I hit 3,000-year-old art with a hammer
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- Опубликовано: 17 окт 2024
- The White Horse, in Uffington, is one of the oldest surviving works of art in Britain: carved into a hillside in Oxfordshire 3,000 years ago. Every year, it's rechalked by volunteers co-ordinated through the National Trust, a line of maintenance going back to before England had written history.
Thanks to all the National Trust team! If you're free over the August bank holiday and fancy helping out, here's the link! www.nationaltr...
Thanks to Ian from IanVisits for giving the tipoff - he makes a cameo in this one! www.ianvisits....
Camera by Paul (@cr3) - he also makes a cameo!
Edit by Michelle Martin / @onthecrux who doesn't make a cameo.
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I was worried that the title of this video was clickbait, but no, I am literally hitting 3,000-year-old art with a hammer.
It's still a little cheeky, Tom from a month ago.
Tom Scott i cant agree more
Something can be true and still be clickbait.
Huntracony true, but colloquially clickbait is used in a negative sense
four weeks ago
What's amazing is that, for over 3,000 years, it has never gone more than 25 years without being touched up. They couldn't even see what it was but they did it anyway. Remarkable.
What's also interesting is that somehow knowledge of its origin wasn't passed on while that was happening. Maybe there's some good historical reason for it, but that surprised me.
Hector Rodriguez the knowledge of its origin was passed on, but it's a secret.
Just having it would be a reason for other people to visite the place. So it has a economical motive.
It can be seen clearly from a couple of hill villages & a hill fort across the valley. The ritual of 'scouring' the White Horse every seven years is known by written reports to have been going on for at least 300 years & the White Horse is recorded in the 1,000 year old "cartulary of Abingdon Abbey". I think it's doubtful that the seven year scouring cycle has lasted 3,000 years, but it doesn't need to have been regularly scoured - the chalk lines are the surface of one metre deep chalk trenches, the land has been cropped by domestic cattle for millennia, & if there was a time that there wasn't cattle to do the job it would have been clearly visible during droughts when hill grasses die back.
Clearly it's a glyph to ward off eldritch evil which we're better off not knowing about.
There's something so viscerally human about this. New people arrive in an area, maybe don't understand the horse but they like it so they maintain it. They're replaced, and the replacements are replaced maybe a hundred times, but people still think it's cool, a neat part of the local culture and history, so they keep it going. I wonder if it will last another 3000 years. I hope so.
Humanity is killing itself by burning everything that burns, so maybe only another hundred years before we become extinct too.
@@thetessellater9163 why so negative?
@@artemis_smith doesnt really matter to us, does it?
the theseus ship theory, its called.
@@ashishkulkarnii it may not matter to you but it's still really cool to me
imagine being the 3000 year old person who made this, and seeing people still preserving your work
i bet they didn't care that much for it to hope people would keep it up there for so long
I'm imagining someone do that for any piece of my own art. I'd be moved in a way I couldn't describe really.
"tf are you doing, I was bloody drunk that night. Don't preserve that shi"
how are they gonna see it if they're not alive
@@bilbert2736 This
Didnt expect to see Tom Scott, of all people, beating a dead horse
Not original
@@dabydaby7653 true he's really beating a dead horse
@@dabydaby7653 cry about it
@@dabydaby7653 Imagine being obsessed with originality in a world where nothing is original. Must suck
Not dead, that horse is 3000 years old
I go past this horse every time I return home by train from University. It never ceases to amaze me
I really think the profound importance of this can't be understated. When you think of other structures this old - the pyramids for example, not only are they way more famous they were basically abandoned for most of history, not to mention pillaged. This strange chalk drawing on this hill has been continuously maintained for longer than the lifespan of multiple civilisations. Incereidible.
I think I had a seizure trying to read how you spelt incredible
And we British don't even give af about it when we see it like it's "just some old 3000 yrs old horse move along"
They call it art, I bet the original "horse" looked completely different and what's left is junk compared to what it was.
@@genki2705 strange claim
@@derekw104 if an object’s parts are replaced over time, does it remain the same object?
I'm doing this with the Mona Lisa tomorrow wish me luck please.
It’s not like people won’t call the police if you comment this
I think the police would just laugh hysterically if you called them for a youtube comment about smashing the mona lisa
what, you gonna smash paint on it or something
Akhil Ok sent a DM
SciBlast Official No I'm using a hammer on that sweet little bitchy smile
Things you can do: hit the art with a hammer.
Things you can’t do: fly a drone over it.
?.....
The 3000 year old horse it used a uno reverse card
The National Trust is very funny about drones at all there sites over the UK. You can understand why if you think about how many people would turn up to these sites and have them buzzing around above peoples heads etc.
@Maximus Shinejil Rain is bad for it? Lucky for them that it lies basking in sunny England then.
@@coolvideos8864 So glad to hear that. Amazing how loud drone's are even from super high up.
Cool Videos well when your government controls you obviously yes ofc they’d try to find ways of entertainment, britains just drink at bars as their form of entertainment
The two most insane things to me are:
1) That people have been preserving art for 3,000 years _even though they couldn't even really see what it was._
2) Just how modern that horse looks. That could easily be the logo for some modern horse racing tournament or a city flag for a car company or something. I'm frequently surprised at how fluid and stylistic and pleasing to the eye a lot of ancient art looks.
You are seriously running out of ideas.
You are literally beating the deadest horse in history.
One can argue that by beating the dead horse, he is keeping it alive.
Indeed, a horse that has been lying there for 3,000 years, but which is actually composed of crustaceans millions of years old.
@@Nevir202 sea _horses?_
Sorry
Magnus Peacock Yes! 🤣
@MrSamulai
> You are literally beating the deadest horse in history.
That may be, but you can't deny that Tom did a smashing job!
Welcome to Britain. We do weird stuff for no better reason then we've been doing weird stuff for 3000 years.
I'm sure there was a point to the White Horse originally, but the point of it now is to be a thread connecting modern Britain to anciant Britain.
madbritishbelizian if you think your weird, look at Japan. They have all women in theater played by men
@@frosty925 So? That was a thing for hundreds of years in the UK as well. We also have a proud tradition of the Pantomime Dame
@@frosty925 Dude just like the ancient Greek ones, not surprised
Theres also penis festivals, but really all of humanity is generally very weird and stupid throughout history
Imho serving as a connection to the ancestors is a very good point for something. This time, it is not someone on a horse, but the horse itself.
"I hit a 3000 year old horse with a hammer to make it better"
Now that sounds like some old school RTS-gaming right there.
🎶 Hey Tom,
Don't make it bad,
Take a chalk roaaad,
And make it better 🎶
Na na
nanana na
Na na
nanana na
The Engineer
That sound kinda like necromancy
Edit:offbrand necromancy
"I Hit 3,000-Year-Old Art with a Hammer to improve it"
Even more clickbait. Even more accurate.
I love the concept that so many people looked at this and thought "I don't know why that is here, I don't know who made it, but I wanna keep having that here" and decided to preserve it
Hitting with a hammer to build Literally everything reminds me of old RTS like "Age of Empires".
SeeASquared literally what i thought haha
I just realised that this horse, is the 'Discovery' mark on the ground in campaign mode of Age of Empires 1
SeeASquared Woolala!
Careful not to hit the ground too hard, it might suddenly turn into a barracks
SeeASquared wololo
God that's so British... someone in a tower saying "Left, right, missed a bit."
I say "missed a bit" almost daily... it might be getting a bit old by now haha
It's been 22 years and I'm yet to see someone do this, but I guess somehow it's a British thing to do.
@@FortoFight exactly
“Left, roight”
DougtheDonkeyTV “Ya missed a bit, ya nutters!”
3,000 years ago there were probably complaints about graffiti artists disfiguring fields with their tags...
White Horse Gang
with their gamertags
"Those god damn kids are out there with the chalk again"
Megan Thee Stallion would approve
The two kids who poored chalk dust ontonof a hill to annoy to locals: "this will be a great prank, it should be funny and they will probably clean it up by tomorrow."
That actually made me cry to realize people have come together to care for this for 3000 years.
I've known about this horse for many years, but I never knew it required constant upkeep
Why do I get the feeling that I'll still be watching Tom Scott in some format in 50 years time?
He might not have the same interests as David Attenborough, or Stephen fry or any other of the British figureheads, but he has captured the British Spirit in much the same way.
*Looks up his age*
Possibly.
He's a little bit to woke honestly. Could go without all that.
@@twrecks6279 What would be enough valid wokeness?
@@Lambda_Ovine The less the better xD
@@darryljones3009 how old is he?
h m m m m m
I say, this is a groundbreaking piece of art!
Scythal i want to reply with a pun but it’s too hard
You win one internet.
Chalk up another golden top comment
You. I like you.
They should take a photo every year because every time they do this i'm sure the figure changes slightly.
this could look like a real horse at the beginning
I wonder what did it look like back then? Something totally else?
Marek Michalovič most likely very similar. I mean, it's not really hard to keep it looking the same
The filled trenches are deep so there's not much chance of shape changing due to carelessness.
In Victorian Times it had a Prince Albert
So they keep art preserved by smashing it. Out of context, that sounds impossible, but in context, it sounds brilliant.
Okay this might be the most interesting thing you've shown. Idk something about ten thousand generations of people coming together to preserve something is really really really special.
Technically correct clickbait, the best type of clickbait.
if it’s correct, is it really clickbait?
@@logandunlap9156 it's clickbait, but not a misleading one...
It's just gripping, so not clickbait
@@logandunlap9156 clicbate doesn't mean lying
I mean clickbait is usually a half-truth.
Talk about British persistence.
Brian Garrow, true.
I say, good sir, the stereotype is true!
*Drinks tea and adjusts monacle*
Is that even a British stereotype?? As a Brit also, I've never heard of such a thing and google comes up with nothing. Who's talking about it?
EliteXtasy That was what you were supposed to do - talk about it. 😃
EliteXtasy- Of course it is! Keep Calm and Carry On,
Dunkirk, Keep a Stiff Upper Lip, etc.
Camera pans to the side as he smashes the Mona Lisa with a hammer*
Wholesome Lad - you think the Mona Lisa is 3000 years old?...
bogs r/wooosh
Lollapool that's not how it works.
Hunter Green it still ruined the joke
True.
I have seen this horse in many films and wondered about the history. It is a real tribute to ourselves as humans that we take the time and effort to maintain items like this for our posterity.
Tom Scott in 2009: Can you remove your fingerprints with pineapples?
Tom Scott in 2018: I hit 3000 year old art with a hammer 😎
Tom Scott in 2022: I am human blimp.
Tom Scott in 3022: My head is in a jar
My only question is; how many similar pieces of art were made throughout history and completely lost to time? If it takes about 30 years for them to vanish, there could be any number more that have just vanished...
AMFoy : like that giant with the big todger?
there's a few around like the big lion near Whipsnade Zoo that was made in victorian times
@@martinhowser4094 Cerne Abbas Giant, its in Dorset. about 300 years old.
I wonder if it would be possible to detect any overgrown ones using the same method they used to test the age, if they were preserves for a decent length of time before being abandoned traces of them might remain.
i don't know if it is the same technique but you need to search "nazca lines peru"
What a smashing place and a cracking video. You really crushed it. I bet you were shattered after all that work. Was Matt with you? Or was he off horsing around somewhere?
One question, how many time was the phrase 'Stop... Hammer time' uttered?
Kill me. XD
STOP... Hammer time
Nailed It.
It's great how we Brits all club together for a smashing good cause. Let us chalk this up as another win.
That cracked me up! I was in pieces! Chalk that up as a job well done!
"It's not what a horse looks like, it's what a horse be!" - Terry Pratchett, from the Tiffany Aching books.
This is the sort of thing that would be great on a sunny day with a group friends as something to do while chatting. A better version of having a TV on in the background.
'Taint what a horse looks like, it's what a horse be.' ~ Terry Prattchet
Thank you!
The annual scouring of the site was done by local people. Originally, it was possibly the inhabitants of the Uffington Castle Hill-fort, which is sited a bit further up the hill from the Horse. In more recent times, the scourers were rewarded with what might be described today as a 'Barbecue and a piss-up'. In this area too, about 1.5 miles south-west, along the ancient track known as the Ridgeway, can be found the equally ancient chambered tomb known as 'Wayland's Smithy'. Folklore tales say that if your horse has lost a shoe, then leave a silver coin on the tomb's capstone - and the god Wayland will magically replace the shoe. The White Horse was also used on the gatefold sleeve of one of Swindon band XTC's best albums, 'English Settlement'.
I like to think the guy in the tower communicated guidance to the workers in this format:
"To me"
"To you"
"To me"
"To you"
RIP :(
So they were the chalkle brothers?
Come on now Barry
10 tons of chalk... that could keep one class of third graders occupied for at least a half hour.
Sorry for correcting but....
5 minutes*
art nah, 20 tons of chalk for only three seconds
Sorry for correcting but....
tonnes*
@Omega Technologies Inc Tons are imperial and Tonnes are metric, they are not the same, a short ton (U.S.) is 2000 lbs, a long ton (U.K.) is 2240 lbs and a tonne (Metric - Worldwide) is 2204.6 lbs (Divide lbs by 2.2 for kilos)!?!
The largest/oldest work of XTC fan art ever recorded
I think this kind of solves the conundrum of The Ship of Theseus.
It is not the same horse. It never will be the same horse. Time erodes everything and nothing will ever be the "same" as it was before.
But we can make it stick around a while longer by preserving it. It will never be the same chalk that the horse was made from, but it is still loved and it is still here.
I remember finding out this was a real thing after reading Terry Pratcett's Tiffany series and being so excited - it is still so cool to me!
T’aint what a horse looks like. It’s what a horse be.
came here to say that! :D good for ya! (and tom says he does not like terry pratchett...i forgive him. and secretly hope that maybe after this horse episode someone will give him this tiffany book and he might like it... lil bit... or not. no need to be all alike.)
Did you read the adult Discworld books as well? Nanny Ogg knows of another chalk figure... xD
Skellious The Cerne Abbot Giant is also real. And he does have a great big tonker.
I loved those books. I'm currently reading I shall wear midnight.
"Why do you do this?"
"I don't know, it's just what we've always done."
I would really like to know how the creators of the horse would react would anybody have told them that their art piece (that was probably created for religious reasons) would still be maintained after so long without anyone knowing why and not worshiping their gods.
like any graffity artist finding their work maintained and nearly worshipped after coupla millennia... :)
Not worshiping their gods? Oh, yessss, heheh, suure, heh. Yes, like you young'uns well know the old ones are just superstitious baloney. Heheh. Now be off to yer nice li'l cottage there and don't mind the torches t'nite. We, uh, we work hard ta keep the 'lectric bills low 'round here. Yeesss. And the howlin's from the Willoughby mutt, so don't mind that either. Heheh. Yesss..
@@andrewsuryali8540 you're cooked mate get a job
BiBoetzke it’s more likely a big sign saying “this is ours, piss off”. It’s pointed at another hill fort/ enclosure across the valley.
BiBoetzke - Very simple for them it had meaning and was important. They would wonder why we do it as we don't understand.
3000 years ago:
The high white horse gang at midnight: dammnit Jim. told you to bring 15 bags a time not 50.
Jim: sorry boss what do we do now?
Boss: it's ok lad we'll blend in..we'll go now. You and Jonny make an art with it by sunrise..make it a community art project of some sort. Fool them for a while. Maybe sit in front of it pray it for a while when the cops arrive
3000 years later:
Tom scott:
The amount of effort all thos generations out just preserve a weird piice of art give sme goosebumbs.
Soo ppl just maintained a chalk horse 3000 years just bc they did
Iulian kinda
Horse was cool, so they protected it
It's the most British thing you could do.
@@lars1588 mate the lads that built that werent modern brits, not even the same ethnic group
@@ricemango7502 True.
@@ricemango7502 Debatable, modern day English people will have ancestors from the ancient Britons, as they interbred with the invading Anglo-Saxons
Tom Scott found Hammered in field
Tom Scott Hammering Horse in Field wut
@Alextran
Obviously, there has been some horseplay.
Some of the Park Benches with Matt might count.....
*Looks at Mona Lisa*
Gotta do what you gotta do boys.
Smash it?
Lewd it.
no.
how proud the creators of this work of art would be knowing that 3000 years later a group of volunteers are contributing their time to preserving it
THIS IS SO DANG COOL!!!!! 🤩🤩🤩🤩🤩 I'm glad people are actively preserving such wonderful art year after year!
As Douglas Adams would have said "…the secret is to bang the rocks together, guys!"
Huh...
Nice.
As a history student, when I saw the title I got worried, but when I saw it was the White Horse I thought 'oh phew that's fine'
Initially read that as "the White House", was confused.
Franz Luggin // Nice. So I'm not alone
Same here.
Everyone's gotta have his little ISIS moment, eh boys?
The national trust guy is a good speaker.
They give talks to school kids regularly, he's well rehearsed on the spiel.
How is this not the basis of some horror story. This is a literal 3000 year old tradition being carried on for some unknown reason. There is so much you can do with this!
Aaaaaand that's all it took to get me crying today
Tom Scott:
fine with hitting 3000 year old art with a hammer,
Not okay with getting mud on his knees...
It’s to protect your knees from the sharp rocks..
as someone who has spent hours at a time on my knees smashing rocks i can attest that even if the ground is perfectly smooth you still want something soft and spongy under you
No one else seems to be having that problem in the video.
He's not a savage
I’ve never found sitting on my knees in grass to be difficult, but maybe there’s bits of chalk there
The National Trust is such an invaluable institution.
*proceeds to add extra detail on it*
Brunel tried to make a train. Or so.
Ethan Ansell prince Albert
Adding some cool sunglasses to the horse. 😎
*Turns it into a picture of a car because, like, who even uses horses anymore? Anyway, I'm sure that if the original artist could be here they'd think the magical eagle-speed pods are cooler than horses anyway.*
I read the title hitting a 3000 year old with a hammer
If they've survived that long, I'm sure some boring old hammer won't be much harm to them.
ao awesome that people keep coming together to preserve something like this for thousands of years
Me, being as cynical as I am, I assumed that this was _some_ sort of clickbait.
But I was wrong. As a pessimist, I'm either right, or pleasantly surprised, and right now, I'm pleasantly surprised!
*Should have written 'Tom Woz Ere 2k18' my friend* missed opportunity! 😅
Ah, the classic choice!
It truly is the work of a true artiste, especially on park benches (PARK BENCH REFERENCE ANYONE!?)
nice. nice.
B4U
The Giant's Ring near Belfast has something like that.
WOW amazing, thousands of years in the making, i wonder what type of people would keep this up for over 3 thousand years if every 20 to 30 years it needs to be worked on, just amazing......Wish there was video of it back then.
super cool! i love the ongoing upkeep by volunteers
"Yo, Ugg, what if we made a giant horse, that no one can see unless youre really high up, oh, and no one had any clue it exists!"
"Good thinking Dug!"
It boggles my mind what we as a society can get people to come together and do, and yet we still have problems with poverty.
This channel has the best titles.
Love how I looked at the thumbnail and new exactly what he was going to talk about
The pros of living in the area 😜😜
It's actually really cool that people have maintained it for so long and there has never been a period where it has grown over and been forgotten
This brings me joy
"Before the gods that made the gods
Had seen their sunrise pass,
The White Horse of the White Horse Vale
Was cut out of the grass.
Before the gods that made the gods
Had drunk at dawn their fill,
The White Horse of the White Horse Vale
Was hoary on the hill.”
- The Ballad of the White Horse, Book 1: The Vision of the King
I can so easily see this as a book in skyrim
very cool
So that's what's on the XTC's English Settlement album cover!
Art attack 1000BC
Aha, and to think I just left a comment on your most recent video that you should check more of this stuff out. I still do think so, to be fair, but I love that you did this one in particular (and appreciate all of your content in general)! I always thought this was some mysterious old horse thing with obscure origins but, duh, it's chalk, it's grass, it has to be maintained! That's a long, long chain of people. Something to be really, really proud of.
This landmark lives relatively close to me, so I've seen it several times. It's cool to realise that you visited this place 3 years ago!
I wonder how much the shape has changed over the course of re-chalking it hundreds of times.
It's not changed much at all the chalk is packed into deep trenches.
I went here like two weeks ago and now it’s in my recommended.
Google knows
now this is epic
Ok now THIS is epic.
Can we hit 3000 year old art with a hammer?
**hits 3000 year old art with hammer**
le epix pranck
Dude your videos are the best. Your choice of content is A+ everytime
Wow. Utterly fascinating and the definition of amazing in dedication to the upkeep and preservation when we don't even know its beginning. Thank you, Tom and all involved. So damn fascinating.
...I was not expecting this
The horse's design is stunning. You'd expect to see something like that in a modern art gallery
People at all times where not really good in drawing. I have some examples on my fridge.
that's a proper English Settlement
"It's not what a horse looks like, but it's certainly what a horse IS."
I love that nobody knows how or why the horse is there, but for thousands of years, they've just continued to contribute to its upkeep. The horse became its own religion.
Hit Earth you've already hit a 4.543 Billion year old rock.
But is that rock shaped like a horse?
but is it art?
@@luckyblockyoshi no it used to be then humans discovered cole and it was all downhill from there
@@imk2007I thought art is specifically the expression of creativity, imagination and skill?
"Clarkson!" in a James May voice
Nice, planning to smash The Stonehenge next week. Wish me luck!
you joke but ive been smashed on the stonehendge.
What a therapeutic thing to do... wouldn't mind doing that myself
I wonder how the person or people who made this originally would feel seeing that 3000 some odd years later people are still maintaining and appreciating their work. And how cool is it that humans have kept it up for so long.
"Smashing"
-Nigel Thornberry
Hurricane: *flys over art*
Everybody: Thousands of years.... Waisted....
I thinks its compacted enough to stay even through over a thousand years
In England?
This is England hurricanes do not happen there
XTC used an aerial shot of this for the cover of "English Settlement".
Desmaad “One two three four five...senses working overtime!”
Seems like a chill hobby for the volunteers, nice
Sometime I'm a little disapointed in humanity, but this makes me feel very happy. Good job humans! Keep making that horse!
One of the best clickbaits I have ever seen
100% accurate though
+MrSkinnyWhale That's what makes good clickbait
ALI-A HERE AND TODAY WE'RE SMASHING ART WITH A HAMMMEEEERRRR
No for real though, this was super interesting and deserving of the title.
And all the world is football shaped-
It's just for me to kick in space-
And I've got 1,2,3,4,5...
I'm so glad this lovely example of English Settlement persists
Can’t believe I live in the next village I’ve been watching your videos for awhile and RUclipsrs only just recommended this to me, the only reason I don’t do it is it always happens at the same time as our country show.
This story warms my heart. Thanks for sharing it with us. :)