The Most Advanced Ancient Civilizations

The term “ancient” has become increasingly relative in today’s ever-shifting, modern world. After all, it wasn’t that long ago when apps meant appetizers, phones were only used for talking, and Alexa was just someone’s annoying kid sister. But none of our technological wizardries would have been possible without the steady advances made by our persistent pioneers of the past. Here’s a look at some of the oldest civilizations in history whose glorious contributions now allow us to order a pizza and watch a movie with the mere touch of a finger. Amen.

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8. Indus Valley
7. Minoan
6. Phoenician
5. Greek
4. Egyptian
3. Roman Empire
2. Chinese
1. Mesopotamian

Source/Further reading:

[Ichsukatanuka]

Suggestion: Top 10 Simon Whistler shirts

[rahulchawla]

I believe that Indus Valley Civilisation was the most advanced and contributed much to the world than anyone else in terms of languages, writing systems, literature, planned cities, sanitation systems, toilets, drains etc . Below are reasons why I think so. Feel free to ask me for scientific publications for my claims. 😊
1. Civilisation started ~6000 BC as evidenced from the excavated site of Bhirrana, which had its establishment in 7500 BC. They were trading from Indus to Egypt and Mesopotamia and other parts of Central Asia where Indus’s seals and other cultural artefacts are found.
2. It made World’s First Planned Cities. It was the most peaceful society ran probably under governmental/social systems with no evidence of violence ever found in terms of mass weapons.
3. Sanitation systems, sever drainage systems, sewer drain coming from houses to a bigger common drainage system.
4. Houses with inbuilt toilets, Toilet seats are also found in some houses.
5. Double story brick houses with brick sizes to be same across the entire Indus Valley of nearly 2000 cities.
6. It has nearly 2000 cities, including trade ports and mining establishments. They preferred trading over violence and territorial expansions.
7. No skeleton ever found indicating any sign of capital punishment or Violence.
8. All archeologists say in the site of Rakhigarhi, any brick found was there did not even differ from the other brick with more than 1mm.
9. Water and rain harnessing systems, presence of dams. River water storage systems. Brick streets with drainage system which is covered.
10. They had knowledge of advanced metallurgy.
11. There are no palaces for kings but rather all the houses were equal implying people lived an equal class of life.
12. Indus region was the birthplace of all the Indo-European languages. Although this is not widely accepted yet but recently from 2019 publications of first ever ancient DNA from India, it is revealed that Indus people had been migrating to Central Asia long before the expansion of IE languages westwards into Europe. Although no such genetic evidence is found for migration into India or archeological evidence of any cultural change in India or any textual evidence. The languages went from Indus to Iranian to Anatolia and Yamnaya to Europe.
13. India’s textual evidence of Vedic literature/text takes Rig Ed’s more than 15, 000 years old or even older. Where Mahabharata book recorded 300+ astronomical observation which all together dates MB to 5, 561BC. The Valmiki Ramayana text contains more than 600 astronomical observations. There is observation of two pole stars with Vega being the North Pole star and Canopus being the South Pole star. Similar observation is also found in Surat Siddhanta where it records the presence of two pole stars and calculates the Earth’s Obliquity of 23.975 degrees.
Rig Veda’s oldest No 6, says that Saraswati river is flowing from Himalayas to the Ocean. More than 30 papers have been published to study the now dried palaeochannel of Saraswati, concluding that the last time the Himalayan water ever reached the ocean was 10, 000 years ago. Where Rigveda by coming up to the newer books incorroboration with Mahabharata text shows how river dried out and became monsoon dependent. Which is also verified by scientific research that this river was monsoon dependent and dried completely by 4000 years ago.
14. The Indus Valley Civilisation has majority of its cities concentrated along the Saraswati palaeochannel rather than Indus River. Drying up of Saraswati is what lead to the decline and abandonment of these cities. People started to migrate east towards Yamuna and Ganga river Valleys.
where as Mesopotamians had no sense of peaceful laws. They were violent and had “eye for an eye” laws which are a sign of uncivilised behaviour.

[mactravis]

Charisma, uniqueness, nerve and talent. Category is: ancient queen realness. Hashepsut- Shantay you stay, Assyrian Empire: sashay away...

[WilbanksUSMC]

My favorite top tenz videos are the ones that start with #8.

[moxxie]

Charisma
Uniqueness
Nerve
Talent
When you said that I absolutely died! F*** yea RuPaul!

[YngviFreyr]

I hope Simon knows what "Charisma Uniqueness Nerve and Talent" are supposed to spell out 😂😂

[joshuabennett]

The two missing numbers are held in reserve for Mesoamerican and pre-Incan Peru!!!

[PhoenixAscending]

You're awesome Simon. Keep up the great work!!

[ZAYAZOfficial]

Thank you for including Mesopotamia and highlighting their contributions. As one of the very few Assyrians left, this makes me very happy. I am also really glad that most of our ancient relics are safe in museums around the world and away from the troubled Middle East where they could easily be destroyed. Keep the amazing vids coming Simon. 🙂

[danielbowen]

Simon, do you have your voice insured? You should. It’s golden.

[Upanishadicsaint]

Great information, the Indus valley civilization is one of the greatest they are more concerned about hygiene even more than Mesopotamians their planned cities' uniformity of even brick throughout 1000 cities is unique and also their script is still undeciphered so when it will be new great things will unfold about them.

[wahidsch]

This might become a LONG list as it might be the case with some other Civilisations but it ranges from religous ideas to Gouverning Ideas to Todays society.
It can include Science, Medial, linguistic(Origins of Words) and so on.
Dont forget that some of the People who were at war with them were pretty obsessed with their Culture

[sto]

I dont disagree with the importance of anyone on the list.
One caveat: The Romans admitted to borrowing heavily from the Greeks. Their gods were very similar for example with different names. Their form of government has been argued by historians to also be based on classic Greek governance. Greece the birthplace of western civ. is 5th and Rome is 3rd?

[nathanielsizemore]

I would have added the Islamic Empire, they contributed a great deal of literature and mathematics, also, the Mayan Empire of South America and the Incan Empire of North and Central America with their understanding of the concept of Zero and negative numbers, their architecture, and ability to build and live at high altitudes. What about the Nordic Kingdoms, establishing trade from the Arctic Circle down to the Mediterranean Sea and Northern Africa, I was surprised that no mention of them was made. You also have the indigenous peoples of North America, a Stone/Early Bronze Age people discovered and decimated by European invaders?

[MotoHikes]

*_"And now the Phoenician's can get down to business"_*

[skyden]

"The tragic comedy that is life."
-amen

[scottabernethy]

The various Mesoamerican cultures, i.e. The Olmec, Maya etc have contributed so much to the modern world in the terms of food security i.e. maize/corn & cassava/manioc and food flavouring i.e. chocolate, vanilla & chilli.

[nicholasburns]

Simon Thera erupted in the middle of the 17th century BCE. That's at least 800 years before the written form of Hebrew emerged and about 350 years before the alleged date on the mythical date of the Exodus which could only have been written (in Hebrew) in the 8th century BCE or later when the written form of Hebrew emerged from Phoenician.

[Ninja_Geek]

Me at 0:09: *glances at my amazon echo and Google nest*

[darvadfrimml]

I read that Europe is currently re-writing history.