1 00:00:19,661 --> 00:00:21,952 This plane has only one passenger. 2 00:00:23,132 --> 00:00:25,344 He is 3,500 years old. 3 00:00:33,916 --> 00:00:36,229 He was one of the most powerful kings of the ancient world. 4 00:00:37,850 --> 00:00:40,476 His dynasty ruled the greatest empire on earth. 5 00:00:57,840 --> 00:01:03,281 Today some see him as a genius: the first king in history to believe in a single god. 6 00:01:04,622 --> 00:01:07,550 For others, he was a madman and a heretic. 7 00:01:18,252 --> 00:01:20,954 He is the Pharaoh Akenhaten. 8 00:01:26,724 --> 00:01:29,098 This is the story of Akenhaten and his family. 9 00:01:30,347 --> 00:01:33,744 His father, Amenhotep, was the richest ruler in the world. 10 00:01:34,755 --> 00:01:39,291 His son Tutankhamen was buried with the greatest treasure ever discovered. 11 00:01:42,467 --> 00:01:46,281 Akenhaten himself had embarked on a revolution that 12 00:01:46,562 --> 00:01:49,660 brought the Egyptian Empire to the brink of disaster 13 00:01:50,604 --> 00:01:53,503 -- and changed the world forever. 14 00:02:23,827 --> 00:02:25,990 1550 BC. 15 00:02:27,545 --> 00:02:31,868 For over a hundred years, Egypt had been overrun by foreigners. 16 00:02:32,657 --> 00:02:35,595 Now a new dynasty of warrior pharaohs 17 00:02:35,930 --> 00:02:39,058 inspired Egyptians to rise up and reclaim their land. 18 00:02:54,464 --> 00:02:57,530 Egypt's armies surged beyond their traditional borders. 19 00:02:58,602 --> 00:03:00,658 On battlefields deep in foreign territories, 20 00:03:01,416 --> 00:03:04,823 they created the largest empire the world had ever seen. 21 00:03:09,011 --> 00:03:11,548 It was an empire controlled with an iron fist. 22 00:03:12,139 --> 00:03:15,819 There were clear, bloody warnings to anyone 23 00:03:16,045 --> 00:03:17,800 who dared to question the new might of Egypt. 24 00:03:37,209 --> 00:03:41,318 Egypt was now the most powerful and feared nation on earth. 25 00:03:42,430 --> 00:03:47,219 In 1390 BC, there was a new young pharaoh on the throne. 26 00:03:48,280 --> 00:03:52,807 His name was Amenhotep - meaning the god Amen is satisfied. 27 00:03:53,547 --> 00:03:55,405 His forefathers had led Egypt into battle 28 00:03:56,206 --> 00:04:00,638 and now this young pharaoh faced a completely different challenge. 29 00:04:06,187 --> 00:04:07,550 There were no more wars to fight. 30 00:04:08,687 --> 00:04:12,001 Egypt was rich, respected, and free. 31 00:04:24,879 --> 00:04:28,631 Amenhotep's challenge would be to protect this peace and prosperity 32 00:04:29,444 --> 00:04:31,539 - ruling Egypt's vast, sprawling empire, 33 00:04:34,071 --> 00:04:37,307 - whose riches were the envy of the world. 34 00:04:41,634 --> 00:04:46,063 When he comes to the throne, it really marks the beginning of peace. 35 00:04:46,751 --> 00:04:50,357 It is a time when the wealth of all the empire pours into 36 00:04:50,566 --> 00:04:52,201 the coffers of the pharaoh. 37 00:04:52,786 --> 00:04:54,641 You could probably think of it as 38 00:04:54,641 --> 00:04:58,381 the golden age of empire and Egypt. 39 00:04:59,642 --> 00:05:01,738 Amenhotep would have been the richest man in the world. 40 00:05:02,866 --> 00:05:04,221 He had the gold in Nubia. 41 00:05:04,743 --> 00:05:07,622 He was able to comand the Cedars of Lebanon 42 00:05:08,088 --> 00:05:11,309 He was able to comand silver from Anatolia. 43 00:05:11,714 --> 00:05:14,310 He had trade running along the Red Sea. 44 00:05:15,278 --> 00:05:20,841 There was hardly anything in the known world that Amenhotep couldn't put out his hand and touch. 45 00:05:22,595 --> 00:05:24,127 But the world was changing. 46 00:05:24,595 --> 00:05:25,283 For centuries, 47 00:05:25,532 --> 00:05:27,095 Egypt had been unchallenged. 48 00:05:28,063 --> 00:05:28,846 Now Babylonia, 49 00:05:29,408 --> 00:05:30,064 Assyria, 50 00:05:30,440 --> 00:05:32,179 and Mitani had emerged. 51 00:05:32,774 --> 00:05:35,117 These powerful civilizations could rival Egypt. 52 00:05:36,257 --> 00:05:36,878 United, 53 00:05:37,658 --> 00:05:40,120 they could destroy Amenhotep's empire. 54 00:05:42,527 --> 00:05:45,289 Amenhotep wanted to avoid war at all costs. 55 00:05:46,193 --> 00:05:49,259 He had to find a new way of dealing with the outside world. 56 00:05:50,979 --> 00:05:52,760 His solution was a master stroke, 57 00:05:53,447 --> 00:05:57,354 and we know about it because of a remarkable discovery. 58 00:06:04,106 --> 00:06:09,263 In 1887 a peasant woman was digging near the Egyptian town of Amarna. 59 00:06:12,288 --> 00:06:15,549 She was looking for old mud bricks to use as fertiliser. 60 00:06:17,296 --> 00:06:20,844 What she found was not the usual rough blocks, 61 00:06:21,758 --> 00:06:24,666 but rows of well-preserved clay tablets. 62 00:06:27,448 --> 00:06:29,459 The little bits of mud were covered with writing 63 00:06:29,772 --> 00:06:31,241 that looked rather like birds feet. 64 00:06:31,523 --> 00:06:34,051 It was as if the birds' footprints had set in the mud 65 00:06:34,490 --> 00:06:37,261 after the birds had gone. 66 00:06:37,857 --> 00:06:39,495 The lady didn't know what they were, 67 00:06:39,765 --> 00:06:40,869 but picked some of them up. 68 00:06:42,213 --> 00:06:44,140 These humble clay tablets were not bricks, 69 00:06:44,604 --> 00:06:47,954 but letters and they were the key to Amenhotep's success. 70 00:06:49,307 --> 00:06:53,454 The peasant lady had stumbled across the diplomatic record office 71 00:06:54,018 --> 00:06:56,615 of the capital of the ancient world. 72 00:06:57,935 --> 00:07:00,219 The Amenhotep letters throw a flood of light 73 00:07:00,451 --> 00:07:02,689 onto the politics of the Near East. 74 00:07:04,034 --> 00:07:06,801 These small tablets were the correspondence 75 00:07:07,016 --> 00:07:10,753 between Pharaoh Amenhotep and the other rulers of the Near East. 76 00:07:11,773 --> 00:07:15,239 The strange marks that cover them are a miniscule writing. 77 00:07:15,911 --> 00:07:19,351 They contain as much information as the inscriptions 78 00:07:19,558 --> 00:07:21,790 on all of Egypt's greatest monuments. 79 00:07:25,444 --> 00:07:27,935 They reveal Amenhotep was controlling his world, 80 00:07:28,404 --> 00:07:31,355 not with weapons, but with words. 81 00:07:32,183 --> 00:07:34,439 The pharaoh had become a diplomat. 82 00:07:36,283 --> 00:07:38,872 I would describe it as the most important discovery 83 00:07:39,230 --> 00:07:40,421 of the ancient world, 84 00:07:41,254 --> 00:07:44,872 probably in terms of understanding of political life. 85 00:07:45,107 --> 00:07:46,297 It is not the most visible, 86 00:07:46,297 --> 00:07:48,613 not the most artistically appealing, 87 00:07:49,013 --> 00:07:52,113 but the politically most significant discovery 88 00:07:52,485 --> 00:07:53,570 of the ancient world. 89 00:07:57,226 --> 00:08:00,330 At a time when most people on earth could not read or write, 90 00:08:01,238 --> 00:08:04,322 Egypt was conducting a lively dialogue with her rivals. 91 00:08:11,556 --> 00:08:13,679 The king's messengers ran back and forth 92 00:08:13,930 --> 00:08:16,961 across the deserts of the Near East carrying letters 93 00:08:16,961 --> 00:08:20,172 that reveal Egypt's status as a super power. 94 00:08:21,901 --> 00:08:23,712 International diplomacy in the days of 95 00:08:23,923 --> 00:08:26,250 the Amenhotep letters would be very familiar to diplomats today. 96 00:08:26,496 --> 00:08:29,841 It was really very much like diplomatic interaction 97 00:08:30,062 --> 00:08:32,655 between countries even in our own time. 98 00:08:36,499 --> 00:08:39,811 The letters show Amenhotep was as good at diplomacy 99 00:08:40,551 --> 00:08:42,592 as his ancestors had been at fighting. 100 00:08:50,909 --> 00:08:52,880 Ambassadors flocked to pharaoh's court, 101 00:08:53,567 --> 00:08:54,819 bringing gifts of friendship. 102 00:08:56,059 --> 00:09:01,223 Less powerful countries sent endless streams of tribute to show their loyalty. 103 00:09:04,134 --> 00:09:06,322 The principle in the ancient world was quite clear. 104 00:09:06,634 --> 00:09:07,470 If somebody was rich, 105 00:09:07,699 --> 00:09:09,186 you made them feel even richer. 106 00:09:10,104 --> 00:09:14,075 So when you visited them you would turn up with produce of your own country. 107 00:09:14,593 --> 00:09:17,169 It's partly to acknowledge that the power of the pharaoh 108 00:09:17,603 --> 00:09:21,941 extends even to countries where he has not set foot. 109 00:09:38,237 --> 00:09:41,134 Scenes painted in Egyptian tombs show how 110 00:09:41,134 --> 00:09:43,854 these dazzling displays of tribute must have looked. 111 00:09:48,428 --> 00:09:51,275 Priceless objects flooded in from all over the known world, 112 00:09:51,648 --> 00:09:55,766 from Minoan Crete, to Biblical Babylon. 113 00:10:04,808 --> 00:10:07,091 The Nubians would bring giraffes and lions. 114 00:10:08,153 --> 00:10:10,529 The Syrians might bring bears, 115 00:10:10,829 --> 00:10:12,405 which were found in the mountains of Syria. 116 00:10:12,677 --> 00:10:16,000 People from other places would bring animals and birds characteristic of their countries. 117 00:10:18,480 --> 00:10:25,876 It was a very dramatic dynamic expression of what the empire meant for the Egyptians, 118 00:10:26,261 --> 00:10:28,098 what it was composed of, and above all, 119 00:10:28,098 --> 00:10:31,544 how central the Egyptian king was to this whole system. 120 00:10:37,047 --> 00:10:38,360 Amenhotep calls himself the King of Kings, 121 00:10:39,962 --> 00:10:41,754 and the King of Kings is what he must have seemed 122 00:10:42,318 --> 00:10:44,785 to the rulers who shared his world. 123 00:10:46,192 --> 00:10:50,318 Amenhotep knew he was the most powerful man in the world 124 00:10:50,788 --> 00:10:52,822 and he knew he had one great advantage. 125 00:10:56,853 --> 00:11:01,790 It was not military might, but gold. 126 00:11:02,198 --> 00:11:04,197 The letters that went back and forth from pharaoh's court 127 00:11:04,874 --> 00:11:07,293 show that even the greatest kings of the Near East 128 00:11:07,855 --> 00:11:09,732 were desperate for Egypt's gold. 129 00:11:11,004 --> 00:11:13,348 And they were prepared to beg for it. 130 00:11:15,077 --> 00:11:17,828 Reconstruction voiceover: "If you send me the gold I wrote to you about 131 00:11:18,172 --> 00:11:20,141 I will give you my daughter. 132 00:11:20,984 --> 00:11:23,600 Send me as much as your father did." 133 00:11:24,046 --> 00:11:25,988 Reconstruction voiceover: "In your country gold is like dust 134 00:11:26,283 --> 00:11:27,549 and you can just gather it up. 135 00:11:27,893 --> 00:11:30,302 If it is your intention that a sincere friendship exists, 136 00:11:30,661 --> 00:11:32,833 send much gold." 137 00:11:32,833 --> 00:11:34,791 Reconstruction voiceover: "I have begun a new palace. 138 00:11:35,287 --> 00:11:37,857 Send me as much gold as is required for its..." 139 00:11:38,450 --> 00:11:40,805 Amenhotep responded shrewdly to their requests. 140 00:11:41,701 --> 00:11:44,460 He gave them gold but always left them wanting more. 141 00:11:45,806 --> 00:11:47,212 The strategy was a triumph. 142 00:11:47,796 --> 00:11:52,496 The kings of the Near East were exchanging gifts not blows. 143 00:11:56,465 --> 00:12:00,421 The most precious gift of all was a foreign princess as a wife, 144 00:12:01,160 --> 00:12:02,123 plus her dowry, 145 00:12:02,123 --> 00:12:03,169 and retinue. 146 00:12:03,875 --> 00:12:09,829 Amenhotep employed his personal ambassadors to find him the very best brides. 147 00:12:11,085 --> 00:12:13,687 It was about much more than pharaoh's sex life. 148 00:12:14,865 --> 00:12:21,318 Amenhotep's harem was full of the most beautiful daughters of the most powerful kings of the age. 149 00:12:24,789 --> 00:12:27,936 It is about brotherhood between the great kings. 150 00:12:27,936 --> 00:12:29,757 They called themselves brothers. 151 00:12:30,134 --> 00:12:32,070 And if you married a daughter of another king, 152 00:12:32,279 --> 00:12:34,335 then you really were part of the family. 153 00:12:35,966 --> 00:12:37,823 But this was not a two-way process. 154 00:12:38,510 --> 00:12:39,313 In one letter, 155 00:12:39,635 --> 00:12:45,847 the king of Babylon complains bitterly that Amenhotep has refused to send him an Egyptian princess. 156 00:12:46,386 --> 00:12:51,141 Reconstruction voiceover: "When I wrote to you about the possibility of my marrying your daughter, 157 00:12:51,141 --> 00:13:00,452 you wrote to me as follows: 'No daughter of a king of Egypt has ever been given to anyone.' Why not? You are a king, 158 00:13:01,195 --> 00:13:02,439 and can do what you like." 159 00:13:04,519 --> 00:13:06,664 It was a useless complaint. 160 00:13:06,664 --> 00:13:14,010 No Egyptian princess was allowed to marry into a foreign court for fear it would give a foreigner a claim to Egypt's throne. 161 00:13:14,824 --> 00:13:18,637 But the Babylonian king suggested a devious compromise. 162 00:13:20,358 --> 00:13:24,034 Reconstruction voiceover: "Send me a beautiful woman as if she was your daughter. 163 00:13:24,263 --> 00:13:27,546 Who will be able to say that this is not the king's daughter?" 164 00:13:28,286 --> 00:13:30,767 The Babylonian king's second request was denied. 165 00:13:32,071 --> 00:13:38,440 Amenhotep saw himself as being able to pick princesses and give none in return. 166 00:13:38,440 --> 00:13:41,243 I see him as a very intelligent man. 167 00:13:41,473 --> 00:13:44,537 He obviously used his position extremely carefully, 168 00:13:44,880 --> 00:13:48,628 so although there is great respect for the other kings of the time, 169 00:13:49,662 --> 00:13:53,289 he is always one cut above everybody else. 170 00:13:58,072 --> 00:14:02,574 Amenhotep was more wealthy and powerful than any previous Pharaoh. 171 00:14:03,198 --> 00:14:04,856 Soon everyone would know it. 172 00:14:07,013 --> 00:14:12,628 He would channel the vast resources of the empire into the largest building programme the world had ever seen. 173 00:14:15,548 --> 00:14:24,946 To embark on a building programme was one of the best ways for an Egyptian king to present himself as a hero, 174 00:14:25,800 --> 00:14:26,954 as an achiever, 175 00:14:27,289 --> 00:14:28,364 as a doer. 176 00:14:38,022 --> 00:14:39,833 It was work on an epic scale. 177 00:14:46,090 --> 00:14:54,925 The countless sandstone blocks hewn from the Egyptian quarries had left caverns that are themselves like temples carved out of the rock. 178 00:14:59,126 --> 00:15:00,282 It was a triumph of organisation. 179 00:15:01,438 --> 00:15:01,814 Soldiers, 180 00:15:02,160 --> 00:15:02,494 cooks, 181 00:15:03,063 --> 00:15:08,880 doctors and water bearers were all sent into the desert to support the quarries. 182 00:15:17,100 --> 00:15:21,382 Amenhotep's magnificent new temples did more than advertise his wealth. 183 00:15:21,977 --> 00:15:27,260 They also honoured the ultimate source of Egypt's glory - her many Gods. 184 00:15:31,416 --> 00:15:34,671 Amenhotep thanked one god in particular for his success. 185 00:15:35,762 --> 00:15:37,121 Amen-Re, 186 00:15:37,547 --> 00:15:38,951 the King of the Gods. 187 00:15:42,295 --> 00:15:44,047 To guaranty the support of Amen-Re, 188 00:15:44,578 --> 00:15:49,204 the pharaoh donated great portions of his wealth to the god's main temple. 189 00:15:51,695 --> 00:15:52,788 As the temple grew richer, 190 00:15:53,488 --> 00:15:56,330 the temple priests grew more powerful. 191 00:16:01,960 --> 00:16:07,115 The priests who controlled these vast establishments have power. 192 00:16:07,523 --> 00:16:09,852 They have financial power and they have political power as well. 193 00:16:15,601 --> 00:16:19,518 The power of the priests of Amen-Re was beginning to rival pharaoh himself. 194 00:16:20,893 --> 00:16:26,231 But out in the empire Amenhotep made sure his subjects heard only of his triumphs, 195 00:16:26,541 --> 00:16:27,897 not his problems. 196 00:16:30,147 --> 00:16:35,022 And he had a surprising new way of communicating directly with his subjects. 197 00:16:38,776 --> 00:16:39,420 Stones, 198 00:16:40,202 --> 00:16:45,245 carved into the shape of scarabs had long been used in Egypt as amulets, 199 00:16:46,870 --> 00:16:49,138 now Amenhotep had these mass-produced. 200 00:16:49,863 --> 00:16:54,049 Portable scarabs inscribed with news of his latest achievements, 201 00:16:55,217 --> 00:16:56,645 were carried across the empire. 202 00:16:57,004 --> 00:17:01,866 These propaganda beetles were the first newspapers in history. 203 00:17:02,470 --> 00:17:05,328 He wanted to proclaim his power, 204 00:17:05,596 --> 00:17:06,401 his richness, 205 00:17:06,691 --> 00:17:11,019 and his achievements to the broadest possible strata of the Egyptian population. 206 00:17:11,019 --> 00:17:20,648 This new scarab was a way of sending information all over the place. 207 00:17:22,195 --> 00:17:27,914 It was by news scarab that the outside world first heard Amenhotep had chosen his queen. 208 00:17:30,978 --> 00:17:33,533 In addition to the minor wives in his harem, 209 00:17:33,869 --> 00:17:36,160 every pharaoh selected a chief queen. 210 00:17:37,355 --> 00:17:38,979 To strengthen the royal line, 211 00:17:39,342 --> 00:17:42,794 she was often a sister of close female relatives. 212 00:17:43,202 --> 00:17:45,482 Amenhotep chose to ignore this royal custom. 213 00:17:45,974 --> 00:17:48,829 He proudly announced that he was marrying a commoner, 214 00:17:49,707 --> 00:17:55,194 the daughter of a chariot officer - a woman called Tiy. 215 00:17:56,425 --> 00:17:58,381 The Chief Queen Tiy, 216 00:17:58,770 --> 00:18:06,491 her father's name was Yuya and her mother's name was Thuya - and she was the wife of a mighty king. 217 00:18:07,836 --> 00:18:09,887 We get the sense of a very strong woman. 218 00:18:10,116 --> 00:18:12,162 The portraits are extraordinary, 219 00:18:12,605 --> 00:18:15,663 and they do convey something of the person 220 00:18:15,663 --> 00:18:18,996 - because there is no blandness to Queen Tiy. 221 00:18:19,434 --> 00:18:20,964 You look at her and you think, 222 00:18:21,276 --> 00:18:24,778 "Oh, she really was something else, this one." 223 00:18:25,413 --> 00:18:27,861 Queen Tiy was not an easy queen. 224 00:18:27,861 --> 00:18:33,206 She was so strong and you can see that from the statues of this queen. 225 00:18:33,478 --> 00:18:36,989 Hers were equal in size to the king. 226 00:18:38,146 --> 00:18:40,456 Queen Tiy was more than just a chief queen. 227 00:18:40,957 --> 00:18:43,553 She was Amenhotep's near equal. 228 00:18:49,058 --> 00:18:50,358 Far down the Nile in Nubia, 229 00:18:50,947 --> 00:18:55,870 Amenhotep made this stunningly clear by building a pair of temples: 230 00:18:56,140 --> 00:19:02,497 one for Queen Tiy and one nearby for himself, here at Saleb. 231 00:19:04,592 --> 00:19:07,594 These temples were not just built for the royal couple: 232 00:19:07,937 --> 00:19:09,763 they were actually dedicated to them. 233 00:19:10,781 --> 00:19:12,533 Deep in the southern part of his empire, 234 00:19:13,157 --> 00:19:16,190 Amenhotep and Tiy were worshipped as gods. 235 00:19:17,672 --> 00:19:25,619 The shadow of pharaoh extends in stone along the Nile to the African provinces of his empire. 236 00:19:25,940 --> 00:19:28,307 He is there in a physical presence, 237 00:19:28,535 --> 00:19:31,521 looking out over the empire that he controls. 238 00:19:34,185 --> 00:19:37,289 Amenhotep's message to his Nubian subjects was clear. 239 00:19:37,935 --> 00:19:42,311 At the base of the columns at Saleb are images of captive Nubians. 240 00:19:42,969 --> 00:19:46,669 These are a graphic representation of pharaoh's power for all to see. 241 00:19:56,756 --> 00:20:01,516 Here in Nubia it was especially important that Amenhotep be in control. 242 00:20:02,316 --> 00:20:05,030 Nubia's mines supplied most of Egypt's gold, 243 00:20:05,859 --> 00:20:10,689 and gold was what allowed Amenhotep to control his rivals. 244 00:20:12,533 --> 00:20:15,525 The request from the foreign kings was for gold, 245 00:20:15,896 --> 00:20:17,740 gold, and more gold, 246 00:20:17,949 --> 00:20:19,727 because as says one of these kings: 247 00:20:20,116 --> 00:20:23,587 "In your land gold is as plentiful as dust." 248 00:20:24,553 --> 00:20:26,993 It's the Fort Knox of the ancient world. 249 00:20:30,932 --> 00:20:35,245 Amenhotep had secured the gold supply, 250 00:20:36,683 --> 00:20:40,809 but more and more of his gold was pouring into the temple of Amen-Re. 251 00:20:41,903 --> 00:20:46,437 Amenhotep's priests in Thebes now controlled one-third of Egypt's wealth. 252 00:20:47,530 --> 00:20:50,000 They also interpreted Amen-Re's will, 253 00:20:50,498 --> 00:20:52,907 which pharaoh had to obey. 254 00:20:53,890 --> 00:20:54,657 At this stage, 255 00:20:54,868 --> 00:20:57,724 the priests of Amen-Re were probably more powerful than 256 00:20:58,118 --> 00:21:00,401 they had ever been in the history of Egypt. 257 00:21:01,461 --> 00:21:03,496 In fact, the High Priests of Amen at Karnak 258 00:21:03,819 --> 00:21:08,132 would probably have a power superior to that of the king. 259 00:21:12,913 --> 00:21:15,225 To shift the power away from Amen-Re's priests, 260 00:21:15,780 --> 00:21:21,748 Amenhotep began to show interest in another minor god, Aten, 261 00:21:22,530 --> 00:21:24,095 the visible sun. 262 00:21:25,031 --> 00:21:26,940 It could hardly have seemed important. 263 00:21:27,629 --> 00:21:30,380 Yet it was about to change everything. 264 00:21:32,222 --> 00:21:37,007 In 1352 BC, Amenhotep III, the great King, 265 00:21:37,370 --> 00:21:38,536 the diplomatic genius died. 266 00:21:43,495 --> 00:21:45,662 Egypt was plunged into mourning. 267 00:21:59,918 --> 00:22:03,482 The death of the king must have been a terrible event. 268 00:22:03,921 --> 00:22:06,155 This man had dominated politics, 269 00:22:06,475 --> 00:22:07,128 religion, 270 00:22:07,329 --> 00:22:09,692 the life of not only his subjects, 271 00:22:09,692 --> 00:22:12,453 but the life of the empire for such a long time. 272 00:22:14,672 --> 00:22:15,891 Even in the Near East, 273 00:22:16,415 --> 00:22:19,417 Amenhotep was mourned by his rivals. 274 00:22:20,319 --> 00:22:23,052 Foreign kings wrote to his widow, 275 00:22:23,052 --> 00:22:25,833 Queen Tiy, expressing their personal grief. 276 00:22:27,461 --> 00:22:30,524 Reconstruction voiceover: "I cried. I sat. I did not eat or drink. 277 00:22:31,451 --> 00:22:39,245 I mourned, saying if only I were dead, or 10,000 were dead in my land, 278 00:22:39,743 --> 00:22:43,841 and that my brother whom I love and who loves me, 279 00:22:44,204 --> 00:22:48,874 were alive as long as heaven and earth." 280 00:22:56,677 --> 00:22:59,905 Amenhotep died in the course of his 39th year. 281 00:23:00,188 --> 00:23:01,657 Probably in his last days, 282 00:23:01,657 --> 00:23:04,307 he could look out over the empire that seemingly 283 00:23:04,774 --> 00:23:06,295 the sun would never set over. 284 00:23:07,464 --> 00:23:10,213 He could think of a world at peace, 285 00:23:10,590 --> 00:23:11,924 where diplomacy ruled, 286 00:23:11,924 --> 00:23:13,715 where the wealth of Egypt was undoubted. 287 00:23:14,167 --> 00:23:16,141 And he could leave it all to his son, 288 00:23:16,873 --> 00:23:18,590 Amenhotep IV. 289 00:23:24,595 --> 00:23:28,940 Amenhotep IV had grown up in the most powerful family on earth. 290 00:23:29,752 --> 00:23:34,682 Now he found himself pharaoh and ruler of Egypt's empire. 291 00:23:36,941 --> 00:23:39,987 In the first years of Amenhotep IV's reign, 292 00:23:40,257 --> 00:23:42,008 it must have seemed like nothing had changed. 293 00:23:42,757 --> 00:23:46,183 But at his court, the new pharaoh was encouraging ideas 294 00:23:46,384 --> 00:23:48,834 that would soon transform Egyptian society. 295 00:23:53,227 --> 00:23:55,822 A radically new style of art was flourishing. 296 00:23:56,656 --> 00:23:57,590 According to the artists, 297 00:23:58,292 --> 00:24:00,972 it was the pharaoh himself who had taught them. 298 00:24:01,590 --> 00:24:04,910 These artists rejected the conventions of traditional Egyptian art. 299 00:24:05,544 --> 00:24:09,109 Instead, they celebrated the vibrancy of the real world. 300 00:24:12,349 --> 00:24:15,733 Their work was sensual and filled with movement. 301 00:24:28,925 --> 00:24:33,147 But what shocked Egyptians most were the new depictions of the royal family. 302 00:24:33,824 --> 00:24:36,650 To a modern eye, they seemed peculiar. 303 00:24:37,429 --> 00:24:41,338 To conservative Egyptians they must have been staggering. 304 00:24:44,431 --> 00:24:47,029 Suddenly you'd get a sort of celebration of ugliness. 305 00:24:47,578 --> 00:24:50,685 The bodies become extraordinarily proportioned. 306 00:24:50,987 --> 00:24:52,748 You've got a thin torso, 307 00:24:53,143 --> 00:24:59,492 thin shoulders and massive hips on male figures as well as female figures. 308 00:24:59,833 --> 00:25:02,376 There are also big buttocks and pendulous thighs, 309 00:25:02,609 --> 00:25:07,564 which must be quite extraordinary for an Egyptian to see. 310 00:25:07,812 --> 00:25:10,972 Presumably, he was actually just trying to make a statement, 311 00:25:11,235 --> 00:25:13,723 "Hey! I'm different!" Doing something, 312 00:25:13,961 --> 00:25:16,005 which completely breaks with tradition, 313 00:25:16,370 --> 00:25:17,755 must have been very shocking. 314 00:25:18,129 --> 00:25:22,029 It's a very good way of getting yourself noticed 315 00:25:22,414 --> 00:25:25,319 as someone who is going to do something really quite radical. 316 00:25:29,602 --> 00:25:33,448 Amenhotep IV was embarking of a religious revolution. 317 00:25:34,378 --> 00:25:36,950 The seeds had been sown in the reign of his father. 318 00:25:37,673 --> 00:25:41,606 But nothing could have prepared Egypt for what was about to happen. 319 00:25:47,013 --> 00:25:48,216 In the second year of his reign, 320 00:25:48,732 --> 00:25:52,236 Amenhotep IV abandoned Egypt's traditional gods. 321 00:25:53,174 --> 00:25:54,767 Even Amen-Re, 322 00:25:54,986 --> 00:25:56,017 the King of the gods, 323 00:25:56,017 --> 00:25:57,861 was discarded. 324 00:25:57,861 --> 00:26:01,520 His temples were closed and his priests were evicted. 325 00:26:03,649 --> 00:26:04,761 If you want to make a break with the past, 326 00:26:05,492 --> 00:26:07,339 you close the temples. 327 00:26:07,651 --> 00:26:12,089 You remove the means for these people to use or abuse their power. 328 00:26:14,401 --> 00:26:15,026 For this pharaoh, 329 00:26:15,276 --> 00:26:17,653 there would be only one god - the Aten, 330 00:26:18,323 --> 00:26:19,527 the visible sun. 331 00:26:23,574 --> 00:26:29,627 Amenhotep would become the first monotheist in recorded history. 332 00:26:32,033 --> 00:26:35,490 He would also be the only priest of his new religion. 333 00:26:35,783 --> 00:26:37,301 The pharaoh stands alone, 334 00:26:37,847 --> 00:26:40,088 bathed in the rays of the Aten. 335 00:26:40,505 --> 00:26:46,584 At a stroke, all the certainties of life that had marked 336 00:26:46,786 --> 00:26:50,748 the golden age of his father were swept away. 337 00:26:51,131 --> 00:26:55,226 He discarded the name Amenhotep meaning Amen the Satisfied. 338 00:26:55,812 --> 00:26:56,978 He would take a new name, 339 00:26:57,387 --> 00:27:02,539 Akenhaten, meaning one who is beneficial to the Aten. 340 00:27:03,980 --> 00:27:13,078 Akenhaten does seem to have been a very driven person who must have had enormous energy to carry through all the changes he's making. 341 00:27:13,483 --> 00:27:19,109 They are much more substantial than just religion and art. 342 00:27:19,456 --> 00:27:20,641 At the end of the day, 343 00:27:21,046 --> 00:27:25,821 he must have restructured the whole way the country was working. 344 00:27:29,738 --> 00:27:31,488 Akenhaten had only just begun. 345 00:27:32,447 --> 00:27:34,386 Now he planned another astonishing act. 346 00:27:35,105 --> 00:27:36,678 To seal the break with the past, 347 00:27:37,044 --> 00:27:40,201 he ordered the construction of an entirely new capital city, 348 00:27:41,115 --> 00:27:42,868 far to the north of Thebes. 349 00:27:46,962 --> 00:27:50,797 It was a desolate site known as Amarna. 350 00:27:54,731 --> 00:27:57,781 He called it the Horizon of the Sun. 351 00:28:00,125 --> 00:28:01,560 On vast boundary stelas, 352 00:28:01,967 --> 00:28:02,923 cut into the cliffs, 353 00:28:03,221 --> 00:28:06,499 Akenhaten claimed the sun god had led him there. 354 00:28:07,770 --> 00:28:12,272 And he made it clear that his decision to move was irreversible. 355 00:28:13,378 --> 00:28:14,991 Reconstruction voiceover: "It was my father, 356 00:28:14,991 --> 00:28:17,566 the Aten himself who pointed out the site. 357 00:28:18,378 --> 00:28:19,589 Before I came here, 358 00:28:19,589 --> 00:28:23,851 it didn't belong to any god or goddess or to any king or queen. 359 00:28:24,216 --> 00:28:28,226 I will never say I am leaving it, 360 00:28:29,375 --> 00:28:32,289 and I have no intention of breaking this oath." 361 00:28:33,478 --> 00:28:42,261 Amarna can't have been a very welcoming place for the first people that had to go there and try to create a city. 362 00:28:42,699 --> 00:28:44,637 It was desert really. 363 00:28:45,073 --> 00:28:48,678 It seems a rather strange place really to build a city. 364 00:28:50,138 --> 00:28:51,225 Abandoning Thebes, 365 00:28:51,984 --> 00:28:55,765 the new pharaoh could escape the influence of Egypt's high priests. 366 00:28:58,059 --> 00:28:59,884 We have a situation in which Thebes, 367 00:29:00,162 --> 00:29:04,623 the city that was traditionally celebrated in Egyptian hymns, 368 00:29:04,978 --> 00:29:08,594 had in fact become a threat to the king, 369 00:29:08,916 --> 00:29:11,512 to the most important inhabitant of this city. 370 00:29:18,293 --> 00:29:20,392 Everything in Thebes was packed up. 371 00:29:21,224 --> 00:29:23,171 Akenhaten and his entire government, 372 00:29:23,701 --> 00:29:29,484 officials, scribes, soldiers and artists would move to the new desert site. 373 00:29:45,574 --> 00:29:49,715 They were leaving behind their houses and their carefully prepared tombs. 374 00:29:50,867 --> 00:29:54,631 They were leaving behind the most cosmopolitan city in Egypt, 375 00:29:55,291 --> 00:29:56,923 built by Akenhaten's father. 376 00:29:58,961 --> 00:30:01,419 I don't think he would really have had any choice in the matter. 377 00:30:01,649 --> 00:30:03,775 If Akenhaten decides he wants to go there, 378 00:30:04,039 --> 00:30:06,086 everybody goes. 379 00:30:06,086 --> 00:30:08,304 The whole court would have to get up and go there. 380 00:30:08,304 --> 00:30:16,464 Everybody who would be part of court life would have had to get up and move to Amarna. 381 00:30:34,035 --> 00:30:36,284 Tens of thousands set out for Amarna. 382 00:30:36,752 --> 00:30:38,460 Ahead lay a 200-mile journey, 383 00:30:38,706 --> 00:30:40,930 up the Nile to a new life in the new city. 384 00:30:42,038 --> 00:30:44,380 All followed Akenhaten's great experiment. 385 00:30:49,496 --> 00:30:53,040 The new capital city had been built on an unprecedented scale. 386 00:30:54,150 --> 00:30:56,853 It was eight miles long and three miles wide. 387 00:31:19,690 --> 00:31:22,390 Four huge palaces rose from the desert floor, 388 00:31:22,858 --> 00:31:24,925 surrounded by ornamental lakes and gardens. 389 00:31:27,769 --> 00:31:30,988 And dominating the city was the great temple of the Aten. 390 00:31:31,861 --> 00:31:33,178 The temple was open to the sun, 391 00:31:33,612 --> 00:31:37,010 surrounded by wide roads and open spaces. 392 00:31:37,949 --> 00:31:38,787 To a certain degree, 393 00:31:38,787 --> 00:31:43,398 Amarna was conceived very much like an American city. 394 00:31:43,678 --> 00:31:51,139 It was planned in a way that would account for openness and freedom. 395 00:32:02,425 --> 00:32:09,220 The whole city was one great stage on which pharaoh could demonstrate his devotion to the Aten. 396 00:32:27,731 --> 00:32:29,320 With him at the head of these processions, 397 00:32:29,712 --> 00:32:33,353 his subjects could see the woman who had helped him realise his wishes. 398 00:32:34,258 --> 00:32:37,091 She was one of the most remarkable women of the ancient world, 399 00:32:38,875 --> 00:32:44,980 but her face would not be seen again until the beginning of the 20th century. 400 00:32:46,564 --> 00:32:48,372 In the winter of 1912, 401 00:32:49,044 --> 00:32:54,694 a German archaeologist Ludvic Borchardt came to excavate at Amarna. 402 00:32:55,828 --> 00:32:57,205 Reconstruction voiceover: "On December 6, 403 00:32:57,205 --> 00:32:59,235 just before the lunch break, 404 00:32:59,599 --> 00:33:02,579 I was called by an urgent note from Professor Borchardt, 405 00:33:02,863 --> 00:33:05,456 who was supervising the excavations. 406 00:33:06,227 --> 00:33:08,700 There at about knee height in front of us, 407 00:33:09,055 --> 00:33:11,707 a flesh coloured neck appeared." 408 00:33:12,769 --> 00:33:14,927 As his workers brushed the sand away, 409 00:33:15,522 --> 00:33:18,668 Borchardt began to see a stone face looking back at him. 410 00:33:19,961 --> 00:33:22,649 It was the most beautiful he had ever seen. 411 00:33:22,994 --> 00:33:24,045 It was the face of a queen, 412 00:33:24,305 --> 00:33:25,433 whose name meant, 413 00:33:25,680 --> 00:33:27,274 "a beautiful woman has come", 414 00:33:28,060 --> 00:33:30,596 Nefertiti. 415 00:33:36,452 --> 00:33:41,301 Stunned, that evening Borchardt wrote just one line in his diary. 416 00:33:42,489 --> 00:33:43,955 Reconstruction voiceover: "Description is useless, 417 00:33:43,955 --> 00:33:46,647 see for yourself". 418 00:33:48,043 --> 00:33:52,497 In real life Nefertiti was as remarkable as her statue. 419 00:33:53,679 --> 00:33:54,983 Like her mother-in-law, 420 00:33:55,249 --> 00:33:56,170 Queen Tiy, 421 00:33:56,170 --> 00:33:59,718 Nefertiti played a prominent role in public life. 422 00:34:00,308 --> 00:34:04,640 She and Akenhaten stood together at the head of the new regime. 423 00:34:06,337 --> 00:34:09,985 If you look at the role Nefertiti plays in the Amarna period, 424 00:34:10,267 --> 00:34:14,175 it is almost as important as that of Akenhaten. 425 00:34:14,612 --> 00:34:15,613 She is there, 426 00:34:15,872 --> 00:34:16,905 present all the time. 427 00:34:17,216 --> 00:34:21,109 She is even shown in some of the reliefs smiting the enemy 428 00:34:21,109 --> 00:34:23,251 - as a pharaoh is always shown. 429 00:34:23,678 --> 00:34:26,001 So Nefertiti is not just a beautiful woman, 430 00:34:26,314 --> 00:34:32,909 she is a very important element in this new and incredible experiment. 431 00:34:33,838 --> 00:34:39,413 Nefertiti is also the only Egyptian queen intimately described by her husband 432 00:34:40,478 --> 00:34:45,124 - in verses of love and devotion, over 3,000 years old. 433 00:34:45,418 --> 00:34:46,508 Reconstruction voiceover: "She stands out in the palace, 434 00:34:47,260 --> 00:34:48,665 fair-faced and beautiful. 435 00:34:49,195 --> 00:34:51,845 At the sound of her voice, 436 00:34:51,845 --> 00:34:54,590 rejoicing breaks out. 437 00:34:55,107 --> 00:34:58,720 Her appearance fills the king with pleasure. 438 00:34:59,599 --> 00:35:01,984 She is the chief queen, 439 00:35:02,684 --> 00:35:04,140 the king's beloved. 440 00:35:04,944 --> 00:35:06,827 She is the mistress of two lands, 441 00:35:07,299 --> 00:35:08,237 Nefertiti." 442 00:35:10,172 --> 00:35:13,946 Nefertiti was not the only woman in Akenhaten's life. 443 00:35:17,251 --> 00:35:18,925 In the northern apartments of the palace, 444 00:35:19,320 --> 00:35:21,770 Nefertiti brought up their six daughters. 445 00:35:22,620 --> 00:35:24,146 In the few surviving reliefs, 446 00:35:24,729 --> 00:35:25,700 we see the princesses, 447 00:35:26,355 --> 00:35:29,583 six little girls growing up in the City of the Sun, 448 00:35:30,645 --> 00:35:33,334 well loved by their father and mother. 449 00:35:37,891 --> 00:35:41,892 No other royal family in the ancient world seems so human, 450 00:35:42,337 --> 00:35:43,359 so real. 451 00:35:54,406 --> 00:35:58,439 Stelas even show Akenhaten and his wife playing with their children 452 00:35:59,492 --> 00:36:03,969 - a brief moment in time captured 3,300 years ago. 453 00:36:11,576 --> 00:36:14,544 The representations of this divine family are unique. 454 00:36:15,066 --> 00:36:21,553 Never before do you see the king and the queen with their children climbing all over them, 455 00:36:21,811 --> 00:36:23,704 or the king kissing his child. 456 00:36:24,016 --> 00:36:25,819 These are family situations, 457 00:36:26,050 --> 00:36:28,114 which we would recognise now as very human, 458 00:36:28,518 --> 00:36:29,862 and they appear at this time. 459 00:36:33,605 --> 00:36:35,487 Freed from the constraints of the old order, 460 00:36:36,115 --> 00:36:38,513 life in Amarna was good, 461 00:36:38,836 --> 00:36:39,803 at least for now. 462 00:36:41,323 --> 00:36:43,837 This success was celebrated in a new type of hymn, 463 00:36:44,262 --> 00:36:46,805 which the king himself claimed to have written. 464 00:36:48,868 --> 00:36:51,891 The greatest of these hymns was carved in a tomb above the city. 465 00:36:52,549 --> 00:36:57,483 It was a hymn so powerful that phrases from it found their way into the Bible. 466 00:36:59,514 --> 00:37:04,905 In it, Akenhaten praised the sun as the creator of the natural world 467 00:37:05,373 --> 00:37:10,439 - plants, animals, Egyptians, even foreigners. 468 00:37:14,159 --> 00:37:16,488 Reconstruction voiceover: "When you cast your rays, 469 00:37:16,751 --> 00:37:19,222 the herds are happy in their pastures. 470 00:37:19,473 --> 00:37:21,630 Trees and plants grow green. 471 00:37:22,099 --> 00:37:27,849 All the flocks gamble and all the birds come to life because you have risen for them. 472 00:37:28,475 --> 00:37:32,904 Even the fish in the rivers leap towards your face. 473 00:37:33,778 --> 00:37:38,555 You created the earth to please you - people, 474 00:37:38,852 --> 00:37:39,714 cattle and flocks, 475 00:37:40,031 --> 00:37:44,104 everything that walks on land or takes off and flies, using wings. 476 00:37:45,167 --> 00:37:52,408 The general message of the great hymn to the Aten in Amarna is that life comes from the Sun God, 477 00:37:53,050 --> 00:37:59,075 and life is distributed equally over the earth - equally among nations, 478 00:37:59,585 --> 00:38:00,695 equally among people, 479 00:38:00,990 --> 00:38:02,523 equally among animals. 480 00:38:09,432 --> 00:38:12,703 Egypt appeared to have accepted the new religion of the Aten. 481 00:38:16,111 --> 00:38:17,467 And in the twelfth year of his reign, 482 00:38:18,143 --> 00:38:24,809 Akenhaten organised a massive celebration to give thanks to his god with thousands of offerings. 483 00:38:31,471 --> 00:38:35,188 Even the elderly Queen Mother Tiy paid a royal visit. 484 00:38:48,819 --> 00:38:52,666 Ambassadors came from all over the world to deliver their tribute. 485 00:38:53,090 --> 00:39:00,259 At the head of it all was Akenhaten and sitting beside him Queen Nefertiti. 486 00:39:00,560 --> 00:39:02,731 There had never been a partnership like it. 487 00:39:03,121 --> 00:39:06,261 The incredible experiment appeared to be working. 488 00:39:09,442 --> 00:39:10,335 But that same year, 489 00:39:11,258 --> 00:39:12,814 in the midst of apparent triumph, 490 00:39:13,758 --> 00:39:16,719 Akenhaten's new world suddenly began to fall apart. 491 00:39:21,345 --> 00:39:22,688 At the height of her powers, 492 00:39:23,475 --> 00:39:26,126 Nefertiti simply vanishes from history. 493 00:39:28,003 --> 00:39:32,272 Egyptologists have failed to discover exactly what happened to her. 494 00:39:39,338 --> 00:39:41,740 Personal tragedy heaped upon the pharaoh. 495 00:39:42,318 --> 00:39:43,964 Nefertiti was gone. 496 00:39:44,445 --> 00:39:45,247 His mother, 497 00:39:45,247 --> 00:39:45,760 the great Queen Tiy, 498 00:39:46,593 --> 00:39:48,421 died soon afterwards. 499 00:39:48,810 --> 00:39:50,540 So too did one of his minor wives, 500 00:39:52,259 --> 00:39:53,513 and even one of his daughters. 501 00:39:57,638 --> 00:39:59,137 After 12 years of tolerance, 502 00:39:59,826 --> 00:40:02,700 Akenhaten began to turn his power to destructive ends. 503 00:40:03,937 --> 00:40:07,486 Once he had been content simply to replace Egypt's traditional gods, 504 00:40:08,099 --> 00:40:13,298 now he actively began to persecute them and Amen-Re bore the brunt of his fury. 505 00:40:18,415 --> 00:40:23,850 The reformer had become a fanatic incapable of tolerating other gods. 506 00:40:34,307 --> 00:40:37,184 Akenhaten was certainly the first monotheist, 507 00:40:37,517 --> 00:40:42,621 but also certainly the first religious oppressor in the history of the world. 508 00:40:43,652 --> 00:40:44,746 Wherever they could be found, 509 00:40:45,198 --> 00:40:47,530 the name and image of Amen-Re were destroyed. 510 00:40:48,700 --> 00:40:52,701 No reference to the god was too far away or too inaccessible. 511 00:40:53,624 --> 00:40:57,343 He sent out what must have been armies of men with chisels, 512 00:40:58,094 --> 00:41:03,410 along with people who could read the walls and find the names of the gods to be removed. 513 00:41:06,283 --> 00:41:09,349 Akenhaten even attacked the memory of his beloved father, 514 00:41:09,722 --> 00:41:10,849 Amenhotep, 515 00:41:11,597 --> 00:41:14,715 gouging out the part of his name that mentioned Amen. 516 00:41:15,787 --> 00:41:19,257 The name Amenhotep means "Amen is Satisfied". 517 00:41:19,787 --> 00:41:23,028 Akenhaten removed the Amen portion of the name, 518 00:41:23,497 --> 00:41:26,167 because obviously under his reign, 519 00:41:26,433 --> 00:41:28,072 Amen was certainly not satisfied. 520 00:41:28,416 --> 00:41:36,061 So he inflicted a punishment on his own father's name in order to comply with his own religious views, 521 00:41:36,420 --> 00:41:38,934 with his own religious fanaticism. 522 00:41:40,732 --> 00:41:42,419 Consumed by his religious fervour, 523 00:41:42,953 --> 00:41:46,095 Akenhaten had lost touch with the outside world. 524 00:41:46,536 --> 00:41:50,266 Letters poured in to warn pharaoh that his empire was under threat. 525 00:41:51,360 --> 00:41:52,334 Old allies, 526 00:41:52,636 --> 00:41:55,458 princes and vassals wrote begging him for help. 527 00:41:56,799 --> 00:42:00,550 Reconstruction voiceover: "The King my Lord should be informed that the King of Hatti has seized all countries that were the vassals of..." 528 00:42:02,866 --> 00:42:06,180 Reconstruction voiceover: "We have been writing to the King our Lord for 20 years, 529 00:42:06,679 --> 00:42:09,798 but we haven't heard a single word back." 530 00:42:10,150 --> 00:42:11,830 Reconstruction voiceover: "In Canaan some locals beat my merchants and stole their money. 531 00:42:13,552 --> 00:42:16,650 Canaan is your country and its kings are your slaves. 532 00:42:16,903 --> 00:42:22,180 Reconstruction voiceover: "I keep writing to the palace but you have never replied." 533 00:42:22,767 --> 00:42:26,529 Those princes and those people in the east were crying, 534 00:42:26,996 --> 00:42:27,905 "help us", 535 00:42:28,123 --> 00:42:30,926 but his ears did not hear anything. 536 00:42:35,560 --> 00:42:38,717 Akenhaten ignored the desperate pleas of his subjects. 537 00:42:43,459 --> 00:42:48,251 The empire his father had worked so hard to maintain was now in danger. 538 00:42:50,689 --> 00:42:52,347 As their world began to fall apart, 539 00:42:52,690 --> 00:42:57,493 Akenhaten's oldest officials must have remembered how things had been under his father. 540 00:42:58,442 --> 00:43:05,247 One could say that Akenhaten did all he could in his power to destroy his father's legacy. 541 00:43:05,622 --> 00:43:07,167 So at the end of his reign, 542 00:43:07,593 --> 00:43:16,509 what used to be a very cohesive power in the international arena is a country on the verge of crisis. 543 00:43:21,241 --> 00:43:24,847 Only the pharaoh's personal charisma held the dream together. 544 00:43:27,383 --> 00:43:31,506 Then, in 1336 BC, Akenhaten died. 545 00:43:41,728 --> 00:43:42,718 With Akenhaten dead, 546 00:43:43,698 --> 00:43:45,563 the keystone of Akenism was gone. 547 00:43:48,903 --> 00:43:51,130 In the hills above the deserted city, 548 00:43:52,075 --> 00:43:55,418 work was abandoned on the tombs of Akenhaten's courtiers. 549 00:44:02,517 --> 00:44:06,134 The tombs at Amarna are all unfinished and unoccupied. 550 00:44:06,851 --> 00:44:10,775 The paintings are barely finished in some cases. 551 00:44:11,049 --> 00:44:14,489 It's almost as though somebody has just heard the king has died. 552 00:44:14,978 --> 00:44:16,177 "We're going away, 553 00:44:16,739 --> 00:44:18,741 drop your tools and go." 554 00:44:24,150 --> 00:44:25,554 Now with Akenhaten dead, 555 00:44:26,588 --> 00:44:28,717 traditional forces took hold of Egypt. 556 00:44:30,371 --> 00:44:32,713 Once-loyal courtiers, artisans, 557 00:44:33,072 --> 00:44:36,966 even priests of the Aten flocked back to Thebes. 558 00:44:37,480 --> 00:44:42,046 They were eager to wrest order from the chaos that threatened to engulf Egypt. 559 00:44:44,705 --> 00:44:47,781 After just 20 years, Amarna, 560 00:44:48,172 --> 00:44:50,783 the setting for pharaoh's great experiment, 561 00:44:51,562 --> 00:44:53,437 was abandoned. 562 00:45:00,315 --> 00:45:03,588 Emerging from the chaos came a new king, 563 00:45:04,098 --> 00:45:05,473 a 9-year-old boy. 564 00:45:06,216 --> 00:45:09,411 This child pharaoh had grown up in Akenhaten's palaces. 565 00:45:09,882 --> 00:45:11,258 His son by a minor wife, 566 00:45:13,039 --> 00:45:19,195 His name was Tutankhaten - meaning the living image of the Aten. 567 00:45:22,136 --> 00:45:23,875 Tutankhaten inherited a dynasty, 568 00:45:24,263 --> 00:45:25,002 a country, 569 00:45:25,687 --> 00:45:29,388 and an empire that was staring disaster in the face. 570 00:45:29,607 --> 00:45:31,263 But he was only a boy. 571 00:45:31,671 --> 00:45:35,880 Those who had lost out under Akenhaten seized their opportunity. 572 00:45:36,910 --> 00:45:39,441 They would use the young king to their own ends. 573 00:45:41,594 --> 00:45:44,134 First they would have to change his name. 574 00:45:45,069 --> 00:45:52,098 Tutankhaten became Tutankhamen - 'a living image of Amen'. 575 00:45:52,362 --> 00:45:55,691 Tutankhamen is, to a certain extent, a dual personality. 576 00:45:55,925 --> 00:46:01,241 He is a personality in between the Amarna and the post Amarna age. 577 00:46:01,482 --> 00:46:05,275 He certainly breathed Amarna air. 578 00:46:05,610 --> 00:46:10,369 He was imbued with this intellectual innovation. 579 00:46:10,769 --> 00:46:11,891 On the other hand, 580 00:46:11,891 --> 00:46:15,652 he was also the first pharaoh of the post Amarna era. 581 00:46:16,080 --> 00:46:22,874 He was the puppet of the new leaders in Egypt - the priesthood and military. 582 00:46:23,220 --> 00:46:24,687 In a carefully scripted decree, 583 00:46:25,064 --> 00:46:32,210 Tutankhamen blamed his own father Akenhaten for neglecting Egypt's traditional gods and plunging Egypt into chaos. 584 00:46:32,454 --> 00:46:37,161 Reconstruction voiceover: "When his Majesty's reign began, 585 00:46:37,649 --> 00:46:41,778 the temples of the gods and goddesses were in ruins. 586 00:46:42,192 --> 00:46:45,686 Their shrines had crumbled into piles of rubble, 587 00:46:45,686 --> 00:46:47,289 choked with weeds. 588 00:46:47,289 --> 00:46:53,445 Their chapels were little more than footpaths and the land was in chaos because the gods had abandoned it." 589 00:46:53,759 --> 00:46:58,874 Tutankhamen's solution to these problems was simple. 590 00:47:00,009 --> 00:47:05,972 It is a very important proclamation to the effect that order is being restored, 591 00:47:06,356 --> 00:47:08,941 and that things were going to go back to the way they were before. 592 00:47:09,483 --> 00:47:13,631 So this is the bringing back of Amen, 593 00:47:14,161 --> 00:47:15,514 of the ancient gods, 594 00:47:15,842 --> 00:47:16,984 of the old order. 595 00:47:18,173 --> 00:47:20,474 The old Gods, the temples, 596 00:47:21,140 --> 00:47:26,143 and above all the power of the priests of Amen-Re were restored. 597 00:47:26,666 --> 00:47:30,824 The Aten was relegated to a minor place in the Pantheon. 598 00:47:31,585 --> 00:47:33,085 No one went to its city, 599 00:47:33,644 --> 00:47:34,991 no one spoke of it. 600 00:47:35,617 --> 00:47:39,494 Akenhaten's heresy had simply never happened. 601 00:47:42,023 --> 00:47:49,559 By the time Tutankhamen was 19 and able to rule in his own right everything seemed to have returned to normal. 602 00:47:50,651 --> 00:47:56,841 But that same year Tutankhamen died suddenly and mysteriously. 603 00:47:57,209 --> 00:48:04,866 An examination of his skull has recently produced yet another theory concerning the Aten family. 604 00:48:05,336 --> 00:48:08,959 It is this: Tutankhamen may have been murdered. 605 00:48:09,274 --> 00:48:10,234 By whom? 606 00:48:13,306 --> 00:48:18,310 It is a disaster for the royal family - there is no heir. 607 00:48:20,230 --> 00:48:29,936 Tutankhamen would only have been a footnote in Egyptian history if it had not been for the perseverance of a 20th century archaeologist named Howard Carter. 608 00:48:31,033 --> 00:48:35,494 In 1922, Carter discovered a tomb in the Valley of the Kings, 609 00:48:35,837 --> 00:48:37,709 that few else believed existed. 610 00:48:54,006 --> 00:49:00,009 In a single breathtaking moment he would bring the age of Tutankhamen back to life. 611 00:49:03,319 --> 00:49:12,314 Reconstruction voiceover: "The dust itself maintained eerie footprints of the last people to breathe that very air 3,500 years earlier. 612 00:49:13,260 --> 00:49:15,660 As you note the signs of recent life around you, 613 00:49:16,012 --> 00:49:17,420 a blackened lamp, 614 00:49:17,845 --> 00:49:20,137 the finger marks on a freshly painted surface, 615 00:49:21,105 --> 00:49:24,203 the farewell garland dropped upon the threshold, 616 00:49:24,982 --> 00:49:27,020 you feel it might have been put there yesterday. 617 00:49:27,691 --> 00:49:31,954 Time is annihilated by such intimate details as these, 618 00:49:32,883 --> 00:49:35,361 and you feel an intruder. 619 00:49:38,962 --> 00:49:40,209 Carter's find was unique. 620 00:49:41,067 --> 00:49:48,240 He had not just rediscovered Tutankhamen; he had unearthed the fabulous treasure ever found. 621 00:50:02,478 --> 00:50:11,544 Some 32,000 objects and vast quantities of the gold of Egypt's empire were buried with the boy king. 622 00:50:16,911 --> 00:50:18,835 There were thousands of objects. 623 00:50:19,157 --> 00:50:20,033 Six chariots, 624 00:50:20,407 --> 00:50:22,086 four ceremonial beds, 625 00:50:22,375 --> 00:50:25,275 endless containers in the ante chamber alone. 626 00:50:26,181 --> 00:50:33,945 When Howard Carter describes opening the tomb and eventually removing these objects (and it took 10 years to clear the tomb), 627 00:50:34,163 --> 00:50:42,664 he actually tells us that they had to rig up platforms above the ground in order to avoid trampling on these objects and breaking them. 628 00:50:49,791 --> 00:50:51,594 In spite of its astonishing contents, 629 00:50:51,979 --> 00:50:54,939 Tutankhamen's tiny tomb was not complete. 630 00:50:55,969 --> 00:50:58,324 His treasures had not been carefully placed, 631 00:50:58,607 --> 00:51:00,412 but were randomly crammed in. 632 00:51:04,538 --> 00:51:06,235 This was no normal burial. 633 00:51:07,377 --> 00:51:10,860 On the back of the golden throne found in his tomb is a clue. 634 00:51:12,988 --> 00:51:18,363 Tutankhamen and his wife are shown sitting beneath the rays of the sun god Aten. 635 00:51:29,679 --> 00:51:35,790 Tutankhamen's officials had taken the opportunity to seal away this reminder of his father's reign, 636 00:51:36,227 --> 00:51:38,495 and the period they found so shameful. 637 00:51:46,780 --> 00:51:51,687 Tutankhamen was doomed to spend eternity with the very god he had renounced. 638 00:52:00,595 --> 00:52:02,243 Tutankhamen died without an heir. 639 00:52:03,427 --> 00:52:07,131 The backlash could now begin and it was savage. 640 00:52:09,870 --> 00:52:15,177 Every mention of the Aten that could be found was destroyed with ruthless efficiency. 641 00:52:21,884 --> 00:52:23,906 Every reference to Akenhaten, 642 00:52:24,354 --> 00:52:26,664 Nefertiti and their children was hacked out. 643 00:52:29,543 --> 00:52:34,450 The entire royal family was torn from the pages of history. 644 00:52:34,826 --> 00:52:37,223 Everything is obliterated and Akenhaten, 645 00:52:37,669 --> 00:52:42,546 Nefertiti and this period become as though they had never happened. 646 00:52:42,920 --> 00:52:44,504 Akenhaten is a non-person. 647 00:52:44,723 --> 00:52:45,797 He is referred to, 648 00:52:46,035 --> 00:52:47,517 if ever he is mentioned, 649 00:52:47,771 --> 00:52:49,884 as 'that heretic'. 650 00:52:54,757 --> 00:52:55,612 Amarna, 651 00:52:56,498 --> 00:52:59,655 the once great and beautiful city that witnessed the birth of monotheism 652 00:53:00,477 --> 00:53:05,573 gradually crumbled back into the sand abandoned for all time. 653 00:53:07,454 --> 00:53:14,512 I would say that Egyptian society as a whole saw the Amarna experience as one of its most tragic moments. 654 00:53:14,918 --> 00:53:22,671 So much so that the Amarna experience left its trace for hundreds of years. 655 00:53:23,046 --> 00:53:30,987 The memory of this very dark period of Egyptian history remained in Egyptian conscience. 656 00:53:32,863 --> 00:53:35,884 A turbulent episode in the history of Egypt was over. 657 00:53:36,614 --> 00:53:38,146 The dynasty of the great pharaohs, 658 00:53:38,364 --> 00:53:39,722 who had founded the empire, 659 00:53:40,011 --> 00:53:42,305 came to an end. 660 00:53:42,305 --> 00:53:47,069 The stage was now set for a new beginning and a new family of pharaohs 661 00:53:47,475 --> 00:53:55,747 would struggle to recapture the glory of Egypt's Golden Empire.