Ancient Faceplants: Epic Fails, Botched Wonders, Doomed Decisions, and Ridiculous Collapses from the Ancient World

Ancient history was brilliant.

It was also extremely good at falling on its face.

In Ancient Faceplants, Luke Halden takes readers on a funny, fast-paced, and surprisingly thoughtful tour of the ancient world’s greatest failures — the bad plans, doomed decisions, overconfident rulers, broken systems, botched monuments, suspicious omens, and disasters that made history stumble.

Inside, you’ll discover:

Ancient cities that picked fights with water and lost.
Sieges that went wrong because walls, hunger, and logistics refused to cooperate.
Superweapons that sounded terrifying until they met mud, fire, panic, or basic physics.
Kings, emperors, and pharaohs who confidently misread the room.
The Bronze Age Collapse, when an entire international system started coughing at once.
Roman disasters with excellent paperwork.
Economic faceplants involving grain, debt, debasement, inflation, and very nervous treasuries.
Myths of failure, from Atlantis and Babel to Icarus, Midas, Troy, and other legendary warning signs.

This is not fake mystery history.

No aliens.
No magical lost super-civilizations.
No nonsense pretending to be archaeology.

Just strange-but-true ancient history told with humor, caution, and respect for the real people behind the ruins.

Perfect for curious readers who enjoy fascinating historical facts, ancient civilizations, weird history, classical history, archaeology, mythology, Roman history, Egyptian history, and smart nonfiction that does not take itself too seriously.

Ancient Faceplants is Book 3 in the Ancient World Gone Weird series, but it can be read on its own.