Where Pharaohs Once Ruled‬

the Nile River cuts through the great Sahara Desert like a knife serving for millennia as the lifeblood of the Egyptian people hello and welcome I'm Ian Lee inside Africa this week were in Egypt sailing up the world's longest river we'll make call at temples that where pharaohs ruled with an iron fist and meet some characters along the way that can shed some light on this ancient civilization the Nile River snakes over 6,800 kilometers from Lake Victoria and Tanzania to the Mediterranean Sea but it's here in Egypt that witnessed the rise of the mightiest Empire along its banks we start our journey in Luxor you might know it by its ancient name Thebes present day it's one of Egypt's main tourist hubs Nile cruise ships crowd the shore while those braving the cool morning mists take to the sky for a panoramic view but thousands of years ago this city was something else Luxor is the city of palaces this was the heart the capital of the ancient Egyptian world in karnak temple here is large its massive it's impressive by oh nothing about it so I'm going to meet someone who does hi hala hi young so tell me about this place you are in Karnak this is the largest religious complex of the ancient world this was like a blank piece of paper where every king who ruled Egypt from the eleventh dynasty to the thirty or thirty first dynasty marked his name on it one way Egypt's ancient history plays out on the temple walls telling stories of glory and betrayal we'll get to those soon but first I got to know how did they build them so high walking in here today I saw a construction crane doing some restoration work they didn't have cranes thousands of years ago how would they build something this massive ramps and yeah ramps made out of mud brick and rubble this was the way they lift up these giant blocks of stones all the way up to the high height we can still see evidence of the ancient earthworks today if these towering pillars look familiar then you might be a James Bond fan he chased the notorious supervillain jaws through the hypostyle hall or perhaps you recognize them from the more recent Transformers movie it's no wonder why karnak appears in so many movies it's the crown jewel of luxor and a melting pot of languages as tourists from around the world flock here to uncover the secrets of the pharaoh's fortune i was dinya not enough some which are still being revealed today doctoral student of Egyptology Andrew Schilling from the University of Memphis in the United States carefully records the descriptions and colors while checking for damage painstaking but important work not all the damages recent take this part of the wall for example it depicts one of the world's oldest family feud's an angry son and rightful heir to the throne overthrew his pharaoh mother and ordered her hieroglyphic removed ancient Egyptians believed images on these walls are going to come alive with certain magical spells in the afterlife and erasing her like that means that she will never be able to come back again untimely deaths are a theme in ancient Egypt as we find out across the river at medinet habu or the mortuary temple of Ramses the 3rd this Pharaoh wore his problems on his sleeves or rather walls they tell of constant war with the sea people and what happened to the prisoners would make anyone think twice about invading Egypt looking at this relief there's a couple things that stand out to me first of all that guy doesn't look like he belongs in here he doesn't look Egyptian and his hands look like they're bound this was captured they wanted to find out how many enemies they've captured so they started first by cutting their hands but then they found there was a major problem right hands and left hands so they went from hands to tongues and then to penises ouch lesson learned but that's the point the reliefs served as the Pharaohs propaganda to the people and even maybe a bit of a warning despite being over 3,000 years old much of the vibrant colors remain while Rameses the Third's temple brags about his might it wouldn't save him from an assassination plot his royal harem who lived here including one of his wives killed the Pharaoh to put her son on the throne killing a God King doesn't go over well and everyone involved was put to death when Pharaohs died they took up residency in the Valley of the Kings more than 60 Pharaohs that we know of call this place home and the Valley of the Kings this tomb belonging to Rameses the 6th is considered one of the most beautiful unfortunately tomb robbers got here before Egyptologists while this tomb is beautiful it looks like some of the items in it have seen better days yeah actually grave robbers got here we had several incidents of stealing from the valley of kings Halla tells me that looting is still a big problem since the 2011 Egyptian uprising that overthrew Hosni Mubarak who some called a modern-day Pharaoh Egypt's historical sites have been under attack and the illegal trade is booming we end our time in Luxor at well fittingly named Luxor Temple today the site is sanctified by an early Christian Church in a centuries-old mosque but back in the Pharaoh's day Rameses the third kept his harem here - and made regular visits I'll leave you with the sites of the temple but when we come back get ready to set sail

Channel: Experience Egypt

Views: 186,087

Rating: 4.4622951 out of 5

Keywords: Real-time Strategy (Media Genre), Pharaoh (Noble Title), YouTube, Egypt (Country)

Id: VgTnpYRCojM

Length: 7min 51sec (471 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 08 2015