- 1 day ago
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00Viewers like you make this program possible.
00:03Support your local PBS station.
00:11In Egypt, a team of archaeologists has made an extraordinary discovery.
00:17I never thought that anything like this would be discovered.
00:21A cemetery hidden for millennia.
00:24You can see a better chamber.
00:26No one knew of its existence.
00:28We are in front of a sealed tomb.
00:32How many tombs will they find?
00:35This is really exciting.
00:37What lies within?
00:39We are sure that this tomb is an intact tomb.
00:43Now from the Egyptian desert, incredible artifacts emerge.
00:48Beautiful. This is the first time I see something like this.
00:52Who was buried here?
00:54These individuals were wealthy.
00:56Now, these lost tombs are revealing a unique period in Egyptian history.
01:02When kings from the south conquered and ruled Egypt.
01:07And Egyptian women had more power and prestige than ever before.
01:11The god's wife of Amun was really the female substitute of the king.
01:18The god's wife of Amun was as important as a medieval pope.
01:23Who were these outsiders who ruled Egypt?
01:26And how did they help women rise to such heights?
01:34Egypt's tombs of Amun.
01:36Egypt's tombs of Amun.
01:36Right now on NOVA.
01:57Ancient Egypt, a civilization that lasted for more than 3,000 years.
02:03From towering pyramids to palatial rock cut tombs.
02:10From sprawling temples to soaring obelisks.
02:14Its long history is meticulously recorded on the walls of Egyptian temples.
02:20Colossal statues and the artifacts the Egyptians buried in their tombs.
02:27Leading the Egyptian people was a succession of about 300 rulers.
02:32Divided into 31 dynasties lasting from around 3200 to 300 BCE.
02:40These were the pharaohs who were both heads of state as well as divine intermediaries between the people and their
02:48gods.
02:53Most of the history of ancient Egypt unfolds over three major periods of unity and prosperity.
03:02The Old Kingdom, the era of the pyramids.
03:05The Middle Kingdom, a classical age when literature and the arts flourished.
03:11And the New Kingdom, when Egypt extended its control beyond its borders and became an empire.
03:19As well as three periods of instability in between, called the first, second and third intermediate periods.
03:28The New Kingdom is probably the best known period in ancient Egypt because we have all those temples.
03:34We have huge amounts of royal stiles, texts and inscriptions.
03:42Egypt was completely connected with the Mediterranean, with the Near East, with the South.
03:48It's really the first evidence for globalization in our history.
03:55People were living together, people were copying things, were creating something new.
04:03The New Kingdom is considered Egypt's golden age, a time of wealth, prosperity and power.
04:12Pharaohs like Ramses II and Hapshet-Sut build magnificent temples and incredible treasures, like the ones found in the tomb
04:22of Tutankhamun are produced.
04:23But after nearly 500 years of splendor, things start to change.
04:31There were internal political problems, economic problems, periods of hunger, civil wars.
04:40During this time of declining prosperity, the state collapses, allowing self-proclaimed regional rulers to grab power and divide the
04:50country.
04:51After the fall of the New Kingdom, Egypt fell into a dark, dark, dark age of political fragmentation.
04:59It's known as the Third Intermediate Period.
05:02Starting in 1069 BCE, the Third Intermediate Period lasts for more than 300 years.
05:10The archaeological record from this period of Egyptian history is fragmented.
05:17The story of the people who lived during these times is largely unknown.
05:24But now, new information is being uncovered 400 miles south of Cairo, in an excavation happening in Egypt's richest archaeological
05:34area, Luxor.
05:37The modern city of Luxor was the ancient Thebes, and for centuries it was the religious capital of Egypt.
05:47Some of the most famous ancient sites are here.
05:51Temples to the most important gods on the east bank of the Nile.
05:56The funerary temples of the pharaohs and the vast necropolis, or city of the dead, to the west.
06:02The popular belief is we know already everything. We have deciphered the hieroglyphs, we have so many temples and tombs.
06:10We know what happened.
06:12This is actually not the case, and every single archaeological dig can teach you a lot.
06:23In September 2020, a team of Egyptian archaeologists, led by Zahi Hawass, started excavating a new site there, on the
06:32west bank of the Nile, and discovered a long lost city.
06:37We discovered one house, and this house led us to this major, important discovery.
06:45The lost golden city.
06:50Built by Tutankhamun's grandfather, Amenhotep III, in the 14th century BCE, the lost city is a sprawling maze of serpentine
07:00walls, houses, workshops, and administration buildings.
07:04For centuries, no one knew of its existence.
07:10The lost city is built on prime ancient real estate, in the area known as Medinet Habu, on the west
07:17bank of the ancient city of Thieves.
07:21It took the archaeologists nearly two years to fully excavate it.
07:26When we found the lost golden city, I really wanted to extend the area in the north.
07:33This is known in the map as a triangle.
07:37This area is empty. No one really ever excavated it.
07:43For decades, it's been just a patch of desert next to the main tourist route.
07:49Every morning, dozens of buses whizzed past on their way to the famous sites.
07:56Hundreds of tourists take to the sky on hot air balloons.
08:01It would seem an unlikely place for a big discovery.
08:12In September 2022, two years after the lost city was discovered, the team starts excavating the triangle.
08:22As soon as the archaeologists remove the first layer of sand, they uncover mud bricks.
08:29Evidence that there might be more to be found.
08:34Zahi decides to concentrate the team's efforts in this area.
08:40Within days, they uncover a row of large pottery vessels.
08:46Remarkably, they are still sealed.
08:51As they open one, they are about to find something very telling.
08:55A clear indication of what this site once was.
08:59Oh!
09:02What's this?
09:03It's kind of plants.
09:05The plants appear to have been burned.
09:09What's this?
09:10Linen.
09:12And we will take all the filling outside to be sure what's behind this.
09:19Oh!
09:20Broken pottery.
09:22This is a ritual.
09:25The contents of the pots all relate to a funerary ritual.
09:30During mummification, the embalming workshops produce leftovers that was regarded as something important.
09:38They were not just put somewhere as trash, but they were arranged in deposits.
09:42Sometimes they deposited linen, organic remains, botanical remains.
09:48Very often we find broken pots inside the vessels.
09:52And this is what, in general, we call embalming cache.
09:55An embalming cache is the collection of the precious leftovers of materials used during the mummification process.
10:04Finding a cache of embalming material tells you immediately that you have found something associated with a cemetery.
10:11And you should probably look for a tomb nearby.
10:15This is a momentous find.
10:19Is the team on the verge of a new important discovery?
10:25Excited, they split into groups.
10:28Each tackling a different corner of the triangle.
10:33Soon they uncover evidence of several tombs.
10:37The archaeologists are standing on a previously unknown burial ground.
10:42It's not every day that you find a brand new cemetery.
10:48So this is really exciting.
10:54When was this cemetery built?
10:56And who was buried here?
10:59Working this big, large cemetery, it's a challenge.
11:04It needs to be excavated completely to understand the date.
11:09The excavation will give us more information about the people who are buried in this large cemetery.
11:18The burials are located on the West Bank because in the Egyptian concept of the netherworld, the entrance to the
11:26netherworld is on the west.
11:28The sun rises in the east and sets in the west, and this is what a human life should repeat.
11:38The ancient Egyptians invested vast amounts of wealth and energy preparing for life after death.
11:46The belief of the afterlife built Egypt.
11:53That belief meant the Egyptians to build pyramids, tombs, and temples.
12:00They believed that life continued after death, and the tomb was considered the house for eternity.
12:07For those who could afford it, the mummified body would have laid to rest inside beautifully decorated tombs.
12:16There's the popular belief that the ancient Egyptians were obsessed by death, and that they were only caring about life
12:23in the netherworld.
12:24This is, of course, definitely not the case.
12:27The Egyptians were people like us, so they wanted to live.
12:32Mortuary rituals is actually something that helps the living to overcome their sorrow, their grief.
12:43What you find in tombs tells you so much about society and about the living.
12:54Tombs are time capsules that can preserve information about ancient people for millennia.
13:02We can gain a lot of knowledge and information about burials, and that's why the cemetery needs more excavation.
13:11The tombs in the triangle are all different.
13:14Some have a shaft dug straight into the ground.
13:17And at the bottom, they open up to the burial chamber.
13:23Some have grand entrances complete with a staircase and more than one room carved into the rock.
13:34Archaeology is dangerous for archaeologists.
13:41It's hard work.
13:45It's hard work.
13:48It's to live dangerously.
13:54But to live dangerously, it's fun also.
13:58It's amazing when you make a new important discovery.
14:05You completely forget dangerous.
14:10Archaeology is like a box of chocolate.
14:12What is this?
14:14You never know what you get.
14:18Looks like the birth of a necklace.
14:26Four months into the excavation, and the archaeologists haven't found any mummies yet.
14:32But intriguing artifacts emerge from the tombs.
14:36Here I found a metal eye used in wooden coffins.
14:41Wow.
14:42A gold ring with a carved carnelian.
14:46Amulets, believed to protect the deceased with their magical powers.
14:52And shabtis, images of the tomb owner, who the ancient Egyptians believed did all the manual labor in the netherworld.
15:05With only one month left before desert temperatures rise and work must stop,
15:11Site director Afifi Rohim starts working in tomb number six.
15:17One that he finds most promising.
15:20The cut in the mountain is very good.
15:23We have a staircase, and we have this corridor.
15:28Till now, most of the debris is still original debris.
15:36The total debris is still original debris.
15:37Yes, it is.
15:38The ramla, the ramla, the ramla, the ramla, is here.
15:39The ramla, the ramla, the ramla, is here in Baghdad.
15:39The ramla, the ramla, is here in Baghdad.
15:42The ramla, it is here in Baghdad.
15:43Yes.
15:44But does it not look at anything at all?
15:48No, not.
15:49Do you want any thing at all?
15:51The ramla.
15:54Most tombs discovered in Egypt have been looted in antiquity.
15:58If there are no objects mixed in the sand, it could mean two things.
16:04Either the tomb is unfinished, or no one has entered it since it was sealed thousands of years ago.
16:11There is no tomb that could be looted if in a shaft you have clean sand.
16:18This is tantalizing evidence that tomb number six might be intact.
16:26The workers remove bucket after bucket of sand.
16:37Then suddenly, the density of the sediment changes.
16:44He started to find a very compact layer. It looks like a mother root.
16:48And this means that all this layer was the original layer, which in the ancient time, they make it the
16:56feeling for the shaft.
16:58If it isn't, it will be really untouched.
17:03What drives archaeologists to endure the hot desert environment is the promise of revealing long-forgotten histories.
17:12And sometimes, the chance to come face to face with an ancient Egyptian.
17:21In tomb number six, skilled worker Baghdadi is getting closer to the bottom of the shaft.
17:29For archaeologist Ahmed El Nase, this tomb is puzzling.
17:34We are still confused because we have natural layers, the compact layer similar to the bedrock.
17:41And below, we have a sandy layer, which is blue.
17:44We will follow the bedrock to find the limit of the burial shaft.
17:53He found mud break, so I think we are in front of the block doorway.
17:58It's exciting news.
18:01There's a good chance the burial chamber has not been opened since it was originally sealed with mud brick thousands
18:08of years ago.
18:10Good news at the end of the day.
18:17The following day at the excavation site, it all looks like a normal morning.
18:27But just below the surface in tomb number six, the expectations are high.
18:35Afifi is checking the mud bricks that blocked the entrance to the burial chamber.
18:41The seal of the doorway is just directly under the mother rock.
18:47It means that it never opened before.
18:51This tomb was confusing for us.
18:54In the beginning, we thought there is nothing here.
18:59I was thinking to stop the work and leave the shaft.
19:03And Afifi is also concerned about the safety of the crew working in the tomb.
19:09The mother rock is not straight.
19:11So I tried to check if it is still an original site or just fall down.
19:19On closer inspection, Afifi notices that a couple of the mud bricks have collapsed under the weight of the rock
19:25above,
19:26leaving a small opening.
19:30Over time, the sand has seeped through.
19:35With great anticipation, Baghdadi starts removing the mud bricks.
19:42Once the passage is cleared, work inside the chamber begins.
19:47At first, it's just clean sand.
19:51But soon, artifacts emerge.
20:15The style of this tiny pot is nothing like any artifact the team has found before.
20:22Was it imported from a distant land?
20:26This is a very important discovery.
20:29The artifacts are now really unique.
20:32Very happy.
20:34Then Zahi comes face to face with a special object.
20:41This is the first time I see something like this.
20:47The lady is seated, having a gazelle on her hand and holding her son on the back.
20:56Can you hold this?
21:02This is another one.
21:05She's standing.
21:06And on her back, she's holding a child.
21:10This could be someone from outside Egypt.
21:12The statuettes confirm Zahi's hunch.
21:17The style of the artifacts is not traditionally Egyptian.
21:22The depiction of the face hints at people originating from beyond Egypt's borders.
21:29And then there's the speckled texture.
21:34The distinctive spotted look combined with the shapely woman's frame was only produced during a crucial moment in the history
21:42of Egypt.
21:44When the country is ruled by foreigners.
21:48The 11th century BCE, the start of the unstable Third Intermediate Period.
21:54Egypt had economic problems.
21:56Only very short-lived kings.
21:59Quarrels about the inheritance of the throne.
22:03Egypt was vulnerable.
22:06But this changes when Egypt's southern neighbors, the Kushites, also known as the Nubians, take advantage of Egypt's weakness.
22:15And in 712 BCE, they move in and conquer the land of the pharaohs.
22:21We refer to the Kushites as the kings of the 25th dynasty.
22:27And this dynasty was originally coming from modern Sudan.
22:31Known for rich deposits of gold,
22:33Nubia is home to some of Africa's earliest kingdoms.
22:38The Egyptians first called Nubia Tasseti,
22:42the land of the bow,
22:44highlighting the skill of Nubian warriors.
22:47When the Kushites invaded Egypt,
22:50they erected a very, very powerful and very successful empire for roughly 70, 80 years.
22:58The Nubians were restorers.
23:00After things were destroyed and the temples were neglected,
23:05the Nubians were now going to take care of everything, put everything back in order.
23:10Egypt is prosperous again.
23:16They made themselves kings of both Egypt and Kush.
23:20The Egyptian culture was part of their own heritage because in the New Kingdom, Nubia was an Egyptian colony.
23:30Few written records or artifacts of the people that lived under Kushite rule in Egypt survive today.
23:37Which makes what the team is unearthing in the triangle especially rare.
23:48I really could not believe that statues like this could exist.
23:55It's unique.
23:58The color.
23:59They're very realistic.
24:03Not only do the two statuettes both show a woman, but some of the small pots that have been found
24:09are for makeup.
24:11This tomb for sure belongs to this woman.
24:15Women in ancient Egypt have the right to buy and inherit property.
24:20They can represent themselves in court, own a business and get divorced.
24:25But it isn't exactly an egalitarian society.
24:29There was a small percentage of women who were highly privileged.
24:34But nevertheless, there was a gender bias in ancient Egypt.
24:38This is why I think it's not fair to say it's the paradise for women in the ancient world.
24:44But when the Kushites take over Egypt, they bring with them a Nubian culture in which women have power.
24:54In the Kushite time, women had a different status than before and after.
25:01There is a matrilinear system for the Kushite kingdom.
25:07It was more important who was your mother than who was your father.
25:11And this might be the main difference between Egypt and Kush.
25:19Mariam Mayad has spent her entire career studying ancient Egyptian women and especially the women of the 25th dynasty.
25:29Zahi has invited Mariam to see the objects found in tomb number six.
25:36This tomb was really unique.
25:38We found some very impressive artifacts.
25:41If you look at the face, it looks Nubian to me.
25:45It does look Nubian, for sure.
25:47Body type of the standing woman, that body type we find a lot during the 25th dynasty.
25:53The heavier lower body, the heavier hips.
25:56I have never seen statues like this.
25:59I don't think there's ever statues of that type ever produced before or possibly even after.
26:11When the Kushites conquer Egypt around 700 BCE, they decide to embrace the Egyptians' religious customs and beliefs.
26:21In ancient Egypt, we cannot separate kingship from religion.
26:26Pharaohs invested so much in the religious landscape of thieves.
26:31And this strategy is best seen at Karnak, a vast temple complex where pharaohs dedicated great building projects to Amun,
26:42the king of the gods.
26:47When the Kushite kings arrive, they too make their marks here.
26:54One of the monuments built by Kushite king Taharqa reveals a new and distinctive level of power for women in
27:02Egypt.
27:05We're here by the edifice of Taharqa at the sacred lake.
27:08We can't call it a temple because it doesn't have some of the main features we associate with temples.
27:14The only part of the building that survives is the subterranean chambers.
27:19What's special about this monument is a relief on a wall hidden from view.
27:26And because there's no proper entrance, we'll have to climb up.
27:29It's a part of the building with ritual scenes that are unique and not found elsewhere.
27:37The scene Mariam is looking for is one of a kind.
27:42It depicts two figures protecting a sacred tomb.
27:47On either side, the figures are facing outward as a way of protecting it.
27:53In Egyptian art, it's very rare for figures to be facing outward and not toward the center.
27:58The king is throwing four balls and he's aiming at four targets, east, west, north and south.
28:05Opposite the king, a female figure.
28:08She's complimenting his actions, asserting the royal union over the four extremities of the earth.
28:14She is drawing an arrow through a double arched bow.
28:18And this is very rare to find a woman actively arching.
28:22Very rare.
28:25Even the goddess Neith, who's known as the goddess of war and who's often called the mistress of bow and
28:31arrows,
28:32she's mostly holding them in her hand.
28:35As far as Egyptian iconography is concerned, this is a unique representation of female power.
28:42Who is this woman?
28:44Her title is God's wife of a moon.
28:49To understand how a woman might attain such power in Egypt,
28:53we need to go back 800 years, when the title of God's wife of a moon first appears.
29:02Carved on a stone slab, or stela, is the title's earliest evidence.
29:07This is the Ahmose Nefertari's donation stela.
29:11Ahmose Nefertari was the wife of King Ahmose, the founder of the 18th dynasty.
29:16As part of his larger state policy to put trusted family members in key positions around the realm,
29:23she was appointed as the God's wife of Amun.
29:26As far as we know, she's the first woman to hold that title.
29:30With this stela, King Ahmose establishes the estate of a God's wife as a source of revenue for his queen.
29:39The stela records large amounts of gold, silver and copper, as well as servants and land.
29:48On the donation stela of Ahmose Nefertari, there is a very telling line.
29:52It says,
29:54no future king shall ever revoke the estate of the God's wife of Amun.
29:59With this line, Ahmose makes sure that this newly established estate will last in perpetuity.
30:07The women who held that title remained financially independent.
30:11And it seems plausible to suggest that it's because of that initial endowment.
30:20Although the title of God's wife of Amun first appears during the New Kingdom,
30:27over time the position becomes less relevant.
30:30But then, during the Kushites' reign, this role takes on a completely new and powerful meaning.
30:38When the Nubians invaded Egypt, they were quick to recognize the political value of having that institution.
30:46The office was resurrected after centuries of oblivion.
30:50So Aminirdis I becomes the first Nubian woman to become a God's wife of Amun.
30:55The Kushite princess Aminirdis is the sister of Pyanki, the first king of the 25th dynasty.
31:03On becoming the God's wife of Amun, Aminirdis effectively takes control of Thebes.
31:09Her installation served to achieve a smooth transition of power from the preceding dynasty to the Nubian rule in Egypt.
31:20Aminirdis participated in rituals that no other woman was allowed to participate in before.
31:28In the 25th dynasty, the God's wife of Amun was much more important than in previous times.
31:35The God's wife of Amun was the female substitute of the king.
31:41The God's wife of Amun was as important as a medieval pope in terms of the temporal and religious power
31:48that she held.
31:50In a side corridor at the Cairo Museum, a statue found in Karnak Temple reveals how much power the God's
31:58wife of Amun, Aminirdis, really had.
32:01It's carved from alabaster, a soft, translucent form of gypsum rock.
32:09The one and only Aminirdis I, royal princess.
32:13It's not very common to find statues of that size in alabaster.
32:18She looks exactly like an Egyptian queen, the headdress, the modious crown on her head.
32:24But she has that pendant of Amun, and that might be a Nubian feature on the back pillar.
32:31She asserts her moral character.
32:33She gave bread to the hungry, water to the thirsty, and clothes to the naked.
32:38Now this is significant because if you are giving food to the hungry, water to the thirsty, you have agency.
32:44It's not just about generosity, it's also about having the means to do so and having the autonomy to do
32:51so.
32:52And to have a woman have that kind of inscription is very rare.
33:00Back at the site, the statuettes from Tomb No. 6 signal a burial of the 25th Dynasty,
33:07the period when Aminirdis was the God's wife of Amun.
33:14Now archaeologists are on the hunt for more clues that might reveal the identity of the woman buried in Tomb
33:21No. 6.
33:23But the excavation season is coming to an end.
33:27With summer approaching, the soaring temperatures would make work in the tombs impossible.
33:37With only a couple of weeks left, Afifi has found a vessel.
33:41We found one of the canopic jars. It's from fine limestone, and even the sculpture of the fishes is so
33:50good.
33:52During the mummification process, the organs of the deceased would be removed and placed in these containers.
33:59They are known as canopic jars.
34:03Each burial has four canopic jars, four organs of the deceased.
34:08Each jar is topped with a different symbolic sculpture.
34:13The heads represent the four sons of the god Horus.
34:18Each was responsible for protecting a particular organ.
34:23The jackal for the stomach, the human head for the liver, the baboon for the lungs, and the falcon for
34:31the intestines.
34:36It's empty.
34:38Afifi is looking for any inscription which could give us the name of the owner of this tomb.
34:47Just behind the first jar, a second one appears.
34:54I want to take the body first.
34:56I want to take the body first.
34:59Oh, it's nice, the inscriptions.
35:04Yes, yes.
35:09I'm not a specialist in ancient Egyptian language, but I can read Osir.
35:24The inscription is a prayer to the god Osiris, ruler of the underworld.
35:33I see the base of the lid.
35:35It's complete.
35:38No cracks.
35:39Nothing.
35:46It's bubbling.
35:50Now we have to consolidate the writing.
35:54The jars have been hiding in the tomb for nearly 3,000 years.
35:58Before they can be taken out, conservator Saham Abdelazim needs to carefully protect this ancient writing with a water-soluble
36:09cellulose binder.
36:10The jars don't reveal the name of the deceased, but Afifi believes there are more artifacts waiting to be found.
36:19But before he continues to excavate, he needs to secure the tomb.
36:23This layers of sediments is not strong.
36:28And it is not safe for working, especially when you open it and the fresh air gets inside.
36:35So it is decayed and start to dry and fall down.
36:40So we need to make all this support and to continue our work.
36:47The excavation season has come to an end.
36:51The workers prepare supports in an effort to secure tomb number six.
36:57Once ready, Afifi locks it with a metal gate.
37:03The team needs to wait until September, when the excavation will resume.
37:19When you discover something interesting, you can feel happy.
37:24Of course, I have to be more patient.
37:27When we stop excavation in the site, it doesn't mean that the work is stopping.
37:33Because we continue working in writing the general report,
37:37make analysis for the objective, and still thinking about the future season.
37:52Five months later, the heat has come and gone.
37:58The archaeologists return to the excavation site, eager to pick up the work from where they left it.
38:11As Afifi and Ahmed re-enter tomb number six, something does not look right.
38:24All the tomb collapsed. All the roof collapsed.
38:28And the cracks everywhere inside the tomb.
38:32The ground above has caved in, filling the deep shaft that the team spent days excavating.
38:40And now, it's too dangerous to clear the debris.
38:45I think we lost the tomb.
38:48We can't remove the debris.
38:50We can't even just get inside to check it.
38:53Because the cracks in the roof and the walls everywhere,
38:57it's not safe for the workers and for my team.
39:01And this is our job in archaeology.
39:04Nothing to do.
39:07Moving to the next tomb.
39:10Yallah, Ahmed.
39:11Thank you, doctor.
39:14With sadness, the team has to give up on ever finding the woman who is buried here.
39:21She will likely remain in her tomb for eternity, just as she originally planned.
39:33The ancient Egyptians recorded everything, especially on their burial goods.
39:39Thousands of years later, the archaeologists are on the hunt for clues that might reveal details of long-lost lives.
39:52At the southern edge of the triangle, in tomb number nine, the archaeologists haven't found any mummies.
40:00But sunk into the floor of the burial chamber, the lids of four canopic jars appear.
40:07We found this set of four canopic jars here, underneath the floor.
40:14We have to take it out.
40:17Afifi examines the vessel in the hope it will reveal the name of the person who was buried here.
40:24There is no text, just black decoration.
40:29Something strange for me.
40:31The body is made from alabaster, but the head from limestone.
40:36He carefully removes the second jar.
40:40Oh, it's different.
40:42It's made of alabaster, but it has a stand made of limestone.
40:48It's rare to find a canopic jar with a stone stand like this.
40:52And I think it has some inscriptions.
40:55The inscription is lightly carved, but since alabaster is translucent, Afifi tries to read it using a small light.
41:05I can read the text now.
41:11Finally, the team has a name for the owner of the tomb.
41:12It means offering to Duamut If, one of four sons of Horas, Satir Dis.
41:22Her name is Satir Dis.
41:27So it's for a woman.
41:29She was a female singer in Amun House.
41:32Finally, the team has a name for the owner of the tomb.
41:37Asatir Dis, the singer, or chantress, in the Temple of Amun.
41:43The god's wife had chantresses in her entourage.
41:47Chantresses were very prominent in Theban society.
41:53In temple ritual, we would see women, chantresses, making music to the gods.
42:01It makes a lot of sense that chantresses in the House of Amun would be buried just outside the temple
42:08at Medina Tabo.
42:09Because that was thought to be the place of the primeval mound.
42:14In Egyptian mythology, the primeval mound was the first piece of land to emerge from the watery chaos where life
42:22was first created.
42:25The god Amun would come across the river, aged, tired.
42:30He comes back to this primeval place where he would commune with eight primeval gods.
42:36He would go back rejuvenated and youthful again.
42:43The tombs in the triangle are located on this sacred land.
42:48The people buried here could have a close connection to the god Amun.
42:52The people who are buried here could be working in this great institution, the office of the god's wife of
43:01Amun.
43:05And in the heart of this holy place, the god's wife, Amunirdis, has her own funerary chapel.
43:14We're at the great temple of Medina Tabo, and everyone knows it for the funerary temple of Ramses III.
43:21And they just walk straight past this wonderful chapel of Amunirdis.
43:25Even though the facade itself has wonderful inscriptions, no one ever stops to look at them.
43:31We have Amunirdis offering Ma'at, which is the concept of truth and harmony and global order, to Amun and
43:39his divine consort Mut.
43:41This representation is unique for a woman.
43:44It's unique because it's the prerogative of the king only, who is seen as the ultimate preserver of Ma'at.
43:50And we don't see that any time before that period.
43:54In the 25th dynasty, the god's wife of Amun has a much more active and visible role than ever before.
44:02Only the king can build on sacred land.
44:06So the fact that Arminirdis has a large stone monument here is meaningful.
44:11Construction of funerary chapels, any kind of temple, is the royal prerogative and only the king could do that.
44:17But repeatedly we see the god's wife erect chapels on their own.
44:21To anyone, even those who could not read, the iconography itself told any bystander that these women were as important
44:29as the king.
44:31And historians believe that this level of prestige for women was only attained when the Kushites from Nubia ruled Egypt.
44:40I believe we have a certain difference in the importance of women during the 25th dynasty because they were just
44:50importing their role from Kush to Egypt.
44:55The role of women was different in the Kushite culture.
45:00The royal women had much power and part of this was imported to Egypt.
45:06I don't think it's a coincidence that this office of the god's wife really flourished under foreign rule.
45:21Since excavation began in the triangle, the team has uncovered several tombs.
45:28One has an impressive wide staircase.
45:32With a large quantity of debris removed, the archaeologists can now access the burial chamber.
45:39We removed all the debris from the room itself until we found a group of coffins.
45:46The human remains are in a very bad state of preservation.
45:49The mummy wrappings and wooden coffins completely decayed.
45:53Only the bones of these individuals survive.
45:57Maybe it's a family tomb.
46:00And now we are working to find some objects dating these tombs.
46:05Like canopic jars with the titles and the name of the owner.
46:11Skilled excavator Badawi carefully works around one of the coffins.
46:16Soon the top of a canopic jar appears.
46:22The canopic jars have some inscriptions.
46:26It needs to be clear more.
46:28We still have to look for the other three.
46:32On your eyes.
46:36A second jar.
46:45And soon a third.
46:47Beautiful.
46:50This person has to be elite.
46:52An important person.
46:55It's really well done.
46:57Modelled.
46:58The workshop that made these canopic jars are really perfect.
47:04And finally, on the fourth and last jar, the name of the owner can be read.
47:10This is the name of him.
47:12His name is Mary.
47:15His name is Mary.
47:17The singer of the cat Amon.
47:19This is really wonderful.
47:22This person was part of this important office.
47:25Those people, one day, they're working, singing, dancing, behind the great cat's wife of Amon.
47:36But the style of the canopic jars is different from the others found in the triangle.
47:41As an archaeologist, you can look at the canopic jars and know the period exactly.
47:47The modelling of the faces show 500 BC.
47:51The 26th dynasty.
47:53Through the archaeological evidence, we can say that the big, large cemetery started in the north in Dynasty 25.
48:04Continued to the edge of the city, known as the Golden Lost City.
48:10The tomb here is dated to Dynasty 26.
48:14When Mary was alive, the Kushites of Nubia were no longer ruling Egypt.
48:20Yet he is buried next to the people of the 25th dynasty.
48:25For the Theban elite, this was a good burial ground.
48:28It mattered very little who the ruling king was and for much dynasty.
48:34Between the 25th dynasty and the 26th dynasty in Thebes, there is no material break.
48:39It's a continuous move from the one dynasty to the other.
48:44The Theban people are Theban people.
48:48So there are generations of the same families living under different kings.
48:56The reign of the 25th dynasty ends around 653 BCE.
49:02The new royal family that establishes the 26th dynasty comes from the north of Egypt, from a city called Saiz.
49:11But a new king doesn't mean that everything changes.
49:15The transition from the 25th to the 26th dynasty is very interesting.
49:20We have someone like Mentum Haith, who is really a man for all seasons.
49:24He was already the mayor of Thebes under the Nubian rulers.
49:27He continued to be the mayor of Thebes under the new rulers.
49:30And all the while he took part in the transition in the office of the god's wife, helping establish the
49:37new god's wife in place.
49:41A new pharaoh, a new god's wife of Amun.
49:45And the people associated with this office keep Medinet Abu as their chosen burial ground.
49:53The title god's wife of Amun lasts until the end of the 26th dynasty.
50:00At the end of that time, Egypt is invaded by the Persians.
50:06And everything changes.
50:08After the Persian invasion, evidence of the god's wife of Amun disappears.
50:16Lasting for more than a millennium, the title of god's wife of Amun was created in the 18th dynasty.
50:23But it's 800 years later, in the 25th dynasty, with the help of the Kushite pharaohs from Nubia, that the
50:31institution reaches its zenith.
50:35Amrinirdis' legacy forever imprinted on the artifacts and monuments she left behind.
50:46The archaeologists have an earth-buried treasures of a very special period of Egyptian history.
50:53When the Kushite pharaohs of the 25th dynasty rose to power and wrote a new chapter into this rich civilization,
51:01they embraced Egyptian culture and beliefs.
51:05But also brought elements of their own culture, where women were financially independent.
51:11And the power of the god's wife of Amun rivaled that of the king.
51:15The god's wife of Amun is very inspiring and empowering to modern women today.
51:21The fact that they're not as well known to the public as Cleopatra or Nefertiti is just the sad reality
51:28of modern pop culture.
51:34A unique cemetery to bring more information about this period.
51:39Oh, we are making history.
51:43Like the shifting sands of the desert, history is never static.
51:48It is a quest for understanding who we are, where we've been, and where we're going.
51:54People looking at us from even 200 years from now, or 2,000 years from now, how they perceive women
52:01today is dependent on how much evidence do we leave behind.
52:05The End
52:07The End
52:13The End
Comments