0:22

Around the year 1200 AD, the

0:25

medieval Arab traveler and scholar,

0:28

Abd al-Latif al-Baghdadi, departed

0:31

from his hometown of Baghdad and

0:33

set out on a journey of

0:35

exploration. As

0:38

a young man, al-Baghdadi had

0:40

studied law, medicine, and philosophy,

0:43

and was inspired by the

0:45

works of classical philosophers, in

0:47

particular Aristotle. At

0:50

the turn of the 13th century, al-Baghdadi

0:53

embarked on a series of journeys that

0:55

would take him to many of the

0:57

great cities in the region. He

1:00

traveled to Mosul, to

1:02

Jerusalem, Damascus, and Aleppo, and

1:05

eventually around the year 1204, his

1:08

journey took him across the Sinai desert

1:10

to the banks of the Nile. On

1:14

his travels, al-Baghdadi wrote a

1:17

book that was part travel

1:19

account and part philosophy, entitled

1:21

The Book of Edification and

1:23

Admonition. In it,

1:25

he recalls the remarkable impression that

1:28

Egypt made on him. Egypt

1:39

is a land of wondrous monuments

1:41

and strange stories. It

1:44

consists of a valley enclosed by two

1:46

ranges of hills, one to

1:48

the east and one to the west.

1:50

The Nile runs between them until it

1:52

reaches lower Egypt, where it divides into

1:54

branches, all of which flow out

1:56

into the sea. The Nile is

1:59

unusual for its land. We

2:01

know of no other river in the inhabited

2:03

world that covers a greater distance. As

2:16

al-Baghdadi travelled around Egypt, he

2:18

was struck by the incredible

2:20

variety of ancient remains he

2:22

saw, great temples

2:24

of stone and tomb complexes

2:27

crumbling beside the waters of the

2:29

Nile. But none of

2:31

these compared to the most fabled

2:33

of all Egypt's monuments, which

2:36

rose over the horizon, not far

2:38

from the city of Memphis, at

2:41

a place called Giza. The

2:45

ancient monuments

2:47

in Egypt are such as I have never seen nor heard tell of

2:49

in other lands. Verse among them are the pyramids. They are very numerous.

2:54

All are situated on the Giza side of

2:56

the Nile and extend in the direction of

2:58

Memphis, spread out along a distance of about

3:00

two days' journey. Some

3:03

are big, others are small, and they are very small. Some

3:08

are of clay and mud brick, but most are of stone. Some

3:12

are stepped, but most of them taper smoothly.

3:17

And of all these pyramids, three

3:19

stood out for their seemingly impossible

3:21

immensity. Turning

3:31

to the pyramids that everyone talks about, pointed and captured,

3:34

in terms of their sheer size, there are three, laid

3:36

out in a straight line at Giza. Two

3:40

of them are particularly enormous, and it is

3:42

with these two that the poets have been

3:44

infatuated. The spectacle is

3:46

so awe-inspiring that your sight will falter as you try to take

3:48

it all in. Al-Baghdadi

4:02

wrote accounts of the local people

4:04

who lived close to these vast

4:07

remains. He described some

4:09

who climbed to the tops of these

4:11

structures, and others who quarried

4:13

them for their fine-cut stone. Others

4:17

still became obsessed with exploring

4:19

the hidden tunnels and chambers

4:22

that branched out beneath the pyramids.

4:27

In one of the great pyramids, there is an

4:29

opening that allows people to gain entry. It

4:32

leads them into narrow corridors, labyrinthine

4:34

passageways, well-shafts, pitfalls, and other

4:37

such features as appear in

4:39

the accounts of those who

4:41

venture inside and explore the

4:43

innermost paths. Many

4:45

people, obsessed by the pyramid and

4:47

filled with fanciful ideas about it,

4:50

are inspired to penetrate its depths.

4:53

But they always end up at some place beyond

4:55

which they cannot go. They

4:57

spoke of how the pyramid was full of bats,

5:00

and how these bats grow to the size of pigeons.

5:03

There are inscriptions on the stones,

5:05

written in the ancient characters that

5:07

no one understands. In

5:10

the entire land of Egypt, I

5:12

have never found a single person who so

5:14

much as claimed to have heard of anyone

5:16

who knew how to read them. He

5:22

even seems to have visited the Sphinx

5:24

nearby, which was then buried up to

5:27

its neck in the sands. Also

5:33

by the three pyramids, and a distance

5:35

from them of rather more than a

5:37

bowshot, the likeness of a most enormous

5:40

head and neck protrudes from the ground.

5:43

The people call it old father

5:45

dread, and assert that its body

5:47

is buried in the ground. The

5:49

face is handsomely, indeed admirably betrayed,

5:52

with a touch of elegance and

5:54

beauty about the features, as

5:56

if a smile were playing across them. Above

6:02

all, Al-Baghdadi was impressed by

6:04

the mastery of engineering. It

6:06

must have required to build

6:08

such constructions, and to

6:10

have them survive for such a stretch

6:12

of time. The

6:20

construction of the pyramids was carried

6:22

out according to a methodology remarkable

6:24

in respect both to design and

6:26

to precision of execution. This

6:29

is what has enabled the pyramids to

6:31

endure time's passing eras, or

6:34

rather, it has meant that time

6:36

itself has had to endure the

6:38

era of the pyramids. Noble

6:41

intellects gave the pyramids their all. Pure

6:45

minds exhausted their every effort for their

6:47

sake. Enlightened souls

6:49

out poured their loftiest capabilities on

6:52

their design, to stand

6:54

as exemplars that are the pinnacle

6:56

of the possible. Because

6:58

of this, they all but speak aloud

7:01

of their builders, telling us

7:03

what sort of folk they were, giving

7:05

voice to their intellects, relating

7:08

the stories of their lives and

7:10

times. When

7:17

Al-Baghdadi visited Giza around the

7:19

year 1200, the great

7:22

pyramid was the tallest man-made structure

7:24

in the world, and had been

7:26

for more than 3,700 years. All

7:31

that time, it had testified to the

7:33

greatness of the civilization that had grown

7:35

up on the banks of the Nile,

7:37

a civilization that

7:39

had passed through countless periods

7:41

of flourishing and decay, and

7:44

then finally disappeared beneath the

7:46

sands of the desert. My

8:23

name's Paul Cooper, and you're

8:25

listening to the Fall of Civilizations

8:27

podcast. Each episode, I

8:29

look at a civilization of the past

8:32

that rose to glory, and then collapsed

8:34

into the ashes of history. I

8:36

want to ask, what did they have in common? What

8:39

led to their fall? And what

8:41

did it feel like to be a person alive at

8:43

the time, who witnessed the end

8:45

of their world? In

8:47

this episode, I want to tell the

8:50

story of one of the most iconic

8:52

cultures ever produced by humankind, the

8:55

civilizations of Egypt's Nile Valley.

8:58

I want to show how this series

9:00

of related societies grew up in the

9:02

floodplains of their Great River, and

9:05

built some of the most enduring

9:07

and recognizable structures in the world.

9:10

I want to tell the story of how

9:12

they rose, how they endured, and

9:14

how they finally faded from

9:16

history altogether. The

9:27

story of Egypt is one of

9:29

the greatest and longest epics in

9:31

all of history. Many

9:33

empires would consider themselves lucky to last

9:36

through the reigns of 31 kings, but

9:40

ancient Egypt would see the reign

9:42

of 31 dynasties of kings, lasting

9:45

for more than 3,000 years. In

9:50

the time since, historians have long

9:52

struggled with this panoply of

9:54

rulers and eras, and

9:57

have tried to wrestle the history of Egypt

9:59

into neat categories. They

10:02

typically split its history into the

10:07

Old Kingdom, the Middle Kingdom, and

10:09

the New Kingdom. Between

10:12

these are a number of

10:14

intermediate periods, when the central

10:16

power of its kings failed and the

10:19

land divided. Throughout

10:21

this history, Egypt's empire would ebb

10:23

and flow, just like the great

10:26

river that gave it life. That

10:29

river was the greatest watercourse of

10:32

the entire Afro-Eurasian landmass,

10:35

the river Nile. The

10:40

Nile finds its source in Lake

10:42

Victoria, the largest lake

10:45

in Africa. It's a body

10:47

of water about the size

10:49

of Georgia, or nearly

10:51

the size of Ireland. The

10:54

gigantic Lake Victoria drains into the

10:56

river known as the White Nile,

10:59

which is joined by the

11:01

so-called Blue Nile, further downstream

11:03

at Khartoum, the capital of

11:06

Sudan. From there,

11:08

it flows for a further 2,000 kilometers

11:10

across the Nubian and Egyptian

11:13

deserts to Cairo, where

11:15

it branches out into a wide delta

11:18

and empties into the Mediterranean

11:20

Sea. Next

11:24

to the Amazon River, the Nile

11:26

is either the longest or second

11:28

longest river on earth. It

11:31

runs for 6,800 kilometers,

11:34

or around a sixth of the way around the

11:37

earth, and its drainage basin covers

11:39

a tenth of the entire landmass

11:42

of Africa. Egypt

11:44

itself has an extremely arid

11:47

climate, and its inland territories

11:49

experience virtually no rainfall. If

11:53

geography had been only a little different,

11:56

and Lake Victoria had not begun to

11:58

drain westwards, we can only imagine

12:00

how differently history might The

12:29

northern presence in Egypt is among the

12:31

oldest in the world. After

12:34

evolving in the region of East

12:36

Africa, modern humans migrated primarily along

12:38

this corridor and from there spread

12:41

to the rest of the world.

12:45

The Nile is in a sense the

12:47

highway down which all of humanity has

12:49

once passed. As

12:52

one of our first stops along our

12:55

great journey, Egypt is

12:57

home to human remains of

12:59

astonishing antiquity. Stone

13:02

tools worked by archaic humans

13:04

have been discovered in Nile

13:06

deposits dating to as early

13:09

as 600,000 years ago, and

13:12

modern Homo sapiens followed in the last 100,000

13:14

years or so. These

13:18

migrations likely happened during one of

13:20

the many African humid periods that

13:23

have occurred over the last millions

13:25

of years. These

13:28

are times when shifts in the planet's

13:30

climate caused rains to fall on the

13:32

Sahara Desert. During

13:35

these periods, the desert bloomed

13:37

into a verdant grassland, home

13:40

to animals and people. And

13:43

when the period ended, the grasses would

13:45

die, the animals would leave, and the

13:47

sands would return. It's

13:50

thought that this cycle has occurred more than

13:52

200 times since

13:55

the desert first formed 8 million

13:57

years ago. The

14:04

earliest peoples in this region behind

14:09

stone tools and a multitude of

14:15

18,000 BC, in one of the Sahara's

14:18

driest periods

14:22

in history, the Cebilian culture began

14:25

gathering wild wheat and barley, and from

14:29

there developed their own domesticated

14:31

strains. From 9,000 BC, people began

14:34

to weave thread from wool, and another

14:38

humid period began. One enigmatic Nabta

14:42

Playa dates to around 7,500 BC, when

14:47

the Sahara was a range of

14:49

rolling grasslands once more. This

14:52

stone monument may have been used to

14:54

mark the movements of stars at different

14:56

times of the year, so

14:58

that people could keep track of cycles

15:01

like the harvest and the migration of

15:03

animals for hunting. Nabta

15:06

Playa has been called Egypt's

15:08

stonehenge, but this doesn't quite

15:10

do it justice, since it

15:12

was built at least 5,000

15:15

years before the first stones of

15:17

Stonehenge were ever laid. When

15:20

the last ice age ended and the

15:23

Sahara once more dried up, any

15:25

peoples who had been living and herding

15:27

in its grasslands would have been driven

15:30

out of their ancestral home. They

15:33

would have wandered across the newly formed

15:35

desert until they reached the only stretch

15:37

of green in the midst of all

15:39

that sand. That was

15:41

the banks of the Nile, and

15:44

here they would make their home. These

15:48

peoples would build a collection

15:50

of scattered settlements, reaching up

15:52

and down the river. But

15:54

slowly, as more and more

15:56

people were driven to the riverbank to survive,

15:59

these began to coalesce into

16:01

larger towns, cities,

16:04

and referring

16:25

to the long Nile Valley in the

16:30

north, close to the sea. These

16:34

were the hills.

17:00

They were always facing upstream, waiting

17:06

for the annual floods to arrive. If you

17:08

find this confusing as we continue, just remember

17:10

that southern upper Egypt is the region upstream

17:13

and northern lower Egypt

17:15

is downstream. For

17:18

many people at this time, the lands

17:20

along the river bank

17:22

would have constituted their entire world. The

17:25

Egyptians referred to the river's

17:28

floodplain as Kemet, or

17:30

the black land, due to

17:32

the rich dark soil left behind

17:34

by its life-giving floods. This

17:37

land was the realm of the noble

17:39

god Horus, who had the head of

17:41

a falcon, the god

17:44

of life, protection, and healing. If

17:47

you walked just an hour in

17:49

either direction, you would soon reach what

17:51

they called Deshret, or the

17:54

red land. This

17:56

was the inhospitable desert stretching

17:58

out on all sides. roasting

18:01

hot, largely devoid of water

18:06

life. These

18:09

deserts were presided over by

18:14

the god Set, the

18:16

god of chaos and violence.

18:19

The Nile itself, they knew

18:21

simply by

18:23

the name Iteru, or the river. Since in their

18:28

world, there was no other. The

18:34

Egyptian world began in Upper

18:36

Egypt, far

18:40

up the reaches of the Nile, at a place

18:46

now known as Aswan. Here, a belt of hard granite

18:52

crosses the landscape and forces the

18:55

river waters into shallow whitewater rapids,

18:58

running over boulders and through rushing

19:01

down. Today,

19:04

the waters of these cataracts have

19:06

been tamed by the construction of

19:08

the Aswan Dam, but in

19:11

ancient times, they could be a

19:13

rushing torrent. Each year,

19:15

when the floodwaters passed through this

19:17

rocky stretch of the river, they

19:20

made such a thundering sound that

19:22

the earth itself could shake. This

19:24

led the ancient Egyptians to believe

19:27

that the waters were coming up from beneath the

19:29

earth, bursting out of

19:31

vast subterranean seas. At

19:35

Aswan, they built a temple on

19:38

an island in the middle of

19:40

those rushing waters and here, worshiped

19:42

that primeval force. The

19:46

fast flowing waters at Aswan made

19:48

it a natural barrier to ships

19:51

and prevented any further

19:53

exploration upriver. For

19:55

this reason, for much of its

19:57

early history, this was where ancient

19:59

Egyptians... influence ended, the

20:01

final extent of their power

20:04

and border of their empire. Beyond

20:08

Aswan was the southern lands

20:10

of Nubia, and

20:12

for this reason Egyptians would also

20:14

refer to it as the narrow

20:16

gateway to the south. The

20:20

temple island in the Aswan cataracts

20:23

was known to the Egyptians as

20:25

Abu, the Egyptian word for elephant,

20:28

since it was a hub for the ivory

20:30

trade with these southern lands. The

20:33

Greeks would follow this example and

20:35

named the place Elephantine. From

20:38

here, trade caravans would pass over

20:41

land south to the Darfur region

20:43

of Sudan, bringing gold,

20:45

ivory, and other goods. But

20:48

north of Aswan, everything was

20:51

considered to be Egypt as

20:53

Herodotus records. All

20:57

the land watered by the Nile

20:59

in its course was Egypt, and

21:01

all who lived lower down than the

21:03

city Elephantine and drank the

21:06

river's water were Egyptians. Such

21:08

was the oracle given to them. Luckily

21:13

for the Egyptians, the Nile flows from

21:15

the south to the north, while

21:18

the prevailing winds blow in the other

21:20

direction, meaning that you could

21:22

use the winds to sail against the current

21:24

as far as Aswan without too much effort.

21:27

But the return journey would be even

21:29

easier, allowing the river waters

21:32

to simply carry you along. A ship

21:35

heading downstream to the north from

21:38

Aswan would see for some time

21:40

only rocky desert, and

21:42

the river bordered by cliffs of

21:44

hard Nubian sandstone. This

21:47

is not a land well suited

21:49

to agriculture, but in ancient times

21:51

these valleys were sources of natural

21:53

resources, like gemstones, copper,

21:55

and gold. Further

21:58

north, the red cliffs fall away

22:00

and the floodplain around the river of

22:06

blushed green, and a larger

22:08

population region

22:11

that the desert city of thieves called

22:16

Waset. This

22:18

would one day become the

22:23

capital of the desert regions. The

22:54

region would have been full of wildlife

23:00

and vegetation. Some way to the west of

23:02

the river, the waters divert and fill a

23:04

large oasis known as Fayum, which sprouts like

23:06

a broad leaf from the stem of the

23:09

Nile. In

23:11

ancient times, this lake was

23:13

home to large populations of Nile

23:16

crocodile, so that the settlement

23:18

on the shore would be known by the Greeks as

23:20

crocodilophilus or

23:22

crocodile city. Here

23:26

Egyptians apparently even tamed crocodiles

23:28

in their temples as

23:31

Herodotus recounts. Now

23:34

for some of the Egyptians the

23:36

crocodiles are sacred animals. Those

23:38

who dwelt about thieves and about

23:40

the lake of Moiris hold

23:43

them to be most sacred, and

23:45

each of these two peoples keep

23:47

one crocodile selected which has

23:50

been trained to tameness, and

23:52

they put hanging ornaments of stone

23:54

and of gold into the ears

23:56

of these and anklets round the

23:59

front feet. they give

24:01

them food appointed and victims of

24:03

sacrifices and treat them as well

24:06

as possible. In

24:09

other places crocodiles were

24:11

hunted for food using

24:13

ingenious but risky methods.

24:18

A man puts the back of a

24:20

pig upon a hook as bait and

24:23

lets it go into the middle of the river

24:26

while he himself upon the bank of

24:28

the river has a young live pig

24:31

which he beats and the

24:33

crocodile hearing its cries makes for the

24:35

direction of the sound and

24:37

when he is drawn out to land first

24:40

of all the hunter plasters up his

24:42

eyes with mud and having

24:44

done so he very easily gets

24:47

the mastery of him but

24:49

if he does not do so he

24:51

has much trouble. Also

25:00

living in the river with the animals

25:02

that the Greeks would call river horses

25:05

or hippopotamus our

25:08

hippopotamus. The

25:11

river horse is sacred in districts of

25:13

our premise but for the

25:15

other Egyptians it is not sacred and

25:18

this is the appearance which he presents.

25:21

He is four-footed, cloven hoofed

25:23

like an ox, flat-nosed

25:26

with a mane like a horse

25:28

and showing teeth like tusks with

25:30

a tail and voice like a

25:33

horse and in size as large

25:35

as the largest ox and

25:37

his hide is so exceedingly

25:39

thick that when it

25:42

has been dried, sharves of javelins

25:44

are made of it. The

25:47

most strategically important location

25:50

was what the Egyptians called the

25:52

balance of the two lands. This

25:55

was the place where the river split

25:57

into its delta. the

26:00

crossroads between Upper and Lower Africa.

26:05

Each year, the monsoon rains falling

26:07

in the highlands of Ethiopia and

26:09

Central Africa would

26:29

swell the river and the annual

26:31

flood would arrive. This

26:34

happened with such regularity around the

26:36

middle of August that the Egyptians

26:39

timed it using the rising of

26:41

the star Sirius. In

26:45

the 5th century BC, Herodotus

26:47

wrote the following description of

26:49

these floods. When

26:53

the Nile is in flood, it

26:55

overflows in places as far as

26:57

two days' journey from either bank.

27:00

The Nile comes with a rising flood

27:03

for a hundred days from the summer

27:05

solstice, and when this tale

27:07

of days is complete, it

27:09

sinks again with a diminishing stream,

27:12

so that the river is low for the

27:14

whole winter till the summer

27:17

solstice again. The

27:20

Egyptian year was divided into three

27:23

seasons, the flood season of

27:25

Achat, the growing season of

27:27

Perret, and the harvest season

27:29

of Shemu. Once

27:32

the floodwaters receded in early

27:34

autumn, the land was refreshed

27:36

and fertilized with rich Nile

27:38

mud and new crops could

27:40

be grown. In

27:42

this black mud, farmers grew

27:44

emmer wheat, barley, beans, and

27:47

lentils throughout the cooler winter

27:49

season, and when summer

27:51

came again, the grain was ready to

27:53

be harvested. And

27:56

life was held in this delicate balance.

28:00

Each year, if the river flooded too

28:02

little or too much, the

28:04

results could be devastating. As

28:07

one, ancient Egyptian hymn to the

28:09

Nile makes clear. If he

28:12

is greedy, the whole land suffers.

28:15

Great and small fall moaning. People

28:18

are changed and

28:30

his coming. When

28:33

he rises, then the

28:35

land is in joy. Then every

28:37

belly is glad. Every jaw

28:40

has held laughter. Since their

28:42

lives depended so greatly on

28:45

these floods, the Egyptians

28:57

developed ingenious systems for measuring

28:59

them. At

29:01

the cataracts of Aswan, they

29:04

built a series of devices

29:06

known as nylometers. These

29:08

often take the form of towers

29:11

with deep wells inside that allow

29:13

the river to flow in, with

29:15

measurements inscribed on their walls in

29:18

Egyptian cubits. Each

29:20

year, ancient people would

29:22

anxiously check these nylometers to

29:24

see how high the water

29:26

was rising that year, and

29:29

whether it would be a time of famine, plenty,

29:32

or a time when they would

29:34

need to hastily build some flood

29:36

defenses. During

29:41

the period known as the pre-Dynastic

29:43

era, the two halves of Egypt

29:45

were divided, and this

29:47

division was cultural as well as

29:50

political. The desert people

29:52

of southern upper Egypt worshipped their

29:54

own god, Nechbet, who was commonly

29:57

depicted as a griffin vulture, a

29:59

powerful and majestic bird.

30:02

These people were cultural

30:07

and linguistic connection with Saharan

30:11

Africa. Their rulers

30:13

sometimes southern

30:16

kingdoms. Meanwhile, the

30:19

people to

30:23

the god Wajet, usually shown

30:25

as an Egyptian

30:30

cobra, they had more genetic influence

30:33

from North Africa and the Mediterranean and

30:35

may have been somewhat

30:37

lighter-skinned. The kings of southern upper

30:41

Egypt ruled while wearing a white bulbous

30:44

crown, while the kings of the north wore a red

30:46

crown with a spiraling representation

30:48

of a cobra emanating from the

30:51

north. The kingdoms that ruled over these

30:53

regions were always fluid, but the

30:55

geographical distinction between upper and lower

30:57

Egypt always held sway. But

31:00

around the year 3000 BC, or more than 5000

31:05

years ago, all that began to

31:07

change. That

31:09

was because of a king of

31:11

a kingdom called Finis. His

31:14

name was Namir. The

31:26

figure of Namir is wreathed

31:28

in mystery and what little we

31:31

know about him has been pieced together from

31:33

fragments of inscriptions and

31:36

a few significant artifacts. Namir

31:39

was born under the personal

31:41

name Menes, but chose Namir

31:44

as his Horus name or king name when

31:46

he came to the

31:48

throne of Finis. This name perhaps

31:51

gives us some sense of his

31:53

personality. That's because Namir

31:55

means something like fighting

31:57

catfish. The

32:00

Nile catfish that the king

32:02

clearly admired is a remarkable

32:04

species. It's a

32:06

predatory fish, a nocturnal hunter

32:08

that can grow up to 1.2 meters

32:11

long or about the size of a

32:13

dolphin, and uses a

32:15

form of naturally generated electricity as

32:17

a weapon. Using

32:20

a unique organ in its body, it can

32:22

generate an electric shock of up to 350

32:24

volts that stuns its prey. In

32:29

the largest catfish, this shock can be

32:31

enough to stun an adult human, and

32:33

the Egyptians were fascinated by this

32:36

unique property. They

32:38

depicted these shock and awe predators

32:40

on painted wall murals, and

32:42

even experimented with using the weak

32:45

electric charges of young specimens as

32:47

a treatment for arthritis. We

32:50

might imagine that this king, Namer,

32:52

wanted to emulate some of the

32:55

characteristics of these surprise hunters. But

32:57

whether it was their patience lying in

33:00

wait for their enemies, the tenacity of

33:02

their surprise attacks, or the shock and

33:04

awe with which they stunned their prey,

33:07

we may never know. Virtually

33:09

the only source we have for

33:11

this period is a carving known

33:13

as the Namer Pallet, which contains

33:15

only a handful of cryptic clues.

33:20

One side of this carved artifact

33:23

shows King Namer standing over a

33:25

defeated enemy, gripping him by the

33:27

hair in one hand, and raising

33:29

a mace in the other. It's

33:32

a clear sign of domination. Here,

33:35

Namer is shown wearing the white

33:37

bulbous crown of his native Upper

33:40

Egypt, suggesting that he bludgeoned

33:42

his rivals there into submission. On

33:46

the other side, the carving shows the

33:48

king leading an army, while ranks of

33:50

his defeated enemies lie before him. Below

33:54

this, an image of a bull is

33:56

shown tearing down the walls of a

33:58

fortress with its horns. On

34:00

this side of the carving, Narmad is

34:03

wearing the red crown of Lower Egypt.

34:06

From this, we might assume that he set

34:08

out on a campaign of conquest and

34:10

successfully brought the two lands of

34:13

Egypt together. Two

34:15

mythical animals carved on one side

34:17

of the Narmad palette stand with

34:20

their long necks intertwined, perhaps

34:22

representing the coming together of the

34:24

two sides of Egypt, their

34:27

lives and their fates now

34:29

inextricably bound. This

34:44

was a union that would see

34:46

the newly united Egypt grow to

34:48

become one of the most influential

34:50

societies in early human history. At

34:54

first, Egyptian culture was heavily

34:56

influenced by the slightly older

34:59

civilizations of Mesopotamia, like the

35:01

Sumerians. Egyptian

35:03

palaces were often built to a

35:06

Sumerian design, and they used

35:08

Sumerian motifs in their art too. But

35:11

by at least the year 3000 BC,

35:13

Egypt had matured its own

35:16

indigenous artistic culture and its

35:18

own system of writing. The

35:22

Greeks would later refer to these

35:24

by a word which means sacred

35:26

carving or hieroglyph.

35:34

The Egyptian hieroglyphs are a

35:36

mixed writing system that uses

35:38

a variety of phonetic symbols,

35:40

as well as a collection

35:42

of symbols that represent whole

35:44

words. For example, an

35:46

image of a man holding up his

35:48

hand to his mouth could be used

35:50

to represent the common word eat, but

35:53

other symbols that represented groups of

35:55

consonants could be used to spell

35:57

out other less common words. names

36:00

or places. A

36:04

little after the invention of cuneiform

36:07

in Mesopotamia, and it's possible

36:09

they were inspired by this older writing

36:11

system. In Mesopotamia,

36:14

we can see the gradual

36:16

evolution of the cuneiform writing

36:18

system from its earliest symbolic

36:20

roots. But in Egypt,

36:22

the earliest discovered example of hieroglyphs

36:25

show the symbols springing into existence

36:27

already fully formed in a complex

36:29

system. This suggests

36:31

that they may have been developed all

36:34

at once as a conscious effort, and

36:36

were perhaps even devised by a

36:39

single person. The

36:41

Egyptian hieroglyph for ruler was the shepherd's

36:43

crook, since the king was considered to

36:46

be a kind of shepherd for his

36:48

people. Egyptian kings

36:50

would even symbolize their royalty

36:52

by holding a gilded curved

36:55

crook modelled after those used

36:57

by shepherds, and these

36:59

kings have come to be known

37:01

as pharaohs. The

37:06

word pharaoh derives from the

37:08

Egyptian word per'a'a, meaning

37:11

great house, and it

37:13

has stuck in the popular imagination as

37:15

the name used for any Egyptian ruler,

37:17

partly due to its use in the

37:19

Bible. There is

37:21

actually no evidence that it was used to

37:23

refer to Egypt's rulers until nearly

37:27

2,000 years after Naamir's lifetime.

37:30

Up until that time, throughout the first 18

37:33

dynasties of Egypt's history, its rulers

37:36

were simply referred to as kings

37:38

or nethwet, and by

37:41

epithets such as His Majesty. Still,

37:44

the term pharaoh has gained such

37:46

currency and popular usage that it's

37:48

still used to refer to all

37:50

the rulers of Egypt across the

37:52

ages. The

37:54

pharaoh in ancient Egypt was considered

37:57

the living embodiment of the falcon

37:59

god Horel. and the

38:01

son of the Sun God Ra. One

38:09

Pharaoh is the Lord of Wisdom whose

38:15

mother knows not his name. Pharaoh's glory is in the sky, his

38:17

might is in the horizon. Pharaoh

38:19

is the bull of the sky who

38:21

shatters all at will, who

38:23

lives on the being of every

38:25

god. Perhaps

38:28

most famously of all, the Egyptians

38:30

were compelled by their religious beliefs

38:32

to embalm the bodies of the

38:34

dead, ritually cleansing them

38:36

in preparation for the afterlife.

38:40

The Greek Herodotus, who traveled

38:42

widely in Egypt, wrote

38:44

about the specialist embalmers who would

38:46

prepare bodies in this way in

38:49

exchange for a fee. They,

38:53

whenever a corpse is conveyed to

38:55

them, show to those who brought

38:57

it wooden models of corpses made

39:00

like reality by painting and demonstrate

39:02

on these the best of the

39:04

ways of embalming. The

39:07

second which they show is less

39:09

good and also less expensive, and

39:11

the third is the least expensive

39:13

of all. Having told

39:16

them about this, they inquire in which

39:18

way they desire the corpse of their

39:20

friend to be prepared. With

39:24

the price negotiated, the embalmer could

39:26

begin their work, the

39:28

grisly process of which

39:30

Herodotus also describes. First,

39:34

with the crooked iron tool,

39:36

they draw out the brain

39:38

through the nostrils, extracting

39:41

it from the thus and partly

39:43

by pouring in drugs, and

39:46

after this with a sharp stone of

39:48

Ethiopia, they make a cut

39:50

along the side and take out the

39:52

whole contents of the belly, and

39:55

when they have cleared out the cavity

39:57

and cleansed it with palm wine. line,

40:00

they cleanse it again with spices

40:02

pounded up. Then they

40:04

fill the belly with pure myrrh

40:07

and with cassia and other spices,

40:10

and sew it together again. Having

40:13

done so, they keep covered up

40:15

in Natron for seventy days. And

40:18

then they wash the corpse and

40:20

roll its whole body up in

40:22

fine linen cut into bands, smearing

40:25

those beneath with gum, which

40:27

the Egyptians used generically instead

40:30

of glue. Mummification

40:34

was expensive, and

40:36

only those with wealth could afford it.

40:39

Rich merchants, royal officials,

40:42

and of course, the pharaoh

40:44

himself. One

40:48

inscription on the walls of a tomb

40:50

for the pharaoh Unus gives

40:52

a sense of the kinds of prayers

40:55

and blessings that might have been spoken

40:57

while these rituals took place. This

41:00

one to the sun god Amun-Ra

41:03

and the moon god Thoth. Son

41:07

and Thoth, take

41:09

Unus with you, that he may eat of

41:12

what you eat of, that he may drink

41:23

of what you drink of, that

41:26

he may sit where you sit, that

41:29

he may sail in what you sail in.

41:32

The booth of Unus is platted

41:34

of reeds. The

41:36

flood of Unus is in

41:38

the marsh of offerings. His

41:41

feast is among you gods. The

41:43

water of Unus is wine like

41:46

the sun. Unus will

41:48

circumnavigate the sky like the sun.

41:51

Unus shall course the sky.

42:08

Upon coming to the throne of the newly united

42:12

Egypt, King Namer built a new capital, perfectly placed

42:14

at the balance of the two lands,

42:17

where the river met the delta. This

42:20

city would become known as Inebu-Hedge,

42:23

or the city of white walls, but

42:26

today we know it as Memphis. The

42:30

kings who followed Namer would rule from

42:33

this new capital, but

42:35

they spent much of their time travelling

42:37

between palaces, and when they

42:39

died, their bodies were still taken back

42:41

to Namer's home region of Thinnis in

42:43

Upper Egypt, to be

42:45

mummified and buried in the

42:47

city's ancestral burial ground at

42:49

Abhidos. That

42:52

was until the reign of a

42:54

king named Hotep-Sakhemui. He

42:57

ruled from about 2900 BC,

43:00

and started what has been called the

43:03

Second Dynasty of Egypt, and

43:05

he took the decision to start a

43:07

new burial ground near Memphis, so

43:10

that Egypt's pharaohs could be buried close

43:12

to their new capital. For

43:15

the sight of this new burial ground, he

43:17

chose a place on the western bank of the

43:19

river, the side where the sun

43:22

sets, at a vast

43:24

open place called Sakada. Sakada

43:35

is situated on a raised plateau

43:37

that the floodwaters of the Nile

43:39

do not reach. Visually,

43:42

it would have been striking to ancient

43:44

people, as the place where the green

43:47

riverlands end, and the dead

43:49

sand of the desert abruptly begins. For

43:52

this reason, it may have been

43:54

considered a crossing place between death

43:56

and life, the perfect

43:58

place for a necropolis. or

44:00

a city of the dead. For

44:03

kings who At

44:26

first, these tombs were built in a large

44:31

rectangular constructions built of

44:36

mud brick and promising their inhabitants a

44:38

rebirth into the next life. These

44:42

could be very large, but they were still relatively unassuming. But

44:44

soon, Egyptian pharaohs would

44:47

get even more ambitious with their

44:49

burial arrangements. This

44:51

ambition truly began with the rule

44:53

of a pharaoh named

44:56

Netjediket Joseph. The

45:04

reign of Joseph begins the period known

45:06

as the Old Kingdom, which would last

45:08

for the next 500 years.

45:12

Joseph was the son of

45:14

a king named Khar-Sakhemui, who

45:16

had reunited Egypt after a

45:18

period of turmoil during which

45:20

the northern delta rose in

45:22

rebellion. With

45:24

order now restored, Joseph clearly

45:26

wanted to keep it that

45:28

way. Rather than

45:30

continuing to travel around the country as

45:32

pharaohs before him had done, he

45:35

moved to a permanent capital at

45:37

Memphis, where he could keep

45:39

a better eye on the rest of

45:41

northern riverlands. Over

45:43

his nearly three decades of rule,

45:46

he set about an ambitious program

45:48

of construction, rebuilding temples

45:50

and throwing up fortresses all along

45:52

the river. But it was in

45:54

the manner of his burial that he would

45:56

truly leave his mark. When

45:59

Joseph had been the construction of his

46:01

final resting starboard

46:04

tombs of the kings that had come

46:06

before. But his royal architect

46:09

soon began dreaming of a more

46:11

ambitious structure. He

46:13

was a visionary chancellor and engineer

46:16

who held numerous official titles in

46:18

the kingdom, including head

46:21

of the royal shipyard,

46:23

royal seal-bearer, and overseer

46:25

of all stone works.

46:28

His name was Imhotep. Imhotep's

46:37

name means the one who comes

46:39

in peace, and he was born

46:41

in the 27th century BC.

46:44

But beyond that, much of what we

46:47

know about him has been distorted by

46:49

myth and legend. He

46:51

was something of a polymath,

46:53

a priest, a statesman, a

46:55

scribe, physician, and architect, and

46:58

even gained fame as a magician. He

47:01

also has the distinction of being

47:03

perhaps the first non-royal person to

47:06

be recorded in any detail by

47:08

history. As

47:10

the king's most trusted architect, Imhotep

47:12

was put in charge of the

47:15

construction of Joseph's tomb, but

47:17

it would not be a regular

47:20

mudbrick mastaba like his predecessors. In

47:23

fact, Imhotep was determined to build

47:25

this tomb out of stone. This

47:28

stone would need to be quarried from

47:30

the bedrock nearby, roughly cut

47:33

into blocks. But

47:35

as this stone mastaba rose out

47:37

of the desert, Imhotep seems to

47:39

have had an idea. With

47:43

this stronger building material, the structure

47:45

could support more weight, and

47:48

so there was no real reason

47:50

to stop building. Once

47:53

the first mastaba was built, he

47:55

experimented with placing another smaller one

47:57

on top of it, and

47:59

then another on top of that, creating

48:02

a world's

48:23

first large-scale construction made from

48:25

cut stone, and rising to

48:27

a height of 62 meters,

48:29

it was likely also the

48:31

tallest building on earth. Finally,

48:35

the stepped pyramid of Joseph

48:37

was complete, and

48:39

when the king died, he was laid

48:41

to rest in a granite chamber beneath

48:44

the great edifice, surrounded by

48:46

a maze of tunnels. Joseph's

48:49

pyramid was a revolutionary

48:51

step in Egyptian architecture,

48:54

and it would stand as a challenge to all

48:56

the kings who would follow him, a

48:59

challenge that they would find

49:01

irresistible. The

49:10

difficulties that engineers like Imhotep

49:12

faced in building these pyramids

49:15

were enormous, but

49:17

their achievement becomes even more impressive

49:19

when you consider that these monuments also

49:22

had to be built fast. Today,

49:25

Egypt is littered with the

49:27

remains of half-built pyramids. These

49:31

were abandoned halfway through their

49:33

construction, usually because the pharaoh

49:35

who commissioned them had died early.

49:39

Once a pharaoh was dead, it seems

49:41

no one saw any point in continuing

49:43

to build his tomb. After

49:45

all, there was a new pharaoh now, and

49:48

construction on his pyramid would have to

49:50

begin right away. For

49:53

this reason, pyramids usually had to be

49:55

completed, at the very least, within 30

49:57

years. Only

50:00

the kings with the longest and

50:02

most stable reigns would ever live

50:04

to see the final capstone placed.

50:10

The next pharaoh after Josur was

50:12

a man named Sekamket, who

50:14

may have been Josur's brother, and

50:16

he would join the ranks of the unfinished.

50:20

As soon as he came to

50:22

the throne, he began the construction

50:24

of another stepped pyramid of immense

50:26

ambition, sure to dwarf his

50:28

brother's achievement. But

50:30

only the first layer of the

50:33

pyramid was built when Sekamket died,

50:35

just six or seven years into his

50:37

reign, and the pyramid was

50:40

abandoned. Another

50:42

king, Khabar, also died after

50:44

six years before his stepped

50:46

pyramid could be completed. To

50:49

build each pyramid, the Egyptians would

50:52

require enormous amounts of laborers, as

50:54

many as 100,000 per pyramid, with about 10,000 laboring at any one time.

51:01

There's a widespread misconception that these

51:03

monuments were built by armies of

51:06

slaves, but most historians

51:08

now believe this not to be true. Slavery

51:11

was an aspect of Egyptian society, as

51:13

it was across the ancient world, and

51:16

slaves were mostly taken from prisoners of

51:18

war, and also from those

51:20

who fell into debt or committed serious

51:22

crimes. Slaves

51:25

were mostly used as domestic servants, or

51:28

if they were unlucky, toiled

51:30

in extraction industries like mining

51:32

and quarrying. These

51:34

were considered an underclass and would

51:36

not have been trusted with the

51:38

construction of such important and sacred

51:40

buildings. In fact,

51:43

evidence shows that the pyramid builders

51:45

were a mixture of professional artisans

51:48

and laboring peasants who worked

51:50

seasonally in exchange for rations.

51:54

The life of an Egyptian farmer was dictated

51:56

by the coming and going of the annual

51:58

floods, and there were only a few times

52:00

of year when they could be meaningfully employed

52:03

in the fields. For

52:05

the rest of the time, they would

52:07

have leased out their services to construction

52:09

projects, the digging of canals and other

52:11

public works, and the construction

52:14

of pyramids. While

52:21

they labored for the king, these workers drank

52:23

beer three times a day and ate meat

52:26

regularly. They toiled

52:28

in three-month shifts and were divided

52:30

into teams of twenty men. The

52:34

discovery of their graffiti, hidden on

52:36

the inward-facing sides of sunstone blocks

52:38

in the pyramids, shows

52:40

that they gave themselves playful and

52:43

boisterous team names, some

52:45

of which have been recorded. The

52:49

friends of Khufu, the

52:51

vigorous Geng, the followers

52:54

of the powerful white crown of Khufu,

52:57

those who know the pharaoh, the

52:59

drunkards of men quarry. It

53:03

seems their supervisors fostered a sense

53:06

of team pride and healthy competition,

53:08

perhaps giving honours and extra beer

53:10

rations for those who shifted the

53:13

most blocks. Doubtless,

53:15

the work was back-breaking, but

53:17

over the following millennium, millions

53:19

of Egyptians would take this deal.

53:24

Perhaps they also felt a sense of pride

53:26

at the great constructions they were taking part

53:28

in, which if all went

53:30

well, they would live to see completed.

53:34

These labourers were sufficiently respected that

53:36

any who died during the construction

53:38

were buried in tombs within the

53:41

royal complex, their bodies

53:43

forever a part of the monolith they

53:45

had given their lives to build, an

53:48

honour that would never have been given to

53:50

a slave. The

53:55

vast administrative effort of building these

53:57

tombs over the next centuries required

54:00

a fundamental restructuring of the

54:06

high positions of state had been separated

54:25

out, and these roles were

54:35

summarizing the transformation in the

54:43

following terms. As Egypt embarked on

54:49

Pyramid Building, the pyramids were building

54:54

Egypt. This new cast of civil servants

54:58

took pride in their work. One Egyptian

55:01

text of the Fifth Dynasty administrator.

55:31

Still, the failures of the kings that

55:33

followed Joseph must have left a mark

55:37

in Israel. Their crumbling,

55:39

half-finished pyramids

55:42

stood in the desert as an image of

55:45

kingship that could also be fragile and

55:48

fleeting. With his stepped pyramid, Joseph

55:52

had laid down a provocation that would

55:55

have to be answered. But it wasn't until

55:58

the reign of a king named would

56:00

rise to the challenge. Sneferu's

56:15

full name was Hauneb

56:18

Ma'at Sneferuwaj.

56:20

Horus Lord of Ma'at has Ma'at

56:24

in Egyptian religious belief was

56:27

the embodiment of justice and

56:29

truth, sometimes portrayed

56:31

as a goddess wearing an

56:33

ostrich feather on her head,

56:35

who kept the stars and the

56:37

seasons in their regular patterns and

56:40

maintained peace. Opposed

56:43

to her in their theology was

56:46

the concept of Isfet, chaos,

56:49

darkness, and disorder.

56:52

This was sometimes depicted as

56:54

a great coiling serpent. For

56:58

the most part, Sneferu's name seems

57:00

to have been appropriate. Under

57:03

the protection of Ma'at, he reigned for as

57:05

long as 48 years, a

57:08

time of prosperity and stability.

57:11

His accession to the throne is

57:13

remembered in the later Egyptian source,

57:16

the Prisuppa Piras. The

57:19

majesty of the king of upper

57:21

and lower Egypt, Huni, came

57:24

to the landing place of death, and

57:26

the majesty of the king of

57:29

upper and lower Egypt, Sneferu, was

57:31

raised up as a beneficent king

57:33

in this entire land. During

57:37

his half-century on the throne,

57:40

Sneferu would secure his place

57:42

as Egypt's most ardent and

57:44

determined pyramid builder. With

57:46

the failure of the last kings

57:48

to build a stepped pyramid to

57:51

match Joseph's, Sneferu began

57:53

to wonder if he could build something

57:55

even better, a pyramid

57:57

that conformed to a perfect geometrical

58:00

shape. He had a

58:02

vision of a pyramid with the

58:06

world had seen before. His

58:09

first pyramid

58:12

of Medun. There

58:24

is some debate about whether the stands

58:35

as one of the most impressive period

58:43

was built in several stages.

58:46

First, it was a stepped pyramid of

58:48

similar design to Joseph's, and

58:50

then this interior structure was encased

58:53

in a steep shell of white

58:55

limestone, creating a high and

58:57

narrow point. The

58:59

effect would have been beautiful, that

59:02

is, until one day, as the

59:04

pyramid neared completion, when

59:06

the entire weight of the stone

59:08

facing began to collapse in all

59:11

directions. We

59:13

can only imagine the noise and calamity that must

59:15

have accompanied this. The workers

59:18

leaping clear of the wreckage, the

59:20

overseers watching Agass, as

59:22

an avalanche of painstakingly cut stone

59:24

poured off the side of the

59:26

pyramid. The moment this happened,

59:29

Sneferu ordered the construction to be

59:31

halted. Workmen inside

59:34

the interior chambers simply

59:36

put down their tools and left. Today,

59:40

the burial chamber inside the

59:42

pyramid is still unfinished, with

59:44

raw, uncarved walls and wooden

59:47

supports still in place, which

59:50

were usually removed after construction.

59:54

Sneferu must have been devastated,

59:56

but he wasn't discouraged. Soon,

59:59

he he tried again, with

1:00:01

a pyramid at the site of

1:00:03

Darshur, just to the

1:00:06

south of the royal necropolis of Saqqara.

1:00:13

This pyramid was intended to be tall,

1:00:16

and its sides were even steeper than the first.

1:00:19

His workmen began to construct it

1:00:21

with a sharp 53-degree slope to

1:00:24

its sides, and this

1:00:26

time Sneferu must have hoped that he would

1:00:28

get the pyramid he dreamed of. But

1:00:31

this would not turn out to be the case. This

1:00:34

second pyramid was built on ground

1:00:36

that was only soft sand and

1:00:38

shale. As the

1:00:41

pyramid took shape and its weight climbed

1:00:43

into the millions of tons, they

1:00:45

found that the stone was sinking into the

1:00:47

earth and causing cracks to

1:00:49

appear in the structure. We

1:00:52

can only imagine how it felt to be

1:00:54

the architect who had to bring this bad

1:00:56

news to the king, the son

1:00:59

of Ra, the living embodiment of the

1:01:01

god Horus. The

1:01:04

workmen tried everything they could, from

1:01:07

adding new supporting blocks to the

1:01:09

base, to propping up subsiding sections

1:01:11

with huge beams of cedar wood.

1:01:15

But it was hopeless. It

1:01:17

became clear that if they continued the

1:01:19

pyramid as planned, it would likely collapse,

1:01:22

just as the first one had. The

1:01:26

Pharaoh Sneferu seems to have listened

1:01:28

to reason. He consented

1:01:30

to allow his workmen to hurriedly

1:01:32

finish the pyramid with a reduced

1:01:34

angle of only 43 degrees

1:01:37

and a final height reduced by 25 meters.

1:01:42

This means that today the pyramid

1:01:44

has a peculiar, snub-nosed appearance that

1:01:46

has given it the name the

1:01:48

Bent Pyramid. It's

1:01:51

clear that Sneferu still wasn't

1:01:53

satisfied. He

1:01:56

now ordered the construction of a final

1:01:58

pyramid, one kilometer long. to the

1:02:00

north, combining everything his craftsmen had learned

1:02:03

from the first two. This

1:02:05

one was now built with a 43-degree

1:02:08

incline from the beginning, more

1:02:10

evenly distributing the weight on the earth.

1:02:13

And finally, Sneferu got the

1:02:15

pyramid he desired. This

1:02:19

was the first structure that truly

1:02:21

took the iconic shape of an

1:02:23

Egyptian pyramid, and would be

1:02:25

used as a model for those that would

1:02:27

be built in years to come. It

1:02:30

was 105 meters high,

1:02:33

nearly twice the height of Joseph's

1:02:35

pyramid and the world's

1:02:37

new tallest building. And

1:02:40

its geometrical perfection was

1:02:43

undeniable. When

1:02:46

Sneferu died, he was buried in

1:02:48

this pyramid according to his wishes,

1:02:51

and his son took the throne. He

1:02:54

would be the greatest pyramid builder of

1:02:56

all. His name was

1:02:59

Khufu. As

1:03:10

a boy, Khufu must have seen

1:03:12

his father Sneferu obsessed with the

1:03:14

construction of his three pyramids. We

1:03:17

can imagine the young prince listening in

1:03:20

on his father's conversations with his architects,

1:03:23

the tension and anger as the

1:03:25

first two pyramids failed, and then

1:03:27

the final triumph of the Red

1:03:29

Pyramid. And perhaps as

1:03:31

a boy, he dreamed of one day

1:03:34

building such a monument for himself. We

1:03:44

know very little about Khufu, or

1:03:46

what his reign was like, but

1:03:49

it's clear that he was inspired by

1:03:51

one thing, size, And

1:03:54

above all, the desire to build the

1:03:57

largest pyramid that would ever stand.

1:04:00

Learning from his father's mistakes

1:04:02

on the bench pyramid and

1:04:05

likely inheriting some of his

1:04:07

architects, Khufu elected to build

1:04:09

his tomb some fifteen kilometers

1:04:11

to the northwest of Sakara,

1:04:13

on a shelf of strong

1:04:16

limestone just outside of. At

1:04:19

a place called Giza.

1:04:24

When construction began on the Great

1:04:26

Pyramid, there must have been some

1:04:29

uncertainty about whether he would even

1:04:31

be possible. It was

1:04:33

built using an estimated two point

1:04:35

three million large stone blocks, weighing

1:04:38

a total of six million tons.

1:04:40

And when it's first layer was

1:04:42

completed, it was the size of

1:04:44

more than ten football pitches. It's

1:04:48

builders used for dominantly local

1:04:50

limestone quarry it from nearby

1:04:52

on the Giza plateau to

1:04:54

build the pyramids interior structure

1:04:56

and these were bound together

1:04:59

with lie motor packed with

1:05:01

straw and charcoal. Luckily,

1:05:03

these organic remains in the

1:05:05

pyramid motor can be carbon

1:05:08

dated, allowing archaeologists to date

1:05:10

the pyramids with scientific certainty

1:05:12

to this period. But

1:05:15

while rough stone would do for the

1:05:17

main body, the King's burial chamber at

1:05:19

it's heart was made of flux of

1:05:22

hard granite brought from a swan since

1:05:24

it needed to resist the crushing weight

1:05:26

of millions of tons of stone above

1:05:29

it. The fine limestone

1:05:31

blocks of it's outer shell were

1:05:33

quarried at a place called Tourer.

1:05:36

On the other side of the river. The.

1:05:38

Stone from these quarries was

1:05:41

of exceptional quality. A

1:05:43

pale white in color, almost like

1:05:45

marble. For. This

1:05:47

reason it was highly prized for use

1:05:49

on the interiors of tombs. And

1:05:52

the perfect casing for a

1:05:54

pyramid. this

1:05:57

limestone was cut out of

1:05:59

underground tunnels in these quarries

1:06:02

and dragged loaded

1:06:06

onto barges to be carried downstream.

1:06:11

In order to ease the transportation

1:06:13

of these stones, the Egyptians dug a

1:06:15

series of canals and artificial harbors that

1:06:17

came right up to the base of

1:06:19

the pyramids, one of which was known

1:06:22

as Sheikufu, or the Pool

1:06:24

of Kufu. One

1:06:27

papyrus has been uncovered, the

1:06:29

oldest ever found, that is the work journal

1:06:32

of an overseer named Marreir.

1:06:35

In it, he records the

1:06:37

process of this perhaps less

1:06:40

than exhilarating task. Day

1:06:44

25. Inspector Marreir spends

1:06:46

the day hauling stones in Tura

1:06:49

south, spends the night

1:06:51

at Tura. Day 26.

1:06:53

Inspector Marreir

1:06:55

casts off from Tura loaded with

1:06:57

stones, day

1:07:02

27. Set sail loaded with

1:07:04

stone, spends the night at the pyramid.

1:07:06

Day 28. Castes

1:07:10

off from the pyramid in the morning, sails

1:07:13

upriver to Tura south. Day

1:07:17

29. Inspector Marreir

1:07:19

spends the day hauling stones in

1:07:21

Tura south, spends the night at

1:07:24

Tura. Day 30. Inspector

1:07:27

Marreir spends the day

1:07:29

hauling stones in Tura south, spends

1:07:31

the night at Tura. Remarkably,

1:07:38

the pyramid was oriented

1:07:40

perfectly to true north,

1:07:42

with one of its faces at each point

1:07:44

of the compass, suggesting that

1:07:47

the Egyptians must have used measurements

1:07:49

of the stars in order to

1:07:51

align it, the only method

1:07:53

by which they could have achieved such

1:07:55

accuracy. And with

1:07:57

the kingdom's now exceptional organization.

1:08:00

It's been estimated that it took

1:08:03

only about 23 years to build,

1:08:06

with the final stones being placed around

1:08:08

2560 BC. Upon

1:08:13

its completion, the Great Pyramid of Giza

1:08:15

would stand 147 meters high, or nearly 40

1:08:21

stories. It

1:08:23

was the tallest man-made structure in the

1:08:25

world and would remain so for nearly

1:08:27

4000 years. The

1:08:31

building that eventually surpassed it, the

1:08:33

wooden spire of Lincoln Cathedral in

1:08:35

England, completed in 1311,

1:08:38

would stand for little more

1:08:40

than two centuries before

1:08:42

it collapsed in a storm. Today

1:08:46

Khufu has cemented his name into

1:08:48

history with the construction of these

1:08:51

monuments. But other

1:08:53

than his ambitious pyramid, little else

1:08:55

is known about him. The

1:08:58

only representation of him ever found is

1:09:01

a single statuette carved from

1:09:03

ivory. And ironically

1:09:05

for a man so obsessed

1:09:07

with grand scale, this statue

1:09:09

is only 7 centimeters, or

1:09:12

less than 3 inches tall. When

1:09:18

Khufu died around 2525 BC,

1:09:22

his son Jeddefre would take the

1:09:24

throne. But his reign was short,

1:09:27

and when he died another of Khufu's

1:09:29

sons became Pharaoh. His name

1:09:31

was Kaffre. The

1:09:35

Pharaoh Kaffre would follow in

1:09:37

his father's and grandfather's footsteps,

1:09:39

and build a grand pyramid of his own.

1:09:43

He would place it right beside his

1:09:45

father's, but for some reason he declined

1:09:47

to build it any higher. It

1:09:50

could be that his builders, perhaps

1:09:52

tiring of this mania for ever

1:09:54

bigger and better pyramids, simply

1:09:57

told him that it wouldn't be possible to

1:09:59

build any bigger. bigger. It

1:10:01

may be that Caffre worried meaning

1:10:24

that from many angles it appears

1:10:30

deeper angled sides. This meant

1:10:32

Caffre pyramid

1:10:35

with perhaps 350,000 fewer stone blocks, a saving

1:10:37

that his teams of laborers

1:10:42

and stonemasons no

1:10:45

doubt appreciated. Today,

1:10:48

the pyramid of Caffre is the

1:10:50

only pyramid at Giza to retain

1:10:52

any of its original casing stones

1:10:54

of smooth white Torah limestone which

1:10:57

still cling to the top third of the

1:10:59

structure, perhaps since its

1:11:01

steeper sides made it more difficult

1:11:03

for stone thieves to extract the

1:11:06

very top of its masonry. This

1:11:10

allows us to picture how these monuments

1:11:12

would have looked in their golden age,

1:11:15

the smooth white sides that must

1:11:17

have gleamed blindingly in the desert

1:11:19

sun, and at night shone

1:11:21

in the light of the moon. These

1:11:26

pyramids were also likely capped

1:11:28

with a stone known as

1:11:30

a pyramidian, usually carved

1:11:33

of diorite or granite and

1:11:35

carved with hieroglyphs. Some

1:11:38

examples of these pyramidians have

1:11:41

been found with distinctive grooves

1:11:43

that suggest that they were

1:11:45

encased in a decorative metal,

1:11:48

either copper or shining electrum,

1:11:50

an alloy of gold and silver.

1:11:54

Since The pyramidians for the Giza

1:11:56

pyramids have never been found, It's

1:11:58

unknown whether their tops. There are

1:12:00

encased in metal but if they

1:12:02

were it would have made them.

1:12:04

And even more impressive sight a

1:12:07

gleaming cynical reaching up to the

1:12:09

heavens. Within

1:12:12

only one hundred years or

1:12:14

so of the construction of

1:12:16

Josias first stepped pyramids, all

1:12:18

of Egypt's largest pyramids had

1:12:20

already been built. All my

1:12:22

only three generations of the

1:12:24

same family. Was.

1:12:26

Almost from the moment the

1:12:28

final capstone was placed on

1:12:30

cafes massive monument, enthusiasm for

1:12:32

enormous pyramids began to wane.

1:12:39

The pharaoh Men Coday, the

1:12:41

son of Cafe and grandson

1:12:43

of Khufu, also built his

1:12:45

pyramid of Giza around twenty

1:12:47

five ten B C, but

1:12:49

his would be significantly smaller.

1:12:52

It's not even a tenth the size

1:12:54

of the Great Pyramid, and early two

1:12:56

thirds the size of even Josias stepped

1:12:59

pyramid. One

1:13:01

explanation for this was that men

1:13:03

count. I didn't expect to live

1:13:05

long enough to build such a

1:13:07

grand construction as his predecessors. Paralysis

1:13:10

records one piece of tradition about

1:13:12

the Pharaoh mentality which recounts how

1:13:14

and oracle told him that his

1:13:17

reign would be short. As a

1:13:19

result, he determined to make the

1:13:21

best of the time he had

1:13:23

and perhaps this left him little

1:13:26

time for pyramid building. Just

1:13:33

and sent back to the. Oracle a

1:13:35

message of French blaming the god.

1:13:38

Why must he die so soon? Whereas.

1:13:41

His father and his uncle had lived law.

1:13:44

He caused many lamps to be

1:13:46

made and would like to these

1:13:48

at nightfall and drink and make

1:13:50

merry. By. Day or night,

1:13:53

he never ceased from reveling roaming

1:13:55

to the marsh country and the

1:13:57

groups, and whenever he heard of.

1:14:00

The likeliest places of pleasure.

1:14:06

Whether there's any truth to this or

1:14:08

not, it's clear him and Count had

1:14:10

different priorities to cuckoo and Caffrey. And.

1:14:13

His more modest pyramid seems to

1:14:15

have broken the spell of his

1:14:17

family's one upmanship. For

1:14:20

the next thousand years, Pharaohs would

1:14:22

continue to build pyramid tombs, but

1:14:25

they would be mostly at a

1:14:27

much reduced scale and they would

1:14:29

cut bigger and bigger corners in

1:14:31

that construction. Instead

1:14:34

of a solid limestone structure, these

1:14:36

later monuments would often be a

1:14:38

simple limestone shell casing, a core

1:14:41

of mud brick. Or

1:14:43

simply earth and sand. For

1:14:45

this reason, little remains of

1:14:47

these later pyramids other than

1:14:50

melancholy heaps alone in the

1:14:52

desert. Slowly.

1:14:55

The practice would begin to die

1:14:57

out all together. The

1:15:00

reason or Jepsen stopped building pyramids

1:15:02

was partly due to changes in

1:15:05

religious attitudes towards burial, but it

1:15:07

also seems to have stemmed from

1:15:09

concern over two brothers. After

1:15:12

all, a pyramid was essentially an

1:15:14

enormous sign announcing to the world

1:15:16

that the richest man in Egypt

1:15:18

was buried them. From.

1:15:21

The earliest days, people were drawn

1:15:23

to the tombs of long dead

1:15:25

kings to attempt to steal their

1:15:27

treasures. One

1:15:29

Two and scripts and of a

1:15:32

royal architect named in Nanny gives

1:15:34

us a clue about these changing

1:15:36

priorities. He writes

1:15:38

that he constructed his kings

1:15:40

to not in an ostentatious

1:15:42

declaration of power, but in

1:15:44

total secrecy. I

1:15:48

supervise the excavation of the

1:15:50

cliff tomb of his majesty

1:15:52

alone. No. One seed

1:15:55

and no one hearing.

1:16:00

Even with the secret tombs,

1:16:02

grave robbers was still a

1:16:04

constant concern. One

1:16:06

Pharaoh of the later New

1:16:08

Kingdom would order an inspection

1:16:10

of his predecessors' tombs, and

1:16:12

his inspectors brought back troubling

1:16:14

news. The.

1:16:16

Tomb of the king. It was

1:16:18

found that the evil doers of damaged it. By.

1:16:21

Forcing an opening into the main chamber of

1:16:23

is to. Through. The passage wall

1:16:25

of the sanctuary have never met Superintendent

1:16:27

of the grain stores of the king

1:16:30

in the funerary place. The body of

1:16:32

the king had been removed and the

1:16:34

tomb of his royal spouse, the Royal

1:16:36

Lady of Noxious was empty. The

1:16:39

robbers had laid violent hands on them.

1:16:44

It wasn't just the precious trenches inside

1:16:46

that was stolen. As

1:16:48

the overseer might have had found,

1:16:50

cutting the limestone blocks from the

1:16:52

quarries of Tuna was one of

1:16:54

the most time consuming parts of

1:16:56

construction. For this reason

1:16:59

pharaohs he felt more pressed for

1:17:01

time sometimes to spoiled previous pyramids

1:17:04

of that cuts down in order

1:17:06

to speed along the own monuments.

1:17:09

One Middle Kingdom tax known

1:17:12

as the Instruction of Medicaid

1:17:14

I advise is kings against

1:17:16

the same for practice. Do

1:17:19

not to spoil the monument of

1:17:21

another. But quarry stone

1:17:24

in Tora. Do not

1:17:26

build your to mount of ruins.

1:17:28

Using what has been made

1:17:31

for was used to be

1:17:33

made. In

1:17:36

place of constructing the own pyramids

1:17:38

at Sakara or Chiesa, the later

1:17:40

pharaohs would be buried at a

1:17:43

place near Seeps the the Egyptians

1:17:45

called the great and majestic necropolis

1:17:47

of the millions of years of

1:17:49

the pharaoh. Who. Sometimes

1:17:51

the great field. But.

1:17:54

Today it is known as the

1:17:56

Valley of the King's. here

1:17:59

unnatural rock formation known as

1:18:01

El Curn or the Arctic

1:18:06

Red Cliffs. When

1:18:09

viewed from the Arctic

1:18:13

somewhat resembles a natural pyramid. It's

1:18:16

possible that this convenient landform may

1:18:19

have relieved some of the pressure

1:18:21

on Egypt's pharaohs and

1:18:23

allowed them an equally prestigious place

1:18:25

to be buried while freeing

1:18:27

up an untold amount of

1:18:30

energy and manpower in the

1:18:32

kingdom. Egypt's

1:18:34

manual laborers could perhaps breathe

1:18:36

a sigh of relief. Slowly,

1:18:39

the age of the pyramids

1:18:41

came to an end. Still,

1:18:51

that was a long time in the

1:18:53

future and throughout the

1:18:55

fourth and fifth dynasties of

1:18:57

Egypt, royal monument construction continued

1:18:59

confidently. But in

1:19:02

the sixth dynasty, around the

1:19:04

23rd century BC, construction

1:19:07

began to decline. Part

1:19:11

of the reason for this was

1:19:13

an increasing decentralization of the Empire

1:19:16

and a gradual weakening of the power

1:19:18

of the King. The

1:19:22

final pharaoh of the Old

1:19:24

Kingdom was named Pepe II.

1:19:28

He came to the throne at the age of six

1:19:30

and ruled for more than

1:19:32

60 years. Pepe

1:19:34

was an excitable and enthusiastic

1:19:37

child, as we can

1:19:39

see from one tomb inscription by

1:19:41

one of his officials named Harkouf.

1:19:45

Harkouf had a long and

1:19:47

illustrious career. He

1:19:49

served as the mayor of one

1:19:51

of Egypt's southern provinces in the

1:19:53

region of the Nile cataract of

1:19:55

Aswan, the narrow gate to the

1:19:57

south. his

1:20:00

life was the four journeys of his

1:20:05

pharaoh following the Nile down

1:20:27

from there all sorts of beautiful I

1:20:35

came back with 300 donkeys

1:20:37

laden with incense ebony

1:20:40

precious oil grain leopard

1:20:43

skins and elephant tusks the

1:20:47

boy pharaoh peppy was so delighted with

1:20:49

Harkov's trip that he wrote a letter

1:20:52

directly to him the

1:20:54

letter was likely written on fragile

1:20:56

papyrus and has not survived but

1:20:59

luckily Harkov was so proud of this

1:21:01

sign of royal favor that he had

1:21:03

the letter copied out word for word

1:21:05

on the wall of his tomb his

1:21:08

proudest moment etched into stone

1:21:11

for eternity in

1:21:13

it we get a sense

1:21:16

for the voice of this

1:21:18

excitable young king you know

1:21:20

how to do what your Lord loves and favors

1:21:23

you wake and you sleep planning to do

1:21:25

what your Lord loves favors and commands unique

1:21:28

friend Harkov peppy

1:21:31

was especially excited by a small

1:21:33

man that Harkov had come across

1:21:36

in East Africa and had brought

1:21:38

back with him perhaps

1:21:40

either a man with dwarfism or

1:21:42

a member of the so-called pygmy

1:21:45

tribes of Central Africa you

1:21:49

have further said in this message that you

1:21:51

have brought a dwarf of the gods dances

1:21:53

from the land of the horizon dwellers come

1:21:56

downstream to the residence at once hurry

1:21:58

and bring with you this dwarf that

1:22:01

you have brought, alive, prosperous and healthy,

1:22:03

for the king. When

1:22:05

he goes down with you into the boat,

1:22:07

have excellent people around him on deck, lest

1:22:09

he fall in the water. My

1:22:12

Majesty wishes to see this particular dwarf more

1:22:14

than the produce of the land." However,

1:22:18

as a pharaoh, Peppy

1:22:20

was relatively ineffectual. During

1:22:23

his childhood, his mother and grand

1:22:25

viziers seemed to have done much

1:22:27

of the ruling, and as

1:22:30

an adult, he continued a relatively

1:22:32

hands-off approach to the kingdom. For

1:22:36

much of its history, Egypt had

1:22:38

been governed by regional administrators

1:22:40

known as Noemaks, who

1:22:43

were appointed by the pharaoh to rule

1:22:45

over their regions on his behalf. Peppy's

1:22:49

long reign saw an increasing amount

1:22:51

of power passing to these regional

1:22:53

governors. Gradually,

1:22:56

their positions became hereditary

1:22:58

rather than appointed, so

1:23:00

that single families began to amass large

1:23:03

amounts of power, and

1:23:05

their tombs became larger and more

1:23:07

elaborate with every passing year. These

1:23:11

Noemaks were soon beginning to look

1:23:13

a lot like feudal lords or

1:23:15

even petty kings, and

1:23:18

even began fighting amongst themselves.

1:23:21

Meanwhile, the once-boy king Peppy

1:23:23

was now entering his 70s,

1:23:26

frail and increasingly detached from the

1:23:29

business of ruling. This

1:23:32

might not have been a death blow for

1:23:34

the kingdom, but it was

1:23:36

around this time that a record

1:23:38

drought descended over Egypt and the

1:23:41

entire eastern Mediterranean, starting

1:23:43

around the year 2200 BC. This climate shift we

1:23:45

have encountered before.

1:23:52

It is known as the 4.2-kilo-year event,

1:23:56

and has been implicated in the

1:23:58

collapse of the Akkadian Empire. in

1:24:01

Mesopotamia and perhaps even the

1:24:05

India and Pakistan. In

1:24:08

Egypt, the result in

1:24:12

which the Nile floods were much higher,

1:24:19

the drought was so severe and long-lasting

1:24:24

that the verdant lake at Fayum, that once stood 65 meters deep,

1:24:28

completely dried up over the next 50 years, and

1:24:31

crop yields would have plummeted. The

1:24:39

long reign of a pharaoh was usually

1:24:41

good news for the kingdom. It

1:24:44

tended to generate a period of

1:24:46

stability and often prosperity. But

1:24:49

when a king's rule went on too long,

1:24:51

it had the tendency to create what we

1:24:53

might call the old king problem. The

1:24:57

long reign of the pharaoh Pepe,

1:24:59

along with his multiple wives, meant

1:25:01

that he had countless children, many

1:25:03

of them now old men themselves,

1:25:06

with children and grandchildren of their

1:25:08

own. And they

1:25:10

were all impatient to see this

1:25:12

old king pass on so

1:25:14

that they would get their chance to rule.

1:25:17

When Pepe finally died around 2175

1:25:21

BC, what followed was

1:25:23

a succession crisis of

1:25:25

immense proportions. The

1:25:30

chaos serpent of Isfet now

1:25:33

wound its way around all the

1:25:35

lands of Egypt. In

1:25:47

the two decades that followed, the kingdom

1:25:49

would see no fewer than 17 pharaohs

1:25:52

come and go, some

1:25:55

perhaps dying of old age and

1:25:57

others no doubt killed by their

1:25:59

rivals. The

1:26:02

only one of these kings to survive named

1:26:07

Ibi, who even somewhat

1:26:30

On top of that, it was

1:26:32

lazily constructed King

1:26:37

Ibi, the man who was to be buried

1:26:42

only two years, one month, and a day,

1:26:44

and demonstrates

1:27:13

how the centralized power of

1:27:15

the king was declining. Ancteepi

1:27:43

recalls the time of famine that

1:27:45

swept over the land as

1:27:47

crisis after crisis rocked the

1:27:50

struggling old kingdom. But

1:28:00

I managed that no one died of hunger and

1:28:05

the country had become like a starved

1:28:07

grasshopper, with people going to the north

1:28:09

and to the south in search of

1:28:11

grain. Egypt

1:28:14

was now fracturing into something like

1:28:17

the shape it had been before

1:28:19

King Namer had fused it into

1:28:21

a stable centralized state nearly 800

1:28:23

years before. Refugees

1:28:27

were flooding the roads. Another

1:28:31

later Egyptian writer called Ipuer

1:28:33

who lived in the period

1:28:35

following this chaos describes people

1:28:38

resorting to theft to survive

1:28:40

and violence spreading. The

1:28:44

guardians of the house say, let

1:28:47

us go and steal. The

1:28:49

snares of birds have formed themselves

1:28:51

into armed bands. The

1:28:53

peasants of the delta have provided themselves with

1:28:56

shields. A man regards his

1:28:58

son as his enemy. The

1:29:00

wrongdoer is in every place. The

1:29:03

inundation of the Nile comes, yet

1:29:06

no one goes out to plow. Ipuer

1:29:11

describes a widespread economic

1:29:13

collapse during which trade

1:29:16

from foreign lands dried up.

1:29:20

The skilled masons who built pyramids

1:29:22

now labor on farms and

1:29:25

those who tended the boat of the gods

1:29:27

are yoked together in plowing. Man

1:29:29

do not go on voyages today. What

1:29:33

shall we do for cedarwood for our mummies

1:29:35

in coffins of which priests are buried and

1:29:38

with the oil of which men are embalmed? They

1:29:41

come no longer. Everything

1:29:44

is in ruins. Laughter

1:29:46

is dead. If

1:29:48

I only knew where God was, I would

1:29:51

make offerings to him. must

1:30:00

have dreamed of a better time will

1:30:19

come. He will take the

1:30:21

white crown. His

1:30:30

time, the Asiatics will

1:30:32

fall to his sword, and

1:30:35

the Libyans will fall to his flame.

1:30:38

The rebels belong to his wrath, and

1:30:41

the treacherous in heart belong to

1:30:43

the awe of him. The

1:30:48

man who would fulfill this prophecy, or

1:30:51

rather the man in whose reign the

1:30:53

prophecy was more likely written, would

1:30:55

reunite Egypt and usher in

1:30:58

a new age of stability.

1:31:01

His name was Nebepetre

1:31:03

Mentuhotep II. Mentuhotep was

1:31:19

a king in the city of

1:31:21

Thebes in Upper Egypt. Sitting

1:31:25

on the eastern bank of the Nile,

1:31:27

about 800 kilometers from the

1:31:29

Mediterranean, Thebes is one of the

1:31:32

sunniest and driest cities in the

1:31:34

world. It had

1:31:36

been the capital of its own province

1:31:38

throughout the Old Kingdom, but had always

1:31:41

been something of a backwater, and

1:31:43

somewhat influenced by the African

1:31:46

culture of Nubia. But

1:31:48

during the more than a century of

1:31:50

chaos that surrounded the collapse of the

1:31:52

Old Kingdom, Thebes slowly grew

1:31:55

to become the capital of the

1:31:57

south, and its kings began referring to the

1:31:59

Middle East. to themselves as the

1:32:01

great overlord of tightly

1:32:07

packed rows of houses, granaries,

1:32:12

and central temple to the god Amun,

1:32:15

and its people clearly sought a

1:32:17

break from the suffocating influence of

1:32:20

the kings in Memphis. But

1:32:23

in the north, near the

1:32:25

traditional center of Egyptian power,

1:32:27

an ambitious and ruthless rival

1:32:30

was also amassing its forces.

1:32:33

This was centered around the city

1:32:35

of Henan-Nasut in lower Egypt, in

1:32:37

the verdant region between the river

1:32:39

Nile and the Great Lake at

1:32:42

Fayyun, a region

1:32:44

that the desert Thebans dismissively

1:32:46

called the marshlands. This

1:32:50

city would later be known

1:32:52

as Herakkliopolis or the

1:32:54

city of Hercules. For

1:32:58

about a hundred years during

1:33:00

this time of dissolution, Thebes

1:33:02

and Henan-Nasut had fought bitter

1:33:04

wars over small border regions,

1:33:06

forts, and roads, but

1:33:09

neither side could ever gain the upper hand.

1:33:12

That was until the reign of the king

1:33:14

of Thebes, Mentu Hotep. He

1:33:18

was named after the Theban god

1:33:20

of war and came from a line

1:33:23

of warlike kings. He

1:33:25

clearly desired to bring this series

1:33:27

of conflicts to a decisive conclusion

1:33:30

and reunite the fractured kingdom of

1:33:32

old. The

1:33:34

final confrontation between north and

1:33:37

south would be sparked by

1:33:39

a rebellion in the city of Thinnis,

1:33:42

once home to King Namer and which

1:33:44

was now one of the

1:33:46

vassals of Thebes. Delighted

1:33:49

by this development, the northern

1:33:51

power of Henan-Nasut seized the

1:33:54

opportunity and marched south into

1:33:56

the desert to capture the town. War.

1:34:01

Soon raged across all Egypt.

1:34:05

At one point the Northerners

1:34:07

pushed south and captured the

1:34:09

ancient sacred city of Evidence

1:34:11

and their unleashed a wave

1:34:14

of destruction against it's tempos

1:34:16

and palaces. One.

1:34:23

Later text known as the Instruction

1:34:25

to Medical Day purports to be

1:34:28

written by a king of Northern

1:34:30

Henan Knesset who has racked with

1:34:32

guilt for the destruction of this

1:34:34

sacred city. Lower.

1:34:38

A shameful deed occurred in my

1:34:40

time. A province of

1:34:42

this was ravaged. There

1:34:44

would happen through my doing. I

1:34:47

learned it after it's with. There.

1:34:49

Was retribution for what I

1:34:51

had done. For. It

1:34:53

is evil to destroy. Be

1:34:56

of it. A blowers

1:34:58

repaid by it's like to

1:35:00

every action there is a

1:35:02

response. This

1:35:06

response would come in the form

1:35:08

of a thundering reprisal by the

1:35:10

King of Thieves, meant to hotel.

1:35:18

He would march into the North and

1:35:20

defeat the armies of Henin. A suit.

1:35:24

Next. He rounded on the northern

1:35:26

capital. When

1:35:29

he captured it, all of

1:35:31

the funerary monuments of it's

1:35:33

kings were defaced and destroyed,

1:35:35

perhaps suggesting a sacking of

1:35:38

the city. Whatever

1:35:40

the Northerners had done to

1:35:42

the sacred center of evidence,

1:35:44

it was clearly visited upon

1:35:46

them and their city tenfold.

1:35:50

Meant to haute up Now swept

1:35:52

through north in Egypt and the

1:35:54

provincial governors saw the writing on

1:35:56

the wall and swore fealty to

1:35:59

him. After nearly

1:36:01

two centuries of dissolution, the

1:36:03

two halves of Egypt will

1:36:05

once again united, The.

1:36:17

Period that followed known as

1:36:19

the Middle Kingdom of Egypt

1:36:21

would last for around three

1:36:23

hundred years, but it has

1:36:25

not left and impressive archaeological

1:36:27

record. Compared to

1:36:29

the towering pyramids of the Old

1:36:32

Kingdom and the architectural magnificence of

1:36:34

the later New Kingdom, it stands

1:36:37

out as something of a dull

1:36:39

time for grand monument construction. But

1:36:42

it did experience a flourishing

1:36:44

in another area that is.

1:36:47

In the realm of a gypsy and

1:36:49

literature. One

1:36:51

famous story written around this time

1:36:53

is called the Tale of Single

1:36:56

Hey. It know

1:36:58

rates the life of a man

1:37:00

who traveled north into Palestine and

1:37:02

beyond but to eventually becomes home

1:37:04

sick and decides to return to

1:37:06

Egypt. Another

1:37:09

collection of stories was written around

1:37:11

this time, a kind of Ancient

1:37:13

Arabian Nights known as the Tales

1:37:16

of Wonder. It

1:37:18

relates a number of fantastical stories,

1:37:20

imagining that they were told to

1:37:22

the great Pharaoh Khufu of the

1:37:24

Old Kingdom by his three sons.

1:37:28

Another story written during the Middle

1:37:30

Kingdom is known as the Tail

1:37:32

of the Shipwreck Sailor a kind

1:37:35

of ancient gullible travels. It.

1:37:37

Is remarkable for it's innovative

1:37:39

structure. A. Tale within a

1:37:42

tale about a sailor shipwrecked

1:37:44

in the Mediterranean who finds

1:37:46

himself on an island ruled

1:37:48

by a gigantic serpent. Evil

1:37:53

cents a mile said Sen

1:37:55

John in. he may

1:37:58

sneak in A

1:38:01

storm came up with

1:38:04

us on the open sea and no chance

1:38:06

for us to reach harbor. The

1:38:09

wind grew sharp and made a

1:38:11

constant moan and there were hungry

1:38:13

14-foot high waves. A

1:38:16

piece of wood of some sort hit me and

1:38:19

then the ship was dead. Of

1:38:21

all those fine men, not

1:38:24

a one survived. I

1:38:27

was carried to a desert island by a swell

1:38:29

of the great green sea. The

1:38:39

man speaks with the great serpent who

1:38:42

tells him a sad story of his

1:38:44

own that his whole family was killed

1:38:46

when a star fell to earth. The

1:38:49

serpent tells the man not to fear

1:38:52

that a ship will eventually pass by

1:38:54

the island and rescue him, and

1:38:57

reassures him that he will soon have

1:38:59

a great story to tell. Now

1:39:08

you are going to spend one month and

1:39:11

then another until you finish

1:39:13

four months on this island. Then

1:39:16

a ship will come from Egypt

1:39:18

with sailors in it whom you

1:39:20

know that you may go

1:39:22

with them toward home and die

1:39:24

in your own city. What

1:39:28

joy for one who lives to

1:39:30

tell the things he has been through when

1:39:33

the suffering is over. Finally,

1:39:36

the predicted ship arrives and

1:39:39

the man is rescued. At

1:39:48

last, the ship arrived just

1:39:51

like the other two. As

1:40:00

fast as he had foretold, I

1:40:02

climbed a lofty tree and recognized

1:40:04

the sailors in the ship, and

1:40:06

went running to report it. Then

1:40:09

I descended to the shore near where the ship was. I

1:40:12

hailed the crew and offered thanks beside the

1:40:14

sea to the Lord of the Isle, and

1:40:17

those on board did likewise. We

1:40:28

have examples of myths and

1:40:30

legends written before this time,

1:40:32

and religious texts, but

1:40:34

this is not the story of some

1:40:36

bygone king or the actions of the

1:40:39

gods. It's a

1:40:41

story about an ordinary man in

1:40:43

a fantastical situation, told

1:40:45

seemingly just for the entertainment value

1:40:48

of telling a story, and

1:40:50

for that reason, it is possibly the

1:40:52

first true piece of literature. It

1:40:55

was likely written around the year 1900 BC, and

1:40:57

is therefore nearly 4000 years old. The

1:41:12

lives of Egypt's pharaohs take up so

1:41:14

much of the usual discussion of its

1:41:17

history, partly because they are

1:41:19

the ones who commissioned the inscriptions,

1:41:21

the monuments, and the statues. But

1:41:24

as the Middle Kingdom's flourishing of literature

1:41:26

continued, we get more and more of

1:41:29

a sense of what life was like

1:41:31

for ordinary people in the Nile Valley.

1:41:36

One text of this period, known

1:41:38

as the Papyrus Lansing, gives

1:41:40

a fascinating insight into the lives

1:41:43

of Egypt's common people. It

1:41:46

is written as a piece of rhetoric

1:41:48

by a master scribe to one

1:41:51

of his pupils, attempting to

1:41:53

convince him to become a scribe

1:41:55

in turn. And

1:41:57

from this, we get a wonderful impression.

1:42:00

of all the ways that people could make than

1:42:19

clothing, than oil. Yes,

1:42:23

it is more in

1:42:26

Egypt than a tomb in

1:42:28

the West. Look for

1:42:30

thyself with your own

1:42:32

eye. Here all the professions are

1:42:34

set before you. The

1:42:37

washerman spends the whole day

1:42:39

going up and down. Every

1:42:41

limb of his is a

1:42:43

weary, whitening the clothes of

1:42:45

his neighbors every day. The

1:42:49

potter is smeared with mud, like

1:42:51

a man in mourning. His

1:42:53

hands and feet are full of clay. He

1:42:56

is like one who lives in the bog.

1:43:00

The cobbler makes his tanning lotions.

1:43:02

His odor is marked. His

1:43:05

hands are red with dye, like

1:43:07

one who is smeared with his

1:43:09

blood. The florist makes bouquets

1:43:12

and makes the wine-jar stands

1:43:14

beautiful. He spends a night

1:43:16

of toil, sweating, like one on

1:43:19

whose body the sun is shining. The

1:43:22

merchants fare downstream and upstream and are as

1:43:24

busy as can be, carrying

1:43:27

wares from one town to another and

1:43:29

supplying him that hath not. If

1:43:33

thou hast any sense,

1:43:36

be a scribe. Whether

1:43:40

or not daily life was truly that

1:43:43

bad for all these other workers, we

1:43:45

can't tell, because of course

1:43:48

none of them wrote down how they felt.

1:43:58

Most of Egypt's people We're peasant

1:44:00

farmers, and even when they

1:44:02

practice these other professions, they

1:44:04

likely engaged in some farmers

1:44:07

to. These peasants

1:44:09

did not own the land they worked

1:44:11

and were required to give most of

1:44:13

the food they produced to the crown

1:44:15

or to their local temple. To.

1:44:19

Supplement their diets. Most houses

1:44:21

kept private kitchen gardens to.

1:44:24

Which. The women would tend while the

1:44:26

men went out to the fields. Egyptian

1:44:29

women were also responsible for baking

1:44:31

the bread they ate every day.

1:44:36

Bread in Egypt was made

1:44:38

primarily with emma wheat, though

1:44:40

was often pressed into play

1:44:42

modes and faced and at

1:44:45

times people got creative baking

1:44:47

bread in spirals like cinnamon

1:44:49

swell and using shaped modes

1:44:52

to bake loaves in the

1:44:54

form of animals. Those.

1:44:57

Who could afford it? Also

1:44:59

makes cakes and pastries out

1:45:02

of the finest flower sweetened

1:45:04

with dates and funny. Alongside

1:45:09

their bread addictions, eight

1:45:11

a varied diet including

1:45:13

garlic and spring onions,

1:45:15

lettuce, salary cucumbers, goods

1:45:18

and melons. They

1:45:20

supplemented these with high protein beans

1:45:23

and pulses might lentils and chick

1:45:25

peas, and a kind of edible

1:45:27

Cuba known as a Tiger not

1:45:30

that grows at the base of

1:45:32

Wetlands Sedges. All of this was

1:45:34

cooked in olive oil, at least

1:45:37

from the time the pyramids were

1:45:39

built. At

1:45:42

times they would also eat

1:45:44

meat primarily beef, lamb poor,

1:45:46

and goat as well as

1:45:49

Quayle. Pigeon, duck,

1:45:51

geese and partridge. mice

1:45:55

were even eaten at times

1:45:57

and even hedgehogs the egyptians

1:45:59

cook these spiky creatures by

1:46:02

wrapping them in wet clay and baking them

1:46:04

in it. And

1:46:06

when the clay was cracked open afterwards,

1:46:09

it took the hedgehog's spines with it. The

1:46:12

Egyptians also made cheese and

1:46:15

even foie gras made from

1:46:17

force-feeding geese. One

1:46:20

text written by a scribe

1:46:22

to the Queen Nefertari urges

1:46:25

people to share with others the

1:46:27

food they have. Do

1:46:30

not eat bread while another stands by

1:46:32

without extending your hand to him. As

1:46:35

to food, it is here

1:46:37

always. It is man who

1:46:39

does not last. One man

1:46:42

is rich, another is poor,

1:46:44

but food remains for him who shares

1:46:46

it. Beer

1:46:49

was exceptionally popular in Egypt

1:46:51

and people consumed it daily.

1:46:54

As a result, breweries were important

1:46:57

centers of industry. Beer

1:47:00

was thought to have been given

1:47:02

to Egypt by the goddess Hathor,

1:47:04

the goddess of beauty, music, and

1:47:06

dancing, and breweries were

1:47:08

watched over by the goddess Tenonet. So,

1:47:11

fittingly, many beer factories were run

1:47:14

by women. Some

1:47:16

of these were enormous and were capable

1:47:18

of brewing more than a million liters

1:47:20

a year. They

1:47:22

used large pottery vats propped

1:47:25

up on mud bricks over

1:47:27

crackling fires, and

1:47:29

inside these they heated barley and

1:47:31

water, then left the mixture to

1:47:34

ferment before flavoring the brew with

1:47:36

honey and syrups made

1:47:38

of dates and other fruit. There

1:47:41

was even one annual festival

1:47:43

called the Tech Festival that

1:47:46

would become known as the Festival of

1:47:48

Drunkenness. During

1:47:54

This fiesa, Egyptians would drink as much

1:47:56

beer as they could and then fall

1:47:58

asleep together in a. Large who.

1:48:00

They would then be woken all

1:48:02

together by the loud beating of

1:48:05

drums. It was said that in

1:48:07

the moment just after waking some

1:48:09

of them would meet the gotta

1:48:11

hustle a self. Egypt.

1:48:24

Was one of the most stable

1:48:27

and prosperous agricultural societies in the

1:48:29

ancient world. was it was a

1:48:31

society built entirely on the collection

1:48:34

and storage have grown. As

1:48:36

a result, there was one ever

1:48:39

present danger that was the presence

1:48:41

of mice and rats. Grain.

1:48:45

Was stored in large circular granaries

1:48:47

within the town's shaped like bee

1:48:50

hives and freshly harvested wheat or

1:48:52

barley was poured into a hole

1:48:54

in the top to be preserved

1:48:57

in the hot dry air. When

1:48:59

gray was needed for bread making

1:49:01

or beer brewing, it was taken

1:49:04

from a small door in the

1:49:06

bottom of these grannies. But

1:49:09

if mice got into this storage

1:49:11

or even eight the grain one

1:49:13

it was still in the fields,

1:49:15

then thousands of hours of work

1:49:17

could be wasted and people might

1:49:19

even staff. But

1:49:21

thankfully, Egyptians were able to

1:49:24

rely on one particular set

1:49:26

of allies. That.

1:49:29

Was. The domestic cat. There

1:49:36

were two major breeds of

1:49:38

wild native to Egypt, the

1:49:40

Jungle Cat oh Phyllis Chaus

1:49:43

and the African Wild Cat

1:49:45

Felis Sylvester Liberty. Of

1:49:48

these, the African Wild cat had

1:49:50

something of a karma temperament and

1:49:53

so was most commonly bread as

1:49:55

a pact with evidence of that

1:49:57

domestication in Egypt from at least

1:49:59

five. thousand years ago. These

1:50:04

cats were kept around Egyptian

1:50:06

settlements for their obvious utility,

1:50:09

both in controlling mice and

1:50:12

with their almost supernatural reflexes

1:50:14

for their ability to kill

1:50:16

venomous snakes. But

1:50:18

it's clear that the Egyptians also

1:50:20

enjoyed their company and even loved

1:50:22

them. Some

1:50:25

particularly beloved pets were buried with

1:50:27

tiny offerings intended to serve them

1:50:29

well in the cat

1:50:32

afterlife. The

1:50:34

Greek writer Diodorus of Sicily

1:50:36

recalls seeing Egyptians performing burial

1:50:38

ceremonies for their cats. When

1:50:43

one of these animals dies, they wrap

1:50:45

it in fine linen and then, wailing

1:50:48

and beating their breasts, carry it

1:50:50

off to be embalmed. And

1:50:53

after it has been treated with seed oil and

1:50:56

such spices as have the quality of

1:50:58

imparting a pleasant odor and

1:51:00

of preserving the body for a long time, they

1:51:03

lay it away in a consecrated tomb.

1:51:08

While the earliest domestication of the

1:51:10

house cats took place elsewhere in

1:51:12

the Fertile Crescent, it

1:51:14

was in Egypt that it accelerated

1:51:16

dramatically. As cats

1:51:19

got used to their new survival

1:51:21

niche, they in turn began to

1:51:23

adapt. They largely

1:51:25

lost their original camouflage coatings,

1:51:28

became smaller, and

1:51:30

even developed new ways of

1:51:33

signaling to their human patrons

1:51:35

with soft, insistent cries, modulated

1:51:38

to similar frequencies as a

1:51:40

human baby. Fittingly,

1:51:43

the Egyptian word for cat

1:51:46

was mu. Over

1:51:52

time, this adoration of their

1:51:54

feline companions seems to have

1:51:56

become a religious reverence too.

1:52:00

ease and grace, cats in

1:52:02

Egypt were associated with femininity,

1:52:05

and paintings in tombs often show the

1:52:07

household dog sitting below a man's chair,

1:52:10

while a cat sits under the

1:52:12

woman's chair. One

1:52:14

goddess named Bastet would soon

1:52:17

become revered, and

1:52:19

she manifested as a woman with the head

1:52:21

of a house cat. Bastet

1:52:24

became a god of fertility, and

1:52:26

women would appeal to her during

1:52:29

times of childbirth and pregnancy. Diodorus

1:52:32

later records seeing an Egyptian

1:52:35

festival during which cats were

1:52:37

ritually fed. For

1:52:40

the cats, they break up bread into milk

1:52:43

and calling them with a clucking sound set it

1:52:45

before them, or else they cut

1:52:47

up fish caught in the Nile and feed the

1:52:49

flesh to them raw. All

1:52:52

who meet these animals fall down before

1:52:54

them and render them with honor. The

1:52:59

Egyptians were also fiercely protective

1:53:01

of their feline companions as

1:53:04

Diodorus recounts. Whoever

1:53:07

kills a cat, whether

1:53:09

intentionally or unintentionally, he

1:53:12

is certainly put to death. For

1:53:15

common people gathering crowds and

1:53:17

deal with the perpetrator most cruelly,

1:53:20

sometimes doing this without waiting for

1:53:22

a trial. The

1:53:26

worship and veneration of cats

1:53:28

would continue throughout all the

1:53:30

thousands of years of ancient

1:53:32

Egyptian history, and for

1:53:34

the cats, it is perhaps something

1:53:36

that they have never quite forgotten. The

1:53:44

Middle Kingdom was not just a

1:53:46

time of entertainment and pleasure. With

1:53:49

the Mania 4 pyramid building somewhat

1:53:51

subsided, certain pharaohs engaged

1:53:54

in large-scale construction projects to

1:53:56

strengthen and develop the Empire.

1:54:00

King spends much of his life

1:54:02

on Avast irrigation projects around the

1:54:04

oasis. At For You, I'm determined

1:54:06

to turn it into a productive

1:54:09

swathe of farmland. Another built a

1:54:11

large series of defensive wolves in

1:54:13

the Nile Delta, hemming Egypt off

1:54:16

from the people of the White

1:54:18

and Middle East, whom the Egyptians

1:54:20

called Asiaticks. These

1:54:23

people were often depicted in

1:54:25

their paintings with lighter more

1:54:27

yellowish skyn than the Egyptians

1:54:30

and were held in general

1:54:32

contempt as uncivilized barbarians. The.

1:54:36

Egyptians soon began pushing their sphere

1:54:38

of influence into this area. Expanding.

1:54:41

Their territory north along the

1:54:43

Mediterranean coast and into Palestine.

1:54:47

They crossed the Sinai Desert and

1:54:49

subjugated the Phoenicians city of people.

1:54:51

Us. Then. They turned

1:54:53

their attention south to East

1:54:55

and Africa. What the Egyptians

1:54:58

called the Horizon Lands the

1:55:00

lands of the nutrients. Like

1:55:10

the light skinned is the

1:55:12

six in the North, the

1:55:14

Egyptians considered the southern new

1:55:16

Peons different to them and

1:55:18

usually depicted them with darker

1:55:20

skin than Egyptians and more

1:55:22

typically African features. At this

1:55:24

time, these kingdoms well relatively

1:55:26

under developed and will easy

1:55:28

prey for an aggressive and

1:55:31

expansionist Egypt. We've

1:55:36

already seen that the first cataracts

1:55:38

of the Nile was at a

1:55:41

swan where the granite bedrock forced

1:55:43

the water into a series of

1:55:45

rushing white water rapids. If

1:55:48

an ancient Egyptian traveled up river,

1:55:50

beyond a swan and into the

1:55:52

horizon lands, they would encounter five

1:55:55

more major cataracts of the Nile.

1:55:58

visa each places where the

1:56:00

river becomes shallow and and

1:56:05

so they were natural stops along any

1:56:09

they were also the obvious place to

1:56:11

draw borders. During

1:56:13

the Middle Kingdom, Egypt marched

1:56:16

into the horizon lands multiple times

1:56:18

and pushed its southern border as far

1:56:21

as the Second Cataract. Around

1:56:24

the 1860s BC, one

1:56:27

Middle Kingdom king named Senusret

1:56:29

III marched even further

1:56:32

south into the Nubian kingdoms

1:56:34

of Kush and Punt. He

1:56:37

remembers this brutal campaign in

1:56:39

one inscription. The

1:56:44

Nubians are wretches,

1:56:46

craven-hearted. My Majesty

1:56:48

has seen it. It is not an

1:56:50

untruth. I have captured their

1:56:53

women. I have carried off their subjects,

1:56:55

poisoned their wells, killed

1:56:58

their cattle, cut down

1:57:00

their grains, set fire

1:57:02

to it. In

1:57:07

this remorseless fashion, Senusret marched

1:57:09

beyond the Second Cataract and

1:57:11

built a powerful set of

1:57:13

fortresses. We get

1:57:16

a sense for their purpose from the names

1:57:18

the Egyptians gave to them. One

1:57:21

of them at Askut was

1:57:23

named Crushing the Nubians, while

1:57:25

another at Shalfak was named

1:57:28

Subduing the Foreign Lands. In

1:57:31

another imposing fortress at Semna,

1:57:34

now more than 400 kilometers upstream

1:57:36

from the former border of

1:57:38

Aswan, Senusret left

1:57:41

a stone monument with the

1:57:43

following triumphant inscription. Year

1:57:47

16, third month of winter,

1:57:50

the king made his southern boundary.

1:57:53

I have made my boundary further south

1:57:55

than my father's. I have

1:57:57

added to what was bequeathed me. as

1:58:00

for any son of mine who

1:58:02

shall maintain this border which my

1:58:05

majesty has made. He

1:58:07

is my son, but

1:58:09

he who abandons it, who fails to

1:58:11

fight for it, he is not my

1:58:13

son. He was not born to me.

1:58:22

These forts were manned by powerful

1:58:24

units of Egyptian soldiers, tasked

1:58:27

with keeping order among the

1:58:29

newly colonized Nubians. To

1:58:32

this end, they engaged in a

1:58:34

paranoid surveillance regime of the local

1:58:36

people. To

1:58:38

the Pharaoh Senosrat, they sent back

1:58:40

constant updates on papyrus scrolls about

1:58:43

the movements of even the most

1:58:45

minute groups of Nubians, some

1:58:48

of which have survived. The

1:58:52

patrol who went forth to patrol the desert

1:58:54

edge from the fortress Kesev

1:58:56

Maja in year 3,

1:58:58

month 3 of the growing season, last

1:59:00

day have come to report to me saying, we

1:59:02

have found the tracks of 32 men and 3

1:59:05

donkeys. All

1:59:09

these dispatches end in the same

1:59:11

way, with the same comforting

1:59:13

offer of reassurance to the king.

1:59:17

All the affairs of the king's domain are safe

1:59:20

and sound. All the affairs

1:59:22

of the master are safe and sound. But

1:59:26

we have reason to believe that

1:59:28

King Senosrat was not entirely reassured.

1:59:32

He is famous for the numerous

1:59:34

sculptures he had made of himself,

1:59:36

statues carved from black diorite

1:59:39

that depict him in strangely

1:59:41

realistic fashion, unlike any

1:59:43

depictions of a pharaoh that had come

1:59:46

before. In these

1:59:48

statues, his ears are extended to

1:59:50

enormous proportions like a bat, Perhaps

1:59:53

projecting the image of a king

1:59:55

who heard every movement in his

1:59:58

kingdom, relayed by his extensive. System

2:00:00

of Spies. Three

2:00:02

of these statues in particular. so

2:00:05

the king first as a boy,

2:00:07

then as a man, and finally

2:00:10

in old age. In

2:00:12

this final statue we get a sense for

2:00:14

the mental toll and took on a man

2:00:17

to sit at the top of this

2:00:19

paranoid system. The. Pharaohs weary

2:00:21

sunken eyes is haggard

2:00:23

face contorted in an

2:00:25

expression of eternal worry.

2:00:29

Today. These three statues stand

2:00:31

as a kind of metaphor for

2:00:33

the state the Egyptian Middle Kingdom

2:00:35

had sunk into during it's final

2:00:38

decades. Sonos threat

2:00:40

Sun I met him at the

2:00:42

third did just as his father's

2:00:45

inscriptions had urged and held the

2:00:47

southern border against the new peons.

2:00:49

But following his reign, Egypt was

2:00:52

once more plunged into a succession

2:00:54

crisis. The.

2:00:59

Crisis was so severe that their

2:01:01

next king was something that had

2:01:03

until then been almost unthinkable. A

2:01:06

woman. Her

2:01:08

name was so back next room, possibly

2:01:10

the daughter, sister, or wife of the

2:01:13

previous pharaoh. She was probably not the

2:01:15

first woman to hold power in Egypt,

2:01:17

but she was the first one to

2:01:19

attain the full official title of a

2:01:22

king. So back