25 Facts About ANCIENT EGYPT | 25 FACTS

Put on some eyeliner and hop in your sarcophagus, because today we've got 25 crazy, cool, epic, awesome, funny, weird, wild, unexpected, true facts about ancient Egypt. Number 25, let's get the gross stuff out of the way, mummification. There's seven steps to making an ancient Egyptian mummy. You start by washing the body, then you remove the organs. Once that's done, you fill the body with stuffing and soak it in salt to dry it out. After 40 days of drying, the stuffing is removed and the body is wrapped in linen strips, covered in a shroud, and then put in a sarcophagus. The organs are then placed in limestone pots called canopic jars. Each organ was put in its own jar, except for the heart. Egyptians believed it was the seat of the soul, so it was left inside the body. Number 24, both Egyptian women and men wore makeup. The ancient eye paint was either green and made from copper or black and made from lead. Originally, the makeup was purely practical. It helped protect their eyes from the blistering Egyptian sun. But over time, the eye makeup took on a mystical life of its own. Eventually, Egyptians believed it also had healing powers too. And hey, who knows, maybe it did. Number 23, ancient Egyptians didn't actually ride camels. In the early days of Egypt, donkeys were used for travel and transporting goods across the land. And even more common than donkeys were boats. The Nile River flows directly through the center of ancient Egypt, creating a natural highway. The current helped people row from south to north, and strong winds helped them row in the opposite direction. Enormous wooden boats transported grain and heavy stone blocks, while lightweight papyrus boats carried people from place to place. In fact, even the sun god Ra was believed to sail across the sky in his own solar boat. And speaking of Ra, the ancient Egyptians worshipped over 1,400 different gods and goddesses. Some of the main ones include Ra, of course. He's the god of the sun and has the head of a hawk. Amun is the king of the gods and usually has the head of a human. Yeah, go humans! Anubis is the god of mummification and had the head of a dog or a jackal. Thoth is the god of writing and wisdom and usually has the head of an ibis, Bast or Bastet had the head of a cat and was the goddess of war, but over time became known as the goddess of protection, joy, dance, music, family, and love. What a change! Not all the gods were good, though. Seth or Set is the god of chaos, desert, storms, and war. Set's brother, Osiris, is the ruler of the underworld and the god of dying vegetation. He's usually depicted as a mummy with green skin, holding a scepter, and wearing a white crown. Number 21, the pyramids. The oldest Egyptian pyramid is thought to be the Pyramid of Djoser, which was built in the 27th century BC. The ancient Egyptians buried their nobles and pyramids alongside their most prized possessions. They believed that the dead would need these belongings to use in the afterlife. All Egyptian pyramids were constructed along the west bank of the Nile, which is the side the sun sets on. This was because the setting sun was associated with the realm of the dead. About 140 pyramids have been discovered so far, and on average, each pyramid took 200 years to build. That means there were often multiple pyramids being built at the same time. Which brings us to number 20, the most famous pyramid of them all, the Great Pyramid of Giza. That's right, the Great Pyramid is probably the most well-known structure in the ancient world. Once completed, the giant tomb was the largest man-made structure in the world, a record it held for thousands of years. In fact, it wasn't surpassed until 1311 when the Lincoln Cathedral was built. But that didn't last long. The cathedral's central spire collapsed in 1548. 19, in fact, it's both the oldest and only ancient wonder still standing today. There are seven wonders of the ancient world, the Lighthouse of Alexandria, the Mausoleum at Halkarnassus, the Temple of Artemis, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, the Statue of Zeus at Olympia, the Colossus of Rhodes, and of course, the Great Pyramid of Giza. And the Great Pyramid is probably the most wonderful of all the wonders. That's because the existence of the Hanging Gardens is yet to actually be verified. The other five are confirmed to have existed, but have been destroyed over time. The Great Pyramid, meanwhile, is the only one of the seven wonders that you can still visit to this very day. Number 18. Sure, the Great Pyramid might still be standing, but that doesn't mean it isn't sinking into the sand. Since it was first constructed over 4,000 years ago, erosion has caused the pyramid to sink 25 feet into the ground. That's a whole lot of pyramid. Number 17. Over two million granite and limestone blocks were used to build the Great Pyramid. The large granite stones found in the King's Chamber weighed 25 to 80 tons and were transported from a quarry more than 500 miles away. Ancient Egyptians cut stone blocks by hammering wooden wedges into holes, which were then soaked with water. The water made the wedges expand, causing rocks to crack. Each block weighs about 2.5 tons, and the pyramid itself weighs about 6.5 million tons. Oh, that's a ton of tons. Number 16. Let's dispel another classic myth. The Great Pyramid was not built by slaves. Experts believe that 20,000 to 30,000 skilled laborers, including stonemasons, engineers, and architects, were recruited to build the massive wonder. Some think that a small permanent crew worked year-round on the project, and large teams of workers joined the project during summer months. Excavated skeletons show that the workers were Egyptians, who were most likely employed by the pharaoh Khufu. Graffiti from that time implies that some of these workers even took pride in their work. They called their teams names like Friends of Khufu or other names that showed allegiance to the pharaoh. Number 15. It turns out that people in ancient times were just as worried about going bald as people are today. According to a medical script called the Ebers Papyrus from about 1550 BCE, to grow your hair back, you just need to mix the fat of a hippo with some crocodile, tomcat, snake, and ibex fat. And if that fails, try boiling porcupine hair and apply it to your scalp for four days. Number 14. But hair loss was only a problem for the common people of ancient Egypt. The pharaoh would always be seen wearing a crown or headdress called a nemes, which is that striped cloth headdress made most famous by King Tut. Number 13. Ancient Egyptians believed animals were incarnations of the gods and were one of the first civilizations to keep them as pets. Egyptians especially loved cats, kind of like the internet does today. They also had a deep respect for hawks, ibises, lions, and baboons. Many of these animals were kept as pets and were often mummified and buried with their owners. Other animals were trained to work instead. Egyptian police officers, for example, used dogs or even trained monkeys while on the job. Give me a canine unit. Awesome! Number 12. Ancient Egyptians loved to play board games. There were games like Mahen, which used a stone board that was carved to look like a coiled snake, and Dogs and Jackals, the rules of which are lost to time. But with a name like that, I can only guess that it was like Duck, Duck, Goose, but with more bison. And the most popular was a game of chance known as Senet. It was played on a long board painted with 30 squares. Each player had pieces that moved along the board according to dice rolls. Paintings showed Queen Nefertiti playing Senet, and pharaohs like King Tut even had Senet boards buried in their tombs. Oh man, and I thought I was an obsessive gamer. Number 11. Egyptians didn't have the best sleeping arrangements. You see, the Egyptians didn't use a pillow like we'd picture today, but more of a headrest that sat uncomfortably high off the bed. Egyptians believed the head was the spiritual center of the body, so these headrests were designed to hold and protect it. Most of these headrests were reserved mainly for the wealthiest in society who could afford to live in such, uh, comfort. Number 10. The ancient Egyptians may have invented toothpaste. And as you might've guessed, it wasn't exactly the minty fresh concoction we use today. The ingredients at the time were powdered ox hooves, ashes, burnt eggshells, and a volcanic rock called pumice. Man, your breath has to be pretty bad if powdered ox hooves will make it smell better. Number nine. Even though he's super well-known now, King Tutankhamen was actually a fairly obscure pharaoh before his tomb was discovered in 1922. Two years after discovering the tomb, British archeologist Howard Carter uncovered its greatest treasure, a solid gold coffin containing the remains of King Tut. The tomb's priceless riches started a worldwide obsession with King Tut, an ancient Egyptian general called Tutmania. Brother, some women wore snake bracelets and gold dresses inspired by his iconic funeral mask. And mummies, pharaohs, and other Egyptian styles started showing up in all forms of entertainment, including plays, books, and movies. King Tut, how'd you get so funky? Number eight. King Tut may have been killed by a hippopotamus. How hilariously sad. Tutankhamen is sometimes referred to as the boy king because he was only nine years old when he took the throne and only 18 when he died. Thoroughly modern scans of the king's body show that he was embalmed without his heart. This, as we've learned, was a major departure from usual Egyptian burial practices, especially for a pharaoh. That means he probably suffered a really bad injury that led to his death. And one of the most likely causes, according to experts, was a hippopotamus bite. Ancient Egyptians hunted hippos for sport, and statues found inside King Tut's tomb even depict him throwing harpoons. So if the boy king was a fan of hunting, then his death may have been from a hunt gone horribly, horribly, horribly wrong. Ugh, poor guy. Number seven. Cleopatra was not Egyptian. She was born in Egypt, but she traced her origins to a Macedonian Greek named Ptolemy, who was one of Alexander the Great's generals. And while Cleopatra wasn't ethnically Egyptian, she still embraced many ancient Egyptian customs and was the first person in her family line to learn the Egyptian language. So real Egyptian or not, she definitely earned the right to call Egypt her home. Number six. Cleopatra's famous good looks weren't her best asset. Roman propaganda portrayed Cleopatra as a temptress who used her good looks as a political tool. But she was likely more well-known for her brains than her beauty. She could speak 12 languages and was taught math, philosophy, and astronomy. There's also some evidence that Cleopatra may not have been as attractive as we think. Coins with her face on them show her with masculine features and a large nose. Some historians, however, think that she might have intentionally portrayed herself as masculine as a display of strength. Number five. In ancient Egypt, women had equal rights as men. That's right, all people with the same social statuses were treated as equals by law. This meant that women could own, earn, buy, sell, and inherit property. They didn't need a male guardian, and if widowed or divorced, they could raise their own kids. These things might sound like super basic rights today, but through much of history, these kind of rights for women simply didn't exist. Number four. You might not picture it, but Egyptian pharaohs were usually fat. Art from ancient Egypt depicts pharaohs as thin, but this likely wasn't true. Pharaohs had a diet of beef, bread, fruit, vegetables, honey, cake, and sweet drinks. These foods are all very high in sugar and saturated fat, which, according to researchers, seems to have led to clogged arteries and big bellies. Number three. Hieroglyphics weren't really the main language of ancient Egypt. That's right, hieroglyphs were only used for ritual purposes and official inscriptions. For common, everyday use, Egyptians wrote using a system called hieratic, and it was used for a good reason. There were only so many different hieroglyphs, which meant that you really had to understand the context in order to understand a hieroglyphic message. Number two. The Egyptian city of Heracleion. That sank into the ocean. That's right, this doomed metropolis was originally built on a group of islands near the Nile River. It was intersected by canals and had lots of harbors, which eventually made it Egypt's main port for international trade. It was most likely founded around 1200 BC and really flourished between 600 to 400 BC. And about 600 years later, the city sank, likely due to liquefaction of the ground the city was built on after an earthquake. The ruins of the once great city were lost to the sea and considered by many historians to be just a myth for over 1,800 years until they were finally found by a French archeologist in 2000. And according to the archeologist who made the discovery, quote, we are just at the beginning of our research. We will probably have to continue working for the next 200 years for Heracleion to be fully revealed and understood. So grab a drink and strap in, because this might take a while. And finally, our number one fact about ancient Egypt, the mystery of the Sphinx's missing nose. That's right, no one's quite sure what happened to it. One popular theory is that Napoleon's troops shot it off when they conquered Egypt in 1798. But sketches of the Sphinx from 1737 show it already missing its nose a full 60 years before Napoleon stepped foot in Egypt. Some blame the missing schnoz to a cleric in the 1300s who found villagers worshiping the statue and became so enraged that he tried to destroy it. Historians don't know if the cleric actually demolished the entire nose, but he was charged with vandalism in 1378, so he definitely did some damage. I guess you could say he was trying to cut off its nose despite its face. But don't worry, Mr. Sphinx, these days you can just get a nose job. And there they are, 25 amazing facts about ancient Egypt. As always, remember to subscribe to DreamWorks TV for new videos every day. Signing off, I'm your host, and I can say for certain, I will never sleep on a bed of stones. Adios.