Autumn of 1922 in Luxor, Egypt. A team of archaeologists have just discovered the entrance to a passage hidden amongst the cliffs in the Valleys of the Kings. It was 26th November. Egyptologist Howard Carter was about to make one of the greatest archaeological discoveries of all time. Legends of the Pharaohs s2e1: Birth of the Tutankhamun Dynasty, History 2022
To Egyptologists this lineage is known as the 18th Dynasty. Under their reign, Egypt became the richest and most powerful kingdom in the world. ibid.
Egyptologists know them as the 18th Dynasty who turned Egypt into the richest and most powerful realm in the world. This is the story of the founders of a new kingdom and their incredible golden age. Legends of the Pharaohs s2e2: Hatshepsuth
Hatshepsuth was born around 1,500 BCE at the start of the 18th Dynasty … Details of her slow rise to power are concealed … [at] West Thebes. ibid.
Hatshepsuth took the highest masculine status for her own. She was crowned Pharaoh in the Temple of Karnak. ibid.
Thebes 1,391 B.C.E.: In his palace future pharaoh Amenhotep III was growing up carefree. Egypt had regained its power from the time of the Pyramids and was experiencing a period of peace and opulence. Legends of the Pharaoahs s2e3: Amenhotep III
[Akhenatan], 10th pharaoah of the 18th, breathed his last. Legends of the Pharaohs s2e4: Akhenaton
To silence any opposition, Amenhotep IV ordered Egypt to work. ibid.
This new style of art represented Ahkenatan. ibid.
Soon any representation of Akhanaten was systematically defaced. ibid.
Today, with his one God, Akhenaten is considered to nb the pioneer of monotheism … The Court returned to Thebes.
ibid.
More than three millennia after her death Nefertiti is once against become the personification of beauty itself for a completely different audience. Legends of the Pharaohs s2e5: Nefertiti: The Beauty Become Queen
Valley of the Kings 4th November 1922: Egyptologist Howard Carter was about to make a wonderful discovery. For seven years he had been searching for the tomb of the pharaoh almost erased form history. Now he had finally found the the last resting place of Tutankhamun. Legends of the Pharaohs s2e6: Tutankhamun: The Pharaoh with the Fabulous Treasure
The first two coffins were made of wood covered in chiselled gold leaf and semi-precious stones. The last one containing the pharaoh was made of 110 kilograms of gold. ibid.
Egypt: the richest source of archaeological treasures on the planet. Beneath this desert landscape lie the secrets of an ancient civilisation. Egypt’s Female Pharaohs, National Geographic 2021
The pharaoh queens: Hatshepsut and Cleopatra … Of all the hidden mysteries of ancient Egypt among the most compelling are the stories of the women who ruled the land. Two of the most enduring queens who would be king are Cleopatra and more than a thousand years before her, Hatshepsut. ibid.
Luxor: a revolutionary, a rare female pharaoh named Hatshepsut who built the finest temple of them all … Ancient builders carved it directly into the towering rocky cliffs. They constructed it in three separate levels. ibid.
Hatshepsut was only the second woman ever to become a pharaoh and the first for nearly three-hundred years. ibid.
Canopus, the glorious city of Cleopatra lost for over a thousand years. It was a city gleaming with treasures and rich in wonders. Famous for its lavish rituals and infamous for its earthly pleasures. But Canopus vanished without a trace and was lost for centuries. Revealed: Cleopatra’s Lost City, Channel 5 2021
Cleopatra’s lost city has been found, an ancient Egyptian Atlantis found submerged beneath the waves. ibid.
Jonathan Tokeley-Parry: The press called him Indiana Jones. A daring tomb raider who looted ancient artefacts from Egypt. His accomplices idolised him as a master of deception. He was a top player in a dangerous game. Masterminds e25: The Cairo Caper, truTV 2004
One of the most ingenious smugglers of the twentieth century. ibid.
But the great pyramid might be just one expression of this purported prophecy. Some believe these hieroglyphs from a text called The Book of the Dead also foretell that the end is nigh. There may even be a third prophetic source: a recently rediscovered document called the Kolbrin Bible some interpreters of which believe predicts a nuclear holocaust. Nostradamus Effect: Doomsday Hieroglyphs, National Geographic 2009
The Book of the Dead is the modern name that we give to a collection of spells that the Egyptians actually called the Book of Coming Out By Day. They were to facilitate your transition to the next life. ibid.
I’m on a voyage along the River Nile tracking a hundred-year-old tale of adventure and mystery. Over there, the greatest archaeological discovery of all time took place. The tomb of Tutankhamun and the most glittering treasure hoard on Earth. Raiders of the Lost Past with Janina Ramirez, BBC 2022
The work was more like engineering than excavation. For five long years the Carter crew spent more time shifting rubble than shifting treasure. ibid.
There were over 5,000 objects in Tutankhamun’s tomb. ibid.
The great history of Egypt is inscribed on its monuments, temples, and tombs in the written script of the ancient Egyptians – hieroglyphs or sacred carvings. But their meaning had been lost until 1822 when a young French scholar, Jean Francois-Champolllion, became the first person for over a thousand years to decipher the ancient text. The Latest Secrets of Hieroglyphs, BBC 2022
First appearing around 3,200 B.C.E., hieroglyphs were used for almost 3,500 years until the Roman Empire took political and religious control of ancient Egypt. ibid.
Impressive and mysterious they are among the wonders of the ancient world. But to this day no-one fully understands how they were built or why. History’s Greatest Mysteries s4e10: The Puzzling Pyramids of Egypt, History 2023
‘We know of at least 118 Egyptian pyramids that still exist today.’ ibid. Jason Martell
A 2,000-year-old mystery that’s confounded top archaeologists – the world’s most famous queen lost without a trace … the final resting place of Egypt’s last pharaoh … Cleopatra’s missing tomb. History’s Greatest Mysteries s4e20: Cleopatra’s Tomb