Cairo Museum Tour

Welcome to this new episode of the series, From Cairo to Abu Simbel. In this episode, we visit the famous Egyptian museum in Cairo. This is a very nice museum, Jack. I think one of the most beautiful museums in the world, when it comes to Egyptian antiquities. At Shepsut this is true. But, the new museum will open soon, near the pyramids. A large number of the antiquities will be exhibited there. It is now March 2024. If you want to visit in the future the Cairo museum, look online to see which museum is best to go to. This is true and important. Let's go inside. Once inside, we immediately encounter a huge statue of Ramses II. Beautiful. There is so much to see here, we cannot explain or describe everything that passes by. The film would last hours. There is so much beauty on display here. The big black statue is from Smenkhere Merimshah. He was a king of the early 13th dynasty during the late Middle Kingdom. This was about 1700 years before Christ. Next to it is the large statue of Amenhotep III and Queen Tai. These are Akhenaten's parents. Tutankhamun's grandfather and grandmother. Between them stands the second eldest daughter, Princess Hunatenep. She is shown small, but her wig and tight dress show that she was already an adult woman. Fortunately, Queen Tai's body has been preserved. It is located in the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization, also in Cairo. Look how beautiful her brown-red hair still is. In the large statue of Queen Tai and Amenhotep III what you just saw, you could see that she had her arm around her husband's waist. I'm sure she was a loving woman. Please keep that in mind when you visit the mummies. They were real people who deserve your respect. Their influence on your daily life, to this day, is many times greater than you could imagine. We continue with her son, King Akhenaten. Certainly one of the most interesting pharaohs from ancient history. Yes, Tutankhamun's father was a special man. We could tell you so much about him, but this episode is about the Egyptian Museum, so we'll have to keep it short. It is a misconception that Akhenaten introduced monotheism in Egypt. What is monotheism? Monotheism is when there is only one god. Akhenaten did not ban the other gods, but made most gods inactive. The god Aten, the sun god, was now the most important god. He considered the god Aten as king, and together with his wife, Nefertiti, they formed a trinity. Here you see Akhenaten, together with Nefertiti, and their two eldest daughters, Meredaten and Meketetan, making an offering to Aten. When you make such big changes to the gods you also make enemies. He was hated by many people. They wanted to erase his name from history. Just look at his coffin. They tore off half his face and they cut out his cartouche with his name. Striking in Akhenaten, but also in his children, are some strange physical characteristics, including long skulls. We have tried to give you insight into why this was so. There has been such a thing as skull binding since ancient times. This has been observed from China to South America, but Egyptologists reject this. They assume that it must have been Marfan syndrome. Marfan syndrome is hereditary. But in 2023, during the reconstruction of the face of Tutankhamen, the son of Akhenaten and a concubine known as the Older Lady, it was discovered that he also had a long skull. The author of this article calls it Dalicocephaly. As you can see here, nothing is simple when it comes to the distant past. More about Tutankhamen later. Before we close the chapter Akhenaten, we would like to show you something special. Even though it does not come from this museum, but from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Here you can also see two daughters of Akhenaten. Look how beautifully it has been preserved and how intimate both girls were with each other. Look at the smallest girl and see how long her head was. You can also see from the stone that Akhenaten used much smaller stones than his predecessors in order to be able to build as quickly as possible. He used blocks of an average of 21 by 30 centimeters. There is still so much to tell and discover about Akhenaten and his queen. About the famous Armana letters. Maybe it was the Israelites who gave his generals problems at the borders. Maybe Akhenaten was at the cradle of Christianity. About his art style. About his architecture. We hope that one day, this man will get all the historical honor that is due to him. This beautifully finished statue is of Nespaka Shuri. He was a scribe and vizier of King Samtech I. He lived around 650 years before Christ. Scribes had a very high position in Egypt. Look! He has a papyrus roll on his lap. His job was to write important documents of the state, but also private documents of the king. But he also noted and maintained the taxes. Taxes? Even then? Yes, Jack, even then. We have arrived at the statue of the Roman Emperor Augustus, also called Octavius. From the time that Egypt was a province of Rome, he was the adopted son of Julius Caesar. Cleopatra also wanted to seduce him, in her hope that Egypt would be spared. At their first meeting, she had letters from her, and Julius Caesar clasped between her breasts, but she could not seduce him. The only thing Octavius would have answered was, be calm, good woman, you will not be in danger under me. She was an extremely intelligent woman, but she was willing to go much further to save Egypt from destruction. Yes, that's true. You can clearly see the fusion between the Roman and Egyptian styles of statues. Here is another example of how great they could work the statues into beautiful works of art in the old days. This is Hor, the statue was dedicated to him by his grandson. He lived around 700 years before Christ. Can you imagine having to make this out of a block of rock hard stone? This is the statue of King Djoser, the builder of the first pyramid of mankind. He lived around 2700 years before Christ. Fortunately, they were able to take a photo of him at that time, so that we can still look at it today. The statue is in a worse condition, but it is also over 4700 years old when we make this film. More about Djoser and his pyramid later in this series. Here we see King Mengkor, the builder of the smallest pyramid of the Giza Plateau. You can find so many great and small details in this museum. For example, you can see the beautiful wooden statue of a servant with a backpack. His name was Niangpi Paikum. This is the first representation of carrying a backpack in the entire history of mankind. Who is this? Do you know her Hatshepsut?