Great Pharaohs of Egypt

Illustrating this is the suffocative limit handed the pharaohs in the show's 1st hour, the earliest ones science can call pharaohs, as they were originators of the Old Kingdom. The 1st was Narmer, the 1st pharaoh to unite Lower AND Upper Egypt-represented by the white crown for Upper, the red crown for Lower-who's evidence for his pharaonic rule was discovered courtesy of the Narmer palette, a simple stone tablet inscribed with his events. Narmer was also the founder of Egypt's most significant city, Memphis, first known as the "White Walls", named representing its use as a fortress for Narmer, originally. Further proof of this show crumbling to the mainstream's its refusal to explore this lesser known pharaoh fuller, resulting in harm of not explaining that Narmer and his successor, Aha, could've been the same.

The 3rd dynasty produced its most noteworthy pharaoh, Djoser, its 2nd. He started the temporary craze of pyramid building with his trial, unsophisticated, and 1st pyramid-the Step Pyramid-at Saqqara, which would be furthered by successive pharaohs, Snefru and his sons. Arguably, according to Bob Brier, the next, 4th dynasty contained the most impressive of royal bloodlines, beginning with Snefru, who started this family's hypnosis with pyramid building, starting at Maidum (which was a lesser stepped, step pyramid), then two final ones at Dahshur, the Bent Pyramid, and then his 1st usable pyramid, the Red Pyramid. His son and grandsons, Khufu, Khafre and Menkaure, are answerable for the building of the tourist-shrine, the Great Pyramids at Giza.

It's with Dynasty VI-the Old Kingdom's last-that this show explains that grave destabilization, from what was centralized power dictated by pharaohs, now being mountingly seized by lesser nobles and viziers, infected this dynasty's pharaohs. This started with Pepy I, and carried over to his young and inexperienced son, Pepy II. More signs of this overthrow are presented in a plot planned by one of Pepy I's wife's, Were-Imtes, to murder Pepy I. Her scheme-which several other members of the royal court colluded with-was discovered before execution. The punishment was implacable. Were-Imtes and the others chose suicide in front of members of the court-much improved fate than if they were tried and convicted: public execution by impalement. Regardless, Pepy I died before seeing any punishment imposed. Pepy II, who was pharaoh at a grisly young age after Merenre died, had this accursedness continued against him, having power eroded from him and degrading into ineffectual leadership, also because of his advanced age, due to worsening disloyalty of officials who now usurped larger and larger lands under their control.

Unsurprisingly, after the 6th Dynasty, Egypt plummeted into chaos, the 2 Intermediate Periods. This descent into disorganization culminates with the most genocidal disparagement in the minds of Egyptians: foreign rule from non-Egyptians. Before the 18th Dynasty emerged, there were the Hyksos. Stealthily settling further into Egypt's boundaries, they tyrannized rule from the Egyptians bloodlessly, by mass migration. Rebellion came in the form of a true Egyptian family, originating with Sekenenretao, who was murdered while battling the Hyksos. His son, Kamose, modeled his father and succeeded in banishing the Hyksos. After his death, his brother Ahmose started the 18th Dynasty, the New Kingdom, Egypt's most dominating bloodline. Here we find Egypt's first cross-dressing pharaoh, Hatshepsut, who seized control from the child heir-apparent, Thutmose III, going so desperate to wear a forged bear and assume the king's crook and flail-all symbols of pharaonic authority-to impose herself as the pharaoh, because female pharaohs were outlawed. Also in Dynasty 18, we have Akhenaten-either a madman, by radical Egyptian purists-or a visionary, thousands of years ahead of his time, the 1st person in history to embrace monotheism by worshipping the phony sun god Aten, although it was still the wrong god.

Approaching conclusion, this show covers dynasties whose might was the last of other dynasties' comparable peak, or where pharaohs' power was already so encroached upon, they were "ruling" figureheads. In 19th Dynasty's Seti I's case, like his father Ramses I, he wasn't of noble blood, but a long line of military leaders. Besides an extremist builder, he also was successful with the military, leading plethora of attacks and suppressing many mutinies. His successor could be-as Egyptologists hyperbole-the greatest pharaoh, achievement wise. Ramses II built the tallest statues depicting a ruler, at Abu Simbel, the most temples, asphyxiated the Israelites, signed the 1st non-aggression treaty (after losing his favorite wife, Nefertari, lost interest in conquering Kadesh and other military goals to focus on building for afterlife), expanded Egypt's borders significantly and ruled for the longest 67 years. His follower, in namesake, Ramses III, is forever interwoven with the esoteric Sea People, whom he eventually snuffed. The 32nd Dynasty, the Ptolemies, fit into the tarnish of ruling as figureheads in a time of elevating diminishment of Egyptians' clout. A&E closes with Cleopatra-last surviving member of her dynasty-the whore, who single-handedly sealed hers and Mark Antony's fate of massacre at Actium by Octavian Augustus, after daring to be a foreigner who overstepped into Rome (which incurred the scorn of the Senate, because non-Romans were barbarians), and rumored to have tried to enfeeble Rome with her womanliness.

Cleopatra (1934) ASIN: 6303382959

Cleopatra (1963) ASIN: 6301717570

Cleopatra (1999) ASIN: 6305496048

There is an earlier version but I do not think it is commercially available.

Prepare to watch them all at once as they are addicting.

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