National Geographic: Egypt - Quest for Eternity Page #2

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father nearly 200 children

and leave his mark on fully half

the monuments in Egypt

Ramses was only about 20

when his father seti I died

in 1290 B.c.

Seti had ordered his funerary

temple built at Abydos

One of Ramses' first acts as pharaoh

was to travel there to complete it

To all Egyptians, this was the

most sacred city on earth

Here, drawn by some mystical

identification

with Abydos and the long-dead pharaoh

an extraordinary woman

known as Omm seti

was to come 3,000

years later

With a group of fellow Egyptologists

she celebrates her 77th birthday

Well, thank you very much

You certainly made it

a happy birthday

Make a speech

Make a speech? Oh, how lovely,

I am touched

I'm afraid its a mass-produced one,

but...

Never mind, no matter

My heart, my mother

My heart, my mother

My heart whereby I came into being

Do not stand up and witness against

me at the judgement

I think that is the text.

It should be

Yes, you've got it

Oh, thank you very much

To Omm seti at her 77th,

on her way to 110

Thank you. Let us drink to our dear

old friend Ramses II

Born Dorothy Eady in England

she says something called her here

from the time she was a child

she came here 50 years ago,

married an Egyptian

and had a son whom she named seti

From then on, she was known as

"Omm seti,"

which means "mother of seti."

She has devoted the last 30 years

of her life

to the study of seti I's temple

and become an expert on him and

Ramses II

Ramses tells that he came to Abydos

alone, you see

in the first year of his reign

after his father was dead

and he found that the decoration of

this temple was incomplete

In the inscription he says that

"I ordered the work of my father

to be completed

and all the works which my father

had started

and were still incomplete

I had them finished."

And then he goes on as

if he's speaking to the soul

of his father

you see, and telling him

that all that seti had wanted to do

and died before completing

and all his plans and ambitions

Ramses would complete it

And he said, "so long as

I am ruling

it will be as though you are

still on the throne."

He was a nice fellow,

and he was a very good son

When Omm seti came here for the

Egyptian Department of Antiquities

the temple was in ruins.

Its reconstruction became

her passion.

They confronted me with a pile of

fragments of inscribed stone

There were over 2,000

some were very small, some were

very big

My job was to copy the inscriptions

on them

catalogue them, and, where possible,

fit them together

The temple is vibrant with carvings

that look as fresh today

as when they were painted 3,000

years ago

lts walls tell the first known

story of resurrection

Osiris, a mythical ruler

was killed and dismembered

by his brother

His wife, the goddess Isis, found

the scattered pieces of his body

bound them together, and Osiris

arose from the dead

Their son, the falcon-headed god Horus

was to grow to manhood and avenge

his father

Anubis, jackal-headed god of embalming

was sent by the sun god to help

Osiris live eternally

The Egyptians believed

that because Osiris died

and rose again

they too could achieve immortality

Worshipping Osiris, seti assures

his place in the afterlife

Offering incense

the pharaoh worships before the

bark of the sun god, Amun-Re

Just as seti offers bread, ducks,

figs

and a pomegranate to Isis

Omm seti follows the ancient belief

Oh yes, every year at the Great Feast

and again on the birthday of the

gods Osiris and Isis

I come here with offerings of wine

bread, and incense

Oh, I love coming here

It's the place I really do feel

at home

Three days after this filming

was completed

Omm seti died

she was buried in Abydos

Egyptian city of resurrection

In the time of Ramses

the most powerful deity of the living

was the sun god Amun-Re

He was patron of the city of Thebes

located on the Nile between

the first capital Nekhen,

and Abydos

On the east bank, where the sun rises

were temples dedicated to the sun god

karnak... and Luxor

On the west bank, where the sun

buries itself each day

was a complex of tombs where

royalty was buried

the Valley of the kings

and the Valley of the Queens

The Greek poet Homer was to

immortalize Thebes as

"the city of a hundred gates

where 400 heroes with their horse

and chariots pass through each

of these great gates."

While Ramses reigned

Thebes was splendid

He ordered beautiful additions

made to Luxor temple

gigantic statues, obelisks

and courts dedicated to the

glory of Amun-Re

But having endured 3,000 years

these monuments face destruction

in our time

from the effects of

increased agriculture

industrialization,

changing weather conditions

due in part to the Aswan High Dam

and even the tourists themselves

In 1924, in response to the

impending crisis

the Oriental Institute of

the University of chicago

established a permanent

headquarters in Egypt

called chicago House

it was founded by

Dr. James Henry Breasted

father of American Egyptology

who envisioned making a record of

all the endangered monuments of

ancient Egypt

Today chicago House is under

the direction of Dr. Lanny Bell

The scholars of chicago House

have undertaken

a monumental labor called

the Epigraphic survey

Over the past 50 years

the Oriental Institute

has published an epic series

of volumes

containing the results of the survey

Utilizing an ingenious combination

of photography and draftsmanship

the chicago House Egyptologists

create facsimile

drawings of the monuments' carved

and painted surfaces

the only record that will remain

when the hieroglyphs

and decorations

have disappeared forever

from the temples

As pharaoh succeeded pharaoh

it was common for them

to alter temples

taking credit for the work

of their predecessors

By interpreting successive decorations

the chicago House team is decoding

the history of Luxor temple

As the glory of pharaonic Egypt faded

people built houses inside the temple

Their debris buried much of it

for 2,000 years

When excavation started a hundred

years ago

the stone walls were suddenly

exposed to the air

since then, salts, leaching

out of the stone

combine with moisture in the air

creating crystals that slough off

taking the images with them.

The salt on the walls makes

our work urgent

The reliefs are being dissolved

so that within a period of 200 years

the temple will still stand

but all of the decorated surface

will have flaked off

When they are gone

we want there to be a record

as accurate as humanly possible

of the decoration

so that scholars will be able to

consult our drawings

and be sure that the reliability is such

that any questions they have

about the decoration

will be answered in our volumes

When the gods were worshipped

here no more

great portions of the temples

were dismantled

Large blocks were broken into

smaller pieces

for reuse as building material

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