One hundred and fifty years ago
the king of France had
this obelisk brought
from Egypt to grace
the heart of Paris
Three thousand years earlier
it had been dedicated to the
great pharaoh Ramses II
with these words
"so long as heaven exists
your monuments shall exist
and your name shall endure
like the heaven."
Through the 30 centuries
that the pharaohs ruled Egypt
the people of the Nile created
the most glorious monuments
the world has even seen
among them
the largest place of worship
in the ancient world
These miracles in stone were
tributes to their gods and kings
They believed that man, like the sun
could die and be reborn
They constructed elaborate tombs
to protect the body
and house the soul
throughout eternity
They created guides to
the underworld
Books of the Dead
to insure immortality
And on their monuments
they left the testimony
of their faith
These inscriptions are keys with
which we unlock the secrets
of ancient Egypt
Ladies and gentlemen
now we are at the temple of
the queen Hatshepsut...
And, as they have since
the days of Herodotus
Antony and cleopatra
thousands journey here
to see these wonders
going down to the Green Valley
for the holy visit of Amun-Re
to the goddess Hathor once
a year for 15 days...
But today, having endured
for 50 centuries
these seemingly imperishable
structures are threatened
Their fate may be determined
in our lifetime
so, people of science, soul
and conscience
travel here from all over the globe
to save
the priceless monuments
to decipher the meaning
of the messages
before they disappear forever
This is the story of
the land of Egypt
and the quest for eternity
The Nile
Flowing through the endless miles
of Egypt's desert sands
its precious waters gave birth
and breath
to one of the
greatest civilizations
that has ever taken hold on our planet
"Hail to you, Oh Nile!"
Went an ancient hymn
"sprung from earth
come to nourish Egypt
Food provider, bounty maker
who creates all that is good."
The river's annual flooding left
rich deposits of silt
utilizing it, farmers developed
a settled life
sustained by its abundant waters
the land and crops prospered
Even mud from the Nile's banks
provided the people
with material for everything
from clay pots to the bricks
with which they built their homes
The Nile itself was Egypt's highway...
boats sailed northward
with the currents
and south with the prevailing winds
To predict the time when the
river would overflow
the ancients developed a calendar
our own evolved from it
Along the extended oasis of
the Nile Valley
a way of life emerged
that still endures today
virtually unchanged from the furthest
reaches of recorded time
And in the time of the Nile's
annual flooding
when the farmers could not till
their fields
they built the pyramids-tombs
for their pharaohs
All that remains of the seven Wonders
of the Ancient World
they were stairways to heaven
For to all Egyptians
their religion promised an afterlife
The largest monument ever constructed
the Great Pyramid contains more than
two million immense limestone blocks
each weighing over two tons
One hundred thousand men toiled
for 20 years
without wheel, horse
or iron tools to create it
that their pharaoh might
join the sun god
and live in eternity
This dedication to gods and
kings was to sustain the Egypt
of the pharaohs for 3,000 years
From the beginning, the Nile was
the soul of the land
The lotus growing on the river
banks symbolized
the people of Upper Egypt
the papyrus, shimmering in the
marshes of the Delta
was the symbol of Lower Egypt
lmmortalized on this table of slate
a king known as Narmer wears the
high-domed crown
of Upper Egypt on one side
the low-curled crown of Lower Egypt
on the other
It commemorates his unification
of the two lands
to create the nation of Egypt
in 3100 B.c.
From that time, Egyptian kings
would wear both crowns
as rulers of the two kingdoms of
Upper and Lower Egypt
The two lands have remained linked
from Narmer's time to the present
Isolated from its neighbors
protected by mountains, desert,
and sea
the Nile Valley was an ideal crucible
in which a civilization could begin
Traces of those beginnings can be
found in the city of Nekhen
The site, still populated today
holds evidence of habitation
stretching back 6,000 years
since 1967
Dr. Walter Fairservis of Vassar college
and the American museum of
Natural History
has been excavating here
in his continuing search for
the roots of civilization
It was here, just 90 years ago
that the Narmer tablet was discovered
It was here, 50 centuries before
that king Narmer established
the capital
of the newly unified nation
Here we have the walls of a princely complex
that belonged to a king who lived
here 5,000 years ago
the very beginning of Egypt's
unification
He was a great king, a powerful monarch
And we know from the size of
the rooms
and the way things are located
that he was a very rich man
a very wealthy person
We know he had storerooms full of grain
We know that he had perhaps
a great hoard of copper
and many other things of that order
And yet, oddly enough,
this powerful monarch
he left the place
He abandoned it
And that's part of the reason
we're exploring this area to
find out why
Why, at the very beginnings of
Egypt's history
do we have a place as important
as this abandoned?
Perhaps the secret still lies buried
in these mud-brick walls
sifting through the debris
of the centuries
the Fairservis team continues
to piece together
the history of the site
Many threads bind Egyptian
prehistory and history
But none is stronger than the
belief in immortality
But this one is interesting because...
Equipped with objects necessary
for the afterlife
these bodies were buried before
the first pharaoh built
his palace here
Right here, if I can just
pull this up a little bit
hair pins
found at the roof of the skull
Made of some quill-like or ivory,
I guess
Perhaps ivory
Perhaps ivory, yes.
Put that back there
In this capital, religion, tradition
and political power fused
foundations were laid on which
the longest lasting of
all ancient civilizations would rise
Two thousand years later
Egypt's religious capital
was Thebes
one of the richest
most powerful cities on earth
At its heart was the temple of
Amun at karnak
the largest place of worship
in the ancient world
As dynasty followed dynasty
the great complex was enlarged
and embellished
by a succession of pharaohs
Tutankhamun
whose fabulous tomb treasures
dazzled the world
a female pharaoh, Hatshepsut
called "the first great woman
in history"
the heretic Akhenaten,
first believer in one god.
And Ramses II, the greatest builder
of all time
called Ramses the Great
pharaoh while Egypt's power and
prosperity flourished
this warrior-king was to rule
for 67 years
bring peace to the empire,
father nearly 200 children
and leave his mark on fully half
the monuments in Egypt
Ramses was only about 20
when his father seti I died
in 1290 B.c.
Seti had ordered his funerary
temple built at Abydos
One of Ramses' first acts as pharaoh
was to travel there to complete it
To all Egyptians, this was the
most sacred city on earth
Here, drawn by some mystical
identification
with Abydos and the long-dead pharaoh
an extraordinary woman
known as Omm seti
was to come 3,000
years later
With a group of fellow Egyptologists
she celebrates her 77th birthday
Well, thank you very much
You certainly made it
a happy birthday
Make a speech
Make a speech? Oh, how lovely,
I am touched
I'm afraid its a mass-produced one,
but...
Never mind, no matter
My heart, my mother
My heart, my mother
My heart whereby I came into being
Do not stand up and witness against
me at the judgement
I think that is the text.
It should be
Yes, you've got it
Oh, thank you very much
To Omm seti at her 77th,
on her way to 110
Thank you. Let us drink to our dear
old friend Ramses II
Born Dorothy Eady in England
she says something called her here
from the time she was a child
she came here 50 years ago,
married an Egyptian
and had a son whom she named seti
From then on, she was known as
"Omm seti,"
which means "mother of seti."
She has devoted the last 30 years
of her life
to the study of seti I's temple
and become an expert on him and
Ramses II
Ramses tells that he came to Abydos
alone, you see
in the first year of his reign
after his father was dead
and he found that the decoration of
this temple was incomplete
In the inscription he says that
"I ordered the work of my father
to be completed
and all the works which my father
had started
and were still incomplete
I had them finished."
And then he goes on as
if he's speaking to the soul
of his father
you see, and telling him
that all that seti had wanted to do
and died before completing
and all his plans and ambitions
Ramses would complete it
And he said, "so long as
I am ruling
it will be as though you are
still on the throne."
He was a nice fellow,
and he was a very good son
When Omm seti came here for the
Egyptian Department of Antiquities
the temple was in ruins.
Its reconstruction became
her passion.
They confronted me with a pile of
fragments of inscribed stone
There were over 2,000
some were very small, some were
very big
My job was to copy the inscriptions
on them
catalogue them, and, where possible,
fit them together
The temple is vibrant with carvings
that look as fresh today
as when they were painted 3,000
years ago
lts walls tell the first known
story of resurrection
Osiris, a mythical ruler
was killed and dismembered
by his brother
His wife, the goddess Isis, found
the scattered pieces of his body
bound them together, and Osiris
arose from the dead
Their son, the falcon-headed god Horus
was to grow to manhood and avenge
his father
Anubis, jackal-headed god of embalming
was sent by the sun god to help
Osiris live eternally
The Egyptians believed
that because Osiris died
and rose again
they too could achieve immortality
Worshipping Osiris, seti assures
his place in the afterlife
Offering incense
the pharaoh worships before the
bark of the sun god, Amun-Re
Just as seti offers bread, ducks,
figs
and a pomegranate to Isis
Omm seti follows the ancient belief
Oh yes, every year at the Great Feast
and again on the birthday of the
gods Osiris and Isis
I come here with offerings of wine
bread, and incense
Oh, I love coming here
It's the place I really do feel
at home
Three days after this filming
was completed
Omm seti died
she was buried in Abydos
Egyptian city of resurrection
In the time of Ramses
the most powerful deity of the living
was the sun god Amun-Re
He was patron of the city of Thebes
located on the Nile between
the first capital Nekhen,
and Abydos
On the east bank, where the sun rises
were temples dedicated to the sun god
karnak... and Luxor
On the west bank, where the sun
buries itself each day
was a complex of tombs where
royalty was buried
the Valley of the kings
and the Valley of the Queens
The Greek poet Homer was to
immortalize Thebes as
"the city of a hundred gates
where 400 heroes with their horse
and chariots pass through each
of these great gates."
While Ramses reigned
Thebes was splendid
He ordered beautiful additions
made to Luxor temple
gigantic statues, obelisks
and courts dedicated to the
glory of Amun-Re
But having endured 3,000 years
these monuments face destruction
in our time
from the effects of
increased agriculture
industrialization,
changing weather conditions
due in part to the Aswan High Dam
and even the tourists themselves
In 1924, in response to the
impending crisis
the Oriental Institute of
the University of chicago
established a permanent
headquarters in Egypt
called chicago House
it was founded by
Dr. James Henry Breasted
father of American Egyptology
who envisioned making a record of
all the endangered monuments of
ancient Egypt
Today chicago House is under
the direction of Dr. Lanny Bell
The scholars of chicago House
have undertaken
a monumental labor called
the Epigraphic survey
Over the past 50 years
the Oriental Institute
has published an epic series
of volumes
containing the results of the survey
Utilizing an ingenious combination
of photography and draftsmanship
the chicago House Egyptologists
create facsimile
drawings of the monuments' carved
and painted surfaces
the only record that will remain
when the hieroglyphs
and decorations
have disappeared forever
from the temples
As pharaoh succeeded pharaoh
it was common for them
to alter temples
taking credit for the work
of their predecessors
By interpreting successive decorations
the chicago House team is decoding
the history of Luxor temple
As the glory of pharaonic Egypt faded
people built houses inside the temple
Their debris buried much of it
for 2,000 years
When excavation started a hundred
years ago
the stone walls were suddenly
exposed to the air
since then, salts, leaching
out of the stone
combine with moisture in the air
creating crystals that slough off
taking the images with them.
The salt on the walls makes
our work urgent
The reliefs are being dissolved
so that within a period of 200 years
the temple will still stand
but all of the decorated surface
will have flaked off
When they are gone
we want there to be a record
as accurate as humanly possible
of the decoration
so that scholars will be able to
consult our drawings
and be sure that the reliability is such
that any questions they have
about the decoration
will be answered in our volumes
When the gods were worshipped
here no more
great portions of the temples
were dismantled
Large blocks were broken into
smaller pieces
for reuse as building material
Thousands of them have been
collected over a 30-year period
chicago House is conducting a
systematic search of the fragments
to reconstruct a section called
the "Lost colonnade."
Finding a fragment that may fit
artist Ray Johnson makes notations
and the block is carefully photographed
An artist pencils, then inks in the
lines of the photograph
making corrections and replacing
what time may have removed
Then the artist fits the photograph
into his rendering of the wall
Only the areas within the inked lines
have actually been found
But from the salvaged fragments
it is sometimes possible to
reconstruct the entire design
created by the original artists
You support me going up
On those exciting and rare occasions
when a fragment that fits onto a
standing wall is found
it is replaced
Toward me?
So, piece by piece, the ancient
temple of Amun-Re rises again
The investigations of chicago House
have revealed
that the colonnade of Luxor temple
is the major standing monument
of Tutankhamun
To completely evaluate its
architectural history
the inscriptions at the top of
the structure
must be photographed
Ladders reaching five stories high
have been assembled
This is the first time in 50 years
that anyone has attempted the ascent
On the 70-foot-high columns
Dr. Bell studies the techniques used
by the artisans of antiquity
Here they inserted wooden blocks to
stabilize the structure
as they fitted it together
A roof once covered the colonnade
but it fell or was removed sometime
before 1600 A.D.
Fragments of it found on
the temple floor
have been identified
In assessing the temple's past
Dr. Bell's thought inevitably
turn to its future
Paradoxically, the vibrations caused
by the endless footsteps of the
tourists who visit each year
even the carbon dioxide they exhale
are eroding the irreplaceable
treasures they come to enjoy
chicago House studies have reveale
that a hundred years after Tutankhamun
built this structure
Ramses II systematically erased
his predecessor's
and replace it with his own
naively assuming he could deceive
the gods
and take credit for the colonnade's
construction
But Ramses also added to the
majesty of Luxor temple
He built a massive entrance-
"The horizon
from which the sun god goes forth."
From reliefs we can reconstruct a
dazzling annual festival
The Feast of Opet
With the Nile in full flood
the golden statue of the god Amun Re
has been brought to Luxor from
karnak in its boat-shrine
Within the temple's innermost
sanctuary
Ramses offers incense, flowers
and food to the linen-shrouded god
The sacrifices and ceremonies concluded
priests lead the procession out
of the temple
purifying the way before them
Thousands of citizens crowd the
waterfront to see musicians
Nubian dancers, soldiers
and priestesses accompany the
procession along the Nile
The shrine of the god is placed
on its sacred
and in great ceremony priests, god
and pharaoh are towed back to
karnak temple
Ramses' favorite queen, Nefertari
and the royal princesses greet the
procession as it arrives
concluding nearly a month of worship
and revelry,
the royal couple enters the great
temple of Amun at karnak
Within the sacred precincts
of the temple
the shrine carrying the golden statue
of the god
is hidden from public view
until the next year
symbolically renewed and reborn
the divine king Ramses advances
toward the innermost
reaches of the temple
where no common mortals are allowed
to venture
Begun by his father, seti I
this awesome hall was completed
by Ramses
A soaring forest of stone,
it is created of 134 pillars
some of them 80 feet high
ceilings and columns are ornamented
with Ramses' cartouches-magical ropes
that surround the king's name to
protect him from evil
In the hieroglyphs of his name
is the message
"it is Re, the sun god, who bore him."
From the sun god
the pharaohs drew their right to
rule-their divinity
their legitimacy, and crowns
so they constructed this mighty city
of God
A hundred pharaohs enlarged
and embellished it over a period of
a creation that did not cease
until the christian era...
that has resumed as modern
archaeologists
restore this timeless testimony
of faith
Across the Nile stretches the Land
of the Dead
Here, in mystical imitation of
the setting sun
the bodies of the deceased were
laid to rest
that they might rise again
as the sun did each day
cut into the heart of the mountain,
the Theban necropolis is a vast
labyrinth of tombs
Here, Ramses' architects built
his splendid mortuary temple,
the Ramesseum
In its forecourt lie huge fragments
of his colossal statue 1,000 tons
of granite
that once rose 57 feet in height...
that inspired shelley's sonnet
"Ozymandias
"in which he called the pharaoh
"king of kings."
When Ramses died in 1224 B.c.,
the Ramesseum was magnificent
Here, the magic of his name and
images would keep him alive forever
This was but a stopping point for
the dead king
and his funeral procession
the sacred place where offerings
would be made to him
from this day throughout all time
Though mourners wept, they knew that
if properly provided for,
one could live forever
so they carried with them everything
the dead might need
for the voyage through eternity
For a king there would be boats in
which he could sail endlessly
on the Nile...
And a throne from which
he could continue to reign
Even magical figures would be provided
to do his bidding in the afterlife
In their tomb paintings the people
of the Nile depicted the hereafter
as a pleasant extension of their
earthly lives...
a place where they could amuse
themselves hunting ducks...
where rich crops would sustain them
The deceased carried with them
"Books of the Dead."
They instructed the departed on how
to avoid the gods
and demons that would attempt to
bar their way
Her body painted with stars
a goddess of the sky stretches over
a reclining god
who represents the earth
Between them, a winged form of
the sun god sails
through the netherworld
The divine, ibis-headed scribe, Thoth
makes notes as the deeds of the deceased
are weighed on the scale of justice
In an address to the gods
the departed will assert his innocence
"I am pure of mouth and hands
without sin, without guilt,
without evil."
Those who were judged to be without
sin could join Osiris
to dwell in the "happy land of
the setting sun."
But most important
there must be a body to which the
soul could return
Anubis, god of embalming
prepares the body for the life to come
so Ramses' mummy would have gone
to his tomb
after a priest pronounced over it:
"You will live again forever."
The tomb of Ramses II
In a state of dangerous disrepair
its access is forbidden
to almost everyone
But a team headed by Dr. Kent Weeks
of the University of california
at Berkeley
has recently mapped it
In the dynasty following Ramses'
the royal tombs were systematically
plundered
As a last resort, priests collected
the surviving royal mummies
and hid them
In 1871, a grave robber
found Ramses II
where he had lain undisturbed
for 3,000 years
Reclaimed by the Egyptian Government
the mummy of Ramses now reposes
in the cairo museum
far from the Valley of the kings
This is the West Valley
It's part of the ancient necropolis
of Thebes
about nine square miles of some of
the most important
archaeological monuments anywhere
in the world
The Valley of the Queens, Valley
of the kings
Tutankhamun's tomb, they're all here
But in spite of several centuries of
interest in this area
there still does not exist a detailed
archaeological map of
what it contains
That's the purpose of the Berkeley
Theban Mapping Project
to make as detailed
an archaeological map
as modern technology will permit
It's an important project
It's going to make it possible
for us to study the history of
the necropolis
But even more important
it's going to help us to preserve
it and protect it
surveying techniques are used to
measure topographical features
...1.303
Thank you.
At headquarters in a village below
the necropolis
the team reviews its findings
It's okay
can you see "Q2" there above the
temple at Deir el Medina?
Aerial photographs are utilized
to plan tomb mapping
for the next day in the Valley
of the Queens
Right above the temple...
Yeah, right there...
Okay, that's the point we'll occupy
tomorrow morning
When surface measurements are combined
with plans of the tombs
they will create new and revolutionary
three-dimensional maps
These will make it easier to find
correlations
between the geography and the location
of the known tombs
and perhaps enable scientists to
find tombs still undiscovered
Let's drop everything here, Dave
and then we can send it on down
Why don't you and Jenny go on down
We'll start passing stuff to you
Dave, why don't you choose what we
have to take down
and we'll leave the rest up here
I get the lantern, not you
Let's finish that rear chamber today
if we can, Dave
I think we can. It looks like a
steep set of stairs
Yeah. Watch your step
It isn't really.
I got it
Okay.
Standard surveying techniques are used to
obtain the dimensions of each chamber
Every archaeological detail will
be drawn and recorded
I think that's about it, cathy
Did you get those problems in
the back chamber?
It was customary to place the tombs
of royal children
in the Valley of the Queens
This is the tomb of a young prince
son of Ramses III.
Here, the pharaoh himself offers
incense to the gods
on the boy's behalf
In these touching scenes
the pharaoh leads his nine-year-old son
into the presence of the divinities
of the underworld
carrying the feather of truth,
the boy obediently follows his father.
It is believed the ancient sculptors
and painters lit the interiors of
tombs and temples
with polished metal reflectors
used as mirrors.
And these scenes were filmed under
the same conditions.
This is the tomb of Nefertari
Though Ramses had at least
four royal wives
she remained his favorite
Due to humidity caused by increased
irrigation in nearby farmland
the exquisite murals of her tomb
are flaking off
Unless scientists can halt
the deterioration
these may be the last moments of
what was imagined
as the endless ages in which Nefertari
would live on these walls
This was the woman with
who Ramses believed he would go
through eternity...
to whom these words were written
"The princess, rich in grace
Lady of affection, sweet with love
mistress of the Two Lands
songstress of the beautiful countenance
Greatest in the harem of the lord
of the palace
All that you say, will be done
for you
Everything beautiful according
to your wish
All your words bring contentment
to the face
Wherefore men love to hear your voice."
These tributes speak to us of love
and hope
a people and a civilization
that soared brilliantly
and then was eclipsed
Here at the temple of Isis,
built on an island in the Nile
the religion of ancient Egypt had
its last stronghold
After 332 B.c., the Greek Ptolemies
would reign
as the last dynasty of pharaohs
Embracing the Egyptian religion
they built this temple dedicated
to the worship of Isis
divine symbol of motherhood
her husband Osiris,
and their son Horus
There stories are told and retold
on the temple walls
But the story of another holy family
was to sweep over Egypt
The carvings, now considered pagan
were chiseled away
christianity became
the state religion
and in the sixth century
this temple became a christian church
The meaning of the hieroglyphs
would be forgotten
the ancient rites forbidden
For 12 centuries
the story of Egypt's
ancient civilization
would be lost
In 640, Islam and the teachings
of Mohammed
swept over the country
A succession of foreigners was
to rule until 1952
when revolution restored
full independence to Egypt
after 2,000 years
cairo is the African continent's
largest city
Vexed by 20th-century problems
of explosive growth
pollution, economic and political
difficulties
cairo, like Egypt itself
survives through the resilience
humor and vigor of its people
Facing an expanding population
and an emerging nation's need
for energy
the Aswan High Dam was built
in the 1960s
With 17 times the material contained
in the Great Pyramid
the dam is a monument to
the new nationalism
and what some would call the
Behind the dam, Nubia was flooded
much of this ancient land disappeared
beneath the rising waters
of the Nile
And at Abu simbel
a magnificent temple hewn
from a sandstone monolith
the newly-forming lake licked
at the feet of these colossal
images of Ramses II
A concerned world realized
that the temple would soon
be engulfed
How could it
and the temple of Nefertari
which flanked it, be saved?
At the 11th hour with funding
from Egypt
the United states, and UNEscO
an international team swung
into action
racing the rising Nile
slab by slab
in cuts no more than a quarter
of an inch thick
the temple was dismantled
The work continued night and day
as workmen cut 190 feet down
through the cliffs
coded for storage
the sections made a giant
jigsaw puzzle
Moved up 200 feet beyond the
reach of the Nile
the temple was reassembled
The precision of watchmakers was
applied to the colossi
reconstructed to an accuracy of
a tenth of an inch
Ramses' temple was designed by
ancient priest-astronomers
so that
the sun would penetrate deep
within to bless a figure of the
pharaoh on the jubilee
that celebrated 30 years of
his reign
In our time, engineers have
resituated the temple
so that the sun still streams
in on the pharaoh
on each anniversary of that day
Gilding the statue of the king
seated among the gods
the sun god Re bathes the figures
in sacred light
Why have people come here since the
days of ancient Greece and Rome
These works are expressions
of the quest
for the meaning of life itself
a longing for connection with
the gods
a need for beauty,
a hope for immortality
They are worth knowing
and worth saving
because the record of the
past tells up
something of ourselves
and hints of our future
Here, Egyptians and travelers
alike raise their eyes to Ramses
speak of him, remember him
as a leader
who signed the world's first
major peace treaty
It reads
"Beginning with this day
in order to bring about good peace
and good brotherhood between us
forever...
he is in peace with me
and I am in brotherhood with him
and I am in peace with him, forever."
In the religion of the
ancient Egyptians
to speak of the dead is to make
them live again
For Ramses, the quest for eternity
has been fulfilled