 episode of We Are Being Transformed, tonight's episode is especially awesome for me because I have a very amazing guest from a great channel that I've admired for a long time. Here at the show, in case you're not familiar, we explore the liminal spaces and contours of reality, the myriad of ways people interact with their world through the vehicles of ritual, cult, and lore. And our guest this evening is Dr. David Miano. Dr. David Miano is providing valuable public-facing scholarship via his YouTube channel, World of Antiquity, and his Patreon page. So without further ado, I will bring on our guest. So Dr. Miano, welcome to the show. How are you? I'm great. Thank you for having me on. It's the pleasure is all ours. And I just want to give my condolences to you. I'm sorry your recent date didn't go so well. Not everybody knows their past life in Atlantis, but none the less. For me, my latest short, yes. Yeah, the short. That was great. My latest comedy short. Yes. There will be more. It's going to be a kind of a running joke. Awesome. Awesome. I always love to put those on. So Dr. Miano, I'm sure a lot of people who are going to be watching this, whether now or in the future, are familiar with your channel, but just in case, if you could tell the audience briefly a little bit about your background. Well, I am an ancient historian. And that means I study ancient times. Has no reflection on my age, but... And I kind of came to it in a roundabout way. I wasn't initially going to do this. So I changed majors a few times in college. Finally, I decided on history. And then I was just going to do like maybe all European history or something like that. But I found out the older it was, the more interesting it was. So I liked it better. And I just got into ancient history. And why it fascinated me is because we have less to go on. We don't have as many documents. History is the study of writings. And if you don't have a lot of writings, then there's more room for guesswork and trying to sort things out and coming up with different ideas. So that always appealed to me. And I also like the times because they are more alien to us. We know less about them. So that's why I got into it. I got my PhD at the University of California, San Diego. And in those days, I studied mostly the history of the ancient Near East. But since then, through my teaching and also through my YouTube channel, I have expanded into just kind of general world history in ancient times. So I do all the countries and I really enjoy it because I like to compare and see who was doing what around the same time. Thank you for that answer. I guess I should tell you my channel name is called World of Antiquity. And you can see me make videos about ancient history over there. Right. It's a very valuable public facing form of scholarship. Like a lot of my guests, like Justin from Esoterica, Dr. Litwa from his channel, and their patriot, their respective patreons, you're doing something that I think is very important. The educational system seems to be shifting in the past few years. So I think a lot of people, it's more important now than ever that we have solid scholarship out there to counteract all the Graham Hancock stuff that's kind of going on. So I think what you're doing is very important. So thank you for that. Yes. Do you think he's probably the biggest name now, wouldn't you say, in the alternative history? Is he bigger than George O'Zuckalos or I don't know. I would assume so. I see a lot of I don't really pay attention to my son and I like to watch ancient aliens every now and then just to kind of get a chuckle. But George will always be my alternative history scholar. But I think Graham Hancock is kind of the, yeah, the big name right now. And that leads us into another question actually. So I know this is a broad question, but in your own estimation, why should we study ancient history? Why does it matter? I know you touched upon it. You know, just how interesting it is from the point of view of how alien these cultures are yet also familiar. But I didn't know if you could kind of go a little bit more into that. Sure. Yes. And by the way, I wrote a little, a little booklet about why ancient history matters, which is how I've been able to I give it away for free so I can get people onto my mailing list. But anyway, so I'll tell you a little bit of what I've gotten there. But first of all, history in general matters, because by studying history, we learn where we came from. And I mean, yes, in the literal sense, but also intellectually, you know, we have a culture, the world has a culture. There's many cultures in the world, but we have ways of thinking. And those have all been developed over time. So we've come up with ideas over time. And by studying history, we learn where those ideas came from. And in other words, that's how where we came from, why we think the things that we do, why we value the things that we do. And so I think it's important to study history. Now, why ancient? Well, some things go way, way, way back, right? We there are origins of ways of thinking that go all the way back into ancient times, whether that we're talking about political ideas, philosophical ideas, religious ideas. Many of these things come from the very, very ancient past. And I think it's of benefit to us when we get to learn about the origins of those things, because we understand ourselves better. So I guess that's the kind of in a nutshell why I think ancient history matters. Well said. Thank you for that answer. And just for anybody in the audience who's not familiar, I've pulled up your YouTube channel here. Many interesting videos. You have a lot of travel, a lot of travel videos, a lot of debunking videos. Of course, the TikTok University series that I'm a huge fan of. Just a lot of really good resources for archaeological and ancient historical resources, so to speak. I will try to pull up your booklet towards the end of the show. But I guess getting on to my next question. As an educator in the classroom with your Patreon and YouTube channel, I'm sure you've had to dispel many, how shall we say, misconceptions your students or viewers have from popular culture. I know when I was first starting out, it's very interesting. You mentioned your journey in terms of getting into history. I got it so world history. Similarly through, you know, I changed majors a few times. I was just kind of like doing, you know, musical stuff, you know, music, commercial music management, stuff like that. And I needed a class to get my dad off my back. So I had a full semester. So I took this western civ class and started learning about the Epic of Gilgamesh and the Sumerians. And I was really interested in that because at the time there was a book that was really big by this guy named Zechariah Sitchin, who is an ancient alien thing. And I didn't know much about the Sumerians. But when I actually I learned about the real deal, it was actually very interesting for me because I found what I was learning in that straight history books much more compelling than the fluff that they kind of give you in those conspiracy theory books. It's very, like, like you said, it was a very foreign kind of mill you. But at the same time, these people were very, very familiar. So just getting back to my, I guess, point, so in a perfect world, we wouldn't have to ask this question. But here goes. So why is it important to utilize sound methodology when researching history? Well, we know none of us were there, right? We don't know what happened. And there are obviously some people who are so, you know, they're ultimate skeptics, they're like, well, we can never know. It's impossible to know. But historians think we can piece it together from the clues, right? Just like you would if you were a detective trying to figure out who committed the crime, right? It might not be on CCTV, you know, so you have to figure out from the clues left behind what happened to the best of your ability. And that's kind of what history does. But there's a method to it, right? You can't just say, okay, this is what happened. If you want to take your case to court, if you want to prosecute someone for their crime, you can't just say, well, I believe very strongly that he did it. You know, that's just not enough. You have to have evidence. So history is the same way. You can have ideas about maybe this could have happened, maybe that could have happened. But what's the evidence for it? And you have to have solid evidence enough to convince a so-called jury, you know, that what you're saying is the closest to being correct as possible. So that involves using the historical method, which has been developed by the historical profession over many generations. And it works, right? In other words, you can't, in order to convince other people that something happened, okay, your feelings just aren't good enough. You have to show them something to convince them. Well, why do we think that? Well, look, we have this exhibit A, right? We have exhibit B, we have exhibit C, and you try to piece it all together from that. But you have to show them how you got there, what's your reasoning process, and how you got there. And the more convincing the case you can make, the more other people will accept it. So my job as a historian is to just make sure whenever I make a case for something, I need as much evidence as possible. Try to make it as strong as I can. And then historians also have to be honest. And if they don't have a great case, they're like, well, this is what we think it could be based on some evidence that we have here, but we can't don't have enough evidence to be absolutely sure. And you have to be honest about that too. Absolutely. And it raises a good point of, you know, one of the things you learn when you start college, or, you know, when you start, certainly when I was starting history, like the first thing you learn is how to use the sources like primary, secondary, tertiary sources, and how to develop arguments, things like that. So I really love that you're bringing that classroom aspect to YouTube. And, you know, you do have some videos that kind of discuss that methodology. And I was like, wow, this is so, this is so cool. Like I didn't expect to see this on YouTube, because everything you see is like on YouTube a lot in regards to archaeology is the pseudo category, right? You know, you have the Giants, Atlantis, things like that. And that's why I was very impressed with your channel. What I've done here is I've pulled up your Patreon page as well. I've been on this for a while. There's lots of great resources here. Get early access to Dr. Miano's videos. Here's a great one that he just did on the cocaine mummies, which was, you know, a topic of discussion for a lot of alternative history types. But yeah, it's just lots of great resources here. Lots of different tiers you can subscribe at. And we'll get to that at the end of the show as well. So Dr. Miano, another thing I really like about your channel, like I was saying, you have lots of different resources. But one of the things that is very exciting is your Antiquities Travel Guide. I think it's in season three now, if I'm not mistaken. Yeah. So like the series, like you visited everywhere from like the pyramids of Giza to Stonehenge and everywhere in between. So I just thought it would be fun to kind of ask you what are some of your favorite sites that you visited. Okay. Yeah. My Antiquities Travel Guide is the first, well actually, it's the first series I planned for the channel. It was supposed to be the main one. And I went on two trips prior to COVID hitting. And then I didn't go anywhere for a couple of years. So it got put on the back burner. So I've been able to resurrect it lately with the season three. But anyway, I've been to England on my first series and then went to the Yucatan Peninsula for the next one. And now I'm doing Egypt. So I'm in the middle of Egypt and it's a lot. I mean, just to be able to go places and investigate them for myself is a dream come true. But then it's also fun to be able to take it all to present it to an audience so they can kind of experience it with you. So yeah, I think in those particular videos I worked the hardest on. They are not my most popular videos, but I am building the audience up. Yeah, everyone loves controversy. And so they like my controversial videos a little bit better, I think, or at least the audience that I've collected over the last couple of years have really liked those ones. But I enjoy making The Travel Guide the most. Yeah, I could see why. There's a lot of really beautiful archaeological places that reform history. And I just really, I think the one I really liked from this season right now was the second one, actually, the Libyan pharaohs. That was just very eye-opening. You know, just it really, I imagine like being there must really bring you back in a way, you know, and just in understanding that there are people like who stood here, you know, thousands of years ago and we're kind of like all sharing this moment together. It was very interesting. And I totally relate to you about the videos you enjoy making not being the most popular. Like, my most popular videos seem to be, like you said, more sensational, more a little bit more popular. Like, who would have thought that making a video in the ancient Greek novel would not do as well as something on the Hermetic, you know, or Pythea and 4th century Athens, you know, would not do as well. But, you know, it's part of what I strive to do here. I strive to do quality over sensationalism, but getting on. So probably my audience is made up of different groups, different factions, you know. Like, there are people who are big fans of the travel guide. I have a larger group that are big fans of the myths of ancient history series. And then I have people who love my comedy shorts, you know, they come in, they subscribe for that. So I get probably different groups that are like waiting for the next video from the series they like. And I don't know that I'm spreading myself out too much, but it's all ancient history. Right. And no, I think you're doing a great job because like I tend to, I came for the, I came for like the dispelling the misconceptions and the myths of ancient history. But I really fell in love with like the comedy shorts too. Those just like at the end of a long bad day, like if I need to laugh, that's something I'll like go to that or like an office or South Park Marathon. You know, it's just, I really enjoy those. I do have people complaining about those sometimes. Not a huge number, but I do get people complaining about them saying a serious scholar like you should not be making videos like this. You shouldn't be making fun of people. And it's beneath you. And you should just stick to the facts, you know, and I understand that. And I, I sometimes give a very uncomfortable thinking of if, if people think that I am just out there to put people down, which I'm not. I only pick, first of all, the, the, the funniest of the funniest, you know what I mean, like unintentionally funny. So they are more extreme examples. And they also have a lot of followers. So I don't like go after people that like are just, you know, not very well known. They have a huge following on TikTok, you know, so. Yeah, that's something we'll get into just, it's, it's not just a matter of, you know, we're not, you know, you're not, I don't, I don't feel like you're degrading people. I feel like you're drawing attention to, I mean, it is silly right at the surface, but at the same time, these channels have lots of followers and we will get into that. And that they're in lives, the service that you provide in terms of, you know, just, just dispelling these misconceptions. I think I wanted to talk a little bit about, just diverge a little bit and talk about artifacts. Everybody loves these artifacts from antiquity. I think my favorite is the Antikythera mechanism myself, but I just wanted to know what your favorite artifact was. If you have one, or if you have a couple, that'd be great. Well, I have a favorite kind of artifact and that would be, I love inscriptions and the longer the better, you know, like if we find a Stila and it has an inscription on it, we've never seen it before and the excitement of being able to be the first to decipher it, to read it, you know, I love that. So I love like the newest finds that you can find. Every time an inscription is found, we get some more information and it's very exciting to be able to, to read it. And then once we've talked that one out, you know, I'm kind of ready for the next one. So, but finding inscriptions is very, very, it's rare, right? We find uninscribed artifacts way more often than we find inscribed artifacts. So that's why it's exciting. And even more rare is to find a collection of tablets, like an ancient library. That's like the ultimate find. Like when the Library of Nineveh was found, you know, that was a long time ago now, but amazing, like hundreds and hundreds of tablets and all the information that's on them. That's what I really love, those kinds of artifacts. I love art, you know, too. But, and I love, you know, like you mentioned, the Antikythera mechanism, things like that are cool too. But for me, I'll take an inscription. Well said, yeah, inscriptions are, I don't think a lot of people who follow history on a lay level understand just how important inscriptions are, just all kinds of inscriptions, like even more so, almost than written sources at times, like inscriptions, numismatics, these things give us as much, if not more information sometimes about the social and cultural world of the time. So yeah, it's, I'm not surprised that you would pick those. It was funny as I get people in the comments sometimes saying things like, oh, you historians, you know, you put too much faith in those inscriptions. You believe everything you read, you know, and you think it's all true. And it's an interesting criticism. Well, first of all, we don't do that because I told you before, we use the historical method, right? We differentiate between sources and when they were written and who wrote them and how would they know anything, you know, and so forth. So we don't just uncritically accept all inscriptions. But it's also interesting because why are they saying that? It's because they want to rewrite history and the writings are preventing them from doing it, right? So in other words, like, they'll find an amazing stone, right? And it has writing on it, but they don't want the writing to be on it. So they're like, well, I'm going to decide that this stone was made by a lost advanced civilization. Well, yeah, but what about the writing on it that says, you know, my name is Fred and I made this. Oh, I don't want to believe that. They just wrote on it afterwards and they lied. They stole it, you know. So that's why they don't like the writing, you know. So I get actual complaints about, oh, you accept the writings and you read, you know, you like the writings and they don't. It's very unusual. But yeah, no, it's very interesting that you mentioned that it kind of ties into this. I'm not sure, but it seems to me just to my own estimation that the attractiveness of things like, you know, conspiracy and alternative history is that you're in on some kind of esoteric knowledge that some people, some other people don't have. And, you know, it's just this kind of ties into what I was going to ask you next. Just about your experiences as a YouTube content creator. Now, I commend you on this because I can understand how frustrating it can be to try to bring sound academic content to everybody in an accessible way, especially in a YouTube video that, you know, you have constraints of time. Maybe not everybody has access to the same sources, but you make those available through, you know, the descriptions and things like that. So it's very commendable. And why I think this is important is something we touched upon a little bit earlier. You have, for lack of a better term, conspiracy theories, alternative history, so to speak, floating around these platforms. Everything from Graham Hancock and his lost civilizations to the baffling TikTok trend that the Roman Empire never existed. I know you're a big fan of that one. It's very strange or we don't know when the first century was. And then even in the topics I cover, I try to stay away from this, but there's a thing called Jesus mythicism that contends that Jesus never existed. And these would be very amusing, but like you mentioned, these channels are getting thousands, sometimes millions of views. So we touched upon why it's important to have a sound historical methodology, but I also wanted to just kind of touch upon what are some of the craziest encounters you've had in the comments, maybe in real life with these. I don't get many in real life. Most of my interactions are online. But the strangest ones are usually ones I get in my email inbox, because there are people that like to write me with ideas. Would you please read my new idea? And they'll send me like a really long email, right? Or they'll send me a document with a whole bunch of writing on it. And I mean, I just am so busy. I can't read everything, you know, and I get a lot of these people with ideas that they want me to read. And what's strange is they know how I feel about history and alternative history and all of that, but they still send me all this, which is, you know, very some of it's way, way out there. And they want me to read it and critique it. And most a lot of the time I say, I'm sorry, I just I just don't have the time. If it's short, you know, I'll give my two cents. But the weirdest ones, and they're not that uncommon, I do get them surprisingly more than I thought I would are people who are convinced that they are going to revolutionize history, that they they are like going to somehow win a prize for being a genius. I they'll say, I have solved the problem that no scientist or historian for 200 years has been able to solve, but I have figured it out. Right. So there are people like that. And they they kind of overstate their position. And a lot of times it's just them being creative. It's not really based on a whole lot of evidence. Some are better than others. But it's usually just them coming up with a cool idea and being creative with this idea and imaginative and innovative. But they don't really have much to back it up. And I I don't like telling people like, you know, oh, I, you know, this, this is not going to hold much water here. You know, but I'll try to because I want to encourage people. I want to I want them to enjoy history and to to come up with ideas about history, you know. So if I can, in some way, help them steer them in the right direction, I will, if I, you know, if I have time, but some people are very, very, how can I put this, they're very, they think they are smarter than everybody else. Yeah, we have experience and kind of like the religious studies area of corner of YouTube with a character named Ralph Ellis, who's kind of like that. Ralph Ellis is very much like he thinks he's cracked the case of who Jesus was in his bloodline and everything. Nobody can convince him otherwise. Like if you do bring contrary evidence, he's like, oh, well that kind of agrees with what I'm saying. So in a way, we're both saying the same thing. So, you know, it's very interesting. It's kind of kind of leads me into one, a figure that you cover a lot on your channel that has a lot of adherence, still strange enough, Ignatius Donnelly. So I wanted to ask you a question. Why is big academia trying to silence Ignatius Donnelly and the truth about Atlantis? Yeah, he's the OG alternative history guy. He, yeah, basically everything, well, not everything. A lot of the alternative history you see out there goes back, traces back to Donnelly. And people like Hancock even name drop them and say, oh, yes, I'm greatly influenced by him. I did a video on him, as you probably know. And, but this idea about a big academia. When you think about it, it's kind of humorous if you know, if you've been in academia, for people to ascribe power to it. You know, like it's just a bunch of nerds who are just like very underpaid nerds at that. You know, don't pay much money at all. But somehow people think they're like, these ivory tower, secret society type people and the governments funding them and their, their shills, you know, and, and they're, you know, they're being paid to, to mislead the whole world for some nefarious reason, which they can never define. It's just like, well, they just want to control information. You know, but why do they want to control information? They never have an answer to have power. So they have power. Okay. Yeah, very sure. But what's the goal, you know, yeah. But also it's when people have an idea, right? And they think it's the greatest idea. And then they write a book or they make a video or they, and people are like, hmm, yeah, I don't really believe that it's not convincing. They can't understand it. They're like, how could someone not believe what I'm saying? It's got to be some sort of somebody behind this, because people would love my idea if somebody wasn't stopping them from loving my idea. You know, they just, they can't understand how maybe perhaps their idea is just not very good. No, it's not that. No, it's got to be something else. Somebody is preventing people from, you know, believing me, you know. Yeah, and that doesn't, that doesn't hurt book sales either when you're trying to present yourself as like this maverick going against the grain, right? I mean, I'm sure that, I'm sure that Graham Hancock's books have sold a lot more than. Yeah, I mean, I can't read his mind. I can't read his mind, but I wonder if he really is, like his feelings are really hurt because archaeologists are out to get him. I think it's part of the shtick. You know, it's part of the whole brand. You got to say this. In every episode of the series, he makes sure to say, you know, the archaeologists are trying to silence him or whatever. They're attacking him because it sells. And I, does he believe it? He might believe it, but he knows he has to play that card, you know, because it works. It sells books. Yeah, it's a tried and true trope. I mean, it's, when I talk to you, for instance, Dr. Litwell about antiquity and mystery religions or mystery cults. I don't like to use the word religion, but because there wasn't really an equivalent term back then for that. So I like to use ritual cult lore and in terms of like the story and the domestic and public sacrifices, things like that and the way you celebrated what we would call today a religion. But in antiquity, one thing Matthew or one thing David really likes to stress is that secrets have social capital. And I think that's what's going on here with these conspiracy theorists today. Like they're in on some kind of secret they have that you can access for a not unreasonable price. And they're trying to be, people are trying to silence them. And it really gets you into this whole kind of Da Vinci code kind of myth making. I mean, even like it's very big you on Facebook, whatever, well, people will post something and they'll say, you know, this is something somebody doesn't want you to see the powers that they do not want you to see this, click on this before they delete it, you know, and it works, you know, people like, Oh, I better what I better see what they have to say, you know. Yeah, it's clickbait, you know, controversy, controversy that always sells. So yeah, it's very, it's very troubling that these videos are getting so many views and these people are selling so many books because as you've pointed out in past videos, a lot of these theories, for lack of a better term that they're selling or either covertly or even in the case of somebody like Robert Sefer overtly racist and their origins. And I think what you're doing is important in pointing out, you know, the not so savory origin of some of these things. So I didn't know if you could talk about that a little bit. Yeah, I mean, I have a slightly different view than maybe some others in my profession. I, if the my goal is to bring people over to the life side, so to speak, right. And I feel like when people, when people like academics, talk about like, Oh, these ideas are racist, you know, they're harmful in that way, which is completely true, by the way. Not all of them, I'm just saying some of them are like that. Not that the people who are saying them are necessarily racist, but that they have racist origins or they are racist tropes or, you know, they're based in an earlier racist thought or something like that, or any other type of prejudice or bad thinking. It could very well be so. But I feel like if I say this, and I use that as an argument against it, it's not going to bring anyone over. It will be preaching to the choir. In other words, it will make other people who hate racism and all that happy, you know, but they're already, they're already on board. I'm just convincing people who are already convinced. Yeah, those people are bad, you know, I don't know if that works. Right. I want to convince people. So I want to talk them in a, and so I will, I will focus on the facts. Okay. Well, how do we know this isn't true? Because I mean, if you think about it, if, if someone believes in a theory, right, that I'm just making something up here, but a theory that, that white people were the first to invent civilization and they therefore are the best. Okay. All right. Now you and I are going to be like, Oh my gosh, this is very, this is racist, you know, but you can't tell the person that because they don't think they are, because in their mind, well, it's just the facts. It's study the history. You will find out that it's exactly what I'm saying. Right. So how can it be racist if it's true? Truth isn't racist. So my way of approaching it is, okay, well, let's find out if it's true then. Okay. Let's find out if it's true. Okay. And that's how I approach it. Because I think it's easier to bring them over that way instead of accusing them of something, you know, or implying that they're something. So that's, that's my approach. No, that's great. That's spoken like a true educator. Like, I think somebody analogous that I know as well as a friend of the show, Justin Sledge, from the channel esoterica, he's, he's very much in the same vein. Like, I tend to get a bit zealous, like, I'll be the first to admit, like, when I'm, when I feel like something is wrong in terms of like, marginalized people or ideas and, you know, and when I talk to Justin, Justin's like, you know, that creates cognitive dissonance for people. You know, like, if you want to bring them over and convince them, I think it's an educator thing, though. Like, by the way, I mean, I don't allow hateful comments or something on my YouTube comments, if they're like, Oh, and then these people are that people, they're terror, you know, I don't, I, I told them that you're not allowed to do that. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm not talking about people who are actually saying racist things on the chat. I'm talking about people who believe in a theory that has racism in it. Right. Right. Like ancient aliens, for instance, a lot of people aren't going to, for instance, go, Okay, well, they just think it's very innocuous. Oh, that's cool. Kind of like giants and aliens built civilization and help people build pyramids kind of innocuous, right? But, you know, once they look further into that. But yeah, definitely what you're doing is really creating a platform where people can figure that out for themselves. Certainly, I went through that, that very short Zechariah situation phase, like I told you, I was watching a lot of public access on my whole time home from school, you know, in between classes. And I found that very interesting, you know, the 12th planet idea and everything. And luckily for me, it was only a couple of months before I actually took the world Western civ class, you know, so very, very interesting about sources. So that actually brings me to my next question. Now, like I said, your channel is a good resource for this and, you know, kind of vetting sources and figuring things out for yourself and getting good information. But I wanted to know what are some of the other ways that educators such as yourself and viewers can do? What are some of these things that we can do to vet good information and sift through the misinformation that some people put out, whether knowingly or sometimes maybe just out of ignorance, for lack of a better term? Yeah. Well, there's the easy way and there's the hard way. The hard way is the best way. And that is, you got to study the subject, which means collecting every article and book on the subject that you can find and digesting it, you know, and reading it, just gather information. And you know what? It works like there are people, people I know, fellow YouTubers, in fact, who started out, you know, on the bandwagon for all the ancient high technology kind of stuff, but they were interested in history and they studied, they read, and lo and behold, over time, they gradually come around because they realized like, oh, I just didn't have all the information. You know, my information was limited before, but as I've, you know, studied more, I've come to realize, oh, you know, but that takes time. The easy way, which is like for people who just, they just don't have the time for that. They just want to know. They just want to know. The right thing to do is, is not to pick out one person that you think has all the answers and listen to whatever they say. Some people do that. They might pick a, if it's a science topic, they might pick their favorite scientist. I'm just going to believe whatever he says or, or they might pick a Maverick, you know, I love the Mavericks. I want the rogues, you know, I want to believe one of them, you know, because I like the personality or something. You don't want to do that either. You want to find out what the consensus of the experts on the subject is. Okay. And, and go with that. Why? The consensus could be wrong. Yes, it could be wrong. And it sometimes is. Yeah. Sometimes it is. However, you don't have the time to research the subject. So you can't tell if it's right or wrong. You have no way of knowing without doing the hard way. You don't do it the hard way. You have no way of knowing. Right. So that's the next best thing you can do. All right. Follow the consensus because following what one person says over all the rest. Right. This is like betting on a losing horse. Okay. I mean, yes, it's possible that horse could win. Okay. But it isn't very likely. Okay. It has happened in the past, but it is a rarity when the one person knows more than everybody else. Right. So your best off going with the consensus. Okay. Just from the sake, from the perspective of the odds. Okay. So that's what I recommend. That's the easy way. Good answer. It really raises a good question. It really raises a good point that there's a reason why a lot of scholarly texts start with a history of the study of the subject. So you can get a general overview at least. And I think you should really expect if you're in one of these sciences like history or religious studies, you should expect not only look out for but expect that ultimately the consensus will change just back when I was in college. It does. It always does. Yeah. Back when I was in college 15, 20 years ago, there were things that when I kind of came back to study it on my own, I found, but I can understand where you're coming from in terms of talking about those, bringing those people over because I kind of felt like that in a way. Like I was never a religious person, but I was always into like the form critical kind of ideas when I was back in college and things like that. And when I came back to research all this stuff again and get up to speed, I was like, oh, nobody takes this seriously. Seriously. My cognitive dissonance started for a couple of weeks after that. But you know, you get over it, get back on the horse, figure out what's going on and you know, just go from there. The consensus is always updating. And if you're wondering like, where do you find, how do you find out what everyone thinks? You know, well, go to a textbook because the writers of the textbooks are their job is to determine the consensus and write that in the textbook. So those are good places to go to get the general view but always the up to date textbook. Okay, because a 10 year old textbook is going to be missing some stuff or have some things that are no longer the consensus. You got to stay up to date. Yeah. Yeah, it's kind of like, I like got an Oxford classical dictionary, but it was the third volume and I asked one of the scholars that I interview and learn from. He's like, no, you need the fourth edition. Just trust me, get the fourth edition. That's what you need. So, you know, so I did and all the better for it. So Dr. Miano, we've had a coming up just about an hour. I thank you so much for your time here. Thank you for being so generous with your knowledge and your time. I have one more question, perhaps my most important question. Oh, okay. What's the deal with the Sumerian handbags? Well, they are neither Sumerian nor handbags. Yes, I did. That was one of my very first videos, I think. I think it was my third myth video or something like that. But yeah, this is something that is information that was out there, you know, but people don't know about it. That's one of the reasons why I made the video about what these are. And well, first of all, you have to separate the Near Eastern ones from the other images that people say are also Sumerian handbags, which aren't, you know. But the ones that everyone shows from the Near East and they say, oh, these are handbags, they're Sumerian. They're not even Sumerian, they're Assyrian, and they are buckets. And I did a whole video on it. So if anyone wants to find out how we know that, see my video, I think it's called Mystery of the Sumerian Handbag Solved or something like that. Yeah, yeah, that's the one. Yeah. And it's two parts, because in this part, too, I talk about the other things that are believed to be handbags and some of which are, but not the ones from the Near East. Yeah, so I'm sorry to disappoint any of viewers that think that they're carrying radioactive isotopic material in there. Unfortunately, they are not handbags, they're like Dr. Miano says, just buckets. So Dr. Miano, I want to give you this time to plug whatever you'd like. Like you said, you have the Patreon, you have the YouTube channel, and your booklet. So feel free to use this time just to kind of go ahead and talk about whatever you'd like in terms of things you'd like to promote. Okay, well, the biggest thing is to go to my YouTube channel, if you're interested in ancient history, go see World of Antiquity. And I have all kinds, I've got over 200 videos now, 250, 251 videos, right? Yeah. Wow, I can't believe that. All kinds of topics on ancient history and many different series depending on your interests. So you can go there. If you'd like to support my channel, you can do that at Patreon, just as you do, patreon.com slash World of Antiquity. And very much appreciate helping me keep the channel going. I do have a booklet called Why Ancient History Matters, which I give out for free. And I have the link to that under every video, I'm pretty sure. And also, I have a little book called How to Know Stuff, which you can find on Amazon. And it's just a little book on just how to find out information so that you might enjoy as well. It seems simple, but learning how to vet information is absolutely critical for doing sound historical research or even living your day-to-day life. So I would recommend, I would recommend those. I pulled up the page for your e-booklets. I have looked over that many times. My son actually enjoys it too. You know, just very interesting and very important food for thought here. So Dr. Miano, thank you so much for joining us. The work that you do, the work that other content creators like Stefan, Milo, at Mini Minuteman, Sai from History with Sai, Garrett, Tolton Stone, you all do fantastic work in terms of facing the public and bringing us information we would otherwise have to dig through numerous library shelves to find. I hope to do this again sometime. But until then, you have a pleasant evening and thank you so much again for joining us. And thank you. Thank you. And thank you all for watching. I appreciate each and every one of you, whether you're watching now, whether you're watching in the future. I never knew that there would be so much demand even at this humble level for a dude sitting on a couch talking to scholars. So thank you so much for joining us and we will see you next week for Dr. Edward Watts, Dr. Dana Trell from the Modern Hermeticists, and the season finale with Daniel Ogden that is on Friday, May 28th. So until then, we will see you soon and take care. See you.