The Ancient Egyptian Treasures Collected In The Vatican | Egyptian Secrets At The Vatican | Odyssey

If you love ancient history, then this is the channel for you. History Hit TV. It's like Netflix, but dedicated just to ad-free history documentaries, including a huge library of ancient history content from the 9th Legion to Boudicca to the First Britain. Simply check out the details in the description below and make sure you use code ODYSSEY on sign up. A city where modern lives long. A symbol of power, 13 to be precise. Ancient Egyptian obelisks relocated to Rome. Yet one holy site contains Egyptian mysteries. Beautiful art from times long forgotten. Corridors of gods and royals and sacred writings inscribed long before Rome had its emperors. Thousands of years before Julius Caesar and Christianity. In the shadows of ancient Rome, what Egyptian secrets lie in plain sight at the Vatican? Founded in 1506, the Vatican's museum holds a huge collection of art amassed by the Catholic Church and previous popes. A collection of over 70,000 artifacts, of which 20,000 are on display. In a room adjacent to the Sistine Chapel, around the altar dedicated to the Virgin Mary is an artifact that you wouldn't expect to find. Pope Pius IX had the story of the Virgin Mary's immaculate conception of her becoming pregnant with the Son of God translated into every language known to man in 1854. He even had the story embossed onto silver in Egyptian hieroglyphs, while placing his own name into an ancient Egyptian royal cartouche. But why would an organization that asked Champollion not to translate the hieroglyphs be interested in ancient Egypt? We are at the Egyptian section in the Vatican Museum. I'm so excited to be here. There's so many amazing pieces as you can see from so many different dynasties all the way from pre-dynastic times up until the Roman period. So I am very much looking forward to showing everybody some of the amazing pieces here at the museum. Many people think that the ancient Egyptians were obsessed with death. In fact, they were obsessed with life and how they could ensure their next life would be prosperous. Mummification was their way of preserving the body so that the gods could recognize your spirit. Such as this 22nd dynasty noble woman with her perfectly preserved hair dating back almost 2,900 years. Sharing the same display case is a royal mummy. However, she was not born in Egypt. I've been waiting so long to see her. This is Princess Amuniedris of the 25th dynasty of Nubia and she was adopted and moved to Thebes and became a high priestess of Amun and Mut. So to see her, it's so amazing. You can see she would have been wrapped with beads and all of her funerary objects. It's so beautiful. And in Florence is actually her nanny's death mask which is quite huge. So there's been a lot of debate about Princess Amuniedris whether we should send her back to Nubia, to Sudan, or keep her here. But that's a bit of a slippery slope and I'm so excited to see Princess Amuniedris here. And in Cairo, there is a beautiful alabaster statue of Amuniedris. Huge alabaster statue. So to see her, it's quite quite moving actually. Beautifully wrapped in linen, her mummy would have been covered with these turquoise colored beads. In a style dating back almost a thousand years before Amuniedris, the old kingdom of Egypt, these beads would connect her to the goddess Hathor. Several silver and gold amulets were placed across her body, including her heart scarab which would be used to weigh her heart against the feather of justice at the final judgment before the afterlife. Her tomb was found in Luxor with many wooden artifacts, alabaster and gold. A touching statue set of goddesses were placed at the head and foot of her nested sarcophagi. Isis and Nephthys have protected Amuniedris for thousands of years. The main protector of Amuniedris' tomb was the jackal Anubis. He even guarded something that could make Amuniedris' next life even more leisurely. These little figurines are called shabtis. If you could afford it, hundreds of them were placed in your tomb. You could call upon them sort of like servants to do the jobs you did not want to do in the next life. Each shabti was given a special spell to invoke its role and they were specially decorated with individual faces. These wooden shabtis coated in resin were created for pharaoh Seti I and are some of the only artifacts remaining from his tomb found by Giovanni Belzoni. Shabtis could also be lazy and they needed a special foreman figurine placed there to make sure they do their job. However, Amuniedris needed something to be cased in and I'm not talking about tombs, I'm talking about sarcophagi and some of them could be elaborately decorated. This coffin is a very famous coffin. It's very famous on the internet. However, seeing her in person, the internet's a little photoshopped. She's actually very desaturated online. They've made her her headdress with the neck bed vulture goddess very green and here she's actually very dull, but still she's extremely beautiful to look at. This beautiful high-class lady was an ancient Egyptian singer from 900 BC. The goddess Nut pours out water for the barbird, the spirit of the dead, as she appears as a sycamore tree. During periods of economic decline, many texts could not be put on the walls so they were drawn into the coffins. The goddess above protecting the dead who is presenting her heart, the source of her soul. The third intermediate period, when Egypt went into severe economic decline, is famed for presenting us with these beautiful yellow coffins. The entire surface area of the coffin was decorated with texts to help the dead get into the afterlife, as they could not afford tombs at the time. Yet the yellow coffin style can be found in the 18th dynasty, 300 years or so before the third intermediate period. The inside of this coffin shows the pharaoh Thutmose III presented as the god Sokar. Clearly the coffin of someone held in high regard by the pharaoh as he is inside the coffin protecting the dead. When the Greeks arrived in Egypt, they began to adopt Egyptian funerary practices, leaving us with some interesting death masks painted and gilded with gold, inlaid with precious stones such as blue lapis lazuli. When a certain Roman emperor arrived in Egypt, the art dramatically began to change. Julius Caesar and Cleopatra had their infamous love affair and when that was over, the Romans were in charge of Egypt. Jewelry stitched into painted linen with the image of a beautiful woman from the 3rd century AD found in Antonopolis and then placed over her mummy, a lifelike image of a lady living in Egypt. They also loved life and recording what happened in life. Stone scarabs were used to commemorate important events. The grandfather of Egypt's most famous pharaoh had many of these created. The stone scarab of Amenhotep III announces his wedding to his soon-to-be wife, Queen Tiye. Queen Tiye. These could be mass-produced and handed out as news bulletins. Their son started an artistic and religious revolution. Believing in only one god, Akhenaten can be seen as the first monotheist. The art style dating from Akhenaten's reign known as the Amarna period is quite distinctive. A wall fragment taken from an Amarna period tomb at Saqqara. The man here wearing his elaborate wig and heavy jewelry which were given as a gift from the pharaoh. His fine linen typical of the period over 3,300 years ago. Before the official is an offering table filled with fruits, breads and flowers. You of course needed to eat in the next life and this man's tomb shows that he received thousands and thousands of offerings. This fragment from his tomb shows us clearly that he received a thousand beer, a thousand cattle, a thousand geese and so on. In the 18th dynasty it was quite common for your family to give offerings to your soul and for this ritual you needed a special device and luckily the Vatican has these on display. These are offering tables but what's interesting about this offering table is on the top it shows the food, the bread, the animal carcasses, the pieces of meat and what instead of putting the actual offering on this little table they would pour water over here and the water would run out of the spout giving the essence of the food to the dead. This is known as a hetep, hetep offering. The pharaoh of course needed offerings as well however theirs were on a slightly higher level such as pharaoh Thutmose III. A carving from his temple shows two gods pouring the key of life, water over the pharaoh making him pure. This is such an interesting piece because what we would usually see as a man here is actually a woman. This is queen and pharaoh Hatshepsut. Here's her name Maat Kaara, the beautiful spirit of the goddess Maat. Here is Hatshepsut with her stepson who later became the pharaoh Thutmose III. You can see his name here Men Kepera. Here they are standing together which is quite interesting. It sort of shows a co-regency as both of their names are in cartouches and they are both giving offerings back to Amun. At the bottom here we can even see Hatshepsut's name Amun Hatshepsut and this is such an interesting piece to prove that there was a co-regency between the two gods there. Over a thousand years before Hatshepsut the Egyptians buried their pharaohs in grand pyramids. The Vatican holds clues about these man-made mountains. This man worked for pharaoh Khufu, the owner of the great pyramid. His name is Iri. Iri was the high priest of Khufu and would be the overseer of Khufu's tomb, the great pyramid, once Khufu had died. The ancient Egyptians had such a firm belief that your spirit would ascend into the sky like a bird and meet with Osiris, the god of the afterlife. Osiris had a counterpart god known as Ptah and when these two gods were combined they created an all-powerful god that would be worshipped all the way from Egypt to Rome. In 117 AD Emperor Hadrian was ruling Rome. At his villa in Tivoli, Hadrian had an Egyptian serapium created. This space was dedicated to Osiris, Apis and Ptah. These Egyptian statues made with a Roman flair such as the staff of Ptah with a rooster. Serapis was the combination of Ptah, Osiris and the Apis bird. When Hadrian's lover Antinous died he was named Osiris Antinous connecting him with Serapis. The worship of Serapis and the Apis bull have long-standing roots in ancient Egypt. Serapium of Hadrian and Antinous is a beautiful combination of Roman and Egyptian art and religion. By Hadrian's time Rome had been ruling Egypt for over a hundred years. Antinous was sort of named as pharaoh in Egypt and when he died Hadrian named an entire city after him. The mighty emperors of Rome could not be overcome by the religion of Egypt. A Roman was so taken with the religion of ancient Egypt that he built the serapium to his favorite Antinous where he worshipped him as an Egyptian god. Some scholars believe that Hadrian had Antinous buried in his serapium in Iten. It is believed that over 100 statues were dedicated to Antinous by Hadrian. This is Antinous the favorite lover of emperor Hadrian and he was actually crowned sort of as pharaoh in Egypt and unfortunately he drowned in the Nile which caused emperor Hadrian to build the city of Antinopolis but this is a representation of Antinous as pharaoh but in a very Roman style. The ancient Egyptian jackal-headed god Anubis the leader of the dead shown here in a very Roman style wearing a very Roman draped tunic and sandals. In the first century AD in Rome Anubis was connected to Mercury. Two winged circles intertwining on his staff known as the caduceus symbolizing his connection to the Roman ferryman of the dead. It was not uncommon for Romans to adopt and adapt ancient gods from other religions. Thoth could be associated with Hermes or Mercury and the Egyptian Nile god Hapi given a Roman makeover into a fountain. A thousand years before Hapi's makeover Egypt was ruled by one of its most powerful pharaohs. Vast lands and building on an unprecedented scale. However strangely at the Vatican very few artifacts are on display of Ramses II but rather a woman that is responsible for Ramses' entire life. A lady that I've been waiting so long to meet Muttoi the mother of Ramses II Statues of queens are usually smaller unless we think of Queen T or Nefertari. This woman was so amazing and she's the one who trained Queen Nefertari and what I love about her statue she's so huge Ramses' name is at the top. Ramses had several statues dedicated to his mother across Egypt from Abu Simbel to Memphis but this one was found at the Ramesseum in Luxor and at the bottom here we have Ramses' sister and her daughter. Because the statue was damaged when taken to Rome by Emperor Caligula, Penumetra, Ramses' sister on the side, has been given a Roman skirt. Ramses venerated his mother as to be reborn in the afterlife you need a mother. She was the great royal wife of Pharaoh Seti I and played an important role in Egyptian politics. It is absolutely incredible to see this amazing woman. Next on our lineup are the descendants of a Greek man who called himself the son of Amun. In 332 BC the Persians had taken over Egypt. Egypt's salvation would come from a mighty Greek Macedonian conqueror better known as Alexander the Great. A descendant of Alexander the Great, Ptolemy I became pharaoh of Egypt when Alexander died. When his son Ptolemy II came to the throne he had a co-regency with his sister wife Arsinoe and this woman was given an unprecedented title at the time. Arsinoe was named ruler of upper and lower Egypt making her a full pharaoh. When she died in year 15 of Ptolemy II's reign he decreed that Arsinoe be deified and her statue placed in every temple. The apis bull was connected to the strength of the pharaoh and was worshipped up and down the land. One specific bull was chosen and placed inside the temple. When the bull died it would be mummified as a pharaoh and celebrated throughout the land of Egypt. What we have here is one of the only depictions of the apis bull as a man. So it's the apis bull with the head with the horns holding the staff of Waz and he is with the body of a man. Isn't he just beautiful? Not surprisingly the Vatican holds many rare Egyptian statues of gods. A rarely seen statue of the goddess Selket. She has the body of a scorpion and the head of a goddess. She would protect you from bites and poison usually just shown as a woman. And this an Egyptian cobra Uraeus usually shown at the front of a pharaoh's crown inlaid with stone and gilded with gold. Snakes, birds, bugs, the Egyptians also worshipped several forms of felines. Not very often do we get a depiction of a male lion god in Egypt apart from one and his name was Mahes. Mahes is shown here in such a small depiction of a strong male lion, the god of war and destroying your enemies. And Ramses II showed Mahes very rarely but at places like Wadi al-Sabuwa which is the valley of the lions, which is where the lions were trained to be taken to war with Ramses. And Ramses' own pet lion that we see depicted with him at Abu Simbel during the battle of Kadesh is called Mahes, the destroyer of the enemies. And here he is. Usually a lion is not shown as a god. A lioness is the female goddess. Sekhmet is shown as a goddess but never a male lion. This is an extremely rare image of Mahes, the male god of war. The Vatican is well known for having many Christian and Catholic artifacts but they also have a huge collection of Egyptian art and one of the most famous pieces that they have is this lion of Nectarnebo which was found at Philae. Unfortunately it would be Christianity that would bring ancient Egypt to its final demise. Philae temple is the last place where ancient Egyptian religion was practiced. The Roman Empire then came into Egypt but many of the emperors depicted themselves here at Philae as pharaohs. This lion has been copied so many times in Europe when it was brought to Rome. Even walking around Naples in Italy you will find many ancient copies of the Nectarnebo lion. It's actually so famous you would have recognized it from being on fountains outside people's homes. So this lion has actually traveled through thousands of years. So there we have it. Those are some of the mysteries and treasures held at one of Catholics and Christians most sacred sites. Priceless pieces of art gathered vastly from the ancient world. From kings, pharaohs, emperors and popes. These are just a few of the Egyptian secrets at the Vatican.