This October, The History Channel® will launch a new weekly hour-long series, ENGINEERING AN EMPIRE, focusing on the architectural triumphs of great civilizations. The series begins with a two-hour premiere of EGYPT on October 9 at 9PM/8C, followed by episodes of ANCIENT GREECE, GREECE: AGE OF ALEXANDER and THE AZTECS; as well as, episodes on the Maya, Chinese, Russians, Carthaginians, Persians, Byzantines, Great Britain, the Renaissance: Age of Architects and Napoleon’s Empire. Each of the programs will use the society’s engineering accomplishments as a prism through which to view its history and culture.
Hosted by actor and art historian Peter Weller, the two-hour special EGYPT: ENGINEERING AN EMPIRE explores timeless engineering feats through each pharaoh’s indomitable personality.
Five thousand years ago—nearly two millennia before the Romans built their first mud huts—ancient Egyptians began creating edifices so vast and architecturally sophisticated they remain to this day among the most impressive structures ever built. For thousands of years, without the benefit of computers, cranes, trucks or power tools, Egypt’s mighty pharaohs commissioned the construction of monumental masterpieces—pyramids, temples, fortresses, harbors and canals—whose scale, beauty and craftsmanship still boggle the mind. But Egypt’s road to architectural and imperial glory was paved with blood, betrayal and outright disaster.
Egypt’s massive pyramids, lavish burial temples, impenetrable forts and towering obelisks were the result of unparalleled architectural genius, unrivaled technology and millions of man-hours of backbreaking labor. As Egypt’s succession of pharaohs alternately conquered and ceded vast expanses of what is today the Middle East, they pushed their royal architects to stretch the boundaries of imagination and human potential—essentially inventing the science of structural engineering as they went along. Using cutting-edge computer graphics and interviews with noted Egyptologists, and shot in high-definition, EGYPT: ENGINEERING AN EMPIRE brings to life an astonishing ancient world. This follow-up to the critically acclaimed ROME: ENGINEERING AN EMPIRE covers the extraordinary period from the First Dynasty in 3000 B.C. to the end of the reign of Ramesses the Great in 1212 B.C., chronicling the great pharaohs and the startling accomplishments that helped make Egypt the world’s first empire.
Highlights include:
• Menes, the founding king of the First Dynasty and the first pharaoh to unify Upper and Lower Egypt into one kingdom, oversaw the construction of the world’s first dam—a massive wall that protected Egypt’s capital Memphis from the Nile’s ravaging flood waters.
• An enterprising young pharaoh named Djoser, in 2668 B.C., commissioned a colossal burial tomb which would become the first stone building ever erected on Earth and the first of Egypt’s 100 pyramids.
• Pharaoh Snefru, who married his half-sister in an effort to solidify his claim to the throne, was a benevolent leader but a brutal warrior who looted neighboring kingdoms to finance his architectural ambitions. Through a series of trials and catastrophic errors, he elevated the art of pyramid building to a new level.
• Snefru’s son Khufu built on his father’s engineering experience to create the biggest and most perfect pyramid ever constructed: the Great Pyramid at Giza. Each of the building’s four 700-foot sides was almost perfectly symmetrical, and each corner of the pyramid was level within fractions of an inch.
• Essentially inventing military architecture, Pharaoh Sesostris III, the great warrior, conquered gold-rich Nubia with the help of a network of 17 vast and sophisticated fortresses stretching hundreds of miles into enemy territory.
• The rebel pharaoh Akhenaten (father of Tutankhamen) who, based on a religious vision, moved Egypt’s capital to a barren patch of desert virtually overnight—requiring his engineers to develop far faster building techniques. Within two years, the bustling city housed 20,000 people.
• Ramesses II combined engineering and ego on an unprecedented scale to build two temples at Abu Simbel, one for himself and one for his beloved queen, Nefertari. Carved out of the face of a virgin cliff, Ramesses’ monument was adorned by 69-foot solid rock statues and a lavishly decorated sanctuary built 200 feet inside the mountain.
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