Ancient World
Ancient Beliefs That Were Wrong
Beliefs from before 500 CE, when the best available science was a confident guess.
The ancient world built the pyramids, mapped the stars, and worked out the circumference of the Earth to within a few percent. It also drilled holes in living skulls to release evil spirits, balanced the body's four humours with leeches, and was confident the heart did the thinking while the brain just cooled the blood. You would have believed all of it too. The evidence available to a clever person in 400 BCE pointed exactly that way. What is striking is not that they were wrong, but how reasonable the wrong answers looked at the time. Most of these beliefs outlived the civilisations that invented them, passed down for thousands of years because nobody had a better idea yet.
11 entries
The Earth Is the Centre of the Universe
Heliocentrism replaced geocentrism in early modern era
The Egyptian Pyramids Were Built by Slaves
Skilled workers and state-organised labour built the pyramids, not enslaved peoples
Nero Fiddled While Rome Burned
Nero wasn't in Rome when the fire started; fiddles didn't exist then
Jesus Was Born on December 25
December 25 was chosen by the church; his actual birth date is unknown
Egyptian pyramids were built by aliens
Pyramids were constructed by ancient Egyptians with known techniques
Stonehenge Was Built by Druids
Stonehenge predates Druid culture by over 2,000 years; it was built during the Neolithic period
Cleopatra Was Egyptian
Cleopatra VII was of Macedonian Greek ancestry; Egypt was under Ptolemaic rule
Bloodletting cures disease by balancing bodily humors
Bloodletting caused weakness and infection; modern medicine uses blood tests instead
Honey never spoils due to its properties
True; honey can be stored indefinitely due to low water content
Boudica's Chariots Had Blades on the Wheels
No historical evidence supports scythed chariot wheels; the image is romanticized fiction
Trepanning (skull drilling) releases evil spirits causing mental illness
Trepanning was dangerous and ineffective; mental illness has biological causes