The Death of Ancient Egypt Egyptian Journeys with Dan Cruickshank

'The great civilisation of Ancient Egypt,

'with its dramatic spectacle and mystery, has always fascinated me.

'I've been travelling the country to explore some intriguing stories

'that have emerged from this historic land.

'In this programme, my journey takes me the length of the country

'to find out what brought this remarkable civilisation to an abrupt and tragic end.'

'For me, the most striking thing about the Ancient Egyptian civilisation

'is that it lasted so long.

'Astonishingly, for over 3,000 years,

'it had a powerful grip on the imagination of all who lived here.

'The culture of Egypt flourished for longer than any other in history -

'a testament to how compelling their beliefs and traditions were.

'But finally something happened that would utterly destroy

'the entire magnificent civilisation.'

'In this isolated place, there's something very poignant

'that bears witness to the extraordinary tale of the end of Egypt.

'It's the last trace of this great civilisation

'in its death throws.'

This temple contains a very revealing,

and for me, a very moving detail. An inscription.

This is the last hieroglyphic inscription made in Ancient Egypt.

Our ability to read such inscriptions

was lost for nearly 2,000 years.

'After the priests left this temple,

'the entire culture, language, and traditions of Ancient Egypt died.

'Everything that we now think of as distinctly Egyptian came to an end.

'The art and religion would never be practised again.

'There were to be no more pyramids, temples, mummies or hieroglyphs.

'The entire belief system of Ancient Egypt collapsed.'

How did this happen?

'It's a remarkable story,

'in which Egypt would have to face three different onslaughts,

'from powerful rival cultures, before the brutal end came.

'Incredibly, Egypt's ancient traditions

'would survive the first two onslaughts almost intact.

'But the third, the last, would finally bring it down.'

'The story begins here, in the north of Egypt,

'on the Mediterranean coast, where the first of these three onslaughts began in the fourth century BC.

'It came from the Greeks - one of the few civilisations

'with a culture powerful enough to rival that of Ancient Egypt.'

Egypt had been ruled by foreign dynasties in the past,

for example the Persians in the sixth century BC.

It survived that. Its civilization had survived foreign rule.

But a young man arrived here in 332BC.

And on the Mediterranean coast laid out a great city,

a city named after himself - Alexandria.

And that young man was, of course, Alexander The Great -

one of the greatest conquerors the world has ever seen.

'Alexander didn't stay long after he conquered Egypt,

'but he was determined to leave his mark on this ancient land.

'He made this great port, Alexandria, the capital of the country.

'And into this magnificent city flowed all the new Greek ideas.'

'It was these persuasive new ideas that would challenge

'the age-old beliefs of the Egyptian people.'

'After Alexander,

'a Greek dynasty - the Ptolemies - ruled Egypt for 300 years.

'They continued to bring in the latest ideas

'from around the Greek Empire.

'And so, here in Alexandria,

'they built the most remarkable library the world had ever seen.

'It was to be a great centre of Greek culture and learning.

'The original library was destroyed in ancient times,

'but this modern building stands in its place.'

Alexandria, under the Ptolemy's,

was, in a way, the world's intellectual heart.

The old library contained around 700,000 scrolls.

These scrolls, of course,

encapsulated all the learning of the ancient world.

And this place is where the great minds of the ancient world met.

'Because the Ptolemies believed in the superiority of their culture,

'they were determined to make this Egyptian city a centre of Greek learning.

'And so they filled the library

'with the works of the famous Greek philosophers and scientists.

'Aristotle, Plato, Sophocles, and Pythagoras lined the shelves.'

'One might think that some of these ideas would have tempted the Egyptians to abandon their beliefs.

'But they didn't.

'The Egyptians went on practising their ancient religion

'just as they had for thousands of years.

'Instead, the Greek rulers themselves

'began to be seduced by the mystery and magic of Ancient Egypt.'

'After repeated earthquakes,

'the Greek part of Alexandria now lies submerged in the bay

'and tantalising evidence of just how thoroughly the Greeks adopted the Egyptian way of life

'can be seen beneath the waves.'

'Amongst the remains of the great palaces built by the Ptolemies,

'are sphinxes and hieroglyphs,

'and magnificent statues of the Egyptian gods.'

'These Greek rulers had clearly embraced

'Egyptian culture and religion.'

'Archaeologists have recovered some of these colossal statues

'and brought them to the surface.'

The fascinating thing about these statues is that they show Greek rulers, Ptolemies.

Here, a queen and over there a king.

No-one's sure which king or queen, but they probably date from about 200BC.

But the striking thing is that these Greeks

are shown in the guise of traditional Egyptian rulers.

Here, a pharaoh, and there a queen, or indeed a goddess, Hathor-Isis.

'In their head-dresses, in their pose, their hair,

'even the style of their clothes,

'these Greeks are presenting themselves as true Egyptians.'

What this reveals, of course,

is the extent to which the Greeks embraced and used

traditional Egyptian culture and customs.

'Even after Greek ideas, language, and beliefs came flooding in,

'the culture of Ancient Egypt withstood it all and continued to thrive.'

'This is how the last Greek Ptolemy rulers chose to portray themselves.

'They had become the archetypal Egyptians.'

'This is the great queen Cleopatra.'

'Despite her Greek blood, she is perhaps the best symbol

'of the survival and victory of the Egyptian way of life.

'She wore the robes of the Egyptian Goddess Isis,

'built temples to honour the Egyptian gods,

'and she even mastered the art of writing hieroglyphs.'

'And, according to legend, she even died like an Egyptian.

'In 30BC, in one of the great romantic stories of all-time,

'Cleopatra killed herself after the death of her lover, Mark Anthony.'

Famously, she took a snake - an asp - and held it to her breast.

It bit her and she died of its poison.

The manner of her death is so revealing.

An asp was sacred to the old gods of Egypt.

It was a sign of eternity.

So in her death, in a way, Cleopatra was reborn,

reborn among the old gods of Egypt.

And she lived and lives for eternity.

'It's clear from the story of Cleopatra

'that the age-old Egyptian beliefs were not destroyed

'by the invasion of Greek ideas.

'In fact, Egypt's ancient art and religion survived virtually intact

'and continued to dominate the lives of the people of this land.'

'But how would it survive the next cultural invasion,

'from a civilization bent on world domination -

'the Romans?'

'When the Roman army marched into Egypt in 30BC,

'they were determined to make this great land a mere province of the Roman Empire.

'And they stamped their powerful presence on Egypt,

'not through the introduction of new ideas, as the Greeks had done,

'but by bleeding the country dry.'

'Here, in the Roman quarter of Alexandria,

'you get a real insight into Roman rule in Egypt.'

This theatre served as a council chamber.

Here, the Roman elite of the land

would have gathered to decide how this great province,

this colony, would have been governed.

And the thing at the top of the agenda most of the time,

I should imagine, would be how to exploit

the vast resources, the vast natural wealth, of Egypt.

'Rome depended on these riches to sustain its extensive territories

'and Egypt became the bread-basket of the Roman Empire.'

A third of the amount of grain needed

to feed the population of Rome came from Egypt.

It wasn't just grain, other things were brought from Egypt -

money, taxes, the people here were taxed ruthlessly.

And there were minerals, also gold from the south,

and granite from Aswan was used to make Rome a beautiful city.

'With the country's wealth siphoned off to Rome,

'the great Egyptian temples were neglected and the priests,

'once so revered, began to lose their power.'

'And yet, in spite of all they were forced to endure from the Romans,

'the Egyptian people still clung fiercely

'to their ancient customs and beliefs.

'And what's more, even the Roman oppressors themselves

'became seduced by the traditions of this ancient land.'

'Beneath Alexandria is a labyrinth of catacombs,

'where the Roman dead were once buried.'

'Here, you can see how the Roman settlers,

'just like the Greeks before them, embraced ancient Egyptian customs,

'and adopted the Egyptian gods.'

'These Romans even mummified their dead - an Egyptian tradition,

'never practiced in any other part of the Roman Empire.'

'So, for the second time,

'the invasion of a mighty rival culture failed to destroy

'the long-held beliefs at the heart of the Egyptian way of life.'

'But then came the third

'and final assault on the Egyptian Civilisation.

'It was a threat unlike any that had come before.

'And It would prove too powerful to resist.'

In around 4BC, in a small town in the Roman province of Judea,

a child was born -

a child that we now know as Jesus -

and his followers were to destroy the culture of the Pharaohs forever.

'From its humble beginnings,

'Christianity grew so powerful that 300 years after the birth of Christ,

'it became the official religion of the Roman Empire.'

'As Egypt was a province of Rome,

'Christianity would be imposed on the Egyptian people.'

'This cathedral, in the heart of Alexandria,

'is built on the site of the very first church in Africa,

'and it was from here that Christianity began

'its relentless march through Egypt.'

'And in the barren desert plains between Alexandria and Cairo,

'there's a place where we can see how Christianity began to win the battle

'for the very soul of the Egyptian people.'

Born out of the remote solitude of the Egyptian deserts

were the world's first monastic communities.

'And you can still find monks out here in the desert,

'worshiping at one of the earliest monasteries in the world.'

BELLS RING

The monks here speak Coptic,

a language directly descended from the people of Ancient Egypt.

It's as close as you can get to actually hearing the Ancient Egyptians speak.

HE CHANTS

THEY CHANT

This church offers an insight into the early years of monasticism -

simplicity, frugality,

solitude, prayer -

a very powerful place indeed, beautiful, in fact.

This place also offers an understanding

of the early years of Christianity in this land,

how it managed to triumph over the old religion.

For Christians, there was only one God.

'The Greeks and the Romans before had been able

'to blend their many deities with those of Ancient Egypt.'

But Christianity could not tolerate other beliefs.

Old gods were regarded as non-existent or perceived as devils.

'But, surprisingly, in spite of their hostility to the old pagan gods,

'Christians actually borrowed some of the Ancient Egyptian religious practices.'

Some of the rituals of the old religion were appropriated and transformed by Christianity,

even the idea of solitude in a desert, in a monastery,

that was an idea from Ptolemaic times -

priests going off alone to meditate.

And in this way, one sees what's going on here - it's fascinating.

Their ideas are taken, transformed, and robbed of their meaning and, in that way,

the old ideas, the old gods, are finally defeated.

'In fact, by the middle of the fourth century AD,

'half the Egyptians had abandoned the old gods

'and converted to Christianity.'

'500 miles further south, there's an Ancient Egyptian temple

'where we can see exactly what happened to the old sacred sites

'as the Christians grew in power and influence.

'As this new religion swept through the country, the temples built to worship the pagan gods

'were attacked and destroyed.'

'The walls in this temple at Dendera, dedicated to the Goddess Hathor,

'bear witness to this violent history.'

The columned hall is in a wonderful state of preservation.

The only serious damage was done to it in the fourth or fifth century AD

by the Christian Copts,

who attacked it in a sort of frenzied manner.

The heads of the goddess Hathor up there's been damaged horribly -

the face is hacked away.

And on this wall in front of me,

every image has been chiselled.

The bodies, the faces, they've gone.

The hieroglyphs left alone.

Even the hats left alone.

But the bodies have gone.

Clearly Christians perceived these as incarnations of the devil,

pagan idols to be eradicated.

The result now is devastating really -

beauty, history, destroyed

in a frenzied fundamentalist attack.

But this violence wasn't just directed at the images of the old pagan gods.

In the Christian basilica next to the Egyptian temple,

we can see how the sacred buildings themselves were torn down.

This basilica was built in the fifth century by Christians,

using stones robbed from the surrounding temples.

That's very clear if you look down here - there are carved stones

with hieroglyphs, clearly not in the position they're meant to be.

And here even... the top of a column,

clearly taken from the temples each side of me

and I guess all these stones are,

but turned around so that the carvings are not showing.

All this is, of course, a direct attack on the old temples,

the old gods, to kill them, to destroy them, to destroy their images.

And here we see the cross - an abstract sign, really.

And in here the dove, the dove of peace.

Peace? Not much peace or tolerance

towards the old gods of Egypt!

Through here into the church proper...

into the...

nave, really, the hall.

And, um...

extraordinary, this big church.

Christians...

not really prepared to tolerate the old gods. They can't do that.

Only one God, the Christian God.

Other gods must be destroyed and this church built here,

in the middle of this temple complex,

to appropriate ancient sacred land, this sacred ground.

The irony, of course, is that while this church is now a ruin,

the old temples of the old gods survive...

more or less intact.

'The very stones of monuments like these tell the dramatic story of how Christianity conquered Egypt.

'Stealing from the sacred temples to build their own churches

'and vandalising the images of the ancient gods.'

'But what about the people still worshipping in these temples,

'those who clung to the customs and traditions of their ancestors?'

'What happened to them?'

'These people still loyal to the ancient gods

'sought refuge further and further south,

'until there was only one place left for them...

'and that's where the story ends.'

I'm going to a place that's beautiful

and once most sacred to the old gods of this land

and which played an important, indeed poignant,

role in the history of Egypt.

Far in the south of Egypt, on the remote island of Philae in the Nile,

you can see the last moments of the civilisation of the pharaohs.

Here,

in this temple behind me,

on a small island in the Nile,

became the last bastion of those faithful

to the great ancient deities.

This island was dedicated to Isis,

she was meant to protect this land,

but eventually even this bastion succumbed

to the march of Christianity.

'Those who still continued to worship the ancient Egyptian gods

'were persecuted and killed for their beliefs.'

This remains a magical and sacred place.

In front of me, on the great pylon,

are the deities of Ancient Egypt -

Hathor, Horus, Isis - they look down upon me.

And inside I can find clues to help me understand

how the world of these ancient gods finally came to an end.

'And it's in this beautiful isolated temple

'that we can find that last hieroglyph.'

'For me, it's one of the most moving things I've seen in the whole of Egypt.'

'Tucked away in a corner of the temple,

'this tiny detail is almost impossible to find,

'unless you know where to look.'

That detail is this inscription, part here and part over here.

What this says is that, "I am Lethnet,

"scribe in the house of the books of Isis."

So he's in the library - a librarian.

And making a plea here to the god Mandalus,

the son of Horus,

to be benevolent to him, Lethnet, for eternity.

And this inscription was made on the 24th of August,

which is the birthday of Osiris.

And we know, in fact,

that was carved in the year 394AD.

And so, as far as anyone can tell,

these are the last hieroglyphic inscriptions

made in Egypt in historic times.

When we look at these, we are, in effect,

looking at the last moment, the death, of Egyptian culture and civilization.

Priests were the only ones who could understand this archaic language.

When they were forced out of this temple,

their knowledge was lost and forgotten.

The pattern of Christian destruction continued here,

as it had in the other temples.

Up here is Hathor Isis,

but she's been literally, sort of,

scratched to death, gouged out,

removed from the surface of the building.

Quite terrifying, the violence of this sort of clawing action.

And up here there's an inscription that reveals more about all this.

It's written in Greek, put up here by the Coptic Christians.

It congratulates the people that committed vandalism on the building,

saying this great structure has been well cleansed of the images of the pagan gods.

This portion of the temple of Isis

was converted into a Christian church.

The images of the old gods on the walls were plastered over, obscured,

and crosses cut into the walls - I can see one over there.

Originally this was an open court, so life-giving rays of the sun god

could penetrate the temple,

but the Christians wanted to keep the sun god out,

so they covered this court with a dome.

The Ancient Egyptian civilization

had created the magnificent pyramids at Giza,

the spectacular tombs in the Valley Of The Kings

and the treasures of Tutankhamun.

The scale of its achievements were unsurpassed,

set in stone on the walls as remarkable monuments.

This culture and tradition had evolved from the banks of the Nile

for over 3,000 years.

Yet it took only hundreds of years

for Christianity to finally destroy it.

Of course Egypt had lost political independence in the past,

but its culture had always survived.

But now, thousands of years of cultural continuity...

staggered to an end.

It was absolutely tragic really.

The destruction was awful.

The destruction of a way of life, a culture, a civilization, a religion.

But strangely, coming to Egypt, one's aware that all is not dead.

These temples, these mansions of millions of years

attract people in their thousands still.

One feels, in a way, the old gods are still alive.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd 2005

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