El documental “El Templo de Hatshepsut” explora la historia y la arquitectura de este impresionante complejo religioso en la orilla oeste del Nilo, frente al templo de Karnak. Construido hace 3500 años, durante el reinado de la reina Hatshepsut, este templo es un ejemplo de la ambición y la creatividad arquitectónica de la primera mujer faraona de Egipto.
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00:00On the west coast of the Nile, a pharaonic construction unprecedented in the history of ancient Egypt, dominates the Luxor and the Valley of the Kings.
00:14The Temple of Hatshepsut.
00:17Built 3,500 years ago, it still fascinates Egyptologists and tourists from all over the world.
00:25There is nothing like it.
00:27It is an elongated temple carved in the middle of the rock.
00:31It is impressive.
00:33It is an exceptional architectural achievement.
00:36But nothing made the fate of Hatshepsut appear.
00:39A queen turned into a pharaoh.
00:41It is a character out of the ordinary.
00:43It is a fascinating nobleman.
00:45She is unique in her gender.
00:47It is evident that she had an absolutely singular fate, out of the ordinary.
00:53At the dawn of the new empire, after a period of instability and wars, Hatshepsut has the duty to strengthen and establish the greatness of Egypt.
01:02And it establishes a whole architectural program that will challenge the centuries.
01:07From the first prefabricated stone construction in history to the creation of the famous Valley of the Kings.
01:14What marks the atypical reign of Hatshepsut is above all its construction activity.
01:19She built more than any other king before her.
01:23Her most impressive work is the Temple of Millions of Years, the Yeser Yeseru, the Saint of the Saints.
01:30For the people, this architectural treasure is the proof of the divine origin of Hatshepsut,
01:36affirming its legitimacy as the only sovereign of Egypt.
01:42Her reign is an extraordinary reign, because she is a woman who came to power.
01:47She had to prove that she was capable of federating those forces to carry out extraordinary feats.
01:53She is the only woman in 3,000 years of history who held power for so long.
01:58Mobilizing all the know-how of ancient Egypt, the Temple of Hatshepsut shows the incredible ingenuity of the Egyptian people.
02:07But today's Egyptologists may be about to offer a very different reading of the place that occupies this temple in the history of Egypt.
02:15A temple located at the foot of a superstructure.
02:26The Temple of Hatshepsut, Queen of Egypt.
02:33Egypt, 15th century BC.
02:37In the west of the Nile, at the foot of imposing cliffs, stands one of the most beautiful buildings of ancient Egypt, the Funerary Temple of Hatshepsut.
02:47Dominating the Nile, it reflects the power that has just reconquered the Kingdom of Egypt after two centuries of agitation and invasions.
02:59It is the beginning of what modern Egyptologists will call the New Empire.
03:07The New Empire began in 1550 and ended in 1085 BC.
03:14It constitutes a period of great prosperity in which some of the greatest pharaohs will reign, such as Tutankhamun or Ramses II.
03:23Egypt expands its borders, which now extend from the Kingdom of Kush to Byblos, thanks to the military campaigns undertaken in Nubia and the Middle East.
03:34The New Egyptian Empire is a period in which the Theban pharaohs regain power and unify the country.
03:41It comes to a period of instability in which Egypt had been dominated by foreign peoples.
03:48Hatshepsut inherits a throne, which is the guarantor of the security of Egypt.
03:53The memory of the invasions is still fresh, in particular that of the Hyksos of the Eastern Mediterranean.
04:00Egypt then regains its greatness and becomes a rich and powerful nation again.
04:05For the pharaohs of the New Empire, and especially those of the 18th dynasty, that is, the dynasty of Hatshepsut,
04:12it is important to affirm the power of Egypt in its geopolitical context, to prevent it from being invaded again and falling into the hands of a foreign people.
04:22It is necessary to wait until the 19th century, with the rediscovery of this temple buried,
04:27for it to finally begin to understand the place it occupies in the history of Egypt and the secret implications that remain hidden in its walls.
04:36First of all, the Egyptologists understood, to their amazement, that the pharaoh who had built it was actually a woman.
04:44A priori, nothing could make the existence of a queen turned into a pharaoh appear to the Egyptologists.
04:53Throughout the 19th century, numerous discoveries will unveil the history of Hatshepsut and its temple.
05:14Born between 1508 and 1495 BC, Hatshepsut, whose premonitory name means the first of the noble ladies, is the fifth pharaoh of the 18th dynasty.
05:29Hatshepsut is the daughter of the pharaoh Thutmose I and Agmose.
05:33The pharaoh had several wives, and it will be in the second nuptials that Thutmose I will give birth to a son, Thutmose II, the stepbrother of Hatshepsut.
05:44To preserve the royal lineage, Hatshepsut married his stepbrother Thutmose II, and both had a daughter, Neferura.
05:52Then, in the second nuptials, like his father, Thutmose II gave birth to a son, Thutmose III, nephew of Hatshepsut,
05:59and he was called by the royal tradition to become a pharaoh one day.
06:07The story is written in advance.
06:10At least in theory, Hatshepsut has all the means to become a powerful queen.
06:15But his ambition is greater.
06:18So much so that he will end up completely overturning the Egyptian traditions.
06:22What if Hatshepsut took power at the expense of the legitimate heir to the throne of Egypt?
06:26Before Thutmose III takes power, Hatshepsut will organize his own coronation in front of the entire people of Egypt.
06:33She had a completely different vision for her role.
06:38In Egypt, there have always been regents.
06:41But for a regent to become a pharaoh, that is exceptional and unusual.
06:45The most certain thing is that there would be reluctance, and that she would need support.
06:50She will have to count on the support of her own people.
06:54She will have to count on powerful support, and in particular that of a very influential caste, the clergy of Amon in Karnak.
07:03The high clergy of Amon accompanies Hatshepsut in his maneuvers and contributes to spreading his ideology.
07:11In return, the queen will favor those priests, as stated in some texts.
07:19Hatshepsut becomes queen of Egypt.
07:21The tube skirt gives way to the short skirt.
07:25Some monuments will even represent her with the famous postiza beard.
07:29For a woman to occupy the position of pharaoh is something unprecedented.
07:34It is the exception to the rule, and she knows it.
07:38She will do gala and a show of ingenuity to show that she is fully legitimized to perform the royal function.
07:47Hatshepsut continues his ambitious destiny and launches a vast architectural program on both sides of the Nile.
07:56And one of the first works he will undertake will be the construction of his funerary temple,
08:01which will make it reach eternity.
08:04The sublime of the sublime, the saint of the saints, the temple of millions of years.
08:09Just as the rulers who preceded her did.
08:12Hatshepsut erects a monumental temple with an ambitious and innovative architecture.
08:17He chooses a symbolic place, at the beginning of the Tebana mountain,
08:22in the rocky circus of Deir el-Bahari, on the opposite shore of Thebes,
08:27the current Luxor and capital of ancient Egypt.
08:30The western fringe of the Nile is where the sun sets.
08:34The pharaoh's future life is conceived in the way of a journey.
08:39The pharaoh identifies himself with the sun, which sets in the west and at night
08:44crosses the underground world to be reborn in the east side at dawn.
08:49The necropolises tend to be erected on the western fringe of the Nile.
08:56The temple is a pedestal for the Tebana mountain.
09:00Built shortly after the year 1479 BC,
09:04this colossal monument is the largest in the world.
09:08It is the largest in the world.
09:11It is the largest in the world.
09:13Built shortly after the year 1479 BC,
09:17this colossal monument, built in 15 years, has a double function.
09:22It would allow to honour the gods in the great religious ceremonies.
09:26And at the same time, it would be the stone support
09:29that would tell the unique life of the sovereign who built it
09:32and the history of its access to the throne of Egypt.
09:37Orientated east-west, aligned with the sun's trajectory,
09:40the temple was the culmination of a processional route
09:43in the extension of the temple of Amon-Ra to the other side of the Nile.
09:48With dimensions of 275 meters long by 105 meters wide,
09:54the three levels allow it to reach a height of 24.5 meters.
10:00Some 30-meter ramps invite to undertake a gradual ascent
10:04to the most sacred place carved in the cliff itself,
10:07the sanctuary of Amon-Ra.
10:10The king of the gods of ancient Egypt.
10:14The god Amon will resurface as a supreme deity,
10:18becoming a universal god whose authority spread throughout Egypt.
10:24The temple of Hatshepsut stands out from other constructions of the New Empire.
10:30It dispenses with the pylons, those constructions
10:33that surrounded the entrance of the temples, like in Karnak.
10:36The predominant elements are the two terraces,
10:38to which you can access through large ramps,
10:41and some porticoes that rise in front of the visitor,
10:44located in front of those terraces.
10:47In Deir el-Bahari, the terrain rises gradually.
10:51It must be understood that the porticoes and the walls behind
10:55are more or less the equivalent of the pylons in a temple like Karnak.
11:02The porticoes, a little extended concept,
11:04are columns that mark the entrance of the different chapels dedicated to the gods.
11:09The famous Egyptologist, Auguste Maguiet,
11:12will say about the temple of Hatshepsut,
11:15that it does not look like an Egyptian temple.
11:18It does not look like an Egyptian temple,
11:21because it does not have those columns with floral capitals.
11:24It gives the impression of being a composition
11:27with straight, horizontal and vertical lines.
11:30It is very modern.
11:33Conceived by the architect Senanmut,
11:36the temple, known by the name of Yeser Yeseru,
11:40which means the saint of the saints,
11:43is inspired by another temple located in the vicinity of the temple of Hatshepsut,
11:47and built five centuries ago during the Middle Empire.
11:50He decides to build it next to the temple of Mentuhotep II.
11:57Hatshepsut was inspired by the Middle Empire.
12:00He built his famous funerary temple of Deir el-Bahari,
12:04right next to the temple of Mentuhotep II.
12:07He resumed his innovative style with its terrace structure.
12:18We are in front of a funerary complex.
12:21The temple of Hatshepsut is not the only one built in front of the cliffs.
12:25Deir el-Bahari houses three mortuary temples.
12:27The one of Mentuhotep II of the 11th Dynasty,
12:32the one of Hatshepsut,
12:35and finally the one of Thutmose III, the nephew of the queen.
12:42Built mainly with limestone extracted from the local quarries,
12:46it contains structural elements of granite and sandstone
12:49that come from quarries separated by several hundred kilometers.
12:57The temple is innovative and its surprising architecture
13:01continues to fascinate Egyptologists from all over the world.
13:05It is great.
13:07It is a very particular place.
13:09It is as if a magnetic force were released.
13:15It is an architectural marvel.
13:17Its ability to marvel remains intact. It is impressive.
13:21Its splendor emanates from its incomparable framework.
13:23That harmony between natural decoration and architecture.
13:28And that stepped ascent with those porticoes is absolutely fabulous.
13:34Very different from the other Egyptian constructions.
13:38How has such an original building been able to emerge in the Egyptian landscape?
13:42The funerary temple of Hatshepsut is what is known as a million-year-old temple.
13:58It is a type of monument that already existed in the ancient empire,
14:02in the era of the pyramids.
14:04This type of temple evolves and during the new empire
14:07adopts the name of castle of millions of years.
14:13The pharaohs were honored in life,
14:16but also after their death,
14:18they became objects of funerary worship in their temples.
14:22Contrary to the sovereigns who were made to bathe in a funerary complex
14:26at the foot of a pyramid,
14:28the pharaohs of the new empire have their tomb
14:31separated from their funerary temple to avoid looting.
14:34The funerary temples on the west bank
14:37were supposedly built in the life of the sovereigns.
14:39This is not the case of the temples on the east bank,
14:42the result of the accumulated work of several generations of pharaohs.
14:51The architecture of the temples of the new empire finds new forms.
14:55In the new empire, the architecture evolves considerably.
14:59In the funerary sphere, the pyramids are renounced,
15:02and in the religious architecture the temples will be more vast.
15:05Each monarch will contribute his contribution.
15:08For example, the temple of Karnak.
15:11We will see the largest temples ever built in Egypt.
15:15The construction will last about 15 years.
15:18Between the planning, the extraction of the stones,
15:21the transport, the assembly,
15:23begins in the seventh year of the reign of Hatshepsut.
15:26The temple presents an arrangement of terraces and porticoes
15:29composed of columns,
15:31with several chapels dedicated to the gods and the royal family,
15:33and four rooms whose walls illustrate
15:36the great episodes of the life of the sovereign.
15:39A processional path gave access to the temple,
15:42bordered by sphinxes with a lion's body
15:45and the head of the pharaoh Hatshepsut,
15:48topped with a touch of the pharaohs.
15:51The temple of millions of years was connected
15:54with another temple through a path of 2,000 elbows,
15:57that is, 1,053 meters, a barbarity.
16:00That other temple, the temple of the valley,
16:03is where the fields are now.
16:15The temple is mainly made of limestone,
16:18a stone that abounds in the region,
16:21from the quarry known as the Hatshepsut quarry,
16:24a few kilometers from the settlement.
16:27During the reign of Hatshepsut and Thutmose III,
16:30the coating of the temples was either limestone
16:33or limestone.
16:39Some open-air quarries allow us to better understand
16:42the methods used by the Egyptians.
17:04The settlement of Gebel el-Silsila
17:07is one of the quarries exploited by Hatshepsut,
17:10located 160 kilometers from the temple of Deir el-Bahari.
17:13It is the most important limestone quarry in all of Egypt.
17:16Its location is ideal.
17:19Located upstream of Tebas,
17:22it allowed to use the current to facilitate
17:25the transport of heavy loads.
17:27It was used for centuries to build the Egyptian temples,
17:30in particular those of the Middle and New Empires.
17:33The limestone was used as a building material
17:36and for the creation of ornamental elements.
17:39On the eastern margin,
17:42you can still see unfinished sculptures.
17:45Hatshepsut will have to extract hundreds of thousands of tons
17:48from the quarry to erect its numerous constructions.
17:50The settlement, fallen in the abandonment,
17:53is a gold mine for modern archaeologists and architects
17:56eager to understand the methods used by the Egyptians.
17:59The first step of the extraction
18:02was to remove the block.
18:05It was the most difficult phase.
18:08Once the block was removed,
18:11the objective was to reduce its weight and its volume
18:14before transporting it.
18:16Let's suppose that the miners
18:19were chopping and cutting those blocks
18:22to even out the sides.
18:25The ideal was to be able to lighten them
18:28a few kilos before transporting them.
18:31The safest thing was to process them
18:34on the spot before their transfer.
18:40Rudimentary tools were used,
18:43such as copper or bronze scissors.
18:46They were used to remove the blocks from the walls
18:49more easily.
18:52By studying the remains of the quarry,
18:55the marks, the way they cut the stones,
18:58we can get a pretty good idea
19:01of the technique used by the Egyptians
19:04to extract the stones.
19:07They would cut a line along the rock
19:10and a line here to mark out the area of the block.
19:13And then they would cut with the chisels
19:16where the stone was still stuck to the rock,
19:19back and the sides of it.
19:22And then they would start to take their chisels
19:25and they would cut into the rock
19:28undercutting and removing the actual stone in the block.
19:31It's nice to see these ancient features
19:34of the lighting process in this piece of work
19:37from thousands of years ago.
19:47One of the things that I think remarkable
19:50is that ancient Egyptians were able to do this job
19:53much more quickly than you would think,
19:56much faster than you would think.
20:00We think of these mining expeditions
20:03with thousands upon thousands of people,
20:06but our current estimations of mining
20:09shows that the settlement areas
20:12where the miners would have lived
20:14were not in the thousands.
20:17So it was probably a combination
20:20of skilled workforce and small numbers of us
20:23who were in charge of pushing,
20:26pulling and smashing.
20:29But to load according to what masses,
20:32materialize the entrance to the sacred enclosures
20:35or sculpt their voluminous moles of a single block
20:38like the obelisks,
20:41the Egyptians used a much more resistant material,
20:44the granite.
20:47In the Egyptian mentality,
20:50granite is nobler and more resistant than limestone.
20:53It is made to last forever.
20:56In general, red granite was used
20:59for the entrance of the Egyptian temples
21:02because they believed that the material
21:05had properties that made it more resistant.
21:08It also had a special relationship with the sun.
21:11The portals of red granite allowed the sun god
21:14to enter the temple.
21:17But carving the granite is a great challenge.
21:20Thanks to a monumental vestige
21:23exhumed in another settlement, in Aswan,
21:26the Egyptologists have unraveled the secret.
21:29The unfinished obelisk of Aswan is huge.
21:32At a height of 42 meters
21:35and 1,200 tons,
21:38unfortunately it broke when the workers
21:41tried to detach it from the quarry.
21:44In reality, these balls were used as mallets
21:47with which the granite was hit
21:50to forge it by percussion.
21:53It was a very laborious job,
21:56but in one day several cubic centimeters of granite were destroyed.
21:59But to carve these giants of granite,
22:02the Egyptians also used another method,
22:05especially effective, which allowed them to finish
22:08an obelisk in less than a year.
22:11In the vicinity of that obelisk,
22:14the remains of the granite were carved.
22:17These remains revealed the use of a rare technique,
22:20which is to heat the stone to make it more fragile.
22:23It took 26 times less to work the granite.
22:26The great Egyptian temples posed
22:29a whole series of technical challenges
22:32throughout their construction,
22:35starting with the extraction and the size of the stones.
22:38But how to transport those blocks of several tons by boat
22:41to the construction areas?
22:44Let's find out.
22:49Hatshepsut reigned about 1,200 years
22:52before the discovery of the beginning of Archimedes.
22:55Even so, for centuries, the Egyptians managed
22:58to build boats capable of carrying
23:01hundreds of tons of weight through the Nile.
23:04One of the most monumental projects
23:07was the construction, in its 15th year of reign,
23:10of the two largest obelisks in Karnak.
23:12One of them is still standing
23:15and is the tallest in all of Egypt.
23:18The temple of Hatshepsut and the portico of the obelisks
23:21reveal to us the methods used by the Egyptians
23:24to carry those colossi of granite to Karnak.
23:27The fresco of the obelisks shows us
23:30the technique they used to transport and install an obelisk.
23:33But it also reveals to us that it was a whole ritual,
23:36a whole ceremonial of which the people participated,
23:39thus reflecting its importance.
23:43A huge project.
23:46With a height of 28.5 meters
23:49and a weight of 325 tons each,
23:52the two obelisks were dedicated to the god Amon-Ra.
23:55Topped with an electro-pyramid,
23:58an alloy made of gold and silver,
24:01they were designed to be seen from both sides of the Nile
24:04and to reflect the first rays of the sun.
24:06To transport the two giants of 325 tons,
24:09they used a wooden boat of white clay,
24:12with a flat bottom,
24:1563 meters long by 21 meters wide.
24:18The obelisks are placed in a row.
24:21The Egyptians had found the way
24:24to move heavy loads.
24:27They could load many blocks on a boat
24:30and transport them.
24:32At the back, two pairs of spade rudders
24:35allow them to fight against the wind and the currents.
24:38On board, the obelisks remain in the trains
24:41that have been used to transport them
24:44from the quarry to the dock.
24:51Hatshepsut will have the ingenuity of its people
24:54and its best architects and craftsmen
24:57to materialize its vast architectural program.
25:02The Temple of Millions of Years
25:05The Temple of Millions of Years
25:08is not the only relic
25:11of its innovative architectural eagerness.
25:14During its reign, it will not cease to break with tradition.
25:17For example, the Red Chapel of Karnak,
25:20originally installed between the two obelisks,
25:23is considered the first pre-fabricated stone construction in history.
25:26Built towards the end of the reign of Hatshepsut,
25:28it officially serves as an altar
25:31for the sacred boat of the god Samon.
25:34It was a pioneer,
25:37as it ordered the construction of a practically modular monument
25:40that could be assembled on the outside
25:43and reassembled inside the temple
25:46with regular bases and scenes of a single block.
25:49Each block of stone had a standard height of 59 cm.
25:52The height of each stone block
25:54was decorated after the assembly.
25:57The blocks were placed following a predefined plane.
26:00The recorded scenes reclaimed their narrative order,
26:03juxtaposing themselves to perfection.
26:06Thanks to this technique,
26:09the construction of the Red Chapel was carried out in a record time.
26:12An unprecedented procedure
26:15for the construction of a monument
26:18was the construction of the Temple of Millions of Years.
26:20Another innovation marked even more
26:23the reign of Hatshepsut
26:26and all the pharaohs of the New Empire.
26:29The famous Valley of the Kings.
26:32Located on the other side of the rocky Circus of Deir el-Bahari
26:35and the Temple of Hatshepsut,
26:38it became a place of great importance
26:41for the construction of the Temple of Millions of Years.
26:44The temple was built to commemorate
26:46the construction of the Temple of Millions of Years.
26:49The temple was built to commemorate
26:52the construction of the Temple of Millions of Years.
26:55And according to some Egyptologists,
26:58the idea would have been of Hatshepsut herself.
27:01Was she the first monarch buried in this valley,
27:04today known all over the world?
27:07The rulers of the New Empire
27:10are known for having made their abode
27:13in the famous Valley of the Kings,
27:16the presidential palace of Thebes.
27:19The Valley of the Kings?
27:22Despite the fact that the first monarch
27:25who was buried in the Valley of the Kings
27:28was none other than Queen Hatshepsut.
27:31Maybe she doesn't designate the Valley of the Kings
27:34as a place of burial,
27:37but she certainly confirms its importance
27:40as a necropolis of the pharaohs
27:43throughout the New Empire.
27:46It is a lost gem that concludes its course
27:49at the foot of a mountain topped by a natural pyramid
27:52known as La Cima.
28:01We are going to penetrate the first tomb
28:04excavated in the Valley of the Kings.
28:07A gallery still difficult to explore.
28:10The royal tomb of Hatshepsut
28:13and her father Thutmose I
28:16in the V20 style.
28:22It is a single descending corridor
28:25210 meters long.
28:32It is a gallery without any decoration,
28:35of uneven floors that descends deeply
28:38into the entrails of the Theban mountain.
28:47At the end, the funerary chamber of Hatshepsut,
28:50buried about 100 meters from the surface.
29:08At the bottom, the funerary chamber
29:11with the royal treasure and, above all,
29:13the sarcophagus of the Sovereign.
29:36Architecture and construction methods
29:39will not escape the singular ambition of Hatshepsut.
29:42The construction of the temple
29:45took place in several stages.
29:48The layout of the final plan,
29:51the installation of the terraces and ramps,
29:54the erection of the porticoes,
29:57the excavation of the chapels
30:00and, finally, the mural decorations.
30:03Several of these tasks were carried out simultaneously.
30:06The tomb of Regmira.
30:09Today open to the public,
30:12this tomb, built for the eternal rest
30:15of one of the viziers of Thutmose III, Regmira,
30:18is located in the Valley of the Nobles.
30:21It is a valuable source of information
30:24about the techniques used by the Egyptians.
30:27In order to carry out its monumental constructions,
30:30such as the temple of Hatshepsut,
30:32but also the transport and displacement
30:35of the obelisks or the pylons that we find in Karnak,
30:38the Egyptians developed a system of ramps
30:41built on the basis of stacking adobe bricks.
30:45It allows a sled to slide
30:48in which the block will be transported to its destination,
30:51where it will be stacked with other blocks
30:54to create the building.
30:57The higher the construction,
30:59the larger the ramp will be,
31:02and the greater the weight of the statue,
31:05the obelisk or the block,
31:08the more solid the construction will be
31:11and the greater number of adobe bricks it will need.
31:14The works were carried out by men of labor
31:17who stood in line as the Nile flooded the lands.
31:20The works of Teide and Bahari
31:23mobilized many workers.
31:26The workers are recruited in compulsory work campaigns
31:29as in the time of the pyramids.
31:32They are fed, housed, dressed,
31:35and the pharaonic administration also provides them
31:38with everything they may need to carry out their work.
31:41Egypt had the means to build these monuments,
31:44but they had to align with the agricultural cycle
31:47to mobilize the human forces.
31:50And then there were more specialized workers
31:53who were already in the handicraft category.
31:56These employees were paid by the pharaoh
31:59to carry out their work.
32:02The workers carried the blocks of limestone
32:05already calibrated to the north of the temple.
32:08They slid the most valuable parts of the temple,
32:11the mountains, the granite lintels of the upper terrace,
32:14and the statues.
32:17Once the bulk of the work was finished,
32:20a temple was built on the edge of an artificial canal
32:23to allow the boats to dock.
32:26The construction of this Egyptian temple
32:29involved the excavation of the limestone circle
32:32to be able to sit the foundations of the temple.
32:35Others brought blocks.
32:38Others filled the terraces.
32:41In short, there was a frenzy of activity.
32:44In the foundation deposit of the temple
32:47they have also discovered replicas in miniature
32:50of the tools used by the builders,
32:53tools such as picks, mallets, scissors,
32:56brick molds or ropes with knots.
32:59A kind of wooden pergolas.
33:02These would act as oscillating elevators.
33:05The block is placed in the pergola
33:08and slides in one direction.
33:11Then a wedge is inserted and slides in the other direction,
33:14inserting another wedge.
33:17In this way, the block can be raised little by little.
33:29In the temples of ancient Egypt,
33:32the people congregated
33:35on the occasion of the great religious ceremonies.
33:38The traditional beautiful Fiesta del Valle,
33:41one of the most important of the new empire,
33:44was a celebration of the dead that lasted several days.
33:47The theater of this party
33:50were the temples of the ancient Egyptians.
33:53The temples of the ancient Egyptians
33:56The temples of the ancient Egyptians
33:59were the funerary temples of the western bank of the Nile.
34:02There were flags, songs, dances.
34:05We know that they were very lively festivities.
34:08It was an important national event,
34:11with music, drinking,
34:14because only in a state of drunkenness
34:17could you reach the ecstasy of seeing the gods.
34:20It was an unbridled party
34:23and Hatshepsut probably was one of them.
34:26He was the master of ceremonies
34:29of this ritual party in Thebes.
34:32In this type of celebration,
34:35Hatshepsut had the opportunity to reaffirm
34:38even more his legitimacy and his link with the divinity.
34:41It makes it an inescapable party.
34:44The party was a symbolic trip.
34:47The boat of the god Amon-Ra departed from the temple of Karnak
34:50and was transported from the east bank,
34:53the world of the living in which the sun rises,
34:56to the temple of Hatshepsut
34:59and its rocky sanctuary.
35:02It was an opportunity for the whole of the Egyptians
35:05to see the god along the professional paths.
35:08The professional path
35:11is one kilometer long
35:14and starts at the Temple of the Valley.
35:17A dromos,
35:20an imposing avenue of sphinxes,
35:23connected the boat with the temple,
35:26and the majestic sphinx of pink sandstone.
35:29There was a long discussion
35:32about how many sphinxes there would be.
35:35It was suggested that there were
35:38more than 100 sphinxes in total
35:41on each side of this causeway.
35:44The excavations conducted
35:47by the Egyptian expedition of the Metropolitan Museum of Art
35:50in 1930
35:53revealed that the distance between each statue
35:56was four and a half meters,
35:59which would throw a total of between
36:0272 and 76 sphinxes in total.
36:05The boat of Amon
36:08was four and a half meters long.
36:11A series of rites were carried out there,
36:14whose purpose was to restore the strength of the pharaoh
36:17as well as his divinity.
36:20It was transported from the dock to the sanctuary
36:23serving as a perch.
36:26It was the sacred animal of the god.
36:29A statue of Amon-Ra, adorned with jewels,
36:32occupied the center of the boat,
36:35housed in a naos, a miniature temple.
36:38This naos probably protects a statue of Amon and Tifalo,
36:41that is, with the sex in erection.
36:44The naos itself is covered
36:47to prevent the public from seeing it.
36:50Once it reached the temple gates,
36:53the procession continued its ascent
36:56through a cave carved in the mountain.
36:59The boat and the statue spent a whole night there
37:02before returning to Karnak.
37:12The temple of Hatshepsut
37:15was conceived as the culmination of a professional path.
37:18But above all, it is still an open book,
37:21engraved on the rock.
37:23The three levels of the temple
37:26represent an ascent, step by step,
37:29towards the god Amon-Ra,
37:32whose sanctuary is located at the highest point.
37:35The lower terrace, which is 120 meters long,
37:38is entirely surrounded by a wall.
37:41Only one door allows the main access to the temple.
37:45Two tree-lined ponds,
37:48with papyri and flowers, welcome visitors.
37:51At the bottom, two porticoes,
37:54each with 22 columns of 25 meters,
37:57divided into two rows,
38:00which narrate two episodes of the life of Hatshepsut.
38:03A scene of hunting and fishing in the north,
38:06and in the south,
38:09the transport of two obelisks to the temple of Amon in Karnak.
38:12The two porticoes of the first terrace
38:15tell a series of events that the people witnessed.
38:17On the second terrace,
38:20two imposing statues of lying lions
38:23invite us to take the first 30-meter-long ramp.
38:26On the intermediate terrace,
38:29a double portico of 22 columns and pillars,
38:32and a ramp.
38:35Instead of lions, two majestic hawks.
38:38There is a major difference.
38:41Two new chapels dedicated to the goddess Anubis
38:44and the goddess Hathor are added to the central porticoes.
38:47The cult of the goddess Hathor
38:50is much older in Deir el-Bahari
38:53than in the reign of Hatshepsut.
38:56There was already a place of worship
38:59long before the temple,
39:02and it is believed that during the reign of Hatshepsut,
39:05the chapel had its own access ramp
39:08so that the people could access it freely.
39:11Deir el-Bahari was the temple of the state.
39:13The god Amun-Ra was worshipped there.
39:16But on the other side, we have the Hathor Shrine,
39:19where the people could come to pray
39:22and leave their offerings to the goddess.
39:25We can say that at that time,
39:28two types of religion coexisted in Egypt.
39:31Not many temples combined both.
39:34But celebrating the cult of Amun-Ra
39:37is not the only objective of the temple.
39:40There is a very clear ambition,
39:43which is the legitimacy of the pharaoh Hatshepsut.
39:46The Egyptologists interpret the two porticoes
39:49as a set intended to convince the Egyptian people
39:52of their position of pharaoh, designated by the gods.
39:55Both porticoes are linked by what they represent,
39:58since one represents the expedition to the land of Punt and the other,
40:01the theogamy of Hatshepsut.
40:04It is the union of the god Amun with the mother of Hatshepsut,
40:07which gives birth to Hatshepsut.
40:10It will mobilize the theologians
40:13to activate ancient rites,
40:16particularly the rite of birth,
40:19which means that the pharaoh was engendered by the gods.
40:22This makes the queen the daughter of god Amun.
40:28This idea that she is a woman
40:31belonging to the royal family
40:34and married to a king, but at the same time a goddess,
40:37is very important for the rituals.
40:40Thus, Hatshepsut is the daughter of god Amun.
40:43But to convince her people,
40:46in the southern portico, on the other side of the ramp,
40:49to the left of the theogamy,
40:52she chooses to narrate the successes of her commercial policy
40:55through the story of the expedition to the land of Punt,
40:58the region of the gods.
41:01The land of Punt is a place of exchange of precious resources.
41:04Halfway between the myth and the legend,
41:06the place was considered a real El Dorado.
41:09It is usually located on the African coast of the Red Sea.
41:13The reign of Hatshepsut
41:16is characterized by its expeditions
41:19to a mysterious region of the gods,
41:22the land of Punt.
41:25And in the course of these commercial exchanges,
41:28the Egyptians are supplied with incense trees.
41:31They are trees that they love,
41:33since the smell of the burning incense
41:36is the perfume of the gods.
41:39But incense is also an important product,
41:42to the extent that it has a divinizing power.
41:45We know that she herself
41:48regularly adorns her body with that incense,
41:51and through that act, she is supposed to become even more divine.
41:54All of this is illustrated in her temple
41:57of millions of years from Deir el-Bahari,
42:00where she proclaims to the gods
42:03her achievements as a sovereign,
42:06and shows that she has surpassed the great kings
42:09who have preceded her.
42:12The trip to the land of Punt does not report only material wealth
42:15to the Egyptian people.
42:18It becomes a powerful anchor of the divine reality of Hatshepsut.
42:21At the end of the second ramp,
42:24the visitor is received by 26 columns
42:27and 26 Osirian statues,
42:30that is, they combine features of Osiris and Hatshepsut.
42:33This is the entrance to the ceremonial courtyard.
42:36Thirteen of the statues in the north
42:39represent the Lower Egypt,
42:42while the other thirteen represent the Upper Egypt.
42:45Hatshepsut is represented under the features of Osiris.
42:48She has four attributes, two real and two divine,
42:51since Osiris is the god who presides
42:54over the final judgment of the deceased.
42:57He is one of the few gods who ruled the earth as a pharaoh.
43:00He achieves an extra legitimacy,
43:03because he is linked to Amun, his father.
43:06He is also linked to the first king of the Egyptian lineage,
43:09Osiris.
43:15To access the third and last level,
43:18you have to cross an imposing granite portal.
43:21This portal gave access to a ceremonial courtyard.
43:26The rectangular ceremonial courtyard,
43:29surrounded by columns, gives access to the solar sanctuary in the north,
43:31to the chapel of the royal cult in the south,
43:34and finally to the chapel of the god Amun-Ra.
43:37Two granite statues of Hatshepsut,
43:40kneeling and offering wine,
43:43dominated the central avenue,
43:46bordered by smaller statues of the pharaoh,
43:49with her large eyes painted in black.
43:52The temple is included in the category of the hemispheres,
43:55which are temples partially carved in the rock
43:58for their most sacred parts,
44:01and the classical sanctuary for its accessible parts
44:04to the open sky.
44:07The most important room is located in the heart of the temple.
44:10It is the last room and is excavated in the mountain.
44:15The sanctuary of Amun-Ra is the culminating point of the complex.
44:18It hosted the boat of the god at every festival in the valley.
44:23The sanctuary of Amun is made up of two main parts.
44:27The first part of the temple, the entrance,
44:29was the boat room.
44:32The second and most sacred part of the temple of Hatshepsut
44:35was the statue room,
44:38in which the statue of Amun was probably found
44:41in one of the niches carved in the walls.
44:44His idea was that this room
44:47was dedicated to Hatshepsut,
44:50since it was his temple,
44:53but he preferred to give the place to Amun.
44:56Once again, it was a stroke of genius.
44:59The relationship between Amun and Hatshepsut
45:02was so close that he kept it.
45:08Amun is a god whose name means
45:11in Egyptian, the hidden one.
45:14Being the hidden one, it is not surprising
45:17that the chapel of Amun is not visible.
45:20There are public spaces and spaces
45:23where only a few people can access.
45:26The Naos, which is the place where the god is present,
45:29and Hatshepsut made two holes
45:32at the entrance of the chapel.
45:35Around the winter solstice,
45:38two torches, located on each side of the first room,
45:41let the rays of the sun penetrate
45:44directly into the sanctuary,
45:47illuminating a small statue of the god Amun.
45:53It was a very dark place, usually.
45:56When the statue began to shine
45:59it had to be captivated.
46:04Amun culminates his journey
46:07in the mirror of the temple of Hatshepsut
46:10before his rebirth.
46:13But the mountain still contains innumerable mysteries.
46:16What if Hatshepsut had not yet revealed all his secrets to us?
46:19What if the Egyptologists were about to
46:22unravel the place of this temple
46:25in the geomorphology of Deir el-Bahari's settlement?
46:30Death, for the Egyptians of ancient times,
46:33is not the end.
46:36By associating his temple with that of Karnak,
46:39following the east-west axis,
46:42in an itinerary similar to the sun's trajectory,
46:45Hatshepsut made the dynastic god Amun be reborn.
46:48Hathor, the goddess of the sky, represented by a cow,
46:51is the one who swallows the sun star every night
46:54to generate it again in the morning.
46:57Hathor's chapel in the temple of Hatshepsut
47:00holds all its meaning here.
47:03Hathor plays a regenerative role,
47:06and Hatshepsut could be reborn in an eternal cycle
47:09from his tomb located in the Valley of the Kings
47:12on the other side of the cliff.
47:17A surprising detail.
47:20The KV-20 mortuary chamber is perfectly oriented
47:23towards the funerary temple of Hatshepsut.
47:26Its tomb is located on the opposite side
47:29of the Tebana mountain.
47:32The other side is occupied by the temple of Deir el-Bahari.
47:35Some say that he had the ambition
47:38to create a corridor between his temple and his tomb.
47:41It is difficult to know if it is true or not,
47:44but, symbolically, the great proximity between the two
47:47allowed the offerings to the deceased sovereign Hatshepsut
47:50to facilitate his survival in the afterlife.
47:53His vital energy can circulate
47:56easily from one place to another,
47:59making the tomb and the temple communicate.
48:02In this way, Hatshepsut would have
48:05symbolically linked his tomb and his temple.
48:08The Valley of the Kings would thus be part
48:11of a more general plan.
48:14But if we refer to the most recent findings,
48:17Hatshepsut's plan could have been more ambitious, if it fits.
48:20On the Tebana mountain,
48:23a unique mountain peak intrigues the Egyptologists.
48:26With its almost 500 meters high,
48:29the Kurn, the summit, is a natural pyramid.
48:32The Egyptians would have been inspired by it
48:35to dig their tombs in the neighborhood.
48:38What if the Kurn was more than a simple inspiration?
48:41Recent studies suggest that Hatshepsut's temple
48:44would have taken up a well-known plan by the Egyptologists,
48:47that of the pharaohs of the ancient empire.
48:50A high temple or funerary temple,
48:53a processional path and, finally, a temple in a valley
48:56where the ships would dock.
48:59All of this oriented in the east-west axis,
49:02with one difference, that Hatshepsut did not build
49:05a pyramid to house his tomb.
49:08Unless the pyramid was not exactly as it should be.
49:11A few years ago, some came to suggest
49:14that Hatshepsut even copied the layout of the complex
49:17of the pyramids in Deir el-Bahari.
49:20In the Necropolis of Tebana,
49:23the summit of the mountain, the Kurn,
49:26was the equivalent of the top of a pyramid,
49:29or Pyramidion.
49:32And the equivalent of the outer walls
49:35was the mountain itself.
49:38The layout is the same
49:41as in the complexes of the ancient empire.
49:44The funerary temple was oriented to the east,
49:47on the eastern façade of the pyramid,
49:50as in the pyramidal complexes of the ancient empire.
49:53Thus, the Kurn would be the Pyramidion
49:56of the geological superstructure
49:59where the funerary temple of Hatshepsut is located,
50:02like the funerary temples of the pyramids of Giza.
50:05A mountain-pyramid,
50:08an idea that reveals to us the hidden meaning
50:11of the Valley of the Kings.
50:14It is not only about dissuading the looters,
50:17but about burying themselves in the very heart of the pyramid,
50:20as the pharaohs of the ancient empire did.
50:23He also copied the location of his tomb
50:26of the ancient empire.
50:29In that period, the royal tombs
50:32were located under the pyramid or inside it.
50:35That is why he installed his tomb
50:38in what would later be called the Valley of the Kings.
50:41Somehow, a tomb was excavated
50:44under a pyramid.
50:47But it may not have been the first pharaoh
50:50to devise this system.
50:53In the temple of Mentuhotep II,
50:56Hatshepsut partially retakes his plans
50:59and resuscitates the beautiful Valley Feast
51:02initiated by that same pharaoh.
51:05Unlike Hatshepsut, Mentuhotep II
51:08was buried in his temple,
51:11only at the end of a tunnel 152 meters long,
51:14which placed his tomb directly under the mountain.
51:17Was Mentuhotep II five centuries before Hatshepsut,
51:20the first pharaoh of the future Valley of the Kings?
51:23It is said that the first person to excavate
51:26his tomb in the Valley of the Kings was Hatshepsut.
51:29But the first person who copied
51:32or was inspired by the traditions of the ancient empire,
51:35installing his royal tomb under a pyramid,
51:38was actually Mentuhotep II.
51:41His tomb is located just below the mountain.
51:47The rocky circle of Deir el-Bahari
51:50and the Temple of Millions of Years
51:53are still the most beautiful buildings
51:56of ancient Egypt.
51:59Thanks to the efforts of the Egyptologists,
52:02the chapels, porticoes and frescoes
52:05have regained all their symbolic dimensions,
52:08rekindling life and splendor
52:11to the unique reign of Hatshepsut.
52:14The originality, boldness
52:17and architectural ambition of his temple,
52:203500 years old,
52:23have immortalized Hatshepsut,
52:26which occupied the highest rank
52:29in one of the most peaceful periods of Egypt.