Well, the DW Channels YouTube continues to be an excellent source for documentaries so far, knock on wood. This documentary is The Forgotten Temple of Banteay Chhmar and the run time is 42:26.
Banteay Chhmar is a temple complex that dates back to the Khmer Empire. This temple is far from the tourist trails and is hidden deep in the Cambodian jungle. The rice farmers are working to preserve and restore this temple with nothing but their own hands. It remains a sacred place to the villagers. Time has taken a toll on this temple. Sreymon and Sopeng are two people who are working on this project. They are members of the village temple and they are working on getting the temple restored. Slowly but surely trees that surround the Banteay Chhmar temple are slowly being cleared from the temple complex. The documentary starts off with a gathering of monks who have gathered for a prayer session. The prayers are relayed through loudspeakers across the village. There are a few thousand villagers in this city and at one time there were no paved roads. Sreymon and Sopeng created a lovely traditional wooden house. There is electricity but no running water. They are farmers and their parents assist them on the farm. Farming is the main source of income for the family. Very few visitors know about this world and the temple. The villagers do not want to become a tourist attraction like Angkor Wat. However, the villagers are careful to take care of the temple complex. The village council meets once a week to discuss the restoration work of the temple. They also arrange English classes for the children and arrange guest accommodation. They are also planning who to send to take part in the water festival. There is an amusing discussion on the boat races and the lack of rivers in the area. The Banteay Chhmar temple complex was one of five temple complexes during the Khmer Empire era. There was a library, meditation areas, and four moats surrounding it. The tower of faces looks over the complex. This tower has four faces on it and each face shows a different state of mind. I would have appreciated more details about the history of the temple complex in this section because it then switched to a discussion on the boat races. Finally, there is a discussion on the temple and the restoration. Here there is a narration on the Khmer Rouge and how a lot of temples were looted or destroyed. The villagers found and restored a statue that had been thrown into the moat. There were carvings that were also restored and these show the boat races. The tour of the temple continues in this section as well. Even the people restoring the temple find something new in the temple. A Khmer King built this temple. It was to be a second seat of power for the King. It was a religious center for both Buddhists and Hindus. The back of the temple is being restored. The villagers are carefully rebuilding a wall. The wall has images on them, so it is a giant jigsaw puzzle to put together. The villagers came together with experts. Computer models were generated to help with the rebuild and restoration. It will take decades to rebuild this wall. This restoration is a source of pride for the villagers. Normally restorations are underdone by foreigners and it is the first time that Cambodians themselves are undertaking the restoration tasks. The goal is to secure the structure to prevent further decay and to conserve what they can. It is a fascinating project that the villagers have undertaken. I did not know what to expect when it came to this documentary. I was expecting more of a discussion on the restoration progress and not the preparation for the boat races. The description of the villagers restoring the temple by the sweat of their brows was very deceptive because I felt like the focus was on daily life and not the temple itself. Although it was very well done, this documentary had so much wasted potential. The filmmakers really should have stuck with focusing on the temple restoration and the history of the Khmer Empire era. I would not show this documentary to a classroom.
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Good morning, I am going to wrap up the Secrets of the Stone Age Series from the DW Documentary YouTube Channel. The run time for this episode is 42:25.
In this episode, the viewer is taken to sites where there are gigantic stone circles. How did the Stone Age people make these structures? Why did they make the effort? There is a team of archeologists who are going to experiment with transportation techniques when it comes to transporting stones. Now I wish I could dig up the documentary about Stonehenge and a team using carved stone balls to move stones for Stonehenge. Additionally, earlier in this time period, there were relatively few conflicts. Raids that wiped out whole villages happened later in the period. The first trading systems were also developed during this period. The Neolithic people appreciated the finer things in life, like their modern counterparts. This is proven by archeological discoveries. A lot of the evidence has been buried. This episode begins in the Middle East with the discoveries of the first permanent settlements. A few miles away from Petra in Jordan, a team is going to reach a site. However, reaching this site is going to be a challenge for a small team. The evidence that has been recovered so far demonstrates that the people who lived here grew crops and farmed. However, why make the effort to move to such a remote area? Perhaps there was overpopulation in one area? Perhaps they were curious as to what was up in the plateaus. Anyway, the houses were built tightly together and were equal on the site. People would have spent time on the roofs of the houses getting from one house to another. The site was carefully planned. One of the archeologists points out the masonry on the site, which reminds me of Peter Ginn’s discussion about masonry on the Secrets of the Castle site. This site also revealed how the people buried their dead as well. So why did this settlement go into decline? You will have to watch this episode to find out. Then there is a discussion on how the climate changed which would have impacted Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. There was an ice shelf that collapsed in North America that caused water to flow into the Atlantic and shifting the jet stream for decades. The Atlantic would have risen over time and would have covered settlements. Many archeologists believe that Neolithic finds could be discovered underwater. The viewer goes to Brittany and one historian talks about the impact of rising sea levels on Britany. Food gathering points would have been wiped from the map as a result of rising sea levels. The viewer is then taken on a tour of sites in Brittany. On one tomb there are carvings. Additionally, there is a discussion on how the people traveled throughout the islands of Brittany. They would have had to have boats and these boats would have been tightly built. Images were found carved in stone, could these images hint at a maritime culture? These people would have also built stone structures. One of the stones has since fallen down and broken into four pieces. Why did it fall? Was it knocked over? The reason why it fell down could be a potential mystery. What else do findings tell us about the Stone Age? What about the movements of people? What about the experiment transporting large stones? Why were these stone structures built? Tune into the rest of this episode to find out more about the Stone Age. Yeah, I still wish this documentary would have been broken up into sections, sections for each of the sites that were visited. It would make tracking the documentary easier to track and make it easier to pull clips for lectures. At times I also found the narration humorous and it got me thinking that the Stone Age people did things just because they could like in the modern age. This is a well-done documentary two-part series about the Stone Age. The documentary pace and the narration were very good. It is a definite update from older documentaries on the Stone Age. If I were a teacher, it would be something that I would be using in the classroom. Good morning we are working on documentaries about the ancient world. This time I found a documentary on the Stone Age on a German Documentary YouTube Channel. BBC does fantastic documentaries and now let’s see what German television to do. This documentary is called The Secrets of the Stone Age and the run time for this episode is 42:25. There is English narration in this documentary and anything in German is translated with narration.
About 12,000 years ago, early humans transitioned from nomads to settlers. Early humans lived a nomadic lifestyle where they hunted and gathered their food. However, that gave way to a more sedentary lifestyle that included farming and settlement building. This documentary looks at the structures that the early settlers built. They left behind large stone structures all around the world. These structures are evidence of these people. This documentary kicks off with the discovery of the Göbekli Tepe settlement which was an important discovery. The Göbekli Tepe complex sheds light on the hunter and gatherer period. It was built before humans settled down. Decorated on the stones were animal motifs. The people who feared the animals lived parallel to a supernatural world. There were beetles and snakes, symbols of that supernatural world, featured on the carvings. The lines between the real world and the supernatural world were blurred. It seems this blurring between the worlds was short-lived and the site was eventually buried. Excavations continue on the site, perhaps there are more secrets to be revealed at Göbekli Tepe. The next stop in this documentary is at a national museum. Here a wall with 4,000 axe heads was featured. These axes were used to clear forest lands for farms and to make walls. I found the discussion on the transition from the hunter-gatherer lifestyle to the farming lifestyle interesting because of how diets and lifestyle changes. Then there is a short discussion on archeology and how archeologists study the past. The only thing missing from this section was a Phil Harding voice-over, I kid of course. Then the skeletons are brought out. The graves reveal who the people were and if they were buried properly. Graves also reveal if animals got to the bones. It is the bones that show the condition of the person who was buried. Specialists talk about how you can see nutritional deficiencies in the bones. Then there is a discussion on DNA, both DNA of humans and DNA of animals. There have been some interesting findings as a result of DNA testing, but you will have to watch the documentary to learn about those results. This would be a good section to show to a science class. Then there was a discussion on populations and why people moved. One historian talks about how people did not move because it was overcrowded in their homeland but moved out of simple curiosity. People would also move on water using boats. This seems to lend credence to the theory that people moved around out of curiosity. The documentary uses Malta and its nearby island of Gozo from Sicily as an example of people moving to a new place. So what did these people build when they get to Malta? What other changes did a farming lifestyle bring? What sort of rituals did these people have? What can we learn from these people? Tune into the rest of this episode to find out more. I am pleasantly surprised by this documentary because I was nervous about what to expect from it. I look forward to doing part two of this documentary. I rarely do documentaries on the DW Channel, so this documentary was a very nice change. There was something old-school about the narration in this documentary. It was not over the top or dramatic, the narration was on an even keel. The animations were very well done as well. I wish the documentary was divided into chapters because then science teachers can pull out what they need to show to a classroom. Anyway, that said this documentary was high quality and very well done and I would not hesitate to show this to a history class and I would show this to a science class as well. Good morning, we are continuing an exploration of the Ancient World by looking at Tiwanaku in South America. The Timeline YouTube has Tiwanaku called South America Stonehenge, so was this a clickbait title? The run time for this documentary is 47:50.
Alexei Vranichi, a University of Pennsylvania researcher, is on an expedition to discover how the people who built Tiwanaku transported their stones across Lake Titicaca. He enlists the help of Paul Harmon who was a sailor and adventurer. How do these two men solve the mystery of how the stones traveled across Lake Titicaca? How does one transport stones to their present site? What does this experience tell us about the Tiwanaku people? Where did these giant blocks come from? The Tiwanaku Valley is a desolate valley in Bolivia. However, it is home to a mighty civilization and this civilization had something known as “South America’s Stonehenge.” Investigations began decades ago and what was discovered shocked archeologists. Initial theories about Tiwanaku being an uninhabited ceremonial site were debunked. Tiwanaku was one of the largest cities in ancient South America. The people controlled the basin around Lake Titicaca. They had a highly developed culture based on archeological evidence. So how did the Tiwanaku people transport such large stones to the present site? Alexei Vranichi and Paul Harmon are going to experiment. The trouble is they will only use techniques that were available to the Tiwanakup people. They want to debunk the theories that aliens or other lost tribes build the great city of Tiwanaku. The first step is to go across Lake Titicaca and build a boat. The Tiwanaku people would have used reeds to build boats. Harmon and Vranichi will work with the local people to build large boats. These large boats will be used to transport large stones across Lake Titicaca. The reeds will have to dry for three weeks and after they are dried they are gathered into bundles. The bundles are joined together in long cigar-shaped bundles. Alexei and Paul check on the status of the boat. They are impressed with how the boat is coming together. The process of boat building was rather interesting. It leaves you wondering if the boat will actually float. When the boat is finished, the book will be 15 feet long and will be 12 tons dry. When it gets to the water, it will weigh 15 tons. Paul tries out a smaller boat and learns how reed boats work. He talks about learning how to handle the boat and talks about how he cannot even roll the boat. As a side experiment, he talks about how Tiwanaku invented kayaking. Paul does manage to flip the boat, but he cannot roll it back to an upright position. Alexei tours the local communities in Bolivia and talks about how the people still have their cultures. He then explores where they are getting stones. However, there will be complications as where the location where the stone should come from in Peru. This will require some permissions. However, they will get their stone from Bolivia. This requires additional permission from the local government as well as the local shamans. The area where the stone is coming from is considered sacred. Will these guys get permission to get some stones? They are looking for a stone ten feet tall and two feet thick. Will they be able to find the correctly sized stone? Will it be in a convenient location? Once a stone is found, the boys will have to plan how to load the stone up. The experts and local knowledge are coming to disagreements. The locals have faith that the boat will not sink under the weight of the boat. However, the boys who are working on the experiment are unsure. So will this historical experiment work? Tune into the rest of this episode to find out! It is too bad that this documentary was not put into chapters for easy viewing and easy mining for lectures. There was an old-school feel to this documentary as well. This was a well-done and well-thought-out historical experiment. The commentary of the historians was interesting and engaging. Over all this would be an excellent documentary to show to both a history class and a science class. Good morning teachers! I am still kicking off the year with documentaries about the ancient world in preparation for the next school year. Sure, it is early but I believe in gathering ideas and preparing ahead of time, so I am going to work through the ancient world in January. The documentary is called Heliopolis – The City of the Sun and the run time for this documentary is 52:43.
In March 2017, in Cairo Egypt, construction workers made an intriguing discovery underneath a pile of rubble. At the bottom of the pit was a giant head. The head had a crown. Nearby the head was a torso. What was discovered was the remains of a statue that was nine meters high. Archeologists race against the clock to discover more about this statue and the city that it called home. Cairo has been rapidly expanding and threatens to bury ancient sites. Now the race is on to excavate one of Ancient Egypt’s most holy sites: the city of the Sun. Heliopolis is one of Ancient Egypt’s mysteries. Now a team of German and Egyptian archeologists is going on a rescue dig before the site is lost forever. Not much is known about Heliopolis other than old descriptions. This dig will be one last opportunity to learn more about Heliopolis from the site itself. Much of Heliopolis is buried under an ever-expanding Cairo. Heliopolis was built at a strategic point in Egypt along the Nile River. The ancient city made headlines in 2017 when the remains of a statue were discovered. The statue was used to stand guard in front of a temple in Heliopolis. When it was discovered, archeologists thought it belonged to the period of Ramses II. However, the style did not fit and it was when the inscription was found it was discovered to have belonged to Pharoah Psamtik I from the 26th Dynasty. Egypt had ceased to be a world power by the 26th Dynasty. Egypt had been conquered and controlled by foreign governors. The Upper Kingdom was controlled by Assyria and the Lower Kingdom was controlled by the Nubians. However, things changed with Psamtik. He was a man who wanted to reunite Upper and Lower Egypt once again. He would become the leader of a new dynasty and to commemorate his leadership he would build a statue at Heliopolis. However, learning more about Heliopolis does not come without its challenges. With the high water table, archeologists find their site routine flooded and soaked with water. They routinely have to take core samples around the site. These samples show the history of the area over the years and show how the Nile flooded over the years. According to ancient traditions, Heliopolis was founded on a hill. Then the gods emerged from this hill and these gods would rule the world together. They would then give the Pharaoh dominion over the lands. The Ancient Egyptians believed that the sun traveled across the sky using a boat. The worship of the gods was to encourage the sun to travel across the city. When Cairo was established, the Egyptians would mine the Heliopolis site for building materials. Stones from the temples at Heliopolis would make their way into buildings in Cairo. Experts in Ancient Egyptian work, point out engravings on the bricks that were used in the city. Before this emergency dig, the only discovery of note at Heliopolis was done by an Italian archeologist. His discoveries are at a museum in Turin. One of the artifacts was the earliest depiction of an Egyptian god in human form. Among the finds was also a plan for the temples of Heliopolis. These finds also hint at how the Pharaohs recognized the religious importance of the Heliopolis site. Then there is a discussion on Imhotep. He was an architect to the pharaoh and an observer of the skies. He was also the high priest of Heliopolis and he would use his talents to develop a calendar and predict the flooding of the Nile. So how would Imhotep continue to serve the Pharoah? What else will be discovered about the Heliopolis site? This is one neat documentary about rescue archeology and the work done on the Heliopolis site. This would be a good documentary to consider for showing to a history classroom. Good morning, we are working on the ancient world in hopes of helping teachers prep for the next school year. This time I am looking at a documentary about Pompeii and the run time for this documentary is 52:39.
When Vesuvius exploded it buried the city of Pompeii. It was a shock to the Romans. How did the Romans react to this eruption? Would Pompeii be rebuilt? Pliny the Younger wrote about the eruption and his words came down to the present day. The sudden destruction of the city continues to intrigue people to the present day. Even today, there are discoveries and new stories are emerging about the destruction of Pompeii. Pompeii, with its location on the sea, drew people to the area. First the Greeks and then the Romans. Farmers could grow wonderful crops in rich soil. What they did not know was that they were building their city on a volcano. This volcano would preserve the city. Also preserved were the eyewitness accounts of the volcanic eruption. Pliny the Younger wrote out the experience of the eruption. This documentary looks at how the Roman government reacted to this disaster. Emperor Titus had just taken power and so he had to oversee the Roman reaction to what happened. A government commission was created and it came to the immediate conclusion that they could not rebuild the city. What could be salvaged was salvaged, marble could be reused and the bronzes melted down. Emperor Titus rose to the occasion. Nobody liked him when he came to power and they thought he was stupid. There were even rumors of an affair with a Jewish Princess, rekindling the story of Antony and Cleopatra. However, how Emperor Titus reacted to this disaster changed the people’s minds. He had the roads rebuilt, and other roads uncovered, and brought in supplies. Emperor Titus even made one of the biggest donations in the Roman Empire. He even visited the area months after the eruption. There were construction sites all over the area and many roads were rebuilt. However, lawlessness rose during this period and the Roman state stepped in to settle property disputes. Vesuvius wiped out the boundaries and blurred property lines. Lands were reallocated and people started to slowly come back. The Pompeii area was famous for its wine and it was shipped all over the empire. Pliny the Elder waxed eloquently about the wine that was produced in Pompeii. The wine was the drink of the elite. The wine was fundamental to social life. You told stories over wine. Wine made Pompeii rich and there were plenty of taverns and bars in Pompeii. In this section, there is a discussion of the Villa of the Mysteries. This villa was outside the city walls and had many frescos. It was host to many parties, its hosts providing wine that it had produced. There was a wine press discovered in this villa. There is a lovely and well-done virtual recreation of the villa in this section of this documentary. There is also a talk on how the Vesuvius eruption would have torn the heart out of wine growing in this region. There were also other products grown in the area. Fruits, cereals, and olive oil also brought wealth to Pompeii. Archeologists have discovered the remains of the products and these provide insights into the daily life of the people of Pompeii. Other products were discovered and these hint at the trading going on in the area as well. What other finds are being discovered in Pompeii? What can these find tell us about Pompeii? Have we gotten the date of the eruption wrong? Tune into the rest of this episode to find out more. Well, this documentary proves that there are always new discoveries made about Pompeii. I had never heard of how the Roman government reacted to this tragedy and did not know that the Emperor stepped in to help life come back to the area. I would have thought that the land was cursed and nobody came back. This documentary offers a very different perspective and goes into how the region recovered from Vesuvius. In conclusion, this would be a fantastic documentary to show to a history classroom because of the different perspectives and the talk about the new discoveries being made. Since I had success with this channel with a good documentary on the Indus River Valley documentary, I thought I would take another shot at a documentary from this channel. It is January, and I suppose it is early to be thinking about planning lessons for the next school year but I want to start showing ancient world documentaries to help teachers prepare for the upcoming school year. This time, we are going forward to the Roman Empire. The run time for this documentary is 49:57 and is part of the series The Rise of the Great Powers series.
Rome would rise from the ashes of defeat to create an Empire that would cover the Mediterranean world. After suffering a horrendous defeat at the hands of Hannibal Barca, Rome would go on the offensive and rise from that defeat. How would they rise from this horrible defeat? What was the secret behind the rise of Rome? In this episode, the secret behind the rise of Rome is revealed and it is Roman citizenship. Why would Rome employ citizenship to build an empire? The year is 216 and in Cannae. The Roman army suffered one of its greatest defeats. Over 80,000 men were killed in this battle. Among the 80,000, one-third of the senate was killed. Now nothing stood between the enemy and Rome. No state had ever endured such losses. Who could inflict such losses on the Roman Empire? The man who brought such destruction to the Romans was named Hannibal Barca. He was one of the greatest generals in the Ancient World. He had sworn that he would be an enemy of Rome. How could Rome rise from these ashes? History tells us that Rome would become a great empire. How could Hannibal fail so miserably in his quest to defeat Rome? Carthage was a growing empire on the edge of the Mediterranean Sea. They were slowly losing control of the sea Rome and the Carthaginians wanted revenge. The Barca family wanted revenge against Rome and Hannibal Barca was raised with a sense that he needed to get revenge. The Second Punic War began with an attack on a Roman Ally. The Romans were going to expand into Spain and Hannibal wanted to stop that. The Roman Navy was already seizing control of the Mediterranean Sea and would easily defeat the Carthaginian Navy. Hannibal Barca would have to change tactics and he would look for a land fight. The Romans thought he would take the fight to Spain and never dreamed of the Carthaginian army would cross the Alps in the middle of winter. However, Hannibal would campaign against Rome by crossing the Alps. Rome was stunned by the sudden appearance of Hannibal and his large army in Northern Italy. The war was about to begin in the heart of Rome. The Romans were caught off guard and they needed to muster an army as quickly as possible. However, this would be a challenge because Rome was not a single entity. The Italian peninsula was made up of independent city-states that Rome oversaw. The city-states would have to unite in order to defeat Hannibal Barca’s army. This seemed to parallel what Athens had to do with the other Greek City states to help battle the Persians. It is funny to see how history seems to repeat itself. Then there is a long discussion on how Hannibal managed to pull off the win against Rome. Hannibal long admired Alexander the Great and so he planned on employing the tactics that Alexander the Great did when he conquered Persia. He planned on conquering Rome itself in hopes that the Roman allies would fall and follow Carthage. So how could Rome turn things around against such a ferocious foe? How would they build their empire in the light of this coming army? Tune into the rest of this episode to find out. I honestly do not know how you can top Mary Beard and her series on the Roman Empire. The summary that was provided for this episode seemed really wrong because, for the most part, the documentary focused on Hannibal, the Punic Wars, and how Rome turned defeat into Victory. It was good and nice to get some different voices when it comes to Roman history. This would be on my consideration list for documentaries to show in a classroom. Good morning, I am going to pull a documentary off a channel I never do. The Channel is called Free Documentary and from the looks of it, the channel is legitimate from what I can tell. This documentary is about a civilization I remember learning about in the sixth grade in at the Indus River. So this fits in with the Ancient World documentaries that you can start planning with for the next school year. The run time for this documentary is 45:44 and is part of the Ancient Civilizations Uncovered series. This is the first episode of the series and is called Lost Ancient Trading City: Indus Valley Civilization.
India was home to one of the earliest civilizations on Earth. It was considered one of the greatest ancient civilizations. The people in the Indus River Valley traded and had an advanced economy. They flourished in the river valley and had extensive trade networks. Its discovery shocked the world because nobody heard of an ancient civilization in India. However, the discovery of Harappa changed all that. In 1910, the British were building a train station with old bricks. They discovered evidence of a great civilization in the Indus Valley. The city was called Harappa and it boasted extensive canals. In 1924, John Marshall, the British archeologist announced to the world that the Harappa civilization was as old as the Egyptian Civilization. This shocked the world. Nobody knew that there was a civilization as old as the pyramids in India. What John Marshall and his team discovered about Harappa surprised the world. There stone beaded necklaces, pottery, games, toys, alphabet, and a miniature ox-pulled cart were discovered. About 200,000 people lived in Harappa. Their handicrafts were stored in warehouses and were transported by boat. Children played with toys made from clay. There was a maze game and marbles discovered on the site. The men farmed or worked in the market and the women worked in the home. The Indus River flows down from the mountains and into the Arabian Sea. The flow was twice the amount of the Nile River and still serves the people of India today. It was the mother river and farmers could grow to produce well along it. Watermelons and cucumbers thrive along the river. Fish are plentiful and there is plenty of fishermen. During Ancient Times, the farmers would have produced a surplus that would have been used for trading. The Indus River was also used as a transportation network. The people built flat-bottom boats to help facilitate trade. Besides excavations at Harappa, excavations took place at Mohenjo-Daro and Dholavira. Mohenjo-Daro is one of the largest cities discovered in the Indus River Valley. The streets were wide enough for carts and could hold a population of 200,000 people. Excavations began in 1922 and what they discovered surprised the world. The streets were perfectly straight and easy to go through. It was a very well-planned city. The alleys were evenly spaced as well. In the area of the Indus Valley, there was a very distinct wet and dry season. The people worshiped the water. There were public bathhouses where people would bathe. The baths had drained and so the water could be drained without any additional work. Water was a gift from the gods, and after their bath, they would walk to the temple. Even today, modern people continue the traditions of the Indus River people. There is a good discussion on brickmaking and the brickmakers use the same techniques that were used in the past. To learn more about the Indus River Civilization continue to watch this documentary. Finally, I had been looking for a documentary about the Indus River Valley civilization and I found a worthy documentary to share. I feel like when it comes to the ancient world, there is a heavy focus on Ancient Egypt and this is a good break from those documentaries. This was a very well-done documentary and is an excellent overview of the Indus Valley people. The narration was good and had an even pace. This documentary makes me curious to see if there have been any new discoveries about the Indus River people. This documentary goes to the top of my list of potential documentaries to show to a history classroom. Good morning, I am finishing up with the Eternal Egypt series, finally! This series has been a challenge to review. There are better documentaries out there available on ancient Egypt. Be glad that I watched this series and you did not have to. I have never seen a documentary on Ancient Egypt not be about ancient Egypt before in my life. The run time for this episode is 51:46 and is called Death.
Mummies have become synonymous with Ancient Egypt. The episode kicks off with a trip to Luxor and a funeral celebration. Okay, still with the modern Egypt stuff. This section discusses the heat and how the workers begin their day early to avoid it. There is a funeral announcement read over loudspeakers while driving a truck. Nobody will come to the funeral if nobody hears the announcement of the funeral. Funerals are important for people to attend to pray people into heaven. The next sections talk about mummies. Many of the Egyptian mummies are on display in the museum in Cairo. The mummies are the stars of the museum. The mummies are incredibly well preserved and some of the mummies are unwrapped showing their bodies. Nowadays, the mummies are kept in their wrappings. One may have spent his life studying and restoring the mummies. He shows off the sarcophagus of a young woman. She had died as a result of a miscarriage. The drawings on the sarcophagus are incredibly well done. It seems to be implied that mummification happened by chance when Egyptians would bury their dead in a ditch in the desert. The sand would preserve the bodies. However, later they would find more effective processes to help with the mummification process. They would soak the mummies in natron salt to remove every hint of moisture. A mummy’s arm is shown off, and this arm came from a pharaoh. The mummification techniques were so effective that we can identify the mummies. Mummification continued on over the centuries. Egyptian invaders also adopted mummification techniques. One of the mummies shown off in this section is of a Roman person. Then there is a discussion on the funeral masks. The masks were created to help the mummy regain their senses in the afterlife. The Romans adopted this practice, but instead of using gold to make the masks, they would paint the person’s face. The next place this documentary goes to is the Theban Hills. This was where many Ancient Egyptians were buried. Over 600 tombs have been recorded in this area. A tour guide always makes it a point to visit this area to keep up to date on the latest discoveries made in this area. It is a challenge to learn everything there is about these tombs, but the tour guide makes the effort to keep up to date with the newest discoveries. These hills are divided into three areas: the Valley of the Kings, the Valley of the Queens, and the Valley of the Nobles. These divisions help Egyptologists keep the area and what is found straight. Today, this tour guide goes to a tomb in the Valley of the Nobles. The tomb belongs to a vizier and this tour guide looks at the image of a funeral procession. The images show the grave goods going into the tomb. The deceased would have tried to live the same life he lived in the afterlife that he did in his lifetime. The images also show the mourning that was done for the deceased. The tour guide ends his tour of the tomb with a look at where the burial chamber was located. Then there is a discussion on Tutankhamun’s tomb. It had been discovered by Howard Carter and he found 5,000 objects in the tomb. In general, the grave goods would have been stolen over the generations by grave robbers. Well, this episode concludes this series on Eternal Egypt. Overall, this series was a disappointment. With their talk about new discoveries about Ancient Egypt, they spent a whole lot of time on modern Egypt. Who knew you could make a documentary about Ancient Egypt that was not really about Ancient Egypt? I would not show this documentary to a history classroom. Good morning, is it really too early to begin planning for next school? Today, we are continuing with an exploration of Ancient Egypt in the Enteral Egypt series. Oh boy, but I am watching this series so you do not have to. I will complete this series and then move on to more documentaries. The run time for this episode is 51:56 and is called The Desert.
The episode kicks off with the contrast between the desert and the Nile River delta. The desert covers 96% of modern Egypt and is home to less than 1% of the population. The Egyptians would have considered the desert the land of the dead. It was the land of the god Seth. Seth tried to kill Osiris. The ancient Egyptians would have feared the desert. They could never control the people or the desert. The Nile weaves its way through Egypt like a green snake. Travelers and goods made their way across the desert. Invaders also made their way across the desert. The narrator introduces the viewer to the Wadi Al-Hitan an oasis for the living from the dead. It is a place that does not see rain for five years. When it does rain, it is a torrential downpour. It was not always a desert place. In fact, it was home to animals. One man walks along the wadi and looks at the animal bones that are scattered across the wadi. The Wadi is nicknamed the Valley of the Whale. Water would have covered the area and it would have been filled with creatures swimming. There are whale bones found in this wadi. Dinosaur fossils were also found in this area too. The documentary continues and talks about how the Egyptian climate changed and how the Pharaoh used climate change to consolidate power. The Giza Plateau would have been in the savannah and the Ancient Egyptians would have encountered a variety of animals. The next stop on this tour is an oasis. The only way travelers could survive in the desert would be to encounter an oasis. Today, oases continue to be carefully cultivated and it is here that you can grow dates. Date trees thrive in this landscape and have various uses such as weaving the leaves for hats to shelter from the sun. Other crops are cultivated in the oasis such as wheat and rice. The money maker in the oasis is the date. This oasis has a tour of an abandoned village from the Medieval period. It is a tourist site in the desert. This village was abandoned because it was hard to keep the building in repair. Only a few people remain on site. It is here we encounter a potter’s studio. Pottery was essential in the ancient world for storage and transportation. Pots enabled trade across the desert. It was here I wished I was watching an episode of the Time Team and listening to their pottery experts. Although, it was kind of interesting to see the potter say that doctors recommend you drink out of pottery to get the minerals. It was also neat to hear that pottery was a difficult skill to learn and that nobody wants to learn how to make a pot. Then there was a discussion about the mastabas, which were used to bury the pharaohs. One man decided to stack the mastabas which would create the initial pyramids. For a while, pharaohs were buried in these stacked mastabas. However, the burials would eventually be elsewhere. The desert would be the place where the pharaohs would be buried. In other words, the desert would eventually be the kingdom of the dead. The desert would protect the mummies from moisture. Finally in this section, a tour guide goes into the tombs and discusses what makes up the tomb. Additionally, this man also talks about the trade routes between Sudan and Egypt. I still do not recommend this documentary for use in the classroom. There was way too much focus on modern Egypt and not enough on Ancient Egypt. It was also way too fast again. Why emphasize that this documentary series is about Ancient Egypt, I will never know and never understand. Give me a Joann Fletcher documentary any day of the week. |
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The purpose of this blog is to share information on what can be used in a classroom, private school, or home school setting as well as serve as a portfolio of my personal and professional work. The reviews are my opinions and should be treated as such. I just want to provide a tool for teachers to select documentaries for their classrooms. |