00:00From the earliest recorded peace treaty to ancient board games, discover 11 surprising
00:06facts about the gift of the Nile.
00:09Cleopatra was not Egyptian.
00:11Along with King Tut, perhaps no figure is more famously associated with ancient Egypt
00:16than Cleopatra VII.
00:18But while she was born in Alexandria, Cleopatra was actually part of a long line of Greek
00:23Macedonians originally descended from Ptolemy I, one of Alexander the Great's most trusted
00:29lieutenants.
00:31The Ptolemaic dynasty ruled Egypt from 323 to 30 BC, and most of its leaders remained
00:37largely Greek in their culture and sensibilities.
00:41In fact, Cleopatra was famous for being one of the first members of the Ptolemaic dynasty
00:46to actually speak the Egyptian language.
00:49The ancient Egyptians forged one of the earliest peace treaties on record.
00:54For over two centuries, the Egyptians fought against the Hittite Empire for control of
00:58lands in modern-day Syria.
01:01The conflict gave rise to bloody engagements like 1274 BC's Battle of Kadesh, but by the
01:07time of the pharaoh Ramses II, neither side had emerged as a clear victor.
01:13With both the Egyptians and Hittites facing threats from other peoples, in 1259 BC Ramses
01:19II and the Hittite king Hadassili III negotiated a famous peace treaty.
01:25This agreement ended the conflict and decreed that the two kingdoms would aid each other
01:29in the event of an invasion by a third party.
01:32The Egyptian-Hittite treaty is now recognized as one of the earliest surviving peace accords,
01:39and a copy can even be seen above the entrance to the United Nations Security Council Chamber
01:43in New York.
01:45Ancient Egyptians loved board games.
01:48After a long day's work along the Nile River, Egyptians often relaxed by playing board games.
01:54Several different games were played, including mehen and dogs and jackals, but perhaps the
02:00most popular was a game of chance known as Senet.
02:04This pastime dates back as far as 3500 BC and was played on a long board painted with
02:09thirty squares.
02:11Each player had a set of pieces that were moved along the board according to rolls of
02:15dice or the throwing sticks.
02:17Historians still debate Senet's exact rules, but there is little doubt of the game's popularity.
02:24Games depict Queen Nefertari playing Senet, and pharaohs like Tutankhamen even had game
02:29boards buried with them in their tombs.
02:33Egyptian women had a wide range of rights and freedoms.
02:36While they may have been publicly and socially viewed as inferior to men, Egyptian women
02:41enjoyed a great deal of legal and financial independence.
02:46They could buy and sell property, serve on juries, make wills, and even enter into legal
02:51contracts.
02:53Egyptian women did not typically work outside the home, but those who did usually received
02:57equal pay for doing the same jobs as men.
03:00Unlike the women of ancient Greece, who were effectively owned by their husbands, Egyptian
03:06women also had the right to divorce and remarry.
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