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Ramses II was the greatest pharaoh of ancient Egypt; he reigned for more than six decades and built a myriad of monuments throughout the country, each more imposing than the last. But the real jewel of this builder pharaoh was his mythical capital: Pi-Ramses. Rediscovered at the end of the 20th century in the Nile Delta, after three millennia of oblivion, this city has been excavated every year by archaeologists and reveals new secrets. In 2022, for the first time, a team of archaeologists led by Professor Henning Franzmeier undertook excavations in the very palace of Ramses II.
Director: Laurent Portes
Director: Laurent Portes
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00:05Abu Simbel
00:06Abu Simbel, the most breathtaking temple of ancient Egypt.
00:13A colossal monument, shaped from stone to honor the man who ordered its construction.
00:20Ramses II, also known as Ramses the Great, his image carved into the temple's entrance.
00:30Ramses II is ancient Egypt's most well-known pharaoh.
00:36Even his face seems familiar, thanks to his astonishingly well-preserved mummy.
00:42In addition to Abu Simbel, Egypt has Ramses to thank for dozens of temples and hundreds of statues.
00:50And he left his mark at Karnak, where his memorial temple was described in antiquity as the most majestic of
00:59all.
01:01But it was said that according to the ancient texts, the most magnificent achievement of this builder and pharaoh was
01:07his capital, Pyramsy.
01:13A forgotten city whose splendor can only be imagined through the words of ancient texts.
01:21There stood extravagant temples and palaces, testaments to the power of a monarch.
01:27The walls of his monuments documented his conquests, but his legacy is far greater.
01:34The exact location of this city remained unknown until the 20th century.
01:40And today, thousands of years after its peak, the remains of ancient Pyramsy are being meticulously excavated by archaeologists who
01:50are gradually revealing the secrets of this legendary lost city.
02:04Cantir is a farming village located in the Nile Delta, about three hours' drive northeast of Cairo.
02:10It is a long way from the more well-known archaeological sites at Giza or the Valley of the Kings,
02:16which are located further south.
02:18Here, there are no ruins of temples, no monuments, only a mix of open fields and assorted residential areas.
02:31And yet, it is here that archaeologists are unearthing the remains of Pyramsy.
02:44German professor Henning Franzmeier leads this international team.
02:54Henning first visited this site in 2005 while he was still a student.
02:59He has participated in each of the excavation campaigns since.
03:08As a matter of fact, when we excavated here five years ago, with a very small excavation on the other
03:14side of this field, we found also sand like this.
03:18But we did not really understand what it was.
03:21Just by excavating now here, we really know what is it.
03:25It's actually a wall, or what is left of it, it's just a foundation trench.
03:33Foundations, which are anything but ordinary.
03:36Their width and depth are surprisingly large, suggesting the existence of a significant building.
03:43A temple, perhaps, or even a palace.
03:48It's a very huge wall, it's more than two and a half meters wide.
03:52And this already shows that it's a huge building.
03:55And it's the first such huge and monumental building that we ever excavated here in Kantir over the past 40
04:02years.
04:05Since the beginning of the 1980s, excavation campaigns have continued here one after another.
04:12Excavations which have revealed a multitude of objects that all link Kantir to the Pharaoh Ramses II.
04:22Most of the artifacts are kept here, a few kilometers from the site, in a secure warehouse, under the custody
04:30of the Egyptian police.
04:37Typically, no one is allowed to enter this space, not even archaeologists.
04:43But Henning Franzmeier has been granted special permission to make an inventory of some of the objects,
04:50which will later be exhibited in the Cairo Museum.
04:57Many of the objects were discovered before he began working on the site.
05:02So this will be his first opportunity to see them up close.
05:13It's some of the best finds of the last 40 years.
05:22This is also a very special kind of sparrow arrowhead.
05:33Remarkably preserved pieces of weaponry, pottery, as well as bas-reliefs and sculptures.
05:40The objects unearthed at Kantir over the decades are exceptional in their variety.
05:45They are irreplaceable and priceless.
05:58This is a goddess in the shape of a snake with a human hand.
06:03And it might have been part of a little shrine or something like that.
06:09For me, it's a bit like Christmas.
06:11Opening presents, it's such wonderful objects.
06:15This is objects that I know myself often from publications.
06:22Ramses is here on the left and that is the god Amun.
06:25So here we have a typical stela of a king smiting an enemy.
06:31Actually, every Egyptian king is shown like this, holding by his hand some enemy.
06:39So it's not depicting something that actually happened,
06:43but something that the king has to do as part of his job.
06:49All of the objects unearthed by archaeologists in Egypt
06:53are the property of the Egyptian state, and they are preserved on site.
06:57But this was not always the case.
07:01In the 19th century, and during the first decades of the 20th,
07:06archaeological treasures belonged to those who discovered them.
07:09They were then, often, sold to the highest bidder.
07:17This is how the Romer and Peliseus Museum in Hildesheim, northern Germany,
07:23was able to build up a collection of Egyptian antiquities,
07:27many of which came from Kantir,
07:29and almost all of which are directly related to Ramses II.
07:37The Hildesheim Museum is now partly financing the excavations at Pyramsi.
07:44Among the most striking pieces exhibited here
07:48is this series of steles honoring the great pharaoh.
07:57A particular thing about the steles is that they all show Ramses II.
08:03And indeed, on the steles we found often persons with this particular kind of skirt,
08:09very much related to military persons.
08:12And the king himself in this statue is somehow referring to a warrior aspect somehow,
08:20because he was named Monttaoui.
08:24So what is meant here is the god Mont.
08:27He is a warrior god.
08:29And so therefore, the statues he made of himself connected to this warrior god,
08:36to a mighty god who is protecting Egypt,
08:39but also is an aggressive god who frightens the enemies.
08:46A great warlord crushing his enemies and terrorizing his rivals.
08:52This is how Ramses II is most often represented.
08:56The walls of the temples built during his reign
08:58are adorned with accounts of his military exploits.
09:02But this is a misleading portrayal.
09:06Ramses was much more than the battle-hardened king that his legend describes.
09:11He was an accomplished monarch,
09:14as benevolent in peace as he was formidable in battle.
09:20I think Ramses was a very pragmatic type.
09:23And he was definitely very smart in acting.
09:28He stayed king for 67 years.
09:32And he must have been a good politician in a certain kind of way.
09:37Ramses II died at the age of 92, probably in 1213 BCE.
09:43It was the longest reign in Egyptian history.
09:46The longest, and in the minds of the ancient Egyptians, the most prosperous.
09:52During his 67-year reign, Egypt enjoyed 46 years of peace.
09:58Under Ramses II, there was no debating Egypt's power.
10:04And the most obvious manifestation of this power was its capital,
10:10Pai Ramsey.
10:15When arriving in Egypt from the east or the north,
10:19Pai Ramsey was the first big city one would encounter.
10:27There were tracts of housing,
10:31surrounding numerous temples dedicated to the gods
10:34and colossal statues of the pharaoh.
10:37After just maybe one day of going into the river,
10:41you already arrive at what you would have thought is Egypt.
10:44Big monumental buildings.
10:46You would immediately arrive in the center of power.
10:48The first thing that a foreigner sees when coming into Egypt from the north,
10:53is the new capital.
10:57The city was built between two branches of the Nile,
11:01intersected by canals that irrigated its many terraced gardens.
11:04And in the middle, the palace of Ramses II.
11:09And yet, this spectacular city, built in just 15 years,
11:15was occupied for less than two centuries.
11:18And no traces of its former grandeur can be found on the Earth's surface today.
11:31Every year, Henning Franzmeier and his team return to Cantir,
11:35and plot by plot, attempt to uncover the remains of this lost city.
11:42This year, it was this section of land that they chose to excavate.
11:48A few hundred square meters, covering the foundations of a building that must have been particularly impressive.
12:05What we have here, in fact, is the foundation trench of the walls of this building.
12:12It's about two and a half meters wide, and between 60 and 80 centimeters deep,
12:17filled with kind of pure sand.
12:21This means you have at least something like 80 or 90 cubic meters of sand.
12:25They just put in the foundation trenches of the wall here.
12:30So in total, they had like six, eight modern trucks of sand,
12:35which even though it doesn't look that impressive anymore nowadays,
12:38you will be able to understand what kind of effort they took.
12:46And they must have transported it from at least a little bit of distance,
12:51because directly here we don't have sand.
12:55At first sight, it's hard to imagine what kind of building could have required such a large quantity of sand,
13:02and such large foundations.
13:05But in the keen eyes of the archaeologists, these trenches already provide some clues.
13:15Seen from above, the sand-filled trenches seem to trace the outline of a room,
13:20in which the foundations of six enormous columns can be seen.
13:25On one side of the room, a smaller room with only four columns can be seen.
13:32At the end of the first room, other columns seem to form two rows which extend beyond the excavation site.
13:44Mathieu Götz is the team's architect.
13:47For him, there is little doubt that these are the remains of a pharaoh's palace.
13:53So, the throne room is located here.
13:56And here we have a square which is a little clearer than the alentours.
14:00So, we think that it was perhaps the entrance to the throne room with the ramp up to the throne
14:03room.
14:04We're going to creuse deeper.
14:05Because, for example, in this point, we don't even know what's going on.
14:09We're going to see the order of the palace, and we hope to find the walls of the palace,
14:15and we're going to be placed in a ritual way.
14:20And that would allow us to make exact dates.
14:26What Matthew is hoping to find in the foundations of the palace is something like this.
14:32A brick, bearing the signature and royal titles of Ramses II,
14:37like this one discovered at Cantier and preserved in the Hildesheim Museum.
14:42It's made from faience.
14:45So, that means that this was never used as a real brick in a wall.
14:52The purpose of this model, bricks, potentially was that they were used in the foundation ritual,
14:59where the king was somehow performing himself as a bider.
15:03And we have scenes where the king was depicted himself performing foundation rituals.
15:09And we assume that the Ramesite kings did so as well.
15:19The Ramesite kings of Egypt
15:20Conducting excavations in the Nile Delta is always very challenging.
15:25More than half of the population of Egypt lives in this region,
15:29in an area that represents barely 3% of the country's territory.
15:35Urban development is rampant,
15:38and often conceals ancient remains hidden in the earth.
15:48Surrounding the settlements, farmers grow wheat or rice according to the season.
15:55This agricultural production is vital for a country that is 96% desert,
16:00and needs to feed 100 million inhabitants.
16:05Each year, the archaeologists have to negotiate with the farmers,
16:09and rent the plots they intend to excavate.
16:13And each year, they have to change plots.
16:16At the beginning of the 20th century, there was more stratigraphy on top.
16:21But in order to create agricultural land, they took away a lot of stratigraphy here.
16:27They flattened everything.
16:29And this means that, on the one hand, later strata are completely lost.
16:33On the other hand, we don't have to take away 3,000 years of history.
16:37It's, in a way, a pity, but on the other hand, without too much effort,
16:42we are already excavating the Ramesside period.
16:50One might think that this expansion of agricultural land throughout the 20th century
16:55is the reason why no visible traces of why Ramesses' splendor remain.
17:01Yet, this is not the case.
17:03It was the ancient Egyptians themselves who, less than two centuries
17:08after the end of the reign of Ramesses II, destroyed the city.
17:19To understand this, we must travel to San el-Hagar,
17:2420 kilometers north of Cantir, to Tannis,
17:28one of the Nile Delta's most beautiful archaeological sites.
17:38Tannis was the capital of the pharaohs of the 21st and 22nd dynasties,
17:43approximately two centuries after the death of Ramesses II.
17:46However, for decades, Egyptologists thought that Tannis was Pyramsy.
17:56This archaeological misunderstanding lasted until the middle of the 20th century.
18:04Today, a French team, led by Francois Leclerc, is excavating the remains of Tannis.
18:30His cartouche is engraved in stone.
18:35His silhouette adorned several bas-reliefs.
18:41And many monumental statues dedicated to him have been discovered here.
18:49More than enough to mislead the first Egyptologists who came to work here.
18:56Before the reference of the hieroglyphs, we already had a certain number of ideas
19:00on the position of ancient localities.
19:03For Tannis, for example, we know that Tannis is at San el-Hagar
19:09since the beginning of the 18th century.
19:33The Bible mentions the name of Pyramsy several times, notably in Exodus, but it never specifies its location.
19:45The region of Tannis is also mentioned in the Bible and associated with the Exodus.
19:53For a long time, this ambiguity contributed to the confusion between the two ancient cities.
19:59Then, when several inscriptions mentioning Ramses II were discovered in Tannis in the 19th century,
20:06the question seemed to be settled.
20:09Tannis and Pyramsy were one and the same.
20:13If the archaic methods had been pushed enough,
20:16if we had given more importance to the small builders,
20:20to the ceramics, to the small objects,
20:22we would have seen that nothing at Tannis
20:27was dated before the beginning of the 1st millennium, before Jesus Christ.
20:31And so that all these blocks, all these obelisks,
20:36and all these great monuments that carry the inscriptions of Ramses II
20:39were found there, because they were transported
20:42to be used as construction materials.
20:47From a 21st century perspective,
20:50the idea of dismantling ancient monuments to build new ones may seem sacrilegious,
20:55but in ancient times, it was a common practice.
21:03It was not original in the 18th century,
21:05it was not original in Egypt,
21:07and in particular in the Delta,
21:10where all the careers are very far,
21:12so at the other end of the country.
21:13Of course, rather than spending colossal sums
21:17for new construction materials,
21:20the obelisks, the statues, the blocks,
21:24if there was a possibility of dismantling monuments
21:26to abandon, in greater proximity,
21:30that's what we had to do.
21:33One of the most striking examples at Tannis is found here,
21:37on the remains of a temple gate,
21:39erected by Pharaoh Chichong III,
21:42four centuries after the death of Ramses II.
21:48This granite block bears the mark of Pharaoh Cheox,
21:51who reigned in the 26th century,
21:541400 years before Ramses.
21:57This quartzite block is signed by Teti,
22:00who reigned 1000 years before Ramses II.
22:05These three granite blocks are marked with the cartouches of Ramses II.
22:11As for this limestone block,
22:13it is signed Chichong I,
22:15who reigned three centuries after Ramses II.
22:20Most of these blocks were removed from Pyramsey.
22:25When you dismantle a monument,
22:27when you use the blocks in a new construction,
22:29there are a number of faces who are not visible.
22:31Those who will be visible,
22:33they can be re-gratées and re-décorées
22:36with the name of the king,
22:39but the other faces of these blocks are not visible,
22:43so we don't need to gratter.
22:45And sometimes,
22:45we have three or four Etats on a single block,
22:49because the block has been used several times.
22:54In the middle of the 20th century,
22:56archaeologists realized that Ramses' successors
23:00had built the city of Tannis
23:02by dismantling his capital stone by stone.
23:05This reopened the mystery.
23:08Where was the original site of Pyramsey?
23:20Regine Schultz is director of the Hildeschein Museum.
23:24She is also an Egyptologist,
23:26and is responsible for monitoring the excavations at Pyramsey.
23:31We had no idea where this place originally would be.
23:35There was no clear understanding where originally this city,
23:40which was mentioned in several texts.
23:43We have a very clear understanding that this must have been a big area
23:47where this city was located.
23:50As early as the 1930s,
23:53Egyptian archaeologists were suggesting that Kantir
23:56was the most likely location of Ramses' capital.
23:59But it was not until the 1970s,
24:01with the systematic excavations carried out by the German archaeologist Edgar Pusch,
24:07that the site of Kantir was definitively identified as Pyramsey.
24:12The idea was to find out how big this area might be.
24:17And he talked to Helmut Becker,
24:18who was a specialist for magnetic analysis.
24:21And he was the first one who really worked in Egypt with this methodology.
24:27And the area they looked was very big, altogether two square kilometers.
24:33These magnometric analyses,
24:35derived from the most advanced medical imaging technologies of the time,
24:40first appeared on excavation sites in the 1990s.
24:44They allow archaeologists to map the subsoil of the areas they wish to excavate.
24:50To do this, the device measures minute variations in the magnetic field at ground level.
24:58These variations are caused by the presence of materials buried within the natural soil.
25:05The remains of walls, for example, or sand-filled foundation trenches.
25:12Looking at the results of the geometric analysis, Edgar Pusch tried to think a little bit about how big the
25:18city could have been,
25:19and most probably 10 to 12 square kilometers.
25:24It's an unbelievable, huge ancient city.
25:27The biggest one which we know so far from this time period.
25:31Not only in Egypt, in the Mediterranean.
25:35The dimensions of the structures revealed by magnetometry left no room for debate.
25:41This colossal city had to be Pyramsy.
25:46Three decades later, Henning Franzmeier and his team are still working from this original map.
25:52It helped them locate what they believe to be Ramses II's palace, where they are currently carrying out their excavation
26:00campaign.
26:01But we're only in this square here, because this is the limit of the next field.
26:06You can see it here.
26:07You can see it here, very weak.
26:10You have to see if you can see any of the light structures that you see with these structures in
26:16connection,
26:17which we can excavate there now.
26:18Yes, it fits very well.
26:24According to the data from the magnetometer,
26:26the city of Pyramsy was enormous for its time.
26:31It is therefore likely that Ramses had multiple palaces there,
26:36each serving a different purpose.
26:39What kind of role could the palace on which Henning and his team are currently working have played?
26:45Until to now, this is a little bit speculation.
26:49It's a very, very huge palace, and therefore it's a little unusual.
26:54It is one of the biggest palaces we know from Egypt.
26:59On the other side, if you are looking how big the city was,
27:02there's no doubt about that there had been other palaces,
27:06and also there must have been some temples.
27:10So this means what we have in the moment are different areas.
27:14We know something about the living areas, we know something about the production areas,
27:19and now the idea was really to look to a very different area.
27:26To better understand the nature of the building they are excavating,
27:30the archaeologists meticulously catalog everything they find on the site.
27:37A tiny fragment of pottery could be a decisive clue,
27:41depending on the context in which it was found.
27:46Where exactly was it discovered?
27:48At what depth?
27:50What else is nearby?
27:55Of course, as one can see very well here, archaeology destroys.
28:01And this ditch is now completely gone, and the filling is completely gone.
28:07For that it's so important that we document it very well,
28:11because otherwise all information would be lost,
28:15and it's something that is a big difference to science.
28:18You cannot recreate what we find here.
28:23So excavating without proper documentation is something that cannot be done.
28:32Each section of the site is carefully photographed, drawn and mapped as the excavations proceed.
28:47Each discovery is geolocated using what's called a total station.
28:52A surveyor's tool, accurate to the nearest centimeter.
28:58One nine one and a half.
29:00Even the slightest fragments of pottery are thoroughly described, measured and referenced.
29:06This work must be carried out as close to the field as possible, so that no information is lost.
29:12Like this we can put this fine slip in a special bag with the pottery, with the find,
29:20so we will also, after a very long time, still know where it comes from.
29:23We don't have the need to always keep up with data.
29:27Even if we are not here for 20 years, we will still be able to identify what we have.
29:36But in addition to this old-fashioned work, the archaeologists also rely on modern techniques
29:42to create the most complete record possible.
29:48And one technique that has emerged over the last decade has completely revolutionized the work of archaeologists.
29:58Photogrammetry.
29:58Ok, ok, ok.
30:00Ok, ok.
30:00Ok, ok.
30:00Ok, ok.
30:02Ok.
30:02Ok, ok.
30:11So, I take more pictures of the same object and see them all the way.
30:15and then I can do 3D from photos.
30:49Now you just have to make sure you don't forget anything.
30:51That's why it's good to have it in a certain rhythm and a certain way to do it.
30:56Now, especially around the corners, you have to go back and forward again and then,
30:59that's me. But now it's done.
31:06Frank Stremke is the digitalization specialist on the team.
31:12He is responsible for modeling the photogrammetric images.
31:24It's noon.
31:26The whole team is about to go to the Dig House,
31:29a home base rented by Henning in the center of Kantir.
31:35This is where the archaeologists gather to work, sleep and have their meals.
31:48Working through his lunch break, Frank Stremke begins to assemble the photos taken the day before.
31:56The most important thing is that you move the camera in between shots.
31:59You cannot just stay like this because then there is no baseline between photographs
32:04which you need to triangulate the distance to the object.
32:10To produce this image, for example, 448 photos were taken.
32:16The software analyzes them and identifies all the elements that are common to several photos.
32:22Using a trigonometric formula, it then stitches them together.
32:27In this case, it detected 10 million overlapping points.
32:35And this one is used to calculate the camera positions.
32:38So the blue areas here, or the blue patches, is where the camera was positioned.
32:44And in the next step, it reverses the calculation
32:48and calculates outside world points based on the camera position.
32:53So it's a bit of a circle, but it's magic, but it works.
32:58Over the last 10 years or so, it has really changed archaeology.
33:04Thanks to the photogrammetric modeling, archaeologists can now view all the physical data from the field on a computer screen.
33:17They can observe a wall, an object or a trench from angles that would be difficult to achieve in real
33:24life.
33:25With a few clicks, they can make every possible measurement with pinpoint accuracy.
33:32The computer has finished the photogrammetry of one of the foundation walls of the palace.
33:37But the column was placed on the top.
33:41The base of the column was here.
33:44And all this hole was filled with sable.
33:46And we removed the sable.
33:48We measured it.
33:49We have almost a meter of sable.
33:52And we don't know why.
33:54We think it could be a technical reason.
33:57It's easier for all the columns when there's sable.
34:03It's easier to take the earth, increase, add, and remove.
34:09It's easier with sable.
34:11But it doesn't explain why there's a meter of sable.
34:13It could be a lot less.
34:16We don't know.
34:17We don't know.
34:20Material evidence such as the base of a column, which could have helped the archaeologists, is missing from the excavation
34:27site.
34:28But on the basis of what has been discovered in other palaces in Egypt, Henning Fransmeyer offers a hypothesis.
34:35Yeah.
34:37The idea is that we have such big walls, such large walls, because the rooms inside the building might have
34:46been vaulted.
34:47It was on the one hand a high building, a really tall building, where the room inside must have reached
34:55six, seven meters of height.
34:56But also, there might have been vaults as a ceiling.
35:02If Henning's hypothesis is correct, the throne room of the palace must have looked like this.
35:08Above the six sand-filled foundation holes, domed column bases, like this.
35:15Above them, the columns themselves, carved in stone and topped with a rounded capital.
35:21The whole thing was probably seven meters high.
35:28The monumental columns may have resembled this one, found in Tannis, one which perhaps may have come from the palace
35:36itself.
35:40Above the columns, decorated with painted motifs, a triple vault.
35:46According to Henning, the massive pressure exerted by this vault and the height of the building, justify the thickness of
35:53the 2.5 meter walls.
35:58Walls decorated with bas-reliefs, featuring the king and the gods, like these, also from Tannis.
36:13Imagine the feeling of entering this imposing throne room, and walking between these columns toward the king.
36:33The power of Ramses, embodied by this dramatic architecture, overwhelmed everyone he received.
36:49Everything confirms what the ancient texts describe.
36:53It was here that Ramses II chose to establish the central hub of his rule.
37:07But why choose such an unconventional location, compared to Thebes, the ancient capital?
37:13And why choose a place so far from Upper Egypt and its architectural treasures?
37:22Some answers have been provided since the initial excavations carried out by Edgar Pusch at Cantier.
37:30Evidence of an extensive weapons manufacturing industry.
37:34What was here so unusual is something Edgar Pusch defined as assembly line workshops.
37:40This means it's not one small workshop besides the other, it's really a huge production area planned as a unit.
37:51And that showed us also that it was very essential to have a huge production for the army,
37:58really to protect the influence of the Ramessite emperors to this area.
38:06252, this is here.
38:09This hypothesis is confirmed by a number of artifacts discovered by archaeologists in the remains of these workshops.
38:17What we have here is objects, for instance relating to workshops where arms were produced.
38:24And so what we can see is the metal weapons that are amongst the best that were found in Egypt.
38:33Here we have a kind of harpoon, really a beautiful piece, and an arrowhead, a kind of winged arrowhead made
38:44of bronze.
38:45And this is really high-tech of the late Bronze Age.
38:49At Pyramese, we in fact have evidence now that not for the troops themselves,
38:57but for the productions of weapons that these troops might have used.
39:04Another relic is even more significant, a remnant from an exceptional military building.
39:10So this is a fragment of a door lintel from the royal stables.
39:15So what we see here is a horse and the names of Ramesses II.
39:25Ramessu and Mary, and there's something missing, but it's the god Amun.
39:32So it's Ramesses' beloved of Amun.
39:35Over every box in the stables, boxes of six horses, and there were dozens of these,
39:41over every box there was a door lintel like this, with a horse kind of adoring the names of the
39:51king of Ramesses.
39:55Once again, magnetometry was used to discover these stables.
39:59And it took Edgar Poosch 12 years to uncover them.
40:04Nothing like this had been discovered before in Egypt and also in other places,
40:09so everyone was very excited.
40:12And this was also one of the reasons why then immediately the idea came up to start excavation in this
40:18place.
40:21These stables, the largest ever discovered in Egypt, covered an area of 14,000 square meters.
40:28They were divided into five rows of ten stalls.
40:32Each row ended with a 250 square meter room, which was used by the stablemen.
40:39The ceiling of this room was supported by ten columns, modeled after palm trees.
40:47The stables were accessed through an impressive entrance, supported by four columns,
40:52decorated with the cartouche of Ramses II, and bas-reliefs representing the pharaoh conquering his enemies.
41:05Each stall could hold six horses.
41:08Their urine was collected and used to tan leather.
41:14At the back of the stalls, a rough sleeping area could accommodate a stable hand.
41:19When full, these stables could house up to 460 horses.
41:39When Edgar Pusch excavated this site, he discovered several objects related to the horses,
41:45such as this bronze bridle, incredibly well preserved after 3,000 years underground.
41:55As well as these parts carved in stone.
41:59Ornaments, decorating the war chariots pulled by the horses of Ramses II.
42:07We have not found full chariots, but what we found, a lot of parts of the chariot.
42:14Parts which were made on one side, of course, from stone, but also from other materials.
42:20And by looking for all this material, we really could find out that they belong to a huge production of
42:27chariot trees,
42:28and we also could reconstruct them.
42:30And this was also very interesting, because they look a little bit different.
42:35War chariots were the weapons of choice for the pharaoh's shock troops.
42:40It was a fearsome weapon designed for battle.
42:43But to battle whom?
42:45In this case, the geographical location by Ramsey provides some clues.
42:53Besides the Egyptian Empire, there was a second huge empire, the Empire of the Hightight.
42:59There were opponents, of course, and both interested in the eastern Mediterranean area, particularly in the Near East.
43:07They wanted to have influence to this area, not only for trade, but also for their natural resources.
43:14And therefore, there was a strong competition, and this was really dangerous.
43:21When Ramsey II ascended the throne of Egypt, the Hittite Empire already controlled the territories of present-day Syria and
43:29Lebanon.
43:30If they succeeded in conquering Palestine, Egypt would soon be under their control as well.
43:40And I think this is one of the main reasons why it became so important to have a capital which
43:46is more near to this area.
43:49A capital in the eastern delta of Egypt.
43:51A place where any kind of arms, any kind of, let's say, the chariots, the horses, are available as quick
44:01as possible if there is any kind of danger from the Hightights to influence this area in a way the
44:10Egyptians don't like.
44:15We now know why Ramsey II chose to build his capital so far away from the traditional centers of Pharaonic
44:23power.
44:25He wanted to block the threatening advance of the Hittite Empire.
44:30But archaeologists are only just beginning to unravel the mysteries of Ramsey's forgotten city.
44:38Was it only a garrison town?
44:41And if so, why was it so large?
44:45Why did Ramsey's build a palace there?
44:49In Kantir, Henning Franzmeier's team continues to dig in search of answers.
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