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Ramsete il Grande e Priamo di Troia - Fondazione Claudio Venanzi — Transcript

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0:01Good evening. Please, occasions to
0:08engage with culture are so rare that I
0:12believe it is partly a duty for all of
0:17us to be involved in promoting it.
0:22Because culture, unfortunately, is not
0:24promoted institutionally speaking, it
0:27is worth us promoting it ourselves
0:29somehow, especially considering that in
0:32most cases the contributions are truly
0:34symbolic. In return, you get an offer
0:38of culture that, in some way, claims
0:41and hopes to be qualitatively quite
0:44valid. In short, then, tonight we begin
0:48our series of meetings, "Parallel Lives
0:51." Plutarch, you know, actually wrote
0:56biographies of famous figures,
0:58comparing individuals from different
1:00eras, seeing how in some cases the
1:02biographies of different characters
1:04ended up being almost overlapping. Hm.
1:09And so his intent was to demonstrate
1:12that there existed human archetypes
1:15that are somehow conditioned by the
1:18experiences they faced, certain
1:20discourses, certain political issues,
1:23and the particular history they had
1:26within their lives. We, on the other
1:30hand, will do something different this
1:31evening. I do not want to give you a
1:33sequence of biographical data; that is
1:36not my intention, nor do I find it to
1:39be particularly useful. Hm, I want to
1:42do other things instead. It occurred to
1:46me to take some figures and, through
1:49these characters, talk about a
1:51phenomenon, a period, or an issue that
1:54characterized their era. Not by
1:59deepening the character himself, but by
2:02seeing how that character is a product
2:05of an issue, a product of a historical
2:08phenomenon that was occurring at that
2:11moment. So let's say the characters we
2:14will talk about will be the means, the
2:17tools that will help us understand what
2:20are actually very, very important
2:22phenomena, alright? I mean, between us,
2:27some biographical data about Ramesses
2:30II only interests us up to a certain
2:33point, but what he actually did, the
2:36influence he had on his history, and
2:39how he faced certain moments and
2:41turning points in the history of his
2:44era have, in some way, reached us today
2:47. So, this is what we will do this
2:51evening. Obviously, the comparison is
2:54between two figures who might seem
2:56absolutely distant from each other. The
3:00first, an extremely well-known figure,
3:03right? Ramesses. Ramesses II. Ramesses
3:06the Great, his real name wasn't
3:09Ramesses, you know? His name was
3:12Usermaatre Setepenre Ramesses the Great
3:15, a pharaoh whose greatness, between us
3:19, corresponds and coincides in many
3:22cases with the fact that he reigned for
3:2570 years. It is easy to be great, to
3:30leave a mark on history when you rule
3:33for 70 years. Mh, he was certainly not
3:36the greatest pharaoh of Egypt. Without
3:38a doubt he is the most famous pharaoh
3:40of Egypt, but not the greatest. The
3:43greatest pharaoh of Egypt was
3:44undoubtedly Thutmose, no doubt about it
3:47. Be that as it may, the first figure
3:50is a well-known character, a figure
3:53about whom there is vast literature and
3:55who built a huge quantity of monuments.
3:58Mh, some of the greatest monuments that
4:00Egyptian civilization has passed down
4:02to us were built by him. The second
4:05figure is a literary character, in some
4:07way he is the product of epic
4:09production. Priam, Priam of Troy. The
4:15last king of Troy mentioned in Homer's
4:18Iliad, partly mentioned also in the
4:21Odyssey and even in Virgil's Aeneid, so
4:24a character about whom we can even give
4:27the benefit of the doubt regarding
4:30Priam's possible existence. Mh, it
4:33hardly matters to us whether he was
4:35called Priam or perhaps John in his
4:38time. Certainly Troy had a final
4:40sovereign and we are obviously talking
4:42about him in this case. So, two
4:45characters who in some way are
4:48enormously distant, even geographically
4:51it seems mh, because Ramses in Egypt,
4:53Priam in Asia Minor, in the Troad, or
4:56to be precise in Mysia, which is a
4:59northeastern, northwestern, excuse me,
5:02region of Asia Minor, modern-day Turkey
5:05. The only thing that seems to unite
5:11them is the era, because Ramses, based
5:14on the dating currently followed by us
5:18Italians, Ramses lived between 1305 and
5:251212 B.C. I say our Italian dating
5:30because every archaeological school,
5:33regarding Egypt, provides different
5:35dates; because for ancient Egypt we do
5:38not have, as we do for ancient Rome, an
5:41absolute text, a sequence, an absolute
5:44chronology of reference. Therefore, we
5:48Italians together with the French use
5:51one dating, the English and Americans
5:54use another dating, and the Germans use
5:57yet another. Certainly these dates
6:00differ from one another by at most a
6:03decade, that is, we say from 1303 to
6:061212 B.C., while for example the
6:09English say from 1310 to 1220 B.C. Well
6:14, more or less, we are in the same
6:17ballpark. This is regarding Ramses.
6:20Regarding Priam, on the other hand, we
6:22are obviously in the realm of the
6:24Trojan epic, we are in the context of
6:26the Trojan War, therefore in the
6:28context of the Late Bronze Age. Late
6:31Bronze Age means for the Eastern
6:33Mediterranean, always be wary of those
6:36who talk to you about the Iron Age just
6:39like that, because the Iron Age here in
6:42Italy was in the 10th century. In Asia
6:47Minor, the Iron Age was in the 20th
6:49century B.C. In the Americas, the Iron
6:51Age arrived in the 10th century AD. So,
6:55in reality, you have to provide a
6:57dating, but also contextualize it
6:58geographically. For the Eastern
7:02Mediterranean, the end of the Bronze
7:04Age is exactly within the scope of the
7:06Trojan War, between 1250 and 1200 BC,
7:12approximately. So those are the years,
7:15it is the 13th century BC. Time seems
7:19to be the only thing they have in
7:20common. Hm. Otherwise, the geographical
7:24contexts are different, the cultural
7:26contexts are different; we might even
7:28think they didn't know each other at
7:30all. Hm, in some way. This is because,
7:33unfortunately, we study history in
7:35watertight compartments; we don't study
7:37it through contacts, let's say, along a
7:40synchronic line, but along a diachronic
7:42one. Let's start right from Priam, in a
7:46way. What do we really know about Priam
7:48? Actually, all things considered, we
7:52know very little about Priam because we
7:55all say, well, we have already
7:56discussed this here. Ah well, yes, we
8:01all know the Trojan War, we all know
8:03the Iliad, but if we then go to see how
8:05many of us have really read the entire
8:08Iliad from beginning to end, hmm,
8:10better not conduct that pathetic
8:12examination, if we want. Let's try to
8:16be kind and gloss over that. If we go
8:20and read the Iliad, we realize that, in
8:22reality, very little is said about
8:24Priam. Not only is very little said,
8:28but in the Iliad, Priam is an elderly
8:31character, very elderly; he can't even
8:34walk easily, so he is old, and thus
8:37quite different from the image of Priam
8:40that myth transmits to us. Why? Because
8:45we know Priam's story from other
8:47authors; we know it from Apollodorus,
8:49and in reality, we even know it from
8:51some Byzantine authors. Just think that
8:55even Priam's death—that is, how Priam
8:58died, having been killed during the
9:00Trojan War, during the destruction, the
9:03last night, we could say, of Troy—we
9:05don't even know from the Homeric poems;
9:08neither the Iliad nor the Odyssey tells
9:11us how Priam died. Just think, the only
9:15one who tells us about Priam's death is
9:18Virgil in the Aeneid, so perhaps who
9:20knows, maybe Virgil invented Priam's
9:23death during the destruction of Troy.
9:26So the data we have is truly scarce.
9:30Think, even about Priam's youth, we
9:33know very little. However, legends say
9:36he was a character who had a presence
9:39in many myths. He was a character who
9:42recurred in several different myths. Hm
9:44. And it is very strange because, all
9:46things considered, Priam is not Greek.
9:49Priam is actually a character from Asia
9:52Minor. A large part of the myths take
9:54place in the Hellenic environment, at
9:56least the most ancient myths. He,
9:58however, lives in the region of Asia
10:00Minor. And what are the few facts that
10:03we know, transmitted by some authors? A
10:05legend says that his true original name
10:07was Podarces. He is called Podarces.
10:10Podarces. This, too, is another
10:13interesting thing. Unfortunately, every
10:16time we study the Homeric poems, we
10:18study them in the various translations
10:21that have reached us, and in doing so,
10:24we lose many of the meanings conveyed
10:26by the names. That is, Agamemnon is
10:31called Agamemnon in Greek, Agamemnon in
10:35Latin, and Agamennone in Italian. And
10:39so, when we study the Homeric poems, we
10:41say Agamennone, but in reality,
10:43Agamemnon is a name that has, let's say
10:45, a meaning. Agamemnon means the one
10:48who commands. Now, a Greek who read
10:52Agamemnon, that name actually
10:54immediately conveyed the framing of the
10:56character to him. Well, Podarces, which
11:01was Priam's original name, means "first
11:05among feet," in the sense of the one
11:09who arrives first when running, all
11:16right? Therefore, he who runs fast. Now
11:20, if I, reading the Iliad, knowing that
11:23this gentleman here was named Podarces,
11:26that is, he who runs fast, well, once I
11:29have told you this, you understand that
11:32the fact that he ends up kneeling
11:34before Achilles, who is swift, has a
11:37very different meaning; that is, a
11:39hierarchy is created between this one
11:42who ran fast and Achilles, who is
11:45swifter; in other words, names have a
11:48meaning. Until tonight, this meaning
11:50did not exist for you because you did
11:52not know that his name was Podarces and
11:54that Podarces means "first among feet."
11:57That is, the humiliation that Priam
11:59undergoes at the feet of Achilles
12:01acquires an even greater significance.
12:04So he was named Podarces and was the
12:07son of Laomedon. Laomedon was a king of
12:10Troy. The king had ordered, we could
12:14say, commissioned the gods, Apollo and
12:17Poseidon, to build the walls of Troy.
12:21Then he refused to pay them. And so the
12:24gods sent a monster. To save himself
12:27from this monster, Laomedon calls
12:29Hercules. Hercules goes there, defeats
12:31the monster, but then Laomedon does not
12:33pay Hercules either. And so Hercules
12:36gets angry. And I know, Hercules gets
12:40angry and destroys Troy. It is the
12:43famous first Trojan War when Troy is
12:45destroyed by Hercules. Hercules kills
12:50Laomedon, kills all of Laomedon's
12:52children, except for the two youngest,
12:56a girl named Hesione and a 4-year-old
12:59boy named Podarces, indeed, him.
13:04Hercules, who goes there and destroys
13:07Troy, has a friend named Telamon, who
13:09will be the father of the famous Ajax,
13:12who will then take part in the Trojan
13:14War, and Telamon obtains Hesione as
13:17spoils of war, this girl, the Trojan
13:19princess, and decides to marry her.
13:22Hesione was 13 years old; that's how
13:25marriages were back then. Since the
13:29gods wanted everyone to give a gift at
13:33weddings, when Hesione was to marry
13:37Telamon, she asked Hercules, demanded a
13:40gift from Hercules. Hercules had to
13:45give it to her; he was forced to
13:46provide it. He says, "Very well, what
13:49do you want?" And Hesione asks for her
13:524-year-old brother, but her brother is
13:55part of the war booty. So Hesione has
13:58to buy him. Hercules tells her, "Yes,
14:02but officially you must redeem your
14:04brother." Hesione is a prisoner; the
14:07only thing she has is the veil on her
14:10head. So she takes this veil, unwraps
14:12the veil, and gives it to Hercules. She
14:14says, "With this, I buy my brother, you
14:16can give him to me." From that moment
14:20on, that boy would be called Priam,
14:22because in Greek, the verb "priamai"
14:25means to redeem. So Priam means "the
14:29redeemed one." Agreed? What does Priam
14:34do? And here a very big gap opens up in
14:37our knowledge. The myths don't tell us
14:39about certain things because the myths
14:41don't care about talking about Priam
14:43when he was 15 or 20 years old. We only
14:46know that, being the only male of the
14:48Trojan family left, he eventually
14:50becomes King of Troy. Mh. He becomes
14:53King of Troy, but in reality, Troy is a
14:55very small city. And what does he do?
14:57He allies himself with his most
14:59powerful friends nearby, who are the
15:00Phrygians. And in this alliance with
15:04the Phrygians, he fights the Amazons,
15:07who were, let's say, the creatures of
15:11chaos that existed closest to Troy. For
15:16the Greeks, chaos, for the Greek
15:19mentality, was the failure to respect a
15:23series of rules made by the gods, and
15:26this could also be a physical failure
15:29to respect them, so a normal being is
15:32actually a divine creature. A centaur,
15:37who is half man and half horse, is a
15:39creature of chaos. A faun, who is half
15:44man and half goat, is a creature of
15:46chaos. The Amazons, who are women with
15:50masculine attitudes, are creatures of
15:53chaos. That is, it's as if the Amazons
15:55were half woman and half man. In their
15:58own way, they are also hybrids,
16:00understood? And so in this war against
16:03the Amazons, Priam wins over the
16:06Amazons and gains the alliance of
16:08Phrygia. This sculpture that you see
16:12here is located in Munich, Germany. It
16:15is the so-called pediment of Aegina. It
16:18is a large pediment from the Temple of
16:20Aphaia on the island of Aegina in
16:22Greece. The pediment was, however,
16:25brought to Munich in the 1800s, where
16:27it is currently exhibited, in the
16:30Glyptothek of Munich. And in this image
16:34, the war between the Phrygians and the
16:36Amazons is represented, and in this
16:39representation, Priam is also present.
16:42This right here is actually the oldest
16:45image we have of Priam. Mm. Consider,
16:48you see here he is represented as young
16:49. We always imagine Priam as an old man
16:51, right? But in reality, this is one of
16:54the few references we have to Priam's
16:57history in its earliest phase. For
17:01example, the myth tells us that as a
17:03boy, he married a princess named Arisbe
17:06, and from this Arisbe, he had a son
17:09whose name was Aesacus. When he
17:13participates, let's say, as a boy in
17:16this war, to forge an alliance with the
17:19King of Phrygia, he marries the
17:21daughter of the King of Phrygia, named
17:23Hecuba, and repudiates his previous
17:26wife, Arisbe. We don't know why, given
17:30that in reality, polygamy was permitted
17:32at the time; that is, at the time,
17:34these peoples were polygamous. Priam
17:37himself would marry another woman after
17:39Hecuba and would have several
17:41concubines. So, for example, the myth
17:44is deficient here; we don't know why he
17:46repudiates his first wife. Agreed? But
17:52obviously, most of the information we
17:54have about Priam relates to the Trojan
17:56War. We know that he, in fact, marries
17:58Hecuba and has 19 children with her. Of
18:03these 19 children, 11 are boys and
18:06eight are girls. Some of his children
18:10we don't even know the names of; they
18:11aren't even mentioned in the Homeric
18:13poems. The ones that are most important
18:16to us, however, are the first two sons:
18:18Hector, who was the firstborn, and
18:20Paris, whose real name was actually
18:23Alexander, who was the second-born. Mm.
18:27This vase depicts the arming of Hector
18:29before, precisely, Priam there and his
18:32mother Hecuba. You see that this vase,
18:36which is set in and describes an
18:38episode of the Trojan War, already
18:40shows Priam as an old man, see? He is
18:42already leaning on a staff, isn't he?
18:46So the figure of Priam enters the great
18:49epic, the great mythological tradition,
18:52already as a mature character. Mm.
18:56During the war—I mean, the Homeric
18:59poems are very long, yet Priam is
19:00spoken of very little. Damn it, he is
19:04the King of Troy, but curiously, it
19:07seems that the role of king throughout
19:09all the Homeric poems is filled more by
19:12his son Hector than by him. Priam is
19:15almost never in the narrative. When he
19:19is, it is mostly, for example, to
19:21welcome envoys, perform religious rites
19:24, or comfort Helen. Helen is always
19:29comforted by Priam; Helen almost never
19:31appears alone, she always appears with
19:33her father-in-law, that is, with Priam.
19:36So, he is a character who is actually
19:38present very little in the epic form.
19:40Mm. I mean, however, as a looming
19:43presence with his 50 children, his two
19:46wives, Hecuba and Laothoe, is the
19:49second wife, plus an unspecified number
19:52of concubines, in fact. By the way, the
19:56number of 50 children isn't even
19:57certain, because Homer doesn't mention
19:59it. Hyginus, who is a Byzantine writer,
20:02says there were 48 children. Eutropius,
20:05another much later writer, says instead
20:07there were 115. So, in reality, the
20:11matter was a bit complex, you know,
20:15like that. Well, excuse me, in a little
20:19while we will talk about Ramesses II,
20:21who is not a mythical figure. Well, for
20:26Ramesses II we have confirmed,
20:29confirmed 127 children, but it is also
20:32true that Ramesses II had 12 wives and
20:36about fifty concubines, so, however,
20:43everyone, excuse me, everyone has their
20:47own problems, okay? There, everyone has
20:50their own problems. Obviously, the
20:55figure of Priam becomes central to the
20:58story when, the day after the killing
21:01of Hector, um, of the Trojan prince
21:03Hector, Priam must indeed ransom his
21:06body from Achilles. This is a beautiful
21:09silver vase from the Roman treasure of
21:12Boscoreale. This vase is currently in
21:16America and it depicts Achilles sitting
21:19and Priam, as you can see, kneeling
21:22before Achilles to ask for the return
21:25of Hector's body to give him a proper
21:28burial. With this episode, indeed,
21:32Achilles in some way, how could we say,
21:35lays down his arms and the Iliad ends,
21:37because the Iliad ends with this. The
21:40Iliad, you know, does not end with the
21:42destruction of Troy. After all, the
21:44Iliad, we’ve talked about it here, is
21:46a book that concerns the wrath of
21:48Achilles. It begins when the wrath of
21:50Achilles begins, it ends when the wrath
21:52of Achilles ends. And who is it that
21:53brings the wrath of Achilles to an end?
21:56Priam, therefore Priam, who is a
21:58character that in the poem actually
22:00intervenes little, is however the one
22:02whose intervention resolves the wrath
22:04of Achilles. So the Iliad ends thanks
22:08to Priam in some way. This vase, same
22:16thing, represents the body of Hector
22:18laid out below, Achilles above who is
22:19feasting, and Priam who is asking for
22:21the return. Therefore, a very important
22:25character who speaks directly with
22:28Achilles. Do you remember this detail?
22:31Priam, despite the attempts to dissuade
22:34him that his wife and children had made
22:38, telling him not to go, leaves the
22:41city alone, sneaks into the Achaean
22:45camp at night, and goes to beg Achilles
22:48directly to have the return of his
22:52son's body. Also this other vase. This
22:55is a beautiful vase, it is located in
22:57Berlin and it depicts the same thing.
23:00You always see Hector's body on the
23:03ground, Priam always depicted as an
23:05elderly old man with a beard, in this
23:08case white, with a cane as he goes to
23:10kneel before Achilles, and Priam even
23:13makes Achilles cry. Mm. Achilles is
23:17moved by the request that Priam makes.
23:22So much so that Achilles then returns
23:24Hector's body, which will be given a
23:26proper burial. How does Priam die?
23:30Priam is not killed by Achilles.
23:32Achilles dies before the end of Troy.
23:34Achilles is killed by Paris, right? By
23:36an arrow shot that strikes him in the
23:39heel. The death of Achilles was
23:42supposed to mark the end of the Trojan
23:44War. Troy would no longer have fallen
23:48because the oracle had said that for
23:50Troy to fall, it was necessary for a
23:53descendant of the only mortal who
23:55helped the gods build the walls of Troy
23:58to participate in the Trojan War. The
24:02walls of Troy had been built by the
24:04gods with the collaboration of a mortal
24:06named Aeacus. This Aeacus had only one
24:10son, Peleus, who had only one son,
24:12Achilles. That is why Achilles must
24:15participate in the Trojan War, because
24:17it is as if he had the password to
24:19breach Troy, but the moment Achilles is
24:22killed, who does it? So what do the
24:24Greeks do? They leave from there, they
24:28go to Thessaly to get the only male
24:30child that Achilles had, who was indeed
24:33named Pyrrhus, a young boy who knew
24:37nothing about the Trojan War. This
24:40Pyrrhus is taken from his mother, he
24:43was a young lad, since the myth takes
24:46some liberties. From when they take him
24:49as a boy from his mother to when he
24:51arrives in Troy, he has become an adult
24:53. It is true that it takes a long time
24:56to make that journey at that time, but
24:57still. And he arrives there, he is no
25:00longer called Pyrrhus, he is called
25:02Neoptolemus, which means the new the
25:04new fighter. And this Neoptolemus,
25:07angry, is a descendant of Achilles; it
25:10is as if he felt the resentment of his
25:13father Achilles, who had been moved
25:16before Priam. So what does he do?
25:18Neoptolemus is the meanest of them all.
25:22He kills children, for example, he
25:24kills Astyanax, he kills Polites, who
25:26is another of the Trojan princes, and
25:28then he kills Priam there. But, as I
25:32repeat, this story is told by Virgil,
25:35it is not told by Homer. So Priam meets
25:39a rather sad end. Obviously, we will
25:42return to Priam. Now let's talk about
25:45this gentleman. Here, instead, we are
25:46in a completely different context.
25:50Egypt, the Egypt of the 19th Dynasty.
25:55The 19th Dynasty is a completely
25:56different dynasty from all the
25:57dynasties that had been there before.
25:59It was a dynasty of soldiers. The first
26:03pharaoh of the 19th dynasty was named
26:06Ramessu, Ramses I, his grandfather, was
26:09a general, he wasn't even of royal
26:12blood. Mm. And obviously, we are the
26:16ones who divide the history of Egypt
26:18into dynasties precisely based on
26:20family relationships. Mm. The 19th
26:23dynasty is a dynasty where the pharaohs
26:25are all generals. There is Ramses,
26:28there is Seti, son of Ramses I, and
26:31then the son of Seti. One of the sons
26:35is precisely Usermaatre, he went down
26:39in history later as Ramses II, a figure
26:43who was a soldier, mm, of Berber
26:48descent, he had red hair, we know, but
26:51the Egyptians shaved themselves
26:53completely, so we know he had red hair
26:56because he still has it on his mummy.
27:01Um, he becomes, uh, let's say, an
27:03important figure in his grandfather's
27:06court already, he shows his worth so
27:08much that then his father Seti, at a
27:11certain point, brings him on as regent.
27:14But mind you, he had a lot of brothers,
27:16uh, I mean, he would have more than 100
27:19children, it's not like his father had
27:21taken it easy. Mm. But you know, in
27:25ancient Egypt, to become pharaoh,
27:27family relationships were important,
27:30that is, you became pharaoh by marrying
27:32a royal princess, which royal princess
27:35had to be the direct daughter of
27:37pharaohs. I mean, in what sense? I am
27:42the pharaoh. I have a son and a
27:44daughter. My son does not become
27:47pharaoh. He only becomes pharaoh if he
27:49marries his sister or if he marries my
27:52sister, so the aunt who is perhaps also
27:54the daughter of another pharaoh. So you
27:58could be the son of a pharaoh, but if
28:00you didn't marry a royal princess, you
28:02remained nothing. Conversely, a slave
28:06who married a royal princess became
28:08pharaoh. In ancient Egypt, it was like
28:11that. Power was transmitted through the
28:15female line and he, after several
28:18marriages without children with royal
28:20princesses, marries Nefertari who was
28:23the granddaughter of Pharaoh Ay and
28:26great-granddaughter of Pharaoh
28:28Amenhotep and therefore this would be
28:31decisive for him becoming pharaoh. He
28:35becomes pharaoh very young, his father
28:37dies quite early. He becomes pharaoh
28:42practically at 16 years old, even
28:44though he had brothers much older than
28:47him, but the dynastic sequence was
28:49fierce. This is him. Uh, consider that
28:55he died at about 93 years old, now 93
29:00years in ancient Egypt. That's a lot,
29:0593 years is truly a lot, but besides,
29:07consider that the anthropometric
29:09measurements, the study of the mummies
29:11is extraordinary because we study
29:13historical figures in books, but in
29:15reality, with the mummies, you are
29:17standing right in front of them, so you
29:19know everything. Anthropometric study
29:22shows that at 93 years old, he was 1.78
29:25meters tall. Anthropometric studies
29:31show that when he was between 20 and 30
29:34years old, he was likely nearly 1.90 m
29:37tall. Mm. For the populations of Egypt.
29:48Unfortunately, here—well, 93 years
29:50old, he actually had spinal bone
29:52disease, so at 93 he practically
29:54couldn't walk anymore. Mm. Well, lucky
29:58him, I mean, he made it that far back
30:00then. True, he lived the life of a
30:03pharaoh. Of course, he wasn't taking
30:04the subway at 7 in the morning,
30:05that’s for sure. He had red hair, a
30:09slightly aquiline nose like this, but
30:11you can see very, very sharp features.
30:15He was an extraordinary character,
30:17however, a man of great culture and
30:19intelligence. This is his name, one of
30:23his many names that. Obviously, he
30:27reigned for more than 70 years, even
30:29nearly 80 years, as a sole ruler, since
30:32he had already been partially assisted
30:35by his father; consider that Egypt is
30:38full of his monuments. This is part of
30:42the royal titulary and it repeats twice
30:45. He is the king of Upper and Lower
30:52Egypt, which means he who lives for the
30:54sedge and the bee, and this is his name
30:57, which means "the power, the justice,
30:59and the splendor belong to the sun."
31:03The name is precisely Usermaatra, and
31:07following that, "endowed with life."
31:09The complete name is here, it repeats.
31:12This was the name given to the males.
31:16All the males in a family had the same
31:18name. All the males in his family were
31:20named Ramses. And the name, here it is,
31:24Ra. This is the god Ra. Sessu, mer-Amon
31:30. Ramesessu-mer-Amon, which means "
31:33Ramses, beloved of the god Amon." While
31:37over there, again, Usermaatra, and this
31:39is indeed his name, the royal titulary.
31:43As a boy, one of the first things he
31:45did was to consecrate the dynastic
31:47temple in the city of Abydos. This is
31:51him at about 17 years old, in the city
31:53of Abydos, with an incense burner in
31:55his hand, consecrating the temple.
31:58Interestingly, Ramses almost always has
32:02himself depicted with that particular
32:05cap you see there. That cap was called
32:09"khepresh." It means blue because it
32:14was a cap made of metal covered in
32:17lapis lazuli, but it wasn't really a
32:20cap; it was a helmet, a battle helmet.
32:24Ramses has himself depicted with the
32:26helmet during the first phase of his
32:28life, the first half of his life. It's
32:32a bit like some political head of state
32:35, some politician we still see today
32:37who always appears in public in uniform
32:40, or think of Arafat who always
32:42appeared with his keffiyeh; it was a
32:44very specific message, meaning he
32:46identifies himself as a military
32:48commander in a war situation. He always
32:53appears, in fact, with his crown, or
32:55rather, with his battle helmet on. Mh.
32:59And we said he married Nefertari. And
33:03here we find something interesting.
33:04Look at this statue. This is Nefertari.
33:08This one, oops, sorry, this one you see
33:11here, mh, one of Ramses 'queens, a
33:14descendant of a royal family. The one
33:18next to it is called the Hecuba of
33:20Berlin. It is a statue that actually
33:23comes from Asia Minor; it probably
33:25doesn't represent Hecuba. I put it here
33:27to indicate Hecuba because that is how
33:29it is identified. Because Hecuba is the
33:32same thing. Hecuba, the wife of Priam,
33:35whom he marries when he gains the
33:37alliance of the Phrygians and becomes
33:39king. So for him, the marriage to
33:42Hecuba serves to confirm his royalty
33:45over the city of Troy. So look, the
33:49Egyptians and the inhabitants of the
33:52Troad had their power transmitted
33:55through marriage. In reality, the
33:59entire ancient Mediterranean was
34:00characterized by this. There was a
34:02matriarchy in protohistoric times where
34:06power was transmitted through the
34:08female line. You see, to be king of
34:10Ithaca you have to marry Penelope, to
34:12be king of Mycenae you have to marry
34:15Clytemnestra, to be king of Sparta you
34:17have to marry Helen, and so on. That is
34:20, marriage granted royalty over a
34:23specific area, and this is something
34:25that unites them both. We also know a
34:29great many things about Ramses. We know
34:31, for example, that he was a great
34:32builder, right? This here is the famous
34:34temple of Abu Simbel where he is
34:36depicted. It is a temple dedicated to
34:40the majesty of the pharaoh, not a tomb.
34:43Eh, the temple is dedicated to the
34:45pharaoh as a god in the far south of
34:48Egypt to indicate that, in fact, Ramses
34:50' sovereignty must extend to the
34:53extreme south. But above all, Ramses,
34:57to tell the truth, for the first 20
34:59years of his life, was primarily a
35:01soldier; he led two great military
35:03campaigns, the most famous one, and
35:05sorry, that is why his monuments are
35:07full of triumphalistic images, like in
35:09this case, no? All these prisoners
35:12chained under his feet, in fact, these
35:14are the feet of the statues, these that
35:17you see here above, right? The feet of
35:20the Abu Simbel statues and all these
35:22prisoners represented underneath. This
35:25is again, do you see the king's titles?
35:28You see them up there like that. Heb
35:40useramon, That is, long live Horus, the
35:47mighty bull loved by Maat, he of the
35:49two lands of Upper and Lower Egypt,
35:51lord of the western lands and the far
35:54south and the lands of Nubia, he of the
35:56bee and he of the sedge.
35:59He-who-is-of-truth, son of Ra, son of
36:02Ra, Ramesses is the general title,
36:04indeed, of the pharaoh. Now, but the
36:11pharaoh, Priam, these figures, who were
36:15they within the scope of Egypt, indeed
36:17within the scope of the ancient world.
36:20Now we must take a brief digression. In
36:26prehistory and protohistory, you know,
36:29we speak of a sort of primitive
36:31communism, meaning the concept of king
36:34or the concept of government, the
36:37concept of a leader, did not exist in
36:40social hierarchies; it wasn't there.
36:45But the moment states become more
36:47elaborate, obviously communities need
36:52greater organization, therefore a
36:54hierarchy capable of managing all this.
36:59Now there is a Sumerian tale that says
37:02something very interesting. The tale
37:05says 1,000 years after the flood—you
37:10know that the universal flood was also
37:13in Sumerian mythology. Mh. 1,000 years
37:18after the flood, power descended from
37:23heaven and chose men to rule over the
37:27people. This legend, in other words
37:32this Sumerian phrasing, is to say that
37:35all the peoples who characterized—in
37:38this case, reference is made to the
37:40Eastern Mediterranean—were governed
37:43by figures who were not kings because
37:46they were stronger than the others or
37:49had been elected: they were a sort of
37:52selected race placed to govern the
37:54peoples. Therefore, all the populations
37:59that were, in fact, occupying the area
38:02of the Eastern Mediterranean had
38:05sovereigns governing them who
38:08considered themselves all relatives of
38:11one another, a bit like the Europe of
38:14the Habsburgs in the 1700s, agreed?
38:17They were all relatives among
38:19themselves and were the so-called great
38:22kings. The term great king is present
38:26in all the populations of the ancient
38:28Near East. The great kings were the
38:32king of Egypt, the king of Kish, the
38:34king of Elam, that is of Susa, that of
38:36Akkad, of the Sumerian territory, of
38:38Assur, of Mari, of Ebla, of Hatti, of
38:40Crete, and of Mycenae. These were the
38:43great kings. Only a great king could
38:48address another great king. Only a
38:54great king could give his daughter in
38:57marriage to another great king. Any
39:00woman who was not linked to a great
39:02king, if she entered the family of a
39:04great king, became a concubine, she did
39:07not become a wife. The great kings were
39:10all relatives among themselves. Now the
39:13pharaoh of Egypt was a god for the
39:16Egyptians. Agreed? Actually, this is a
39:19discussion that needs to be had; a very
39:21, very complex and long discussion,
39:23that of the concept of the great kings,
39:25especially concerning Egypt, about
39:27which we are better informed than
39:29elsewhere. But these great kings were
39:32figures who, in some way, were the
39:34guardians of the people; they weren't
39:37politicians who are just placed there
39:40and do whatever they feel like. The
39:44great kings were, in reality, figures
39:46who were the guarantors of the people
39:48and they had to prove they were great
39:51kings. They had to demonstrate it in
39:55certain ways, in certain circumstances,
39:58in certain situations throughout their
40:01lives; they had to have the bearing of
40:03great kings, is that clear? And they
40:07talked to each other, they wrote to
40:09each other; meaning the pharaoh, who
40:12was a god, wrote letters—even
40:14friendly ones—to the king of Kish, or
40:16to the king of Mari, or to the king of
40:19Kush, understood? He was a great king.
40:22Now, the number of great kings was
40:25fixed because it had been established
40:29from the beginning. Every now and then,
40:34someone would be added who, in some way
40:37, established themselves as a great
40:39king alongside the others. Hmm. In the
40:461700s, England, Prussia, and Austria
40:49didn't go to war with each other
40:51because they were all relatives.
40:55Napoleon arrives, who is related to no
40:57one, and wages war. It's an example
41:00that serves only to help you understand
41:02the concept, is that clear? Good. In
41:05this civilization of great kings, these
41:07are the places where we know there were
41:10great kings. At a certain point, in the
41:1310th century BC, another great king
41:16appears: Troy. At Troy, there hadn't
41:20been a great king; it wasn't a city
41:21linked to the great kings. From the
41:2510th century, a city whose name was
41:28Wilusa, which was located there, begins
41:30to be counted in the list of great
41:33kings, and the sovereign of Wilusa
41:35demands his place on the political
41:38chessboard of the entire Ancient Near
41:40East. The great kings were extremely
41:44different from one another; in every
41:47civilization, they were different.
41:49Every population had its own great
41:51kings. The great king of Egypt, of
41:54Akkad, of Sumer, of Assur, of Gudea,
41:56the great king of the Hittites. Mycenae
42:02; Agamemnon was a great king, he was
42:04the king of Mycenae. Menelaus, his
42:08brother, was not a great king. Indeed,
42:12we speak of the Mycenaean people and we
42:15also include Sparta, Tiryns, and so on,
42:18because Mycenae was the reference city,
42:21so he was the king of Mycenae,
42:23Agamemnon—or rather, saying it the
42:25Greek way, Agamemnon—which indeed
42:28means the one who commands everything,
42:30the king of kings, precisely. These
42:35were the great kings on the list we had
42:37, and these figures were in agreement
42:39with one another; they helped each
42:41other, they helped each other
42:43militarily. When one of them got into
42:46trouble, the others would intervene.
42:49When one faced a famine, the others
42:51helped, provided they didn't conspire
42:53to feast upon the remains of the one
42:55who had perished. I mean, in a way,
42:58they were the only ones capable of
43:00communicating with each other. There
43:04was a sort of balance in the Eastern
43:07Mediterranean and the Ancient Near East
43:10: very diverse peoples linked by a
43:13series of fake family relationships.
43:18Because it’s not true that they were
43:19related; obviously, they had nothing to
43:21do with each other. Yet, there were
43:23these trade ties, these family bonds
43:25through which they respected one
43:27another. Hm. The Great King was the
43:30protector of everything, the one who
43:32guaranteed peace. To violate that peace
43:35was, in a way, to defy the Great King
43:37and, therefore, all those who were
43:39Great Kings like him. Agreed? This was
43:43the very complex situation of that era.
43:47Obviously, the relations between some
43:50of these Great Kings were often strange
43:53, and in this particular case, two of
43:56them—the Great King of Egypt and the
43:59Great King of Hatti (the part you see
44:02in red)—were in close contact, and it
44:05was close contact over a zone that was
44:08the Near East here, the part of the
44:11land of Canaan, here like this, which
44:14was a point of contact, but an
44:17important point of contact. Hm, because
44:20it was an area where certain trade
44:23routes ended and where there were
44:27extraordinary materials, materials that
44:30everyone coveted at the time: the
44:31cedars of Lebanon. Today Today we
44:37sometimes struggle to understand why
44:40that area is so important. It's true, I
44:43mean, they talk about the Golan Heights
44:46. Personally, the first time I went to
44:50the Golan Heights, I said: "My goodness
44:53, it would be like going to war for 50
44:55years over the little hills located, I
44:58don't know, between Fabriano and Albac.
45:01" I mean, and there it’s actually
45:03cultivated, there's...I mean, there, on
45:05the Golan Heights, there's nothing:
45:07they’re scorched, ugly, and these
45:08people have been killing each other for
45:10decades over the Golan Heights. Back
45:13then, this was much more understandable
45:14because there were the cedars of
45:16Lebanon. The cedar of Lebanon was the
45:20only tall tree usable for certain
45:23things. In Egypt, there were palm trees
45:26. The palm tree cannot be used to build
45:28houses. The palm tree cannot be used
45:31for pulling, for making sleds, for
45:33moving blocks. The palm tree cannot be
45:36used to carve sarcophagi. So in Egypt,
45:39there are palm trees, and that’s it.
45:42In Syria there was the Aleppo pine, but
45:44the Aleppo pine isn't much, I mean, the
45:47Aleppo pine is a small pine, so it
45:48produces little timber. The only
45:52effective timber that existed was, in
45:54fact, the cedar of Lebanon. There are
45:57many legends that refer to the journeys
45:59and exploits to obtain the cedars of
46:02Lebanon; the story of Wenamun, the
46:04lamentations of Nippur, they are all
46:06ancient literary texts that speak
46:08precisely of the importance of this
46:11place. And then here is Canaan, and at
46:16this point, there is an incredible
46:19place called Nahr el-Kalb. I don't know
46:24if any of you have ever been to Lebanon
46:26, to Nahr el-Kalb. It's an incredible
46:30place, truly, because it's a river
46:34gorge. But the gorge of this river,
46:37believe me, is as long as this room, so
46:40it really is a ridiculous thing, but
46:42this river gorge, which is found
46:44exactly here at this point, has a
46:45peculiarity. It is the only point where
46:50, in a radius from here, heading inland
46:53for more than 100 km, the only point
46:56where anyone moving from north to south
46:59is forced to pass, and it's as wide as
47:02this room. And so what happens? Why is
47:06it an incredible place? Because anyone
47:10from antiquity who passed through that
47:13gorge felt the need to leave an
47:15inscription on the wall, on the cliff
47:18face of this gorge. And it's incredible
47:24because you go there and you find the
47:27signature of the great Sumerian king
47:31Sargon. You find the signature of the
47:35Assyrian emperor Tiglath-Pileser, you
47:37find the inscription in hieroglyphs—
47:39everyone obviously signs with their own
47:42script. You find the signature of
47:45Ramesses II, but you also find the
47:47signature of Emperor Hadrian, the
47:49signature of Octavian Augustus, and the
47:51signature of Vespasian. Right up to the
47:54last one, who put his name up this big,
47:56which was Moshe Dayan. The description
48:01of Moshe Dayan—and it's a place as
48:03big as this room, so strategically
48:05speaking, it was incredibly important;
48:07it's called Nahr el-Kalb, which in
48:09Arabic means the Dog River. Mh, it's
48:12located right here, and the center, the
48:15city that lies just behind it—
48:16currently in Syrian territory, just
48:19behind is a figure of speech, it's 100
48:21km away—is the city of Kadesh. Today,
48:24Kadesh is a village in Syria, it is not
48:26the city that is here. Now, the prince
48:30of Kadesh, who was allied with the
48:33Egyptians, at a certain point sided
48:35with the Hittites, and this caused this
48:38war, the war between Ramesses and the
48:41Hittites. Ramesses was young, you know,
48:45this is the most beautiful statue of
48:48Ramesses that exists, and it is found
48:50today in Turin. Mm, you see, he always
48:53has the crown on his head. And this is
48:58the Hittite emperor, Muwatalli.
49:02Muwatalli, who obviously carries on
49:04this war, even if in reality he isn't
49:06the one fighting it; his brother, who
49:07was named Hattusili, is fighting
49:09against Ramses. You know that the war
49:13of Kadesh, we are around 1278 BC, was
49:15actually a battle where no one knows
49:17who won because the Egyptians say, "We
49:20won." The Hittites said, "We won." In
49:25fact, the border actually remained at
49:26Kadesh, since Kadesh was razed to the
49:28ground, there was nothing left to
49:30divide, and consequently, each of the
49:32two could say, "We won." However,
49:35consider that the war of Kadesh was
49:37indeed an extraordinary thing. This
49:40that you see here, you see, is an
49:42engraving that is found at Abu Simbel,
49:44which is the famous poem of Kadesh, the
49:46whole story of the war. Mm. An Iliad,
49:50that is, the whole course of this
49:52battle for the city of Kadesh is
49:54recounted. This watercourse you see
49:58here is the Orontes River, which is the
50:00river that marked the border between
50:02Egyptian and Hittite territory. And on
50:06the Orontes was this very city. So,
50:09whoever controlled the city had a
50:11bridgehead against the opposing empire.
50:14Mm. And you know that in reality Ramses
50:17II took a real beating at the battle of
50:19Kadesh, because he was just a boy, he
50:21was 24 years old, and he got caught by
50:24the Hittite army while he was crossing
50:26the river, so he was in the river with
50:28his chariot. Mm. And his division, the
50:31Amun division, was totally wiped out,
50:33right? But Ramses says that during the
50:37battle he at a certain point alone, all
50:40alone, manages to win because his
50:43entire division is massacred, the other
50:46divisions are still across the river,
50:49so they hadn't managed to cross, and he
50:52finds himself surrounded by enemies and
50:55believes he is lost. So what does he do
50:59? He puts it in his mouth. It is
51:02written here, this thing, he puts the
51:04collar he had around his neck into his
51:06mouth, which was the collar of the god
51:09Amun. All pharaohs believed they were
51:11children of Amun. Like this. And he
51:14begins to pray to the god Amun to help
51:17him. And at a certain point here the
51:21inscription starts from here, words
51:23spoken by the great king. It reaches
51:26here, the lord of the western pieces,
51:28it goes on, and then there is an
51:30interesting point. Here it says that he
51:33decides to sacrifice himself alone,
51:35alone on the chariot; he even says "I
51:38am alone with my two horses" and gives
51:40the names of the two horses, one called
51:43Victory in Thebes and the other called
51:46Rising Sun in Memphis are the names of
51:48the two horses. And he says he takes
51:52off and charges against the enemies to
51:54kill, to die. And there is a beautiful
51:57sentence here that starts from this
51:59point that says: "Here you are, Father,
52:05and I see that you are for me more than
52:08a million men." Why? What happens? And
52:13the image says it: the soul of the god
52:16Amun enters inside the pharaoh. And in
52:20fact look, the pharaoh has four arms,
52:22do you see? Two arms are red in color
52:25and they are the God who has entered
52:27inside him. So he begins to shoot such
52:31a quantity of arrows that the
52:33inscription, which is not seen here but
52:36is reported further back, says that the
52:39enemies fall by the tens of thousands
52:42under the hooves, precisely, of Victory
52:45in Thebes and Rising Sun in Memphis. Eh
52:48, however, it's interesting, you see
52:51this heroic image, right, of the
52:53pharaoh who has four arms, precisely to
52:55indicate the speed of the God who is
52:58with him inside the same body and
53:00therefore shoots the enemies. And then
53:05obviously the pharaoh who won, it's not
53:08true that he won, he won, but, let's
53:11say, the surrender of the spies he
53:14captured. Mh, here below you can see
53:17the spies down there being beaten and
53:20they reveal, precisely, what the
53:22betrayal had been, they had been told
53:24in reality to cross the river while
53:27instead it was not true and so on.
53:30Anyway, this is another part of the
53:31story and this is the drawing. Just to
53:34show better the image that otherwise is
53:36very damaged. You can see, you see the
53:39city of Kadesh, which is this part that
53:41you see here with the walls and the
53:43pharaoh, you see that with the horse he
53:45is overwhelming the enemies. Here are
53:48the military divisions, Hittites,
53:50defending the city and the city is
53:53besieged. So the siege, the attack on
53:55Kadesh was this incredible siege in
53:58contact between the Egyptian people and
54:00the Hittites, but in reality, it is not
54:02known who won. Eh, this is the detail,
54:05you see, of the bas-relief that
54:06represents, precisely, the city with
54:08the inhabitants placed inside it. The
54:12name of the city, here it is, Nesuten
54:14Kadesh, it is written, that is, the
54:16city of Kadesh. In the end, a
54:21non-aggression treaty was made, which
54:24is this one written in cuneiform. Today
54:27it is kept at the Istanbul Archaeology
54:30Museums, and it is precisely the peace
54:32treaty between the Hittites and the
54:35Egyptians. Careful, though. We talked
54:43about, we saw the legendary tradition
54:45of Priam, and now I have given you some
54:48military indications regarding Ramses.
54:52This map is a particular map because we
54:55are in the 10th century BC. We are in
55:00the transition between the so-called
55:03Late Bronze Age and the Final Bronze
55:06Age. The Final Bronze Age in some parts
55:10corresponds to the Iron Age, because
55:13this era is marked by a series of
55:15migrations of peoples. These migrations
55:19, which took place over centuries and
55:22in completely different ways, are
55:24migrations that characterized the
55:26entire Eurasian area. Practically, what
55:30happened? That some peoples who were
55:34settled in territories, partly
55:36Ukrainian, partly Russian, and partly
55:39Uzbek—so these peoples you see here
55:43in purple—move. Those peoples who
55:48were there were the stock that we
55:50define as the Aryan or Indo-European
55:52stock. These peoples, you see, move
55:57into various areas, but the problem is
56:00not that they are moving, but that they
56:03trigger a series of displacement waves
56:07that reach all the surrounding
56:09territories. That is, this is the
56:13important thing to understand. There is
56:16no poor fellow with his wife and
56:18children and a cart who starts from
56:21here, starts from Crimea, and arrives
56:24in Denmark or arrives in India. That
56:27did not happen. He, with his wife and
56:31children, actually moves 200 km, that
56:33is, he arrives perhaps in the territory
56:35of Moldova. The Moldavians, who had
56:39lived there peacefully for thousands of
56:41years, have these people arrive who are
56:43instead bellicose, they are warmongers.
56:46The Moldavians flee, and what do they
56:48do? They flee and crash into Thrace.
56:51They arrive as invaders, so what do the
56:52Thracians do? They flee as well. This
56:55triggers a process that eventually
56:57involves the areas of the Mediterranean
57:01too. In short, around the 10th century
57:05BC. Many populations of the
57:08Mediterranean saw themselves attacked
57:11by people who, until a few years
57:13earlier, lived peacefully in front of
57:15them without any problems. At a certain
57:18point, these people invade them, is
57:20that clear? Due to ethnic pressures
57:23from behind. Therefore, the peoples who
57:28come into contact with each other are
57:30often brotherly peoples, they are the
57:32famous great kings who were often even
57:35related to each other, but who suffer
57:37the attack of those behind them.
57:41Obviously, the ones we are interested
57:44in, or rather the ones we are
57:46interested in under these circumstances
57:49, are the populations you see down here
57:51, which arrive in the area, hitting the
57:54Mediterranean coast and pushing all
57:57those peoples who previously lived on
58:00the edge of the Mediterranean into the
58:02sea. And what do these people, who find
58:05themselves under attack from behind, do
58:07? They jump onto ships and cross the
58:09sea. Those who were here cross it, they
58:13cross toward Asia Minor, they cross
58:15toward Cyprus, they cross toward Egypt.
58:19The populations that were in Asia Minor
58:22, in Cyprus, and in Egypt, seeing these
58:24people arriving—people they see are
58:27different because they are all the
58:30peoples who lived behind them—simply
58:32call them the Sea Peoples. We have the
58:37names of these Sea Peoples in Egyptian
58:40sources; they are the Shardana, the
58:42Tursenoi, these are the reported names.
58:47Shardana means Sardinians. Some say
58:51they were the Sardinians from Sardinia,
58:52others, more likely, say they were the
58:54Sardians from the city of Sardis.
58:58Tursenoi means the inhabitants of Tyre.
59:01Some say no, they were the Etruscans.
59:04Akiawa are the Achaeans. So, around
59:081250 BC, all the populations living on
59:11the coast of Egypt, on the coast of
59:14Asia Minor, and on the Syrian coast
59:17suddenly saw this avalanche of people
59:19arriving, people with whom, until a few
59:22years earlier, they had actually traded
59:25; they were face to face, right? They
59:29arrive because they are being pushed
59:31from behind. Now, Ramses is the one
59:36most useful to us in these matters
59:39because we have Egyptian literature
59:42that tells us about these things in
59:45detail, and it says that Ramses, in his
59:49seventh year of reign, had to suddenly
59:52repel the massive attack of the Akiawa.
59:58Akiawa—on this we have certainty—
1:00:01are the Achaeans, because the Achaeans
1:00:04are also called Hiyawa in Hittite
1:00:06sources; that is, the Achaeans, who are
1:00:09actually people from Greece, are the
1:00:12inhabitants of Bronze Age Greece,
1:00:14pressed from behind by the Dorians, who
1:00:17actually came from Macedonia, Moldova,
1:00:20Romania, etc., and were in turn pushed
1:00:23from behind by the Aryans. The Akiawa
1:00:27find themselves forced to cross to the
1:00:30other side and look for a passage, they
1:00:33are looking for a gap, in fact. Ramses,
1:00:37obviously, in this case, deploys all
1:00:41his forces and tries to repel the
1:00:44attack of the Akiawa. This relief you
1:00:48see here represents Ramses, the same
1:00:50name, right? You see, behind his back,
1:00:53you can see that the Lord, the prince
1:00:56of Upper Egypt—it’s written here,
1:00:58the prince of Upper Egypt, descendant
1:01:00of Amun, who is strong in heart, it’s
1:01:03written behind—and look, he holds his
1:01:05enemies by their hair, like this, and
1:01:08you can see this bunch of enemies that,
1:01:10precisely, he has defeated. If you look
1:01:14at the features of the enemies, there
1:01:16are Negroid types, dark-skinned
1:01:18characters, but also white-skinned
1:01:20characters. You can see one with a
1:01:23black beard, right behind him. Well,
1:01:28this map represents one of these waves
1:01:31of the Sea Peoples. You see, there is a
1:01:35yellow arrow, this one you see here,
1:01:37which in reality are the Achaeans, who
1:01:39pass through the Strait of Cyprus like
1:01:42this and arrive to attack Egypt here.
1:01:45Why don't they arrive here? Because
1:01:47here there are the mountains, here are
1:01:48the Lebanon Mountains. The Lebanon
1:01:50Mountains are mountains over 3000
1:01:52meters high. So the only way to get
1:01:54through is to slide south and arrive in
1:01:57a richer and more prosperous country,
1:01:59which is, indeed, Egypt. So the Sea
1:02:02Peoples attack Egypt, but they are
1:02:04repelled by Egypt. We will see where
1:02:07else they go. They don't enter Egypt,
1:02:11but they try to attack the kingdom of
1:02:13Hatti, which is this part here. The
1:02:16kingdom of Hatti would be the Hittite
1:02:18Empire, and in fact, the Sea Peoples
1:02:20will lead to the collapse of the
1:02:22Hittite Empire. The Hittite Empire dies
1:02:24, it ends, completely overwhelmed by
1:02:26the Sea Peoples. But look at this arrow
1:02:28, it's interesting. To arrive and
1:02:30attack the Hittite Empire, those who
1:02:32come here, look at where they pass.
1:02:35Here, here where I am pointing now,
1:02:37there is Wilusa, that is, there is Troy
1:02:39. Wilusa is not part of the Hittite
1:02:43territory. Um, I have sometimes heard
1:02:47on television in documentaries about
1:02:49the Hittite city of Wilusa. Now, Wilusa
1:02:53is not a Hittite city, it is not even
1:02:57of Hittite culture; it is of Asianic
1:03:00culture. Asianic means peoples of Asia
1:03:03Minor who cannot be classified within
1:03:05the Hittite civilization or the other
1:03:07neighboring civilizations. Our problem
1:03:10is that when we refer to ancient
1:03:12peoples by the name of their government
1:03:14, we categorize the whole population
1:03:16that way. Like when we talk about the
1:03:18Roman Empire. But if I went to Syria in
1:03:21the Roman Empire, it was difficult to
1:03:23find people who were born in Velletri,
1:03:25in Frosinone, or in Ascoli Piceno, or
1:03:27in Ancona. In Syria, I found Romans who
1:03:31were actually born in Damascus, Aleppo,
1:03:33etc., because the state is Roman, but
1:03:35culturally they are not Roman. In the
1:03:38Hittite Empire, it was like that. The
1:03:41Hittites were the people of Hatti, and
1:03:43the Hittites were here only in this
1:03:45small central piece that you see here,
1:03:47but their empire had extended across
1:03:49the entire central Anatolian plateau.
1:03:52Around, because the Hittites did not go
1:03:54by sea. Along the coast here, there
1:03:58were all vassal states, vassal
1:04:01principalities, which were related to
1:04:04the great Hittite king by sending him
1:04:07wives, princes, hostages, and so on. At
1:04:13a certain point, in the 13th century BC
1:04:16, one of these vassal states, Wilusa,
1:04:18that is Troy, felt important enough to
1:04:21declare itself autonomous and to name
1:04:24its king "Great King." Is that clear?
1:04:29So it is clear that the Sea Peoples,
1:04:31these famous Ahhiyawa, that is, the
1:04:33Achaeans, who had to attack the Hittite
1:04:35empire, passed through the Dardanelles
1:04:38strait here and invaded Wilusa,
1:04:40precisely invading the city of Troy. So
1:04:45the same migratory wave of the Sea
1:04:47Peoples that slammed into Egypt slammed
1:04:50into the north, before arriving in the
1:04:53Hittite empire, it slammed into the
1:04:56Trojan principality. Here then is the
1:05:01historical circumstance that connects
1:05:04Ramesses down there, excuse me, with
1:05:07Priam who is in the north at the same
1:05:09time. You understand that, seen in this
1:05:14light, the rape of Helen is a literary
1:05:16creation. After all, Helen, that is,
1:05:21Helena, who is the colleague who is
1:05:24kidnapped, has the linguistic root in
1:05:27her name "el" which means Greece.
1:05:31Greece is called Hellas. Therefore,
1:05:34Helen represents the government in the
1:05:37Greek territory. The rape of Helen in
1:05:40some way, and by the way, always
1:05:42remember that power passed through the
1:05:44female line, so the rape of Helen
1:05:46represents the usurpation of the
1:05:48government in the Aegean area. Hmm.
1:05:52Obviously then, there is a Great King,
1:05:55a Great King of Wilusa who wants to be
1:05:57Great King, but no one wants him to be.
1:06:00This is the casus belli that is
1:06:02triggered throughout the entire Eastern
1:06:04Mediterranean. How does Ramesses react?
1:06:08This is a relief found at the temple of
1:06:11Karnak, in the pylon of the temple of
1:06:14Karnak. You can see Ramesses on his
1:06:17chariot overwhelming the Sea Peoples.
1:06:20The Sea Peoples arrive, they land in
1:06:23Cyrenaica, so they land further away,
1:06:26then by land they approach the Delta.
1:06:29of the Nile, but there they are
1:06:32overwhelmed by Ramesses who, in the
1:06:34inscription you see there, boasts of
1:06:36having had a great victory and of his
1:06:39glory against the Sea Peoples
1:06:41themselves. Unfortunately, the
1:06:43inscription, many of the images are
1:06:45unfortunately damaged, you can see it
1:06:48well here, you can even see the horse,
1:06:50because the temple of Karnak, this half
1:06:53of the temple of Karnak, even if one
1:06:55goes to Egypt, they practically never
1:06:58tell you that. In the 6th century, the
1:07:01temple of Karnak was transformed into
1:07:03the cathedral of Luxor. It became a
1:07:07church, and by becoming a church, they
1:07:09destroyed, they deliberately erased all
1:07:12the images. Agreed? Then in the 1700s,
1:07:15wanting to restore its temple
1:07:17appearance, everything related to the
1:07:19church was removed. Is that clear? But
1:07:22it was the cathedral, because Thebes
1:07:24was the medieval, well, early medieval
1:07:26name, and it became the cathedral.
1:07:28Curiously, it remained a church even
1:07:31after the Arab conquest, because even
1:07:33today Luxor in Egypt is a
1:07:35majority-Christian city. Almost all the
1:07:38inhabitants of Luxor are Copts. Agreed?
1:07:41And so, unfortunately, the inscription
1:07:43was damaged. This is an important
1:07:46document. It is a terracotta letter
1:07:50written by the Hittite emperor
1:07:53Muwatalli, the one who waged war
1:07:57against Ramses. It is a letter that is
1:08:00currently in London. This bump you see
1:08:03in the middle is actually an
1:08:05indentation, a seal, and it is the
1:08:08royal seal of King Muwatalli. And the
1:08:12inscription, written in cuneiform even
1:08:15though the language is Hittite, speaks
1:08:18of the fact that Egypt and Hatti,
1:08:21meaning the Hittite Empire, must
1:08:23present a united front against the
1:08:26arrival of the Sea Peoples. The letter
1:08:30is currently in London. This is an even
1:08:34more interesting document. It is a
1:08:36document that, well, it is located in
1:08:39Istanbul. It is also in cuneiform
1:08:43script and is a letter sent to the king
1:08:46of Wilusa, that is, the king of Troy.
1:08:50Unfortunately, it does not mention the
1:08:53name of the Hittite emperor who sent a
1:08:55letter to all the surrounding kingdoms,
1:08:58asking them to present a united front
1:09:00against the attack of these Sea Peoples
1:09:03. But the document that is even more
1:09:06interesting for us is this one.
1:09:09Unfortunately, it is a fragment, a
1:09:11fragment with cuneiform writing, and it
1:09:14is also currently in London; it is,
1:09:17well, it's about this big, it's this
1:09:20small. It is actually a letter that the
1:09:24Hittite emperor, who is no longer
1:09:26Muwatalli but has become his brother
1:09:29Hattusili, writes to the great king of
1:09:33the Ahhiyawa, that is, the king of the
1:09:36Achaeans. Unfortunately, the name of
1:09:41the king of the Ahhiyawa is not written
1:09:44, and it says—well, he actually
1:09:47writes to the king of the Sea Peoples
1:09:50—asking for the help of the king of
1:09:54the Ahhiyawa against the prince
1:09:57Piyama-Radu of Wilusa. The prince
1:10:02Piyama-Radu of Wilusa was, in quotes, "
1:10:07boh," Hector, "boh." But curiously, in
1:10:11other terms, the Sea Peoples are
1:10:13arriving; the Hittite emperor is afraid
1:10:15, and he has good reason to be, because
1:10:17the Hittite Empire will be overwhelmed
1:10:20by those very Sea Peoples. He asks for
1:10:22help from all the neighboring peoples.
1:10:24Some side with him, the Phrygians, the
1:10:27Mysians, while others, let's say,
1:10:30demand their autonomy. Among them is
1:10:33the king of Wilusa, who even wants to
1:10:36become a great king, that is, he wants
1:10:38to become one of the figures who govern
1:10:41the peoples on equal footing with the
1:10:44others. So, the King of Hatti, given
1:10:48the betrayal by the King of Wilusa,
1:10:51asks, or rather tries to befriend the
1:10:53King of the Ahhiyawa, and writes him
1:10:56this letter, speaking ill of this
1:10:58prince Piyama-Radu of Wilusa, sorry,
1:11:01the Emperor of Hatti. So, in reality,
1:11:06it's as if the Achaeans were encouraged
1:11:08by the Hittite Emperor to attack Troy.
1:11:12That is what this document tells us.
1:11:15Then, obviously, it all remains to be
1:11:17seen. It could very well be that
1:11:18Piyama-Radu has nothing to do with it.
1:11:20We accept the era is that one, that's
1:11:23clear. But there is something
1:11:25interesting here, Piyama-Radu, meaning
1:11:28this Hittite prince—or rather this
1:11:30prince of Wilusa—is referred to as a
1:11:33troublemaker and a plunderer. Now, here
1:11:37is something interesting. Priam,
1:11:41throughout the description of the Iliad
1:11:44, is indicated as an extremely peaceful
1:11:48character, while his son Paris, after
1:11:54being recognized by his father—
1:11:56because you know Paris had been exposed
1:11:58, right? returned to Troy having become
1:12:01an adult. After he was recognized as a
1:12:05Trojan prince, Paris took to plundering
1:12:08all the cities of Asia Minor, Cyprus,
1:12:11and Crete, so much so that Paris
1:12:13destroyed many kingdoms that faced the
1:12:16Aegean and the area of the eastern
1:12:19Mediterranean. It is possible that in
1:12:24reality, the Piyama-Radu indicated here
1:12:26was not Priam, but perhaps Paris.
1:12:29Except that, in the impossibility of
1:12:31framing Paris, the head of the Hittite
1:12:33Empire...Priam, to imply his son or
1:12:37whoever it was? We cannot know this. We
1:12:41are in the realm of hypotheses. Agreed?
1:12:46Obviously, while Egypt managed to repel
1:12:49the Sea Peoples (but Egypt has a
1:12:52completely different military and
1:12:54economic strength, that's normal), it
1:12:57was not so for the small kingdom of
1:13:00Wilusa, especially because all the
1:13:03other neighboring states, given the
1:13:06arrival of the Sea Peoples, defected
1:13:09against Troy. First and foremost Mysia,
1:13:13the famous Telephus, King of Mysia, who
1:13:16was even Priam's brother-in-law, who
1:13:18out of fear of the arrival of the
1:13:20Achaeans sided with the Achaeans. Is
1:13:23that clear? So the principality of
1:13:26Wilusa, Priam or whoever it was, could
1:13:28have reacted and responded to the
1:13:31attack of the Ahhiyawa if he had the
1:13:33support of all the petty kings around
1:13:36him; a thing that, however, was not
1:13:38done because, in reality, there was
1:13:40this concept: that Wilusa was not
1:13:43supposed to be a great kingdom. The
1:13:46King of Wilusa could not be a great one
1:13:48; he was not a descendant of the Priams
1:13:50. Priam was a "ransomed one." The name
1:13:53Priam, that is, the name "ransomed," is
1:13:55shameful; it does not contain anything
1:13:57divine within itself. Is that clear? So
1:14:00it is normal that all the petty kings
1:14:02around were saying, "He has done what
1:14:04he wanted up until now." Now that these
1:14:06others have arrived, he is afraid and
1:14:08fears our help, so we abandon him. And
1:14:11this is what happened. Obviously the
1:14:15great Achaean wave overwhelms—here we
1:14:18are talking about Priam's history and
1:14:22so obviously we say it overwhelms Troy
1:14:25—but there are truly infinite
1:14:27kingdoms that the wave of the Sea
1:14:30Peoples overwhelmed. Agreed? I mean,
1:14:34the entire Mediterranean was devastated
1:14:36by this wave of the Sea Peoples. To the
1:14:38point. Just think that the Bronze Age
1:14:41civilization, the Mediterranean
1:14:42civilization that existed before, will
1:14:44be totally wiped away by it. There are
1:14:48very few relics, the cultural relics
1:14:52that will remain in the Mediterranean
1:14:55from this moment on. Just think that
1:14:58the arrival of the Sea Peoples, or
1:15:00rather this sort of ethnic displacement
1:15:03, wipes away all the populations that
1:15:06had previously been in Greece. Even the
1:15:10light of the previous language is lost,
1:15:12the language that had been Mycenaean,
1:15:15the Cretan civilization disappears. The
1:15:18Dorians arrive, these new populations.
1:15:21The only city that will not be wiped
1:15:24away and that will live off the glory
1:15:26of this for the following centuries
1:15:28will be Athens. Athens boasted of being
1:15:32the only one that had survived. And
1:15:34where do these famous Sea Peoples go?
1:15:38Sea Peoples, we call them that because,
1:15:41you know, to give the name "Sea Peoples
1:15:44"—incidentally paraphrasing or rather
1:15:47translating the term used by the
1:15:50Egyptians, which is Naadu en pin, which
1:15:53indeed means Sea Peoples—is a great
1:15:5619 th-century archaeologist named
1:15:58Gaston Maspero, a Frenchman. Gaston
1:16:03Maspero is the one who says Sea Peoples
1:16:05, but in reality, these Sea Peoples are
1:16:07those who will later become the Greeks
1:16:10of Magna Graecia or the Greeks of the
1:16:12Ionian coast of Turkey. Is that clear?
1:16:14They are the new inhabitants who will
1:16:17completely change the ethnic landscape
1:16:19of that area. Only Athens remains there
1:16:21, and so much so that it claimed to be
1:16:24the ancestor of all because it had
1:16:26remained there, but the others will
1:16:28wipe away everything. This, indeed, is
1:16:33the citadel, the walls of Troy, but the
1:16:35Sea Peoples caused far greater damage.
1:16:39They caused the Hittite Empire to
1:16:40collapse. I mean Troy, for heaven's
1:16:43sake, was ultimately a small kingdom,
1:16:45it was the epic that made it great, but
1:16:48the Hittite Empire, which encompassed
1:16:50all of Asia Minor, will be wiped away
1:16:52by them. Obviously, therefore, the
1:16:57Trojan War: this is a page of the
1:16:59so-called Ambrosian Iliad, one of the
1:17:01oldest complete texts of the Iliad from
1:17:03the Roman era that we have today. It is
1:17:08kept in Milan, at the Ambrosian Library
1:17:10, and this, you see, is a parchment
1:17:13page showing soldiers fighting before
1:17:15the eyes of those, you see, who are the
1:17:18gods above. These little faces you see
1:17:21here are the gods. Hmm. Unfortunately,
1:17:26of the Iliad of the Ambrosiana, we
1:17:28mostly preserve the images because some
1:17:30wise guy in the 1600s decided to cut
1:17:32out the figures, threw away all the
1:17:35text, so we only have the figures, okay
1:17:37? Some parts of the text remained stuck
1:17:41to the back of the figures in the 1600s
1:17:43. Eh, but let's say that at least we
1:17:47have the whole comic strip of the Iliad
1:17:50. The fall of Wilusa is even depicted
1:17:56on a Hittite bas-relief that is now in
1:17:59the museum of Boğazkale, which is a
1:18:02small village in central Turkey near
1:18:04Hattusa, the capital of the Hittites,
1:18:07where you can see various cities
1:18:09overwhelmed by the arrival of the Sea
1:18:12Peoples. I like to think, this is the
1:18:15drawing, because the original is all
1:18:17black basalt and you can't see anything
1:18:18. I like to think that these represent
1:18:22the city of Troy, Wilusa, with the
1:18:24defenders and the arrival of the people
1:18:27here, but actually, between us, this
1:18:30represents a city with soldiers around
1:18:33it. It is hard to imagine that it is
1:18:35truly the fall of Wilusa. In Egypt, how
1:18:38do they deal with the arrival of the
1:18:40Sea Peoples? Ramses II does not manage
1:18:42to do it. Ramses II actually has other
1:18:47problems. Incidentally, within the
1:18:51scope of the ethnic movements connected
1:18:53to the Sea Peoples, we must also
1:18:55include other ethnic migrations that
1:18:58characterized those lands at that time.
1:19:01For example, the passage of the Hebrews
1:19:04from Egypt to the land of Canaan. It is
1:19:07all one great ethnic wave that involves
1:19:10the entire Ancient Near East. Hmm. Or
1:19:14the movement of the Gutians into
1:19:16Mesopotamian territory, or the descent
1:19:18of the Chaldean populations, or the
1:19:20descent of the Assyrians from the north
1:19:22, or the advance of the Phrygians
1:19:24towards the west. I mean, we are
1:19:28talking about this event, but in
1:19:30reality, it is a huge ethnic
1:19:31displacement that marks the end of
1:19:33protohistory, the end of the Bronze Age
1:19:36, and the arrival of the Iron Age.
1:19:40These newcomers, the Indo-Europeans,
1:19:45what do they bring? They bring a whole
1:19:47series of things that were not in the
1:19:49Mediterranean at that time. They bring
1:19:51iron, they bring an economy based on
1:19:54war, they bring patriarchy, they bring
1:19:56the military use of the horse and
1:19:58certain breeds of horses, okay? They
1:20:01bring the use of the war chariot, the
1:20:03use of certain types of weapons. So the
1:20:05cultural landscape of the entire
1:20:07Mediterranean changes completely; not
1:20:10just the Eastern Mediterranean, but the
1:20:12Central and Western Mediterranean will
1:20:15follow later. Does Egypt resist all of
1:20:19this? Egypt resists at first, but only
1:20:22for a little while, because remember
1:20:25that we are in the 19th Dynasty here.
1:20:28Starting from the 20th dynasty, Egypt's
1:20:31crisis begins. Invasions will arrive,
1:20:34first the invasions of the Phrygians,
1:20:36then the Libyan invasion, then the
1:20:38Persian invasion later on. So it is
1:20:41somewhat Egypt's swan song, yet Egypt
1:20:44defends itself and claims to have
1:20:47resisted this wave. This one you see
1:20:50here is uh one of the most famous
1:20:52reliefs in all of Egypt. Unfortunately,
1:20:56uh only if you specifically ask the
1:20:58guides who are there in Egypt do they
1:21:00show it to you; otherwise, they don't
1:21:02care. It is located at Medinet Habu.
1:21:07Medinet Habu is a temple that is
1:21:08practically near the Valley of the
1:21:10Kings, just before the Valley of the
1:21:12Kings, okay? where on the back wall of
1:21:15the Medinet Habu temple, which is the
1:21:18temple built by the son of Ramesses II,
1:21:20that is, Ramesses III, who was not,
1:21:23however, the immediate successor of
1:21:25Ramesses II. Ramesses II had as a
1:21:28successor first his son named Merneptah
1:21:30, then another son who is precisely
1:21:32Ramesses III. Well, in this temple on
1:21:36the side you see this scene which would
1:21:38represent precisely the victory of
1:21:40Ramesses himself over the Akaiwasha,
1:21:42that is, over the Achaeans, the people
1:21:44of the sea. Peoples of the sea, in fact
1:21:47, it is seen a bit poorly here. If we
1:21:49look at the drawing that clarifies it
1:21:50better for us, here it is. You can see
1:21:53the shore of Egypt, uh, like this the
1:21:58arrival of the Achaeans with their
1:22:00ships. Do you see? Like this, ready to
1:22:03attack Egypt, all the Egyptian soldiers
1:22:06lined up along the coast and the
1:22:08gigantic pharaoh alone, who with
1:22:10volleys of arrows strikes down the
1:22:13Achaean fleet, obviously driving it
1:22:15back into the sea. Hmm. So a missed
1:22:19Trojan War. In this case, what will the
1:22:27result of this affair be? This, that is
1:22:31: with the end of the Hittite Empire,
1:22:37Egypt first has an expansion towards
1:22:39the east, but a very ephemeral
1:22:42expansion. That is, this color you see
1:22:45here is a color that must not mislead
1:22:47you, because in reality this expansion
1:22:50is extremely...Oops, no, excuse me, it
1:22:53is extremely ephemeral, very large, but
1:22:56there is a lot of desert here. Then
1:22:58this area will soon be conquered by the
1:23:00Persians and so on. The Hittite kingdom
1:23:03no longer exists. Here in its place is
1:23:06the kingdom of Phrygia, as is the
1:23:08kingdom of Lydia on this other side.
1:23:12Then the kingdom of Lydia, it too will
1:23:14shortly be conquered by the Persians
1:23:16and the kingdom of Phrygia will take
1:23:18the place of what had been the kingdom
1:23:20of Priam, therefore the city of Troy.
1:23:24The kingdom of Phrygia will create a
1:23:26new era, a completely different epoch,
1:23:29founded on completely different
1:23:31economic foundations. The ruler, the
1:23:34king, the first king of Phrygia,
1:23:37coincidentally, who was he? he was the
1:23:41son of one, uh, one of Priam's
1:23:42daughters, because there was this
1:23:44connection, right? All related to each
1:23:47other. So it was said that the son of
1:23:50this, uh, daughter of Priam, who, uh,
1:23:52according to one version of the myth
1:23:55was called Deiphobe, according to
1:23:57another version, however, was Melanippe
1:24:00, and so on. In short, this daughter of
1:24:03Priam would marry the prince of Phrygia
1:24:05, and she would have this son who would
1:24:07then be the first king of Phrygia. Who
1:24:11was this little boy who had this, um,
1:24:14this, uh, this importance? His name was
1:24:19Gordius. Gordius was indeed the first
1:24:22king of Phrygia. Gordius would be the
1:24:24one who ties the knot, like that. And
1:24:27the son of Gordius will be even more
1:24:29famous than his father because his name
1:24:31will be Midas. And the son of Midas is
1:24:35Croesus. The son of Croesus then dies
1:24:37because he will be defeated by the
1:24:39arrival of Cyrus the Great. So, the end
1:24:41of the empire of the kingdom of Troy
1:24:45then merges into what will be the
1:24:48kingdom of Phrygia. In short, what is
1:24:52the story that unites Ramses and Priam?
1:24:57The end of all the balances, the end of
1:25:00the world of the great kings, the great
1:25:03international balances that had kept
1:25:06the entire Eastern Mediterranean in
1:25:09equilibrium, exactly like in Hapsburg
1:25:12Europe before Napoleon. What does
1:25:16Napoleon do? He disrupts all of this,
1:25:18and so that balance will no longer
1:25:19exist, and even peoples who had
1:25:21previously been allies will begin to
1:25:23make war on each other. The same thing
1:25:26happened here in the Bronze Age; there
1:25:28was the great matriarchal civilization
1:25:30of the Bronze Age, the Mediterranean
1:25:32civilization. These balances of the
1:25:35great kings had lasted as long as
1:25:37someone who had no right to it wanted
1:25:38to become a "great king." Priam, or
1:25:42those acting for him, earns the
1:25:44hostility of the others, onto which is
1:25:46superimposed the arrival of this ethnic
1:25:49variation of the peoples—the Aryans,
1:25:51or the peoples pushing the Sea Peoples
1:25:53—who then end up crashing into the
1:25:55city of Troy. Everyone reacts in their
1:25:57own way. Egypt manages, at least at
1:25:59first, to resist. Troy will be wiped
1:26:02out, and after it, the Hittite Empire
1:26:04will also be wiped out. These two
1:26:08figures, very distant from each other,
1:26:11lived through this same tragedy: the
1:26:13end of an era, protohistory, and the
1:26:16beginning of a new course of events,
1:26:18that is, official history from the Iron
1:26:21Age onwards. Thank you for your
1:26:24attention. Have a good evening.

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