richardmurray's Content - African American Literature Book Club

Genocide of native americans,
the key to generational wealth in the usa
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DFP55fEPVlC/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_linkmy comment
yes very true, the source of wealth in the usa starts with the near complete annihilation of first peoples, thus when people today speak of financial opportunity, the tragedy is, the usa was built and sustained on harming others for one's wealth , not equal or equitable or inclusive or multidemographic action and to assume what didn't build or sustain the usa is somehow a better strategy in modernity is an ugly lie

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Aditya pandey (@max_geopolitics)

richardmurray

Estimations
The Priest of Kemet after Akhenaten died
The some people in Scotland including Robert Burns after he wrote "Such a Parcel of Rogues in a Nation"
The Daughters of the American Revolution raised on the tales of the glory in the former confederate states
The Isolationist who opposed Woodrow Wilson
The non black business and communities at the advent of the civil rights act of 1963
*
All have one thing in common, they disliked a change and worked all their lives to undo the change.
One of the problems in humanity in the Statian imperial phase of the white European global imperial era is the idea of change being holistically beneficial. No change is ever beneficial to all, no change. In the same way no permanence is ever beneficial to all.
*
The Tariffs are coming from decades of complaints by a group, mostly non black while not exclusively non black, made up of a collection of groups in the usa: pro deletion of any legal statement to black rights /pro isolation/ pro intracommunal finance between states. The Tariffs from the usa to others + the Diversity Equity Inclusivity D.E.I. deletion or reductions show this clearly.
Ever since the end of the war between the states,a group of non blacks in the united states of America have worked to delete the presence/notion/idea of black empowerment/rights/equality to non blacks.
Ever since Woodrow Wilson, a group of hyper allegiants in the usa have worked to disconnect the U.S.A. from alliances to any other country. They have opposed the United Nations, the World Bank, North Atlantic Treaty Organization, North American Free Trade Alliance and all other alliances that force the usa to act in tandem to another government.
*
Most humans at some point in their life go through a change they don't want in their community or the larger environment where they live. It isn't right to live with the change or wrong to fight against the change, or vice versa. Humans are free to choose, but when a change occurs that surprises you, it can be a train derailment unlike any other, buckle up.
*
IN AMENDMENT
some people in the usa waited decades for this day to happen or are witnessing their parents or grandparents dream come true in the current presidency, Isolation has not been supported as strongly in the usa since before woodrow wilson, that is over one hundred years ago... the daughters of the american revolution are cheering in their graves that the community of those willing to oppose betterment for blacks is still going strong. ... The second term of shaking is upon us all, I ponder the future
...
well underestimation of others is balanced by overestimation of oneself. It is unwise to do either. I think many, in the democratic party at the least, didn't or don't realize how many in the usa , for various reasons, don't like the global system the usa centers or the racial changes the democratic party has championed. I remember the election, the current president's supporters cheered loudest when he talked of the things he is doing now. They didn't just cheer they voted.

richardmurray

Flash Fictions for february 2025

i call them variants cause the longer versions exist for three of them, for one i only had one version, i just named it a variant anyway
TEA AT THE END OF AN EXISTENCE? variants
https://www.deviantart.com/hddeviant/art/1157675232
PROMISES OF SHADOWS PLUS ECHOES variants
https://www.deviantart.com/hddeviant/art/1157676369
A MEMORY IN OLIGARCHY variants
https://www.deviantart.com/hddeviant/art/1157676837
A FLASH FROM THE OTHER IMMIGRANT variants
https://www.deviantart.com/hddeviant/art/1157678361

richardmurray

WIldHeart on nature

My Thoughts

Dippers are the only aquatic songbird in the world, they live about Scotland and its oldest tree, humans name Wildheart. enjoy

VIDEO

Uniform Resource Locator

https://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/about-wildheart/28213/

TRANSCRIPT

♪♪ [ Suspenseful music plays, birds chirping ] ♪♪ -Imagine a tree could tell a tale.

Imagine you could peel back the layers of time... ...to see the amazing events that have played out around these ancient branches.

♪♪ This is the story of a special Scots pine.

[ Squeak ] [ Tender tune plays ] For 500 years, it's stood firm here in Scotland's Wildheart... ...growing steadily alongside generations of animals and people.

This is the story of Wildheart.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ -Ancient, weather-worn, and gnarled, our Scots pine grows here, near the heart of the Highlands.

For a tree of this species to live for five centuries is rare, but Wildheart has stood guard here on the edge of the forest for all those years.

♪♪ Few living things spend longer on Earth than a tree and Wildheart has stood steady here as many generations of animals and people have come and gone.

♪♪ Living through drought and deluge, a testament of the ages is written beneath the scales of its bark.

And what a tale it has to tell.

Of the battles that nature has fought against the rising tide of humanity and how the wild world has hung on in the face of so much pressure.

[ Cheeps ] ♪♪ [ Thunder rumbles ] ♪♪ Scots pines started spreading across these mountains at the end of the great Ice Age, when vast herds of reindeer roamed the high tops and wolves still stalked the glens.

[ Birds chirping ] But Wildheart's story begins on a cool misty morning in the middle of the 16th century.

♪♪ ♪♪ With seven billion fewer people walking the Earth, nature still rules the planet in these far-off days.

♪♪ The great wood that the Romans named the Caledonian Forest still covers vast tracts of the Highlands.

It's full of mysterious creatures.

[ Suspenseful music plays ] [ Popping ] ♪♪ [ Rasping ] ♪♪ ♪♪ Capercaillie.

A bird that has an intimate relationship with the Scots pine.

They live here, breed here, and even feed on the tree's needles, when other fruits and berries wither away.

♪♪ Common and widespread in Scotland, their stronghold is here, in the vast pine forest.

[ Rasping ] The male bird's bizarre popping call is summoning the females to the lek.

[ Popping ] [ Popping ] [ Popping ] Here, in a forest clearing, they'll compete for the right to mate exclusively with all the hen capercaillies.

[ Pop ] [ Pop ] Weighing in at nine pounds, this young bird is in superb condition.

[ Popping ] [ Rasping ] [ Popping ] But an older male is up for the fight, too.

[ Pop ] [ Pop ] [ Popping ] [ Rasping ] ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ [ Rasping ] [ Popping ] [ Popping ] It's time to do battle.

[ Rasping ] ♪♪ ♪♪ They're evenly matched.

It's simply a question of who gives way first.

♪♪ The younger male is on the run, handing victory to the dominant older bird.

♪♪ Monarch of the glen, he's retained mastery of the lek.

All the females are his.

[ Capercaillie calling ] As the sun rises, other voices ring out across the clearing.

This is Mary, Queen of Scotland.

[ Mary giggling ] Crowned at just nine months old, she's at the heart of a dynastic dispute as ferocious as the one between the capercaillies.

A pawn in a diplomatic game, the child is promised as a wife to the son of King Henry VIII of England.

[ Mary giggles ] But the Scots have grown cold on the treaty, and the child has been hidden away here in the care of her maid.

♪♪ Innocent and happy games are a stark contrast to the turmoil that lies ahead for Mary.

♪♪ In her play, a cone is cast away.

[ Mary giggles ] It's landed in the perfect spot, clear of the other trees at the forest's edge.

♪♪ ♪♪ Two years on, and the seed from Mary's cone has become a tiny tree.

♪♪ The capercaillie lek has a new master now.

♪♪ And the young queen has been sent away to France as the child consort of the king's son.

♪♪ Mary's tree looks like a survivor.

Its name is Wildheart, a brave pioneer seemingly marching forward across the moor.

♪♪ The open space has given it a head start, and it's already avoided being devoured by hungry red deer, mortal foes to Scots pine saplings.

Wildheart's animal neighbors are getting busy.

The spring of 1549 looks like a fine one.

And it's time to search for homes and mates.

The red squirrel is one of the Caledonian Forest's most dashing residents.

The aerial world here is full of spaces to find food, seek out mates, and get the next generation on its way.

Red squirrels spend nearly 90% of their lives in the treetops, and they're superbly adapted to climb and leap.

With double-jointed ankles and small, sharp claws, they can get up and down trees fast.

[ Bird calling ] Early spring is a special time for red squirrels.

Already pregnant with kittens, this female is looking for a comfortable nest site, away from predators.

But this one is already taken.

She'll need to keep searching.

Three months on, and Wildheart is still holding fast.

A good inch has been added to each springy branch.

The next few years will be make-or-break for the tree.

A Scots pine can add a foot in height every year.

♪♪ But it's not safe from the hungry deer quite yet.

♪♪ The squirrel has been successful, too.

There are kits in the nest.

Near Wildheart's slim trunk is a bank of spongy moss -- an ideal liner for the squirrel's drey.

♪♪ It's just rather a challenge to hold onto it all while you transport it to the very top of a pine tree.

♪♪ A fastidiously clean animal, the red squirrel mother goes through this routine every couple of days.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ And she'll be stuck with it for a while.

It'll be another couple of weeks before the kittens can emerge from the drey.

♪♪ [ Thunder rumbles ] As the 17th century begins, the crowns of England and Scotland have united.

Mary's son James now rules both kingdoms, but the relationship remains unpredictable.

♪♪ At 50 years old and 20 feet high, Wildheart has now survived many seasons of the fickle Highland climate, and the tree is now surrounded by a crowd of neighbors.

♪♪ In the Highlands, temperatures may drop below freezing even in late spring.

♪♪ And snow can fall in any month of the year.

♪♪ As the years roll by, each generation of Wildheart's neighbors take their chances against this background of ever-changing weather.

♪♪ ♪♪ Crested tits may be small, but they're the toughest of all the birds living in Wildheart's neighborhood.

[ Bird calling ] ♪♪ ♪♪ A true specialist, crested tits only live in this forest.

♪♪ Even in the 17th century, they're not found anywhere else in the British Isles.

The harshest of winters can't deter crested tits.

♪♪ Like the red squirrel, they're able to seek out caches of food beneath the soft snow, seeds shed from Wildheart's cones that will never grow and thrive.

♪♪ ♪♪ Wildheart continues to flourish.

A Scots pine can thrive no matter how fickle the climate, changing shape and angle as the years pass.

As 1650 draws to a close, our tree is more than 100 years old... and 80 feet high.

♪♪ Maturity brings a wider trunk, and the bark is thickening, branches spread, and the pine needles are safely out of reach of the grazing deer.

♪♪ This tree produces both male and female flowers, which means it can pollinate itself, creating the seed-rich cones which will keep the forest alive.

♪♪ As long they don't fall victim to yet another generation of hungry red squirrels.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ [ Thunder rumbling ] The end of the 17th century brings political turbulence.

Civil war racks the British Isles, and English lords have replaced Mary's great-grandson James II with Dutch-born William of Orange.

But in the Highlands, there are some who still fight to restore a Scots king.

♪♪ The Jacobites.

♪♪ These two, Donald MacGregor and his son Rob Roy, know the Caledonian Forest intimately.

♪♪ Using guerrilla tactics, it's easy for Highlanders to outwit the English Redcoats.

Especially when the enemy soldier is lost and alone.

♪♪ ♪♪ [ Donald grunts ] [ Soldier grunts ] A quick victory.

But Rob's future won't be so easy.

Forced into the life of an outlaw, he'll live on the edges of society till the end of his days.

But the Caledonian Forest will always be his home.

His knowledge of this living place and its bubbling waterways will keep him safe.

The Dee is one of Scotland's longest arterial rivers, an important thoroughfare for Highlanders both human and animal alike.

The river is an important partner for the forest.

Each keeps the other healthy.

Water replenishes and nourishes the trees, but the forest feeds the river with nutrients from fallen leaves and branches.

On a tributary downstream, a special pair of Highland birds are busy servicing their nest beneath a waterfall.

They're dippers -- true specialists here.

The only aquatic songbird in the world, they're able to dive beneath the surface to harvest insect larvae and tiny fish for their well-grown young.

But like the Highlanders, they live a precarious life.

[ Thunder rumbling ] The brood of chicks is ready to fledge, but an unseasonal downpour is transforming the benign river into a raging torrent.

♪♪ ♪♪ The parents need to coax the chicks out of the nest as quickly as possible.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ Delaying their fledging even by a few minutes could see the youngsters swept away by the torrent.

♪♪ ♪♪ The chicks need to leave the nest now, but they've never flown before and have to navigate the slippery rocks while avoiding the raging river.

♪♪ The parents offer tasty morsels to draw them out of the nest.

♪♪ ♪♪ The winds whip through Wildheart's forest.

♪♪ Lives are at risk across the Highlands.

♪♪ ♪♪ The river still rises.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ But the dipper chicks are all out and safe.

[ Birds calling ] The unseasonal storm has swept across the whole forest, and several of Wildheart's neighbors have been felled by the wind.

Suddenly there is space around Wildheart once more.

Fallen trees and branches are also a valuable home for some.

Meet the timberman.

Scotland's longest beetle.

♪♪ He's just emerged into the spring sunlight after spending four years in his larval stage beneath the surface of Wildheart's scaly bark.

♪♪ The spectacular antennae will help him locate a mate.

And he needs to do it quickly.

His adult lifespan will be only a third of the time he spent beneath the bark as a grub.

♪♪ Four feet beneath him, the forest floor is dominated by a fortress.

A fortress built by ants.

These mounds grow across generations, and this one was already established when Mary cast her cone away and Wildheart's journey began.

Wood ants are a keystone species here, traveling through all three dimensions of the forest to capture insects which are moved back to the mound to nurture the colony.

Wood ants also farm aphids high in the pines' branches.

A gentle stroke from a farmer ant produces sticky and nourishing honeydew.

And in return for the sugary milk, the aphids buy protection from their wood ant guards.

As the fallen trees decay and collapse, they provide dens for Wildheart's predator neighbors.

Pine martens are one of the forest's most efficient predators.

Now at the beginning of the 18th century, their population is thousands strong.

Wherever there are Scots pines, there are pine martens.

Red squirrels are an important prey animal, but it will be quite a while before these three young kits are up to catching one.

For now, their lives are about scratching behind bark to find bugs and beetles.

[ Marten screeches ] ♪♪ ♪♪ The world around Wildheart is complex and diverse.

Home to 172 insect species... 200 fungi species... and a rich array of birds and mammals, each part complements the other.

♪♪ But this world is about to come under attack.

♪♪ As the Jacobite revolts of the 18th century are suppressed, the people of the Highlands face a cataclysmic change.

♪♪ Farming and land use is going through a revolution of its own.

Landlords are changing the ways farms are run, creating larger and larger open spaces.

♪♪ The rights of clan members to farm their own small crofts are removed, and whole communities are being forced out, to work on the coast or even encouraged to emigrate to new lives in North America or Australia.

♪♪ The great Caledonian Forest stands in the way of these new systems of farming.

♪♪ And by the early 19th century, Wildheart's forest has been reduced by 85%.

♪♪ ♪♪ It's a still, cool morning in April, and the forest stands shrouded in mist.

♪♪ Wildheart is now one of the largest trees in the forest.

It has the strongest and thickest trunk here.

The cold snap hasn't been enough to deter the black grouse from lekking at the forest's edge.

[ Grouse calling ] [ Grouse screeches ] Like their larger relatives the capercaillies, male black grouse display and skirmish in a series of impressive dawn battles.

[ Grouse screeching ] It's all about holding onto the best patch, and the females will choose the male with the most impressive dueling skills.

[ Grouse screeching ] As spring turns to summer, Wildheart gains new tenants.

♪♪ [ Eagle calling ] ♪♪ By July, a pair of young golden eagles are sitting on a platform of branches and twigs.

It's a tribute to the resilience and strength of Wildheart that the eagles have chosen to build here.

♪♪ It's more usual for golden eagles to choose craggy mountaintops for their homes, but they feel secure and confident in the branches.

♪♪ ♪♪ And once built, an eagle nest can last for many years.

♪♪ The chicks are 8 weeks old and growing fast.

Both parents hunt, seeking out hares on the bare mountainsides that are just a couple of wingbeats from Wildheart'S ever-shrinking forest.

They're still a month away from fledging.

But other youngsters face change even more imminently.

♪♪ This 10-year-old boy has a date with destiny.

He's come here to bid farewell to the lochs, forests, and mountains he's known all his life before emigrating with his family to America.

♪♪ ♪♪ His name is John Muir, and since he could walk, nature has been his inspiration.

♪♪ Recording all his thoughts and feelings through words and pictures, his ideas will shape the way that humanity views not just the forest but the wildlife of the entire world, eventually giving rise to the idea of protecting nature through National Parks.

♪♪ A month later, and the two golden eagle chicks are close to fledging.

One is considerably larger than the other, and the nest is now littered with bones and debris.

[ Flies buzzing ] Soon they will follow their parents into the Highland skies and leave Wildheart's forest behind.

♪♪ Young John Muir has also departed.

He's now a thousand miles away, on a schooner bound for a new life in America.

♪♪ In his new home, he'll exchange the Scots pines of the Highlands for the giant redwoods of California.

But he hasn't forgotten the Caledonian Forest... and he never will.

♪♪ ♪♪ As the 19 century draws to a close, Wildheart is now a grand old survivor.

More than 350 years old, the tree is one of the oldest in the forest.

But it's very much on the front line.

The pine forest's resources are being used for industry and war.

Its frontiers have been pushed back by sheep farms and shooting estates.

♪♪ The great Caledonian Forest is now a tiny fraction of what it once was.

♪♪ Less than 5% of what once stood here is left... and the forest is now spilt into 35 fragments, islands of diversity among the bleak, bare mountains.

♪♪ The beaver, wolf, lynx, and osprey are gone.

♪♪ But some creatures still return here every year... ...animals who have the Highlands at the very heart of their life cycle -- Atlantic salmon.

♪♪ If the natural world has a symbol for surviving in the face of impossible odds, that totemic animal would surely be the salmon.

♪♪ Highland salmon travel into the rivers from their ocean home after one to four years of feeding in the cold saltwaters off Greenland and the Faroes.

[ Sea birds calling ] Dolphins wait to ambush them in Highland estuaries as they enter river systems... ...tossing and turning the unfortunate fish into the ideal swallowing position.

♪♪ The surviving fish power onwards towards distant spawning grounds among the forest fragments.

♪♪ But more barriers lie in their way.

♪♪ The fish are resolute in their desire to move on.

Their bodies are equipped with powerful muscles that spring them across the most challenging waterfalls.

♪♪ They will never give up.

♪♪ ♪♪ Finally, back in the streams where they themselves hatched, the salmon spawn before their lives end.

♪♪ But their bodies are carried back to nurture the living forest.

♪♪ ♪♪ As Wildheart lives through the first half of the 20th century, the forest is at its lowest point.

♪♪ But things are changing.

♪♪ Across the far Atlantic, young John Muir has grown to inspire a new vision of the natural world.

His ideas have inspired a network of American National Parks, places where the natural world nurtures, revitalizes, and complements humanity.

♪♪ Places where rare species can recover.

♪♪ ♪♪ It's a mild sunny day in March.

Wildheart still stands at the edge of her forest... ...new saplings fighting to earn their place around the base of her gnarled trunk.

Something special is about to happen -- the return of a traveler who hasn't been seen here in many decades.

[ Bird calling ] ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ It's an osprey, a specialist hunter that has come to reclaim this patch of forest and river.

♪♪ Although ospreys have been missing from Wildheart's forest since the turn of the century, conditions are still good for them here.

♪♪ Lochs and rivers still have a healthy population of trout, an osprey's favorite quarry.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ This expert fisherman has a superb technique.

♪♪ But not every dive produces a catch.

Three out of four strikes is unsuccessful.

♪♪ Despite the osprey's superior eyesight and a dive speed of 80 miles an hour, a trout can easily evade the hunter's talons.

♪♪ ♪♪ A successful strike.

But the fish isn't beaten yet.

♪♪ ♪♪ The hunter's inward-curving claws and adhesive scales on the inside of its feet grip the fish tightly.

♪♪ But it's trying to swim down, pulling the osprey with it.

Predator and prey are close in weight.

Lifting off from the water will need a titanic effort.

♪♪ ♪♪ Summoning every last drop of resolve, the osprey uses the power of its long and broad wings to lift the trout from the surface.

♪♪ A perfect prize for a mate.

♪♪ ♪♪ Not far away is the osprey's nest, the first to be built in Wildheart's forest in half a century.

♪♪ But this nesting attempt will not succeed.

♪♪ Illegal egg collecting is still a popular activity in Great Britain.

♪♪ Ospreys will need help to colonize Wildheart's forest.

♪♪ [ Footsteps approach ] By the late 1950s, a new breed of wildlife warrior has emerged.

This is Roy Dennis... a young English ornithologist with a passion for Scottish ospreys.

He has a job as the warden protecting the only breeding pair of ospreys in the British Isles.

Endlessly vigilant, he's determined to give the ospreys the best possible chance of success.

That means trimming low branches from trees that could give egg collectors access to the canopy and organizing volunteer patrols.

But, above all, watching and waiting day and night... ...until finally, in the summer, the ospreys succeed.

[ Ospreys calling ] ♪♪ ♪♪ And the first chicks fledged in Scotland in the 20th century take to the skies.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ But what of Wildheart and her kin?

Can the Scottish forest also return from the edge?

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ The tree stands alone and in the open now.

At 480 years of age, Wildheart is nearly as old as a Scots pine can be.

Its life will be over soon.

And what times it has born witness to.

Times in which humanity has pushed the planet into a dangerous place.

Times in which so many species have vanished from the forest.

But things are changing.

♪♪ And now in the 21st century, there's a new sense of awareness that people can and must do something.

♪♪ In the last 20 years, organizations like the John Muir Trust have planted more than a million successors to Wildheart.

♪♪ Although the ancient tree itself may be closer to the end, the children of the 21st century are not prepared to let her kind die.

♪♪ For the sake of Scotland and to safeguard the future for us all, Wildheart's descendants are marching forward across the hill.

♪♪ The Caledonian Forest will rise again.

richardmurray

Padiamenope
My Thoughts

Padiamenope, the servant of Taharqa, a nubian pharoah, all pharoahs before the ptolomies are black. Padiamenope made an extensive grave for himself. Of course it was the Nubians. The people of Kemet + Nubians are cousin peoples. I consider Egyptians the hybrid people of Kemet side the whites of europe or asia from the hellenistic period. Lovely explanation of the process of comprehending Kemet from greek through coptic and comparison.

VIDEO - preview- transcript is complete

UNIFORM RESOURCE LOCATOR
https://www.pbs.org/wnet/secrets/decoding-hieroglyphics-preview-7jqfn5/6330/

TRANSCRIPT- the complete show

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ -Egypt, land of countless ancient treasures found inside its pyramids and temples.

The walls of these monuments are covered with mysterious inscriptions left by ancient Egyptians -- hieroglyphics.

-Hieroglyphs are perhaps a writing that has been used for the longest time in the history of the world.

Because they were used for well over 3,000 years.

-200 years ago, French scholar Jean-François Champollion deciphered the inscriptions, giving meaning to the signs that had been unreadable for more than a millennium.

And with his work, an entire civilization buried in the desert sand was brought back to life.

Today, new research is focused on the people who wrote these hieroglyphs -- a literate elite employed by the pharaohs.

They were priests, scribes, painters, engravers, and builders of tombs.

In the south of Egypt, scientists are studying a palace filled with hieroglyphics, the only tomb built for a non-royal in the necropolis and the largest in all of Egypt.

-How was this man able to build this incredible monument?

-Egyptologists have battled the stifling heat to reach the darkest depths of the tomb and unlock the secrets of the ancient inscriptions.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ -Along the Nile, 400 miles from the ancient political capital of Memphis -- Cairo, today -- lies Thebes, modern-day Luxor.

Here, on the west bank, pharaohs constructed sumptuous tombs.

The vast necropolis includes at least a dozen ancient funerary temples and burial sites belonging to royalty, including Queen Hatshepsut.

Surprisingly, Egyptologists have found that the largest tomb at the site -- and in the country -- wasn't built for a pharaoh, despite its immense size.

Archeologists have named it "TT33," for "Theban tomb 33," and they hope to make new discoveries by translating the monument's hieroglyphics.

♪♪ Professor Claude Traunecker has been studying TT33 for the past 17 years, under the aegis of the French Institute of Oriental Archaeology in Cairo.

He is joined by Silvia Einaudi and Isabelle Régen, two Egyptologists and renowned epigraphists, whose job it is to copy, translate, and interpret the texts.

On this trip, they have only four weeks to exhume the latest treasures and safeguard the thousands of texts carved into the walls... [ Conversing in native language ] ♪♪ ...of a tomb well-known to the adventurers who risked their lives exploring it.

-[ Speaking French ] -Lots of people visited it as the region's great curiosity, with its legend of being a cursed and dangerous tomb.

There were very large colonies of bats here.

And when people came in, the bats would fly out, causing accidents.

People only had candlelight, so a number of them fell down the shaft of Room XII when the wind from the bats' wings blew out their candles.

-But who did this imposing and mysterious tomb belong to?

-Pa-di-imen-ipet.

Padiamenope.

-Padiamenope.

-[ Speaking French ] -In the first two passageways, there's always an image of Padiamenope, looking towards the entrance to the tomb as if he were greeting visitors.

-His name and image appear all over the walls.

There can be no doubt -- this is his final resting place.

For almost a century, exploration of the tomb stopped at Room III because archaeologists built a wall at the entrance to Room IV to shut in the bats.

-[ Speaking French ] -There's a nice little article by Maspero that says, "We walled in Padiamenope's tomb because of the bats.

I hope that when it's reopened, we'll finally find out who Padiamenope was."

And I made use of this text to have the tomb opened again.

-In December 2005, after Traunecker obtained authorization to break down the wall and access the rest of the tomb, he entered a space that had been closed for a century.

The decomposed bodies of millions of bats had saturated the air with ammonia, making it unbreathable.

The floor and walls were badly degraded, but when the professor looked more closely, he realized he'd discovered a priceless treasure.

-[ Speaking French ] -It was a revelation!

Especially this word of greeting that I discovered.

I remember, when I saw it, I had tears in my eyes.

An appeal to the living.

"O, you who are on earth, those who are born..." This marks the future -- "Er-mes-tu."

"...and those who will be born."

It's quite incredible!

And it interestingly goes on to address "Those who come to stroll."

Coming to the necropolis for a stroll -- not bad!

"Those who come to have fun looking at ancient tombs."

This dates from the 7th century BCE, so there had already been 2,000 years of tombs before then!

"Or those who come looking for spells."

That's us.

When I read that, I must admit, I was moved to tears.

"Those looking for spells."

And he goes on.

"May they observe what is in this tomb."

And then there's a blessing -- "They will receive the blessing of the god Amun if they respect this tomb."

And finally, he asks us to "repair whatever is damaged."

It's a very daring, direct message.

♪♪ -The carvings on the walls of Padiamenope's tomb ask future visitors to keep it in good condition.

Einaudi and Régen have spent 10 years investigating the tomb, studying the walls, and wandering the maze of corridors that leads to the burial chamber.

Ultimately, their goal is to find answers to the many questions that still surround the figure of Padiamenope and create a clearer picture of who this scribe and priest was.

They have already established that the architectural style of the tomb places its construction at around 700 BCE.

To learn more, they must capture 3-D images of the entire site, 360 degrees around.

-[ Speaking French ] -We're about to start the photogrammetry phase, where we'll align the images and a cloud of dots.

The images will be aligned by the photogrammetry software.

It involves the recognition of counterpart pixels between each image.

Then we go on to the second phase, which is meshing.

Here, the software picks up the millions of dots and joins them all together with little triangles.

And that gives the volume to the model.

♪♪ So we're really moving from 2-D to 3-D. Once we've composed the model, we go on to the last step -- compositing.

-[ Speaking French ] -We'll decide on the camera movement and then the lighting and lighting moods... ...and finally the rendering of the tomb itself.

Here, the camera is on the outside, and it allows us to see the exterior volumes of the tomb, with all its architecture and depth.

In the other scenario, we're on a virtual visit, with the camera inside the tomb.

Here we're in Room I, as it is today, in a degraded state.

These two camera features are quite complementary because they'll allow us to work out how we're going to work in the tomb.

♪♪ -For the first time, the vast maze within TT33 is visible -- 22 rooms, countless corridors, and linked galleries... ...all spread across three levels buried more than 65 feet beneath the desert sands.

28,000 square feet of decorated walls, every single one of them covered in hieroglyphs.

The archaeologists face an immense challenge -- decoding the carvings that have been ravaged by time, earthquakes, looters, and the environment.

But translating the inscriptions on the walls will shed new light on the tomb's enigmatic owner.

With a resting place larger and grander than that of the pharaohs, Padiamenope was clearly an important member of Egyptian society.

What kind of power did he wield?

-[ Speaking French ] -Here we see his main title -- "Rehrireb" and "Rehritep," which mean "lector-priest" and "chief, or "lector-priest" and "master of ceremonies".

Padiamenope must have been someone who knew ancient Egypt's religious history very well, along with the religious texts.

-[ Speaking French ] -He was the intermediary between, let's say, those who worked in the library, who devised the rites, who thought, who catalogued the papyri, before going out before the crowd to conduct religious ceremonies.

You could say he was the link between religious theory and religious practice.

And with what aim?

To appease the Egyptian people.

Because the Egyptians were so fearful.

You didn't build things like this without having a fear of death!

-A statue of Padiamenope in the Cairo Museum portrays him as a scribe, someone who belonged to the literate elite that held significant power over the rest of the population, which couldn't read or write.

The Louvre Museum in Paris is home to the "Seated Scribe," a statue of a seated man holding a papyrus scroll as a guardian of sacred knowledge, like all scribes.

-Egypt was governed by a literate elite, which we call "scribes," because they knew how to write.

This ability to write distinguished them from others.

The scribe's main job was to keep the accounts and write letters, basically administrative tasks.

The more cultured among them wrote literature -- because there was an Egyptian literature in the modern sense of the term -- while others ran libraries.

♪♪ Basically, hieroglyphs read from right to left.

To understand which way to read them, you simply take a pictorial hieroglyph -- for example, a quail chick.

It's looking to the left, which means you read from left to right and downwards in a column.

In another inscription, it could be the opposite.

For example, around a door or a niche, there might be, on the left-hand side of the door, signs that show right to left, or vice versa.

It's monumental writing which goes very well with architecture.

-It is a complex and sophisticated writing system.

The oldest examples of hieroglyphics date to around 3200 BCE, and, based on archaeological evidence, the pictorial carvings were used for nearly 3,500 years.

Use of these symbols slowly faded as the Roman Empire took control of ancient Egypt.

When the Romans officially adopted Christianity at the end of the 4th century, the use of hieroglyphics died out.

In the year 380, the emperor Theodosius issued a decree effectively prohibiting all pagan worship.

Hieroglyphics were central to the Egyptians' religion, and once the religion was banned, the need for a literate elite quickly ended, leaving the 3,000-year-old writing system to be buried in the sand for the next 1,400 years.

But in 1798, General Napoleon Bonaparte landed in Egypt.

He and his troops were there to protect French trade interests, but they were accompanied by a contingent of scientists and scholars sent to study the history and geography of the country.

And in 1799, in the small northern town of Rosetta, a soldier made a crucial discovery that would unlock the mysterious inscriptions found on ancient walls and objects.

Lieutenant Pierre François Xavier Bouchard found a stele dating from the 2nd century BCE, carved with a decree from King Ptolemy V. The text was written in three different scripts, hieroglyphic, Egyptian demotic -- a simplified cursive version of hieroglyphs -- and ancient Greek.

-Before we could read hieroglyphs, looking at these monuments was a mystery, and that's why there's so much esoterica that this has generated, with people thinking that these are all symbols, that they don't have sound values, so you could look at these monuments and not really understand things, until Champollion came and unlocked this key, this mystery.

You can see this cartouche, which is this oval thing, which held the name of the king, and here you can see "Pe-to-we-le-miis," Ptolemy.

So this is the name of Ptolemy, and, of course, this is one of the crucial names that we have in Egyptology not because of his importance, but because his name was on the Rosetta stone and this was the first name to be deciphered.

♪♪ -Two decades later, linguist Jean-François Champollion began a new project -- deciphering hieroglyphics.

♪♪ As a scholar of ancient Greek, he was able to read the name Ptolemy -- "Ptolmaios" in Greek -- on the Rosetta stone.

He then identified the corresponding cartouche with the name written in hieroglyphics.

That allowed him to write the seven letters -- P-T-O-L-M-Y-S -- opposite the seven hieroglyphs.

He was able to read the cartouche of Queen Cleopatra by isolating the three symbols for L-O-P, already identified in the Ptolemy cartouche.

And then he matched the missing letters with the six unidentified hieroglyphs by comparing them to an obelisk inscribed with the queen's name in both hieroglyphics and ancient Greek.

♪♪ The cartouches contained the phonetic transcriptions of Greek names, but what could he do with the names of the pharaohs that ruled before Greek colonization?

And that's where Champollion's genius came into play.

♪♪ The young scholar was a language enthusiast.

At just 13, he studied Hebrew, Arabic, Syriac, and Aramaic.

As an adult, he began to wonder if learning Coptic -- a late form of ancient Egyptian -- would help him understand the hieroglyphics.

♪♪ -[ Speaking French ] -At the beginning of our era, the Egyptians abandoned the hieroglyphic system and transcribed their language using the Greek alphabet.

That's what we call Coptic.

Coptic language and writing would then endure in the liturgical texts of Coptic Orthodox Christians.

In the 19th century, Champollion could read and write Coptic, and he relied on this continuity between the language transcribed by hieroglyphs and Coptic texts to unlock the secret of hieroglyphs.

-With his understanding of Coptic, Champollion was able to translate a new cartouche, in which he could identify the letter "S." And the first hieroglyph of the name seemed to be a sun, which in Coptic is pronounced "Ra."

He was just missing the hieroglyph in the middle.

He thought the name might be Rameses, one of the greatest pharaohs, whose memory lived on despite the disappearance of hieroglyphics.

Champollion immediately turned to another cartouche, which began with an image of an ibis, symbolizing the god Thoth.

If his theory about Rameses was correct, the second symbol was perhaps an "M." And the last sign he knew -- the "S." So "Thot-m-s"?

Thutmose, another famous pharaoh mentioned in Greek texts.

Champollion had done it.

He had cracked the hieroglyphic code.

And he understood that the writing was both figurative and phonetic.

It would now be possible to study ancient Egyptian society at a much deeper level.

♪♪ ♪♪ [ Indistinct conversations ] 200 years later, the heirs of Champollion's discoveries continue his work.

-And just before, you have the two points.

-The extensive inscriptions on the walls of Padiamenope's tomb are now considered primary funerary texts, collections of incantations to help the deceased in the afterlife.

Padiamenope left behind much more than a tomb.

He created a library of hieroglyphic texts, unique in Egypt.

The texts reveal the civilization myths of ancient Egypt, describing how the society viewed the world.

They believed Ra, the sun god, fought off evil creatures who wanted to keep him a prisoner of the night.

During this expedition, Isabelle Régen is determined to decipher the rest of the sacred text.

-[ Speaking French ] -Here is the first hour of the Book of Amduat.

The sun has just set.

It's gone into the depths of the earth.

In his night-boat, with Iuf -- the nocturnal form of the sun with his ram's head.

And before him, kneeling in adoration, is Padiamenope, whose title and name are indicated here.

The sun god's night-boat has an entire crew to help him safely reach the hour when he'll rise at the end of the night.

-It seems that, on the walls of his tomb, Padiamenope inserted himself into the story of Ra, placing himself in the deity's boat.

-[ Speaking French ] -As the hours go by, there are various events.

Padiamenope is actively involved, hauling the sun god's boat, harpooning Apophis, the serpent that tries to stop the boat from progressing.

He's very actively involved in the journey and even performs a ritual dance for the sun god.

-According to the text, if during the night Padiamenope is unable to bring the sun god's boat home safely, the sun will not rise, and the world will end.

And so, every morning, when the sun reappears, all living beings bow down before the sun god to celebrate his victory, that of life over death.

-[ Speaking French ] -Padiamenope's version is very original.

Into the sacred text, he inserts his own name and title.

So there's the presence of the man of letters but also the desire to promote himself.

-According to a tradition dating back to the Old Kingdom, it's the pharaoh who is typically seen in the boat, kneeling before Ra.

So why has Padiamenope taken the pharaoh's place?

Pride?

Or devotion?

Isabelle Régen's work provides the answer.

He replaces the pharaoh as defender of Ra to ensure that, after his death, he will rise every day with the sun -- a way of guaranteeing eternal life in the Land of the Dead.

But having the protection of the sun god wasn't enough.

He also wanted to earn the favor of Osiris, the god of the dead.

-[ Speaking French ] -We're in Room IX of the tomb, which has two walls dedicated to the famous "Weighing of the Heart."

-Here, too, Padiamenope plays a key role in one of the most important parts of the Egyptian Book of the Dead.

Anubis, who guides dead souls in the afterlife, puts a feather on one side of a scale and then places the deceased's heart on the other.

For the deceased to continue on into the afterlife, their heart must be as light as the feather -- proof that they have committed no evil deeds.

Thoth, the god of wisdom and writing, notes the result of the weighing on his tablet.

If the scale does not balance, indicating the soul is impure, Ammit, the devourer of the dead, lies in wait to eat the heart.

And when that happened, the deceased could not continue living in the afterlife.

The whole scene takes place before Osiris, who oversees this divine tribunal.

He will decide whether the deceased is pure or if he dies forever.

Why does Padiamenope show such devotion to Osiris?

Was he trying to win the god's favor?

♪♪ ♪♪ Egyptologists have a theory about why Padiamenope's name appears on the walls of his tomb dozens of times.

Ancient Egyptians believed hieroglyphics possessed an important property.

They helped ensure eternal life.

As long as visitors to the tomb read his name, Padiamenope would be assured of his place in the afterlife.

-For the ancient Egyptians, the word was incredibly powerful.

Words are magical.

If you write something down, it has power, and once you say it, it gives it even more power.

It ritualizes the whole thing, and so it's the same way than in any magic, even today, no matter where you are.

If you give someone a name, they have power over you.

So words have power, and one of the creation myths of the ancient Egyptians was the god would think and then he would speak and it would come into being.

-For Egyptians, the act of preservation, be it in writing a text or embalming a body, was a critical practice to ensure their place in the afterlife.

♪♪ -[ Speaking French ] -To dig and decorate a tomb of such a size must have taken a good 20 years, if not more.

And, certainly, in terrible conditions.

We know there were several crews working on the tombs at the same time.

When the excavators were working in the deepest sections, scribes and craftsmen had already begun decorating the first rooms, which were finished.

-Who were these builders and craftsmen who dug and decorated the tombs?

The knowledge and training that made Padiamenope's tomb so dazzling can be traced back eight centuries to a unique archaeological site not far from TT33.

♪♪ It's a village where the men who worked on royal tombs lived and learned how to create the intricate, inscribed texts.

-Here we are at Deir el-Medina, which is one of the most important places in Egypt.

It's the workmen's village, and these are the people who decorated the tombs of the kings and the Valley of the Queens, and here, this is in the west bank of Thebes, where the Valley of the Queens, which they also decorated, is there.

The Valley of the Kings is just over there, and also the nobles' tombs and the temples are very close by.

You can see different degrees of specialization, and that's, of course, because people were always learning the craft.

So the fathers would be teaching their children but probably also the priest would help in terms of the reading and the writing, but you can see with the ostracon where people are clumsily writing out their hieroglyphs like their baby ABCs, and then they get very confident.

-The village was built at the time of Thutmose I, more than 3,500 years ago.

The workmen would leave the village at the beginning of each week to dig, construct, and decorate the tombs of the pharaohs.

At the end of the New Kingdom, the site was abandoned and became buried in the sand, and the objects left behind by the inhabitants were discovered on digs in the early 20th century.

♪♪ -As part of a mission led by the Institute, Cédric Larcher oversees and coordinates researchers from around the world who gather at the site for two months every year.

Their aim is to study the remains found in the village to better understand the work of these unsung craftsmen.

-[ Speaking French ] -This is our place of work, our laboratory where the mission's researchers work on objects found directly on the ground.

Gersande is analyzing the different types of wood found on the site.

Zachary and Ahmed are scanning our database to find out what this object was used for, what's written on it, and to establish the context of where it was found on the site.

♪♪ This is an ostracon.

These ostraca have been found in large quantities at Deir el-Medina.

They're fragments of limestone or potsherds, which were used as writing tablets by the inhabitants there.

The ostraca give us a lot of information about everyday local life, as they mention events or consist of lists of workers and their families.

But some of them were used to practice writing, which shows that people undertook apprenticeships in writing here at Deir el-Medina.

They copied out classic texts again and again until not only did they know them by heart, but they could also write all the signs.

We imagine that the apprentice had models and he had to keep carving the same sign until he could reproduce the volume expected by the teacher.

-For the letters to each other, you would use hieratic, which is basically hieroglyphs but a more relaxed form, so it is the same way that hieroglyphs are like capital letters, very formal, and hieratic is joined-up cursive writing.

-99% of ancient Egypt's population was illiterate, but that was not the case for the community of craftsmen living at Deir el-Medina.

And the men were organized so that the work was spread evenly across the tombs.

-[ Speaking French ] -Among the important ostraca found on the site is one now kept at the British Museum, which contains information about the organization of work at the royal tombs.

Here, written in hieratic, are the names of the workers, with a list of the days they were present or absent.

Scribes kept daily registers.

They'd take a roll call to see who was there and who wasn't.

We have some of the excuses presented by the absent -- "So-and-so absent for a family funeral" and so on.

And along with the lists of workers are the names of the chief builders who oversaw their work at the tombs.

-The workflow in the tomb included a variety of tasks, following a meticulously planned schedule.

First, the excavators dug into a limestone vein in the mountain, which had been carefully located beforehand.

It was grueling work.

The men only had wooden mallets and bronze chisels to excavate the rock.

Steel tools didn't exist in the ancient Egypt of 3,500 years ago.

Others then removed the rubble from inside the tomb.

Next came the polishers, who smoothed the floors and walls.

Draftsmen would then trace grids on the walls.

These served as the framework for the outline scribes, who used red ink to sketch figurative scenes and texts, which would be inscribed later.

♪♪ Next came the engravers, who carved the stone with wooden mallets and fine copper chisels, following the previously sketched guide.

And the final step -- painters colored the carved scenes and hieroglyphs.

♪♪ -[ Speaking French ] -We've found a large number of paintbrushes of varying shapes and sizes, depending on their use.

Some brushes were used for applying stucco or painting the first layer on the walls to be decorated.

Finer brushes were used to paint the figures or hieroglyphs.

-Elizabeth Bettles wants to find the name of each artist whose work appears in another tomb in the Theban necropolis.

With tireless determination, this British paleography expert works to identify the painter of a tomb from the 20th dynasty.

♪♪ -Everybody's handwriting is different.

Everybody's handwriting is unique.

Today as it is known that that is the case, and it would have been exactly the same over 3,000 years ago, as this was.

All of this learning about the man who created these hieroglyphs, who painted them, I've got to get to know him.

So I've got to try and find his handwriting style through the shape, through -- of the sign, through how he created the sign, how he spelled things.

And at the moment, I am concentrating on doing individual hieroglyphs to find out what their shape is.

My long-term goal is to create a kind of an interactive database to be able to show people who we can name, who we know who they married, what their children's names were.

So we can learn so much about the people who were literate, who could write.

-You can recognize now the hands of the painters because they each has a special technique, which is marvelous, because, again, you start to connect the finished work of art with the individual.

♪♪ -Although the last artists left Deir el-Medina 800 years before Padiamenope's tomb was built, their skills and traditions began there, to be handed down from generation to generation.

♪♪ The mission goes on.

The Egyptologists have decided to reconstruct, like a vast jigsaw puzzle, the magnificent decoration of the tomb's walls, which time has broken into thousands of pieces.

♪♪ For help, they have called on archaeologist Simone Nannucci.

This morning, while digging in the tomb's first rooms, he discovered more information about Padiamenope.

♪♪ -[ Speaking native language ] -While digging, we found thousands of fragments from the walls, pillars, and ceiling.

The aim of our research is to place them in their original position.

-This part probably came from this, the southern wall of the room, where we can see Padiamenope's mummy before his tomb, and here, part of his title, "Rehrireb" or "Rehritep" -- lector-priest.

-Look at the detail in the ears and nostrils!

-The stele.

-I hadn't noticed that.

So it's a representation of the tomb we're in right now!

-Right.

In its ideal state.

-Padiamenope must be very happy in the afterlife!

We never stop mentioning his name!

This is so moving.

-The carved walls of temples and tombs aren't the only sources available to archeologists documenting the history of this civilization.

5,000 years ago, ancient Egyptians also created a material akin to paper from the stalk of a plant that grows along the banks of the Nile -- papyrus.

In the 19th century, ancient Egyptian papyri became collectors' items.

Bernardino Drovetti, France's consul in Cairo at the time, made a business of selling texts that were several millennia old.

The king of Piedmont paid him a fortune to put together a collection.

The king was able to open the Museo Egizio in 1824 that included statues, objects, and papyri.

What did the man who made it possible think about the new museum in Italy?

-When the Drovetti collection was acquired, they hope to bring the man who had found the key to ancient Egypt to Turin.

So Champollion accepts their invitation.

He is not at all happy about the fact that France has not acquired the collection, but Turin has.

And so he's credited with that famous saying that, "The road to Memphis and Thebes goes through Turin."

-But once he arrived in Turin, Champollion had a change of heart.

He spent the next eight months at the museum studying papyri that he described as being "beyond words."

He made extraordinary discoveries while restoring the papyri fragments brought back from Egypt by Drovetti.

Today, the scientists at the Museo Egizio are busy restoring and piecing together papyri, continuing Champollion's work.

While at the museum, he used its collection to create a foundational work in Egyptology -- the Turin King List, as it's sometimes called -- which helped establish the chronology of Pharaonic dynasties.

-Chronology is one of the primary concerns of Champollion when he arrives in Turin.

Champollion is confronted with a rich collection such as he has never seen before.

Among the fragmentary papyrus that Champollion was confronted with was one that was a list of royal names -- the Turin Canon or the Papyrus of Kings, a list of kings starting from the time of the gods and all the way into historical times and until, presumably, the time of Ramses II, under whom this list was compiled.

It is one of the fundamental historical documents of Egyptology.

-Champollion threw himself into his work with the Turin papyri.

But he hoped to return to Egypt, sail up the Nile deep into Nubia, and continue studying hieroglyphics carved directly on monuments.

♪♪ ♪♪ It took him two years, but he was able to organize an expedition of 14 scholars and scientists who would travel for 18 months, analyzing the main sites of antiquity that were seen during the Bonaparte mission.

It was an immense task.

♪♪ -[ Speaking French ] -Champollion is the father of Egyptology not just because he deciphered hieroglyphs, but also because of his contribution to every field that constitutes the science -- his work on Egyptian religion, his work on the Turin Royal Canon and the lists of the pharaohs, and so on.

-Champollion's chronology of pharaohs stopped at Rameses II, from the 19th dynasty.

But the empire lasted another 700 years.

Later scholars would complete the timeline through the Roman period.

Claude Traunecker used the Turin King List to date TT33 to roughly the 7th century BCE.

But in order to understand Padiamenope better, he must now determine which pharaoh the scribe served.

-[ Speaking French ] -How come a man of such importance never speaks of his king in his tomb?

From time to time, he says, "I was an important man.

The king of my day counted a lot on me," but he never names him.

-Which pharaoh relied on Padiamenope so heavily?

The tomb next to his, that of Mentuemhat, governor of Upper Egypt and mayor of Thebes in the 7th century BCE, provides Traunecker with the answer.

-[ Speaking French ] -Genuine power was held for about 10 years by Mentuemhat, the man who built the great pylon, which you can see behind me.

How does Padiamenope fit in here?

I think they were just about contemporaries, or there's perhaps 10 years between them, because there are the same features found in Mentuemhat's tomb as that of Padiamenope.

So I believe that Padiamenope was the religious adviser to King Taharqa.

-Taharqa.

The Louvre contains several depictions of the most famous king of the 25th dynasty -- black pharaohs from the Kingdom of Kush.

♪♪ -The Nubian dynasty was already impregnated with Egyptian culture when it was established because they came from Sudan, Upper Nubia, which had been colonized by Egypt and had gone through a long acculturation process.

So the Nubian elite was well-adapted to the customs and religion of the Egyptians.

They were more royalist than the king, so to speak, because they advocated a return to original purity.

♪♪ Padiamenope participated in this antiquity revival movement, which was very fashionable at the time.

He illustrated inside his tomb, with texts on the pyramids and on sarcophagi, which hadn't been in use for almost 2,000 years, to show how erudite he was to visitors, because part of his tomb was meant to attract intellectual tourists.

And Padiamenope was a secretary to the king -- at a certain time, at least.

-As a secretary, Padiamenope would have led sacred ceremonies in the pharaoh's absence.

This strange ramp descending to the Nile is proof.

It was constructed during Taharqa's reign, under the supervision of Padiamenope.

A text in Padiamenope's tomb helped Traunecker make the connection.

-[ Speaking French ] -"I constructed a mooring space," which means a quayside.

This tells us he was in charge of construction work in Karnak, but as lector-priest, he was also in charge of the ceremonies in Karnak.

He calls himself "he who conducted celebrations and ceremonies in the Temple of Karnak."

So he was a very, very important figure in terms of local worship.

-As part of what they called the Beautiful Festival of the Valley, the people of Thebes gathered together every year for a huge processional.

As a remembrance of the dead, priests would launch a statue or portrait of Amun-Ra into the Nile on a ceremonial boat known as a barque.

The barque would then tour the necropolises at the site.

Padiamenope chose to build his own tomb in a place where the procession would stop each year.

To get a sense of what the festival was like, this wall at the Temple of Luxor commemorates a similar event.

-Padiamenope was very key to this whole connection and this control system that the Nubian pharaohs had.

So Taharqa depended on Padiamenope to, in fact, guide him, almost, through the idea of Egypt's religion and the texts.

♪♪ -As Egyptologists have noted, many of the chapels inside the Karnak complex are dedicated to the god Osiris and date from the period of the Nubian pharaohs.

It is difficult to know whether Padiamenope had any influence on the revival of Osiris worship.

But for Salima Ikram, it's undeniable that the architecture of the chapels was a source of inspiration for Padiamenope.

Life in ancient Egypt revolved around ensuring a place in the afterlife.

Perhaps Padiamenope hoped that dedicating his tomb to Osiris would help him after death.

A closer look at the architecture of his tomb offers some insight into his thinking.

It was structured as several distinct sections.

The first was undoubtedly open to all visitors.

But the second section was reserved solely for pilgrims worshiping Osiris.

-[ Speaking French ] -Imagine that we are not regular tomb tourists, but pilgrims come to worship at the altar of Osiris.

We turn right.

To access here, you need a special key.

I even wonder whether there was an entrance fee.

-It's possible Padiamenope built a tomb that would generate revenue to help pay for its upkeep.

-Once through this door, we reach the cenotaph room.

What's a cenotaph?

A pretend tomb.

It looks like a tomb, with all the decoration of the time, but there's no body inside.

So what did the pilgrims do once they were here?

They walked around, singing canticles.

I think they would sing the texts inscribed at the tops of the walls.

-The cenotaph served as a pilgrimage destination for worshipers of Osiris.

And Traunecker is still studying the tomb's third section, which he describes as being private.

To access the third section, one must descend the infamous shaft in Room XII that terrified visitors and earned the tomb the legend of being cursed.

From there, it's down a passageway to Room XIX.

-[ Speaking French ] -Here's the famous scene "Awakening Osiris," which must have covered the entire wall.

The central part features the god Osiris.

Before him is his son Horus, who is holding the symbol of life under his father's nose.

The hieroglyphs say, "Waking up."

-A second shaft descends even further into a strange room which resembles a sarcophagus from the Old Kingdom.

Technically, it's the last room in the tomb.

Any pillagers entering here could go no further.

It appears there was nowhere else to go.

But Padiamenope has created a secret burial chamber above the room.

The ceiling had to be smashed before Padiamenope's real burial chamber could be entered.

And it is a revelation.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ The decoration on the walls and ceiling of the chamber rival those of the Sistine Chapel.

And Egyptologists have worked to restore them nearly to their original state.

♪♪ -[ Speaking French ] -Padiamenope clearly wanted to conceal the entrance to this last room, where he was probably buried.

But as we found no remains of a sarcophagus, the latest hypothesis to be put forward is that his mummy was inside a wooden coffin placed on a funerary bed, possibly in the central part of the room.

This hypothesis is based on the fact that on the east and west walls of this chamber, between the niches which must have held statuettes... ...there are images of guardian genies, deities, who were supposed to protect Padiamenope's body.

The same guardian genies that featured to the left and right of "Awakening Osiris."

So the hypothesis is that Padiamenope wanted to reproduce a kind of three-dimensional "Awakening Osiris" in which Padiamenope, on his funerary bed and surrounded by guardian genies, takes the place of Osiris.

-The portrait of the mysterious Padiamenope has become clearer.

Associating himself with the Judge of the Dead and receiving his blessing and good grace was undoubtedly the best guarantee of living eternally in the afterlife.

Exploration of his tomb has revealed an extraordinary figure -- a priest, a scribe, and a scholar who played a crucial role at the pharaoh's court.

Despite the 2,500 years that separate them, Padiamenope and Champollion shared the same fascination with hieroglyphics.

In hindsight, one seems to have placed himself in the footsteps of the other.

-[ Speaking French ] -Both of them wanted to pass on something they possessed.

Padiamenope wanted to pass on his knowledge of history, a much older history of his civilization.

And Champollion wanted to discover and then pass on to his contemporaries all of those wonderful things he had discovered.

-Shortly after returning from his voyage to Egypt, Champollion fell ill.

He died in Paris on March 4, 1832, at age 41.

Despite his early passing, he left behind a vast body of work.

-[ Speaking French ] -By cracking the code of hieroglyphs, Champollion opened the great door to what would become Egyptology, which is still developing today and destined to know even greater developments.

-Today's Egyptologists continue the work Champollion started with his discoveries.

The priority on their next trip will be to conserve the tomb and restore its treasure in order to reveal more of Padiamenope's secrets, deepening our understanding of this ancient civilization and its hieroglyphics.

richardmurray

GAMBLING

Amazing how marijuana is hyper criminalized but gambling is allowed to fly free...

Uniform Resource Locator

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/study-reveals-financial-impact-of-the-sports-betting-boom

Transcript
This Sunday in New Orleans, the Philadelphia Eagles will try to block the Kansas City Chiefs from taking home a historic third consecutive Super Bowl title. But there will also be a historic $1.4 billion riding on the game. Paul Solman reports on the snowballing and potentially perilous sports betting craze.

Read the Full Transcript

Notice: Transcripts are machine and human generated and lightly edited for accuracy. They may contain errors.

Amna Nawaz:

This Sunday in New Orleans, the Philadelphia Eagles will try to block the Kansas City Chiefs from taking home an historic third consecutive Super Bowl title.

There will also be an historic amount of money riding on the game. The American Gaming Association estimates that nearly $1.4 billion will be legally wagered, as Paul Solman reports, proof of a snowballing and potentially perilous sports betting craze.

Eli Manning, Former NFL Player:

I'm doing the FanDuel Kick of Destiny 3 live Super Bowl Sunday.

Paul Solman:

Super Bowl Sunday, our eyes and ears blitzed by calls to get in on the action.

Kevin Hart, Actor:

Now, I know it's the Super Bowl and all, but everyone gets a free bet?

Paul Solman:

Nearly seven years after the Supreme Court struck down the ban on commercial sports betting, 39 states and the District of Colombia have legalized it.

Last year, more than one in three Americans said they'd put money on a game at some point in their life, up from the year before, while the American Gaming Association estimates that commercial sports betting revenue reached more than $14 billion, up 28 percent from 2023.

Rob Minnick, Former Gambler:

And it's gotten to a point where, if you're not betting on sports, people are starting to question why you're watching the game.

Paul Solman:

For 25-year-old Philadelphia resident Rob Minnick, the gambling gateway was fantasy sports played as a teenager. The switch to sports betting, which he began on illegal and offshore sites before turning the legal age of 21, was all too easy.

Rob Minnick:

If I was going to hang out with my friends or a family event was going to be happening, the center focal point was a professional sport of some kind. And so this idea that we could do what we were already doing, but now make money doing it, it was like way too good to be true. And it was.

Paul Solman:

Too good because fun with friends became six to eight hours a day of compulsive gambling.

Rob Minnick:

Gambling was my way of expressing myself to prove I was smart, to prove I could win, to prove that I was worthy. And the money kind of reflected the scoreboard.

Paul Solman:

After six years of betting, he joined Gamblers Anonymous, eventually kicking his habit two years ago, and now hosting a podcast "One Day At a Time: Gambling Awareness," talking to people like himself about their struggles.

Man:

I started sports gambling, which was really what was my biggest vice, when I was 19.

Rob Minnick:

I'm going to call this an epidemic of addiction that's heading towards the United States, if not already hitting the United States. It's not because the doors opened up and you got access. It's because the doors opened up and people started pulling you through those doors.

Man:

All right, boys, who are we betting on?

Paul Solman:

With the ads and come-ons that now buffet us all. Of course, gambling addiction is nothing new, but understanding how big the problem is difficult, as there's no comprehensive national data.

The National Council on Problem Gambling estimates about 2.5 million Americans meet the criteria for severe gambling problem, while another 2 percent to 3 percent have a mild or moderate problem. And recent studies found that legal sports betting decreased household savings and investments, led to more bankruptcies and loan delinquencies, even contributed to a rise in domestic violence.

Harry Levant, Northeastern University:

I made my last bet on April 27, 2014, and on that same night, nearly took my own life.

Paul Solman:

Former lawyer Harry Levant, disbarred for stealing some $2 million from client funds to fuel his gambling addiction. Now a licensed counselor and advocate for reform, Levant testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee in December.

Harry Levant:

We have known for more than 12 years that gambling is an addictive product and gambling disorder is an addiction similar to heroin, opioids, tobacco, alcohol and cocaine.

Paul Solman:

Levant's own struggles began well before the advent of widespread legal sports betting, and he acknowledges that states now receive a cut of gambling revenues to build roads, schools and even fund treatment, like the 1-800 gambler help lines tagging those ads you see everywhere.

And so:

Harry Levant:

I'm sympathetic to the need of our elected officials to balance budgets, but what has happened here is, they have no recognition or very little recognition of the product the gambling industry and its sports and media partners have rolled out.

Narrator:

This is you, and this is your powerful hunch.

Paul Solman:

He's pointing to the boom in offerings since the ban was lifted.

Narrator:

With FanDuel, it's easier than ever to…

Paul Solman:

Proposition bets, wagers on the first player to score a touchdown at the Super Bowl,the length of the national anthem there, whether Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce get engaged.

Jamie Foxx, Actor:

BetMGM has got all the sports betting in one place and it's live, baby.

Paul Solman:

There's live betting, which turns every moment of every game into a betting opportunity, and with A.I. constantly adjusting the odds.

Narrator:

You have got the power to create your perfect parlay any way you want.

Paul Solman:

And there are parlays, which string together multiple bets, giving winners potentially sky-high payouts, but stacking the deck hugely in favor of the house, a fact that is not advertised.

Man:

And we will take an 18 again.

Man:

Yes, yes.

Man:

We will get our money back.

Paul Solman:

Finally, livestreaming on both legal and offshore sites, and featuring influencers like mega-rapper Drake…

Man:

You want $20,000. Congratulations, man.

Paul Solman:

… who is paid to play and lure in new players.

All the while, the sports books harvest data from users, gaining insight into how to keep customers coming back.

Harry Levant:

I'd like to say it this way. When the first cave person invented the first wheel, there was some schmuck three caves down laying 3-1 the wheel wouldn't work. Gambling has been around a very long time. It's not going anywhere.

But this is a fundamentally new, different, defective and dangerous online product.

Paul Solman:

Last year, Senator Richard Blumenthal and Representative Andrea Salinas, both Democrats, introduced the Gambling Recovery Investment and Treatment Act to fund treatment and also research.

Five states with some form of legal gambling currently offer no funding at all for the treatment, and in September Blumenthal joined Democratic representative Paul Tonko of New York to propose the SAFE Bet Act to limit TV ads, restrict the number and the type of bets, ban A.I. use to track players habits and create micro-bets, among other things.

Harry Levant:

Every other addictive product, government regulates the advertising, promotion, distribution, and consumption.

Paul Solman:

Sitting just behind Harry Levant at that Senate hearing in December was the American Gaming Association's Joe Maloney. The AGA says federal regulation not only isn't necessary; it will actually make things.

Joe Maloney, American Gaming Association:

The advancements in technology are just going to continue to take place. They're just not going to take place in the legal regulated market.

Paul Solman:

This is the key to the legal industry's argument, that it's taking the action away from illegal gambling, with its loan sharks, kneecappers, and unregulated offshore markets that teenagers like Rob Minnick use.

So, for example, in 2022, in Texas and California, which haven't legalized sports betting, the AGA says players spent more than $600 million in the illegal markets.

Joe Maloney:

Where they're prey to deceptive consumer practices, where there's no promotion of responsibility whatsoever, and there's zero taxes being remitted back into the state for the purposes of providing accessible clinical support for those demonstrating problematic activity or any other priority that they might deem those monies to go to.

Paul Solman:

The SAFE Bet act is expected to be reintroduced in this Congress, although both Rob Minnick and Harry Levant agree, the legal gambling genie is out of the bottle.

Harry Levant:

I encourage people to become more aware of what is happening and understand there are serious risks involved and become part of the conversation to bring public health reform, not to prevent people from enjoying gambling, but to prevent an industry and its partners from preying on the public.

And, with that, I wish people who are gambling on a Super Bowl for recreational reasons, I wish them well with their bets. Enjoy the game. I'm in Philadelphia right now. I need to say, go, birds.

Paul Solman:

For the uninitiated, those birds would be the Eagles.

And for you all and the "PBS News Hour," Paul Solman in Boston.

richardmurray

King Arthur's Lost Kingdom from Secrets of the Dead
MY THOUGHTS
So the angles+ saxons were scandanavian farmers who intermated with the peoples of the british isles focusing on trade to denmark to germany, focused to the east[modern day southern/eastern central england], then in the west[modern day wales, western england] the people of the british isles traded with the mediterranean, the sea lanes from the eastern meditteranean through the Jabal Tariq.north around the coast to tintagel. Which i realize now is like AL hambra in Spain, the last viestiges of a militaristically+financially powerful region that exist foreignly to its neighbors/
VIDEO

Uniform Resource Locator
https://www.pbs.org/wnet/secrets/king-arthurs-lost-kingdom-king-arthurs-lost-kingdom-about-the-film/4069/

TRANSCRIPT

-In the rich recorded history of Great Britain, one period is shrouded in mystery and clouded by myth.

After an occupation lasting nearly 400 years, in 410 AD, the Roman army abandoned the island.

History holds that Britain then plunged into two centuries of turmoil and violence... known as the Dark Ages.

Legends tell of a great leader who unites the lawless land to fight off an invading horde -- King Arthur.

But how much truth is there to the story?

♪♪ Now, new archaeological discoveries are rewriting this chapter in Britain's history.

-It's really clear!

-With exclusive access to unprecedented new finds... -When you look at their bones, you find a very, very low incidence of weapon injury, sword cuts.

-...and using groundbreaking science... -It was one of those total wow moments.

-...Professor Alice Roberts pieces together the real story... -It's just absolutely phenomenal.

We've got continuous occupation all along this strip which is immense.

-...to reveal how 5th and 6th century Britain was anything but dark.

-We're not looking at an abandoned landscape of desperate poverty.

-It's not necessarily the truth.

-It's about as far removed from history as you can get.

-Modern archaeology could finally uncover the true story of King Arthur's Lost Kingdom.

♪♪ ♪♪ -In 410 AD, Britain suffered a political catastrophe.

The Roman Empire that covered most of Western Europe had become over-stretched, weakened by infighting and external attacks.

After 400 years of prosperity, the Roman aristocracy, troops and bureaucrats left the island.

♪♪ -Dies tenebrosa sicut nox.

It's a brilliant, evocative way of saying "Welcome to the Dark Ages."

-The common belief is that the Roman departure had a devastating impact across Britain.

Without Roman authority, society collapses.

The roads and towns fall into ruin.

Civilization crumbles.

The era after Roman rule became known as the Dark Ages.

But the truth is, almost nothing is known about what life was really like.

-For the period 400 to 600 -- that's 200 years, that's 8, 10 generations -- we know the names of... you can kind of count them on two hands.

For the whole of the period 400 to 600, in the British Isles we have 2 or 3 people whose writing we have fragments of.

-In the absence of recorded history, stories about one powerful leader became popular -- The great King Arthur.

But what truth, if any, lies behind the legend?

What was 5th-century Britain really like?

Professor Alice Roberts, an expert in archaeology and human remains, wants to separate fact from fiction using scientific discoveries- and find out what really happened at this pivotal moment in history.

♪♪ Her journey to uncover the truth about King Arthur's Britain begins at the British Library in London.

She's meeting Julian Harrison, the Curator of Medieval Manuscripts.

-So this is Geoffrey.

-Here we have one of the earliest copies of Geoffrey of Monmouth's "History of the Kings of Britain."

-It's a copy of a 12th-century bestseller.

The writing on the animal-skin parchment is still crystal clear.

-The script is so beautiful.

It's so regular.

That's fantastic.

-900 years ago, a Welsh monk, Geoffrey of Monmouth, wrote his own account of the history of Britain.

His chronicle told of a King Arthur who ruled 600 years before Geoffrey's time.

-Here we are.

Here's the page I want to show you.

-Geoffrey's manuscript is in Latin, the written language of medieval Britain.

-I can recognize the odd word here.

I can see concept and then "eadem nocte."

-" Eadem nocte."

So, this tells you that on this night, "eadem nocte," was conceived, celebrated, King Arthur, "Arturus," "Arturum."

-According to Geoffrey, the mythical king has a rather bizarre conception.

Arthur's father asked the wizard Merlin to cast a spell to disguise him as the Duke of Cornwall, so he could seduce the Duke's wife.

-He's in the appearance of her husband and he satisfies himself, and as a result on that particular night, on that particular occasion Arthur was conceived.

-That moment as those words appear on the page, that's the beginning of King Arthur as we know him.

♪♪ -A remote rocky outcrop called Tintagel in the far west of Britain is where Arthur's story begins.

-It's in the top line there.

-That looks like "dece" to me.

-It says "dei" and then there's a new word.

-Tin-ta-gol.

-"Tintagol."

Exactly.

-Is this the first association of Tintagel as a place with Arthur?

-It is indeed.

-Packed with sex and violence, Geoffrey's account unfolds like a modern-day action movie.

-It's full of excitement, it's full of horror, it's full of lots of things that an audience would love.

-And eager to please his Christian audience, Geoffrey came up with the perfect bad guys.

With the Romans gone, the ancient Britons are vulnerable to attack.

In Geoffrey's retelling, pagan tribes known as the Angles and the Saxons swarm in from modern-day Holland, Germany and Denmark.

Their armies invade the east coast of Great Britain, destroying everything in their path.

-I suppose he gives us this idea today that the Romans abandoned Britain to its fate and when the Romans go it is just chaos.

There's plagues, there's civil war, there's the Saxons just slaughtering everybody.

So it's real blood and thunder stuff.

-But according to Geoffrey, Arthur comes out of the West, unites the Britons, and leads the counter attack.

The result is a split country.

Embattled Britons in the west and in the east, new Angle and Saxon hordes, that later historians combine into a single entity -- the Anglo-Saxons.

This is King Arthur's Britain.

-In his account to simplify it, yes, you get, you get this sense of the Britons are the ones who are defending everything that is right and good.

You get this sort of frontier line between these two constantly warring factions.

It is "us against them."

It is Britons against the Anglo-Saxons.

The Anglo-Saxons are the forces of evil that need to be destroyed.

Britons and Saxons are killing one another, and that's Arthur's world, that is where he existed.

-Here it talks about his sword, "g ladio optimo."

-The best sword.

-And that was called Caliburno.

-Caliburn-- Is that Excalibur?

-This is Excalibur.

-Yes!

-But in the original it was called Caliburn.

-Arthur's sword is a weapon of mass destruction.

-It tells you that with Caliburn alone, Arthur killed some 470 men single-handedly.

He went berserk, essentially.

-470 victims in a single rush.

I mean that is -- it's too extraordinary to believe, obviously.

I mean, he's being portrayed here as... -He's a superhero essentially.

-Yeah, yeah.

-Geoffrey's book is the first reference to a King Arthur that we have.

Earlier accounts written closer to the Dark Ages don't mention a king named Arthur, but they do describe a violent invasion.

The earliest description was written by a monk named Gildas.

A few fragments of his text are still legible.

-He's writing in the 6th century.

And he isn't writing so much a work of history.

It's more a polemical text, criticizing the Britons and blaming their evil ways, their bad ways of living with that's why they were conquered by the Saxons.

This is one of the few passages we can still read now but he talks about the -- like ravishing wolves.

The Saxons are loopy.

-Loopy yeah.

-They are obviously destroying.

In Gildas' terminology, they are destroying everything in their wake.

-So, again this is a, this is an invading force.

This is the arrival of the enemy essentially.

-Precisely.

-And the difficulty with these kind of accounts I think is that, is that you're almost getting a single view of how this happened.

-Both Geoffrey and Gildas's histories are highly subjective, making it difficult to take them at face value.

They can't be trusted as fact, but they have given Professor Roberts something specific to investigate.

They both describe a massive invasion from the east and the native Britons resisting in the west.

And the archaeological evidence supports this idea -- Anglo-Saxon artifacts have primarily been found in eastern Britain.

If great wars were fought, evidence of mass slaughter and conflict should lie along this frontier line of their supposed occupation.

Archaeologist Dominic Powlesland has been flying, digging and mapping a vast area on the eastern side of this imagined border, near the village of West Heslerton in Yorkshire.

-Clear prop.

Okay, ready Dominic?

-Yeah, I'm ready.

-Right, hold on tight here we go.

Golf-Romeo-Romeo rolling.

-Will Dominic's research confirm the written accounts of a full-scale foreign invasion?

-These fields underneath us are entirely filled with archaeology.

There's archaeology in every single one.

-Dominic uses modern technology to map every single artifact relating to the Anglo-Saxons found over 25 square miles of what is today farmland.

It's taken an army of volunteers 40 years to complete their survey.

-We've surveyed all these fields.

-Roberts is here to find out what the hard work reveals about life on the alleged frontier of King Arthur's Britain.

Key to the process is geophysical surveying -- a technique that uses ground-penetrating radar to map traces of ancient structures.

-So, every single spot here is a feature?

-Yeah.

So, all those dots are individual features.

You can zoom in to this area here.

-Click on that we get all the finds information.

-Oh, wow!

-That's the plan, this is the distribution of finds within it.

-It just goes on and on!

You've got thousands of finds coming out of every single one of these features, and hundreds of these features.

I mean, that's a phenomenal amount of data.

-Yeah.

About a million finds altogether.

-What Dominic has found is extraordinary.

But even more amazing is what he hasn't found.

There are no mass graves of defeated warriors.

No signs of battle or conquest... anywhere.

There is no evidence here for mass slaughter of local Britons by violent Angle and Saxon tribes.

-I have never seen any evidence of an invasion.

♪♪ -And the Anglo-Saxon skeletons show few signs of violence.

-Once you start killing people in large numbers they leave themselves lying around, you can't avoid them.

So, we don't see lots of Anglo-Saxons with massive injuries.

-When you look at their bones you find a very, very low incidence of weapon injuries, sword cuts.

This is a society that is playing with the idea of a military world, but doesn't actually seem to be engaging with physical conflict to a huge degree.

-And the findings here are backed up elsewhere.

-Here's a very, very good piece of science -- of all the dead bodies dug up that may belong to the period 400 to 600 -- and we have thousands of them -- men and women, children, old people, young people.

But of all those thousands of bodies, if you ask the number of those bodies that have sharp-edge weapon injuries, it's less than two percent.

Where do battles fit into that?

-The archaeology makes it very clear -- there was no large-scale conflict.

It's a stark departure from Geoffrey and Gildas's written accounts -- the idea of native Britons fighting the invading Angles and Saxons doesn't reflect what's being found on the ground.

Instead, the archaeology reveals exactly what the Angles and Saxons who came to Britain were doing.

Dominic has pulled together all the data in what he calls The Wallpaper.

-It's just phenomenal because all of that work comes together to give you a picture of a landscape which is so densely settled.

-Yeah.

-The Anglo-Saxons weren't blood-thirsty warriors.

They were farmers.

-We've got settlements here.

There's one here.

There, of course there's this large one at West Heslerton.

We've identified 14, probably now 15 settlements.

-Anglo-Saxon buildings dominated the landscape.

The settlers imported their traditional, northern European building style.

Structures were built in wood with thatch roofs -- a style known as Grubenhauser.

-So, these blobs here are the Grubenhauser.

-All of these little blobs?

-You see big houses there, big houses here, and lots of these Grubenhauser.

You will also see this hamlet here, a hamlet there, a load of buildings there, a load here.

You see -- it's all joined up.

There's stuff everywhere.

-In the Anglo-Saxon period, this area was densely settled -- hundreds of buildings in more than a dozen separate communities.

♪♪ -Roger Lima.

Standby to land.

-I think that might be Alice down there.

-Dominic's meticulous research tells a very different story from the common understanding of a violent invasion.

♪♪ -Bit of a bumpy landing there.

-That's okay.

-Are you all right?

-Yeah, I'm fine.

-The picture that's emerging in the east is of a peaceful society, not a violent one.

But what about in the west?

Will archaeologists find any evidence of either violent conflict or a legendary king on this side of Britons' Dark Age Divide?

Professor Roberts has access to a new excavation on the far west coast of Britain.

♪♪ -And it's at Tintagel, the very site where, according to Geoffrey of Monmouth, Arthur is supposed to have been conceived.

♪♪ ♪♪ A major archaeological dig is underway here, on a part of the island that has never been excavated before.

♪♪ Archaeologist Win Scutt is the site's curator.

-So, Win, introduce me to Tintagel from the air then.

What are we looking at?

-Well, it's fantastic, you can already see one of the rectangular buildings that dates to the 5th, 6th Century.

-So, this is the period you're specifically interested in here.

-Absolutely, yes.

-In contrast to the wood and thatch buildings in the east, there were more than 100 stone buildings here.

-Is that more?

-Some more over there, absolutely.

It's a settlement of hundreds of people.

-These simple dwellings were first excavated more than 80 years ago.

But in the summer of 2017, a much grander complex was discovered.

-We're excavating behind these cliffs on -- these are the Southern cliffs and there we are, it's coming into view.

-Oh, there are the trenches.

-There are the trenches.

Fantastic, yes.

-And they're at work.

We can spy on them.

That's brilliant.

-Really exciting.

-With only five weeks to dig, the archaeologists rush to gather all the evidence needed to create a detailed portrait of life in the 5th century.

Alice joins site director Jacky Novakowski to understand the significance of the new excavation.

-Once we started taking off the turf, the stone walls started to appear quite quickly.

So, it's been buried over 1,400 years ago and now we are uncovering it for the first time.

-They look very different to me, to the remains of the buildings that I have seen on the eastern side, which again are fifth, sixth century but much smaller stones and much thinner walls.

-They're completely different in terms of build character and the amount of sheer investment that has gone into their build.

I mean, they are substantial.

-Well-built walls, aren't they?

-Yeah, they're extraordinary.

They are over a meter wide, and you can see that they are made of large blocks of slate.

Very blocky material and you've got them laid horizontally forming a really nice coursed wall.

-These buildings were built to impress, I think.

And they're part of this larger complex of other buildings that go off in that direction, and in that direction, so you can see we've got our work cut out.

-The team's findings will be used to create a 3D model of this apparent 5th-century citadel... bringing Tintagel out of the Dark Ages and back to life.

The buildings occupy a natural terrace with a stunning vista.

Their prominent position, substantial size and thick walls indicate a great deal of time and effort was taken in their construction.

There are strong hints that whoever lived here was someone important.

These people weren't farmers like in the east of Britain.

-They do look like they're high status.

This isn't people eking out an existence up here on top of Tintagel.

This is people living well.

-This is people living very well, I think.

A lot more care has gone into the construction of these buildings.

We're working on the idea that these buildings are probably residences, high-status residences.

It's all got the feel of an extraordinary large settlement.

Which is maybe the place where the most powerful person who is living in this area was resident at the time.

-A powerful Dark Ages leader perhaps, but it's still a huge leap to say that it could be King Arthur.

In fact, no one has ever found any proof of the legendary leader's existence, let alone whether he lived at Tintagel.

Just like in the east, the team is unearthing evidence of a peaceful lifestyle.

But it's a much, much more extravagant one.

-That's a good piece.

-Ah, nice.

That is a nice high-quality piece of tableware I'd guess.

There's a rim on the bottom.

That's sat on the table.

Beautiful.

-We've been finding a lot of the fine tablewares.

And even some of the dinner plates, and the storage vessels containing the wine and olive oil are being broken and just discarded around here.

-Whoever lived here was rich.

This is the biggest hoard of this type of high-value pottery dating from the Dark Ages that's ever been found in Britain.

-That is really beautiful.

-And there are even pieces of fine glassware for drinking wine.

♪♪ The artifacts being unearthed at Tintagel are completely different from the Anglo-Saxon ones found all over the eastern side of the country.

In this sense at least, the archaeological evidence and historical accounts are matching up.

5th-century Britain does seem to be a very divided country.

But divided by culture, not violence.

But what happened to the Britons in the eastern half of the country if the Saxons and Angles did not invade or conquer?

In the last decade, more than 100 skeletons have been unearthed in an Anglo-Saxon cemetery in the eastern half of Britain.

And with them, some important new clues.

♪♪ The remains of one of the female skeletons give Professor Roberts a better understanding of everyday 5th-century life.

-My first impressions looking at this skeleton is that this is somebody who was quite gracile, quite slightly built.

I'm looking at these teeth really carefully.

If I look at the molars, she's quite clearly a young woman.

The third molar, the wisdom tooth, comes through 18 to 21 years, and there's just a little bit of wear on that, But then if you look at the front teeth it's completely different.

The enamel has been completely worn away and they're flat on the surface.

So that suggests she's doing something with her front teeth, which isn't just about food processing.

So perhaps using her teeth as a tool, maybe leather working.

Definite use of the teeth just there.

-A fascinating glimpse of life and work in the Dark Ages.

But it's the objects found with her and other skeletons that provide fresh insight.

Alice meets lead investigator Duncan Sayer.

-So, we've got an adult in the middle with two brooches on her shoulder and a load of amber beads.

And next to her is an adolescent.

And we have a child.

-Yes, a small child.

-Small child, yeah.

-It makes you wonder happened, how they ended up in the same grave.

-Well, it does doesn't it?

We've got round brooches and we've got long brooches, we've got cruciform brooches.

We've got all the works really.

-All what you'd expect from an Anglo-Saxon cemetery.

No surprises there.

-No surprises.

Absolutely typical in every way.

-The grave goods suggest these people were part of the newly arrived Anglo-Saxon group.

But archaeological evidence, just like written history, is open to misinterpretation.

So Duncan is using high-energy physics to examine one of the brooches in greater detail.

♪♪ Here at the UK's national facility for synchrotron radiation, a beam of electrons is accelerated almost to the speed of light as it travels around a 600-yard loop.

♪♪ As the electrons move, they throw off intensely-focused X-ray beams that allow for compositional data gathering.

The X-rays let Duncan probe the chemical make-up of a tiny part of the brooch.

♪♪ ♪♪ The results are unexpected.

-Okay.

So, do the blue areas and green areas represent different elements?

-Exactly.

The green bits highlight iron, and the blue bits highlight lead.

The lead tells us that this is glass.

-It's a style of glass work that's been seen before... typical of Britons, not the Angles or Saxons.

The brooch was made locally, not imported.

-What you're doing is you're taking out a glass, grinding it up, and grinding into it the scrapings from the inside of a crucible.

And then you bake it into the holes into the object and it makes enamel.

-Enamel like this was a specifically British production technique.

So although the style of the brooch is typical of continental Angle and Saxon tribes, it's either been made by British hands or by someone who learned from a local.

-So, this is fascinating, because it means that this is not an import from the continent.

It's an imported idea, it's an imported style, but it's a locally made object.

-Exactly.

-What appears to be jewelry imported from Europe was more likely made in Britain.

The results suggest assumptions that these are all Anglo-Saxon skeletons might be wrong.

Something more complicated is going on.

The team needs a way to identify the skeletons scientifically, so they turn to another modern technology -- DNA analysis.

Skeleton 82's DNA is a close match to the DNA found in today's Dutch citizens... She's genetically Anglo-Saxon.

But Skeleton 1 is genetically indigenous -- a match with ancient Britons.

Skeleton 96 is an even bigger surprise -- a hybrid of British and Anglo-Saxon ancestry.

It's a very small sample, but it suggests the Angles and Saxons who arrived from northern Europe didn't suddenly replace the Britons in the east -- they mixed with them.

-People would probably not have thought of themselves as Britons or Anglo-Saxons.

They would probably have thought of themselves in a much more local way than that.

-This is not a period when people would have known that they were members of a particular nation state.

Nation states didn't exist, people didn't have passports, they weren't citizens of one country or another.

-The story of Arthur defending the ancient Britons against an invading army is likely a myth.

Despite Geoffrey and Gildas's accounts, the archaeology shows the Anglo Saxons didn't arrive overnight en masse.

Instead, it was a slow and gradual process, probably over a very long period of time, not murdering the locals, but merging with them.

-There are people coming across the North Sea.

But they're not entirely replacing the group that are here.

They're bringing new styles, new ideas, new ways of talking, new religions which are adding to the mix that's already here.

-It's not a full-scale, you know, replacement of one culture by another.

-Over time, people are trading, intermarrying, even swapping fashions.

-We're seeing Britons adopting Saxon-style brooches.

We're seeing Saxons adopting Roman-style brooches.

-These things wouldn't have been in these very clear-cut identities that we ascribe to today.

It would have been much, much more complex than that.

-Eastern Britain is trading with the Germanic world, with the Saxon world, with Scandinavia.

That's where their fashions, that's where their trade is being connected to.

-Given their geographical proximity, it makes sense that Northern Europeans would have formed connections with Britons in the east rather than the west.

This is a radical new understanding of life after the Romans left Britain.

Far from being conquered, the native Britons in the eastern half of the country seem to have absorbed the incoming Northern Europeans.

It was a time of trade and integration.

But in terms of daily life, little changed.

-I suppose if you think of a sense like if you take America as an example you've got African-Americans, Italian-Americans.

People are adding things to the various pot that is America.

That's what happening in, in Britain in the 5th and 6th century.

-And proof of the true story of the Dark Ages can be found today in modern Britain's DNA.

Researchers at the University of Oxford have collected thousands of DNA samples from people across Britain whose families have lived in the same area for generations.

-We tried to focus on individuals, all of whose grandparents were born in the same area.

So in that sense their DNA had been there at least for two generations and probably quite a long time before that.

-Peter Donnelly's work maps regional variations in British people's genetics in greater detail than ever before.

Alice wants to understand what modern genetics can reveal about Britain's past.

-So, what do we see on this map then?

What do the different colors and different shapes represent?

-So each circle or square or or triangle represents one of the 2,000 individuals we sampled.

And then the combination of color and shape represents a genetic group.

There's a group represented here in pink squares that's one of the genetic groups we saw.

There's another group in blue circles.

There's a large group across much of central and southern England, groups in, in South Wales and North Wales and so on as, as we look through the country.

-And what I find utterly extraordinary about it is you've got all of these different colored clusters, which do seem to be quite localized, and I would just have expected the whole thing to be much more homogeneous.

-It was one of those total wow moments that we don't have too often in our career, but it was really exciting.

-At first, it looks like the genetic map supports the historical accounts of Anglo-Saxons decimating the local population.

-Do you think this pattern of red squares is explained by a massive Anglo-Saxon invasion, replacing everything that was there before?

-That's absolutely not the case.

What's interesting is if you take a typical person in Central and Southern England, that accounts for about 10% of their DNA.

So, we do see evidence of the Anglo-Saxon migration, I think clear evidence of that.

But it certainly wasn't the case that they replaced existing populations.

They contributed to the DNA of modern English people but in the minority of the DNA that's there now.

-The surprise is that Anglo-Saxon DNA has contributed only around 10 percent of the genetic variation.

-What's very clear is that most of the DNA that's carried by someone in Central and Southern England now is DNA that was there before the Saxons arrived.

Not only did they not replace the existing populations, they mixed with them, but they're a relatively small proportion of the ancestry of the people now have.

-Even though the archaeological record now suggests differently, the Anglo-Saxon invasion story still fills the history books, and Anglo-Saxon ideas shaped British culture, not least by inspiring the English language that's spoken all over the world today.

But despite popular belief, the genetics indicate Anglo-Saxon immigrants probably never outnumbered the native Britons.

-Historians and archaeologists have argued for decades if not centuries over whether the appearance of a new culture really means that a whole load of new people came in.

And we've actually never been able to resolve that question and now we're starting to be able to do that.

-What's interesting about genetics is it, by definition it's reflecting what happened to the masses.

Whereas often some of those other sources are colored by the successful elites who impose languages or impose political systems.

-In the east, the native British and Anglo-Saxon people merged on a large scale.

♪♪ But what about the west?

Why does Tintagel seem so wealthy in comparison?

And why is King Arthur so strongly connected to the site?

This is Fort Cumberland, the home of Historic England's Archaeology labs.

Many of the finds from Tintagel are analyzed here.

♪♪ The fort is a scientific production line, turning excavation into information.

♪♪ From the new site at Tintagel, 130 gallons of soil filter through the flotation tanks.

The experts can finally separate the Arthur legend from archaeological fact.

Alice has come to meet pottery specialist Maria Duggan.

She is one of the experts examining the unprecedented haul of pottery shards unearthed at Tintagel... and looking for clues about the lives and identity of the people who lived there.

-So, this is our really characteristic fine-ware form for that late 5th Century, early 6th Century.

And we've got about 14 vessels of the same form.

All slightly different.

-So, that's a bowl is it?

-Yeah, it's a big dish.

So it's actually quite big, it's probably about 30 centimeters.

-The distinctive shape indicates the bowl was not made locally.

-So that's coming from Turkey?

-Sort of Western Turkey.

-Yes, yeah.

-It's come a long way.

-This fragment of pottery connects Tintagel to what would then have been Byzantium in the Eastern Roman Empire.

There are hundreds of pieces to examine.

-The vast majority of the finds are amphorae, so they're storage vessels for transport of wine or olive oil, things like that.

Also other fine wares.

So we've got some North African material.

And also, from southwest France so from the Bordeaux region.

-Right.

So, it's coming in from all over the place.

-Yeah.

-When you find a blooming great sherd of Roman amphorae, and not just one sherd of amphorae, but buckets of the stuff, that tells you that there's trade and diplomacy and interaction and people are moving across the European landscape and seascape.

-These artifacts demonstrate that the Mediterranean and the Atlantic coasts were incredibly well connected to Tintagel.

-Tintagel is producing evidence that's showing us how active those trade routes were in the -- the 5th and 6th centuries, that you do have this material that's coming up from the Mediterranean up the Atlantic Coast and is clearly being valued and perhaps traded up that Atlantic seaboard.

-While eastern Britain interacted with northern Europe, western Britain traded with Byzantium in the Mediterranean.

Tintagel was clearly an important international port of call.

So, what would it have looked like in its heyday?

-Yeah.

-Co-director of the site, James Gossip, has made a detailed architectural survey of the dig.

-Okay.

Can we have a spot height on the hearth, Martin?

-Combining measurements with thousands of photographs creates a perfect virtual record of the new site.

-So, this is towards the sea, isn't it?

-Yup.

You can really see how the buildings are part of a planned design, with shared spaces.

-The complex is laid out over upper and lower terraces.

The upper building has a 32-foot room with a 16-foot side-room.

There's a smaller building next door and a large open courtyard -- all connected by a central path.

-What you can see is a series of steps leading up into this opening in our upper building, connecting the building with the trackway that runs between the two terraces.

-An area of carefully-laid stone floor strongly suggests some rooms may have had a special function.

-It's a really nicely laid surface of fairly thin slates.

What's noticeable about that is how fragile and delicate it was.

When we walked on it, we noticed that, you know, some of the slates might break pretty easily.

-You do wear big boots though, to be fair.

-True, but I tried it out in bare feet as well.

-Unlike the well-worn floors in the rest of the settlement, this section is much more delicate and in pristine condition.

-That suggests that perhaps it's, it's a really quite special floor.

Perhaps it was a space that wasn't really designed to be walked on very often.

What that means about the function of the building we don't really know.

-But I suppose it suggests that it's not an ordinary domestic dwelling.

♪♪ -This new data helps generate the first 3D model of the entire Tintagel site.

The complex may not look opulent to modern eyes, but to Dark Age visitors, it would have felt palatial.

It's among the most substantial post-Roman buildings found in southwest Britain... ...and a complete departure from how we thought people were living at the time.

♪♪ But people weren't just sailing to Tintagel to sell exotic goods.

Tintagel must have had something worth buying.

-For the people who are coming up the Atlantic seaboard they would see Tintagel in the distance, that is the place that they are aiming for, that is their destination.

It's an important harbor that will give them the resources that they want.

-Whoever ruled Tintagel, had access to a rare commodity in high demand across Europe.

The secret to Tintagel's Dark Age wealth and power lies at the end of a quiet country track.

This is a vast tin mine -- just 15 miles away.

Exploited by the Romans, it was still in business at the beginning of the 20th century.

What looks like a natural gorge was once a massive mine -- 120 feet deep, 130 feet wide, and 900 feet long.

♪♪ Tintagel lies on the larger peninsula of Cornwall.

The rocks in this area are one of only three sources of tin in Western Europe.

The metal was one of the reasons the Romans came to Britain in the first place.

-Whoever's been mining that stuff for hundreds of years is going to get rich because the Mediterranean needs those resources.

They will come to you to get them.

-Tin, when mixed with copper, makes bronze -- vital metal for Roman weapons.

Even after the Romans left Britain, Europe continued to buy Cornish tin.

-Whoever controls Tintagel is at the head of a large financial empire.

We mustn't think of them as being on the margins of anything.

They are at the center of a very sort of dominant, successful political world.

-In dramatic contrast to the traditional view of the Dark Ages, trade in the west does not collapse after the Romans leave.

The connections to the continent remain, and they continue to influence every aspect of life.

Evidence for this influence is found on the very last day of the Tintagel dig.

Jacky Novakowski's team makes the most exciting discovery of all.

It's a stone, used to make a windowsill in Building 94.

And someone's been writing on it.

-There's at least three lines.

It's either an "A," with a hat on.

♪♪ -I think it's okay actually.

♪♪ I'll wrap it up first.

It's very heavy, yeah.

-The stone is transported to the labs at Fort Cumberland for closer study.

James Gossip gives Alice access to this rare find.

-So, this is it?

-This is it.

-It's really clear.

That's amazing.

-The letters were scratched with a sharp tool, roughly, as if for practice.

-It's not in its original position.

Probably only ever a trial piece anyway.

Just somebody practicing their inscription.

So presumably, once this was created as a trial piece it wasn't that important anymore and it was incorporated into this wall where we found it.

-It's one of only a handful of inscriptions from this period ever found.

The Dark Age etching gives precious insight into the lives of the people living at Tintagel.

First, there's a distinct flavor of Roman Latin.

-So, the top line is here, possibly "Tito," which could refer to Titus.

-So that's a Roman name.

-That's a Roman name, yep, popular in the Roman and post-Roman world.

Here we've got a word which could be "Viridius."

Another name, another Latin name.

Or "Viri duo."

-I think I can make out the letters here.

I mean that looks like "Fili."

-Yup.

That's right.

-But there's also local dialect.

-What does this say here?

-We think this is perhaps "Budic" -- B-U-D-I-C.

There's a word that's common in Welsh, Breton and Cornish contexts.

-Ah, so this, so this isn't Latin?

-That is not Latin, no.

That's Bretonic or... -Yeah.

-It's the Cornish word form basically.

-The people here seem to be fluent in more than just one language.

-And then a "T" here?

-Yeah.

Perhaps, um, T-U-D.

"Tud."

-A possible translation is... "From Titus, to Viridius, the son of Budic Tuda."

The text's layout and few legible words indicate the inscription was for a monument.

It was discarded at the time, but centuries later, it's exciting proof of a sophisticated culture.

-This is a lovely "A."

That's a really nice style.

-This is the style of lettering that they're using in manuscript at the time.

It might even have been designed to be a deliberate Biblical connotation.

-It takes time and skill to inscribe stone, and money to pay for it.

The writer was part of a complex and wealthy society that valued both faith and craftsmanship.

-And this coming out of the Dark Ages when we used to think people were living in hovels, scratching around, illiterate.

-Yeah.

But actually created by a literate Christian elite at Tintagel.

-I wonder who did it?

I want to know.

-Perhaps Titus.

-So we're seeing these sort of debased forms of Latin inscription surviving in Cornwall.

But it does tell us that what we've got there is a literate society.

They're not at the margins of anything.

-Civilization didn't collapse when the Romans left Britain.

Tintagel in the west stayed connected, thriving and interacting with Europe as it had probably done for centuries.

The archaeology has revealed so much about Tintagel in the Dark Ages.

The prominence and stature of the buildings being unearthed here, along with the high-value pottery indicating the apparent wealth of their residents, may help explain another mystery -- the connection to Geoffrey of Monmouth's King Arthur.

-The dig at Tintagel is showing us that this rocky promontory sticking out into the Atlantic was not only a trading hub, but also a remarkably high-status site.

So perhaps there was someone, someone powerful, who much later would inspire that myth of King Arthur.

-King Arthur was a construct, created from fragments of the written historical past.

But Geoffrey chose Tintagel for his birthplace because it really was a seat of power in the Dark Ages.

-And that in a way is what we're talking about when we're discussing Arthur.

He is the literary creation based on that kind of primary evidence.

Whether or not he was real I think is irrelevant.

It's the period itself that -- that is essential.

That's what draws archaeologists and historians to it.

It's so important for understanding what made Britain today.

-The biggest revolution in Dark Age archaeology has been this recognition that Britain is fully connected to the continent all the way through.

♪♪ -The maritime connections are absolutely crucial here.

Tintagel is connected down to France and Spain and up to Wales, Scotland and Ireland.

It's right at the center of this Atlantic trading network.

-But in the east of the country, the connections were to Northern Europe -- the Angles and Saxons, with their very different beliefs and culture.

♪♪ All the archaeological evidence points to two societies not facing each other across a battlefield, but living very different lives.

-It's an economic divide between two halves of Britain, two distinct trade outlooks.

It's not a picture of conflict.

-The two halves of Britain are looking in different directions, going outwards rather than clashing in the middle.

-I think if you look at the sea instead of the land, and the rivers instead of the land, I think you have a much better chance of understanding where people are coming from.

♪♪ -At Tintagel, the excavations are complete.

The new discoveries have revealed that rather than being filled with violent conflict and turmoil, the Dark Ages were a time of trade and continuity.

Somewhere between the archaeology, written history and myth, a new truth has emerged.

-There are elements in there that all feed into one another and all help -- help us to understand the past, and you've got to try and master all these things to really get a clear understanding of what's going on, especially something like the 5th or 6th century.

-But the myth of King Arthur endures.

♪♪ -It's a myth.

But it's such a wonderful myth.

-He's a literary invention -- a romantic hero who embodies the ideal of kingship, and not a real historical figure.

-It's still something that resonates today because we all sort of need an heroic character to defend what we think is right and good, and it's Arthur who sort of fills that void.

richardmurray

Black Romantic Compulsory Figures
https://www.deviantart.com/hddeviant/art/1153876173
video
https://www.deviantart.com/hddeviant/art/1153875415

richardmurray

Synthographers Conversations 2024

for my tip jar followers, a set of over 30 ai art instances fully explained
https://www.deviantart.com/hddeviant/art/Synthography-Conversations-2024-1152950129

Sign In

richardmurray

Posts

Joined

Last visited

Days Won

Content Type

Profiles

Forums

Blogs

Events

Status Updates posted by richardmurray

richardmurray

richardmurray

richardmurray

richardmurray

richardmurray

richardmurray

richardmurray

richardmurray

richardmurray

richardmurray

richardmurray

richardmurray

richardmurray

richardmurray

richardmurray

richardmurray

richardmurray

richardmurray

richardmurray

richardmurray

richardmurray

richardmurray

richardmurray

richardmurray

richardmurray

Activity

Browse