Original subtitles

(mystical contemporary music)

Three centuries after their first discoveries,

Egypt continues to fascinate us.

Every month that goes by reveals new treasures

buried under the desert sand.

The fragmented nose was found

in the area during an archeological dig.

It hadn't gone far.

Temples, pyramids,

necropolises, and ancient cities

are just some of the wonders that bear witness

to the splendor of past pharaohs and their heirs.

And the Greeks used to make cakes called pyramids.

When they came to Egypt,

they found colossal stone structures

in the shape of their cakes,

so they gave them the same name.

This ancient civilization,

which was thought to have been lost,

is constantly reinventing itself

in the Egypt of the 21st century.

We are going to travel through time and space

to rediscover it.

(mystical contemporary music)

When he was crossing the land of the pharaohs

in around 450 BC, Herodotus proclaimed that

Egypt was a gift from the Nile.

Like all visitors past and present,

he was struck by the contrast between

the luxuriance of the banks of the great river

and the aridity of the desert surrounding them.

These inhospitable expanses cover 96% of the country,

and only 1% of the population lives there.

Since the dawn of time, Egyptians have feared the desert.

It is the world of the dead, the kingdom of the god Seth,

who tried to kill his brother, Osiris,

who symbolized fertile, nourishing soil.

This religious myth

reflects the ancestral wariness of the Egyptians

for these hostile lands.

And yet no pharaoh, sultan, or modern day leader

has been able to rest until they have attempted to

tame the Sahara, which means desert in Arabic.

It is essential to the Egyptian economy.

Since antiquity, slaves, precious woods, and wild animals

have passed through it along trails linking the oases.

It is also a gateway for foreign invaders

and the land of the nomads

that sedentary Egyptians are so wary of.

Despite their military presence, Egyptians from the Nile

have never really succeeded in controlling this arid land.

Today, it is still a place fraught with

danger and rebellion.

In Cairo, the overpopulated capitol of modern day Egypt,

the desert and its dangers seem very far removed

from people's day-to-day concerns.

And yet it is just there on the outskirts of the city.

As you go up river towards the south,

the river Nile takes on the appearance of a green snake,

surrounded by hostile lands.

One hour from Cairo, the Faiyum oasis is the first refuge

for the living from the dead.

The desert surrounding it is particularly arid.

Sometimes it doesn't rain for five years.

And when the heavens finally open, all hell breaks loose.

The water hurtles in torrents along these wadi

with untold violence, leaving a lunar landscape in its wake.

Wadi Al-Hitan hasn't always been

the desolate land we see today.

A long time ago, it was a sanctuary for

some massive animals.

We find wonderful bone preserved.

And if you go over there,

you would see also bone still in the rock

and you see the tissue.

Maybe it's a vertebrae of a whale.

That are here, one here, one there, basically everywhere.

This is why it's called Valley of the Whales.

40 million years ago,

we are standing on the bottom of the ocean.

So the water was covering most of Egypt at that time.

And these, all of these beautiful creatures

were swimming all over the place here.

We are here looking at the most beautiful fossils

in Wadi Al-Hitan.

This is the largest whale, largest marine mammal,

80 meters long,

that lived 40 million years ago in this place.

You can here look at the skull over there,

and the tail is just over there.

So we are in the stomach area.

You see the arms over there, both arms, the fins,

and the legs will be over there,

really tiny legs comparing to this huge animal.

Professor Salaam has crossed a vast area of

the Egyptian deserts in search of fossils.

A few years ago, he struck lucky.

He was the first Egyptian to have found

a new species of dinosaur.

He has been something of a celebrity

in his country ever since.

In 2018, we found a dinosaur skeleton

in the late Cretaceous area,

which is a really 73 million years old skeleton.

It's a plant-eater dinosaur.

We named it Mansourasaurus after my university

and also named the species shahinae after my wife's name.

It took millions of years

for the sea to recede from Wadi Al-Hitan,

giving way to terra firma.

A series of different climates followed in Egypt.

First the jungle, then forest

colonized this part of the world.

But in 5,000 BC, the temperatures suddenly soared

and desertification occurred,

forcing the majority of the population to settle

along the banks of the river Nile.

It is perhaps this change in climate

which is at the origin of Egyptian civilization.

In this confined space, there was a need to

organize a society,

creating a strong royal power around a pharaoh.

The desert took a while to colonize Egypt.

The Giza plateau didn't become arid until 1000 BC.

The foot of the pyramids was in the savannah.

Egyptians used to rub shoulders with

the sort of animals now found in East Africa.

They are depicted in bas-reliefs,

offering their gods various species of gazelle and hyena,

which they are thought to have tamed and even eaten.

Desert animals, such as horned vipers or jackals,

are also present.

Of all the Egyptian deserts,

The Libyan desert is the most feared.

It covers an area of over 3 million square kilometers.

The chances of survival are slim

for travelers who get lost in its vastness.

Their only hope is to find an oasis,

such as the one at Dakhla.

Dakhla is a veritable peace haven,

luxuriance in the face of chaos.

The oasis owes its lushness to the work of humans

who, over the millennia,

have irrigated it and landscaped it.

These palm groves stretching as far as the eye can see

are the fruits of their labors.

(traditional Egyptian music)

The desert climate is perfect for dates.

(Indistinct) farm has planted 50,000 date palms.

This plant is the emblem of the oases.

It has so many uses,

even for weaving hats as protection from the sun.

(leaves rustling)

(farmers chatting in Arabic)

The oasis dwellers are dependent on date palms.

They cultivate other crops too, such as wheat and rice,

which are mainly for their own consumption,

but their main source of income comes from date palms.

Our dates are exported all over the world,

to the Arab world, of course,

to Morocco and the United Arab Emirates,

but also to Russia.

They are even starting to be exported to Europe.

Thanks to the quality of our dates, Dakhla oasis is

on the regional map and even the international one.

(tractor sputtering)

I haven't left the oasis for two years.

Before that I was traveling for five years.

I was an engineer in the oil industry.

I used to travel to Cairo a lot,

but I prefer life in the oasis, with its calm and serenity,

far from the crowds and the noise.

The technique used for picking dates

has barely changed since the days of the pharaohs.

Dates are still popular products.

In ancient Egyptian depictions of their visions of paradise,

date palms had pride of place

next to the fields of flax and wheat, laden with goodness.

Oases like the one at Dakhla

might have inspired Allah's sensual paradise,

a shady garden in which you only need to reach out a hand

to pick the juicy fruits.

This oasis may not be that nirvana.

Of the eight inhabitants of Dakhla

have still chosen to stay here,

far from a world that is in perpetual motion.

Here they are spread over 17 villages,

of which Qasr is the oldest and most beautiful.

Built on the ruins of a Roman fortress,

this medieval village has retained

some of the character of those fortifications.

Today, it is virtually uninhabited.

Sobhy the keeper of the site is

one of the very few visitors to this abandoned maze.

This medieval town is

the symbol of the Dakhla oasis.

Lots of tourists love this ancient city.

It is atypical,

and its houses and streets radiate a unique atmosphere.

Now you see this, that's palm wood.

That's the wood that most often used here.

Very few houses have inscriptions like this.

Wealthy people put up these signs

with poems or verses from the Koran.

You no longer see this type of inscription on the facades.

Wood is hardly ever used either.

Everything is modern.

Qasr was settled in the eighth century AD,

but it didn't reach its peak until the 16th century

during the Ottoman Empire,

as proved by the madrasa,

which served as a school in the mornings

and a court of justice in the afternoons.

Muslim judges, or qadis, used to try cases in an alcove

with the witnesses appearing before them.

The defendants waited in two separate prisons,

the women's prison and the men's prison.

What strikes casual visitors to this ancient city

is that everything has been preserved in its original state,

as if the inhabitants have only just left.

Here we are in a communal mill.

This is how it worked.

There was a cow turning the millstone to grind the wheat.

The other job consisted of

passing grains of wheat through this whole

using this pendulum.

This piece of wood can be adjusted

to suit the height of the millstone,

which determines the fineness of grain of the flour.

This mill has been abandoned for a hundred-odd years.

Nowadays, modern machinery is used to grind wheat or rice.

Everything is electric.

There were several reasons

why the inhabitants abandoned this medieval city.

Adobe is a very fragile building material.

When it rains, which is rare, the walls need to be rebuilt.

Mod cons also played an important role.

Running water, electricity, and mains drainage

managed to convince the more reticent among them.

Today, only three or four families

still live in this historic city center.

A few artisans have chosen to stay here to work.

(hammer clinking)

(feet brushing)

This potter's studio is less noisy than a blacksmith's,

but still, for thousands of years,

pottery has been essential for life in the desert.

We make carafes, jugs, and jars.

Anything you can make out of clay, to keep water in.

There didn't use to be fridges or metal containers

to keep water in,

but people are rediscovering the benefits of pottery.

Doctors recommend that you drink water from pots

for their mineral properties.

The ancient Egyptians used pottery

as iceboxes, as backpacks, and as flasks.

It served every purpose.

People kept all sorts of food stuffs in it,

such as meat or dried fish.

Without it, there would have been no trade.

The jars was a means of exporting oil or wine,

wooden barrels weren't invented until much later,

by the Gauls.

We are sadly the last generation of potters.

After us, there'll be no one.

It's a difficult skill to master

and you have to learn it when you're young,

you can't do it when you're older.

It's over.

No one wants to learn anymore.

As with most oases,

mass tourism and packed tourists coaches

never make it as far as Dakhla.

That's what Magued likes about it.

This Egyptian guide has made a bold choice

to show discerning travelers another side to Egypt,

off the beaten track.

When you travel from one oasis to another,

you see only desert.

Then suddenly you come to another oasis,

with its lush vegetation.

In that moment, it takes on the full meaning of the term.

I never cease to be amazed by the peace and serenity

by this return to nature's purity.

I come here to cleanse myself of

all the stresses of the city, all the day-to-day worries.

I come to this region to recharge my batteries.

You might imagine the inhabitants of oases

to be completely self-sufficient,

but there are many outside influences here,

the most important coming from

the inhabitants of the Nile valley.

In Dakhla, archeologists have discovered

traces from the days of the pharaohs

dating back to 246 BC.

The majestic tombs of ancient rulers show

just how important this region was for central government.

We are in front of the mastaba of Khentika,

who was the governor of the oasis during the sixth dynasty,

under the reign of Pepi II.

Just next to it, you can see another mastaba.

The word mastaba now refers to the upper part,

which is this rectangular shape.

The mastaba of Khentika is missing that part.

Its collapse is what led to the cave being protected.

Mastabas, which are these rectangular edifices,

surmounted the tombs of pharaohs

from the first and second dynasties in around 3000 BC,

until a genius architect came

and revolutionized these royal burial grounds.

Imhotep, who worked for the pharaoh Djoser,

came up with the idea of

stacking the mastabas on top of one another,

creating a pyramid shape.

This pyramid, with its different levels,

was the first of its kind in Egypt.

There are over a hundred pyramids in the country.

Latterly, the pharaohs chose to be buried

in the Valley of Kings.

What all these periods have in common is that

the burial grounds are always in the middle of the desert.

The idea was to preserve the agricultural land

on the banks of the Nile, which was already limited,

and also to protect the mummies from the damp,

which is the worst enemy.

So the desert naturally became the kingdom of the dead.

We are now about seven meters below ground level.

On this wall, we can see a very traditional scene,

the sort found on all the tombs from the old kingdom.

In the main passageway, there was always

a portrait of the owner of the tomb.

So that's Khentika with his wife opposite.

The scene is quite damaged,

but we can see that she is bringing a lotus flower

to her nostrils to inhale it.

From the old kingdom onwards,

the walls of these private tombs

would have shown a variety of scenes

depicting daily life and sometimes the funeral,

whereas the walls of royal tombs featured exclusively

text and funeral scenes.

So if all that have remained in Egypt where the royal tombs,

we would have missed out on all the information

gleaned from these fabulous scenes of daily life.

For example, these scenes of plowing.

We can see a plow here with some cattle.

There are hunting scenes here too, like everywhere else.

Here in the middle of the desert,

it's even easier to go hunting.

It was one of their favorite sports.

The governors,

who were representatives of the king,

built such elaborate tombs because

the oases were vital to the pharaohs.

This region is situated on

a very important trade route

called Darb el-Arbain, meaning 40-day route.

It was the caravan trail that connected

what is now the region of Asyut

with Darfur in Sudan.

All the goods from Africa, which were coveted at that time.

Ebony, ivory, gold, and exotic animals

were transported along that route.

And it was such an important trade route,

that the omnipresence and power of the state

was very much in evidence.

There were control posts and toll booths,

all along the trade route,

which just shows how important it was

to the kings and pharaohs

who lived miles away from this region.

Because the seat of power was in Memphis,

which was situated in what is now greater Cairo.

But they felt the need to demonstrate their power

all along the Darb el-Arbain trade route.

So, the administration

was established in Dakhla very early on,

but the same is not true of another oasis.

Situated over 500 kilometers from Cairo,

Egypt didn't gain control of Siwa

until the sixth century BC.

70 kilometers from the Libyan border,

Siwa has long been protected by

the dunes of the great sand sea that surrounds it.

And yet, in the middle of this inhospitable world,

small lakes are gradually appearing.

They are a reminder of the sea

that once covered the desert millions of years ago.

Egyptian tourists love the scary experience

of coming here from Cairo.

Even with its hot water springs,

they see the desert as a place fraught with danger.

In the distance, we can just make out Lake Siwa.

The water is so abundant here that,

due to a lack of drainage, it forms saltwater lakes.

The town center is a calm place.

The sceneries are by nature placid.

This is a far cry from the frenzy of the big cities.

This serenity is embodied in

the seventh century Shali fortress,

which overlooks the town.

Built from blocks of clay mixed with salt,

it has gradually crumbled over the centuries.

Doa is a tour guide who encourages tourists to

take their time and appreciate this special atmosphere.

When tourists first came here,

they are fascinated by the fact that

there was barely any transition between

the interminable desert and this lush green oasis.

So there is a very clear dividing line between the two.

There are 281 springs here,

and the inhabitants of Siwa live among them.

Some of these springs

spouting up all over the oasis

serve as natural swimming pools for passing bathers.

There is one whose popularity has never waned

because you feel as if you are swimming in the wake

of Egypt's greatest queen.

We are here beside a spring known as the sun spring

or Cleopatra's spring.

Some people say that Cleopatra came here to bathe.

She took great care of herself.

She used to bathe in ass's milk perfumed with lotus flowers.

This spring is one of the best loved springs by Egyptians

because they feel as if they're following

in Cleopatra's footsteps and making themselves beautiful.

People love to swim around the springs.

These springs are very relaxing places

with the water and the palm trees that surround them.

Cleopatra, the penultimate queen of

the Hellenistic dynasty of Ptolemy,

may never have bathed at Siwa,

but the Greek influence is apparent,

particularly in the oasis's main necropolis.

The hill of the dead overlooks the town.

Archeologists have listed 1,500 tombs there.

Many of them are damaged.

The mountainside still bears the scars of

all the unofficial digs carried out by Siwis

over the centuries.

Tomb robbers removed the bas-reliefs

and sold them to foreigners.

By some miracle, Siahmun's tomb remains intact.

The first thing you see when you go in is

a typically Egyptian symbol, Nut, the goddess of the sky,

who eats the sun every night

and gives birth to it again every morning,

in the form of a falcon.

The decorations on the walls evoke the Hellenistic era:

curly hair, beards and mustaches, Greek togas.

The tomb dates from the Libyan period,

a time when there were lots of Greek.

Further on, a goddess under a sycamore tree is

carrying a vase from which,

in between two trickles of water,

a chain of ankhs is flowing,

a sign of life in ancient Egypt,

reminding us that in the past, just like today,

the inhabitants of these oases were

aware of their good fortune.

But Siwa was 3,200 inhabitants have had to learn

to live a life cut off from everything.

Wasn't until 1984 that a tarmac road was built

linking them to the rest of the world.

And it wasn't until 1987

that they discovered the joys of electricity.

Perhaps it is that isolation

which has preserved this unique culture.

Siwa is home to the only Berber community in Egypt.

The most eastern community in North Africa,

Berbers are present throughout the Maghreb

as far west as Mauritania and as far south as Niger.

Youssef is an ardent defender of this culture

and upholds all aspects of it.

This lunchtime, he is entertaining

the children of his family during their school holidays.

To please his nephews, nieces, and his own children,

he has chosen a dish that is typical of Siwa.

Now that I've covered them with sand, my work is done.

We will dig them out in about an hour's time.

The most important thing about this recipe

is that it stays well sealed.

If there is a leak, the chickens will be too dry.

When Youssef speaks to

his brothers, sons, and nephews,

even though they can all speak Arabic,

he prefers to use a local Berber dialect called Siwi.

(Youssef speakinng Siwi)

Most people here speak Siwi at home.

Some people teach their children to say "Dad," in Arabic,

but I teach them the Siwi word, Ap.

They need to learn Siwi so they don't forget their roots.

They will learn Arabic at school anyway.

(upbeat traditional Arabic music)

(children chattering in Siwi)

The advantage of the Siwa oasis is that

it is far from everything.

When tourists come here and spend a bit of time with us,

we influence them rather than them influencing us.

One thing is certain:

if we lived near a city,

we would struggle to preserve our traditions and customs.

The gentleness of the inhabitants of Siwa

is in stark contrast to the harshness of their environment.

The lake, a symbol of the oasis,

is not the haven of peace it first appears to be.

In this salty water, no fish or amphibian can survive.

The salt covers the banks on the surface of the water

like a shroud.

But the Siwi have turned it to their advantage.

Egyptians have been eating salt since neolithic times,

supplied by the inhabitants of the oasis.

Salt mining is still Siwa's main industry.

You start by digging a pond.

And then you hit the layer of salt.

At this stage, the salt you extract is still brown

because it contains soil.

To wash it, you have to rinse it in water.

We use the mechanical digger to give it about 15 rinses.

When the salt is nice and white,

we pile it up and leave it to dry.

Salt from Siwa is appreciated for its flavor,

but large quantities of it are exported to Europe or Canada,

where it is simply used to de-ice their roads in winter.

This big machine is a grinder.

This is where the salt crystals are ground.

This is a 12-caliber grinder.

There are lots of different calibers, from the highest

to the lowest, which is used to make table salt.

For us, salt is a gift from God.

Ever since it was discovered here in Siwa,

everyone has profited from it.

Moreover, whatever we mine is replaced every year,

thanks to sedimentation in the lakes nearby.

It really is a godsend for the oasis

and for the local economies.

Exporting salt

has been going on for a long time.

In the first century AD, this product started circulating

around the Mediterranean basin.

The Siwa oasis, like all the oases,

makes most of its income from trade.

Ever since antiquity, Siwa has been

forging links between North Africa and Egypt,

exporting salt, dates, olives, oil, and wine.

Four kilos for a tenner!

Four kilos for just a tenner!

You heard, four kilos for a tenner!

This is as good as it gets, boss!

You won't find cheaper!

You won't find cheaper elsewhere!

Egypt's caravan trails

have been trade routes for 4,500 years.

Nowadays, goods are transported along tarmac roads.

All you need is a lorry.

But for a long time, the caravans consisted of donkeys,

until they were replaced by another animal,

which only came to be tamed later, in 1000 BC.

Dromedaries have adapted to the desert.

This animal brought wealth to the oases.

It can carry a load of 250 kilograms

and swallow 135 liters of water in just a few seconds,

allowing it to last several days in the hot sun.

The Bedouins have made it their mascot.

These nomads rarely come near the oases,

unless it is to tend to the wellbeing

of their favorite animals.

We have rented this plot of land in the oasis

to use as pasture.

The dromedaries need to eat fresh grass.

We accompany the animals.

This is more than a job, it is our life.

We take care of our animals

because our lives depend on these dromedaries.

In the past, everything was linked to the dromedaries.

Meat, milk.

They even protected humans from storms and hardship.

People used to ride on their backs.

They transported people's worldly goods, even crops.

Dromedaries can carry anything.

I'm getting them ready to spend the night here.

I have to tie them up.

Otherwise they might wander off and get lost.

To be honest with you,

I don't really have anywhere to put them.

I'm not really settled in the region.

And that's just how it is.

I don't settle anywhere.

Every day, I stay somewhere new.

In theory, all bedouins know

how to take care of dromedaries.

But the younger generation is losing this expertise.

Take young Mahmoud here.

His grandfather kept dromedaries,

but he didn't have time to teach him.

He's been accompanying me for a month now.

He is learning techniques for approaching them

and communicating with them,

but he's still a bit scared of them.

He'll soon get used to them.

(dromedary grunting)

Nomads from the Eastern and the Western desert

filled ancient Egyptians with fear and mistrust.

They had a reputation for being versatile,

quick to help invaders and to take up arms,

no matter what the occasion.

Invaders often arrived via the desert,

with the Nubians coming from the south

and the Libyans from the west.

In the Medinet Habu temple in Luxor,

bas-reliefs praising Ramesses III

tell the story of his victories over the desert people.

The Libyans can be recognized by their beards

and the Nubians by their Black African traits.

Further on, a scribe is carrying out a macabre task.

He is counting a pile of sawed off hands

to draw up an inventory of the number of enemies killed.

Throughout their long history,

Egyptians haven't always succeeded in holding off invaders.

The Persians, Greeks, and Romans

all settled for long periods in the land of the pharaohs.

They all tried to control these arid stretches,

a source of instability for the country,

but very few conquers dared to go there in person.

It was the desert

stretching back thousands of kilometers behind this lake

that nearly killed Alexander the Great.

When he finally arrived here,

he consulted the oracle of the god of Siwa.

This was in around 331 BC.

Alexander the Great had just toppled the Persian Empire,

which Egypt was a part of.

To legitimize his rule,

he appeared before the oracle of Ammon in Siwa,

which, along with the oracle in Delphi,

was the most prestigious oracle of the ancient world.

In this temple, the Greek conqueror

hoped to direct his questions to Ammon,

the most important god in ancient Egypt.

Like anyone else who came here,

including the priests who worked in these temples,

Alexander the Great had to go down into this well

to perform his ablutions

before he could go and consult Ammon.

(mysterious traditional music)

This is the sanctuary.

In the middle stood the statue of the god Ammon.

Alexander the Great went to ask his questions.

He had two questions in mind.

The first was ask the name of

those who had killed his father.

And the second was to ask

whether he could avenge his father.

Ammon told him repeatedly that his father wasn't dead.

His father was with the gods.

Alexander really liked that response.

And the second response he got was that

he was the son of a god.

That was the ideal response.

Thinking he was like the pharaohs,

he thought he had the right to govern the whole country.

These questions weren't just personal.

There were also political.

He needed validation, and the agreement and the acceptance

of the Egyptian god.

Alexander must have heard an actual voice

answering his questions,

but it wasn't the voice of a god.

The priests of the oracles used various devices

to trick their visitors.

Some even hid inside hollow statues and made them speak.

In Siwa, the system was more rudimentary,

but just as effective.

When Alexander the Great came here,

the statue was over there.

The priest accompanied him to the statute

and then climbed up there by a back route,

that was hidden, of course.

The priest was able to speak

without Alexander the Great seeing him.

But he thought it was the voice of the god speaking to him.

In reality, more than the god Ammon,

it was the clergy that interested Alexander.

By finding favor with the priests,

he was assured of their precious support

to reign over these mystical Egyptians.

In the Kharga oasis in Southern Egypt,

other invaders have left their mark.

The Romans were the last conquerors

of the kingdom of the pharaohs.

Following the example of their predecessors,

they did their utmost to protect this distant frontier

of their vast empire.

The imposing Roman fortress overlooking the oasis

protected the nearby caravan trail.

Like Alexander the Great,

the Romans were willing to reconcile with Egyptian beliefs.

In the middle of the fortress, they erected a temple

in the best ancient Egyptian tradition.

It is dedicated to Ammon for the Egyptians,

and to Jupiter for the Romans.

A new religion soon upset this established order.

From the third century AD,

the Kharga oasis became a refuge for early Christians

fleeing violent persecution by the Romans.

The necropolis of El-Bagawat, with its 200 tomb chapels,

bears witness to a surprising continuity.

Like the ancient Egyptians,

the Christians came to bury their dead in the desert.

The oldest tombs on this site

date back to the late third, early fourth centuries AD.

Later, in the fifth century, the Nestorians came.

Nestorius was the bishop of Constantinople,

and he was declared a heretic in 431.

So this site was occupied first by

Christians fleeing persecution by Roman pagans,

and later by Christians fleeing persecution

by other Christians who had different ideas

about the nature of Christ.

Nestorius declared that Mary was the mother of mankind,

and not the mother of God.

This site is remarkable.

It's unique.

As you can see, these tomb chapels were

more or less elaborate,

depending on the wealth of the families.

Some even have courtyards,

with columns at the entrance to the tomb,

whereas others are really quite modest.

Some of these tomb chapels

have been painstakingly decorated.

Visitors can still admire these 1600-year-old paintings

reflecting the faith of these early Christians.

Here, we see Moses guiding the people of Israel

to their fate of having to wander in the wilderness

for 40 years in the Sinai desert,

pursued by an army of pharaoh's.

This is the scene that has made this chapel famous.

There is perhaps a link to be made

between this flight in the Sinai desert

and the flight here towards another desert, with its oases.

Here, we have a very interesting detail.

There are two normal Christian crosses here,

but underneath them, we have this shape derived from

the ancient Egyptian ankh, the symbol of life,

adopted by early Christians in Egypt.

When they were unable to declare their Christian faith,

they substitute their crosses for this ankh,

or ankh-head cross, inherited from ancient Egypt.

The exiled Christians

finally got used to their life in the desert.

There are traces to be found in Kharga oasis

which suggests they stayed here

until the seventh century AD.

For modern Egyptians, living in the desert

is not an obvious choice.

94% of the population still lives on the banks of the Nile.

But demographic problems have caught up with them.

In 1900, Egypt had 10 million inhabitants.

It has 100 million inhabitants today,

and it is predicted that that figure will rise

to 200 million by the end of the century.

Leaders have no choice but to

free up more agricultural land

as they try to feed everyone

and relieve the congestion in the old city of Cairo,

with is 20 million inhabitants.

45 kilometers from Cairo, a new capital is emerging

like a mirage in the middle of the desert.

There is a massive project underway to build a city

seven times the size of inner Paris.

We are building a new capital for Egypt.

Behind me, you can see the site of the new parliament.

Over there in front of me is where the ministries will be.

They are currently scattered all over Cairo.

This way, all the ministries will be

grouped together in the same place.

(laborers chattering)

Every day, around 200,000 to 300,000 people

come to work here,

both engineers and builders.

It is a good way to solve the problem of unemployment.

(heavy machinery creaking)

Obviously it's easier to live on the banks of the Nile

than in the middle of the desert,

but with 100 million inhabitants

concentrated around the Delta and the riverbanks,

it was time to act.

It was time to decide to conquer the desert.

The work has begun on

the first residential neighborhood.

It covers a surface area of 420 hectares.

And 25 blocks of flats are being built.

With the help of publicity campaigns,

the authorities are hoping to attract

some of the inhabitants of Cairo.

In 20 years time, the new capital should be able to

accommodate about 6 million people.

Convincing 6 million people

to leave the historic city of Cairo

to live in the middle of the desert

won't be easy, but we are relying on our ability to

transform this patch of desert into a paradise.

And that's what will make them want to come here.

Like the pharaohs before them,

successive presidents of modern Egypt

have all tried to build their city in the desert.

Most of these new metropolises

haven't been the success they hoped for.

Whether they like it or not, Egyptians are one day

going to have to make the desert habitable.

They should seek inspiration from the Bedouins and Berbers

who have lived there in harmony with nature

for thousands of years.

(mystical contemporary Arabic music)