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