- 5/27/2025
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:002,500 BC, in the south of today's Egypt,
00:09there arose a civilization that ruled for centuries
00:12over the frontier between the Mediterranean world
00:15and sub-Saharan Africa.
00:21Its history has long been overshadowed
00:23by that of the spectacular ancient Egypt of the pharaohs.
00:30Only a few biblical texts mention its lost cities.
00:42Deep in the Nubian desert,
00:44strain-shaped pyramids pose questions for Egyptologists.
00:48Mainly concerning these natural sites turned open-air temples.
01:13But thanks to recent discoveries,
01:15the veil over these powerful kingdoms is at last being lifted.
01:26We are rediscovering the history of all conquering kings.
01:30The ancient Egyptians called them the Kushites.
01:35How did these Kushites manage to seize power
01:38and found the 25th dynasty,
01:40which would rule over two lands,
01:42Egypt and the land of Kush?
01:57By studying their art and architecture,
01:59Egyptologists are leading the investigation.
02:12You can see his head here,
02:14the arm that tries to resist like that,
02:16the leg that's here.
02:18I'm going to photograph that because it's perfect.
02:31Today, scientists are trying to help us discover
02:34who these African kings were,
02:36some of whom became pharaohs.
02:43Egyptology
03:00These are divine powers.
03:03Egyptology
03:11Everything is represented to live forever,
03:15to act forever, to be efficient forever.
03:28For the very first time,
03:30the great masterpieces of the 25th Kushite dynasty
03:33are brought together at the Louvre Museum.
03:40Through the painstaking work of Egyptologists,
03:42these objects are gradually starting to speak to us.
03:53What comes from the land of Kush and what comes from Egypt?
04:01An object like this is very useful
04:03to learn more and more about it.
04:09The solar disc with its two cobras
04:12that protect divinity,
04:14that protect the world,
04:16that each carries one of the crowns
04:18of high and low Egypt,
04:20are typical of the 25th dynasty.
04:22It's even a signature of the 25th dynasty.
04:26For everything else,
04:28it could as well be Egyptian.
04:33For centuries,
04:35the history of the 25th dynasty Kushite kings
04:38remained a mystery.
04:42Because their homeland is far away and inaccessible.
04:48It wasn't until the late 18th century
04:51that a path was opened to this far-off land.
04:59In 1799,
05:01the scientists of Napoleon Bonaparte's expedition to Egypt
05:04made their way up the Nile.
05:12But the rocks and rapids of the first cataract
05:15halted their progress.
05:20In 1799,
05:22the scientists of Napoleon Bonaparte's expedition to Egypt
05:25halted their progress.
05:3020 years later,
05:32two Frenchmen set out to go further.
05:36They were Frédéric Cayot
05:38and Louis-Léonard de Belfont.
05:40A few months apart,
05:42their respective expeditions headed upriver
05:44and made it past the second cataract.
05:47This took them into Kushite territory.
05:55Very soon, ruins appear before the explorers' eyes.
06:07They didn't know it yet,
06:09but they were facing the ancient cities of Naka and Meroe.
06:26The first travellers were surprised
06:28to see some temples.
06:30We wondered about their dates,
06:32because at the time,
06:34we didn't read hieroglyphs.
06:36So how to date them?
06:38Then we found things that reminded us of Egypt,
06:41and things that were really different,
06:43that must have been made later,
06:45or that were completely different,
06:48like the first ones that fell on the pyramids.
06:51They were pyramids,
06:53maybe not the ones in Egypt.
06:57We are concerned with discovering
06:59this Kushite civilization,
07:02which we know through the Bible,
07:05which we know through the testimonies of the classics,
07:08and which we want to verify.
07:15A few years later,
07:17another royal city was discovered.
07:20Its name, Napata.
07:25In 1862,
07:27a stele was unearthed from the ruins of the city.
07:36This object,
07:38today kept in the Cairo Museum,
07:40is a key element to understanding
07:42the history of the 25th dynasty.
07:45This granite stone was adorned with a text
07:47carved in the 8th century BCE.
07:54The story it told shocked the Egyptology world.
08:09The stele was studied by the French Egyptologist,
08:12Auguste Mariette.
08:14When in 1822,
08:16Jean-François Champollion managed to decipher hieroglyphs,
08:19Mariette was finally able to read the carvings,
08:22and he confirmed the unthinkable.
08:24The great Egypt of the pharaohs,
08:26which everyone believed invincible,
08:28had been conquered by kings who came from the south,
08:30the Kushites.
08:44There was a remarkable page in this story,
08:47a page that was entirely new,
08:49and that we could not have suspected.
08:51There is something important,
08:53which is a historical event,
08:55not a common one.
08:57Egypt, which is the great power of antiquity in that region,
09:01has been conquered,
09:03and that is something Mariette wants to show.
09:08At the time, Europe was gripped by Egypt-mania.
09:11Crowds flocked to the museums of every major capital
09:14to discover sarcophagi and mummies.
09:18Auguste Mariette dreamed of revealing his discovery
09:21to the general public.
09:25In 1870, a unique opportunity arose
09:28when Giuseppe Verdi accepted a libretto
09:30Mariette had written for an opera.
09:34It involved the story of a woman, Aida,
09:37a Kushite princess abducted by the pharaoh of Egypt.
09:45The battle for Egypt is at the heart of the story.
09:52The pharaoh is faced by Amenazro,
09:54a king from the northern edge of sub-Saharan Africa.
09:58It's interesting because it goes into the details.
10:01Mariette's first script, which she kept at the Paris Opera,
10:04was not meant to be the definitive libretto,
10:07but you find all the terms in it.
10:09The capital is called Napata.
10:11We also talk about Kush.
10:13The word Kush is used.
10:15Amenazro has a name that is very similar to the word Kush.
10:19The word Kush is the name of the city of Napata.
10:22The word Kush is the name of the city of Napata.
10:25Amenazro has a name inspired by a real name
10:28of a real Napatian king, found in Napata.
10:40Amenazro is the symbol of these Napatian kings
10:43whom we know at the time
10:45that they ended up giving a family that conquered Egypt
10:49and ruled it under the name of the 25th dynasty.
10:56Thanks to Auguste Mariette's libretto,
10:59the story of the Kushite pharaohs was finally revealed.
11:10Each stage of their conquest is told on the stele
11:13studied by the French Egyptologist,
11:16because the text is none other than the story
11:19told by a Kushite king of his great victories.
11:22His name was Pierre.
11:24It was he who, in the 8th century BCE,
11:27set off to conquer Egypt, then in a state of chaos.
11:53No representation of this first great pharaoh
11:56of the two lands has been discovered.
11:59But in the Louvre, a statuette dedicated to him
12:02gives us some essential information
12:05about the kings of the 25th dynasty.
12:10The goddess Bathsheba,
12:12the goddess of peace,
12:14the goddess of love,
12:16the goddess of peace,
12:18the goddess of love,
12:21the goddess Bastet seen here
12:23meets the traditional Egyptian canons.
12:28With her lion's head,
12:30the daughter of the sun god Ra is the protector of mankind.
12:35On the back of the statuette
12:37is the cartouche of the new Kushite pharaoh, Pierre.
12:42This people, who had lived under Egyptian domination for centuries,
12:46had apparently adopted the same gods.
12:49More than anyone else,
12:51the 25th dynasty had to prove
12:53its ability to honor the gods.
12:56It had to immediately show,
12:59in a report on the conquest of a territory,
13:02that it knew very well what it was about
13:05and that the Kushite pharaoh was a priest like the others.
13:12He presents himself as more Egyptian than the Egyptians
13:15and more religious than those who ruled Egypt at that time.
13:19He respects more the forbidden, the taboos,
13:23and therefore he considers himself more legitimate
13:27because he is more orthodox in the religion he presents as Egyptian.
13:34The new Kushite pharaohs also claimed legitimacy
13:37from a sacred mountain, Jebel Barkal.
13:41This site is one of the cradles of their civilization.
14:03In the days when the Egyptians occupied Kushite territory,
14:07they saw it as the home of a god, Amun.
14:37So there is an astonishing geological relief
14:40that marks today's visitors
14:43as it marked the Kushites
14:46and as it marked the Egyptian conquerors of the new empire.
14:50And from that moment on,
14:52we can see that the legitimacy of these Kushite kings
14:55comes from the fact that Amun often resides at Jebel Barkal.
15:00Jebel Barkal was the centre to the power of the conquering Kushites.
15:05Piye, then his successors, including his son Taharqa,
15:09used this sacred site to prove their legitimacy.
15:15Taharqa even had his name carved at the summit of the vertical outcrop.
15:30He also had the cliff face excavated
15:33to create a temple in the mountain.
15:45We can still see its beautiful decorative low reliefs today.
16:00Taharqa is shown making offerings to the god Amun,
16:04resident of Jebel Barkal.
16:29He is a millennial of the gods of the Egyptians,
16:33who are now their gods.
16:36And so there is no other solution for the cult to function well
16:41than to conform to the ritual,
16:44to conform to the orthodoxy of the rite.
16:54A masterpiece of the 25th dynasty
16:57and a centrepiece of the Louvre's collection
17:00spreads light on the Kushites' rituals.
17:12This statue, still of unknown origin,
17:15represents the pharaoh Taharqa kneeling before the falcon god Hemen.
17:28It's an object that tells a lot of stories.
17:31It's an emblem of the Louvre's collections.
17:47And it functions as a true hieroglyph.
17:51We're in the middle of the 18th century,
17:54so it's a true hieroglyph.
17:57We're in the spirit of the ancients.
18:00These statues are phrases that we can read.
18:04The king Taharqa offers wine to the god Horus of Hemen, of Hefat.
18:17With an object like this,
18:20we can see how a sovereign like Taharqa,
18:24coming from the south,
18:27is able to honour all the gods of Egypt.
18:30All this cult would be contained in an object like this.
18:37We must remember that the polytheistic religions
18:40that precede the religions of the Louvre
18:43only function if there is a strict and respected protocol.
18:51Simply because the gods are the guardians of the world,
18:56and everything that could hinder this role of the gods
19:01in protecting the world must be eliminated.
19:08When we sum up the way we represent the human body,
19:11when we sum up the robe worn by the king,
19:15we understand that each time there are as many references
19:20to ancient periods.
19:22And by taking inspiration from very distant eras,
19:25we guarantee that we will have the best.
19:42The Kushites always wanted to make their mark
19:45in a city that was at the heart of the religious workings.
19:53Thebes.
20:00Founded in the 3rd millennium BCE,
20:03the city expanded greatly under the great Egyptian rulers
20:06of the new empire, such as the Thutmoses,
20:09the Ammonaphises, and the numerous Ramses.
20:15And Thebes was also the city of a powerful god, Amun.
20:21For centuries, pharaohs built temples here dedicated to this god.
20:27Like Luxor.
20:32And above all, Karnak.
20:34The Kushite pharaohs come to conquer Egypt,
20:37needed to make this sacred city a stronghold of their power.
21:04The Kushites have the holy site of Jebel Barkal,
21:07which is in a way their Rome,
21:09and in Karnak they have their Jerusalem,
21:12the place where they will find the absolute origins of their religion,
21:17the measure of everything, so to speak.
21:20We can imagine that when Pianchi arrives here,
21:23he arrives in an extremely sacred land,
21:26probably filled with a lot of emotion,
21:29in front of the great temple of Amore,
21:32which was something almost mythical for him.
21:37For several years, Egyptologist Jeremie Ourdin
21:40has been studying the impact of the Kushite pharaohs
21:43on the architecture of the temple of Karnak.
21:47He takes us to the foot of the eastern gate.
21:52Here, Taharqa, Piye's son, erected a colonnade.
21:58He was using architecture to associate his own name
22:01with that of the great Ramses II.
22:27It was a way for the king to hide the temple
22:30and thus reappropriate the old temple of Ramses II,
22:33which becomes the temple of Taharqa,
22:35the temple of the Kushite king in Egypt.
22:39What is really interesting is that we are in front of the temple,
22:42in a space that is much more accessible for the Egyptians of the time,
22:46and we chose to highlight a central element of power,
22:49the king's crown.
22:58This is the masterpiece of the legitimation of the Kushite king in Egypt.
23:05Across the Nile on the west bank...
23:09..stands another edifice that testifies to the strategy used by Taharqa
23:13to affirm his power in the holy city.
23:18The tomb of a man who was powerful in his own right in Thebes,
23:21Montuemrat.
23:24This Egyptian was a precious ally to the Kushite Taharqa.
23:36And the splendour of his tomb reflects the status of the man himself.
23:53HE SPEAKS FRENCH
24:11Taharqa made an ally of this powerful man
24:14with a tried and tested strategy, marriage.
24:23HE SPEAKS FRENCH
24:54HE SPEAKS FRENCH
25:04For almost 26 years,
25:06Taharqa managed to affirm his power in Thebes and Upper Egypt.
25:11And yet his authority was weak.
25:18The power of the Assyrian Empire,
25:20which at the time dominated all of Mesopotamia,
25:23caused the 25th Dynasty to start shaking.
25:28In 674 BCE, to shore up its control over trade,
25:32the Assyrians launched their first raids on northern Egypt.
25:50HE SPEAKS FRENCH
26:20HE SPEAKS FRENCH
26:37In what is present-day Sudan,
26:39some ruins take over the telling of this story.
26:42That of a pharaoh, defeated at Memphis,
26:45who had no other choice but to leave Egypt
26:48and retreat to his kingdom of Kush.
26:56In his city of Napata, not far from Jebel Bakal, the mountain of Amun,
27:01Taharqa decided to build a new necropolis.
27:11It would be the largest pyramid so far discovered in the kingdom of Kush.
27:18HE SPEAKS FRENCH
27:48HE SPEAKS FRENCH
28:18HE SPEAKS FRENCH
28:23In the early 20th century,
28:25the renowned American Egyptologist George Reisner
28:28excavated Taharqa's pyramid.
28:32What he discovered was staggering.
28:36Thousands of funerary objects were unearthed,
28:39including a huge collection of Ushabtis.
28:43Three of these statuettes from Taharqa's tomb
28:46have just arrived at the Louvre.
28:49They've been loaned for a few months by the British Museum.
28:54According to Egyptian tradition,
28:56these funerary figures buried with the deceased
28:59will be his servants in the afterlife.
29:03HE SPEAKS FRENCH
29:12HE SPEAKS FRENCH
29:42HE SPEAKS FRENCH
30:05So, for his tomb, Taharqa chose the Egyptian pharaoh tradition.
30:10However, the layout of the Kushite king's burial chamber
30:13still poses questions for Egyptologists.
30:39HE SPEAKS FRENCH
31:02Taharqa's death brought the era of the pharaohs of the two lands
31:06to an end.
31:08The 25th dynasty died out,
31:10and a veil slowly fell over the Kushite royalty.
31:18What became of this civilisation after the fall of their last pharaoh?
31:25There are few archaeological elements that can answer this question.
31:31But a discovery made in the ancient city of Kerner
31:34is allowing archaeologists to form some hypotheses.
31:39This site, excavated in the 1960s,
31:43is the cradle of the first Kushites,
31:46who appeared 2,500 years before our era.
31:52Amid the ruins in 2003,
31:54archaeologist Charles Bonnet and his team
31:57discovered some intriguing gold leaves.
32:00HE SPEAKS FRENCH
32:30HE SPEAKS FRENCH
33:01The archaeologists stared wide-eyed
33:04as 40 granite fragments were extracted.
33:07They belonged to several monumental statues of Kushite kings.
33:24HE SPEAKS FRENCH
33:30HE SPEAKS FRENCH
34:01HE SPEAKS FRENCH
34:21What was behind the destruction of these statues?
34:26The archaeologists soon associated this hidden treasure
34:29with a major military event contained in ancient Egyptian texts.
34:35After the Assyrians had chased Taharqa out of Egypt,
34:38a new ruler seized power, founding the 26th dynasty.
34:43One of his successors, the pharaoh Samtik II,
34:47was concerned that a Kushite power was close to his southern border.
34:51So in 590 BCE,
34:54he led a punitive expedition into Kush territory.
34:57He wanted to wipe out all traces of these powerful kings
35:00and ordered the destruction of all royal images.
35:04HE SPEAKS FRENCH
35:19HE SPEAKS FRENCH
35:27HE SPEAKS FRENCH
35:58HE SPEAKS FRENCH
36:01After this major discovery,
36:03the various parts were sorted and reassembled.
36:17And soon the statues of seven kings reappeared.
36:22Some of them reigned as pharaohs of the two lands,
36:25like Taharqa and Tantamani.
36:29But others, whose names appeared for the first time,
36:32never reigned in Egypt.
36:35Too fragile to be transported,
36:37the statues have never left Sudan.
36:43But thanks to new technologies,
36:45these depictions of kings have finally reached the Louvre.
36:52HE SPEAKS FRENCH
37:14Vincent Rondeau, the director
37:16of the Louvre's Egyptian Antiquities Department,
37:19is in Berlin to follow up on the scientific challenge
37:22set by him and his team to reproduce the monumental statues.
37:30HE SPEAKS FRENCH
37:49HE SPEAKS FRENCH
37:53We don't want to see it any more, OK?
37:57I guess you will copy that, reverse it and put it here?
38:01How do you...? Yes.
38:03This is the normal way.
38:05I put it from the front, cut it out and make a mirror of this side.
38:09And then I check the geometry and press and deform
38:12it in the right position. I understand.
38:15I've prepared some models for you.
38:17Thomas Bauer is an expert in 3D sculpture.
38:20Vincent Rondeau has called on him to propose some hypotheses
38:24for the reconstruction of the Kushite king statues.
38:27Yes. You have copies?
38:37After comparisons of the different statues
38:39and with Vincent Rondeau's Egyptology experience,
38:42the broken face of the pharaoh gradually reappears.
38:47HE SPEAKS FRENCH
39:17HE SPEAKS FRENCH
39:47HE SPEAKS FRENCH
40:17HE SPEAKS FRENCH
40:33Once the digital model is finalised,
40:35the statues are given form with a 3D printer.
40:41The slightest details and the finest textures are reproduced.
40:47HE SPEAKS FRENCH
40:57After months of research and hard work by Vincent Rondeau and his team,
41:01today is a crucial step.
41:05This morning, they'll discover the seven statues of the Kushite kings,
41:09fresh out of the 3D printer.
41:17HE SNIFFS
41:31HE CHUCKLES
41:33HE SPEAKS FRENCH
41:47HE SPEAKS FRENCH
42:18WHILE STUDYING THE ORIGINAL STATUES,
42:21THE ARCHEOLOGISTS DISCOVERED SMALL PUNCH MARKS
42:24ON CERTAIN SURFACES OF THE STONE AND THE REMAINS OF PAINT.
42:28THESE PROVIDE CLUES,
42:30WHICH ENABLE THE TEAM TO MAKE PROPOSALS
42:32FOR THE COMPLETE RECONSTRUCTION AND DECORATION OF THE STATUES.
42:42HE SPEAKS FRENCH
42:47HE SPEAKS FRENCH
43:17HE SPEAKS FRENCH
43:47HE SPEAKS FRENCH
44:07A few months later, in the Louvre galleries...
44:12..the crates containing the seven statues arrive from Berlin.
44:17HE SPEAKS FRENCH
44:23HE SPEAKS FRENCH
44:32HE SPEAKS FRENCH
44:38HE SPEAKS FRENCH
44:47HE SPEAKS FRENCH
45:03HE SPEAKS FRENCH
45:13HE SPEAKS FRENCH
45:17HE SPEAKS FRENCH
45:45HE SPEAKS FRENCH
45:47HE SPEAKS FRENCH
45:49HE SPEAKS FRENCH
46:14This king was called Senka Meniskin.
46:16He was the grandson of Taharqa.
46:19He became pharaoh long after the fall of the 25th dynasty,
46:23so he never ruled the two lands.
46:27HE SPEAKS FRENCH
46:46HE SPEAKS FRENCH
47:09ORGAN PLAYS
47:16ORGAN PLAYS
47:25HE SPEAKS FRENCH
47:30Senka Meniskin.
47:33Tantamani.
47:38Representations which, like hieroglyphs,
47:40tell us a story which we need to decipher.
47:44Like here, with King Anlamani and his rather different crown.
47:49HE SPEAKS FRENCH
48:13HE SPEAKS FRENCH
48:44HE SPEAKS FRENCH
48:51The history of the Kushite civilisation is still being written.
48:57After the end of the dynasty of the kings of Napata,
49:00a new chapter opens,
49:02and the power of the pharaohs shifts to another city,
49:06Meroe.
49:09This new kingdom generated its wealth
49:11by controlling trade between sub-Saharan Africa,
49:14the Mediterranean, and the Roman world.
49:26In Meroe, new architectural forms were born.
49:39In the temples, alongside the Egyptian pantheon,
49:43new divinities appeared.
49:51Like Apedemak, the lion-headed warrior god.
50:00In this kingdom, women also acceded to power.
50:04The Kandakeys were the mothers of kings.
50:07As powerful women, they appeared on the pediments of temples
50:10alongside the pharaohs.
50:14For seven centuries, Meroe would accumulate great wealth
50:17and become a mythical city.
50:35With the fall of this last dynasty in the 4th century BCE,
50:39the Kushite civilisation would die out and fall into oblivion.
50:44Kandakeys
51:02The study of the Kushite world
51:04at the southern border of ancient Egypt
51:07is today lifting the veil and revealing a new history.
51:12Between sub-Saharan Africa...
51:16..and the Mediterranean.
51:41Subtitling by SUBS Hamburg
Recommended
50:10
|
Up next
52:34
51:45
4:18
22:12
52:51
3:20
45:12