All language subtitles for Ch4.Ancient.Egyptians.1of4.The.Battle.of.Megiddo.XviD.AC3.MVGroup.org

May 19, 1 458 BC.

A rebel warlord challenges
the might of Egypt.

The two greatest armies the ancient world
has ever seen are ready to fight.

The fate of Egypt lies in the hands
of its young Pharaoh,

who has never before seen battle.

lf the rebels win,
Egyptian civilisation will crumble.

This is a true story.

The chronicle of this epic struggle

was carved into the stone walls
of the Temple of Karnak

over 3,500 years ago.

lt records how a pampered prince
was transformed by war

and turned his kingdom into an empire.

He became Egypt's
greatest warrior Pharaoh,

Tuthmosis lll.

For a generation,

Egypt's three million people have lived
in peace and prosperity.

Most are farmers and fishermen

living along the fertile banks
of the river Nile.

Ahmose was a peasant farmer
whose family worked this land together.

Their life follows the changing seasons.

Egyptians marry young.

Ahmose

Ahmose's wife is just 16.

They expect that one day their children
will take over from them and work the fields.

But Ahmose's life is about to change.

The sacred ibis are an omen of danger.

200 miles away, in the capital, Thebes,

Queen Hatshepsut,
a female Pharaoh, is dead.

While the country mourns,
Egypt's enemies are gathering.

The prince of Kadesh,
an embittered Syrian warlord,

is whipping up revolt
among the tribes of the North.

For decades they have struggled
under the yoke of Egypt

and her imperial ambitions.

With 150 mutinous princes behind him,

Kadesh plans to invade Egypt
and crush the power of the Pharaohs.

Egypt is vulnerable.

What she needs now is
a leader of unswerving courage

and tested military skill.

But the new Pharaoh is Tuthmosis lll.

For 20 years this princeling has been kept
from power by his stepmother,

Queen Hatshepsut.

He has been pampered and indulged,
untroubled by the affairs of state.

But now he is a king with a nation to lead.

To the Egyptians, he is a living god,

his body a sacred object.

But to his enemies,
he's simply a young king

with no experience of battle

and a feeble hold on power.

Tuthmosis comes from
a long line of warriors.

A century and a half ago,
the founders of his dynasty

expelled the ancestors of
the Prince of Kadesh from Northern Egypt.

Syrians and Egyptians have struggled
for supremacy ever since.

But none of Tuthmosis's ancestors
ever faced

a military challenge as great
as the one that confronts him now.

Three and a half thousand years later,
this is modern Luxor

and the ruins of Tuthmosis's
Temple of Karnak.

ln a narrow passageway,
on a wall few visitors will ever notice,

there's a long inscription
in Egyptian hieroglyphs,

carved on the orders of Tuthmosis himself.

lt tells the story of his war
against the Syrians,

which begins in the winter of 1 458 BC.

Just weeks after taking the throne,

Tuthmosis and his entourage move
from Thebes to the fortress of Tjaru,

500 miles north.

Tjaru is on the Syrian border.

lt's Egypt's largest garrison
and the gateway to the Middle East.

The young Tuthmosis locks himself away
with his generals.

Djehuty and Yamunedj
are hardened soldiers,

sceptical of
the young Pharaoh's ability to lead.

They have just a few weeks to devise
a strategy to defend Egypt's borders.

Recording every word of their deliberations
is a fourth man,

not a soldier but a scribe named Tjeneni.

He's been called
the world's first war correspondent

and it's his words in ancient Egyptian

that are carved
into the temple wall at Karnak.

The Prince of Kadesh and his allies
have gathered at Megiddo,

near present-day Jerusalem.

Megiddo is now
the nerve centre of the revolt.

Kadesh has persuaded
the northern warlords

to provide him
with every fighting man they have.

Under his command is
the largest Syrian army ever assembled.

He's determined
that this time Egypt will fall.

Megiddo?

The intelligence is worse
than Tuthmosis expects, far worse.

Megiddo is just 150 miles
from Egypt's borders

and Tuthmosis is heavily outnumbered.

He needs more men.

Conscription is nothing new in Egypt.

For centuries, peasants
have been taken from the land

to build canals, temples and pyramids.

But Ahmose is destined
for something different -

the Army.

Ahmose knows he may never see
his wife and home again.

The eye of the hawk god Horus

is a magic charm that wards off danger.

Every Egyptian is now touched
by the threat to the kingdom.

Ahmose

Ahmose is just one of thousands
of young men

herded north to possible death
in the struggle against the Syrians.

ln February 1 458 BC

Ahmose and his fellow conscripts
reach the fortress of Tjaru.

The Pharaoh is mustering
every fighting man in the kingdom

to throw against the Syrian rebels
who plan to invade Egypt.

Ahmose is a peasant farmer
who has never left his village before.

He's going to be made part
of the most sophisticated army

the world has ever seen.

Quartermasters marshal food,
weapons and clothing supplies.

Every day an army of 10,000 men

consumes 1 4 tons of grain
and 95,000 litres of water.

The wealth of Egypt
pours into the war effort.

What makes the Egyptian army
so formidable is these men,

an elite corps of professional soldiers,

Nubians from the south
in what is today Sudan.

Nakht joined the Pharaoh's army
three years ago,

along with five men from his village.

His ambition is to rise through the ranks

and he is likely to succeed.

Nubians are admired by the Egyptians

for their courage, strength
and skills in combat.

For men like Nakht,
the coming war is an opportunity.

There's booty to be had
and glory to be won.

Other Nubians have become generals
and risen to the top of Egyptian society.

The most Ahmose can hope for
is to get back to his home alive.

Raw recruits must be made part
of the military machine.

This is the job of Egypt's officer class.

Yamunedj and Djehuty are two
of the Pharaoh's most trusted generals.

They come from very different backgrounds.

Djehuty is an aristocrat.
Yamunedj rose through the ranks.

Officers will be equipped with
the latest military technology.

lvory-tipped arrows,
bows made of imported birch or elm,

bound with glue made from fish bladders.

As well as the most radical
innovation of all - the chariot,

a lightweight war machine that brings
speed and surprise to the battlefield.

The lower ranks will use
more basic weaponry -

axes, knives and spears.

Nakht is putting the new recruits
through their paces.

Wrestling is the Egyptians' favourite sport

and in the army,
is a useful test of manhood.

Ahmose has made the grade

and the Pharaoh's army is in fighting spirit.

By April, the prince of Kadesh

is preparing to move
the coalition's 10,000 men

from Megiddo
towards the Egyptian border.

Tuthmosis, the inexperienced leader,
has grown in confidence.

He won't wait for the Syrians to invade.

He won't fight a defensive war.

He will invade Syria

and crush the rebels at Megiddo.

The army will march tomorrow.

This momentous decision
is recorded by Tjeneni in his chronicle,

inscribed on the walls
of the Temple of Karnak.

But to reach Megiddo,

the army faces a gruelling march
of 200 miles

across the deserts of Sinai and Gaza.

Tjeneni, the scribe, is part of the campaign.

He's here to record the Pharaoh's exploits

and guarantee Tuthmosis a place in history.

Tjeneni is not interested in
the hardships of foot soldiers.

such as Ahmose and Nakht.

But this thousand-year-old papyrus,
discovered in a tomb in Luxor,

tells us what life was like

for the ordinary soldier
on campaign in Syria.

At first, the army makes rapid progress.

ln the first ten days, it covers 150 miles.

Then the heat takes its toll.

The pace slows

from 15 miles a day to five.

Three weeks later, the troops have crossed
the Gaza Strip and the hills of Canaan.

They're camped deep inside
Syrian territory

at Yaham, in present-day lsrael.

The soldiers are exhausted
and their thoughts turn towards home.

Ahmose, like every Egyptian,

is terrified of dying outside his native land.

lf he's buried in foreign soil,
without his family to tend his grave,

he'll have no chance
of reaching the afterlife.

lf he dies here, his spirit
will be cast into oblivion

and he'll face a second death.

And perhaps Tuthmosis,
despite his status as a god,

is troubled by the very same thought.

He's just 30 miles from Megiddo
and the rebel army

and now he must make a decision.

The choice he makes will dictate
his future and the fate of Egypt.

The young Pharaoh faces the most
important decision of his campaign.

Tjeneni records
the discussion with his generals.

For the first time in his account,

we hear Tuthmosis's own words

as he spoke them 3,500 years ago.

Surprise is the key.

Reach Megiddo quickly,
catch the Syrians unawares

and they could crush
the rebellion in a single strike.

From their camp at Yaham
there are three routes to Megiddo.

Through Yokneam, north of mount Carmel.

South, through Taanakh,
approaching Megiddo from the southeast.

These are the safest routes
but also the longest.

There is a third approach, the Aruna Pass,

a narrow gorge that
snakes through the mountains.

lt's the most direct and the most dangerous.

For hours on end, the army
would be exposed to ambush.

They'll take the Aruna pass.

The generals think
the young Pharaoh is wrong.

Tjeneni records their words.

But has Tuthmosis signed
the army's death warrant?

On 1 4 May Tuthmosis leads his army
into the Aruna pass.

10,000 men must march in single file

through the narrow gorge, utterly exposed.

For 12 hours
they're open to attack from above.

But the Syrian ambush never comes.

Kadesh has been outwitted.

He expected to ambush the Egyptians
on the southern route to Megiddo.

Now his troops are in the wrong place.

All he can do is scramble back to Megiddo.

Six hours later,

Tuthmosis is within sight
of the Syrian stronghold.

Tomorrow, for the first time,

Tuthmosis will lead his men into battle.

Here, at Karnak,

is Tjeneni's eyewitness account of the final
minutes before the battle of Megiddo.

lt's 15 May 1 458 BC.

Tuthmosis anoints his peasant soldiers
with sacred perfume

to bring down
the gods' blessings on them in battle.

The real test has come.

Tjeneni describes the Egyptian positions.

Kadesh, too, is ready.

Egyptians and Syrians
face each other at last.

As Syrian bodies drop around him,

Kadesh's dreams of conquest evaporate.

All Kadesh can do is save his own skin.

The Egyptians have victory
within their grasp

but they let it slip through their fingers.

lnstead of attacking the city,

they loot the bodies of their Syrian enemies.

lt's the common soldier's chance
to enrich himself

but it's a military disaster.

Tjeneni's account condemns
the foot soldiers for their greed.

The Egyptians measure their success
by collecting severed hands.

But this is not yet a victory.

Has the greed of the foot soldiers
been the Egyptians' undoing?

The Pharaoh's generals are in disgrace.

lt was their job to take Megiddo.

lnstead, they stood by
while their own soldiers plundered.

Tuthmosis will now have
to starve the Syrians into submission.

No-one knows how many Egyptians
fell at the battle of Megiddo.

The Egyptian military documents keep quiet
on the subject of their own casualties.

What we do know is how
Egyptian surgeons treated the wounded.

This papyrus is
the world's oldest medical textbook.

lt gives detailed descriptions
of treatments for battle injuries.

Raw meat, with its
natural blood-clotting agents,

is used on flesh wounds.

Burns are treated with a mixture

of gum, ram's hair and
the milk of a breast-feeding woman.

But despite the doctors' best efforts,

most of the wounded in this field hospital
will die from infection within days.

Another ancient text sums up
the fate of many Egyptian soldiers.

Ahmose.

For seven months Tuthmosis
holds Megiddo under siege.

Finally, in December 1 458 BC,

a symbol of surrender.

These are the children
of the Syrian warlords

offered to Tuthmosis
in a gesture of submission.

The Syrian revolt is over.

The children will be
taken to Egypt as hostages

and killed if their families rebel again.

Some are destined to become puppet rulers
within Tuthmosis's new Egyptian empire.

Tuthmosis returns
to his capital, Thebes, in triumph.

No-one doubts his strength now.

The final words of Tjeneni's chronicle
are those of the defeated enemy,

the Prince of Kadesh.

Over the next 20 years,

the Pharaoh Tuthmosis lll
fought and won another 1 7 campaigns.

At the time of his death
and mummification in 1 425 BC,

he had imposed Egyptian rule
across an empire

that extended, he claimed,
''as far as the circuit of the sun''.

Tjeneni's eyewitness account
of the Battle of Megiddo

set a standard of military heroism
for every Pharaoh who followed.

As Tuthmosis intended,

he is still remembered today
as Egypt's greatest warrior Pharaoh.

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