Out Of Egypt S01E02 WEBRip x264 ION10
[Music] they are some of the most awe-inspiring structures in the world [Music] built to connect the earth with the heavens to celebrate life or to extinguish it pyramids [Music] the shape of the gods [Music] i'm kara cooney an egyptologist on a worldwide quest i look at human behavior both past and present through the lens of ancient egypt and the more i travel the world the more similarities i see exploring why we are who we are often leads me out of egypt [Music] these are the great pyramids of egypt literally man-made mountains of stone they were incredibly difficult to build and costly for an ancient civilization like egypt and this raises the question why build structures of this size and of this shape some of the answers may lie in religion or politics but the extraordinary thing is that pyramids aren't unique to egypt all over the globe people have constructed these towering triangular monuments there must be powerful reasons why this form appears again and again throughout history what is the significance of the pyramid shape and does their similar design mean pyramids were all built for the same purpose to understand why the egyptians built their pyramids we can start at the ancient burial ground of dashur about 25 miles south of cairo the site of one of the best preserved classic pyramids this structure the red pyramid is the first straight-sided pyramid to survive to the present day at the time of its completion it was the tallest man-made building in the world standing over 30 stories high like every egyptian pyramid it performed a clearly defined sacred function it was the burial place for a king the royal burial chambers were constructed deep inside the pyramids then the passageways to the tombs were skillfully concealed [Music] it's hard to imagine how ancient workmen maneuvered the king's coffin and all his treasures through these narrow claustrophobic tunnels [Music] right now i'm in the burial chamber suite of the red pyramid built by snefru around 2600 bce and you can see it's all lined with limestone blocks and a beautiful horrible vaulting pointing right up at the sky now a pyramid is meant to contain the king protect the king put him into a device a transformational device that will turn him into a god and it will move him up into the heavens the purpose of egyptian pyramids was religious and it was important so no effort or expense was spared to build these structures just consider the extraordinary expenditure of manpower the massive amounts of stone quarried and brought on sledges to this site tens of thousands of laborers were drafted from all over egypt to build these royal tombs did other cultures build pyramids for the same reason to bury their kings to answer that we need to go to the new world where there are actually more pyramids than in egypt [Music] in the jungles of southern mexico lies the ancient mayan city of palenque [Music] you couldn't find a place in sharper contrast to the dry egyptian desert [Music] palenque was a thriving urban center ruled by a succession of powerful kings between the years 400 and 800 this temple complex would have been plastered a brilliant white it would have been painted red blue and yellow so it would have looked completely different from what we see today this mayan city's lucrative markets and rich farmlands provided rulers with the wealth to build dozens of pyramids but only one of them known as the temple of the inscriptions was built to hold the tomb of a king [Music] this tomb is off limits to the public but benito venegas an archaeologist with the mexican government has kindly agreed to escort me into the rarely viewed burial chamber [Music] so i walk across here yeah this tomb was undiscovered until 1952 when archaeologists found a staircase hidden beneath the floor wow this is great look at this makes the egyptian staircases and pyramids look really small and candy from the top to the bottom we're going to the same 30 meters that's almost 100 feet 10 stories whoa look at this so that's the sarcophagus yeah this is the fury chamber of pakal it's beautiful pikal ascended to the throne when he was only 12 years old and ruled until his death at age 80 an astounding lifespan in the ancient world he was one of the most venerated kings in palenque's history leading the city to repeated victories through decades of war is piccal actually still buried in here yeah this is the only building built by a king to make his tomb so all of this is completely unique to have a burial of a king inside of one of these places it's unique the sarcophagus itself does that represent anything the carvings over the lid is the true meaning of the resurrection of the god in the future in the mayan religion the afterlife begins with the soul's journey through the underworld here pakal descends into the mouth of the god of the underworld above him is the tree of the world with the celestial bird at the very top representing the kingdom of heaven his ultimate destination this is the most ornate mayan sarcophagus lid ever found it clearly demonstrates pakal's elevated status in palenque's history so why would pikal want to be buried in a pyramid he was the represent representation of the gods in the earth so he needs to be remembered and worshiped as a god so in this way he assures to resurrect and rule the city again so this is a temple to kingship almost as a divine kingship a kingship that will always return always be renewed if that's not like the ancient egyptians i don't know what is although the function of this pyramid is similar to the ones in egypt no other pyramids and palenque are known to contain a king's tomb so there must have been a different purpose for these structures an egyptian pyramid is actually a pretty simple thing straight sided and there's a burial inside of it if you look at a mesoamerican pyramid it's much more complicated steps go up the sides and lead to a flat platform on the top so it seems to be that there's activity perhaps ritual activity happening on top of this pyramid and i can see a plaza out in front so that there would have been people viewing up the pyramid looking at the ritual up on top these rituals were performed to appease the gods by making offerings of food and even human blood [Music] here in palenque we have some representations where we can see the king offering his blood to the gods this is called auto sacrifice right yeah exactly auto sacrifice is part of the office to be the king or a noble person in the maya society you don't have any choice you have to do it this image depicts a noble woman pulling a rope of thorns through a piercing in her tongue the blood from this agonizing procedure was collected in bowls filled with bark paper the blood-soaked bark was then burned a ritual gesture allowing the blood to reach the gods connecting the earth with the heavens [Music] the ceremonies performed on these pyramids were thought to be critical to the success and continuation of the mayan universe [Music] coming up pyramids as the sites of deadly rituals [Music] outside mexico city are some of the oldest pyramids in the new world they're nearly 2 000 years old they're the cornerstones of an ancient urban center known as teotihuacan [Music] right now i'm in the largest archaeological site in mesoamerica this place is huge it stretches over 11 square miles and it's filled with pyramids and ancient residential complexes at one time the city's population may have numbered over two hundred thousand but we know so little about the people who lived here we don't know what language they spoke we don't even know what they called it the people who came later they called it teotihuacan which means the place where the gods were born we know few details about the people of this city but there's one fact we're sure of they practiced violent rituals archaeologists have found skeletons that have arms bound behind their backs buried in the temple foundations so it's possible that they were actually executing people to sanctify these pyramids now the problem with this place is that the hieroglyphs are really strange they're unreadable but the aztecs who conquered this area around the year 1300 performed similar sacrifices at their pyramids and they left behind clear documentation of the details and purpose of these rituals in the middle of mexico city lie the ruins of platolonco a huge ancient city at the heart of the aztec empire during the 14th and 15th centuries the city sat on an island in a lake called tescoco it was connected to the mainland by a complex series of bridges and causeways zlatalolco had a bustling marketplace serving the entire region where vendors traded in jade animal hides pottery and even slaves [Music] at the city's center was a massive pyramid a vital component of aztec life and religion archaeologist dr michael smith and dr salvador guillem are experts on the aztecs the base of the great pyramid the final construction would have been 260 feet wide if not a little more with an estimated height of 140 feet unlike egyptian kings who each wanted their own pyramid aztec rulers added new layers to existing buildings these pyramids started out as small structures but over generations they grew taller as new leaders left their personal marks on the sacred geography in zlatan the result was a pyramid 14 stories tall level of the pyramid here there's seven different stages they've identified and each stage was inaugurated it was inaugurated with a big dedication ceremony that included speeches and processions and music and big gatherings and feasts and holy meals and involve sacrifice so that was part of the dedication for each stage of the pyramid and everybody came and watched that moment oh yeah the aztecs depicted these rituals in ancient painted books called codices the ritual codices show offerings they show priests doing various kinds of rituals and then they show cases of sacrifice so they actually show the heart getting cut out or the moment of incision oh yeah at the top of the temple would be an altar the person would be stretched out on their back the assistants would hold the arms and the legs cut open the chest and sever the arteries and pull out the heart they took the heart and and held it up to dedicate it to the gods and then the body was thrown down do they give a reason in the codices any written account of a sacrifice says the reason was to please the gods but there was also a social and political context it was showing the power of the ruler you'd have future crowds gathered in a plaza and they could see at the top of the pyramid the sacrifice going on it would have sent a message of terror and fear and it was a means of social control so there's a political element a definite political element to it the pyramids of egypt and mesoamerica were built to make clear who held political power and also as monuments to death [Music] but other cultures built pyramids dedicated to life [Music] sri lanka is an island nation off the coast of india it's home to tall decorated pyramids called gopurams [Music] built at entrances to hindu temples these monumental towers dot the sri lankan skyline there are thousands of deities in the hindu faith and each gopuram is covered with sculptures of the particular gods worshiped within that temple [Music] in the capital city of colombo dm swani natham is a patron of the sri ponambala vanaswara temple dedicated to the hindu god of creation because this lord shiva's temple is a shivan temple you can see more deities of lord shiva his son ganabadi and skanda so it's a repetition of the god whose temple it is that's right and it's repeated again and again again smaller as it goes up all over the country these towers can be seen from miles away beckoning hindu worshipers into the temples [Music] this is something i haven't seen before a pyramid used as a gateway a gateway into a sacred space once you walk through it and underneath it you're here you're in a sacred realm where you give offerings and prayers to many gods [Music] [Applause] at the end of a ceremony or puja worshipers hold their hands over a ritual flame and bring its warmth to their foreheads in hopes of gaining the god's blessings they do it right what is this this is called vibhuti vibuti is ash used to make a tilak a ritual mark hindus believe that this ash made from cow dung signifies the impermanence of the human body this dot represents the eye of wisdom through which people can connect with the divine and find nirvana the gopurams of sri lanka and the pyramids of mesoamerica and egypt were built thousands of miles apart by people unconnected historically or culturally and although they didn't serve the same function they were all roughly the same shape [Music] what is it about this shape that holds so much meaning next the motives and obsessions of the world's first pyramid builders the ancient egyptians for centuries people have wondered if there's a mysterious connection between the pyramids of different cultures all around the world as far as i'm concerned there aren't mystical or supernatural links but there are common features the rulers who built them wanted tall monuments that would last and were hampered by the limitations of ancient engineering without modern technology simple physics dictated a structure wide at the base and narrow at the top [Music] but this shape also reflected the spiritual beliefs of the builders to explore these beliefs we need to go back to the very first pyramids [Music] about 20 miles south of cairo lies the ancient burial ground of saqqara it's here that the pyramid shape was first conceived and constructed nearly 5 000 years ago before the egyptians started building pyramids kings were buried in smaller squat buildings called mustabas they're low rectangular structures with angled sides but an early egyptian king named jose wanted his tomb to be grander higher closer to the gods after building a huge mastaba jose decided to keep on going stacking one mastaba on top of another six in all until this structure emerged joser's historic effort is called the stepped pyramid [Music] this innovation was considered so spectacular by the egyptians that jose's architect imhotep was later revered as a god [Music] dating back to egypt's old kingdom around 2650 bce it stands as the first monumental stone building in human history the process created a shape that resonated with jose a monumental structure rising into the sky based on ancient religious texts it seems clear that these massive buildings were seen as stairways to the heavens for the kings to ascend jose might have been confident that the stepped pyramid would secure his place in the afterlife but jose's descendant snefru demanded a more advanced design a pyramid with perfectly straight sides his monument began as a tall stepped pyramid [Music] then the steps were filled in with limestone casing stones to create smooth sides but at some point the outer stones must have come crashing down all that remains is the inner core we see today we don't know when it collapsed it could have been during his reign or maybe centuries after it's possible that the design was so flawed that the entire project was abandoned but it's more likely that construction was completed and that this was the first true straight-sided pyramid while egyptologists aren't sure if it felt during his lifetime we do suspect that something about this pyramid didn't please snefru [Music] because he began a second one a few miles south at dashur [Music] this new pyramid started out at an angle of about 54 degrees [Music] but cracks in the burial chamber caused engineers to adjust the angle to 43 degrees for the remainder of the project giving the pyramid this odd shape and a fitting name the bent pyramid even though this pyramid has a change in angle the surviving structure makes it clear that sneferu was again attempting to construct a smooth straight-sided pyramid i'm at the base of sniffer's bent pyramid and you can see here the local limestone that's the core of this structure now this pyramid is unusual because you have a tremendous amount of casing stone still attached because it's leaning in a little bit it's almost locked into the structure you can imagine when all of this was first put on when limestone is first cut it's bright white so when this was first built this thing would have been gleaming white in the sun sneferu had built two giant pyramids but the evidence suggests he wasn't satisfied with either snefru perhaps one of the most driven builders egypt has ever seen built a third pyramid just over there this time snefru constructed the entire pyramid at 43 degrees the same angle as the corrected top section of the bent pyramid the result was the magnificent red pyramid sneferu had finally done it a flawless straight-sided pyramid but why was he obsessed with perfecting the pyramid shape we now associate with ancient egypt was there a motivation beyond architectural excellence the answer lies in the egyptian religion near the ancient city of thebes there's a tomb built more than a thousand years after the red pyramid for a governor named ramosa carved on the walls are images that show the importance of the sun in the egyptian religion [Music] so just look at this shape the very top you have the solar disk and coming out from that is light the light of the sun and it's coming out in rays rays that come out at an angle each one ends in a human hand and those hands hold sign of life and a sign of power sun equals life if you look at this in two dimensions it's angled out like a triangle but in three dimensions it could be very easily understood as a pyramid in ancient egypt the sun god was believed to die and be reborn every day the king was considered to be the offspring of the sun god and his dead body was also thought to be reborn every day pyramids stone representations of the sun and its power were the mechanism for his rebirth so for the egyptian kings the stakes were extremely high they wanted a perfect pyramid to guarantee that the sacred daily cycle would continue [Music] next snefer's descendants reach even higher in their quest for eternal life [Music] these are the pyramids at giza built by sneferu's descendants in the ongoing royal quest for the perfect pyramid of all the ancient civilizations that built pyramids only the egyptians were driven to construct them with straight sides smooth stones that symbolized the sun's rays they also position these pyramids in a precise north-south east-west alignment orienting the dead king inside towards the east so that he could be reborn each morning with the rising sun the tallest pyramid here at giza is the tallest on earth 50 stories high it was built by snefru's son khufu and is known as the great pyramid [Music] khufu's pyramid at giza is perhaps the most iconic building in the world it's the last of the ancient wonders still standing and it's been the largest man-made structure for most of history since its completion 4 500 years ago the best preserved pyramid at giza was built by khufu's son khafre the remnants of the casing stones still give a sense of the original brilliant white color of these monuments does the ancient egyptian civilization decline this casing stone was quarried away to build pyramids of later kings and much of medieval cairo all that's left are the last few blocks at the top of cafre's pyramid the last built of the three pyramids is also the smallest it holds the tomb of menkaure great grandson together these pyramids stand as the ultimate expression of the religious and political desire of the egyptian kings to be connected to the sun god in life and after death a different culture sees the pyramids as a means to the ultimate goal of their religion to reach nirvana at buddhist temples throughout asia we also find monumental structures [Music] wide at the bottom and narrow at the top pyramid-like shapes but with rounded sides these monuments are usually known as stupas but here in sri lanka they're called dagobahs there are many different understandings of this shape some people see this shape as the body of the buddha sitting cross-legged meditating with the spire at the top being the fire of his enlightenment others see it representing the entire cosmos of the five buddhist elements with earth at the bottom and then water fire air and nothingness at the top the dagobahs here in the sri lankan city of anuradhapura date back to around 200 bce [Music] like many of the world's pyramids these dagabas were also meant to display the power of the kings who built them [Music] but they're not tombs these are solid brick monuments but there are also small treasure rooms inside built to hold the relics of a holy person or of the buddha thousands of pilgrims flock to these dagabos every year but the hidden rooms holding the sacred relics are not open to them so people pray at shrines around the stupa's edges [Music] the largest dagobah here is the jethivana dhagaba currently undergoing restoration when it was first built in the third century this dagobah was the third tallest structure on earth surpassed only by the two largest pyramids at giza it's believed that there's a chamber deep inside that holds the belt of the buddha but so far archaeologists have been unable to locate this sacred treasure professor pb mandawala is the chief conservator of this dagobah during the british period one of the british archaeologists tried to go through after drilling a small hall and sending a camera but he failed it so we know that there's a reliquary chamber in here but no one's found it no one knows where it is just like the egyptians the builders of these monuments probably went through periods of trial and error trying to create a perfect shape the building techniques were so sophisticated that when the restoration team attempted to reconstruct the dagobah it took them years of experimentation to match the strength of the original bricks now when your work is finished here the pilgrims will come back and people will again do the puja and give offerings to the buddha that's that's what we are trying to do we should leave something to our future generation soon the jethivana dhagaba will again be an active holy site a pyramid inspiring worshipers to express their devotion to the buddha coming up next pyramids built to control nature and appease angry gods near the mexican town of cholula a small mountain dominates the landscape it appears to be a grassy hill with a church on top but on closer inspection you realize this is not at all what it seems [Music] this hill is actually the cholula pyramid by mass it's the largest pyramid ever built construction began nearly 2 000 years ago and was continued by a long line of different mesoamerican cultures the pyramid was abandoned in the 1200s and became overgrown with grass and shrubs [Music] in the 16th century spanish missionaries built a catholic church on the summit to claim the sacred space [Music] but why did the groups who lived here build such a massive structure archaeologist gabriela oranuela believes the pyramid was intended to honor a nearby active volcano called popocatepetl this pyramid is very close to the volcano and you have pyramid and volcano somehow in connection yeah well pyramids were replicas of sacred mountains and the obvious sacred mountain here is the popocatepetl in the horizon it's i mean it's very easy to identify so we think that the pyramid was built after the volcano made a big eruption in the first century is a mountain that the ancient peoples thought was associated with the rain god we are talking about agricultural societies that needed that rain for their survival the mountains were important because of their connection with rain and waters but also because their connection to the underworld where the ancestors reside so pyramids involved several different meanings in just one building like the aztec pyramid of tlatololco this structure was built in layers to get a better sense of its size and construction gabriela leads me into the pyramids complex interior [Music] all of these tunnels were built by archaeologists right these are not ancient tunnels yeah it's what was needed to try to understand the substructures of the pyramid how many layers are there there were at least eight different pyramids one on top of the other that were built from the first century until probably 700 or 800 a.d a succession of rulers enlarged the cholula pyramid to proclaim or justify their power and to link their reign to something larger than themselves we think that it's trying to represent general ancestors not the ancestors or one king or one leader in particular but an idea that could be shared for all the population [Music] while the people of cholula believed a pyramid in the shape of a volcano honored their mountain god [Music] three thousand miles to the south other pyramid builders honor a mountain god in a different way for over 500 years rulers of the moche people built pyramids along the peruvian coast at a site known as el brujo an 1800 year old moche pyramid is undergoing excavation at the top of the monument there's a relief that tells us a lot about the motivation of these builders this would have been open to the air it would have been a patio on the very top of this pyramid and this image here is a god who's known as the decapitator other andean archaeologists call this the god of the mountain he's got a frightening face which unfortunately is mostly missing here but it would have bared its teeth and bit a feline sort of face with great big eyes fabulous headdress and the really cool thing about this is that he's got spiders legs so we have three here three here three here and three here and each of his hands very stylized hands not very naturalistic are coming out to the sides over here he's holding a club so he's showing his power and his strength and over here this is where it gets really gruesome he's holding the head of a decapitated enemy now the fact that this is on a pyramid is really significant if you were one of the farmers who lived in this alluvial plain and you looked up from your farming where first thing that you would see that pyramid that symbol of might and this god would have been a part of political might power of religious might that was really stamping his image on these pyramids like many rulers around the world moche leaders built pyramids to link their reign to the power of the gods next a city full of pyramids and modern technology revisits an ancient ideal this is the ancient city of angkor in cambodia it's one of the most astonishing architectural sites i've ever explored [Music] angkor was the capital of the khmer empire the largest empire in southeast asia between the 9th and 15th centuries [Music] the city covers over a thousand square miles almost as big as modern-day los angeles and it's the largest pre-industrial city known to archaeologists [Music] angkor is filled with pyramids and these pyramids weren't built for just one purpose they combined several that may sound familiar they replicate mountains invite worship and further the divine aspirations of the kings who built them all of these pyramids involve an element of connection between the earth and sky between humans and the gods the pyramid-shaped temples at angkor were built by hindu kings to link themselves with shiva the creator god [Music] in the hindu and buddhist religions a mythical mountain called meru is believed to be the center of both the physical and spiritual universe mount meru is also thought to be the home of the gods the pyramids in angkor represent the sacred mountain and provide a way for the rulers to reach up to the heavens and attain the status of god kings [Music] more than any other place at angkor this building has a clear pyramidal shape dedicated to the god shiva it's called baksai chom krom and it's one of the oldest stone pyramids at angkor built in the year 948 this design is very familiar the broad square lower level with smaller steps stack successively atop one another it looks just like the earliest egyptian pyramids and just like in egypt successive kings each built their own pyramid anchor hoping to enhance the connection between their political power and the realm of the gods they played with the shapes adding spires creating towers even constructing pyramids on top of one another the culmination of these efforts is the temple complex within the city known as angkor wat wat meaning temple in the khmer language built in the 12th century as the king's official state temple angkor wat was designed to represent the entire hindu cosmos [Music] with the towers being the peaks of mount meru and the surrounding moats signifying the waters of creation the magnificent pyramids in the city of angkor not only offered spiritual connection for the people they also displayed the god-like status of the king as pyramids have around the world and throughout history [Music] even today a new generation of pyramid builders continues the journey started centuries ago piercing the skyline of downtown dubai a new monumental building is nearly complete burj dubai is over 170 stories high built with a familiar triangular shape wide at the base with tapered sides and narrow at the top [Music] it's a modern-day pyramid of epic proportions it's the tallest structure on earth claiming the title held by the great pyramid of giza for almost 4 000 years [Music] [Music] architects today aren't limited by the building technology of the past and the pyramid shape is no longer essential for stability but the meaning of building to the sky is just as potent no one can doubt the social or political position of men who commission towers like burj dubai pyramids have always represented an elite place in society and now even without the direct religious connections buildings like birds dubai are still a visceral symbol in terms of politics power and ideology [Music] pyramids are tangible evidence of unwavering political power [Music] and its attempt to stretch the limits of human achievement [Music] even daring to connect the earth to the heavens you
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