Tutankhamun's Egypt

Tutankhamun's Egypt S01 complete (BBC, 1972) (960*540p, soft English subtitles)


Documentary series written by Cyril Aldred exploring the mysterious and remote culture during the time of Tutankhamun, Egypt's boy king.


E01 The Pharaoh

From the British Museum's 1972 Tutankhamun exhibition, Cyril Aldred introduces a programme on the role of the pharaoh, one of the most distinctive aspects of ancient Egyptian civilisation.



E02 The Land

Cyril Aldred explores how all the striking achievements of the ancient Egyptians were based upon the farming of the narrow zone of fertile land along the banks of the Nile.


E03 The Nile Fleet

In 1954, road clearing around the Great Pyramid of Gizeh revealed the incredibly well-preserved remains of the royal ship of Cheops. Now almost completely restored, it is the oldest surviving ship in the world. Its construction proves that a nation which was built round the Nile had to be a nation of sailors.


E04 The Temple

Along the banks of the Nile stand some of the most spectacular buildings in the world - the temples of ancient Egypt. The great gateway of the temple at Edfu is higher and wider than the facade of St Paul's Cathedral, and at Karnac, man is dwarfed by the forest of vast columns in the main hall.


E05 Death and Burial

Mummies are the best-known relics of the ancient Egyptian civilisation. Together with the elaborate tombs of the pharaohs, they have created the impression that the Egyptians were a death-centred people with a very materialistic view of the after-life. In fact, their beliefs varied from age to age and from class to class within their society, and they were never really as sure about the next world as their monuments would have us believe.


E06 The Warrior Pharaohs

When the horse-drawn chariot was introduced in the 18th century BC, it created a larger revolution in warfare than did the invention of the tank in our day. Not only was a formidable armoured weapon introduced into battle, but it also caused great social changes. The pharaoh himself now took to the field at the head of his armies - composed henceforth of professionals, as distinct from conscripted peasants.


E07 The King's Councillors

It was the officials of the palace, a sort of privy council, who helped the pharaoh to govern. They controlled the revenue of the land, the growing of food and the raising of herds. Many were practical experts who supervised the building of irrigation canals and the construction of temples, tombs and pyramids.


E08 The Scribes

Hieroglyphs are among the most easily recognisable features of ancient Egyptian culture. With their eyes, hands, animal figures and so on, they are probably the most beautiful form of writing ever invented. But most of the time, the ancient Egyptian scribes put their hieroglyphs and other scripts derived from them to very businesslike purposes. On their papyrus writing paper, they amassed a formidable volume of records, accounts, calculations and book-keeping. The scribes were the essential administrative backbone of a highly organised state machine.


E09 Science and Technology

The ancient Egyptians did not have any science in the modern sense. Though they had some knowledge of mathematics and chemistry, their technical talents really lay in building on an enormous scale. Some of their achievements in this field would still pose problems for us even today, and sometimes we still do not know quite how they went about things. But we do know how they carved out the great obelisks like Cleopatra's Needle and set them up miles away from their quarries, using only the simplest of resources and a lot of ingenuity.


E10 Art and Artisans

From the famous 1972 Tutankhamun Exhibition at the British Museum, Cyril Aldred introduces a programme on the role of artists in ancient Egypt. Artists rarely signed their work and were considered primarily as craftsmen, often depicted alongside potters, metal workers, goldsmiths and other artisans. They appear to have worked an eight-hour day, with a rest on the tenth day, and were paid in kind. When the rations did not arrive, they downed tools. Were these the first recorded strikes in history?


E11 War and Trade

Cyril Aldred explores how important the army had become in New Kingdom times - Tutankhamun's two immediate successors on the throne of Egypt were both generals.

Egypt's military and economic influence stretched from Nubia in the south to Anatolia in the north. New devices like the chariot and trumpet backed up this new outward-looking attitude and, in the realms of diplomacy, treaties have survived that would not appear out of place in modern times.


E12 World of the Gods

Cyril Aldred explores the religion of the ancient Egyptians, which appears both strange and exotic. There are a great number of gods, and many of them take animal forms, like baboons and ibises. The stories the Egyptians created about them are even more fantastic. In fact, the whole system is rooted in the everyday experience of the Egyptian people. From the daily cycle of the sun and the yearly cycle of the Nile, the Egyptians drew their imagery for the creation of the world and the continuance of its well-being.


First broadcast: 2 April 1972-18 June 1972

Duration: 20 minutes per episode


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