Egypt: Gift Of The Nile (1977)

[Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] the golden mask of tutankamon the Pharaoh who sat on the throne of Egypt as a boy of 10 by the age of 20 tutankamon had died and almost nothing was remembered about the brief rule of this minor Pharaoh eventually tutankamon did make history when his tomb was rediscovered in 1922 since then his name has become perhaps the most famous from the ancient [Music] world but still we are left wondering at the source of this famous wealth the superb craftsmanship the Pharaohs ruled Egypt for 3,000 years right down to the time of Cleopatra and every year the Waters of the N brought the lifegiving flood carrying rich soil for the crops of ancient Egypt [Music] to the Egyptian peasant the Nile flood was little short of an annual Miracle it came from somewhere beyond his world from the mysterious continent the South yet it was only this river which kept alive the green strip that was Egypt [Music] it was a Greek traveler and historian Herodotus who summed up the fertile land of Egypt as a gift of the Nile already in Greek times the Nile Valley was the scene of an ancient culture its Origins lost in the midsts of prehistory the aristocracy of Rome flocked to Egypt as tourists to savor the Mysteries and the crumbling ruins of a once great civilization Century after Century visitors came to stand by the Nile and to sail up the Great River marveling at the vast temples that littered its banks [Music] the people of Egypt had long since lost touch with the language of their ancestors so each traveler told his own story and Drew his own pictures of the great monuments none were more picturesque than the inscr Sphinx who was he or she the Sphinx has suffered a variety of indignities in its long history often it has been almost bedded beneath the shifting Desert [Music] Sands in 1400 the nose was broken by a cannonball aimed by an indignant Muslim and protest at the enormity of such a Graven image in 185 Napoleon came to conquer Egypt and as well as soldiers he brought with him an army of Scholars and artists to survey the wonders of the Nile Valley but the Curiosity aroused by the Sphinx was as nothing beside the Enigma of the pyramids [Music] so simple so perfect and rational in shape yet built on such a scale that it hardly seems credible they were the works of man [Music] according to one tradition the pyramids were Joseph's granaries built by the children of Israel against the seven lean years of famine others said they were a sanctuary from the great flood or the Sund of a giant Observatory a century ago the astronomer Royal of Scotland claimed divine inspiration in deriving from the pyramids the distance of the Earth from the Sun the cynical ancient Greeks had other ideas Aristotle described the pyramids as works of tyranny part of a deliberate State policy of keeping the people in employment to divert them from mutinies and rebellions of course the idea of pyramid building especially on this colossal scale was not the sudden whim of a single Pharaoh a few miles south of caro another group of pyramids Rises beyond the green Oasis of the Nile Valley many have been reduced by time to Mere heaps of rubble but there remains one of Man's first great building projects the step pyramid of King joser for centuries Egyptians had built their houses of mud brick which lasted well enough in the dry climate but ancient Egypt was inspired by a sense of Eternity in the person of the Pharaoh who was a living God during his Earthly rule it was the duty of the Pharaoh and his subjects to provide for this destiny to us it seems obvious that Joseph would build in stone to ensure the survival of his great religious complex in 2700 BC it was a completely novel and astonishingly ambitious project the enclosure wall alone was over a mile in total length both the outer wall and the temples Within were fashioned largely in Imitation of the mud Timber and Reed materials to which the builders had been accustomed yet the stone was worked with the Precision and confidence of an expert Mason at the base of Joseph's tomb we can see the outline of what may have been an earlier plan piled on top of this are the layers of a steep pyramid Rising like a giant staircase towards the heavens perhaps it was in this way that the pyramid was first imagined and it was only made possible by the New Concept of building in stone few of Joseph's subjects would ever have ventured within this Sanctuary at a distance the gleaming outline of the step pyramid must have been awesome confirmation of the pharaoh's divine power the lesson was not lost on future pharaohs and they outshone Joseph by perfecting the pyramid shape the Pyramids of Giza appear to gleam with ethereal Light On The Desert [Music] Horizon for latest civilizations it was the Gloom of the pyramid interior that held the secret of its real [Music] purpose when 19 century explorers forced an entry the true Splendor of the Great Pyramid came to light here deep within the pyramid core was a superbly engineered Gallery through which the Pharaohs funeral procession would Ascend towards its final Sanctuary right in the heart of the pyramid is a stark lofty chamber and at one end lies the sarcophagus of the pharoh kufu [Music] The Intruders discovered they were by no means the first to violate this Sanctuary they found the chamber totally bare and the sarcophagus [Music] empty in Antiquity it must have been well known that this house of Eternity was sumptuously furnished with all the pharaoh's requirements for an afterlife the Gilded Furniture of kufu mother lay in a Mor modest tomb nearby and escaped the robbers but the Pyramid of a great Pharaoh was far too obvious a treasure Trove to be ignored in the long run desecration of the Tomb by robbers was probably inevitable though the epid builders had elaborate plans for sealing off the entry passages [Music] we know that plans for the tomb were altered several times during construction some experts have claimed that the Pharaoh was never buried here in the Great Pyramid whatever the problems encountered in completing the tomb of kufu his son kafra set his subjects to work building a second pyramid almost as large as his father's on the same desert Riv above the Nile Valley the approach was by a Causeway from the valley Temple this Temple was the gateway to the world of the Dead where the Pharaoh was received at the end of his last Earthly [Music] Journey we can recognize the foundations of architecture in the Dignity of these massive columns and lentil of pink Granite the ru Hume Stone from distant quaries was fitted and Polished with the same exacting care as the burial chambers within the pyramid in the seclusion of the temple was found this statue of kafra the Egyptian sculptor was not concerned with capturing a fleeting expression his task was to preserve the Eternal Essence and Majesty of a Divine King identified by the hovering symbol of the hwk God lord of the [Music] universe kafra breathes with the powerful chest of a proud pharaoh and he gazes with a vision of a remote God Perhaps it is cfr's Serene features which also Gaz at us from the Sphinx left over from the pyramid quaries was an outcrop of soft unusable Rock which was sculpted in the likeness of the Pharaoh the third of the Giza Pyramid is the tomb of Menor [Music] within his Temple he was depicted with a consort of elegant goddesses with the sculptor's aid Menorah aspires both in physique and in profile to the ideal of divine presence but his pyramid was on a much reduced scale though the craftsmanship was still Immaculate the precisely fitted Granite C ing blocks were left unfinished at his death it seems that the unceasing toil of building generations of colossal pyramids had taken its toll of the Egyptian economy the granite was quarried at Aswan 500 M up River All Around The Cliffs of hard rock are scarred as with giant teeth marks each hole was painstakingly hollowed by pounding the granite face eventually a row of wooden wedges could be hammered in and if wetted the expanding wood forced a crack down the line of wedges these methods changed little over many centuries but the Primitive Egyptian technology was little deterrent to their Ambitions this was to be an obelisk carved in one piece from the living Rock modern experts have estimated its weight at 1,160 tons of solid rock and to think that the Obelisk cracked only a few months short of completion perhaps all concerned privately offered thanks to the gods for this blessing in disguise certainly if the weight of evidence had not been abandoned on the spot the story would be unbelievable it's hard enough to credit the tonnage of granite that was prized from the quaries of Aswan and floated almost the length of Egypt to the pyramid [Music] SES without the River Highway it would have been out of the question even for a pharaoh along the banks of the Nile the people of Egypt must have paused to watch the stately progress of the great Stone barges Egypt was United along the length of the Nile by the person of the Pharaoh the dynasties of the Old Kingdom laid the foundations of a society which was as ordered and as stable as the layers of a pyramid crowning the pyramid was the Pharaoh himself enlightened by his place in the heavens At His Feet sat the Scribe translating the pho's will into action the scribes were an elite who had earned their privileged position by years of repetitive study ancient Egypt was blessed with great natural advantages unlike the Tigris and Euphrates the Nile flood was usually consistent and reliable politically the early pharaohs had United the Nile Valley and the entire kingdom was ruled almost as if it were the pharaoh's private estate with his subject as the tenant farmers at the pharaoh's Court his close relatives were seated with formal dignity the prince held a rank commander of the archers and is indied with sharp eyes and a suitably military mustache his princess is more aloof and withdrawn men of ability but more humble origin could also make their Mark and the Old Kingdom of Egypt relapsed into a local rule of feudal [Music] princes in ancient Egypt the pharaoh's downfall was a failure of divine will and it was a period of distress with the loss of Royal patronage administrators and Craftsmen fell on hard times for The Peasant too there may have been hardships though a subsistence life probably continued much as [Music] before Egypt was reunited under the Middle Kingdom the new pharaohs took care to wear both the Red Crown of the Delta and the white crown of the upper Nile to symbolize the restored Unity but the passing of the Old Kingdom had compromised the pharaoh's Divine Authority the strained expression and the stiff sculpture betray a loss of majesty though reasonably prosperous the Middle Kingdom lacked the confidence of the old rule as the generations pass we see the strains of office carved in the weary face of a very human pharaoh again the Kingdom of Egypt broke apart while the peasant life continued Beneath The Monuments to ancient pharaohs the cultivated Valley was a narrow strip bordering the river banks and generally was not dependent on lengthy [Music] canals even in unsettled times The Peasant could usually bring water to some of his [Music] Fields beyond the Nile Valley were great expanses of desert which had always formed a natural defense between these desert walls the traffic of the Nile could take advantage of the prevailing wind to sail up River and the current for drifting down river the Nile Delta was a vast area of marsh and Reeds it had always been a favorite place for hunting but it also contained one of Egypt's most important raw materials the Reed which grew so abundantly was Papyrus the Egyptians put it to many uses as a fuel for eating in salads for basket making and of course for making [Music] paper it's many centuries since the technique of making Papyrus into paper was forgotten but recently in Egypt with research and the help of ancient texts the craft has been revived [Music] after drying under pressure for several days these strips of fiber cling firmly together and the resulting sheet of papus is stronger than a modern paper made of Pulp papus had been in use almost since the first writing of Egyptian hieroglyphs and was to continue long after the Pharaohs had ceased to rule it was obviously much handier than the clay tablets on which the Babylonian scribe wrote his cuniform thanks to the high quality of the paper and the dry Egyptian climate a great number of papara documents have been recovered [Music] the harvesting and manufacturer papus grew into considerable industry and in later periods it was an important business to countries all over the classical world the scribes did much to keep Egypt going through the varying fortunes of the kingdom and it's through their faithful records that we've learned so much of ancient Egypt death or rather the preparation for eternity had always been an obsession of the ancient Egyptians this is the oldest mummy ever found he was a court musician and he died about 4 and a half thousand years ago mummification took up to 70 days in a strange combination of elaborate ritual and careful technique [Music] The Embers could preserve some withered semblance of the human features for the Eternal Journey [Music] among the Pharaohs of Egypt the last great name was Ramses II and he took good care to leave a deep impression nobody was going to obliterate his name from Prosperity the rule of rames II was a Triumph of brute power over Artistry enormously heavy statues glowed down at the populace from in front of the most colossal temples that man has ever contrived to [Music] build in subservience to the might of the Gods the temple Halls dwarf the feeble human figure amid the forest of massive col the only daylight filters through high barred Windows to deepen the mysterious [Music] Gloom to execute these grandio projects the Pharaoh could still call on great numbers of excellent Craftsmen enormous areas of stone were carved in arrogant scenes of the Pharaoh hunting like a Superman and trampling his helpless enemies to the ground yet for all this blustering propaganda the Egyptian temple begins to look more like a fortress as if the pharaoh's people were no longer to be trusted certainly it appears that Ramsey was obsessed with the need to prove that he was larger than life [Music] Ramsey II had ruled Egypt for 66 years and even then in the Egyptian tradition he tried to outwit [Music] death his vast monuments continued to overshadow ordinary men but they were the hollow boast of an Empire moving gradually towards decline the Pharaohs of the New Kingdom had always looked back to the Glorious Old Kingdom for their inspiration and traditions amid all the splendors of ancient Egypt it is these pyramids which leave the most lasting imp on the imagination though their mortal remains have vanished the early pharaohs did in a sense achieve their ambition of [Music] immortality for