All language subtitles for Ancient Apocalypse S01E01

The Sphinx guards the only

surviving wonder of
the ancient world.

The mighty pyramids at Giza.

They were built for the Pharaohs
of the Egyptian old kingdom,

a civilisation that lasted

for almost a 1 ,000 years
before mysteriously collapsing.

Archaeologists are
now discovering

that the sudden end was one of
most unimaginable horror.

We had a pile of three skeletons
in this position,

an old man over an old woman,
over a child.

All of them
in contorted attitudes.

The woman like this,
the man with hands up,

and the child was
too disintegrated to say.

5,000 years ago, long before
the time of Tutankhamun,

before Ramesses,
before Queen Nefertiti,

the first great civilisation
was established in Egypt.

The Egyptian old kingdom's
lasting legacy is the Sphinx,

and the great pyramids at Giza.

The pyramids are royal tombs
for the old kingdom's pharaohs,

protecting their mummified bodies
for eternity.

The pharaohs united Egypt,

and the old kingdom flourished.

They developed
a unique style of art,

architecture and literature.

lt was a civilisation that was
remarkably stable and resilient.

And the daily life
of the average Egyptian

remained unchanged for nearly
a 1 ,000 years.

But then 4,200 years ago,

the old kingdom
suddenly collapsed.

The pharaohs power crumbled,

central government failed.

Egypt was plunged in
to a dark age,

which lasted
for nearly 200 years.

lt's an episode in history which
has mystified Egyptologists.

For the last 30 years,

Egyptian archaeologists,
Fekri Hassan,

has been looking
for his own explanation of

why Egypt turned
from stability to chaos.

l felt compelled to find out
why did it happen when it did,

especially when Egypt
was doing so well,

when we had the pyramids,
when we had the temples,

when we had the statues,

we had major achievements
in arts,

literature and everything else.

Why did it end at that time?

And so l had to pursue
that question.

l had to find out
for myself the reasons

for the sudden unprecedented
collapse of the old kingdom.

Fekri Hassan has always
challenged orthodoxy.

The conventional wisdom is that

the old kingdom fell apart after
the death of a pharaoh,

and the battle for succession

caused a major
political conflict.

For Fekri,
this just didn't ring true.

The first seed of doubt was
planted in 197 1 ,

when Fekri found
evidence of something

far more devastating
than political unrest.

This little known tomb
in Southern Egypt

has an astonishing story to tell.

The tomb belongs,
not to a pharaoh,

but to a local governor
called Ankhtifi,

who lived just after
the collapse of the old kingdom.

For me personally,
it's an incredible find.

This is a remarkable tomb.

This is one of
the most outstanding tombs

in all of Egypt.

lt's in Ankatifi's writings that
Fekri found the vital clue.

The hieroglyphs tell of
horrendous famines

and the sufferings of
ordinary people.

lt is really that we have a voice
from the past

that gives us
a poignant account of

what had happened,
of the horrors,

the famines that happened
4,000 years ago.

And to have them reported
in such a concise

and clear fashion
is unprecedented.

''The entire country has become
like a starved grasshopper.

l managed it that
no-one died of hunger.''

One small section is
particularly moving,

as it tells of the despair and

the atrocities
during the famines,

which were ravaging
the South of Egypt.

''All of upper Egypt was dying of
hunger to such a degree

that everyone had come to
eating their children.''

For Fekri,the writing on the wall

was far too powerful
to be ignored.

But taking Ankhtifi's hieroglyphs
literally brought him

in to conflict
with most Egyptologists.

When Ankhtifi talks about people
dying out of starvation,

l would take it
with a pinch of salt.

This is just
typical Egyptian rhetoric

which is bound to exaggeration.

There is no way
that the statements

made here are exaggerations.

lt is definitely a description
of actual events.

The text that we have here
is not a folk tale,

it's not
a mythological statement,

it's an actual account.

lt's an evidence that we can read

and interpret like anything else,

like any observation is subject
to analysis and examination.

And that text can be analysed
and can be examined,

and l find it credible.

Fekri felt compelled to prove
that these writings were true,

that Egypt had suffered
devastating famines.

But for years he was thwarted

by the lack of any hard evidence
of the suffering.

Then in 1996,

archaeological evidence emerged
for the first time.

A new discovery in the far north
revealed the scale of suffering

at the end of the old kingdom.

Archaeologists were excavating
in the Nile Delta,

far removed
from the glamorous tombs

and pyramids of
the rest of Egypt.

The guidebook describes
this sight as a place

that only dedicated
archaeologists

can get excited about.

Donald Redford is constantly
excited at what he finds here.

When we began to excavate,

l was surprised, and still am,

to find just under
the surface poor burials

under reed matting,

in some cases so tightly packed
one against the other

that you almost literally
tripped over them.

They found a staggering number
of bodies, nearly 9,000.

And something else was unusual
about these burials.

Wherever we set pick in soil,

was a burial supine on the back
or on the side,

under a reed mat with very
few grave goods,if any.

And so we naturally concluded,

and we must conclude in all cases
that these were the very poor,

and they all dated
to the same period.

Donald and his team were amazed

at the sheer quantity of
poor people buried here.

They'd found a community reduced
to extreme poverty,

and the date coincided exactly

with the end of the old kingdom.

l have not actually run in to
this kind of thing before.

l think what we see here
parallels

what is happening elsewhere
in Egypt.

Everything is breaking down
across the board.

lt's not just in one category
of human activity,

but everywhere, society, art,
religion, economy.

lt's all cracking up
and breaking down.

And l think here,
for the first time,

we have evidence of it
in dirt archaeology.

Confirmation of that final and
rather sudden destruction

of the Egyptian civilisation of
the old kingdom.

Donald's discovery suggested
that the descriptions

in Ankhtifi's tomb of widespread
famine must be true.

Fekri realised that whatever

had caused devastation
on such a large scale

must have been
an apocalyptic event.

My hunch from the beginning was

that it has to do
with the environment

which the Egyptians lived.

lt has to do with the environment

in which they depended
on their livelihood

that would have contributed
to this southern event,

because l could not see
any evidence

in the archaeological record

that would lead me to think that

it would just suddenly
break down like this.

Of all the forces in the natural
environment of Egypt,

one dominates, the River Nile.

The ancient Greek author,
Herodotus,

described the Nile as a gift
from the gods,

a belief that
most modern Egyptians

cling to passionately.

Well, a relationship
with the Nile,

l think is a love relationship,

and l don't l'm wrong

when l think of all the Egyptians

have a love affair with the Nile.

the Egyptian civilisation
is about the Nile,

it's about loving the Nile,

and it's - it runs in the veins,

it runs in the blood,

and it's part of your being.

You grow up with it, it's in you.

l've just been thinking
if you commit yourself

for a life long relationship
like this,

it has to be passionate.

Without the Nile,
Egypt would not exist,

because it relied on annual
floods for survival.

Every year, rains in the South

would bring flood waters
to the Nile Valley,

inundating the area with rich,
fertile mud.

Once the water had subsided,
planting could begin.

For Fekri, the fascination
with the life

and death powers of
the Nile floods,

goes back a long time.

l think one of the major
turning points in my life

was when l came here
with my mother,

when l was about six years old.

And l have never seen
a flood before.

There was water
all over the place

on the banks of the Nile.

l was terrified.

l was amazed that
this could happen.

l think from that point on,

l began to think that
the Nile may not be,

you know, that gentle river that

has always flowed
in a steady manner,

a nurturing Egyptian
civilisation,

that there may be another side
to the river,

a dark side, a dangerous side.

So dangerous that Fekri believed

the Nile was implicated
in the catastrophe

that destroyed the old kingdom.

To many Egyptian historians

the very suggestion was
tantamount to heresy.

l've been reading history

from the very early beginnings
of man in Egypt until now.

And l can see a pattern

that's going on for
these thousands of years.

The regular thing is
that the Nile comes.

We know that the Nile is good,

we know that the Nile
is always faithful,

and we know that the Nile
will come next year.

l believe in that as
l believe in God.

Faced with such
burning conviction,

Fekri knew he had to find
some proof that the Nile

was not always Egypt's
faithful ally.

He decided to look back in time
to the 7th Century AD

when the Arabs conquered Egypt.

Every year,

they measured the level
of the Nile floods in Cairo,

on this column.

The meticulous records they kept
for over a 1 ,000 years

were a revelation.

When l began to
look at the Nile record,

l was under the impression that
the Nile was a normal river

with not that much change

in the amount of water
it brings every year.

l was quite startled
to find that

there were a lot of variations
from year to year,

from decade to decade,
from century to century,

and later on found
from millennium to millennium.

That really shattered my ideas
that were based on a myth

that assumed that the Nile
is a steady river,

it flows every year,

people all that they have to do
was just sow a few grains

and everything is wonderful.

You know, Egypt is
the gift of the Nile.

That is not true at all.

l think when l found
that one out of

every five floods
was a bad flood,

l was totally shocked.

And so l think that
that discovery

changed my views totally
about not only the Nile,

but about how Egyptian
civilisation was developed,

and how it eventually collapsed.

Alarmingly,
Fekri had also discovered

that only a small drop
in the Nile flood

could have disastrous
ramifications.

A lesson not lost on one of

Europe's greatest
military strategists.

ln 1 791 and 2, the Nile flood was

only a metre
or two below average,

but people starved,
there were riots,

and the political consequences
were calamitous.

Hearing that the country
was so debilitated,

Napoleon seized the initiative
and conquered Egypt.

Fekri now realised that
any failure of the Nile

could have far
reaching consequences.

But he was puzzled.

He'd found records of low floods
for two to three years,

but the dark age had lasted
for up to 200 years.

lt seemed impossible
for the Nile

to fail for such a long period.

Maybe there was something
far bigger involved.

Fekri decided to look at
the other natural feature

that lies at the heart of
Egyptian life, the desert.

Fekri has come with his wife,
botanist,

Hala Barakat,to the most
southerly part of Egypt

to search for clues.

Today, this remote land is one of

the country's most
inhospitable deserts,

but thousands of years ago
people lived here.

Hala is scouring the desert for
traces of these ancient people.

She's looking
for small piles of stones,

tell tale signs of
their camp sites.

At night, they gathered wood
for a fire.

Fragments of the charred embers

still survive under the stones,

and hidden in these tiny bits of
charcoal is vital evidence.

Back in the lab,

Hala identifies
the different fire woods.

She finds traces of
the Acacia tree,

which is no longer found
in this desert.

We're looking at the charcoal of
Acacia tree.

lt's very distinctive by
the presence of the big vessels.

When we find
the charcoal of Acacia,

it means that at the time
when it was growing,

there was underground water.

You only find them
in depressions,

or in oasis
where water accumulates.

They need water to grow.

Hala painstakingly collected and

dated thousands of
pieces of charcoal

from all over the desert.

The result was quite startling.

About 7,000 years ago,

there were trees growing here,

not exactly a forest,

but a dry savannah with grass

growing between the trees
after the rainy season.

lt was certainly a place
where people could live.

Over time,

vast swathes of North Africa
dried up and became a desert.

Poets wrote of the devastation
caused by sand.

''lndeed the desert is
throughout the land.

The desert claims the land,

the land is injured,
towns are ravaged.

The sun is failed.

None can live where
the dust storm fails it.

We do not know what will happen
throughout the land.''

Could the change from grass to
desert be the cause of the sudden

break down of the old kingdom
4,200 years ago?

Unfortunately for Fekri,
the dates didn't fit.

l personally do not think that

the gradual desertification of
North Africa

was the main cause for
the collapse of the old kingdom.

The deserts that we know today
by 4,500 years ago

were fully established
by that time.

The change was gradual.

lt had abrupt events in it,
but it was, in general,

a gradual trend lasting
for several millennia.

So the slow desert encroachment
was completed well

before the collapse of
the old kingdom.

This was not
the cause of its demise.

Fekri had to look
for another culprit

which would strike more swiftly.

There has to be another cause.

There has to be another cause
to explain the sudden

and dramatic event that coincided

with the end of the old kingdom.

Then came a breakthrough,

a new discovery in the hills of
neighbouring lsrael.

ln these caves,

Mira Bar-Matthews has found
a unique record of past climates.

All the water here comes
from rainfall.

As the rain filters down
through the rock,

it dissolves the limestone,

forming stalactites
and stalagmites,

and as these gradually build up
over the years,

they trap ancient rainwater.

Mira has discovered a way of

calculating rainfall
thousands of years ago,

by taking tiny samples of
the stalactites.

The ancient rain contains
two different types of oxygen,

a light one and a heavier one.

lf there is more of
the light type,

it was a very wet period.

More of the heavy one
means it was dry.

Analysing the samples
in a mass spectrometer,

gives the ratio of light
and heavy oxygen.

Mira had been analysing
stalactites stretching

back over thousands of years,

when she got to one sample
4,200 years old.

As soon as she saw the results,

she knew something unusual
had happened.

The striking finding was that

there is a very important change
in the amount of rainfall

that was in this area.

Mira had found a staggering 20%
drop in rainfall.

This suggested a sudden and
significant climate change.

This drop is dramatic.

This event is the largest event
over the last 5,000 years.

Even though Egypt and lsrael have
different weather systems,

this finding was very exciting.

Rapid climate change was
the culprit Fekri

had been searching for.

He believed it was
the prime suspect

in the catastrophe that destroyed
the old kingdom.

The reason why this powerful
civilisation disintegrated

at the height of its glory.

l firmly believe that in addition

to gradual changes
on millennial scale,

climatic change can also happen
very, very rapidly, suddenly,

and swiftly with dramatic
consequences for people.

But because abrupt climatic
events happen very rapidly,

within a few decades,

they can influence
the livelihood of people,

causing famines and droughts.

They are of such magnitude
and of such rapidity,

that people cannot deal
with them in the way

that they would deal
with a protracted

long term climatic change.

Fekri now needed to know

if the sudden climate
change discovered

in the lsraeli cave was not
a localised event,

but part of
a larger weather pattern

that would have
affected Egypt too.

And the evidence to back him up
came out of the blue.

From the glaciers of lceland.

Geologist, Gerard Bond,

is also searching for clues
about ancient climates,

and he does it by looking
at icebergs.

The particular ones
he's interested in

are streaked with black ash.

Can you make out the black?

These are particles of
volcanic material.

This material comes from
the volcanoes here in lceland.

Some of it is scraped up
as the ice moves over the rock,

some of it pours down
from the mountainsides

that the glaciers are
moving through,

and some of it is dumped
on the ice

by volcanic eruptions.

Gerard follows the journey

the icebergs take
after they leave lceland,

and drift South
in the North Atlantic.

When the icebergs reach
warmer waters they melt,

and specks of ash fall
to the bottom of the ocean.

And that's where they stay,

embedded in the deep sea mud

which gradually builds up
over time.

Gerard and his team
have collected

thousands of cores of mud
from the world's oceans,

with deposits from
the last 10,000 years.

As Gerard searched the mud
from the North Atlantic,

looking for traces of
volcanic ash,

he was surprised.

He was finding ash is
some very strange places.

Some were so far south it showed

that the icebergs had travelled

an extraordinarily long way
before melting.

This could only happen
in periods of extreme cold.

And what was more intriguing,

there was a pattern to
these mini ice ages.

What we found, to our surprise,

was that not only were
there suggestions

that the climate was not stable,

but every 1500 years

there was a distinct cold period

lasting a couple of
hundred years perhaps.

But what did
a 1500 year weather cycle

have to do with famine in Egypt?

One of these cycles had
an age of 4,200 years,

so what that would mean
about the weather,

it was cool enough at that time
for icebergs

to have gotten as far south as
off lreland.

And it occurred
at about the same time

as the event that you're
interested in in Egypt.

So a mini ice age,

creating freezing conditions
across Europe,

happened when Egypt was suffering
from extreme famines.

This could easily have stayed
as a mere coincidence.

But Gerard's work alerted fellow
geologist, Peter deMenocal.

When he searched
the climate records

for the rest of the world,

looking at everything
from pollen to sand,

he found an even more
dramatic climate change.

lt was very exciting.

lt was something that we really
were not expecting.

We were using techniques that
were meant to go after very,

very small climate signals
in these deep sea sediments.

And what we found was
this whoping huge signal,

and so we were shocked.

l mean, we didn't expect
to see something so large,

and it's as if you're going
after a mouse

and you catch a lion,

you know, it's just
it's remarkable.

lt was a very,very dramatic event
that we see.

Not only was this change sudden,

but the ancient
climate data revealed

just how far reaching it was.

Well, what's fascinating is that

it seems that everywhere
we look we find this event.

We see it in the Mediterranean,

and then we see evidence
off of Africa.

We see it throughout
the North Atlantic,

in many locations here
in the North Atlantic.

We also see evidence for it
in Greenland,

and the Greenland ice sheet.

We see it in the United States,

in the continental United States.

And most recently
there's been evidence now

that we actually see it
in the lndonesian region,

which if it's been seen there,

that is a very important result,

because it shows that
it's truly a global event

that we're seeing far afield.

What we see is that the climate

change event occurs
at the same time

as the collapse of
the old kingdom.

lt's an event that
in terms of the change

in climate was really profound,

not only in its size and
how large the event was,

but also in
how widespread it was.

Scientists were
at last confirming

everything Fekri believed.

Severe climate change was causing

widespread human misery
4,200 years ago.

As colder and drier conditions
swept the globe,

harvests failed
and people starved.

They were victims of
a weather cycle

out of their control.

lt really is a very sobering
thought to imagine

what it must have been like to
have been these people,

and to have been struggling
with climate

as they were at the time,

and then ultimately
to have succumbed to it.

And nowhere was this human

suffering more acute than
in Egypt.

Donald Redford and his team had
already discovered

that this ruined city
was poverty stricken

at the end of the old kingdom.

But in 1999 he made
a macabre new find,

which showed in chilling detail

the extent of the chaos
that Fekri believes

the sudden climate change
had triggered.

He found a group of skeletons

lying underneath the temple wall.

l find that the destruction
is everywhere,

moreover it's associated with
what l would consider a massacre.

That puts it right

out of the realm of
accidental occurrence.

Over the years,

Donald has uncovered
thousands of skeletons,

but he was extremely distressed

when he found this particular
collection of bodies.

There were 18 of them.

ln fact, their position
was rather dramatic.

We had a pile of
three skeletons in this position,

an old man over an old woman,
over a child.

All of them
in contorted attitudes.

The woman like this,
the man with hands up.

On top of the wall at that point
were two adult males,

one sprawled over the wall,

with part of the wall having
fallen on his back.

At this point,
there were two males

with a pig in the middle,
of all things.

And in front of the temple,

right on the axis was
a fallen teenager, a sub adult,

with a rat clutched in his hand.

Sprawled like that,

as though he had been in the act
of perhaps running,

and he tripped and that was
the end for him.

He lacked a head,

as though someone had
decapitated him.

Donald will never know exactly
what happened here,

but he believes the 18 people
who died had been murdered.

But most significantly,

in a culture where the dead were
always treated with respect,

these bodies had not been buried.

lt was a very grisly scene.

The interesting thing is that

no-one ever came back to
retrieve the bodies.

Now, if this had been
an accidental conflagration,

with people dying by accident,

undoubtedly their relatives would
have retrieved the bodies,

given them a proper burial.

No-one was around to get them.

No-one was here who cared
to get them.

There is a real seizure,

there's a real hiatus

in the life of the community
at this point.

lt's almost as though
with their deaths

and the destruction
of the temple,

the place was abandoned.

From stalactites in lsrael,
to icebergs in lceland,

Fekri already had
compelling evidence

that this traumatic human crisis

was linked to
a global climate change.

But one piece of the puzzle
was still missing,

would he be able to find
any scientific proof

of climate disaster
in Egypt itself?

He still needed to know

if the country's life blood,
the Nile,

had failed for decade
after decade.

The crucial evidence was
to come from this lake.

lt's an unusual place.

During the old kingdom
it was linked directly

to the Nile by a tributary.

When the Nile floods
arrived every year,

the lake would get much bigger.

So if Fekri can discover
the size of the lake

at the end of the old kingdom,

he'll know whether
the Nile floods failed.

He decided to search the mud

at the bottom of the lake
for answers.

And what he found was intriguing.

Actually, it's more
what he didn't find

that fascinated him.

They looked everywhere
for sediments

dating back to the old kingdom.

They looked
in the middle of the lake,

they looked at the sides.

lt was a real mystery.

The huge surprise is that

we can't find
the old kingdom sediments

at the bottom of the lake,

where they should be.

lt's nowhere to be found.

They couldn't find any mud dating
back that far.

lt was as if the lake somehow

didn't exist during
the old kingdom.

But Fekri knows
from the ancient records

that there was a lake here.

He was quite bewildered.

Then one day it dawned on him

why they were failing
so miserably to find anything.

There's only one explanation,

the lake must have dried up
totally, completely.

And then the sediments had been
blown away by storms.

So the old kingdom sediments
are gone,

they are vanished.

The fact that such a huge lake
could vanish

so dramatically
was extraordinary.

The Nile must have been so low,

it had stopped feeding the lake.

What's remarkable is that

this was the only time
in its whole history

that the lake completely
dried up,

and it happened precisely
at the end of the old kingdom.

Here, at last,
was Fekri's clinching evidence,

a catastrophic global
climate change

caused a series of
low Nile floods year after year,

turning the land to dust.

This was the explanation
for the severe famines

affecting the whole of Egypt.

Sand storms smothered the land.

ln one of the mightiest
civilisations ever known,

people were starving to death.

And it was these scenes
that were described

so vividly on the walls of
Ankhtifi's tomb.

Although Fekri's quest is over,

one poignant section
still puzzles him.

All of upper Egypt was
dying of hunger,

to such a degree that everyone

had come to eating
their children.

lt's an astonishing description.

Were people so desperate that
they resorted to cannibalism?

l was startled when l saw
Ankhtifi's account of people

eating children in ancient Egypt,

because this is something that
we just do not think about.

We cannot imagine
that such events,

such horrendous events happened
in ancient Egypt.

But l was not surprised,

because l knew that this has
happened later in time,

and that we do have
a first hand eye witness

account of a famine associated
with a drought,

a lower Nile, that lasted
for a couple of years,

and have led to atrocious
activities by people,

including eating children,
among other things.

The first hand account came from
a book written by a doctor

from Bagdad who'd witnessed
a famine in Cairo in 1200 AD.

ln his vivid description was
a haunting echo of the tragedy

that befell the old kingdom.

He said that the poor were
so oppressed by hunger,

that they ate corpses, carrion,
dogs and filth.

And that they even
went beyond that,

to eat children.

And so at times,
you can come upon people

who roasted and cooked children.

A frank, straightforward account
with no sentimentality,

but it reveals the horrendous
level of depredation

that happened at that time.

lf this could happen in a famine

that only lasted
a couple of years,

the horrors of
one spanning several decades

are truly unimaginable.

The collapse of the Egyptian
old kingdom was a hideous end

to one of the world's
great civilisations.