Why different historians wrote different about ancient history?

Question

My previous question was about the Roman Empire, and I notised that we have so many different opinions about same questions specially if we talk about Ancient History.

Answer 1

When you're dealing with just physical evidence, it can be interpreted many ways, especially if you don't have anything to put it into context. Ancient civilizations didn't always write down everything they did. The Egyptians kept better records than most other civilizations, but even they didn't show their "dirty little secrets"--they showed an idealized Egypt in their artwork. They had trumpeted one battle as a great triumph for the Pharoah. The only way we found out it was really a defeat was when Egyptologists found a tomb which detailed the battle. So a lot of the problems are with getting past "spin doctors"'s interpretations, and finding out the truth. Since we're always finding new evidence, and since it can be interpreted many ways which may affect how we interpret existing evidence, different archeologists can have theories which are miles apart.

Answer 2

That's an easy one. Basically because that's just it..you are talking history, and in particular ancient history. Unless there are some immortals walking around that haven't stepped forward, there is absolutely nobody alive that has a strong perspective on any ancient time period. Some views can be substantiated by comparison to some of the habits and culture of the descendants, but most of it is just conjecture or theorizing.

Answer 3

Historians are academicians, and all academicians want to further their own careers by having their theories accepted, so they write their own theories in the hopes that others will jump on their band wagons. I hope you don't honestly think that the history you are taught in any level of education is the real history. History is always taught with the idea of making one group of people look better than any others.

Answer 4

History isn't always truth...after all, the ones who write the history are the ones who won the last war...and they always write it to make it seem like the victor was all powerful, rightious, and good, while the loser was evil. This way we only have one side of history, causing people who find out the other sides version to argue with the commonly known one. Hope that helped.

Answer 5

To get their PhD, they needed to write an original paper and back it up with supporting evidence. Writing the same thing someone else wrote won't get them anything. If two people write on the same topic, the papers must have different theories. This leads to different beliefs about the same event.

Answer 6

Think about telling one friend a story then wait a week until it gets back to you.
History is written by the winner and of coarse losers have their explanation for why they lost. And in time every story changes some

Answer 7

We really can't know exactly what happened back then. Whoever wrote down what happened was writing to please the king at that time. So of course it will always be a little skewed to make the king look good, a battle glorious, etc... They didn't have CNN on the front's. Lol!

Answer 8

History is written by the "victors." What history is recorded is dependent on who is recording it. As Einstien said, all things are relavent.

Answer 9

It's just human nature. If five people witness an auto collision, you will get at least five versions of what happened.

Answer 10

Who controls power controls what you read as history.