Mankind (on the History Channel)

[seferhabahir]

Just finished watching the first two hours of this show. They cover a lot of material, creation of the universe, dawn of modern humans in Africa, start of tin trading, Bronze Age, Iron Age, Phoenicians, etc. I especially like the scenes near the end when talking about the invention of the alphabet where a recent Babylonian exile keeps holding the Hebrew parchments upside down, even though closeups of Hebrew being written by a scribe are correct (although again, he is writing in an modern Ashuri script which wasn't in use until hundreds of years after the initial exile). Poetic license, I guess. Next week's episode includes the dawn of Christianity and more. I'll keep watching.

[brunetmj]

I know I enjoyed the series very much , but as you know , you cant please everyone. I think I was looking for more detail ,they skipped over quite a bit. For example: They show hand prints as example of the first art but never mention how tall someone would have to be to place many of those paintings on the cave walls.
How did these Africans suddenly become a bunch of white guys under 5 foot 5 inches ?
The beginning of warfare is depicted as farmers against farmers . I would guess they would have been raided by hunter gatherer societies looking for easy prey.
Tin and Iron mining in England for example and it's impact in Europe is ignored although stone hedge appears out of no where as an example of religion coming into place in organized society. My main point is that they seemed to skip over many points that are of an interest to me.

[A.D.]

I thought it was more of an introduction to subjects rather than an exploration. It done was well done.

[inver2b1]

With the end of the world coming up in December I'm surprised they had time to fit somethign factual in.