0:00:02 > 0:00:05'The great civilisation of Ancient Egypt,
0:00:05 > 0:00:09'with its dramatic spectacle and mystery, has always fascinated me.
0:00:10 > 0:00:14'I've been travelling the country to explore some intriguing stories
0:00:14 > 0:00:18'that have emerged from this historic land.
0:00:18 > 0:00:22'In this programme, my journey takes me the length of the country
0:00:22 > 0:00:27'to find out what brought this remarkable civilisation to an abrupt and tragic end.'
0:00:46 > 0:00:51'For me, the most striking thing about the Ancient Egyptian civilisation
0:00:51 > 0:00:54'is that it lasted so long.
0:00:54 > 0:00:57'Astonishingly, for over 3,000 years,
0:00:57 > 0:01:02'it had a powerful grip on the imagination of all who lived here.
0:01:02 > 0:01:07'The culture of Egypt flourished for longer than any other in history -
0:01:07 > 0:01:11'a testament to how compelling their beliefs and traditions were.
0:01:12 > 0:01:16'But finally something happened that would utterly destroy
0:01:16 > 0:01:18'the entire magnificent civilisation.'
0:01:22 > 0:01:26'In this isolated place, there's something very poignant
0:01:26 > 0:01:31'that bears witness to the extraordinary tale of the end of Egypt.
0:01:31 > 0:01:34'It's the last trace of this great civilisation
0:01:34 > 0:01:36'in its death throws.'
0:01:39 > 0:01:41This temple contains a very revealing,
0:01:41 > 0:01:46and for me, a very moving detail. An inscription.
0:01:48 > 0:01:52This is the last hieroglyphic inscription made in Ancient Egypt.
0:01:52 > 0:01:54Our ability to read such inscriptions
0:01:54 > 0:01:57was lost for nearly 2,000 years.
0:02:01 > 0:02:03'After the priests left this temple,
0:02:03 > 0:02:07'the entire culture, language, and traditions of Ancient Egypt died.
0:02:09 > 0:02:13'Everything that we now think of as distinctly Egyptian came to an end.
0:02:13 > 0:02:17'The art and religion would never be practised again.
0:02:17 > 0:02:21'There were to be no more pyramids, temples, mummies or hieroglyphs.
0:02:21 > 0:02:25'The entire belief system of Ancient Egypt collapsed.'
0:02:26 > 0:02:28How did this happen?
0:02:31 > 0:02:33'It's a remarkable story,
0:02:33 > 0:02:37'in which Egypt would have to face three different onslaughts,
0:02:37 > 0:02:43'from powerful rival cultures, before the brutal end came.
0:02:43 > 0:02:46'Incredibly, Egypt's ancient traditions
0:02:46 > 0:02:49'would survive the first two onslaughts almost intact.
0:02:49 > 0:02:53'But the third, the last, would finally bring it down.'
0:02:57 > 0:03:01'The story begins here, in the north of Egypt,
0:03:01 > 0:03:07'on the Mediterranean coast, where the first of these three onslaughts began in the fourth century BC.
0:03:07 > 0:03:10'It came from the Greeks - one of the few civilisations
0:03:10 > 0:03:14'with a culture powerful enough to rival that of Ancient Egypt.'
0:03:16 > 0:03:20Egypt had been ruled by foreign dynasties in the past,
0:03:20 > 0:03:23for example the Persians in the sixth century BC.
0:03:23 > 0:03:28It survived that. Its civilization had survived foreign rule.
0:03:28 > 0:03:34But a young man arrived here in 332BC.
0:03:34 > 0:03:38And on the Mediterranean coast laid out a great city,
0:03:38 > 0:03:41a city named after himself - Alexandria.
0:03:41 > 0:03:46And that young man was, of course, Alexander The Great -
0:03:46 > 0:03:49one of the greatest conquerors the world has ever seen.
0:03:52 > 0:03:56'Alexander didn't stay long after he conquered Egypt,
0:03:56 > 0:04:00'but he was determined to leave his mark on this ancient land.
0:04:00 > 0:04:06'He made this great port, Alexandria, the capital of the country.
0:04:06 > 0:04:11'And into this magnificent city flowed all the new Greek ideas.'
0:04:17 > 0:04:20'It was these persuasive new ideas that would challenge
0:04:20 > 0:04:23'the age-old beliefs of the Egyptian people.'
0:04:29 > 0:04:31'After Alexander,
0:04:31 > 0:04:36'a Greek dynasty - the Ptolemies - ruled Egypt for 300 years.
0:04:36 > 0:04:38'They continued to bring in the latest ideas
0:04:38 > 0:04:40'from around the Greek Empire.
0:04:40 > 0:04:42'And so, here in Alexandria,
0:04:42 > 0:04:47'they built the most remarkable library the world had ever seen.
0:04:47 > 0:04:51'It was to be a great centre of Greek culture and learning.
0:04:51 > 0:04:54'The original library was destroyed in ancient times,
0:04:54 > 0:04:58'but this modern building stands in its place.'
0:04:58 > 0:05:01Alexandria, under the Ptolemy's,
0:05:01 > 0:05:04was, in a way, the world's intellectual heart.
0:05:04 > 0:05:09The old library contained around 700,000 scrolls.
0:05:09 > 0:05:11These scrolls, of course,
0:05:11 > 0:05:15encapsulated all the learning of the ancient world.
0:05:15 > 0:05:20And this place is where the great minds of the ancient world met.
0:05:25 > 0:05:29'Because the Ptolemies believed in the superiority of their culture,
0:05:29 > 0:05:34'they were determined to make this Egyptian city a centre of Greek learning.
0:05:34 > 0:05:36'And so they filled the library
0:05:36 > 0:05:40'with the works of the famous Greek philosophers and scientists.
0:05:40 > 0:05:45'Aristotle, Plato, Sophocles, and Pythagoras lined the shelves.'
0:05:46 > 0:05:52'One might think that some of these ideas would have tempted the Egyptians to abandon their beliefs.
0:05:52 > 0:05:54'But they didn't.
0:05:54 > 0:05:58'The Egyptians went on practising their ancient religion
0:05:58 > 0:06:01'just as they had for thousands of years.
0:06:01 > 0:06:04'Instead, the Greek rulers themselves
0:06:04 > 0:06:08'began to be seduced by the mystery and magic of Ancient Egypt.'
0:06:13 > 0:06:15'After repeated earthquakes,
0:06:15 > 0:06:20'the Greek part of Alexandria now lies submerged in the bay
0:06:20 > 0:06:25'and tantalising evidence of just how thoroughly the Greeks adopted the Egyptian way of life
0:06:25 > 0:06:27'can be seen beneath the waves.'
0:06:34 > 0:06:38'Amongst the remains of the great palaces built by the Ptolemies,
0:06:38 > 0:06:40'are sphinxes and hieroglyphs,
0:06:40 > 0:06:44'and magnificent statues of the Egyptian gods.'
0:06:47 > 0:06:50'These Greek rulers had clearly embraced
0:06:50 > 0:06:52'Egyptian culture and religion.'
0:06:57 > 0:07:00'Archaeologists have recovered some of these colossal statues
0:07:00 > 0:07:02'and brought them to the surface.'
0:07:06 > 0:07:12The fascinating thing about these statues is that they show Greek rulers, Ptolemies.
0:07:12 > 0:07:16Here, a queen and over there a king.
0:07:16 > 0:07:23No-one's sure which king or queen, but they probably date from about 200BC.
0:07:23 > 0:07:26But the striking thing is that these Greeks
0:07:26 > 0:07:31are shown in the guise of traditional Egyptian rulers.
0:07:31 > 0:07:37Here, a pharaoh, and there a queen, or indeed a goddess, Hathor-Isis.
0:07:38 > 0:07:42'In their head-dresses, in their pose, their hair,
0:07:42 > 0:07:44'even the style of their clothes,
0:07:44 > 0:07:49'these Greeks are presenting themselves as true Egyptians.'
0:07:49 > 0:07:50What this reveals, of course,
0:07:50 > 0:07:54is the extent to which the Greeks embraced and used
0:07:54 > 0:07:58traditional Egyptian culture and customs.
0:08:09 > 0:08:13'Even after Greek ideas, language, and beliefs came flooding in,
0:08:13 > 0:08:18'the culture of Ancient Egypt withstood it all and continued to thrive.'
0:08:20 > 0:08:25'This is how the last Greek Ptolemy rulers chose to portray themselves.
0:08:25 > 0:08:28'They had become the archetypal Egyptians.'
0:08:35 > 0:08:37'This is the great queen Cleopatra.'
0:08:39 > 0:08:42'Despite her Greek blood, she is perhaps the best symbol
0:08:42 > 0:08:45'of the survival and victory of the Egyptian way of life.
0:08:47 > 0:08:50'She wore the robes of the Egyptian Goddess Isis,
0:08:50 > 0:08:53'built temples to honour the Egyptian gods,
0:08:53 > 0:08:56'and she even mastered the art of writing hieroglyphs.'
0:08:59 > 0:09:04'And, according to legend, she even died like an Egyptian.
0:09:04 > 0:09:08'In 30BC, in one of the great romantic stories of all-time,
0:09:08 > 0:09:14'Cleopatra killed herself after the death of her lover, Mark Anthony.'
0:09:14 > 0:09:19Famously, she took a snake - an asp - and held it to her breast.
0:09:19 > 0:09:22It bit her and she died of its poison.
0:09:22 > 0:09:25The manner of her death is so revealing.
0:09:25 > 0:09:29An asp was sacred to the old gods of Egypt.
0:09:29 > 0:09:32It was a sign of eternity.
0:09:32 > 0:09:37So in her death, in a way, Cleopatra was reborn,
0:09:37 > 0:09:40reborn among the old gods of Egypt.
0:09:40 > 0:09:45And she lived and lives for eternity.
0:09:47 > 0:09:50'It's clear from the story of Cleopatra
0:09:50 > 0:09:53'that the age-old Egyptian beliefs were not destroyed
0:09:53 > 0:09:56'by the invasion of Greek ideas.
0:09:56 > 0:10:01'In fact, Egypt's ancient art and religion survived virtually intact
0:10:01 > 0:10:04'and continued to dominate the lives of the people of this land.'
0:10:06 > 0:10:10'But how would it survive the next cultural invasion,
0:10:10 > 0:10:13'from a civilization bent on world domination -
0:10:13 > 0:10:15'the Romans?'
0:10:17 > 0:10:22'When the Roman army marched into Egypt in 30BC,
0:10:22 > 0:10:28'they were determined to make this great land a mere province of the Roman Empire.
0:10:28 > 0:10:31'And they stamped their powerful presence on Egypt,
0:10:31 > 0:10:35'not through the introduction of new ideas, as the Greeks had done,
0:10:35 > 0:10:37'but by bleeding the country dry.'
0:10:41 > 0:10:45'Here, in the Roman quarter of Alexandria,
0:10:45 > 0:10:49'you get a real insight into Roman rule in Egypt.'
0:10:54 > 0:10:57This theatre served as a council chamber.
0:10:57 > 0:11:01Here, the Roman elite of the land
0:11:01 > 0:11:05would have gathered to decide how this great province,
0:11:05 > 0:11:07this colony, would have been governed.
0:11:07 > 0:11:11And the thing at the top of the agenda most of the time,
0:11:11 > 0:11:13I should imagine, would be how to exploit
0:11:13 > 0:11:18the vast resources, the vast natural wealth, of Egypt.
0:11:21 > 0:11:26'Rome depended on these riches to sustain its extensive territories
0:11:26 > 0:11:30'and Egypt became the bread-basket of the Roman Empire.'
0:11:30 > 0:11:33A third of the amount of grain needed
0:11:33 > 0:11:36to feed the population of Rome came from Egypt.
0:11:36 > 0:11:41It wasn't just grain, other things were brought from Egypt -
0:11:41 > 0:11:45money, taxes, the people here were taxed ruthlessly.
0:11:45 > 0:11:48And there were minerals, also gold from the south,
0:11:48 > 0:11:53and granite from Aswan was used to make Rome a beautiful city.
0:11:56 > 0:11:59'With the country's wealth siphoned off to Rome,
0:11:59 > 0:12:03'the great Egyptian temples were neglected and the priests,
0:12:03 > 0:12:06'once so revered, began to lose their power.'
0:12:07 > 0:12:12'And yet, in spite of all they were forced to endure from the Romans,
0:12:12 > 0:12:14'the Egyptian people still clung fiercely
0:12:14 > 0:12:17'to their ancient customs and beliefs.
0:12:17 > 0:12:21'And what's more, even the Roman oppressors themselves
0:12:21 > 0:12:24'became seduced by the traditions of this ancient land.'
0:12:30 > 0:12:34'Beneath Alexandria is a labyrinth of catacombs,
0:12:34 > 0:12:37'where the Roman dead were once buried.'
0:12:41 > 0:12:44'Here, you can see how the Roman settlers,
0:12:44 > 0:12:48'just like the Greeks before them, embraced ancient Egyptian customs,
0:12:48 > 0:12:50'and adopted the Egyptian gods.'
0:12:55 > 0:12:59'These Romans even mummified their dead - an Egyptian tradition,
0:12:59 > 0:13:02'never practiced in any other part of the Roman Empire.'
0:13:04 > 0:13:06'So, for the second time,
0:13:06 > 0:13:09'the invasion of a mighty rival culture failed to destroy
0:13:09 > 0:13:13'the long-held beliefs at the heart of the Egyptian way of life.'
0:13:18 > 0:13:20'But then came the third
0:13:20 > 0:13:23'and final assault on the Egyptian Civilisation.
0:13:23 > 0:13:27'It was a threat unlike any that had come before.
0:13:27 > 0:13:30'And It would prove too powerful to resist.'
0:13:36 > 0:13:42In around 4BC, in a small town in the Roman province of Judea,
0:13:42 > 0:13:43a child was born -
0:13:43 > 0:13:46a child that we now know as Jesus -
0:13:46 > 0:13:51and his followers were to destroy the culture of the Pharaohs forever.
0:13:53 > 0:13:55'From its humble beginnings,
0:13:55 > 0:14:01'Christianity grew so powerful that 300 years after the birth of Christ,
0:14:01 > 0:14:03'it became the official religion of the Roman Empire.'
0:14:09 > 0:14:10'As Egypt was a province of Rome,
0:14:10 > 0:14:14'Christianity would be imposed on the Egyptian people.'
0:14:18 > 0:14:21'This cathedral, in the heart of Alexandria,
0:14:21 > 0:14:25'is built on the site of the very first church in Africa,
0:14:25 > 0:14:28'and it was from here that Christianity began
0:14:28 > 0:14:31'its relentless march through Egypt.'
0:14:37 > 0:14:41'And in the barren desert plains between Alexandria and Cairo,
0:14:41 > 0:14:45'there's a place where we can see how Christianity began to win the battle
0:14:45 > 0:14:48'for the very soul of the Egyptian people.'
0:14:56 > 0:15:00Born out of the remote solitude of the Egyptian deserts
0:15:00 > 0:15:03were the world's first monastic communities.
0:15:03 > 0:15:07'And you can still find monks out here in the desert,
0:15:07 > 0:15:11'worshiping at one of the earliest monasteries in the world.'
0:15:13 > 0:15:16BELLS RING
0:15:17 > 0:15:20The monks here speak Coptic,
0:15:20 > 0:15:24a language directly descended from the people of Ancient Egypt.
0:15:24 > 0:15:29It's as close as you can get to actually hearing the Ancient Egyptians speak.
0:15:29 > 0:15:31HE CHANTS
0:15:33 > 0:15:36THEY CHANT
0:15:44 > 0:15:50This church offers an insight into the early years of monasticism -
0:15:50 > 0:15:53simplicity, frugality,
0:15:53 > 0:15:56solitude, prayer -
0:15:56 > 0:16:01a very powerful place indeed, beautiful, in fact.
0:16:01 > 0:16:05This place also offers an understanding
0:16:05 > 0:16:08of the early years of Christianity in this land,
0:16:08 > 0:16:12how it managed to triumph over the old religion.
0:16:14 > 0:16:17For Christians, there was only one God.
0:16:17 > 0:16:20'The Greeks and the Romans before had been able
0:16:20 > 0:16:26'to blend their many deities with those of Ancient Egypt.'
0:16:26 > 0:16:31But Christianity could not tolerate other beliefs.
0:16:31 > 0:16:36Old gods were regarded as non-existent or perceived as devils.
0:16:36 > 0:16:42'But, surprisingly, in spite of their hostility to the old pagan gods,
0:16:42 > 0:16:48'Christians actually borrowed some of the Ancient Egyptian religious practices.'
0:16:48 > 0:16:53Some of the rituals of the old religion were appropriated and transformed by Christianity,
0:16:53 > 0:16:59even the idea of solitude in a desert, in a monastery,
0:16:59 > 0:17:02that was an idea from Ptolemaic times -
0:17:02 > 0:17:05priests going off alone to meditate.
0:17:05 > 0:17:09And in this way, one sees what's going on here - it's fascinating.
0:17:09 > 0:17:13Their ideas are taken, transformed, and robbed of their meaning and, in that way,
0:17:13 > 0:17:18the old ideas, the old gods, are finally defeated.
0:17:23 > 0:17:27'In fact, by the middle of the fourth century AD,
0:17:27 > 0:17:29'half the Egyptians had abandoned the old gods
0:17:29 > 0:17:32'and converted to Christianity.'
0:17:35 > 0:17:39'500 miles further south, there's an Ancient Egyptian temple
0:17:39 > 0:17:43'where we can see exactly what happened to the old sacred sites
0:17:43 > 0:17:47'as the Christians grew in power and influence.
0:17:47 > 0:17:52'As this new religion swept through the country, the temples built to worship the pagan gods
0:17:52 > 0:17:54'were attacked and destroyed.'
0:17:56 > 0:18:00'The walls in this temple at Dendera, dedicated to the Goddess Hathor,
0:18:00 > 0:18:03'bear witness to this violent history.'
0:18:04 > 0:18:08The columned hall is in a wonderful state of preservation.
0:18:08 > 0:18:13The only serious damage was done to it in the fourth or fifth century AD
0:18:13 > 0:18:15by the Christian Copts,
0:18:15 > 0:18:19who attacked it in a sort of frenzied manner.
0:18:19 > 0:18:23The heads of the goddess Hathor up there's been damaged horribly -
0:18:23 > 0:18:25the face is hacked away.
0:18:25 > 0:18:28And on this wall in front of me,
0:18:28 > 0:18:31every image has been chiselled.
0:18:34 > 0:18:36The bodies, the faces, they've gone.
0:18:36 > 0:18:38The hieroglyphs left alone.
0:18:38 > 0:18:40Even the hats left alone.
0:18:40 > 0:18:41But the bodies have gone.
0:18:41 > 0:18:45Clearly Christians perceived these as incarnations of the devil,
0:18:45 > 0:18:49pagan idols to be eradicated.
0:18:49 > 0:18:52The result now is devastating really -
0:18:52 > 0:18:57beauty, history, destroyed
0:18:57 > 0:18:59in a frenzied fundamentalist attack.
0:19:06 > 0:19:10But this violence wasn't just directed at the images of the old pagan gods.
0:19:10 > 0:19:14In the Christian basilica next to the Egyptian temple,
0:19:14 > 0:19:19we can see how the sacred buildings themselves were torn down.
0:19:21 > 0:19:25This basilica was built in the fifth century by Christians,
0:19:25 > 0:19:30using stones robbed from the surrounding temples.
0:19:30 > 0:19:34That's very clear if you look down here - there are carved stones
0:19:34 > 0:19:38with hieroglyphs, clearly not in the position they're meant to be.
0:19:38 > 0:19:41And here even... the top of a column,
0:19:41 > 0:19:45clearly taken from the temples each side of me
0:19:45 > 0:19:47and I guess all these stones are,
0:19:47 > 0:19:50but turned around so that the carvings are not showing.
0:19:50 > 0:19:54All this is, of course, a direct attack on the old temples,
0:19:54 > 0:20:00the old gods, to kill them, to destroy them, to destroy their images.
0:20:00 > 0:20:03And here we see the cross - an abstract sign, really.
0:20:11 > 0:20:14And in here the dove, the dove of peace.
0:20:14 > 0:20:17Peace? Not much peace or tolerance
0:20:17 > 0:20:20towards the old gods of Egypt!
0:20:20 > 0:20:26Through here into the church proper...
0:20:26 > 0:20:28into the...
0:20:28 > 0:20:30nave, really, the hall.
0:20:30 > 0:20:32And, um...
0:20:32 > 0:20:35extraordinary, this big church.
0:20:35 > 0:20:37Christians...
0:20:37 > 0:20:41not really prepared to tolerate the old gods. They can't do that.
0:20:41 > 0:20:43Only one God, the Christian God.
0:20:43 > 0:20:47Other gods must be destroyed and this church built here,
0:20:47 > 0:20:49in the middle of this temple complex,
0:20:49 > 0:20:55to appropriate ancient sacred land, this sacred ground.
0:20:55 > 0:20:58The irony, of course, is that while this church is now a ruin,
0:20:58 > 0:21:02the old temples of the old gods survive...
0:21:02 > 0:21:04more or less intact.
0:21:09 > 0:21:15'The very stones of monuments like these tell the dramatic story of how Christianity conquered Egypt.
0:21:15 > 0:21:19'Stealing from the sacred temples to build their own churches
0:21:19 > 0:21:22'and vandalising the images of the ancient gods.'
0:21:26 > 0:21:30'But what about the people still worshipping in these temples,
0:21:30 > 0:21:34'those who clung to the customs and traditions of their ancestors?'
0:21:35 > 0:21:38'What happened to them?'
0:21:50 > 0:21:53'These people still loyal to the ancient gods
0:21:53 > 0:21:56'sought refuge further and further south,
0:21:56 > 0:21:59'until there was only one place left for them...
0:21:59 > 0:22:02'and that's where the story ends.'
0:22:04 > 0:22:06I'm going to a place that's beautiful
0:22:06 > 0:22:10and once most sacred to the old gods of this land
0:22:10 > 0:22:14and which played an important, indeed poignant,
0:22:14 > 0:22:17role in the history of Egypt.
0:22:28 > 0:22:33Far in the south of Egypt, on the remote island of Philae in the Nile,
0:22:33 > 0:22:38you can see the last moments of the civilisation of the pharaohs.
0:22:51 > 0:22:53Here,
0:22:53 > 0:22:55in this temple behind me,
0:22:55 > 0:22:58on a small island in the Nile,
0:22:58 > 0:23:02became the last bastion of those faithful
0:23:02 > 0:23:05to the great ancient deities.
0:23:05 > 0:23:07This island was dedicated to Isis,
0:23:07 > 0:23:09she was meant to protect this land,
0:23:09 > 0:23:13but eventually even this bastion succumbed
0:23:13 > 0:23:15to the march of Christianity.
0:23:21 > 0:23:25'Those who still continued to worship the ancient Egyptian gods
0:23:25 > 0:23:28'were persecuted and killed for their beliefs.'
0:23:37 > 0:23:41This remains a magical and sacred place.
0:23:41 > 0:23:43In front of me, on the great pylon,
0:23:43 > 0:23:45are the deities of Ancient Egypt -
0:23:45 > 0:23:49Hathor, Horus, Isis - they look down upon me.
0:23:49 > 0:23:53And inside I can find clues to help me understand
0:23:53 > 0:23:58how the world of these ancient gods finally came to an end.
0:24:01 > 0:24:05'And it's in this beautiful isolated temple
0:24:05 > 0:24:07'that we can find that last hieroglyph.'
0:24:13 > 0:24:19'For me, it's one of the most moving things I've seen in the whole of Egypt.'
0:24:24 > 0:24:28'Tucked away in a corner of the temple,
0:24:28 > 0:24:31'this tiny detail is almost impossible to find,
0:24:31 > 0:24:32'unless you know where to look.'
0:24:34 > 0:24:40That detail is this inscription, part here and part over here.
0:24:40 > 0:24:45What this says is that, "I am Lethnet,
0:24:45 > 0:24:48"scribe in the house of the books of Isis."
0:24:48 > 0:24:50So he's in the library - a librarian.
0:24:50 > 0:24:55And making a plea here to the god Mandalus,
0:24:55 > 0:24:57the son of Horus,
0:24:57 > 0:25:02to be benevolent to him, Lethnet, for eternity.
0:25:02 > 0:25:06And this inscription was made on the 24th of August,
0:25:06 > 0:25:09which is the birthday of Osiris.
0:25:09 > 0:25:11And we know, in fact,
0:25:11 > 0:25:16that was carved in the year 394AD.
0:25:16 > 0:25:19And so, as far as anyone can tell,
0:25:19 > 0:25:22these are the last hieroglyphic inscriptions
0:25:22 > 0:25:26made in Egypt in historic times.
0:25:26 > 0:25:30When we look at these, we are, in effect,
0:25:30 > 0:25:36looking at the last moment, the death, of Egyptian culture and civilization.
0:25:42 > 0:25:47Priests were the only ones who could understand this archaic language.
0:25:47 > 0:25:50When they were forced out of this temple,
0:25:50 > 0:25:53their knowledge was lost and forgotten.
0:25:58 > 0:26:01The pattern of Christian destruction continued here,
0:26:01 > 0:26:05as it had in the other temples.
0:26:05 > 0:26:07Up here is Hathor Isis,
0:26:07 > 0:26:10but she's been literally, sort of,
0:26:10 > 0:26:13scratched to death, gouged out,
0:26:13 > 0:26:16removed from the surface of the building.
0:26:16 > 0:26:19Quite terrifying, the violence of this sort of clawing action.
0:26:19 > 0:26:23And up here there's an inscription that reveals more about all this.
0:26:23 > 0:26:28It's written in Greek, put up here by the Coptic Christians.
0:26:28 > 0:26:32It congratulates the people that committed vandalism on the building,
0:26:32 > 0:26:38saying this great structure has been well cleansed of the images of the pagan gods.
0:26:47 > 0:26:50This portion of the temple of Isis
0:26:50 > 0:26:53was converted into a Christian church.
0:26:53 > 0:26:57The images of the old gods on the walls were plastered over, obscured,
0:26:57 > 0:27:02and crosses cut into the walls - I can see one over there.
0:27:02 > 0:27:06Originally this was an open court, so life-giving rays of the sun god
0:27:06 > 0:27:09could penetrate the temple,
0:27:09 > 0:27:12but the Christians wanted to keep the sun god out,
0:27:12 > 0:27:15so they covered this court with a dome.
0:27:22 > 0:27:24The Ancient Egyptian civilization
0:27:24 > 0:27:27had created the magnificent pyramids at Giza,
0:27:27 > 0:27:31the spectacular tombs in the Valley Of The Kings
0:27:31 > 0:27:33and the treasures of Tutankhamun.
0:27:34 > 0:27:38The scale of its achievements were unsurpassed,
0:27:38 > 0:27:42set in stone on the walls as remarkable monuments.
0:27:42 > 0:27:46This culture and tradition had evolved from the banks of the Nile
0:27:46 > 0:27:48for over 3,000 years.
0:27:48 > 0:27:50Yet it took only hundreds of years
0:27:50 > 0:27:53for Christianity to finally destroy it.
0:27:56 > 0:28:00Of course Egypt had lost political independence in the past,
0:28:00 > 0:28:04but its culture had always survived.
0:28:04 > 0:28:08But now, thousands of years of cultural continuity...
0:28:08 > 0:28:11staggered to an end.
0:28:11 > 0:28:14It was absolutely tragic really.
0:28:15 > 0:28:17The destruction was awful.
0:28:17 > 0:28:22The destruction of a way of life, a culture, a civilization, a religion.
0:28:22 > 0:28:27But strangely, coming to Egypt, one's aware that all is not dead.
0:28:27 > 0:28:31These temples, these mansions of millions of years
0:28:31 > 0:28:33attract people in their thousands still.
0:28:33 > 0:28:38One feels, in a way, the old gods are still alive.
0:28:55 > 0:28:59Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd 2005
0:28:59 > 0:29:02E-mail subtitling@bbc.co.uk