WEBVTT

1
00:00:00.080 --> 00:00:03.439
<v Speaker 1>I want you to picture for just a second the sheer,

2
00:00:03.759 --> 00:00:08.439
<v Speaker 1>unrelenting scale of ancient Egypt's geography, Like just close your

3
00:00:08.439 --> 00:00:10.279
<v Speaker 1>eyes and really try to imagine it.

4
00:00:10.279 --> 00:00:12.039
<v Speaker 2>It is a stunning visual, isn't it.

5
00:00:12.039 --> 00:00:15.720
<v Speaker 1>It really is. So to the west you have these endless,

6
00:00:16.199 --> 00:00:20.239
<v Speaker 1>scorching sands of Libya, just total desert, right, And then

7
00:00:20.280 --> 00:00:22.719
<v Speaker 1>to the east you've got the really rugged terrains of

8
00:00:22.800 --> 00:00:24.640
<v Speaker 1>Palestine and Arabia.

9
00:00:24.280 --> 00:00:27.359
<v Speaker 2>Which were incredibly difficult to cross in the ancient world exactly.

10
00:00:27.719 --> 00:00:30.440
<v Speaker 1>And to the north there's the vast expanse of the

11
00:00:30.480 --> 00:00:33.039
<v Speaker 1>Mediterranean Sea. So you have all these natural barriers, right,

12
00:00:33.439 --> 00:00:36.880
<v Speaker 1>But slicing straight through the center of all this intense

13
00:00:36.960 --> 00:00:41.320
<v Speaker 1>isolation is this, well, this thousand kilometers of desert cut

14
00:00:41.399 --> 00:00:45.600
<v Speaker 1>perfectly in half by this brilliant, life giving ribbon of blue,

15
00:00:46.119 --> 00:00:47.359
<v Speaker 1>the mighty River Nile.

16
00:00:47.600 --> 00:00:50.920
<v Speaker 2>It's just an incredibly unique landscape. It acted as this

17
00:00:51.479 --> 00:00:55.960
<v Speaker 2>geographic fortress basically. Yeah. But simultaneously, because of the massive

18
00:00:56.039 --> 00:00:58.600
<v Speaker 2>agricultural wealth that the river produced, it was also the

19
00:00:58.640 --> 00:01:02.000
<v Speaker 2>most glittering prize the entire ancient world, right.

20
00:01:01.840 --> 00:01:04.519
<v Speaker 1>And because it was this glittering prize, it had a

21
00:01:04.560 --> 00:01:07.959
<v Speaker 1>massive target on its back for millennia. We're talking about

22
00:01:08.000 --> 00:01:11.439
<v Speaker 1>a civilization with temples and tombs that were just overflowing

23
00:01:11.480 --> 00:01:12.599
<v Speaker 1>with fabled.

24
00:01:12.120 --> 00:01:15.200
<v Speaker 2>Gold, oh absolutely, and an agricultural system that could feed

25
00:01:15.359 --> 00:01:16.079
<v Speaker 2>entire armies.

26
00:01:16.280 --> 00:01:19.840
<v Speaker 1>Yeah. So naturally, as these Jella's foreign rulers looked at

27
00:01:19.840 --> 00:01:23.079
<v Speaker 1>a you know, a sometimes weakened Egypt over the centuries,

28
00:01:23.280 --> 00:01:25.840
<v Speaker 1>they all basically had the exact same thought. They looked

29
00:01:25.879 --> 00:01:27.560
<v Speaker 1>at it. And when I want that.

30
00:01:27.799 --> 00:01:30.319
<v Speaker 2>Of course they did. I mean who wouldn't exactly.

31
00:01:31.159 --> 00:01:34.280
<v Speaker 1>But today we are taking a deep dive into this

32
00:01:34.640 --> 00:01:40.840
<v Speaker 1>really fascinating stack of archaeological field reports, some fresh translations

33
00:01:40.879 --> 00:01:44.079
<v Speaker 1>of ancient Greek histories, and some really cutting edge modern

34
00:01:44.200 --> 00:01:48.439
<v Speaker 1>historical analysis, and we want to explore this central paradox.

35
00:01:48.280 --> 00:01:52.799
<v Speaker 2>Right because by all normal historical logic, when a culture

36
00:01:52.840 --> 00:01:56.439
<v Speaker 2>faces wave after wave of foreign invaders, it gets wiped out. Yeah,

37
00:01:56.519 --> 00:01:59.920
<v Speaker 2>gets crushed, he gets assimilated, right, Yes, language disappears, it's

38
00:02:00.000 --> 00:02:02.799
<v Speaker 2>odds are completely forgotten, and it just gets ground into

39
00:02:02.840 --> 00:02:03.719
<v Speaker 2>the dust of history.

40
00:02:03.959 --> 00:02:06.200
<v Speaker 1>But that is not what happened here. And that's our

41
00:02:06.239 --> 00:02:09.599
<v Speaker 1>mission for this deep dive for you listening today. We're

42
00:02:09.599 --> 00:02:12.199
<v Speaker 1>going to figure out how ancient Egypt managed to survive

43
00:02:12.520 --> 00:02:16.400
<v Speaker 1>chaos and famine and brutal war. And they didn't do

44
00:02:16.479 --> 00:02:19.080
<v Speaker 1>it by having a superior military, No, not at all.

45
00:02:19.120 --> 00:02:20.960
<v Speaker 1>They did it by possessing a culture that was so

46
00:02:21.120 --> 00:02:25.680
<v Speaker 1>deeply rooted, so powerful that it actually seduced and absorbed

47
00:02:25.759 --> 00:02:28.039
<v Speaker 1>absolutely everyone who tried to conquer it.

48
00:02:28.199 --> 00:02:30.840
<v Speaker 2>And that is the overarching theme of the history we

49
00:02:30.879 --> 00:02:34.680
<v Speaker 2>are looking at today. The conquerors of Egypt inevitably became

50
00:02:34.719 --> 00:02:35.319
<v Speaker 2>the conquered.

51
00:02:35.479 --> 00:02:36.439
<v Speaker 1>I love that framing.

52
00:02:36.680 --> 00:02:39.120
<v Speaker 2>It's so true, though. The true power of Egypt wasn't

53
00:02:39.120 --> 00:02:41.039
<v Speaker 2>in its swords or you know, even just in the

54
00:02:41.080 --> 00:02:45.520
<v Speaker 2>massive stone blocks of its pyramids. Its ultimate defense mechanism

55
00:02:45.599 --> 00:02:49.680
<v Speaker 2>was its unshakable, overwhelming identity. It was a cultural black hole,

56
00:02:49.879 --> 00:02:51.240
<v Speaker 2>really in the best possible way.

57
00:02:51.360 --> 00:02:53.439
<v Speaker 1>Okay, let's unpack this. We are going to go on

58
00:02:53.879 --> 00:02:56.919
<v Speaker 1>well a time traveling exploration today, and we're starting a

59
00:02:56.960 --> 00:03:00.599
<v Speaker 1>full thousand years before Cleopatra even enters the picture way back.

60
00:03:00.639 --> 00:03:02.680
<v Speaker 1>I want to start around nine hundred and forty five PC.

61
00:03:02.919 --> 00:03:05.479
<v Speaker 2>Right, So we are in an era that historians call

62
00:03:05.800 --> 00:03:07.479
<v Speaker 2>the third Intermediate Period.

63
00:03:07.400 --> 00:03:12.800
<v Speaker 1>Which what exactly does intermediate mean in this context, because

64
00:03:12.800 --> 00:03:13.919
<v Speaker 1>it sounds kind of mild.

65
00:03:13.960 --> 00:03:17.680
<v Speaker 2>Oh, it's not mild. Intermediate is essentially a polite historian's

66
00:03:17.800 --> 00:03:20.280
<v Speaker 2>term for everything is falling apart.

67
00:03:20.479 --> 00:03:23.199
<v Speaker 1>Ah, okay, the polite way of saying disaster.

68
00:03:23.520 --> 00:03:26.080
<v Speaker 2>Exactly, you have the glorious new kingdom, right, which is

69
00:03:26.120 --> 00:03:28.759
<v Speaker 2>the era of the great powerful pharaohs we all know,

70
00:03:28.919 --> 00:03:32.120
<v Speaker 2>like Ramsey's the Great, and that has completely crumbled.

71
00:03:32.240 --> 00:03:33.560
<v Speaker 1>So central power is just gone.

72
00:03:33.680 --> 00:03:37.800
<v Speaker 2>Centralized power has collapsed. Yeah, But what is truly devastating

73
00:03:37.840 --> 00:03:41.560
<v Speaker 2>here isn't just a political breakdown. It is a profound

74
00:03:41.639 --> 00:03:42.800
<v Speaker 2>crisis of faith.

75
00:03:43.199 --> 00:03:45.560
<v Speaker 1>And I was actually reading about this in the archaeological

76
00:03:45.599 --> 00:03:48.800
<v Speaker 1>notes we have, and it completely shocked me because the

77
00:03:48.960 --> 00:03:53.000
<v Speaker 1>entire Egyptian worldview was built on this concept of maat right,

78
00:03:53.280 --> 00:03:54.159
<v Speaker 1>divine order.

79
00:03:54.319 --> 00:03:57.639
<v Speaker 2>Yes, mat the absolute guarantee of order and the afterlife right.

80
00:03:57.800 --> 00:03:59.919
<v Speaker 1>And the royal tombs in the Valley of the King

81
00:04:00.159 --> 00:04:02.800
<v Speaker 1>those were the physical proof of that guarantee. But as

82
00:04:02.800 --> 00:04:06.680
<v Speaker 1>things fell apart, the people looting these sacred tombs weren't

83
00:04:06.719 --> 00:04:10.240
<v Speaker 1>like foreign grave robbers. It was the priest's.

84
00:04:10.120 --> 00:04:14.159
<v Speaker 2>Precisely, it was the very people whose sole job was

85
00:04:14.199 --> 00:04:16.600
<v Speaker 2>to protect the spiritual integrity of the nation.

86
00:04:16.800 --> 00:04:18.759
<v Speaker 1>It's like finding out the bank manager is the one

87
00:04:18.800 --> 00:04:21.199
<v Speaker 1>tunneling into the vault. I mean, why would they do that?

88
00:04:21.439 --> 00:04:25.079
<v Speaker 2>Well, it was an economic desperation that shattered a theological

89
00:04:25.120 --> 00:04:28.079
<v Speaker 2>absolute Wow. Yeah, when the state could no longer pay

90
00:04:28.120 --> 00:04:32.680
<v Speaker 2>its workers or secure its borders, the priests looked at

91
00:04:32.680 --> 00:04:36.240
<v Speaker 2>the mountains of buried gold in those tombs and they

92
00:04:36.240 --> 00:04:38.000
<v Speaker 2>made a very cynical calculation.

93
00:04:38.160 --> 00:04:39.360
<v Speaker 1>They needed the cash.

94
00:04:39.160 --> 00:04:43.519
<v Speaker 2>They needed the resources. But by systematically dismantling and looting

95
00:04:43.600 --> 00:04:47.639
<v Speaker 2>these tombs, they weren't just stealing gold. They were dismantling

96
00:04:47.680 --> 00:04:49.720
<v Speaker 2>the unshakable belief in the afterlife.

97
00:04:49.759 --> 00:04:52.839
<v Speaker 1>Because if the Pharaohs aren't safe in eternity, who is exactly?

98
00:04:52.920 --> 00:04:56.560
<v Speaker 2>And when you lose that foundational faith, a society becomes

99
00:04:56.560 --> 00:04:59.319
<v Speaker 2>psychologically hollowed out. It creates a massive vacuum.

100
00:04:59.360 --> 00:05:03.000
<v Speaker 1>And into that vacuum stepped the Libyans. Now, how exactly

101
00:05:03.560 --> 00:05:06.120
<v Speaker 1>did the Libyans get into a position to take over?

102
00:05:06.160 --> 00:05:08.639
<v Speaker 1>Because I always thought there were Egypt's traditional enemies out

103
00:05:08.639 --> 00:05:10.600
<v Speaker 1>in that western desert we talked about.

104
00:05:10.680 --> 00:05:15.519
<v Speaker 2>They were historically, yes, but over generations the dynamic really shifted.

105
00:05:16.079 --> 00:05:20.319
<v Speaker 2>The Egyptians had started using Libyan prisoners of war as mercenaries.

106
00:05:20.399 --> 00:05:22.560
<v Speaker 1>Oh okay, so they brought them in right, and.

107
00:05:22.560 --> 00:05:26.040
<v Speaker 2>Over time those mercenaries became integrated, they rose through the

108
00:05:26.079 --> 00:05:29.759
<v Speaker 2>military ranks, they became generals, and they gradually infiltrated the

109
00:05:30.000 --> 00:05:31.920
<v Speaker 2>entire Egyptian power structure.

110
00:05:32.000 --> 00:05:34.639
<v Speaker 1>So it was an inside job kind of essentially.

111
00:05:34.720 --> 00:05:38.319
<v Speaker 2>Yeah. So as the country fragments with the corrupt priests

112
00:05:38.360 --> 00:05:41.959
<v Speaker 2>basically running the south, these Libyan generals just swoop in

113
00:05:42.480 --> 00:05:45.000
<v Speaker 2>seize control of the north and they declare themselves the

114
00:05:45.040 --> 00:05:46.199
<v Speaker 2>twenty second Dynasty.

115
00:05:46.240 --> 00:05:48.839
<v Speaker 1>But they knew they had a pr problem, right, Like,

116
00:05:48.920 --> 00:05:51.480
<v Speaker 1>you can't just occupy a country with a two thousand

117
00:05:51.600 --> 00:05:54.199
<v Speaker 1>year old, continuous culture and expect people to just bow

118
00:05:54.240 --> 00:05:54.720
<v Speaker 1>to you.

119
00:05:54.759 --> 00:05:55.560
<v Speaker 2>No, absolutely not.

120
00:05:55.720 --> 00:05:57.720
<v Speaker 1>You have to look the part. And this brings us

121
00:05:57.759 --> 00:06:01.160
<v Speaker 1>to an incredible artifact. We have notes on the bracelets

122
00:06:01.240 --> 00:06:02.000
<v Speaker 1>of Prince.

123
00:06:01.800 --> 00:06:05.199
<v Speaker 2>Nimlat Ah, Yes, Prince Nimlot. He was the son of

124
00:06:05.279 --> 00:06:07.920
<v Speaker 2>King Sheshank who was the first king of this Libyan

125
00:06:07.920 --> 00:06:10.879
<v Speaker 2>twenty second dynasty, and these braiseless are just a perfect

126
00:06:10.920 --> 00:06:13.000
<v Speaker 2>case study in political maneuvering through art.

127
00:06:13.360 --> 00:06:15.680
<v Speaker 1>The imagery on these things is stunning. I'm looking at

128
00:06:15.680 --> 00:06:18.240
<v Speaker 1>a description of them right now, and they feature this

129
00:06:18.399 --> 00:06:22.439
<v Speaker 1>tiny figure of the god Horus and he's shown as

130
00:06:22.480 --> 00:06:24.759
<v Speaker 1>a young child emerging from a lotus.

131
00:06:24.399 --> 00:06:26.519
<v Speaker 2>Blossom, a very traditional motif.

132
00:06:26.399 --> 00:06:28.360
<v Speaker 1>Right, and on either side of him he is being

133
00:06:28.399 --> 00:06:33.040
<v Speaker 1>protected by rearing cobras. The notes call this the royal euraus.

134
00:06:33.720 --> 00:06:36.199
<v Speaker 1>Can you explain what that is for the listener?

135
00:06:36.319 --> 00:06:39.600
<v Speaker 2>Sure? So, the royal euraeus is the stylized upright form

136
00:06:39.759 --> 00:06:41.279
<v Speaker 2>of an Egyptian cobra.

137
00:06:41.199 --> 00:06:43.120
<v Speaker 1>The ones you see on the crowns right exactly.

138
00:06:43.160 --> 00:06:47.040
<v Speaker 2>It is the ultimate symbol of sovereignty, royalty, and divine

139
00:06:47.079 --> 00:06:50.879
<v Speaker 2>authority in ancient Egypt. By wearing it, you are stating

140
00:06:50.959 --> 00:06:56.240
<v Speaker 2>unequivocally that the gods recognize you as the legitimate ruler

141
00:06:56.279 --> 00:06:56.839
<v Speaker 2>of the Nile.

142
00:06:57.079 --> 00:07:00.319
<v Speaker 1>So it's exactly what you would expect a native Egyptian royaltymyware.

143
00:07:00.519 --> 00:07:02.519
<v Speaker 1>But reading through all this I couldn't help but think

144
00:07:02.560 --> 00:07:06.920
<v Speaker 1>of a modern analogy. Oh yeah, it feels like a

145
00:07:07.079 --> 00:07:11.160
<v Speaker 1>ruthless corporate raider who buys out a beloved century old

146
00:07:11.199 --> 00:07:13.879
<v Speaker 1>legacy brand, fires half the staff, but then walks around

147
00:07:13.920 --> 00:07:16.319
<v Speaker 1>the office wearing the vintage company merch just to look

148
00:07:16.360 --> 00:07:17.160
<v Speaker 1>like he belongs.

149
00:07:17.519 --> 00:07:19.240
<v Speaker 2>That's a great way to put it, right.

150
00:07:19.800 --> 00:07:23.120
<v Speaker 1>I mean, were the Libyans genuinely trying to assimilate and

151
00:07:23.199 --> 00:07:26.839
<v Speaker 1>be Egyptian or Was this just a completely cynical pr move?

152
00:07:26.920 --> 00:07:30.000
<v Speaker 2>Oh, it was entirely a cynical pr move. The historical

153
00:07:30.079 --> 00:07:32.079
<v Speaker 2>record shows this was pure window dressing.

154
00:07:32.199 --> 00:07:33.680
<v Speaker 1>Wow, just faking it.

155
00:07:33.720 --> 00:07:37.680
<v Speaker 2>Complete lip service to ancient traditions. See, the Libyans were

156
00:07:37.920 --> 00:07:40.800
<v Speaker 2>transfixed by the wealth, by the gold, by the sheer

157
00:07:40.879 --> 00:07:41.759
<v Speaker 2>bling of.

158
00:07:41.759 --> 00:07:43.680
<v Speaker 1>Ancient Egypt, the aesthetics of power.

159
00:07:44.079 --> 00:07:46.879
<v Speaker 2>Exactly, they wanted the esthetic. But while they dressed up

160
00:07:46.879 --> 00:07:50.560
<v Speaker 2>as pharaohs and commissioned this beautiful traditional jewelry, they were

161
00:07:50.560 --> 00:07:56.240
<v Speaker 2>simultaneously continuing the state sponsored plundering of Egypt's royal tombs.

162
00:07:55.959 --> 00:07:57.240
<v Speaker 1>To fund their own squabbles.

163
00:07:57.319 --> 00:08:00.680
<v Speaker 2>Right. Yes, so they're wearing the horse bracelets while secretly

164
00:08:00.720 --> 00:08:02.120
<v Speaker 2>pawning the inherited silver.

165
00:08:02.319 --> 00:08:03.120
<v Speaker 1>That is wild.

166
00:08:03.680 --> 00:08:06.920
<v Speaker 2>And because of that hypocrisy, they were never Egyptians at heart.

167
00:08:07.079 --> 00:08:10.800
<v Speaker 2>In ancient Egypt, simply wearing the clothes wasn't enough. You

168
00:08:10.879 --> 00:08:13.279
<v Speaker 2>had to maintain mot that cosmic order we talked.

169
00:08:13.079 --> 00:08:15.839
<v Speaker 1>About, and toom robbing is the opposite of cosmic order.

170
00:08:16.160 --> 00:08:20.439
<v Speaker 2>Exactly, because they were essentially just looters in pharaoh's clothing,

171
00:08:20.879 --> 00:08:24.160
<v Speaker 2>they completely failed to unite the country. The north was

172
00:08:24.240 --> 00:08:28.360
<v Speaker 2>full of these squabbling Libyan warlords. The south was controlled

173
00:08:28.360 --> 00:08:32.919
<v Speaker 2>by that self serving priesthood, and Egypt remained dangerously fragmented.

174
00:08:33.080 --> 00:08:36.960
<v Speaker 1>So a fragmented Egypt is just easy pickings. The Libyans

175
00:08:37.039 --> 00:08:40.200
<v Speaker 1>proved that a superficial adoption of the culture doesn't actually work.

176
00:08:40.639 --> 00:08:44.039
<v Speaker 1>But the next invaders they came with a profound reverence

177
00:08:44.080 --> 00:08:46.200
<v Speaker 1>that basically put the Libyans to shame.

178
00:08:46.519 --> 00:08:47.480
<v Speaker 2>Right the Kushites.

179
00:08:47.639 --> 00:08:50.200
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, So we are moving forward a couple of centuries

180
00:08:50.240 --> 00:08:54.080
<v Speaker 1>now to seven hundred and forty seven BC, the arrival

181
00:08:54.080 --> 00:08:57.360
<v Speaker 1>of the Kushites from Nubia down to the south, and

182
00:08:57.399 --> 00:09:00.399
<v Speaker 1>they proved that you could conquer Egypt by totally admitting

183
00:09:00.480 --> 00:09:01.200
<v Speaker 1>to its gods.

184
00:09:01.440 --> 00:09:05.080
<v Speaker 2>The Kushites are a phenomenal historical case study. Nubia had

185
00:09:05.080 --> 00:09:07.759
<v Speaker 2>been repeatedly conquered and colonized by Egypt in the past.

186
00:09:08.039 --> 00:09:10.039
<v Speaker 1>During the New Kingdom, so they were very familiar with

187
00:09:10.080 --> 00:09:11.200
<v Speaker 1>Egyptian culture.

188
00:09:10.960 --> 00:09:15.000
<v Speaker 2>Extremely familiar. Because of that prolonged exposure, the Kushites had

189
00:09:15.039 --> 00:09:18.159
<v Speaker 2>been hugely influenced by Egyptian beliefs. So by the eighth

190
00:09:18.159 --> 00:09:22.320
<v Speaker 2>century BC, the power dynamic flips. Egypt is weak and

191
00:09:22.360 --> 00:09:26.120
<v Speaker 2>the Kushites have the military upper hand. But when King

192
00:09:26.200 --> 00:09:29.600
<v Speaker 2>Pie leads the Kushite invasion of Egypt, establishing the twenty

193
00:09:29.600 --> 00:09:33.320
<v Speaker 2>fifth dynasty. He doesn't come as a destroyer.

194
00:09:33.240 --> 00:09:35.159
<v Speaker 1>He comes as a restorer.

195
00:09:34.759 --> 00:09:35.840
<v Speaker 2>A zealous restorer.

196
00:09:35.879 --> 00:09:38.559
<v Speaker 1>They were the ultimate fanboys. I mean reading this, they

197
00:09:38.600 --> 00:09:40.960
<v Speaker 1>were more Egyptian than the Egyptians at that point.

198
00:09:41.039 --> 00:09:42.120
<v Speaker 2>They really were, and.

199
00:09:42.080 --> 00:09:45.600
<v Speaker 1>Their entire faith was centered around this incredible location in

200
00:09:45.639 --> 00:09:49.519
<v Speaker 1>their homeland called Jebel Barkol. I was reading the geographical

201
00:09:49.559 --> 00:09:54.080
<v Speaker 1>notes on this, and it's this massive, isolated sandstone mountain

202
00:09:54.639 --> 00:09:55.559
<v Speaker 1>in Nubia.

203
00:09:55.639 --> 00:09:57.279
<v Speaker 2>It's a striking geological feature.

204
00:09:57.279 --> 00:09:59.559
<v Speaker 1>But to the Kushites, this wasn't just a mountain. They

205
00:09:59.559 --> 00:10:02.559
<v Speaker 1>believed it was the mythical mound of Creation, the actual

206
00:10:02.600 --> 00:10:06.159
<v Speaker 1>birthplace of the great creator God a moon. Why did

207
00:10:06.159 --> 00:10:09.000
<v Speaker 1>they think this specific mountain was the center of the universe.

208
00:10:09.159 --> 00:10:12.639
<v Speaker 2>What's fascinating here is how the physical geography dictated their theology.

209
00:10:13.159 --> 00:10:15.600
<v Speaker 2>To the Kushites, living at the southern limit of the

210
00:10:15.639 --> 00:10:18.879
<v Speaker 2>known Egyptian world, this area was where the Nile River

211
00:10:18.960 --> 00:10:20.320
<v Speaker 2>seemed to flow from.

212
00:10:20.000 --> 00:10:21.879
<v Speaker 1>Ah, the source of the water exactly.

213
00:10:22.480 --> 00:10:25.039
<v Speaker 2>Since the Nile brought the water that created life and

214
00:10:25.080 --> 00:10:28.840
<v Speaker 2>fertility in the desert, they logically reasoned that this southern

215
00:10:28.879 --> 00:10:31.399
<v Speaker 2>point must be where all creation began.

216
00:10:31.639 --> 00:10:33.039
<v Speaker 1>That makes total sense, right.

217
00:10:33.240 --> 00:10:35.759
<v Speaker 2>It was conceived of as a primeval version of Karnak,

218
00:10:36.159 --> 00:10:39.679
<v Speaker 2>which is the great temple complex up in Egypt. When

219
00:10:39.720 --> 00:10:43.799
<v Speaker 2>the Egyptian pharaohs had originally conquered Nubius centuries prior, they

220
00:10:43.840 --> 00:10:45.840
<v Speaker 2>actually built a temple at Jibel Barkal.

221
00:10:46.000 --> 00:10:48.600
<v Speaker 1>Oh, so the infrastructure was already there, yes, And when

222
00:10:48.600 --> 00:10:52.639
<v Speaker 1>the Egyptians eventually retreated the Kushites didn't abandon the temple.

223
00:10:53.039 --> 00:10:55.279
<v Speaker 2>They adopted it and made it the spiritual heart of

224
00:10:55.320 --> 00:10:56.080
<v Speaker 2>their own empire.

225
00:10:56.240 --> 00:10:58.799
<v Speaker 1>And they didn't just copy it, right, they fused it

226
00:10:58.840 --> 00:11:01.759
<v Speaker 1>with their own identity. There is a specific artifact that

227
00:11:01.799 --> 00:11:05.799
<v Speaker 1>illustrates this perfectly. Archaeologists found a statue of the Egyptian

228
00:11:05.840 --> 00:11:09.600
<v Speaker 1>goddess mut at Jebel Barkal, but she has a distinct

229
00:11:09.720 --> 00:11:12.759
<v Speaker 1>Nubian makeover. It's such a brilliant artifact. Yeah. Carved right

230
00:11:12.799 --> 00:11:15.960
<v Speaker 1>into the face of this traditional Egyptian deity are three

231
00:11:16.039 --> 00:11:17.799
<v Speaker 1>distinct tribal scar lines.

232
00:11:18.080 --> 00:11:22.480
<v Speaker 2>That is a profoundly intimate detail. It's a physical demonstration

233
00:11:22.679 --> 00:11:28.279
<v Speaker 2>of cultural fusion. The local Nubians were literally physically marking

234
00:11:28.320 --> 00:11:30.039
<v Speaker 2>the traditional deities of Egypt to.

235
00:11:30.000 --> 00:11:33.399
<v Speaker 1>Claim them they stamped the goddess as a Nubian precisely.

236
00:11:33.559 --> 00:11:36.159
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, it shows that they weren't just passively receiving a

237
00:11:36.200 --> 00:11:39.960
<v Speaker 2>foreign religion. They were actively internalizing it, blending it with

238
00:11:40.000 --> 00:11:42.840
<v Speaker 2>their own African roots and claiming ownership of it.

239
00:11:42.879 --> 00:11:46.399
<v Speaker 1>And the devotion just escalates from there. King Pi's son,

240
00:11:46.559 --> 00:11:49.240
<v Speaker 1>King Taharka, takes this to a level of engineering that

241
00:11:49.360 --> 00:11:53.440
<v Speaker 1>is almost hard to comprehend. The excavation reports detailed the

242
00:11:53.480 --> 00:11:56.399
<v Speaker 1>restoration work he did at the shrine at Jebel Barkal,

243
00:11:57.200 --> 00:12:00.799
<v Speaker 1>and the art inside uses this raise relief technique. Now

244
00:12:00.840 --> 00:12:02.759
<v Speaker 1>I know that's incredibly difficult to do, right.

245
00:12:02.879 --> 00:12:07.000
<v Speaker 2>Yes. Raised relief is an old school, highly demanding carving technique.

246
00:12:07.200 --> 00:12:09.360
<v Speaker 2>Instead of carving the image into the stone, which is

247
00:12:09.440 --> 00:12:11.840
<v Speaker 2>much easier, you carve away all the background stone.

248
00:12:11.960 --> 00:12:15.639
<v Speaker 1>Oh wow, So you're removing the entire wall surface basically exactly.

249
00:12:15.399 --> 00:12:17.879
<v Speaker 2>Leaving just the figures raised above the surface. It takes

250
00:12:17.919 --> 00:12:22.279
<v Speaker 2>immense skill. In time, Taharka was deliberately reviving the most

251
00:12:22.360 --> 00:12:26.440
<v Speaker 2>difficult classic artistic standards of Egypt's Golden Age.

252
00:12:26.200 --> 00:12:29.639
<v Speaker 1>And the colors they used were so vivid. The reports

253
00:12:29.639 --> 00:12:33.600
<v Speaker 1>described this bright sky blue representing the heavens and brilliant

254
00:12:33.799 --> 00:12:37.679
<v Speaker 1>sun god gold. And in these carvings, Taharka is shown

255
00:12:37.759 --> 00:12:40.559
<v Speaker 1>wearing the rams horns of a moon, which is.

256
00:12:40.519 --> 00:12:44.480
<v Speaker 2>A massive political statement. Those specific rams horns were famously

257
00:12:44.519 --> 00:12:47.600
<v Speaker 2>worn by Amenhotep the third way back in the glorious

258
00:12:47.639 --> 00:12:48.559
<v Speaker 2>eighteenth dynasty.

259
00:12:48.759 --> 00:12:52.039
<v Speaker 1>Oh, so he's explicitly connecting himself to the greatest hits

260
00:12:52.080 --> 00:12:53.000
<v Speaker 1>of Egyptian history.

261
00:12:53.120 --> 00:12:55.960
<v Speaker 2>Exactly by wearing them, Taharka is stating that he is

262
00:12:56.000 --> 00:12:59.480
<v Speaker 2>the true legitimate son of Egypt's God of gods. He

263
00:12:59.559 --> 00:13:03.120
<v Speaker 2>is deliberately bypassing the recent chaos of the Libyans and

264
00:13:03.159 --> 00:13:06.200
<v Speaker 2>connecting his kingship directly to the greatest pharaohs of the past.

265
00:13:06.519 --> 00:13:08.200
<v Speaker 1>But the thing that really blew my mind reading the

266
00:13:08.240 --> 00:13:11.279
<v Speaker 1>sources was the pinnacle at Jebel bar Call. The reports

267
00:13:11.279 --> 00:13:13.320
<v Speaker 1>say there is a spire of rock there that is

268
00:13:13.480 --> 00:13:18.039
<v Speaker 1>one hundred and eighty meters tall, completely sheer and basically inaccessible.

269
00:13:18.080 --> 00:13:19.399
<v Speaker 2>It looks like a natural obelisk.

270
00:13:19.720 --> 00:13:23.159
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, but to Haartka decides that's the perfect place to

271
00:13:23.240 --> 00:13:27.080
<v Speaker 1>leave a message. So he leaves a golden billboard, literally

272
00:13:27.120 --> 00:13:30.360
<v Speaker 1>an inscription covered in gold that acts like a mirror

273
00:13:30.399 --> 00:13:33.600
<v Speaker 1>for the Sun's rays. How on Earth did an ancient

274
00:13:33.639 --> 00:13:37.519
<v Speaker 1>civilization get a solid gold billboard one hundred and eighty

275
00:13:37.559 --> 00:13:40.799
<v Speaker 1>meters up a sheer cliff face. Nobody on the ground

276
00:13:40.840 --> 00:13:41.720
<v Speaker 1>could even read it.

277
00:13:42.080 --> 00:13:45.559
<v Speaker 2>The engineering is staggering. They had to construct a massive

278
00:13:45.639 --> 00:13:49.879
<v Speaker 2>crane arm and a terrifying network of wooden scaffolding wedged

279
00:13:49.919 --> 00:13:53.039
<v Speaker 2>into the tiny crevices of the rock face, going straight

280
00:13:53.159 --> 00:13:55.720
<v Speaker 2>up this precipice that is terrified. It would have required

281
00:13:55.720 --> 00:13:59.360
<v Speaker 2>a small army of specialized engineers and laborers literally risking

282
00:13:59.399 --> 00:14:01.559
<v Speaker 2>their lives. And you're right, nobody on the ground could

283
00:14:01.559 --> 00:14:03.440
<v Speaker 2>read it because it wasn't meant for mortal eyes.

284
00:14:03.559 --> 00:14:04.399
<v Speaker 1>It was for the gods.

285
00:14:04.519 --> 00:14:06.799
<v Speaker 2>Exactly. It was meant to be seen by the gods.

286
00:14:07.080 --> 00:14:09.759
<v Speaker 2>It harked back to the ancient practice of placing gilded

287
00:14:09.759 --> 00:14:12.720
<v Speaker 2>capstones on the tops of pyramids to harness the power

288
00:14:12.720 --> 00:14:13.200
<v Speaker 2>of the sun.

289
00:14:13.440 --> 00:14:16.159
<v Speaker 1>And speaking of pyramids, Tarka and the Kushites are responsible

290
00:14:16.200 --> 00:14:19.360
<v Speaker 1>for resurrecting them. They are for over a thousand years,

291
00:14:19.399 --> 00:14:22.919
<v Speaker 1>nobody had built pyramid in Egypt, but at the Acropolis

292
00:14:22.919 --> 00:14:26.120
<v Speaker 1>of Nuri, the Kushites start building them again. And they

293
00:14:26.120 --> 00:14:29.919
<v Speaker 1>didn't just stack some rocks. They achieved an environmental alignment

294
00:14:30.000 --> 00:14:34.480
<v Speaker 1>that is just unbelievable. I read that Toharka's pyramid is

295
00:14:34.519 --> 00:14:37.799
<v Speaker 1>positioned so perfectly that on the exact day the Nile

296
00:14:37.840 --> 00:14:40.679
<v Speaker 1>flood begins to recede. If you are standing at the

297
00:14:40.679 --> 00:14:44.440
<v Speaker 1>top of his pyramid, the sun sets directly behind that

298
00:14:44.600 --> 00:14:48.799
<v Speaker 1>golden pinnacle at Jebel Barkall's breathtaking. How did they calculate that?

299
00:14:48.840 --> 00:14:50.799
<v Speaker 1>Without modern instruments.

300
00:14:50.440 --> 00:14:55.840
<v Speaker 2>It requires decades of patient, meticulous observation. Ancient astronomers and

301
00:14:55.840 --> 00:14:58.559
<v Speaker 2>priests would attracted the movement of the sun along the

302
00:14:58.600 --> 00:15:02.399
<v Speaker 2>horizon day by day, year after year, cross referencing it

303
00:15:02.639 --> 00:15:05.200
<v Speaker 2>with the cyclical rising and falling of the Nile waters.

304
00:15:05.399 --> 00:15:06.360
<v Speaker 1>That's just wild.

305
00:15:06.480 --> 00:15:08.919
<v Speaker 2>They essentially map the mechanics of the heavens onto the

306
00:15:08.919 --> 00:15:12.679
<v Speaker 2>physical landscape. It is a stunning marriage of architecture, astronomy,

307
00:15:12.720 --> 00:15:13.399
<v Speaker 2>and theology.

308
00:15:13.639 --> 00:15:15.960
<v Speaker 1>It's beautiful. But I have to push back a little here.

309
00:15:16.240 --> 00:15:18.960
<v Speaker 1>When you look at the native Egyptians during this period,

310
00:15:20.080 --> 00:15:23.519
<v Speaker 1>doesn't this entire situation feel a little bit humiliating like

311
00:15:23.879 --> 00:15:27.279
<v Speaker 1>their country is in such a sad, fractured state that

312
00:15:27.360 --> 00:15:30.200
<v Speaker 1>a foreign invading army has to come in conquer them

313
00:15:30.559 --> 00:15:33.080
<v Speaker 1>and then basically remind them how to be Egyptian.

314
00:15:33.600 --> 00:15:35.720
<v Speaker 2>Well, you could certainly view it as humiliating from a

315
00:15:35.759 --> 00:15:38.840
<v Speaker 2>purely military standpoint, right, But if we connect this to

316
00:15:38.879 --> 00:15:42.720
<v Speaker 2>the bigger picture, the historical perspective is quite different. How So,

317
00:15:42.919 --> 00:15:47.240
<v Speaker 2>it's framed as Egypt essentially taunting its invaders. The culture

318
00:15:47.279 --> 00:15:50.519
<v Speaker 2>itself is saying, you may possess the swords to dominate

319
00:15:50.559 --> 00:15:55.519
<v Speaker 2>us physically, but our esthetics, our gods, our concept of eternity,

320
00:15:55.799 --> 00:15:58.720
<v Speaker 2>they will ultimately dominate your mind. Wow. Okay, to Harka

321
00:15:58.799 --> 00:16:03.240
<v Speaker 2>conquered Egypt militarily, but Egypt completely conquered to Harka culturally.

322
00:16:03.360 --> 00:16:06.039
<v Speaker 2>I mean, the Kushites ended up building more pyramids in

323
00:16:06.039 --> 00:16:09.039
<v Speaker 2>their Nubian homeland than the Egyptians had built in Egypt.

324
00:16:09.159 --> 00:16:12.440
<v Speaker 1>It's the ultimate cultural victory. They forced their conquerors to

325
00:16:12.480 --> 00:16:15.240
<v Speaker 1>submit to the culture in order to rule the land exactly.

326
00:16:15.240 --> 00:16:18.759
<v Speaker 1>But unfortunately for the Kushites, their beautiful century of renewal

327
00:16:18.879 --> 00:16:21.879
<v Speaker 1>was about to be violently interrupted. Because what happens when

328
00:16:21.919 --> 00:16:25.200
<v Speaker 1>an invader arrives who absolutely does not care about your gods,

329
00:16:25.279 --> 00:16:26.759
<v Speaker 1>your pyramids, or your culture.

330
00:16:26.879 --> 00:16:28.240
<v Speaker 2>It is a totally different ballgame.

331
00:16:28.440 --> 00:16:33.320
<v Speaker 1>Right In six seventy four BC, that exact nightmare scenario happens.

332
00:16:33.519 --> 00:16:37.000
<v Speaker 2>Yes, we are talking about the Assyrian war machine. The

333
00:16:37.039 --> 00:16:41.440
<v Speaker 2>Assyrians were ruthless expansionists from Mesopotamia and they were terrifying

334
00:16:41.559 --> 00:16:45.519
<v Speaker 2>beyond terrifying. Their entire state apparatus was built for war,

335
00:16:45.919 --> 00:16:50.639
<v Speaker 2>and their method of expansion was pure, unadulterated terror. They

336
00:16:50.679 --> 00:16:55.240
<v Speaker 2>had zero interest in assimilating, wearing traditional crowns, or seeking

337
00:16:55.320 --> 00:16:56.320
<v Speaker 2>the blessing of a moon.

338
00:16:56.440 --> 00:16:58.039
<v Speaker 1>They just wanted to crush everything.

339
00:16:58.279 --> 00:17:01.639
<v Speaker 2>When they marched into Egypt, they graphically demonstrated their contempt

340
00:17:01.720 --> 00:17:05.319
<v Speaker 2>by doing the unthinkable. They sacked the sacred ancient city

341
00:17:05.359 --> 00:17:06.240
<v Speaker 2>of Thebes.

342
00:17:06.039 --> 00:17:08.440
<v Speaker 1>And there's a specific artifact found in the ruins of

343
00:17:08.480 --> 00:17:12.160
<v Speaker 1>Thebes that perfectly captures the shock of this event. Archaeologists

344
00:17:12.279 --> 00:17:16.200
<v Speaker 1>uncovered an Assyrian bronze helmet. The very grim discovery right

345
00:17:16.279 --> 00:17:18.440
<v Speaker 1>because the notes point out that the Egyptians didn't even

346
00:17:18.519 --> 00:17:21.680
<v Speaker 1>wear helmets. They just relied on their thick, tightly braided

347
00:17:21.720 --> 00:17:25.000
<v Speaker 1>hair in battle. So if you are an Egyptian priest

348
00:17:25.240 --> 00:17:29.200
<v Speaker 1>and you find this heavy bronze, sophisticated piece of foreign

349
00:17:29.359 --> 00:17:32.519
<v Speaker 1>armor sitting in the ruins of your sacred temple, it

350
00:17:32.599 --> 00:17:35.200
<v Speaker 1>must have looked like an artifact from an alien planet.

351
00:17:35.319 --> 00:17:40.640
<v Speaker 2>It was a profound psychological trauma. Think about the most sacred,

352
00:17:40.839 --> 00:17:44.640
<v Speaker 2>untouchable place in your own culture. Imagine a foreign army

353
00:17:44.799 --> 00:17:47.720
<v Speaker 2>rolling in and just aggressively violating it.

354
00:17:47.920 --> 00:17:48.720
<v Speaker 1>Unimaginable.

355
00:17:48.799 --> 00:17:51.359
<v Speaker 2>Thebes had never been attacked like this in Egyptian history.

356
00:17:51.519 --> 00:17:54.559
<v Speaker 2>The Assyrians weren't just killing soldiers. They were trying to

357
00:17:54.640 --> 00:17:56.680
<v Speaker 2>rip out Egypt's religious.

358
00:17:56.200 --> 00:17:57.759
<v Speaker 1>Heart by damaging the temples.

359
00:17:57.880 --> 00:18:02.559
<v Speaker 2>Damaging temples, and crucially, they mashed sacred statues. For the

360
00:18:02.559 --> 00:18:06.319
<v Speaker 2>ancient Egyptians, a physical statue isn't just a representation, It

361
00:18:06.440 --> 00:18:09.400
<v Speaker 2>is a literal vessel that houses the spirit of the divine.

362
00:18:09.559 --> 00:18:13.119
<v Speaker 1>Oh so breaking a statue is tantamount to assassinating a

363
00:18:13.119 --> 00:18:14.039
<v Speaker 1>god exactly.

364
00:18:14.160 --> 00:18:16.720
<v Speaker 2>It was a calculated move meant to break the Egyptian

365
00:18:16.720 --> 00:18:17.599
<v Speaker 2>spirit completely.

366
00:18:17.839 --> 00:18:20.359
<v Speaker 1>But the Assyrians didn't stick around to rule, did they.

367
00:18:20.880 --> 00:18:23.799
<v Speaker 1>After about twenty years, they had rebellions back in their

368
00:18:23.839 --> 00:18:26.039
<v Speaker 1>own empires, so they packed up and left.

369
00:18:26.160 --> 00:18:27.640
<v Speaker 2>They had bigger fish to fry.

370
00:18:27.440 --> 00:18:30.640
<v Speaker 1>Back home, right, and they left behind some local vassal

371
00:18:30.720 --> 00:18:33.599
<v Speaker 1>kings in the delta city of Ceys to collect taxes,

372
00:18:33.920 --> 00:18:36.359
<v Speaker 1>and as soon as the Assyrian army was over the horizon,

373
00:18:36.640 --> 00:18:40.599
<v Speaker 1>these Sitea kings flipped the script. They declared independence and

374
00:18:40.640 --> 00:18:44.559
<v Speaker 1>triggered what historians call the cet Renaissance. But this renaissance

375
00:18:44.599 --> 00:18:47.599
<v Speaker 1>took a very very strange turn, didn't it.

376
00:18:47.599 --> 00:18:51.200
<v Speaker 2>It did. The Sat Kings realized they needed to aggressively

377
00:18:51.240 --> 00:18:55.680
<v Speaker 2>declare their Egyptian identity after the humiliation of the Assyrian occupation.

378
00:18:56.000 --> 00:18:59.119
<v Speaker 2>They needed a massive cultural megaphone to say we are

379
00:18:59.240 --> 00:19:00.799
<v Speaker 2>Egypt and we are back.

380
00:19:00.880 --> 00:19:01.759
<v Speaker 1>And how did they do that?

381
00:19:02.160 --> 00:19:04.519
<v Speaker 2>Well? To do that, they turned to the one thing

382
00:19:04.680 --> 00:19:07.799
<v Speaker 2>no other culture in the ancient world could do, mummification.

383
00:19:08.119 --> 00:19:11.680
<v Speaker 2>Oh right, But they didn't just return to mummifying pharaohs.

384
00:19:12.000 --> 00:19:14.640
<v Speaker 2>They scaled it up in a way that is almost unimaginable.

385
00:19:14.720 --> 00:19:18.759
<v Speaker 1>It was an absolute explosion of animal mummification. We are

386
00:19:18.759 --> 00:19:22.960
<v Speaker 1>talking about dogs, cats, crocodiles, ibises, even tiny little.

387
00:19:22.680 --> 00:19:25.160
<v Speaker 2>Shrews, anything that walk, crawled, or flew.

388
00:19:25.440 --> 00:19:28.000
<v Speaker 1>I was reading the descriptions of the necropolis at Saquara

389
00:19:28.119 --> 00:19:30.680
<v Speaker 1>during this time, and it shatters my mental image of

390
00:19:30.799 --> 00:19:35.240
<v Speaker 1>ancient Egypt. We always picture these quiet plias, priests wafting

391
00:19:35.319 --> 00:19:39.359
<v Speaker 1>incense and dark, silent temples. But during the Secarite period,

392
00:19:39.400 --> 00:19:43.559
<v Speaker 1>death became an industrialized big business how did the economics

393
00:19:43.559 --> 00:19:44.559
<v Speaker 1>of this actually work.

394
00:19:44.880 --> 00:19:48.680
<v Speaker 2>It was essentially the mass monetization of devotion. The state

395
00:19:48.799 --> 00:19:52.880
<v Speaker 2>and the temples created massive breeding farms for these specific.

396
00:19:52.400 --> 00:19:55.400
<v Speaker 1>Animals, breeding farms just for mummies exactly.

397
00:19:55.799 --> 00:19:58.559
<v Speaker 2>You have to imagine Saquara not as a quiet graveyard,

398
00:19:58.839 --> 00:20:02.240
<v Speaker 2>but as a bustling, loud, commercial hub packed with.

399
00:20:02.279 --> 00:20:03.839
<v Speaker 1>Pilgrims like a market.

400
00:20:04.000 --> 00:20:07.160
<v Speaker 2>Yes, a peasant or a merchant would travel to Saquara

401
00:20:07.720 --> 00:20:10.599
<v Speaker 2>purchase a primummified animal or k to have one mummified

402
00:20:10.920 --> 00:20:13.519
<v Speaker 2>and presented to the priest to bury in massive underground

403
00:20:13.519 --> 00:20:15.680
<v Speaker 2>catacombs as a prayer to the gods.

404
00:20:15.880 --> 00:20:18.079
<v Speaker 1>So it was like lighting a candle in a church,

405
00:20:18.119 --> 00:20:19.440
<v Speaker 1>but with a mummified cat.

406
00:20:19.680 --> 00:20:22.880
<v Speaker 2>That's a perfect analogy. It generated an enormous wealth for

407
00:20:22.920 --> 00:20:25.920
<v Speaker 2>the temples and unified the populace in a shared, highly

408
00:20:26.000 --> 00:20:30.359
<v Speaker 2>visible religious practice. You literally had priests trundling massive carts

409
00:20:30.400 --> 00:20:32.799
<v Speaker 2>full of animal mummies across the landscape.

410
00:20:32.920 --> 00:20:36.960
<v Speaker 1>It's wild. But the absolute pinnacle of this devotion wasn't

411
00:20:36.960 --> 00:20:40.039
<v Speaker 1>a tiny shrew. It was the cult of the Apist

412
00:20:40.079 --> 00:20:40.799
<v Speaker 1>bol Oh.

413
00:20:40.839 --> 00:20:42.359
<v Speaker 2>The Apist bowl is fascinating.

414
00:20:42.519 --> 00:20:46.160
<v Speaker 1>Deep beneath Sakwar there is a subterranean tomb complex called

415
00:20:46.160 --> 00:20:52.160
<v Speaker 1>the Serapium. Down there, archaeologists found giant, flawless granite sarcopha

416
00:20:52.200 --> 00:20:58.200
<v Speaker 1>guy and inside these immense stone boxes they buried mummified bulls.

417
00:20:58.039 --> 00:21:00.920
<v Speaker 2>Because they believe this pacific bowl and all the vital

418
00:21:01.000 --> 00:21:04.519
<v Speaker 2>qualities of kingship and fertility. When a sacred APIs bull

419
00:21:04.599 --> 00:21:07.759
<v Speaker 2>died naturally, it was believed to merge with Osiris, the

420
00:21:07.759 --> 00:21:11.519
<v Speaker 2>god of the afterlife, creating a hybrid deity called Serapis.

421
00:21:11.839 --> 00:21:14.079
<v Speaker 1>So they would mummify this massive animal, which is an

422
00:21:14.119 --> 00:21:17.160
<v Speaker 1>incredible technical feet in itself, bury it with the pomp

423
00:21:17.200 --> 00:21:19.720
<v Speaker 1>of a human pharaoh, and then immediately begin worshiping a

424
00:21:19.759 --> 00:21:22.599
<v Speaker 1>new live bull. Right wait, hold on, So they mummified

425
00:21:22.599 --> 00:21:25.200
<v Speaker 1>a bull buried in a massive granite box and then

426
00:21:25.279 --> 00:21:27.519
<v Speaker 1>immediately just went out and picked a new bowl to worship.

427
00:21:28.079 --> 00:21:29.720
<v Speaker 1>Didn't people catch on to the fact that it was

428
00:21:29.799 --> 00:21:32.319
<v Speaker 1>just a regular animal. How did they justify that transition?

429
00:21:32.440 --> 00:21:35.559
<v Speaker 2>Well, they didn't just pick any bull. The priests had

430
00:21:35.599 --> 00:21:39.640
<v Speaker 2>an incredibly strict set of criteria. The new bowl had

431
00:21:39.640 --> 00:21:43.559
<v Speaker 2>to have very specific markings, a white triangle on its forehead,

432
00:21:44.079 --> 00:21:46.759
<v Speaker 2>a mark shaped like a scare beetle under its tongue,

433
00:21:46.920 --> 00:21:49.279
<v Speaker 2>and hair on its tail that grew in a certain way.

434
00:21:49.400 --> 00:21:52.359
<v Speaker 1>Oh so it was like finding the Dali Lama exactly

435
00:21:52.440 --> 00:21:52.720
<v Speaker 1>like that.

436
00:21:53.079 --> 00:21:55.640
<v Speaker 2>They would scour the countryside until they found a calf

437
00:21:55.960 --> 00:21:59.519
<v Speaker 2>that matched the divine signs. Once found, it was brought

438
00:21:59.519 --> 00:22:01.880
<v Speaker 2>to the temp and treated literally as a living god

439
00:22:01.920 --> 00:22:06.240
<v Speaker 2>on earth. It was this constant, physical, breathing presence.

440
00:22:05.799 --> 00:22:07.960
<v Speaker 1>Of the divine and you can see why that physical

441
00:22:07.960 --> 00:22:11.240
<v Speaker 1>presence would be incredibly comforting during times of foreign occupation

442
00:22:11.400 --> 00:22:14.240
<v Speaker 1>or instability. If the human pharaoh was weak, or if

443
00:22:14.240 --> 00:22:17.240
<v Speaker 1>you were worried about another Assyrian invasion, the APIs bull

444
00:22:17.319 --> 00:22:17.920
<v Speaker 1>was right there.

445
00:22:18.039 --> 00:22:19.039
<v Speaker 2>It was a tangible god.

446
00:22:19.079 --> 00:22:20.480
<v Speaker 1>You could see it with your own eyes. It was

447
00:22:20.519 --> 00:22:23.680
<v Speaker 1>the soul of Egypt made flesh. But concentrating all of

448
00:22:23.680 --> 00:22:26.640
<v Speaker 1>that national identity and divine power into a single living

449
00:22:26.680 --> 00:22:29.279
<v Speaker 1>animal created a massive vulnerability.

450
00:22:29.359 --> 00:22:31.839
<v Speaker 2>It put a giant target on the culture because in

451
00:22:31.880 --> 00:22:35.000
<v Speaker 2>five point twenty five BC, the Persians.

452
00:22:34.440 --> 00:22:36.720
<v Speaker 1>Invade another invasion, right, and the.

453
00:22:36.640 --> 00:22:40.839
<v Speaker 2>Persian king Cambises is every bit as ruthless as the Assyrians.

454
00:22:41.160 --> 00:22:43.960
<v Speaker 2>He destroyed the same dynasty. He takes the mummy of

455
00:22:43.960 --> 00:22:46.079
<v Speaker 2>the previous native pharaoh and burns.

456
00:22:45.720 --> 00:22:49.880
<v Speaker 1>It, which, in the Egyptian mind literally destroys that pharaoh's

457
00:22:49.920 --> 00:22:50.640
<v Speaker 1>existence in the.

458
00:22:50.640 --> 00:22:54.400
<v Speaker 2>Afterlife, utterly destroys it. And then he does the unthinkable.

459
00:22:54.839 --> 00:22:58.240
<v Speaker 2>He draws his sword and he stabs the living apist bull.

460
00:22:58.400 --> 00:23:00.759
<v Speaker 1>And he doesn't just kill it cleanly, right, he lets

461
00:23:00.799 --> 00:23:03.480
<v Speaker 1>it slowly bleed to death. It is hard to overstate

462
00:23:03.559 --> 00:23:06.160
<v Speaker 1>how devastating that must have been for the people witnessing it.

463
00:23:06.160 --> 00:23:06.839
<v Speaker 2>It was horrific.

464
00:23:06.920 --> 00:23:09.960
<v Speaker 1>By harming the most sacred creature in the land, Canvass

465
00:23:10.079 --> 00:23:13.640
<v Speaker 1>was sending a terrifyingly clear message, your gods are dead,

466
00:23:13.880 --> 00:23:16.519
<v Speaker 1>your traditions are meaningless, and I am the only power

467
00:23:16.559 --> 00:23:17.359
<v Speaker 1>that matters now.

468
00:23:17.519 --> 00:23:20.519
<v Speaker 2>It was the ultimate insult, and it ushered in two

469
00:23:20.599 --> 00:23:24.039
<v Speaker 2>hundred years of misery. We were talking about two centuries

470
00:23:24.039 --> 00:23:28.880
<v Speaker 2>of heavy Persian taxes, extreme military retaliation against any local rebellions,

471
00:23:29.160 --> 00:23:30.200
<v Speaker 2>and total subjugation.

472
00:23:30.359 --> 00:23:32.200
<v Speaker 1>The Egyptian culture was suffocating.

473
00:23:32.240 --> 00:23:34.960
<v Speaker 2>They were desperate for a savior, and eventually the geopolitical

474
00:23:35.000 --> 00:23:38.680
<v Speaker 2>wind shifted and they got one. A Macedonian superhero.

475
00:23:38.359 --> 00:23:39.480
<v Speaker 1>Enter Alexander the Great.

476
00:23:39.640 --> 00:23:41.119
<v Speaker 2>Yes, three hundred and thirty two BC.

477
00:23:41.559 --> 00:23:45.079
<v Speaker 1>So it's three thirty two BC. Alexander has already defeated

478
00:23:45.119 --> 00:23:47.880
<v Speaker 1>the Persian king in battle elsewhere and he marches his

479
00:23:48.000 --> 00:23:52.400
<v Speaker 1>army into Egypt completely unopposed. He isn't seen as an invader,

480
00:23:52.680 --> 00:23:54.119
<v Speaker 1>He's welcomed as a liberator.

481
00:23:54.400 --> 00:23:58.240
<v Speaker 2>And Alexander was, without a doubt, a brilliant military commander.

482
00:23:58.680 --> 00:24:01.359
<v Speaker 2>But what really shines through in this era is his

483
00:24:01.519 --> 00:24:04.079
<v Speaker 2>absolute genius for political pr.

484
00:24:04.079 --> 00:24:06.000
<v Speaker 1>He knew exactly how to play the crowd.

485
00:24:06.160 --> 00:24:09.279
<v Speaker 2>He really did. He doesn't march in, establish a military

486
00:24:09.279 --> 00:24:12.920
<v Speaker 2>garrison and demand everyone speak Greek. Instead, he goes straight

487
00:24:12.960 --> 00:24:16.119
<v Speaker 2>to the ancient capital of Memphis. He actively plays into

488
00:24:16.160 --> 00:24:19.119
<v Speaker 2>the swirling local rumors that he's secretly the son of

489
00:24:19.119 --> 00:24:20.640
<v Speaker 2>the last native Egyptian pharaoh.

490
00:24:20.680 --> 00:24:23.119
<v Speaker 1>Wow, just adopting their own misology right, and he.

491
00:24:23.079 --> 00:24:26.240
<v Speaker 2>Allows himself to be crowned in the completely traditional Eegivian

492
00:24:26.319 --> 00:24:27.720
<v Speaker 2>manner by the native priesthood.

493
00:24:27.799 --> 00:24:30.519
<v Speaker 1>He understood exactly what the Libyans and the Kushites had

494
00:24:30.559 --> 00:24:32.759
<v Speaker 1>learned before him. If you want to rule Egypt, you

495
00:24:32.880 --> 00:24:36.200
<v Speaker 1>must appear to be Egyptian exactly. There is a fascinating

496
00:24:36.200 --> 00:24:39.400
<v Speaker 1>piece of physical evidence for this in Luxor Temple. Tucked

497
00:24:39.400 --> 00:24:42.000
<v Speaker 1>away in the complex is a modest little shrine, and

498
00:24:42.039 --> 00:24:45.200
<v Speaker 1>carved onto the walls is a pharaoh offering incense to

499
00:24:45.279 --> 00:24:45.640
<v Speaker 1>a moon.

500
00:24:45.880 --> 00:24:47.240
<v Speaker 2>It looks like a standard carving.

501
00:24:47.599 --> 00:24:51.119
<v Speaker 1>Right. He's wearing the traditional red and white jeweled crown.

502
00:24:51.440 --> 00:24:54.519
<v Speaker 1>He has a traditional kilt croak. He looks exactly like

503
00:24:54.599 --> 00:24:56.799
<v Speaker 1>every other pharaoh for the last two thousand years.

504
00:24:56.839 --> 00:24:59.480
<v Speaker 2>But it's Alexander. And the only way you would ever

505
00:24:59.559 --> 00:25:01.400
<v Speaker 2>know it's in as if you could read the hieroglyphs,

506
00:25:01.920 --> 00:25:05.839
<v Speaker 2>because inside the royal cartouge, that little oval nameplate that

507
00:25:05.880 --> 00:25:09.400
<v Speaker 2>denotes royalty, his Greek name is written out phonetically in

508
00:25:09.440 --> 00:25:11.960
<v Speaker 2>Egyptian characters Alexandras.

509
00:25:12.440 --> 00:25:16.839
<v Speaker 1>He seamlessly visually inserted himself into a three thousand year

510
00:25:16.839 --> 00:25:18.160
<v Speaker 1>old continuous narrative.

511
00:25:18.359 --> 00:25:21.440
<v Speaker 2>He did, but simply acting the part in Memphis wasn't

512
00:25:21.519 --> 00:25:25.839
<v Speaker 2>enough for Alexander. He needed divine validation and this leads

513
00:25:25.839 --> 00:25:27.759
<v Speaker 2>to one of the most pivotal moments in his life.

514
00:25:27.880 --> 00:25:28.880
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, the desert trip.

515
00:25:28.960 --> 00:25:33.720
<v Speaker 2>He undertakes this incredibly perilous, grueling journey deep across the

516
00:25:33.759 --> 00:25:36.440
<v Speaker 2>harsh Libyan desert to the remote sea.

517
00:25:36.240 --> 00:25:39.400
<v Speaker 1>Wo oasis, which raises the question why would a conquering

518
00:25:39.519 --> 00:25:41.799
<v Speaker 1>king risk his life in the desert just to visit

519
00:25:41.839 --> 00:25:42.480
<v Speaker 1>an oasis?

520
00:25:42.519 --> 00:25:44.799
<v Speaker 2>Because the Seawa Oasis was home to the oracle of

521
00:25:44.799 --> 00:25:47.240
<v Speaker 2>a moon, one of the most respective prophetic voices in

522
00:25:47.279 --> 00:25:48.200
<v Speaker 2>the ancient Mediterranean.

523
00:25:48.240 --> 00:25:50.359
<v Speaker 1>And the journey itself was brutal, right, yeah.

524
00:25:50.319 --> 00:25:54.000
<v Speaker 2>Oh absolutely. Historian's note. His caravan ran out of water

525
00:25:54.039 --> 00:25:57.359
<v Speaker 2>and was nearly buried in a sandstorm. Surviving that journey

526
00:25:57.359 --> 00:26:00.440
<v Speaker 2>alone probably felt like a divine miracle. He went there

527
00:26:00.440 --> 00:26:02.759
<v Speaker 2>to commune with the oracle in secret, just him and

528
00:26:02.799 --> 00:26:05.920
<v Speaker 2>the oracle, right, and whatever was said in that inner sanctum,

529
00:26:06.000 --> 00:26:11.000
<v Speaker 2>it changed him forever. The legend, which Alexander actively encouraged,

530
00:26:11.559 --> 00:26:14.000
<v Speaker 2>is that the oracle told him directly that he was

531
00:26:14.079 --> 00:26:17.200
<v Speaker 2>not the son of Philip of Macedon, but the literal

532
00:26:17.279 --> 00:26:18.440
<v Speaker 2>sun of the Goda Ammun.

533
00:26:18.839 --> 00:26:22.319
<v Speaker 1>It was a massive psychological break. From that moment on,

534
00:26:22.599 --> 00:26:26.839
<v Speaker 1>something fundamentally shifts in Alexander's mind. He leaves the desert

535
00:26:26.880 --> 00:26:30.559
<v Speaker 1>believing with absolute certainty that he is divine.

536
00:26:30.400 --> 00:26:33.240
<v Speaker 2>He has the full explicit blessing of the King of

537
00:26:33.279 --> 00:26:36.960
<v Speaker 2>the Gods, and he uses that absolute, fanatical conviction to

538
00:26:37.079 --> 00:26:39.440
<v Speaker 2>leave Egypt and conquer the rest of the known world.

539
00:26:39.559 --> 00:26:41.720
<v Speaker 1>But before he leaves Egypt, and it's incredible to think

540
00:26:41.759 --> 00:26:43.759
<v Speaker 1>he was only in the country for about six months,

541
00:26:44.279 --> 00:26:46.400
<v Speaker 1>he leaves them a parting gift that would change history.

542
00:26:46.720 --> 00:26:50.720
<v Speaker 1>He founds a new city on the Mediterranean coast, Alexandria.

543
00:26:50.079 --> 00:26:51.319
<v Speaker 2>A monumental legacy.

544
00:26:51.480 --> 00:26:54.000
<v Speaker 1>And there's this great anecdote I found in the historical

545
00:26:54.039 --> 00:26:57.119
<v Speaker 1>accounts about how it started. Alexander is out there on

546
00:26:57.160 --> 00:26:59.440
<v Speaker 1>the coastline trying to lay out the general plan for

547
00:26:59.480 --> 00:27:02.960
<v Speaker 1>the city, but his architects don't have any chalk to

548
00:27:03.000 --> 00:27:06.720
<v Speaker 1>mark the ground. So in a pinch, Alexander uses grain

549
00:27:06.799 --> 00:27:09.960
<v Speaker 1>from the soldier's rations to mark the lines in the dirt.

550
00:27:10.240 --> 00:27:13.680
<v Speaker 2>A very pragmatic solution, but one that immediately ran into

551
00:27:13.720 --> 00:27:18.119
<v Speaker 2>a natural problem. A massive flock of coastal birds swooped

552
00:27:18.160 --> 00:27:21.599
<v Speaker 2>down and ate all the grain, erasing the blueprint.

553
00:27:21.240 --> 00:27:23.200
<v Speaker 1>Which for a man who had just been told by

554
00:27:23.200 --> 00:27:26.160
<v Speaker 1>an oracle that he was a living god, Alexander took

555
00:27:26.160 --> 00:27:29.559
<v Speaker 1>this as a terrible rejecting omen. He thought the gods

556
00:27:29.559 --> 00:27:30.680
<v Speaker 1>were refusing his city.

557
00:27:31.000 --> 00:27:34.240
<v Speaker 2>But he had a very smart, quick thinking religious adviser

558
00:27:34.319 --> 00:27:37.519
<v Speaker 2>standing nearby who pulled off the ultimate pr spin.

559
00:27:37.880 --> 00:27:38.559
<v Speaker 1>What did she say?

560
00:27:38.640 --> 00:27:41.240
<v Speaker 2>The advisor looks at the birds eating the grain and says, no, no, no,

561
00:27:41.279 --> 00:27:43.880
<v Speaker 2>my king, this isn't a bad omen. This is a prophecy.

562
00:27:44.240 --> 00:27:46.559
<v Speaker 2>This means your new city will be so prosperous, it

563
00:27:46.559 --> 00:27:49.160
<v Speaker 2>will generate so much wealth that it will one day

564
00:27:49.279 --> 00:27:50.359
<v Speaker 2>feed the whole world.

565
00:27:50.519 --> 00:27:52.240
<v Speaker 1>That is just brilliant, and it.

566
00:27:52.200 --> 00:27:56.359
<v Speaker 2>Was a remarkably accurate piece of flattery. Alexandria would grow

567
00:27:56.440 --> 00:27:59.480
<v Speaker 2>to become the greatest, most cosmopolitan city on.

568
00:27:59.359 --> 00:28:03.240
<v Speaker 1>Earth, but Alexander himself would never see a single building completed.

569
00:28:03.640 --> 00:28:06.640
<v Speaker 1>He left Egypt in three thirty one BC, marched his

570
00:28:06.799 --> 00:28:08.880
<v Speaker 1>army all the way to India, and died of a

571
00:28:08.880 --> 00:28:12.319
<v Speaker 1>sudden fever in Babylon at the age of just thirty two.

572
00:28:12.720 --> 00:28:15.519
<v Speaker 2>He was undefeated, the ruler of a two million square

573
00:28:15.559 --> 00:28:20.200
<v Speaker 2>mile empire, and technically still the pharaoh of Egypt, which kicks.

574
00:28:19.960 --> 00:28:23.039
<v Speaker 1>Off one of the greatest, most cinematic heists in ancient history,

575
00:28:23.359 --> 00:28:27.000
<v Speaker 1>because when Alexander dies, his top generals immediately start fighting

576
00:28:27.079 --> 00:28:29.920
<v Speaker 1>over his vast empire, but more importantly, they start fighting

577
00:28:30.000 --> 00:28:33.680
<v Speaker 1>over his mummified body. Why was the physical corpse so important?

578
00:28:34.000 --> 00:28:37.440
<v Speaker 2>Well, in the ancient Macedonian tradition, a king's successor solidified

579
00:28:37.440 --> 00:28:41.799
<v Speaker 2>his legitimacy by burying his predecessor. Furthermore, whoever possessed the physical,

580
00:28:41.880 --> 00:28:44.880
<v Speaker 2>preserved body of the divine Alexander the Great held the

581
00:28:44.960 --> 00:28:46.319
<v Speaker 2>ultimate talisman of power.

582
00:28:46.680 --> 00:28:49.640
<v Speaker 1>It was physical proof of legitimacy, exactly.

583
00:28:49.200 --> 00:28:52.279
<v Speaker 2>Physical proof of legitimacy over his empire, especially over the

584
00:28:52.279 --> 00:28:54.000
<v Speaker 2>incredibly wealthy province of Egypt.

585
00:28:54.039 --> 00:28:56.240
<v Speaker 1>And this is where his general Ptolemy makes his move.

586
00:28:56.680 --> 00:28:58.359
<v Speaker 1>How do you hijack a massive.

587
00:28:58.119 --> 00:29:03.880
<v Speaker 2>Royal funeral with incredible audacity in military precision. Alexander's massive

588
00:29:04.079 --> 00:29:08.440
<v Speaker 2>ornate funeral, Cortege, which was essentially a rolling temple covered

589
00:29:08.480 --> 00:29:11.960
<v Speaker 2>in gold, was slowly making its way from Babylon back.

590
00:29:11.799 --> 00:29:14.079
<v Speaker 1>Toward Greece, just trundling along right.

591
00:29:14.559 --> 00:29:17.759
<v Speaker 2>Ptolemy, who was already positioned in Egypt, intercepts it with

592
00:29:17.799 --> 00:29:20.880
<v Speaker 2>his own army in Syria. He literally hijacks the corpse.

593
00:29:20.920 --> 00:29:21.640
<v Speaker 1>It just steals it.

594
00:29:21.720 --> 00:29:24.240
<v Speaker 2>He steals it. He diverts the entire procession and brings

595
00:29:24.279 --> 00:29:27.720
<v Speaker 2>Alexander's mummy back to Egypt, eventually burying him in a

596
00:29:27.759 --> 00:29:31.079
<v Speaker 2>magnificent tomb in Alexandria. To legitimize his own.

597
00:29:31.000 --> 00:29:35.720
<v Speaker 1>Rule by physically planting Alexander's body in Egyptian soil, Ptolemy

598
00:29:35.759 --> 00:29:38.400
<v Speaker 1>is basically planting a flag and saying, I am the

599
00:29:38.519 --> 00:29:42.599
<v Speaker 1>legitimate successor. I rule Egypt now and that bold heist

600
00:29:42.680 --> 00:29:45.119
<v Speaker 1>kicks off the final The most fabulous and easily the

601
00:29:45.119 --> 00:29:49.359
<v Speaker 1>most flamboyant era of ancient Egypt, the Ptolemaic dynasty.

602
00:29:49.039 --> 00:29:52.160
<v Speaker 2>The ttolamac dynasty rule for three centuries. You have fifteen

603
00:29:52.200 --> 00:29:56.359
<v Speaker 2>male kings, all conveniently named Ptolemy, and their female co rulers,

604
00:29:56.440 --> 00:29:57.960
<v Speaker 2>several of whom were named Cleopatra.

605
00:29:58.160 --> 00:30:00.359
<v Speaker 1>They really stuck to the family names they did.

606
00:30:00.519 --> 00:30:05.039
<v Speaker 2>They were Macedonian Greek by descent, but their governing strategy

607
00:30:05.160 --> 00:30:08.920
<v Speaker 2>was a masterclass in cultural duality. On one hand, they

608
00:30:08.960 --> 00:30:13.759
<v Speaker 2>brought Greek culture, Greek administration, and unimaginable wealth into Egypt,

609
00:30:14.359 --> 00:30:17.839
<v Speaker 2>But on the other hand, they completely and utterly immersed

610
00:30:17.839 --> 00:30:20.240
<v Speaker 2>themselves in native Egyptian religion.

611
00:30:20.359 --> 00:30:22.720
<v Speaker 1>They took everything to the next level. Let's look at

612
00:30:22.759 --> 00:30:25.599
<v Speaker 1>Alexandria under the Ptolemys. It wasn't just a city, it

613
00:30:25.640 --> 00:30:27.960
<v Speaker 1>was an ancient metropolis on steroids.

614
00:30:28.039 --> 00:30:29.599
<v Speaker 2>It really was the center of the world.

615
00:30:29.640 --> 00:30:33.240
<v Speaker 1>The architectural records described these colonnaded marble streets that were

616
00:30:33.279 --> 00:30:36.960
<v Speaker 1>over ten meters wide. They built the Pharaoh's Lighthouse, which

617
00:30:37.039 --> 00:30:39.319
<v Speaker 1>was one hundred and thirty five meters tall. One of

618
00:30:39.319 --> 00:30:42.039
<v Speaker 1>the wonders of the ancient world. You could see its

619
00:30:42.079 --> 00:30:45.440
<v Speaker 1>fire burning from miles out at sea, guiding massive cargo

620
00:30:45.519 --> 00:30:47.680
<v Speaker 1>ships into the busiest port on Earth, and.

621
00:30:47.640 --> 00:30:50.839
<v Speaker 2>Through that port flowed a staggering amount of international trade.

622
00:30:51.039 --> 00:30:54.559
<v Speaker 2>They were importing Greek olives, which the Egyptians quickly started

623
00:30:54.559 --> 00:30:58.160
<v Speaker 2>cultivating themselves. They were bringing an Indian black pepper, which

624
00:30:58.200 --> 00:31:00.960
<v Speaker 2>the Greek elite went absolutely crazy for. Oh. They had

625
00:31:01.039 --> 00:31:04.559
<v Speaker 2>raw incense from Arabia, exotic silks from the East, all

626
00:31:04.599 --> 00:31:08.640
<v Speaker 2>mixing in the markets with native Egyptian papyrus, grain and dates.

627
00:31:09.079 --> 00:31:11.559
<v Speaker 2>If you were standing in the markets of Alexandria back then,

628
00:31:12.000 --> 00:31:14.400
<v Speaker 2>your senses would be completely overwhelmed.

629
00:31:14.759 --> 00:31:17.559
<v Speaker 1>The smells and the noise must have been incredible.

630
00:31:17.680 --> 00:31:20.759
<v Speaker 2>It wasn't inward looking like the older Egyptian capital of Memphis.

631
00:31:21.319 --> 00:31:24.799
<v Speaker 2>Alexandria was a global hub, open to the world.

632
00:31:24.559 --> 00:31:26.960
<v Speaker 1>And it wasn't just physical trade. It was a sanctuary

633
00:31:27.039 --> 00:31:30.200
<v Speaker 1>for the mind. The Ptolemys wanted to compete with the

634
00:31:30.279 --> 00:31:33.839
<v Speaker 1>legendary philosophical schools of Athens, so they built the Great.

635
00:31:33.599 --> 00:31:35.400
<v Speaker 2>Library, the Famous Library.

636
00:31:35.640 --> 00:31:39.319
<v Speaker 1>They created this intellectual hot house, aggressively gathering up to

637
00:31:39.480 --> 00:31:43.200
<v Speaker 1>half a million papyrus scrolls. They had the plays of Eschylus,

638
00:31:43.240 --> 00:31:46.640
<v Speaker 1>the philosophy of Aristotle. They even commissioned the first Greek

639
00:31:46.680 --> 00:31:52.039
<v Speaker 1>translation of the Old Testament scriptures. They brought together biology, astronomy, geometry,

640
00:31:52.079 --> 00:31:54.119
<v Speaker 1>and history all under one roof.

641
00:31:54.400 --> 00:31:58.680
<v Speaker 2>It created an unprecedented air of cosmopolitan tolerance within the city.

642
00:31:59.160 --> 00:32:01.920
<v Speaker 2>But we shouldn't romance decize it too much, because outside

643
00:32:01.920 --> 00:32:05.640
<v Speaker 2>of Alexandria, the mingling of Greek and Egyptian cultures caused

644
00:32:05.640 --> 00:32:06.960
<v Speaker 2>some serious culture shock.

645
00:32:07.240 --> 00:32:10.400
<v Speaker 1>Oh definitely. The Great Library actually housed the works of

646
00:32:10.400 --> 00:32:14.039
<v Speaker 1>the Greek historian Herodotus, who had traveled through Egypt earlier,

647
00:32:14.680 --> 00:32:18.519
<v Speaker 1>and his accounts perfectly captured the bewilderment that a traditional

648
00:32:18.559 --> 00:32:21.480
<v Speaker 1>Greek man felt when confronted with Egyptian society.

649
00:32:21.640 --> 00:32:23.839
<v Speaker 2>Charatis was absolutely scandalized.

650
00:32:23.880 --> 00:32:27.079
<v Speaker 1>He really was. He wrote that the Egyptians had completely

651
00:32:27.160 --> 00:32:30.920
<v Speaker 1>reversed the common practices of mankind. He was shocked that

652
00:32:31.000 --> 00:32:33.759
<v Speaker 1>women were out in the market's trading, managing property, and

653
00:32:33.839 --> 00:32:37.119
<v Speaker 1>conducting business while the men sat at home operating the

654
00:32:37.160 --> 00:32:38.039
<v Speaker 1>weaving looms.

655
00:32:38.279 --> 00:32:41.759
<v Speaker 2>The level of equality and economic agency that Egyptian women

656
00:32:41.839 --> 00:32:46.960
<v Speaker 2>possessed completely short circuited his strict patriarchal Greek mindset, and.

657
00:32:46.960 --> 00:32:50.319
<v Speaker 1>He was particularly taken aback by their religious festivals. He

658
00:32:50.400 --> 00:32:53.960
<v Speaker 1>describes witnessing pilgrims traveling by boat down the Nile to

659
00:32:54.000 --> 00:32:56.359
<v Speaker 1>the Delta city of Bubastis for a festival.

660
00:32:56.480 --> 00:32:57.839
<v Speaker 2>Ah Yes, the boat parties.

661
00:32:58.039 --> 00:33:01.480
<v Speaker 1>He describes this wild scene, women making noise, with clappers

662
00:33:01.519 --> 00:33:04.920
<v Speaker 1>playing obos, everyone's singing and clapping as they passed towns.

663
00:33:04.960 --> 00:33:06.839
<v Speaker 1>The women on the boats, which shout mockery at the

664
00:33:06.880 --> 00:33:09.839
<v Speaker 1>women on the shore. They would dance wildly, and some

665
00:33:09.880 --> 00:33:11.720
<v Speaker 1>would even stand up and flash the people on the

666
00:33:11.799 --> 00:33:12.319
<v Speaker 1>river banks.

667
00:33:12.680 --> 00:33:13.960
<v Speaker 2>It was a full on party.

668
00:33:14.079 --> 00:33:17.359
<v Speaker 1>It was loud, it was body, it was joyful. It

669
00:33:17.480 --> 00:33:20.640
<v Speaker 1>was so far removed from the stoic quiet reverence the

670
00:33:20.640 --> 00:33:22.680
<v Speaker 1>Greeks expected of religious devotion.

671
00:33:23.359 --> 00:33:26.559
<v Speaker 2>But the Ptolemies, to their immense credit, didn't try to

672
00:33:26.599 --> 00:33:31.279
<v Speaker 2>shut those native traditions down. In fact, they heavily funded them. Really, yes,

673
00:33:31.680 --> 00:33:34.880
<v Speaker 2>there is a very common misconception among modern tourists who

674
00:33:34.960 --> 00:33:38.319
<v Speaker 2>visit Egypt today when they stand in awe before the

675
00:33:38.400 --> 00:33:43.559
<v Speaker 2>incredibly preserved towering temples at esna Edfu, Dandero or Kamombo,

676
00:33:44.160 --> 00:33:47.160
<v Speaker 2>they assume they are looking at structures built by the pharaohs.

677
00:33:46.720 --> 00:33:50.079
<v Speaker 1>Of the New Kingdom, right because they look so classically Egyptian.

678
00:33:49.759 --> 00:33:53.359
<v Speaker 2>But they aren't. Many of the most famous iconic ancient

679
00:33:53.400 --> 00:33:57.400
<v Speaker 2>Egyptian temples were actually built from scratch or heavily restored

680
00:33:57.440 --> 00:33:58.720
<v Speaker 2>by these Greek ptolemies.

681
00:33:58.759 --> 00:34:01.279
<v Speaker 1>They were throwing massive amounts of money into native temple

682
00:34:01.319 --> 00:34:04.559
<v Speaker 1>building to keep the priests happy. The records highlight the

683
00:34:04.559 --> 00:34:07.440
<v Speaker 1>Temple of Pelae way down in upper Egypt near Us One.

684
00:34:07.640 --> 00:34:11.920
<v Speaker 1>It's this incredibly spiritual island complex dedicated to the goddess Isis,

685
00:34:12.440 --> 00:34:14.719
<v Speaker 1>and it was heavily built up by Ptolemy the second

686
00:34:14.760 --> 00:34:18.239
<v Speaker 1>and his sister, who, in traditional Egyptian royal fashion, was

687
00:34:18.280 --> 00:34:19.599
<v Speaker 1>also his wife, Arsino.

688
00:34:20.000 --> 00:34:23.320
<v Speaker 2>Arsenou is a fascinating figure. She was a powerful female

689
00:34:23.320 --> 00:34:26.000
<v Speaker 2>pharaoh in her own right, and Ptolemy the second actually

690
00:34:26.039 --> 00:34:29.000
<v Speaker 2>passed a law demanding that a statue of her be

691
00:34:29.039 --> 00:34:31.760
<v Speaker 2>erected in every single native temple in Egypt.

692
00:34:31.920 --> 00:34:33.599
<v Speaker 1>Wow, talk about an ego.

693
00:34:33.800 --> 00:34:37.239
<v Speaker 2>Well, she became the resident goddess closely associated with Isis,

694
00:34:37.719 --> 00:34:41.760
<v Speaker 2>and it's this exact blueprint the powerful female ruler embodying

695
00:34:41.840 --> 00:34:45.320
<v Speaker 2>the mother goddess Isis that the famous Cleopatra would successfully

696
00:34:45.360 --> 00:34:48.920
<v Speaker 2>adopt two centuries later to command the loyalty of the

697
00:34:49.039 --> 00:34:50.400
<v Speaker 2>native population, so.

698
00:34:50.360 --> 00:34:53.800
<v Speaker 1>They are building these beautiful traditional temples. But here's where

699
00:34:53.800 --> 00:34:57.599
<v Speaker 1>it gets really interesting. In Alexandria and the surrounding areas,

700
00:34:57.639 --> 00:35:00.719
<v Speaker 1>this blending of Greek and Egyptian cultures some times resulted

701
00:35:00.760 --> 00:35:02.199
<v Speaker 1>in art and architecture that.

702
00:35:02.280 --> 00:35:04.400
<v Speaker 2>Was just bizarre or truly bizarre.

703
00:35:04.440 --> 00:35:06.760
<v Speaker 1>I was looking at the notes on one specific family

704
00:35:06.840 --> 00:35:10.400
<v Speaker 1>tomb that perfectly illustrates how weird the hybrid culture became.

705
00:35:10.639 --> 00:35:14.159
<v Speaker 2>Yes, it is a remarkable archaeological find. It's a subterranean

706
00:35:14.159 --> 00:35:17.920
<v Speaker 2>tomb for a wealthy Alexandrian family and they essentially through

707
00:35:18.000 --> 00:35:20.880
<v Speaker 2>every single religious and cultural insurance policy they add at

708
00:35:20.920 --> 00:35:24.280
<v Speaker 2>the walls, hoping something would successfully get them into the afterlife.

709
00:35:24.360 --> 00:35:27.480
<v Speaker 1>It's an absolute visual mashup. You walk up and the

710
00:35:27.639 --> 00:35:31.559
<v Speaker 1>entrance is guarded by classical Greek dorrit columns. Now, for

711
00:35:31.599 --> 00:35:34.119
<v Speaker 1>the listener, when we say dorrit columns, think of the

712
00:35:34.159 --> 00:35:37.599
<v Speaker 1>austere fluted pillars you would see on the Parthenon in Athens,

713
00:35:37.679 --> 00:35:40.559
<v Speaker 1>very greed. But right next to those classical Greek columns

714
00:35:40.599 --> 00:35:44.880
<v Speaker 1>are statues of traditional Egyptian gods, and protecting the doorway

715
00:35:45.280 --> 00:35:49.400
<v Speaker 1>is a carved Egyptian cobra. But the cobra has no eyelashes.

716
00:35:49.599 --> 00:35:54.119
<v Speaker 2>Why because in Egyptian magical tradition, an eyelashless cobra can

717
00:35:54.159 --> 00:35:57.639
<v Speaker 2>never blink, meaning its eyes are forever open, allowing it

718
00:35:57.679 --> 00:35:59.880
<v Speaker 2>to stay awake twenty four hours a day to fierce

719
00:36:00.159 --> 00:36:03.119
<v Speaker 2>protect the tomb from evil spirits. It's a very specific

720
00:36:03.199 --> 00:36:04.400
<v Speaker 2>native magical detail.

721
00:36:04.440 --> 00:36:05.840
<v Speaker 1>But then you look at the statues of the two

722
00:36:05.880 --> 00:36:09.360
<v Speaker 1>owners themselves, and the cultural whiplash is intense. From the

723
00:36:09.440 --> 00:36:12.199
<v Speaker 1>neck down, their bodies, their rigid posture, the kilts they

724
00:36:12.239 --> 00:36:15.760
<v Speaker 1>are wearing. It is one hundred percent rigid ancient Egyptian

725
00:36:15.840 --> 00:36:16.360
<v Speaker 1>art style.

726
00:36:16.599 --> 00:36:19.800
<v Speaker 2>But from the neck up they have completely European Hellenistic

727
00:36:19.840 --> 00:36:22.760
<v Speaker 2>style heads and faces with curly hair and Greek features.

728
00:36:22.880 --> 00:36:25.599
<v Speaker 2>It looks like someone glued to Greek marble bust onto

729
00:36:25.639 --> 00:36:26.960
<v Speaker 2>an Egyptian action figure.

730
00:36:27.199 --> 00:36:30.880
<v Speaker 1>And the paintings inside are even crazier you have thought,

731
00:36:31.079 --> 00:36:35.760
<v Speaker 1>presenting sacred oils and Nubis mummifying the dead, the goddess

732
00:36:35.800 --> 00:36:38.719
<v Speaker 1>Mott weighing the heart against the feather of justice, all

733
00:36:38.840 --> 00:36:42.000
<v Speaker 1>the standard serious Egyptian requirements for navigating the.

734
00:36:42.079 --> 00:36:44.159
<v Speaker 2>Underworld, the necessary rituals.

735
00:36:44.199 --> 00:36:47.679
<v Speaker 1>But right underneath them they painted Dionysus, the Greek god

736
00:36:47.719 --> 00:36:50.199
<v Speaker 1>of wine, theater and festivity.

737
00:36:49.840 --> 00:36:52.360
<v Speaker 2>Because the owners of the tomb one of the absolute

738
00:36:52.440 --> 00:36:56.880
<v Speaker 2>guarantee of the ancient Egyptian afterlife, the immortality of the soul.

739
00:36:57.480 --> 00:36:59.679
<v Speaker 2>But they didn't want to give up the lavish lifestyle

740
00:36:59.679 --> 00:37:01.000
<v Speaker 2>of the Aca Alexandrian and elite.

741
00:37:01.039 --> 00:37:02.800
<v Speaker 1>They wanted to party in eternity.

742
00:37:03.079 --> 00:37:05.760
<v Speaker 2>They wanted to ensure that the opulent wine parties they

743
00:37:05.840 --> 00:37:08.880
<v Speaker 2>enjoyed in the Greek capital would continue eternally in the

744
00:37:08.920 --> 00:37:12.800
<v Speaker 2>Egyptian underworld. They were hedging their beds across two different pantheons.

745
00:37:12.880 --> 00:37:16.400
<v Speaker 1>It's cartoonish, it's this incredibly desperate attempt to cover all

746
00:37:16.400 --> 00:37:19.239
<v Speaker 1>the bases. But as funny as that tomb is, it

747
00:37:19.280 --> 00:37:22.880
<v Speaker 1>points to a darker reality because that cartoonish blend was

748
00:37:23.000 --> 00:37:26.400
<v Speaker 1>ultimately just a veneer. The real threat to Egypt wasn't

749
00:37:26.440 --> 00:37:29.480
<v Speaker 1>another foreign army marching over the horizon. The real threat

750
00:37:29.519 --> 00:37:31.079
<v Speaker 1>was coming from inside the palace.

751
00:37:31.559 --> 00:37:35.920
<v Speaker 2>Exactly the famous Ptolemaic love of luxury and excess became

752
00:37:35.960 --> 00:37:39.320
<v Speaker 2>their undoing. We have an ancient commentator who described the

753
00:37:39.400 --> 00:37:42.679
<v Speaker 2>royal court at Alexandria by saying, everything in Egypt is

754
00:37:42.719 --> 00:37:44.719
<v Speaker 2>simply play acting in painted scenery.

755
00:37:45.159 --> 00:37:47.760
<v Speaker 1>Ouch that is a devastating critique.

756
00:37:47.840 --> 00:37:50.400
<v Speaker 2>It cuts right to the heart of a melodramatic monarchy

757
00:37:50.679 --> 00:37:54.800
<v Speaker 2>where image was absolutely everything and substance was slowly draining away.

758
00:37:55.079 --> 00:37:57.880
<v Speaker 1>They were living it up in Alexandria, acting out their

759
00:37:57.960 --> 00:38:01.599
<v Speaker 1>grand Greek Egyptian hybrid fantasy while the rest of the

760
00:38:01.599 --> 00:38:04.760
<v Speaker 1>country was footing the bill. The taxes were crushing, the

761
00:38:04.760 --> 00:38:07.480
<v Speaker 1>Greek speaking elite were completely detached from the struggles of

762
00:38:07.519 --> 00:38:11.760
<v Speaker 1>the native Egyptian peasant farmers, and eventually the bill comes

763
00:38:11.800 --> 00:38:14.599
<v Speaker 1>due right the system breaks Upper Egypt, the southern part

764
00:38:14.639 --> 00:38:17.760
<v Speaker 1>of the country finally snaps. They begin to rebel and

765
00:38:17.800 --> 00:38:20.719
<v Speaker 1>the country is plunged into a brutal civil.

766
00:38:20.440 --> 00:38:22.480
<v Speaker 2>War, which leads us to one of the most famous

767
00:38:22.599 --> 00:38:26.199
<v Speaker 2>archaeological artifacts in human history, an object that most people

768
00:38:26.239 --> 00:38:29.719
<v Speaker 2>completely misunderstand, the Rosetta Stone.

769
00:38:29.840 --> 00:38:33.599
<v Speaker 1>Everyone knows the Rosetta Stone. It's the black slab of

770
00:38:33.679 --> 00:38:37.320
<v Speaker 1>rock that the French scholar Champoleon used in eighteen twenty

771
00:38:37.320 --> 00:38:41.280
<v Speaker 1>two to finally decipher Egyptian hieroglyphs. I always thought of

772
00:38:41.320 --> 00:38:43.519
<v Speaker 1>it as just a linguistic tool because it has the

773
00:38:43.559 --> 00:38:47.840
<v Speaker 1>same text written in three scripts formal Greek, everyday Egyptian,

774
00:38:47.880 --> 00:38:49.920
<v Speaker 1>demotic and sacred hieroglyphics.

775
00:38:50.360 --> 00:38:53.840
<v Speaker 2>Just to clarify for the listener, demotic was the cursive

776
00:38:54.039 --> 00:38:57.760
<v Speaker 2>everyday script used by regular Egyptians for business in daily life,

777
00:38:57.960 --> 00:39:01.400
<v Speaker 2>as opposed to the complex hieroglyphs used by priests. But

778
00:39:01.519 --> 00:39:04.920
<v Speaker 2>this raises an important question, why was that stone created

779
00:39:04.960 --> 00:39:05.719
<v Speaker 2>in the first place?

780
00:39:05.880 --> 00:39:07.679
<v Speaker 1>Right, It wasn't made for archaeologists.

781
00:39:07.880 --> 00:39:10.480
<v Speaker 2>It certainly wasn't designed to be a handy dictionary for

782
00:39:10.559 --> 00:39:15.039
<v Speaker 2>future European scholars. It was, in reality a desperate political

783
00:39:15.079 --> 00:39:17.800
<v Speaker 2>news bulletin issued by the boy king tole me Vi.

784
00:39:18.039 --> 00:39:19.960
<v Speaker 1>Wait. It was a bribe. I read the translation in

785
00:39:20.000 --> 00:39:22.760
<v Speaker 1>the notes. The country is tearing itself apart in civil war,

786
00:39:22.800 --> 00:39:26.119
<v Speaker 1>and Ptolemy V desperately needs the powerful native Egyptian priesthood

787
00:39:26.119 --> 00:39:28.199
<v Speaker 1>on his side to keep control of the population. So

788
00:39:28.280 --> 00:39:31.039
<v Speaker 1>he issues this massive decree written in three scripts so

789
00:39:31.199 --> 00:39:34.119
<v Speaker 1>absolutely every class of citizen can read it, bragging about

790
00:39:34.119 --> 00:39:36.920
<v Speaker 1>his incredibly generous financial patronage to the temples.

791
00:39:37.119 --> 00:39:41.400
<v Speaker 2>Precisely, he is publicly documenting how much silver and grain

792
00:39:41.480 --> 00:39:43.880
<v Speaker 2>he is giving the priests, and how much honor he

793
00:39:43.960 --> 00:39:46.320
<v Speaker 2>is showing to the sacred animals like our old friend

794
00:39:46.320 --> 00:39:47.360
<v Speaker 2>the Avis bull oh.

795
00:39:47.400 --> 00:39:48.400
<v Speaker 1>Tying it back to the Bull.

796
00:39:48.519 --> 00:39:51.280
<v Speaker 2>He is using the exact same playbook as Alexander, the

797
00:39:51.320 --> 00:39:55.039
<v Speaker 2>Saites and the Kushites. He is signaling to the native population,

798
00:39:55.519 --> 00:39:58.239
<v Speaker 2>I am respecting your traditions, I am paying for your temples,

799
00:39:58.280 --> 00:40:01.199
<v Speaker 2>I am doing things the Egyptian way. Please please support

800
00:40:01.239 --> 00:40:02.599
<v Speaker 2>my regime against the rebels.

801
00:40:03.039 --> 00:40:06.360
<v Speaker 1>But the philanthropy was just too expensive, trying to buy

802
00:40:06.440 --> 00:40:09.719
<v Speaker 1>peace drain the treasury. The second half of the Ptolemaic

803
00:40:09.800 --> 00:40:13.239
<v Speaker 1>dynasty is just a sad, downward spiral of crippling debt,

804
00:40:13.800 --> 00:40:18.320
<v Speaker 1>deep corruption, and vicious, endless civil wars between brothers and sisters.

805
00:40:18.480 --> 00:40:21.119
<v Speaker 1>It was a mess, and all of this internal chaos

806
00:40:21.239 --> 00:40:25.719
<v Speaker 1>leaves them completely vulnerable to a new terrifyingly efficient power

807
00:40:25.840 --> 00:40:29.599
<v Speaker 1>expanding rapidly across the Mediterranean, the Roman Empire.

808
00:40:29.880 --> 00:40:33.280
<v Speaker 2>The Romans were bearing down on a deeply divided, bankrupt Egypt,

809
00:40:33.760 --> 00:40:36.199
<v Speaker 2>and the only thing standing between Rome and the total

810
00:40:36.239 --> 00:40:39.719
<v Speaker 2>annexation of Egypt was the last Ptolemaic ruler, the brilliant

811
00:40:39.719 --> 00:40:40.920
<v Speaker 2>and tragic Cleopatra.

812
00:40:41.320 --> 00:40:44.519
<v Speaker 1>She fought so hard she was totally in the mold

813
00:40:44.519 --> 00:40:48.119
<v Speaker 1>of her ancestor, Alexander the Great. She genuinely believed she

814
00:40:48.159 --> 00:40:51.639
<v Speaker 1>was divine. She aggressively associated herself with the goddess Isis,

815
00:40:51.960 --> 00:40:55.880
<v Speaker 1>and through sheer political genius, charm, and strategic alliances with

816
00:40:56.000 --> 00:40:59.079
<v Speaker 1>Julius Caesar and Mark Antony, she managed to hold the

817
00:40:59.199 --> 00:41:02.440
<v Speaker 1>Roman war Mashine at bay for over twenty years.

818
00:41:02.599 --> 00:41:04.800
<v Speaker 2>She was a formidable politician.

819
00:41:04.559 --> 00:41:09.159
<v Speaker 1>But eventually the geopolitical reality was just too overwhelming. Following

820
00:41:09.199 --> 00:41:12.840
<v Speaker 1>her naval defeat by Octavian at Actium, Cleopatra realized that

821
00:41:12.880 --> 00:41:16.119
<v Speaker 1>the century's long game was finally over. She could not

822
00:41:16.239 --> 00:41:20.199
<v Speaker 1>prevent the inevitable annexation, and so in August of thirty BC,

823
00:41:20.440 --> 00:41:25.199
<v Speaker 1>to avoid being paraded through Roman chains, Cleopatra commits suicides.

824
00:41:24.760 --> 00:41:27.800
<v Speaker 2>And with her death, the three thousand year epic story

825
00:41:27.800 --> 00:41:31.679
<v Speaker 2>of ancient Egypt as an independent, culturally dominant force essentially

826
00:41:31.719 --> 00:41:34.159
<v Speaker 2>comes to an end in a matter of days. By

827
00:41:34.199 --> 00:41:37.159
<v Speaker 2>August thirty first, Room formerly annexed.

828
00:41:36.719 --> 00:41:39.159
<v Speaker 1>Egypt, it wasn't an independent kingdom anymore. It was just

829
00:41:39.199 --> 00:41:42.360
<v Speaker 1>a province, the personal, heavily taxed bread basket of the

830
00:41:42.400 --> 00:41:43.119
<v Speaker 1>Roman emperor.

831
00:41:43.400 --> 00:41:45.760
<v Speaker 2>That was the point of no return. It wasn't an

832
00:41:45.760 --> 00:41:50.280
<v Speaker 2>overnight disappearance of the culture, but rather a slow, painful fade.

833
00:41:51.079 --> 00:41:54.559
<v Speaker 2>The crushing Roman taxation drained the wealth out of the temples,

834
00:41:54.840 --> 00:41:57.280
<v Speaker 2>meaning the priests could no longer maintain the old rights.

835
00:41:57.559 --> 00:41:58.760
<v Speaker 1>They just ran out of money.

836
00:41:58.800 --> 00:42:01.559
<v Speaker 2>And then a few centuries later, with the eventual arrival

837
00:42:01.559 --> 00:42:06.119
<v Speaker 2>and spread of Christianity, the old gods were finally permanently dethroned.

838
00:42:06.920 --> 00:42:11.400
<v Speaker 2>The great temples at Karnak, at luxor at Phile were abandoned,

839
00:42:11.639 --> 00:42:15.039
<v Speaker 2>their stones repurposed or actively destroyed.

840
00:42:14.599 --> 00:42:17.800
<v Speaker 1>By zelots, and the desert reclaimed. At all the sand

841
00:42:17.880 --> 00:42:21.159
<v Speaker 1>literally blew in over those ten meters wide marble streets

842
00:42:21.199 --> 00:42:24.960
<v Speaker 1>in Alexandria. The Great Pyramids stood silently as the knowledge

843
00:42:25.000 --> 00:42:28.079
<v Speaker 1>of how to read hieroglyphs vanished from the earth entirely.

844
00:42:27.920 --> 00:42:28.880
<v Speaker 2>A total erasure.

845
00:42:29.119 --> 00:42:32.719
<v Speaker 1>The glorious zenith of rebirth, the fabled Golden Treasures, the

846
00:42:32.800 --> 00:42:36.320
<v Speaker 1>unshakable beliefs in the afterlife, they all slowly faded from

847
00:42:36.360 --> 00:42:39.199
<v Speaker 1>living memory and were buried under a thousand years of sand.

848
00:42:39.760 --> 00:42:41.639
<v Speaker 2>But if we zoom out and look at the entire

849
00:42:41.679 --> 00:42:44.519
<v Speaker 2>three thousand year arc we've discussed today, it is an

850
00:42:44.639 --> 00:42:49.760
<v Speaker 2>unparalleled human achievement. They survived chaos, famine, and internal collapse

851
00:42:49.920 --> 00:42:50.719
<v Speaker 2>over and over again.

852
00:42:50.800 --> 00:42:51.760
<v Speaker 1>It's an incredible run.

853
00:42:51.920 --> 00:42:55.039
<v Speaker 2>And when the invaders came, the Libyans wanting the gold,

854
00:42:55.039 --> 00:42:58.519
<v Speaker 2>the Kushites wanting the spiritual origin, the Assyrians bringing violence,

855
00:42:58.519 --> 00:43:01.880
<v Speaker 2>the Persians bringing subjugation, the Greeks bringing a new world order.

856
00:43:02.679 --> 00:43:06.639
<v Speaker 2>Egypt assimilated almost all of them. The true power of

857
00:43:06.679 --> 00:43:11.159
<v Speaker 2>Egypt was always its deep environmental roots and its completely

858
00:43:11.199 --> 00:43:13.000
<v Speaker 2>compelling magnetic worldview.

859
00:43:13.360 --> 00:43:15.360
<v Speaker 1>And the most beautiful part of this story is that

860
00:43:15.400 --> 00:43:18.559
<v Speaker 1>the slow fade into the sand wasn't the final chapter.

861
00:43:19.199 --> 00:43:23.000
<v Speaker 1>Starting in the nineteenth century, pioneering archaeologists began digging, They

862
00:43:23.039 --> 00:43:25.320
<v Speaker 1>brushed away the sand, They found the Rosetta Stone, they

863
00:43:25.320 --> 00:43:28.320
<v Speaker 1>deciphered the hieroglyphs, and they began a two hundred year

864
00:43:28.360 --> 00:43:29.719
<v Speaker 1>process of rediscoverer.

865
00:43:30.199 --> 00:43:34.599
<v Speaker 2>Ancient Egypt experienced one final, magnificent rebirth. But this time

866
00:43:34.599 --> 00:43:36.320
<v Speaker 2>it didn't just conquer the Nile Valley.

867
00:43:36.360 --> 00:43:39.039
<v Speaker 1>It went global exactly. I mean, you can walk along

868
00:43:39.079 --> 00:43:41.719
<v Speaker 1>the embankment in modern day London and suddenly look up

869
00:43:41.719 --> 00:43:46.119
<v Speaker 1>and see Cleopatra's Needle, a genuine ancient Egyptian obelisk, just

870
00:43:46.159 --> 00:43:49.039
<v Speaker 1>sitting there in the drizzling rain. The artifacts, the art,

871
00:43:49.119 --> 00:43:52.559
<v Speaker 1>the mythology, It's in museums in Paris, New York, Tokyo.

872
00:43:52.639 --> 00:43:55.199
<v Speaker 2>Which leaves us with a fascinating final thought to consider.

873
00:43:55.760 --> 00:43:59.360
<v Speaker 2>We usually measure the historical strength of a civilization by

874
00:43:59.400 --> 00:44:02.679
<v Speaker 2>its military we might, or by how much territory it

875
00:44:02.719 --> 00:44:05.239
<v Speaker 2>managed to conquer and hold with the sword right.

876
00:44:05.119 --> 00:44:07.079
<v Speaker 1>The traditional metrics of power.

877
00:44:06.920 --> 00:44:10.119
<v Speaker 2>But the story of Egypt suggests a completely different metric.

878
00:44:10.639 --> 00:44:13.440
<v Speaker 2>True immortality doesn't come from the strength of your walls.

879
00:44:13.960 --> 00:44:17.079
<v Speaker 2>It comes from having a culture so compelling, so esthetically

880
00:44:17.119 --> 00:44:20.280
<v Speaker 2>and spiritually magnetic, that even your enemies want to wear

881
00:44:20.320 --> 00:44:23.480
<v Speaker 2>your clothes, speak your name, and worship your gods.

882
00:44:24.039 --> 00:44:27.760
<v Speaker 1>In a way, the ancient Egyptians achieve their ultimate religious goal.

883
00:44:28.639 --> 00:44:31.760
<v Speaker 1>They secured eternal life in the minds of the entire world.

884
00:44:32.159 --> 00:44:34.760
<v Speaker 1>And it makes you wonder about our own era. We

885
00:44:34.800 --> 00:44:38.079
<v Speaker 1>don't have massive empires invading with chariots anymore, but we

886
00:44:38.239 --> 00:44:40.960
<v Speaker 1>do have massive, overwhelming cultural forces.

887
00:44:41.320 --> 00:44:44.400
<v Speaker 2>Exactly. If you want to think about a modern equivalent

888
00:44:44.440 --> 00:44:47.800
<v Speaker 2>to the cultural black hole of ancient Egypt, look at

889
00:44:47.800 --> 00:44:49.519
<v Speaker 2>the digital world. Look at the Internet.

890
00:44:49.599 --> 00:44:50.920
<v Speaker 1>Oh, that's an interesting comparison.

891
00:44:51.199 --> 00:44:55.360
<v Speaker 2>Think about it. Every subculture, every local tradition, every analog

892
00:44:55.480 --> 00:44:58.639
<v Speaker 2>business model that tries to interact with the digital landscape

893
00:44:59.159 --> 00:45:02.360
<v Speaker 2>eventually gets absor or buy it. The internet forces you

894
00:45:02.440 --> 00:45:06.559
<v Speaker 2>to adopt its language, memes, algorithms, viral trends, just to

895
00:45:06.599 --> 00:45:07.480
<v Speaker 2>survive within it.

896
00:45:07.599 --> 00:45:08.519
<v Speaker 1>That is so true.

897
00:45:08.840 --> 00:45:11.280
<v Speaker 2>You might think you are logging on to conquer an

898
00:45:11.320 --> 00:45:14.840
<v Speaker 2>audience or build a brand, but ultimately the digital culture

899
00:45:14.880 --> 00:45:19.039
<v Speaker 2>shapes your behavior, changes how you communicate, and completely assimilates

900
00:45:19.079 --> 00:45:19.920
<v Speaker 2>you into its framework.

901
00:45:20.000 --> 00:45:22.119
<v Speaker 1>So in the twenty first century, the Internet is the

902
00:45:22.159 --> 00:45:26.239
<v Speaker 1>new ancient Egypt. It's this massive, inescapable environment that quietly

903
00:45:26.320 --> 00:45:28.920
<v Speaker 1>conquers everyone who tries to use it. That is a

904
00:45:28.960 --> 00:45:31.480
<v Speaker 1>wild thought to leave on. As always, thank you for

905
00:45:31.599 --> 00:45:34.039
<v Speaker 1>joining us on this deep dive. Keep questioning the history

906
00:45:34.079 --> 00:45:35.480
<v Speaker 1>you think you know, and we'll catch you on the

907
00:45:35.519 --> 00:45:35.920
<v Speaker 1>next one.