Wikipedia's King who Doesn't Exist
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Wikipedia has picked up some infamy over the years for being a less-than-reliable resource. But when discussing Wikipedia mistakes, people are usually expecting some uncited information, some inaccuracies, or maybe some bias.
I imagine that very few would be expecting the invention of a king who doesn't actually exist.
Throughout Wales' history, there have been plenty of enigmatic figures, but apparently none more so than the subject of this video, Anwn Ddu, or Annun Ddu, a supposed king of Gwent and Dyfed in Wales that doesn't appear to be connection to a single source.
Welsh history is already an underserved topic, prone to coverage littered with mistakes, and Wikipedia articles being wrong like this one don't help, so today I'm looking to correct another part of Wales' history, and set the record straight on Wikipedia's Welsh king who doesn't exist.
Chapters:
0:00 - The King that Doesn't Exist
1:37 - Anwn Ddu
4:41 - Wikipedia Sources
7:35 - Annun ap Macsen Wledig, King of Dyfed
11:06 - Ynyr ap Dyfnwal ap Ednyfed, King of Gwent
14:28 - Antun Du, King of Greece
Sources (turn on captions):
Bartrum, P.C. (1993). A Welsh Classical Dictionary : People in History and Legend up to about A.D. 1000. The National Library of Wales,
[1] pp.1-21,
[2] 20-21,
[3] 38,
[4] 216 (I call him "Deingr" due to my own stupidity, it's "Deigr", sorry).
[5] 238-239,
[6] 242,
[7] 708,
[8] 738
Guy, B. (2020). Medieval Welsh genealogy : an introduction and textual study. The Boydell Press,
[9] pp.61, 63,
[10] 77, 82, 106, 129.
[11] Matthews, J.F. (1983). Macsen, Maximus and Constantine. Welsh History Review, 11(4).
[12] Williams, T. (1848). Iolo Manuscripts: A Selection of Ancient Welsh Manuscripts. Llandovery: William Rees, p.138.
[note 1] This is slightly wrong, one other genealogy claims descent from "Teuhant" (HG 10), but HG 16 is the only one I am aware of that claims descent from a known pre-Roman figure (Caractacus), sorry.
The following were consulted, but contained no information, as mentioned:
Davies, J. (2007). A History of Wales. London: Penguin.
Maund, K. (2006). The Welsh Kings. 3rd ed. The History Press Ltd
Charles-Edwards, T.M. (2013). Wales and the Britons, 350-1064. Oxford: OUP.
Music courtesy of the KZhead Audio Library:
Celtic Impulse - Celtic by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence. creativecommons.org/licenses/...
Source: incompetech.com/music/royalty-...
Artist: incompetech.com/
Torture - Cyote Hearing
Venetian - Density and Time
Fortress Europe - Dan Bodan
Namaste by Audionautix is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence. creativecommons.org/licenses/...
Artist: audionautix.com/
Blacksmith - Godmode
The Symmetry of Sleeplessness - Dan Bodan
Under the Rug - Density & Time
Two Moons - Bobby Richards
Lands Unknown - Futuremono
Images of, and from:
Eryops: Daderot, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Red eyed tree frog: Carey James Balboa, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
The Jesus College Manuscript: © Jesus College, Oxford. Reproduced under a CC-BY 4.0 licence.
creativecommons.org/licenses/...
digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/obj...
All other images are public domain, via the National Library of Wales, the Digital Commonwealth, the Rijksmuseum, and the Bibliothèque nationale de France.
#wales
Enhance your browsing experience by trying out Opera today: opr.as/Opera-browser-CambrianChronicles Thanks for watching everyone, this was a much-needed break from the usual 30 minute escapades, and it’s also the fastest I’ve ever made a video (14 days), diolch for watching.
I'm glad you took my, and presumably many other's, advice! The thumbnail looks incredible, and the video is great to match!
I've used Opera as a secondary browser for years (I'm a die-hard Firefox user for my sins) and enjoy a lot of its functions. It's also where my alt-account logins are stored (ssshh). It was nice to see a video sponsored by something other than a VPN or a 'free to play' game that isn't really free at all if you want to play it properly.
Nice! Thanks for this one.
@misternovelbro Caratacus was active prior to the completion of the Roman conquest of Britain
Pre-Roman isn't referring to Caratcus existing before the Roman empire, but to before the Roman conquest, which wouldn't be complete in Wales for another 3 decades following Caratacus's uprising. Also, Caratacus’s defeat would come nearly a full decade before the defeat of Boudicca and the Iceni. edit: never mind, I think he vanished
I like to imagine Annwn Ddu, thousand-year-old immortal former king of much of Wales and also Greece, editing Wikipedia to reflect his own accomplishments because he can't convince any historians that he was one person and not a collection of separate figures.
Sounds like a history from a mystery genre
I don't want to say aliens, but aliens 🤣
It raises the question "How did he become immortal?",
I'd pay to see a movie like that.
I wonder if there's a clause in the rule "don't write articles about yourself or someone you represent" in cases of immortal and/or time-travelling rulers of mysterious kingdoms and dynasties who just want to clear up some confusion.
"And then Marcus Anthony arrived on the shores of Wales and forced himself on the throne of Gwent" ✍️🔥
Honestly waiting for a historicao fiction story with this premise
Man abandoned Egypt for Wales? Jesus christ, things must've been desperate indeed
The Mark Antony reveal was like a slap to the face, it was like the most obvious and at the same time incredible plot twist to one of these stories.
Can you mark this as a spoiler? 😂😊
Desciclopedia is more reliable than wikepedia
@@kenzashenna This was such a good reveal why did i open the commmeeeenttsss
If you thought it was such a good plot twist why the fuck would you ruin it???
If you are scared of plot twists in a video, why did you open the comments?
Funny how the guy named "Anon, The" turns out to be a troll edit. And of course, the guy named YOLO is responsible.
I knew it wouldn't happen, but I was really hoping for the tale of a Grecian washed up on shore who stumbled his way into multiple kingships somehow.
When the inevitable Annun Ddu movie comes out, hopefully they'll take some artistic liberties and make him the king of Wales through a series of wacky hijinks
He was saved by hanging on to a grecian urn. What's a grecian urn? About 10 drachmas an hour. No? I'll get me coat.
Honestly what I find funny about that is that in a very different way the grandfather of the current Prince of Wales, was indeed a washed up Greek prince.
can someone explain? a lot of weird vague things being said in the comments, this video, and the article. a weird atmosphere here.
@@yoursleepparalysisdemon1828 niche community
"Antun du... and Cleopatre" I laughed out loud at that. The build-up and actual answer felt like an elaborate (and very nerdy) joke.
Thanks haha, this whole thing is the summit of my very nerdy obsession with this era, so I'm glad it fit!
It apparently was some 1200 years ago
Honestly the crown for that joke for me was the Historia Civilis reference
@@artoriastheabysswalkerah shit! I missed it! I was listening while driving and went back to it, that’s clever hahaha
@@CambrianChroniclesus nerds need to stick together...😅😅
there is decent sized community devoted to changing/falsifying Wikipedia articles, it wouldn't surprise me that someone just made some stuff up. There was one guy that changed the border of Wyoming to be a little bigger every few months, he wasnt caught for a few years, when Wyoming was nearly double the size.
Maybe, but this had such an intricate string of plausible but incorrect connections behind it.
My cousin, as a joke, created a Wikipedia article about his pet cat. He included a 1000 word biography, photographs, important accomplishments and his cat's significance in feline history. He even gave a pedigree for his cat and included several of his cat's progeny. Such topics as his cats favorite toys and favorite foods as well as his past time of taking a nap in the kitchen window in the afternoon. He cited multiple sources, all from web pages he created just for the purpose of citing them as sources. The article remained up for over two years before someone decided to finally take it down. Meanwhile an article I wrote about a WWI army hero who accomplished several unique milestones in US military history kept getting deleted as not significant enough to warrant an article.
@@Livyon A relative of mine who I will not name here.
@@nunyabiznez6381 u wont name their first name here how are we expected to connect your cousin "Aaron" or dave to his real id u have a blank profile with no name or photo how is a first name of your cousin doing anything here they just asked a honest question to communicate with you. .its not like your getting attacked or kidnapped cuz your blank profile on youtube without your name revealed your cousins first name .... literally nothing could possibly come from u dropping their name refusing to drop their name is just being rude and unfriendly for no reason ...
@@nunyabiznez6381 i have a cousin named charles omg someone is going kidnap me now ....thats you ... fk my profile is connected to my id lets say it wasnt nothing could possibly come from this
truly he was, Anon The.
Well said
No anonymous could ever compare to the one true Anon, The.
Go back to r/woosh 😂
This man is the final boss of Wikipedia, and I now have an extreme urge to learn about Welsh history.
Haha thank you, I'm glad to have piqued your interest
look up daffyd thomas. a very important welsh figure.
@@CambrianChronicles 13:19 I'd like to caution you against trusting anything a dude named "YOLO Morgannwg" says. I dunno, he sounds pretty unhinged to me. No, YOLO jokes aren't out of fashion. Not yet.
So true Sillyman
@@marioprawirosudiro7301yolo jokes have been very much out of fashion for about 10 years. I’m rather sure a very, very small part of the internet would agree with you, probably less than 1% of internet users.
Maybe the real Anwn Ddu was the friends we made along the way?
Anwn Ddu! King of RAXXLA!
Severely underappreciated comment
I wanna see a Netflix movie about this Anwn Ddu, how he went from being the disgraced and exiled king of Greece, to escaping to wales and becoming a king of a region there
That's basically the origin story for the Historia Regum Britannum
@@blubro8945 well, his name is Annun "the Black" after all.
Different country but basically you described God of War (PS4)
'Inspired by real events!'
Netflix did show that they can do justice to British rulers with Outlaw King. A movie about Anwn Ddu in that style would be great
The red square for Mark Antony made me laugh out loud. I'm glad to see that history geek KZhead is still a smallish world.
I was so confused about that. Why was he depicted as a red square?
@@nithac.9583it’s a reference to Historia Civilis’ videos on Roman history, they’re quite entertaining actually.
@@nithac.9583 If you have any interest in the history of late republican Rome, I highly recommend Historia Civilis’ videos. His series on the career of Julius Caesar is a masterpiece, and he recently went over the last wars of the republic between Mark Antony and Octavius. You can get a very comprehensive education on Roman history between the years 63 BC and 30 BC from his channel.
They're fantastic!
Same for me! I'm loving this reference 😁
As soon as you named Iolo Morgannwg I bursted out laughing, of course it's him, it's always him, I swear he's secretly behind every misconception on Celtic history and culture like some kind of third-rate supervillain
Yes he seems to be everywhere when you least expect it!
It's always Tom's Diner.
@@CambrianChronicles Could you do a video on him? He must be to Welsh history what James Reavis is to Mexican Colonial documents. They are STILL finding things that Reavis salted and altered in the archives. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Reavis
The Dio meme of Celtic history - "you thought this was sourced from a real historian, but it was I, Iolo!"
This is such niche knowledge, super interesting. Wish I understand what you were saying 😂
Aurelian, son of Marc Antony and Cleopatra... The old welsh genealogies are just something else 🔥
Indeed, their author probably would've been huge as an alternate history youtube channel
@@CambrianChroniclesif they added dragons, I'd watch that so hard...
@@jturtle5318 game of thrones is the closest thing to that
@@Chadius_Thundercock my family history plus dragons! I was starting with the genealogy and reading the books at the same time. We had several Red Weddings.
@@jturtle5318 Daenerys is often a shot-for-shot remake of Cleo, if that helps.
Update: As of 02:52 AM PDT, 11/02/2023, the List of rulers in Wales article has been edited and revised extensively based on the criticisms you had. They've removed all dates that can't be verified through an outside source, as well as any figure without a citation. Glad to see that this video has inspired much change and revision over there! P.S. If you're interested, I'd like to suggest taking a look at the Family tree of Welsh monarchs page as well, since you criticized the List of rulers page for including unverifiable dates for the kings of Ceredigion and Seisyllwg, I think the family tree page might need some attention as well.
I just saw, it looks pretty decent, although someone seems to have deleted all the Brycheiniog kings haha. The page for the family tree of Welsh monarchs is interesting too, I'll have to give that a look someday
@@CambrianChronicles The website FabPedigree has this to say about the figure Anwn Dynod: “Anwn Dynod (ap MACSEN ?) aka Annun Dyfed; aka Annun (Annud) Dunawd DDU (ap MACSEN WLEDIG) of BRYCHEINIOG; aka Antoninus Donatus; King of DYFED & Isles of MAN; poss. King of GREECE; poss. aka Arthur King in CAMELOT; (relation to Anyn ap ALYFON, q.v. ? He was governor of Greece, is that origin of bizarre `King of Greece'?) Born: abt. 355” Is there anything to back up this insane description, or is it all nonsense, because I’ve never seen this “Antoninus Donatus” anywhere before.
That’s the beauty of Wikipedia, if somebody spots something is off and publicizes it, it WILL be fixed sooner or later.
That looks like the Wikipedia article just reposted onto that website, I haven't seen Annun "dynod" anywhere else except for there. As for the "aka Arthur King in Camelot", I have no idea. No medieval Welsh genealogy traced origins to Arthur, and he wasn't even a king until the 12th century, I assume someone just wanted to trace their ancestry to him today
History owes you a debt of thanks.
Honestly, I'm impressed by that Wikipedia editor. He or she must have had one of those cork boards with string connecting all the different elements and Anwn Ddu written in big letters in the middle.
That's what I'm curious about. How did they conflate so many things/people? They'd have to be smart enough and knowledgeable enough to find out all the information in the video, but not smart enough to realize they aren't one person. It's perplexing
He's been dying to talk about the mail. There is no Carol in HR.😂
@@nunyabidnes6010 Exactly, seems like the author compiled a shit ton of evidence and information, and then at some point along the way they just became confused by the sheer amount of complex information.
Early Welsh history seems to be so obscure, that obscure Wikipedia paragraphs about it require tons of research to assess their value. Honestly, this mystery of someone's bad reasoning and his eagerness to share it feels similar in that regard to the mysteries of actual lost Welsh kingdoms.
Definitely, it took me a long time to even determine who the article was talking about, let alone if it was wrong, hence why the era is so vulnerable to bad edits
That would be due to Egyptians migrating to Ireland, and the need to cover that up….
@@CambrianChronicles Appreciate you doing this for the incredibly interesting but obscure history of Wales--I can imagine it isn't easy! Every once in a while I'll read through the wiki pages associated with my people's history (Chahta sia), and then end up spending hours chasing something odd down just to find it came from a misunderstood footnote in an obscure work by an anthropologist who didn't understand what they were seeing (or, didn't realize they were being intentionally lied to by their interviewee!) Then one has to decide if it's even worth correcting it (since the truth is usually much less sensational, and people like to repeat the same nonsense, one *knows* someone else will come back and uncorrect it half the time...)
what actually happened doesnt matter making a claim and asserting it (with violence), thats the kingly way i for one support how insane wikipedia can be lol
@@gyozanomics you have just described Wikipedia's normal mode of operation regarding political issues ;) But yeah, in other areas, kida kingly. And extremely frustrating when you encounter an intriguing fact about the stuff you are interested in and you wish for it to be true, but it's on a obscure page with no citations. That's just pain.
The weird part is that this is not a mistake you'd do randomly looking through sources, so most likely whoever wrote this had some weird theory of his.
Yeah that was a thought that I'd had, because there are plenty of weird theories about various Welsh figures out there, but searching online didn't turn up much. It definitely could've been, and probably is, a personal theory like you said
I found that in my Norse ancestry, they're random chieftains, then a couple generations of Norse deities, then random chieftains again. Odin's father is Frithuwald of Saxony, if you were wondering.
@@CambrianChroniclesthey could have at least stated their theories as theories listed in the article instead of just putting out there as fact without any elaboration 😭
@@houselemuellan8756 that's the risk with Wikipedia.
@jturtle5318 Ppl thought Alexander the great was the son of Zeus so maybe this is a similar situation
It doesn't get any better when you delve into Japanese history. There's a whole article about the monk Benkei (who famously fought a duel with Minamoto no Yoshitsune, the brother of the first shogun), which talks about him entirely as if he were a real historical figure. The only problem is that most historians agree that Benkei is an entirely fictional character, or at the very least is so far removed from whatever real person or people he might have been based on as to be effectively fictional. Just goes to show, ALWAYS check your sources. Check your sources' sources.
Sort of like Hercules being listed as an ancestor of Alexander the Great in some early sources. Yet if you look at the ancestry of Hercules on some genealogy web pages you will find that mythical person listed as an actual authentic person and among Alexander's ancestors just as seriously as Elizabeth is listed as Charles's mother. I have found numerous Wikipedia articles that cite genealogy web sites and then when you look at those web sites you find many genealogies list mythical figures as though they were real people. One can never assume the work of others is always scholarly and instead do one's own research.
@@nunyabiznez6381 please note that for a long while many asian emperors were calling themselves descendants of whatever local god as actual fact. Scholars in history actually believed that bs. Never assume that the old text is any more legitimate than modern ones, especially since 'history is written by the winners'. People wrote fanfiction of actual historical figures even back then and people gobbled it up like it was an accurate account. I mean look at the bible-it is essentially fanfiction of one of the many gods of an ancient semitic pantheons-and even older ancient sumerian gods. you can only rely on your ancient sources so much. Look at the king list which ancient mesopotamia used as legitimacy for rule in several rules regions-changed to suit their needs and even worse-mythological figures used as actual ancestor kings that supposedly lived hundreds to thousands of years and people...believed that. So honestly I don't trust really ANY ancient genealogy sources for a lot of things. take everything with a grain of salt..
the cleopatra reveal was masterfully done once i saw her name it all made so much and little sense all at the same time. brilliant work as always
Thank you very much, I'm glad you enjoyed it!
The twist that Anwn Ddu was really Marcus Antonius had me screaming at my monitor in shock. This was a wild ride. And cheers to you for doing the deep dive to figure this out and correct a mistake like this!
Haha thank you, I'm happy you enjoyed
@@CambrianChronicles May I ask: So the modern equivalent of Annun is Anton? And Pwyll is Paul?
Also, love the nod to Historia Civilis! Great Channel, and yes, Antony will always be a pink square, to me! 😂😂
oop well spoiler 12 minutes in
@@antoinesilva1527 No. Marc Antony's grandfather, who was also Marc Antony , rose to power by being the local commander (praetor) in south east Turkey. The origin of the grandfathers name is unknown. It may be a title or nickname... maybe it refers to this business prowess, when his business was naval ..superiority .. in the area. (The losers were called pirates .. but thats propaganda...) he is parachuted into far eastern Turkey and "battles pirates" ??? um.. thats a nice way of saying "turned invasion of Anatolia and Assyria into a profitable business"
I find it immensely interesting that kings in the early medieval period were claiming to be descended from Roman emperors from a thousand years earlier. Clearly the emperors were still culturally very relevant.
Definitely, they were likely a source of prestige and a way to have an ancient claim on their lands according to the historian Kari Maund. Pre-Roman figures had essentially been forgotten by the time of these genealogies, so aside from number 16 claiming descent from Caratacus, tracing your ancestry to a Roman emperor was as ancient as you could get
also note anti-establishment sentiment with such naming, basically u rule isn't valid and i represent the true historical ruler of this land
If you can bring up a direct line back to Julius Caesar, then you are obviously the rightful ruler of the roman empire and all it's land. If you can show a list of your forefathers that goes back six thousand years, then you are obviously in the right to rule, because your family always ruled there. And if you can trace your line back to a god, you have divine right to be the ruler. And another thing about Rome was the prestige. For a long time the roman emperor was THE christian ruler. So if you could bring forward a believable claim, all of Europe would be yours. The prestige with the roman empire goes so far that Charlemagne was crowned roman emperor by the pope! And that claim lead to the HRE. And it wasn't just the early medieval period, but survived even after the end of the middle ages. When the ottoman sultan Mehmet II conquered Constantinople and ended the eastern roman empire, he took on the title "kayser-i Rûm" (Caesar of Rome) And in a 1606 peace treaty the holy roman emperor and the ottoman sultan recognised each other as of equal standing, basically confirming the division of the roman empire in the 4th century.
In Estoria De Espanna, King Alfonso X claims to be descendant of Hercules, a mythological figure...
@@eduardopupucon The Habsburgs claimed to be descendants of Julius Caesar, from him back to Troy, from there back to Adam and Eve. An armorial wall commissioned by Emperor Frederick III in a church in Wiener Neustadt shows an unbroken line of rulers starting with the coat of arms of Noah
Of course he doesn't exist, he died a long time ago smh
Of course he doesn't exist. Gwent is a card game inside a video game.
Of course he doesn't exist, he is now Anon Dee
Of course he doesn't exist, if he did he would exist
Halfway through, I began to wonder if this Annun or Antun name I've never heard of was actually a localization of Antonius. Boy did that pay off.
Videos exploring fake info on Wikipedia is something I didn't know I needed, this was fascinating.
Thank you, I'm glad!
Honestly the content I love on KZhead
Agreed, this is a fun rabbit hole to go down into
wiki is weird they say they don't know the origin of the word washer ( like for a bolt ). Before the 13th century it was either Germanic, some cognate of skive or the French Rondelle but Latin for washer is washer. the boys at wikipediia think it popped outta nowhere I guess
@@seanfahertyWell, perhaps you can contribute your knowledge, and let them know where 'washer' comes from. (But, then again, where did the Latin term 'washer' come from?)
15:52 The Pink Square Historia Civilis Reference made me laugh out loud. When I personally hear the name Mark Antony I think of 2 actors James Purefoy from HBO's Rome and from the film Julius Caesar (1953) Marlon Brando's Mark Antony was so good that the show Rome decided not to attempt to shoot Purefoy even attempt the Brando speech because it could never match his amazing delivery. "Roman's, Countrymen, Lend me your ears!"
The actual reason behind HBO's Rome not showing Mark Antony's speech was a lack of budget. They decided to simply portray it in a conversation between plebeians that had witnessed it.
The Historia Civilis in-joke deserves a like on its own. I particularly enjoyed the way it was thrown in there without explanation leaving viewers who aren't familiar with that other channel utterly baffled.
Is it bad that the first thing that came to mind when I saw Antun Ddu and Cleopatre were pink and dark blue squares?
That Historia Civilis reference made me go "... ok he got me, he defo knows who his audience is"
Good that it wasn't a Blue one since it's epic remembered as "that idiot". =P
Anwn Ddu is now my favourite way to spell "Antony"
As a history teacher, i sincerly thank you for your work. However, I think to be fair to Wikipedia I have to state that its usually better than textbooks when it comes to factual errors (synthesis not so much, but simple facts). Every textbook I worked with has at least around one major error per chapter, and the worst I ever found cashes in at over one per page. And thats just the ones I found...
I grew up having as baby sitters college professors who early on taught me critical thinking skills. My teachers in grammar school hated me. They gave me a lot of A's but they hated me because I would often point out inaccuracies in the text books provided or their lectures or even the tests. On one 20 question multiple choice test I found that three of the questions were not provided with any correct answers. But the teacher simply used tests provided by the publisher and the questions reflected what was in the text which happened to be wrong. I can't tell you how many hundreds of eye rolls I got from teachers in middle and high school when I raised my hand during a test. My 8th grade history teacher didn't even bother giving me the final exam. He just told me to go to the library and find something to read instead. The librarian didn't care for me much either because I would frequently stack books on the librarian's counter with book marks showing where I found errors. My high school guidance counselor suggested a career as book editor but such a job would drive me crazy. It's bad enough finding errors the editors miss but finding ones before that layer of filtering would drive me insane.
@@nunyabiznez6381Demonic yet incredibly cool and savage.
@@nunyabiznez6381 But you would be so good at it
We were told not to let Wikipedia be our only source in school and now here's a great example of why
me when i spread misinformation on the internet
You were allowed to use it as a source!?
@@HavocHerseim idk why they tell you that actually. wikipedia is guarded by a LOT of editors and others, so if you make a bad edit to a page, it'll probably get removed in less than 20 minutes.
@@UH-60_Blackhawkthis is true now, and I think Wikipedia is actually a pretty good source BUT it wasn’t for a really long time. For a very long time almost everything on Wikipedia was bullshit, and I do mean everything. Articles about more well known things were just vandalized because there always was at least one person that just didn’t like a certain person, place, or set of ideas and the lesser known, more niche topics were pretty much made up because there was no one to peer review it. That’s why you aren’t allowed to cite Wikipedia as a source
@@UH-60_Blackhawk youre, uh, literally commenting this on a video about a bad edit which was not caught for ~four years. i do generally agree that bad edits tend to be caught on more active pages, especially featured/good articles (where editors are keen to maintain quality). more obscure topics, youll see a lot more of this sort of thing. (i'd also note that a "good edit" is not necessarily an edit including accurate information. wikipedia accepts a lot of sources, notably news media sources, that absolutely should not be treated as reliable. music articles are hurt by this particularly badly, as these outlets' reviewers often wildly misuse music terminology.)
This is exactly the sort of content I look for on youtube; a mysterious event, a listing in an article, or in fact a mistaken wikipedia contributor, hunted down, tracked throughout the centuries until the explanation falls out of the past like water out of a tap.
Thank you, I'm glad! The explanation did eventually fall out for me, but it was a very slow tap
@@CambrianChronicles I concur with OP, I just discovered your channel through this video and you've certainly gained a subscriber! I hope to see more content like this in the future if it strikes your fancy.
i really appreciate how , rather than dismiss some random wiki mistake, you actually get right down the rabbit hole of madness... and out the other end. good work.
Thank you, I'm glad you liked it
When I saw the "You probably recognize him as this" above Historia Civilis' representation of M. Antony I shed a tear. I guess he knows his audience.
Cambrian Chronicles: "I need a break and an easier video" Also Cambrian Chronicles: Releases a 20 minute essay as a 'break' video. Great stuff as always.
Haha true, but those 10 fewer minutes of animation have been an excellent break
Yeah your "break video" required a month of research and looking through every single name beginning with A in one of your sources 😭
@@CambrianChroniclesPlease don’t burn yourself out!
I've went through the page of the person who posted the original claim of the Anwn Ddu, and found out that he is notorious for not citing sources, he was even blocked for a month for not citing sources on other wikipedia articles relating to Wales and England.
Oh that's interesting, and not unexpected, how did you see he was blocked?
@@CambrianChronicles You can look at his block log at the top of his profile, which says his profile was blocked for a month, and you can go to his talk page and see him defending his unsourced work (really badly).
@@snipetvmapping4777 oh wow, I had no idea you could do that, I definitely would’ve added it to the video otherwise! I can see where he’s been blocked, and his 3 denied appeals, it looks like other users have been cleaning up after him for a while, I guess figures like Annun Ddu were so obscure that no one knew any better
@@CambrianChronicles There are however still some sites where his edits remained though, so not all has been cleaned. What is also interesting to note is that whenever he actually puts sources on his edits, the editors reverting his edits complained that he added way too many details to wikipedia articles, one instance can be seen in the page of the Roose Hundred.
He is in fact completely banned from editing articles on Wales now, broadly construed.
My personal compliment to the author for this meticulous investigation, which required a great deal of previous knowledge (erudition), crafty work with sources, and masterful analysis including relationships between various languages and careful chronologisation. It happens to me to do inquiries of this kind, and I know how time-consuming it is, and how it can span over years, when you drop the subject in an apparent dead end, only to find a serendipitous clue a couple of years later, while working on something else. My hat off, @Cambrian Chronicles !
Thank you very much for the kind words, I'm really glad you enjoyed it!
This was a wild ride and I loved it! It sounds to me like a “family history” that’s been passed down and conflated and mixed up for generation upon generation. My grandmother had a whole bunch of these that she was raised with, and actually became a genealogist in her quest to figure out what was true and what was false. (It turns out we are NOT descendants of Robin Hood, by the way, but ARE descendants of Mary Queen of Scott’s bastard half brother, so the truth was a mixed bag. )
SO you should ask about your right in the royal family
Absolutely. When I was a kid my Dad told me we had an ancestor who used to own all of Florida. Years later, after becoming the family genealogist and historian I learned that said ancestor was left to manage several properties abandoned by many Spanish settlers in St. Augustine during the British period. He was historically significant to Florida but of course never owned the entire colony. That exaggeration was after a mere 200 years and 7 generations. Imagine 2000 years and 70 generations for information to get garbled up in.
"Honestly, you'd probably recognise him more like this" DAMN wasn't expecting that callout, you know your audience well!
Haha thank you
I'm new, explain
@@real_nosferatu it’s a reference to the KZhead channel Historia Civilis!
@@real_nosferatuAnd he portraits characters as colored squares, Cicero is green, Caesar is red and Marcus Antonius is magenta?¿ (I guess, I'm not into colour naming)
@artoriastheabysswalker Windows seems to just call it "pink"
Teachers should use this channel to explain to students why you shouldn't rely on a single source like Wikipedia or Brittanica. Some things are just so darn obscure they need to be investigated multiple times.
It's ashame though because sometimes, that's all you get other than maybe getting onsite with someone who knows their stuff... That's the same issue with Ancient Americas. I don't think I've heard ANYONE else talk about the pre-Inuit Artic North Americans. And even from the Inuit people, there's scarce records of their existence and what happened to them.
In fact, studies have been done comparing the accuracy of Wikipedia articles to that of mainstream encyclopedias, such as Encyclopedia Britannica. What studies have found, over and over again, is that for any major topic, the accuracy of Wikipedia is no better or worse than mainstream encyclopedias.
the marc antony reveal actually had me shocked for a full like minute. historical plot twists always amaze me
This is an awesome detective story with one hell of a punchline, and you tell it well. As Abe Lincoln said, "Don't believe everything you read on the Internet."
thank you, I'm glad you liked it!
Lincoln was so wise 😅
I'm not Welsh, I'm not even British, I'm from India and live in Singapore and yet your videos have inspired me to dive into the history of this small little part of a faraway land and for that I can't thank you enough.
I'm really glad! Singapore is a beautiful place, I went there once when I was a kid, thanks for watching the videos!
@@CambrianChronicles Haha yeah it's nice here but I find Wales to be gorgeous as well. I love mountainous, rural landscapes. As an aside, have you ever considered starting a podcast? I know it's a big jump from KZhead but I recently finished The History of Rome and I feel like your style and sense of humour would transfer well to that medium.
@@darthmalgus9039 That’s interesting, because me and a friend were recently talking about maybe doing one. The format would be a little different but I think it could be fun, and hopefully interesting
@@CambrianChronicles That's exciting, I hope you go through with it, I would definetly listen.
British history is very fascinating, as is history from many places and many times! I love Welsh history, but if someone were to come around and make a similar channel to this one but make about the Ainu people of Hokkaido, I would adamantly follow it despite not having a drop of Ainu or even east Asian blood, so I understand that love of a culture from far away.
Wikipedia has a king? I thought they were an autonomous collective.
The Cylon menace...
Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony!
You're fooling yourself! We live in a citationship
This was so satisfying to watch, I love it when people summarize their large portions of research into tiny, digestible videos.
Just did a very surface level search, and it looks like some genealogy websites claim Anwn Ddu is a descendant of Padrig Sant (Saint Patrick), and people who are really into these genealogy sites are using it as a way to draw a line between themselves and the famous saint. I'm guessing some well-intentioned person tried unravelling something and got the place called "Annwn" of Welsh mythology which was supposedly in Dyfed mixed up with a mythological figure and collated the two by mistake. In Welsh mythology there is a place called Annwn, it's basically an otherworld, the gates of Annwn were in Dyfed and there is a whole story about Pwyll Prince of Dyfed and Arawn lord of Annwn becoming best buds after Pwyll upset Arawn, and they body swap for a year and a day, and a bunch of stuff happens and also doesn't happen, and they become besties because of it, Pwyll is then given the honorary title of Pen Annwn. But I can totally see someone seeing Annwn and Dyfed in the same sentence and thinking that Annwn was some dude from Dyfed, and people inventing ancestors is something both we in the present and people of the past a very fond of doing.
Good find! That is indeed pretty weird, I can't imagine how they'd even connect the two, although your theory certainly makes sense
@@CambrianChroniclesSaint Patrick's well here at Spital, is all we have here on the wirral...the detective work goes on...😊😊😊
As a Wikipedian - thanks for catching something like this. We aren't perfect, or even particularly accurate, and we know we aren't; catching mistakes like this is incredibly helpful to us, because who knows if anyone else will spot them?
There is an entirely fictional Battle of Peshawar involving the Marhattas with no credible sources, but stays in place because Indian brigades own Wikipedia.
"As a Wikipedian" has the same energy as "as a redditor"
@@thecourier9290I bet they look like pearl from blade. Remember that? If not, KZhead it.
While you’re here, could you fix the brazen bull article to make it clear that the thing was never constructed and is as real, for example, the Trojan horse
@@thecourier9290I mean the people writing wikipedia articles are collating human knowledge and using the internet as it was intended by utopian ideals. Of course, redditors also use the internet as it was intended by being the worst versions of themselves ❤❤❤
Wikipedia’s history pages are a DISASTER. Especially the obscure history pages , like if you want to research Indonesian history like I did, Wikipedia was a mess. There were pages with no sources, misspelled words, grammar issues, sentences repeating themselves, and in some cases sentences that trail off with no punctuation . India is hard to research on wiki too. It’s a mess. Someone (maybe me) should make an encyclopedia for history alone and make it more exclusive as far as editing goes
It would be worth checking what the content is on their native pages and comparing the two. I'd imagine the native editors did a much better job on theirs.
so an encyclopedia?
Jokes on You, the guy actually ruled Persia and famously cut a very famous knot. Known as Annendr Gwych
I'm a Wikipedia editor, and I really thank you for making this video! Certain areas of historical topics have horrible sourcing and writing, and I really hope this inspires people with knowledge in the area to expand this articles (such as with the ones you described in the video!)
Thank you, I hope so too, the Prince of Wales video led to a lot of really good change, and so far this article has already been amended too
So, is Annwn Ddu still in said article?
@@franohmsford7548Anwn Ddu is gone.
@@franohmsford7548 unfortunately no. ;( Justice for our greek welsh ruler!
Well, Doug Weller and Company Banned Me for Life so I won'[t be Inspired to do Any Editing. And I was Banned for Wanting to Eliminate Bias from The Secular Humanism Article, Not for a Real Offence.
I actually found the name Anwn Ddu with that precise spelling in the Cambro-Briton Journal Vol. 3, # 30 (June of 1822). Here he is given as the father of one Saint Tydecho. I am not, however, sure how this impacts your conclusion.
Ah yes, I know who you're talking about, they were originally going to be mentioned but I felt like it was too much of a sidetrack. That Annun is the son of Emyr Llydaw and the father of St.Tydecho as you said, but he's also mentioned by Iolo Morgannwg
this video makes me feel so much better about finding some wikipedia history articles difficult to understand
ok, first of all, FASCINATING video, excellent watch. this was the first time you've shown up in my recommended videos and i was not disappointed. but... i am a HUGE historia civillis fan. OBSESSED with his videos. so when i saw The Square at 15:51 i nearly fell out of my chair. can you imagine how i felt, watching a random video from a guy i've never heard of drop a reference to one of my favorite documentarians? i feel targeted. attacked, even. i feel like a sniper has been sitting outside my home waiting for just the opportune moment to pull the trigger. anyway i'm subscribing and will now proceed to binge all your videos
Haha thank you, I'm glad you liked the reference!
Medieval chroniclers created Arthur out of multiple Briton chieftains and Roman commanders. Over a millenium later, digital chroniclers create Anwn out of dubious genealogies, a forgery, and Marcus Antonius. Mistakes like these seem to be a pathway to greatness. In a century or two we will have epic romances about Annun, King of Greeks and Britons.
But the Arthurian legends are boring. Why would you want more boring in the world?
This is often how entire major religions are created.
Personally I can’t wait for the visual novel in which a normal high schooler fights alongside an Anwn Ddu who was apparently actually Polly Olivering it up
I once went through a genealogy website, starting from the assumption that Servilia’s third child was indeed fathered by Caesar. It started Well enough, and I ended up with a ruler of Palmyra. Sometime thereafter among descendants of Caesar was… Uther Pendragon and his son Arthur. It was at that point I abandoned the search.
That's quite the creation, I wonder where that comes from haha
I suggest not abandoning research but simply being aware of the imperfections of genealogical web sites, particularly those that let members post whatever they want whether true or not. They are often good resources of information if you know how to use them and understand the limitations of old records. Though the further back in time the more careful you must be and the less likely that the information will be perfectly accurate. Remember, we define history differently than historians did centuries ago.
big respect for people willing to fact check historical accuracy like this, keep it up my man, your channel rules
I think its the music, but honestly there’s something so… unnerving about your videos. I’ve only seen two so far, but the music used, combined with the whole “Loss of information to time” thing really makes it a very unsettling vibe. I like it
One wonders how many errors have made it into the records that are not as easy to trace as Wikipedia's mistakes.
Knew I wasn’t stupid or misinformed when I thought Anwn didn’t exist!
I just saw your comment on the poll, I'm super impressed and surprised that you got it right! He's such an obscure figure, how did you do it?
@@CambrianChronicles yeah I forgot Iolo Morgannwg was a fraud too. So it’s not surprising that maybe a man who didn’t know much Welsh history to look into sources like him.
@@goj-bh1cmyet oral history continues....just visited Warrington and Ashton in Makerfield, where the locals still recount the martyrdom of King/Saint Oswald at Winwick, there are more than a few churches there dedicated to Saint Oswald...cheers..E..
This was the first video of yours I watched and I found it so interesting I went down a rabbit hole of the rest of your content. Love your stuff 🫶 looking forward to future uploads!
This was weirder, surprisingly funnier and more interesting that I could ever imagine just from the title. Well, now I know that if I need to research Welsh ancient history, I’ve got a place to start
Ok. I've read and watched all kinds of crime dramas, who-dunnits, mysteries and conspiracies, but this had me riveted. All from a bad edit in Wikipedia. Great digging, presentation and pacing. It was also a great history lesson and paralleled all manner of other historical material I've read. There have been more than a few 'kings' with "improved" genealogies, or outright fabrications, courtesy of a sharp sword or bag of gold. In this case, more a broken pen and some very creative writing. Thank you for your hard work, I thoroughly enjoyed this!
Thank you, I really appreciate that! I'm glad you liked it
This video confirms my long-held belief that Wales is a confusing place.
This is now one of my favourite KZhead videos ever. Good job. I wonder how many other hystorical figures have encountered similar fates
Watching this channel evolve has been a great source of joy. You made it!
Thank you, that's very kind, it's definitely come a long way, I had 9,700 subscribers this time last year, thanks for your continued support!
That historia civilis reference made me chuckle
Thanks haha
Dude, you're a Jedi of Historians...this was one of your best works yet!
Thank you, that's very kind!
Just found this channel. You did an amazing job showcasing this history of Wales that I would have otherswised passed on, I'll have to check out your other videos
This is inarguably the most excellent channel I have ever found on Wales, the Britons (and probably Celtic history info in general, actually) for comprehensive thorough analysis and derivation of actual coherent information from the jumble of texts and fragments passed down to the present that constitute the sparce, seemingly discombobulated, record of dark age Britain. Most other channels just seem to get overwhelmed by the magnitude of the historical puzzle of fragments spattered over the past millenia and start spouting unsubstantiated, improbable, and inconsistent ideas as quick, placebo, band-aid fixes to temporarily abate the natural human hunger for substantive answers.
Your channel, Ancient Americas, and Old Britannia are the best history channels! All focus on a specific history and excel at it! Without your channel I would have never learned anything on ancient welsh and britanic celtic history.
Thank you, Ancient Americas and Old Britannia are some of my favourites too
It was fun watching a Wikipedia page change in real time as people from this video went to correct it.
It's very interesting, and much faster than I expected! Even the dozens of red links are gone
This was wonderfully entertaining and informative, and very nice touch on the pink square Antony. That series was amazing, as was this rabbit hole of genealogies. Well done!
Man, it is incredible to hear about all this history, thank you so much for doing all this work to create this video : )
Thank you, I'm glad you liked it
This has got to be one of the worst cases of lost in translation in history
It's pretty bad, although I'm sure there's something worse out there
One of my favorite channels. Love your approach to analysis. You've got me on a huge Brythonic history kick. Much love.
In case you happen to see my comment I'm curious if you know. What might be a reason for Gildas being so critical of Boudica in his writings? Too pagan, too aggressive for a woman?
Thank you, I'm glad! Honestly I'm not sure about Gildas, I hadn't even realised he had mentioned her. My guess would be that she was both pagan and aggressive/warlike as you said, since he criticised the contemporary Welsh kings for much of the same. He also may have disliked her "deceit", I know some Roman authors criticised ambushes or other sneaky tactics
@@CambrianChroniclestruth is he doesn't mention her explicitly and it's very much a passing blow, but in De Excidio et Conquestu Brittaniae he denounces a woman who tries to unfold the rule of Roman governors installed by Claudius and ruin Roman Brittain, which would suggest a female rebel leader in the mid first century. The only reason such a brief mention strikes me so much is that it seems like such friendly fire for him to complain about Britons resisting abuse and oppression.
@@notactuallydumb3053fascinating stuff....
I thought it was going to be something to do with Annwn, the realm of Arawn. Instead we went on an entertaining and enlightening romp through several ancient geneologies in search of someone who was never there. Great video!
Thank you!
Honestly, I stumbled upon your video thanks to KZhead's suggestions, and I got to say I'm quite impressed with your reseearch capabilities. This was a very interesting video to watch both from its explannation as well as your way of narration. You, my sir, earned yourself a new subscriber! Well done !
Thank you, I'm happy to hear you liked it!
Sometimes i bury myself in the garden and act like im a carrot
Same
Dude can I just say the videos you make have really given me motivation to look into my own european heritage. I'm Danish and english.
I'm glad!
I bet you are american lol. Just american.
nope@@Javolkom
Thanks for making content about Welsh history, never learned much about it but I'm enjoying catching up on that here.
Thanks for watching it, it's never too late to learn about it!
Superb video. Such a great illustration of a phenomenon that I always try to explain to people but is difficult to correctly articulate. Any historical event/person recorded pre-renaissance (and even then it's not great) is subject to record-keeping so riddled with little mistakes, confusions, and inaccuracies that they can compound into something as big as this. Marc Antony, King of Gwent. People like the video creator really are the unsung heroes of advanced historian-ism. How you guys can go through all of these convolutions is absolutely maddening. Bravo. @CambrianChronicles
Thank you, I'm glad you liked the video. I appreciate the compliment, but I can't take all the credit, this wouldn't have been possible without the work of dedicated historians such as Bartrum
I was waiting for the "it was revealed to me in a dream" moment ;) But Marcus Antonius really gave me a good laugh heh.
I wish it was revealed to me in a dream, it would've saved me a lot of time haha
Only part of the mystery left is exactly how Anuun Ddu got conflated with the Britannic spelling of Mark Antony, given that in order to add the “King of Greece” line, the author would need to know who the real Mark Antony was and know about his exploits… which makes it hard to believe the author didn’t know about the 800 year discrepancy in time…
Yeah it's a little weird, but Marcus Antonius was pretty famous, and plenty of genealogies (including number 16) add little bits of information about the various emperors, showing there was some continuation of knowledge. Wales was pretty well-connected to western Europe, so the genealogist in the 11th century easily could've been familiar with something like Virgil's Aeneid, for example
@@CambrianChronicles I feel like the weirder part is that they know enough about him to mention that he ruled greece at some point but then they say that he was the son of Valerian, and the father of Aurelian.
I think it was probably a mistake by a later scribe copying the genealogy. I seem to recall reading about something similar, where, say, "a" gets mistaken for "u" or "o", then the name with a changed letter gets mistaken for another, and suddenly one person ends up ruling two different lands in two different times, but I can't remember what exactly it was.
@@CambrianChronicles “800 year discrepancy” actualA Anatoly Fomenko moment. I’d love to hear you do an honest deep dive of his fascinating work, as controversial as people try to make it. He has some genuinely thought provoking theories, maths, and I can’t help but think of his work every time I watch your videos.
I wouldn't put it past a simple "dumb" mistake. For someone focused on just transcribing the "facts", it would be easy to miss "Annun Ddu" and "Anthony" sound alike. Cleopatra could plausibly be someone that's just named after the Egyptian Cleopatra. For including "King of Greece", obviously that's untrue, but monarchs are always giving themselves stupid titles that don't have to be true, so might as well copy that down and let others be the judge.
"Marcus Antonius? Never heard of him" *_The Square_* "Oh! Mark Antony!"
What is the name of this genre of video??? I love the combo of sleuthing, hyper-precision, history, dedication to publicly accessible knowledge, and it's calmness.
Not sure, I'm glad you like it though!
@@CambrianChronicles I love reading a good historical academic smackdown.
Even tho it's about a king that didn't exist, I'm glad to see some Gweptresentation on this channel.
Gwentpresentation is a great word! And yes me too, it's the first time I've properly gone in depth with some south Wales history, unfortunately as I said it was all a bit out of my wheelhouse for the first year of this channel.
Y u do dis OP?
Such a small part of Europe and yet such rich of history. Have no doubt in your mind that if the Welsh/Breton identity has survived over thousands of years it is because there is something special about it compared to others that no longer exist.
I like how this video is filled with so much information that he constantly has to say "remember when I said that...?" It clearly shows how this rabbit hole lasted for a whole year of research
Maybe the real Anwn Ddu was the friends we made along the way
Your videos have really encouraged me to learn more of my Welsh history. I am Welsh (despite the name), and I've learned more about Wales from you than I ever knew before. Even better my daughter is really excited about Welsh history and Wales too, so that is something we can explore together. Thank you for your outstanding research.
Thank you, I'm really glad you both enjoy the subject and can learn about it together!
Cambrian Chronicles are a joy. I believe that some person or a composite of persons, who over the years became combined in the minds of people existed between the end of the Roman occupation and the era of the invasion of the Anglo-Saxons.
Excellent work. Thanks for taking us on the journey with you!
These are the type of random videos I love when youtube suggests them to me. Never heard of this channel before or would have any reason to look any of this stuff up. But man this was captivating and interesting. Def gonna check out more of from here
I don't know how, but when I heard a dubious name starting with "An" and "Greece" I immediately had this red light pop up in my head and thought "Is this supposed to be Antony" but I had no idea we would get to him in such a weird way.
Me neither!
Very good video. Great to see a callout to Historia Civilis with Mark Antony. Both of you are some of my favorite channels to learn about history.
Thank you, Historia Civilis is one of my favourite channels too!
i’m an american of welsh extraction back in the late 18th early 19th centuries welsh history is so fascinating and i can’t believe i’m connected to it all. and i love the content you make!
Thank you!
fucking hell, bro exposed a thousand year old lie and yet only 400k views? commonman this guy is a legend
need a Iolo Morgwang video ASAP.
He's super interesting, I'll definitely cover him sometime in the future. The Welsh Viking has a great video on him that you can watch right now, though: kzhead.info/sun/gKeKdcahaHl_jIE/bejne.htmlsi=NVDNjCkKJ5-KalaF
This is by far one of the best video that i I've ever seen. it's interesting, you show the complexity and the details of how to do the research and also at the same time there are so much information and curiosity about history of Wales. Great video!
Thank you very much, I'm glad you enjoyed it!
I am in love with your editing style. It's just so smooth
Thank you! Definitely check out Jon Bois and Bobbybroccoli if you like it, they're big inspirations