Original subtitles

March, 632 BC.

Priests gather to plot a murder.

For decades they've been under the thumb of a wealthy family,

backed by the power of Egypt's Pharaoh.

Now the time is ripe for revenge.

This is a true story,

written down on a piece of papyrus that has survived for 2,500 years.

lt's the story of a murder, the final act of a 30-year feud,

that tears apart a city and brings down a dynasty.

For 400 years Egypt has been ravaged by civil war and foreign invasion.

Libyan invaders have swept in from the north.

Nubian armies have conquered the south.

With the kingdom in chaos,

a wealthy priesthood turns itself into an independent political force.

The priests of the god Amun become power brokers between rival warlords.

For 450 years they are answerable to no one.

But in the seventh century BC, Psamtek, a ruthless warrior,

storms to power and reunites the kingdom.

Egypt has a new Pharaoh.

No part of the country will be left untouched by the new regime.

660 BC. A stranger arrives in Teudjoi.

Petiese is the Pharaoh's cousin.

He's been dispatched to take control of the town.

Teudjoi is home to one of the great temples of Amun

and its priests have to be brought to heel.

Petiese orders his men to search the temple.

This is more than a place of worship.

Temples own most of the land in Egypt

and control most of its wealth.

Petiese knows from its accounts just how rich this temple is.

He is under orders to redirect its wealth to the Pharaoh.

lf he delivers, he will also make his own fortune.

Petiese has two priests beaten.

lt's a brutal demonstration of the Pharaoh's power.

The message is clear. After four centuries of independence

the power of the priesthood of Amun is at an end.

ln Teudjoi the priests will now take their orders from Petiese.

2,500 years ago Petiese's great-great-grandson

wrote down his family's history.

lt unfolds in a papyrus 1 4 feet long that was discovered in the late 19th century.

The story he tells is a tragic saga of political and personal revenge,

the seeds of which were sown when Petiese first took control of the temple.

lt's 1 1 years since Petiese arrived in Teudjoi and the temple is flourishing.

The wealth of the whole region flows in from the temple's vast estates

in the form of grain.

Petiese is now the self-styled prophet of Amun,

the highest-ranking priest in the temple of Teudjoi.

Amun is Egypt's state god.

Every morning Petiese ritually awakens his effigy.

He is attended by his junior priests,

including the young boy he'd had savagely beaten a decade ago.

Just in case the priests should forget where the power really lies,

Petiese has installed a statue of himself right next to the shrine of the god Amun.

An inscription lists the titles he has granted himself.

At the temple's expense

he has also granted himself a fifth of the temple's vast income,

making him one of the richest men in Egypt.

Petiese is now the father of three sons and a daughter - Nitemhe.

Nitemhe is now old enough to marry.

For Petiese her coming of age is a chance to start his dynasty in Teudjoi.

ln his account his great-great-grandson describes the day in 649 BC

when Petiese brings an outsider to the family home in Teudjoi.

Horudj is a minor official from a nearby town.

Petiese met him a year ago when he began looking for a husband for his daughter.

Horudj has no money.

ln fact he has debts which Petiese agrees to pay off.

But his family were once priests here.

He has the ideal pedigree to be Petiese's deputy in Teudjoi.

This isn't about love. lt's about politics.

The papyrus records the actual words of the deal.

Under the terms of the marriage,

Petiese will pass on all his titles and his wealth from the temple

to Nitemhe and Horudj.

The dynasty is secure.

Petiese's thoughts now turn to his own future.

He's been in the provinces for 1 1 years.

lt's been long enough.

Petiese plans to move to Thebes, closer to the centre of political power.

He'll leave his son-in-law in charge of the temple.

Horudj is anxious.

Petiese reassures him that he'll always be protected by the Pharaoh.

A year ago Horudj was a minor public official.

Now he finds himself in sole control of one of the great institutions of Egypt.

He's inherited Petiese's power and the riches of his lifestyle,

but with them a legacy of simmering resentment.

For 1 7 years, under the Pharaoh's protection,

Horudj has enjoyed the fruits of the power he has gained from his marriage.

But the passage of time has done nothing

to temper the bitter memories of Petiese's brutal regime.

His daughter, Nitemhe, is now the mistress of the largest household in Teudjoi.

Over the years she has become a shrewd businesswoman.

Through her agents she trades food and textiles up and down the Nile,

produce of the family estate,

adding further to the dynasty's considerable fortune.

For the other priests' families life is much harder.

To top up their meagre salaries

they have to work their own small plots of land outside the town.

Nitemhe now has a family of her own.

Two sons who one day will inherit their grandfather's fortune,

and his power over the priesthood.

As Petiese's grandsons, these boys have known nothing but a life of luxury.

While the rest of the country makes do with bread and beer,

they, like other aristocratic children, feast on rare delicacies,

like hyena and Nile turtle.

As long as they enjoy the protection of the Pharaoh,

Petiese's dynasty will continue to flourish.

300 miles south of Teudjoi, in the Temple of Karnak, a new deal has been struck.

After a stand-off that has lasted for three decades,

the priests of Amun and the Pharaoh have made peace.

Petiese has been a leading figure in brokering a new settlement

between church and state.

As a symbol, the Pharaoh's virgin daughter Nitocris

has been installed in the temple as the wife of the god Amun.

The priests of Amun are now the Pharaoh's allies.

Petiese has helped to forge a new political order,

but he has not considered its impact on his family back in Teudjoi.

Nitemhe's sons have reached a turning point in their lives,

the end of childhood, marked by cutting off a boy's sidelock.

The papyrus records this significant moment.

Now that he has reached puberty,

Horudj's older son is to be circumcised.

As the son of a priest, the ritual is essential

to make him pure enough to serve the gods.

A third generation of Petiese's dynasty has come of age.

For the priests this is a living reminder of their subjugation.

News of the political settlement in Thebes reaches the temple in Teudjoi.

The priests meet in secret.

For the first time since the Pharaoh Psamtek seized the throne 30 years ago,

the balance of power has swung back in their favour.

With the new deal struck in Thebes,

they believe the Pharaoh will no longer touch them.

They devise a plot to overthrow Petiese's family.

The papyrus preserves their actual words.

At last the time has come for revenge.

lt's harvest time,

when every family celebrates the festival of the goddess Renenutet.

She is the lady of the fertile fields,

the goddess of plenty,

who is supposed to bring prosperity and good luck for the year ahead.

The corn mummy that hangs over the grain store

is meant to protect the harvest and the family's children from harm.

At this time of year the old corn mummy is burned,

to rid the world of evil.

But elsewhere in Teudjoi the priests are finalising their plan

to overthrow the family.

Now that they have come of age,

Horudj decides his sons are old enough to collect the family share of the harvest alone.

He leaves Teudjoi to look after business on the far side of the river.

With a servant in tow, the young boys set off for the temple.

The events that follow are recorded in detail in the family history,

written by Petiese's great-great-grandson.

Terrified that the priests will attack the house,

the family's servants barricade themselves in.

lnstead of going home to Teudjoi, the records tell us

that Horudj sets out immediately for Thebes.

He believes that only Petiese has the power to restore order in Teudjoi.

lt will be at least six days before Horudj returns.

Almost a week since his grandsons' murder,

and 28 years after he first arrived in the town,

Petiese returns to Teudjoi.

Terrified of the rebel priests,

no one has dared enter the temple to bring out the bodies of the boys.

Unless they receive a proper burial,

Nitemhe's sons will have no chance of an afterlife.

Their battered bodies are discovered in a store-room below the temple.

Their killers must be found.

A manhunt is underway.

Having found the dead boys, the police arrest their killers.

What kind of punishment will Petiese give

to the men who have murdered his grandsons?

The papyrus tells us.

Three decades after he brutally took control of the temple,

Petiese returns to the scene

to confront the priests who have taken revenge against his family.

Petiese is trapped.

He can't be seen to undermine the alliance he brokered

between his cousin, the Pharaoh, and the priesthood of Amun.

He can't protect his family,

and he can't avenge his grandsons' murder.

Petiese's reign

is over.

Before he leaves Teudjoi,

Petiese commissions a second inscription on his statue in the temple of Amun.

This time it carries a warning.

There was a time when Petiese's words carried real power.

ln the new political era, the inscription is no more than a futile gesture.

Once one of the most powerful figures in Egypt,

Petiese is now a broken man.

He can't even offer his own daughter the protection she desperately needs.

He leaves Nitemhe and her husband grieving for their murdered sons.

Petiese never returned to Teudjoi.

And we know from his great-great-grandson's account,

that the priests of Teudjoi did their best to destroy his legacy.

Over the next century and a half his family fought a losing battle

to keep control of the temple.

His eldest son followed him as prophet of Amun

but within a generation the priests had evicted him

and taken back all the family's wealth.

By the time his great-great-grandson told this story,

the royal dynasty of Petiese's cousin, the Pharaoh Psamtek, had been overthrown.

But the priesthood of Amun kept its power.

And defying the curse that Petiese had put on it,

the priests in Teudjoi destroyed his statue,

and wiped out all traces of his family.

PAL English