Original subtitles

(XiveTV theme)

- [Narrator] Ancient Egypt.

For over 3,000 years, the world's most vibrant

and puzzling civilization flourished through war and peace.

The Egyptians built great cities, enduring monuments.

They advanced mathematics and technology.

Their astonishing legacy survives to this day.

Despite all their brilliant accomplishments,

the Egyptians seemed fixated on one singular idea,

their own deaths.

No other culture invested so much in the afterlife.

Now, experts are unraveling the secret

of this seemingly morbid obsession,

by examining Egypt's most elaborate tomb-builder,

Ramses the Great.

They're discovering how the ancients crafted

an intricate balance between the world of the living

and what lies beyond.

Strange as it seems, Egypt's celebration of death might hold

the secret to the culture's longevity.

Egypt, more than 3,000 years ago.

Pharaoh Seti I is dead.

Mourning priests and wailing women gather

in the Valley of the Kings to escort their leader

to his resting place.

His heir, Ramses, watches the Opening of the Mouth ritual,

to awaken the corpse's senses in the afterlife.

For a few moments more, Seti still rules Egypt.

Ramses can assume the throne only after his father is buried

and becomes a god.

(dramatic music)

The son inherits a powerful empire,

where he'll rule over millions of subjects.

(dramatic music)

People travel across the country to worship

their new pharaoh.

Ramses' reign will span an incredible 66 years,

and he'll live longer than most every other pharaoh,

even outliving many of his sons and daughters.

Like all Egyptian rulers, he'll spend much of his life

planning for his death.

Almost as soon as he takes the throne,

he starts designing his tomb,

insisting that it be more magnificent than his father's.

(dramatic music)

But it should be at the same place,

the Valley of the Kings,

where generations of Egyptian rulers began their journey

to the afterlife.

Ramses chooses a spot for his tomb,

and appoints his royal scribe, Ramose,

to be sure it's built properly.

(dramatic music)

Ramose is now one of the most important people

in the pharaoh's life,

because he is responsible for the pharaoh's afterlife.

He will oversee every detail of the massive royal tomb.

Just after the pharaoh ascends the throne,

laborers have already started construction.

The limestone vaults are still being dug,

but now by Egyptologists.

And perhaps no one knows the Valley of the Kings

better than Kent Weeks,

who discovered the elaborate burial complex of Ramses' sons.

For 30 years, he and his colleagues have carefully measured

and mapped every underground chamber

in order to conserve them.

- The Egyptians were well aware that there was no way

anyone could predict how long a person,

even a pharaoh, would live.

And so, it was considered desirable

to begin work on his tomb early in his reign,

so that, God forbid, he should die young,

the process of burial and the process of him

making the journey into the next life can begin

without any delays.

- [Narrator] The geography of their country explains

why death so obsessed the Egyptians.

A small stripe of a vivid and fertile land,

surrounded by deadly deserts,

Egypt seemed perched on the threshold of life and death.

(wind whistling)

Long before the days of the Pharaohs,

people here would have noticed a peculiar phenomenon.

(wind whistling)

Corpses don't decay in the dry scorching sand.

Even after decades, they stay almost intact.

And if flesh can be preserved indefinitely,

maybe life can be too.

- Once the body, the flesh is divorced

from the clean desert sand, it starts to deteriorate,

and so perhaps when the Egyptians came upon these bodies,

they realized that they really needed to do something

to actively protect the body, to preserve it

so that the soul could use it for eternity.

- [Narrator] At the American University of Cairo,

Egyptologist, Salima Ikram, and her students try

to reconstruct the ancient craft of mummification.

Embalmers not only preserved humans, but animals too.

The students, with only sketchy 2,000-year-old instructions,

rely on trial and error, just as the Egyptians did.

- In order to preserve the body,

because they believed your soul really needed the body

to continue on into the afterlife,

the Egyptians started to experiment in different ways

until they came up, ultimately, with this mummification,

which is the kind of mummification

probably most commonly practiced from about 1400,

1500 BC, onward.

- [Narrator] At first, the corpse lays in natron,

a natural desert salt.

It has to be frequently changed

until the mummy completely dries out.

This could take up to 40 days.

The students skip the ancient incantations

while rubbing seven sacred oils into the mummy's skin

to keep it supple.

The whole process might take 70 days,

and then the mummy's ready for wrapping in linen bandages.

Over the millennia, countless creatures got

the royal mummy treatment,

even crocodiles, the holy animals of the gods.

Some kings even took their beloved pets

with them to the grave.

And that reveals something about

how the Egyptians envisioned the afterlife.

The city of Abydos was the site of the cult of Osiris,

the god of death and resurrection.

In Ramses' time, thousands of people came here every year

to honor this god and pray for eternal life.

Even the new pharaoh and his great royal wife, Nefertari

make the pilgrimage.

Like all visitors, they bring offerings

to the sanctuary of Osiris.

2,000 years before the Valley of the Kings,

Egypt's first pharaohs built their cemetery in Abydos.

The graves have been excavated and looted many times,

but archeologist, Gunter Dreyer, still finds

tiny funerary objects in the sand,

like these models of garlic,

that the deceased would carry into the afterlife.

The Egyptians apparently saw the next world

as identical to this world.

Burial goods included wine jars, arrowheads,

small containers shaped like animals,

and other familiar objects

to make the afterlife comfortable.

- [Translator] They didn't always take real offerings

into the grave, because they decay

and wouldn't last for eternity.

So they started to make models

that represent those offerings and worked just as well.

Apart from clay models of garlic, bread, or meat,

we've often found models of poppy heads.

Probably they hoped the deceased would enjoy pleasant dreams

in eternity.

- [Narrator] The artifacts in Abydos reveal how Egyptians

imagined eternal life.

From the ruins, Gunter Dreyer and Martin Zasloff

of the German Archeological Institute, carefully reconstruct

early royal burials.

The way these tombs were constructed suggests

that very early, even two millennia before Ramses,

people had a solid concept of life after death.

The burial plots of the ancient pharaohs are laid out

like palaces for the next life.

Deep inside the tomb, straw mats line the main chamber,

and a large wooden ark holds the pharaoh's gilded coffin.

The chamber was stocked with food and jugs of beer

for his journey to the next world.

Archeologists also found the burial rooms

for the pharaoh's courtiers,

who had to die to serve their departed king.

(dramatic music)

From nature, the Egyptians learned that all life

follows an eternal rhythm.

(dramatic music)

If the sun rises every morning,

if the Nile floods every year,

if grain springs from the earth every summer,

then it must be possible for humans to rise from the dead.

Tomb architecture expresses this shining optimism.

From a side chamber with a statue of the pharaoh,

a staircase rises to the west.

From here, the departed king would begin the journey

of a lifetime, to the empire of the dead.

The tomb's surface, covered with cedar beams

and straw matting, is topped by a sand hill,

a symbol of resurrection.

- [Translator] A light motif is that life is cyclical,

and begins over and over again, and thus, eternal.

Every effort is made to help the dead

with their resurrection.

Therefore they build primal hills on top of the tombs,

symbols of life's creation,

from which the dead could revive,

and those elements become pyramids.

- [Narrator] The creation myth says all life emerged

from the primordial ocean.

As the water slowly drained, it revealed the first piece

of land, the primeval mound.

The Egyptians relived that genesis every year,

as the Nile ebbed and exposed fertile land,

the promise of life's return.

As the hill on the graves reached skyward,

it became more abstract.

In just four centuries, the little mound grew

into the Pyramid of Giza.

Egypt's primal symbol became the pinnacle

of architectural genius.

(dramatic music)

No civilization in the world ever invested so much time

and resources into tomb-building.

But the investment in the afterlife,

paid off in the here and now,

based on what Egyptologist Mark Lehner has found.

He and his colleagues unearthed a huge town surrounding

the site of the giant pyramids.

What he believes to be the birthplace

of the Egyptian nation.

- Certainly, the pyramids had a large part in creating

an identity, I think.

They had to have been a socializing force,

creating identity on a national scale.

Egyptians is Egyptians, whether north or south.

- [Narrator] An incomparable collective achievement,

the Pyramid of Giza becomes the tallest building

in the world, unsurpassed for almost 4,000 years.

Over more than two decades,

countless workers built this enormous site,

which celebrates the immortality of the pharaoh.

These monuments express the cosmic order,

which the king has to preserve for the common good,

even in the afterlife.

Every Egyptian yearns for eternity,

but only the god, Osiris, ruler of the Underworld,

judge and god of the dead, determines who is worthy.

Ramses beseeches Osiris to grant him a long life,

because he has ambitious plans to extend Egypt's power

and build his legacy.

(somber music)

And for that, he needs time.

(somber music)

Over the millennia, millions of people come to Abydos.

Countless fragments of sacrificial bowls bear witness

to their belief in Osiris, and in life after death.

Traditionally, some people used bowls like these

to write letters to their dead relatives,

asking for help or advice.

The content dealt with everyday occurrences.

- There are letters where a woman will come

to her deceased husband's tomb, and she'll say,

"Excuse me, didn't you say that your son should inherit

"these plots of land?

"Now, look, your brother's coming and saying

"that it's his son's."

Or a woman will come and she will say

to her deceased parents, "Please help me conceive.

"Don't you want your household to live on?"

- [Narrator] Ramses struggles with greater concerns.

He yearns to become the most powerful pharaoh

the world has ever seen,

and starts by immortalizing himself

with epic construction projects.

He has to prove himself at Thebes.

The city is already Egypt's showcase,

with more than 50,000 citizens.

At its center stands the great Temple of Karnak,

the most sacred place in the kingdom,

because it's home to the imperial god, Amun.

At Karnak, Ramses' predecessors built monumental pylons,

a sacred lake and boulevards.

On the west side of the river,

stand the gigantic mortuary temples

of the deceased pharaohs.

How can Ramses surpass all this?

How can he leave behind an even greater legacy?

He has the resources, he just needs time.

As if obsessed, he starts with his tomb,

carefully planning it to the last detail.

The work will take many years.

He relies on specialists, master builders,

masons, craftsmen.

They have their own department in the administration

of southern Egypt.

They report to Ramose, who reports to the pharaoh.

To finalize the layout of the tomb's interior,

Ramose presents a floor plan,

noting all corridors and halls they want to dig

for Ramses in the Valley of the Kings.

Stone tombs demand perfect planning.

Anything less would jeopardize the pharaoh's chances

of reaching the afterlife.

It's an enormous responsibility for Ramose to shoulder,

but Pharaoh puts his trust in him.

Like any royal burial vault,

the crypt is more than a resting place.

It also preserves the world order

and must not be desecrated.

(suspenseful music)

Deep drop-shafts

and fake walls are designed

to foil grave robbers.

The royal mummy must stay hidden forever.

The pharaoh needs his body to cross the borders

to eternity.

Without a mummy, there is no afterlife.

(suspenseful music)

The unfinished reliefs in the front of the tomb are a bluff,

so burglars think the grave wasn't used.

A hidden floor leads to the burial chamber,

which conceals the pharaoh's sarcophagus.

(suspenseful music)

Beneath the mummy, another enormous tunnel leads

to the Underworld and eternal life.

(suspenseful music)

The tomb-builders lived in a village called Set Maat,

or Place of the World Order, near the Valley of the Kings,

on a dry and unwelcoming patch of ground.

Despite being only a few kilometers from Thebes,

workers here are completely cut off from the outside world.

- One theory is that the ancient Egyptians who lived here

were sequestered because they were involved in work

on royal tombs,

and what they were doing had to be kept confidential.

Not all Egyptologists like that idea.

Another theory is that they were working with raw materials

of great value, silver, and gold, and ebony, and ivory,

and other precious materials that had to be watched over.

And here in this walled-in community with guards

on the only entrance, it would have been possible

to better protect these raw materials from theft.

- [Narrator] In Ramses' time, 25 families,

Egypt's most talented artists and craftsmen lived

in the 80 houses of Set Maat.

All their food and tools must be carried over the mountains

to their village and Ramose records each delivery

in great detail, before handing out the supplies.

(people talking)

At Set Maat, Ramose is the pharaoh's eyes and ears.

Maintaining order here so that Pharaoh would be able

to claim his place in the world beyond.

(people chattering)

- This is a house very much like the house

that Ramose probably lived in.

He was certainly a VIP in this village.

Being in charge of the workforce carving and decorating

the tomb of Ramses II,

he was one of the most important people around here.

And one could assume that he would come into this house

at the end of the day and kiss his loving wife,

climb these stairs up to the roof,

where he could relax in the sweet breath of the north wind

while his wife, down here in the kitchen,

heated up the oven, baked some fresh bread for him,

added some spices for dipping, and took those,

and a couple of bowls of rather thick beer up to the roof,

for Ramose, her husband, to relax at the end of the day.

All of this, of course, accompanied by screaming children

and barking dogs and the usual things that one finds

in villages in Egypt even today.

- [Narrator] Much of what we know about Ramose

and this village, was pulled from the village rubbish pit.

Egypt's trash is an archeologist's treasure.

Thousands of pottery shards speak volumes about life here

more than 3,000 years ago.

These fragments of clay and limestone were once notebooks

and sketch pads.

They show how the villagers lived.

A mother suckling a baby.

A woman applying make-up in front of the mirror.

A young boy tending pigs.

A farmer leading a cow.

A worker's life isn't easy.

Ramose and his men trudge four kilometers down a narrow pass

to the work site in the Valley of the Kings.

Donkeys carry their tools, their bread, their beer,

and everything they need for their 10-day work week

away from the village.

They make their camp at the foot

of a gigantic natural pyramid.

Ramose records his inventory and notes who's sick,

reporting on who's on leave

and how the project's progressing.

Women generally aren't part of the workforce.

Ramose's wife, Mutemwia, sometimes brings wine or dates

from the village, a welcome change from the usual fare.

The laborers are sworn to secrecy,

but stories of the treasures hidden

in the Valley of the Kings manage to slip out.

Below ground lies a hidden village of the dead.

This gigantic labyrinth of tombs held 14 generations

of kings during Ramses' times.

And later would contain more than 60 so-called

houses of eternity.

Some lie buried more than 400 meters into the stone.

A fortune lay concealed inside these chambers,

looted long ago.

The only complete royal grave treasure recovered

in modern times belonged to one of Ramses' predecessors,

Tutankhamen.

His tomb contained more than 5,000 objects,

a fortune in gold, several royal beds,

a golden chariot, statues of gods,

and a jeweled-encrusted throne for the pharaoh

who died when he was only 20 years old.

(haunting music)

What robber could resist the lure

of this subterranean treasure city?

- There were several guard houses posted

around the Valley of the Kings.

Because of the steep hills that surround the valley,

they had pretty well-unobstructed views

and can see anybody coming into the valley

from quite some distance away.

- [Narrator] In spite of precautions,

cunning robbers still infiltrate the valley,

unseen by the guards.

Some even manage to break into the royal tombs

or the warehouses, earning an ill-gotten fortune.

Tomb-raiding is usually an inside job.

With no master plan at the Valley of the Kings,

looters probably get information from Ramose's workmen.

- Stealing their goods was one thing,

but actually to go and destroy the body,

to take off the jewelry, break up the coffin,

that was considered the absolute worst,

because these people now had also

no chance for an afterlife.

- [Narrator] Ramose, ultimately responsible

for the site security, does all he can to find

and punish the informers.

(speaking foreign language)

His failure to prevent the plundering won't sit well

with Ramses.

(speaking foreign language)

The construction of their pharaoh's tomb has suddenly

become a top priority.

Egypt has mobilized for war,

and the crew must finish before harm comes to Ramses.

(dramatic music)

Danger lurks at the borders of the empire.

The Hittites, arch-enemies of the Egyptians,

are expanding their territory.

And they're getting dangerously close to Egypt.

Ramses, as Egypt's Commander-in-Chief, cannot look on idly,

as his forces gird for war.

He must leave Queen Nefertari.

She is only one of his many wives,

but she is his great royal bride, the mother of his heir.

(haunting music)

The vizier and the officials will take the reigns

of government until the pharaoh returns.

(dramatic music)

Ramses strikes out to the north with 20,000 warriors,

the biggest army Egypt has ever mustered,

to protect the frontiers of his empire.

After one month, they close in on the Hittite troops,

based near the city of Kadesh, in today's Syria.

In Egypt, people are worried about the war's outcome.

Ramses is nowhere near achieving his grand ambition

of constructing the empire's greatest monuments,

and his own tomb is far from ready.

Because their pharaoh is risking his life in war,

the workers have redoubled their efforts.

While the stone workers smash the shafts deeper

into the limestone at the back of the tomb,

the front sections are being plastered and painted.

Ramose drives his men relentlessly.

(speaking foreign language)

It isn't enough to work fast.

They have to work carefully as well,

because every detail of a tomb must be exactly right.

(dramatic music)

- The Egyptians themselves, I think, clearly thought

that preparations like the decoration of a tomb

and the furnishing of a tomb were essential,

if they were going to have a safe journey

into the afterlife.

- [Narrator] A pharaoh's death can bring chaos

unless he passes successfully to the afterlife.

For that, the paintings and hieroglyphics must be perfect.

Even in death, the pharaoh must maintain order

in the world of the living.

Ceiling paintings show how the god of the sky, Nut,

swallows the sun in the evening,

ferries her through the 12 hours of night,

and gives birth to her the next morning,

heralding a new day.

Thus, the Valley of the Kings is more

than a royal graveyard.

It is the engine that drives the world.

The master builders command great respect,

(rocks tumbling)

but also face great danger.

(dramatic music)

The deep limestone chambers can be unstable.

Accidents happen.

Ceilings collapse.

(dramatic music)

When a worker gets hurt, construction stops.

With Egypt at war, Ramose can't afford

to get behind schedule, especially since the tide of battle

is about to turn against Ramses.

(horse hooves thundering)

In Syria, near Kadesh, Ramses and his army battle

for their empire and their lives.

The Hittites, fierce fighters,

have trapped the pharaoh's division

and forced the other Egyptian units to retreat.

The battle turns drastically against the Egyptians

and Ramses hardly manages to escape.

Knowing he can't win, he withdraws his troops.

(horse hooves thundering)

After months of fighting, he returns to Egypt,

where people celebrate his arrival,

but no one must ever know what really happened

on the front lines.

Ramses comes home in triumph.

(dramatic music)

He misleads his people and the gods,

trumpeting his victory against the enemies

of peace and order.

(speaking foreign language)

And he gets aways with it,

because the Hittites, facing epidemics and other problems,

also back away from the war.

The danger has passed.

Ramses adorns the temple walls with propaganda,

portraying himself as a great conquering general.

The images show the Hittites bent low before him.

But even though he may not have been a strong commander,

Ramses is an astute politician.

In his 21st year as Pharaoh

and 15 years after the battle of Kadesh,

the Egyptians and the Hittites negotiate peace.

A delegation of ambassadors brings a history-making document

to Egypt.

It is the world's first peace treaty,

a 3,270-year-old document, written in cuneiform script

and hieroglyphs.

Both parties sign it, promising to help each other

fight their enemies.

(speaking foreign language)

The king of the Hittites also promises one of his daughters

to the pharaoh, a marriage that unites the former enemies

closer than any document.

(dramatic music)

The peace between the nations will outlive Ramses.

The pharaoh will never go to war again.

He dedicates himself to erecting new temples,

and extending old ones.

(dramatic music)

With every obelisk, with every cartouche,

and figure bearing his name and likeness,

Ramses celebrates life.

(dramatic music)

In his funerary temple,

he erects the greatest granite statues

that his people have ever seen,

becoming Egypt's greatest builder.

And of course, that grandeur extends to his grave,

the largest in the Valley of the Kings.

With his country at peace, and Ramses' longevity,

Ramose and his craftsmen have ample time

to prepare a worthy tomb for their leader.

(people chattering)

At the end of each work week,

they return to their village, Set Maat.

(somber music)

They celebrate the weekend with parties, and drinks.

But even their drinking songs are tinged with death.

"Give your heart every day to drink,

"until the day when you go to the land

"that loves silence."

(upbeat tribal music)

For Ramose, every day is deadly serious.

In this life, he works ceaselessly

for the pharaoh's next life.

But what will become of him and his wife?

For years, Ramose and Mutemwia have wanted children,

but their prayers have gone unheard.

Ramose has dedicated his life to serving the pharaoh,

but at the expense of building a legacy of his own.

Without an heir, he has nothing.

The two decide to adopt a son,

and start preparing their own monuments,

with faith and magic charms.

(dramatic music)

- The most important thing that an Egyptian often took

into the afterlife, was something called a heart-scarab.

Heart-scarabs were scarabs that were placed over the heart,

and on them was inscribed a special spell,

which basically said that I did good things in this life,

and therefore, I should be allowed into the afterlife.

- [Narrator] On the dangerous path to the afterlife,

no one escapes scrutiny.

Osiris, the judge of the dead,

decides the fate of the deceased.

The heart, the home of the conscience,

must be as light as Maat's feather,

symbol of the goddess of justice.

If it is heavy with sin, Osiris bars the way

to the afterlife.

Only those with a pure heart will get past

the great Devourer, a female demon with a crocodile's head

and a body that's half-lion, half-hippo.

It consumes the souls of sinners,

condemning them to eternal death.

For the pure of heart, the afterlife continues

much like this life.

Eating and parties, but work as well.

In the world beyond, canals must still be dug,

and fields tilled.

(somber music)

But the Egyptians devised a clever solution

for the afterlife's tedium.

They put ushabtis, little figures like clones of the dead,

into the tomb.

When Osiris calls the deceased to work,

the ushabtis take the job.

It's just one detail of the complex burial process.

Preparing for the afterlife was big business.

- For the Egyptians, funerary rituals and in fact,

an investment in the tomb was also quite important

because this was a major part of the economy,

and all of the trade that went around it,

and all of the workmen, the embalmers,

the people who quarried the natron,

who ground it up, who traded with the frankincense,

who brought the textiles.

All of this was a very important component of society

and economy and this is also something that was rather key

to the whole ancient Egyptian economic system,

and did keep society ticking along.

- [Narrator] At the small cemetery of Set Maat,

Ramose builds tombs for his wife, his relatives,

and his servants.

Though a fraction of the size of the pharaoh's,

it's an adequate eternal home for his family,

and includes a small pyramid.

Once reserved only for pharaohs,

the pyramid's popularity spreads among the craftsmen

of Set Maat.

Her cemetery grows crowded with them.

Everyone wants to be immortal and the afterlife is open

to all who prepare for it.

Ramose dies at the age of 68.

He had worked on Ramses' tomb for almost 40 years.

His adopted son becomes the new royal scribe at Set Maat.

And though the pharaoh has already grown older

than many of his predecessors, his tomb is not yet finished.

Osiris has granted him long life,

but now he's found this blessing is also a curse.

Nefertari, his beloved wife,

and 12 of his sons die before him.

To overcome his grief,

Ramses plans one more massive project.

The biggest funerary monument ever built

in the Valley of the Kings,

a tomb for his sons, directly opposite his own grave.

30 years ago, when Egyptologist Kent Weeks

uncovered the tomb, he didn't realize what he'd found.

When he started with the excavation,

at what became known as KV5, little did he know

he'd begun his life's work.

- The problem with KV5 is that it's a unique tomb.

There's nothing like it anywhere in Egypt,

and so we really don't have anything to compare it with.

Basically, we have to be meticulous

in collecting all of the internal evidence we have here,

because that's going to be the only source

of information we have to tell us who was buried here,

why they were buried here, how we divide the tomb up

into a series of individual funeral suites

for each of the sons, and how we try and assign functions

to each of the rooms.

- [Narrator] By the time Weeks and his colleagues

had uncovered one chamber, they'd already found another.

So far, they've discovered more than 150 chambers,

and they're far from done.

They suspect that many of Ramses' 45 sons were buried here.

From a hall of columns, a corridor leads to the side tombs.

A statue of Ramses depicted as the god of death

watches over everything.

Because centuries of storms have destroyed the interior

of the tombs, Weeks found little to salvage.

But some artifacts of extraordinary value managed

to survive.

Like these bones and skulls,

which might reveal who was buried here.

- This, I think, is almost certainly one of the sons

of Ramses.

It was found in the tomb.

I don't know which son it is,

but I was looking at this more closely.

We took samples of the skulls and we also took samples

of the associated long bones, which is to say,

the bones of the arm and the leg.

We don't have the results yet, but I'm pretty sure

we're going to find that they all are members

of the same family.

Could be very exciting. - Yeah.

- [Narrator] Ramses' greatest wish was fulfilled.

The gods granted him almost 70 years on the throne.

(dramatic music)

Most Egyptians have only known this one pharaoh,

Ramses the Great.

He brought them an era of peace and wealth.

His architectural and political legacy has given him

a kind of immortality.

(dramatic music)

He dies at almost 90.

Unbelievable at a time when most people didn't reach

half that age.

(dramatic music)

But when he finally passes, his tomb is ready.

(dramatic music)

Ramses ruled at the peak of his people's history.

Still today, he's considered one of the most important

kings of Egypt, and certainly,

no one left a greater mark on the land,

having built colossal temples on the southern borders

of the empire, and in Thebes.

(dramatic music)

Ramses will depart his splendid tomb

in the Valley of the Kings and celebrate eternal life.

And when he reaches the afterlife,

he will help maintain order in the land of the living.

That idea consoles his people.

- Given the population of Egypt at the time of Ramses II,

let's assume it's a million and a half people,

two million people.

Given the enormity of the death of the only ruler

most Egyptians had ever known,

I would think that Egypt was in something

of a state of chaos, of confusion,

and people just probably wandered about shaking their head

and wondering what the future held, what was in store.

- [Narrator] After Ramses' death,

the empire begins a slow, gradual decline,

but the count of the dead would continue

for another 1,500 years.

The Egyptian way of death even survives the Egyptians.

When the Romans ruled Egypt, they adopt Egyptian customs.

Emperors crown themselves as pharaohs,

and assume the ancient rituals of the death cult,

including mummification.

Based on the stylized death masks of the pharaohs,

the Romans create individual portraits of their deceased.

The Egyptian culture could not be erased.

- To say that ancient Egyptian religion was a glue

that bound its people together,

I think is a very true statement.

It was one of those things, far more than a common language,

far more than common costume or hairdo, or whatever.

It was one of those things that really gave you

an emotional bond with your fellow Egyptian.

- [Narrator] To the Egyptians, life, death, and afterlife

were all one thing, celebrated in astonishing monuments

that have weathered the millennia.

Pyramids, writing, temples and graves,

bear witness to the idea that the people saw their country

as paradise on Earth.

The belief in resurrection would outlive the Egyptians,

finding its way into Judaism, Christianity, and Islam,

and in this way,

perhaps they really did achieve immortality.

(upbeat music)

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