All language subtitles for empires.egypt.e03-sprinter.en

For over 3000 years,
Egypt was ruled by pharaohs.

But in that vast sweep of time,
one pharaoh stands out.

He would reign for 67 years,
command the largest empire on earth

and capture the imagination
of the world.

His name was Ramesses.

Ramesses built a reputation
that has resounded through history.

It was a reputation deliberately
crafted by the pharaoh himself.

Ramesses was in fact
a master of propaganda,

projecting his power
beyond the battlefield

across the ancient world.

This is the story of how one man
created his own legend...

The legend of Ramesses the Great...

And how, in the end,
not even a legendary pharaoh

could save Egypt's golden empire
from destruction.

In 1327 BC, a tragic event brought
Egypt to the verge of crisis.

The pharaoh Tutankhamun had died.

His death marked the end
of Egypt's most powerful dynasty...

And the beginning of a period
of great uncertainty.

A great deal was at stake.

In just two centuries, Egypt's royal
family had built a massive empire

stretching far beyond the Nile.

From Syria in the north

to the goldfields of Nubia,

modern-day Sudan, in the south.

A succession of powerful pharaohs

had made Egypt the richest and
most powerful nation in the world.

When Tutankhamun died,

the big problem was
there was no heir to the throne.

So obviously Egypt must
have been in a bad state.

There was nobody there to take oven
and things were in a state of flux.

But now, with the end
of the great dynasty,

a new enemy had emerged
to challenge Egypt's might.

The Hittites.

The Hittites,
living in what is now Turkey,

were a more technologically
advanced power than Egypt.

And they were pushing against the
northern border of Egypt's empire.

In 1279 BC, the fate
of the threatened empire

became the responsibility of a young
boy, the new Pharaoh of Egypt.

He was crowned Ramesses, meaning
"offspring of the Sun God Re".

Ramesses comes to the throne
fairly young,

probably about
the age of 15,

and has an enormous
task ahead of him.

He looks back over the history
of his country.

A hundred years or so earlier,

there were kings who were
the epitome of wealth,

power and good taste.

That's an enormous legacy
to have to live up to.

Ramesses had not come
from a royal background.

In fact, the boy king
had been born a commoner.

Ramesses' family
was a military family

who were fairly new on the throne.

They were not from the royal line.

They were near the royal line,

they lived and worked
for the kings of Egypt,

but they did not belong
to the royal family.

It was military prowess

that had won Ramesses' family
its place on the throne.

And it would be
through military action

that the young Ramesses
would have to prove himself.

To the north of Egypt,
the Hittites were preparing for war.

They intended to take advantage of
the young and inexperienced boy king.

Ramesses was about to face
the biggest challenge of his life.

You have two superpowers,

each one trying to grab bits
from the other.

And eventually
they're going to clash.

By the fifth year of Ramesses' reign,

the massive Hittite army
moved into Egypt's territories,

advancing towards the town of Kadesh.

As the crossroads for trade
with the Near East,

Kadesh was of extreme
strategic importance.

Ramesses II realises that
the battle for the area of Kadesh,

for this border, is the battle
that will eventually decide

which of these two empires
will be the leaders of the world

in the entire century,
in the entire 13th century.

Here was the opportunity
Ramesses had been waiting for.

It was a chance to prove
his power and might to the world.

There was only one problem.
Egypt was not ready for war.

Ramesses needed an army quickly.

He mobilised
not just Egyptian soldiers

but other subjects of his empire,
including Nubians and Libyans.

The primitive bronze weapons
of the Egyptian forces

were soon to be pitted against
the Hittites' iron armoury.

The odds didn't look good.

I can't imagine what it must
have been like

to be a soldier
in Pharaoh 's army.

Firstly, you don't want
to be there.

You've been conscripted.

Secondly, you're rather poorly fed,
you're rather poorly clothed.

You have a spear on if you're lucky,
a bow and arrow, and that's it.

You are expected to give your all.

Soon Ramesses' army was ready.

The pharaoh's scribes
also came along to record

what the pharaoh was confident
would be a glorious victory.

He had all the self-confidence
that can go with being young.

He thought that
everything was do-able,

he thought that
problems would not exist,

he probably thought that
compromises wouldn't need to be made.

You could go out
and do it and get it.

Finally, the 20-year-old king
set off with his army,

leading an advance guard
out of the lush Nile Delta

into the scorching heat
of the Sinai Desert.

The figure he cut at the helm
of his army was impressive.

I can imagine that he had
a great deal of power and authority.

He was very strong and muscular.

He was himself about 5'8", 5'9".

That's about... not much, 4" or so
taller than an average Egyptian man.

But taller, nevertheless.

He had red hair, which was a very
unusual feature in Ancient Egypt,

and it set him apart.

The Egyptian army
surged across the desert

through Israel and Lebanon.

A few miles from Kadesh, Ramesses
and his advance guard made camp

and waited for the rest
of the army to catch up.

KENT WEEKS:
When Ramesses established this camp,

he obviously was not thinking that
there'd be a battle any time soon.

It was time to stop, have a picnic,

talk about life in general,
and await maybe a week,

two weeks, three weeks later,
some kind of battle,

which the Egyptians knew they'd win.

But it wasn't going to be so easy.

We know from scribal accounts
that the inexperienced pharaoh

was about to be the victim
of a dangerous trap.

There were two Bedouins in the desert

who were brought in by
Ramesses' soldiers and interrogated.

Ramesses or whoever said
"Where's the King of the Hittites?"

They said "Don 't worry about him,
he's far away. "

What Ramesses didn't realise

was that his informers were
Hittite spies sent to mislead him.

They released them and said
"Great, let's set up camp and relax.

"There's plenty of time
before the battle begins."

The pharaoh had fallen
for a simple trick.

Ramesses goofed,
seriously and badly.

To have taken those two Bedouins
at their word,

to have avoided sending out scouts

to check the veracity
of what they said,

I think was
a terrible military mistake.

Ramesses' soldiers
captured two more spies.

This time Ramesses had them beaten
and interrogated.

He got a very different story.

The Hittites were not miles away.

They were across the river,
ready to attack.

In panic, the pharaoh
sent word back for reinforcements.

Suddenly the Hittites attacked.

Ramesses' scribes left
an eyewitness account of the battle.

"The Hittite wretch, with his army,
forded the river south of Kadesh,

"smashing into His Majesty's army
when it least expected an attack. "

The dust, the choking dust,

the blood pouring
onto the desert sands,

these soldiers
who looked death in the face

at every moment of these battles.

It must have been absolute hell.

Ramesses' troops fell before
the Hittites' iron weapons.

The Egyptian army
stood on the brink of defeat.

Then, at the last minute,
Ramesses' reinforcements arrived.

They took the Hittites by surprise.

Ramesses has been
unbelievably lucky.

He ends up at the end of the day
holding the battlefield.

Actually, it was something
of a goalless draw,

snatched from defeat
at the last moment

by the arrival of the Egyptian
equivalent of the US cavalry.

Ramesses had failed in his mission.

The Hittites would be back

and Egypt's trade routes
and empire were still vulnerable.

The battle of Kadesh
did not go to plan.

At the most,
it was a way for the Egyptians

to prevent the Hittites
from moving further south,

but it was certainly not the
flamboyant victory Ramesses wanted.

Ramesses, however, was determined
to have his victory.

Back in Egypt, he would tell
a far different story

of the battle of Kadesh.

What Ramesses does is say
"I'm going to rewrite history. "

So it's going to be the big gesture.

It's going to be
the vainglorious boast.

It's going to be
the huge publicity machine.

It's going to be the hieroglyphic
equivalent of spin-doctoring.

Ramesses now masterminded
an extraordinary propaganda campaign.

He sent out legions of artisans

to carve epic depictions
of the battle of Kadesh

on temple walls around the empire.

The story he told begins truthfully
but then veers off into fantasy.

The young king claimed
he had won a clear victory at Kadesh

and it was not
the Egyptian reinforcements

but he himself who, all alone,
had saved the day.

In Ramesses' version,

he transformed himself from
a gullible, inexperienced commander

into a god-like warrior.

Every temple wall
carried the same story.

"His Majesty leapt up,
raging against them.

"He grabbed his weapons, and set off
at a gallop, completely alone.

"His Majesty was
an unstoppable fighting force.

"Everything near him
was ablaze with fire.

"All the foreign lands were blasted
by his scorching breath. "

He claims that single-handediy,
after his troops had deserted him,

he went into the Held of battle

slashing, swaying his sword
back and forth,

decimating the enemies of Egypt.

"He charged straight into
the Hittite troops.

"The infantry and chariotry
fell on their faces.

"His Majesty struck them down
and killed them where they stood."

The claims of Ramesses II that
his army totally abandoned him,

that he was left alone
on a Held of battle

and single-handediy
defeated the Hittites,

of course
is an utter load of rubbish.

Despite his boasting,

Ramesses knew his army
could not defeat the Hittites.

He had to cut a deal.

Secretly, Ramesses began
to negotiate with the Hittites.

After lengthy debate, Ramesses signed
a treaty with the Hittite king.

Ramesses the spin doctor
was now Ramesses the statesman.

A copy of the treaty
is still preserved

in the holiest of temples at Karnak,
chiselled onto a wall.

"l, the great Hittite ruler,

"am at peace with Ramesses,
the great King of Egypt,

"and enjoy his brotherhood.

"All the people of Egypt
and all the Hittite people

"will be at peace like us forever."

Covering issues of royal succession,
extradition and amnesty for refugees,

the treaty remains a model
that is still followed today.

Here you have the two superpowers
of the day sitting around a table

saying "What we need to do
is to build up a lasting peace,

"to build up an alliance which will
mutually benefit both our sides. "

To seal the treaty, Ramesses married
one of the Hittite king's daughters.

The Hittite princess was part
of the terms of the peace treaty.

She was, if you like,
the cement in the treaty.

She's brought
into the presence of Ramesses

and therefore, by extension,
into the Egyptian empire.

The Hittite princess
was brought to Egypt's new capital,

located in the Nile Delta
in northern Egypt.

It was called Per Ramesses,
meaning the House of Ramesses.

Far from the old aristocracy's
centre of power in Thebes,

Per Ramesses was
carefully situated in the north

to keep an eye on the Hittites.

It was to be a new capital
for a new regime.

This was the Brasilia
of Ancient Egypt.

This was the new capital.

This was something that
would be the beginning

of a new regeneration
of the country.

He's saying "I am a new man,
this is a new Egypt,

"and the traditional aristocracy
had better come to terms with this."

On the banks of the Nile,
Ramesses adorned his capital

with all the treasures
the empire had to offer.

Eyewitnesses tell of a lushness
and opulence unsurpassed in Egypt.

"I have reached Per Ramesses.
It seems like an amazing place,

"a beautiful area unlike any other.

"Its pools are alive with fish
and its lakes are covered in ducks.

"Its gardens
are lush with vegetation.

"From the riverbanks come fruit
as sweet as honey.

"Everyone who lives there is happy,
and none has any regrets.

"Even the lowliest person there
lives in style."

Not content with
glorifying himself in this world,

Ramesses turned his attention
to the afterlife.

Far from Per Ramesses,
deep in the south of Egypt,

was a place dedicated
to securing Ramesses' immortality.

Hidden behind the mountain
looming over the Valley of the Kings

was the carefully guarded village
of Deir el Medineh.

They lived
in a self-contained community

that was tightly policed
as they had secrets

which were not meant to be
divulged to the public.

They can be watched in their journey
from the village to their work.

So the workmen can't be accosted,
they can't be asked for information.

This security was vital

because these villagers
were the pharaohs' tomb builders.

They held the key to the greatest
secret of the empire...

The location of the royal tombs.

Buried in the hills around them

lay the treasures of the richest
and most powerful kings in history.

The mountain the tomb builders
climbed over to work

was literally a mountain of gold.

These men not only dug the pharaohs'
tombs out of the mountain,

they also were designers,
artists, painters.

They produced exquisite scenes
and hieroglyphic texts on tomb walls,

spells and rituals
that were essential

for guiding the pharaoh
to the afterlife.

What could be more important?

You were, after all, ensuring that
the pharaohs

could travel from this life
to the next.

One mistake in those
hieroglyphic texts,

one error in those scenes,

and there'd be a detour, so the king
wouldn't make it to the next life.

Ramesses did not intend
to spend the afterlife alone.

The greatest work
of the villagers at Deir el Medineh

was not in Ramesses' own tomb

but in the tomb for the most
important woman in Ramesses' life.

In 1312, Ramesses married
an Egyptian noblewoman, Nefertari,

and made her his chief wife.

For Ramesses,
the building of her tomb

was to be the ultimate tribute
to his greatest love.

NICOLE DOUEK:
It is really the very best,

possibly the last of the marvellous
tombs of Ancient Egypt.

The reliefs,
the fineness of the drawings,

the ways the colours were applied...

It almost indicates a love affair

between the man who did it

and the figure of the queen.

"My love is unique.

"No one can rival hen for she
is the most beautiful woman alive.

"Slender-necked
and milky-breasted she is,

"her hair
the colour of pure lapis.

"Gold is nothing
compared to her arms

"and her fingers
are like lotus flowers.

"Her buttocks are full
but her waist is narrow.

"Just by passing,
she has stolen away my heart. "

The tomb is decorated in the most
exquisite taste of the time.

And some snippets of the life
of then have appeared now.

They discovered a thumb imprint
of an ancient workmen

who must have held his hand
to the ceiling while he was painting,

took his fingers away and forgot
to repaint and retouch that part.

So the fingerprint of one of
the ancient workmen is still there.

The villagers
who once walked these streets

have left a detailed picture
of daily life

during the reign of Ramesses.

On stone flakes and pottery shards
littering the remains of the village,

archaeologists found the tomb
builders' notes and correspondence.

Laundry lists, recipes,
news, poems and love letters.

It is an archaeological goldmine,
a cultural goldmine.

The people of Deir el Medineh
were inveterate record keepers.

They kept tabs on everything.

And they left it behind on 'ostraka',

the ancient Egyptian equivalent
of a Post-it note, I suppose.

Records about who was ill on which
day, who was going on holiday,

when did the in-laws visit,
whose son went out carousing,

got drunk and did unspeakable things
to the girl next door.

All this kind of thing is there,
and in glorious, wonderful detail.

"Why are you treating me so badly?

"I'm no better than a donkey
in your eyes. "

"If I was the type
who couldn't hold their drink,

"you'd be right not to invite me.

"But I'm just someone
who's a bit short of been "

"At feedtime you fetch an ox,
but you never invite me for a beer.

"You only ask me
when there's work to be done."

When they weren't working
on royal tombs,

the villagers used their unique
skills on their own tombs.

Instead of the religious scenes
of the royal tombs,

their tombs portrayed the afterlife
the tomb builders hoped for...

Idealised versions of everyday life.

In their spare time, they'd make
their tomb, add decorations.

Probably at dinner parties
the question was

"How's the tomb getting on, then?"

From the paintings and writings
left by Ramesses' villagers,

we know who lived in each house

and even the intimate details
of their relationships.

Nowhere else in the ancient world
can we listen to ordinary people

and eavesdrop
on their scandals and gossip.

There was a foreman called Paneb

and we know a lot about him.

We have a series of complaints
about him. He did various things.

He stole equipment
from the Valley of the Kings.

He embezzled the salary
of some of his colleagues.

He went around seducing
the wives of villagers,

presumably when the villagers
were out at work.

Even Paneb's own son denounced him
for his behaviour.

"My father slept with Tia
while she was married to Kenna

"and with Hunro
when she was with Pendua.

"And after he had slept with Hunro,
he even slept with her daughter. "

These people at Deir el Medineh
quite clearly are human beings.

To read what they are writing,
to see what they are doing,

what they have in their homes,

what kinds of drawings
they have made,

is to realise that we and they
are truly kindred spirits.

"He argues with my mother
and threatens to throw her out.

'She never does anything for you'
he said."

"I didn't tell you
to check on your wife,

'just to tum a blind eye to it.

"I'm not going to make you face
her whoring around. "

"You told me
to give lb a job, so I did.

"But he takes ages
to bring a jug of water"

"You're no man, you can't even
get your wife pregnant.

"And another thing,
you're the biggest miser around..."

By the time Ramesses
was in his forties,

his tomb had been finished
for several years.

With the average Egyptian life
expectancy at around 35 years,

Ramesses must have known that he was
already living on borrowed time.

He focused his attention
on securing his legacy,

siring children to succeed him
on the golden throne.

As well as his chief wife Nefertari,

Ramesses had a number
of minor wives in his harem.

He even married
three of his own daughters.

In his inscriptions, he boasts
of something like 80 sons

and something like 60 daughters,

although their number is vaguer
than the number of sons.

But he boasts of a huge offspring

and he's like one
of those modem dictators

known as father of their country,
in many cases, literally.

Confident that
he had produced an heir,

Ramesses turned with renewed vigour
to his building program.

Soon the Nile Valley
began to overflow with monuments

dedicated to Egypt's greatest king.

When Ramesses builds,
he builds big.

It is enormous.

It's on a scale that has never
really been seen in Egypt.

Everywhere, Ramesses' title
could be seen carved into rock...

Hieroglyphs that read
"Ruler of Rulers".

Practically every town in Egypt
gets its temple either rebuilt

or refounded or revamped.

Ramesses isn't modest.

If he sees a rather nice monument,

say an obelisk
put up by a previous king,

he puts his own names
all over the obelisk as well.

Where great temples already existed,
such as here at Luxor,

Ramesses simply erected
a new entrance,

with four statues of himself,

to claim the temple as his own.

At Karnak, Egypt's holiest temple,

all the pharaohs of the New Kingdom
had built monuments.

But Ramesses soon outdid them all.

In the Great Hypostyle Hall
begun by his grandfather,

Ramesses ordered a work
of awesome proportions.

An army of artisans carved a field of
134 columns in the shape of papyrus.

Each column stood 69 feet tall,
6 feet wide,

and weighed over 100 tons.

The Greeks, the Romans,
even Napoleon

would one day attempt
to emulate its grandeur.

It doesn't seem to be the work of
human beings, it is on such a scale.

It's looks as though it's part
of the personality of the man

to have to prove a point.

He's always scoring points
over everybody y else.

Through propaganda, diplomacy

and a building program
that humbled his rivals,

Ramesses had finally become
the legend he had set out to create.

The boy king, born a commoner,
was truly Ramesses the Great.

But at the height of Ramesses' reign,

just when his empire seemed stronger
than ever, tragedy struck.

Ramesses' chief wife,
Nefertari, died.

Ramesses had her body
sealed in her exquisite tomb.

After Nefertari died,

Ramesses completed
the ultimate tribute to his wife.

In an audacious act,

Ramesses turned
two entire mountains into temples.

Side by side,
one dedicated to himself

and one to his wife, Nefertari.

Abu Simbel was not intended
simply as a memorial to Nefertari.

Ramesses had chosen the location
of the temples carefully.

The two temples at Abu Simbel

are another piece of the propaganda
exercise of Ramesses.

They are situated
at the southernmost border of Egypt

to indicate the power of Egypt
to people living further south.

It shows to everybody

you can't really mess around
with the Egyptian kings.

Here, overlooking the Nile,
3000 years later,

Ramesses still stands
beside the woman he once called

"the one for whom the sun shines".

Nefertari left Ramesses
an important legacy...

Sons,
to rule Egypt after his death.

But the long life that had been
the pharaoh's greatest blessing

was now fast becoming his curse.

While he lived on,
his children began to die.

One by one, he groomed
twelve of his heirs for power,

named each as Crown Prince,
only to watch them die.

While bereavements
wore down the old king,

Ramesses made sure the world
still only heard of his successes.

Tales of Ramesses' greatness
were manufactured

at a new temple
the pharaoh had built for himself...

The Ramesseum.

Behind the temple sanctuary was
the intellectual heart of the empire,

the House of Life.

The scribes who worked here

were responsible for carefully
crafting the image

Ramesses projected to the world.

They composed the texts
glorifying the pharaoh.

They managed his campaign funds

and they were the designers
of his buildings and monuments.

The House of Life
was Ramesses' Ministry of Propaganda.

Its task... to create and exploit the
larger-than-life image of their king.

They were masterminding

the royal presentation of Pharaoh
as this superhuman hero.

They were image makers,

spin doctors, we'd say
in modem terminology,

that would use traditional knowledge

and apply it to the promotion
of a particular individual,

in this case, of King Ramesses II.

All of this knowledge
was written on rolls of papyrus

and stored in the House of Life.

The temple library might have
contained 10,000 papyrus works,

some of them copied from books
that were already 2000 years old

when Ramesses
was on the throne of Egypt.

It would have been a storehouse
of intellectual wisdom.

This library of knowledge
would not have been possible

without the invention of papyrus.

The papyrus plant
that grew along the Nile

provided a medium
to record Egypt's knowledge.

The papyrus scrolls
that filled the House of Life

gave Egypt a recorded history.

Ramesses' scribes continued
to build the image of the pharaoh

as a strong and vibrant warrior king.

The reality, however,
was that by 1213 BC,

the 93-year-old king was ailing.

At the end of his life,
he was in rather frail condition.

He had lost his teeth,
he had dental abscesses,

he had curvature of the spine,
he had scoliosis, numerous problems.

He must have been in great pain.

A terrible thing for a man
who, in younger days,

was strong and virile and very
muscular and very enthusiastic.

At the end of that year,
preparations were under way

to celebrate
Ramesses' 67th year in power.

The ordinary people of Egypt

could be forgiven for thinking he'd
live forever, yet they were wrong.

Just before the celebrations began,
news broke...

Ramesses the Great was dead.

Ramesses' death
must have been so traumatic.

Most of the people of Egypt
had never known another king.

Probably not more
than a few dozen people

could remember what happened before
Ramesses had ascended the throne.

This could be
the end of the universe.

The sun may not rise or the moon
wax and wane, the Nile won't rise.

It must have been panic time.

This is truly an important event,
and nobody knows quite what to do.

The frail body of Ramesses
that rests in the Cairo Museum today

bears little resemblance
to the heroic figure

carved on nearly every temple facade
along the Nile.

A small, shrivelled corpse
with tufts of red hair.

This was the man who cast his shadow
over Egyptian history.

Every pharaoh who followed would
strive to recreate his greatness.

The legacy of Ramesses the Great

is that everybody
tried to be like him.

It is the name of Ramesses
that they take on,

so from Ramesses II,
the one we know, the great one,

we go on a whole series of Ramesses
until Ramesses XI.

But they're all Ramesses
of a minor scale.

Nothing that can be compared
to Ramesses II.

Through sheer determination
and the power of his personality,

Ramesses had maintained the empire
for over half a century.

He had assumed that his legacy
would last forever.

But the world was changing

and within a generation
Ramesses' legacy was in peril.

At the edges of the empire,

city after city began to fall
under pressure from invading hordes.

Well armed, aggressive and dangerous,
these foreigners arrived by ship

and decimated everyone
in their sight.

Ancient texts refer to them only
as the Sea People.

Eventually these Sea People

even destroyed
the powerful Hittite empire.

With its greatest ally gone,
Egypt itself was now vulnerable.

"No country could withstand
their onslaught.

"The Hittite land
was the first to fall.

"Then they came onwards,
on towards Egypt itself "

The fading reliefs on the walls
of this Egyptian temple

are the only record
that remains of the Sea People.

Yet they were changing
the whole political structure

of the ancient world.

The Sea People were attacking
the edges of the empire.

Allies were lost
and trade routes blocked.

Egypt's once-vibrant economy
began to falter

and now problems
within Egypt began to mount.

Ramesses' successors expected
the same standards of craftsmanship

from their builders as during
the reign of the great king.

But they no longer had the means
to finance these great works.

The Egyptian state was living as if
it was still the time of Ramesses II.

But what is important here is that
it was not the time of Ramesses II.

It was not the time
of Ramesses II internationally

but it was also
not the time internally.

Egypt had begun to crumble.

The government couldn't even pay its
elite craftsmen at Deir el Medineh.

There came to be a frustration
with the Egyptian administration.

Promises are made and then broken.
Promises are made and then forgotten.

And, as usual,
it is the little man who suffers.

The tomb workers faced starvation.

Putting down their tools,
the villagers went on strike,

the first recorded
industrial strike in history.

"We have no clothes,
no oil, no fish, no vegetables.

"Send a message to our good lord,
the Pharaoh, asking for them,

"and another message to our boss

"telling him to provide us
with emergency rations. "

The little people
wouldn't take it any more.

They did go on strike.
They did protest at not being paid.

It didn't do them much good.

For a couple of months
they made several protests

but, additionally,
they went off in search of treasure

to try and pay their bills,
if you will.

In desperate circumstances,

the tomb builders
did the unthinkable.

They knew the secret location
of the royal tombs

and now they betrayed
the pharaohs of the New Kingdom

and violated
their sacred burial chambers.

Even the tomb of Ramesses the Great
did not escape desecration.

The confessions beaten out
of the few that were caught

allow us a glimpse of
the magnificent treasures they found.

"We fetched our copper picks
and tunnelled into this royal tomb.

"We discovered the king's mummy
lying at the back of the tomb.

"It was covered with gold
from head to toe.

"The mummy cases were also lined
with silver and gold, inside and out,

"and were studded
with all sorts of precious stones.

"We tore off the gold,
took the amulets and jewellery.

"We split the gold we'd found
into equal shares

"and then we sailed back
across the river to Thebes. "

By 1080 BC,

most of the treasures buried
with the pharaohs had been plundered.

The mountain of gold
had been stripped bare.

The same people who had built
the royal tombs had desecrated them.

The very men
who had assisted the pharaohs

in their quest for immortality

had taken it away.

As order broke down within Egypt,
the empire finally collapsed.

States in the Near East were no
longer loyal to the Egyptian pharaoh.

Even Nubia seized their chance
for independence,

cutting Egypt's last lifeline...
its access to gold.

The loss of Nubia meant
the loss of gold.

The loss of gold means
you do not have any clout

on the international
political scene.

So other people are going
to become the dominant ones

and Egypt becomes
a little bit of a backwater.

In a final, humiliating act,

the priests of Karnak
were forced to perform a sorry duty.

They gathered together 40 royal
mummies from the desecrated tombs

and carried them to secret locations
where they might finally find peace.

Ahmose,
founder of the New Kingdom.

Tuthmosis III,
warrior and empire builder.

Even Ramesses,
the last Great Pharaoh.

Once they had been treated like gods.

Now their bodies were piled up
in caves in a mountainside

where they would rest
for 3000 years.

It seemed that Ramesses' struggle
for immortality had been in vain.

Less than 200 years
after the end of his reign,

the empire had fallen.

And with the death of Ramesses XI,

the Ramesside dynasty became extinct.

The New Kingdom was over.

During the New Kingdom, Egypt became
this mixture of reality and Nation

that has always represented

the most fascinating aspect
of this civilisation.

The reality of a very powerful
and successful empire,

but also the Nation
of a display of power

that goes well beyond the reality.

All the other empires of the ancient
world tried to emulate Egypt.

From the Assyrians to the Persians,
the Greeks and the Romans,

you always look back
to the greatest empire of all

which is the empire of Egypt.

Everybody wants to be
like the Egyptian pharaohs.

Today, millions still come
to pay tribute to the pharaohs.

3000 years later,

Egypt's Golden Empire
is still conquering

the imagination of the world.