A new YouTube channel by Stephen Maybury!
Posted On: Jan 29th, 2016 at 21:07
I have been keeping a minor secret for a little while, although not intentionally.
I have created a second YT channel, this time for my own home-made videos that I record while at archaeology sites. In the future I shall be making more “professional” versions of these videos – I use the term “professional” loosely – whereby I shall be giving a lot more historical data within the videos when recording.
These videos were recorded on my most recent visit to Greece, which was between 28 September and 11 October last year. I still have many videos to upload to this channel so I’ll give updates here as I go.
At the moment I have no plans to travel, which is probably a good thing with the amount of travelogues I still need to write. In Greece alone I took 5,700 photos and that project will likely take the best part of a year. I took around 3,700 photos in Turkey and I’m still writing those travelogues 9 months later! I hope to finish those before the 12-month period is up. It’s not the writing itself that takes time, it’s the uploading of the many photographs and the tagging of those pictures that is most time-consuming activity… and of course actually finding the time in my day-to-day life to focus on them. Mind you, the writing can take days with the often utterly useless sources of information available, which are notoriously unreliable. Firstly, Wikipedia is a no-go area and is often riddled with errors, and, as an example, with my recent Oxford University courses if you reference Wikipedia you will fail immediately, but I certainly wouldn’t use it myself anyway. Secondly, the small tour guide booklets you get for free at the sites are often dreadfully written and even more inaccurate than Wikipedia. Thirdly, the information boards at the actual archaeology sites are even worse. I was reading one yesterday from my photos that stated something like, “Alexander the Great arrived here in 186 BC”. Since Alexander the Great died in 323 BC that would be rather impossible. You have to conclude it’s a little worrying when the main information board at an archaeology site doesn’t even get basic facts correct. I wonder how many people are walking away and remembering this information when it’s not even accurate? Guide books that I have bought from sites, usually for around £10, which I tend to use as the main reference source in my travelogues, are also badly written and fail miserably with any historical accuracy. Without proper text books, which often cost a fortune, one is often searching through various sources and having to cross-reference many times just to ensure basic accuracy. That is why some of the travelogues are a little thin on the ground when it comes to historical information – it’s not my laziness I can assure you!
Anyway…
Once the Turkey section is complete I hope to accelerate the number of travelogues uploaded by focusing on other areas that have less photos, mostly locations in England.
Anyway, I hope you enjoy some of these videos, and I apologise in advance for my west country accent!
