hello everyone these take place around the campfire because it is storytelling time and for tonight I have prepared stories that will take us to ancient archaeological sites around the world first we will travel to Stonehenge in England Stonehenge is one of the oldest and most enigmatic ruins in the world we will explore what is known or can be guessed about it as well as the legends and beliefs that gravitated around it for centuries and I will tell you about mcGarry's builders in prehistoric Europe for another respect of the Neolithic period we will visit one of the oldest and largest Neolithic sites in Europe skara brae in the extreme north of Scotland on the windy walk the islands we will walk among the stone houses of a village that was populated five thousand years ago even before Stonehenge or the Pyramids of Egypt were built and finally we will go to a city lost under the sands of the Egyptian desert Amman for a short period of time the city became the capital of Egypt during the New Kingdom and his capital was built by I can attend the erotic furrow and his Queen Nefertiti who tried to replace all the Gyptian gods with the cult of Aten and unique sin God we will discover his religious revolution took place and how Amana was sentenced to oblivion with its founder when the old girls were restored this is going to be our longest exploration journey today on my channel so more than ever make yourself comfortable there is probably tension in your shoulders right now I would like you to become aware of this and gently release it now do the same with your arms especially your hands and breathe normally and now with your legs and feet it is totally fine if you wish to let go anytime during the story you may close your eyes and just listen this will be enough to follow along and don't hesitate to drift to a peaceful sleep there are time stamps in the first command so you can resume later where you left and as always if you wish to have this video saved to watch it offline or Chelsea audio track they can be downloaded from my patreon page with many more there is a link to it in the description to help you focus the self campfire sounds from the beginning have disappeared but they will be back after the stories to let you to sleep now let's begin our journey and our first stop is in the green english countryside let's go to Stonehenge you know what Stonehenge looks like it is an iconic monument the loud ring of standing stones or more accurately several rings the stones are huge some of them measure more than four meters more than 13 feet and they weigh up to 50 tons these standing stones are called megalith the term derives from ancient greek Megas means great route and Leto's which means stone we'll come back to make edits in a minute because they are the most visible remains of the Neolithic and Bronze Age periods in Europe and there are many stone and maybe the most spectacular and famous megalithic site that there are over thirty five thousand mega dates in Europe alone from Scandinavia in the north to the Mediterranean Sea in the south and Stonehenge is not an isolated structure it is surrounded by many more less visible works especially ancient tombs called Chameli we are also going to explore this the understanding of Stonehenge when it was built by whom and why has progressed enormously since the 20th century but it remains rather a mysterious there are many different theories about it which is yet another thing we need to discuss tonight who was it a temple was - plays for ceremonies an astronomical observatory the truth is there are few certainties and it would have been several of these things along the millennia because long after its builders were gone Stonehenge continued to be used to fascinate and to raise questions so let's take things one by one and return to the origins when the monument started to be built this was around 5000 years ago 3000 BC about at the same time when early civilizations in Mesopotamia China and Egypt appeared Stonehenge was built and rearranged several times over a period of 15 centuries and by different peoples the earliest ones were probably from a group of cultures cooled to windmill hill peoples around 3000 BC these people practiced a semi-nomadic lifestyle during the Neolithic the new agriculture they raised cattle but they were not entirely sedentary they lived during a period of transition between hunters and gatherers and agrarian societies doing a bit of both and they built structures - especially tombs they built or more precisely they dug loud circular furrows like trenches or hilltop enclosures and they also take corrective tombs they have left remains in different locations in England and it seems to structures show a taste for symmetry and circles now how do we know that it was around 3000 BC mainly thanks to radiocarbon dating ancient tools and other remains were found in trenches not only at Stonehenge and the point to approximately the same period of time five thousand years ago but the wind Mill Hill peoples made in Stonehenge is a trace T external ring they were probably no stones involved yet and deter a circular trench not continuous but rather a series of small rectangular trenches that constitute a wide circle they were many hypotheses around the centuries about who built Stonehenge the Celts the Romans the Saxons even the Greeks and this includes more exotic ones like people from Atlantis or aliens the most popular of these beliefs is that the Celts built it as a sanctuary or a sacred place for their trades together and his theory made sense in the 19th century to guess where some of the most ancient known inhabitants in England and they had a culture and a technical knowledge that looked compatible with the construction of Stonehenge but the problem is that they aware no Celts in Britain or anywhere else in 3000 BC the girls arrived much later I told you about this in an old story about the history of the Celts they are first and foremost a linguistic group sharing similar cultural traits and descending from waves of indo-european peoples these indo-european peoples came probably from a large region north of the Caucasus and in Ukraine from which they spread in many directions to the north of India to Persia and almost all of Europe over centuries and centuries they didn't find an empty land when they arrived in these regions they probably mixed with the locals or they replaced them or the shared space it's hard to know exactly how things unfolded in every region for example in Italy they cohabitated italic tribes that founded the city of Rome where indo-european peoples the D Etruscans who lived north of Rome in central Italy were very probably not based on their language in the west of Europe along the Atlantic Ocean and in Central Europe Celtic culture terminated in the first millennium BC this was the time of the druid that is to say long after the building of Stonehenge to the Celts in fact the builders of Stonehenge we're as ancient as the Romans are to us it is likely that the girls used the site though but they didn't build it and this windmill hill peoples who started working on the monument we're certainly way less advanced technique they hadn't discovered metallurgy and they were living in the period called the Neolithic once again a world coined from ancient Greek neo lytic means new stone new because around 12,000 years ago the first known developments of farming appeared in the nearest first before multiplying in other parts of the world and archaeologists observed a number of new cultural characteristics coming with it early pottery the use of crops domesticated animals and at the time stone tools reached new levels of effectiveness you know that the Stone Age as a whole is defined as the period when humans made tools out of stones that the earliest tools were barely distinguishable from regular rocks they looked very basic and then over thousands and thousands of years they became more refined with more and more precision work put into carving them by the Neolithic stone tools at diversified to many different uses there were knives arrowheads spearheads axes scrappers and they were sharper stronger and more efficient than ever the only way to do better was to use another material metal and when metal replaced stone humans entered the Bronze Age so the Neolithic is a stage of development rather than a period that would work for all human societies in northern Europe to nearly thick last year until about 1700 see long after Mesopotamia Egypt and in certain remote parts of the world the Neolithic lasted until European contacts in modern times European explorers met peoples who hadn't developed metallurgy so this windmill the hill peoples lived during the Neolithic and it didn't have metal but it doesn't mean they didn't build actually the oldest stone construction tradition that we know of in the world he's not from early civilizations in the Middle East India or China it is in the Neolithic societies and especially in Western Europe in the 5th and 4th millennium BC that is to say more than 6,000 years ago in Portugal in Spain in France and a bit later into British shires and the south of Scandinavia Neolithic men built chamber tombs also known as long barrows or Chameli and as I told you at the beginning Stonehenge is not isolated in the middle of the countryside Syria was speculated for thousands of years and Stonehenge is surrounded by the highest concentration in Britain of Neolithic structures so what is a terminus to MIDI may be found throughout much of the world so it seems it is a kind of monument that tends to appear spontaneously in Neolithic societies maybe because it is simple yet humorous is a amount of Earth's and stones often raised over a grave or several graves but not always to Millie in Western Europe are often called long barrows and there are many of them thousands of them that have been excavated they contain one or several chambers the chambers may be dug underground or built above ground with standing stones the link of such monuments reveals a degree of social organization because they required the cooperation of different individuals over a period of time and they would have represented an investment in time and resources we are considering societies that we are not only focused on surviving adult from health or the materials used where timber and stone apparently depending on the availability of building materials in the area where they were built archaeologists are still debating their purpose one theory is that they were religious sites may be dedicated to the veneration of ancestors or they could have been territorial markers they appeared in societies that were transitioning towards farming and more sedentary life so maybe they didn't ATT areas controlled by different communities that very often they were also graves where one or several persons would people read probably persons of some importance which also suggests that there was a social hierarchy in place into groups that built them there are long barrows in many different kinds of environments so mean who would eat areas where they remained hidden others in visible locations like on hilltops so it is difficult to know exactly what the intention was maybe they had different purposes many to Mary used a large stone blocks megalith used without mortar the structure is called megalithic when it is made of such blocks just standing near each other or put on top of each other without mortar stonehenge is an archetypal megalithic structure there are different types of megaliths in western europe a single upright stone is called minier other single stones placed horizontally of an above a burial chamber are called Capstone's there are also more elaborate multiple stones structures stones may be placed in alignments with an intention to place them in relation to each other one such alignment is the Carnac site in Brittany France to connect stones are a collection of more than 3000 standing stones it is the largest concentration of megaliths in the world and it includes rows or alignments of stones as well as other structures too many and single media's canna quest built probably around 3300 BC a few centuries before the first stones were erected at Stone aimed and I first arrange a lot of posterior legends appeared around the cow like a Christian myth for example he said to stone square pagans holders we're in pursuit of the Pope and they were terms of stones Brittany also has a local version of Arthurian legends and another tradition claims that the stones are perfectly aligned because they were of the Roman legion turned to stone by Merlin apart from alignments another type of megalithic structures is stone circles when we take a closer look at the various parts of Stonehenge we will see that it contains such a circle but there are other examples in the Arabs in Poland in France and in Britain like to rollright stones in Oxfordshire the rollright stones are a complex of three monuments from different periods from the fourth to the second millennium BC one of them is called the King's Men from the late Neolithic and the rollright stones also comprise a tall man which is a form created by placing a large capstone on two or more support stones it creates a sort of artificial mechanistic cave with a chamber that was often used as a tomb the oldest known mechanistic construction in the world was found in Turkey and it was dated from even before the Neolithic in the intermediary period of the Stone Age called Mesolithic it was dated from the 10th millennium BC 12,000 years ago and that makes it probably the oldest known religious structure in the world megalithic remains multiplied in Europe starting around 5000 BC the oldest ones are in Portugal from there they expanded to Spain firms around 4000 BC to Britain and Ireland and then starting from 3000 BC they are everywhere in Western Europe so as old as Stonehenge is it was preceded by a lot of megalithic structures that were generally simpler in particular they didn't have the type of gates that are distinctive of Stonehenge but Stonehenge happened in the middle or late period of megalithic construction in Europe some structures are several centuries more ancient and the creation of monuments in Deer area around Stonehenge he is also anterior to Stonehenge itself the oldest traces of occupation discovered nearby date back from the Mesolithic from 8000 BC one mile from Stonehenge so very close there is a spring called brick Mead and its particularity is that it's temperature is constant wholly around it never freezes this was an attractive spot for men from the Stone Age a spring that provides water consistently and signs of occupation from 10,000 to 6,000 years ago have been discovered near the spring another hypothesis is that the spring could have even been the reason that inspired Stonehenge there are rare algae living in the spring and scusi system taken from it to turn bright red inna a few hours when they are taken house of the water that may have seemed magical and remarkable at least to praise toric men and that could explain a spiritual or magical significance attributed to the area but as we said before it is only thousands of years later that the wind Mill Hill people traced the first circle this circle at each that is the initial oldest part of the monument they also built a low bank along the inner side of the circle using a child they are taken from the digging of the ditch and there were two openings along the circle a large entrance to the northeast and a smaller one to the south this enclosure remained a search for centuries probably used by the inhabitants with no further construction the exact purpose of this enclosure is not known precisely but it must have had a religious or sacred significance because inside to teach they placed stone tools flint tools and also bones of deer and oxen that were discovered at the bottom and interestingly radiocarbon indicates that these bones are way older than the pigs used to take to date meaning that they must have looked after them for a long time before burying them there may be these bones were just left at the bottom of the ditch and we operate progressively when did it started to healed up around the circle they also dug up more than 50 bits which may have contained standing Timbers so maybe at some point around 3000 BC Stonehenge looked like a timber circle the decision sure because they round all remains of them and in this bits the cremated remains of individuals were found including men women and children we don't know if they were buried here to be honored to look after the circle to be protected by it or if they were sacrificed for an unknown reason and other bits discovered inside the circle indicate the possibility of more timber inside at the entrance and at various locations within the ring this outer circle which still exists today is quite loud it measures about 360 feet in diameter four centuries later around 2600 BC the builders abandon timber and replaced it with a stone beginning to give Stonehenge the appearance we know nowadays and they used blue stones from Pembrokeshire in Wales and this is almost incredible because the quarries are 150 miles away from Stonehenge that traces of human querying of exactly similar rocks in Pembrokeshire tends to prove that they did it it is believed that he brought the stones by lifting them on rows of logs so they could make them roll on thousands of miles to the arrestee it is also likely that stones smaller stones from other monuments were taken to build Stonehenge that still this is a an astonishing accomplishment that required a lot of planning one such stone brought to the site around 2600 BC is called the altar stone we don't know whether it was actually an altar but we will look at the inside of Stonehenge later at the same period the northeastern entrance the larger of the two was widened and as a result it became aligned with the direction of the midsummer sunrise and midwinter sunset this is one element that strongly suggests there was an astronomical dimension to Stonehenge at least from this point it also shows that it was built in relation to the wider world and not just has a monument centered on itself another stone from the same period placed outside the entrance is to heal a stone and this one is a really impressive it weighs about 35 tons and rises four point seven meters above ground almost height of a two-story house this Gila stone stands within Stonehenge Avenue which measures nearly three kilometers almost two miles and connects the entrance to the river Aven this Avenue was also built at the same period around 2600 BC it consists in parallel ditches and construction intensified after 2600 BC lasting until 1600 BC meaning that all role he took 15 centuries to build it from 3100 BC when the wind Mill Hill people traced the first circle to 1600 BC approximately this is about the same time difference and between us and the fall of the Roman Empire and over this very long period of time most stones were brought and they were rearranged to several times but not by the initial builders you remember the initial enclosure was traced by this wind Mill Hill peoples it isn't clear precisely when but their trace gets lost in the 3rd millennium BC and by 2000 BC the new inhabitants of the area where the bigger people who are bigger food and they arrived from the continent with different cultural characteristics Tipperary they're dead with little pottery drinking cups or pickers this is where the name comes from a lot of weapons they seems to pay more attention to they are dead individually instead of having large mass graves they multiply the smaller individual tombs and Germany it also seems their social structures were a bit more complex than their predecessors and they had empirical knowledge of mathematical concepts and it is believed they worshiped the Sun various archaeologists believe the other ones who I'm Stonehenge more precisely with solar events like the summer and winter solstices to be careful where at the junction of the Neolithic and Bronze Age they started introducing metal implements like their predecessors they were a control group probably with multiple tribes and little control variations between them and after the pker peoples arrived a final group or final culture to work on Stonehenge to Wessex people by the middle of the second millennium BC and the time ancient Egypt was near its peak and they were still centuries more to go before the appearance of civilizations in Europe with cities or writing system but the Wessex peoples were rather advanced at the time they practiced trade the mastered bronze metallurgy and they produced many more items than the cultures before them indicating an elevation in their standards of living it is believed a how the ones who gave to enhance the final touch touch returning to the construction one of the most famous features of Stonehenge he's a ring of bright stones capped by a continuous line of lintels and this was erected in the centre of the site by the middle of the third millennium the upright stones are massive they weigh up to 25 tons each and may come from another quarry this one is closer to Stonehenge 25 miles away from it the little sound of just put about here upright stones randomly they are cowed and they are fitted to one another using a method called Tonkin groove joint this is used in parquetry for example when different bolts are fitted to one another by the edge and 13 whole stones are also slightly curved to smooth the circular appearance of the monument inside the circle stood even bigger structures 5 stone gates made of two upright stones and one lintel they are placed to form a sword a horseshoe if the opening of the or through oriented towards the entrance but Stonehenge kept changing appearance along the centuries and stones were rearranged several times before they took their final position by 2000 BC it is likely that the stone ring which was 33 meters in diameter hundred and ten feet was entirely completes close and it's surrounded entirely the horseshoe of higher gates holes but in a last phase the northeastern section of the ring was removed so instead of ring it became a second louder whose shoe or saw oriented towards the sunrise in the summer and sunset in the winter there are carvings on various tones - probably from the late period and it seems that after 1600 see the monument was no longer rearranged or extended with new stones along the centuries new waves of migrants or invaders reached England the Celtic culture dominated the first millennium BC then came the Roman Empire Germanic tribes like the Saxons the Normans in the Middle Ages and Stone Age was obviously not forgotten because it's unmissable and he developed a life of its own over the centuries being adapted and studied by different groups none of the cultures that built it had a writing system so there is no testimony available and the only way to learn about it is to study decides itself the peoples who built it and other megalithic structures to the followers of this Neolithic and Bronze Age builders Stonehenge must have appeared extraordinarily impressive to the Celts who didn't have a writing system neither and lived there 1,000 years after the end of the construction it must have looked like romaine left by the gods the Celts never developed a monumental stone architecture of that kind on many counts they were more advanced than their predecessors in Britain and Ireland but their culture didn't care that much for spectacular stone monuments the idea that druids the Celts priests were the creators of Stonehenge appeared in the modern period initially has a hypothesis from the first scholars who studied the monument it became very popular and it is a stealer widespread belief that Stonehenge has something to do with the Druids since radiocarbon tests have proven that it is way more ancient we know that it was not druid excite but it remains associated with the Celts in popular culture however it is also likely based on remains found at the site that druids used Stonehenge at least occasionally they generally worshipped in forests or marshes but they would have hopeful terms to arrange into a temple of worship and sacrifice there is a neo-pagan religion to modern druids that congregates at Stonehenge on to meet summer solstice after the kills the folklore and legends appear around the monument for example in the story about Arthurian legends I told you about a book from the 12th century called the history of the Kings of Britain by Geoffrey of Monmouth this is one of the texts that contributed to elaborate Arthur in mythology and literature in the Middle Ages and it's attributed to building of Stonehenge to Merlin the wizard another unrelated legend from the Saxons says that Stonehenge was built by a Saxon King in the 5th century AD to show his remorse because he would have invited enemy warriors to the site for a feast and then as they were a defenseless he would have already his men to draw their weapons from concealment and fall upon the guests kidding more than 400 of them the site started to be studied in the 17th century this was the moment when the Association if the druids began and research intensified with a lot of new major discoveries in the 20th century and until recently thanks to excavations this is how the history of the building was progressively uncovered and the basis for most of the theories we talked about regarding the building periods and the people's who works on the site the introduction of radiocarbon tests was very important because it finally revealed how ancient stonehenge really was a lot of remains have been found charcoal bones tools human remains from different periods I told you about the remains that the early builders left all around the original circular did another body was discovered in 1978 the Stonehenge Archer it is the body of a Bronze Age man who died around 2300 BC at a time of active construction on the site he is known as the ultra because of the Flint arrowheads buried with him that in fact several of them were located in the skeletons bones so it is likely that the man was killed by arrows we don't know the significance of his burial had to say it but this raises the question of the function or the functions of Stonehenge to the various cultures that built it and used it there are clues the alignment with the sand at the solstices the apparently sacred or funerary purpose of the site with animal and human remains buried there but none of this is very precise and various theories coexist about what Stonehenge was really about so let's take a look at them there were theories by various authors suggesting that supernatural letters were used to bring the stones based on the assumption that the stones would have been impossible to move or that the builders must have had access to technologies that were alot more advanced and felt these are not ideas that the scientific community takes seriously they appear completely out of the scope of peer reviews and sometimes they make their way to the public which is where they exist because they couldn't survive within the scientific community where evidence needs to be discussed and exposed in any case there were tests made to check whether such heavy stones some of them weighed 50 tons could be transported and lifted to an upright position and the answer is yes with a group of people and techniques that were available to Neolithic and Bronze Age men like logs placed under stones to make them roll and then shear legs to lift them it worked another theory for transport is the use of a kind of slave running on a track greased with animal fat so the construction itself is absolutely impressive and a testimony to the ingenuity of the builders but it works technically this is not that mysterious what is harder to know his defection of Stonehenge traditional explanations are an astronomical observatory or a religious site or both at the same time and these theories seem to make a lot of sense but there are others - 1 which is not incompatible with others he said Stonehenge was a place of healing like a Neolithic equivalent to miraculous pilgrimage places like God nowadays this hypothesis is based on the high number of tombs in the area and the evidence of trauma a deformity in some of them and also the fact that there's people buried around Stonehenge came from other parts of Europe we know it's thanks to isotope analysis from their remains there was at least one teenage boy raised near the Mediterranean Sea a man from Germany and several from Wales or France one characteristic of the blue stones - on the site and one that was discovered recently is that they have unusual acoustic properties when they are struck they respond with a loud noise and these properties could explain why they were brought from so far in Wales when they were quarry's available closer maybe this acoustic properties led people to think to believe that the stones were a magical that they also had healing properties it is also possible that Stonehenge was just a part of a larger ritual landscape with the Avenue and it's connection to the river Haven this complex may have created a ritual passage from the world of the living to the world of the dead and the journey along it would have been a way of celebrating past ancestors yet another hypothesis is that Stonehenge was built as a symbol of unity and peace because at the time of its construction Neolithic cultures in return we're going through a period of communication and unification so as you see the study of Stonehenge has brought a lot of information it has also opened new questions and the place retains many of its mysteries that men from the Neolithic didn't just leave megalith and tombs behind them as they transitioned from a nomadic to a sedentary lifestyle they sometimes built villages in stone and before we leave Britain we're going to head north to the north of Scotland and a visit to one of the most extraordinary Neolithic sites in the world skara brae to the extreme north of Scotland there is a small archipelago called Orkney do the highlands they are just ten miles off the coast of Great Britain and their proximity made them easy to access from the mainland for early inhabitants of Scotland the oak the islands have about 70 different islands and on the mainland long before the first stone to approach to Stone hand the Neolithic community built a stone settlement the village that remains very well-preserved 5,000 years later there were probably good reasons to settle on the Orkney Islands they are far north the declarant was relatively mild thanks to the Gulf Stream it was also probably rather safe in the 4th millennium BC invaders could have come only from the south from Scotland and it probably felt like hook knee was the end of the world to its inhabitants there were no forests and little wood available but on the other hand they could fish and hunt for an island that was large enough to support a small community of a few thousands people the first traces of occupation take back from 3180 BC one or two centuries before the initial circle of Stonehenge was traced by windmill here people and what explains the state of corroboree is that the village was abandoned 700 years later around 2500 BC it was buried in the sand and excavated thousands of years later for this reason it has been compared with Pompeii its state of preservation is an extraordinary for a site that his older than Stonehenge or even the Egyptian pyramids the site was first rediscovered in 1850 after a big storm the storm removed enough sand to reveal the outline of the village with a number of small houses without roof the site remained and studied and unprotected for a long time but it was exposed to thefts and storms that threatened to destroy it so in the 1920s it was secured and began to be investigated at the time it was believed that the village was ancient but from the first millennium BC around 500 BC which made it important but not extraordinary because there are plenty of villages from the Celtic period the reality appeared in the 1970s thanks to radiocarbon tests indicated that skara brae was from the 4th and 3rd millennia BC and it was abandoned around 2500 has to agreement in the Orkney Islands changed it is believed that the climate was becoming colder and wetter vivid was buried in the sand and many variable artifacts were left so maybe because of the comparison with Pompeii some people imagined that it had been abandoned suddenly due to it Esther may be a storm people would have fled as quickly as possible leaving there'll be no games behind that many investigators of the sides disagree with this because research showed that the settlement had been buried very progressively maybe over several centuries so there is no doubt the village was abandoned quickly but we don't know why it could be anything from an attack that would have left their houses untouched or the whole population dying while they were outside no one can tell at this point a cluster of eight houses has been excavated but there were more structures that have been lost to see erosion the village is now very close to the sea but it was further from it when it was perforated other structures are still buried and have been left underground like in Bombay this ensures that they remain preserved so what do we know about the inhabitants of skara brae this was the neolithic as discussed before and this means their tools were made of stone and other nonmetallic materials they had wood bone they also used animal fur and skin ivory play for pottery the houses they built were health into the ground and they used earth sheltering that is to say they were sank into the ground like Hobbit houses that this kind of earth-shattering existed in many different countries it can be found in Iceland in Ireland and it provides protection against the wind and the cold the winters in Orkney were called that the wind was also the fact of life he blows constantly and storms were frequent houses that are held buried and covered in earth are very stable and also well insulated even though the inside may be a bit dark when there are no window each house was relatively small they measured around 40 square meters that's 430 square feet and consisted of a single square room with a stone hearth for heating and cooking there was close to no good in skara brae and it isn't clear what people used as fuel this is also probably the reason why the village was built with stone and left such remains Neolithic villages were almost always built with wood in other parts of Europe and this is why houses left on the traces who fulfill they may have used turf or driftwood or maybe dried seaweed not only the walls were made of stone they had pieces of furniture too kept old seats storage boxes beds and the village had a drainage system including primitive toilets in dwellings the community was very small maybe around 50 individuals at any time and apparently it was very egalitarian too because 7 of the 8 houses have exactly the same furniture in the same place as if the inside arrangement of houses had to follow very strict and specific rules th ours is different it doesn't have storage space or a dresser like the other ones and instead plenty of fragments of bone and Flint were found there this suggests it was used as a place to make tools a workshop for the community maybe the inhabitants raised cattle it is believed that they didn't practice agriculture but maybe they did to a small extent because seeds of ballet were discovered on the side remains also indicate that they ate a lot of seafood which makes sense artifacts and symbols found at skara brae also shed light on their lifestyle and on the richness of their mental world there are symbols carved into stone lintels and dead posts and the symbols resemble an early form of Renick writing this was most probably not a writing system and the symbols had a meaning they revealed a degree of conceptualization and aesthetician in this community and besides utilitarian tools like shovels or knives they also had a production of whole demands made of bone artifacts beads or pins and they probably painted their bodies to a tradition that was widespread for centuries in Britain until the Roman conquest they could have used red ochre red ochre was found in lamps in the village life was probably harsh compared with our modern lifestyle but by the standards of the European Neolithic it seems skara brae was a good place the level of comfort and the longevity of the settlement - it has stood for tens of generations this seems to indicate that they had found a way of living that worked and they made the best out of the neolithic technologies and out of their environment and now let's embark on our last story for tonight this one is going to take us to an ancient ghost city on the Nile for centuries it went forgotten in the sands of the Egyptian desert before we go more into detail let me tell you a quick true story once upon a time in ancient Egypt during the New Kingdom when it hit was wealthier more refined and more powerful than ever a new pharaoh was indeed to the throne under the name of Amenhotep the fourth there had been generations and generations of Pharaohs before him many different dynasties he was from the 18th dynasty and all of them had been the guardians of Egyptian traditions and religion for so many centuries that it now seemed disorder existed since the origins of time and was as old as the world and the gods themselves but Amenhotep was different and instead of following the ways of tradition he broke with it with his Queen Nefertiti to Rio couple rejected old girls especially the one who Skelton priests where the most influential and powerful at the time a moon instead they decided to worship an entity placed even above God's Aten the Sun disk to te that gave life to everything this was a period of internal troubles in Egypt because the population didn't like it and remained attached to the old ways and priests of Amun and other rejected God's plotted against the Pharaoh waiting for the moment to take their revenge but Amenhotep didn't let this stop him he changed his name to Akhenaten and decided to create to found a new capital I kept at an attender eysan i can't attend will replace Thebes and mark the beginning of a new golden age for egypt now under the protection of the attend to send discs the only TT that mattered under his rule not only did the new Pharaoh try to change religious ways even the age old Egyptian art that had barely changed in two thousand years had to reinvent itself against his people against the priests Akhenaten prevailed because he was too far oh and Pharaohs we're health codes akita turned was built in a few years on the Nile health went between a para gypped the South and Lower Egypt the Delta in the north thousands and thousands of workers were involved the new capital couldn't wait it was inaugurated and for more than a decade it became the capital of Egypt from where the Empire was ruled and I can attend family resided the Pharaoh his wife Nefertiti their six daughters and I can attend other children but outside the capital Egyptians remained relics and to adopt a turn and when I can attend died he successor young Pharaoh Tutankhamen abandoned the new city and returned two teams he was firmly under the influence of the priests of her moon who got back their wealth and privileges as a cadet and was emptied of its population the old order was restored or across Egypt and the following furrows did everything they could to erase I can attend and his heresy from memories statues were destroyed inscriptions were hammered documents bearing his name where either burned or rewritten Egypt moved on more glorious pages were still to come like the reign of RAM assessed second desert sand and the passing of time slowly erased a kitten from memories more centuries past Egypt declined was invaded and annexed by the Assyrians the Persians the Greeks the Romans the Arabs the Turks and the existence of The Heretic Pharaoh his queen and their lost city fell into oblivion Agata turn is now called a mana and this is the place we are now going to visit a mana is located on the east bank of the Nile River traditionally in Egypt the East was the place for the living and the west where the Sun sets to place for the dead in Thebes Luxor nowadays most people lived on the east bank and funerary complex is right the Valley of the Kings are on the west bank amanda was built on a verge inside no trace of earlier urbanization has been found and this seems logical for a new start construction began around year five of Akina thames rain and probably lasted for about four years which was very short the Egyptians built in stone that this was complicated slow and expensive so it was limited to the most important buildings like temples and tombs all the rest including the Pharaohs palaces were mainly built in break bricks were dried in the Sun and immediately available for buildings then they were probably covered layered with plaster to smooth the walls stone monuments are the face of ancient Egypt nowadays because they lasted but the Egyptians lived in brick buildings that are now entirely disappeared most of the time I get that I needed to be fast and this is why stone was barely used the city was entirely made of mud brick this means it disappeared but at the same time because it was occupied only for a few years and never remodeled it provides an unique example of the plan of an ancient Egyptian city city spreaded on eight miles thirteen kilometers along the Nile and it was encircled with fourteen Stellar's that is to say stone slabs with inscriptions that detailed its founding by Akhenaten these Stellar's have been eroded that they provided precious information about the city when they started to be studied much of the city was laid out along the railroad he Central Avenue from north to south and the Rio residences were located to the north in the middle there was a religious and administrative area and to the south a residential district to the center there was a great temple dedicated to the Aten and a smaller one between these there was another Rio residents use for ceremonies apparently that was connected to the temples by a bridge or a ramp pier in his royal residence was an administrative complex and in this part of the ruins archaeologists found a kind of tablets known as the amount our letters they are a diplomatic correspondence and they provided a lot of information about the situation of Egypt especially in relation to its dependencies in the Levant in the 14th century BC to the south in the residential area lived powerful Nobles who built estates there and a studio of a sculptor called hood Mose was discovered and touched and revealed a lot about the art of the period the famous best of Nefertiti which has become one of the most famous Egyptian antique in the world was found there in 1912 it is in Berlin nowadays since the burst was discovered Nefertiti has become famous as a model of beauty it is true that this burst from the 14th century BC looks incredibly realistic as if it was a classical Greek sculpture with exactly the kind of facial features that the Greeks and to a large part Western societies nowadays associate with feminine beauty symmetry thin features a long name gracious neck there are conflicting theories about the origins of Nefertiti there is no doubt that she was born in an aristocratic family but she could have been related to Akhenaten cuisine or even his sister it was common for furrows to marry their sisters incest was prohibited in Egypt that not for pharaohs they were the one exception because it was believed at rival blood shouldn't be diluted but she could also have been a stranger maybe an Anatolian princess married too young Amenhotep for diplomatic reasons what we know is that she had at least six children we I can attend six daughters and she was elevated to a higher status than probably any Queen before her she appeared almost as the core agent she was colder too mistress of Upper and Lower Egypt on Stannis and some Egyptologists even believed that she may have become a female Pharaoh for a short time or during a Regency during the transition between I can return and Tatanka moon her beauty was praised everywhere but this was really common in ancient Egypt texts and statues we're not meant to be a realistic they serve to celebrate their subject however this was less true during the parenthesis that is the reign of Akhenaten because for one or two decades Egyptian art painting sculpture changed markedly at least the representations of the rival family the star evil towards a highly realistic or even an flattering way of depicting people the Pharaoh who is shown almost feminine with a curvy body a prominent stomach in a very long face maybe this is what he looked like and there has been theories that he could have been affected by the disease or a genetic condition but these pictures of Akhenaten are in stark contrast to traditional representations of furrows they had a traditionally very masculine features Massholes loud shoulders thin waist the out of Amana sometimes look almost like caricature and in this context the best of nefertiti seems to be home to another period or style but it doesn't so it is not impossible that she was effectively an embodiment of classical beauty however revolutionary and surprising the revolution started by Akhenaten it probably shouldn't be understood as just a spiritual move maybe there were a more political power struggles behind it first because if he managed to impose an entirely new God to Egypt it is probably because he was supported by the army the Egyptian army under the 18th dynasty was who considerable power at the time Egypt was at the top of its prosperity they are no internal threats and the frontiers had been pushed away in every direction especially to the east in the Levant and to the south in Nubia Egypt still had enemies but they were far away and the kingdom could maintain a numerous and powerful military sometimes dynasties were even created or continued by generals who grabbed the throne illunga gyptian history it happened many times don't believe is remainder hereditary for so long so having support from the army was crucial for pharaohs and especially support against another major political force the priests in particular at the time the priests of a moon temples in ancient Egypt were very powerful institutions they were economic centers owned a large part of the land and the high priests could be extremely influential to the point of threatening the Pharaohs themselves and during the New Kingdom the one Celt that gained prominence was the carrot of a moon by far the most worshipped and wealthiest god of them all a moon was a minor deity during the old and middle Kingdom's the priests of rock or a series were probably much more influential and a moon was a local deity based in Thebes and its surroundings but in the New Kingdom the capital moved to Thebes and wealth and influence of the priests of Haman became major over the generations a moon almost absorbed other gods and of course Egypt remainder buddy taste that in Upper Egypt religion became close to an equivalent of worshiping a moon so maybe the choice to break with tips and to create a new religious order was also a Power Move a power grab or a reaction against the rampant transformation of Egypt into a theocracy ruled by the priests of a moon the new religion imposed by a keratin was not really monotheism which is the fact of proclaiming that a single God exists and other girls are irrelevant it was more what experts call monolith ristic the fact of worshipping a single God even though others may exist their existence was not denied but it didn't matter that much to I can attend even in Akutan other deities were revered in fact if not officially then by at least some of the people who lived in the city they despite the creation of this new capital and all the powers that Pharaohs had the cult of the Aten never really replaced old gods and when the Pharaoh would hide traditions immediately came back in force 2,000 years couldn't be erased in 15 maybe there was her agency maybe by Nefertiti it's hard to know because many records of the time have been destroyed to erase the memory of Akhenaten but in a few years the capital has moved back to Thebes the priests had recovered their wealth and influence and the city of Akita turn was abandoned maybe it was partly destroyed to make it disappear quicker but as it was made of brick and occupied for such a short time it's hard to know the site didn't fall completely into oblivion there are also traces of occupation nearby 15 centuries later during the Roman and early Christian periods but bit by bit the ruins became invisible from the Nile sand covered everything and the memory of the city was lost it is only in modern times starting with Napoleon's expedition in Egypt and then many more scientific missions including the German one that enough diverted his burst a century ago that the history of Amana the modern name of the city and the lives of a Kineton and Nefertiti came back to light the rains are an impressive nowadays they are not really visited only archaeological missions keep working on the site in the hope of better understanding this very particular unique moment in the history of ancient Egypt this is all for tonight I hope you enjoyed his stories that two girls fell back into the past you can now let go and fall asleep or if you feel like it you can pick another story from my library I'll speak to you soon for another topic I think it will take us to space again and exoplanets in the meantime the sound of the fire camp is going to lull you to sleep sweet dreams over
