Egypt's Lost Queens

Ancient Egypt, a rich history that lasted for over 6,000 years.

The lives and deaths of its leading characters still fascinate us today.

We come to museums like this one

to get a real sense of the grandeur of Ancient Egypt.

Monumental statues to monumental men.

But when we start to look around at the faces here,

they are just that...men,

so where are all the women of Ancient Egypt?

Well, of course, the most famous is Cleopatra The Great.

But then we have to go from the sublime to the ridiculous,

from the monumental to the tiny

because most of the images we have of the great women are in coin form,

but what about all the great women who came before Cleopatra?

I want to find out who they were.

If you know where to look,

the story of Ancient Egypt is also the story of extraordinary women,

who left behind an extraordinary legacy.

There she is,

Arsinoe, pharaoh, the goddess.

Ancient Egypt was a society

in which women had more rights than anywhere else in the ancient world.

And I'm going to be looking at four of my favourite women of power.

Each one, a trailblazer,

who, in different ways, paved the way for the rest.

The Venerated mother.

It might look like a hole in the ground,

but this is where it all began.

The powerful leader.

Look at me. I am a pharaoh.

The perfect diplomat.

Not only beautiful, this woman was pretty clever too.

And Cleopatra's globally-minded role model.

She knew that knowledge really was power.

Together, they created a legacy of female authority

that would influence not only Cleopatra,

but generations to come.

These women were incredible role models to all of us,

even in the modern world.

And by telling their story,

I'll be taking a fresh look at this great civilisation

through the eyes of the 'other' half of Ancient Egypt...

its women.

Now to understand the women of Ancient Egypt,

we need to go right back to the beginning.

To the Egyptians own story of creation.

A story that gave its female characters

unparalleled powers and status.

Powers inherited from the very gods themselves.

Now the ancient Egyptians had countless versions

of the creation story,

but most of them centred on their very distinctive environment

and the life-giving waters of the wonderful River Nile.

Now, in essence, what these creation myths tried to suggest

was that all life had started from these waters of creation

from which the great sun, the source of all life, had first emerged

to create the deities. The multitude of Egyptian deities male and female,

no less important and just as numerous as each other.

The most famous of these was the great goddess Isis and Osiris,

brother-sister gods, who were also husband and wife.

Now, according to the ancient Egyptians,

unlike most ancient cultures,

it was Isis who was the active, dominant partner

whereas Osiris was a rather passive fellow.

In fact, he was killed off early on in the story.

Poor Osiris.

The only power in the universe strong enough

to bring him back to life and resurrect him

was his great sister Isis,

who brought to bear all her great magic to resurrect him from the dead

and from this pair, so began all human kind.

Such stories of Isis, this powerful mythical woman,

are in many ways key to understanding

how women had such prominence in Egyptian life.

For Isis was venerated as a divine mother figure.

And the first real woman I'm going in search of gained her own power

and prestige as a mother.

She lived in the early time of the pharaohs, known as the Old Kingdom,

more than 4,500 years ago...

..and her name was Hetepheres.

For the ancient Egyptians,

death was simply a transition to the afterlife

into which the soul would need to be reborn.

And to house their souls as well as their bodies,

the Egyptian elite built ever-more elaborate tombs.

The most spectacular such tomb is the Great Pyramid of Giza,

final resting place of the powerful Old Kingdom leader...

Pharaoh Khufu.

Everybody comes to Egypt to see these.

And they are very big. They are very grand and they are very imposing,

but I am here today to see something even more interesting,

just over there.

I'm looking for the tomb of Khufu's mother, Queen Hetepheres.

For as mother of the King,

it seems that Khufu wanted her to be buried close by

to ensure his rebirth into the next world.

So, I have come here to find the source,

to find the origins of this whole entire site

and it all started here.

It might look like a hole in the ground,

but this is where it all began.

This is the entrance to the tomb of Hetepheres

and I believe it was this mother's life-giving force

that shaped this entire plateau forever.

Now in Hetepheres' day,

this landscape was a very special landscape.

It was on the edge of the desert

where the Egyptians traditionally buried their dead,

in the land of the west, the land where the sun set.

And yet, at her time, this entire plateau had nothing on it.

The rest of this necropolis unfolded as a result of her tomb being here

and it was filled with the most spectacular golden treasures.

Because 20 metres down this steep shaft at the very bottom

is the burial chamber and Hetepheres personal belongings covered in gold

were found there in 1925.

Hetepheres' tomb is the oldest, intact royal burial ever found,

predating the tomb of Tutankhamen by 1,300 years.

And all the contents of that tiny little tomb came here

to this quiet corner of Cairo Museum.

This is surely the ultimate in flat pack furniture.

This is the bedroom suite, if you like,

of the great Queen Hetepheres. It is absolutely stunning.

We've got her bed, her silver headrest, one of her gold thrones

and all manner of gold covered boxes.

And among these boxes, a unique collection of jewellery was found.

These spectacular silver bangles,

which she would have worn up each arm.

These are bespoke, and if you look very carefully,

you can see they're all slightly different sizes.

They start off quite large

and then they get increasingly smaller towards the wrist.

They would have fitted no-one else

and these are kind of made to measure just to fit her,

just to fit the great queen.

It's absolutely extraordinary to think

that this is 4,500 years old.

As King Khufu's mother,

Hetepheres was the most important woman in his life.

So, he made sure that her tomb was filled with all the luxuries

she would need in the afterlife.

This fabulous gold carrying chair,

which was given to queen Hetepheres by her son

is a fantastic work of art.

Her titles are inlaid in these fine, gold hieroglyphs

down the back of the chair inlaid in this dark ebony wood.

You can see the little figure of the bee and the plant

and right immediately below that is the vulture and that means mother.

'Mother of the King of upper and lower Egypt.'

The next sign is a golden falcon.

'Follower of Horus.'

And then scroll right down through all these wonderful titles

that Hetepheres held in her lifetime.

'Overseer of the affairs of the palace.

'She whose every command is carried out.

'Daughter of the Gods body.'

And the last 6 hieroglyphs gives the names Hetepheres,

the woman herself and in the very final hieroglyph

that's the so-called determinative,

which shows her enthroned

and we come face to face with the woman herself.

Being the mother of the king certainly had its perks

and being carried around was one of them.

For a slightly less royal ride in the desert,

I have asked Faith and Ibrahim for help.

Now, this wonderful thing

is a replica of Hetepheres' carrying chair and I am going to try out now.

It really symbolises how precious this royal woman was

that like the goddesses, she was carried around.

She was far, far too important to merely walk across the ground.

So, she was carried everywhere in the chair like this one.

SHE SPEAKS IN ARABIC

SHE GIVES INSTRUCTIONS IN ARABIC

SHE SQUEALS AND GIGGLES

This is so good. This is really good.

I wouldn't like to go very far in it though.

Now, although in many ways,

Hetepheres was the source of everything here.

She was only ever the king's mother.

She may have given birth to him, guided him throughout his life

and enabled him to enter the next world,

but she was only ever royal mother

unlike my next mighty woman of power,

the ultimate Egyptian pharaoh.

Move forward over 1,000 years to my next choice.

Another great royal woman destined to become

one of Egypt's greatest pharaohs.

Her name was Hatshepsut.

And although at least 15 women

are now known to have ruled Egypt as pharaoh...

..Hatshepsut would really make history...

..as both the monumental builder and a royal warrior.

Although Hatshepsut was of direct royal descent,

becoming pharaoh wasn't so straightforward

and required some skilful, political manoeuvring.

At the death of her husband, the reigning pharaoh,

her stepson and heir to the throne was too young to rule.

So, Hatshepsut ruled on his behalf and was eventually crowned king.

But how did she hold on to her power?

Staring down on visitors to Cairo Museum,

her intimidating presence can still be felt.

All pharaohs had to look the part,

but it was especially important for a woman

to project herself as the perfect leader.

It's all about how you looked.

If you looked like a pharaoh, you were a pharaoh.

You took on the attributes of a pharaoh

and that's exactly what Hatshepsut is doing here.

The correct crown, the tie on false-beard

and other parts of the regalia

were all meant to emphasise to her subjects

because you are looking at 95, 99% illiterate subjects.

They couldn't read royal edicts.

They couldn't read any sacred inscription.

It was all about the visual

and that is what Hatshepsut was so brilliant at doing.

This ultimate in propaganda.

Look at me. I am a pharaoh.

Wearing a tie-on false beard

was considered a divine attribute of the gods.

All pharaohs had one and Hatshepsut was no exception.

But she didn't confine such visually dazzling statements of power

to her own appearance.

I'm travelling to Hatshepsut's power base

500km south of Cairo...

..to Thebes, modern day Luxor.

For here, Hatshepsut remodelled the landscape

with a whole series of monumental buildings.

The most famous, her sublime funerary temple

at Deir el-Bahari.

Known by its most ancient name 'the most sacred of sacred places',

the temple is one of Egypt's most spectacular buildings.

The ultimate eternal monument.

Now seeming to emerge from the foot of the Theban hills,

Hatshepsut's temple is a brilliant piece of architecture.

It's clean, geometric lines contrast stunningly well

against the rugged rocks behind them.

It's surely one of the most beautiful temples in Egypt

and the most fitting place to commemorate the life

of the great female pharaoh Hatshepsut.

The setting of the temple is indeed awe-inspiring.

But the reasons behind its construction

go far beyond the aesthetic.

Now, Hatshepsut built here for three specific reasons.

Firstly, it lay directly across

from the great temple of the state god Amun-Ra.

Secondly, offerings could be left for her soul for eternity

rather than disturbing the peace of her tomb

and thirdly, this place was filled with scenes personally selected

by Hatshepsut illustrating and emphasising

her right to the throne.

In short, this was a piece of permanent political propaganda.

But Hatshepsut wasn't just a builder.

She was also a military commander,

twice leading campaigns herself against Egypt's enemies in Nubia.

And some of the offerings discovered at Deir el-Bahari

hint at Hatshepsut's military capabilities.

She lead her troupes into battle on at least two occasions.

Texts describe her as a conqueror.

"She who will be a conqueror, flaming against her enemies."

This very special thing.

It's a votive offering, presentative of an axe blade, a copper alloy

and it's inscribed with Hatshepsut's names and titles.

And I think, in a single object.

it encapsulates this female pharaoh, this woman warrior.

It's a wonderful thing.

Having proved her military skills,

Hatshepsut turned her attention

to securing the nation's peaceful prosperity.

She formed economic alliances

that brought wealth into her country.

Trading with kingdoms like Punt to the south on the Red Sea coast.

Now, Hatshepsut certainly expanded Egypt's trade routes

and initiated commerce on a large scale.

She also reopened the very lucrative trading routes with the land of Punt

down the Red Sea coast.

And we can see exactly this scene behind us now.

These are the Egyptians arriving in Punt.

These are the Puntites coming out to meet them

and this is the place where the commerce occurred.

It's a small low chest on which the Egyptians have placed

all the valuable goods, the beads, the bangles,

the metal weaponry with which they're then going to trade

with the Puntites for this most precious of commodities,

that kind of red dome-shape.

That's actually a huge pile of myrrh resin.

Myrrh and other resins were traditionally used

in temple rituals, in mummification

and were also key ingredients in perfume production.

And Hatshepsut herself is known to have used fragrant myrrh oil

rubbed into her skin to, as she puts it herself,

"Gleam like the stars before the whole land."

So, in the days before the modern celebrity,

Hatshepsut also had her own signature fragrance.

The details in such scenes certainly help piece together

how Hatshepsut managed to hold on to power for over 20 years.

But through one intriguing object,

I can even experience a little bit of time travel.

That's quite amazing.

This small alabaster vessel still has its original contents

after almost 3,500 years.

And her names and titles are again inscribed on the front,

but look inside.

It's the actual imported resin.

This is the stuff that is referred to on the walls at Deir el-Bahari

and here it is.

It's amazing.

It's as if we can smell the past.

We can't just see it, we can't just read the words.

It's contained in this very vessel.

Maintaining power for over two decades of peace and prosperity,

Hatshepsut was the most successful female monarch Egypt had yet seen.

And she had proved beyond doubt

that an effective leader didn't have to be a man.

As part of Hatshepsut's master plan for posterity,

she commissioned two pairs of pink granite obelisks at Karnak Temple.

At almost 30 metres high,

this one is the tallest still standing, anywhere in Egypt.

In her own words, she tells us why she wanted to set up

such striking monuments as a tribute to her father,

to "the one who made me," she says.

And by father she didn't mean her natural parent, but Amun,

the king of the gods, to whom this whole temple is dedicated.

Their tops would have been capped with electrum,

which is a blend of gold and silver

and the idea is they acted as a kind of esoteric lightning rod

to catch the very first rays of the sun at dawn

to transmit that solar power down here,

into the heart of Karnak Temple...

..where it could then be re-distributed

for the good of Egypt.

Karnak Temple is the place where the god Amun was worshipped.

This huge religious complex was continually expanded and embellished

by successive rulers.

And Hatshepsut made sure that she paid tribute to the king of the gods

in the grandest of styles.

This is the Red Chapel of Hatshepsut.

This shrine was known as the 'place of the heart of Amun', the state god

and lay at the very centre of his great temple at Karnak.

It was kind of like a sacred garage,

which housed the sacred barque, or boat,

on which the god's statue stood

and would have been paraded around in procession as we can see here

on these wall scenes behind me.

We can see the rows of shaven-headed priests

bringing in the sacred barque

on which the statue of the god is housed.

Hidden behind these little curtains to keep him from profane eyes.

And the barque itself has been greeted by the two co-rulers,

the young male pharaoh - Tutmosis.

Bringing up the ceremonial rear,

as a kind of glorified magician's assistant,

he's burning incense to welcome the god's arrival

and yet, centre-stage is Hatshepsut herself.

Make no mistake, she's the most important figure here.

She is the senior partner.

SHE is the child of god.

Through such lavish endowments,

Hatshepsut was demonstrating her veneration to Amun.

And assisted by the priests,

the pharaoh had to personally perform

the necessary religious ceremonies to maintain cosmic order.

And this is where Hatshepsut herself would have stood

to perform the sacred rites before the god,

presenting the offerings and pouring the sacred water

all around the god statue.

Of course, Hatshepsut would have used a golden vessel

and we have a rusty, old bucket,

but it gives you an idea of what would have occurred.

With the sacred water channelled out and beyond the chapel,

the god's protection spread throughout the entire land

and beyond.

For Hatshepsut wished to be "eternal like an undying star"

and she certainly gained a unique place in history.

The feelings aroused by the notion of a female pharaoh

remained so strong that, for some,

Hatshepsut's been cast as a kind of wicked step-mother figure.

Kind of a woman who dared to masquerade as a man,

dressing up with a false beard of kingship

and usurping the right to the throne.

For others, however, she's a huge inspiration.

An amazing woman, who kind of led the way for generations to come.

Hatshepsut's reign had been a triumph

and yet, at her death, her stepson took sole power

and for now, female rule was over.

Leaders like Hatshepsut reveal Ancient Egypt

as one of the most egalitarian societies of the ancient world,

where women could achieve high-powered roles, own property,

make business deals, earn equal pay and go to court.

It may all sound reasonable now, but it was highly unusual back then.

I have arranged to have tea with the academic Sahar El Mougy,

who's written extensively about the legacy

of these incredible ancient role models.

Tell me, Sahar, in terms of the female rulers of Ancient Egypt,

when you were growing up,

was it easy to find out about them, about their legacy?

Because I know there's very little

in the Egyptological literature about them.

They seemed to have been swept very much under the academic carpet.

But what's the situation in Egypt, was it different for you?

I grew up not knowing about those women,

except in bits and pieces in boring history books at school.

In the process of writing,

I was like getting to know my mothers and grandmothers

and that's why in my writings

those female goddesses come back to life as inspiring figures.

The amount of power that I received from knowing about them

through my own eyes, it was immense.

It was magical. It was like, "Wow! This is where I come from."

It must be said female pharaohs were quite a rarity

and by the 19th dynasty,

a new regime of ex-military men from the north had taken power in Egypt.

Men were now very much in control

and the royal women had to find other tactics.

Around 150 years after the death of Hatshepsut,

my next woman used diplomatic skills to assert herself

at the heart of Egyptian politics.

Her name was Nefertari.

Meaning 'the loveliest one of all',

Nefertari was not only beautiful,

she was also one of Egypt's most gifted queen consorts.

As a very young woman, Nefertari had married a prince,

who would become one of Egypt's most famous pharaohs...

..Ramses II.

And it's quite impossible to go anywhere in Egypt

without bumping into him.

For he ruled longer, built bigger

and certainly boasted more than almost any other pharaoh.

In ancient Egypt, size is everything.

And Ramses himself has accurately been described

as the giant planet Jupiter,

Brilliant at a distance, but essentially a ball of gas.

And this really cuts to the heart of his policy

of quantity over quality, the bigger the better

and this is wonderfully expressed by this statue here.

We can see Ramses' on a colossal scale

while even his favourite wife, Nefertari,

clutches at the back of his leg not even as high as his knee!

So, in order to find out more about her,

we have to travel beyond Egypt's traditional boundaries.

So I'm going 400km south to tell a different side of this story.

To the temple of Abu Simbel.

As one of the most monumental examples of pharaonic might,

it was built on the border with volatile Nubia

and was designed to strike fear and respect into all

who sailed past along the Nile toward Egypt.

This is the temple of Abu Simbel

built by Ramses II during his 67th year reign.

And it's typical of the man.

It's massive,

it's monumental

and yet, it's only one of the temples at Abu Simbel.

In short, it's only half the story.

The story I'm really interested in is next door...

..within a temple dedicated, for once, not to Ramses,

but to his wife.

And here she is, the great Queen Nefertari

standing a colossal 33 feet tall.

If you look very carefully,

you'll see she is just that little bit taller

than her famous husband Ramses II

because of the tall, feather crown she is wearing.

Built to make a statement,

the temples towering size, conveyed a strategic, political message

that puts Nefertari at the heart of power.

And so, for Ramses to erect these massive statues of his wife,

he's really bringing into play every force at his disposal,

including the good lady wife,

the little woman at home, quite literally,

but out here in Nubia, in the wiles of this desert landscape,

these volatile tribes people,

he needed her help and she was a very potent force.

Her colossal, striking image

reveals that Nefertari was the ultimate trophy wife.

THEY SPEAK IN ARABIC

In the interior of her temple,

Nefertari appears in a variety of scenes,

performing a series of sacred rights.

Taking an active role next to her husband.

She's got her arms raised.

She's encouraging her royal husband Ramses,

who's in that classic pose of an Egyptian pharaoh,

smiting the enemy.

Basically, this is a state execution.

They cower at his feet.

He holds them by the top of the head with the hair

and once they're in that position,

he brings the weapon down on their head,

literally bashes out their brains.

And all the while, Nefertari on the sidelines

as a kind of royal cheerleader, if you like.

Two sides of the same coin,

but of no less value than a husband.

It's a very, very potent scene.

There is definitely no doubt that this was a royal double act.

Egyptologist and Abu Simbel director Dr Ahmed Saleh

has spent many years studying the images within both these temples.

Is there enough information in the evidence we have

to try and get an understanding of what they were like as a couple?

He loved her very much.

He married her before he ascended to the throne.

That means he had fallen in love with Nefertari.

She accompanied him like a deputy.

Yet, it seems that when Nefertari sailed this far south,

her health was fading fast.

The sad story here is Nefertari didn't see her temple.

She was sick. She stayed in the boat,

maybe she can see the statues of her outside,

but she didn't come inside her temple.

What a shame she could only view the exterior,

at least she saw her statues.

-This is a sad story.

-It is a sad story.

I think this is the last time of Nefertari.

This is... We're talking about the 24th year of his reign.

This is the last year of Nefertari,

because when she goes back to Thebes,

I think, she died and she buried there.

I'm travelling back north to get inside Nefertari's tomb.

The place where I can find more evidence of the woman herself.

Located in the Valley of the Queens,

its scenes are so delicate that access is limited.

I have just been given permission

to personally unlock the tomb of Nefertari,

the great royal wife of Ramses II and I am really excited

cos this is an absolute gem of a tomb.

I have only ever seen it once before when I was much younger,

so this is going to be a rare treat.

That is a big key.

SHE GASPS

Oh, my word!

Wow!

Oh, wow! Oh, wow!

Covering 520 square metres,

its brilliant jewel-like images vividly depict her journey

into the hereafter.

The scenes just continue one after another, after another.

There's nothing here left to chance.

Nothing's thrown in simply as a little bit of pretty decoration.

It's like a machine functioning

to keep Nefertari's soul alive in the next world.

Great attention was given to her appearance.

Her eyes and eyebrows outlined in black,

a subtle, red colour on her cheeks and lips

and the most exquisite golden jewellery adorning her.

Nefertari, the loveliest of all.

Her name implies incredible beauty and she really lives up to this...

this name that she has.

She is the ultimate high-maintenance woman.

She was certainly beautiful,

but one particular wall scene shows Nefertari in the company of Thoth,

the god of knowledge and literacy, who was selected for a reason.

We come to this wonderful scene,

which really ties in to what we know about Nefertari in life.

Nefertari's chosen to have the weighing of the heart,

the judgment of the dead scene,

from the Book Of The Dead, written out,

but illustrated in a rather unique manner

because here she is.

She's having herself in the guise of the deity of Thoth,

the ibis-headed god of literacy and writing.

And the emphasis on writing can be seen on the scribble palette,

which stands between Nefertari and the god Thoth

and there she's presenting herself before Thoth.

She says, "I am a scribe. I am a scribe."

That's quite an emphatic statement.

Not only beautiful, this woman was pretty clever too.

As a royal wife,

she would, of course, have had scribes to write on her behalf,

but being able to read and write hieroglyphs

was then regarded as the ultimate in academic achievement.

And Nefertari made sure that her credentials

would be clearly portrayed for posterity.

Being the wife of such a domineering husband

would also have required a considerable amount

of gentle persuasion and soft power.

Skills best shown in diplomatic correspondence exchanged

with Egypt's great rivals, the Hittites of Anatolia,

in modern Turkey.

Nefertari is known to have corresponded

with her opposite number in the Hittites heartland,

the great Queen Puduhepa

and it's amazing that one of these very letters has actually survived.

Nefertari would have composed her own letter in the Egyptian language

and then a bilingual scribe would have translated it into cuneiform,

and then embossed it on small clay tablets.

This is the exact letter that Nefertari wrote to Puduhepa.

It's obviously a replica, but it really gives a flavour

of the very words of our great royal wife Nefertari.

It's full of warmth, full of sisterly felicitations.

"To my sister Puduhepa, Great Queen of the Hittites,

"May the Sun god of Egypt and the Storm god of the Hittites

"bring you joy

"and may the Sun god make the peace good forever."

And at the very end, there's this very touching reference

to the greetings gift she is sending the Hittite Queen.

"I've sent you a greeting gift, my sister,

"for your neck a necklace of pure gold,

"and some coloured linen to make a royal robe

"for your husband, the king."

Sending such greeting gifts to the monarchs with whom you corresponded

played a crucial role in the diplomacy of the ancient world.

If we actually look at Nefertari's ear,

we can see something which encapsulates this idea.

Because regardless of all the gold,

all the Egyptian royals were dripping in gold.

Everybody knew that gold was as common as dust in Egypt,

'you only have to pick it up,' wrote the ancient correspondents,

but in Nefertari's ear is a silver earring of far more value.

Not only that, it isn't even an Egyptian earring.

It's a style of Greek earring

because these silver pieces of jewellery were sent to Nefertari

from the Aegean area, so in faraway Greece they knew about Nefertari

and these earrings were sent to her

and she wore them with great pride throughout her life.

So there is rather more to this jewellery and frocks business

than at first meets the eye.

Amidst such jewelled splendour,

Nefertari was finally laid to rest in the manner

in which she had lived,

in the most spectacular tomb in the whole of Egypt.

I think one of the things that strikes you more emphatically

when you catch your breath and calm down

and start looking at these scenes in a more logical

rather than emotional way,

you suddenly realise that Nefertari's husband's not here -

the great Ramses is nowhere present.

He's on every temple throughout Egypt. He's everywhere

and yet, here, in his wife's last resting place,

there isn't a single image of him.

Now, of course, Egyptologists have postulated many theories

about why the great Ramses wasn't actually portrayed

in his wife's tomb.

I, personally, prefer to think that she herself thought,

"Well, I've lived with him for so many years and...

"in the next world, it'd be wonderful

"not to have to listen to him forever."

But whatever the real reason,

there's no doubting the importance and influence of Nefertari

as queen of one of Egypt's best known pharaohs.

Yet, despite Nefertari's best diplomatic efforts,

Egypt's political fortunes were soon in sharp decline.

Amidst rampant inflation and official corruption,

a long series of ephemeral rulers

proved completely incapable of defending Egypt's borders

from wave after wave of foreign invaders

throughout the first millennium BC.

And the most successful of these were the Macedonian Ptolemies,

who would change Egypt's fortunes forever.

900 years after Nefertari,

a new era in Egypt's history

produced the first female pharaoh of the Ptolemies -

Arsinoe.

She capitalised on the success of the women rulers

who'd gone before her.

Arsinoe was able to bring together two worlds,

the Egyptian and the Greek,

building on a legacy inherited from the most famous Greek of them all -

Alexander the Great.

Everybody has heard of Alexander the Great,

who invaded Egypt in 332 BC

and was crowned pharaoh as shown in repeated scenes here.

Alexander was then succeeded by his rumoured half-brother Ptolemy,

whose dynasty then went on to rule Egypt

for the last three centuries BC.

Ptolemy, in turn, was succeeded by his extraordinary daughter Arsinoe,

whose spectacular achievements were very consciously modelled

on those of uncle Alexander.

Born in Egypt, the teenage Arsinoe was sent to Greece

for an arranged royal marriage.

Then, at the death of her husband, the king

and a second disastrous marriage, she fled for her life back to Egypt.

But having acquired a taste for power,

Arsinoe persuaded her younger brother, the pharaoh, to marry her.

He would be her route to the crown.

In one move, Arsinoe became ruler of two worlds -

Egypt and the Greek Mediterranean.

Through her international connections,

Arsinoe brought more prosperity, knowledge and wealth

into Egypt than almost any other ruler before her.

The bronze figure is all very interesting

because you have Arsinoe

almost giving the queenly wave, if you like,

a very regal posture she's striking,

but look what she's carrying in her left arm.

It's a cornucopia,

which is a kind of Greek-pointed vessel,

but within it, all the bounty, the fruits, the flowers,

the wealth of Egypt

and there isn't just one cornucopia, but two.

She is bringing double the amount

that anyone else can possibly bring.

Arsinoe spent much of this fortune in the new royal capital Alexandria,

where her opulent lifestyle was sustained

by a continuous flow of exotic imports

from as far afield as India and even further east.

And as goods like ivory, silk and jewels poured into the country,

the rest of the population thrived too,

as Egypt became the greatest marketplace on earth.

SHE SPEAKS IN ARABIC

Yeah, hello.

Let's try this one.

SHE SPEAKS IN ARABIC

I'm looking for some fabric.

Oh, that's beautiful.

How much?

HE SPEAKS IN ARABIC

Fixed price. OK! Well, that's good.

So, with commerce operating on such a vast scale,

Arsinoe and her brother set up a sophisticated bureaucracy

to manage the staggering wealth circulating within their empire.

Now, coinage, finance, plays a huge part in Arsinoe's story.

She was an extraordinary woman.

She had huge personal fortune

and her financial acumen was very much focused

on Egypt's own finances.

She and her brother-husband Ptolemy

created a kind of doomsday style inventory of all Egypt's assets.

She created royal monopolies on absolutely everything

making sure that finance flowed directly into the royal house

and in Ancient Egypt previously barter economy,

coinage played a crucial role.

It became increasingly common as a means of financial transactions.

Pretty much, it was the beginning of capitalism.

Under Arsinoe, Egypt was once again a land of plenty and wealth.

And yet, her coins had another very useful purpose

as a means of circulating her agenda.

This coin shows Arsinoe wearing the Greek diadem crown

and a veil over carefully styled hair pulled back into a bun.

At first appearance the epitome of a standard Greek queen.

This is the perfect portrait of an elite Greek matron.

Very respectable looking, very well coifed, very well dressed

and yet, if you look really, really closely

just poking out in front of her ear,

just looks like a very tasteful little earring,

but it's actually a ram's horn.

It's the ram's horns of Alexander The Great.

Arsinoe is using this very, very subtle device to say,

"I am the successor of the Great Alexander."

As his successor, Arsinoe built on the legacy of Alexander,

whose emblems were the ram's horns of Egypt's state god Amun.

And so, by adopting this symbol herself,

Arsinoe was tapping into an ancient force.

This single, subtle image confirming her place

as the ruler of two worlds.

Almost 200km south of Luxor, a remarkable site

on an island in the middle of the Nile

gives a real sense of the power at Arsinoe's disposal.

Now, we know that every temple in Egypt house statues of Arsinoe

as the resident goddess alongside their traditional deities.

But at Philae,

she was also worshipped as the equivalent of Isis herself,

the mother of all gods.

Philae Temple has rightly been dubbed the pearl of the Nile.

It was the cult centre of the great goddess Isis,

and in many ways, it was kind of an outpost

both in terms of its southerly geographical location

and that this was the very last place in Egypt

where the ancient gods were worshipped

as late as the 6th century AD,

but not only was Isis worshipped here,

Arsinoe, too, was the resident goddess.

In fact, it was through the international influence of Arsinoe

that Isis goes global.

Arsinoe's desire to be seen as the active goddess Isis

sent a very clear message to her subjects.

She had certainly played a fundamental role in shaping Egypt

both at home and abroad.

But Arsinoe's many achievements were only possible

because of the countless generations of incredible women

who had gone before her.

And it's in one specific image,

she paid permanent tribute to all of them.

Follow me, this way.

There she is, Arsinoe, Pharaoh, the goddess.

She's got all her regalia on,

that emphasises just how much power this woman has.

And it's the crown, the focus of so much recent research,

that can tell us so much.

We can even deconstruct it to tell Arsinoe's full story.

If we start with this crown.

This is the red crown.

It represents northern Egypt and very much embodies the idea

that Arsinoe ruled form the royal capital Alexandria

on Egypt's northern coastline.

Next of all, we have the two tall feathers at the top

and the cow's horns as worn by the great royal wife Nefertari,

wife of Ramses II.

And then we move on to the twisted ram's horns,

of course, various forms of ram's horns are associated

with the great state god Amun-Ra,

a favourite deity of Hatshepsut.

And finally, at the very heart of this very special crown,

the sun disk, the great creator of all life.

Takes us right back to the pyramid age and Hetepheres,

the queen mother.

So, by taking on this crown, Arsinoe is telling us

she's taking on the accumulated powers of all these great women,

who were in power in Egypt from so many centuries before her.

It's a wonderful thing.

With this crown later adopted by the great Cleopatra herself,

these incredible women had been her guides

as she extended Egypt's power across so much of the ancient world.

Now, I must say, this journey for me has been an incredibly opportunity

to engage with Ancient Egypt in a new and very fresh way.

It's allowed me to investigate the lives of some incredible people,

four amazing women.

These women were incredible role models to all of us

even in the modern world.

They were lovers, mothers, queens, goddesses and pharaohs.

They were incredibly strong. They were incredibly capable

and they underpinned the whole of this fantastic ancient civilisation.