Why Did The Egyptians Stop Building Pyramids? | Immortal Egypt | Timeline

With its powerful pharaohs, multiple gods and magnificent art, it is easy to think that ancient Egypt was always powerful and successful, but there were also darker times, conflicts, civil wars, famines and a general feeling of catastrophe. The only way he was able to survive was through his own resistance and the The strongest leader now, this is Sesostris III, who ruled Egypt almost 4,000 years ago. He is strong and muscular, everything a pharaoh should be and yet look at his face. His frowning features have been interpreted to suggest his harsh rule and his large ears, his ability to listen to any plot against him sisostris embodies the way Egypt's monarchs ruled during their turbulent times.

This king controlled his enemies through a series of military fortresses and by magical curses, but this is a new era in Egypt's history ruled not only by military power but by fear and suspicion and Egypt's darkest times threatened to destroy its entire civilization. I've already explored how Egypt's ancient culture began thousands of years earlier, blessed by the Nile River and a rich natural environment and a society united by a complex ideology, but in this episode we'll see how the enormous self-confidence of the era of the

pyramids

was not to last, as a dark age brought this civilization to the brink of annihilation.

Make no mistake, this is the home of the dead and we are among them. They were times of civil famine. war and anarchy kings have been reduced to something on a minuscule level, but this collapse triggered one of the greatest revivals of antiquity with Egypt re-emerging more powerful and richer than ever to my story of ancient Egypt sakara, where the era began of the great pyramid of Egypt. but among its glories there is also evidence of a much less known side of

egypt

's history its descent into a dark age the zenith of the ancient kingdom of

egypt

was the great pyramid of giza and just 200 years later the king's causeway was created one, It may not seem like much today, but it is the highlight of the Unass pyramid complex, a 750-meter-long causeway that symbolically connects life and death.

It runs directly from the Nile Valley up the high desert plateau to the foot of Unass's pyramid, so it would have been used for his funeral procession, but it would also have drawn that life-giving force from the valley to the city of the dead here in Zakara. A narrow slit in the roof once allowed sufficient lighting, but what is extraordinary is that this roadway was designed with a single purpose. The king's funeral procession carved into its walls are scenes revealing both sides of life, the forces of order and chaos. first portrays an idealized version of Egypt a time of abundance here we can see typical scenes inside an Egyptian temple or funerary context scenes of the rich generosity of Egypt all fruits, vegetables, crops, meat, fish, all the wealth of Egypt's natural environment, which was obviously brought to earth through the good offices of the king, the bearer of all bounty. the intermediary with the gods but also this causeway contained something more disturbing, evidence that dark forces were at work further down the causeway an equivalent image emerged the other side of generosity an image so unusual that it is now displayed in the sicara museum and It really is one of the most disturbing and revealing works of art from ancient Egypt here we see these dark forces at work what we have are two rows of emaciated famine victims these poor people they are weak from hunger they are falling they are suffering and this is basically , ancient Egypt comes face to face with reality because it is believed that these are the Bedouins who inhabited the desert areas of Egypt, so it is as if this kind of idea of ​​suffering, the forces of chaos were on the periphery of Egypt, but they were becoming more and more.

Closer to the Nile Valley, Egypt is beginning to wake up to the fact that chaos is not that far away. This is ancient Egypt, beginning to suffer from such stark realism that it has rarely been portrayed before. Chaos was represented as the suffering of real people. This is not like this. happening in some esoteric realm of the gods where chaos is represented as some kind of disparate magical force far removed from reality, this is reality through images so realistic that the Egyptians expressed their fears to the gods, asking them to maintain these forces of chaos. at bay, but instead the starving victims of the famine would prove to be a chilling omen until now Egypt's prosperity had flowed from its only source of water, the Nile River, whose annual floods enriched the soil allowing life and agriculture to flourish.

This natural abundance was the true basis on which Egypt and its perpetual world order could prosper, but this source of life was about to be exhausted. Evidence shows that at the end of the third millennium BC. The Egyptians believed that their gods had begun to abandon them and over the next century ancient texts spoke of suffering from famine and even cannibalism. Traditionally Egyptian society had been built on the belief in the divine power of its kings. Without this belief, the age of the

pyramids

would never have existed. It had been possible, but now, in his time of need, the king of Egypt seemed increasingly helpless in the face of such a natural disaster and this would come to a head with a ruler who was already past his prime and claimed to have lived for a hundred years.

He was the oldest man in Egypt. king monarch pepe ii and this space was once a ceremonial athletics track the type of place where pepe would have to show his physical prowess to prove himself to his people now when any pharaoh had celebrated 30 years of reign they had to perform the ceremonies of jubilee and this involved running the ceremonial jubilee race four times around this circuit as king of the north four times around the circuit as king of the south it was the ultimate public demonstration of his fitness to rule and his strength really showed who was in charge of egypt but that is where pepe's advanced age finally let him down, of course when the pharaoh was relatively young and fit this would have been a great celebration but in the case of poor pepe who was then 90 years old it was left very clear that the pharaoh was not a living god and this really undermined the whole concept of what it was to be a pharaoh, clearly as mortal as his subjects, any natural disaster must have seen the fault of this less than superhuman king and this combination of A weakened pharaoh and failed crops led to the rapid decline of ancient Egypt now. faced its first major political crisis because the power and apparent divinity of the pharaoh that had been so important in the age of the pyramids had now banished everything that united Egyptian society had begun to disappear and Egypt plunged into a dark age in this era. of increasing uncertainty when the Egyptians lost faith in both the monarchy and the state religion they turned more and more to the power of magic this is something quite disturbing is an ancient Egyptian mask is almost 4,000 years old and is made of linen covered with a thin layer of plaster and then painted predominantly black with colors highlighted in various features, of course, the Egyptians are well known for making elaborate arrangements for their afterlife, the death mask placed over the mummified body recreated the features of the dead to make them recognizable. the gods, but this mask is different, it was made to be worn by the living and we know this from the very distinctive eye holes that can be seen there and this would allow the wearer to see around them, you can imagine when it was applied to the face tied behind the head would transform that individual into a completely different entity.

Traces of paint on the linen reveal how it might have helped the wearer embody some form of magical being. Whoever wore this was going to put some effort into transforming their appearance to try and harness the hidden forces of the gods and control the world they lived in, it's as if the Egyptian individual wearing this was trying to take charge of their own destiny, but the mask is not the only evidence of magic. for in their dark ages the Egyptians increasingly began to write curses and spells on vessels and rolled figurines throughout an era the curse die henoey son of interest a form of magic on a scale small enough to be performed within their own homes an in the most graphic ways What they did was take a piece of clay or a simple vessel like this and write on it the thing or person they wanted to control.

They often used red ocher because red was associated with powers of destruction, so if I was doing it. this would put what I would like to

stop

, which is the morning calls and alarm clocks, so you have to imagine Egyptians from all walks of life doing this, the priest wanting to protect the pharaoh, the soldier in battle against an enemy or just a hated love rival, so all sorts of Egyptians could be on the receiving end of something like this and then to activate the curse they broke the pot, it was a symbolic act to annihilate the enemy's name and so Therefore, control it. enemy oh that feels better, not unlike voodoo, such practices are found in many ancient cultures and Egypt was no exception, but it is far from the way we imagine the formal and traditional temple rituals led by the king to the head of the religious hierarchy.

This is an Egypt that is becoming more suspicious, more fearful and more aware of threats to its world, natural disasters, political collapse and foreign powers, and this little wax figure is a means of controlling anyone who threatens the balanced order. of Egyptian life. Welcome to the age of Temen a time when every element of Egypt's worldview was in question. His faith in his king in his land and even in his gods had wavered. This is one of the lowest points in Egypt's long history and its effect reverberated throughout the Nile Valley. The traditional base in the north was no longer the source of wealth, so royal officials abandoned the court and moved to Egypt. moved back to their hometowns across the country.

Disunited Egypt returned to what it had been a thousand years before, dividing into a series of local regions called gnomes. and now a new type of leader emerges to dominate the Middle Ages, he is no longer a single king but multiple warlords and we know a lot about one of them because he left his detailed autobiography in his rock-cut tomb in Moala, far away. from the usual tourist sites. His name. he was aunk tiffy now anktifi is a small-time civil servant who worked his way up the ranks to become a regional governor or unmarked as he is known and in the decline of the central government the power vacuum that opens is now filled by the antifa of This tomb of a global activist is quite modest by ancient Egyptian standards, but its interior walls speak of his rise to power, and Egyptologist Gary Shaw is going to help me unravel, man, his story.

You can see the man himself, yes, the gray man, a great carved man standing there. He has a great hairstyle, he does it, he's charming, I like it, it's already maddening. Sofie has a large tomb and the hieroglyphics and images that fill the walls reveal how Aung Tiffy exploited the power vacuum at the end of the pyramid era by reducing the king. to nothing more than a footnote, the only time you see a king's name in the entire tomb is right here, this little cartouche, it couldn't be small, look at the size of that, that is, it's in the little toe. the entire melody the only mention of a king and nothing that really emphasizes how important he thought he was alone.

He didn't need to mention Pharaoh. He didn't need to say that the king told me to do this, so I did it. this because of the favors of the king, he simply did it himself, that is extraordinary. I think that caricature alone of everything in the tomb sums up this whole period. The kings have been reduced to something on a minuscule level and the local rulers are shown on a huge scale and it's all about them, isn't it? Anktifi had enhanced his own political career and wanted to ensure that the gods had no doubts about his importance, so elaborate language that was once exclusive to the king was now part of Anctiffy's own boastful propaganda.

This warlord was an ego. maniac, he also says that he is a peerless and peerless hero and you understand that here I am a hero without dock and almost all the inscriptions on this tomb end or include this statement at some point within and what did he do to justify these claims, he emphasizes all the good things he did for the people, this was meant to be a time of drought and famine, as the texts tell us, and he tried to guide them through this, he was handling it by feeding everyone and doing all kinds of good things , giving bread to the hungry, ointment to those who have no ointment, and sandals to those who have feet in labor and handcuffsfor those who don't have wives, so basically it tells us about a time of turmoil, yes, but he's probably exaggerating too much because the more he exaggerates how horrible it is, the cooler he looks when he says well, these are the good things I did for everyone and you see this here, it talks about the whole south, uh, starving, oh, look at that, that's very graphic. hieroglyph, I love that the guy who falls over, yes, corpse, is definitely dead, but then he gets even worse and says that all the men are eating their children.

He didn't allow this to happen in his gnome, of course, where he lived. Everything was fine and at the same time he is also a fantastic warrior, we were told here now that he would come, yes, absolutely, yes, these texts in this particular column speak of his abilities as a warrior of his in their greatest boast of all . Anctiffy, the local hero almost claims the status of god I am the beginning and the end of humanity since no one like me existed before nor will exist in the dark ages of Egypt warlords like hank tiffy had replaced the true kings of Egypt and antifa's delusions of grandeur so vividly expressed inside his tomb are further emphasized outside because he chose burial inside a natural pyramid-shaped rock.

He wanted to be the local pharaoh and in a way he was because whoever fed and protected the people also guided them, but as the power of warlords like Hank Tfe grew, so did the conflicts between them and, over time, As they defeated their neighbors or formed alliances with them, two separate dynasties of warlord kings emerged, one in the north, where they wore the red crown of Lower Egypt, and one in the south, in Thebes, symbolized by the crown. white of upper egypt, egypt was a kingdom divided into two lands and between them stretched a war zone located in its center, was the most sacred site in egypt, its first royal cemetery and still today an evocative and atmospheric place.

This was the resting place of Egypt's first kings, whose mummified bodies were buried in elaborate burial chambers beneath the desert floor. A safe place for their souls, or so they thought, but hostilities between the two warring factions were about to reach new depths of horror with an assault so blasphemous it would change the face of Egypt forever. One of the most violent acts was recorded. in later texts when the vile act of the northern warlord kings who fought here against their southern opponents actually desecrated these royal tombs because their troops set fire to the tombs and destroyed the royal mummies with a stroke of the pen the physical link of Egypt with its ancient past was cut off such an act of desecration was completely unimaginable and the Egyptian people were rightly shocked although the northern kings deeply regretted what their troops had done the destruction was irreversible and the origins of Egypt's royal past were lost forever, of course, the problem with those times of destruction is that there is very little left of them for us Egyptologists to find, but clues remain if you know what you are looking for today.

What remains of the rape of this royal burial. The ground amazes with thousands and thousands of broken vessels, although most are not part of the destruction itself, they represent centuries of atonement for the loss of Egypt's physical connection with its past. Now, shortly after the desecration, this became a place of pilgrimage to which people came with little. Pots like this filled with food, drink, incense that they offered to the souls of dead kings. Once buried here, it was believed that when they died, these souls of the kings had united with the soul of Osiris, god of the dead, and as this place became a place of pilgrimage, it is as if the people of Egypt were trying to make amends for the desecration of the past.

Egypt's spiritual connection to her royal ancestors was all she had left after northern warlords destroyed her physical remains and the desecration soon sparked violent reprisals. Directly across the desert from Abydos lay Thebes, the stronghold of the southern warlords, who would soon rise up against their northern rivals and attempt to resurrect Egypt as a united land back in 2000 BC. C., Thebes was a city of one donkey and yet its warlords had two different ones. advantages over other leaders they lived in a bend of the Nile called kennebend a strategic control point of rich farmland and their local god was montu the god of war the warlords of thebes would reunite egypt and one in particular came to the fore flat his images were carved on the walls of his thieben tomb complex and his name tells us a lot, this is the Theban warlord mount hotep and there is a real clue about what was happening in this part of egyptian history because his name mount hotep means the local god of war montu is content because hotep simply means content and happy, so if the god of war was happy with mount hotep, this means that he was a very powerful military figure and this is a wonderful scene .

There are many little clues here to tell us what is going on and if you look very closely, you can see hands hugging him, flanking him from the back, from the front, around the waist, he has been hugged by the chief of the gods, among which The monster himself is found and there he is, nose to nose with the king, giving him breath. life and infusing it with his own divine power, it was the power of victory that finally put an end to Egypt's first dark age. Mount Hotep truly lived up to his name as a true son of the god of war because he led his armies to the north. he conquered the north and reunited Egypt, but best of all he has the red crown and this is the red crown of the north because Mount Hotep is declaring to the world that he could be southern, he could be from Thebes, he should wear white. crown but look at me now i have the red crown i am the king of the north and the king of the south and i have reunited egypt as the new king of egypt became mount hotep ii but his victory came at a high price the grim details of what his Soldiers can be found on the west bank of Thebes, in Dir El Bakri, it was inside one of the tombs here that the remains of the warriors of Mount Hotep were discovered in 1923, their bodies were silent witnesses of Egypt's civil war. 4,000 years ago, which careful analysis revealed in fascinating detail now archaeologists found around 60 bodies in the tomb and these are the original photographs from the excavation.

They had all been preserved naturally mummified naturally in the hot, dry climate, so you still have the skin and hair and, more importantly, evidence. of how these men had fought and died, some of these bodies had been pierced by arrows, this one goes directly to the left side of the chest, others had actually been buried with these leather wristbands that archers wear, ten of the warriors They had been killed with ebony. arrows with tips, but in others the wounds are even more brutal. You can see here that someone hit this man in the head with a real blow and you can see this very graphic area of ​​damage there and after this series of furious blows have landed on it.

These poor guys were lying helpless on the battlefield. Their bodies were collected by vultures. You can see the terrible damage here. It's such a profound image. The bodies reveal evidence of the weapons used against them as they fought for control of Egypt. Arrows, slingshots and even. Stones had been thrown at the warriors from above, eventually their bodies were collected from the battlefield and carefully wrapped in linen. This linen bore the insignia of the Theban tomb complex belonging to their leader Mount Hotep, but was as significant as the bodies themselves where Mount Hotep lay. Chose to bury its fallen heroes Today, the warriors' resting place is a little-known sealed tomb, but four thousand years ago Mount Hotep honored its dead soldiers with a burial among the tombs of its highest officials, making them part of its monument to the victory of the new king.

He had created what may well be the first known war cemetery in the world. Now I am fortunate to have received special permission to see the soldiers of Mount Hotep for the first time. These guys are going to tear down the tomb wall for me, allowing me to actually know the same people who fought in the Egyptian civil war around 2000 BC, so I'm very excited and it was the same curiosity that drove a team of American archaeologists to excavate its first original mass grave, now reburied in a neighboring tomb. The bodies of the Mount Hotep soldiers have rarely seen the light of day since their discovery over 90 years ago and chakram, remember now, this is actually very frustrating, but in the interest of health and safety, I cannot go in there right away, like I really do.

I want to do it because all the stale air builds up as the walls are sealed and we really have to let this stuff out with all the fungal spores and bacteria and everything else that is so unhealthy. Early Egyptologists tended to rush and take risks. the so-called curse of the pharaoh, so waiting a little is essential. I can't believe we're going into this tomb now. It's one of those rare moments when you're doing an Egyptological career in a tomb that's almost never visited the wall. I had to go down and who knows what we're going to find inside because I've certainly never seen this before, so it's a very, very special moment.

This was literally not at all what I expected. Nobody knew what to expect. It's amazing. I had never been in a tomb like this before. The mask is a very good idea because there are all kinds of things floating in the atmosphere here, not just the dust of centuries and the dust of human beings, and as such, we have to be very vigilant. very respectful it is a large rock cut as well and although its walls are unfinished it is typical of those created for courtiers and officials along these cliffs wow it is a mummy body of fire it is absolutely incredible oh that is something extraordinary and if you look along this same long tomb look at the ground this is not stone these are human remains and mummy wrappings and there are chambers and corridors that lead back full of wrappings the linen of centuries it is said that some of it is the same linen that joined the Mount bodies to Hotep's warriors to help preserve them for eternity, but at first glance it is difficult to get a clear idea of ​​this particular tomb which appears to have been reused many times during Egypt's long history. from one shoulder you see the way the skin is folded and dried part of the human body still with much of its soft tissue intact, it immediately hits you in the face and you are faced with what is a grave, make no mistake, this It is the home of the dead and we are among them, it is a very, very emotional time and powerful place to be, but what is surprising is how little remains of their bodies, like many other tombs along the Nile, they have been subjected to centuries of looting and damage, and among all these linen wrappings, rubble and human remains lie the tangible objects.

Remains of these men who died so bravely in their efforts to reunify Egypt for Mount Hotep. Their leader had just emerged from that grave. Very, very mixed emotions. I really don't know what I expected to see. Certainly some of Mount Hotep's soldiers, perhaps. some of them it is very likely that essentially what we are seeing are the ancient Egyptians themselves these are the temples of the ancient Egyptians tombs pyramids this wonderful culture it is very good to study these esoteric aspects that are different, wonderful and great, but when it comes to summarizing , the things we should really care about are these people. mount hoteps the reunification of egypt marked a new beginning the dawn of what would be known as the middle kingdom and the rise of thebes mount hotep made it the new spiritual heart of egypt and would remain so for the next 2,000 years, but while the The war god Montu had dominated the previous century of Egyptian history, the deity who now took center stage was Hathor, the goddess of love, joy, beauty and motherhood, the goddess whose origins can be traced.

Dating back to the earliest times and believing that Hathor dwelt on the cliffs of Darrell Backery, Mount Hotep chose this site not only for his war cemetery but also for his own tomb complex. It was Monte Hotep who first built here in this spectacular place where the cliffs meet. The desert was believed to be the home of the goddess Hathor herself, it was a quick route to the afterlife and for Monte Hotep and his men, who had lived and died for the god of war Montu, they all now rest in the eternal embrace of hathor the first. build in beloved the barry was mount hotep the founder of a reunified egypt was so influential that almost 600 years later the pharaoh hat shepsat built her own funerary temple right next door to take advantage of the religious and political power of her illustrious predecessor in the life in The middle kingdom for the common people was booming, food was plentiful and trade flourished andagriculture was revitalized with new irrigation systems;

However, the dark ages had left their mark on the Egyptian mentality, as revealed in the way they prepared for the afterlife in the afterlife. The walls of the tombs of the ancient kingdom were often covered with elaborate scenes and texts that replicated an idealized version of the Egyptian world, but in the Middle Ages people had seen their sacred sites vandalized, so instead of those two markets, Many in the Middle Kingdom opted for its cheaper equivalent with something much smaller and much more intimate. Although they may look like children's toys, they were actually made almost 4,000 years ago to be placed inside Egyptian burials.

Now these wooden models were designed to provide the deceased with an eternal supply of food and drink in the afterlife, so here we have all the basics, the Egyptian staples of bread, beer and beef, so we have the bakers at this end and they are grinding the grain to make flour which will then become the loaves of bread that are cooked on this fire and the baker is at the front, there the arms are quite damaged but presumably protecting his heat face, as we know from other examples, move to the middle and we have the butcher here and he is cutting the neck of this ox and the legs are tied. here to keep the animal in situ while the action is performed and then we go to the end and we have the brewer.

This is a fabulous example because he is pushing the puree through a strainer and the strainer is even drawn on top there. In fact, in proportion to the rest, this individual has ordered considerably more beer than bread or beef, because this section of the model is almost half its length, but you can see the vats of beer carefully placed on their sides, that is a wonderfully evocative piece. These people have been working for 4,000 years. They are still at it. Look at them. Key elements of Egyptian culture had returned and looked not much different from the times of plenty of the previous millennium.

Look at this crew busy struggling with the sail poles at the ready. to launch the ship from the banks of the Nile and this granary silo inside the workers hall sacks of bali while a scribe counts the harvest and of course there are also female figures in Egypt, women enjoyed the same status as men , unlike their sisters, many other parts of the ancient world are also producing one of the Egyptian staple foods, but linen, the fabric that was used to make almost all Egyptian clothing. When you see this woman standing here, she is spinning the thread with this spindle and the thread that she is busy making, then she will hand over to her two companions here, the weavers, and they are using this horizontal loom that is nailed to the ground to produce the bolts of cloth to be used in the wrap dresses, the kilts, the loincloths worn by virtually every man, woman and child in ancient Egypt the lives depicted in these busy little scenes are how comfortable and familiar they represent the idea Egyptian security.

This is not the death mask of karma. This is not the best piece of art you can see. I have ever seen but that is not the point these are real people doing real jobs this is ancient egypt up close and personal order had been restored within egypt but the fears that once tore egypt apart had not completely disappeared by now They were projected outward to the world beyond their borders, so Middle Kingdom monarchs like the stern Ulcestrus III focused on national security and wealth creation. Cestris is famous for his devastating military campaign south into gold-rich Nubia, but he also opted for a more permanent type of control through the construction of castles. a map of southern egypt and nubia, which is modern sudan and where aswan is, which was the border between the two, and egypt maintained its control over nubia through a series of thoughts, with around eight of these built by sisostris itself, these Middle Kingdom fault lines were within signaling distance of each other along the Nile south to Nubia, all part of a huge state-

building

program designed to subjugate the local population and maintain the flow of goods and people towards Egypt, particularly Nubian gold, very few of these forts still survive.

These are some of the last images ever recorded of Buhan's largest. It was filmed in 1962 during its excavation after the creation of the Aswan Dam. These enormous adobe walls disappeared forever under the waters of the new Lake Nasa, but Buhem is not completely there. Lost to us because excavation records are kept here at the Egypt Exploration Society and reveal an unexpected aspect of Middle Kingdom Egypt, as well as photographs containing architectural plans of the fort drawn up during the excavations, giving a real idea of the immense scale of egyptian repression in nubia hi chris hi joho how does this look like an amazing photograph what does it show really well this is an aerial photograph joe so what we can see here in the background of this strip is actually the Nile River and then right on the banks of the Nile emerging from the sand here we see this square outline of the enormous fortification of the buhen site, but once the excavators began to uncover in its full extent what we could see, this is what they found, that just looks medieval. castle, isn't it very strange that you think ancient Egypt?

Oh yes, castles, and yet here is the evidence in front of them absolutely designed to keep the enemy away. Bohen shares characteristics with the castles of Europe, but all built 3000 years before, the most surprising of all. is its large size, there is a small scale on this map that gives you an idea, it is approximately 100 meters, so just the wall that faces the Nile here is over 400 meters long if you think about the great pyramid of Cheops in Giza, which is 200 meters along the base. so we are talking about the length of two great pyramids here, the total circumference of this wall is more than a mile and the walls, these outer walls are 11 meters high, inside of which they could fit around 20 football pitchers, because in addition to controlling the supply of nubian gold egypt intended to rule by intimidation this is the great monumental architectural statement of the middle kingdom pyramids monumental tombs were not really the type of

building

s they needed what they needed a lot were these heavily fortified fortress cities to protect the border of their territory when this fortress reaches the arid and empty landscape of the desert in the middle kingdom.

This would have been a massive statement. Something very, very big, powerful, strong and terrifying has suddenly arrived in the desert, so anyone traveling from northern New Beer to Egypt has to go through this and this would have taken quite a while to navigate, wouldn't it be absolutely yes ? Imagine looking up, you're in a little boat on the Nile and you're looking up and up and up and up and you can see all these loopholes, people training their arrows. Maybe you just know you're being watched is that big brother mentality, isn't it exactly the rising of the Nile?

Buhen was a shining citadel of power, but above all it was an early warning system, the eyes and ears of a nation. defined by suspicion and fear, but Egypt's southern border was not the only one that was fortified, the northeastern border with Palestine was also secured with such defenses to monitor the large number of foreign merchants who travel regularly to sell their goods in the super delicious Egypt and the visit. One such group is pictured here on a tomb wall: a caravan of wealthy merchants and their distinctly non-Egyptian families, with their distinctive hairstyles and brightly colored clothing, known as the Armo people, with whom they traded goods such as the black leader , vital for Egypt's eye production.

Makeup and its distinctive pottery have been found throughout the Nile Delta, where many of them settled to live and work among the Egyptians, but within a century some of these munitions had infiltrated high positions and eventually took over the Egypt itself, now these nomadic people with armor who arrived. and leaving Egypt regularly to trade are depicted here in this wonderful tomb scene, and yet the most important part of the entire scenario is three small hieroglyphs right in the middle that reveal one of the other terms the Egyptians used for name the armor. It's basically a staff, a scepter which is written with two symbols and is pronounced heka, it means ruler and then the third of the three symbols is a kind of rolling highlands, which means desert or mountainous region.

Basically the Egyptians use this symbol to denote a foreign land so put these signs together ruler of foreign lands and this is really the key to what happened next because these munitions of Palestinian origin eventually became the rednecks us the hekahasud and the sons and ruled Egypt from the north between 1650 and 1550 BC. But as tension between the foreign rulers and their Egyptian subjects gradually intensified, Egypt entered a second dark age. The Sons made an alliance with the Nubians to the south and the Egyptians found themselves caught between two enemies. Although we know little about this difficult time, some texts fascinating survive perhaps the Most compelling are the words of a royal letter sent by King Hexos to the south to the thieves.

His message would prove so explosive that it would galvanize the Thebans to once again regain control of their lands. Now this letter was either a colossal diplomatic faux pas or just downright rude. and involved the Egyptian goddess tauweret, the warlike, sword-wielding hippopotamus. Tauweret may have been a protective deity, but she was also a ferocious creature with traits borrowed from the hippopotamus and crocodile animals that the Egyptians feared, so it appears that the redneck king of the pophas departed. to deliberately insult the Thebans now the letter takes the form of a complaint in which Apophis basically complains that the bellowing of the sacred hippos in Thebes keeps him awake at night drive the hippos out of the lake don't let me sleep during the day or night because its noise is in my ear now many have taken this as a rather eccentric comment but I think it actually alludes to the powerful women of Thebes.

It seems that Apophis is actually comparing the Theban leader's wife to the feisty hippopotamus goddess. and soon it will be the Thebans who will decide that the Hexos had had their day, they had to leave and soon this war of words had become an armed conflict between the two powers, but the Egyptians of Thebes had also obtained the means to launch their attack . with something developed by the sons themselves, state-of-the-art weaponry, in particular a new type of bow known today as a compound bow, would revolutionize Egyptian warfare, wasn't that a lovely way? A beautiful thing. This may look like a made bow. made of solid wood similar to those that the Egyptians had always used, but the secret of the compound bow is due to the elements within its compound because it is made of different materials, all joined together, so there is a wooden core for the center of the arch but inside. the curve in the belly of the bow is a horn glued to the wood, which forms a really powerful spring, so the heart of the cow will go there, yes, that's right on the inside of the curve and then on the outside of the curve, in an even more unpromising way.

The material looks like something the cat would like and is all covered with birch bark to protect the blue from the elements before Hicksian occupation. The Egyptians shot arrows with bows carved from solid wood. They were quite large, unwieldy and only effective at close range. but in the compound bow, the animal horn adds flexibility and strength to the tendons. It's a smart combination of ingredients. Doesn't that make it the ultimate in vintage archery? It simply asks you to do it. It is not like this? It's fabulous. There's a real sense of The power behind it is not there, it's a beautiful thing, let me show you, that's why it's a real game changer because it's a bow that you can use, it's quite short, you can use it on a cart and, However, wow, that was brilliant.

Once made, the compound bow was easier to handle and shot faster arrows with much greater accuracy. The Egyptians had no choice but to adapt or remain an occupied nation, so by copying the new military technology they were finally able to drive the Hexos out of Egypt entirely. back to Palestine securing Egypt's northern border once again and when the new bow was used alongside the other presentations of hexos, the horse and chariot, the three combined to express the power and supremacy of the new Egyptian rulers of egypt, this marked the beginning of the new kingdom that began when the powerful Theban leaders took the throne, this dramatic revival in royal power was reflected in the riseof the local god of Thebes, a moon based on his cult center, the temple of karnak, and it would be a moon that would now protect Egypt and its kings, but thank you.

To the legacy of Hexos, these were a new type of king and it is on the walls of this temple that we can clearly see the effect of the redneck occupation because while the pharaoh beats down his enemies, this is Egypt reborn as a fully fledged superpower. armed and loaded whose kings are shown on a monumental scale. They are superheroes over 800 years ago from the age of the pyramids the history of Egypt had been one of collapse and upheaval finally rebirth the Egyptians had recovered their culture and had entered a truly golden age the next part of the history of ancient Egypt is an era of monumental architecture oh oh going crazy and Get Rich Quick that brought not only glory but also greed and corruption.

The priest kings of Karnak gained what they had always wanted: absolute power.