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11 May 2026
This event began 05/11/2025 and repeats every year forever
SKIN OF GLASS - the Pele de Vidro in Sao Paulo Brasil
U.R.L.
https://www.pbs.org/video/skin-of-glass-3uc64q/
VIDEO FULL VIDEO
VIDEO EXCERPT
TRANSCRIPT FULL MOVIE
♪ [Water bubbling] ♪ ♪ [Denise Zmekhol speaking Portuguese] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ [Wind blowing] Zmekhol: I left Brazil for a new life in California... with only memories of my father-- the bitter and the sweet... ♪ but now so many years later, news arrives about my father's legacy that reopens childhood wounds and calls me back home to São Paulo... ♪ searching for my father in the work he created. ♪ ♪ This is what brought me back. ♪ It's shocking to see what's happened to my father's architectural masterpiece, knowing what it once was. ♪ ♪ [Man speaking Portuguese] [Woman speaking Portuguese] ♪ [Man speaking Portuguese] [Man speaking Portuguese] ♪ [Man speaking Portuguese] [Woman speaking Portuguese] [Man speaking Portuguese] ♪ [Woman speaking Portuguese] ♪ Zmekhol: A vision of the future 24 stories above São Paulo, the Pele de Vidro-- Skin of Glass. My father designed it in the 1960s, and I was conceived at the same time as this building. ♪ My father was everything a daughter could have dreamed of-- playful, charming, affectionate. ♪ He was born in Paris to parents who immigrated from Syria and then made their new life in Brazil. ♪ Curious, determined, the top of his class, he became a prolific architect as soon as he graduated... ♪ but who was my father as a young man? Going through these photos makes me realize how little I know about his past. We never got a chance to talk about his early years. At 29, he met my mother Graca, like him, a child of Syrian-Lebanese immigrants, and together, they began building dreams. ♪ By their wedding day, my father had already designed our family home. ♪ ♪ [Man speaking Portuguese] Zmekhol: Everything felt possible in those days. It was a time of great hope and optimism in Brazil. [Astrud Gilberto singing in Portuguese] ♪ [Lores speaking Portuguese] ♪ ♪ ♪ [Woman speaking Portuguese] Zmekhol: Brasilia, the new capital city, was built from the ground up in 3 short years. ♪ Our country was moving toward modernization and social reform after centuries of extreme inequality. ♪ My parents visited Brasilia during construction. ♪ I can only imagine how this epic project inspired my father. ♪ At the age of 32, he was beginning the most significant work of his lifetime, the Pele de Vidro. ♪ [Meyer speaking Portuguese] [Man speaking Portuguese] ♪ [Man speaking Portuguese] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ [Zmekhol speaking Portuguese] ♪ [Gunshot] [Screaming] [Shouting] Construction of the Pele de Vidro was almost finished in 1964 when Brazil's military staged a coup with backing from the United States. It was the height of the Cold War, and the U.S. feared that Brazil was leaning toward communism. 21 years of dictatorship followed, brutally ending Brazil's hopes for social reform. Our promising, tropical democracy vanished... ♪ but I was living in a child's world, safe in the home my father built, surrounded by family and friends. ♪ Yara, our closest neighbor, was like another mother to me. ♪ ♪ [Yara speaking Portuguese] Yara: Heh! ♪ ♪ ♪ [Man singing in Portuguese] ♪ [Rumbling] [Whistle blows, explosion] ♪ [Explosion] ♪ [Explosion] ♪ [People screaming] ♪ Zmekhol: In time, I began to understand what was really going on. The military censored the media and tortured, killed, and exiled people they said were communists. ♪ My father's colleagues at the school of architecture remember that time well. ♪ ♪ ♪ [Zmekhol speaking Portuguese] [Zmekhol speaking Portuguese] [Chico Buarque's "Apesar de Voce" playing] [Zmekhol speaking Portuguese] ♪ ♪ ♪ As a child, I often passed by the Pele De Vidro, but I never went inside. Now I come here hoping to meet the people who have made this place their home... but I can't get in. I need the approval of the occupation leaders. [Man speaking Portuguese] Zmekhol: So I wait, looking in from outside. I hear Portuguese, Spanish, French, kids playing... a mother calling her child. I'm so curious about the lives within my father's creation. ♪ People were at the heart of his work. ♪ He designed the Pele de Vidro with great care for the life inside. At a time when most offices were dark and closed, he created a space of light and transparency, a structure open to the world around it. ♪ This is the only photo I ever found of my father at the Pele de Vidro, standing on the rooftop, about to transform the skyline of São Paulo. ♪ [Woman speaking Portuguese] [Wisnik speaking Portuguese] ♪ ♪ [Botti speaking Portuguese] ♪ [Woman speaking Portuguese] Zmekhol: Finding my father's drawings at the School of Architecture is a revelation. I had no idea how much was here. [Ferreira de Brito speaking Portuguese] [Paper rustling] ♪ ♪ [Zmekhol speaking Portuguese] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ [Camera shutter clicks] Zmekhol: Gal was one of my father's students. Together, we go around São Paulo visiting the buildings my father designed. ♪ ♪ ♪ [Rapid clicking] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Zmekhol: And finally, the house my father built for our family. It feels so strange that it's now someone else's home. Zmekhol: This garden, so full of memories. Running in circles with my brother... summer dinners with neighbors and friends... but there are shadows here of harder times. ♪ When I was 11, I began to sense a growing tension between my parents. ♪ Some nights, lying in bed, I could hear my mother crying. ♪ ♪ [Yara speaking Portuguese] ♪ Zmekhol: And then one day, my father left. ♪ ♪ [Speaking Portuguese] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ I've been waiting 6 weeks. The occupation leaders say they're asking the residents for permission to let me in... but then, they stop returning my calls. Watching the people, I begin to recognize faces and feel the rhythms of their lives. We are separated by distance and privilege, yet, in a strange way, bound together by what we share-- a home made by my father. [Man speaking Portuguese] Zmekhol: The Pele de Vidro is one of over 70 buildings downtown occupied by people who need homes. The housing crisis has sparked a movement. [Loud banging] [Indistinct chatter] [Cheering] [Man speaking Portuguese] [Indistinct chatter] [Chucre speaking Portuguese] Zmekhol: Péricles is helping me negotiate with the leaders of the Pele de Vidro, and he takes me to one of the occupations he organizes. [Child speaking Portuguese] [Péricles speaking Portuguese] [Woman speaking Portuguese] [Ribeiro speaking Portuguese] [Péricles speaking Portuguese] [Mendes da Rocha speaking Portuguese] [Meyer speaking Portuguese] ♪ ♪ ♪ [Acayaba speaking Portuguese] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ [Zmekhol speaking Portuguese] [Yara speaking Portuguese] ♪ ♪ Zmekhol: At my father's funeral, I felt like a stranger... our angry last words still stinging my heart. Even with Yara there, I felt totally alone. ♪ [Sirens] Zmekhol: A few years after my father died, the federal police made the Pele de Vidro their headquarters... a place for censoring journalists and artists. ♪ My father's creation of openness and light became a center of fear and surveillance... [People clamoring] but the dictatorship was faltering. People across the country were demanding free elections. [Cheering and applause] After two decades of struggle, democracy was restored. The federal police, now working under a democratic government, stayed in the Pele de Vidro. [Indistinct chatter] [Cameras clicking] They made international headlines identifying the remains of the Nazi war criminal Josef Mengele. The federal police left the building in 2003... and for years, the Pele de Vidro stood empty and neglected. ♪ ♪ [Lores speaking Portuguese] [Rain falling] [Man speaking Portuguese] ♪ Zmekhol: It would break my father's heart to see his Pele de Vidro like this, as it does mine... but I see this place has become a shelter, its walls protecting so many, and this touches my heart. ♪ ♪ ♪ [Péricles speaking Portuguese] Zmekhol: I've tried so hard to get inside the Pele de Vidro, but after so many months of negotiations, the door is closed... but I am not giving up. I go to my father's birthplace... the city he loved and would visit often. I'm here to meet an architect with a deep connection to the Pele de Vidro. [Speaking Portuguese] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Zmekhol: Pablo's dream came to an end, and the building remained empty... ♪ but a few years later, the Skin of Glass became a canvas for another vision, a radical street art called pixacão. ♪ Zmekhol: When I first met Rafael, he was very guarded, not sure how I felt about his art on the Pele de Vidro. I wasn't sure either. ♪ [Rafael speaking Portuguese] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Zmekhol: A few months after Rafael's pixacão, people occupied the Pele de Vidro for the first time. A local filmmaker documented them moving in. Finally, a window inside. All this time I imagined if I could only get into the Pele de Vidro, I would find my father there... ♪ but I'm grateful to see this glimpse of life inside. ♪ ♪ [Pablo speaking Portuguese] [Distant sirens] [Low rumbling] [Sirens growing closer] [Overlapping sirens and horns] [Fire roaring] [Radio chatter] [Glass shattering] [Woman speaking Portuguese] Hey, hey, hey! ♪ ♪ ♪ [Zmekhol speaking Portuguese] ♪ ♪ ♪ [Woman speaking Portuguese] ♪ ♪ [Indistinct chatter] ♪ [Zmekhol speaking Portuguese] ♪ ♪ Zmekhol: The governor, the mayor, even the president appear for the cameras... but none of them meet with the survivors just one block away. [Indistinct chatter] [Barbosa speaking Portuguese] [Speaking Portuguese] [Indistinct chatter] ♪ [Zmekhol speaking Portuguese] ♪ ♪ ♪ [Speaking Portuguese] [Indistinct chatter] [Speaking Portuguese] ♪ ♪ [Woman speaking Portuguese] [Indistinct chatter] [Zmekhol speaking Portuguese] [Indistinct chatter] [Speaking Portuguese] Zmekhol: This is one of the leaders who kept me out of the Pele de Vidro, who abandoned the survivors after the fire. Soon after he and the other Pele de Vidro leaders were questioned by the police, they went into hiding. Months later, the camp is gone without a trace, shut down by the city, the survivors scattered throughout São Paulo, looking for shelter. Many simply vanished into the streets. [Man speaking Portuguese] [Péricles speaking Portuguese] [Speaking French] Zmekhol: Pablo and Philippe have come from France to honor my father's dream and their own. ♪ ♪ ♪ [Philippe speaking French] ♪ Zmekhol: This drawing will never be more than a dream, a vision of what might have been. ♪ Pablo and Philippe invite Rafael, the pixacão artist, to join them. ♪ [Rafael speaking Portuguese] ♪ [Pablo speaking French] ♪ ♪ [Alves speaking Portuguese] [Speaking Portuguese] Ha ha ha! [Speaking Portuguese] ♪ Hmm. ♪ [Man singing in Portuguese] ♪ ♪ ♪ [Zmekhol speaking Portuguese] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪
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11 May 2026
This event began 05/11/2025 and repeats every year forever
Tombs of Amun
URL
https://www.pbs.org/video/egypts-tombs-of-amun-uggfz5/
VIDEO
TRANSCRIPT
♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ NARRATOR: In Egypt, a team of archaeologists has made an extraordinary discovery. ZAHI HAWASS: I never thought that anything like this would be discovered. NARRATOR: A cemetery hidden for millennia. AFIFI ROHIM: We can see the burial chamber. NARRATOR: No one knew of its existence. We are in front of a sealed tomb. NARRATOR: How many tombs will they find? This is really exciting. NARRATOR: What lies within? ROHIM: We are sure that this tomb intact tomb. NARRATOR: Now, from the Egyptian desert, incredible artifacts emerge. HAWASS: Beautiful-- this is the first time I see something like this. NARRATOR: Who was buried here? These individuals were wealthy. NARRATOR: Now these lost tombs are revealing a unique period in Egyptian history, when kings from the south conquered and ruled Egypt and Egyptian women had more power and prestige than ever before. JULIA BUDKA: The god's wife of Amun was really the female substitute of the king. MARIAM AYAD: The god's wife of Amun was as important as a medieval pope. NARRATOR: Who were these outsiders who ruled Egypt? And how did they help women rise to such heights? ♪ ♪ "Egypt's Tombs of Amun," right now, on "NOVA." ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ NARRATOR: Ancient Egypt, a civilization that lasted for more than 3,000 years. From towering pyramids to palatial rock-cut tombs, from sprawling temples to soaring obelisks, its long history is meticulously recorded on the walls of Egyptian temples, colossal statues, and the artifacts the Egyptians buried in their tombs. Leading the Egyptian people was a succession of about 300 rulers, divided into 31 dynasties lasting from around 3200 to 300 BCE. These were the pharaohs, who were both heads of state, as well as divine intermediaries between the people and their gods. Most of the history of Ancient Egypt unfolds over three major periods of unity and prosperity. The Old Kingdom, the era of the pyramids. The Middle Kingdom, a classical age, when literature and the arts flourished. And the New Kingdom, when Egypt extended its control beyond its borders and became an empire. As well as three periods of instability in between, called the First, Second, and Third Intermediate Periods. The New Kingdom is probably the best-known period in Ancient Egypt because we have all those temples, we have huge amounts of royal stelar texts and inscriptions. Egypt was completely connected with the Mediterranean, with the Near East, with the south. It's really the first evidence for globalization in our history. ♪ ♪ People were living together, people were copying things, they're creating something new. NARRATOR: The New Kingdom is considered Egypt's golden age, a time of wealth, prosperity, and power. ♪ ♪ Pharaohs like Ramesses II and Hatshepsut build magnificent temples, and incredible treasures, like the ones found in the tomb of Tutankhamun, are produced. But after nearly 500 years of splendor, things start to change. There were internal political problems, economic problems, periods of hunger, civil wars. NARRATOR: During this time of declining prosperity, the state collapses, allowing self-proclaimed regional rulers to grab power and divide the country. After the fall of the New Kingdom, Egypt fell into a dark, dark, dark age of political fragmentation. It's known as the Third Intermediate Period. NARRATOR: Starting in 1069 BCE, the Third Intermediate Period lasts for more than 300 years. The archaeological record from this period of Egyptian history is fragmented. The story of the people who lived during these times is largely unknown. But now new information is being uncovered 400 miles south of Cairo, in an excavation happening in Egypt's richest archaeological area: Luxor. BUDKA: The modern city of Luxor was the ancient Thebes, and for centuries, it was the religious capital of Egypt. NARRATOR: Some of the most famous ancient sites are here: temples to the most important gods on the East Bank of the Nile; the funerary temples of the pharaohs and the vast Necropolis, or city of the dead, to the west. The popular belief is, we know already everything. We have deciphered the hieroglyphs. We have so many temples and tombs. We know what happened. This is actually not the case. And every single archaeological dig can teach you a lot. NARRATOR: In September 2020, a team of Egyptian archaeologists led by Zahi Hawass started excavating a new site there, on the West Bank of the Nile, and discovered a long-lost city. We discovered one house, and this house led us to this major important discovery. The lost golden city. NARRATOR: Built by Tutankhamun's grandfather Amenhotep III in the 14th century BCE, the lost city is a sprawling maze of serpentine walls, houses, workshops, and administration buildings. For centuries, no one knew of its existence. The lost city is built on prime ancient real estate in the area known as Medinet Habu on the West Bank of the ancient city of Thebes. It took the archaeologists nearly two years to fully excavate it. HAWASS: When we found the lost golden city, I really wanted to extend the area in the north. This is known in the map as the Triangle. This area is empty-- no one really ever excavated it. NARRATOR: For decades, it's been just a patch of desert next to the main tourist route. Every morning, dozens of buses whiz past on their way to the famous sites. Hundreds of tourists take to the sky on hot air balloons. It would seem an unlikely place for a big discovery. ♪ ♪ In September 2022, two years after the lost city was discovered, the team starts excavating the Triangle. As soon as the archaeologists remove the first layer of sand, they uncover mud bricks-- evidence that there might be more to be found. Zahi decides to concentrate the team's efforts in this area. Within days, they uncover a row of large pottery vessels. Remarkably, they are still sealed. As they open one, they are about to find something very telling: a clear indication of what this site once was. Huh. What's this? It's kind of plants. NARRATOR: The plants appear to have been burned. What's this? ROHIM: Linen. Linen? And we will take all the filling outside to be sure what's behind this. HAWASS: Oh! Broken pottery! This is a ritual. NARRATOR: The contents of the pots all relate to a funerary ritual. BUDKA: During mummification, the embalming workshops produced leftovers that was regarded as something important. They were not just put somewhere as trash, but they were arranged in deposits. Sometimes they deposited linen, organic remains, botanical remains. Very often, we find broken pots inside the vessels. And this is what in general we call embalming cache. NARRATOR: An embalming cache is the collection of the precious leftovers of materials used during the mummification process. BUDKA: Finding a cache of embalming material tells you immediately that you have found something associated with a cemetery. And you should probably look for a tomb nearby. NARRATOR: This is a momentous find. ♪ ♪ Is the team on the verge of a new important discovery? (people talking in background) Excited, they split into groups, each tackling a different corner of the Triangle. Soon, they uncover evidence of several tombs. The archaeologists are standing on a previously unknown burial ground. It's not every day that you find a brand-new cemetery. So this is really exciting. NARRATOR: When was this cemetery built? And who was buried here? HAWASS: Work in this big, large cemetery, it's a challenge. It needs to be excavated completely to understand the date. The excavation will give us more information about the people who are buried in this large cemetery. BUDKA: The burials are located on the West Bank, because in the Egyptian concept of the netherworld, the entrance to the netherworld is on the west. The sun rises in the east and sets in the west, and this is what a human life should repeat. ♪ ♪ NARRATOR: The Ancient Egyptians invested vast amounts of wealth and energy preparing for life after death. The belief of the afterlife built Egypt. That belief made the Egyptian to build pyramids, tombs, and temples. NARRATOR: They believed that life continued after death, and the tomb was considered the house for eternity. For those who could afford it, the mummified body would have laid to rest inside beautifully decorated tombs. BUDKA: There's the popular belief that the Ancient Egyptians were obsessed by death, and that they were only caring about life in the netherworld. This is, of course, definitely not the case. The Egyptians were people like us, so they wanted to live. Mortuary rituals is actually something that helps the living to overcome, um, their sorrow, their grief. ♪ ♪ What you find in tombs tells you so much about society and about the living. ♪ ♪ NARRATOR: Tombs are time capsules that can preserve information about ancient people for millennia. HAWASS: You can gain a lot of knowledge and information about burials, and that's why this cemetery needs more excavation. NARRATOR: The tombs in the Triangle are all different. Some have a shaft dug straight into the ground. And at the bottom, they open up to the burial chamber. Some have grand entrances, complete with a staircase, and more than one room carved into the rock. Archaeology is dangerous for archaeologists. ♪ ♪ It's hard work. (man grunts, people talking in background) It's to live dangerously. But to live dangerously, it's fun, also. It's amazing when you make a new, important discovery. ♪ ♪ You completely forget dangers. Archaeology is like a box of chocolate. What is this? You never know what you get. Looks like part of a necklet. NARRATOR: Four months into the excavation, and the archaeologists haven't found any mummies yet. But intriguing artifacts emerge from the tombs. ROHIM: Here I found a metal eye used in wooden coffins. Wow! NARRATOR: A gold ring with a carved carnelian. Amulets believed to protect the deceased with their magical powers. And shabtis, images of the tomb owner, who the ancient Egyptians believed did all the manual labor in the netherworld. With only one month left before desert temperatures rise and work must stop, site director Afifi Rohim starts working in tomb number six, one that he finds most promising. The cut in the mountain is very good. We have a staircase and we have this corridor. Till now, most of the debris is still original debris. Mm. (speaking Arabic) (Ahmed El Nasseh speaking Arabic) ROHIM: (Baghdadi speaking Arabic) ROHIM: Mm. (others speaking Arabic) ROHIM: BAGHDADI: ROHIM: BAGHDADI: ROHIM: Mm. NARRATOR: Most tombs discovered in Egypt have been looted in antiquity. If there are no objects mixed in the sand, it could mean two things: either the tomb is unfinished or no one has entered it since it was sealed thousands of years ago. HAWASS: There is no tomb that could be looted if, in a shaft, you have clean sand. NARRATOR: This is tantalizing evidence that tomb number six might be intact. The workers remove bucket after bucket of sand. ♪ ♪ Then, suddenly, the density of the sediment changes. ROHIM: He start to find very compact layer. Looks like mother rock. And this means that all this layer was the original layer, which, in the ancient time, they make it the filling for the shaft. If it is, it will be really untouch. NARRATOR: What drives archaeologists to endure the hot desert environment is the promise of revealing long-forgotten histories and, sometimes, the chance to come face to face with an Ancient Egyptian. In tomb number six, skilled worker Baghdadi is getting closer to the bottom of the shaft. For archaeologist Ahmed El Nasseh, this tomb is puzzling. EL NASSEH: We are still confused because we have natural layers, the compact layer, similar to the bedrock, and below, we have sandy layer, which is loose. We will follow the bedrock to find the limit of the burial shaft. (Baghdadi and El Nasseh speaking Arabic) EL NASSEH: He found mudbrick, so, I think we are in front of the blocked doorway. ♪ ♪ NARRATOR: It's exciting news. There's a good chance the burial chamber has not been opened since it was originally sealed with mudbrick thousands of years ago. Good news at the end of the day. ♪ ♪ NARRATOR: The following day at the excavation site, it all looks like a normal morning. But just below the surface in tomb number six, the expectations are high. Afifi is checking the mudbricks that block the entrance to the burial chamber. ROHIM: The seal of the doorway is just directly under the mother rock. It means that it, it never open before. This tomb was confusing for us. In the beginning, we thought there's nothing here. Was thinking that, stop the work and leave the shaft. NARRATOR: And Afifi is also concerned about the safety of the crew working in the tomb. The mother rock is not straight, so I try to check if it is still in original situ or just fall down. NARRATOR: On closer inspection, Afifi notices that a couple of the mudbricks have collapsed under the weight of the rock above, leaving a small opening. Over time, the sand has seeped through. With great anticipation, Baghdadi starts removing the mudbricks. Once the passage is cleared, work inside the chamber begins. At first, it's just clean sand. But soon, artifacts emerge. HAWASS: Is this amethyst? Huh? ROHIM: Yeah, could be. Oh, oh! Beautiful vase-- God! (chuckles) Hm. This is not Egyptian. This is so strange. Doesn't looks Egyptian-- even the colors. NARRATOR: The style of this tiny pot is nothing like any artifact the team has found before. Was it imported from a distant land? HAWASS: This is a very important discovery. The artifacts are now really unique. Very happy. NARRATOR: Then Zahi comes face to face with a special object. HAWASS (speaking Arabic): This is the first time I see something like this. The lady is seated, having a gazelle on her hand and holding her son on the back. Can you hold this? This is another one. She is standing, and on her back, she is holding a child. This could be someone from outside Egypt. NARRATOR: The statuettes confirm Zahi's hunch. The style of the artifacts is not traditionally Egyptian. The depiction of the face hints at people originating from beyond Egypt's borders. And then there's the speckled texture. The distinctive spotted look, combined with the shapely woman's frame, was only produced during a crucial moment in the history of Egypt, when the country is ruled by foreigners: the 11th century BCE, the start of the unstable Third Intermediate Period. Egypt had economic problems, only very short-lived kings, quarrels about the inheritance of the throne. Egypt was vulnerable. NARRATOR: But this changes when Egypt's southern neighbors, the Kushites-- also known as the Nubians-- take advantage of Egypt's weakness, and, in 712 BCE, they move in and conquer the Land of the Pharaohs. We refer to the Kushites as the kings of the XXV dynasty. And this dynasty was originally coming from modern Sudan. NARRATOR: Known for rich deposits of gold, Nubia is home to some of Africa's earliest kingdoms. The Egyptians first called Nubia Ta-Seti, the Land of the Bow, highlighting the skill of Nubian warriors. BUDKA: When the Kushites invaded Egypt, they erected a very, very powerful and very successful empire for roughly 70, 80 years. AYAD: The Nubians were restorers. After things were destroyed and the temples were neglected, the Nubians were now going to take care of everything, put everything back in order. NARRATOR: Egypt is prosperous again. ♪ ♪ BUDKA: They made themselves kings of both Egypt and Kush. The Egyptian culture was part of their own heritage, because, in the New Kingdom, Nubia was an Egyptian colony. NARRATOR: Few written records or artifacts of the people that lived under Kushite rule in Egypt survive today. Which makes what the team is unearthing in the Triangle especially rare. (speaking Arabic): I really could not believe that statues like this could exist. It's unique. The color. They are very realistic. NARRATOR: Not only do the two statuettes both show a woman, but some of the small pots that have been found are for makeup. This tomb for sure belonged this woman. NARRATOR: Women in Ancient Egypt have the right to buy and inherit property. They can represent themselves in court, own a business, and get divorced. But it isn't exactly an egalitarian society. BUDKA: There was a small percentage of women who were highly privileged, but nevertheless, there was a gender bias in Ancient Egypt. This is why I think it's not fair to say it's a paradise for women in the ancient world. NARRATOR: But when the Kushites take over Egypt, they bring with them a Nubian culture in which women have power. In the Kushite time, women had a different status than before and after. There is a matrilineal system for the Kushite kingdom. It was more important who was your mother than who was your father. And this might be the main difference between Egypt and Kush. ♪ ♪ NARRATOR: Mariam Ayad has spent her entire career studying Ancient Egyptian women, and especially the women of the XXV dynasty. Zahi has invited Mariam to see the objects found in tomb number six. HAWASS: This tomb was really unique. We found some very impressive artifacts. If you look at the face... AYAD: Yeah? ...it looks Nubian to me. It does look Nubian, for sure. This body type of the standing woman... Yeah. That body type we find a lot during the XXV dynasty. Yes. The heavier lower body, the heavier hips. I have never seen statues like this. I don't think there's ever statues of that type ever produced before or possibly even after. ♪ ♪ NARRATOR: When the Kushites conquer Egypt around 700 BCE, they decide to embrace the Egyptians' religious customs and beliefs. BUDKA: In Ancient Egypt, we cannot separate kingship from religion. Pharaohs invested so much in the religious landscape of Thebes. NARRATOR: And this strategy is best seen at Karnak, a vast temple complex where pharaohs dedicated great building projects to Amun, the king of the gods. ♪ ♪ When the Kushite kings arrive, they, too, make their marks here. One of the monuments, built by Kushite king Taharqa, reveals a new and distinctive level of power for women in Egypt. AYAD: We're here by the edifice of Taharqa at the sacred lake. We can't call it the temple, because it doesn't have some of the main features we associate with temples. The only part of the building that survives is the subterranean chambers. NARRATOR: What's special about this monument is a relief on a wall hidden from view. AYAD: And because there's no proper entrance, we'll have to climb up. It's a part of the building with ritual scenes that are unique and not found elsewhere. NARRATOR: The scene Mariam is looking for is one-of-a-kind. It depicts two figures protecting a sacred tomb. AYAD: On either side, the figures are facing outward as a way of protecting it. In Egyptian art, it's very rare for figures to be facing outward and not toward the center. The king is throwing four balls, and he's aiming at four targets-- east, west, north, and south. NARRATOR: Opposite the king, a female figure. AYAD: She is complementing his actions, asserting the royal dominion over the four extremities of the Earth. She is drawing an arrow through a double-arched bow, and this is very rare, to find a woman actively arching. Very rare. Even the goddess Neith, who's known as the goddess of war, and who's often called the mistress of bow and arrows, she's mostly holding them in her hand. As far as Egyptian iconography is concerned, this is a unique representation of female power. NARRATOR: Who is this woman? Her title is god's wife of Amun. To understand how a woman might attain such power in Egypt, we need to go back 800 years, when the title of god's wife of Amun first appears. Carved on a stone slab, or stela, is the title's earliest evidence. This is the Ahmose Nefertari's donation stela. Ahmose Nefertari was the wife of King Ahmose, the founder of the XVIII dynasty. As part of his larger state policy to put trusted family members in key positions around the realm, she was appointed as the god's wife of Amun. As far as we know, she's the first woman to hold that title. NARRATOR: With this stela, King Ahmose establishes the estate of the god's wife as a source of revenue for his queen. The stela records large amounts of gold, silver, and copper, as well as servants and land. AYAD: On the donation stela of Ahmose Nefertari, there is a very telling line. It says, "No future king shall ever revoke the estate of the god's wife of Amun." NARRATOR: With this line, Ahmose makes sure that this newly established estate will last in perpetuity. AYAD: The women who held that title remained financially independent, and it seems plausible to suggest that it's because of that initial endowment. NARRATOR: Although the title of god's wife of Amun first appears during the New Kingdom, over time, the position becomes less relevant. But then, during the Kushites' reign, this role takes on a completely new and powerful meaning. AYAD: When the Nubians invaded Egypt, they were quick to recognize the political value of having that institution. The office was resurrected after centuries of oblivion. So Amenirdis I becomes the first Nubian woman to become a god's wife of Amun. NARRATOR: The Kushite princess Amenirdis is the sister of Pianky, the first king of the XXV dynasty. On becoming the god's wife of Amun, Amenirdis effectively takes control of Thebes. AYAD: Her installation served to achieve a smooth transition of power from the preceding dynasty to the Nubian rule in Egypt. ♪ ♪ Amenirdis participated in rituals that no other woman was allowed to participate in before. BUDKA: In the XXV dynasty, the god's wife of Amun was much more important than in previous times. The god's wife of Amun was the female substitute of the king. AYAD: The god's wife of Amun was as important as a medieval pope in terms of the temporal and religious power that she held. NARRATOR: In a side corridor at the Cairo Museum, a statue found in Karnak Temple reveals how much power the god's wife of Amun, Amenirdis, really had. It's carved from alabaster, a soft, translucent form of gypsum rock. (sighs) The one and only Amenirdis I, royal princess. It's not very common to find statues of that size in alabaster. She looks exactly like an Egyptian queen. The headdress, the modius crown on her head, but she has that pendant of Amun, and that might be a Nubian feature. On the back pillar, she asserts her moral character. She gave bread to the hungry, water to the thirsty, and clothes to the naked. Now, this is significant, because if you are giving food to the hungry, water to the thirsty, you have agency. It's not just about generosity, it's also about having the means to do so and having the autonomy to do so, and to have a woman have that kind of inscription is very rare. NARRATOR: Back at the site, the statuettes from tomb number six signal a burial of the XXV dynasty, the period when Amenirdis was the god's wife of Amun. ♪ ♪ Now archaeologists are on the hunt for more clues that might reveal the identity of the woman buried in tomb number six. But the excavation season is coming to an end. With summer approaching, the soaring temperatures would make work in the tombs impossible. ♪ ♪ With only a couple of weeks left, Afifi has found a vessel. ROHIM: We found one of the canopic jars. It's from fine limestone. And even the sculpture of the face is, is so good. NARRATOR: During the mummification process, the organs of the deceased would be removed and placed in these containers. They are known as canopic jars. ROHIM: Each burial have four canopic jars-- four organs of the deceased. NARRATOR: Each jar is topped with a different symbolic sculpture. The heads represent the four sons of the god Horus. Each was responsible for protecting a particular organ: the jackal for the stomach, the human head for the liver, the baboon for the lungs, and the falcon for the intestines. ROHIM: It's empty. NARRATOR: Afifi is looking for any inscription which could give us the name of the owner of this tomb. Just behind the first jar, a second one appears. I want to take the body first. Oh! It's nice inscriptions. Yes, yes. I am not specialist in Ancient Egyptian language, but I can read, "Osir... ...djer," or, "djerek saa." Mean something related to Osir. NARRATOR: The inscription is a prayer to the god Osiris, ruler of the underworld. I see the base of the lid. It's complete. No cracks-- nothing. It's baboon. (blows out) Now we have to consolidate the writing. NARRATOR: The jars have been hiding in the tomb for nearly 3,000 years. Before they can be taken out, conservator Seham Abdelazeim needs to carefully protect this ancient writing with a water-soluble cellulose binder. The jars don't reveal the name of the deceased, but Afifi believes there are more artifacts waiting to be found. But before he continues to excavate, he needs to secure the tomb. This layers of sediments is, is not strong and it is not safe for working, especially when you open it and the fresh air gets inside. So it's decayed, and start to dry and fall down. So we need to make all this support and, to continue our work. ♪ ♪ NARRATOR: The excavation season has come to an end. The workers prepare supports in an effort to secure tomb number six. Once ready, Afifi locks it with a metal gate. The team needs to wait until September, when the excavation will resume. ♪ ♪ When you discover something interesting, you can feel happy. Of course, I have to be more patient, and... When we stop excavation in the site, doesn't mean that the work stop. Because we continue working, in writing the general report, make analysis for the object, and still thinking about the future season. ♪ ♪ NARRATOR: Five months later, the heat has come and gone. The archaeologists return to the excavation site, eager to pick up the work from where they left it. ♪ ♪ As Afifi and Ahmed reenter tomb number six, something does not look right. ROHIM (speaking Arabic): EL NASSEH (speaking Arabic): ROHIM: ROHIM: All the tomb collapsed. All the roof collapsed. And there are cracks everywhere inside the tomb. NARRATOR: The ground above has caved in, filling the deep shaft that the team spent days excavating. And now, it's too dangerous to clear the debris. I think we lost this tomb. We can't remove the debris. We can't even just get inside to check it, because the cracks in the roof and the walls everywhere. It's not safe for the workers and for my team, and this is our job in archaeology. Nothing to do. Moving to the next stop. (speaking Arabic): NARRATOR: With sadness, the team has to give up on ever finding the woman who was buried here. She will likely remain in her tomb for eternity, just as she originally planned. The Ancient Egyptians recorded everything, especially on their burial goods. Thousands of years later, the archaeologists are on the hunt for clues that might reveal details of long-lost lives. ♪ ♪ At the southern edge of the Triangle, in tomb number nine, the archaeologists haven't found any mummies. But sunk into the floor of the burial chamber, the lids of four canopic jars appear. ROHIM: We found this set of four canopic jars here, underneath the floor. I have to take it out. NARRATOR: Afifi examines the vessel in the hope it will reveal the name of the person who was buried here. There is no text, just black decoration. Something strange for me-- the body is made from alabaster, but the head from limestone. NARRATOR: He carefully removes the second jar. Oh, it's different. It's made of alabaster, but it has a stand made of limestone. It's rare to find canopic jar with a stone stand like this. And I think it has some inscriptions. NARRATOR: The inscription is lightly carved, but since alabaster is translucent, Afifi tries to read it using a small light. I can read the text now. "Djet medu Duamutef." It means "offering to Duamutef," one of four son of Horus. "Satirdis." Her name is Satirdis. So it's for a woman, and she was a female singer in Amun house. NARRATOR: Finally, the team has a name for the owner of the tomb: Asetirdis, the singer, or chantress, in the Temple of Amun. AYAD: The god's wife had chantresses in her entourage. Chantresses were very prominent in Theban society. In temple ritual, we would see women chantresses making music to the gods. It makes a lot of sense that chantresses in the House of Amun would be buried just outside the temple at Medinet Habu, because that was thought to be the place of the primeval mound. NARRATOR: In Egyptian mythology, the primeval mound was the first piece of land to emerge from the watery chaos-- where life was first created. AYAD: The god Amun would come across the river aged, tired. He comes back to this primeval place, where he would commune with eight primeval gods. He would go back rejuvenated and youthful again. NARRATOR: The tombs in the Triangle are located on this sacred land. The people buried here could have a close connection to the god Amun. The people who are buried here could be working in this great institution, the office of the god's wife of Amun. ♪ ♪ NARRATOR: And in the heart of this holy place, the god's wife, Amenirdis, has her own funerary chapel. AYAD: We are at the great temple of Medinet Habu, and everyone knows it for the funerary temple of Ramesses III, and they walk just straight past this wonderful chapel of Amenirdis. Even though the façade itself has wonderful inscriptions, no one ever stops to look at them. Here we have Amenirdis offering Maat, which is the concept of truth and harmony and global order, to Amun and his divine consort, Mut. This representation is unique for a woman. It's unique because it's the prerogative of the king only, who is seen as the ultimate preserver of Maat. And we don't see that any time before that period. NARRATOR: In the XXV dynasty, the god's wife of Amun has a much more active and visible role than ever before. Only the king can build on sacred land, so the fact that Amenirdis has a large stone monument here is meaningful. AYAD: Construction of funerary chapels, any kind of temple, is the royal prerogative, and only the king could do that, but repeatedly, we see the god's wife erect chapels on their own. To anyone, even those who could not read, the iconography itself told any bystander that these women were as important as the king. NARRATOR: And historians believe that this level of prestige for women was only attained when the Kushites from Nubia ruled Egypt. BUDKA: I believe we have a certain difference in the importance of women during the XXV dynasty, because they were just importing their role from Kush to Egypt. The role of women was different in the Kushite culture. The royal women had much power, and part of this was imported to Egypt. I don't think it's a coincidence that this office of the god's wife really flourished under foreign rule. NARRATOR: Since excavation began in the Triangle, the team has uncovered several tombs. One has an impressive wide staircase. With a large quantity of debris removed, the archaeologists can now access the burial chamber. We remove all the debris from the room itself until we found a group of coffins. NARRATOR: The human remains are in a very bad state of preservation, the mummy wrappings and wooden coffins completely decayed. Only the bones of these individuals survive. EL NASSEH: Maybe it's a family tomb, and now we are working to find some object dating this tomb, like canopic jars with the titles and the name of the owner. NARRATOR: Skilled excavator Badawi carefully works around one of the coffins. Soon, the top of a canopic jar appears. HAWASS: The canopic jars have some inscriptions. It needs to be clear more. We still have to look for the other three. (speaking Arabic): ♪ ♪ NARRATOR: A second jar. ♪ ♪ And soon a third. HAWASS: Beautiful! This person has to be elite, an important person. It's really well done, modeled. The workshop that made this canopic jars are really perfect. NARRATOR: And finally, on the fourth and last jar, the name of the owner can be read. This is the name of him. ROHIM: His name is Mere. The name Mere Ren-Amun, the singer of the god Amun. This is really wonderful. This person was part of this important office. Those people, one day, were working, singing, dancing behind the great god's wife of Amun. NARRATOR: But the style of the canopic jars is different from the others found in the Triangle. HAWASS: As an archaeologist, you can look at canopic jars and know the period exactly. The modeling of the faces show 500 BC, the XXVI dynasty. Through the archaeological evidence, you can say that the big large cemetery, it started in the north, in dynasty XXV, continued to the edge of the city, known as the golden lost city. The tombs here dated to dynasty XXVI. NARRATOR: When Mere was alive, the Kushites of Nubia were no longer ruling Egypt, yet he is buried next to the people of the XXV dynasty. AYAD: For the Theban elites, this was a good burial ground. It mattered very little who the ruling king was and from which dynasty. Between the XXV dynasty and the XXVI dynasty in Thebes, there is no material break. It's a continuous move from the one dynasty to the other. AYAD: The Theban people are Theban people, so there are generations of the same families living under different kings. NARRATOR: The reign of the XXV dynasty ends around 653 BCE. The new royal family that establishes the XXVI dynasty comes from the north of Egypt, from a city called Sais. But a new king doesn't mean that everything changes. AYAD: The transition from the XXV to the XXVI dynasty is very interesting. We have someone like Montuemhat, who was really a man for all seasons. He was already the mayor of Thebes under the Nubian rulers, he continued to be the mayor of Thebes under the new rulers, and all the while, he took part in the transition in the office of the god's wife, helping establish the new god's wife in place. NARRATOR: A new pharaoh. A new god's wife of Amun. And the people associated with this office keep Medinet Habu as their chosen burial ground. BUDKA: The title god's wife of Amun lasts until the end of the XXVI dynasty. AYAD: At the end of that time, Egypt is invaded by the Persians. And everything changes. NARRATOR: After the Persian invasion, evidence of the god's wife of Amun disappears. Lasting for more than a millennium, the title of god's wife of Amun was created in the XVIII dynasty. But it's 800 years later, in the XXV dynasty, with the help of the Kushite pharaohs from Nubia, that the institution reaches its zenith, Amenirdis's legacy forever imprinted on the artifacts and monuments she left behind. The archaeologists have unearthed buried treasures of a very special period of Egyptian history, when the Kushite pharaohs of the XXV dynasty rose to power and wrote a new chapter into this rich civilization. They embraced Egyptian culture and beliefs, but also brought elements of their own culture, where women were financially independent and the power of the god's wife of Amun rivaled that of the king. AYAD: The god's wife of Amun is very inspiring and empowering to modern women today. The fact that they're not as well known to the public as Cleopatra or Nefertiti is just the sad reality of modern pop culture. ♪ ♪ HAWASS: A unique cemetery to bring more information about this period. Oh! We are making history. NARRATOR: Like the shifting sands of the desert, history is never static. It is a quest for understanding who we are, where we've been, and where we're going. AYAD: People looking at us from even 200 years from now, or 2,000 years from now, how they perceive women today is dependent on how much evidence do we leave behind. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪
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11 May 2026
This event began 05/11/2025 and repeats every year forever
Secrets of the Dead Egypts Darkest Hour
As I have always said, the Nilotic word, is connected. For me the idea that Kemet/Nubia/Aksum are disconnected is untrue, like Scotland/Ireland/England while each is separate they have been intermingled from ancient times, they are Nilotic, and based on Narmer it is clear that the boundary between Kemet side Nubia is like the historic boundary between usa side Mexico, at one time, most of the usa known in 2025 was Mexico.
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https://www.pbs.org/wnet/secrets/egypts-darkest-hour-egypts-darkest-hour-about-the-film/4097/
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TRANSCRIPT
-High in the cliffs near Luxor lies a mysterious mass grave. -Filled with bodies. Wow. What a nice foot. -Who were these people? -Generally, you don't get mass graves in Ancient Egypt. It's a very rare thing. -And how did they end up here? -Something like a mace struck him on the side of the head. These people have died bloody fearsome deaths. [ Suspenseful music plays ] -Now, archaeologists and scientists from around the world scour through the sands in search of clues to solve this mystery. -It's great. For me, it's great because it's the first time for me to get inside this pyramid. Really exciting. -From the Great Pyramids at Giza [ Wind whipping ] to the glaciers of Mount Kilimanjaro... -The fact that the pyramid was robbed means the government was losing control. -...a series of political crises... -Setting fire to a temple, a sacred place belonging to the king shows a direct attack against Pharaoh. -...and environmental catastrophes... -This represents a major drought. -...plunged Egypt and its people into anarchy... -If anything goes wrong with the Nile, then it would be famine and chaos. -...and triggered a dramatic civil war which would last almost 150 years. Were these mysterious bodies casualties of this war? If so, who were they fighting for? "Egypt's Darkest Hour." [ Suspenseful chords striking ] ♪♪ [ Suspenseful music plays ] ♪♪ ♪♪ -The desert cliffs of Luxor, in Southern Egypt... -[laughing] As-salamu alaykum. -...are home to an exceptional tomb. ♪♪ Dating back more than 4,000 years, long before Cleopatra, before Tutankhamun and Ramses, it's a rare mass grave. First discovered in 1923, it was sealed off and very few people have entered since. But, today, this unique grave is being opened for archaeologist Salima Ikram. -It's amazing to be able to go into this tomb. It's a huge privilege. No one's been allowed to go in for a long time and I've always wanted to go in since I was a baby Egyptologist, so this is a real treat. ♪♪ -Little is known about this burial site and Salima wants to find out who is inside, and why. -Door's open, but we have to wait for the air to clear a bit. There's still a lot of dust and there's still a lot of dead stuff. ♪♪ [ Suspenseful chord strikes ] ♪♪ -After half an hour, it's safe for Salima to enter. -Light saber. Finally, we can really go in and see this tomb for the first time. ♪♪ Shukran. Wow! -Carved out of rock by hand, the tomb consists of 200 feet of branching tunnels that reach back deep into the cliff. -It's like a labyrinth in here. It keeps on going. There are rooms and twists and turns and tunnels. It's fantastic! ♪♪ And it's filled with bodies. Wow! And lots of bandages. ♪♪ [ Grunts ] Here's a shoulder. You can see the scapula, a little bit of scapula here, and here's a humerus. So, so, it'd sorta be like this. You can see whoever it was was taller than I am, quite robust, probably male. ♪♪ Here, you can see all the folds of flesh. ♪♪ And over here, we have someone's leg. ♪♪ All these bandages would've been wrapped around the bodies, protecting them, allegedly, for eternity. -The tunnels contain the remains of least 60 people. ♪♪ -Just keeps on going. ♪♪ Oh! What a nice foot. Left foot with his big toe intact. Small toes have fallen off. Quite a large foot. It's probably male. -To add to the mystery, all the bodies seem to be male. -And here's its mate. They're all intact. ♪♪ -This grave is extremely unusual for Ancient Egypt. -There are huge numbers of bodies in here and, generally, you don't get mass graves in Ancient Egypt. -Normally, Egyptians were buried alone, or with their family. -But it's only when you have plagues or battles, where you might have a mass grave, like this one. It's a very rare thing. -Can science provide the identities of these bodies? ♪♪ French archaeologist Audran Labrousse is an expert on this period of Egyptian history, known as the Old Kingdom. To find out who these people were, he begins with an ancient text. Written by the poet Ipuwer, it's thought to describe Egypt at the time leading up to the mass burial. And Ipuwer's poem suggests something terrible happened to Egyptian civilization. -See now, the land is deprived of kingship. The king has been robbed, deposed by beggars. Every town says, "Let's expel our rulers." The people of the land weep because their enemies have entered the temple and burned the images. Upper Egypt becomes a wasteland. ♪♪ -According to the text, Egypt was in total chaos, which could help explain the dead in the mass grave. Some historians doubt the veracity of Ipuwer's text, rejecting it as exaggeration or pure fiction. However, Audran thinks there may be some truth to what the ancient poet wrote. ♪♪ Together with his colleague Philippe Collombert, he's come to Saqqara, where the pharaohs were buried in their pyramids, just south of Cairo. ♪♪ Between them, Audran and Philippe have spent more than 50 years studying the pyramids. Today, they've been given permission to open a very special pyramid they believe contains evidence explaining why the bodies were interred in the mass grave. -We're going now to the pyramid, the last pyramid, of the Old Kingdom and we're quite excited because we'd like to open it and to see exactly what is inside. ♪♪ -It will be very interesting to get inside the pyramid. It has been closed for years. And we have the luck, the chance, the privilege, to get to the sarcophagus and make a complete study of the monument. ♪♪ -It's just over there. You can see it in the background. ♪♪ And here we are. -Yes, the pyramid. ♪♪ -So here it is and it belongs to the Pharaoh Pepi II. -The story of the bones in the tomb starts with the end of Pepi's reign. Who was Pepi II? Pepi II came to the throne around 4,300 years ago, at the age of just six, 250 years after the Great Pyramids and the Sphinx were built. By this time, the pharaohs had ruled Egypt for about 700 years. This great civilization extended from the Mediterranean to Aswan. As pharaoh, Pepi was believed to be the son of a god and he ruled for at least 60, some say even 90, years, the longest reign in Egyptian history. ♪♪ His long reign gave him plenty of time to build a magnificent pyramid. Its grandeur demonstrates the extent of his wealth and power. -The main masonry of the pyramid is made of small stones cemented with mud, as to form a huge staircase toward the sky. Against these small stones, you had a thickness of about 5 meters of huge limestones blocks. -And, finally, on top of this, the outer layer of the pyramid, made of the finest, whitest, limestone in all of Egypt. -This casing covered the pyramid on 50 meters high and a golden top was added. It must have been a very impressive monument. ♪♪ -The funerary complex had a temple dedicated to Pepi and included small, satellite pyramids for his spirit and three medium-sized pyramids where his wives were entombed. But this magnificent pyramid was to be the last of this golden era. After Pepi's death, around 4,200 years ago, traces of the Old Kingdom disappear into the sand. Perhaps the turmoil written about in Ipuwer's ancient poem was real. ♪♪ [ Conversing in Arabic ] Audran and Philippe are entering the pyramid to find out what was happening in Egypt at this time. -[ Speaking in Arabic ] -Audran mudir! [ Conversing in Arabic ] -But the pyramid isn't giving up its secrets easily. -So we're in it now. We're approaching the entrance of the Pharaoh Pepi II. [ Suspenseful chord strikes ] ♪♪ -It's taken the workers more than four days to dig down through nearly 15 feet of sand. ♪♪ -We are nearly coming to the end of the work. We still have some bit of sand to take out of the entrance and we will be in it. -Finally, the sealed entrance to the pyramid is revealed. -So, now, we're ready to start. We're gonna break the cement. ♪♪ -The pyramid was last studied in the 1930s and hardly anyone has had the privilege of entering it since. ♪♪ It is an amazing opportunity for Audran and Philippe. ♪♪ -It's great. For me, it's great because it's the first time for me to get inside this pyramid. Really exciting. ♪♪ ♪♪ -The passageway descends steeply and then levels off, continuing for about 85 feet directly into the heart of the pyramid. -Well, now, we're in the passage and just leading to the burial chamber. -At the very center, they reach the antechamber, which then leads to the burial chamber, where the pharaoh was laid to rest. -[gasp] Ooh la la la. Pssh! This is really amazing, amazing. ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ I'm really amazed by the state of preservation of this pyramid, with all these marvelous texts all around. It look like the painter just left yesterday and we're just coming afterwards. You see the green color and the white surface; even the line here, the black line, are still present. ♪♪ And, here, we have the sarcophagus with the inscription with the name of Pepi II. This sarcophagus is the master piece of the Old Kingdom. It's really huge and magnificent, really nicely done. -This massive stone sarcophagus weighs 11 tons. -The sarcophagus is made of a black stone but you have to imagine that it was covered of gold. The inscription was in gold and inside it was a thick, gold leaf. And you have also to imagine in front of the sarcophagus, filling the room, all the golden furniture, the vases, everything that the king needed in his afterlife. -And the walls of the chamber are covered in hieroglyphs of ancient Egyptian religious texts. ♪♪ -All these texts are ritual texts for the rebirth of the king in the afterlife. -For Audran and Philippe, the interior of the pyramid reveals the state of the country during Pepi's reign and the events leading to the mass grave. -When you see the sarcophagus, with all these marvelous texts all around, that shows that, at the beginning of the reign of Pepi II, the state is still really powerful. -Egypt is triumphant. -But Philippe and Audran have spotted signs that things changed. For one, the pyramid was looted. -As you can see, the sarcophagus has been opened up and all that was inside has been robbed and taken out. -Including Pepi II's mummy, which has never been found. -When the robbers arrived, they pushed the lid of the sarcophagus, opened the coffin, took the royal mummy, throw it away. And, of course, all this gold, it was fabulous. They took everything out and the archaeologists found absolutely nothing in this room, unfortunately. [ Sinister music plays ] -Back at the entrance tunnel, Audran is studying evidence which shows that the pyramid must've been robbed shortly after Pepi's death. After Pepi was buried, the original passage was sealed with massive stone blocks, but the looters found a way around them. -Here, we see the evidence of the pillaging of the pyramid. The looters break the façade. -They then dug through the limestone brickwork, until they bypassed the stone blocks. -The looters cut the lintels and went into the descending passage. -Farther on, they dug a second tunnel above the main passage. It's now been filled, but Audran has found traces of it. -The looters arrived to this lintel. They break it. You can see some traces above. -Why did they dig this second tunnel? -The passage was blocked by three unpenetrable granite portcullis. -Today, they are raised, but, at the time, these massive, granite blocks barred the way. The looters had to dig through the softer limestone to get around them. [ Suspenseful music plays ] ♪♪ -They came down here, after the third portcullis, and then, their passage was clear to the funerary chamber. -The efficiency of the looters' route belies when they broke in. -It means that the looters knew perfectly the plans of the pyramid. They had in their crew somebody who had built the monument and it shows that this must have happened shortly after the death of Pepi II. [ Sinister music plays ] -Looting the pyramid so soon after Pepi's death is a sure sign the country was in turmoil. -When they took out the mummy of Pepi II, first, of all, it was a very big sacrilege. -Ancient Egyptians believed they needed their body to live again in the afterlife, which is why mummification was so important to them. -Destroying his body means that Pepi II will never be able to live again. That's real death for the pharaoh. -Protecting the pharaoh's mummy was a critical task. -The pyramid was closed after the burial of the king and it was guarded by a lot of people around the pyramid, so nobody could approach. The fact that the pyramid was robbed means that the state, the government, was not controlling anything here. [ Suspenseful music climbs ] [ Suspenseful chord strikes ] -And that's not all. Nearby, next to Pepi's father's pyramid, Audran has found more evidence that the country was in trouble shortly after Pepi II died. -We are here in one of the storerooms of the temple of Pepi I. And you can see that the stones are black, they are burned, and it shows a very violent and destructive fire. The fire, of course, was deliberate. -Crucially, Audran's team was able to date this fire. -We were able to date the fire by radiocarbon and it dates from the end of the Old Kingdom. [ Flames crackling ] -The date of the fire supports Audran's theory: that Pepi II's pyramid was pillaged not long after his death. -Setting fire to a temple, a sacred place, belonging to the king, shows a direct attack against power, against royalty, against Pharaoh. -Shortly after he died, law and order broke down to such an extent, his pyramid, and those of his family, were robbed and desecrated. [ Flames crackling ] More evidence to suggest Ipuwer may have been telling the truth. -The king has been robbed. The people of the land weep because their enemies have entered the temple and burned the images. ♪♪ -What happened? How and why did the pharaohs lose control and how did this lead to the dead in the mass grave? All over Egypt, archaeologists are finding signs of the growing political problems that were festering before Pepi II's death. ♪♪ As Pepi's reign continued and he grew older, he began ceding more and more power to his provincial governors. ♪♪ 500 miles south of Saqqara, on the banks of the Nile, lies the necropolis of Qubbet el-Hawa. It's here that the governors of Southern Egypt are buried and, with them, striking evidence of their growing influence. Archaeologist Martin Bommas -As-salamu alaykum. -has been digging here for three years. Comparing the tombs of governors from the start and end of Pepi's reign, he points out signs that their authority was increasing over time. [ Suspenseful chord strikes ] -Here we are, right at the entrance into the Tomb of Harkhuf, the governor of Upper Egypt, at roughly the time when Pepi II was a child and, as part of his role, he went to Nubia four times, to bring back exotic goods, like leopard skin, elephant tusks, and so on. ♪♪ [ Suspenseful chord strikes ] ♪♪ He was sent out by the king, obviously. The king financed all these expeditions. What is really interesting is that, although Harkhuf was one of the most important men in the region, really running the business here, he still had to ask Pepi II for permission to build his tomb. -At the start of his reign, Pepi II was very much in control of the country. -When we look into the political situation of Egypt at this point in time, we see that the king is still very strong. -But during the course of his long reign, things changed and those changes are reflected in the style and construction of the governors' tombs. Because, as grand as this grave is, it's nothing compared to the tombs of two governors from the latter part of Pepi's life, which are at the far end of the necropolis. The first one belonged to a governor of Elephantine. -Look at the size of this tomb and look at the columns, how high they are. That gives us an idea about the importance of the governor of Elephantine. Eighteen columns here. It's almost like a forest of columns. -The majesty of this tomb illustrates Pepi II's weakened authority, while the regional governors were becoming increasingly important. And the adjoining tomb, belonging to his son, is even more elaborate. -Now, look at this lavish painting here, that shows Sabni on a boat, on a river, but not during this life. It's the next life. It's the beyond. -The painting, together with the sheer size of the tomb, tells a story of wealth and influence. -If we relate what we see here to the beginning of the reign of Pepi II, like what we've seen in the tomb of Harkhuf, this clearly points out that, by the end of Pepi II's reign, when he was an old man, local governors had more power. ♪♪ -And this situation was replicated across Egypt. Pepi II gradually relinquished more power and control to the local governors. -Suddenly, local governors had too much power, compared to the power that was decreasing in the capital. -A political crisis was brewing. Then, at the age of 94, Pepi II died, and the fragile political situation finally unraveled and so began a series of events that led to the remains in the mass grave. [ Flames crackling ] ♪♪ There are hardly any traces of Pepi II's successors. Audran has been searching for these kings for years. One of his few sources of information provides insight into the leaders who followed Pepi. -We are lucky enough to have the list of Abydos. It is a list engraved on a temple, giving the names of all the kings of Ancient Egypt. And we have the names of five sons of Pepi II. -None of Pepi II's five sons reigned for very long. -The first successor of Pepi II was called Merenre II and we know, according to the Greek historian Herodotus, he was murdered after a very short reign of two years. ♪♪ -And his brothers didn't last much longer. -We know that Pepi II has a very long reign, between 60 and 90 years. So, his sons were very old when they arrived at the throne. Perhaps they just die because they were too old. -After his five sons, the crisis worsened and the Abydos list shows 13 more kings in quick succession. That's 18 kings in roughly 50 years. The Old Kingdom was clearly in freefall. ♪♪ To this day, archaeologists have not been able to find any physical evidence related to these kings. With the exception of one. It might not look like it, but this uninspiring pile of rubble is actually the remains of a pyramid. It belonged to Qakare Ibi, the fifteenth king after Pepi II. ♪♪ And it's tiny: less than half the height of Pepi's pyramid. ♪♪ The small size of Ibi's pyramid illustrates how weak the royal authority had become following Pepi II's reign. And, after Ibi's, it seems, no pyramids were built for about 200 years. ♪♪ [ Horn toots ] [ Poignant tune sweeps ] What was happening in the rest of the country, while the power of the pharaoh was waning? 400 miles to the south lies El Mo'alla. ♪♪ Once again, the style of a tomb signifies how the local governors responded to this succession of ephemeral kings. Archaeologist Antonio Morales explains. -This is Ankhtifi, the owner of this tomb, the local ruler of Hefat, the third province in Upper Egypt. -Ankhtifi governed in the tumultuous years between Pepi II's death and the creation of the mass grave. -These inscriptions tell us a lot about social disruption, civil war, conflict, lack of order or control by the central administration. There was a big gap of royal control of the country. -Most tomb walls are covered with references to the ruling king, but not here. -This is the only place in the whole tomb where Ankhtifi mentioned the name of a king. The rest of the tomb does not have a single mention to any king, which probably means that, with the passing of time, the central government lost control of the country and Ankhtifi felt that he was the single power in his province. -And, on his tomb walls, he's portrayed himself as king and ruler of his province. -He used kinds of phraseology, expressions, and even iconography that usually was used during the Old Kingdom, only by the kings. This section of the inscription says "I am taking care of the orphan. I am giving a boat to the one who cannot cross the Nile." By doing this, he was somehow comparing himself to the king, since these kinds of expressions referred to the capacity of the king to provide for his people and his country. -It seems that, after Pepi's death, rather than submitting to a rapid succession of weak pharaohs, the local governors, like Ankhtifi, decided to rule for themselves. The regional governors began jockeying for power and the inevitable consequence was civil war. -Some of the inscriptions in the tomb of Ankhtifi talk a lot about civil war. Here, for example, we have the verb "to attack, to fight," and includes the determinative of man with a stick and he's expressing how he was going to attack the Theban province. ♪♪ So, we have a situation of social disruption, civil war, conflict. ♪♪ [ Tranquil tune plays ] -All of this supports what the ancient poet Ipuwer's work described. -The land is deprived of kingship. -Pepi II's heirs lost their grip on the country. Egypt split apart and plunged into chaos and war. [ Suspenseful music plays ] Salima thinks it's possible that the bodies found in the mass grave near Luxor perished in the civil war. -I've got some photos of men who were inside the tomb and a lot of them had horrible trauma. You can see, over here, there's a hole here and he's probably hit by, you know, a rock from a slingshot. This one's even worse, 'cause you can really see that there've been attacks here, on both sides. So, this is quite possibly something like a mace struck him on the side of the head and blew it out and killed him rather viciously. So, this was not someone who died in bed. This was someone who died in battle. And some of them actually had arrows going through their bodies. So, here's the arrow and so he was pierced through and he would've been lying, bleeding, on the battlefield, probably waiting to be rescued or slowly dying and having birds pecking at him. These people have died bloody fearsome deaths. [ Voices shouting ] -In addition to the brutal manner of their deaths, there are other clues to their identities. -They were buried with their bows and arrows. So, we have those. And this is really the clincher. ♪♪ This one's got a wrist guard that goes all the way up and that's what archers wore to protect themselves from the bow's recoil. So, these people were archers themselves. So, all the evidence points to the fact that these were soldiers who died in battle. ♪♪ -But who were these soldiers fighting for, and why? ♪♪ ♪♪ The hieroglyphs on Ankhtifi's tomb reveal a catastrophic event that might explain. -Here, it says the whole southern country was dying of hunger, so that every man was eating his own children. ♪♪ Also, in this section of the inscription, it says, the whole country has become like a starving locust. That is a clear way for Ancient Egyptians to express that there was a dramatic famine in this section of the country. ♪♪ -Already politically weakened by the rise of the governors and the succession crisis after Pepi's death, a famine could have been the final blow that brought down the Old Kingdom. ♪♪ There is mounting evidence from all over the world that planetary forces could have caused such a famine. ♪♪ Scientists are discovering that, long before Pepi, Egypt wasn't the desert it is today. ♪♪ Back in Saqqara, Audran has found something revealing on the pathway leading to another pyramid, that of Unas, Pepi II's great-great-grandfather. -The wall of the causeway were covered with reliefs. Among them, one is specially interesting. What do we see? We see various animals. We see antelopes, oryx, gazelle, and among them there are small bushes and we see, for instance, here a very small gazelle, more or less sleeping among bushes. In fact, it's the representation of a savanna. -Audran believes these carvings show that Egypt once had a very different climate than it does today. -It means that, at the time of the Old Kingdom, the pyramids were not surrounded by a desert. They were surrounded by a savanna, very close to what we found now in Kenya. The necropolis was not a place of death. It was a place of life. -But are these decorations enough to prove these animals lived nearby and that the climate was so different? Or are these carvings simply fanciful illustrations of animals seen while on expedition? There should be scientific evidence, if Egypt's environment was radically different in the past. That evidence comes from a very unlikely source: crocodiles. ♪♪ To find out more, Salima has come here, to Kom Ombo Temple, where Ancient Egyptians worshipped the god Sobek, who had the head of a crocodile. She's here to examine an altogether different type of mummy. -One of the most important gods in Ancient Egypt was the crocodile god Sobek and, as a result, priests actually raised crocodiles, so you have places where you have hatcheries for the eggs and then they also would have nurseries for the baby crocodiles and sometimes these were killed deliberately, with their heads being bashed in so that they could then be mummified and be given to Sobek as an offering. ♪♪ The ones that were recognized by the priests as having the divine spirit in them were allowed to grow to their full length, 5, 6 meters, and, during the lifetime of that animal, he would be fed and revered and looked after and spoilt rotten, in general. Some of them, according to the Greek writers, had earrings of gold and bracelets made of gold put on them, so someone had to be very brave to go and do this to the god. ♪♪ -And, after their death, the crocodiles were carefully mummified. ♪♪ Surprisingly, these sacred crocs can provide details on Ancient Egypt's climate. In 2003, zoologists studied crocodiles living in isolated pools in Mauretania and Chad. These West African crocs are smaller and more docile than the more familiar Nile crocodiles found in East Africa today. And DNA analysis has revealed these smaller animals are, in fact, a separate species, called Crocodylus suchus. The DNA analysis also revealed they're the exact same species as the sacred Ancient Egyptian crocodiles. -Recently, we've been doing DNA on mummified crocodiles and the results have been truly spectacular because we did a huge crocodile from Kom Ombo and it turned out to be Cr ocodylus suchus, which is a desert crocodile. In a way, it makes sense that these nicer, kinder, gentler ones were allowed to grow and sort of co-habit with humans and be the benign version of the crocodile god. -How did the pharaohs' sacred crocodiles end up on the other side of the African continent and what does that mean for Ancient Egypt's climate? -So we know that we have mummified suchus in Egypt and we know that we have living suchus, quite a few of them, in fact, in the deserts of Mauritania, as well as in Chad. So here we've got these populations that are quite far apart, but they're the same animal. So what was going on here? We started to look for fossils, to see if we could find any other evidence that could link these different populations of crocodiles together. And, throughout the Sahara, we've, in fact, found lots of fossils of crocodiles, in Libya, Niger, in Mali, throughout Algeria, and also in Morocco. So that means that, in ancient times, all of the space must've been connected by a series of waterways, for the crocodiles to move to and fro, and it wasn't always the desert that it is today. ♪♪ -5,000 years ago, the Sahara Desert was actually a savanna, crisscrossed by a network of interconnected waterways, which allowed crocodiles to move freely throughout North Africa. The carvings on Unas's causeway reflected reality. [ Birds chirping ] When the pyramids were built, they were surrounded by savanna. [ Insects chirping ] But, when did Egypt dry out and become a desert and could this have played a part in the demise of the Old Kingdom and led to the mass grave? ♪♪ Elephantine, in the middle of the Nile, between Qubbet el-Hawa and Aswan, can shed some light. ♪♪ The ruins here show what was happening to Egypt's climate. ♪♪ Archaeologist Miroslav Barta describes the changes. ♪♪ -This is a fortress dating back to 3,000 BC. At the time, the island of Elephantine consisted of two separated islands: the eastern one and then the western island. ♪♪ The fortress is located in here, on the eastern island. -The fortress was built on the highest ground, 315 feet above sea level. -The reason was that the Nile flood at the beginning of the Old Kingdom was very high. ♪♪ -But the buildings surrounding the fortress show that the level of the Nile began to fall. And, as the water level fell, the city expanded over the rest of the eastern island, which had been partially submerged. And there are even ruins from the lowest part of the island, where the Nile once flowed, that date from after Pepi II. ♪♪ -Now, we stand in the middle of the original depression that was separating the eastern and western island of Elephantine. And, as we can see here, the ancient Egyptians were able to use up the original depression to construct their houses over it. -After Pepi II's death, the level of the Nile had dropped so significantly that the two islands merged into one and the city expanded onto what had previously been the marshes in between. Here is evidence that Egypt's climate was gradually changing and becoming drier during the Old Kingdom. [ Triumphant music plays ] But things would get worse, much worse. [ Foreboding music plays ] [ Wind blowing ] The key to understanding the collapse of the Old Kingdom, and the reasons for the mass grave, lies almost 2,000 miles away, in the glaciers of Mount Kilimanjaro. In 2000, an expedition of American glaciologists, led by Professor Lonnie Thompson, discovered proof of a global climate catastrophe. ♪♪ An ice cap is built of layers and layers of snow gradually piling up that are then compressed into ice. By extracting cores from the ice, Lonnie is able to look back in time. The ice captures a record of what was in the air at the time it was laid down. Studying this ice back in the lab, Lonnie can reconstruct the past climate. These precious cores are preserved in Lonnie's freezer at Ohio State University. -We have over 7,000 meters of ice cores collected from around the world. We have, on this particular rack, those cores which we recovered from Kilimanjaro in 2000. It dates back 11,700 years and, in that record, about the depth of 33 meters, we would find the time that corresponds to the Old Kingdom in Egypt, so we'll take this out and examine it on the light table. -This piece of ice holds a unique record of the climate around the time the Old Kingdom fell apart. -This is what's left after all the measurements have been made on the core, so. And this record starts about 5,000 years before present, so we're coming forward in time and you see this very distinct band. ♪♪ And it was really amazing, in the field, when this thing showed up, yeah. There's a lot of excitement because you know you have something. It's gonna take you a while to figure out. No, it's very exciting. -This ominous, dark layer is the result of the dramatic climate change that led to the collapse of the Old Kingdom. -This black line that you see here in the core is a layer of dust, windblown dust, that accumulated on the ice field. This is the largest dust event we've found in an ice core, so it's very, very highly concentrated. It would suggest that there was a massive drought throughout this region. -And Lonnie has found more physical signs of this drought, on the other side of the world. -In the same time period, we have found a similar layer in the Huascarán ice cores in the Andes, in Peru. We also see it over in the Himalayas, which suggests that there was a major drought throughout the tropics. ♪♪ -Crucially, he was able to date this drought. [ Music intensifies ] -Based on our Kilimanjaro timescale, we estimate the event occurs around 4,200 years ago, the time of the collapse of the Old Kingdom. ♪♪ -Could this massive global drought have been what brought the Old Kingdom to its knees and led to the death of the soldiers in the mass grave? [ Suspenseful music climbs ] [ Suspenseful chords striking ] [ Foreboding music plays ] Over the course of the Old Kingdom, Egypt was gradually turning from savannah into desert. Agriculture was entirely dependent on the annual flooding of the Nile. Each summer, the rains falling on the highlands of Ethiopia flow into the Nile, causing it to overflow its banks, flooding the fields and depositing rich soil which fertilizes the crops. [ Suspenseful music plays ] If Lonnie is right, this climate spike would have had a disastrous impact on the Nile floods and the people of the Old Kingdom. [ Wind blowing ] Back in Egypt, geologist- turned-archaeologist Professor Fekri Hassan has been looking for proof that this global calamity did, indeed, hit the land of the pharaohs. -There were indications that there are problems in other parts of the world at that time, caused by climate change. It was tempting to think that this might be the case in Egypt as well. -But, in Egypt, there is no ice. He's had to find another way of seeing into the past: mud. He takes cores from the bottom of Lake Qarun, just south of Cairo. The lake is fed by the Nile, which deposits layers of sediment on the bottom, and, just like ice, these layers hold a record of the past climate. Back in the lab in Cairo, Fekri has analyzed the cores. -These were the cores we got. It consisted of a sequence from the bottom of the lake that spans 10,000 years. These are the oldest ones, that were before the rise of civilization, where the lake was quite deep and, as we move to this way, this part it the Old Kingdom. This is the whole history of the Nile floodplain over the last 10,000 years. It's never been available before. -The core reveals that, during the Old Kingdom, the lake was much larger and deeper than today... ♪♪ ...its depth fluctuating around 200 feet. -This part of the core here is the part that represents the Old Kingdom. What is amazing in this part is this break, where we had the presence of a thick layer of gypsum, the whitish material. This is a mineral, which forms under shallow water conditions and evaporative conditions. Mixed with the gypsum, we have the deposits of the iron oxide, the reddish material. Iron oxide usually form under very shallow water conditions, where oxygen is present, either very, very shallow water or almost no water. That would mean that the lake was almost dry; if not bone-dry, just extremely shallow pools. [ Ethereal vocals join ] -The layer of gypsum and iron ore shows that this deep, freshwater lake dried up, leaving behind just a few ephemeral pools of water. -You know, maybe 60, 70 meters of water disappeared. ♪♪ From the different radio carbon age determinations of the core, we were able to determine that this layer here represents time around 4,200 years ago, which correlates to the end of the Old Kingdom. ♪♪ -Fekri's discovery confirms that the global drought seen in the ice cores also hit Egypt hard, just at the time the Old Kingdom collapsed. -We were able to find the smoking gun. This is the hard evidence for this event, this catastrophic event. The thickness of this layer and the fact that the very deep lake had to dry up, it would indicate that we are dealing with no less than 20 years of reduced Nile floods. -This disastrous drought was the knockout punch which pushed Egypt into chaos. -I think climate change leading to a reduction of Nile floods is the cause of the collapse of the Old Kingdom. Egypt depends on the Nile. If anything goes wrong with the Nile, then it would be famine and chaos. If the Nile is low for 20 years or even more, it means that agriculture production would stop. -Ankhtifi, the local governor, was right: the whole of Egypt would've been like a starving locust. -That means that the king does not have enough revenues, not even for his own household, not to mention for the viziers and the managers and people engaged in the governments, so, the whole civilization comes to a stop. [ Suspenseful music climbs ] It's a great lesson about how abrupt climate change can be and how civilizations, no matter how mighty they are, can really suffer from events like that. [ Outro plays ] -This terrible climate crisis, combined with the underlying political problems, created the perfect storm, which destroyed the Old Kingdom and ultimately set the stage for the mass grave. In the face of famine and economic crisis, Pepi II's politically weak successors lost control of the country. Egypt fractured into city-states. But the turmoil and violence would last far longer than the drought itself. [ Swords clinking ] Even as the 20-year drought ended and the Nile level rose, Egypt remained divided and vulnerable. As prosperity gradually returned, it wasn't long before the regional governors, like Ankhtifi, developed ambitions to conquer the whole country. The consequence was war for 130 years. [ Shouting, swords clinking ] The soldiers in the mass grave likely died, not in the initial chaos caused by the famine, [ Poignant tune plays ] but right at the end of the protracted civil war that followed. Roughly 40 years after the drought ended, the rulers of Thebes, modern-day Luxor, took control of the South and the location of the mass grave near Luxor suggests the soldiers were Thebans. Meanwhile, another family of local rulers, from a town called Heracleopolis, had taken control of the North. [ Sinister music plays ] Egypt was split in two and both sides wanted control of the entire country. In 2040 BC, the Thebans captured most of the North and they reached Heracleopolis itself. They were led by a king named Mentuhotep II. He was a great general. His name even means "Montu the god of war is satisfied," and he finally conquered Heracleopolis, [ Shouting, swords clinking ] in a bloody siege. [ Suspenseful music climbs ] [ Cheering, swords clinking ] [ Wind whistles ] Salima believes it's possible that these soldiers, now more than 4,000 years old, took part in this final battle. -Amongst these bodies, there was a lot of linen and some of the linen had marks on it. And these are actually associated with the temple of Mentuhotep II. This, together with the fact that the temple is right there, underneath his tomb, means that the soldiers were fighting for Mentuhotep II. [ Sinister music plays ] -And that's not all. Close analysis of the injuries provides more details about what caused them. -Looking at these arrows that went into the necks of these soldiers, you can see that the trajectory is from above and it's the same thing with all of these head wounds. It's like someone was hitting them from above. So, clearly, it would seem that these soldiers were up against an enemy that was higher than they were, as if they were in a fortress, as if there were some sort of siege situation, and that these soldiers of Mentuhotep were attacking some kind of fort and people were hitting them from above, raining down arrows, throwing rocks. And, maybe, when they came too close, hitting them hard with clubs and maces. [ Suspenseful chords strike ] -It would seem these soldiers were fighting for Mentuhotep in the deciding battle of the civil war. -All of this put together makes us think that these soldiers were fighting at the siege of Heracleopolis. -After the battle was won, Mentuhotep II declared himself king of the entire country, reunifying Egypt at last, and he is believed to have had the soldiers buried above his own mortuary temple as a sign of honor. -It's a huge honor for anyone to be buried that close to the king, so, clearly, he valued them and he, himself, must have paid for the funeral, with all of these temple linens being used. So, obviously, he valued their work and their loyalty and their bravery and kept them near him so that they would be united for eternity. [ Suspenseful chords striking ] [ Suspenseful music climbs, chords striking ]
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11 May 2026
This event began 05/11/2025 and repeats every year forever
KWL Live Q&A – Planning Your Books and Setting your Goals with Sarra Cannon [ youtube channel : https://www.youtube.com/@HeartBreathings ; B6 notebook : https://heartbreathings.com/my-new-b6-stalogy-writing-notebook/ ; ]
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NkpvGXVpAF0
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THOUGHTS AS I VIEWED
00:01:00 the winds in nyc, between skyscrapers, feels colder than the north pole at places 00:03:00 congrats,great experience [ https://www.kobo.com/ca/en/ebook/the-disappearance-of-vanessa-shaw ] 00:04:00 I concur, a year review is a good thing[ https://rmnewsletter.over-blog.com/2023/02/2023-art-summary.html] 00:05:00 Asked You didn't preorder it? She admitted she missed preordering dates, pre order is best practice, but what works for her wasn't preordering 00:08:00 What planners do you have in the works for 2025? 00:15:00 A5 planners, add pages 00:17:00 Plans tend to be what we want to add. We can't be productive every day 00:19:00 How to help indie authors use planners? Ask what do I need to track in my planner. coil planners can take up less space. think on how your planner will be used. 00:22:00 do you put notes in your planner? no she doesn't 00:28:00 she doesn't like writing on the slick surface, she prefers typing. she likes writing on the kobo device that is rougher Kobo journals you can use in the newest, 2024 , models [ https://www.kobo.com/ca/en/search?query=kobo+originals+journals&fclanguages=en] 00:31:00 what trends should authors be prepared for in the planning? More authors going wide, more authors going into audio, she has been around since 2010, and she has only three audio books but she is getting audio books of her best sellers done. So many , direct sales on their own website. how can diversify? sell as in many places as possible. Or do i want to shut out the noise for everyone diversifying and how do i sell my books. You have to plan goals but you have to be yourself She ha a course concerning game board strategy She recalls a year she set up three preorders, and it didn't work out for her. So she syas who does she really want to be as an author. Does she want to write every day. Do I want to put out as many books as possible and do i need to relax from burnout. She admits ,she want a tv show someday. She ask what does that version of me have that she doesn't have now. 00:37:00 It is great saying what you want out loud. If you want to know where to start with indie publishing Email us at writinglife@kobo.com They also have a great help center here: https://kobowritinglife.zendesk.com/hc/en-us 00:38:00 any methods to track a plan? How to make sure you are still on track? Question yourself, why is this going wrong? Biggies tool is review. Usually a couple of culprits. Do you like what you write? Have you listened to others and acting on what others want? Maybe your plate is to big and you are burned out? Have the courage to be honest with one self. 00:42:00 Is their pressure to jump into something new? yes, if i dont do this will i miss that chance. she gives examples where at conferences, where they did translations and it worked or kickstarter and it worked. so people start to think one has to do all and all gets executed poorly. The ebook is where we tend to start, so start there. She knows so many people who are six figure authors and they say, they are burned out. and it is ok, to nt work yourself to death 00:48:00 Do you have an example of a milestone you achieved where a planner helped? she has run different courses this year, she is raising kids, running courses, and writing and none of this would had happened without the planner. I SAY [ you need to know what tools or strategies others are using but you need to master yourself ] 00:52:00 Talk about your rough draft challenge? April it will be another challenge 00:56:00 great show, planned well:)
her websites [ https://sarracannon.com/ ; https://heartbreathings.com/ ; https://www.youtube.com/@HeartBreathings ; https://www.youtube.com/@SarraCannon]
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