What the Ancients Knew - Egypt

the deserts of Egypt are always in motion they roll and swell eternally shifting through wind and time rising from the desert rock and the marks of man [Music] remnants of their tools remain but the intellect that conceived these marvels is shrouded in mystery new research sheds light on some of the most persistent questions about what the ancients News I've always been fascinated by ancient civilizations this is a fascination driven above all by the grand monuments the ancients have left behind but the more I study those monuments the more I learn about them the more my mind keeps returning to the same simple but perplexing questions what was the science what was the technology that made these monuments possible where did it come from and what were its legacies they say faith can move mountains well in the case of the ancient Egyptians it was their faith that made them move one mountain to build another to do that they invented not tools but clever techniques and methods [Music] I flew to Egypt looking for remnants of their ancient past to uncover something new about the ancient legacy [Music] following the legendary Nile was like stepping back in time entering an ancient maze of mystery that has led us to the tangible examples of the ancients knowledge and insights the earliest Egyptians lived in a world without science in a world full of mysteries with few explanation their legacy began 7,000 years ago when they sought to harness the Nile every year the river flooded following the snowmelt in the ethiopian mountains 1,200 miles away for the most part the flood was a blessing because during drought time there was starvation but the flood brought ample crops and life mind.you 97% of Egypt today is desert and the Nile was and is the main source of water thinking about their environment the ancient Egyptians began to develop methods utilizing nature to their advantage mimicking the natural basins that retained water when the river receded they built canals to direct the natural flow even to distant fields whether now left behind the nutrient-rich soil once the water evaporated the Egyptians invented the world's first irrigation system and the Nile became the key to their success with a lot of time on their hands to think and wonder the ancient egyptians detected natural rules and cycles the predominant force in their lives was the river in a time before the era of hieroglyphs we know that the ancients tried to predict its flood levels by carving markers into the rocks given their total dependence on the Nile the Egyptians needed a way to forecast its behavior eventually they built this pit designed to trap the rising water they developed a no lammeter a simple yet effective method it could take various forms but here on elephantine island it as one it was a row of steps with the height in cubits carved into the wall from the height the river reached they knew what the year ahead had installed a height of 18 cubits meant famine 24 meant abundance and 27 foretold disaster the Noah lammeter was a sign of life following the cycles of nature they formerly divided their year into three seasons first came the flooding season then the outflowing season of sowing and harvest and finally the inevitable drought that lasted until the lifecycle of the Nile repeated itself the ancients divided each season into four months with the moon defining each month as a cycle of 29 to 30 days from their Sumerian neighbors the ancient Egyptians had already adopted a 360 day calendar but the moon is a marker turned out not to be precise enough at least not when it came to predicting the flood [Music] eventually they looked for another solution one that would have far-reaching consequences step-by-step they tried to find ways to order their world and while discovering the rules and cycles of the night sky the Egyptians noticed a particular star Sirius or septet as they called it rose once a year in mid-july around the beginning of the flood season from then onward this night marked the ancients new year an annual cycle of 365 days just like our year today their desire to divide the day and calibrate time motivated the Egyptians to create markers of their own I went to see this 3500 year old marker in Cairo though across Egypt obelisks like these were already in use 2,000 years earlier like giant sundials the ancients could tell from their shadow what time it was but how do you know what time it is when no obelisk is nearby by around 1500 BC the Egyptians had invented a portable sundial the principle was simple they pointed an l-shaped scale bar toward the Sun to create a shadow for accuracy a plumb bob helped keep the instrument level if held horizontally and pointed directly at the Sun the shadow matched the width of the scale bar and where the shadow falls tells you what time it is you have in other words a clock [Music] for the first time in history the ancient Egyptians formally divided the day even though not in two hours but into 24 parts just like we do today as they gained more insights into nature's rules and cycles they remained one mystery to unravel the Sun died in the evening could be reborn the following day the Nile flooded each year it's waters bringing life as the waters receded they followed death from this natural cycle the ancients must have concluded there was more to life than met the eye there were two sides to the coin on this side life on the other the afterlife but there was a catch just as you needed a body for this life so you needed a body for the afterlife ideally your own and intact and that would have a ripple effect in the early days the Egyptians buried their dead inside the earth wrapped in linen beneath the shifting desert sand but sandstorms would regularly devastate their grave sites and scatter the remains of the ancestors across the desert floor destroying the bodies they so desperately needed because without an intact body they believed there was no afterlife so they began to find other methods and dug deeper into the desert rock creating safer resting places that is for those who could afford them tomb construction followed a basic design they dug a shaft with one or more chambers at the bottom once the deceased was placed inside the shaft was sealed with sand or a heavy rock and the entrance covered with mud bricks this is one of the oldest mud brick tombs remaining and while this is a large one they took on individual sizes and shapes whether square or beehive the covers expressed the Egyptians idea of the primeval earth mound from which all life had once emerged and from which the dead were resurrected as longevity became an issue they replaced my brick for regal burials the ancients now use stones still shaped like mud bricks but they were more durable with stone the Egyptians built among the oldest super structures in human history these are mustapha's flat rectangular tombs an Arabic term for stone bench mastaba x' became a mark of status I noticed here at Giza that with time the stone blocks became larger and the tombs more elaborate [Music] this was a burial shaft I could see that the ancient craftsmen were true masters the high level of finish makes it hard to believe they're 5,000 years old at the end of the shaft a mastaba like this contained one or more burial chambers depending upon wealth a rectangular superstructure above the burial shaft contained a corridor a chapel and another important feature a set up the opposition a met with the chief Egyptologist of the Giza Plateau mr. Mansoor to look inside a mastaba it is the shadow or the corridor which leads to the chairman of the tool yes but you could see how important this tomb was by the level of finish and architectural detail is before the Chapel of the tomb you can see a corridor and this corridor if we looked on the ceiling you will see that they built it in a vaulted ceiling massive stone blocks form the walls in a saddle roof cleverly applying the right triangle the ancient engineers calculated the arch and then chipped away the stone to create the vaulted ceiling it was one of the earliest uses of geometry this friend order they've been in that they bought the oil paintings were the daily life scenes mr. Manso pointed out that the ancients took gifts and material belongings to their grave but that wall paintings replaced the world they lived in these images were as good as the real thing depicting cherished activities like winemaking and details of their daily lives as farmers each picture a magical eternal offering expressed in art should contain a statue of the certain table was empty but traditionally the statue that resided here offered the sole refuge in case the body was stolen now where is this a flaw period the afterlife is here is a big shovel the most holy place inside the tomb can we have a look in here please what would happen in the chapel this is the most sacred place in the sudden inside East or in each in the other tubes which is comprises the fall stop the first told all the chapel was built for this fall stone why is a colorful stone well possible because I think the ancient Egyptians were loved the images and this is the image of a rear door following the ancients love of images mr. Mansur explained the false door mimicked a real door through which the deceased could return to his life to visit with family and friends and receive their offerings in an adjoining tomb I found a powerful presence the souls doorway and its resident statue along with the soul the Egyptians believed a person was comprised of the body the personality the mortality and the name without an intact body or at least a statue for the soul to inhabit a person didn't have a shadow and therefore didn't exist their belief however was not the only motivator ego and politics were powerful forces to [Music] it appears the time was ripe for someone to think outside the box Mostafa x' were built to house the bodies of the dead for all time and with the passing of the years they became larger and more ornate then someone had a new idea modern Cairo today is home to 30% of Egypt's entire population like in ancient times life still revolves around the Nile and farming still remains a central part of it the ancients used basic tools yet they developed creative and intelligent methods like the world's first irrigation system to produce enough food to sustain an entire nation but the Egyptians capitalized on yet another gift from the Nile one that has left its permanent mark in world history papyrus the Egyptians invented one of the first portable recording mediums in the ancient world to make a sheet of papyrus they cut the inner pith of the stalk into strips then they'd soak them and arrange the pulp strips at right angles [Music] pounding began the fiber fusing process [Music] heavy weights further fused the plant cells after forcing the air out reducing the thickness by about 75% air drying compressed the fibers by another 5% much of what we know about Egyptian tomb construction comes from papyrus records but to appreciate these marvels there's nothing like seeing the real thing so I went to Sakura where it all began around 2600 BC Imhotep physician and architect of the Pharaohs oza came up with a tomb that was fit for a king he had cared for the Pharaohs body in this life now he built him a home for the afterlife Imhotep was considered a genius because he took mastaba design to the next level literally sparking a whole new era [Music] imhotep started with a mastaba which he expanded on two sides and built from the ground up a four step pyramid around it while he was at it he superimposed another even bigger construction over the first until he had created a tomb with six steps reaching over 200 feet into the sky the subterranean chambers he connected by a three and a half mile long maze of shafts and tunnels really unbelievable if you think about it we have no record of what went on in in hot apps head but his innovative design really speaks for itself had he not created an image of the sun's rays or was it a staircase leading zoe's has sold heaven wood towards his afterlife in hot apps Step Pyramid stunned the ancient world and Zoe's as Tim became Egypt's first pyramid trial and there are success and failure whatever learning curves in hotep successes underwent we don't know fact is he sparked a whole new trend how many attempts failed we'll never know half a century later either King honey or King sniffer who took pyramid design to new heights experts don't know which one was responsible to build higher they experimented with the square base at my doom but the sky was the limit and after relocating the gravesite to Dasher sniffer who started a new even more ambitious project at first it seemed to work except 1/3 into the construction sniff whose ambition was curbed by the slope one theory is that the tremendous static weight may have caused cracks on the interior walls so they lowered the angle earning his project the name bent pyramid experts believe it was because of this imperfection that Sneferu ordered a new pyramid talk about ambition and determination for the red pyramid they copied the square base and the new angle of the bent pyramid for overall better proportions it may look like trial and error but over time they learned to carefully calculate their constructions the Rhind papyrus dates from 1650 BC while it's a copy from an earlier document it may still be older because the era of pyramid construction had ended around 150 years earlier it's a 15 foot long scroll this part shows that the ancients came up with a formula to calculate the perfect proportions of a pyramid and that they had a basic understanding of the principles underlying the Pythagorean theorem a thousand years before Pythagoras was even born [Music] what's neferu had created was the first true pyramid four equal triangles on a square base now I wanted to see how they had solved the weight issues of the interior a corridor leads into two antechambers in one burial chamber they're located in the center about 90 feet below the entrance [Music] given the size and weight of these blocks the precision with which the Egyptian set them is really impressive [Music] so this was how they distributed the massive weight they built what architects call a core build ceiling this one is over 40 feet high each tiered projects out just a few inches from the one below until they meet at the top Wow then the corridor ascends for a few yards leading into the burial chamber here in the middle of the pyramid you've got millions of pounds of rock all around you it's like you're buried alive [Music] the robbers have long since cleaned this place out but the air in here smells like it hasn't changed in thousands of years no fresh air gets in through this narrow passage although the ceiling is 50 feet high stuffy doesn't come close it's well over 90 degrees and the bats in here laced the air with a strong smell of ammonia phew I can't tell you how good it feels to be out in the open air again today this is called the Red Pyramid but originally it was white covered in the glistening limestone casing to a height of 340 feet but the sky was the limit soon the father would be outdone by the Sun you may know the expressions if you can dream it you can do it and that only the sky's the limit when I visited the ancient sites of Egypt I saw just how true these efforts were a long long time ago the ancient Egyptians created some of the most enduring structures in human history especially once they mastered the six major construction aspects that are consistent for all 80 or so pyramids they've built the first principle is the square base to get a perfect square they mark the four corners of the pyramid something they probably did with strings precision is important because if the sides aren't exactly even you'll run into problems higher up in a second phase they built a rough stepped core like here at Giza outside Cairo where it's possible to see the various layers much of what remains today is this core this one is the biggest pyramid of them all it is the tomb of pharaoh keops who ruled egypt in the middle of the 25th century bc rising almost 500 feet above the desert floor this was the tallest building in the world for nearly five thousand years nobody knows exactly what their techniques were because over time the traces of their construction methods have been erased eternally sparking new theories the third feature is the location and orientation of the pyramid since Kings neferu all pyramids now faced east-west equated the life and death of the King to the rising and Setting Sun orienting the pyramid in the right direction seems to have been no problem for the ancients because the mean error on most pyramids is less than one degree selecting the location also included the aspect of sufficient construction material for the foundation and the inner core they used as many limestone blocks as possible from the immediate site experts have done the math a pyramid like this required nearly two and a half million stone blocks a virtual mountain [Music] here in the pyramid quarry you can still see where they cut the core blocks out of the bedrock even today querying is hard work and takes a lot of muscle both human and mechanical the comparison between our modern equipment and their techniques makes their accomplishments appear even more amazing at an ancient quarry in Aswan and the south of Egypt I came to appreciate their determination [Music] this is a block of dollar I'd and believe it or not it was all the Egyptians needed to quarry huge blocks of granite they've used it much like a sledgehammer pounding away to the head holes like these and eventually they'd have a trench the work must have been extremely tedious but it was very effective it's just a question of doing the work and other people hauling li blocks away to the pyramid site I met with Dennis stocks an expert and author of a book on stone working technology in ancient Egypt it's a question of a grid pattern to isolate blocks ready to extract them to put into the pyramid he explained how they moved these blocks to build the pyramid core [Music] given the different sizes they probably used various methods in some cases they'd probably drag the blocks while in others they used sleds and wooden rollers with simple wood levers they most likely set the larger blocks in place at the top the rocks are much smaller and could probably be set by hand in the fourth phase of construction they filled in smaller stones to shape the actual pyramid the trick was not so much the perfect shape of each block but the overall height of each course which had to be absolutely even and level as you can see the pyramids are built out of stones of all different shapes and sizes some as large as a truck others the size of a fridge all fitted exactly together but as if that wasn't hard enough the builders had to maintain a constant angle from one course of stones to the next only that way could they give the facade the smoothness of a piece of glass and maintain the angles with a razor-sharp precision the fifth aspect of pyramid construction was the right angle the slope and its proportion to the square base this was crucial in terms of durability finally there were the white smoothly finished limestone casing blocks in most cases they've been stripped away as the pyramids themselves became quarries the cap on key Ops son Caffrey's tomb is a remnant of that I knew that Dennis had done some research on the casing blocks I met him at the fair Roenick village in Giza where he'd set up a workshop to demonstrate ancient stone working techniques when I arrived Denis was just setting up a limestone block the tools he prepared was surprisingly simple I was curious to see how they'd used them Jack come and have a look at this over here what have we got here Dennis well this block of stone is similar to the tank that they would use in the Great Pyramid particularly for the casing block how did they get the blocks smooth enough to serve as a casing well to start to get you smooth we would use a tool like this this is a copper chisel and the copper came from copper ore which comes from the Sanger Dennis told me that the ancients used three naturally occurring materials copper ore flint and sand from copper ore they made chisels adzes borers and drills I always thought that copper was a very soft metal well how can you cut stone with copper ah now the secret with this is that this is hammered told not like a modern steel chisels and that hardens the edge if it's left to cool naturally okay and then you can cut the stone yes it's quite simple to do we just get the chisel put the edge on and then gradually chip away by altering the angle of the chisel in order to get a clean cut along the slope and that gives you a cut that's smooth enough to build the casing stones yes eventually you would get it quite flat but then there's another technique they could use which is using a flint scraper has a sharp edge along there and can be used like this just angle it at the stone and gradually scrape away the high points like so now Jack why don't you have a go yourself it's quite soft isn't it yes you can yeah and so with this thing you just you just evenly you can gradually get that even down until he gets a smooth surface polishing is one thing but how do you know when you've got the finished product how do you know that your surface is absolutely flat well let me show you first of all they needed an accurate tool to test the surfaces to see whether it was flat or not really what it amounts to if you just hold up from your jack and stretch that out tight on the surface like of that now well this is a three rods that are all the same length now this is extremely important so about when the string is taut you can check underneath the string with the rod to see if there are any high spots like so if we touch the string we know that there's a bump right there yeah if the string lifts up like that you know that there's a bump unbelievable this technique was really clever but if you think of the millions of stone blocks that required such detail I was skeptical as to how effective it had been in the field so I challenged Dennis to a little experiment we walk along this way you'll see that blocks are in a line and they seem pretty level with each other how did they keep them so level well they have to use a means of testing them so we'll test them and see how good they are let's use the old leveling tool again the rods and strings you place your end on that block there and I'll try this block here and we'll try your block first with the testing rod oh god there but this is the bit here how's this level here oh yes you've got to have nothing but admiration for them so they've got it exactly right absolutely right so the blocks are level but that wasn't enough for the pyramid to remain stable the blocks had to be horizontal Dennis had bought another ancient tool now we can use this a-frame to check whether the block is truly horizontal horizontal like a like a surface of water yeah in fact we can use the surface of water to check that the frame is accurate and we do this by marking a line behind the hanging plumb line so if your measurement is flat and this won't always have absolutely vertically and then you know the rock is horizontal so how how is that lamp it's bang on it's absolutely right in the middle it's very good very good but that's one thing I mean if you know the brook is horizontal that's fine but surely you also need to know whether the sides are vertical yeah that's right jack but they had another tool for this purpose and there was only one place to test it now this is one of the casing blocks that once covered the entire pyramid that's right jack because this casing block has to fit to its neighbor the vertical face has to be truly vertical and they could test it with this particular tool which is called an f frame and by the way this is the only place on the plateau that we can test whether a casing blocks surface is truly vertical this is a simple tool so long as this distance is equal to this distance and the plumb line is touching both the ends then we can say that the surface is truly vertical so how's he doing jack it's doing pretty well it's then we can show that the surface is vertical pretty simple huh well you've got it right again jack but who were they the ancient Egyptians were foremost farmers if the pharaohs were able to assemble a massive workforce until now it was believed that the source of that manpower was slavery but new evidence suggests otherwise the pyramids were not built on the backs of slaves but rather on devotion and commitment today aswan the ancient capital of Nubia in southern Egypt is a destination for all who are eager to explore the Nile in ancient times Aswan was first and foremost the source of special stones for a special purpose inside the tombs [Applause] even today the stone found here is prized 5,000 years ago granite blocks like these were quarried and shipped down the river while the quarry gangs toiled away moving one mountain to build another other crews worked here at the pyramid Harbor it was called a harbor because it was believe it or not full of water connected by canal to the Nile it was a scene of heaving activity like a modern container port fruit was here that all the fine stones arrived by boat here the stones were unloaded and then hauled up the hill to the pyramids the ancients knew that the angle of the ramps was crucial between six and seven degrees was perfect to defy gravity from the harbor the stones were loaded onto our sleds which will then hold up the hill lubricated with powdered lime and water reducing the friction by 90% this is no hill you want to hold a rock up I wondered who the people were who dragged heavy stones up to the pyramids day after day during the twenty to thirty years of construction that it took to build these giants so I went to the foot of the Giza Plateau where a graveyard is being excavated it is the resting place of those who worked on the pyramids nearby the graves provide a glimpse of the workers lifestyle and hindered the social and economic importance pyramid construction held for the entire nation dr. who asked what to the tombs tell us this is the first time actually that we know about the life of the workmen who built the pyramids before that we know a lot about nobles and officials and kings and queens but nothing about the common people who represent 80% of the nation in that time and not to say how US Secretary General of Antiquities met with me to share the latest discoveries how was it that the Egyptians managed to get so many people working on such a colossal enterprise was this a system of forced labor of coercion was it more system of cooperation you have to understand one important thing that the pyramid was the national project of the whole nation the whole country the 1 million and 600,000 who actually was the number of population in Egypt and in that time dedicated their life to build that pyramid because it is for the king who is actually the gut so it's certainly not an army of forced slaves no we believe that the number of the workmen was only ten thousand workmen maybe one-third was actually a permanent welcome and work for the king permanently and there is will be workmen young people who came through the support of the household in the Delta and then apparition country to what has been assumed evidence emerges that the basic workforce the muscle power in the construction of the pyramids were not slaves but devoted farmers every family had to sink there sure you know like today if you go to any village in Upper Egypt or lower Asia they do like the time of building the pyramid if you try to build your house you'll find that every day every family in the village will bring you food they'll dig in the pyramid was the same like this what about the Nile and the annual flooding that occurred did that affect the work on the pyramids it does but it helped in working at pyramid because you in the flood completely cover issue there is no work for anyone what you've described here is really a small city ten thousand people is a lot of people how did they organize that a group consists of two thousand workmen and they divide the crew the two gangs each gang consists of one thousand workmen each gang had a name like a friends of who food mayn't our eyes drunk each group had an overseer then the whole ten thousand were organized by groups by gangs by small groups then this organization could be very easy they had a big area like a canteen or for feeding all the workmen you have all storage facilities to store all the equipment the tools because each workman cannot own a tool the tools were owned by the government they have people who take care of their clothes they have people take care of their food they have people who really prepare everything for them like a pyramid yeah why do you wonder all the time about building the pyramid the administration of building theremin is more genius to anyone definitely building the pyramid itself and this why the pyramid Belt Egypt because building this pyramid made them to know about our technology and science [Music] [Applause] I came to realize how much of what the ancients knew reverberates across time while walking through modern Aswan I happened to pass by a construction site where the techniques were strikingly similar to the ancient methods simple tools muscle power and knowledge passed down for generations were all they needed to in case of slope strings are still used to keep the surface level they're like a slice out of time I saw what it may have looked like thousands of years ago in ancient Egypt the Egyptian faith in an afterlife spurred not only science and technology but Commerce like modern Cairo the workers village required a huge amount of supplies on a daily basis [Music] many sought to fill those needs and as their belief radiated out beyond the Royal gravesites it touched every aspect of Egyptian daily life more and more people turn to supplying the demand or generating a demand of their own [Music] undertaking in all aspects associated with it became a major industry incense bombs anoints that had been the Kings prerogatives also desired by the masses [Applause] believed to be the scent of the Gods perfumed oils were applied to the skin for both cosmetic and medicinal purposes and also used in the mummification process so you could say that perfume was yet another invention we owe to the Egyptians belief in the afterlife they also created one of the world's most enduring fascinations in the Cairo Museum I saw some of the stunning results of the ancient Undertaker's art and science though they are shocking in this stark reality the mummies provide an invaluable record of the beliefs the science and the lives of the ancient Egyptians six feet tall 90 years old the father of a hundred children during a reign of 70 years the legendary ramses ii surpassed all Egyptian rulers the mummification process during queen nijem its time included the tucking of Natron a naturally occurring salt in packages under the skin and into the body's hollows when she was found and transferred up the Nile to Cairo the nattramn that had once dehydrated her body absorbs the moisture on the river causing her dried skin to burst king ii in roz mummy tells of a violent world which he left following a head wound sustained in battle Amenhotep the first his grandson is resting in the shroud adorned with flower garlands just like today flowers were a token of love the mummies tell us that the Egyptians set broken bones performed amputations and suffered like many of us from arthritis [Music] these silent messengers bear witness to a mastery of technology and an astonishing depth of knowledge nearby I found another ancient marvel a hollowed-out granite block the ancients coffin or sarcophagus the surface was astonishingly smooth cleverly they cut the lid from the same block an amazing piece of expert craftsmanship and precision it really makes you wonder working granite requires a lot of mechanical force where we use pneumatic equipment well the Egyptians needed was a simple yet nifty technique the barren environment of the desert inspired the ancient Egyptians to create colorful images be it for this life or the afterlife in their world flowers took on a special meaning records from 2200 BC showed that it was in ancient Egypt where the first ornamental gardens were created more than 1,500 years before the fabled Hanging Gardens of Babylon solely a prerogative of royalty some say the ancient gardens were an expression of the God kings might so powerful he could grow flowers where nature did not but the ancients saw more in them they were an image of rebirth and regeneration tokens of love and worship for the passage from this life to the afterlife placed with the mummies inside their coffins flowers were believed to protect them for an eternity and granite so they believed provided the ultimate insurance on the Mohs scale of one to ten granite is a seven making it at least as hard as steel just how they were able to hollow out a piece of rock this hard was a question for ancient technology expert Dennis stocks you know one of the most difficult things that the Egyptians have to do the very mystifying process is how did they drill the holes in solid rock anyway this is the way that they did it first of all they had a copper tube which had a shaft of wood written partway into it so that there's a space in the tube underneath then they could get the Jew in position and the cutting agent is just common desert sound so that's you're just pouring sand in there so that the copper has a has a sharp edge to cut yes now we've got a longbow here with a rope on which has be given a double turn around the shaft now there's only one components are put in place can we put the top cap still not now this is just to put in position for the shaft to rotate rotating while the bottom rotates in the hole so if you'd like to take hold of this so this hole this is what yes and I don't want any pressure on and while the two operators turn the drill the sound is now steadily and slowly but surely crossing its way right through the stop and the only Lily to factories our strength and the length of the copper tube so it's a very good technique and of course it's very very economical why because you're always really the circumference of the tube out the core can be knocked out later and you're left with a hole super technology really is [Music] with basic tools but masterful application the ancient Egyptians created world wonders [Music] and while their knowledge and experience grew the craftsmanship of the pyramids went downhill [Music] as industries expanded and diversified social classes emerged that were no longer dependent on the royal family [Music] some historians also believe that wars famines and a power shift to the south contributed to the decline but it took another thousand years before the ancient Egyptians were dealt the final blow a new faith arose and while it also acknowledged the concept of a life after death it argued that you didn't need a body to enjoy it Christianity swept through Egypt followed by other religions arising in over 3000 year old tradition in only a few centuries eclipsing a culture and a lifestyle that have been shaped by the pyramids in their quest for an eternal life they leave behind a legacy of basic geometry rudimentary science and seminal technologies preparing the ground for intellectual growth elsewhere when we think of the great intellectually and scientifically advanced cultures of the ancient Western world we tend to concentrate on Greece and Rome but both cultures achieve their greatness thanks in part to what the ancient Egyptians knew their knowledge did not remain trapped in these desert sands but spilled out into the wider world beyond the shores of the Nile from where it eventually reached us reminding us in light of our own achievements in technology and science that we stand in awe on the shoulders of giants known as the Egyptians [Music] you

Channel: Experience Egypt

Views: 1,638,338

Rating: 4.1958551 out of 5

Keywords: sharm el sheikh, ancient Egypt, Hurghada, sharm el sheik, egypt holidays, el gouna, Taba, pyramids of Egypt, cairo, egypt, egypt pyramids, hurgada, dahab, red sea, holidays, ETA

Id: 7W6fJmHI3Ac

Length: 49min 33sec (2973 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 19 2013

Reddit Comments

[u/[deleted]]

Great watch, not just another boring Egyptian history documentary.

[u/[deleted]]

No one knows how the pyramids were built, and anyone who says they do know is lying.