Legends of the Pharaohs Episode 1 Birth of the Tutankhamun Dynasty FD Ancient History

Autumn 1922. In the region of Luxor, a team of archaeologists had just found the entrance to a passage hidden among the cliffs in the Valley of the Kings. It was the 26th of November and the Egyptologist Howard Carter was about to make one of the greatest archaeological discoveries of all time. One final wall still separated him from the entrance to a tomb which appeared to have remained undefiled since antiquity. Howard Carter had just discovered the tomb and stupendous treasure of Tutankhamen, a pharaoh forgotten by history for 3,300 years. The last descendant of a family which ruled Egypt for eight generations, he was still just a child when he acceded to the throne. Among his ancestors were some of the most fascinating characters of all antiquity. The female pharaoh Hatshepsut, the sublime Nefertiti or even the enigmatic Akhenaten. To Egyptologists, this family is known for introducing the 18th dynasty. Almost every pharaoh that we meet is more interesting than the next. Under them, Egypt became the richest and most powerful kingdom in the world. This is the story of the founders of the new kingdom, the incredible Golden Age of Egypt. The year is 1560 before the Common Era in a village in the north of Egypt. Everything seems peaceful, but this calm is misleading. For over a century now, the Kingdom of Egypt had not had full control over its own territory. A foreign people, the Ixos, controlled the north of the country, blocking access to the Mediterranean. The Ixos were foreign invaders with a kingdom across the north of Egypt. They were dominant throughout the Nile Delta. Traditional Egyptians were really limited to their southernmost part of the country around ancient Thebes. And they no longer had access to the old capital at Memphis. And so they were really pushed far outside of what they viewed to be their normal limits. From that point on, the pharaohs only ruled a small part of Egypt. They were driven back to Thebes, their new capital. In his palace, King Sekenenre ruled over a truncated country. He could no longer bear to hear reports of pillaging in the parts of his kingdom outside his control. Humiliated, he thought back to the time when his ancestors were powerful enough to oversee the construction of the Great Pyramids. The era when the pharaohs reigned supreme over the whole length of the Nile, from Elephantine Island to the Mediterranean, inspiring fear and respect in the neighboring kingdoms. Now, Egypt was but a shadow of its former glorious self. But this period of chaos and weakness was about to come to an end. It was a difficult period because the king only ruled over part of his country. There was a sense of outrage and there was even maybe a moral imperative to take back the traditional boundaries. 3,500 years ago, the exasperated King Sekenenre made a decision that would transform his country for centuries to come. With the support of his entire clan, and especially that of his wife, the powerful Queen Ahutep, he set out to retake his territories and his lost pride. Sekenenre launched a military offensive against the Hyksos. It's clear that Pharaoh Sekenenre was one of the first pharaohs to really feel the brunt of the insult. Sekenenre did not hesitate. It was time to raise an army. Thus did this king, whose name is far less well known than that of Tutankhamun, play a vital role in determining the future of the 18th dynasty. He was no longer willing to accept the situation he was in, where Egypt was really divided into two. Without Sekenenre, there never would have developed a great empire and there wouldn't probably have come about powerful pharaohs who rose to great prominence in the 18th dynasty, like Tutankhamun. But how did this almost unknown character come to play such a crucial role? The discovery of his mummy, hidden in the cliffs that loom over the ancient city of Thebes, revealed some precious clues. It was a French Egyptologist, Gaston Maspero, who was the first to examine the mummy in 1886. This is what he wrote in his journal. Egypt truly is a land of wonders. It delivers up to us the very men who made history. These great sovereigns are no longer just names detached of substance floating in our imagination. We can see them, touch them, measure them. And as though they were our contemporaries, we can publish their photographs. At this time, in order to find out more about the mummies, Egyptologists like Gaston Maspero unwrapped them, peeling away their linen bindings. Usually, the royal mummies of Egypt were beautifully mummified. They had access to the best embalmers and they were carefully preserved so that the features were perfectly rendered for eternity. With the arms crossed in a restful, peaceful position, what we see, by contrast, with the mummy of King Second Nenre, is actually a body that's not in good condition. But there's more than that. When it was first unwrapped, Maspero remarked on the smell. And mummies do smell differently, but it seemed as if this one had not been mummified quite so well and so the smell was not delicious. Usually, mummies exuded a sweet smell of spices and perfumed oils. This one gave off a fetid stench. It was like a mummy straight out of a horror film. And this gives us kind of a snapshot of what happened to this pharaoh. Clearly, Second Nenre was not mummified according to the rules of the art. But what's really striking about Second Nenre is that he was found with his hands like this. His body experienced rigor mortis, the kind of stiffening of the limbs that happens after death before the embalmers could get to him and prepare him properly. And so he got stuck in this pose, but he really is a very evocative and tragic looking king. The agony suffered by the dying pharaoh is still visible, etched into his face, which is frozen in the throes of the final moments of his life. But what happened to Second Nenre? When Gaston Maspero examined the king's skull, he discovered some disturbing elements. He wrote in his journal. Long, thin strands of hair on his forehead were partly concealing a large wound near the right temple, a little above the arch of the eyebrow. The facial expression and its violent contraction gave a still very visible display of pain. A painstaking examination revealed two more wounds. One where a blunt instrument had struck the left cheek, breaking the jaw. And the other where a blow from an axe on the top of the head had dislodged a large chip of bone, leaving a wide split in the skull through which some of the brain must have leaked out. From his examination, Maspero identified no less than five head wounds, several of which could have been fatal. What's certain is that he died in battle. That's really rare. The mummy of the king killed the waging war. As far as I know, there aren't any others in Egypt. This theory, now widely accepted, was already the one espoused by Maspero. In his journal, he evoked a violent death in battle. It's often thought that that assault was on the battlefield against the Hyksos. And recent CAT scan studies have really pushed this idea further. At the time of Second Henry, the Hyksos king, Apophis I, had established his capital at Avaris, present day Tel El Daba. His henchmen imposed their law on the entire region. Unlike the Egyptians, the Hyksos were already masters at working with bronze, forging fearsome weapons like those which caused Second Henry's wounds. At Tel El Daba, the city of the Hyksos, they found all the weapons that used by the Hyksos, the axe, the dagger, the sword, and we studied all these type of tools to compare each one with each wound. And we're able to find out exactly each wound is connected with what weapon in the ceremonies here. But where did they come from, this people so technologically advanced and able to challenge and kill the Egyptian king on the land of his ancestors? This people of merchants and caravan drivers were heavily involved in international trade. All kinds of goods produced around the Mediterranean passed through Avaris. The Hyksos also controlled the Oasis route, which enabled trading with Black Africa and the Nubian kingdom, from which they brought back extraordinary riches in the form of gold, ebony and ivory. Avaris, or Hoot Waret in Egyptian, was a large city with enormous fortifications which must have inspired respect. It was a strategic place because it let them control all exchanges between Egypt and the Syrian-Palestinian corridor. So what's fascinating is we see a hybrid Egyptian-Canaanite culture develop in the eastern delta. And in this culture, these people spoke Egyptian, they worshipped Egyptian gods. These people are people of foreign origin, but who have become sophisticated, acculturated users of Egyptian tradition. While the Hyksos adopted Egyptian traditions, they also introduced spectacular innovations, most importantly, the horse. This animal, originally from Central Asia, would revolutionize warfare in Egypt during the New Kingdom and become inextricably linked to the power of the pharaohs. Archaeologists thought for a long time that the two peoples were in open conflict, but recent discoveries have revealed a more nuanced picture. Probably, there were many Egyptians throughout the country who were actually faithful to the Hyksos and served as willing participants in their control of northern Egypt. When the Hyksos settled in Egypt, even the pharaohs let them do so. For almost two centuries, the Egyptian kings, based in thieves in the Hyksos settled in the north, cohabitated. You had two powers that occasionally waged war, but in the long term, mostly got along. Yet in this arrangement, the Egyptians still felt superior to the Hyksos, who remained, as far as they were concerned, foreigners from the east, disparaged by them as Asians. Egypt, like all ancient civilizations, had a very binary vision of the world. The Egyptians were good. Everyone else was scum. But over time, the Hyksos became so powerful that it was no longer enough for the kings of Egypt to simply treat them with contempt. And over time, the Hyksos claim kingship. And in fact, they take power over the northern part of Egypt and even rival the pharaohs. And probably they had to pay some kind of tribute to the Hyksos king. And this must have been very painful to them. Such affronts pushed Sekhonenre into launching his military campaign against the Hyksos king, Apophis I. Apophis called himself the son of Ra, son of the sun god. And this must have really offended the sensibilities of the traditional Egyptians who felt that they had the only true claim to the throne. While such an offense must have been unbearable for Sekhonenre, it wasn't his only reason for going to war. His country was under threat from another quarter. To the south of Thebes were the Nubians of the kingdom of Kush, who were progressively annexing Egyptian land. If the Hyksos and the Nubians united, they'd make short work of what remained of Egypt. So in around 1550 BCE, Sekhonenre went on the offensive. He confronted the Hyksos and their king, Apophis I, determined to fight to the death. He knew there could only be one victor. It was in this conflict that Sekhonenre was killed. Paradoxically, his death would galvanize his successors and, above all, help bring about the ascendancy of the new kingdom. Sekhonenre left behind his wife, Ahotep, and their very young son, Prince Amos, nowhere near old enough to reign. To help raise her son, Ahotep could count on another strong woman used to wielding power. The queen mother, Teteshere. We see a series of really powerful women, queens, not rulers in their own right, but women who stand next to the throne or behind the throne. The Theban royal family was a matriarchal one. It was the women who mattered in this family. Amosa didn't make a point of who his father was, only that he was the grandson of Queen Teteshere. This stone tablet was found in a temple built by Amosa in honor of Teteshere in the sacred town of Abidos. On it, Amosa proclaims his attachment and lineage to his grandmother, depicting himself making an offering to her. Over the corpse of King Sekhonenre, these powerful women decided to continue the fight. The war would now be waged by the new king, a fearsome warrior by the name of Kamosa. Most Egyptologists today think that he was a younger brother of Sekhonenre, the king killed by the Ixos. The Egyptians' terms for family members weren't as exact as ours. A brother could be a brother, a cousin, anyone in that line of the family. What mattered was that he was a member of the Theban family. The clan got organized. The queen took care of political and business matters, while Kamosa, as king, prepared his army for war. The fierce warrior was determined to avenge his clan, drive out the invaders and restore his country to its former glory. Unlike the Egyptians, the Ixos were equipped with fearsome modern weapons. So before going to war, Kamosa decided to make a detailed study of his enemy's arsenal. Industrial espionage probably already existed at the time. Espionage, which was particularly focused on the use of horses in battle. The Egyptians copied, imitated the Ixos chariots, appropriating their use and making them a vital element of their war machine. The chariot itself is one of the most incredibly complex pieces of technology you could imagine, with all sorts of moving parts. It's not just two wheels and a body. It's actually a very sophisticated piece of machinery. The Egyptians also improved their know-how in the manufacture of bows, which now became more deadly, thanks to technology learned from the Ixos. The compound bow is an innovation at this time from the Near East, and it's made of strips of wood and horn and wrapped with sinews. And it delivers the force more like a crossbow so that Egyptians could pierce the armor of the enemy and have more success in that way. What's extraordinary is we see new technological innovations coming into Egypt that once they're taken over by the Egyptians, they use against the Ixos. Kamosa was careful to commit a report of what followed on a stone tablet found at the entrance to the Temple of Karnak. Even if it isn't at the forefront of the exhibits in the Museum of Luxor, where it now resides, it reveals precise information about the offensive led by the king. The Egyptologist Stephen Harvey deciphers it for us. This is the great stela of Pharaoh Kamosa, and it tells the story from the last days of the Ixos. And Kamosa says, how can this be? Apophis, this so-called king, thinks of himself as a pharaoh, in effect, and we're just considered as what? While Kamosa's anger at the Ixos remained as intense, he was also exasperated by the Nubians threatening Egypt from the south. Here's what he wrote. What use is my power if I sit here doing nothing while Asians and Nubians each possess part of Egypt? I shall fight and eviscerate them. My wish is to free Egypt. At about 1540 BCE, Kamosa sprang into action, beginning the reconquest of his country. He started with the south and his victory was total. He retook fortified positions occupied by the Nubians and even extended his territory into the heart of their region, as far as the second cataract of the Nile. Only then did he head north for a showdown with the Ixos. Memphis and the region of the pyramids were retaken, and at last, Avaris, his enemy's capital, was in sight. So Kamosa describes in this text how he chose to go up to the walls of Avaris. And he even says that they are standing there, the Ixos are all looking out from their fortress at Avaris. And in effect, Kamosa is shaking his fist and he says, we will cut down your vineyards and we will tear down the walls of your city. This kind of monumental inscription is set up in a temple and it gives forth an idea of royal propaganda. It's written to glorify the pharaoh. So there's a sense of the pharaoh animating the will of the people and then leading this almost religious battle, you could say, against this enemy who is then denigrated as invaders, people who illegitimately ruled the northern part of Egypt. Even though Kamosa spun the story of the campaign to his own advantage, it has been established that he did indeed capture inhabitants of Avaris, as well as King Apophis' fleet. He bragged of seizing 300 ships. He probably rounded the numbers up a bit, but they were definitely a lot. The stone tablet also relates how a messenger of the Ixos was caught with a missive written by King Apophis to his counterpart in the Nubian kingdom, proposing an alliance with the Nubians. If the two states had come to an agreement, they could have annihilated the Thebans. Apophis was suggesting a simultaneous attack from the north and south because things were starting to get pretty hairy for the Ixos. This message bothered Kamosa. He decided to raise the siege of the Ixos capital without bringing about its fall. Then he headed back south to Nubia to consolidate his power in this newly acquired territory. As a result, Avaris still held out, but the Nubian region would be under Egyptian domination for the next five centuries. Then, after reigning for only three years, Kamosa died. The circumstances of his death are not known. With Kamosa dead, Ahotep, the young widow of Sekenenre, acted as regent to the country on behalf of her young son Amoza, who had now become the king. In the royal palace of Thebes, Ahotep, now the regent, prepared her son to rule. So she really had to be actively involved in politics, in diplomacy and as well as military maneuvers, because the Ixos was still a threat to Egypt. During this troubled period, Amoza received a complete military education. As well as being able to read and write and being familiar with the religious texts, it was vital that the young king was well trained in the art of war. The years passed. Now, an adult, Amoza was finally ready to lead his country. Now he needed a queen, and his mother had the perfect candidate for him. Her name was Amoza Nefertari. A magnificent statue in the Louvre Museum gives us the chance to meet this young woman. The statue depicts her not as she was in reality. Rather, she's represented as an ideal queen, perfectly corresponding to the Egyptian canons of feminine beauty at that time. She's tall and slim, dressed in a clinging, transparent sheath of a dress. And on her face, too, you notice the almond-shaped eyes lined with kohl. But Amoza Nefertari wasn't only beautiful. There was also something else special about her. She was Amoza's sister. In the royal families of ancient Egypt, incest was not taboo. They kept it in the family, quite probably to keep out the blood of outsiders who might then lay claim to power. Queen Ahuthep, the mother of Amoza and Amoza Nefertari, had also married her brother, King Second Henry. Both were the children of Tethysheri and her husband, King Sennach Tenri. And it also reflects religious ideas about Osiris and Isis and other pairs of brother, sister, who are married and have children in Egyptian religion. In Egyptian mythology, Isis and Osiris were the children of the sky and the earth. They were the founding couple of royalty, the parents of Horus, the falcon-headed god, of whom the pharaoh was the earthly incarnation. Amoza Nefertari would have been perfectly prepared by her mother and grandmother for her new role as her brother's regal wife. There were women in three generations who were, at some points, living together and probably thinking together in tandem about how to strategize to bring Egypt back to its full control. Ahuthep, Tethysheri and Amoza Nefertari were very important to support their husbands or the children to really tell the Egyptian and give inside them the bride. We need to fight the Hyksos. We need to tell them that they can't stay in our country. Amoza Nefertari had inherited from her ancestors the strength and spirit that make a great queen. It was now that she would need it. In the third year of his reign, Amoza left Thebes, his wife and his clan, to put paid once and for all the Hyksos' presence in his kingdom. Now he in turn headed to Avaris, the Hyksos' capital. Determined to finish the job of reconquering the country begun by his father, Second Henry, and his predecessor, the warrior Kamosa. To find out more about Amoza's offensive, Stephen Harvey takes us to a fascinating tomb dug into the cliffs above the ancient village of Nekeb, present day El Kab, 90 kilometers south of Thebes. This place is home to a priceless treasure, the hieroglyphs which cover its walls. They are the only account we have of this fighting between the Egyptians and Hyksos over 3,500 years ago. This is a man called Amoza, son of Abana, and he's shown here almost at life's size and he's telling us his life story. Even more unusual and special, Amoza, son of Abana, wrote his accounts from beyond the grave in the first person singular. Here is what he had to say. I grew up in the village of Nekeb. My father was a soldier of the king of upper and lower Egypt. Then I too became a soldier aboard the ship called the Wild Bull. But then he tells us about his father. And it's quite interesting because his father, named Baba, fought alongside Pharaoh Second Henry, the king we know was killed on the battlefield in all likelihood and who didn't achieve the final defeat of the Hyksos. And that job really fell to Pharaoh Ahmoza, whose name is here. And what's amazing about this text is that Amoza, son of Abana, tells us that he fought alongside the Pharaoh's own chariot. They don't show the horses, but they show the chariot itself. So he literally ran alongside the chariot and then they besieged the city of Avaris. Under the reign of King Amoza, the soldier Amoza, son of Abana, fought in the military offensive against Avaris, a crucial battle for the king who had committed himself to bringing about the fall of the Hyksos capital, whatever it took. The soldier informs us that he performed particularly well in battle. During the siege of Avaris, I displayed great bravery as a foot soldier in the presence of his majesty. I amassed loot, prisoners and good quantity of hands. And we hear in the text that he took as many as five hands. So we see, for example, that blood dripping hands depicted in the hieroglyphs here. There is nothing mythical about this. In 2012, Egyptologists digging at Tell el Daba, the modern name of Avaris, unearthed 16 severed right hands in the area that the royal palace of the Hyksos had occupied. Archaeological proof that Amoza, son of Abana, was telling the truth. The soldier continues with his account, telling of the generosity of his pharaoh. And we also learned that Amoza was rewarded with live captives. And we see a man here with his arms painfully bound behind his back. He's hunched over a little bit. So he was awarded the ability to take some of these Hyksos people and bring them into slavery. The pharaoh would, in a formal ceremony, award the gold of valor to a man like Amoza, son of Abana. So here, for example, we see the word gold. And these came in heavy gold necklaces often, sometimes also with flies made of gold. And the fly was selected because the fly in Egypt is very annoying. It never stops to attack. And in this way, the soldier was said to be like the ceaseless fly who represent the military valor. And all of that is really conveyed here in vivid literary style and in very beautiful hieroglyphs that are clearly laid out. As a loyal and brave soldier against the Hyksos, Amoza, son of Abana, was awarded the gold of valor directly from King Amoza seven times in all. So this is very direct personal experience of how Amoza, son of Abana, was not the chief, not the general, not the pharaoh, but one of the soldiers who participated in the really important defeat of the Hyksos at their capital. Victorious at Avaris, the Egyptian army under the young king Amoza had finally achieved the task of reconquest undertaken by his predecessors. But Amoza was not about to stop there. The walls of the tomb of Amoza, son of Abana, inform us that the Egyptian army ventured further into traditional Hyksos territory, pushing as far as Sharowin in southern Palestine. Then, encouraged by this victory, they turned south, driving the Nubians ever further away. And this is tremendous information. What this means for us is that we know that they didn't just re-consolidate the Egyptian borders, the traditional borders, as they had been since early times. They pushed beyond them to initiate the empire period that we call the New Kingdom. After almost two centuries, Egypt was finally liberated from its foreign occupiers. The kingdoms of Upper and Lower Egypt were unified once more under their new sovereign Amoza I. His influence extended from the Mediterranean Sea to the fifth cataract of the Nile in southern Sudan. Never had the kingdom been this powerful. The New Kingdom and the glorious 18th dynasty could now get underway. Back in Thebes, Amoza dedicated his victory to Amun, who became the principal god of the New Kingdom, worshipped by the whole population in the person of the pharaoh, his representative on earth. Amun was originally the major god of the city of Thebes, and Thebes now became the capital of reunified Egypt. So you could say that Amun was the number one god of the 18th dynasty. To show his devotion to Amun, Amoza ordered the building of a new temple in Thebes. Added to, embellished and reworked by his successors, this became what we now know as the Temple of Luxor. A two kilometer long processional avenue connected this building to the sanctuary of Karnak, the principal residence of the god Amun. At the time when Amoza ruled over all Egypt, Karnak was the epicenter of the religious and political life of the entire country. The Egyptologist Mark Gebold guides us through the hidden recesses of this famous sanctuary. The historian shows us an area completely off limits to the general public. Through these narrow passages, used by the temple's builders over 3,000 years ago, he guides us to an exceptional location. This is the best spot from which to get an overall view of the sanctuary of Karnak, and I don't think many people have been up here though. We are at the summit of the first pylon of one of the greatest temples of ancient Egypt. The pylons are these monumental constructions through which one entered a temple. They comprised two gigantic walls and an enormous door, and the pharaohs had to build a new one every time they wished to add to a place of worship. From this exceptional viewpoint, we can better see how the site developed over time. When Amoza came to power, the heart of the temple was the court of the Middle Kingdom. That was the site of the first temple of Karnak, which was gradually added to throughout the whole of the New Kingdom. It extended to the west, to the south, but also to the east and to the north, like a living organism growing in every direction. The temple of Karnak was a holy place, yes, but it was also a bit like the Rance Cathedral, a place where kings were crowned. So it had this royal connection while still being a divine spot, a place of worship. After Amoza, every king made sure to leave his mark, adding a pylon or some other building to extol his glory while removing traces of his predecessor. In ancient Egypt, there was this idea of always going one better. It was, in one way, a society mired in its traditions. You had to do the same as your predecessors, but you had to do better. So how do you do the same but better at the same time? Well, you build bigger. You do the same thing, but bigger. The site covers 50 hectares. At the time of the 18th dynasty, it was already 40. Under Amoza, a new religious order sprang up, the priesthood of Amun. The great priests of Amun were men named by the king to preside over worship and the good functioning of the temples. The king also bestowed this honor on his wife and sister, Amoza Nefertari, naming her great priestess of the worship of Amun. And as such, she's something like a female pope and has access to great lands and great wealth and a large administration. But that was not all. To cement the legitimacy of his dynasty, Amoza also conferred on Amoza Nefertari an unprecedented status, that of God's wife of Amun. She's called, for the first time in Egyptian history, a God's wife of Amun. So that means she's not just married to her brother, who's the pharaoh, but she's, in concept, married to the chief god of the Egyptian state. And that was the key. As the wife of the god, she would give birth to an heir who would be the son of a god, thus guaranteeing the power of this heir. This is called theogamy, the myth of divine birth. Amoza Nefertari gave Amoza the first seven children, three of whom were boys. In about the year 1515 BCE, Amoza died after reigning for 20 years. To all later Egyptians, he was known as the founder of the new kingdom and the 18th dynasty. Amoza really was a reunifier of two lands, exactly like the first pharaoh of Egypt, Narmer. This is why he was subsequently considered a hero. And yet today's historians are still debating what part he actually played in the military offensive against the Ixos. Did he fight himself or did he just send his army? Was he really the right age to have commanded the siege of Avaris? Amoza was able to reunify the country thanks to the work done before him by his family. It's almost just an accident of history that he got to claim the result. It wasn't just a matter of Amoza finishing the work of earlier pharaohs like Second Enre and Kamosa. Amoza pushed things much further to set the stage for a golden age. While the debate goes on, the experts do, however, agree about one thing. That it was definitely the powerful women of the royal clan like Tetesheri, Ahotep and Amoza Nefertari who ruled and administered Egypt while the men were absent. This is fascinating because it really foreshadows what we see with the development of female power, not just as wife of a king, but as pharaoh in their own right. They were the real heroines of this 18th dynasty, embodying a female power that was only just in its infancy. We'll be looking at one of the greatest rulers of the new kingdom, a pharaoh who launched immense construction projects, explored new lands and brought back fabulous riches. But unlike other pharaohs of the 18th dynasty, Hatshepsut was not a man. We only see about five women in all of Egyptian history, over 3000 years, who rose to the level of pharaoh. So it's an extraordinary deviance from the norm. In an ancient society in which power was always wielded by men, how did Hatshepsut establish herself? It's worth seeing it through her eyes, as technically it was a coup d'etat because she seized power belonging to another. What is the story of this extraordinary woman who became a queen and then pharaoh?