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pharaohs rise and fall s01e03
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00:08Their names are etched in stone, their stories carved into the very fabric of history to live
00:14on forever. This is the true story of Egypt's greatest rulers, from their meteoric rise,
00:22to absolute power, to their ultimate downfall. This is the rise and fall of the pharaohs.
00:50It is the 16th century before Christ and Egypt is divided. In the northern half of the nation,
00:58a group known as the Hyksos reign, while in the south, the Egyptian forces centered in Thebes
01:05have been conducting a decades-long war of resistance and reconquest.
01:11Entering this struggle is the new king of the south, Amos.
01:17Amos is the younger brother of Kamos. He wants to unite Egypt as badly as his brother did,
01:24but the Hyksos are standing in the way of that.
01:27He has two goals. One is to drive the Hyksos out of Egypt. The other is to reunify Egypt,
01:35but under his rule as pharaoh. If successful, Amos will unite the divided lands and bring back the reign
01:42reign of the pharaoh. But if he loses, Egypt may forever be shattered.
01:49The Hyksos represented the first ever foreign rulers to be ruling Egypt, and that in itself
01:56brought chaos toward the Egyptian state and have threatened the universe for them.
02:03Will Egypt be united into another kingdom, or will we fall back into chaos?
02:10Everything is on the line here.
02:13As Amos takes the reins of leadership, he marches his armies north to the former capital of Egypt,
02:20Memphis. This battle will settle the fate of Egypt and the pharaohs.
02:37Amos takes his armies north, straight into Hyksos territory. The chariots that once dominated the
02:42Egyptian army are now being used against the Hyksos. The very weapon the Hyksos brought to Egypt will be
02:49their undoing. Amos, with his mighty host of warriors, is ready to finish the reconfiguration.
02:56The conquest of Egypt. Amos' army earns a swift victory, annihilating the Hyksos army in battle.
03:03They then capture Memphis and other important northern cities.
03:08The Hyksos forces crumble. Soon, Amos and the Egyptian army have the Hyksos capital of Avaris,
03:15also known as Hawara, surrounded. The Egyptians storm the city and sack the Hyksos capital.
03:24Amos engages battle with the Hyksos, but succeeds finally in expelling them after a lengthy period.
03:32To remove the Hyksos and force them out of Egypt, he ravaged Avaris. The accounts of it
03:38are absolutely brutal. They talk not only about death, but mutilation.
03:46One of the particular elements that the Egyptians imposed upon the Hyksos was the removal of their
03:53hands. And this was done for two reasons. As an insult to the deceased Hyksos, but also by taking the
04:03hands and presenting them towards the king, you were proving that you had murdered people on the king's
04:09behalf, that you had carried out his edicts.
04:14We have accounts of the battles of Amos from someone who wasn't just an eyewitness, but was a
04:19participant. His name was Amos, son of Abana. He was a soldier in the army of Kamos and later Amos.
04:27Amos, son of Abana, captures this campaign in a series of writings that illustrate
04:32fury and anger, which the Egyptians brought upon the Hyksos.
04:39Amos, son of Abana himself, describes some of the military campaigns he was on with Amos,
04:45and this is how we get information about Amos himself. So he details how the Egyptian forces
04:51pushed the Hyksos out of Egypt, and they continued their campaign into the Levant,
04:56so outside Egyptian territory, into the Hyksos homeland.
05:00It's believed that some of the Hyksos fled to Palestine, but Amos pursued them, sacking their
05:06cities for another three years until they were thoroughly defeated.
05:10You may wonder, why were they so harsh? Why were they so passionate about this particular war?
05:16They're not thinking of this as fighting fellow Egyptians. These are invaders. They took our country,
05:23and we're taking it back. And they wanted to send a message to the Hyksos,
05:29we're not going to tolerate this ever again.
05:35By the mid-16th century BCE, Amos has completed his reconquest and has taken large swaths of the Levant.
05:44In this, Amos not only expelled the Hyksos, expanded the borders, and reunited and re-established the
05:51rule of a single pharaoh, he also ushered in Egypt's third golden age, the New Kingdom.
05:58Whilst Amos is seen as this great warrior king, and rightfully so,
06:03after the war, he kind of retires and becomes much more focused on his family.
06:07One of the important aspects that we see in this new golden age for Egypt,
06:13the beginning of the New Kingdom, is the way in which the king incorporates his whole family.
06:21The court becomes expanded, enlarged, his wife becomes an important figure in her own right.
06:29We're no longer dealing with just an individual, and that's important from a dynastic point of view.
06:36Here we're dealing with whole families who can marry, who can strengthen bonds within other families in
06:42Egypt, and ensure that should the king die, there are people to step into his empty sandals.
06:52And some of the most powerful people in this family were the women of the dynasty.
06:57The female royal family becomes far more visible than any of what we know from
07:02earlier dynasties, and that in itself was quite distinctive.
07:06There's indications that the royal women, or the women of the Theban ruling family,
07:11are important and are playing important roles, not just ritually or ceremonially,
07:17but that they're actually playing important administrative and governmental roles.
07:22So some of the royal women involved would be Teddy Sherry, so that's Ahmose's grandmother,
07:30and Ahmose Nefertari.
07:33Some of these women hold titles that are normally affiliated with military service,
07:39military activity, and in their tombs there are weapons that are found, including axes and daggers.
07:46The fact that their weapons included in the tombs of women suggests that they played an actual active
07:52military role, if not in combat, at least in governing the country during the time when
07:58their husbands were up north fighting against the retreating Hyksos.
08:04And one of the most powerful women of this age is Ahmose's wife, Ahmose Nefertari.
08:11Ahmose Nefertari is a really important figure in the early 18th dynasty. She is Ahmose's primary wife.
08:21She's also the god's wife of Amun, so she's an important religious and political figure. Obviously,
08:26those two things are deeply intertwined in Egypt. Raising Ahmose Nefertari into the level that she
08:33becomes the wife of god Amun, so she's the wife of one of the main creator gods, but equally the
08:39main
08:39god of the pantheon for Upper Egypt and for the royal house at the time during the reign of Ahmose,
08:45meant that she is sharing part of the royal power, even if symbolically, with the king. And this is
08:52a shift that we haven't seen before, to have an active role or to play an active religious role for
09:01the queen. She is sort of the principal head of the religious sect at this point.
09:13By uplifting his wife to the priesthood, Ahmose strengthened his family's control of the religion
09:19and the wealth of the temple of Amun. And Ahmose would need this wealth and power as he embarked on
09:27a new slate of construction projects. During the new kingdom, what we see is a flourishing of
09:34architecture and monuments dedicated to life and worship, rather than just death, as we'd seen in
09:39the old kingdom. This is where we really start to see this great temple architecture thriving.
09:45So here we have Thebes. Once a village, but it grows over time. And in the new kingdom, oh man,
09:53it becomes a huge city with great and magnificent works of architecture. The most obvious being the
10:00great temple of Amun at Karnak. And almost every king that ruled during the new kingdom period adds
10:08something to the temple of Karnak. Now if each king is adding to it, you can imagine how
10:13it grows and expands over time and becomes greater and greater with each generation.
10:20The power of the priesthood of Amun have increased so much to the extent that having a building
10:26construction in Karnak or contributing to the Karnak temple's complex became a defining factor of
10:34the stability of a king's throne. So one of your royal duties was to contribute to the Karnak
10:41temples. That's how you become legally acceptable as the ruler of Egypt.
10:45Amos and his heirs are known as the 18th dynasty. This dynasty will transform Egypt into the most
10:53powerful and glittering civilization of the ancient world.
10:57Now Ahmos has a main wife and probably any number of other wives, but somehow only has one son that
11:04we
11:04know of, Amenhotep I. And Amenhotep I is crazy for building. And he enlarges Karnak and builds all kinds of
11:12great stuff there. Even though he is married, no babies. He has no children at all that we know of.
11:22And that's a serious matter. But when he dies, there is no heir. Now what you do in those circumstances
11:28in Egypt is you turn to your best friend, who preferably is a general. And his general is a man
11:35named Thutmosis I. And he's probably a royal cousin of some sort, but he's not in the direct line of
11:42succession. So he's really starting a new family. And Thutmosis I is already a grown up man, maybe already
11:4935, 40. And he is a general. And he has a daughter named Hatshepsut, who is going to be one
11:56of the most
11:56extraordinary people who ever lived.
12:00Hatshepsut means foremost of noble women. And it was she who held the primary claim to the throne,
12:05as she is the daughter of Thutmosis I by his great royal wife.
12:12But when Thutmosis I dies, it is Thutmosis II who ascends to the throne,
12:18even though he had been conceived by a secondary wife.
12:22While on the throne, Thutmosis II marries his half-sister, Hatshepsut.
12:28Hatshepsut was probably only around 10 or 12 when she married the pharaoh. He dies as she comes into
12:35adulthood. We get the impression that this may have been a long 20 years for Hatshepsut.
12:40When Thutmosis II died, his son, Thutmosis III, was young, wasn't yet ready to take power. And so
12:49the kingdom was mostly in the hands of Hatshepsut.
12:53It's important to note that Thutmosis III, the heir of Thutmosis II, was actually the child,
12:58not of the great wife, but of one of his other wives. This meant Hatshepsut
13:04had more legitimacy and more claim to the throne at the time of her ascendance.
13:10In 1780 BCE, Hatshepsut was made Queen Regent of Egypt.
13:17In ancient Egypt, Queen Dowager, who is the regent for a young king, was very much honoured.
13:24Some of the most honoured women in Egyptian history were regents. So Hatshepsut starts off as regent
13:30for her little nephew. But by year five, perhaps as the little boy is getting closer to hitting
13:38puberty, she realises she's got to make a move and actually be king.
13:44While Hatshepsut's position as Queen Regent gives her authority over Egypt,
13:49to become the pharaoh she needs a strong ideological argument backing her claim. And there is no
13:55religious institution as powerful as the Temple of Amun during this time.
14:00This is a remarkable period in history. Hatshepsut understands how to lead the country and how to
14:07sell herself as a pharaoh. What she does is something we've never seen before.
14:14In order to establish her legitimacy, Hatshepsut knows she needs to go back to the well of religion.
14:22To this end, Hatshepsut works with the priests of Amun to create an origin story. This origin story
14:29would be depicted on the temples at Thebes. What this origin story says is that Hatshepsut was
14:37actually conceived by the god Amun. Amun came to Hatshepsut's mother in the night in the form of her
14:44husband and conceived Hatshepsut. Therefore Hatshepsut was the daughter of the god himself and therefore
14:53divine rule. Now we've had female pharaohs on the throne before. It's usually sort of the last resort
15:02of a dynasty that doesn't really have much other option, but it's still not really ideal for an
15:09Egyptian pharaoh. A pharaoh is supposed to be male and is supposed to be, say, the leader of the army.
15:15So she's innovating to show herself as this age-old ideal.
15:22The priests of Amun are telling the people that she is in fact the daughter of Amun himself,
15:32which means she is also a god. And that is intended to bolster her power.
15:40Hatshepsut takes on the dressings and the iconography of a male king,
15:44whilst presenting herself as a female king. This is where we see the gender-neutral term
15:52pharaoh, or pere, great house, come into use.
15:58Amun is on the rise, swiftly becoming Egypt's chief deity, with other gods' cults rapidly succumbing to
16:05his influence. Amun is a very old god in Egypt. He'd been there since the pyramid texts. But in the
16:1218th
16:12dynasty, under Hatshepsut and her family, Amun really comes into his own.
16:18God Amun was one of the main creator gods of ancient Egypt. He was also a major god for the
16:25royal family. And he was the one, through him, that the royal family would gain access to power.
16:32And he would be the god in charge of sustaining the power of the king or the pharaoh. So he
16:40was quite
16:40crucial. And given how the new kingdom was based in Thebes and god Amun was the main god of Thebes,
16:48that meant that the priesthood of Thebes, particularly the priesthood of Amun,
16:52were the most influential priesthood that existed in Egypt at the time.
16:56By expanding Amun's role at the centre of Egyptian religious life,
17:03it's clear that Hatshepsut is expanding her own role, but also assisting the priests of Amun.
17:13The priests of Amun have a rather more important role to play. And that plays nicely towards Hatshepsut's
17:21strengths, whilst allowing them to take a bigger share of Egyptian religious life,
17:27and Egyptian secular life also.
17:30They have control of a great number of resources.
17:33They end up owning an awful lot of the land in Middle Egypt and Upper Egypt.
17:40And Hatshepsut established, at this point in history, a move that would affect all of the
17:45pharaohs that would come after her. Essentially, what Hatshepsut has done is prime the priesthood of
17:52Amun to eventually challenge the throne of Egypt itself.
18:00Hatshepsut's relationship with the Temple of Amun underscores Egyptian society's relationship with
18:05its religion and gods, gods which affect all parts of the lives of ancient Egyptians.
18:11From the peasants in the fields to the pharaohs in their royal palaces, these gods are worshipped
18:17and revered. And the most powerful of the gods of this time was Amun.
18:23The prominence of the deity Amun in this period can't be overstated.
18:28He's not only a god of the kings, but he becomes almost the king of the gods.
18:34Instead of just being related to Horus, now the pharaoh is related to Amun,
18:40and in Hatshepsut's time, direct descendant of Amun.
18:44In this sense, we see the primacy of this god of Thebes becoming the god of all of Egypt.
18:52What were his attributes? Well, we find him depicted with a ram's head, for example,
18:57which is a powerful symbol of fertility. That helps us understand why he became very useful for
19:03the pharaohs.
19:05But Egypt is a land of many powerful and popular gods. Chief among them, Ra, the sun god.
19:15In ancient Egypt, the gods didn't have to be exclusive beings. So when you came to a new city
19:22as a royal, and you already had your local tradition with your own gods, you could basically combine
19:28these gods with the gods that were prominent in that region. So for instance, what we see in this
19:34period is something that we call religious syncretism. That is to take one god from one area who's very
19:39dominant in one region, and combine them with the god that's dominant in the area you're coming into.
19:45So we have an older deity like Ra, who is associated with the sun and kingship, and we have Amun,
19:51who is the new god associated with kingship. Then they became a new god, Amun-Ra. There was no
19:56contradiction in the Egyptian mindset. It just meant that this new god had all the qualities of Amun,
20:01and all the qualities of Ra. It was the best of both worlds.
20:06While Amun and Ra were the two most powerful gods of this age, three gods had a very important place
20:13in Egyptian history and society. Osiris, Isis, and Horus.
20:21Osiris is initially a god of agriculture, but following the mythology where he's killed,
20:26he also becomes god of the underworld. Isis, on the other hand, is a goddess of both magic and
20:33motherhood. She raises young Horus in the swamps of the delta. Isis is said to have learned the secret
20:40name of Ra, the foremost of gods, and using the secret name of Ra, she could control all of magic.
20:48Osiris, Isis, and Horus represented the microcosm of the family unit that the royal family have thrived
20:55to be. We've got Osiris symbolizing the male power of the king, then Isis, the female power,
21:02which would be the royal wife, then Horus, which is the son who would be the one, the successor to
21:08the
21:08throne. So by being affiliated to Osiris, you're affiliated to a divine family, and you're equally
21:15affiliated to eternity. While Egypt had many gods, Egyptian religion at the time of the new kingdom
21:23is not uniform. The Egyptian pantheon is eclectic in nature. It includes deities such as Hathor,
21:31the goddess of love, beauty, music, and motherhood. Anubis, the jackal-headed god of mummification,
21:39and the protector of the dead. Thoth, the god of wisdom, writing, and magic. And Patar,
21:47the god of creation and craftsmanship. The pantheon encompasses gods for virtually all aspects of life.
21:55A notable characteristic of many of these deities is their depiction with animal heads or animal
22:01features, symbolizing their divine attributes and roles. You've always got to remember that
22:07we can't see the gods. We're not worthy of seeing the gods. Probably our human eyes wouldn't understand
22:12the gods if we did see them. So when we draw a picture of one of the gods, we're drawing
22:18a picture
22:18of that god's attributes, of maybe that god's character. So if you think about a dog,
22:25faithful friend, loyal, nasty if you're a bad person, good watchdogs. Think of all the lovely
22:32things about dogs. Well then you think about the god Anubis, who is the god who meets you when you
22:38die.
22:39So when you die you're not meeting some horrible demon. There's this lovely big dog and he's going
22:44to help you through it all. He's going to make sure you're embalmed properly, that you get to the
22:49judgment, that the judgment is done properly. Think about Bastet, the cat goddess. The cats are
22:56beautiful and we like to pat them. They are wonderful mothers if you've ever had a cat who had kittens.
23:02Wonderful mothers. Bastet is this goddess who is in charge of having babies and music and beauty and
23:08sweetness. Well she can be imaged as a cat. It works very well and cats being the closest image to
23:16her
23:16become very special animals. The hawk who is halfway between earth and heaven, who is up there talking
23:24to god but who can swoop down and take care of the miscreants on earth. Horus, Montu, Sokar, they all
23:33have
23:33these attributes of the hawk and usually if you think about the animal whose head you see on the god,
23:39then
23:40you understand something about the nature of that god. Whether or not they actually imagined the god to look
23:46this way, I kind of would imagine so, but I think that they also had a variety of ways that
23:52they imagined
23:52their gods. So the god Thoth is a really interesting example. He's the god of writing and magic and a
24:00lot
24:00of other things, but he can be shown as an ibis. He can be shown as a baboon. He's got
24:11a lot of different
24:12ways of being represented and so I think they're really flexible with how they portray their gods
24:18and this is one of the ways of doing it. I think it kind of signals that they see some
24:23sort of kinship
24:24between this animal and the attributes that this god is supposed to have.
24:31The ancient Egyptians had a very close relationship with many of their animals. Animals like cattle,
24:37donkeys and birds played crucial roles in agriculture and held special places in Egyptian art.
24:45Cattle in particular were important as they were used for ploughing fields, transporting goods and
24:51providing food. Hathor, goddess of motherhood and beauty, is closely connected to cattle.
25:00Pharaoh Hatshepsut incorporates elements of Hathor in her iconography to draw her closer to the goddess,
25:07further underscoring the importance of the gods and the animals they represent to all strata of
25:12Egyptian society. They invested a lot of spiritual meaning in the natural world around them. They felt
25:20they were part of the same cosmos and that they all had a purpose. But animals also served another
25:29religious function. They were often used in sacrifices to the gods.
25:36The Apisbol is a good example of an animal that the Egyptians believed held the divinity of a god,
25:43but only for a certain period of time. The Apisbol was eventually sacrificed in the name of the god.
25:48What we see particularly in later periods are temples dedicated to the production and then mummification
25:54of these animals to make them offerings for the afterlife and for the gods. It's fair to say that
26:00the Egyptian relationship with animals was somewhat complex. They didn't necessarily worship animals as
26:05gods themselves, except in very specific circumstances. And they weren't beyond raising and killing an animal
26:12to make it a sacrifice to the gods. That being said, there were moments in Egyptian history
26:19where the enemies of the Egyptians used their love of cats, for instance, against them. There's a famous
26:24myth that the Persian army strapped cats to their armour so that the Egyptians wouldn't strike them in combat,
26:30because that would be seen as some form of blasphemy against Bast. So we know from these stories,
26:36at least, that these beliefs were circulating at the time as well. But the reality is much more complex.
26:41There were millions of mummified cats and ibis birds, for instance, discovered in one cache alone.
26:47So we know that the lives of the animals themselves wasn't necessarily sacred, certainly in later periods.
26:53It does signal this belief in an afterlife, and that the body, the material world, had to make that
27:00journey with the spirit eventually to get to that world. So with the mummification of these animals,
27:07on the one hand we understand them as sacrifices, but mummification is a very demanding process.
27:13And so to mummify, for example, cats or ibises, that's saying that you expect them to be with you in
27:19that afterlife.
27:23While the ancient Egyptians are a religious people, their relationship to the temple differs far
27:28more from that of many of the current major religious traditions.
27:33Ancient Egyptian temples are rather different than a synagogue or a masjid or a gurdwada or a little
27:40church. An Egyptian temple is the home of a god, and the god lives in usually a special little
27:47naos, a tabernacle, and he lives in a quiet, dark part of it. And depending on how big the temple
27:54is,
27:55there are rooms and rooms and rooms in front of this. So in an Egyptian temple like Karnak,
28:00where there's a big open court at the front, many of us can go into that court.
28:06I can't get anywhere near the god who lives, you know, 300 feet back that way. But I'm up here,
28:12and I'm in the temple. I'm in this holy space, like being in the square of St. Peter's. But I'm
28:18not
28:19inside. Now, if I have a religious duty, perhaps I'm a singer, I can go a little further in.
28:29Only the king and the high priest can go right back and meet the god. And then the king or
28:36the high
28:36priest every day will open the doors on the god's little shrine and give him some incense, wash him,
28:44and give him fresh clothes every day. The god will get fresh clothes, just as a statue of Krishna or
28:49Shiva in a Hindu temple gets clean clothes every day. So they're cared for very much in that way.
28:58Because of her close relationship with our moon and her role as pharaoh, Hatshepsut is one of the few
29:04people who can enter the deep sanctum of the temple. But for common Egyptians, there was a way
29:10to get close to our moon. The temple has all these big ceremonies, but it's for the god. It's the
29:16god's
29:16house. It's not our house to worship the god. But an interesting thing happens because of the god Amun.
29:24At Karnak, ordinary people like me who can't even get into the front court, I can go way around the
29:30back
29:30of the temple. And way around the back, I'm actually quite close to the shrine. I'm closer than I would
29:36have been in the front court. Maybe I'm only 20 feet away now, or 10 feet away. And the god
29:42knows I'm
29:42there. And I can go to that back wall and talk to the god. That's going to be the chapel
29:48of the hearing
29:49ear. I can say, Amun, can you please listen to me? You know, I'm nobody, but I need your help.
29:55So that little chapel way at the back is more like our idea of a church.
30:05The priests of ancient Egypt lived apart from the common people. But in the time of the New Kingdom
30:12and Hatshepsut, they played an important part, not only in the religious life of ancient Egypt,
30:18Egypt, but also its economy and civil service. It's a very interesting dimension of religious
30:25culture in ancient Egypt that we can't understand priests as simply religious officiants. In fact,
30:33they had a very, very important and complex role to place in Egyptian society. For example,
30:39temples and temple complexes were places not only of religious observance,
30:43but they fulfilled many other functions. For example, priests were also healers.
30:49Medicine was a very important commandant of their role in ordinary society for ordinary people.
30:55They were also involved in politics. They would be consultants to the pharaoh. They would be reading
31:02the stars. We know that Egyptian astronomy was extremely sophisticated. And they were also involved as
31:11local administrators, as sources of charity, and even in moneyland. So when we think about temple
31:19complexes and the priests that operated them, we should think of them as institutions that are
31:24integrated in the Egyptian economy, social culture life, as well as religious and political lives.
31:31Under the rule of Hatshepsut, the powers of the Temple of Armun in Thebes grew substantially.
31:37The temple complexes are bustling centers of activity. They house not only the priests,
31:43but also craftsmen, laborers, and officials. These complexes include granaries, showing the temple's
31:51economic power as grain is the primary currency in ancient Egypt. The Temple of Armun in Thebes also
31:57managed large swaths of agricultural lands and collected taxes from said lands, further underscoring their
32:04importance in society. Ancient Egyptian religion and the Temple were also closely associated with another
32:12important aspect of Egyptian life, magic. Every aspect of Egyptian life was affected by Heka, or magic.
32:22Magic had an ability to offer a connection to the gods. And this is why incantations and spells and poetry,
32:36all of these things are spoken word. And spoken or written word is in turn an incantation. That's where the
32:46very word comes from to cant or to speak the written words. So every single day of an Egyptian pharaoh's
32:55life,
32:55this was part of their ritual. It is said that in some cases, they started their day with an incantation
33:04to
33:04the rising sun. And they ended their day with an incantation to the setting sun.
33:11Heka, or magic, was a practical dimension of their lives. And it was also powerful because magic was
33:20understood as a dimension, a force that operated within the natural world in which they existed.
33:27It linked the supernatural and the natural realms. It was also a coercive force because the function of
33:34magic was to effect change in the lives of ordinary people. Later in her reign of pharaoh, Hatshepsut begins
33:47to suffer from mysterious ailments that trouble her reign. She calls upon the priests and their magic to aid in
33:54her recovery.
33:57In the temple, they perform rituals and offer prayers, seeking divine intervention to restore her health.
34:06While the high priests are the most celebrated users of magic during this time,
34:11they are not the only people in society gifted with magical abilities.
34:16When we look at ancient Egypt, we see that it develops specialties that give us a window into
34:22the daily lives of ordinary people. Because here we have people who have certain talents that give them
34:27the ability, for example, to charm scorpions. Well, why scorpions? Well, they're living in a desert environment
34:34in which scorpions are one of the most dangerous elements. We have midwives who help with birth,
34:40and they had to rely on magic as well and charms and other instruments of magic to help bring about
34:48safe births. Because birth was one of the most dangerous times in the lives, not only of women,
34:54but also of the child themselves. So magic is being used under the assumption that there are different
34:59talents that can be brought to keeping society safe, but also to help fulfill your needs.
35:10In ancient Egypt, magic is a powerful force. But knowing when, where, and how to perform magic
35:17is crucial to success.
35:21In order to engage in magical practices, the priests of Egypt believed they had to be pure. To this end,
35:29they would always bathe, they were always clean-shaven, and they would wear white linen. They would abstain
35:37at certain times from different foods if they were to engage in magical practice, and they would do their
35:43rituals at certain times of day, depending on what they were trying to achieve. Usually, daytime in the sunlight,
35:50so dawn or high sun, would be a good time to perform magic. But you don't want to be performing
35:55magic at night,
35:56because that's when the forces of darkness are more dominant.
36:00The professional Egyptian magician or sorcerer would use a multiplicity of different implements to
36:07perform his magical acts. Very often, these would be wands, and these could be made from bronze in the
36:15shape of serpents. Others, rather more spectacularly, but more frequently, tend to be hippopotamus ivory tusks.
36:24It was clear that for the ancient Egyptians, these wands that were used in magical actions had great power.
36:34While magic is often associated with religious worship, it was also closely associated with
36:40medicine in ancient Egypt. Surviving medical papyri contain spells for the use of doctors.
36:47These spells are often targeted at the supernatural beings believed to be the ultimate cause of diseases.
36:54And in ancient Egypt, the keepers of this medical knowledge are the priest physicians.
37:00By the Middle Kingdom, they're starting to write down everything and codify things.
37:05And those nasty Hyksos up in the north, they are actually very interested in medicine.
37:10And our medical papyri, several of them come from them. They're the ones who had them copied.
37:15So over the years, you have all these things copied out. So maybe you've got a dislocated shoulder.
37:21They can handle that, no problem. You've broken a bone in your arm. They can handle that, but it's
37:26going to be harder. Now, if it's something else, if it's something internal, they might say, I'm not
37:31sure if I can treat this, but I'll try. Things like cancers. Sometimes they knew they couldn't
37:35treat it. And they would say, I cannot treat this. And then they would give you some prayers to say.
37:41Magic infiltrates the world of the Egyptians, but it's the everyday world as well. So we see
37:47medical treatments incorporating magical concepts and mythological concepts.
37:52A good example of this are late period stelae that we found. They bear the image of the child Horus
38:00with a side lock. They also bear a spell on the reverse in hieroglyphs. The spell says,
38:08I am Isis, great of magic. Pouring water libation over this statue will charge the effluence and the
38:16child will be healed. So what we see here is an incorporation of magic into the very belief system
38:23of the everyday Egyptians that was used not only for supernatural means, but also for very everyday
38:30means. I think it's foolish to say, you know, saying a spell over somebody or making a wax figure
38:37and then melting it is not going to help somebody who's sick, because I think if that person believes
38:42it will help, then it can. Along with magic, pharaoh Hatshepsut sought medical advice from the healer
38:51priests. Hatshepsut suffers from a persistent skin ailment that troubles her daily life. She receives a
39:00healing balm from her priests, crafted from rare herbs and oils. Applying it regularly, she hopes for relief.
39:12As with nearly all aspects of Egyptian society, medicine and healing were closely linked to a
39:18number of gods. In a polytheistic society like ancient Egypt, it's not surprising that we have
39:25gods who emerge with attributes that are specifically dedicated to healing. Thoth was one of the gods
39:31associated with medicine, one of the many gods. But in particular, his association comes through his
39:37healing of the eye of the god Horus after Horus lost his eye in battle to the gods Set. Amulets,
39:44such as the eye of Horus, were often inscribed with protective symbols and spells and are worn by
39:50individuals to ward off illness and harm. What amulets do is they take the context of the
39:57mythology that they emerge from and they bring that power into the life of the everyday Egyptian.
40:02So if you couldn't read or write, you could still wear an amulet such as the eye of Horus and
40:09gain the
40:09benefit of that myth, of that power, which comes to represent health and protection. It's one of the
40:16most common amulets we find around Egypt and it was often buried in amongst the wrappings of the mummy.
40:22In the wrappings of the mummy, we find several different types of amulets. The eye of Horus is a very
40:26common one. We also see very small Jied pillars. This is the backbone of Osiris. It stands for stability.
40:33We'll see small amulets of various different gods, hoping to invoke their protective qualities.
40:39Even necklaces became popular and this was to show that all of these abilities of Toth
40:50were there to protect you.
40:55Healing rituals often involve invoking the power of gods and goddesses, such as Hathor,
41:01who was associated with healing and motherhood, or Bess, who protected households and children.
41:09In ancient Egypt, we see medicine practiced at a scale unseen in the rest of the ancient world.
41:16There are several papyrus dealing with very specific types of trauma. We have the Leden papyrus
41:23and the Edwin Smith papyrus. And these deal with slightly different anatomical and medical problems.
41:30One deals with surgery, essentially, and trauma surgery. So the Egyptians as a warrior people
41:36would be coming back with various injuries. The Egyptians knew how to deal with broken bones.
41:43They understood, more or less, the organs. And even though the Egyptians believed that we thought
41:51with our hearts and not with our brains, they kind of thought the brain didn't do a lot. In fact,
41:55they disposed of it during mummification. But they roughly understood enough about the workings of the body
42:01that they developed quite an in-depth corpus of medical knowledge and how to deal with everyday ailments.
42:14The concern of one's health didn't end in death. The road to the afterlife is a perilous one.
42:20And by the reign of Hatshepsut, the ancient Egyptians are buried with the so-called Book of the Dead.
42:29Way back in the old kingdom, the king gets special prayers on the walls of his pyramid.
42:35The pyramid texts, we call them. And then queens get them and viziers get them. And gradually,
42:40a few more very, very elite people get them. Then during the first intermediate period,
42:46some of those texts survive. But they survive on papyrus and they get written on coffins.
42:52And we now call them the coffin texts. Now, as we get into the new kingdom, people seem to be
42:59making
42:59choices of some of those texts that they like best and some prayers that are new. But because they're
43:06written and they can be written on papyrus or they can be written on linen, they can be written right
43:10on the outside of your shroud, they're going to be much less expensive, obviously, than being carved
43:16under the walls of a tomb or painted inside a beautiful coffin. To find it in the tomb of
43:22people who were clearly successful but ordinary, they're commoners, members of society, tells us not
43:29only that magic is pervasive, because these are books of spells that are required to help your passage
43:37through to the other life safely. But it also tells us perhaps that we're seeing a higher degree of
43:43literacy in society by this time. From the pharaoh to the commoners, the pervasiveness of the Book of
43:54the Dead shows how closely intertwined Egyptian life was with royalty. And in Egypt, the game of thrones
44:02was always in play. Hatshepsut succeeded in making herself a king. She's always shown with a male body
44:10and male clothing. Whether she ever actually dressed in male clothing, we'll never know. But she does need
44:18somebody to be her queen. If she's the king, she has to have a queen. Well, she has her daughter,
44:25Neferrura, act the part of queen. Neferrura is already God's wife of Amun, with this huge power base
44:31in the Amun temple. Now she's officially queen. She's still a girl, she's still a teenager,
44:36but she acts as her mother's queen. And there are lots of pictures that look like a king and a
44:41queen,
44:42but it's really Hatshepsut and her daughter. Many people have thought that Hatshepsut intended
44:48her daughter to succeed her. With her daughter, there are certain problems. Hatshepsut was the wife of a
44:56king. She was the daughter of a king. Her daughter is the daughter of a female king. She's not the
45:04wife
45:04of a king unless it's decided that she will marry Tupmosis III, in which case Tupmosis III trumps her
45:12possible reign. So really, the possibility of Hatshepsut's daughter succeeding her mother seems slight at best.
45:23Hatshepsut is probably in her late 40s, maybe into her 50s. For any ancient Egyptian to make it into
45:29your 50s and to make it to 60 was almost unheard of. And her nephew is growing up to be
45:36a wonderful
45:37king. He's going to be a heck of a good king. So what happened to her? You know, if you're
45:42writing
45:42a lurid novel, Tupmosis kills her. But he doesn't have to. He's busy. He goes off and he fights all
45:49the wars. While healer priests of Egypt were often successful, in the case of Hatshepsut,
45:56the work worsened her condition. The balm given to the female pharaoh contained benzopyrene,
46:03a dangerous carcinogenic substance. While this balm gave relief from the itching and
46:09irritation of her skin condition, the balm itself is full of cancer-causing chemicals,
46:14which hastened her demise. She dies. She gets buried in the Valley of the Kings,
46:21in a proper king's tomb. She presumably gets a proper king's funeral.
46:28Thutmose III became sole pharaoh in 1458 BCE and is considered one of Egypt's militant pharaohs.
46:37Under his rule, Egypt expands to its furthest boundaries and becomes the most dominant nation
46:43of the Bronze Age world. Thutmose III, you know, really publicizes his feats on the battlefield and
46:50really cashes in on this military image. He does boast about how far his military reaches,
46:59and this is part of portraying yourself as a good New Kingdom pharaoh. The dynasty really started with
47:07that military reconquest of Lower Egypt with the so-called expulsion of the Hyksos. And so New Kingdom
47:14kings really do fall in line with that. Thutmose III is in some ways the most bombastic of those kings.
47:26But by 1390 BCE, it was time for a new generation of pharaohs.
47:33Amenhotep III, who is called Amenhotep the Magnificent, or the Glorious Sun, becomes king as a child,
47:41probably about 11 years old. And you can imagine an 11-year-old who is pretty smart, being given
47:47pretty much unlimited power. While Amenhotep III's grandfather, Thutmose III, was a great conqueror,
47:55the young pharaoh dedicated his life to building.
48:01He adds an awful lot to Karnak. You have to add things to Karnak. But he also builds
48:06the biggest mortuary temple ever built, and probably one of the biggest religious establishments
48:13ever built, all at one time, anywhere. And it's a brilliant idea. It's a temple that's right on the
48:21edge of the cultivation, so that when the Nile floods, the flood waters will pour into the building
48:28and renew the king and the gods inside. Sitting at the front of this temple are two unbelievably big
48:37statues that we call the Colossae of Memnon. Each one was originally a single block of quartzite,
48:44which is an incredibly hard stone and doesn't come from anywhere near there.
48:51Amenhotep III ties his rule closely to the gods.
48:55Most notable of all is his favorite, the sun god Ra.
49:00So Amenhotep III, when he rises to power, we find him moving the office of pharaoh and his own
49:07authority closer this time to a different god. It's the god Ra. In other words, he's moving away,
49:15he's distancing his office from Amun. Now, why is this interesting and significant? Well,
49:22I think what it tells us to begin with is that he's probably concerned about the power of the priests
49:29of the temple of Amun in Thebes, that they have become very wealthy by this time through their long
49:35alliance with the pharaohs, that they are very powerful in influential society like other temple
49:41complexes and other priestly groups. So here he's clearly trying to align himself instead with a
49:51very different group of priests and a god that allows him to build a different power base for his authority.
50:00Among Amenhotep Magnificent's theological explorations was this question of what is the
50:09relationship of the king and the gods? What is the relationship of the king and the sun god? He
50:15calls himself the dazzling sun and he revives an older version of the sun. So rather than talking all
50:23the time about Ra, that hawk-headed form of the sun, he talks about the Aten and the Aten is
50:30an almost
50:31abstract idea of god. Amenhotep III declared himself a god and celebrated himself as a form of the solar
50:40deity, the Aten. I think Amenhotep is signaling that he has been chosen. His authority is now grounded in
50:51the very sort of blood and sand and air of Egypt. But the age of this living god would be
51:00relatively
51:01short-lived. At around the 38th year of Amenhotep III's reign, he dies of unknown causes, still only in
51:09his late 40s. Amenhotep III's spiritual revolution is just a taste of things to come for Egypt and the
51:17pharaohs. As his young son Amenhotep IV takes the throne, no one in Egypt would have dreamed of the
51:25revolution that is about to sweep the country. A revolution that will challenge every institution
51:31in Egypt, especially that of the pharaoh. A revolution that will rock Egypt to the core of the nation's soul.
51:59is
51:59is
51:59you
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