This Discovery Changes EVERYTHING We Know About Ancient Egypt

Hi everyone, it's Katrina! Prepare to be transported back in time to a world of pharaohs, gods, and incredible feats of engineering. Today, we are diving deep into the ancient world of Egypt. Archaeologists have honored the discovery that changes everything, so grab your shovel and let's get into it! The Truth of the Lunar Calendar Who came up with our calendar? Why are there 365 days in a year? If you've ever wondered who came up with so many days in the year, you can thank the ancient Egyptians. They were the original calendar wizards, the first ones to come up with a 365-day solar calendar. But the Egyptians also came up with another calendar, which was first used 5,000 years ago. The original Egyptian calendar was of the lunar variety. It was used for everything up until the solar calendar became more popular. It divided the year into 12 months, with each month about 29 or 30 days long. Because the lunar calendar followed the lunar cycle, each month began on the new moon. This resulted in a slightly shorter year than we get today with our solar calendar, shorter by 10 or 11 days. Plus, every couple of years, the Egyptians would add a 13th month. What do you think? Could you benefit from a 13th month every now and again? Even after the Egyptians changed to a solar calendar, their year was not the same as ours. They only had three seasons instead of four. There was the season of the floods, the season for sowing crops, and then the season of summer. Remember, this is ancient Egypt, so they didn't exactly have a white Christmas and a chilly winter. You can find examples of the ancient Egyptian calendar today inside the ruins of temples. But unlike the Maya calendar that is usually depicted as a giant disc, the Egyptian one is more like the type of calendar you might have on your fridge right now. For example, the calendar at the Temple of Qom Ombo is a rectangular group of hieroglyphics listing months like Thot, Meshir, and Peni. The Egyptians also loved their holidays. They had five national holidays, one each for the gods, Osiris, Horus, Seth, Isis, and Nephthys. The point I wanted to make with all of this is that we are still living in a world created by the ancient Egyptians. Their calendar from 5,000 years ago was the foundation for the Gregorian calendar, also known as the Christian calendar. I think it'll shock you to learn how long we've been following the Christian calendar. It was only introduced in 1582, and not everyone immediately followed it. Great Britain refused to switch to the Gregorian calendar from the Julian calendar until 1752. They were incredibly stubborn, and when the change finally came, they dropped 11 days from the month of September, meaning that Wednesday, September 2nd was followed by Thursday, September 14th, effectively losing those 11 days to align with the rest of Europe. This change also moved the start of the new year from March 25th to January 1st. Some people revolted since they believed they were losing days of pay, but eventually things calmed down. The biggest non-royal tomb ever found An extremely large and impressive sarcophagus has been found in Egypt that does not belong to any member of the royal family. It was discovered 50 feet underneath the largest non-royal tomb in the country. The identity of the person buried in the tomb beneath a tomb might surprise you. Her name was Edi. That's the whole name, like Cher or Madonna. An Egyptian-German team of archaeologists were the ones who discovered her chamber deep underneath the tomb of her own father, Governor Jafay Happy. Jafay Happy was the governor of Asyut during the rule of Pharaoh Senusret I from roughly 1961 to 1915 BC. Little is known about his life, only that he was extremely influential, and likely very rich. Lots of Egyptians were buried in tombs, but normally they weren't buried in fancy tombs. To put it into perspective, lots of people today are buried in graves, but only wealthy people are interred in giant mausoleums with huge stone angels looking over them. Governor Jafay Happy had his own tomb that was big enough to rival the tomb of a pharaoh. The mystery is that historians don't know what he did to earn such prestige, and now archaeologists have found his daughter's tomb 50 feet beneath his own. Unfortunately, ancient looters beat archaeologists to the punch. Inside Edi's chamber, they found a pair of truly beautiful coffins. They have been described as among the most detailed coffins ever found. But the coffins are empty. I know, it's a huge bummer. And the canopic jars have been shattered. Thousands of years ago, thieves broke into Edi's tomb, pulled out her mummy, and smashed the jars containing her organs. It doesn't get much more disrespectful than that. The thieves didn't even take her mummy. They just pulled it out of her coffin and ripped it apart looking for treasure. I don't know about you, but I can't think of many treasures that would convince me to go down to my local graveyard and start tearing apart bodies. How about you? The Battery Myth Scientists have finally proven that the Great Pyramid of Giza is more than anyone could have ever imagined. The pyramid is not just a tomb. It wasn't just a triangular capstone for the grave of a pharaoh. New evidence has revealed that the It could focus electromagnetic energy. Russian and German scientists picked up electromagnetic signatures in the lowest part of the pyramid. The energy seems to focus in its inner chambers, and then flow into the foundation and below the surface. As for what this means, scientists don't really know. The electromagnetic energy is there, and it is not the only ancient place that has it. Across the world, underneath Maya pyramids, researchers have also found high levels of electromagnetic energy. Researchers found it when they got curious about how the pyramid would interact with electromagnetic waves. It turns out that when it's hit with these waves, it gathers the energy like a battery recharging. Is the pyramid a battery then? Not quite. Dr. Evel Yukin was the scientific supervisor in charge of the study. They concluded that the pyramid behaves like a resonant cavity. A device which oscillates at certain frequencies, thereby attracting and amplifying radio and sound waves. Underneath all this scientific mumbo-jumbo is a mystery that scientists still aren't any closer to solving. Research has shown that the pyramid accumulates energy and could be filled with unknown chambers. But what was the energy used for? I would love to know what you think. There are many controversial theories when it comes to the ancient pyramids. One of the big ones suggests that the Pyramid of Giza is actually an ancient machine that has been deactivated but that we are just now learning about this ancient device. Electromagnetic energy has been connected to incredible phenomena such as astral projection and portals. Perhaps the pyramid was built to store or concentrate some type of energy. But for now, the mystery continues. And now for a quick break because it's shoutout time! Want to give a huge shoutout and a thank you to Sailing Video Stuff and Les Wilson for supporting this channel. Thanks so much for watching and spending time with us. If you are new here, be sure to hit that subscribe button to join the Origins Explained family. The Disease of the Pharaohs Beneath the sands of ancient Egypt, a grim secret lay buried. The ancient Egyptians were besieged by countless diseases. A new study has shown just how horribly afflicted the Egyptian people were, thanks to a series of tombs filled with the remnants of disease victims. 33 tombs have been found in the southern city of Aswan. According to the Tourism and Antiquities Ministry, the tombs date to between the 7th century BC and the 4th century AD. Archaeologists were extremely excited to start researching these mummies, but they quickly found something disturbing. About 40% of the dead are either newborns or adolescents. This was not something archaeologists were ready for. Nearly half of the bodies are people who died way too young. Things only got more disturbing when scientists started testing their physical remains. Professor Patrizia Piacentini from the University of Milan said the preliminary tests showed that many of the dead suffered from infectious diseases and had bone disorders. Many of the adult women suffered from pelvic bone trauma. Other mummies showed signs of anemia, which is an iron deficiency. They also showed signs of malnutrition, tuberculosis, and osteoporosis. The ancient people of Egypt suffered from the same medical conditions that plague our society today. In fact, Egypt only recently escaped from an outbreak of malaria. In breaking news, the World Health Organization officially declared Egypt malaria-free, marking a public health milestone 6,000 years in the making. Malaria was first recorded in Egypt in 4,000 BC. Some of your favorite pharaohs even suffered from malaria, like King Tut. Dr. Tedros Adhanom from the WHO said malaria is as old as Egyptian civilization itself. And now, finally, in 2024, it's gone! What an amazing time to be alive! It's also an amazing time to be alive because of what I'm going to show you next. A secret is being revealed in the Great Pyramid of Giza that is rewriting history, as usual. This ancient observatory changes everything The Egyptians had such a profound understanding of astronomy that scientists don't know how. They don't understand how people living in mudbrick houses and worshipping crocodiles knew so much about the stars. It doesn't make sense. Of course, conspiracy theorists say that it must have been that somebody helped them, as in visitors from outer space. The same beings who used the pyramids to power their machines. But this takes away the credit of how smart ancient people actually were. For the first time in the modern age, scientists have discovered a truly ancient observatory in Egypt. It's the oldest one of its kind, and also the largest. Archaeologists are going to be fighting each other in the streets to study this incredible structure. The observatory was uncovered in the ancient city of Butol, a place that probably doesn't sound familiar. It isn't the most popular place for excavations. The structure consists of a mudbrick building in the shape of an L. The entrance leads to a place where a priest, known as a sky observer, would have stood on an illuminated platform. For hours on end, the sky observer would have tracked the sun and the stars. That's the crazy thing about Egyptian astronomy. Their sky priests didn't look to the cosmos with telescopes. They looked with their bare eyes, tracking the celestial objects they could see in the sky. How reliable were these priests? How in the world were they seeing planets like Mercury and Venus by squinting up at the sky? During the initial excavation, scientists thought they had discovered a temple. But as they found more inscriptions relating to time and astronomy, they realized it was an observatory. Then they came across a massive stone sundial. And then they knew for certain. They were standing in what might be Egypt's oldest astronomical institute, dated to almost 3,000 years old. Was the sky clearer back then? Did they use lenses or glass that we just haven't found yet? How did they know the difference between stars and planets? One thing is clear. Ancient people were much more clever than we give them credit for. The Sword of Ramses the Great Ramses II is considered the greatest pharaoh in Egyptian history, and now archaeologists have found a sword with his name on it in hieroglyphics. Experts don't know if the sword belonged to him or was given to one of his high-ranking officers as a gift. But the sword is only part of a much greater mystery. The sword was discovered inside the ruins of an ancient military barracks that is changing history as we know it. The barracks contained a series of storerooms, which were used to hold everything from grain to baking ovens. As archaeologists poured through the rooms, they found the bones of animals and fish. They also found buried cow skeletons, which may or may not have been sacrificed. And they found the remains of a lot of weapons. Swords for slaying the enemies of Egypt. Archaeologists have dated the barracks to about 1279 BC. It was found along the remnants of a very old military road in the northwest of Egypt. It was positioned strategically so that any troops invading Egypt from the western desert would have to pass it. History professor Peter Brand called this a very important discovery for understanding the strategy of Egypt's military under the rule of Ramses the Great. Ramses is often thought of as one of the most brilliant military strategists in history. He wasn't just a strategist though. Ramses was a warrior pharaoh who conducted no less than 15 military campaigns. He was so adored as the ultimate ruler that the Egyptians practically worshipped him as a god for centuries after he was dead. His triumphs included Egyptian attacks on the Levant, Canaan, Phoenicia, and Nubia. The newly discovered sword seems to suggest that the man himself visited this military base at the edge of the empire. The base itself may have been put there to prevent a Libyan invasion. At the time, the Libyans were growing very powerful. Archaeologists are now thinking the Egyptians must have been worried about the Libyans so much that they set up a blockade at the edge of the desert. The Myth of Creation The Bible says that in the beginning, there was only God. According to the Egyptian Shabaka Stone, in the beginning, there was only Ptah, the Egyptian equivalent of the supreme creator deity. Only there were some key differences between the omnipotent god of early Egypt and the one in the Bible. The biggest difference is in the title. Ptah wasn't just a god. He or it was the master builder of the universe. Now, who is the most famous ancient carpenter who comes to your mind first? Probably Jesus Christ, right? Well, Ptah was described by the Egyptians as the inventor of masonry and patron of craftsmen. It's kind of a coincidence that Ptah was a glorified carpenter who built the world, just like Jesus was a carpenter, don't you think? The story of Ptah can be found on the Shabaka Stone, which is one of the most important relics in the world. Currently housed at the British Museum, this giant granite slab was carved in the 25th Egyptian dynasty. It was erected in the 8th century BC inside the Great Temple of Ptah in Memphis. Scholars stole it in 1805 and brought it to England. For a long time, the stone remained an enigma. It's covered from side to side in hundreds of hieroglyphics. It took a while but once researchers were able to translate the symbols, they were left with a remarkable story. It is the story of all creation. The Shabaka Stone tells how Ptah made everything and created the gods. It says Ptah gave birth to the gods, created all good things and is recognized as the most powerful of all the beings that ever existed. Ptah is the source of all life and all realities. But there is one section that's worth paying closer attention to. The text describes a dispute between the gods Horus and Seth, with Horus ultimately being recognized as the legitimate heir to the throne of Egypt. Some believe this is a real story, one that describes a feud between the original alien rulers of Egypt who were mistaken as gods. The stone even says that after Ptah created the world with his mind, the god Horus became the unifier of the two lands of Egypt. This is interesting because scientists know that ancient Egypt began with the unification of Upper and Lower Egypt. Way before the pyramids were ever built, the Nile was split into separate kingdoms. Could Horus have been a real king who forged a single empire? If so, do you think he was a god, a man or an alien? Perhaps the answer lies in the original text. What I mean is that the Shebaka stone is a copy. At the beginning of the 8th century BC, during the reign of Pharaoh Shebaka, the pharaoh visited the temple of Ptah. He found a very ancient scroll devoured by worms. Not wanting to lose the information on the scroll, the pharaoh had it etched into a stone and that was how the Shebaka stone was created. Assuming the legend is true, no one knows how old the original scroll was. The creation myth could be 5,000 years old. It could be one of the oldest stories ever told in Egypt. The Egyptians were gamers Everybody loves board games, even prehistoric people. Scientists recently found carvings on the surfaces of some rocks in Azerbaijan. The carvings date to about 2000 BC. At first, no one understood what the carvings meant. Then archaeologists had an epiphany. The patterns on the rocks are reminiscent of the ancient Egyptian board game, hounds and jackals. This is incredible for numerous reasons. First and foremost, it confirms that board games were a great way of passing the time 4,000 years ago. The discovery also shows that this particular game was so popular it was adopted by distant cultures. It may not have originated in Egypt at all. The Egyptians may have stolen the game from people who invented it more than 4,000 years ago in southwestern Asia. Before this new discovery, most games of hounds and jackals were discovered in Egypt. There are about 70 game boards that still survive. The oldest was found in a tomb at El Asasif, dated to about 2064 BC. The game was exciting enough that people had it buried in their tombs. And hey, why wouldn't they? It was the only way they could play with their friends in the afterlife. Maybe you could be buried with your Xbox if that's the case. Now it's time to learn the game. I'll try to give you some basic instructions and maybe you can play with your friends if you're feeling up to it. Hounds and Jackals is just like Snakes and Letters. It's a race to the finish line. There are 58 holes in a specific pattern. One player has jackals and the other player has hounds. Whoever manages to get all of their game pieces to the final hole first is the winner. At least that's how experts think you play. Without being able to resurrect a mummy and ask, there is no way of knowing all the little details. At the end of the day, this says a lot for the world of gaming. Researchers claim that hounds and jackals was played by the nobility in Egypt and the cattle herders of the Caucasus. It was sold by old Assyrian traders before some nations had even come up with a written language. Did the Egyptians cure cancer? Scientists who are looking into curing cancer might need to hit their local library and read up on ancient Egyptian history. It turns out the Egyptians may have been trying to cure cancer before anyone else even thought about it. Scientists at the University of Cambridge recently dug up a skull from their collection. The skull is about 4,000 years old and belonged to a man in his mid-30s. At first glance, you know immediately that something is seriously wrong with the skull. Somebody violently tore into it as if they were trying to remove his brain with a saw. Scientists don't think this was a case of brain removal though. The cut marks on the skull were made by a sharp object, something that may have been a surgical instrument. It looks like Egyptian doctors were trying to operate on a cancerous tumor inside this man's head. In fact, there isn't any other way to look at it. The cut marks were found circling a large lesion, which was almost definitely caused by a cancerous growth. Researchers also found 30 smaller lesions across the skull, proving that his cancer was spreading at the time of his operation. Tatiana Tondini said that when the team first observed the cut marks under the microscope, they couldn't believe it. This is obviously evidence of surgery. The big question remaining is whether the surgery was done post-mortem or while the victim was still alive. Professor Edgar Camaros said the surgical cut marks might be from a medical autopsy to learn about the man's disease after he died. Either way, the evidence shows that ancient Egyptians knew that cancer existed and were trying to cure it. This means that cancer research has been ongoing for the last 4,000 years and there still isn't a cure. When are scientists going to get a grip on this thing? The Real Tallest Pyramid The tallest pyramid in Egypt is not the Great Pyramid of Giza like you might think. The tallest pyramid lies in ruins a few miles northwest of Giza near the small village of Abu Roash. This is not a place you're going to find tourists or salesmen trying to sell you tiny pharaoh statues and ride on their camel. It's called the Pyramid of Djedefre and it is the northernmost pyramid in the whole country. Scratch that, in all of Africa. The next time you see a pyramid going north, you're going to be in Rome. Why do you think Djedefre chose such a remote location? This pyramid has been a thorn in the side of archaeologists for years. Nobody could figure out if the pyramid had been finished or if it was abandoned and left to erode over thousands of years. Only during recent excavations did researchers find proof that yes, the pyramid had been completed, most likely around 2580 BC. This pyramid was built by Pharaoh Djedefre, the son of Pharaoh Khufu and successor to the Khufu was the one who built the Great Pyramid so it makes sense that his son wanted to build something even more impressive. But if Khufu's son wanted to one-up his dad, why did he choose such a remote location for his own pyramid? It's not too far away but still far enough away from the others that most people don't even know it exists. Some call it the fourth pyramid but that's a bit of a stretch. This ancient structure wasn't explored until 1840 by John Shea Perring, the same guy who excavated Giza using gunpowder explosions. There was another large excavation in 1995 but not nearly as much attention has been paid to the Djedefre pyramid as the others. Even so, scientists know it was big, and I mean huge. The original base was about 330 feet long, fairly similar to the Pyramid of Khufu. However, it had an inclination angle of 52 degrees, giving it a total height of 220 feet versus Khufu's total height of 455 feet. Wait, hold on. Khufu's was more than twice the height of Djedefre's pyramid. That's true, but Djedefre's pyramid was almost 700 feet above sea level. The structure didn't look taller but it reached more than 60 feet higher into the atmosphere than the Pyramid of Khufu. And this might solve the mystery of why the pyramid is so far away. Djedefre may have wanted to cheat the fates a little by building his pyramid on higher ground, making his burial a teensy bit closer to heaven than his father's. The Exodus – Fact or Fiction? They call it the Exodus, the great exit of the Israelites from Egypt an estimated 3,000 years ago. It came after 10 nightmarish plagues unleashed upon the Egyptians by God himself. Today, let's explore some evidence that this whole plague business was the real deal. According to the story of Passover and the Bible, the plagues were released because the Pharaoh refused to let Moses' people go. In retaliation, God sent the usual suspects – plagues, locusts, darkness, and hopping frogs. You know, water turning into blood and pestilence, all that good stuff. Over the years, scientists have tried to find explanations for the plagues. If it can be proven that 10 disasters struck Egypt at roughly the same time, the Exodus might become an irrefutable historical fact. Just as much of a fact as the Roman Empire! This type of revelation would please believers in the Bible all over the world. Maybe it was a volcanic eruption? One of the top theories is that around the year 1620 BC, there was a volcanic eruption on the island of Santorini in Greece. Microbiologist Sido Trevisanato claims there are ancient Egyptian medical texts that prove a volcano is to blame. So first there was the eruption, and then wind carried the volcanic ash across the Mediterranean Sea to Egypt. The volcanic ash contained cinnabar, which has the ability to turn water red. This could account for the plague that turned the Nile red with blood. It could also explain the whole frogs hopping uncontrollably around Egypt thing. If the Nile was suddenly filled with cinnabar, it would have become very acidic. Frogs up and down the river would have leapt out of it instead of being stuck in acid water. The acid water would have had another effect, killing people and animals who tried to drink from the Nile. There would have been so many dead organic bodies along the length of the Nile that insects burrowed into them and laid their eggs. I know, it's gross. Assuming this happened, there would have been a lot more bugs than usual hatching from all these bodies. It would have been horrible. Scientists say that the acid in the Nile would have evaporated into the sky, affecting the weather and creating acid rain. The acid would have rained down onto people, giving them boils. It also would have rained on the crops, killing plants, causing pestilence, and creating the perfect environment for a plague of locusts. The erupting volcano could also explain the several days of darkness. There is one more plague that is not as easily accounted for as the others. How does a volcanic eruption explain the death of the firstborn child of each family? Sirotrevi Sanatos said that he found an explanation in an ancient medical document, which claims the bodies of aristocratic children were found one morning lying throughout the streets. This historical account matches the firstborn children being slain. Perhaps it wasn't all the children, only some of them. The Bible may have exaggerated a little bit. Some aristocratic families may have sacrificed their firstborn in desperation because of all the other crazy stuff that was happening. Stuff like the acid rain and the rampaging insects. While not proof beyond a doubt, the volcano theory does help push the biblical exodus into the realm of possibility. Do you think it happened the way the Bible says? The Cannibal King Unas was the last king of the 5th dynasty of Egypt, the very last ruler of what historians generally agree to be the golden age of the old kingdom. Egypt would continue into the 6th dynasty, but that would be the end of their reign as the superpower of North Africa. After the 6th dynasty came to an end, Egypt slipped into their very own dark age. But let's talk about Unas, a fairly mysterious king who we don't know all that much about. He was buried at the southwest corner of the steppe pyramid of Dozer, located in the massive archaeological site of Saqqara. It's believed that he ruled Egypt between 2375 and 2345 BC. He had two queens named Knut and Nebit, oh and he may have practiced cannibalism. That last part is a little unexpected, isn't it? And while we have no hard proof of this, we do have the text which was found inside his tomb. One of the inscriptions reads something along these lines, Unas grows in power by eating other gods. He has acquired the hearts of the gods, their magic is now in his belly. This could be a metaphor for something else, but it almost sounds as if King Unas ate his enemies, swallowed their hearts, and all was part of some insane attempt to gain their power. Pharaoh Pepi II Pepi II was the last ruler of the 6th dynasty and the final pharaoh of Egypt's old kingdom. With the death of Pepi II, Egypt's true grandeur died and they were plunged into a terrible dark age, one of many that would come in the following centuries. Pepi II went by the royal name Neferkare, meaning beautiful is the soul of Re. He had multiple wives, many children, and appears to have been a decent ruler all things considered. He had positive foreign relations with Byblos in Syria and Palestine, discussed peace with Nubia, and even made new links with kingdoms in southern Africa. It was his policy to have peace through pacification, as he believed the ruling class of Egypt could only maintain their wealth if they were friendly with all of their neighbors. He ruled from roughly 2278 to 2184 BC. Egyptologists debate these numbers, with some saying he ruled for 64 years and some saying 94 years. Whatever the case, Pepi II's power began to diminish in his later years. By this time in Egyptian history, the economy was booming. They had their own breed of capitalism which was funneling the money from the people into a very small group of rich individuals who owned pretty much everything. This became an issue for the pharaoh. The high officials in Egypt were becoming wildly rich, control was moving away from the capital at Memphis, and individuals were wielding their own influence. To put it in modern perspective, it would be as if the CEOs of the biggest tech companies suddenly built their own cities and had their own miniature governments to take power away from the capital. And that's what happened here, with the nobles in cities like Aqmeen, Abydos, and Elephantine building their own palaces and pyramids and tombs. They had so much influence that Pharaoh Pepi II lost his grip on the country, and within a few years, the entire government completely unraveled. The First Intermediate Period After the death of Pepi II, the Egyptian government was in shambles. This started the actual Dark Age of Ancient Egypt, and it was not pretty. This age is officially known as the First Intermediate Period of Egypt, and it lasted from 2181 until 2040 BC. After the turmoil of the Dark Ages, the Middle Kingdom would start, but never again to this very day has Egypt ever reached the brilliance of the Old Kingdom, prior to the Dark Age. So, Egypt is plunged into chaos. The power which had been held by the monarchy in Memphis for roughly 500 years was distributed to lower status people throughout the country. Some of the lucky ones were the mortuary priests, who had been heavily involved in the construction of the pyramids at Giza and the Fourth Dynasty. So many resources had been put into building the pyramids that the priests who took care of the site grew their own kind of cult, almost like the Roman Catholic Church. You could think of the Egyptian mortuary priests like the original bishops at the Vatican. Basically, the pharaoh was no longer in control, the death priests were running wild with power and accumulating wealth, and individual governors were trying to run their own cities like countries. For over a century, there was lawlessness and any harmony was shattered. People no longer felt they were united as one Egypt, but were reduced once more to tribes of bickering states. Deadly Famine In the year 2180 BC, at the beginning of the original Dark Ages in Egypt, famine swept across the country. It was already chaotic because of the collapse of the power structure and famine only made things a lot worse. Egypt depended on the annual floods of the Nile to irrigate their crops. If there was any change at all in the climate, they were in some serious trouble. And it was right at the start of the Dark Ages that the African monsoons were pushed south out of Ethiopia, meaning the Nile didn't flood and the crops didn't get the water they desperately needed. Because there was no rainwater coming down from the Ethiopian highlands to seep into the Nile, there was drought for many years. It's not clear exactly how long the drought lasted, but long enough that historians call it the Great Hunger. People were starving in the streets, there would have been mass casualties, and all the while the ruling parties were hoarding the wealth so that they could survive while the cities were plunged into hungry anarchy. And now for number 6, but first I want to give a quick shout out to Jessica Tyree and Turtle Finks! Thanks so much for watching and supporting this channel! If you are new here, be sure to hit that subscribe button if you haven't already to join the Origins Explained family! The Immigrant Uprising Following the first Dark Ages, Egypt moved into the Middle Kingdom. The pharaohs once more gained a strong grip on the country. The crops were getting watered again, and everything was going smoothly once more as the Egyptians pushed forward into the future. But alas, trouble came once again around the year 1800 BC. Things had been going relatively smoothly for just over 200 years, and then there was some trouble with the ruling pharaohs. One pharaoh after the next proved to be ineffective and weak, and this began a period of turmoil once again. Just before Egypt was plunged into a second Dark Age, a group called the Hyksos used the weakness of the pharaohs to seize control of the northern part of the country. This gave the pharaohs only a small piece of Egypt in the south to rule over. But for a long time, historians didn't know who exactly the Hyksos were or where they came from. They had slightly different names than typical Egyptians, and there are theories that they came from somewhere in Southwest Asia. According to Egyptian texts, they were foreign invaders who took the country by force. But some historians say that was all just Egyptian propaganda. According to archaeologist Chris Stantis from Bournemouth University, the Hyksos were immigrants who had been welcomed into Egypt for several centuries and eventually rose to power. In other words, the Hyksos had been migrating into Egypt from an unknown foreign land ever since the Middle Kingdom started. So many of them came that they were able to seize control of the local government and ultimately overthrow the pharaohs. THE SECOND INTERMEDIATE PERIOD Starting in the year 1782 BC, shortly after the Hyksos uprising, Egypt did a faceplant into its second dark age. It lasted much longer than the first, all the way until 1570 BC. This dark spell is called the Second Intermediate Period, and it was a bit different from the First Dark Age. This time the Hyksos held power in the north, while the Egyptians held power in the center, at the capital of Thebes. Then to the south, the Nubians ruled. What happened was that the pharaohs got weak, the immigrants seized power in the north, and the Nubians took their chance to seize power in the south. This left the pharaohs squished in the middle. It was a time of major disunity, with the Egyptian people fragmented and angry, with cultural divisions and anarchic violence. It was also during the Second Dark Age that the Egyptians lost a lot of their culture, such as the ability to write hieroglyphic scripts. Art quality suffered, literature suffered, Egyptian religion began to decay, and Egypt drifted further and further from their root heritage. It was also a time of great bloodshed, as each individual faction fought for control. It would take 200 years for the Hyksos to be defeated, and for Egypt to once more be unified. It was Amos of Thebes who achieved the reunification of Egypt, ushering in what we know of as the New Kingdom. The Third Intermediate Period If Egypt was a TV show, the New Kingdom would be the last season. The New Kingdom lasted from between 1570 to 1069 BC, and there was a very brief time known as the Late Period that came after, from 525 to 332 BC. The Late Period was the epilogue of Egyptian history, when Egypt as a force came to an abrupt halt, and Rome took over. But between the New Kingdom and the Late Period, there was the Third Intermediate Period. This was the darkest of all the Dark Ages, lasting for over 500 years, as Egypt corroded in a way it never had before. It basically rotted from the inside out. It all started with a division of power. Tanis was the seat of one government, while Thebes was the seat of a powerful theocracy. The high priests ruled Thebes, although they claimed to be ruled over by the god Amun himself. What started as a fracture, turned into a total collapse. By the 22nd Dynasty, Egypt was fraught with civil war. There were monarchs in just about every major city, including Heracliopolis, Tanis, Thebes, Memphis, Sais, and Hermopolis. Imagine if all the 50 states in the US suddenly went to war with their neighboring states. That was how violent, bloody, and utterly miserable the Third Intermediate Period was. And so, when the Nubians attacked in the 23rd Dynasty, Egypt was too weak to fight back, because they were already fighting each other. Then the Assyrians invaded, and Egypt was torn. The biggest difference between the Third Dark Age and the other two, is that after it came to an end, Ancient Egypt as we know it, was dead. The First Major Conquest Following the Final Dark Age, Egypt was in a strange spot. There were still pharaohs, the Nubians had been defeated, but Egypt just wasn't that powerful. It was around the year 525 BC that Pharaoh Amasis II ruled over the country, while Cyrus the Great was ruling over Persia. Cyrus asked the Egyptian pharaoh for his daughter's hand in marriage, and the pharaoh said no. Amasis was worried that the Persian king was going to use his daughter as a concubine, and it was enough to push the nations into war. In the spring of 525 BC, Egypt was defeated by the Persians at the Battle of That was the defining moment in Egyptian history, as it was the very first time they were actually conquered by an invading force from outside. Cyrus the Great proclaimed himself pharaoh of Egypt, and Egypt became nothing more than a province of the Achaemenid Persian Empire. And from there on out, Egypt continued to be conquered over and over again, later by Alexander the Great, and finally by Rome. The Last Pharaoh of Egypt Queen Cleopatra was the very last pharaoh of Egypt. Even when Egypt was a vassal state of Persia, there were still pharaohs to hold power for the people, but after Cleopatra, the days of the pharaohs were over forever. Cleopatra was actually Cleopatra VII, and she ruled from between 51 and 30 BC. She was a diplomat, an extraordinarily skilled naval commander, and a linguistic master. She could speak Ethiopian, Hebrew, Arabic, and many more. At the time that she became pharaoh, Egypt had already been ruled over by the Romans for 50 years. She did her absolute best to try and tear away from Roman tyranny, attempting to make Egypt into an independent state. Cleopatra allied herself with Julius Caesar and later Mark Antony, and bore four of his children, but Rome would not leave them alone. Augustus Caesar, also known as Octavian or Gaius Octavius, invaded Egypt in 30 BC with the full force of Rome behind him. By the end of that year, Mark Antony and Cleopatra were dead. Egypt was just another Roman province, and that was the end of 5,000 years of ancient history. Egypt in the Middle Ages The Dark Ages in Europe were between 476 and 800 AD. It was considered a time of technological and cultural stagnation. With Rome collapsed and Europe plunged into darkness and anarchy, but what was going on with Egypt in the European Dark Ages? In the early 500s, paganism was outlawed by the Byzantine Emperor Justinian I. This marked the final closing of many temples in Egypt that had been used for thousands of years. Christians officially established the Coptic Church in Egypt in 538. Many Roman temples dedicated to gods like Horus and Osiris were either destroyed or converted into Christian churches. In the 600s, the Persians took control of Egypt from the Byzantine Emperor Heraclius. Shortly after that, between 639 and 642, Arab armies entered Egypt under the banner of Islam and captured the country. They created a small garrison town which would grow into the capital of Cairo. And so, this was about the time that modern Egypt was born. Over the next 300 years, Islam washed over Egypt, and the old ways of the gods were abolished. Cairo became the capital, and by the year 1000, just after the Dark Ages had ended in Europe, Egypt was one of the most important centers of the medieval world. Cairo would grow into a city of over 24 million people. Thanks for watching! Remember to subscribe if you haven't already, and I'll see you next time for more videos about amazing history. Bye!