Original subtitles

(humming chime)

Downloaded from YTS.MX

(dramatic, mysterious music)

Official YIFY movies site: YTS.MX

- Ancient Egypt,

a rich history that lasted for over 6,000 years.

The lives and deaths of its leading characters

still fascinate us today.

We come to museums like this one

to get a real sense of the grandeur of ancient Egypt,

monumental statues and monumental men.

But when you start to look around at the faces here,

they are just that, men.

So where are all the women of ancient Egypt?

Well, of course the most famous is Cleopatra the Great.

I may have to go from the sublime to the ridiculous,

from the monumental to this tiny,

because most of the images we have of the great woman

are in coin form.

But what about all the great women

who came before Cleopatra?

I wanna find out who they were.

If you know where to look, the story of ancient Egypt

is also the story of extraordinary women

who left behind an extraordinary legacy.

Here she is, Arsinoe, pharaoh, a goddess.

Ancient Egypt was a society in which women

had more rights than anywhere else in the ancient world.

And I'm going to be looking at four

of my favorite women of power, each one a trailblazer

who in different ways paved the way for the rest.

The venerated mother.

Might look like a hole in the ground.

But is where it all began.

The powerful leader.

Look at me, I am a pharaoh.

The perfect diplomat.

Not only beautiful, this woman was pretty clever, too.

And Cleopatra's globally-minded role model.

She knew that knowledge really was power.

Together, the created a legacy of female authority

that would influence not only Cleopatra

but generations to come.

These women were incredible role models,

to all of us, even in the modern world.

And by telling their story,

I'll be taking a fresh look at these great civilizations

through the eyes of the other half of ancient Egypt,

its women.

(water splashes)

And to understand the women of ancient Egypt,

we need to go right back to the beginning,

to the Egyptians' own story of creation,

the story that gave its female characters

unparalleled powers and status,

powers inherited from the very gods themselves.

(mysterious music)

The ancient Egyptians had countless versions

of the creation story.

But most of them centered

on their very distinctive environment

and the life-giving waters of the wonderful River Nile.

And in essence, what these creation myths tried to suggest

was that all life had started from these waters of creation,

from which the great sun, the source of all life,

had first emerged to create the deities,

the multitude of Egyptian deities, male and female,

no less important, and just as numerous as each of us.

The most famous of these was the great goddess Isis

and Osiris, brother-sister gods

who were also husband and wife.

Now, according to the ancient Egyptians,

unlike most ancient cultures,

it was Isis who was the active, dominant partner

and Osiris was a rather passive fellow.

In fact, he was killed off early on in the story.

Oh, poor Osiris.

The only power in the universe strong enough

to bring him back to life and resurrect him,

his great sister Isis, who brought to bear

all her great magic to resurrect him from the dead.

And from this pair, so began all humankind.

Such stories of Isis, the powerful mythical woman,

are in many ways key to understanding

how women had such prominence in Egyptian life.

For Isis was venerated as a divine mother figure.

And a certain real woman I'm going in search of

gained her own power and prestige as a mother.

She lived in the early time of the pharaohs

known as the Old Kingdom,

more than four and a half 1,000 years ago.

Her name was Hetepheres.

(people chattering)

(speaks foreign language)

(laughs)

For the ancient Egyptians,

death was simply a transition to the afterlife,

into which the soul would need to be reborn.

To house their souls as well as their bodies,

the Egyptian elite built ever more elaborate tombs.

The most spectacular such tomb is the Great Pyramid of Giza,

final resting place

of the powerful Old Kingdom leader, Pharaoh Khufu.

Everybody comes to Egypt to see these,

and they are very big, they are very grand

and they are very imposing.

But I'm here today to see something even more interesting,

just over there.

(mysterious music)

I'm looking for the tomb of Khufu's mother,

Queen Hetepheres, for, as mother of the king,

it seems that Khufu wanted her to be buried close by,

to ensure his rebirth into the next world.

So I've come here to find the source,

to find the origins in this whole entire site.

It all started here.

Might look like a hole in the ground,

but this is where it all began.

This is the entrance to the tomb of Hetepheres.

I believe it was this mother's life-giving force

that shaped this entire plateau forever.

Now, in Hetepheres' day, this landscape

was a very special landscape.

It was on the edge of the desert,

where the Egyptians traditionally buried their dead,

in the land of the west, the land where the sun set.

And yet at her time, this entire plateau had nothing on it.

The rest of this necropolis unfolded

as a result of her son being here,

and it was filled with the most spectacular golden treasures

because 20 meters down this steep shaft,

at the very bottom, is a burial chamber,

and Hetepheres' personal belongings, covered in gold,

were found there in 1925.

(mysterious music)

Hetepheres's tomb is the oldest

intact royal burial ever found,

predating the tomb of Tutankhamen by 1,300 years.

All the contents of that tiny little tomb

came here, this quiet corner of Cairo Museum.

This is surely the ultimate in flat pack furniture.

This is the bedroom suite, if you like,

of the great queen Hetepheres.

It's absolutely stunning.

We've got her bed, her silver headrest,

one of her gold thrones,

and all manner of gold-covered boxes.

And among these boxes,

a unique collection of jewelry was found.

These spectacular silver bangles

which she would have worn over each arm (mumbles).

If you look very carefully, you can see

they're all slightly different sizes.

They start off quite large and then they get

increasingly smaller towards the wrist.

They would have fitted no one else,

and they're kind of made to measure, just to fit her,

just to fit the great queen.

It's absolutely extraordinary to think

that this is four and a half 1,000 years old.

As King Khufu's mother,

Hetepheres was the most important woman in his life.

So he made sure that her tomb was filled

with all the luxuries she would need in the afterlife.

This fabulous gold carrying chair,

which was given to Queen Hetepheres by her son,

is a fantastic work of art.

Her titles are inlaid in these fine gold hieroglyphs

down the back of the chair,

inlaid in this dark ebony wood.

You can see the little figure of the bee and the plant.

And right immediately below that is the vulture.

That means "Mother of the King of Upper and Lower Egypt."

The next sign is a golden falcon, "Follower of Horus."

Then scroll right down through all these wonderful titles

that Hetepheres held in her lifetime.

Overseer of the Affairs of the Palace,

She Whose Every Command is Carried out.

Daughter of the Gods Body.

The last six hieroglyphs give the name Hetepheres,

the woman herself.

And in the very final hieroglyph,

that's the so-called determinative,

which shows her enthroned,

and we come face to face with the woman herself.

Being the mother of the king certainly had its perks,

and being carried around was one of them.

For a slightly less royal ride in the desert,

I've asked Fatih and Ibrahim for help.

Now, this wonderful thing is a replica

of Hetepheres' carrying chair,

and I'm going to try it out now.

It really symbolizes how precious this royal woman was,

that like the goddesses, she was carried around,

she was far, far, too important

to merely walk across the ground.

So she was carried everywhere in a chair like this one.

(speaks foreign language and laughs)

(men speak foreign language)

(giggles)

This is so good, this is really good.

I wouldn't like to go very far in it, though.

(laughs)

(mysterious music)

Now, although in many ways,

Hetepheres was the source of everything here,

she was only ever the king's mother.

She may have given birth to him

and guided him throughout his life,

and enabled him to enter the next world,

but she was only ever royal mother,

unlike my next mighty woman of power,

the ultimate Egyptian pharaoh.

Move forward over 1,000 years to my next choice,

another great royal woman

destined to become one of Egypt's greatest pharaohs.

Her names was Hatshepsut.

And although at least 15 women are now known

to have ruled Egypt as pharaoh,

Hatshepsut would really make history,

as both a monumental builder and a royal warrior.

Although Hatshepsut was a direct royal descent,

becoming pharaoh wasn't so straightforward.

It required some skillful political maneuvering.

At the death of her husband, the reigning pharaoh,

her stepson and heir to the throne

was too young to rule.

So Hatshepsut ruled on his behalf,

and was eventually crowned king.

But how did she hold on to her power?

(mysterious music)

Staring down on visitors to Cairo Museum,

her intimidating presence can still be felt.

All pharaohs had to look the part,

but it was especially important for a woman

to project herself as the perfect leader.

It's all about how you look.

If you looked like a pharaoh, you were a pharaoh.

You took on the attributes of a pharaoh,

and that's exactly what Hatshepsut's doing here,

the correct crown, the tie-on false beard,

and other parts of the regalia

were all meant to emphasize to her subjects,

because you're looking at 95, 99% illiterate subjects,

they couldn't read royal edicts,

they couldn't read any sacred inscriptions,

it was all about the visual.

And that is what Hatshepsut was so brilliant at doing,

this ultimate in propaganda, "Look at me, I am a pharaoh."

Wearing a tie-on false beard was considered

a divine attribute of the gods.

All pharaohs had one.

And Hatshepsut was no exception.

But she didn't confine such visually dazzling

statements of power to her own appearance.

I'm traveling to Hatshepsut's power base,

500 kilometers south of Cairo,

to Thebes, modern-day Luxor.

(mysterious music)

For here, Hatshepsut remodeled the landscape

with a whole series of monumental buildings,

the most famous, her sublime funerary temple

at Deir al Bahari.

Known by ancient name, The Most Sacred of Sacred Places,

the temple is one of Egypt's most spectacular buildings,

the ultimate eternal monument.

Now, seeming to emerge from the foot of the Theban hills,

Hatshepsut's temple is a brilliant piece of architecture.

Its clean geometric lines contrast stunningly well

against the rugged rocks behind them.

It's surely one of the most beautiful temples in Egypt,

and the most fitting place to commemorate

the life of the great female pharaoh Hatshepsut.

(mysterious music)

The setting of the temple is indeed awe-inspiring.

But the reasons behind its construction

go far beyond the aesthetics.

Now, Hatshepsut built here for three specific reasons.

Firstly, it lay directly across from the great temple

of the state god Amun Ra.

Secondly, offerings could be left for her soul for eternity,

rather than disturbing the peace of her tomb.

And thirdly, this place was filled with scenes

personally selected by Hatshepsut,

illustrating and emphasizing her right to the throne.

In short, this was a piece

of permanent political propaganda.

(mysterious music)

But Hatshepsut wasn't just a builder.

She was also a military commander,

twice leading campaigns herself

against Egypt's enemies in Nubia.

And some of the offerings discovered at Deir al Bahari

hint at Hatshepsut's military capabilities.

She led her troops into battle on at least two occasions.

Texts describe her as a conqueror,

"She who will be a conqueror, flaming against her enemies."

(thunder rumbles)

This very special thing is a votive offering,

presented here as an axe blade, a copper alloy.

It's inscribed with Hatshepsut's names and titles.

I think in a single object, it encapsulates

this female pharaoh, this woman warrior.

It's a wonderful thing.

Having proved her military skills,

Hatshepsut turned her attention to securing

the nation's peaceful prosperity.

(vendors shout and chatter)

She formed economic alliances

that brought wealth into her country,

trading with kingdoms like Punt to the south,

on the Red Sea coast.

Now, Hatshepsut certainly expanded Egypt's trade routes

and initiated commerce on a large scale.

She also reopened the very lucrative trading route

with the land of Punt down the Red Sea coast.

We can see exactly this scene behind us now.

These are the Egyptians arriving in Punt,

these are the Puntites coming out to meet them,

and this is the place where the commerce occurred,

this small low chest on which the Egyptians placed

all valuable goods, the beads, the bangles,

the metal weaponry with which they're then going to trade

with the Puntites for this most precious of commodities,

that kind of red dome shape.

That's actually a huge pile of myrrh resin.

Myrrh and other resins were traditionally used

in temple rituals, in mummification,

and were also key ingredients in perfume production.

Hatshepsut herself is known to have used

fragrant myrrh oil rubbed into her skin to,

as she puts it herself, "gleam like the stars

"before the whole land."

So in the days before the modern celebrity,

Hatshepsut also had her own signature fragrance.

(mysterious music)

The details in such scenes certainly helped piece together

how Hatshepsut managed to hold on to power

for over 20 years.

But through one intriguing object,

I can even experience a little bit of time travel.

That's quite amazing.

This small alabaster vessel still has its original contents

after almost three and a half 1,000 years.

And her names and titles are again inscribed on the front.

But look inside.

The actual imported resin.

This is the stuff that's referred to

on the walls at Deir al Bahari, and here it is.

It's amazing.

It's as if we can smell the past.

We can't just see it, we can't just read the words.

It's contained in this very vessel.

(mysterious music)

Maintaining power for more than two decades

of peace and prosperity,

Hatshepsut was the most successful female monarch

Egypt has yet seen.

And she had proved beyond doubt

that an effective leader didn't have to be a man.

(mysterious music)

As part of Hatshepsut's master plan for prosperity,

she commissioned two pairs of pink granite obelisks

at Karnak Temple.

At almost 30 meters high, this one is the tallest

still standing anywhere in Egypt.

In her own words, she tells us

why she wanted to set up such striking monuments,

as a tribute to her father,

"to the one who made me," she said.

And by "father," she didn't mean her natural parent,

but Amun, the king of the gods,

to whom this whole temple is dedicated.

Their tops would have been capped with electrum,

which is a blend of gold and silver.

The idea is, they acted as a kind of esoteric lightning rod

to catch the very first rays of the sun at dawn,

to transmit that solar power down here,

into the heart of Karnak Temple,

where it could then be redistributed

for the good of Egypt.

(mysterious music)

Karnak Temple is a place where the god Amun was worshiped.

This huge religious complex was continually expanded

and embellished by successive rulers.

And Hatshepsut made sure that she paid tribute

to the king of the gods in the grandest of styles.

This is the Red Chapel of Hatshepsut.

This shrine was known as the Place of the Heart of Amun,

the state god, and lay at the very center

of his great temple, Karnak.

It was kind of like a sacred garage,

which housed the sacred bark, or boat,

on which the god's statue stood

and would have been paraded around in processions,

as we can see here on these wall scenes behind me.

Can see the rows of shaven-headed priests

bringing in the sacred bark

on which the statue of the god is housed,

hidden behind these little curtains

to keep him from profane eyes.

The bark itself is being greeted by the two co-rulers,

the young male pharaoh, Thutmose,

bringing up the ceremonial rear

as a kind of glorified magician's assistant.

He's burning incense to welcome the god's arrival.

And yet center stage is Hatshepsut herself.

Make no mistake, she's the most important figure here.

She is the senior partner.

She is the child of god.

Through such lavish endowments,

Hatshepsut was demonstrating her veneration to Amun.

And assisted by the priests,

the pharaoh had to personally perform

the necessary religious ceremonies to maintain cosmic order.

This is where Hatshepsut herself would have stood

to perform the sacred rites before the gods,

presenting the offerings and pouring the sacred water

all around the god's statue.

Of course, Hatshepsut would have used a golden vessel,

and we have a rusty old bucket.

But it gives you a kind of an idea

of what would have occurred.

(water splashes)

With the sacred water channeled out and beyond the chapel,

the god's protection spread throughout the entire land,

and beyond.

For Hatshepsut wished to be enteral, like an undying star.

And she certainly gained a unique place in history.

The feelings aroused by the notion of a female pharaoh

remained so strong that for some,

Hatshepsut's being cast

as a kind of wicked stepmother figure,

a woman who dared to masquerade as a man,

dressing up with a false beard of kingship,

and usurping the rights to the throne.

For others, however, she's a huge inspiration,

an amazing woman who led the way for generations to come.

(mysterious music)

Hatshepsut's reign had been a triumph.

And yet, after death, her stepson took sole power.

And for now, female rule was over.

(man chanting in foreign language)

Leaders like Hatshepsut reveal ancient Egypt

in one of the most egalitarian societies

of the ancient world,

where women could achieve high-powered roles,

own property, make business deals,

earn equal pay, and go to court.

It may all sound reasonable now,

but it was really unusual back then.

I've arranged to have tea with the academic

Sahar El-Mougy, who's written extensively

about the legacy of these incredible ancient role models.

Sahar, in terms of the female rulers of ancient Egypt,

when you were growing up,

was it easy to find out about them, about their legacy,

because I know there's very little

in the Egyptiological literature about them.

They seem to have swept very much under the academic carpet.

But what's the situation in Egypt?

Was it different for you?

- I grew up not knowing about those women,

except in different pieces,

in boring history books at school.

In the process of writing, I was, like,

getting to know my mothers and grandmothers.

That's why in my writing, those female goddesses

come back to life as inspiring figures.

The amount of power that I received

from knowing about them, through my own eyes,

it was immense.

It was magical.

It was like, "Wow.

"This is where I come from."

(mysterious music)

- It must be said, female pharaohs were quite a rarity.

And by the 19th dynasty, a new regime of ex-military men

from the north had taken power in Egypt.

Men were now very much in control,

and the royal women had to find other tactics.

Around 150 years after the death of Hatshepsut,

my next woman used diplomatic skills

to assert herself at the heart of Egyptian politics.

Her names was Nefertari.

Meaning "the loveliest one of all,"

Nefertari was not only beautiful,

she was also one of Egypt's most gifted queen consorts.

As a very young woman, Nefertari had married a prince

who would become one of Egypt's most famous pharaohs,

Ramesses II.

And it's quite impossible to go anywhere in Egypt

without bumping into him,

for he ruled longer, built bigger,

and certainly boasted more than almost any other pharaoh.

In ancient Egypt, size is everything.

And Ramesses himself has accurately been described

as the giant planet Jupiter.

Brilliant at a distance, but essentially a ball of gas.

This really cuts to the heart of his policy,

of quantity over quality.

The bigger the better.

And it is wonderfully expressed by this statue here.

We can see Ramesses on a colossal scale,

while even his favorite wife, Nefertari,

clutches at the back of his leg,

not even as high as his knee.

In order to find out more about her,

we have to travel beyond Egypt's traditional boundaries.

(mysterious music)

So I'm going 400 kilometers south,

to tell a different side of this story,

to the temple of Abu Simbel.

As one of the most monumental examples of pharaonic might,

it was built on the border with volatile Nubia.

It was designed to strike fear and respect

into all who sailed past along the Nile toward Egypt.

This is the temple of Abu Simbel, built by Ramesses II

during his 67-year reign, and it's typical of the man.

It's massive, it's monumental.

This is only one of the temples at Abu Simbel.

In short, it's only half the story.

The story I'm really interested in is next door,

within a temple dedicated, for once,

not to Ramesses but to his wife.

(mysterious, exotic music)

(wind whistles)

And here she is, the great queen Nefertari,

standing a colossal 33 feet tall.

If you look very carefully, you'll see

she's just that little bit taller

than her famous husband, Ramesses II,

because of this tall crown she's wearing.

Built to make a statement, the temple's towering size

conveyed a strategic political message

that puts Nefertari at the heart of power.

So for Ramesses to erect these massive statues of his wife,

he's really bringing into play every force at his disposal,

including this, the good lady wife,

the little woman at home, quite literally,

but out here in Nubia, in the wilds

of this desert landscape, these volatile tribes people,

he needed her help and she was a very potent force.

The colossal striking image reveals

that Nefertari was the ultimate trophy wife.

(Joann and man converse in foreign language)

In the interior of the temple,

Nefertari appears in a variety of scenes,

performing a series of sacred rites,

taking an active role next to her husband.

She's got her arms raised,

she's encouraging he royal husband Ramesses,

who's in that classic pose of an Egyptian pharaoh,

smiting the enemy.

Basically this is a state execution.

They cower at his feet.

He holds them by the top of the head with the hair,

and once they're in that position,

he brings a weapon down on their head,

literally bashes out their brains.

All the while, Nefertari on the sidelines

is a kind of royal cheerleader, if you like.

Two sides of the same coin,

but of no less value than a husband.

A very, very potent scene.

Very definitely no doubt that this was a royal double act.

Egyptologist and Abu Simbel director,

Doctor Ahmed Saleh, has spent many years

studying the images within both these temples.

Is there enough information in the evidence we have

to try and get an understanding

of what they were like as a couple?

- [Ahmed] He loved her very much.

He married her before he ascended to the throne.

That means he had fall in love with Nefertari.

She accompanied him like a divinity.

- [Joann] Yet it seems that,

when Nefertari sailed this far south,

her health was fading fast.

- The sad story here is,

Nefertari didn't see her temple, she was sick.

She's staying in the boat.

Maybe she comes see the statues of her outside,

but she didn't get on to inside this temple.

- [Joann] What a shame she could only view the exterior.

At least she saw her statue.

- This is a sad story. - This is a sad story.

- [Ahmed] Yeah, I think this is the last time

of her, of Nefertari.

We are talking about the 34th year of reign.

This is the last year of Nefertari,

because when she go back to simpler things,

she died and she buried there.

(mysterious music)

- I'm traveling back north to get inside Nefertari's tomb,

the place where I can find more evidence

of the woman herself.

Located in the Valley of the Queens,

its scenes are so delicate that access is limited.

I've just been given permission to personally unlock

the Tomb of Nefertari, the great royal wife of Ramesses II.

And I'm really excited, 'cause this is

an absolute gem of a tomb,

(mumbles) ever seen it once before,

when I was much younger.

So this is gonna be a rare treat.

(lock clanks)

That is a big key. (laughs)

Oh, my word.

Wow.

Oh wow, oh wow.

Covering 520 square meters, its brilliant, jewel-like images

vividly depict her journey into the hereafter.

(mysterious music)

The scenes just continue one after another after another.

There's nothing here left to chance,

nothing thrown in

simply as a little bit of pretty decoration.

It's like a machine functioning

to keep Nefertari's soul alive in the next word.

Great attention was given to her appearance.

Her eyes and eyebrows outlined in black,

a subtle red color on her cheeks and lips,

and the most exquisite golden jewelry adorning her,

Nefertari, the loveliest of all.

The name implies incredible beauty,

and she really lived up to this, this name that she had.

She's the ultimate high-maintenance woman.

She was certainly beautiful,

but one particular wall scene shows Nefertari

in the company of Thoth, the god of knowledge and literacy,

who was selected for a reason.

We come to this wonderful scene,

which really ties in to what we know

about Nefertari in life.

Nefertari chosen to have the weighing of the heart,

the judgment of the dead scene from the Book of the Dead,

written out with illustrators in a rather unique manner,

because here she is.

She's having herself in a guise of a devotee of Thoth,

the ibis-headed god of literacy and writing.

The emphasis on writing can be seen

on this scribal pallet, which stands between Nefertari

and the god Thoth, and there,

she's presenting herself before Thoth.

She says, "I am a scribe, I am a scribe."

That's quite an emphatic statement.

Not only beautiful,

this woman was pretty clever, too.

As a royal wife, she would of course have had scribes

to write on her behalf.

But being able to read and write hieroglyphs

was then regarded as the ultimate in academic achievement.

And Nefertari made sure that her credentials

would be clearly portrayed for posterity.

(mysterious music)

Being the wife of such a domineering husband

would also have required a considerable amount

of gentle persuasion and soft power,

skill best shown in diplomatic correspondence

exchanged with Egypt's great rivals,

the Hittites of Anatolia in modern Turkey.

Nefertari is known to have corresponded

with her opposite number in this Hittite heartland,

the great queen Puduhepa.

It's amazing that one of these very letters

has actually survived.

Nefertari would have composed her own letter

in the Egyptian language,

and then a bilingual scribe would have translated it

into cuneiform and then embossed it

on small clay tablets.

This is the exact letter that Nefertari

wrote to Puduhepa.

It's obviously a replica, but it really gives a flavor

of the very words of our great royal wife, Nefertari.

It is full of warmth, full of sisterly solicitation.

"To my sister Puduhepa, great queen of the Hittites.

"May the sun god of Egypt and the storm god of the Hittites

"bring you joy,

"and may the sun god make the peace good forever."

At the very end is this very touching reference

to the greeting gift she is sending the Hittite queen.

"I send you a greeting gift, my sister.

"For you neck, a necklace of pure gold,

"and some colored linen to make a royal robe

"for your husband, the king."

Sending such greeting gifts to the monarchs

with whom you corresponded

played a crucial role in the diplomacy of the ancient world.

If we actually look at Nefertari's ear,

we can see something which encapsulates this idea,

because regardless of all the gold,

all Egyptian royals were dripping in gold.

Anybody knew that gold was as common as dust in Egypt,

you only have to pick it up,

thought the ancient correspondents.

But in Nefertari's ear is a a silver earring,

of far more value.

Not only that, it isn't even an Egyptian earring.

It's a style of Greek earring.

These silver pieces of jewelry were sent to Nefertari

from the Aegean area.

So in far away Greece, they knew about Nefertari.

These earrings were sent to her

and she wore them with great pride throughout her life.

So there's rather more to this jewelry and frocks business

than at first meets the eye.

(mysterious music)

Amidst such jeweled splendor,

Nefertari was finally laid to rest

in the manner in which she had lived,

in the most spectacular tomb in the whole of Egypt.

One of the things that strikes you most emphatically

when you catch your breath and calm down

and start looking at these things

in a more logical, rather than an emotional way,

you soon realize that Nefertari's husband's not here.

The great Ramesses is nowhere present.

He's on every temple throughout Egypt.

He's everywhere.

And yet here, in his wife's last resting place,

isn't a single image of him.

Now of course, Egyptologists have postulated

many theories about why the great Ramesses

wasn't actually portrayed in his wife's tomb.

I personally prefer to think that she herself felt,

"Well, I've lived with him for so many years,

"and in the next world, it would be wonderful

"not to have to listen to him forever."

But whatever the real reason,

there's no doubting the importance and influence

of Nefertari as queen of one of Egypt's best-known pharaohs.

Yet despite Nefertari's best diplomatic efforts,

Egypt's political fortunes were soon in sharp decline.

Amidst rampant inflation and official corruption,

a long series of ephemeral rulers

proved completely incapable of defending Egypt's borders

from wave after wave of foreign invaders

throughout the first millennium BC.

The most successful of these were the Macedonian Ptolemies

who change Egypt's fortunes forever.

(dramatic, mysterious music)

900 years after Nefertari, the new era in Egypt's history

produced the first female pharaoh of the Ptolemies,

Arsinoe.

She capitalized on the success of the women rulers

who'd gone before her.

Arsinoe was able to bring together two worlds,

the Egyptian and the Greek,

building on a legacy inherited from the most famous Greek

of them all, Alexander the Great.

Everybody's heard of Alexander the Great,

who invaded Egypt in 332 BC and was crowned pharaoh,

as shown in repeated scenes here.

Alexander was then succeeded by his rumored half brother

Ptolemy, whose dynasty then went on to rule Egypt

for the last three centuries BC.

Ptolemy, in turn, was succeeded

by his extraordinary daughter, Arsinoe,

whose spectacular achievements

were very consciously modeled on those of Uncle Alexander.

Born in Egypt, the teenage Arsinoe was sent to Greece

for an arranged royal marriage.

Then at the death of her husband, the king,

and a second, disastrous marriage,

she fled for her life back to Egypt.

But having acquired a taste for power,

Arsinoe persuaded her younger brother, the pharaoh,

to marry her.

He would be her route to the crown.

In one move, Arsinoe became ruler of two worlds,

Egypt and the Greek Mediterranean.

Through her international connections,

Arsinoe brought more prosperity, knowledge and wealth

into Egypt than almost any other ruler before her.

The bronze figure is all very interesting

because you have Arsinoe almost giving the queenly wave,

if you like, a very regal posture she's striking.

But look what she's carrying in her left arm.

It's a cornucopia, which is a kind of Greek pointed vessel,

but within it, all the bounty, the fruits, the flowers,

the wealth of Egypt.

And there isn't just one cornucopia, but two.

She's bringing double the amount

that anyone else can possibly bring.

(people chattering)

Arsinoe spent much of this fortune

in the new royal capital, Alexandria,

where her opulent lifestyle was sustained

by a continuous flow of exotic imports

from as far afield as India and even further east.

And as goods like ivory, silk and jewels

poured into country, the rest of the population thrived too,

as Egypt became the greatest marketplace on Earth.

(Joann and merchant converse in foreign language)

- [Merchant] Emerald, but not real one.

- Must try one.

(speaks foreign language)

I'm looking for some fabric.

Oh, how beautiful.

(speaks foreign language), how much?

(merchant speaks in foreign language)

Sixpence, okay, well, that's good.

With commerce operating on such a vast scale,

Arsinoe and her brother set up a sophisticated bureaucracy

to manage the staggering wealth

circulating within their empire.

Now, coinage, finance, was a huge part

in Arsinoe's story.

She's an extraordinary woman.

She had a huge personal fortune,

and her financial acumen was very much focused

on Egypt's own finances.

She and her brother-husband Ptolemy created

a kind of doomsday-style inventory

of all Egypt's assets.

She created royal monopolies on absolutely everything,

making sure that finance flowed directly

into the royal house.

And in ancient Egypt, previously a barter economy,

coinage played a crucial role.

It became increasingly common

as a means of financial transactions.

Pretty much, it was the beginnings of capitalism.

(mysterious music)

Under Arsinoe, Egypt was once again

a land of plenty and wealth.

And yet, her coins had another very useful purpose,

as a means of circulating her agenda.

This coin shows Arsinoe wearing the Greek diadem crown

and a veil over carefully styled hair

pulled back into a bun,

at first appearance, the epitome of a standard Greek wig.

This is the perfect portrait of an elite Greek matron,

very respectable looking, very well-coiffed,

very well-dressed.

And yet, if you look really, really closely,

just poking out in front of her ear,

this looks like a very playful little earring,

is actually a ram's horn,

the ram's horns of Alexander the Great.

Arsinoe is using this very, very subtle device

to say, "I am the successor of the great Alexander."

As his successor, Arsinoe built on the legacy of Alexander,

whose emblems were the ram's horns

of Egypt's state god, Amun.

And so, by adopting this symbol herself,

Arsinoe was tucking into an ancient force,

this single, subtle image confirming her place

as the ruler of two worlds.

(mysterious, dramatic music)

(speaks foreign language)

Almost 200 kilometers south of Luxor,

a remarkable site on an island in the middle of the Nile

gives a real sense of the power at Arsinoe's disposal.

(dramatic, mysterious music)

Now, we know that every temple in Egypt

has statues of Arsinoe as the resident goddess,

alongside their traditional deities.

But at Philae, she was also worshiped

as the equivalent of Isis herself, the mother of all gods.

Philae Temple has rightly been dubbed

the Pearl of the Nile.

It was the co-center of the great goddess Isis,

and in many ways, it was an outpost,

both in terms of its southerly geographical location,

and that this was the very last place in Egypt

where the ancient gods were worshiped,

as late as the sixth century AD.

But not only was Isis worshiped here,

Arsinoe, too, was the resident goddess.

In fact, it was through the international influence

of Arsinoe that Isis goes global.

Arsinoe's desire to be seen as the active goddess Isis

sent a very clear message to her subjects.

She has certainly played a fundamental role

in shaping Egypt, both at home and abroad.

But Arsinoe's many achievements were only possible

because of the countless generations of incredible women

who'd gone before her.

And it's in one specific image

she paid permanent tribute to all of them.

Follow me, this way.

Here she is, Arsinoe, pharaoh, the goddess.

She's got all her regalia on that emphasizes

just how much power this woman had.

And it's the crown, the focus of so much recent research,

that can tell us so much.

We can even deconstruct it to tell Arsinoe's full story.

We start with this crown, this is the red crown.

It represents Northern Egypt and very much embodies

the idea that Arsinoe ruled from the royal capital,

Alexandria, on Egypt's northern coastline.

Next of all, we have the two tall feathers at the top,

and the cow's horns,

as worn by the great royal wife, Nefertari,

wife of Ramesses II.

Then we move on to these twisted ram's horns.

'Course, various forms of ram's horns are associated

with the great state god, Amun Ra,

the favorite deity of Hatshepsut.

And finally, at the very heart of this

very special crown, the sun disk,

the great creator of all life.

Takes us right back to the pyramid age

and Hetepheres, the queen mother.

So by taking on this crown, Arsinoe's telling us

she's taking on the accumulated powers

of all these great women who were in power in Egypt

from so many centuries before her.

It's a wonderful thing.

(majestic music)

With this crown later adopted

by the great Cleopatra herself,

these incredible women would be her guides

as she extended Egypt's power across so much

of the ancient world.

(dramatic, majestic music)

I must say this journey, for me,

has been an incredible opportunity

to engage with ancient Egypt in a new,

and very fresh, way.

It's allowed me to investigate the lives

of some incredible people, four amazing women.

These women were incredible role models

to all of us, even in the modern world.

They were lovers, mothers, queens, goddesses, pharaohs.

They were incredibly strong, they were incredibly capable.

And they underpinned the whole

of this fantastic ancient civilization.

(mysterious music)

(humming chime)