Egypt’s Golden Empire
Over 3,500 years ago, Rome was no more than a soggy marsh and the Acropolis was just an empty rock, but Egypt was on the brink of its greatest age – the New Kingdom.
There was an explosion of creativity, wealth and power in Egypt that would make it the envy of the world. After defeating the Hyksos invaders, successive Pharaohs expanded and maintained their Empire through both force and diplomacy.
In the process, they won Egypt vast amounts of gold, influence and respect. They included; Ahmose, Hatshepsut, Tuthmosis III, Amenhotep III, Akenhaten, Tutankhamen and Ramesses III. Behind the power of the Egyptian empire lay a vast wealth of natural resources.
Chief among these was the river Nile, the freeway of the ancient world, whose floodplains also provided huge expanses of fertile farming ground that kept Egypt self-sufficient and usually famine-free. Along the banks of the Nile, the humble papyrus plant was used to create a bureaucratic efficiency and cultural sophistication previously unknown to mankind.
The Warrior Pharaohs
Pharaohs of the Sun
The Last Great Pharaoh
How come all these Egyptian films negate the fact that this was a matriarchal society. Women were revered and had power as evidenced in the origin of Egyptian words, still spoken to this day. They were not mere figure heads with limited power as our queen is. But yet the narrator characterizes the time as a ‘mans world’ in his own patriarchial point of view. So, Queen Nefertiti dies, the whole city crumbles, I guess we know who was really in charge, and that the Pharaoh was just the figure head. What was the experiment, oh yeh, that males and females were equal. Failed miserably, without her he was nothing and worse–despised.
This film makes you wonder if one of the 3 queens mentioned owned the face that was originally carved and adorned the sphynx. Yeh, that’s right! The sphynx is a female. A lioness, the hunter.
Ok. Add this to my list of the many “to watch” docs here. You forgot Cleopatra. Wasn’t she an Egyptian powerhouse too? Was she mentioned? I suppose now I’ll just have to watch this doc to answer my own questions.
Cleopatra was a mistress to roman emperors, who were the real rulers, and the great Sphinx of Giza is the (male) Pharao Chephren (Khafre). The Sphinx with Chephrens face symbolise the Sungod, or the son of the Sungod. It’s the greek sphinxs that often are female.
Very good doc. series. Lucky King Tut was an outcast or his tomb would have been raided too and everything lost like the others.
>Cleopatra was a mistress to roman emperors, who were the >real rulers, and the great Sphinx of Giza is the (male) >Pharao Chephren (Khafre).
You’re right about Cleopatra. (Actually there were eight Cleopatras, and the famous one is seventh.)
And yes, they have thought for long time that Sphinx of Giza is Khafre, but what I found out in Egypt was that most of the egyptologists now think the other way. And actually in Cairo museum they got an amazing statue of Khafre (its written on the statue) and the face has absolutely nothing in common with the Sphinx. That’s not the biggest issue though. The dating, erosion and other reasons now point to direction that Sphinx definitely is not Khafre.
Even more non-orthodox theories about the Sphinx is found in this documentary:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PotS7hPQZTU
Actually Cleopatra VII Philopater was Greek and not Egyptian. She did rule Egypt as a Ptolemy though, her daughter Cleopatra VIII Selene was the daughter of Mark Antoni and therefore half Roman and she did not rule Egypt at all. She was Queen of Cyrenaica and Libya and married Juba II and they were given Mauretanian to rule by Octavian, later Caesar Augustus, who defeated her parents and caused Cleopatra VII to commit suicide. FYI Cleopatra VIII was given to Octavian’s sister and Mark Antoni’s ex-wife, Octavia Minor, to raise after her parents death. Her second name means moon as her fraternal twin brother Alexander Helios means sun. And we thought our family relationships were complicated!! So that is why the documentary mentions only three Egyptian Queens as the later Queens were Ptolemic and therefore Greek, at least that’s what I think. Loved the documentary, I saw one episode on TV years ago and loved being able to see all of it here online. :)
>How come all these Egyptian films negate the fact that this was a matriarchal society.<
Because it wasn't. There is no proof – absolutely none whatsoever – that Egypt was a matriarchal society. Indeed, all available evidence indicates exactly the opposite. If you care to educate yourself and examine the evidence, I recommend reading any of the following monographs. The heiress theory has been thoroughly debunked.
Mertz, Barbara. "Certain Titles of the Egyptian Queens and Their Bearing on the Hereditary Right to the Throne." Chicago: University of Chicago, 1952.
Robins, ***. "A critical examination of the theory that the right to the throne of ancient Egypt passed through the female line in the 18th dynasty." Göttinger Miszellen 62 (1983): 67-77.
Troy, Lana. "Patterns of Queenship: in ancient Egyptian myth and history." BOREAS 14. Uppsala: ACTA Universitatis Upsaliensis, 1986.
Moving on to the documentary itself, I thought it was excellent. The reenactments were a bit amusing, as always, but the information itself was mostly correct and presented in an interesting fashion.
GREAT doc and the music is SUPERB!! I wonder where could i get the music??
Where is Moses -the prophet- in this, he wasn’t mentioned in the story, according to my calculations he lived about 1200 years before Jesus christ, that would put him in the times of Rames the second- the great- but that one died old,95 years old, not in sea, I am just wondering don’t wanna offend anybody. The biblical story is not written on the walls of the Pharaos, could that be possible.
baba – Moses probably isn’t mentioned as very little, if any, of the Exodus story or later conquest of the promised land is mentioned in Egyptian records, or those of other surrounding kingdoms. This is a series about the Egyptian Pharoahs of the New Kingdom, not the Torah/OT or the mythistory of Israel. If Moses did exist, we don’t know which Pharoah it would have been, as estimates for the time of the exodus differ by hundreds of years (if it actually happened).
Just to add another reason to the list of why Cleopatra was not mentioned – this is a series about the New Kingdom. Which was over 1000 years before her time.
i have watched many shows about egypt but not all the time. it is very interesting to know about the past. i recently seen a documentary about genghis khan and i know that he visited egypt. the documentary was about a map that they had found and on it was everywhere he had conquered. when they showed the map it showed that africa was under water mostly in the center of the whole place. anyways everytime i see the pyramids they look as they have been eroding. theres one thing though i had this dream about the pyramids that enlightened me very much but that is my secret since that dream i believe the egyptians had much more and something bad happened to the land. i don’t believe in god or anything but the dream i had was very real and i think that there is much more to that place than people think. all i know is that so much is being translated from writings but two words have more than one meaning. it could all be misenterpreted the only ones that know the truth are the families that don’t die in the place and pass the word from generation to generation. someone knows.
i noticed in one of the videos that someone found tablets that was inscribed. i wonder if the tablets that had the inscriptions was inscribed so to be protected from water or air damage. and i wonder how long the inscribed tablets were in the sand before found.
The Sphinx was female? Really? And does it really matter? The Sphinx was and is a big rock… nothing more.
Tutankhamen was an insignificant king. In his tomb, nearly none of the treasure found was actually his. His sarcophagus was, it is believed, actually in the image of his father. as was the majority of his treasure. People make such a big deal out of him only because his tomb was not ransacked.
The sphinx was built by Djedefre in the image of his father. Up until recently, historians believed Djedefre to be an outcast, that he murdered his brother in order to obtain the throne. However, recent evidence has come to light showing that he was in fact a highly revered king, and that he did nothing against his family.
(This information comes from a studying Egyptologist. I have my masters degree in archeology, and I have studied under Dr. Zahi Hawass.)