Mod3Egypt1

So, hi, hello my friends. Um, I hope wherever you are, you're in good spirits and, um, you're kind of cozied up and you are listening to the continuation of the history of Egypt. And, um, this really, you know, incredible, um, civilization of Africa, um, that was very much connected, as we will see, to Nubia, right? And as you have, must have, I mean, you have seen already, um, to Nubia, right?

So, before, before we, um, begin, I want to bring, you know, remind you of the chronology that we, we're dealing with, right? So, just for, for our purposes, um, 3100 to 2575 BCE. That's, you know, almost at the beginning of the third century. You know, that this is, this is, this is late fourth and late, um, not, not century, um, millennia. Yeah. And this is late fourth millennia, and it will get into, um, third millennia, right? Um, and, um, so, um, the early dynastic period, in other words, basically covers, right, the first half of the third millennium, right? And, and that coincides, right, with the early dynastic period in in Sumer, right? Uh, and, uh, the early dynastic period, um, in Sumer, basically, right, the early dynastic period in in Egypt, basically corresponds to the early dynastic period in Sumeria. And, and, um, yeah.

So, um, so, and then we go to the Old Kingdom, and we see that the Old Kingdom is basically, covers, together with the first intermediate period, basically covers the whole third, the, the second half of the third millennium, right? Old Kingdom, right? And the Old Kingdom, right, covers early dynastic and the Archaic period. Um, and, uh, and if you know, so by the third dynasty of Ur, by the end of the third dynasty of Ur, right, um, that is one where you have, um, you have, uh, the end of, of the first intermediate period, right? And then Middle Kingdom, right? Middle Kingdom starts late third millennium, right? And goes, basically, through the first half of the second millennium, right? First, uh, first half of the second millennium. Uh, so, so this is, this is the, the chronology that we have. And we, I, I left us at the, um, first millennium, right? So, we remember, um, the first millennium, we talked about climate change, right? Uh, we talked about, um, we talked about drought in southern Nubia, um, we talked about low floods in Egypt, as a result of the drought in southern Nubia, as a result of all of this, you have, have, you know, you have deprivation, you have poverty, you have, um, drought in Egypt, right? The, the, the Nile does not flood enough, and so on and so forth. So, there you have social and political turmoil, in the midst of which, you know, petty kings appear, and you have, basically, weak rulers during the first, um, intermediate period, right? Weak rulers, decentralization, and the fact that during the first intermediate period, right, local lords, um, get, um, get the upper hand, right?

And then, uh, you remember that there, we, we had this, this quote about, um, how desperate the situation is in the first intermediate period in Egypt. You know, you remember the, the opulence that it had, right, in the Old Kingdom? And then, you know, you have the, the, the piece that tells you, everything is filthy, there is no such thing as clean linen these days, and so on and so forth. So, you remember that also, by the end of the first, I mean, during the first millennium, um, I, first intermediate period, I'm sorry, during the first intermediate period, um, we, you, the period, in fact, is covered by the seventh and eighth and ninth and tenth dynasties, yeah. Seventh through tenth dynasties is the first intermediate period. And the map of the period is included in your previous, uh, video, um, if you recall, right? Um, but you could refer to it, my friends, yeah.

So, okay. So, um, after this period of upheaval, right, in, in, in, in the social and political and economic fabric of Egypt, right, after the first intermediate period, seventh to the, um, to the tenth Dynasty, you get the Pharaoh with the eleventh Dynasty, yeah. You get the Pharaoh Mentuhotep, Mentuhotep the Third, who comes from Thebes, right? Um, so, the, the eleventh Dynasty, basically, is the, is the dynasty of Thebes, is the dynasty that grows out of, uh, Thebes, and, and sort of, um, unites, right, unites Egypt by overthrowing the, um, let me see, my friends, where we have, yes, and they overthrowing the Heracleopolitan Dynasty, uh, right?

And I want you just to look at Egypt here, right? Look at this map that we have here, right? And I want you to put, to, to keep in mind a number of places, my, my friends, on the map. I want you to remember, um, on the, um, basically, you see the Delta, right? On the, on the east side of the Delta, right, where you have number 19, if you look at it, on the east side of the Delta, you have number 19, and you have Tanis and Avaris there. I want you to remember that, right? I want to remember another important, um, metropolis of Egypt, Heliopolis, right? Helio being, being, and the, um, the word for, for, um, for sun, right? I want you to see where Cairo is, right? At the beginning of the Delta, one of the, you know, really agriculturally favorable places, right? I want you to remember that Giza, right, is where all the, all the, um, all the pyramids were constructed. And I want you to think about what it means, right, to construct a pyramid, right? And I want you to think that by now, right, Egyptians have, I, I hope one day you go to Egypt, my friends, right, and you see the monumental, monumental, um, architecture that, that, that you see in, in, in this ancient civilization. And I want you to think, right, that in Africa, right, sort of 5,000, 4,000, 5,000 years ago, right, how advanced, how advanced the, the, uh, the technological innovations must have been, how advanced physics, mathematics, right, um, I don't know, trigonometry, and, you know, all, all of these sciences, how advanced they must have been, right, for, for the Egyptians to construct, right, the pyramids. So much so that modern man thinks that they were created by extraterrestrials, right? So, that, that's, that's, that's the, that's the measure of, of, of, of the significance, right, of the civilization of Egypt in Africa. And of course, Egypt, Egypt, you cannot talk about Egypt without talking about Nubia, my friends, right? And the minute you start talking about Nubia and Ethiopia, as we will see, you're talking about also the connections to the East and to Asia, right? Not only through the Nile Delta and through the Sinai Peninsula, this connection was established, but as we will see, through the, um, through, through the Horn of Africa, as well.

So, just, just to go over the, the, uh, sort of important places that I want you to, sort of, just keep in mind, right? This is Heracleopolis, right? You know where, um, where, where you see, um, number, um, well, you see Memphis, you have to remember Memphis, right? You remember Saqqara, right? This is the, the location of the one of the first, um, step pyramids that were created, right, um, uh, for King Djoser, right? Remember? And then you come to where, you know, where, um, it is written Memphis with, with in bold, right? Memphis is a very important city, right, that I want you to keep in mind. And I want you to keep in mind, um, also, the Heracleopolis, right? Um, this is where the, um, the, um, you know, the, the independent kingdom had been established, where, where the eleventh Dynasty came, right, and, and united it with the rest of Egypt, as we will see, right? This is Heracle, Hermopolis, Amarna. These are also very important. Abydos is very important. And of course, Thebes, when we talk about, yeah, the, the, um, the eleventh Dynasty becoming the dynasty, being the dynasty of Thebes. So, Thebes, the dynasty of Thebes manages to unify, right, um, Egypt. Egypt and, and, and Thebes is in, uh, in Upper Egypt, you, you see already very, very close to, um, to, um, to, um, to Lower Nubia, right?

So, um, okay. So, to go back to our, um, um, PowerPoint, you see that we see that Mentuhotep the Second, from Thebes, of the eleventh Dynasty, right, overthrows the Heracleopolitan kings of the ninth and tenth Dynasty, right, thus reunifying, um, Egypt, right? And so, in a sense, right, um, the, the, the second founder of Egypt, right, um, besides Narmer, right, who, who joined Upper Egypt to Lower Egypt, right? The second unifier of, of Egypt is, um, Mento, Mentuhotep, right?

So, going on, this is a figure of Mahot, um, in, in, well, I don't know where it's being kept at the moment, right? But from, he's from Thebes, and you see, yeah, he is, he is sort of inaugurating, right, his, there, the eleventh Dynasty. As we will see, they are inaugurating all the major advances, right, of, um, of that, that take place in the Middle Kingdom, that we will, will get into. So, eleventh Dynasty is, is, was prerequisite, obviously, like all history, right? You have, you have to have a context from which a history develops, right? You have to have a, you know, the current political situation, right? And I just listened to the, uh, to the debate last night, right? I, I hope some of you, U, managed to sit through that, um, right? Um, there is a context, right? There's a context to, to why we have, uh, we, we saw the debate that we, we saw, um, tonight, right? And, and, you know, what is the context? The context is Donald Trump, right? At any rate, um, here you see, you know, um, eleventh Dynasty becoming, basically, the precursor, right, of, um, the second sort of era of, um, major civilizational growth, right, in the Middle Kingdom Period of Egypt, right? That, as we will, as we saw, um, goes, basically, covers, um, the first half of the second millennium BCE, right? Um, so, so, as a result, obviously, you know, the, the, the chaos, right, of the first intermediate period, right? And also becomes, becomes the context for the, for the, for the, um, sort of, uh, reforms that takes place during the Middle Kingdom, where you see that you have, most of all, right, you have a redistribution of wealth, right? By the, the end of the Middle Kingdom, is a very important period, and we're just going through the chronology of Middle, um, Middle Kingdom here with you, right? The end of it is very, very important, important because there is a foreign, right, Hyksos, a foreign, it literally means foreign in Egyptian, right? And the Hyksos, um, invade, actually, um, actually, um, Egypt from one of the, one of the few places that they could really invade it from, the Sinai Peninsula. At any rate, we will get to the invasion of Egypt, um, and, and the Second Intermediate Period, and the New Kingdom in this, this, um, unit.

Okay. So, what happens, therefore, in the Middle Kingdom? Middle Kingdom Egypt prospers, one, once again, right? There's a centralized authority, right, that comes and takes over Egypt, and therefore, right, creates the, the power, right, the, basically, the executive power, right, that could undertake, right, impressive engineering projects for, for irrigation. So much so, I want you to think about this, my friends. I want you to really pay attention to this, right? 17,000 acres of land, right? 17,000 acres of land was irrigated, right, during the Middle P, uh, Kingdom Period. Egypt becomes aware during the Middle Period, Middle Kingdom Period, of its connections to the outside world. And I mean, outside world, uh, world of Africa, right? There is lucrative trade that is established with the Fertile Crescent, right? Finally, finally, instead of dependency, right, on the riches of Nubia, right, Egypt actually conquers Nubia in the Middle Kingdom Period. Once, and, and, and Nubia, and I've told you this before, before, Nubia was the connection to Inner Africa. So, once you have, um, Egypt and Nubia as one empire, so to speak, right? You see, and, and you remember that, you know, the, the Nile flows to the Mediterranean Sea, right? You, you have inner Sahara, Nubian civilization, Egyptian civilization coming in touch, right, with other civilizations. And for, for one thing, in the, uh, civilization of the Fertile Crescent, right? So, it, it conquers Nubia, and therefore connects sub-Saharan Africa to the Mediterranean world and to Europe, right? And I want you to remember, now we are in the Middle Kingdom Period, we will see that we, we will be dealing with the Mycenaean, Mycenaean civilization, and during this period, right? And, and for one thing, yeah, um, and, and we will, in the Mediterranean, my senior, uh, we will talk about it, anyway. Um, and another important thing, yeah, because you have the, you have a redistribution of wealth, you have an equalization of, of, of the wealth of your, I mean, not total equalization, obviously, but the move towards a, a more equal, equal, um, sort of life for the majority of your population, which we do not have to this day, right, my friends? So, um, since that happens, well, okay, the, the rest of the issues of life, right, changes with that, right? And it's not just the pharaohs who are in, in, in, in, you, who, who will go, who are going to have afterlife. It's not just the nobility, right, that, that comes to have an afterlife, but the notion of afterlife also becomes democratized, in a sense, right, my friends?

So, is, I want you to look at, um, the, the map of, um, where, um, we have here, um, Lower Nubia, right? Or Upper Egypt, remember they coincide. And this is Lower [Music] Egypt. And of course, um, Upper Nubia, right, my friends. So, I want you to pay attention to the Nile, right? This greatest river in, of the world, right? Um, I want you to, to pay attention to the fact that, remember the Aswan Dam that we were talking about, Aswan and the, and the Nasser Lake, right, that we were, uh, talking about? Well, look at the Nile, look at the flow of the Nile, right? As, as, Aswan is, um, is right here. That's where Egypt, yeah, theoretically, yeah, theoretically, kind of ends, right? And, and Nubia starts. So, Nubia starts from the first cataract, right? And, and, and continues. Now, I want you to keep in mind that there is this, this bend, bend here, right, of, in, in, in, in the Nile, the first bend of the Nile. And I want you to keep in mind that, uh, I'm sorry, that Thebes is right here, right? Thebes is right here. Here, Thebes, right?

Okay. So, so who, who inaugurates, right? I mean, the eleventh, U, Dynasty had already launched the Middle Kingdom Period, in, in, in a, in a sense, right? But the, it is the twelfth Dynasty that brings it, it, right, to its golden age, yeah. Middle Kingdom reaches its golden age during, um, during the rule of Amenemhat, Amenemhat the First, right, of Thebes, right? Remember that, that we said that Thebes, it was Thebes that, that centralized the whole, um, Egyptian Kingdom again, right? It, during the eleventh Dynasty, already, right? And Amenemhat the First was not of royal blood, yeah, but it was him, nevertheless, that consolidated Egyptian unity and restored, um, um, peace, right? And, um, moved the administrative center of the country from Thebes to somewhere in the Fayum Oases. And we will see it, where Fayum is, on, on our map, on our, on our maps, right? And Memphis, right? Memphis again became the official Kingdom, official capital of the Kingdom, in, in, um, during Amenemhat's, um, reign.

So, here's a portrait of Amenemhat, of, of, of Thebes, right? And you see the elaborate headgear that he's wearing, and, and the jewelry, and, and so on and so forth, of him. So, so here is, by this time, right, um, Egypt is beginning, right? In the Old and Middle Kingdoms, right, Egypt is beginning to extend, especially in the Middle Kingdom, it begins to extend its, its reach, right? So, you see here, um, you see that we say, yeah, once the Hyksos came, yeah, and you see the Hyksos invasion here, right? Hyksos, sorry, here are the Hyksos, and they come through the Sinai, right? And they, they take control of, uh, Lower Egypt. Heracleopolis is another independent thing, and then Thebes is another independent thing, right? And you see that, um, in the Middle Kingdom, um, even the Hyksos tried to go to Upper Egypt and Nubia, but they are, they are ultimately and defeated and confined to Lower Egypt. But I want you to pay attention, right, to the trade routes, right? The trade routes are these routes here, right? So, this is, this is one trade route, right? Kingdom of Punt, through the Red Sea, one trade route. This is another trade route, right? To Eastern Mediterranean. Ah, lo and behold, Egypt is getting connected to Lower, uh, Lower, I mean, to Eastern Mediterranean. But Egypt was always connected to Eastern Mediterranean, of course. But, but now, the, the circumstances, the political situation is such that it really becomes connected, right? Egypt becomes connected to Crete, right? And Egypt, in fact, becomes the, the granary and the breadbasket, right, of, of the Greeks, later on, and, and the Romans, later on, right? So, I want you to, um, pay, um, um, attention, right, to the, the connections that Egypt is making, right, during this period. And Hyksos have not yet arrived, but this is one, once the Hyksos arrive, this is, this is the sort of, the, one of the implications of it, that, that, that Egypt, right, um, becomes connected to the Fertile Crescent, right? And, in fact, it is part of the Fertile Crescent, right? Where, and, and the politics of the Fertile Crescent, we already remember that during, in Mesopotamia, you had the Sumerians come and go, right? You had the Akkadians after them come and go, right? And we will see, we, uh, we will get the Amorites as well. But, okay, um, I, I don't want you to get confused. We, we saw it on our, on our map, my friends, right? Sumer, Akkad, and then Amorites. And we're going to, um, we're going to, um, see that when we continue our Mesopotamia, um, sort of, exhibition and, and lecture, right?

So, when, when I tell you that, you know, um, you know, when we talk about Egyptians, sort of, you know, and being in touch from, uh, from Lower Egypt to Upper Egypt, and, and, and being able to communicate, and so on and so forth, and even go through the cataracts, perhaps, right, by, by going through what, what water they can go, and then coming out and carrying their ship, and so on and so forth, this is what we're talking about, right? And this is the traveling boat, right, of the twelfth Dynasty. I bet you it's the same kind of ship, almost the same kind of ship, is used today, right? Um, and this is from the twelfth Dynasty, the tomb of Amenemhat, right, um, of, of, um, of Thebes, right?

So, once again, I want you to look at the, um, the map of Egypt, right? And you see, um, the cataracts, um, you see the first cataract, right, after Aswan. And remember, here, remember, my friends, I told you that, okay, this is, this is like, you know, very interesting for you to know, right? I, I think so, that, uh, that the first cataracts, right, start, right, sort of, um, right after Aswan. And, and, and you see the pyramids here, right? And you see the Sinai, and the Red Sea, and the Lower Nubia. Okay. Once again, this is Amenemhat of, of Thebes, right? And this is the only three-dimensional representation of him, right? And again, I want you to keep in mind, right, here once again is our first bend, right? Here is Thebes. And we will see where, um, the cataracts start again, okay?

So, twelfth, twelfth Dynasty, and they made Thebes a city of great temples, right? The temples, canals, farming improvements, and, and, uh, other city projects outshined, right, the king's tombs, somehow, sometimes, right? But, and, and Thebes itself developed into a major city. And this is a reconstructed vision of, of, of Thebes during the twelfth Dynasty, right? You see, you see the walls of the city. I mean, you have to imagine, you have to imagine, my friends, that this city needs water, and needs drinking water, needs, uh, needs, um, you know, um, sewage water, it needs, uh, um, you know, it, it has, it has cultivation around it, and so on and so forth. And, and, and, you know, there, there are the, um, farmlands around it, and so forth, and so on. So, this is Thebes for you in the twelfth century. And, and, and, um, what does Amenemhat, uh, do, right? He makes a local god of Thebes, um, Amun, right? And we, we will see the way he is depicted, right, would become, as the, as the, as the major god of, of the twelfth Dynasty. This Amun, then forth, from then on, becomes one of the major gods, right? Because Egyptian civilization, like the Mesopotamian one, was polytheistic, right? And I want you to think, my friends, if, if there are cultural traditions that are so ancient, so ancient, right, and they have polytheistic dimensions to them, right? I mean, I want you to think what it means when you say, you know, these regions became at one point Christian, and these regions became, Egypt and Mesopotamia, Iraq, right, became at one point Muslim, Muslim, right? Do you think there is one version of Islam, right, that probably took shape in, in, in, in, you know, in Egypt, and in Mesopotamia, and in Syria? Well, of course not, right? Because from ancient on, right, the, the whole notion of monotheism, right, and is, is kind of superfluous, right? Because even in Christianity, we're talking about Trinity, right?

So, um, so, just to go on, right? But Amun becomes a major god, and Thebes becomes an important religious center during the twelfth Dynasty, and it, it continues to be to function as such, uh, for, for millennia to come, right? Um, so, um, they continued the building policies of the eleventh Dynasty. Everything, everything that the, and that the twelfth Dynasty and eleventh Dynasty could do, right, was thanks to, was financed, was subsidized, right, by the spillover from the military campaigns of the twelfth Dynasty in Nubia. So, it's not like, just, you know, it's, the credit does, just, does not just go to the, to the Egyptians, right? The credit goes to, um, to, to the, to the, um, to the Nubians, as well, that, that, in, in, in fact, connected to, to Inner Africa, right? And they built fortresses, right? Um, and they regained control of the region south of the first cataract. In other words, they went into Nubia, right? And, and they constructed fortresses, um, fortresses in Nubia, on the eastern frontier of Nubia, right? So, here you go. So, here, if, if Egypt, sort of, theoretically, quote unquote, ends there, right, at Aswan, you see, and, and short, a little bit above this, remember was that first, first bend of the Nile, uh, after which was, um, was, no, after which was, after which was, help me, my friends, yeah, Thebes, of course, uh, after which was, um, okay, Thebes, right? Um, so, and, and then, uh, you start with the cataracts, right? You have the first cataract, um, below Aswan and Nubia, right? It is through Nubia that this, um, that this bend of the Nile goes, right? Major bend of the Nile, um, in which second, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth cataracts are located. And Meroë, here is another important location that I want you to know, right? So, an important kingdom that develops in, in Nubia also, is the kingdom of Kush, okay, my friends?

So, uh, this is the, the first courtyard of the Temple of Amun in Karnak, right, in near Thebes, right? And Karnak is a temple complex also built during the Middle Kingdom, right? Um, and, and, and I want you to, to just look at the monuments of this, my friends, right? I mean, you know, I've, I've, I've been there, it, it was incredible. So, you are this rich, this much, right? And, and this is how high, right, um, these columns go, right? And, and, and then on top of which, there is again, you know, other constructions, and, and, and whatnot. So, I want you to, like, try to imagine the feat, the feat of engineering that this is, right, my friends, right?

Central authority, right, maintained its balance, right, with the local administrations, right? Usually, in the twelfth Dynasty, the kings shared power with their predecessor. I mean, I want you to imagine the, the political, um, wisdom, right, that says, okay, you know, um, in order to ensure continuity, in order for me to tell you what is the deal with the, with the, with the, with the kingdom, right, you have to come and rule with me during my last year of, of rule, right? So, you would be acquainted with that, right? So, uh, so much for democracy being, uh, our only, um, form of government, right?

Okay, um, the, the Egyptians, that during the Middle Kingdom, right, imposed their rule on Northern, on, on, on Northern Nubia, right? And, as I told, we talked about it, um, they built fortresses, and whatnot. They founded the Karnak Temple, and they, we will see the Karnak complex, and they, they dedicated it to the, to God, um, um, Amun, right? Karnak, as we will see, is on the east bank at Thebes, close to Thebes, right? One of Egypt's largest surviving, um, temples, right? Um, and, and, and it was while it was founded in the Middle Kingdom, it became the religious center of the New Kingdom, right? Um, and while Amun became, uh, the most important god of Egypt, right? Um, kings from this period, Middle Kingdom, all the way to the Roman era, right? I.E., 2300 BCE, right? Yeah, two millennia from, from now, right? Um, um, they, they dedicated architectural elements, right, such as monumental gateways to it. So, this is the Karnak complex, a reconstruction, a video reconstruction of the Karnak complex. And I want you to keep in mind that you need priests here, right? So, this is, becomes an important center of power. Another center of power, obviously, are always have always been temples, right? And, and excuse me, and, um, and, um, I want you to imagine priests, and I want you to imagine workers, right, that are, that are providing for these priests. Um, I want you to imagine, uh, sort of, um, scribal schools, right, in, in, in the, in the temple, where children, right, usually of nobility, but well-to-do parents, and whatnot, can go, become scribes, and therefore achieve very, very high status, because they have learning, right, on their side, and they have education on their side, right? Hint, okay, my friends.

So, uh, so this is the Karnak Temple of, uh, of Egypt in Luxor. So, again, I want you to consider the fact that, we are this big, compared to the image of these pharaohs, right? Okay. So, and the high quality of art produced during the twelfth Dynasty, yeah. This is the White Chapel of, um, a prince, right, at, at, at Karnak, the brother of, of, if I'm not mistaken, Amenemhat, with whom they, they went on expeditions to Nubia, right? And in the middle of which, there's a, there's a fireplace, which is curious, and we will, we will come to this, to the discussion of something like this later on, right? And I want you to consider, right, Nubian archers, right, that, that would have, would, would be actually both for the Nubian, as, as well as Egyptians, right, manpower in their expeditions, um, against one another, right? And, and then when there were unfriendly terms, right, I, I want you to imagine these same archers, right, um, probably engaging in agriculture, and what, what not, right? Um, okay, this does not belong here, but, um, but I just wanted you to see it, okay? So, and, and, uh, this connects to this picture, which is actually a statue of, oh, that's why I wanted you to know, um, Chief Royal Scribe, Uni. And apparently, I wanted you to see something here. Here. So, let's see, Uni, no, that is not it, right? Okay. As a chief, Uni was the chief scribe of the court, right? Chief scribe of the court, right? And, and, and priest, right? And I want you to, to see their elaborate, elaborate head and head, sort of, um, head covers, right? And their jewelry, right? And their, and their, um, clothing, right? And, and, and realize that, yeah, they are amongst the elite, the, the royal scribes, right, of, uh, of, uh, okay.

Now, okay, so who is this god, um, Amun, right, that becomes a major, major god of Egypt? He is the king of gods. He is the god of wind. We will come to, to know about other Egyptian gods, when we talk about, um, religion. But this is another picture of, I mean, and, and, and, and I want you to, to look at the, to, to look at the colors, right? Yeah. And, and, and, please, please, please don't imagine, right, a colorless life, right? Because it is, it is, in fact, extremely colorful life, right, that, that is even reflected in the paintings of, of these monumental architectures in Egypt. Again, here you have another depiction of your god, um, Amun. And I want you to keep in mind that what you see here, right, usually something like this, with a horizontal line there, and, you know, and hieroglyphics here, this is called a cartouche. And usually, the, the name of the pharaohs are written in this, in this, in, in their cartouches, if I'm not mistaken. And this is the depiction of the god Horus here, right? At any rate, and, but this is a depiction of the god Amun itself, right? Um, okay.

Okay, my friends. So, um, twelfth Dynasty artists projected royal, um, power with portrait sculpture, and, and so on and so forth. Okay. I leave it to you to, to go and, and search Middle Kingdom issues on your own, my friends, right? It was a long period of Egyptian history, at the end of which, a very important event happened, and that's the Hyksos invasion, right, of 1750. As we will see, when we come to, um, to the continuation of Mesopotamia, that's when Hammurabi comes along, and, and he is an Amorite, right? And he comes along after the, um, after they come along after the third dynasty of Ur, right? And, and they are the Amorites, and we get here the law code of Hammurabi, which we will also discuss, right?

So, so, Hyksos invasion, right? Who were the Hyksos, and what, what, you know, where are they coming from? We, the identity of the Hyksos is not clear. Um, we, we strongly suspect that they were, um, they were, um, Semitic populations, um, and that they were coming, um, from, um, from this area, right? From this area. I, they're coming from, um, from Lebanon and Syria, right? Lebanon and Syria, this area, as well, right? The Hyksos, right? And of course, they, you know, whether it is as a result of droughts in the, in, in Arabia and, and, and population pressures on, on them, they move westwards, right? They move westwards. They cross the Sinai Peninsula, the Sinai Peninsula, and they come into Egypt. They conquer Egypt, right? They connect, huh? They connect, literally connect, right, Egypt, uh, Africa, and, and Asia. Of course, it was connected all along, right? That's how we came out to begin with, remember? So, you know, what comes out goes, goes back in, right? I mean, from the, the same, the same roots are, are used, right? So, the Hyksos arrive, right? And they, they invade Egypt, and they bring with them new technology, and including, including chariots, and advanced chariots, lighter chariots, right? Advanced chariots, right? And I want you to picture gets complicated, right? You know, we think our world is complicated. We have to think, think again, right? Ancient, um, uh, cultures and worlds were also very complicated. So, you see, when, once you get to 1700 BCE, right? Um, and the, the invasion of Hyksos, and the end of the Middle Kingdom Period, and the Hyksos, as we will see, they, they basically rule for two centuries, up to, um, 1570, right? And, and, and they bring Egypt, as a result, to the volatile situation of the Fertile Crescent, right? And you see, you look at the Fertile Crescent, circa 1750 BCE, after the Third Ur Dynasty, Ur Dynasty, right? You have the, you have the Amorites coming, right? Also Semitic population. They come and take over, um, um, Babylonia. But I want you to pay attention also here, you get, um, the Hittite states, and these states also become very important, right? So, here you have the, of course, you know, you have Elam, you have Media, and as we will see, you have Assyria, right? You have Egypt, right? And here you have Hyksos, right? And, and, of course, uh, this part of the world, we know, is connected to, to Central Asia and South Asia, right? So, India comes in. And, of course, um, you know, this is Nubia, right? So, so you see a complex international scene, right? That at this point, yes, they had their wars, and this and that, right? But, but ultimately came to live side by side of each other, because remember, by this time, you have, you have really trade connections, right? Trade connections that are, that are connecting all these nodes together, right? All the nodes that you see in front of you together, right?

So, but did they have, yeah, they have created political structures by, um, by say, 1400, right? Yeah, we will see, um, by the end of this period, right? They have, uh, they have, um, political structures through which they establish diplomatic relationships with each other, they, trade relationships with each other. In other words, they create, right, an international sort of, um, sort of, uh, sort of, um, civilization, if you will, right? In which, as we will see, you have your, your Indo-Europeans, right? You have your Semitic populations, you have your Elamite population, again, their language is an isolate from Iran, right? Um, you have the Sumerian, that was also an isolate language, right? And you have the Egyptians that have their own language, um, at this point, right? Um, and, and, and, and, so you see, uh, they have, they established a very amicable relationship after they have, you know, uh, established their boundaries and whatnot, and divided the resources of the regions, you know, came to control the resources of the region, right? In other words, my friends, in other words, never think, right, that you are living in a more complex, I mean, of course, we're living in a more complex world, much more, much more complex world, but, but, you know, political realities of the ancient world, right, were as complex as, as, as the modern period. And what is, what is, what is incredible about this is, is, uh, is the fact that, um, is, is, is how, um, destructive the two past centuries we have been, right, against one another, right? How destructive, you know, we have used the nuclear bomb, right? Guess who has used the nuclear bomb? Yeah, we have. We have, we have, um, you know, we have had two world wars. We have, right now, you have, we have destroyed Western Asia, your quote unquote Middle East, and we have destroyed your North Africa. And, okay.

So, um, so before we get too, too fond of ourselves, right, and, and our present, um, predicaments, right, uh, we should, yeah, we should have this expanded historical view, right, my friends. So, what did the Hyksos do? They took over the machinery of pharaonic government in Lower Egypt, in the Delta, in, in, in Upper Egypt, their power was weak. The pharaonic Egypt maintained its semi-independence at Thebes. So, here is, um, here is another map of Egypt, right? And another sort of, um, depiction of where the cataracts are. So, the invasion of Hyksos, right? Um, and Thebes is briefly conquered by, um, by, um, by Hyksos, but the last century of Hyksos, right, is the Second Intermediate Period for Egypt. For one thing, as you see, Nubia expands, the, the kingdom of Kush expands. This is the Hyksos period, right? Well, I mean, it's not really, uh, early Hyksos period, but, okay. Um, yeah, because the Hyksos start, you know, they invade in 1750, right? So, this is a century after that, right? So, the, and, and you see that the dynasty, it's the fourteenth Dynasty. Right? Dynasty twelve has come and gone, thirteen has come and gone, and now there is Dynasty fourteenth, and Hyksos become Dynasty fifteenth, and they try to take control of these guys, but they can't. So, Egypt has, in the Second Intermediate Period, basically three centers of power, sort of pulling it from various sides. We don't know, as I said, who the Hyksos are. We think, you know, they are Semitic from the land of Canaan, which is that Eastern Mediterranean that we talked about, and we will know more about that Eastern Mediterranean, um, sort of region, um, in later sessions. But the Hyksos, that the name of the Hyksos, my friends, actually means meant rulers of foreign, foreign lands, right? And it is during that period that Egypt enters its Second Intermediate Period, and the realm of Hyksos, you see, becomes this land of Canaan, Syria, and Lebanon, and, and whatnot, and the Delta, the realm of Hyksos, right? Uh, okay.

We talked about this, um, okay. Um, the Nubians during this period, right, found an independent, very rich kingdom called Kush, right? Um, and, and they were, as we will see, as we saw in this map, right, they are a greater threat, obviously, to, um, they, they, um, greater threat to Thebes, right, than to Nubians. They're a greater threat to Thebes, right, than they are to Hyksos, right? Okay. At the end of the, um, Second Intermediate Period, right, where Egypt is divided again, once again, is decentralized, right? And, and, and we get the New Kingdom. How do we get the New Kingdom? Here comes another, right, figure from, from Thebes, Ahmose of Thebes, right? That I'm missing the rest of the, please, please look it up, my friends, yourself, right? The date, right? Um, and, and, um, he rebels, right? Ahmose rebels against the, the, the, the Hyksos, right? And then we get to the beginning of the New Kingdom with Ahmose, right? And here is the depiction of Ahmose fighting the, the Hyksos. And you see that, um, you know, um, the, the Hyksos are, are sort of, um, you know, on the ground, on, and under the foot of the Hyksos chariots, right? Um, and there, we have the eighteenth Dynasty, the establishment of the eighteenth Dynasty, and Egypt, Egypt actually becomes Imperial Egypt. That was always looking inwards, right, during the New Kingdom, becomes imperial, right? And I want you to pay attention, right, to the Egyptian trade network, right? And you see [Music] here, you see here, Kadesh, right? You see here, Mycenor. I want you to remember Hatti, which is the capital of the Hittites, that to which we get to, and Arabia, right? Kush and Punt in Nubia, right? And this is the extensive trade network of Egypt, circa 1400, right?

So, um, we will continue, my friends, um, the New Kingdom in the next, uh, session. Have a nice day. Remember, you can always stop up and go and do something and come back and listen to me if you get tired, yes, my friends. I hope you don't get tired. Um, okay, uh, so until the next session, I bid you farewell.