Ancient Greeks Couldn't See Blue DEBUNKED Once and For All

The ancient Greeks and all ancient people couldn't see blue. Were they all colour blind? Let's debunk this myth once and for all.

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More content on Ancient Greek Colors

Contents of This Video

- Intro
1 - The structure of the argument
2 – There is no Blue and Yet It's Everywhere
3 – Ancient Egyptian Blue and Trade
4 – Blue Pigment Scientific Analysis
5 – Dynamics of Colour Perception in Communication
6 – Where The Ancient Greeks Colour Blind?
7 - From The Mind of The Ancients
8 - Light Vs Darkness
9 – A Sky of Bronze And Iron
10 - The Hexadecimal Code
11 - Science of Linguistic Color Perception: The Himba Experiment
12 – Athena's Eyes: cognitive differences
13 – Animals Are Not Blue, Neither Are Screens
14 – Colour, A Visual Construct of Our Mind

- Conclusion

#blue #ancientgreece #myth

[Señor-Donjusticia]

Fun fact: not only were the ancients incapable of seeing blue, but they were also incapable of tasting water, feeling liquid, hearing waves, or smelling seaweed and salt. This lead to mass drownings as entire populations just bumbled into the ocean, not even realizing it was there.

[texasbeast]

I found a Dickens novel in which firearms were never mentioned. Therefore, guns must not have existed in Victorian England.
🙄

[jbm]

I teach ancient literature and this is a problem many students have when reading these texts. I have to keep on reminding my students that they cannot read the texts as if they were from our time and culture. This is an excellent example of a difference that is simple but yet complicated at the same time. Well done!

[almost_harmless]

Reminds me of an old joke. The scientist that was observing spiders. He had managed to make it jump when he shouted at it, but as he pulled off a leg, and then more, until the spider could not jump anymore, he observed in his journal: "When it loses its legs, it turns deaf".
arriving at a conclusion that does not have all the facts taken into account is, unfortunately, not new.

[ProudbGreek]

This is the first time that I've ever heard this ridiculous claim, well done for disproving it.

[MellonVegan]

Wait, people actually claim that the ancients couldn't even SEE blue? I thought it was just a discussion on categorisation, like populations and even individual people disagreeing where the borders between distinct colours are. I saw this as a linguistic curiosity, nothing more.

[benjaminwatt]

This myth of the ancients not seeing the color blue is just one example of how our society believes the ancients were dumb. I'd like to see a whole video about the misconception of people being much smarter today than they were millennia ago. As far as written history goes, people seem to have always be logical, rational, creative and intuitive.

[Vampirzaehnchen]

I want to add in something for the green honey. A german beekeeper once sold actually blue honey. Their bees got their "nectar" from a nearby candy factory, where they fed on blue coloured candy syrup. The honey was safe to eat but with a fancy colour. Also, we do know that depending on what plants the bees have available, the colour of the honey will change, so green honey could be a naturally possible thing. Just don't ask me what diet the bees would have to have for green honey. :D

[sleestack]

Thank you for this. This is one of those "scientific" myths that has made me shake my head for most of my life. One of the other ones is when people say that the Native Americans couldn't physically see the "massive" boats from the English and Spaniards that were sailing toward them in the 1400's and 1500's because "they had never seen a boat that large before" and their little minds could not comprehend them. These are most likely the same people that still believe that all humans from 10, 000 years ago were gibbering "cave men" without language, culture, or refined emotions.

[MrMirville]

Homer's description of the sea as wine-coloured was accurate : he meant the colour of the wine being pressed by feet in a large vat : it is clearly dark blue and the Black sea is often of that colour. Glass was not customary as a material to make cups and containers, it didn't shine red very often. Homer's description of the mediterranean sky as bronze-coloured was also accurate : it often has the colour of a light turquoise green oxydized bronze-covered dome.

[kanrakucheese]

There's another problem with the claims you didn't touch: Honey's color varies based on what the bees worked with. Greenish honey is entirely possible!

[rarapas]

Thank you for the Minoan paintings, I was infuriated by those videos as at least the dolphins are PROMINENT and so striking! Anyone with 5 seconds of research could have find blue has been used throughout ancient history. Hello from Greece :)

[matmil]

Fun Fact: Polish name for Blue is "Niebieski" and "Niebo" means the sky. So in Polish language it's less of a sky being blue and more of blue being generic sky colour

[matthewdee]

When I came across this in QI, I assumed they meant "no direct translatable word for blue, it would be in the context." I never ONCE thought the the Greeks couldn't see blue though. Seriously?!?

[pattifeit]

Thank you! The misrepresentation of Homer's "wine-dark sea" has made me crazy for years. It's just plain wrong. The translator did not say "wine-colored, " he said "wine-dark." I'm not even an artist (or an English major) and I get that. I would give this video a thousand likes if I could!

[anna]

Thank you. I was pretty sure the “ancient people didn’t see blue” was crap, but I didn’t have sufficient motivation to actually research it myself. Glad you did the work on this!

[Nerazmus]

Ancient people didn't see blue? One of the most striking archeological remains from ancient time is the Gate of Ishtar which is rather blue. Like was it invisible?

[Spartan-]

As an ancient historian and as someone who knows Ancient Greek, the reason for Homer and other authors using the word χλορος, χλορη, χλορον when describing honey is in face because it had a yellow-green color to it. The bees of the ancient world pollinated different flowers than the ones we primarily farm bees with today. Western farmers today typically have certain types of flowers for bees to create their honey from for the consistency in taste, but the ancient world didn’t, and so bees would pollinate from all sorts of flowers that can produce different hues of colors, and in Greece the main color produced was a yellow-green.

[SteveSimi]

For me you are more credible from most science YouTube channels, Metatron. The reason is that you admit and apologize for all of the mistakes in your videos. It's clear that you are a true scholar and not fixated on views and fame. You seek the Truth like a true scientist, keep it up!

[hodgeelmwood]

I always assumed that "wine-dark sea" simply meant "it's as dark as wine." Never thought it referred to a specific color.