and manifest in a statue that is in the back.
17:08This is
17:08on a very straight axis because the Egyptians are concerned with the god being able to walk out of his
17:13temple and take part in festivals. The straightness also mirrors the rising and setting of the sun every day.
17:22Really what is going on with the ears of this cat? The more I look at this the more ridiculous
17:25this is.
17:26When we do have cat statues later they don't look anything like this. They look more like cats.
17:30That's all the AI slop for today.
17:32Thanks for watchin'.
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