Who is the earliest historical person that many Americans have heard of?

December 20, 2022 7:51 PM

Who is the earliest historical person that many or most Americans have heard of? My candidate is Tutankhamun (c. 1332 – 1323 BCE). I'm excluding Abraham and Gilgamesh (and for that matter, Adam) as probably not historical. I don't think there's an earlier pharaoh who's widely known. I think the characters in the Iliad, even if historical, come after Tut. Any other candidates? I recognize that this question is somewhat subjective.
posted by Jasper Fnorde to Society & Culture (32 answers total)

Best answer: Hammurabi? C. 1810 -1750 BCE. Maybe most people, like I do, would have a vague recollection of learning about the Code of Hammurabi, and "an eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth."
posted by lizard music at 8:03 PM on December 20, 2022 [8 favorites]

Best answer: I was just about to suggest Hammurabi. Most Americans have had at least some early world history in school, and he's a pretty standard figure to cover.

Whether most Americans remember anything about him or if he ends up in the same memory hole as the French and Indian War, I don't know.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 8:10 PM on December 20, 2022

I think this may depend greatly on what part of the country someone is from.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:25 PM on December 20, 2022 [1 favorite]

Do you mean known by their historical name? Young folks are leaning about Otzi in school, so he may eventually enter popular consciousness enough to count. Real person, though we don’t know his real name.
posted by tchemgrrl at 8:36 PM on December 20, 2022 [10 favorites]

If the U.S. population failed the Tutankhamun test, I think the next likely candidate would certainly be David, ca. 1000, who probably existed and had some kind of rulership, though every story we know about him is likely made up (excuse me, divinely inspired). I would hesitate to treat any of the figures in the Iliad likely to be known to the public, e.g., Achilles, as historical at all.
posted by praemunire at 8:43 PM on December 20, 2022 [1 favorite]

Imhotep (27th century BCE) is a possibility.
posted by cubeb at 8:47 PM on December 20, 2022 [6 favorites]

Many people have probably heard vaguely of the Pyramid of Cheops, the pharaoh Khufu (26th century BC).
posted by Countess Elena at 8:50 PM on December 20, 2022 [3 favorites]

I don't have any more ideas, but the Otzi article linked above is the most fascinating Wikipedia page I've read in a long time. Recommended!
posted by Comet Bug at 9:36 PM on December 20, 2022 [1 favorite]

Leaving aside the notion of what the notion of what qualifies for " many people having heard of" - there is a question "Who is the oldest recorded individual person that we are aware of?" And I believe the cave painter with a distinctive twist to their little finger, whose handprint appears in several locations on the wall of the Chauvet caves in France and looks like this, may be that candidate. This mark was made between 30 and 36 thousand years ago, so way pre-dates anything in Egypt or Mesopotamia. We don't know their name - but we do know they were an individual.
posted by rongorongo at 9:43 PM on December 20, 2022 [6 favorites]

The Epic of Gilgamesh is obviously fictional, but general agreement is that Gilgamesh was a real king, who probably lived around 2500BC ± a few centuries.
posted by kickingtheground at 10:00 PM on December 20, 2022 [5 favorites]

3150-3100: First Egyptian Dynasty. First pharaoh: Narmer. Probably only if you watch TV about Egypt or something like a thorough World History class that you paid attention to.

2334-2279 Sargon and the Akkadian empire. I do remember Sargon, he comes up often enough.

The other Egyptian pharaohs all pyramid building and such over centuries and such are good guesses if you can remember which one came when.
posted by zengargoyle at 10:07 PM on December 20, 2022 [1 favorite]

Lucy
posted by OHenryPacey at 10:17 PM on December 20, 2022 [32 favorites]

Fascinating question. I suspect 25% of the people I spend time with would vaguely know who Kushim was. (Or might have been.) I live in a very geeky bubble walking distance to possibly related artifacts. Tutankhamun would be a much more general choice that I'd expect any cab driver to know a little bit about.
posted by eotvos at 10:31 PM on December 20, 2022 [1 favorite]

- Have heard of Hammurabi and possibly even read the Code of Hammurabi at some point, but would not have connected the name with "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth"
- Was not familiar with the name Ötzi but I did know (in a recognition sort of way, not a could-recite sort of way) that a dead person from long ago was discovered in the Swiss alps.
- Have heard of King Tut, who I assume is Egyptian
- Read a children's bible once when I was a kid, so I had heard of King David, but did not realize this was an actual historical figure
- Imhotep - no
- Pyramid of Cheops, the pharaoh Khufu - no
- handprint appears in several locations on the wall of the Chauvet caves in France - have heard of the handprint caves and knew they were in France but would not have been able to tell you their names or that they had identified a person with a unique finger
- Gilgamesh - heard the name, don't know the story, or if I do, don't associate it with the name
- Narmer, Sargon, etc - nope
- Lucy - yep, I've heard of Lucy and I can tell you that she is an ancient human or human predecessor from Australia
- Kushim - nope

I would have picked Buddha.
posted by aniola at 10:50 PM on December 20, 2022 [3 favorites]

Lucy is a pretty good choice. A hominid rather than homo sapiens but we know she was female and that she died as an adult, that she had some kind of degenerative bone disease. So definitely a person rather than an animal - a familiar name to non-specialists and an age of about 3.18 million years old - unlikely to be beaten on that score. People could probably even pick her out in a lineup.

If we accept this choice then I'm sure the Ethiopians would be delighted to know that the oldest known individual to Americans is one of theirs - and I'm sure Julian Lennon (who's school drawing entitled "Lucy - in the sky with diamonds") inspired the Beatles song which in turn inspired Donald Johanson and Tom Gray to name her children after the song... would also be delighted. Unintended consequences and all that!
posted by rongorongo at 11:18 PM on December 20, 2022 [1 favorite]

I would have picked Buddha.

The historical Buddha was roughly contemporary with the early Greek world. From that time, Cyrus the Great is another name many Americans would be familiar with, not because of love for the Achaemenids, but because he ended the Captivity of Babylon, and Evangelicals are creepily into him.
posted by praemunire at 11:23 PM on December 20, 2022 [1 favorite]

OP asks "many or most," which feels like two very distinct things. MANY Americans have heard of Lucy. MOST Americans have not heard of their own two Senators.

For "most," I say Buddha. Socrates and Plato are following Buddha, *maybe.*
posted by kensington314 at 11:43 PM on December 20, 2022 [4 favorites]

FWIW I think most Americans would not know David (very many would, though).

Evangelicals especially among Christians may know a lot of Biblical figures who existed in history, but a minority of Americans are Evangelicals and a smaller number are Bible readers as opposed to thumpers. Add in a similar minority of Catholics and mainline Protestants and I sorta doubt you get to majorities across the population who can name ancient people named in the Bible.

I think "King Tut" is a name that would resonate with people over 40 more than people under 40, so that's a maybe to me.
posted by kensington314 at 11:46 PM on December 20, 2022 [1 favorite]

Pythagoras
posted by mani at 12:46 AM on December 21, 2022 [4 favorites]

I'm curious, is Nefertiti well-known enough to be in the running? I knew of her long before Tutankhamun, because of her famous bust, though I never made the connection between her and Tut till much later - she was the latter's stepmother (as wife to Akhenaten), and one of her daughters later married Tut(!). Nefertiti probably predates Tut by 40 years or so.
posted by seapig at 4:57 AM on December 21, 2022 [3 favorites]

Ea-nasir (1750 BCE) went viral on twitter and tumblr because he kept all the letters of complaint that people sent him for selling them poor quality copper...
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 7:07 AM on December 21, 2022 [2 favorites]

I think someone who has featured in a film would be a good bet, which is why I'm leaning towards Imhotep (The Mummy) although I'm not sure whether people realise he was an actual person. I think Tutankhamun is better known, but obviously quite a bit later.

Other early historical figures that I think are reasonably well known are:
Buddha (563- 483 BCE or 480-400 BCE)
Socrates (-399 BCE)
Plato (424/423 – 348/347 BC)
Alexander the Great (356-323 BCE)

And then we're into:
Julius Caesar (64–44 BCE)
Cleopatra (69-30 BCE)
Jesus (1-30 CE)

On a related question, I think the Pyramids or Stonehenge (roughly contemporary?) are the earliest buildings/monuments that would be commonly known.
posted by plonkee at 7:42 AM on December 21, 2022 [1 favorite]

FWIW I think most Americans would not know David (very many would, though).

If you've spent any time as a Christian, you've heard of David. He's not just an OT figure, he's interpreted as a forerunner/spiritual analogue/literal ancestor of Jesus, so he's in the NT--and in the Christmas story, and in Christmas carols...if you've heard "Once in royal David's city" or "While shepherds watched their flocks by night" ("to you in David's town this day is born of David's line") or the Messiah ("For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord"), you've heard of him.

I don't want to be presumptuous, but I would think that most Jews would have heard of the first king of the Israelite kingdom, though they obviously interpret his significance in a much different way. He (Dawud) is also an important prophet in the Muslim tradition, though not one of the lawgivers. Altogether, that covers a lot of Americans.

For the "heathens," the story of David and Jonathan ("I am distressed for thee, my brother Jonathan: very pleasant hast thou been unto me: thy love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women") has become an important episode in queer history.

Finally, Michelangelo's David is probably the best-known statue in Western art, and "David and Goliath" is an almost universal folk reference, even if people couldn't tell you much more than that it represents the victory of an underdog.

So, I couldn't say for sure he'd beat Tutankhamun in awareness, but he'd run a strong second, and he precedes people like Buddha and Socrates in time.
posted by praemunire at 7:58 AM on December 21, 2022 [7 favorites]

Greatgranpapaw Genghis Khan?
posted by Don Pepino at 8:06 AM on December 21, 2022 [2 favorites]

An related question you might be interested in is: "Who is the first person in history whose name we know?"
posted by Blue Jello Elf at 9:37 AM on December 21, 2022

Ashurbannipal, Nebuchadnezzar. There is a lot of early history, including the new world, and the peoples from there. The Queen of Sheba, Inanna the poetess.
posted by Oyéah at 11:39 AM on December 21, 2022

I think a lot of these answers are overestimating the knowledge of the average American. I am highly educated and have not heard of most of the people mentioned here. King Tut seems like a good choice. Also, I didn't realize that the Buddha was a real person.
posted by emd3737 at 12:06 PM on December 21, 2022 [3 favorites]

I've heard of Lucy and I can tell you that she is an ancient human or human predecessor from Australia

While Lucy's species name is indeed Australopithecus afarensis, the "austral" part is Latin for "southern." Lucy's remains were found in present-day Ethiopia. I agree she is pretty well-known! But I don't think you could call her a person as such, since she wasn't part of our genus homo and would have looked (according to best guesses) part human and part ape.

would think that most Jews would have heard of the first king of the Israelite kingdom

David was the second king; Saul was first. However, David is undoubtedly far more famous, for all the reasons you say, especially thanks to his legacy as the founder of the House of David.
posted by Conrad Cornelius o'Donald o'Dell at 12:56 PM on December 21, 2022 [3 favorites]

Are you distinguishing between who they would volunteer to name as the oldest person versus who they would recognize if you gave them the name? For instance, I think this is going to be somewhat generational in addition to regional and educational. I would not expect many American raised people under the age of 30 yrs who have not been in a religious environment to have any recognition of David as a real person even if they recognize the name as a Michelangelo statue. I can think of kids for instance, who if you were to ask them to name the person furthest back in history that they can think of, you are probably going to get someone like George Washington. But if you're going to ask those same people specifically if they have heard of King Tut, Genghis Khan, Abraham, Moses, Socrates, Lucy from Africa, they're possibly going to say yes because they recognize these from passing reference in movies or other media.
posted by beaning at 6:12 PM on December 21, 2022

David was the second king; Saul was first. However, David is undoubtedly far more famous, for all the reasons you say, especially thanks to his legacy as the founder of the House of David.

Yeah, realized that after I typed it in; victim of Davidite propaganda!
posted by praemunire at 8:37 PM on December 21, 2022 [2 favorites]

Response by poster: I think the best answer to my somewhat vague and subjective question is Hammurabi. He is at least taught in school. I hadn't realized he was that old. Lucy and Ötzi are intriguing answers, but I might not count them as historical. And it's interesting to think that King Tut is more prominent for someone of my age due to 1970s blockbuster exhibitions and that Steve Martin jam. There's a They Might Be Giants song about Hammurabi and Sargon, but I doubt it's well known.

I haven't seen the Mummy movies. Do they portray Imhotep as an historical pharaoh from a particular time or just an Egyptian movie monster?
posted by Jasper Fnorde at 7:01 AM on December 23, 2022 [2 favorites]

I'll put in a word for Menes, who would have appeared in a lot of people's first history books as the first king of Egypt, c. 3000 BCE. That's because when the Greeks were asking, his name came up. Today the books will say Narmer instead, which comes from Egyptian sources. We don't know how the name mixup happened, but hey, ancient names are a can of worms.

Possibly relevant: the list of leaders in the Civilization video game series. Hammurabi has been in the list since the first game. For that matter, there were many versions of a civ simulator called Hammurabi in the 1970s.
posted by zompist at 11:36 PM on December 24, 2022