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00:01Ancient Egypt. For over 3,000 years, the world's most vibrant and puzzling civilization flourished through war and peace.
00:14The Egyptians built great cities, enduring monuments. They advanced mathematics and technology. Their astonishing legacy survives to this day.
00:28As the country grows richer, its neighbors grow bolder.
00:37Now archaeologists have revealed Egypt's brilliant strategy to repel the foreign threat. A strategy devised by its greatest warrior king,
00:49Thutmose III.
00:52By striking first, Thutmose hopes to extend his empire and stabilize Egypt's borders. His plan is untested, his generals are
01:04skeptical, and he risks losing everything.
01:07But his enemies have left him no choice.
01:21In 1457 BC, Egypt finds itself in great danger. The country's former allies in the Near East have joined forces,
01:32threatening Egypt's borders.
01:35But Pharaoh Thutmose III and his soldiers won't wait for the enemy to strike.
01:44They head towards Megiddo, a fortress city near the Carmel Mountains in modern Israel.
01:52Beyond these hills, the enemies of Pharaoh wait, ready to attack.
02:04Going out to meet them is a high-risk strategy. The future of the Pharaoh and of his empire depend
02:12on its success.
02:18In the face of this barrier, Pharaoh's armies halt. As they gather in the camp, there is a critical disagreement
02:26about the best route to take.
02:28No one knows where the enemy has positioned his forces.
02:34His generals advised Thutmose to send his men around the mountains.
02:45Pharaoh must decide. The fate of the empire is at stake.
02:56The Egyptians are in Canaan, four weeks' march from their own territory.
03:03This region, now roughly Palestine and Lebanon, is Egypt's security zone.
03:09The city-states here were neutral or under Egyptian control.
03:15Until the Mitanni, Egypt's greatest rival, stole their loyalty.
03:23Meanwhile, in Egypt's capital Thebes, the pharaoh's subjects eagerly await news of the campaign.
03:33Like all of Egypt, Thebes' wealth depends on trade and the tributes of subdued territories.
03:40Now, all that is at risk.
03:45Bustling with more than 50,000 people, this is one of the biggest cities in the world.
03:54Time hasn't diminished its magnificence.
04:01Even some of the bright paint miraculously clings to the columns.
04:07Triumphant reliefs tell of Thutmose's glorious reign.
04:11Yet with foreign powers threatening the country, the proud Egyptians were forced to acknowledge they weren't alone in the world.
04:21This required an interesting change in attitude because in early periods of Egyptian history, the Egyptian word for Egyptian was
04:29the same as the Egyptian word for human being.
04:32In the New Kingdom, they began to recognize the greater equality of foreigners, Syrians, Sudanese, Cretans, whatever.
04:43Egypt's neighbors enviously gazed on the country's enormous prosperity.
04:49While adjacent peoples suffered from frequent droughts, the Egyptians were blessed by geography and enjoyed regular plentiful harvests.
05:02Though Egypt is 90% desert, the Nile watered wide, fertile fields that grew ample grain to feed some 3
05:11million people.
05:15This easy abundance made the empire one of the most stable societies of the ancient world.
05:23And through trade, the people of the Nile magnified their wealth, funding the world's largest monuments.
05:31The pyramids.
05:32Clearly, the gods must have loved the Egyptians.
05:37Egyptians were probably a very arrogant people because they were convinced that no one had it better than the Egyptians.
05:45The gods had given Egypt the most wonderful country in the world.
05:48And most foreigners who came here said the same thing.
05:51You've got this wonderful river that always provides water.
05:54You've got these wonderful fields that always provide crops.
05:57You don't have to work very hard to grow these things.
06:00This is heaven on earth.
06:04Thutmose grows up in a world that knows neither famine nor war.
06:09He comes to the throne as a child after his father's early death.
06:16But the little king is far too young to rule.
06:20So his aunt and stepmother, Hatshepsut, takes over as regent.
06:26Tradition dictates that pharaohs be men, but Hatshepsut aspires to divine authority to rule for life.
06:35She gathers power and finally claims the throne through classical political networking.
06:43I've tried to put together myself a list of all those government officials and high nobility who stood behind her.
06:51And that may be the secret.
06:53There may have been a kind of, I was going to say cabal, but that may be too strong a
06:58word.
06:59A coterie of supporters who were quite influential, more so than we think today.
07:05To affirm her legitimacy as regent, Hatshepsut alters her appearance on temple reliefs and official statues.
07:14At first, she's portrayed as a woman with breasts and feminine features.
07:22But soon she dons the ceremonial beard worn by pharaohs before her.
07:28Hatshepsut has officially transformed into a male pharaoh.
07:35Although Thutmose will be her future rival, Hatshepsut employs the country's best teachers for the boy.
07:43He learns astronomy, mathematics, religion and medicine.
07:50They teach him about Egypt's victories.
07:55But they also warn him about the great threat Egypt faces, foreign domination.
08:08Only two centuries earlier, a foreign tribe wrested control of northern Egypt, much to the shock of the people.
08:17They had always believed their country was invincible.
08:22Yet, in 1648 BC, the Hyksos, a nomadic people from the northeast, had moved in.
08:34They split the empire into two rival factions.
08:45For millennia, the country had been protected by its natural boundaries.
08:52Inhospitable deserts flanked the empire to the east and to the west.
08:57Making invasion almost impossible.
09:01An army would die of thirst before it came in sight of an enemy.
09:07To the north, Lower Egypt was protected by the marshes of the Nile Delta.
09:13No enemy could cross them.
09:15Or so it seemed.
09:20And far to the south, the rocks and rapids of the Nile cataracts made the river unnavigable along great stretches.
09:30The Egyptians were fully aware of their great good fortune.
09:37Egypt is naturally protected, and if the government of the day simply keeps up a few border forts with a
09:45handful of garrison troops, that's all that's needed.
09:48You can easily keep anybody out.
09:50And they did for the first 15 centuries of their history.
09:55They were remarkably successful in keeping all foreigners that were unwanted out of the country.
10:03But the Hyksos were different.
10:05With just one technological advancement, they infiltrated the Delta and then went on the attack from inside the country.
10:17To speed their invasion, the Hyksos used a new and terrifying weapon.
10:22The Chariot.
10:25With this superior technology, they drove the Egyptian militias far to the south.
10:32On and on they rolled.
10:35It seemed nothing could stop them.
10:42There was one attempt to fight them off.
10:46An ancestor of Thutmose, King Sikwenen Rattar, made a stand.
10:51A pharaoh facing the impossible, a full-scale invasion of his country.
10:58But he had no chance against this well-armed, superior fighting force from distant lands.
11:09Sikwenen Rattar paid with his life.
11:14His mummy clearly shows the terrible wounds that led to an agonizing death.
11:23That really had shaken the ego of the Egyptians, you know, to be invaded by these people that they were,
11:30they despised.
11:32And successfully invaded for 108 years.
11:36That was a blow to their pride and a blow to their whole world vision.
11:42After King Sikwenen Rattar, King Ahmose, the ruler of Thebes, finally put an end to the foreign domination.
11:54Archeologists pieced together this relief, the only account of Ahmose's victory over the Hyksos.
12:02Ahmose had learned from his enemies and beat them at their own game.
12:07He built war chariots to expel the invaders from his country.
12:13Ahmose's glory.
12:14Ahmose reunited Egypt's north and south, heralding what's known as the New Kingdom,
12:20whose pharaohs swore to restore Egypt's glory and face down all foreign threats.
12:28Always.
12:30But in the Near East, a new power is already gathering strength.
12:36The Mitanni, a warrior tribe more formidable than the Hyksos, and bent on expansion.
12:44The Mitanni are trying to weaken Egypt's influence in the North East.
12:49They forge alliances with the rulers of the Canaan region, promising to free them from the taxes imposed by Egypt.
12:57As the Mitanni close in on Egypt's borders, their ranks swell with their enemies' former vassals.
13:04In the Egyptian capital of Thebes, time is running out.
13:10But Thutmose, now grown, and Hatshepsut, disagree on what to do.
13:19He wants to mobilize his army immediately, to intercept the enemy before it reaches the borders of Egypt.
13:32Hatshepsut prefers to wait.
13:35She wants to avoid war at all costs, especially a war beyond the boundaries of the empire.
13:43And even though Thutmose is the rightful heir, Hatshepsut has yet to surrender the throne.
13:52Thutmose insists that his strategy is the only way to save Egypt.
13:59But Hatshepsut calls the shots, and he must obey.
14:11I think that that distinction between Hatshepsut as a conservative, looking backward in a sense, with her roots in the
14:20past,
14:21as opposed to Thutmose III, who adopts this new outlook of expansion and involvement and a dynamic approach to life.
14:36Thutmose, denied his war against the Mitanni, directs his attention elsewhere, to the region between Egypt and Nubia,
14:44a scene of constant conflict to the south.
14:48His ancestors had already built a chain of fortresses along the Nile.
14:55But the young king wants to reinforce them, flexing his military muscle and proving that Egypt is still strong.
15:04The Nubians, fearsome warriors, constantly raided Egypt from the south.
15:13Today, most of Egypt's border fortresses have disappeared.
15:17Their remains were swallowed up in the 1960s when the Aswan Dam created Lake Nassar.
15:30But thanks to old archaeological records, we have a sense of what these forts looked like.
15:36Around 500 soldiers lived in each fort complex, which operated like a small walled town.
15:45They contained barracks for the soldiers, storehouses for food, workshops and temples.
15:52Watchtowers on the walls provided an unobstructed view for kilometers.
15:57But these forts weren't just for defense against invasion.
16:01They also protected the trade routes.
16:05Every pharaoh, including Thutmose, wanted access to the valuable raw materials of Nubia,
16:12including gold and human beings.
16:16Egypt basically, and historically, looks south.
16:20Not only for its conquest, but also for where it got its products.
16:24And one of those products that we tend to forget today was manpower.
16:28They would send caravans down that we would perhaps today call slave raiding caravans.
16:35And they would come back with thousands of Nubians.
16:39Thutmose's southern campaign is successful.
16:42He returns from Nubia with large numbers of slaves.
16:45His officers turn them into paid privileged soldiers, because Nubian warriors are considered superb archers.
16:57Equipped with newly designed bows, they can inflict terrible injuries even from a great distance.
17:05Quietly, Thutmose builds a powerful army.
17:10The pharaoh is convinced he can't avoid war with the Mitanni.
17:19And for that, he'll need not just good soldiers, but more weapons.
17:30He fires up the foundries.
17:32His military workshops in Memphis forge axes and hatchets, spears and arrowheads of bronze.
17:39The weapons the Egyptians have long relied on.
17:44But Thutmose plays it a little differently this time.
17:48Taking a page from Egypt's old enemy, the Hyksos,
17:51He's equipping his army with war chariots.
17:56The Egyptians have taken the old Hyksos chariot and radically improved it.
18:06We know what these chariots looked like from illustrations on Egyptian temple walls.
18:15And a perfectly preserved gilded ceremonial chariot was found in the tomb of Tutankhamun.
18:24It demonstrates in every detail how the Egyptians constructed their war machines.
18:36They built the chassis from bent wood.
18:41Extra spokes strengthened the wheels.
18:48The wide axle kept the chariot stable even in sharp turns.
18:53The leather fighting platform could absorb blows.
18:57And the chariot was held together by pins, sockets and leather straps.
19:02Damaged parts could be exchanged.
19:05Soldiers could dismantle the chariot and carry it over long distances.
19:09Something never done before.
19:16Manoeuvring this high-tech apparatus takes skill and lots of practice.
19:23Two men have to work together in a confined space.
19:27The driver and the archer.
19:29Chariot, horses and soldiers have to form a single unit to be able to react quickly in battle.
19:39Years of training were needed before they could go to war.
19:43So they could be sure of hitting their targets, moving at high speed over uneven ground.
19:53The young pharaoh enjoyed his time among his soldiers, far from life in the palace.
20:00Those two things, the chariotry corps and the archers, owed a debt to the Hyksos very definitely.
20:08But the Egyptians now developed these two arms into very, very important aspects of their army.
20:20Thutmose has gathered more than 12,000 men under his command.
20:24The biggest army of its time.
20:35He now can put them to use, because the pharaoh has received important news.
20:44His aunt, Hatshepsut, is dead.
20:48It is the end of an era.
20:54Her memorial is a huge temple at Thebes.
20:58Built in her own lifetime, it celebrates the peaceful era of the most powerful woman in Egypt's history.
21:07Her ships set out to distant lands.
21:12And returned home, loaded with exotic woods, gold and slaves.
21:24Hatshepsut is laid to rest in the valley of the kings.
21:28According to custom, the country mourns the regent's death for 70 days.
21:34And that gives Egypt's enemies to the northeast the opportunity they've been waiting for.
21:42It was time to join forces.
21:46With Hatshepsut's sickening, the whole world began to know it.
21:50I mean, there was communication.
21:52And so it would appear to those forces that wanted to get back into Egypt that now was the time.
22:01A powerful coalition of enemy princes gathers close to Megiddo, ready to strike west.
22:08For years, Thutmose has failed to take action against the Asian threat.
22:14Now, he has to act swiftly to forestall the enemy by attacking first.
22:21The Pharaoh leads his army northeast from Memphis through 400 kilometers of barren, hostile landscape to Gaza in Canaan.
22:32The desert has protected the Egyptians for thousands of years.
22:37Now, they have to cross it.
22:42They form a gigantic column.
22:4512,000 men and 2,400 animals.
22:50An army this size needs regular supplies, including 50,000 liters of fresh water every day.
22:59Until recently, no one knew how they managed it.
23:02But new discoveries reveal the level of foresight and planning the Egyptians invested in these desert campaigns.
23:12Ancient stone root markers and millions of pottery fragments strewn in remote parts of the Sahara reveal forgotten trade routes.
23:23Surprisingly, the ancient Egyptians had no camels to make the journey.
23:28They had to rely on oxen and donkeys.
23:34And so they developed a sophisticated water supply system.
23:42Huge caravans, headed out in front of the army, loaded with thousands of liters of water, creating artificial rest stops
23:50in the desert.
23:56Every 70 kilometers, these advanced units would set up stores of water, providing vitally needed refreshments for the following troops.
24:12Today, the millions of pottery fragments clearly indicate the ancient trade routes through the Sahara.
24:28They demonstrate the unquestioned coordination and cooperation so typical of ancient Egypt.
24:38After ten days, Thutmose and his army reach Palestine.
24:42After ten days, Thutmose and his army reach Palestine.
24:43They have defeated the desert of Sinai.
24:47But eleven days strenuous marching still separate them from their target.
24:53Megiddo, a fortified town perched strategically on a hilltop in modern day Israel.
25:03Its lofty position makes sneak attacks against it virtually impossible.
25:10Today, fields carpet the area.
25:13Then, it was a vital part of the trade route.
25:16It was here that Thutmose's enemies gathered.
25:24If you're just here at Megiddo, you can command the Jezreel Valley.
25:29And if you command the valley, you command this whole region.
25:32So Megiddo is an extremely strategic place.
25:35Thutmose III knew it.
25:36So did the Canaanite rebels.
25:38That's why they meet here.
25:40It's not only a great place to fight, but whoever wins controls the entire area.
25:47Thutmose's army is just 30 kilometers from Megiddo.
25:51But now, the Carmel Mountains stand in their way.
25:56The pharaoh faces three choices.
25:58He can bypass the rugged hills, taking the northern or the southern route.
26:04Or, he can attempt to cross them head-on.
26:11While the soldiers rest, Thutmose summons his generals to a war council.
26:19The mountains are treacherous, he is told.
26:22Crossing them is a fool's errand.
26:26His generals are quite clear about it.
26:30The soldiers have already endured a four-week march.
26:34Traversing a mountain would only exhaust them before the coming battle.
26:39But Thutmose sees it differently, more strategically.
26:44The pharaoh's plan of action at this crucial moment is immortalized on the temple walls of Karnak.
26:52So important was his decision that the fate of Egypt depended on it.
26:58At moments like this, history is made.
27:03As we see in this hieroglyphic record here, which actually are excerpts from the king's own diary,
27:11pharaoh said, no, I am going to go through the narrow paths so as not to give any impression to
27:17the enemy that I am weak or cowardly.
27:21Thutmose orders the advance, straight over the mountains.
27:26A narrow and extended column of troops snakes its way uphill.
27:33Dismantled chariots slow their progress.
27:38As they crawl over the rocks, the troops are vulnerable to attack.
27:50But Thutmose knows it's too late to turn back.
27:54There's no time for second-guessing.
28:01His men follow without question, but surely some believe they are marching to their depths.
28:11The pharaoh suspects the enemy's leader, Canaanite king of Kadesh,
28:16positioned his troops along the northern and southern approaches to Megiddo.
28:23He can only hope the king left the mountain route undefended.
28:30The Egyptian troops struggle as the mountain pass squeezes tighter at every corner.
28:36Any moment now, the coalition forces could attack.
28:45The route is almost impassable.
28:49The soldiers barely make any progress.
28:52As tempers fray, Pharaoh is forced to acknowledge this may be a terrible mistake.
29:00But, miraculously, the Egyptians reach the end of the pass.
29:05Ahead of them spreads the plain of Megiddo.
29:07They made it past this obstacle.
29:11But the hardest work still lies ahead.
29:14The crucial battle is about to begin.
29:27At daybreak, the Egyptians launch a surprise attack on the enemy camp.
29:39Too late, the king of Kadesh realizes that he's been outwitted.
29:48He has allowed Thutmose and his 12,000 troops to cross the mountains unimpeded.
29:53He has seriously underestimated the Pharaoh's ability as a war leader.
30:01It spells disaster as the Egyptians hopelessly outnumber the Canaanite units on the plain.
30:08With no time to call for reinforcements, the Canaanite coalition must retreat.
30:18The victorious Egyptians seem to be entering a deserted enemy camp.
30:29In fact, the king of Kadesh is waiting for the chance to follow his fleeing troops to safety.
30:46Suddenly, the moment for the escape arrives.
30:51As greed gets the better of Thutmose's army.
31:01Instead of pursuing the enemy, the Egyptian troops stay behind to plunder the camp.
31:08To the fury of their general and emperor.
31:14In Pharaoh's own words, Thutmose III's own words, taken from his day book, which we see here in this hieroglyphic
31:21text.
31:22He said, if only my army had not given its attention to the plundering of the enemy camp,
31:28Megiddo would have been taken in a single day.
31:34Thutmose has won his first great battle.
31:37But his inexperience and his troops' lack of discipline have let the enemy escape.
31:44As the Egyptians gather their loot, the Canaanite coalition holds up inside Megiddo.
31:53Throughout its long history, Megiddo has been a formidable fortress.
31:59Today, a team of students excavates the city level by level.
32:06They dig through the sand of thousands of years of civilization.
32:13Before reaching the city foundations from the time of Thutmose III.
32:21The fragments of pottery they collect are the best way to date the different layers.
32:29When they find foundations from more than 3,000 years ago,
32:33they reconstruct the shape of the fortress and of the buildings inside.
32:39It turns out that Megiddo was not a fortress with great defensive walls.
32:44They weren't necessary.
32:47There was a palace in a certain part of the city.
32:51We know what the gate was.
32:54We know where the temple was.
32:57So the two most important components of a city like this, their location is well known.
33:03And then we know that there was no major fortifications surrounding the site,
33:09but houses built connected to each other and forming some sort of a belt of houses,
33:15which gave protection to the people inside.
33:19Megiddo's fortified houses perched atop a steep hill protect the king of Kadesh and his men.
33:25According to ancient sources, the siege lasts for seven months.
33:31How they could hold out for so long has always been a mystery.
33:36Until archaeologists discovered remnants of a sophisticated supply system.
33:43A huge tunnel dug deep into the mountain supplied the city with water.
33:53Tutmosis III says they held out for seven months, so they obviously had enough water and enough food.
33:59Now what he doesn't say is how they finally captured the city.
34:03They must have breached the walls.
34:05They must have knocked down the city gates.
34:07Or they paid somebody to open up the gates.
34:09Something very common in that's equity, they must have done.
34:19Whatever happened, Megiddo finally fell.
34:23The Egyptians at last defeat their enemies.
34:28The king of Kadesh and his allies are brought before the pharaoh.
34:38It's time for Thutmose to show his skills as statesman.
34:42To find a way to rule this conquered territory so far away from his capital in Thebes.
34:50Challenging the pharaoh is like blasphemy.
34:53Violators can expect no mercy.
35:00The generals demand their enemies be put to death.
35:08But the king of Kadesh begs for the lives of his family.
35:13Once more Thutmose ignores his generals and follows his own instincts dealing with his enemies.
35:23At that point what happened became standard imperial practice for four centuries.
35:29They were forced to take an oath immediately, never again to rebel against pharaoh and Egypt.
35:37At the same time, it was made plain to them that they had to hand in taxes,
35:42the same kind of taxes that the Egyptian peasants had to hand in whenever pharaoh or his ministers asked for
35:48them.
35:49And finally, they were obliged to give up their young children.
35:54Thutmose spares the lives of the rebel leaders, but he sends their children to Egypt as hostages.
36:02They will guarantee that their fathers never again disobey the pharaoh's commands.
36:13On the Nile, they will be raised as Egyptians.
36:18The girls will stay in Egypt.
36:21The boys will one day return to their homeland as vassal kings in the service of the pharaoh.
36:32As an Egyptian, if you're trying to conquer this region, it makes much more sense to capture the cities
36:37and then turn them into an Egyptian capital city, an Egyptian stronghold, and then rule it, which is what they
36:43do.
36:44They rule this area, they rule Canaan for the next three or four hundred years from cities like Jerusalem, like
36:50Megiddo, like others.
36:52It makes perfect sense.
36:53Why would you destroy it when it makes much more sense to occupy it?
36:59Thutmose returns home in triumph, proving himself a worthy pharaoh and a powerful general.
37:11Throughout the land, Egyptians hail the victory over the king of Kadesh and the conquest of Megiddo.
37:22Priests throw open the doors to the sanctuaries of the imperial gods.
37:28The spoils of war, the enemy's gold, are offered to the god who made this victory possible.
37:36Amun, supreme god of the kingdom and of the fledgling empire.
37:43In Thebes, the capital, life feels safer, more secure, but that feeling is deceptive.
37:55The main enemy, the Mitanni, have by no means been vanquished.
38:00And they are plotting their revenge.
38:07Thutmose tightens his hold on Canaan, but his victory is fragile.
38:12He decides to crush the Mitanni in their own country.
38:16He did it only after the first four or five campaigns that consolidated his hold on Palestine, what we would
38:27call today Palestine, the south.
38:29Then he directed his next campaigns against the Lebanese coast.
38:34And to do that, it would be much more useful and easier, perhaps, to load his army into transports and
38:43send them by water.
38:46Ancient records show that Thutmose planned a land-sea campaign against the Mitanni.
38:52But archaeologists weren't convinced it was possible.
39:00Hundreds of model boats found in tombs.
39:04And countless temple reliefs show how important ships were to the lives of every Egyptian.
39:12But could they sail the high seas?
39:19We know, for example, that Thutmose III and his men are in contact with Crete, with mainland Greece at this
39:26time.
39:26You can only get there by ship.
39:28So we've got the representations on the walls of Rekhmeray and other officials of Thutmose III showing the ships docked
39:37at the Egyptian ports.
39:41Despite images and inscriptions, there was no archaeological proof that Egyptians could build seagoing ships.
39:50Then, a few years ago beside the Red Sea, researchers discovered remnants of an Egyptian seaport, one of only two
40:00ever found.
40:01A network of at least seven galleries dug deep into fossilized coral.
40:08Tangible evidence that Egyptians could not only sail on the Nile, but also on the open sea.
40:15International experts found pottery, the remains of ships' timbers and texts recording state-sponsored trading ventures.
40:28But the caves held an even bigger surprise.
40:34Deep inside these storehouses, scientists found the proof.
40:40Cargo and equipment left by Egyptian sailors.
40:45Hundreds of meters of ancient ships' ropes, remains of a seagoing people.
40:51The Egyptians built cargo ships that were capable of long journeys, hundreds of years before Thutmose III.
41:00Marine archaeologist Cheryl Ward has excavated sections of wooden planks.
41:07She needs just a few fragments from the stern to reconstruct the entire ship.
41:13That's all cute.
41:20These vessels were much sturdier and bigger than the boats used on the Nile.
41:27Each ship was made from 20 trees.
41:32It could carry 40 people and 17 tons of freight.
41:39With 14-meter-wide sails, the ship could travel at six knots, three times faster than donkeys on land.
41:49Another reason this piece of wood is really special is that it's got great examples of the way the Egyptians
41:54held their ships together.
41:56They used big pieces of wood we call tenons, and they fit inside holes in each plank.
42:01We see the ends of each tenon here. They're in pairs.
42:04And you can imagine another plank jammed up here next to it with these great pieces of wood holding it
42:12together.
42:12There's also here what we call a ligature.
42:16They threaded strips of copper through here like ribbon and tied the end of another plank to it so that
42:22the seam between that plank and the keel was as tight as possible.
42:28This construction kit approach made it possible to easily dismantle the ships, just like the Egyptian chariots.
42:36Sailors could transport the pieces over land and reassemble the ship at their destination.
42:45That destination was the Empire of the Mitanni, Thutmose's archenemy, 900 kilometers from Egypt.
42:58Thutmose sails north with 170 ships and a huge army.
43:02They disembark, carrying a few disassembled ships with them to cross the river Euphrates.
43:14Gathering on the far side of the river, the Egyptian soldiers prepare for war.
43:30But the great battle the Egyptians geared up for never happens.
43:37The Mitanni have retreated into the Asian plains.
43:44Thutmose destroys their cities, staking his territory and declaring victory.
43:55His war diaries end soon after his Euphrates campaign.
44:04A royal stele on the Euphrates shore marks the furthest boundary of his empire.
44:12Thutmose has reached the geographical limits of his military power.
44:17Egypt, too, will never reach further.
44:21At last, Thutmose and his soldiers can return home.
44:25No Egyptian wants to live here, so far from Egypt.
44:29The Nile is the center of their world, paradise on earth.
44:35And so this ancient superpower kept mainly to itself, expanding only when it was reasonable and necessary.
44:46Thutmose III seems to exemplify that old Egyptian interest in surrounding territories as a sphere of influence only.
44:56Not a formal empire, but just a sphere of influence in which the Egyptian messenger can go and tell the
45:02local chief, I want so and so.
45:04You have to comply with Pharaoh's wishes and the chief will say, yes sir, yes sir, and do so.
45:10Once again, Thutmose returns to Thebes in triumph, expanding the Egyptian sphere of influence as never before.
45:20No pharaoh's power had ever been greater.
45:24Thutmose has accomplished his life's work and banished the danger of foreign domination.
45:31To thank the gods for his victories, he extends the temple of Karnak.
45:42And he decorates the walls with images of the exotic animals and plants he discovered on his campaigns.
45:51Like all of his ancestors, Thutmose is portrayed in the temple reliefs as the conqueror of Egypt's enemies.
46:02But he was more than that.
46:05He used his victories to link Egypt with the outside world for the first time in 1500 years.
46:15During the New Kingdom, when Egypt became a much more international power and extended its authority far into Western Asia,
46:23into the Mediterranean, into the Sudan.
46:29This gradually changed. Egypt became much more aware of foreigners and became more accepting of them.
46:36Thutmose is remembered as the greatest Egyptian general and as an astute politician.
46:46His 54-year reign over 3 million people was unprecedented and brilliant.
46:54By understanding the limits to foreign conquest, Thutmose made Egypt more stable and secure than ever before.
47:03Egypt could now enter its golden age.
47:17To be continued...
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