Asbestos: A Conspiracy 4,500 Years in the Making
They knew. They always knew.Nearly 2,000 years ago, Roman historian Pliny the Elder documented asbestos workers dying from "sickness of the lungs"—watching slaves fashion crude respirators from animal bladders while weaving what he called "funeral dress for kings." The people closest to the dust understood the danger. The people farthest away admired the spectacle, collected the profits, and buried the evidence. That pattern never changed.Asbestos: A Conspiracy 4,500 Years in the Making traces humanity's 4,500-year relationship with the mineral the ancient Greeks named "asbestos"—meaning indestructible. From Stone Age Finnish pottery (2500 BCE) to the $70+ billion in legal damages paid by m...
Sacred Fire — When Asbestos Became Divine
Around 400 BCE, the sculptor Callimachus—nicknamed "katatêxitechnos" (the perfectionist) by the Athenians—created a golden lamp for the Erechtheion temple in Athens that burned continuously before the statue of Athena. The secret: an asbestos wick that never consumed itself. Oil refills were required only once per year. This is one of the earliest verified uses of asbestos technology, documented in the primary source account of Greek traveler Pausanias (c. 150 CE).
In this episode, we examine the verified historical record of asbestos in the ancient Mediterranean—and separate fact from persistent myth.
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Discovery & Wonder—The 7,000-Year Origin Story They Got Wrong
Archaeological evidence from Finnish Neolithic sites pushes the first known human use of asbestos back to 4700–5000 BCE—nearly two thousand years earlier than commonly cited, and predating both the Egyptian pyramids and Stonehenge.
In Episode 2 of Asbestos: A Conspiracy 4,500 Years in the Making, we separate archaeological fact from historical myth—correcting widespread misconceptions about ancient asbestos while tracing its journey from Stone Age pottery to medieval legend.
5 Ancient Asbestos Myths Exposed in This Episode:
The origin date is wrong by 2,000 years — Peer-reviewed archaeology from Lake Saimaa, Finland reveals asbestos-tempered pottery dated to...Season 1 Preview: Inside The 4,500-Year Asbestos Conspiracy
Between 1930 and 1980, asbestos was used in more than 4,000 consumer products—from the fake snow in “The Wizard of Oz” (1939) to toasters, hair dryers, crayons, ironing board covers, and Kent Micronite cigarette filters. Over 3,000 Americans are diagnosed with mesothelioma every year, and the exposed often don’t develop symptoms for 20 to 50 years after their first contact with the mineral.
This season preview of Asbestos: A Conspiracy 4,500 Years in the Making maps the investigative journey ahead—from Stone Age Finland (2500 BCE) through the September 11, 2001 attacks, where 400+ tons of asbestos were pulverized into lower Manhattan air.
What we’ll cover thi...
Ep. 1: How A "Magic" Mineral Became A 4,500-Year Cover-Up
The North Tower of the World Trade Center stood for 102 minutes after impact. The South Tower collapsed in 56. One had asbestos fireproofing. One didn't. In 4,500 years of asbestos killing people, could September 11th be the one day it saved lives?
That question opens this series—and this episode takes us back to where it all began.
Roman historian Pliny the Elder documented asbestos workers dying from "sickness of the lungs" nearly 2,000 years ago, watching slaves fashion crude respirators from animal bladders to filter the dust. They knew. The pattern of knowing and ignoring has continued ev...
