One hundred and fifty years ago
the king of France had this obelisk brought
from Egypt to grace the heart of Paris
Three thousand years earlier
it had been dedicated to the great pharaoh Ramses II
with these words
"so long as heaven exists your monuments shall exist
and your name shall endure like the heaven."
Through the 30 centuries that the pharaohs ruled Egypt
the people of the Nile created the most glorious monuments
the world has even seen
among them
the largest place of worship in the ancient world
These miracles in stone were tributes to their gods and kings
They believed that man, like the sun
could die and be reborn
They constructed elaborate tombs to protect the body
and house the soul throughout eternity
They created guides to the underworld
Books of the Dead to insure immortality
And on their monuments
they left the testimony of their faith
These inscriptions are keys with
which we unlock the secrets of ancient Egypt
Ladies and gentlemen
now we are at the temple of the queen Hatshepsut...
And, as they have since the days of Herodotus
Antony and cleopatra
thousands journey here to see these wonders
going down to the Green Valley
for the holy visit of Amun-Re
to the goddess Hathor once a year for 15 days...
But today, having endured for 50 centuries
these seemingly imperishable structures are threatened
Their fate may be determined in our lifetime
so, people of science, soul and conscience
travel here from all over the globe
to save the priceless monuments
to decipher the meaning of the messages
before they disappear forever
This is the story of the land of Egypt
and the quest for eternity
The Nile
Flowing through the endless miles of Egypt's desert sands
its precious waters gave birth and breath
to one of the greatest civilizations
that has ever taken hold on our planet
"Hail to you, Oh Nile!" Went an ancient hymn
"sprung from earth come to nourish Egypt
Food provider, bounty maker
who creates all that is good."
The river's annual flooding left rich deposits of silt
utilizing it, farmers developed a settled life
sustained by its abundant waters
the land and crops prospered
Even mud from the Nile's banks provided the people
with material for everything from clay pots to the bricks
with which they built their homes
The Nile itself was Egypt's highway...
boats sailed northward with the currents
and south with the prevailing winds
To predict the time when the river would overflow
the ancients developed a calendar our own evolved from it
Along the extended oasis of the Nile Valley
a way of life emerged that still endures today
virtually unchanged from the furthest reaches of recorded time
And in the time of the Nile's annual flooding
when the farmers could not till their fields
they built the pyramids-tombs for their pharaohs
All that remains of the seven Wonders of the Ancient World
they were stairways to heaven
For to all Egyptians their religion promised an afterlife
The largest monument ever constructed
the Great Pyramid contains more than
two million immense limestone blocks
each weighing over two tons
One hundred thousand men toiled for 20 years
without wheel, horse or iron tools to create it
that their pharaoh might join the sun god
and live in eternity
This dedication to gods and kings was to sustain the Egypt
of the pharaohs for 3,000 years
From the beginning, the Nile was the soul of the land
The lotus growing on the river banks symbolized
the people of Upper Egypt
the papyrus, shimmering in the marshes of the Delta
was the symbol of Lower Egypt
lmmortalized on this table of slate
a king known as Narmer wears the high-domed crown
of Upper Egypt on one side
the low-curled crown of Lower Egypt on the other
It commemorates his unification of the two lands
to create the nation of Egypt in 3100 B.c.
From that time, Egyptian kings would wear both crowns
as rulers of the two kingdoms of Upper and Lower Egypt
The two lands have remained linked
from Narmer's time to the present
Isolated from its neighbors
protected by mountains, desert, and sea
the Nile Valley was an ideal crucible
in which a civilization could begin
Traces of those beginnings can be found in the city of Nekhen
The site, still populated today
holds evidence of habitation stretching back 6,000 years
since 1967
Dr. Walter Fairservis of Vassar college
and the American museum of Natural History
has been excavating here
in his continuing search for the roots of civilization
It was here, just 90 years ago
that the Narmer tablet was discovered
It was here, 50 centuries before
that king Narmer established the capital
of the newly unified nation
Here we have the walls of a princely complex
that belonged to a king who lived here 5,000 years ago
the very beginning of Egypt's unification
He was a great king, a powerful monarch
And we know from the size of the rooms
and the way things are located that he was a very rich man
a very wealthy person
We know he had storerooms full of grain
We know that he had perhaps a great hoard of copper
and many other things of that order
And yet, oddly enough, this powerful monarch
he left the place
He abandoned it
And that's part of the reason
we're exploring this area to find out why
Why, at the very beginnings of Egypt's history
do we have a place as important as this abandoned?
Perhaps the secret still lies buried in these mud-brick walls
sifting through the debris of the centuries
the Fairservis team continues to piece together
the history of the site
Many threads bind Egyptian prehistory and history
But none is stronger than the belief in immortality
But this one is interesting because...
Equipped with objects necessary for the afterlife
these bodies were buried before
the first pharaoh built his palace here
Right here, if I can just pull this up a little bit
hair pins found at the roof of the skull
Made of some quill-like or ivory, I guess
Perhaps ivory
Perhaps ivory, yes. Put that back there
In this capital, religion, tradition
and political power fused
foundations were laid on which the longest lasting of
all ancient civilizations would rise
Two thousand years later
Egypt's religious capital was Thebes
one of the richest most powerful cities on earth
At its heart was the temple of Amun at karnak
the largest place of worship in the ancient world
As dynasty followed dynasty
the great complex was enlarged and embellished
by a succession of pharaohs
Tutankhamun
whose fabulous tomb treasures dazzled the world
a female pharaoh, Hatshepsut
called "the first great woman in history"
the heretic Akhenaten, first believer in one god.
And Ramses II, the greatest builder of all time
called Ramses the Great
pharaoh while Egypt's power and prosperity flourished
this warrior-king was to rule for 67 years
bring peace to the empire, father nearly 200 children
and leave his mark on fully half the monuments in Egypt
Ramses was only about 20
when his father seti I died in 1290 B.c.
Seti had ordered his funerary temple built at Abydos
One of Ramses' first acts as pharaoh
was to travel there to complete it
To all Egyptians, this was the most sacred city on earth
Here, drawn by some mystical identification
with Abydos and the long-dead pharaoh
an extraordinary woman known as Omm seti
was to come 3,000 years later
With a group of fellow Egyptologists
she celebrates her 77th birthday
Well, thank you very much
You certainly made it a happy birthday
Make a speech
Make a speech? Oh, how lovely, I am touched
I'm afraid its a mass-produced one, but...
Never mind, no matter
My heart, my mother
My heart whereby I came into being
Do not stand up and witness against me at the judgement
I think that is the text. It should be
Yes, you've got it
Oh, thank you very much
To Omm seti at her 77th, on her way to 110
Thank you. Let us drink to our dear old friend Ramses II
Born Dorothy Eady in England
she says something called her here
from the time she was a child
she came here 50 years ago, married an Egyptian
and had a son whom she named seti
From then on, she was known as "Omm seti,"
which means "mother of seti."
She has devoted the last 30 years of her life
to the study of seti I's temple
and become an expert on him and Ramses II
Ramses tells that he came to Abydos alone, you see
in the first year of his reign after his father was dead
and he found that the decoration of this temple was incomplete
In the inscription he says that
"I ordered the work of my father to be completed
and all the works which my father had started
and were still incomplete
I had them finished."
And then he goes on as
if he's speaking to the soul of his father
you see, and telling him
that all that seti had wanted to do
and died before completing
and all his plans and ambitions
Ramses would complete it
And he said, "so long as I am ruling
it will be as though you are still on the throne."
He was a nice fellow, and he was a very good son
When Omm seti came here for the Egyptian Department of Antiquities
the temple was in ruins.
Its reconstruction became her passion.
They confronted me with a pile of fragments of inscribed stone
There were over 2,000
some were very small, some were very big
My job was to copy the inscriptions on them
catalogue them, and, where possible, fit them together
The temple is vibrant with carvings
that look as fresh today
as when they were painted 3,000 years ago
lts walls tell the first known story of resurrection
Osiris, a mythical ruler
was killed and dismembered by his brother
His wife, the goddess Isis, found the scattered pieces of his body
bound them together, and Osiris arose from the dead
Their son, the falcon-headed god Horus
was to grow to manhood and avenge his father
Anubis, jackal-headed god of embalming
was sent by the sun god to help Osiris live eternally
The Egyptians believed
that because Osiris died and rose again
they too could achieve immortality
Worshipping Osiris, seti assures his place in the afterlife
Offering incense
the pharaoh worships before the bark of the sun god, Amun-Re
Just as seti offers bread, ducks, figs
and a pomegranate to Isis
Omm seti follows the ancient belief
Oh yes, every year at the Great Feast
and again on the birthday of the gods Osiris and Isis
I come here with offerings of wine
bread, and incense
Oh, I love coming here
It's the place I really do feel at home
Three days after this filming was completed
Omm seti died
she was buried in Abydos
Egyptian city of resurrection
In the time of Ramses
the most powerful deity of the living
was the sun god Amun-Re
He was patron of the city of Thebes
located on the Nile between the first capital Nekhen,
and Abydos
On the east bank, where the sun rises
were temples dedicated to the sun god
karnak... and Luxor
On the west bank, where the sun buries itself each day
was a complex of tombs where royalty was buried
the Valley of the kings
and the Valley of the Queens
The Greek poet Homer was to immortalize Thebes as
"the city of a hundred gates
where 400 heroes with their horse
and chariots pass through each of these great gates."
While Ramses reigned
Thebes was splendid
He ordered beautiful additions
made to Luxor temple gigantic statues, obelisks
and courts dedicated to the glory of Amun-Re
But having endured 3,000 years
these monuments face destruction in our time
from the effects of increased agriculture
industrialization, changing weather conditions
due in part to the Aswan High Dam
and even the tourists themselves
In 1924, in response to the impending crisis
the Oriental Institute of the University of chicago
established a permanent headquarters in Egypt
called chicago House
it was founded by Dr. James Henry Breasted
father of American Egyptology
who envisioned making a record of
all the endangered monuments of ancient Egypt
Today chicago House is under the direction of Dr. Lanny Bell
The scholars of chicago House have undertaken
a monumental labor called the Epigraphic survey
Over the past 50 years the Oriental Institute
has published an epic series of volumes
containing the results of the survey
Utilizing an ingenious combination
of photography and draftsmanship
the chicago House Egyptologists create facsimile
drawings of the monuments' carved and painted surfaces
the only record that will remain
when the hieroglyphs and decorations
have disappeared forever from the temples
As pharaoh succeeded pharaoh
it was common for them to alter temples
taking credit for the work of their predecessors
By interpreting successive decorations
the chicago House team is decoding the history of Luxor temple
As the glory of pharaonic Egypt faded
people built houses inside the temple
Their debris buried much of it for 2,000 years
When excavation started a hundred years ago
the stone walls were suddenly exposed to the air
since then, salts, leaching out of the stone
combine with moisture in the air
creating crystals that slough off
taking the images with them.
The salt on the walls makes our work urgent
The reliefs are being dissolved
so that within a period of 200 years
the temple will still stand
but all of the decorated surface will have flaked off
When they are gone
we want there to be a record
as accurate as humanly possible
of the decoration
so that scholars will be able to consult our drawings
and be sure that the reliability is such
that any questions they have about the decoration
will be answered in our volumes
When the gods were worshipped here no more
great portions of the temples were dismantled
Large blocks were broken into smaller pieces
for reuse as building material
Thousands of them have been collected over a 30-year period
chicago House is conducting a systematic search of the fragments
to reconstruct a section called the "Lost colonnade."
Finding a fragment that may fit
artist Ray Johnson makes notations
and the block is carefully photographed
An artist pencils, then inks in the lines of the photograph
making corrections and replacing
what time may have removed
Then the artist fits the photograph
into his rendering of the wall
Only the areas within the inked lines
have actually been found
But from the salvaged fragments
it is sometimes possible to reconstruct the entire design
created by the original artists 3,000 years ago
You support me going up
On those exciting and rare occasions
when a fragment that fits onto a standing wall is found
it is replaced
Toward me?
So, piece by piece, the ancient temple of Amun-Re rises again
The investigations of chicago House have revealed
that the colonnade of Luxor temple
is the major standing monument of Tutankhamun
To completely evaluate its architectural history
the inscriptions at the top of the structure
must be photographed
Ladders reaching five stories high have been assembled
This is the first time in 50 years
that anyone has attempted the ascent
On the 70-foot-high columns
Dr. Bell studies the techniques used
by the artisans of antiquity
Here they inserted wooden blocks to stabilize the structure
as they fitted it together
A roof once covered the colonnade
but it fell or was removed sometime before 1600 A.D.
Fragments of it found on the temple floor
have been identified
In assessing the temple's past
Dr. Bell's thought inevitably turn to its future
Paradoxically, the vibrations caused
by the endless footsteps of the tourists who visit each year
even the carbon dioxide they exhale
are eroding the irreplaceable treasures they come to enjoy
chicago House studies have reveale
that a hundred years after Tutankhamun built this structure
Ramses II systematically erased his predecessor's
and replace it with his own
naively assuming he could deceive the gods
and take credit for the colonnade's construction
But Ramses also added to the majesty of Luxor temple
He built a massive entrance- "The horizon
from which the sun god goes forth."
From reliefs we can reconstruct a dazzling annual festival
The Feast of Opet
With the Nile in full flood
the golden statue of the god Amun Re
has been brought to Luxor from karnak in its boat-shrine
Within the temple's innermost sanctuary
Ramses offers incense, flowers
and food to the linen-shrouded god
The sacrifices and ceremonies concluded
priests lead the procession out of the temple
purifying the way before them
Thousands of citizens crowd the waterfront to see musicians
Nubian dancers, soldiers
and priestesses accompany the procession along the Nile
The shrine of the god is placed on its sacred
and in great ceremony priests, god
and pharaoh are towed back to karnak temple
Ramses' favorite queen, Nefertari
and the royal princesses greet the procession as it arrives
concluding nearly a month of worship and revelry,
the royal couple enters the great temple of Amun at karnak
Within the sacred precincts of the temple
the shrine carrying the golden statue of the god
is hidden from public view until the next year
symbolically renewed and reborn
the divine king Ramses advances toward the innermost
reaches of the temple
where no common mortals are allowed to venture
Begun by his father, seti I
this awesome hall was completed by Ramses
A soaring forest of stone, it is created of 134 pillars
some of them 80 feet high
ceilings and columns are ornamented
with Ramses' cartouches-magical ropes
that surround the king's name to protect him from evil
In the hieroglyphs of his name is the message
"it is Re, the sun god, who bore him."
From the sun god
the pharaohs drew their right to rule-their divinity
their legitimacy, and crowns
so they constructed this mighty city of God
A hundred pharaohs enlarged
and embellished it over a period of 2,000 years
a creation that did not cease until the christian era...
that has resumed as modern archaeologists
restore this timeless testimony of faith
Across the Nile stretches the Land of the Dead
Here, in mystical imitation of the setting sun
the bodies of the deceased were laid to rest
that they might rise again
as the sun did each day
cut into the heart of the mountain,
the Theban necropolis is a vast labyrinth of tombs
Here, Ramses' architects built
his splendid mortuary temple, the Ramesseum
In its forecourt lie huge fragments
of his colossal statue 1,000 tons of granite
that once rose 57 feet in height...
that inspired shelley's sonnet "Ozymandias
"in which he called the pharaoh "king of kings."
When Ramses died in 1224 B.c., the Ramesseum was magnificent
Here, the magic of his name and images would keep him alive forever
This was but a stopping point for the dead king
and his funeral procession
the sacred place where offerings would be made to him
from this day throughout all time
Though mourners wept, they knew that
if properly provided for, one could live forever
so they carried with them everything the dead might need
for the voyage through eternity
For a king there would be boats in
which he could sail endlessly on the Nile...
And a throne from which he could continue to reign
Even magical figures would be provided to do his bidding in the afterlife
In their tomb paintings the people of the Nile depicted the hereafter
as a pleasant extension of their earthly lives...
a place where they could amuse themselves hunting ducks...
where rich crops would sustain them
The deceased carried with them "Books of the Dead."
They instructed the departed on how to avoid the gods
and demons that would attempt to bar their way
Her body painted with stars
a goddess of the sky stretches over a reclining god
who represents the earth
Between them, a winged form of the sun god sails
through the netherworld
The divine, ibis-headed scribe, Thoth
makes notes as the deeds of the deceased are weighed on the scale of justice
In an address to the gods
the departed will assert his innocence
"I am pure of mouth and hands
without sin, without guilt, without evil."
Those who were judged to be without sin could join Osiris
to dwell in the "happy land of the setting sun."
But most important
there must be a body to which the soul could return
Anubis, god of embalming
prepares the body for the life to come
so Ramses' mummy would have gone to his tomb
after a priest pronounced over it: "You will live again forever."
The tomb of Ramses II
In a state of dangerous disrepair
its access is forbidden to almost everyone
But a team headed by Dr. Kent Weeks
of the University of california at Berkeley
has recently mapped it
In the dynasty following Ramses'
the royal tombs were systematically plundered
As a last resort, priests collected the surviving royal mummies
and hid them
In 1871, a grave robber found Ramses II
where he had lain undisturbed for 3,000 years
Reclaimed by the Egyptian Government
the mummy of Ramses now reposes in the cairo museum
far from the Valley of the kings
This is the West Valley
It's part of the ancient necropolis of Thebes
about nine square miles of some of the most important
archaeological monuments anywhere in the world
The Valley of the Queens, Valley of the kings
Tutankhamun's tomb, they're all here
But in spite of several centuries of interest in this area
there still does not exist a detailed archaeological map of
what it contains
That's the purpose of the Berkeley Theban Mapping Project
to make as detailed an archaeological map
as modern technology will permit
It's an important project
It's going to make it possible
for us to study the history of the necropolis
But even more important
it's going to help us to preserve it and protect it
surveying techniques are used to measure topographical features
...1.303
Thank you.
At headquarters in a village below the necropolis
the team reviews its findings
It's okay
can you see "Q2" there above the temple at Deir el Medina?
Aerial photographs are utilized to plan tomb mapping
for the next day in the Valley of the Queens
Right above the temple...
Yeah, right there...
Okay, that's the point we'll occupy tomorrow morning
When surface measurements are combined with plans of the tombs
they will create new and revolutionary three-dimensional maps
These will make it easier to find correlations
between the geography and the location of the known tombs
and perhaps enable scientists to find tombs still undiscovered
Let's drop everything here, Dave
and then we can send it on down
Why don't you and Jenny go on down
We'll start passing stuff to you
Dave, why don't you choose what we have to take down
and we'll leave the rest up here
I get the lantern, not you
Let's finish that rear chamber today if we can, Dave
I think we can. It looks like a steep set of stairs
Yeah. Watch your step It isn't really.
I got it Okay.
Standard surveying techniques are used to
obtain the dimensions of each chamber
Every archaeological detail will be drawn and recorded
I think that's about it, cathy
Did you get those problems in the back chamber?
It was customary to place the tombs of royal children
in the Valley of the Queens
This is the tomb of a young prince
son of Ramses III.
Here, the pharaoh himself offers incense to the gods
on the boy's behalf
In these touching scenes
the pharaoh leads his nine-year-old son
into the presence of the divinities of the underworld
carrying the feather of truth,
the boy obediently follows his father.
It is believed the ancient sculptors
and painters lit the interiors of tombs and temples
with polished metal reflectors used as mirrors.
And these scenes were filmed under the same conditions.
This is the tomb of Nefertari
Though Ramses had at least four royal wives
she remained his favorite
Due to humidity caused by increased irrigation in nearby farmland
the exquisite murals of her tomb are flaking off
Unless scientists can halt the deterioration
these may be the last moments of what was imagined
as the endless ages in which Nefertari
would live on these walls
This was the woman with
who Ramses believed he would go through eternity...
to whom these words were written
"The princess, rich in grace
Lady of affection, sweet with love
mistress of the Two Lands
songstress of the beautiful countenance
Greatest in the harem of the lord of the palace
All that you say, will be done for you
Everything beautiful according to your wish
All your words bring contentment to the face
Wherefore men love to hear your voice."
These tributes speak to us of love and hope
a people and a civilization that soared brilliantly
and then was eclipsed
Here at the temple of Isis, built on an island in the Nile
the religion of ancient Egypt had its last stronghold
After 332 B.c., the Greek Ptolemies would reign
as the last dynasty of pharaohs
Embracing the Egyptian religion
they built this temple dedicated to the worship of Isis
divine symbol of motherhood
her husband Osiris, and their son Horus
There stories are told and retold on the temple walls
But the story of another holy family
was to sweep over Egypt
The carvings, now considered pagan
were chiseled away
christianity became the state religion
and in the sixth century
this temple became a christian church
The meaning of the hieroglyphs would be forgotten
the ancient rites forbidden
For 12 centuries
the story of Egypt's ancient civilization
would be lost
In 640, Islam and the teachings of Mohammed
swept over the country
A succession of foreigners was to rule until 1952
when revolution restored
full independence to Egypt after 2,000 years
cairo is the African continent's largest city
Vexed by 20th-century problems of explosive growth
pollution, economic and political difficulties
cairo, like Egypt itself
survives through the resilience
humor and vigor of its people
Facing an expanding population
and an emerging nation's need for energy
the Aswan High Dam was built in the 1960s
With 17 times the material contained in the Great Pyramid
the dam is a monument to the new nationalism
and what some would call the 20th-century religion-technology
Behind the dam, Nubia was flooded
much of this ancient land disappeared
beneath the rising waters of the Nile
And at Abu simbel
a magnificent temple hewn from a sandstone monolith
the newly-forming lake licked
at the feet of these colossal images of Ramses II
A concerned world realized
that the temple would soon be engulfed
How could it
and the temple of Nefertari which flanked it, be saved?
At the 11th hour with funding from Egypt
the United states, and UNEscO
an international team swung into action
racing the rising Nile
slab by slab
in cuts no more than a quarter of an inch thick
the temple was dismantled
The work continued night and day
as workmen cut 190 feet down through the cliffs
coded for storage
the sections made a giant jigsaw puzzle
Moved up 200 feet beyond the reach of the Nile
the temple was reassembled
The precision of watchmakers was applied to the colossi
reconstructed to an accuracy of a tenth of an inch
Ramses' temple was designed by ancient priest-astronomers
so that the sun would penetrate deep
within to bless a figure of the pharaoh on the jubilee
that celebrated 30 years of his reign
In our time, engineers have resituated the temple
so that the sun still streams in on the pharaoh
on each anniversary of that day 3,200 years ago
Gilding the statue of the king seated among the gods
the sun god Re bathes the figures in sacred light
Why have people come here since the days of ancient Greece and Rome
These works are expressions of the quest
for the meaning of life itself
a longing for connection with the gods
a need for beauty, a hope for immortality
They are worth knowing and worth saving
because the record of the past tells up
something of ourselves
and hints of our future
Here, Egyptians and travelers
alike raise their eyes to Ramses
speak of him, remember him as a leader
who signed the world's first major peace treaty
It reads
"Beginning with this day
in order to bring about good peace
and good brotherhood between us forever...
he is in peace with me
and I am in brotherhood with him
and I am in peace with him, forever."
In the religion of the ancient Egyptians
to speak of the dead is to make them live again
For Ramses, the quest for eternity has been fulfilled