Not my usual topic this week but just felt like talking about it whilst I was in Vietnam. Next week I have a certified banger for you, "Humanity 1,000,000 years ago". You're going to love it!
I do wanna say, just because the tributes weren't considered all that valuable by the Chinese doesn't mean they weren't considered valuable by the Romans, or even that they weren't that valuable because this was the first journey of its kind and an empire at war isn't gonna load chests of gold it needs to pay its armies onto a ship to send to the other side of the world with no guarantee it will get there or even really Can get there. The chances of success for a voyage like that with Roman era ships would not be high.
Ships had been crossing the Indian Ocean from India to the Red Sea for thousands of years by the Roman Empire period. It's well documented, the trip took almost a year due to tradewind patterns.
Also, the Romans may have actually been trying to preserve hard currency by seeing if the Chinese wanted anything else. Rome tried to ban silk at a point, because they were trading finite silver for renewable silk, which isn't a great economic position to be in.
the use of tri-remes or w/e other mediterranean ship types lkikely would have ended before reaching the red sea, no? i mean, is there evidence for roman ships outside the Med?
@@wolfgangBuonarotti triremes were military vessels, not trade vessels. the vessels used to make trade missions between India and Egypt would've been locally crafted in the Red Sea and India as they knew the craft of making a seaworthy ship for the job. Rope manufacturing was a major trade along the Red Sea as well, and one of the earliest recorded trades in the region, which is how we know that they were conducting trade via boat for thousands of years before the Romans. It's not a question that Romans were trading in the far-east, but as far as a full-blown expedition is concerned, it's far less clear. First century Romans were at least aware of the Spice Islands, and Roman coins have been found in Java, which suggests Roman traders likely enjoyed some amount of trade before the empire began to decline.
From a middle school teacher at an international school in Vietnam - thanks for this content! Will make for an interesting (and relevant!) critical thinking activity during my 7th graders' Rome unit!
Its not that heavy. I have a suit of roman armour, if it weren't for the looks, I'd wear it everyday. Good protection against getting stabbed at the train station
Speculating here, but presumably elephant tusks and rhino horns would have been very valuable in Rome, since they would have had to mainly come all the way from sub-Saharan Africa. But Han China most likely still had its own rhinos and elephants in the 2nd century CE, meaning that their horns and tusks would be comparatively more common and less expensive. But the Romans would not necessarily have known this. The gifts being seen as not particularly valuable by the Chinese might be a result of the differing value placed on them by China and Rome. Maybe Marcus Aurelius accidentally bought Huan presents he already had plenty of at home.
I was about to say the same thing. What was impressive in the West at the time was pretty normal in China. Ibn Battuta the Islamic scholar roads that every man in China where is fine silk so the country must be super rich, which is kind of was but to Chinese people silkworms weren't uncommon or hard to raise like where Battuta was from.
I’m speculating here because I can’t recall my past life as Marcus Aurelius but I imagine that China just had a big ego feeling like they had the best everything so would be underwhelmed by most outside gifts of the time.
Rhinos and Elephants are present in India and SE Asia as well. Maybe Romans just picked up something on their way to China as they didn't want to go empty handed😅
@@ThePolymerisst My thoughts too. None of these are particularly Roman. On a long trip with low odds of getting through why invest in goods and drag them all that way? Instead, once you're close and it looks like you'll make it, you spend some of your gold coins on gifts. Faced with "what do you get the man who has everything" you buy what looks novel or exotic to your Roman eyes.
Not only the Romans were used to sailing very far, but they had permanent outposts in India. So, it's not absurd that a few merchants decided to have a look in East Asia.
Entirely possible. IMO more likely as either passengers on a trading vessel or they charted a trading vessel. That vessel could have originated in either India or SE Asia. The spice merchants along the Malabar Coast knew they had a good thing going. They were getting rich buying cheap and selling high. The last thing they wanted was the Roman's or their agents finding a way of going to the source. In the 1600s when the Dutch started sending fleets to the "Indies" they ould lose every ship in the fleet except one that got back and still make a fortune.
This channel is such a gem. Lucky to have found it recently. I have been going through your older videos and you definitely have a unique way of humanizing history.
And if those ambassadors never made it back to Rome, that could be another reason why Rome maybe never even wrote about it. I imagine they weren't too keen to detail presumed failed expeditions, especially if they only sent a few somewhat unimportant people to do it. I often wonder when ancient rulers sent people out to explore, how long did they wait for them to come back before assuming it was a failed mission? And how many of them actually made it to their destination, but just not all the way back home to tell anyone? This reminds me of the story of an African king who sent a fleet out into the Atlantic Ocean and never returned, but possibly discovered South America and left evidence on an island along the way. Might be another good video topic for you!
That story would be about the predecessor of mansa musa, which most historians think was mansa muhammad ibn qu. He lived around 1300 ad. The olmec civilazation started around 1500 BC and in 4000 bc there were already agrarian settlements. Its also a pretty racist pseudoscientific theory to believe
@@danielvanhuizen1253 Mansa Muhammad sounds like the one I was thinking of, but I thought it was speculated they might have made it to Brazil or thereabouts. It's been a while since I heard the story in some videos, so my memory is foggy.
@@charleshash4919 Sure, some -hypothetical- african castaways from the XIV century somehow appeared in neolithic north america, and they alone, a bunch of men with no communication with any metropoli, made an entire civilization. In the past. In a continent far away from their home. And leaving no trace in the closer lands. I'd sooner believe the aliens built the pyramids. At least it doesn't involve time travel.
@Pax.Alotin Unfortunately, even if they did and somehow managed to arrive in one piece, navigational and seafaring technology made it very unlikely that they ever came back.
Great stuff. Seems more likely that these sorts of long range contacts came from trade missions that may have claimed to represent Rome whether the central authority were aware of such or not. I don’t think that makes the possibility of such contacts any less remarkable.
Since the time of Augustus the Romans had trade contact with Southern India who in turn had trade contact with Southeast Asia so that seems a more likely explanation than a one off expediton. Fun fact: this trade route brought most of the silk and spices to the empire and even a Hindu statue that was found in Pompeii. The coin was turned into a necklace, this could mean it was done by the local elite at some point. However again the more likely senario here is that is was brought there by colonial rulers (the French) since making jewelry out of Roman coins was common among the European elite after the renaissance.
Our main source on Roman Trade is a book called the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, which lists ports and gives a rough idea of distance, politics and what you can buy and sell there. It covers the Red Sea, East Africa, the Gulf and the India but I don't remember it giving anything beyond India. Trade with India was so frequent that I'm sure curious merchants, especially ones who did business with local merchants who went east, would have asked question about what lay beyond and that information would have made it back to Alexandria and Rome. I could even see a geographer like Ptolemy and Roman officials chatting with the merchants who'd been India and enlisting them to gather information in Indian Ports, both about India itself and what lay beyond. That said, I could easily say, well we have plenty of ships going to India, and the captains all say there are ships in port trading with China via Vietnam. Let's send some men to India with a bag of gold and tell them to try and get to China and see what you can find out.
@@scottn2046look at this video is in Italian but it should be with subtitles the guy usually doesn’t post fake info in his other documentaries but I didn’t fact check this so take it with a grain of salt. It seems like the romans had even some permanent settlements in India at some time ruclips.net/video/yBxDfxbWBeI/видео.htmlsi=zWG_Xyf53N8teVwg
I always find it a funny thing that Buddhism was popular in the Hellenistic world and later the Eastern part of the Roman empire, and might even have provided some inspiration for Christianity.
@@frankvandorp9732 Known by certain intellectuals in the Eastern Mediterranean in the Hellenistic and Roman period, yes, but popular, no. But it'd an intriguing question how much two way connections there were between Buddhists and Greek Philosophers, both BC and AD, particularly Alexandria, and whether that had any influence on religious free thinkers in the upper Red Sea in the early Christian era ...
What a beautiful sight to come home to, another BANGER video by Stephan the don! Always good to wind down listening to how and who got us to where we are today.
10 месяцев назад+12
Genuine joy when I saw you upload a new video! Thanks!
01:20 for an instant I thought you said “it’s Chile” and my mind hoped for a video on Monte Verde and early populations of the Southern cone of South America. One can only wish. Love all of your videos, by the way, many thanks for your work!
They were fined millions of dollars by the US government for violating HIPPA and selling patient data to big tech. Please don't renew your sponsorship 😊
@@guillervz boiled down: handling user data/patience data in the worst possible way including providing all the sensitive data (even of people that only take the initial questionnaire without actually becoming a customer) to Facebook for advertising and basically fb was allowed to use the data in any way they want. This was not the only instance but that's just a no no. There are videos on RUclips that go into detail with that, I think one video is called "overthink your sponsors" or something like that.
@@guillervz Also, numerous horror stories about lack of professionalism (and sometimes even a lack of appropriate credentials) from the therapists. Not to mention the company was founded by a hard-core former IDF guy.
Just to nitpick, Okinawa didn't become part of Japan until the 19th century, so calling it Japan at an earlier period is a tad anachronistic, like referring to Roman-era Constantinople as Turkey. Edited to add: I should clarify since some people have misunderstood my point. I'm happy to talk about ancient Japan even before any states existed there, e.g. paleolithic Japan. But Okinawa is geographically separate from the main islands of Japan, lying roughly halfway between Taiwan and Kyushu, the southernmost of the main islands of Japan. And Okinawa was historically the centre of the maritime kingdom of Ryukyu, which was a separate state that established diplomatic relations with Japan, Korea, and China. It is linguistically separate, home to Okinawan and other Ryukyuan languages which are distantly related to but not mutually intelligible with Japanese. Because of all this, historians of the region treat Ryukyu as its own thing and don't refer to premodern Okinawa as Japan.
He wasn't calling it Japan "at an earlier period". He was merely stating the location where the archaeologists found it. The ruins are located at Okinawa, Japan.
@@ronangelox He called it a Japanese castle, which is a bit like calling the Hagia Sophia a Turkish building. Correct in a way, but misleading. Even geographically, it's not very satisfactory since Okinawa isn't part of the main islands of Japan. It's like calling the moai Chilean statues because Easter Island is today part of Chile.
@@reeyees50 No, Okinawa was not a part of Japan before the 19th century, any more than Corsica was a part of France before the 18th century or Kaliningrad was a part of Russia before the 20th century. It was the centre of its own kingdom, Ryukyu, situated between Japan and Taiwan. Ryukyu was always seen as foreign to the Japanese before it was annexed to Japan in the 19th century, with its own language and culture. Historians treat Ryukyu as separate from Japan. I'm not faulting anyone for not being familiar with the history and just assuming it's always been part of Japan, but I think viewers of this channel would be interested in getting this right.
Thats some good digging! Fascinating stuff and lovely maps Ive been to that Okinawan castle, the view and sunset is indeed nice, missed the coins though :/
There is a kingdom in Kalimantan island named Kutai Kertanegara in the past, its just on the other side of malay penninsula, and the “Kertanegara” name is similar
Voices of the Past reads a first hand account of an earlier Chinese embassy to Rome. I can't quite remember but I think it was during the reign of Augustas Caesar.
I was wondering where my favorite guy Stefan was. I have been thinking about your channel off and on at random throughout the past two weeks and I NEVER think about any RUclips channel ever except yours recently. I think the cannabis docu you said you were working on peeked my interest on some level. Always good to see your videos. I write a cool comment during the advertisement so that’s why a lot of my comments are so long.
Hello. I read somewhere many years ago that some Roman vases were found off the coast of Vietnam. Maybe some Romans or their proxies were trading in Southeast Asia. Humankind has traded long distances since day one.
I discovered your channel quite recently and I have to say it's quickly becoming my absolute favorite. Keep up the good job and you will have a million subs by this time next year!
Wow, at the end you wonder about how hard and uncertain it must have been for the Romans on this expedition. You always bring your videos to the perspective of the human experience. For modern humans, for early ancestors or cousin species. I appreciate that.
My step-nephew lives in Vietnam as does an American Facebook friended several years ago. The nephew is in the hospitality trade. And the son of my colleague from uni also lives in Vietnam. So… I would say it’s a popular destination and sometimes residence. Good to see this side venture positing an expedition of such length. I think of how far Alexander the Great went and pretty sure he at least got to China but yes it’s a crazy long way and even further to Vietnam.
The importance of considering something that seems unlikely is that if we don't hold it as at least a possibility, and we toss the idea aside, then if new clues or evidence do show up, we will dismiss them because we have already decided it couldn't have happened. Keeping an open mind allows the possibility for recognizing new evidence, either for or against the idea, and allowing the possibility of new discoveries and further understanding.
Interesting video. I highly doubt it was Roman expedition. Maybe some Roman traders heard about Vietnam when they were just walking around in the markets of Southern India and decided to take a trip there? Or maybe the coins reached Vietnam from some other traders from Southern India, the Middle East or Sri Lanka? Fascinating stuff.
By the time the Chinese historical account was written, the Chinese had decided that the rest of the world had little to offer, so it would not surprise me that the gifts were denigrated. Something that makes me skeptical though: the Roman elite were contemptuous of merchants and thus also of seafarers, I think an emperor would be more likely to send a land-going expedition.
Hey Stefan this video is absolutely crazy and man this shocks me, from West Africa to East Asia the Romans sought to discover the expanses of Earth but alas it was not but thank you so much for clearing the Easternmost expansion of the Ancient Romans ❤❤❤
This video was great man! Thanks so much. Maybe the Roman ambassadors just decided to chill and make a life for themselves at their final destination after their over 12,000 mile expedition. I think I would lol
@@michaelh6551 Roman and Greek sources always claim the opposite: that Indian elephants are bigger and stronger than African ones. This is because the African elephant they knew was the extinct North African population, which would have been more like modern forest elephants, and might have been a subspecies of them.
I saw a LOT of coins from that era, many of Cesar getting pulled out of tombs, turtle tombs, in Anatolia. Deifineci Deniz has many videos, but there are dozens of treasure seeker channels for the area. Thank you.
This is a really fascinating topic as the interactions between Europe and Asia have been a particular interest of mine for a while. Thank you for making this video, your content never disappoints!
Maybe the reason the chineese didn't think much of the roman gifts was that they weren't exceptionally exotic to them. Ivory and turtleshells they could find at home, but the romans possibly didn't know that. ??
No way! I just moved to Vietnam recently, I'm living in HCMC. I've been watching your vids for years, funny coincidence 😅 I haven't been to the history museum yet but it's on my list 😊
Hi Stefan! Have you ever considered writing a book? I think something containing loads of stories like this or just interesting archeological finds would be really cool, especially if done by you!
Living in the golden peninsula, being sandwiched by great civilizations west and east of us with at least 2 millennia of written and archeological history, makes me pretty envious. Our written history goes back barely 600 years.
You are wrong about that and need to learn more about the pre European years. America has known great civilizations for thousands of years. And a lot of it has yet to be discovered.
Apparently the Romans made it to North America as well with hundreds of Roman coins found around the Great Lakes area especially in Michigan. But nobody seems to acknowledge that
It is almost a certainty that Romans, Greeks and Phoenicians, ancient sailors in the Atlantic, would have been shipwrecked in the Americas at some point. The problem is in distinguishing between shipwreck survivors and an actual colony and two-way trade. There is evidence of ancient Europeans in the Americas, but as yet no evidence of return trips, outside from the Vikings, of course.
The subtitles just said, “Titus Pullo being a legend.” First of all, based. Secondly…Lol wtf?!? Did SMilo or an algorithm write that? Thank you, sir, for yet another incredible vid. Being a sort of “fighting naturalist” like that kid in the film Master n Commander stated, history is often the thing that gets pushed to the background. What a wonderful way then to start a day, sipping coffee and learning of a wider world. May your travels bring you sunsets in Japan and more. :-) Peace.
Excellent and captivating video. Loved the part about the Roman and China connection. I think quite a few people can possibly point a portion of their DNA markers to Roman ancestry. I would love to see a future video featuring tools used by current paleontologists in the field and lab. You are very good at explaining things, and I think you would do the topic justice.
Huzzah! Stefan dropped another historical arch video!!! Great work!! Fun fact: an author just wrote a historical fiction book called Silk Road Centurion. It's about a Roman centurion being sold off into slavery in China.
China Also sent ambassadors to Rome as well, but same as what stopped the Romans, the Parthians convinced the Chinese envoys it was not worth going further, Glad you did a Roman video on the Ides of March, Ave Caesar!
I think the concept of traveling was very different before. In the Nordic Sagas, it is explained how the Viking forefathers moved from somewhere East of the Black Sea to Northern Europe. The journey to Wineland (New Found Land) from Norway, was also done long ago. We know from Tor Heyerdahl’s expeditions, that people may well have traveled from Africa to South America, and how the Pacific islands were colonized from South America. I think Speke was trying to follow an ancient Roman route to East Africa through the Nile. There are Rune inscriptions on one of the Sphinx in Egypt, by a Viking named Halvdan. I believe ancient people traveled a lot more than we think today. Chinese coins and artifacts have been found in Viking graves in Norway. In the early 1900eds, a friend of my grandfather, Knud Rasmussen (Kununguaq), traveled by dog sledge from north Greenland over Canada and Alaska, to Siberia.
Cui Chi tunnels to Ha Long Bay? Bit of a departure from your usual stuff, but fun. There's always the old "the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence" saw if all other arguments fail.
The Roman Empire was not just a “nubbin around Constantinople” for all of 1100 to 1400. The Empire was still a major power in Anatolia and across the Balkans until it was shattered in 1204. When it was eventually restored by the Nicene Empire, it still controlled much of Anatolia and the Balkans. Over the 1300s it was gradually chipped away until about 1360 when the conquest of Adrianople turned it into a nubbin.
Now living near the small city you grew up in, I can attest that there are lots of mental health resources in the area, even if they are not free on the NHS. Fascinating presentation otherwise, which I enjoyed very much.
I think you made a solid case! As for "why not better known?" Like you said, they may not have made it home. I've noticed that any trip that didn't lead to anything permanent gets forgotten. Whether it's the Vikings in Canada, Brendan the Navigator reaching North America, the Chinese circumnavigating the world in 1421, or this Roman delegation... no effect, no glory.
I totally thought this was gonna be about the lost Roman legion. Neat to learn new stuff! Also I find it funny that they deemed the alleged tribute not valuable, since today (and years since), those are v rare, valuable things.
Ancient Southeast Asia is a fascinating topic that tends to get short shrift because of limitations in historical records, but that's where archaeological investigation can provide some tantalizing evidence. I recently made a video about a little-known site in southern Vietnam which bears witness to a civilization whose existence was unknown before its chance discovery in 1985. It seems to have been influenced by the Oc Eo culture, but is characterized by an intriguing mix of South Asian and East Asian influences. Imagine how much more is waiting to be discovered.
Important thing to keep in mind is that coins from that time are made of precious metals. So even if you don’t know the king or the currency it is still gold/silver that you can just put on a scale. Still possible that some adventurous people travelled further than we usually credit them.
Back in the early 2000s. Construction workers in Silay City, the Philippines dug a wooden box that contained roman coins. But well it also contains Spanish and Chinese coins. So it could have been part of a collection of someone who lived during the Spanish colonial period of the Philippines up to the Japanese Occupation or probably later.
I had a teacher once blow up on me for accidentally giving him a Canadian nickel while paying for some sort of fee, and these guys were potentially accepting payment in the form of a coin from some empire thousands of miles away smh.
Stephan, I am writing a book on people who practice “Immersive History”. I’d like to interview you for about 15 minutes because you make these things do interesting! It’s an art!
You should do a similar video on how Merlin was probably a Persian priest. If you want more details let me know. I'd love to discuss it with you. And yes, I'm aware Merlin isn't a historical person (or is he?) and this is an archeology channel.
Khodadad Rezakhani argued in a seminar I saw in London a couple years ago that the Daqin might have been the Near East, rather than Rome and that it's a consequence of an orientalist binary that we want to see Rome and China as these Eastern and Western hegemonic powers, when there is a more likely candidate (for being the Daqin) in between them. A sort of western, preference for seeing Rome to the exclusion of other possibilities. Though you should read his stuff directly for all the nuances
There has been some sort of contact between the Chinese and Rome from the first century, when Chinese silk was introduced. It became very popular in those days. Another indication, a bit further on, was the Hadrian and later Antonian walls up in Scotland. The Romans would have never thought of them themselves. They are basic replica's of certain parts of the Chines wall.
While I like the idea of the contact and cultural exchange, do you really mean to claim that the Romans would never have thought of _walls_ in an era when it you wanted to protect a city you put walls around it? I think you might be selling the makers of amazing aqueducts, architecture, arches, and many many roads very short if you think they wouldn't think "Walls keep wolves away from sheep, they keep invaders away from our cities, so maybe they can keep the Scots out of the rest of Brittania."
It really could simply be from trade. I know that , especially if the coin was of a genuine metal like gold or silver, it would be pretty neat to get a coin from somewhere exotic in my daily commerce dealings, and it might have been the same when that coin got to Vietnam.
![I.N "HALLUCINATION" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/n5B5q1Hwt_U/mqdefault.jpg)
Not my usual topic this week but just felt like talking about it whilst I was in Vietnam. Next week I have a certified banger for you, "Humanity 1,000,000 years ago". You're going to love it!
That's one way to write off the holiday as an expense! Great video as always though. Hope you have a great time in Vietnam!
There is a roman amphora at the sabah state history museum in borneo. IIRC they aren't entirely sure how it got there. Might tickle your interest.
We don't deserve you, Sir. 😪
Which body are you using for banger certification Stefan?
Wow, great vid. Thank you so much Stef!
hey Stefan, it's An, thank you so much for the shoutout in your video! I'm truly honored to have contributed to your amazing video, cheers, mate!
That was your article? Nice!
@@willmosse3684 no, it was all Stefan's, I just simply helped him on what, where to go when he was in Viet Nam.
I do wanna say, just because the tributes weren't considered all that valuable by the Chinese doesn't mean they weren't considered valuable by the Romans, or even that they weren't that valuable because this was the first journey of its kind and an empire at war isn't gonna load chests of gold it needs to pay its armies onto a ship to send to the other side of the world with no guarantee it will get there or even really Can get there. The chances of success for a voyage like that with Roman era ships would not be high.
Ships had been crossing the Indian Ocean from India to the Red Sea for thousands of years by the Roman Empire period. It's well documented, the trip took almost a year due to tradewind patterns.
Also, the Romans may have actually been trying to preserve hard currency by seeing if the Chinese wanted anything else. Rome tried to ban silk at a point, because they were trading finite silver for renewable silk, which isn't a great economic position to be in.
the use of tri-remes or w/e other mediterranean ship types lkikely would have ended before reaching the red sea, no? i mean, is there evidence for roman ships outside the Med?
@@wolfgangBuonarottiyes, there is.
@@wolfgangBuonarotti triremes were military vessels, not trade vessels. the vessels used to make trade missions between India and Egypt would've been locally crafted in the Red Sea and India as they knew the craft of making a seaworthy ship for the job. Rope manufacturing was a major trade along the Red Sea as well, and one of the earliest recorded trades in the region, which is how we know that they were conducting trade via boat for thousands of years before the Romans. It's not a question that Romans were trading in the far-east, but as far as a full-blown expedition is concerned, it's far less clear. First century Romans were at least aware of the Spice Islands, and Roman coins have been found in Java, which suggests Roman traders likely enjoyed some amount of trade before the empire began to decline.
From a middle school teacher at an international school in Vietnam - thanks for this content! Will make for an interesting (and relevant!) critical thinking activity during my 7th graders' Rome unit!
Oh look, my best friend Stefan just sent me a video from his trip.
Imagine if he set up a hotline to send us his videos with detailed friendly texts
@slimtim9570 least parasocial viewer
He is taken as a best friend by me, beat it
Man, it must have been a bitch to have to walk all the way from Rome to China while wearing all that armor.
Its not that heavy. I have a suit of roman armour, if it weren't for the looks, I'd wear it everyday. Good protection against getting stabbed at the train station
BOAT
Dude horse 9
@@PropagandalfderWeißeDo you live in London by any chance?
@@ShmingleshmangleNo, I am German. We have it equally as bad as you brits, maybe even worse
Speculating here, but presumably elephant tusks and rhino horns would have been very valuable in Rome, since they would have had to mainly come all the way from sub-Saharan Africa. But Han China most likely still had its own rhinos and elephants in the 2nd century CE, meaning that their horns and tusks would be comparatively more common and less expensive. But the Romans would not necessarily have known this. The gifts being seen as not particularly valuable by the Chinese might be a result of the differing value placed on them by China and Rome. Maybe Marcus Aurelius accidentally bought Huan presents he already had plenty of at home.
I was about to say the same thing. What was impressive in the West at the time was pretty normal in China. Ibn Battuta the Islamic scholar roads that every man in China where is fine silk so the country must be super rich, which is kind of was but to Chinese people silkworms weren't uncommon or hard to raise like where Battuta was from.
I’m speculating here because I can’t recall my past life as Marcus Aurelius but I imagine that China just had a big ego feeling like they had the best everything so would be underwhelmed by most outside gifts of the time.
I thought the same thing about this! This would make a great movie if done right.
Rhinos and Elephants are present in India and SE Asia as well.
Maybe Romans just picked up something on their way to China as they didn't want to go empty handed😅
@@ThePolymerisst
My thoughts too. None of these are particularly Roman. On a long trip with low odds of getting through why invest in goods and drag them all that way?
Instead, once you're close and it looks like you'll make it, you spend some of your gold coins on gifts. Faced with "what do you get the man who has everything" you buy what looks novel or exotic to your Roman eyes.
Not only the Romans were used to sailing very far, but they had permanent outposts in India.
So, it's not absurd that a few merchants decided to have a look in East Asia.
Entirely possible. IMO more likely as either passengers on a trading vessel or they charted a trading vessel. That vessel could have originated in either India or SE Asia. The spice merchants along the Malabar Coast knew they had a good thing going. They were getting rich buying cheap and selling high. The last thing they wanted was the Roman's or their agents finding a way of going to the source. In the 1600s when the Dutch started sending fleets to the "Indies" they ould lose every ship in the fleet except one that got back and still make a fortune.
This channel is such a gem. Lucky to have found it recently.
I have been going through your older videos and you definitely have a unique way of humanizing history.
And if those ambassadors never made it back to Rome, that could be another reason why Rome maybe never even wrote about it. I imagine they weren't too keen to detail presumed failed expeditions, especially if they only sent a few somewhat unimportant people to do it. I often wonder when ancient rulers sent people out to explore, how long did they wait for them to come back before assuming it was a failed mission? And how many of them actually made it to their destination, but just not all the way back home to tell anyone? This reminds me of the story of an African king who sent a fleet out into the Atlantic Ocean and never returned, but possibly discovered South America and left evidence on an island along the way. Might be another good video topic for you!
Possible origin of the Olmecs?
That story would be about the predecessor of mansa musa, which most historians think was mansa muhammad ibn qu. He lived around 1300 ad. The olmec civilazation started around 1500 BC and in 4000 bc there were already agrarian settlements. Its also a pretty racist pseudoscientific theory to believe
@@danielvanhuizen1253 Mansa Muhammad sounds like the one I was thinking of, but I thought it was speculated they might have made it to Brazil or thereabouts. It's been a while since I heard the story in some videos, so my memory is foggy.
@@charleshash4919 Sure, some -hypothetical- african castaways from the XIV century somehow appeared in neolithic north america, and they alone, a bunch of men with no communication with any metropoli, made an entire civilization. In the past. In a continent far away from their home. And leaving no trace in the closer lands.
I'd sooner believe the aliens built the pyramids. At least it doesn't involve time travel.
@Pax.Alotin Unfortunately, even if they did and somehow managed to arrive in one piece, navigational and seafaring technology made it very unlikely that they ever came back.
Great stuff. Seems more likely that these sorts of long range contacts came from trade missions that may have claimed to represent Rome whether the central authority were aware of such or not. I don’t think that makes the possibility of such contacts any less remarkable.
yes!
Since the time of Augustus the Romans had trade contact with Southern India who in turn had trade contact with Southeast Asia so that seems a more likely explanation than a one off expediton. Fun fact: this trade route brought most of the silk and spices to the empire and even a Hindu statue that was found in Pompeii. The coin was turned into a necklace, this could mean it was done by the local elite at some point. However again the more likely senario here is that is was brought there by colonial rulers (the French) since making jewelry out of Roman coins was common among the European elite after the renaissance.
Our main source on Roman Trade is a book called the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, which lists ports and gives a rough idea of distance, politics and what you can buy and sell there. It covers the Red Sea, East Africa, the Gulf and the India but I don't remember it giving anything beyond India. Trade with India was so frequent that I'm sure curious merchants, especially ones who did business with local merchants who went east, would have asked question about what lay beyond and that information would have made it back to Alexandria and Rome. I could even see a geographer like Ptolemy and Roman officials chatting with the merchants who'd been India and enlisting them to gather information in Indian Ports, both about India itself and what lay beyond. That said, I could easily say, well we have plenty of ships going to India, and the captains all say there are ships in port trading with China via Vietnam. Let's send some men to India with a bag of gold and tell them to try and get to China and see what you can find out.
@@scottn2046look at this video is in Italian but it should be with subtitles the guy usually doesn’t post fake info in his other documentaries but I didn’t fact check this so take it with a grain of salt. It seems like the romans had even some permanent settlements in India at some time
ruclips.net/video/yBxDfxbWBeI/видео.htmlsi=zWG_Xyf53N8teVwg
I always find it a funny thing that Buddhism was popular in the Hellenistic world and later the Eastern part of the Roman empire, and might even have provided some inspiration for Christianity.
@@frankvandorp9732 Known by certain intellectuals in the Eastern Mediterranean in the Hellenistic and Roman period, yes, but popular, no. But it'd an intriguing question how much two way connections there were between Buddhists and Greek Philosophers, both BC and AD, particularly Alexandria, and whether that had any influence on religious free thinkers in the upper Red Sea in the early Christian era ...
4:40 You said it's written in Sanskrit then 4:42 show old Tamil script? Thats Tamil "eḻuttu"
I thought it would have been more Rome to India and India to Vietnam. Romans did trade heavily with India, and Indians were trading with Champa.
Your content is pure quality! Been watching for years now 📖
Same here
We are so back! Thank you for everything Stefan ❤
What a beautiful sight to come home to, another BANGER video by Stephan the don! Always good to wind down listening to how and who got us to where we are today.
Genuine joy when I saw you upload a new video! Thanks!
01:20 for an instant I thought you said “it’s Chile” and my mind hoped for a video on Monte Verde and early populations of the Southern cone of South America. One can only wish. Love all of your videos, by the way, many thanks for your work!
Nooooo, not Better Help.
They were fined millions of dollars by the US government for violating HIPPA and selling patient data to big tech. Please don't renew your sponsorship 😊
Stefan, please overthink your sponsorships
I'm not familiar with that website - could you explain why it's so bad? I'm just curious
@@guillervz boiled down: handling user data/patience data in the worst possible way including providing all the sensitive data (even of people that only take the initial questionnaire without actually becoming a customer) to Facebook for advertising and basically fb was allowed to use the data in any way they want. This was not the only instance but that's just a no no. There are videos on RUclips that go into detail with that, I think one video is called "overthink your sponsors" or something like that.
@@guillervz Also, numerous horror stories about lack of professionalism (and sometimes even a lack of appropriate credentials) from the therapists. Not to mention the company was founded by a hard-core former IDF guy.
Just to nitpick, Okinawa didn't become part of Japan until the 19th century, so calling it Japan at an earlier period is a tad anachronistic, like referring to Roman-era Constantinople as Turkey.
Edited to add: I should clarify since some people have misunderstood my point. I'm happy to talk about ancient Japan even before any states existed there, e.g. paleolithic Japan. But Okinawa is geographically separate from the main islands of Japan, lying roughly halfway between Taiwan and Kyushu, the southernmost of the main islands of Japan. And Okinawa was historically the centre of the maritime kingdom of Ryukyu, which was a separate state that established diplomatic relations with Japan, Korea, and China. It is linguistically separate, home to Okinawan and other Ryukyuan languages which are distantly related to but not mutually intelligible with Japanese. Because of all this, historians of the region treat Ryukyu as its own thing and don't refer to premodern Okinawa as Japan.
wow such big brain. you must be fun at parties.
He wasn't calling it Japan "at an earlier period". He was merely stating the location where the archaeologists found it. The ruins are located at Okinawa, Japan.
@@ronangelox He called it a Japanese castle, which is a bit like calling the Hagia Sophia a Turkish building. Correct in a way, but misleading.
Even geographically, it's not very satisfactory since Okinawa isn't part of the main islands of Japan. It's like calling the moai Chilean statues because Easter Island is today part of Chile.
Obviously he calls it Japan because thats what be called for most of its history. Just like Egypt
@@reeyees50 No, Okinawa was not a part of Japan before the 19th century, any more than Corsica was a part of France before the 18th century or Kaliningrad was a part of Russia before the 20th century. It was the centre of its own kingdom, Ryukyu, situated between Japan and Taiwan. Ryukyu was always seen as foreign to the Japanese before it was annexed to Japan in the 19th century, with its own language and culture. Historians treat Ryukyu as separate from Japan. I'm not faulting anyone for not being familiar with the history and just assuming it's always been part of Japan, but I think viewers of this channel would be interested in getting this right.
Thats some good digging! Fascinating stuff and lovely maps
Ive been to that Okinawan castle, the view and sunset is indeed nice, missed the coins though :/
There is a kingdom in Kalimantan island named Kutai Kertanegara in the past, its just on the other side of malay penninsula, and the “Kertanegara” name is similar
Voices of the Past reads a first hand account of an earlier Chinese embassy to Rome. I can't quite remember but I think it was during the reign of Augustas Caesar.
I was wondering where my favorite guy Stefan was. I have been thinking about your channel off and on at random throughout the past two weeks and I NEVER think about any RUclips channel ever except yours recently. I think the cannabis docu you said you were working on peeked my interest on some level. Always good to see your videos. I write a cool comment during the advertisement so that’s why a lot of my comments are so long.
Two of my favorite things, Stefan Milo and Rome! In one video! I'm not worthy!
Hello. I read somewhere many years ago that some Roman vases were found off the coast of Vietnam. Maybe some Romans or their proxies were trading in Southeast Asia. Humankind has traded long distances since day one.
I discovered your channel quite recently and I have to say it's quickly becoming my absolute favorite. Keep up the good job and you will have a million subs by this time next year!
Steven Miller makes the most of his trip to Vietnam and gives us this compelling video. What a guy!
Wow, at the end you wonder about how hard and uncertain it must have been for the Romans on this expedition. You always bring your videos to the perspective of the human experience. For modern humans, for early ancestors or cousin species. I appreciate that.
Absolute BANGER of a video
I watch your videos in amazement. You cover topics which I find fascinating, just like this video.
Thanks!
My step-nephew lives in Vietnam as does an American Facebook friended several years ago. The nephew is in the hospitality trade. And the son of my colleague from uni also lives in Vietnam. So… I would say it’s a popular destination and sometimes residence. Good to see this side venture positing an expedition of such length. I think of how far Alexander the Great went and pretty sure he at least got to China but yes it’s a crazy long way and even further to Vietnam.
The importance of considering something that seems unlikely is that if we don't hold it as at least a possibility, and we toss the idea aside, then if new clues or evidence do show up, we will dismiss them because we have already decided it couldn't have happened. Keeping an open mind allows the possibility for recognizing new evidence, either for or against the idea, and allowing the possibility of new discoveries and further understanding.
Interesting video. I look forward to more information about thus!
Interesting video. I highly doubt it was Roman expedition.
Maybe some Roman traders heard about Vietnam when they were just walking around in the markets of Southern India and decided to take a trip there?
Or maybe the coins reached Vietnam from some other traders from Southern India, the Middle East or Sri Lanka?
Fascinating stuff.
There was a ghost stories RUclips story recently about a man who saw a ghostly Roman legionary apparition in Vietnam. Fascinating
By the time the Chinese historical account was written, the Chinese had decided that the rest of the world had little to offer, so it would not surprise me that the gifts were denigrated. Something that makes me skeptical though: the Roman elite were contemptuous of merchants and thus also of seafarers, I think an emperor would be more likely to send a land-going expedition.
Hey Stefan this video is absolutely crazy and man this shocks me, from West Africa to East Asia the Romans sought to discover the expanses of Earth but alas it was not but thank you so much for clearing the Easternmost expansion of the Ancient Romans ❤❤❤
My favourite RUclips channel right now! So informative and fun always:)
Thank You for this, Stefan. It's always a joy to watch Your content. Love it!
Greetings from Sweden 🇸🇪
There was an Ancient Indian Expedition to Egypt where few people survived.
Lê dot
4:40 You said it's written in Sanskrit then 4:42 show old Tamil script? Thats Tamil "eḻuttu"
This video was great man! Thanks so much. Maybe the Roman ambassadors just decided to chill and make a life for themselves at their final destination after their over 12,000 mile expedition. I think I would lol
Have a blast mate, I'm really enjoying having 'discovered' you just a few weeks back
Love your videos Stefan! Great as usual, could do without the betterhelp sponsorship though (not a good company mate!)
Would tusks and shells have been rare and expensive in ancient Rome? Maybe the Romans thought they were valuable gifts
Or maybe it was very valuable to other areas in Asia so the Romans just assumed it would be the same there
As African elephants are larger than Asiatic elephants I think that very large African tusks would be impressive to the Chinese.
@@michaelh6551 Roman and Greek sources always claim the opposite: that Indian elephants are bigger and stronger than African ones. This is because the African elephant they knew was the extinct North African population, which would have been more like modern forest elephants, and might have been a subspecies of them.
@@michaelh6551 Big Asian tuskers from ancient times could probably just about compete with African tuskers, they can be very impressive even today
6:54 this fresco is amazing
Looking forward to that next video, sounds really interesting!
Thank u Steven dope video , I been subscribed for like 3 years.
I saw a LOT of coins from that era, many of Cesar getting pulled out of tombs, turtle tombs, in Anatolia. Deifineci Deniz has many videos, but there are dozens of treasure seeker channels for the area. Thank you.
Wow, that was so cool! Off the beaten track for your usual prehistory stuff. But suuuper interesting.
This is a really fascinating topic as the interactions between Europe and Asia have been a particular interest of mine for a while. Thank you for making this video, your content never disappoints!
It's roam, greek and asia, rest of europe has nothing to do with it.
Maybe the reason the chineese didn't think much of the roman gifts was that they weren't exceptionally exotic to them. Ivory and turtleshells they could find at home, but the romans possibly didn't know that. ??
You're a great science and history communicator. Thanks as always for the content
5:50 WILD coincidence but I'm researching Ptolemy's world maps for a paper in another window RIGHT NOW as this section played in the other window! lol
No way! I just moved to Vietnam recently, I'm living in HCMC. I've been watching your vids for years, funny coincidence 😅
I haven't been to the history museum yet but it's on my list 😊
We have been covering the Roman Empire for the past few weeks in one of my classes!
That is a neat video, I wish you do more video on Ancient mainland Southeast Asia like Angkor or Champa temples.
I love Stefan, I love Rome. When he covers Roman expeditions I think I've died and gone to heaven.
I love Stefan's videos. I watch them all the time
Hi Stefan! Have you ever considered writing a book? I think something containing loads of stories like this or just interesting archeological finds would be really cool, especially if done by you!
he wrote an educational children’s book i believe about ancient history a couple years ago!!
interesting, thanks. so grateful for your channel
Thanks for this video, I learned a lot. This story makes for a pretty cool movie or TV series !
Living in the golden peninsula, being sandwiched by great civilizations west and east of us with at least 2 millennia of written and archeological history, makes me pretty envious. Our written history goes back barely 600 years.
You are wrong about that and need to learn more about the pre European years. America has known great civilizations for thousands of years. And a lot of it has yet to be discovered.
@@telebubba5527 the golden peninsula is the Malay peninsula. Not everything is about amerifats
So today I learned that the Roman emperor's job was an archaic form of writing emails all day...
Apparently the Romans made it to North America as well with hundreds of Roman coins found around the Great Lakes area especially in Michigan. But nobody seems to acknowledge that
It is almost a certainty that Romans, Greeks and Phoenicians, ancient sailors in the Atlantic, would have been shipwrecked in the Americas at some point. The problem is in distinguishing between shipwreck survivors and an actual colony and two-way trade. There is evidence of ancient Europeans in the Americas, but as yet no evidence of return trips, outside from the Vikings, of course.
The subtitles just said, “Titus Pullo being a legend.”
First of all, based.
Secondly…Lol wtf?!? Did SMilo or an algorithm write that?
Thank you, sir, for yet another incredible vid. Being a sort of “fighting naturalist” like that kid in the film Master n Commander stated, history is often the thing that gets pushed to the background. What a wonderful way then to start a day, sipping coffee and learning of a wider world. May your travels bring you sunsets in Japan and more.
:-)
Peace.
Lucius Vorenus-bot in the comments
Another excellent spot of work by Milo
Excellent and captivating video. Loved the part about the Roman and China connection. I think quite a few people can possibly point a portion of their DNA markers to Roman ancestry. I would love to see a future video featuring tools used by current paleontologists in the field and lab. You are very good at explaining things, and I think you would do the topic justice.
Huzzah! Stefan dropped another historical arch video!!! Great work!!
Fun fact: an author just wrote a historical fiction book called Silk Road Centurion. It's about a Roman centurion being sold off into slavery in China.
China Also sent ambassadors to Rome as well, but same as what stopped the Romans, the Parthians convinced the Chinese envoys it was not worth going further, Glad you did a Roman video on the Ides of March, Ave Caesar!
I think the concept of traveling was very different before. In the Nordic Sagas, it is explained how the Viking forefathers moved from somewhere East of the Black Sea to Northern Europe. The journey to Wineland (New Found Land) from Norway, was also done long ago. We know from Tor Heyerdahl’s expeditions, that people may well have traveled from Africa to South America, and how the Pacific islands were colonized from South America. I think Speke was trying to follow an ancient Roman route to East Africa through the Nile. There are Rune inscriptions on one of the Sphinx in Egypt, by a Viking named Halvdan. I believe ancient people traveled a lot more than we think today. Chinese coins and artifacts have been found in Viking graves in Norway. In the early 1900eds, a friend of my grandfather, Knud Rasmussen (Kununguaq), traveled by dog sledge from north Greenland over Canada and Alaska, to Siberia.
Interesting topic, and lovely to hear about Vietnam!
DUDE ! . Love it ta for your efforts , love you
guy .
Cui Chi tunnels to Ha Long Bay? Bit of a departure from your usual stuff, but fun. There's always the old "the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence" saw if all other arguments fail.
One of my half sisters is from Funan, I have another from Shanghai (my dad has a lot of kids).
The Roman Empire was not just a “nubbin around Constantinople” for all of 1100 to 1400. The Empire was still a major power in Anatolia and across the Balkans until it was shattered in 1204. When it was eventually restored by the Nicene Empire, it still controlled much of Anatolia and the Balkans. Over the 1300s it was gradually chipped away until about 1360 when the conquest of Adrianople turned it into a nubbin.
Great video. What I wouldn't give to be an ambassador to a land that I had no idea what it was like, what was out there, or how far it went
Great Content. The OC EO insription on the tablet at 4.43 looks more Brahmi than Sanskrit
Brahmi is script, sanskrit is language.
One of my favourite things at my advanced age is learning history that I don't know! Thanks, Stefan!
Now living near the small city you grew up in, I can attest that there are lots of mental health resources in the area, even if they are not free on the NHS.
Fascinating presentation otherwise, which I enjoyed very much.
I think you made a solid case! As for "why not better known?" Like you said, they may not have made it home. I've noticed that any trip that didn't lead to anything permanent gets forgotten. Whether it's the Vikings in Canada, Brendan the Navigator reaching North America, the Chinese circumnavigating the world in 1421, or this Roman delegation... no effect, no glory.
Another banger from you !
08:02 that script is actually talking about an elicpse, not a Roman embassador... Just as fascinating imo 👍
"Having a WHALE of a time..." 👀
I think that's all those cheeseburgers bud.
I totally thought this was gonna be about the lost Roman legion. Neat to learn new stuff! Also I find it funny that they deemed the alleged tribute not valuable, since today (and years since), those are v rare, valuable things.
7:29 Stefan's hat is literally sucked off his head here! 😂😂😂
Ancient Southeast Asia is a fascinating topic that tends to get short shrift because of limitations in historical records, but that's where archaeological investigation can provide some tantalizing evidence. I recently made a video about a little-known site in southern Vietnam which bears witness to a civilization whose existence was unknown before its chance discovery in 1985. It seems to have been influenced by the Oc Eo culture, but is characterized by an intriguing mix of South Asian and East Asian influences. Imagine how much more is waiting to be discovered.
I see a new Stefan Milo video -> I couldn’t possible press the like button faster
Important thing to keep in mind is that coins from that time are made of precious metals. So even if you don’t know the king or the currency it is still gold/silver that you can just put on a scale.
Still possible that some adventurous people travelled further than we usually credit them.
Back in the early 2000s.
Construction workers in Silay City, the Philippines dug a wooden box that contained roman coins.
But well it also contains Spanish and Chinese coins.
So it could have been part of a collection of someone who lived during the Spanish colonial period of the Philippines up to the Japanese Occupation or probably later.
I had a teacher once blow up on me for accidentally giving him a Canadian nickel while paying for some sort of fee, and these guys were potentially accepting payment in the form of a coin from some empire thousands of miles away smh.
Stephan, I am writing a book on people who practice “Immersive History”. I’d like to interview you for about 15 minutes because you make these things do interesting! It’s an art!
7:20 Nicely done, navigating that tunnel just like Indiana Jones!
You should do a similar video on how Merlin was probably a Persian priest. If you want more details let me know. I'd love to discuss it with you. And yes, I'm aware Merlin isn't a historical person (or is he?) and this is an archeology channel.
Khodadad Rezakhani argued in a seminar I saw in London a couple years ago that the Daqin might have been the Near East, rather than Rome and that it's a consequence of an orientalist binary that we want to see Rome and China as these Eastern and Western hegemonic powers, when there is a more likely candidate (for being the Daqin) in between them. A sort of western, preference for seeing Rome to the exclusion of other possibilities.
Though you should read his stuff directly for all the nuances
Love doing nerdy things while traveling.
There has been some sort of contact between the Chinese and Rome from the first century, when Chinese silk was introduced. It became very popular in those days. Another indication, a bit further on, was the Hadrian and later Antonian walls up in Scotland. The Romans would have never thought of them themselves. They are basic replica's of certain parts of the Chines wall.
While I like the idea of the contact and cultural exchange, do you really mean to claim that the Romans would never have thought of _walls_ in an era when it you wanted to protect a city you put walls around it? I think you might be selling the makers of amazing aqueducts, architecture, arches, and many many roads very short if you think they wouldn't think "Walls keep wolves away from sheep, they keep invaders away from our cities, so maybe they can keep the Scots out of the rest of Brittania."
It really could simply be from trade. I know that , especially if the coin was of a genuine metal like gold or silver, it would be pretty neat to get a coin from somewhere exotic in my daily commerce dealings, and it might have been the same when that coin got to Vietnam.
Great content!!