WEBVTT

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[DR. KARA COONEY] This work,
and you know, Kate said I've

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looked at over 300 coffins.

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Really when you put it
with my dissertation

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work, it's over 400.

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And it's rather insane,
and when one gets mired

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in coffin studies, you're
dealing with databases and

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spreadsheets and copyright
issues, and it's quite

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time-consuming morass of data.

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And so, it comes

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(laughs)

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as a great relief, a pause,
a moment of reflection for

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me to work on these trade
books instead, to go from

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one kind of work to another.

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And this has worked quite well
for me as an Egyptologist.

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Sometimes I'm deep
in the spreadsheet,

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I'm trying to figure
things out and using

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academic jargon, many
of you in the audience

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know what I'm talking about,
and other times I'm writing

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for the public, and I'm trying
to make Egypt relevant,

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and I'm looking at the world,
okay, let me put it this way.

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An Egyptologist like Kate
and I would never ask each

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other why we study Egyptology,
though we both know that it's

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the question we've probably
most commonly answered.

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When did you decide
to be an Egyptologist?

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Why are you an Egyptologist?

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But we both know that
for whatever weird,

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cracked, crazy reason,
we see the world around us

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better or best through the
lens of the ancient world.

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I don't know why,
but I am able to

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understand systems of
government, economic systems.

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I'm able to understand systems
of power best by looking

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at it through the lens of
my beloved ancient Egypt,

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and then applying it
to the present day.

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Not only that,
Egypt affords us

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an amazing gift,
which is 3,000 years

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of more or less the
same governmental system,

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same cultural system, same
religious system, same language.

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And within those
3,000 years you've got

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a series of ups and downs.

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You have boom and bust,
you have collapse

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and regeneration.

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And we can see the human
reactions to all of those.

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That is an extraordinary
gift to be able to say,

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this is the way human
beings react when X happens.

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This is the way humans
react when Y happens.

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And so, I am here as
an Egyptologist to tell

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you that in this age
of anti-intellectualism,

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where people are saying,
'What good is a history degree?'

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I'm like, 'Well,
let me tell you.'

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(audience members laugh)

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Egyptology is incredibly useful,
and it's useful for studies of

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women, and women in power.

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I teach a course at UCLA
called Women in Power

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in the Ancient World.

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And I've been doing this
class for the last five years.

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And I spend half of
the class on Egypt,

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and then I spend a week
on Persia, a week on Rome,

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a week on China, a week on
the Levant and Mesopotamia.

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And I'm doing a comparative
study on why we don't trust

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women in the halls of power,
why it is so very hard for women

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to attain real political power.

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And I'm not interested in this
class or in this book about

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women whispering something
to the king behind the throne

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trying to get what she wants.

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I'm not interested in that
kind of informal power.

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I'm interested in formal
expressions of political power.

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When do we give it to women?

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When do we not?

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And Egypt is this strange
and cracked place,

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which I will discuss,
that allows women into

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power more regularly and
systematically than anywhere

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in the ancient world, and more
regularly and systematically

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than we allow into power today.

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In the longer version of this
talk that I do with the National

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Geographic Institute Association
group, I don't, what are they?

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A society, that's what they are.

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I have a whole discussion
about how women do not have

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power today, economically,
politically, militarily,

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or ideologically,
and then I go into

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the anthropological
reasons for that,

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what it's like in a
hunter-gatherer society,

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what it's like in an
agricultural society.

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And then we're all
thoroughly depressed.

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(audience members laugh)

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And then I go to Egypt and I
say, "But Egypt was able to

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"surmount these obstacles
and allowed women to power

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in a way that no other
agricultural society did."

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And then I asked,
'Why is that?'

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And I continue,
and I hope this

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haunts you as I go
through six women who

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achieved formal states
of power in Egypt, I hope

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the question haunts you,
why do we in our society still

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not allow women into power?

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And why is this our reality?

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(all laugh)

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This is from before the
last election, right?

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You see Paul Ryan and you're
like, 'No, no, this is,

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you have to update this.'

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And you're right,
I do have to update it.

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But nothing speaks to what
I'm talking about now better

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than the last Congress.

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Because the last Congress
was incredibly masculine,

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incredibly white, lacked
diversity on all fronts.

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And it made me realize that
when people are afraid,

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because I think this
country, right and left,

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the thing that unites us the
most is the fear that we are all

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falling over the cliff, right?

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That's what we can all agree on.

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We may have completely
different ways for how

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to heal that problem,
but we all are very afraid.

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And when people are afraid,
they often turn towards the

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patriarchy, whatever that is,
we can break it down.

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They turn towards what
makes them feel safe,

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that decisive masculine power.

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They turn towards this
same way of doing things,

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or they even turn towards
an authoritarianism,

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which is the subject
of my next book,

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which I don't have time
to talk about either.

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But it interests me that the
way fear makes people turn

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towards certain directions
of power and that females

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have nothing to do with them.

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So, now we come to this topic
of women in power in ancient

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Egypt and why this was such a
systematic and regular thing.

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Now, keep in mind I'm gonna
be talking about six women,

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five of whom became nothing
less than leaders of

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state, king, right?

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And I'm not talking about the
dozens of other women that acted

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as regent for a young king.

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Coming in, pulling the strings
of the government, and then

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when that boy is old enough,
stepping back into the shadows,

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letting him run the show.

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I'll be talking about one
and a half, in a sense.

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But I'm leaving those women out
of this discussion and focusing

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on the women that were able
to take that kind of power

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and move it a step beyond.

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But this is a place that allows
women into power so often that

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we need to question why that is.

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And so, I am led to a map.

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In my class,
Women in Power

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in the Ancient World,
I usually start with

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a map of each region.

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And I show the map

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And I say, oh,
this doesn't

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look so great.

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Can you guys kind of
see it, more or less?

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The Nile is there,
you get some understanding

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of what's going on.

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Is this place unitable?

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Is this place protected?

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Is this place geographically
in tune with the allowance

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of female power?

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Seems a strange question
for me to ask, right?

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How can you look at a map
and know that females will

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be allowed into power or not?

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Well, you actually can.

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And the more I taught the class
Women in Power in the Ancient

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World, the more I realized,
oh, my goodness, you know,

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you can look at a map and
decide, will women be able

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to rule in this place?

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Now, Egypt is a very different
and special geographic region.

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Unique.

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It is protected
on all four sides.

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It's got deserts on east
and west, on the east,

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you can add the Red Sea just to
make a little harder to invade,

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Mediterranean Sea to the north,
and then down to the south

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where you have this artery
of the Nile cutting through

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the desert, and of course,
the Nile is the only reason

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anything exists in Egypt at
all, it's a gift of that Nile.

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In the south,
at a place called Elephantine,

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and then five or six times
further south, you have

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these giant granite boulders
in the middle of the river.

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So, even if you wanted to
bring some naval invading

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force with all your ships
straight up the river,

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you'd hit those granite
blocks and you and your

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naval force would have to
take the boats out of the

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river, go around and just
carry them around the boulders,

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put them back in the water,
and then head up north again.

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So, even the South is protected.

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This is a place that does not
suffer foreign invasion very

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often for most of its history.

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It is a place where
different ethnicities,

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and different languages,
and different religious

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systems coming into this
place for most of its pharaonic

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history, this is quite rare.

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Until the invasion of
a series of empires,

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starting with the Assyrian,
going with the Babylonian,

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then the Persians,
then Alexander the Great,

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this place existed in
a microcosm of safety,

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where you can have
the same language,

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the same religious system,
the same government

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for over 3,000 years.

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This is a very special and
protected place, a place where

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warlording is not the norm.

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Compare this in your minds
to what you hear in the news

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about Syria, Mesopotamia, what
we would call Iraq, or Rome,

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or Greece in the ancient world.

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There you have places that
are much more competitive

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and geographically do not
have the same barriers that

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this place has protected.

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War lording pays dividends.

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You will be rewarded for raising
an army, marching into Babylon,

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taking out the king,
and claiming that city

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as your own, and you know,
you might just win.

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Whereas here,
war lording is

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discouraged either
geographically from

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the outside in, but it's
also discouraged within.

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Because within you have
this Nile that floods its

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banks when it's doing it
as it's supposed to.

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Egyptians would tell us
there's a way it should work

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(laughs)

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And a way it shouldn't.

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Not too much flooding,
not too little flooding.

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But every year it floods its
banks and it leaves behind this

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thick layer of rich Nile silt.

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You sprinkle your seeds on it,
you let your animals and your

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children run on it, and just,
you know, a couple weeks

00:09:39.280 --> 00:09:42.079
later you have fat, juicy
kernels of wheat and barley.

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Herodotus in the 5th century
visited this place and he's

00:09:44.800 --> 00:09:46.880
like, 'Damn, this is insane.'

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He's like, "In Greece we have
to move the rocks and then we

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have to plow and it's so hard."

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In Egypt,
you're just

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like, la, la, la.

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(audience members laugh)

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And everyone's drunk and
there's too many people

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and nobody has to work
that hard, and it's awesome.

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That creates a kind
of society too.

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It creates a society where you
don't need to warlord because

00:10:07.120 --> 00:10:10.000
you don't have the same kinds
of scarcity that you have in

00:10:10.000 --> 00:10:12.880
Mesopotamia, or the Levant,
or Greece, or Rome.

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And so, warlording on the
inside is discouraged as well.

00:10:16.720 --> 00:10:20.800
And indeed, we compare Egyptian
politics to Greece or

00:10:20.800 --> 00:10:22.000
Rome at our peril.

00:10:22.160 --> 00:10:24.880
Because regicide in Egypt,
you can count them on the

00:10:24.880 --> 00:10:27.360
fingers of one hand, the
ones that we know about.

00:10:27.440 --> 00:10:29.600
This is a very rare
and unusual thing.

00:10:29.920 --> 00:10:32.320
This is a place that
geographically and

00:10:32.320 --> 00:10:35.760
culturally has developed
the most perfected form

00:10:35.840 --> 00:10:38.080
of divine kingship the
world has ever seen,

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where you might have
problems in the kingship,

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there could be an issue
with the succession,

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and the king dies early
after only ten years of

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rule and he leaves an
eight-year-old son of

00:10:49.760 --> 00:10:51.440
his choice behind,
in addition to

00:10:51.520 --> 00:10:52.640
many other sons,
but he leaves this

00:10:52.640 --> 00:10:53.760
eight-year-old behind.

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And in any other
part of the world,

00:10:55.520 --> 00:10:57.360
in Mesopotamia or
Greece or Rome,

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the guy holding
the bloody knife

00:10:59.040 --> 00:11:00.320
who just killed the
eight-year-old and all

00:11:00.320 --> 00:11:01.760
of the eight-year-old's
family hold it up

00:11:01.760 --> 00:11:02.960
And he's like,
'I'm king next!'

00:11:02.960 --> 00:11:04.160
And everyone's like, "You are.

00:11:04.160 --> 00:11:04.959
"good for you.

00:11:04.960 --> 00:11:05.760
You're king."

00:11:05.760 --> 00:11:07.360
And in Egypt,
everyone throws

00:11:07.360 --> 00:11:08.320
themselves to the
ground and they're

00:11:08.320 --> 00:11:10.960
like, 'Dear eight-year-old,
what would like us to do?'

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I have an eight-year-old boy,

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(audience members laugh)

00:11:14.320 --> 00:11:17.040
Who was born under the
full moon of Taurus.

00:11:17.120 --> 00:11:19.600
And I didn't use to believe
in that stuff until I had a

00:11:19.600 --> 00:11:21.760
kid who was born under the
full moon of Taurus and now,

00:11:21.760 --> 00:11:24.320
trust me, I understand what
willfulness means and how it

00:11:24.320 --> 00:11:26.080
is given to us by the God.

00:11:26.080 --> 00:11:27.280
(audience members laugh)

00:11:27.280 --> 00:11:31.040
But I did not want that
kid in charge of my house,

00:11:31.120 --> 00:11:32.800
let alone my nation, right?

00:11:32.880 --> 00:11:35.920
So, you have to come up with a
different method that's gonna

00:11:36.080 --> 00:11:40.640
keep this divine kingship
safe and fun in Mesopotamia,

00:11:40.640 --> 00:11:42.959
the Levant, Greece or Rome.

00:11:43.120 --> 00:11:46.880
If you let a kid rule,
you're gonna have somebody older

00:11:46.960 --> 00:11:49.280
come in and make decisions on
his behalf and you're probably

00:11:49.360 --> 00:11:50.560
gonna have a man do so.

00:11:50.800 --> 00:11:54.000
What's gonna happen if an
uncle of the kid comes in

00:11:54.080 --> 00:11:55.200
and rules on his behalf?

00:11:55.520 --> 00:11:56.720
The brother of the dead king.

00:11:56.720 --> 00:12:00.720
I have a saying amongst
my students at UCLA.

00:12:00.800 --> 00:12:02.319
It's a very useful saying.

00:12:02.720 --> 00:12:03.520
It's very short.

00:12:03.760 --> 00:12:05.120
Many of you may have
heard it before.

00:12:05.360 --> 00:12:06.240
You've heard me speak.

00:12:06.240 --> 00:12:09.760
And the saying is two words,
and it is because testicles.

00:12:09.760 --> 00:12:11.440
(audience members laugh)

00:12:11.440 --> 00:12:13.440
I say it so much that
a grad student made me

00:12:13.440 --> 00:12:15.520
a t-shirt that says,
'Because testicles,'

00:12:15.600 --> 00:12:18.400
and then she put the
hieroglyph for the penis on it.

00:12:18.400 --> 00:12:19.180
I'm like,
"I can never

00:12:19.180 --> 00:12:19.700
wear this shirt.

00:12:19.700 --> 00:12:20.220
"What do you expect?

00:12:20.220 --> 00:12:20.740
(audience members laugh)

00:12:20.740 --> 00:12:21.260
I can't."

00:12:21.260 --> 00:12:21.780
(audience members laugh)

00:12:21.780 --> 00:12:23.600
So, I just lovingly put it
aside, and it was just in a

00:12:23.600 --> 00:12:25.760
drawer, and I can never wear it,
in sparkly glitter

00:12:25.840 --> 00:12:26.800
paint, whatever.

00:12:26.800 --> 00:12:28.240
(audience members laugh)

00:12:28.240 --> 00:12:31.199
But because testicles,
you can't have the uncle

00:12:31.360 --> 00:12:33.600
of the young kid come in
and be the decision maker.

00:12:33.600 --> 00:12:36.400
I'm not saying he's necessarily
going to assassinate the kid.

00:12:36.400 --> 00:12:38.400
But the chances
are higher, right?

00:12:38.640 --> 00:12:40.000
It is riskier.

00:12:40.080 --> 00:12:43.840
Whereas if you have a woman
come in, mother of the kid,

00:12:43.840 --> 00:12:47.439
maybe the aunt, we'll discuss,
it's going to be less risky.

00:12:47.520 --> 00:12:50.640
And this brings up the other
thing I want to haunt you as

00:12:50.800 --> 00:12:51.920
we're talking about this.

00:12:52.080 --> 00:12:54.400
Do women rule
differently from men?

00:12:55.120 --> 00:12:58.959
In some way, and the way I hear
yeses and often I'll hear nos.

00:12:59.040 --> 00:13:01.280
And I don't think we as
a society have completely

00:13:01.280 --> 00:13:03.680
figured this out yet because
we don't let them rule.

00:13:03.840 --> 00:13:06.720
So, we don't know what
the options are yet.

00:13:06.800 --> 00:13:09.680
But the Egyptians believed
that women ruled differently.

00:13:09.680 --> 00:13:11.600
And the Egyptians,
to keep this system

00:13:12.080 --> 00:13:15.600
running and to keep it safe,
systematically allowed

00:13:15.680 --> 00:13:18.800
the woman to come in to
keep the divine kingship

00:13:18.960 --> 00:13:20.400
safe, to keep it working.

00:13:20.480 --> 00:13:22.240
And here's the most
uncomfortable part

00:13:22.320 --> 00:13:23.840
of working through
this book, working

00:13:23.840 --> 00:13:24.960
through the female power.

00:13:25.040 --> 00:13:27.440
I'm not here to write a
revisionist history for you.

00:13:27.520 --> 00:13:29.680
I'm not here to make you
feel happy and cushy with

00:13:29.680 --> 00:13:32.560
rainbows and puppy love
about the women of the past.

00:13:32.800 --> 00:13:35.280
I am here to tell you
the truth as a historian.

00:13:35.360 --> 00:13:38.400
And the uncomfortable truth for
me, having gone through all of

00:13:38.480 --> 00:13:41.920
these women, is that it is in
the most authoritarian state

00:13:42.160 --> 00:13:45.440
on the planet, with the most
perfected divine kingship

00:13:45.600 --> 00:13:47.119
that we see female power.

00:13:47.360 --> 00:13:48.240
Only there.

00:13:48.560 --> 00:13:51.440
It is where female power
is forced upon its people

00:13:51.760 --> 00:13:53.200
that it is most accepted.

00:13:53.440 --> 00:13:56.079
It is in the most unequal
of social situations,

00:13:56.080 --> 00:13:58.160
the most pyramidal of
social situations, that

00:13:58.240 --> 00:13:59.760
female power is allowed.

00:13:59.920 --> 00:14:02.880
Otherwise, if you go to
Greece or Rome, let's go

00:14:02.960 --> 00:14:04.880
to the Greek Democratia.

00:14:05.680 --> 00:14:08.080
Very broad
understanding of power.

00:14:08.320 --> 00:14:11.200
Everyone who's a citizen has a
say in their assembly, right?

00:14:11.440 --> 00:14:13.520
One man falls, another
man takes his place.

00:14:13.600 --> 00:14:17.840
Women have no say in this
society and in this culture.

00:14:18.000 --> 00:14:21.120
Women have so little political
power and men have so much that

00:14:21.200 --> 00:14:24.160
there's actually a political
sexual understanding to

00:14:24.240 --> 00:14:25.600
male love in Greece.

00:14:25.840 --> 00:14:26.740
That true love,

00:14:26.740 --> 00:14:27.260
(laughs)

00:14:27.260 --> 00:14:29.199
If you read your Greek
texts very carefully,

00:14:29.280 --> 00:14:31.280
is male-male, not female-male.

00:14:31.600 --> 00:14:34.480
The women are full of deceit,
and witchcraft, and problems,

00:14:34.560 --> 00:14:37.200
and read your Pandora's box
discussion and you see it,

00:14:37.280 --> 00:14:38.239
Oh, my goodness.

00:14:38.320 --> 00:14:41.120
But in Egypt,
the woman is what

00:14:41.360 --> 00:14:42.880
keeps this safe.

00:14:43.200 --> 00:14:45.360
The woman is the
placeholder to allow this

00:14:45.520 --> 00:14:47.200
patriarchy to continue.

00:14:47.600 --> 00:14:49.680
That's the uncomfortable
reality for me.

00:14:49.760 --> 00:14:52.240
And I just wrote a piece in
Time Magazine about this,

00:14:52.320 --> 00:14:55.680
that the woman usually
serves the patriarchy

00:14:55.760 --> 00:14:57.920
without even thinking,
without even knowing

00:14:58.000 --> 00:14:58.640
what she's doing.

00:14:58.720 --> 00:15:01.040
It doesn't matter if there's
a woman in power, what is

00:15:01.120 --> 00:15:02.560
the agenda of that woman?

00:15:02.720 --> 00:15:05.440
So, this is very much
my discussion for today.

00:15:05.440 --> 00:15:07.760
If women do rule differently,
what is their agenda?

00:15:07.920 --> 00:15:11.440
How are we to understand
their place in this society?

00:15:11.680 --> 00:15:14.240
Now, many of you in the audience
might be annoyed that I have

00:15:14.240 --> 00:15:16.400
used the word female king twice.

00:15:16.480 --> 00:15:17.760
You're like,
"Why did she do that?

00:15:17.760 --> 00:15:18.460
"That's stupid.

00:15:18.460 --> 00:15:18.980
(audience members laugh)

00:15:18.980 --> 00:15:20.480
"She could just
use the word queen.

00:15:20.640 --> 00:15:21.199
We do."

00:15:21.200 --> 00:15:23.439
And I will say,
in the ancient

00:15:23.440 --> 00:15:25.440
Egyptian language,
the word queen

00:15:25.520 --> 00:15:26.640
connotes no power.

00:15:26.880 --> 00:15:29.600
It is a sexual
helpmate of the king.

00:15:30.080 --> 00:15:33.360
It is something that is,
it has nothing to do with

00:15:33.520 --> 00:15:35.120
politics or decision-making.

00:15:35.360 --> 00:15:38.480
When the Egyptians chose a
woman to be king, in this case,

00:15:38.480 --> 00:15:39.920
Hatshepsut from our obelisk.

00:15:39.920 --> 00:15:41.280
Can you see the
central column there?

00:15:41.440 --> 00:15:43.680
Top word, Nesut is used.

00:15:43.840 --> 00:15:46.400
They used the word king,
so I'm gonna use the word king.

00:15:46.800 --> 00:15:48.160
That's the way I've
decided to do it.

00:15:48.160 --> 00:15:49.680
So, just a little
justification there

00:15:49.760 --> 00:15:51.439
So I don't get that
question in the Q&A,

00:15:51.440 --> 00:15:53.040
which I always do, otherwise.

00:15:55.120 --> 00:15:57.520
So, now I want to go
through our six women.

00:15:57.600 --> 00:16:00.000
How much time do
I have until 2 40?

00:16:00.000 --> 00:16:01.520
Who's running the show?

00:16:01.840 --> 00:16:02.800
2 50?

00:16:02.960 --> 00:16:03.520
Okay.

00:16:04.240 --> 00:16:04.880
Alright.

00:16:05.280 --> 00:16:08.400
So, we'll go through these,
really five, 'cause I don't

00:16:08.400 --> 00:16:10.640
have a whole lot of time for
Tawosret here, and she's

00:16:10.640 --> 00:16:12.620
more Game of Thrones than
you can possibly imagine.

00:16:12.620 --> 00:16:13.140
(audience members laugh)

00:16:13.140 --> 00:16:14.720
So, we're gonna skip over her.

00:16:14.960 --> 00:16:17.760
And I can stand here by the
podium and say, 'You can buy

00:16:17.760 --> 00:16:19.280
the book,' which is awesome.

00:16:19.787 --> 00:16:22.640
But let's start with
Merneith of Dynasty 1,

00:16:22.640 --> 00:16:25.680
and gain an understanding
that this female power in

00:16:25.760 --> 00:16:28.800
ancient Egypt to protect an
authoritarian patriarchal

00:16:28.800 --> 00:16:31.920
regime, yeah, those words
just rolled off my tongue.

00:16:32.560 --> 00:16:36.000
The female power is the
other side of the coin of

00:16:36.080 --> 00:16:37.440
that patriarchal regime.

00:16:37.520 --> 00:16:38.400
It comes with it.

00:16:38.480 --> 00:16:40.880
You have to have the
one without the other.

00:16:40.960 --> 00:16:43.040
There is no way to
avoid the female power.

00:16:43.040 --> 00:16:45.120
You could argue,
and the Egyptologists

00:16:45.120 --> 00:16:46.560
in the room know what I'm
talking about, that there

00:16:46.560 --> 00:16:50.080
are Dynasty 0 examples of
very, very strong female power.

00:16:50.160 --> 00:16:52.800
Merneith is just the
most well-documented

00:16:52.880 --> 00:16:54.480
for us to start with,
but it could have even

00:16:54.560 --> 00:16:55.840
had an earlier beginning.

00:16:56.080 --> 00:16:59.360
So, when Egyptologists
found Merneith's tomb,

00:16:59.680 --> 00:17:01.920
they found it in a
place called Abydos,

00:17:01.920 --> 00:17:06.000
Middle Egypt, along the Nile,
out in the western desert sands.

00:17:06.079 --> 00:17:08.720
And they looked at the layout
of the tomb and they looked at

00:17:08.800 --> 00:17:11.359
the horizontal stratigraphy,
they're like, king's tomb

00:17:11.359 --> 00:17:13.359
there, king's tomb there,
now we're digging here,

00:17:13.440 --> 00:17:15.040
must be another king's tomb.

00:17:15.119 --> 00:17:17.520
They find the grave
marker, the stela,

00:17:17.680 --> 00:17:19.440
and they look at that
and they're like, "Yup,

00:17:19.440 --> 00:17:20.240
looks like the others.

00:17:20.240 --> 00:17:21.120
"We're all good.

00:17:21.200 --> 00:17:22.079
It's a king."

00:17:22.079 --> 00:17:24.560
And then they start
to look and compare.

00:17:24.880 --> 00:17:26.399
And they're like,
"Wait a minute,

00:17:26.480 --> 00:17:27.679
something's missing.

00:17:27.680 --> 00:17:29.520
"Something is a little bit off.

00:17:29.760 --> 00:17:32.560
There are two things missing
from Merneith's stela."

00:17:32.560 --> 00:17:34.560
Merneith whose name
means the beloved one

00:17:34.640 --> 00:17:36.000
of the goddess Neith.

00:17:36.160 --> 00:17:37.680
The name is not
really gonna help us.

00:17:37.680 --> 00:17:38.960
There's not at the end.

00:17:39.040 --> 00:17:41.280
Egyptian names are useful.

00:17:41.280 --> 00:17:43.680
It's Smurf or Smurfette, right?

00:17:43.680 --> 00:17:44.320
(audience members laugh)

00:17:44.320 --> 00:17:46.480
So, it's the same with Merneith.

00:17:46.800 --> 00:17:48.560
Some would be like, 'No,
there is a t,' some

00:17:48.560 --> 00:17:50.320
would be like, 'No,
there's not,' but it

00:17:50.320 --> 00:17:51.680
depends on how it's written.

00:17:51.760 --> 00:17:54.399
But the two things that are
missing are the falcon at the

00:17:54.400 --> 00:17:59.520
top, porous and carnic, kingship
on earth, and the palace facade,

00:18:00.240 --> 00:18:04.800
that mud brick walled fortress
that goes around the inner

00:18:04.880 --> 00:18:07.360
sanctum where the king
and his court dwell.

00:18:07.440 --> 00:18:09.919
Those two things are
missing from her stela.

00:18:09.920 --> 00:18:12.879
So, the Egyptologists are like,
'Huh, I wonder what's going on.'

00:18:12.960 --> 00:18:16.080
And then they find a tiny
little label, this big,

00:18:16.080 --> 00:18:20.000
affixed to a commodity
in her, well, I wouldn't

00:18:20.000 --> 00:18:22.960
wanna give it away, in one
of the later king's tombs.

00:18:23.120 --> 00:18:26.720
And this tiny little label,
they see, okay, we have Djer,

00:18:26.720 --> 00:18:30.000
we have Djet, we have Den,
and then what have we got here?

00:18:30.320 --> 00:18:34.480
We have the king's
mother, Merneith.

00:18:34.720 --> 00:18:37.280
So, they're like, oh,
it's not exactly the

00:18:37.280 --> 00:18:38.879
correct lineup,
but she's named as

00:18:38.880 --> 00:18:40.720
the king's mother,
they're like, 'Oh, I got it.

00:18:40.720 --> 00:18:42.320
She's there as the regent.'

00:18:42.960 --> 00:18:46.240
Djet must have died too early,
leaving Den on the throne too

00:18:46.400 --> 00:18:49.760
young, demanding somebody
to be the decision maker,

00:18:49.760 --> 00:18:51.200
somebody to act as regent.

00:18:51.280 --> 00:18:52.879
Who better than
the king's mother?

00:18:52.956 --> 00:18:54.820
This starts off in Dynasty 1.

00:18:54.820 --> 00:18:55.340
(fingers snap)

00:18:55.340 --> 00:18:58.000
Soon as they can do it,
they institute this as a

00:18:58.080 --> 00:19:00.080
pattern, and as a system.

00:19:00.560 --> 00:19:02.560
Now, how did she get there?

00:19:02.640 --> 00:19:03.760
How does this work?

00:19:04.160 --> 00:19:06.560
I say her father, Djer,
and in the book I talk

00:19:06.720 --> 00:19:10.000
about the king, Djer,
as her father, given how

00:19:10.080 --> 00:19:11.600
high Merneith's station is.

00:19:11.600 --> 00:19:13.280
It is an assumption that
I make, and I'm clear

00:19:13.440 --> 00:19:14.159
about it in the book.

00:19:14.240 --> 00:19:17.520
It's possible this guy is
not her father, but we'll

00:19:17.600 --> 00:19:18.960
leave it there for now.

00:19:19.280 --> 00:19:23.840
But Merneith would have been
a girl when this very powerful

00:19:23.920 --> 00:19:26.160
and long-lived King Djer died.

00:19:26.320 --> 00:19:29.040
And this would have been one
of her earliest memories,

00:19:29.040 --> 00:19:31.600
a memory seared into her brain.

00:19:31.680 --> 00:19:34.720
Because at Djer's death,
and at the death of any

00:19:34.880 --> 00:19:39.440
First Dynasty king, the
courtiers were separated,

00:19:39.520 --> 00:19:43.440
and it was determined who
among them would accompany

00:19:43.520 --> 00:19:45.200
the king into death themselves.

00:19:45.280 --> 00:19:47.040
So, they were sacrificed.

00:19:47.440 --> 00:19:48.720
We don't know the method.

00:19:48.720 --> 00:19:50.320
I'll show you some
of the skeletons.

00:19:50.320 --> 00:19:52.000
They could have been poisoned,
they could have been strangled,

00:19:52.000 --> 00:19:53.600
they could have been starved,
we've got nothing.

00:19:53.920 --> 00:19:54.880
There's very little evidence.

00:19:54.880 --> 00:19:56.720
And the archaeologists
who found most of these

00:19:56.880 --> 00:19:59.360
skeletons only kept the heads.

00:20:00.320 --> 00:20:01.600
Annoying, right?

00:20:01.600 --> 00:20:02.480
(audience members laugh)

00:20:02.480 --> 00:20:05.040
I have a graduate student,
Rose Campbell, for those of

00:20:05.120 --> 00:20:08.000
you that know her, who's
working on isotope analysis,

00:20:08.000 --> 00:20:10.560
and she's heading to London
and Cambridge soon, where there

00:20:10.640 --> 00:20:12.399
are hundreds of such heads.

00:20:12.480 --> 00:20:15.200
And she's gonna be looking at
these skulls and determining

00:20:15.360 --> 00:20:17.439
where these people grew up,
'cause you can tell that from

00:20:17.440 --> 00:20:20.240
the isotopes, what kind of
health and nutrition they had.

00:20:20.320 --> 00:20:22.400
And this work has
not been done yet.

00:20:22.560 --> 00:20:25.360
But the work that has been done
suggests that the people who

00:20:25.440 --> 00:20:29.760
were sacrificed to surround the
king's tomb were buried at one

00:20:29.920 --> 00:20:33.439
time and were wealthy people,
well-nourished people, people

00:20:33.760 --> 00:20:36.879
who were probably courtiers,
people with whom you shared a

00:20:36.960 --> 00:20:40.400
meal, people who were probably
family members of yours.

00:20:40.880 --> 00:20:44.879
And when Djer dies,
hundreds of people

00:20:45.200 --> 00:20:46.240
met their end.

00:20:46.640 --> 00:20:47.360
Think of this.

00:20:47.440 --> 00:20:50.560
We have this phrase, the king is
dead, long live the king, right?

00:20:50.800 --> 00:20:52.000
Well, think of it this way.

00:20:52.000 --> 00:20:53.600
The king is dead,
long live the king.

00:20:53.600 --> 00:20:55.360
You say it fast like that
'cause you don't want any

00:20:55.360 --> 00:20:57.040
vulnerability coming in between.

00:20:57.120 --> 00:21:00.399
You know it's a time period
of great potential problems.

00:21:00.480 --> 00:21:03.040
You wanna make sure everybody's
safe and everybody's taken care

00:21:03.040 --> 00:21:05.280
of, that you go to the next
kingship when you're moving

00:21:05.360 --> 00:21:06.880
from one government to another.

00:21:07.120 --> 00:21:10.480
And to make this more seamless,
the Egyptians of the First

00:21:10.480 --> 00:21:13.439
Dynasty hit upon a rather
brilliant but macabre and

00:21:13.520 --> 00:21:16.720
brutal plan, which is to
show the king's power over

00:21:16.880 --> 00:21:18.480
life and death itself.

00:21:18.720 --> 00:21:21.919
And to also, I would argue,
take out potential

00:21:22.400 --> 00:21:23.840
threats from society.

00:21:24.000 --> 00:21:27.040
So, if you're worried about,
you know, you've got your king,

00:21:27.040 --> 00:21:29.360
you place him on the throne,
who are you most worried

00:21:29.360 --> 00:21:31.520
about as you do that in that
a most vulnerable situation?

00:21:31.520 --> 00:21:33.439
Well, you're worried about
the other guys who could

00:21:33.600 --> 00:21:34.879
have taken that position.

00:21:35.120 --> 00:21:38.000
Those are the ones who are
most of a threat to the guy

00:21:38.000 --> 00:21:39.280
who's sitting on the throne.

00:21:39.360 --> 00:21:42.080
He's the one, in a sense,
that needs this sacrifice.

00:21:42.160 --> 00:21:45.040
You put them around the burial
of the king before, but really

00:21:45.360 --> 00:21:47.120
the dead do not bury themselves.

00:21:47.600 --> 00:21:49.679
This is about the guy
who's sitting on the

00:21:49.680 --> 00:21:52.480
throne now and what he
needs in the here and now.

00:21:52.640 --> 00:21:57.040
And what the guy who comes next,
Djet, after Djer's burial needs

00:21:57.200 --> 00:22:01.840
now, is some sacrifice of older
men, but not a whole lot.

00:22:02.000 --> 00:22:05.280
Djer has more females buried
in his tomb than he has males.

00:22:05.680 --> 00:22:07.919
And this is based on
archaeological reports

00:22:07.920 --> 00:22:10.560
that are problematic,
but we're gonna leave it there.

00:22:11.280 --> 00:22:14.000
But he has a great number
of dead that accompany him.

00:22:14.000 --> 00:22:16.800
And I would argue that any
threats to the throne are

00:22:16.880 --> 00:22:20.320
eliminated in a very quick
couple of weeks as they

00:22:20.480 --> 00:22:22.240
put this man to death.

00:22:22.400 --> 00:22:25.040
Each person gets their own
little marker, their own name,

00:22:25.120 --> 00:22:26.880
a little designation
of their gender.

00:22:26.960 --> 00:22:29.360
Even if you can't tell from a
skeleton what the gender is,

00:22:29.360 --> 00:22:32.400
you can use these markers to
determine what the gender is.

00:22:32.960 --> 00:22:36.720
Ellen Morris is the person whose
work I follow the most on this.

00:22:37.120 --> 00:22:40.080
Laurel Bestock as well,
if you guys wanna follow up.

00:22:40.400 --> 00:22:43.760
Now, Merneith is not
slated for sacrifice,

00:22:43.840 --> 00:22:45.600
but she may have seen
her own mother die in

00:22:45.680 --> 00:22:46.480
front of her eyes.

00:22:46.560 --> 00:22:47.680
We have no way of knowing.

00:22:47.840 --> 00:22:50.160
This is history from
5,000 years ago.

00:22:50.400 --> 00:22:52.960
But the burial of the king
would have been accompanied

00:22:52.960 --> 00:22:56.160
by a keening and mourning
that we have no concept of.

00:22:56.320 --> 00:22:59.120
Imagine somebody very important
dying and then imagine that

00:22:59.200 --> 00:23:01.600
they take out 500 other very
important people right

00:23:01.680 --> 00:23:03.520
in front of your eyes,
and you have to watch

00:23:03.760 --> 00:23:04.880
that in a ritual.

00:23:05.200 --> 00:23:06.640
Absolutely brutal.

00:23:07.040 --> 00:23:08.720
Merneith watches all of that.

00:23:08.800 --> 00:23:11.520
She marries the next
king, the guy Djet.

00:23:12.320 --> 00:23:16.000
She then watches as he dies,
and then the selection

00:23:16.080 --> 00:23:17.120
is made again.

00:23:17.360 --> 00:23:19.360
Now, he dies a little too early.

00:23:19.680 --> 00:23:24.080
He dies leaving Den, her son,
to rule before his time.

00:23:24.560 --> 00:23:26.560
However this happens,
and this is one of the most

00:23:26.640 --> 00:23:29.760
mysterious things about any
authoritarian regime, how is the

00:23:29.840 --> 00:23:31.600
successor to the throne chosen?

00:23:31.760 --> 00:23:33.120
How is this choice made?

00:23:33.200 --> 00:23:34.639
What is the realpolitik?

00:23:34.720 --> 00:23:36.640
How is the regent chosen?

00:23:36.720 --> 00:23:39.439
Do they choose the successor
by which regent is best

00:23:39.680 --> 00:23:40.480
or other way around?

00:23:40.560 --> 00:23:41.200
We don't know.

00:23:41.280 --> 00:23:44.399
But Merneith is chosen as
regent, her son is the king.

00:23:44.560 --> 00:23:47.040
And now who's gonna be in
charge of the selection at

00:23:47.040 --> 00:23:48.080
the death of her husband?

00:23:48.240 --> 00:23:50.879
Well, we have to
assume it's her.

00:23:51.200 --> 00:23:53.120
So, you have to look at
this again as the dead

00:23:53.200 --> 00:23:54.399
do not bury themselves.

00:23:54.720 --> 00:23:57.040
The living are the ones
who are doing this.

00:23:57.200 --> 00:23:58.720
The kid on the
throne is too young.

00:23:58.720 --> 00:24:00.320
Let's assume he's 12 years old.

00:24:00.400 --> 00:24:03.120
Not ready to rule yet,
but not incredibly young either.

00:24:03.120 --> 00:24:07.600
And Merneith is the one
saying, 'Him, him, him,

00:24:08.320 --> 00:24:10.159
her, and him, him.'

00:24:11.520 --> 00:24:14.080
And these people are
all sacrificed in front

00:24:14.240 --> 00:24:15.200
of everybody else.

00:24:16.000 --> 00:24:18.320
Merneith doesn't have
to die because she's

00:24:18.400 --> 00:24:22.320
there as Queen Regent,
but I imagine she sacrificed

00:24:22.480 --> 00:24:25.920
or saw sacrifice many women
her age, who accompanied

00:24:26.000 --> 00:24:29.680
her husband maybe from the
harem into his burial place.

00:24:29.840 --> 00:24:32.480
She's the one that's
calling the shots.

00:24:32.960 --> 00:24:35.360
Each one gets a little
burial marker of their own.

00:24:35.440 --> 00:24:38.800
Each one gets a room of
his or her own in a sense.

00:24:39.040 --> 00:24:41.280
This is a very
brilliant, if brutal,

00:24:41.280 --> 00:24:43.280
plan of making sure that
everyone understands who

00:24:43.360 --> 00:24:44.320
has the power.

00:24:44.960 --> 00:24:47.520
This is an interesting,
if you look at comparative

00:24:47.680 --> 00:24:50.400
anthropology and you look
at incipient states,

00:24:50.480 --> 00:24:54.159
you look at nascent states,
this is a feature you see

00:24:54.480 --> 00:24:57.760
in Africa and Europe and
Asia, in the New World.

00:24:57.920 --> 00:25:00.560
That in these states
when a kingship is new,

00:25:00.800 --> 00:25:04.160
sacrificial burial often goes
along with it for the king.

00:25:04.320 --> 00:25:07.200
It is a great and quick,
efficient means of showing

00:25:07.280 --> 00:25:09.520
who has the power and that
you better move along with

00:25:09.600 --> 00:25:12.159
this and not rock the boat.

00:25:12.320 --> 00:25:14.240
Do what you need to do.

00:25:14.560 --> 00:25:16.640
This is what the dead look
like as they are buried,

00:25:16.640 --> 00:25:18.480
they're accompanied with
these markers, with grave

00:25:18.560 --> 00:25:21.760
goods, sometimes with jewelry,
buried on their side in a fetal

00:25:21.840 --> 00:25:24.560
position as if they're sleeping,
there are no marks

00:25:24.720 --> 00:25:27.360
of murder, nothing.

00:25:27.600 --> 00:25:31.760
So, even though we have symbols
like little labels like this,

00:25:31.760 --> 00:25:34.320
and in the top right corner
you see somebody stabbing

00:25:34.320 --> 00:25:36.879
somebody in the chest,
that seems to be more

00:25:36.960 --> 00:25:38.160
of an enemy combatant.

00:25:38.160 --> 00:25:40.720
This doesn't seem to be what
we're talking about here.

00:25:41.200 --> 00:25:43.439
Matthew Adams,
the archaeologist who

00:25:43.520 --> 00:25:45.840
works at Abydos now,
he thinks it's a

00:25:45.840 --> 00:25:48.000
mass cyanide death.

00:25:48.880 --> 00:25:50.880
Like a Jonestown
kind of thing, right?

00:25:51.040 --> 00:25:53.280
A Guyana Punch sort of deal.

00:25:53.280 --> 00:25:56.400
And that that was a really easy
way to dispatch hundreds of

00:25:56.480 --> 00:25:58.560
people in public in one moment.

00:25:58.720 --> 00:25:59.680
We don't know.

00:26:00.160 --> 00:26:01.679
Until we have better access

00:26:03.760 --> 00:26:06.320
to the bioarcheological remains,
this is going to remain

00:26:06.480 --> 00:26:08.320
a mystery for some time.

00:26:09.120 --> 00:26:13.360
Now, Den rules,
he has the best and

00:26:13.520 --> 00:26:15.840
greatest rule of all
of the Dynasty 1 kings.

00:26:15.840 --> 00:26:18.000
He expands Egypt's borders
the farthest that they've

00:26:18.080 --> 00:26:19.120
ever been expanded.

00:26:19.360 --> 00:26:22.720
Merneith is there alongside
him for much of his rule.

00:26:22.800 --> 00:26:28.000
And when she dies in his reign,
she is buried like a king.

00:26:28.560 --> 00:26:32.560
She does not ever receive
the status of a king herself.

00:26:32.560 --> 00:26:33.680
She's not a co-king.

00:26:33.680 --> 00:26:34.720
She is just a regent.

00:26:34.720 --> 00:26:36.640
Her status is
completely informal.

00:26:36.720 --> 00:26:39.440
And yet she's buried in
the lineup of other kings.

00:26:39.520 --> 00:26:42.320
She's put into the king
list as king's mother.

00:26:42.480 --> 00:26:45.520
She's afforded an
incredible amount of status.

00:26:45.600 --> 00:26:49.679
And yet, a pattern, oh,
given a tomb like this as

00:26:49.920 --> 00:26:53.679
reconstructed, and yet just two
generations later, she's already

00:26:53.840 --> 00:26:55.520
removed from the king list.

00:26:56.400 --> 00:26:58.720
This is a pattern that
we will see repeated.

00:26:58.880 --> 00:27:01.440
The woman is there as a
placeholder in the moment

00:27:01.600 --> 00:27:03.920
to keep the patriarchal
system going, to link

00:27:04.080 --> 00:27:07.360
from one king to the next,
from one patriarch to the next.

00:27:07.440 --> 00:27:09.040
If you need a woman to
keep the system safe,

00:27:09.040 --> 00:27:10.480
everyone's gonna
be okay with me.

00:27:10.560 --> 00:27:13.120
They're gonna include her in
the king list during the time,

00:27:13.280 --> 00:27:16.160
but then as soon as they move on
to somebody who's disconnected

00:27:16.160 --> 00:27:17.760
from her, phew, she's gotta go.

00:27:17.920 --> 00:27:19.120
She doesn't fit.

00:27:19.200 --> 00:27:22.960
And so, then we see all of these
kings moving in this direction.

00:27:22.960 --> 00:27:26.000
You've got the Djer, Djet, Den,
and then you move on to

00:27:26.080 --> 00:27:26.800
a different king.

00:27:26.880 --> 00:27:30.560
No mention of Merneith
anywhere in the list.

00:27:31.440 --> 00:27:34.800
So, now we're gonna skip
a number of dynasties

00:27:34.880 --> 00:27:36.320
and go up to Dynasty 12.

00:27:36.320 --> 00:27:38.240
Those of you that want me
to talk about Tawosret,

00:27:38.240 --> 00:27:39.040
it's in the book.

00:27:39.520 --> 00:27:41.840
There are no contemporary
documents for her during

00:27:42.080 --> 00:27:45.280
that time period, so we will
not be able to speak about her

00:27:45.440 --> 00:27:46.960
as an actual living person.

00:27:46.960 --> 00:27:48.720
But Neferusobek, we can.

00:27:49.280 --> 00:27:51.520
Some of you may know
her as Sobekneferu.

00:27:51.600 --> 00:27:53.840
Much disagreement about
how her name should be

00:27:53.920 --> 00:27:55.200
pronounced and spoken.

00:27:55.520 --> 00:27:57.840
We'll leave it this way for now.

00:27:58.400 --> 00:28:02.639
This woman was born into
a very formidable dynasty,

00:28:02.640 --> 00:28:06.320
an incredibly strong dynasty,
a dynasty that begins with a

00:28:06.320 --> 00:28:10.320
regicide, and then is very
protective from that point on,

00:28:10.400 --> 00:28:12.720
making sure that it keeps the
money and the power and the

00:28:12.720 --> 00:28:14.400
influence within the family.

00:28:14.560 --> 00:28:18.160
Her grandfather was the
formidable Senwosret III,

00:28:18.320 --> 00:28:21.040
who also expanded Egypt's
borders farther than we've ever

00:28:21.120 --> 00:28:23.040
seen, who lived very, very long.

00:28:23.200 --> 00:28:25.200
And his son is Amenemhet III.

00:28:25.200 --> 00:28:28.639
This is Neferusobek's father,
also a very, very strong king.

00:28:28.720 --> 00:28:31.760
Both of them great builders,
both of them making statuary

00:28:31.920 --> 00:28:34.960
that was so successful
aesthetically that it was

00:28:35.040 --> 00:28:37.600
reused for millennia afterwards.

00:28:38.080 --> 00:28:40.320
She may have married
Amenemhet IV.

00:28:40.320 --> 00:28:42.560
This is where the history starts
to get really problematic.

00:28:42.560 --> 00:28:45.040
And those of you who know your
end of the 12th Dynasty history,

00:28:45.040 --> 00:28:46.140
how many of you are there?

00:28:46.140 --> 00:28:46.660
(audience members laugh)

00:28:46.660 --> 00:28:48.700
That's right, no hands at all.

00:28:48.700 --> 00:28:49.220
(audience members laugh)

00:28:49.220 --> 00:28:49.760
I like that.

00:28:49.840 --> 00:28:51.840
Good, because it's
very problematic.

00:28:52.720 --> 00:28:54.800
Some people think that
this guy wasn't a king's

00:28:54.800 --> 00:28:57.520
son at all and that he's
marrying into the family.

00:28:57.600 --> 00:28:59.520
Other people think
this was a king's son.

00:28:59.680 --> 00:29:01.120
We're never gonna
know these things.

00:29:01.200 --> 00:29:03.439
Remember, an authoritarian
regime is not going to

00:29:03.440 --> 00:29:04.480
give away its secrets.

00:29:04.480 --> 00:29:08.000
It's going to give away
only perfection, idealism.

00:29:08.160 --> 00:29:09.760
Everything is the
way it should be.

00:29:09.840 --> 00:29:12.879
He's depicted as a king's son,
he names himself as a king's

00:29:12.880 --> 00:29:14.480
son, I'm gonna go along with it.

00:29:14.800 --> 00:29:15.840
Not gonna hurt me.

00:29:16.320 --> 00:29:18.879
Though I do believe as
an Egyptologist it is my

00:29:19.040 --> 00:29:21.520
responsibility to try to
figure out what these guys are

00:29:21.600 --> 00:29:23.679
telling us by not telling us.

00:29:24.240 --> 00:29:26.160
I'm distrustful of
all of the data.

00:29:26.160 --> 00:29:28.000
I don't like to drink
the Kool-Aid, as I think

00:29:28.000 --> 00:29:29.520
most Egyptologists do.

00:29:30.000 --> 00:29:32.159
We accept the
authoritarian regime and

00:29:32.240 --> 00:29:33.280
the information we're given.

00:29:33.280 --> 00:29:35.840
And we don't question the data
enough, trying to figure out

00:29:35.840 --> 00:29:38.080
what the propaganda is and
what the realpolitik could

00:29:38.160 --> 00:29:40.159
be behind the propaganda.

00:29:40.320 --> 00:29:44.159
But here we've got this dude,
Amenemhet IV, who is married

00:29:44.320 --> 00:29:47.040
to Neferusobek, may have been
her half-brother, maybe not,

00:29:47.040 --> 00:29:51.199
we don't know, but oof, he dies,
and there is no heir to the

00:29:51.280 --> 00:29:54.080
throne in any way, shape,
or form that we can identify.

00:29:54.160 --> 00:29:56.159
There's nobody,
there's nobody left.

00:29:56.160 --> 00:29:59.120
So, what do we have instead
but maybe a problem with

00:29:59.280 --> 00:30:01.180
incest in ancient Egypt?

00:30:01.180 --> 00:30:01.700
(laughs)

00:30:01.700 --> 00:30:02.639
I don't know.

00:30:02.960 --> 00:30:05.600
But I do know that incest
happened in ancient Egypt

00:30:05.680 --> 00:30:06.399
pretty regularly.

00:30:06.480 --> 00:30:10.400
Tutankhamun is an example
of it, we have other kings,

00:30:10.720 --> 00:30:13.679
Dynasty 19's Siptah had a
club leg and it was probably

00:30:13.920 --> 00:30:15.120
a product of incest.

00:30:15.200 --> 00:30:18.480
The Ptolemies are well known
for their incestuous pairings.

00:30:18.800 --> 00:30:21.919
Hell, European monarchs
are well known for their

00:30:22.000 --> 00:30:23.360
own incestuous pairings.

00:30:23.360 --> 00:30:27.600
I have a picture of Charles II
here with his ginormous head

00:30:27.760 --> 00:30:31.040
that needed a special pillow
and his overly large jaw.

00:30:31.200 --> 00:30:34.159
And we could think of
Nicholas II, Tsar of Russia,

00:30:34.160 --> 00:30:36.960
and his hemophilia also being
the product of incest.

00:30:37.440 --> 00:30:41.440
Incest is a very useful tool,
especially in a dynasty that's

00:30:41.440 --> 00:30:45.120
trying to keep power inside
of its own system and

00:30:45.280 --> 00:30:46.720
not give it all away.

00:30:46.960 --> 00:30:50.639
This is the best I've got as a
solution for why you can have

00:30:50.800 --> 00:30:54.560
such strong kings and then all
of a sudden have nothing and

00:30:54.800 --> 00:30:56.480
end up with a female king.

00:30:56.720 --> 00:30:58.320
How could that possibly happen?

00:30:58.320 --> 00:31:01.040
How could the harem
just come up empty?

00:31:01.280 --> 00:31:04.399
Well, we've seen it
before in ancient Egypt,

00:31:04.400 --> 00:31:05.680
and we'll see it later.

00:31:05.840 --> 00:31:08.240
This is the best solution
that I have to this problem,

00:31:08.320 --> 00:31:10.400
though it's not necessarily
the only one.

00:31:10.720 --> 00:31:14.080
But it results in Egypt's
first female kingship.

00:31:14.160 --> 00:31:15.760
Let me go back to the
incest a little bit,

00:31:15.760 --> 00:31:17.520
'cause who doesn't
wanna talk about more?

00:31:19.520 --> 00:31:20.960
Think about it,
'cause a lot of you in

00:31:20.960 --> 00:31:23.120
the audience are probably
like, "Those ancient Egyptians,

00:31:23.120 --> 00:31:24.639
they're so stupid
"and primitive,

00:31:24.640 --> 00:31:26.720
and why would they even
do something so ridiculous?

00:31:26.800 --> 00:31:28.639
We would never do that."

00:31:28.800 --> 00:31:29.760
Well, really?

00:31:29.840 --> 00:31:33.120
'cause all this is,
is a short-term

00:31:33.280 --> 00:31:36.640
decision based on the
opportunism of the moment.

00:31:36.880 --> 00:31:39.520
So, let's put it this way,
if you're an elite,

00:31:39.600 --> 00:31:42.399
a very high-level elite,
a courtier in the palace

00:31:42.560 --> 00:31:46.080
and you're one of four other
guys who is able to whisper

00:31:46.240 --> 00:31:49.439
when the king is sick and the
decision you guys make could

00:31:49.520 --> 00:31:52.240
actually hold some weight, and
you guys are talking with each

00:31:52.240 --> 00:31:54.480
other and you're like, "Okay,
we have a couple of choices.

00:31:54.640 --> 00:31:55.439
What are you guys thinking?"

00:31:55.440 --> 00:31:56.560
You're not gonna put
this down in writing,

00:31:56.560 --> 00:31:58.080
authoritarian regimes
don't do that.

00:31:58.080 --> 00:31:58.960
You're gonna talk about it.

00:31:58.960 --> 00:32:00.400
And you're gonna be
like, "Okay, well,

00:32:00.400 --> 00:32:01.440
we've got a couple of choices.

00:32:01.440 --> 00:32:04.880
"We've got this strong
strapping lad whose in-laws

00:32:04.880 --> 00:32:07.040
are from the "South, and they
have their own private army,

00:32:07.040 --> 00:32:09.760
and they all wanna "have jobs
if we bring him in as king.

00:32:09.760 --> 00:32:12.640
"or we could get the rather
dim-witted, large-headed,

00:32:12.640 --> 00:32:15.120
"incestuous product of
the brother-sister kingly

00:32:15.200 --> 00:32:17.440
marriage, and all our
jobs would be awesome,

00:32:17.440 --> 00:32:18.960
and we'd go on as before."

00:32:18.960 --> 00:32:20.820
And everyone's like,
"Yeah, let's do that.

00:32:20.820 --> 00:32:21.340
(audience members laugh)

00:32:21.340 --> 00:32:23.360
Let's go with that
short-term solution."

00:32:23.360 --> 00:32:25.680
And if you think we don't
make short-term solutions,

00:32:25.760 --> 00:32:28.080
just think of global warming
and climate change.

00:32:28.080 --> 00:32:29.760
And this being what,
the fourth hottest

00:32:29.760 --> 00:32:32.720
summer the world has ever,
year the world has ever seen,

00:32:32.720 --> 00:32:35.360
and we still all have plastic
water bottles in our bags and

00:32:35.760 --> 00:32:38.160
there's a plastic island
between here and Hawaii.

00:32:38.240 --> 00:32:40.879
And yet we never do anything to
change the system because there

00:32:40.960 --> 00:32:42.800
will be job loss or whatever.

00:32:42.880 --> 00:32:45.760
And so, we all continue to make
our short-term decision to keep

00:32:46.080 --> 00:32:49.040
the can down the road a little
bit more, instead of thinking

00:32:49.040 --> 00:32:50.560
of the long-term repercussions.

00:32:50.560 --> 00:32:53.120
Human beings are not good at
long-term decision making at

00:32:53.280 --> 00:32:56.880
all, which is another thing that
I've noticed from ancient Egypt.

00:32:56.880 --> 00:32:59.260
And it's a good thing to
apply to the modern world,

00:32:59.260 --> 00:32:59.780
(laughs)

00:32:59.780 --> 00:33:00.880
If a depressing one.

00:33:01.200 --> 00:33:04.639
Now, the first female kingship
that Neferusobek creates is

00:33:04.640 --> 00:33:07.919
an interesting one, because
she shows herself as a woman.

00:33:08.000 --> 00:33:10.480
She has breasts,
she's wearing a dress,

00:33:10.560 --> 00:33:13.120
but she layers the
kingship onto her person.

00:33:13.280 --> 00:33:16.560
She ties a masculine
kingly kilt over her dress,

00:33:16.560 --> 00:33:18.960
and she puts that Nemes
headdress under her head,

00:33:19.040 --> 00:33:21.760
the one you know from Tut's
mask in your mind's eye,

00:33:21.840 --> 00:33:23.360
that's what she puts on.

00:33:23.360 --> 00:33:26.240
And so, she's not hiding
the fact that she's woman,

00:33:26.320 --> 00:33:30.639
she is layering these elements
of kingship upon her person.

00:33:31.120 --> 00:33:33.760
Her kingship lasts
for just a few years,

00:33:33.920 --> 00:33:36.480
about four at most, though
there's disagreement about

00:33:36.560 --> 00:33:39.440
this, and she leaves no legacy.

00:33:39.840 --> 00:33:42.560
One of the most interesting
things to me about Neferusobek

00:33:42.560 --> 00:33:44.880
is that the Egyptians let
her get away with it all.

00:33:45.040 --> 00:33:47.200
Because there's no heir to
the throne that we can see,

00:33:47.200 --> 00:33:48.399
there's only this woman left.

00:33:48.400 --> 00:33:50.960
They know that Dynasty 12 is
gonna end, and it's gonna go

00:33:50.960 --> 00:33:53.040
to the ne-, well, they don't
call it Dynasty 12, right?

00:33:53.040 --> 00:33:54.560
But they know it's gonna end,
and they're gonna go to

00:33:54.560 --> 00:33:57.120
Dynasty 13, why bother?

00:33:57.360 --> 00:34:01.600
Well, because in this system
of divine kingship, she is

00:34:01.760 --> 00:34:06.160
the last holder of that royal
ka, that spirit of kingship.

00:34:06.240 --> 00:34:07.680
And everyone bows down to her.

00:34:07.760 --> 00:34:10.880
She's the last recipient of it,
so she gets to finish it out.

00:34:11.040 --> 00:34:13.440
That's an extraordinary
thing in and out of itself.

00:34:13.600 --> 00:34:17.360
But Neferusobek should not be,
her decision making should not

00:34:17.360 --> 00:34:20.800
be overlooked, because she also
justifies it in a way that works

00:34:20.880 --> 00:34:24.159
for the people around her, so
they don't see it as a threat.

00:34:24.400 --> 00:34:27.840
And the way that she does that
is she justifies her kingship

00:34:28.239 --> 00:34:32.000
through her father's lineage,
not by mentioning her

00:34:32.080 --> 00:34:33.200
dead husband-brother.

00:34:33.440 --> 00:34:35.440
She doesn't go about,
you wouldn't even,

00:34:35.440 --> 00:34:38.159
this is why we don't know
who Amenemhet IV was, because

00:34:38.400 --> 00:34:40.159
she gives him so little play.

00:34:40.320 --> 00:34:42.399
She doesn't talk about
him, she doesn't name him,

00:34:42.480 --> 00:34:44.399
she doesn't make any
monuments to him,

00:34:44.480 --> 00:34:46.480
his name is nowhere
connected to her stuff,

00:34:46.560 --> 00:34:49.520
but her father's name
is everywhere.

00:34:49.679 --> 00:34:51.920
And that is useful for her,
and it's something that we

00:34:52.080 --> 00:34:53.600
actually understand as well.

00:34:53.920 --> 00:34:58.160
We trust more those women who
are coming in as leaders in

00:34:58.240 --> 00:35:00.080
a strict linear progression.

00:35:00.320 --> 00:35:03.520
We trust more the woman who's
protecting her son in power.

00:35:03.680 --> 00:35:06.080
We trust more the daughter
who's acting for her father

00:35:06.320 --> 00:35:09.120
in power, than we do the
sister or the wife.

00:35:09.280 --> 00:35:11.440
And I can give you an
easy political example

00:35:11.760 --> 00:35:13.040
from the last 20 years.

00:35:13.120 --> 00:35:15.520
You guys are probably
thinking of it right now, no?

00:35:15.920 --> 00:35:18.400
You're thinking of Hillary
Clinton in the 90s when she

00:35:18.480 --> 00:35:21.920
tried to create health care as
wife of the president, informal

00:35:22.000 --> 00:35:24.400
power appear to her husband?

00:35:24.400 --> 00:35:26.080
Who the hell does
she think she is?

00:35:26.160 --> 00:35:27.360
Everybody said it.

00:35:27.600 --> 00:35:28.720
What is going on?

00:35:28.800 --> 00:35:31.200
I don't understand how,
and we feel threatened by this.

00:35:31.200 --> 00:35:33.120
It threatens our
patriarchal system.

00:35:33.280 --> 00:35:36.799
But in today's White House,
the base that supports the

00:35:36.880 --> 00:35:40.560
current president has no problem
with Ivanka having an office

00:35:41.120 --> 00:35:44.960
in the White House, acting as
an advisor for her father.

00:35:45.200 --> 00:35:49.040
And this is very cleverly done,
whereas Melania is like, 'No,

00:35:49.040 --> 00:35:50.480
I'm not getting into
that,' right?

00:35:50.560 --> 00:35:51.280
She knows.

00:35:51.440 --> 00:35:52.720
She's there as the wife.

00:35:52.720 --> 00:35:54.799
She's learned from
Hillary's mistakes.

00:35:54.800 --> 00:35:57.759
I am not gonna try to take
power, but Ivanka can do so,

00:35:57.840 --> 00:36:00.880
and she can do so with impunity,
because we respect that kind

00:36:00.960 --> 00:36:02.400
of patriarchal lineage.

00:36:02.560 --> 00:36:07.040
Very interesting way that
female power must be packaged,

00:36:07.120 --> 00:36:09.839
and Hatshepsut knows
to do this as well.

00:36:10.160 --> 00:36:11.840
And here we move on to her.

00:36:12.160 --> 00:36:15.360
So, Hatshepsut of Dynasty
18 is the most powerful

00:36:15.520 --> 00:36:16.720
of all of our women.

00:36:16.880 --> 00:36:21.440
She's the one that is really
able to leave Egypt better

00:36:21.520 --> 00:36:24.720
than she found it, save her
dynasty, leave a legacy.

00:36:24.800 --> 00:36:27.760
She rules for about
22 years altogether.

00:36:27.760 --> 00:36:28.280
And

00:36:30.080 --> 00:36:32.800
yet most of you maybe,
maybe, maybe you guys.

00:36:33.120 --> 00:36:34.560
How many can pronounce
her name well?

00:36:36.480 --> 00:36:38.240
But everyone's
like, 'I don't know.

00:36:38.240 --> 00:36:38.940
Hatshepsut

00:36:38.940 --> 00:36:39.460
(unintelligible)

00:36:39.460 --> 00:36:41.520
' We'll get to that.

00:36:42.480 --> 00:36:45.440
She starts out as Egypt's
greatest high priestess.

00:36:45.440 --> 00:36:47.520
For those of you in the know,
this would be the God's

00:36:47.520 --> 00:36:50.720
wife of Amun stationed
at Thebes in the South.

00:36:51.200 --> 00:36:53.440
There were maybe other high
priestesses, but for all we

00:36:53.520 --> 00:36:56.160
can see, this is the most
important of them all.

00:36:56.160 --> 00:36:58.720
And she is placed in this
position probably under

00:36:58.880 --> 00:37:00.400
her father, Thutmose I.

00:37:00.560 --> 00:37:03.680
She continues in this position
alongside her half-brother

00:37:03.680 --> 00:37:05.060
husband, Thutmose II,

00:37:05.060 --> 00:37:05.580
(gasps)

00:37:05.580 --> 00:37:06.220
Incest!

00:37:06.220 --> 00:37:06.740
(audience members laugh)

00:37:06.740 --> 00:37:08.720
To to to.

00:37:09.200 --> 00:37:13.760
She ends up, so, all together,
she is the king's daughter,

00:37:13.920 --> 00:37:16.720
she is the king's sister,
she is the king's wife,

00:37:16.800 --> 00:37:18.799
'cause she's married to
her brother, but she never

00:37:18.960 --> 00:37:21.440
becomes the king's mother
because she only gives birth

00:37:21.600 --> 00:37:23.200
to Neferure, her daughter.

00:37:23.280 --> 00:37:25.120
She does not give
birth to a son.

00:37:25.760 --> 00:37:28.720
So, when Thutmose II,
her half-brother husband

00:37:28.960 --> 00:37:31.359
dies after only three years
of reign, and trust me,

00:37:31.360 --> 00:37:34.080
the Egyptological discussion
about this is very intense, but

00:37:34.160 --> 00:37:35.360
we'll leave it at three years.

00:37:35.440 --> 00:37:37.520
Because if all he produced,
if he had nine years of

00:37:37.520 --> 00:37:39.760
reign and that's all he
produced in Egypt's temples,

00:37:39.760 --> 00:37:40.640
then what a sad king.

00:37:40.640 --> 00:37:43.040
So, we'll give him three years,
I think it's better.

00:37:43.600 --> 00:37:45.920
So, if he dies after
three years of reign,

00:37:45.920 --> 00:37:48.960
he's gonna leave a bunch of
two-year-olds in the nursery.

00:37:49.280 --> 00:37:51.279
Hatshepsut's not gonna
have a son amongst those

00:37:51.280 --> 00:37:52.799
two-year-olds in the nursery.

00:37:52.800 --> 00:37:55.600
And now we have a serious
succession crisis.

00:37:55.760 --> 00:37:58.720
A succession crisis where the
choice of the next king is

00:37:58.800 --> 00:38:01.440
probably going to be based
on who the regent is,

00:38:01.920 --> 00:38:04.000
rather than on who the kid is.

00:38:04.080 --> 00:38:06.000
Because they're a
bunch of toddlers.

00:38:06.080 --> 00:38:08.960
Who's gonna choose the
possibility that the toddler's

00:38:08.960 --> 00:38:12.080
gonna grow up to have a good
ruling acumen in the future?

00:38:12.320 --> 00:38:13.120
You can't.

00:38:13.360 --> 00:38:15.120
But you have to
be very strategic.

00:38:15.200 --> 00:38:18.160
This is a long regency
with a two-year-old.

00:38:18.160 --> 00:38:22.240
You're talking about 14, 15,
16 years of a woman ruling

00:38:22.240 --> 00:38:23.680
on behalf of this kid.

00:38:23.920 --> 00:38:25.200
It's a long time.

00:38:25.600 --> 00:38:28.080
You have to make sure
you choose wisely.

00:38:28.160 --> 00:38:30.399
It seems that Egypt had
already decided they wanted

00:38:30.400 --> 00:38:31.840
Hatshepsut to be regent.

00:38:31.840 --> 00:38:33.920
She's there as the
greatest high priestess,

00:38:34.000 --> 00:38:36.320
she's there bred for the
position, the most elite,

00:38:36.320 --> 00:38:37.840
the king's daughter,
the king's wife,

00:38:37.840 --> 00:38:38.640
the king's sister.

00:38:38.720 --> 00:38:39.760
She's ready to go.

00:38:39.840 --> 00:38:43.840
They have to choose a boy
that won't be threatened

00:38:43.920 --> 00:38:46.080
by her or vice versa.

00:38:46.320 --> 00:38:48.480
So, they pick a boy
with a nothing mother,

00:38:48.560 --> 00:38:50.080
from all we can see,
a mother that cannot

00:38:50.560 --> 00:38:51.759
step in as regent.

00:38:51.920 --> 00:38:54.720
His name will be Thutmose
III to Egyptologists,

00:38:54.720 --> 00:38:56.320
just Thutmose in the moment.

00:38:56.400 --> 00:39:00.160
And she is there acting as his
regent for a good seven years.

00:39:00.400 --> 00:39:02.240
Now, people don't
do anything alone.

00:39:02.240 --> 00:39:03.440
This is what I'm
always hammering

00:39:03.440 --> 00:39:04.319
into my students' head.

00:39:04.400 --> 00:39:07.280
This is not a history
written by individual people.

00:39:07.360 --> 00:39:08.880
This is a history of systems.

00:39:08.960 --> 00:39:11.359
Hatshepsut can't barge
into a system and say,

00:39:11.360 --> 00:39:12.640
'I'm gonna do it this way.

00:39:12.640 --> 00:39:14.880
I'm gonna be king,' or
'I'm gonna be regent.'

00:39:14.880 --> 00:39:16.080
This is not the way things work.

00:39:16.160 --> 00:39:18.960
Hatshepsut is going to
be allowed into a system

00:39:19.280 --> 00:39:20.800
by the elites around her.

00:39:21.280 --> 00:39:24.480
The elites, it seems,
want her to be in this

00:39:24.640 --> 00:39:25.600
position of power.

00:39:25.840 --> 00:39:28.960
They demand that she
step forward and do this.

00:39:29.200 --> 00:39:32.640
And over the next couple
of years that she's acting

00:39:32.640 --> 00:39:34.960
as regent for this toddler
king, who I imagine was

00:39:35.120 --> 00:39:36.240
really hard to crown.

00:39:36.400 --> 00:39:37.520
"Keep the crown.

00:39:37.520 --> 00:39:38.400
"No, stop.

00:39:38.400 --> 00:39:40.960
No, stay there," kind of thing.

00:39:40.960 --> 00:39:42.160
(audience members laugh)

00:39:42.160 --> 00:39:44.560
She's there as the,
and their texts say

00:39:44.720 --> 00:39:45.920
this, she's the rock.

00:39:46.080 --> 00:39:49.600
She's the one that's gonna
be clever in her strategies,

00:39:49.840 --> 00:39:51.600
she's gonna keep Egypt safe.

00:39:51.680 --> 00:39:54.480
But she's already,
or her advisors are already

00:39:54.640 --> 00:39:55.840
thinking about the future.

00:39:56.000 --> 00:39:59.440
Because in texts like this
from down south in Egypt,

00:39:59.440 --> 00:40:01.600
this one happens to
be near Elephantine,

00:40:02.080 --> 00:40:05.600
we see Hatshepsut depicted
as a God's wife of Amun,

00:40:05.600 --> 00:40:08.640
but in the text that only
the top 1% can read,

00:40:08.720 --> 00:40:12.160
it says that the sun god Ra
has given her the kingship.

00:40:12.480 --> 00:40:13.920
She's like a lawyer.

00:40:14.240 --> 00:40:16.560
She doesn't go out
and say, 'I am king.'

00:40:16.560 --> 00:40:17.360
Not yet.

00:40:17.520 --> 00:40:19.840
She's laying her
foundation for that.

00:40:20.000 --> 00:40:22.399
She goes out and she says,
"You know, I'm doing the job.

00:40:22.400 --> 00:40:24.160
"I'm doing the kingship.

00:40:24.240 --> 00:40:27.440
I may not be king,
but I'm on my way."

00:40:27.440 --> 00:40:30.800
And when the elites don't
push back against this,

00:40:30.880 --> 00:40:35.040
then she and her advisors know
that they've got room to run.

00:40:35.360 --> 00:40:36.560
They've been given some reigns.

00:40:36.640 --> 00:40:38.880
They can really
start to move now.

00:40:39.040 --> 00:40:42.799
And her first image of kingship
we see we another cartouche name

00:40:42.960 --> 00:40:46.320
added, and she shows herself as
a female wearing a dress,

00:40:46.400 --> 00:40:49.760
wearing masculine ram's
horns and a masculine wig.

00:40:49.760 --> 00:40:52.399
So, she is already,
like Neferusobek,

00:40:52.640 --> 00:40:55.520
changing her image to
include the masculine in

00:40:55.520 --> 00:40:58.799
addition to the feminine,
kind of like the, I don't know,

00:40:58.880 --> 00:41:00.560
the pantsuit of 1985

00:41:00.560 --> 00:41:01.120
(audience members laugh)

00:41:01.120 --> 00:41:03.600
With the shoulder pads, right?

00:41:03.760 --> 00:41:05.279
Make you look all manly.

00:41:05.680 --> 00:41:08.420
Give you a little fluffy bow
tie to go along with that.

00:41:08.420 --> 00:41:08.940
(audience members laugh)

00:41:08.940 --> 00:41:12.720
She is crowding year 7, from
what we can tell, and again,

00:41:12.720 --> 00:41:15.680
the Egyptological debate
about this is quite fierce.

00:41:16.080 --> 00:41:18.240
The reasons for
this are unclear.

00:41:18.640 --> 00:41:22.240
This is the most frustrating
part of Egyptology for me.

00:41:22.560 --> 00:41:25.040
They don't let us
into their secrets.

00:41:25.120 --> 00:41:26.960
They're not going to tell us
what's actually happening.

00:41:27.040 --> 00:41:29.120
We don't get a view
of the realpolitik.

00:41:29.200 --> 00:41:33.759
She tells us, "My father Amun-Ra
wanted me to be king.

00:41:34.000 --> 00:41:38.560
My father Thutmose I bred me
and wanted me to be king."

00:41:38.560 --> 00:41:39.759
Very useful things to say.

00:41:39.840 --> 00:41:43.600
She's fitting herself in that
patrilineal lineage, no problem.

00:41:43.680 --> 00:41:46.720
But we don't know
why, in year 7,

00:41:46.960 --> 00:41:48.959
she felt the need
to formalize this,

00:41:48.960 --> 00:41:50.400
because she had
all the power.

00:41:50.560 --> 00:41:53.120
Was there another entourage
of Thutmose III who's

00:41:53.120 --> 00:41:54.080
trying to push her out?

00:41:54.160 --> 00:41:56.960
Was there another regent
that was trying to push her

00:41:57.040 --> 00:41:58.879
out with another entourage?

00:41:58.880 --> 00:42:01.760
Was there a problem with
Thutmose III himself?

00:42:01.760 --> 00:42:04.799
Was he lying on his deathbed
with some sort of disease?

00:42:04.800 --> 00:42:06.720
Because in Egypt, it's not,
if you get malaria,

00:42:06.720 --> 00:42:08.080
it's when you get malaria.

00:42:08.640 --> 00:42:09.920
Did he fall off his chariot?

00:42:10.400 --> 00:42:11.600
Was something going on?

00:42:11.680 --> 00:42:12.799
We have no idea.

00:42:13.120 --> 00:42:15.840
But in year 7 probably
when Thutmose III is

00:42:15.840 --> 00:42:17.920
around nine years old,
she is crowned alongside

00:42:18.080 --> 00:42:19.600
him and now it is irrevocable.

00:42:19.680 --> 00:42:21.040
There's no going back from this.

00:42:21.440 --> 00:42:24.799
This system is completely
locked down for her.

00:42:25.200 --> 00:42:27.920
And yet, this is a pattern
that we'll see again with

00:42:27.920 --> 00:42:30.799
Cleopatra, she never goes alone.

00:42:31.200 --> 00:42:33.759
She's always got this
kid following her.

00:42:33.840 --> 00:42:36.799
Now, there is a more crass
part of my feminism that I

00:42:36.800 --> 00:42:38.240
will share with you right now.

00:42:38.960 --> 00:42:42.000
Because there's no woman that,
if a woman rules alone

00:42:42.080 --> 00:42:44.080
in this entire lineup,
she rules for a very short

00:42:44.240 --> 00:42:46.879
period of time, one, two,
four years, something like that.

00:42:46.960 --> 00:42:48.560
But if she rules for
a long period of time,

00:42:48.560 --> 00:42:51.600
like Cleopatra or Hatshepsut,
or other women we could compare

00:42:51.760 --> 00:42:55.040
her to around the globe,
we see that there's always

00:42:55.120 --> 00:42:58.560
a male accompaniment, some
sort of presence alongside

00:42:58.800 --> 00:43:01.840
the female on the throne
that allows her to be there.

00:43:01.920 --> 00:43:04.480
So, the crass feminist part
of me is like, why didn't she

00:43:04.480 --> 00:43:06.480
just have the kid assassinated
and then we could at least talk

00:43:06.640 --> 00:43:09.680
about one woman that did it,
that ruled Egypt for a

00:43:09.680 --> 00:43:11.520
long period of time,
and wouldn't that be great?

00:43:11.600 --> 00:43:14.880
Well, she knows, and I know,
that if she had Thutmose

00:43:14.880 --> 00:43:16.799
III assassinated, well,
however she felt about

00:43:16.880 --> 00:43:19.520
him and maybe she loved him
very, very much, I don't know,

00:43:19.920 --> 00:43:23.920
if she had him assassinated,
her means to power is gone,

00:43:23.920 --> 00:43:25.280
even as king probably.

00:43:25.440 --> 00:43:27.439
She would have been a
swept aside as well.

00:43:27.600 --> 00:43:31.760
You need a male at the center of
an authoritarian wheel of power.

00:43:32.000 --> 00:43:34.319
You need that,
because just in terms

00:43:34.320 --> 00:43:37.600
of biological economy,
the harem exists for

00:43:37.680 --> 00:43:38.560
a reason, right?

00:43:38.640 --> 00:43:40.080
I can have one baby a year.

00:43:40.080 --> 00:43:43.120
Two is probably gonna kill me,
though it didn't kill Cleopatra.

00:43:43.200 --> 00:43:44.640
But I can have one baby a year.

00:43:44.640 --> 00:43:47.300
A guy can have
365 babies a year.

00:43:47.300 --> 00:43:47.820
(audience members laugh)

00:43:47.820 --> 00:43:49.680
That biological
economy is something,

00:43:49.680 --> 00:43:51.040
and I cannot compete with.

00:43:51.200 --> 00:43:54.319
He will always win in
terms of the basics of

00:43:54.400 --> 00:43:57.440
power and succession,
keeping the status quo,

00:43:57.440 --> 00:43:58.720
keeping things risk averse.

00:43:58.720 --> 00:44:00.160
A woman can't compete with that.

00:44:00.320 --> 00:44:03.520
She removes that boy,
then they're gonna replace her

00:44:03.680 --> 00:44:05.840
with another boy, another man.

00:44:06.080 --> 00:44:08.240
So, she knows she's got
to keep him with her,

00:44:08.240 --> 00:44:09.680
and she never rules alone.

00:44:09.680 --> 00:44:14.080
And by year 16, she starts
to depict him with her,

00:44:14.240 --> 00:44:16.799
almost like twinsies,
as you see here.

00:44:16.880 --> 00:44:19.120
Same crown, same look,
sometimes different crowns,

00:44:19.120 --> 00:44:22.080
but almost the exact same face,
almost the exact same body type.

00:44:22.240 --> 00:44:24.879
So similar that the
Egyptologists, we know,

00:44:24.960 --> 00:44:26.960
you look at their statues
and you're like, 'It's

00:44:26.960 --> 00:44:28.080
Thutmosied,' we say.

00:44:28.080 --> 00:44:29.279
We sound very clever
when we say this.

00:44:29.280 --> 00:44:31.200
'cause we're like,
"It could be Hatshepsut,

00:44:31.200 --> 00:44:33.200
it could be Thutmose
III, who's to know?"

00:44:33.200 --> 00:44:34.720
So, we say, 'Thutmosied.'

00:44:34.720 --> 00:44:38.560
It's a cool Egyptological
speak for we have no idea.

00:44:38.640 --> 00:44:41.200
But how Hatshepsut did
this to us, she's the one.

00:44:41.200 --> 00:44:43.360
And Thutmose III he
seems to follow along

00:44:43.600 --> 00:44:46.160
with this portraiture,
which is interesting

00:44:46.240 --> 00:44:47.359
in and out of itself.

00:44:47.760 --> 00:44:50.560
So, now she's got the kingship,
she's got the nine-year-old

00:44:50.560 --> 00:44:53.279
who's growing up, becoming
a 16-year-old, and a strong

00:44:53.520 --> 00:44:55.439
man right next to her.

00:44:55.520 --> 00:44:57.840
He's probably training with
the army off to the north,

00:44:57.840 --> 00:44:59.600
maybe she's in the south,
we actually don't know

00:44:59.600 --> 00:45:00.720
a lot of these details.

00:45:00.800 --> 00:45:03.280
But what we do see
is that more jobs,

00:45:03.360 --> 00:45:05.520
more professions are
created under her than

00:45:05.600 --> 00:45:06.480
at any other time.

00:45:06.640 --> 00:45:09.520
The Egyptologists know that
we have to commit all kinds

00:45:09.520 --> 00:45:10.880
of crazy things to memory.

00:45:11.040 --> 00:45:15.680
Statues, stela, tombs,
coffins, what's in what museum,

00:45:15.760 --> 00:45:17.040
where is this, where is that.

00:45:17.120 --> 00:45:19.760
And we know that when
Hatshepsut takes the throne,

00:45:19.840 --> 00:45:23.600
this stuff explodes in
quantity and quality.

00:45:24.160 --> 00:45:26.880
That means that she
has to give to get.

00:45:27.040 --> 00:45:29.680
That means that when she
takes this power position,

00:45:29.680 --> 00:45:32.000
she and her entourage know
that the elites are like,

00:45:32.000 --> 00:45:34.720
"You know, this is great, this
is a very aberrant situation."

00:45:34.720 --> 00:45:37.040
And you're like, 'Yeah, okay,
what would you like?' 'Well,

00:45:37.040 --> 00:45:39.279
my son would love to
be in the treasury.'

00:45:39.280 --> 00:45:40.080
'Okay, got it.

00:45:40.160 --> 00:45:40.799
What would you like?'

00:45:40.800 --> 00:45:42.240
"Okay, well,
my son would

00:45:42.400 --> 00:45:45.360
love to be one of
the overseers of the

00:45:45.440 --> 00:45:46.880
scribes of the House of Amun."

00:45:46.880 --> 00:45:47.600
'you got it.'

00:45:47.600 --> 00:45:50.880
And so, the jobs are created
like candy, in a sense.

00:45:50.960 --> 00:45:53.600
There's another Egyptologist
named David Warburton,

00:45:53.600 --> 00:45:56.799
who argues that it's during
Hatshepsut's reign when Egypt's

00:45:56.960 --> 00:46:01.040
treasury, Egypt the crown,
loses more power than in any

00:46:01.120 --> 00:46:02.880
other time in the long term.

00:46:03.040 --> 00:46:05.759
Because the treasury is
giving out more funds than

00:46:05.840 --> 00:46:07.360
it had ever given out before.

00:46:07.440 --> 00:46:11.440
That's a little more debatable,
because Hatshepsut kept such

00:46:11.600 --> 00:46:15.279
good control of the money and
created more income streams.

00:46:15.440 --> 00:46:17.439
She knew that she needed
to bring in more money,

00:46:17.440 --> 00:46:18.319
so what do you do?

00:46:18.320 --> 00:46:20.880
You start a little war,
you invade a little Nubia,

00:46:20.960 --> 00:46:23.440
and you bring a lot
of gold into Egypt.

00:46:23.440 --> 00:46:25.520
So, she knew to
do that right off.

00:46:25.760 --> 00:46:29.520
She also knew to place people in
control of that money only had

00:46:29.600 --> 00:46:33.839
her to depend on, and who had
no other conflicting interests.

00:46:33.920 --> 00:46:38.160
So, she picks a dude like this,
Senenmut, who's not a patrician,

00:46:38.320 --> 00:46:41.920
not one of the old families,
and she elevates him to

00:46:42.000 --> 00:46:44.560
a station that everyone
is like, 'Whoa, really?'

00:46:44.640 --> 00:46:45.759
She's like, 'Yeah, really.'

00:46:45.760 --> 00:46:46.720
And he's like,
'What would you

00:46:46.720 --> 00:46:47.900
like, my lady?'

00:46:47.900 --> 00:46:48.420
(laughs)

00:46:48.420 --> 00:46:50.560
Because he's not gonna try
to work with other people.

00:46:50.640 --> 00:46:52.240
They're all mad that
she's doing this.

00:46:52.320 --> 00:46:54.240
And she's picking a
number of new men who

00:46:54.320 --> 00:46:55.760
will answer only to her.

00:46:55.920 --> 00:46:57.360
Very, very cleverly done.

00:46:57.520 --> 00:47:00.160
She has control of the
temple like no one else.

00:47:00.400 --> 00:47:03.759
This woman grew up in the
temple, it's in her bones.

00:47:04.000 --> 00:47:07.839
She knew that when she had
herself marked for kingship,

00:47:07.840 --> 00:47:10.400
she had to do so in a
way that was overtly

00:47:10.480 --> 00:47:11.920
displayed to her people.

00:47:12.160 --> 00:47:16.320
So, she tells us in the text,
where she is marked for rule,

00:47:16.480 --> 00:47:19.360
that the bark of Amun-Ra is
brought out on a festival

00:47:19.440 --> 00:47:22.319
day in public in front of
all of her elites, and that it

00:47:22.560 --> 00:47:24.720
moves decisively towards her.

00:47:24.960 --> 00:47:27.520
And then she throws herself on
the ground, raises up her arms

00:47:27.520 --> 00:47:30.080
and says, 'Oh my father Amun,
what would you have me do?'

00:47:30.320 --> 00:47:32.160
No one can speak against that.

00:47:32.400 --> 00:47:35.440
Once the god Amun-Ra has
chosen her to be king,

00:47:35.520 --> 00:47:37.120
then it is again irrevocable.

00:47:37.200 --> 00:47:39.759
It is something that
cannot be overturned.

00:47:40.160 --> 00:47:43.200
She sends out expeditions
to crazy faraway places that

00:47:43.200 --> 00:47:46.879
Egyptologists don't even know
where they are, maybe Eritrea,

00:47:46.960 --> 00:47:49.200
maybe Yemen, the debate goes on.

00:47:49.440 --> 00:47:51.600
She shows the details
of those expeditions.

00:47:51.680 --> 00:47:54.240
She doesn't go herself,
she sends other men, but it's

00:47:54.320 --> 00:47:57.759
still considered a miracle of
kingship that she's doing this.

00:47:57.920 --> 00:48:01.279
Incense trees brought back
roots and all, the misshapen

00:48:01.440 --> 00:48:04.400
chieftainess of Punt depicted
in all of her glory next to

00:48:04.480 --> 00:48:06.240
her husband, the chief.

00:48:06.320 --> 00:48:10.080
And she builds structures that
are avant-garde and at the same

00:48:10.160 --> 00:48:13.680
time they're conservative
in the most holy places on

00:48:13.840 --> 00:48:16.720
the Egyptian landscape,
not just in ancient Thebes,

00:48:16.720 --> 00:48:18.160
but all over the country.

00:48:18.320 --> 00:48:21.759
This was a woman who left
Egypt better than she found it.

00:48:21.760 --> 00:48:24.560
And yet, throughout all of this,
she cannot make

00:48:24.800 --> 00:48:26.800
Egypt fit to her.

00:48:26.960 --> 00:48:30.320
She has to fit to Egypt and
she has to fit the patriarchy.

00:48:30.400 --> 00:48:33.120
So, she starts out
depicting herself as a

00:48:33.120 --> 00:48:36.399
female, a female king,
putting the Neme's headdress on,

00:48:36.400 --> 00:48:37.759
putting the kilt of kingship on.

00:48:37.760 --> 00:48:39.600
Actually here she
just has a dress.

00:48:39.840 --> 00:48:41.759
And this is not enough.

00:48:42.000 --> 00:48:45.520
So, we see her trying to figure
this out, trying to crack it.

00:48:45.600 --> 00:48:47.120
This is my favorite
statue of hers,

00:48:47.120 --> 00:48:48.640
the Metropolitan
Museum of Art

00:48:48.720 --> 00:48:49.440
in New York.

00:48:49.680 --> 00:48:51.680
And she's androgynous.

00:48:51.840 --> 00:48:54.799
She's male, and she's female,
she has breasts, but she

00:48:54.800 --> 00:48:56.960
doesn't have nipples,
so is she wearing a shirt?

00:48:56.960 --> 00:48:58.319
But I don't see any trace of it.

00:48:58.400 --> 00:49:02.720
So, she's topless,
but she's this gracile

00:49:02.960 --> 00:49:05.040
heart-shaped beautiful thing.

00:49:05.280 --> 00:49:06.720
How are we to understand this?

00:49:06.800 --> 00:49:08.800
Male and female simultaneously.

00:49:08.960 --> 00:49:12.959
Well, only one such statue was
made, and then she quickly moves

00:49:13.040 --> 00:49:15.120
on to statues like this.

00:49:15.200 --> 00:49:17.280
This is what most of
her statues look like.

00:49:17.760 --> 00:49:20.640
Strong biceps,
broad shoulders and

00:49:20.800 --> 00:49:24.960
chest, square jaw,
indistinguishable from a man.

00:49:25.200 --> 00:49:26.960
She has to fit,
the patriarchy

00:49:27.040 --> 00:49:28.160
cannot fit her.

00:49:28.400 --> 00:49:32.160
And as her nephew, Thutmose III,
is getting older and haunting

00:49:32.320 --> 00:49:35.759
her steps, she has to become
more masculine, one could argue.

00:49:35.760 --> 00:49:38.240
Did she dress like this in
public, in the festivals?

00:49:38.240 --> 00:49:40.640
Did she tie on the royal
beard and strap down her

00:49:40.640 --> 00:49:43.040
breasts and wear a shirt
that's skin-colored?

00:49:43.280 --> 00:49:44.240
Who are we to say?

00:49:44.240 --> 00:49:44.799
Why not?

00:49:44.800 --> 00:49:46.080
This is what she's depicting.

00:49:46.160 --> 00:49:47.280
Quite possibly.

00:49:47.360 --> 00:49:49.200
Did she dress like
that in the palace?

00:49:49.280 --> 00:49:51.760
From the existence of
this statue, I think not.

00:49:52.080 --> 00:49:54.160
But anything is possible.

00:49:54.160 --> 00:49:56.080
Until we get our time
machine invented,

00:49:56.240 --> 00:49:59.040
we will continue to discuss
these things for some time.

00:49:59.440 --> 00:50:03.040
So, she depicts herself
as the father, sorry,

00:50:03.200 --> 00:50:07.440
as the daughter of Amun-Ra,
building her kingship for him.

00:50:07.600 --> 00:50:10.080
She rules for about
22 years altogether.

00:50:10.240 --> 00:50:12.319
When she dies,
from all we can see,

00:50:12.320 --> 00:50:13.920
she's buried in state.

00:50:14.400 --> 00:50:17.440
We have to use a lot of
circumstantial evidence to

00:50:17.440 --> 00:50:20.880
figure this out, but there
is a detritus of her death.

00:50:20.960 --> 00:50:23.359
Even though her tomb was
pretty thoroughly robbed,

00:50:23.600 --> 00:50:26.160
you find little, little
things, a canopic char here,

00:50:26.240 --> 00:50:30.400
a little shabti fragment
there, a sarcophagus here.

00:50:30.800 --> 00:50:33.920
There is enough there to
suggest that Hatshepsut was

00:50:33.920 --> 00:50:37.840
buried in state, as a king,
in the Valley of the Kings,

00:50:37.920 --> 00:50:39.759
by her nephew, Thutmose III.

00:50:39.920 --> 00:50:42.240
And Thutmose III
finished temples of

00:50:42.240 --> 00:50:44.880
hers, finished chapels,
made sure that everything

00:50:45.520 --> 00:50:46.720
was good for her.

00:50:46.880 --> 00:50:48.399
And so,
everything's fine, right?

00:50:48.400 --> 00:50:50.480
She's gonna be our
successful female.

00:50:50.560 --> 00:50:51.840
Well, no she's not.

00:50:51.920 --> 00:50:55.920
Because about 20 to 25 years
later, after her death,

00:50:56.480 --> 00:51:00.080
he says, "Come here,
you, chief of artisans.

00:51:00.080 --> 00:51:01.200
"Go, send the guys out.

00:51:01.200 --> 00:51:03.440
"I need Hatshepsut's names
and images removed from

00:51:03.440 --> 00:51:05.200
this temple, this temple,
this temple,' which he

00:51:05.200 --> 00:51:06.000
names all the temples.

00:51:06.000 --> 00:51:06.960
They're like, 'What?

00:51:07.160 --> 00:51:07.680
Really?'

00:51:07.680 --> 00:51:10.480
"I want you to take plaster
and I want you to replace those

00:51:10.560 --> 00:51:13.359
names with the name of my father
and the name of my grandfather."

00:51:13.360 --> 00:51:14.080
'Yes, sir.'

00:51:14.080 --> 00:51:15.360
"You, come here.

00:51:15.360 --> 00:51:17.120
"Sledgehammers, send them out.

00:51:17.120 --> 00:51:19.360
"I need you to smash these
statues up to tiny bits.

00:51:19.360 --> 00:51:20.319
"Throw them out in a hole.

00:51:20.320 --> 00:51:21.600
"I don't want you to
do anything with those.

00:51:21.600 --> 00:51:23.279
"Oh, wait,
but the big colossals,

00:51:23.280 --> 00:51:24.399
"I don't want you
to break those up.

00:51:24.400 --> 00:51:25.440
"Those are too valuable?

00:51:25.440 --> 00:51:26.640
Just switch out the names."

00:51:26.640 --> 00:51:29.440
'Huh?' 'Take out her name,
put in my father's name.'

00:51:29.440 --> 00:51:30.160
'Got it.'

00:51:30.320 --> 00:51:31.520
And they go out
and they do this.

00:51:31.520 --> 00:51:34.080
Now, they don't do a great job
so that we Egyptologists can

00:51:34.080 --> 00:51:36.640
come in after the fact and say,
'Oh, look, there's a t there.'

00:51:36.640 --> 00:51:38.080
Remember the Smurfette?

00:51:38.327 --> 00:51:41.520
And then you see the daughter
of Ra is still there even though

00:51:41.520 --> 00:51:42.880
it's talking about Thutmose III.

00:51:42.880 --> 00:51:44.720
You're like, 'Hmm,
something's going on.'

00:51:44.720 --> 00:51:46.480
Or you can see that
there's an erasure,

00:51:46.480 --> 00:51:47.680
and you can see the
traces of what the

00:51:47.760 --> 00:51:48.720
old name could be.

00:51:48.880 --> 00:51:50.319
In some cases,
they relied so

00:51:50.400 --> 00:51:53.520
much on plaster
that the old carving

00:51:53.520 --> 00:51:54.480
is as clear as day.

00:51:54.560 --> 00:51:56.480
So, we can put
this back together.

00:51:56.560 --> 00:52:00.480
But the end result is that
Hatshepsut is not a part

00:52:00.480 --> 00:52:01.600
of our cultural memory.

00:52:02.080 --> 00:52:03.680
We can't pronounce her name.

00:52:03.840 --> 00:52:05.600
She was too successful.

00:52:06.480 --> 00:52:08.320
Success is a problematic thing.

00:52:08.480 --> 00:52:09.520
Think about it this way.

00:52:09.760 --> 00:52:12.080
You have a really
good successful idea.

00:52:12.240 --> 00:52:14.400
It's gonna bring your company
a lot of business and you

00:52:14.480 --> 00:52:15.760
tell your boss this idea.

00:52:15.760 --> 00:52:18.480
And then you hear that the
boss went to a CEO meeting,

00:52:18.480 --> 00:52:20.480
and then all of a sudden,
your idea is bandied about

00:52:20.480 --> 00:52:21.760
it as his or her idea.

00:52:21.840 --> 00:52:22.879
You're like, 'Damn it!

00:52:22.960 --> 00:52:23.520
'that's

00:52:23.680 --> 00:52:24.640
My idea.'

00:52:24.720 --> 00:52:26.240
Well, it was successful.

00:52:26.480 --> 00:52:28.880
You're doing what people
would expect to work.

00:52:28.960 --> 00:52:31.120
What has worked before,
what will work after.

00:52:31.280 --> 00:52:33.520
Success is very transferable.

00:52:33.680 --> 00:52:35.120
It is very abstract.

00:52:35.360 --> 00:52:38.080
It's failure that
everyone remembers and

00:52:38.160 --> 00:52:39.279
assigns your name to.

00:52:39.440 --> 00:52:41.980
That's why you guys can
pronounce Cleopatra like that.

00:52:41.980 --> 00:52:42.500
(audience members laugh)

00:52:42.500 --> 00:52:45.600
And Hatshepsut you're
like, 'Hatshe-, Hat-'

00:52:45.600 --> 00:52:48.480
(audience members laugh)

00:52:48.480 --> 00:52:51.680
Okay, Nefertiti, Dynasty 18.

00:52:54.000 --> 00:52:55.839
Her story is being
written right now.

00:52:55.840 --> 00:52:59.520
And Egyptologists in the room
know that if we all went to a

00:52:59.520 --> 00:53:03.040
bar full of Egyptologists and
we just threw out and said,

00:53:03.040 --> 00:53:05.120
'Is Nefertiti Smenkhkare?'

00:53:05.120 --> 00:53:06.000
Then people,
like people

00:53:06.240 --> 00:53:07.760
would come to
blows, right?

00:53:07.760 --> 00:53:08.480
(audience members laugh)

00:53:08.480 --> 00:53:11.040
People get really
upset over this stuff.

00:53:11.040 --> 00:53:12.640
And indeed,
the evidence is

00:53:12.720 --> 00:53:14.160
coming out of the
ground right now,

00:53:14.240 --> 00:53:15.280
like as we speak.

00:53:15.360 --> 00:53:16.960
They're finding new stuff.

00:53:17.120 --> 00:53:19.120
And so, it's,
just take all

00:53:19.120 --> 00:53:20.240
of that with a
grain of salt,

00:53:20.240 --> 00:53:21.360
but that doesn't
mean we can't discuss

00:53:21.520 --> 00:53:24.879
Nefertiti as a female
king, because I think we can.

00:53:24.880 --> 00:53:27.520
I think most Egyptologists
would accept her as such.

00:53:27.680 --> 00:53:30.240
What's cool and interesting
to me is that when you hear

00:53:30.240 --> 00:53:32.560
the name Nefertiti and you
see her bust from Berlin,

00:53:32.640 --> 00:53:33.759
you think of beauty.

00:53:33.920 --> 00:53:35.840
She's a pretty face, right?

00:53:36.000 --> 00:53:38.400
You don't think of her
as a ruler, as anything

00:53:38.640 --> 00:53:43.520
formidable or something
associated with authority in

00:53:43.520 --> 00:53:47.200
any way, but indeed, she was,
so let's see how this works out.

00:53:47.680 --> 00:53:51.520
She is married to this
guy named Amenhotep IV,

00:53:51.760 --> 00:53:56.560
who is born into Egypt's
greatest success, its

00:53:56.640 --> 00:53:58.640
wealthiest time period,
when you don't even

00:53:58.720 --> 00:53:59.520
have to go to war.

00:53:59.600 --> 00:54:02.960
The tribute just comes to you,
when what can be produced by the

00:54:02.960 --> 00:54:06.400
craftsman is of a quality that
you cannot possibly believe.

00:54:06.480 --> 00:54:08.880
Everyone's eating well,
everyone is getting good

00:54:09.040 --> 00:54:10.960
money, everyone is happy.

00:54:11.120 --> 00:54:13.439
This guy comes into power,
he starts out his reign

00:54:13.520 --> 00:54:16.240
depicting himself much like
his father did before him,

00:54:16.320 --> 00:54:18.880
and then all of a sudden,
boom, he starts depicting

00:54:18.880 --> 00:54:19.840
himself like this.

00:54:20.000 --> 00:54:22.880
And he changes his
name to Akhenaten.

00:54:22.960 --> 00:54:24.720
And he changes the religion.

00:54:24.720 --> 00:54:27.760
And he starts funneling money
away from the other relig-,

00:54:27.760 --> 00:54:30.080
like the Amun-Ra Temple,
and the Ptah Temple,

00:54:30.080 --> 00:54:31.040
and all these other places.

00:54:31.120 --> 00:54:34.319
He funnels that money to a
new god, a god named Aten.

00:54:34.400 --> 00:54:38.160
And he starts to depict
himself as male and female.

00:54:38.240 --> 00:54:39.360
Do you see the breasts?

00:54:39.520 --> 00:54:42.479
You can't see the hips in this
one but there are hips too.

00:54:42.560 --> 00:54:45.200
He starts to depict himself
as animal and human.

00:54:45.200 --> 00:54:47.680
If you saw it from the side,
you would see a prognathism

00:54:47.680 --> 00:54:48.720
of the lower face.

00:54:48.960 --> 00:54:52.080
He starts to depict himself
strangely elongated.

00:54:52.160 --> 00:54:54.080
And I would argue that
he's depicting himself

00:54:54.320 --> 00:54:55.680
as a being of light.

00:54:55.840 --> 00:54:59.360
He is changing the way
kingship is depicted,

00:54:59.360 --> 00:55:02.400
he is changing the way the chief
priest, that would be the king,

00:55:02.640 --> 00:55:05.920
is connecting with all of the
divinities, and Nefertiti

00:55:06.000 --> 00:55:07.600
comes along for the ride.

00:55:07.760 --> 00:55:11.280
He changes her depiction
in very much the same way.

00:55:11.440 --> 00:55:14.480
Same prognathism,
the same elongated features,

00:55:14.640 --> 00:55:19.680
exaggerated eyes and chin,
a very strange visage to behold.

00:55:19.840 --> 00:55:22.880
And here he is with
all his servants now

00:55:23.040 --> 00:55:25.439
bent down around him,
worshipping the sun

00:55:25.520 --> 00:55:27.440
god over his head,
giving offerings to

00:55:27.440 --> 00:55:30.000
that sun god, the Aten,
and its rays are bathing

00:55:30.080 --> 00:55:31.840
him in its golden light.

00:55:31.920 --> 00:55:33.600
He is the only one
that should have direct

00:55:33.920 --> 00:55:36.080
connection with that sun god.

00:55:36.560 --> 00:55:39.360
Around year 5,
he decides to

00:55:39.600 --> 00:55:43.040
pick up and move
away from Memphis,

00:55:43.040 --> 00:55:45.920
Heliopolis, Thebes,
and go to this out in

00:55:45.920 --> 00:55:48.560
the middle of nowhere
place where he says it

00:55:48.560 --> 00:55:51.520
is sacred to no god or
goddess, and build this

00:55:51.680 --> 00:55:52.960
new city from scratch.

00:55:53.040 --> 00:55:54.799
He calls it Akhetaten.

00:55:54.960 --> 00:55:56.480
His name is Akhenaten.

00:55:56.560 --> 00:55:59.200
It's like king and
city are almost one.

00:55:59.360 --> 00:56:03.440
And in about ten years or less,
he builds from the ground up

00:56:03.920 --> 00:56:07.200
new temples, new palaces,
new administrative structures.

00:56:07.280 --> 00:56:09.359
He makes all of his elites
come and they're gonna build

00:56:09.440 --> 00:56:11.280
all of their estates as well.

00:56:11.360 --> 00:56:14.800
This is an incredibly
energetic and dedicated

00:56:14.960 --> 00:56:16.800
king to his new coat.

00:56:16.880 --> 00:56:19.920
And Nefertiti comes
along for the ride.

00:56:20.080 --> 00:56:22.160
She is his great royal wife.

00:56:22.240 --> 00:56:25.920
And when she comes to Akhetaten,
she is given a new name.

00:56:26.080 --> 00:56:29.520
And her name is
Neferneferuaten Nefertiti.

00:56:29.600 --> 00:56:30.700
There will be an exam after,

00:56:30.700 --> 00:56:31.220
(audience members laugh)

00:56:31.220 --> 00:56:32.560
It's gonna get way worse.

00:56:33.040 --> 00:56:34.080
Way worse.

00:56:34.960 --> 00:56:37.600
This is one reason why it's so
hard to find Nefertiti in the

00:56:37.600 --> 00:56:40.080
evidence, because Akhenaten
seems to have renamed her

00:56:40.560 --> 00:56:41.840
each step of the way.

00:56:41.840 --> 00:56:44.160
And she gets to keep a
small part of herself as

00:56:44.160 --> 00:56:45.360
she goes to the next step.

00:56:45.440 --> 00:56:47.440
You'll see what I mean in a bit.

00:56:48.080 --> 00:56:50.560
They show these images
of family togetherness.

00:56:50.560 --> 00:56:53.360
Nefertiti is depicted
about the same scale as

00:56:53.520 --> 00:56:54.960
her husband Akhenaten.

00:56:55.040 --> 00:56:56.480
They're cuddling
their daughters,

00:56:56.480 --> 00:56:57.520
they're showing
new and different

00:56:57.760 --> 00:56:58.640
kinds of scenes.

00:56:58.640 --> 00:57:01.040
And Egyptologists for the
longest time have looked at this

00:57:01.120 --> 00:57:05.040
as puppies and rainbows and this
beautiful togetherness and maybe

00:57:05.120 --> 00:57:07.920
even the first monotheism in all
of human history, though that is

00:57:08.000 --> 00:57:09.680
still very much up for debate.

00:57:09.840 --> 00:57:13.600
But there is a much darker
underbelly to all of this.

00:57:13.920 --> 00:57:16.000
Well, he married two
of those daughters and

00:57:16.080 --> 00:57:18.160
had children with them,
and elevated each of them

00:57:18.320 --> 00:57:19.360
to a great royal wife.

00:57:19.360 --> 00:57:20.720
So, that creeps you
out right there,

00:57:20.720 --> 00:57:23.200
though that's not
culturally aberrant for them.

00:57:23.520 --> 00:57:26.240
He also co-ops his elite.

00:57:26.240 --> 00:57:29.279
And here you see the elite
reaching up and the king

00:57:29.360 --> 00:57:31.600
and his queen, Nefertiti,
just throwing down

00:57:31.840 --> 00:57:33.280
solid gold necklaces.

00:57:33.360 --> 00:57:35.360
How do you get a bunch
of people to leave their

00:57:35.520 --> 00:57:38.160
families and their lives in
the traditional capitals and

00:57:38.320 --> 00:57:40.000
move away the middle of nowhere?

00:57:40.080 --> 00:57:41.440
Well, you bribe them.

00:57:41.600 --> 00:57:44.560
And then they coerce other
people to do the same.

00:57:44.640 --> 00:57:49.440
And so, here we see just
this co-option happening

00:57:49.520 --> 00:57:52.880
before our eyes, but in a
more idealistic sort of sense.

00:57:53.040 --> 00:57:55.839
But what's really interesting
in the work that's coming

00:57:55.840 --> 00:57:58.320
out right now by a number
of bioarcheologists,

00:57:58.320 --> 00:58:00.880
one of them a former
student of mine from

00:58:00.960 --> 00:58:04.720
UCLA, Anne Austin,
they're finding graveyards

00:58:04.960 --> 00:58:07.520
filled with the laborers
who constructed the city

00:58:07.680 --> 00:58:08.720
from the ground up.

00:58:08.960 --> 00:58:12.560
And the graveyards for the
skilled laborers are fine.

00:58:12.640 --> 00:58:15.440
They get great goods,
they're just doing okay.

00:58:15.520 --> 00:58:19.360
But the graveyards for those who
are not so skilled, who are just

00:58:19.440 --> 00:58:22.640
hauling stones and doing what
they're told, are horrific.

00:58:22.800 --> 00:58:26.000
They're working wounded, they're
working malnourished, they're

00:58:26.080 --> 00:58:27.680
working with acute fractures.

00:58:27.760 --> 00:58:31.120
And even worse than that, they
have found a graveyard filled

00:58:31.120 --> 00:58:34.480
with hundreds of children,
separated from any sort of

00:58:34.560 --> 00:58:38.000
adult figures of any kind,
also working with all kinds

00:58:38.000 --> 00:58:42.080
of injuries, malnourished,
and with acute injuries as well.

00:58:42.160 --> 00:58:45.040
And the people who work in
this graveyard are emotionally

00:58:45.120 --> 00:58:48.800
affected themselves with each
burial that they find.

00:58:49.200 --> 00:58:52.880
This has been so disruptive
to our understanding of what

00:58:52.960 --> 00:58:56.560
Akhenaten's regime was that it's
actually made most Egyptians

00:58:56.560 --> 00:58:57.839
that I know very uncomfortable.

00:58:57.840 --> 00:59:00.560
And when this work was first
presented at a conference,

00:59:00.560 --> 00:59:04.720
at a bioarcheology conference,
Egyptians left, some, not all,

00:59:04.960 --> 00:59:08.080
left the room and said you can't
present the kingship this way.

00:59:08.560 --> 00:59:11.600
This is serious stuff because
it's turning on its head what

00:59:11.680 --> 00:59:15.040
the foundation of Akhenaten's
kingship actually was.

00:59:15.520 --> 00:59:19.520
This was a demanding king,
a king who was quite

00:59:19.760 --> 00:59:21.200
brutal to his people.

00:59:21.600 --> 00:59:24.000
And Nefertiti came
along for the ride.

00:59:24.000 --> 00:59:25.520
And indeed,
I think most

00:59:25.760 --> 00:59:29.440
Egyptologists now
see this new king,

00:59:29.600 --> 00:59:31.759
co-king alongside
Akhenaten with the

00:59:31.760 --> 00:59:34.560
name, the row's off
the top, Ankhkheperure

00:59:34.800 --> 00:59:38.080
Neferneferuaten, as Nefertiti.

00:59:38.240 --> 00:59:41.040
She's not identifiable as
Nefertiti any longer, but that

00:59:41.040 --> 00:59:42.880
Neferneferure is still there.

00:59:43.040 --> 00:59:45.839
And so, people are like,
'Oh, okay, Ankheperure,

00:59:45.840 --> 00:59:47.440
that's her as co-king.'

00:59:47.760 --> 00:59:49.600
This is a weird and crazy thing.

00:59:49.600 --> 00:59:52.400
And this is a breaker
of all of our patterns.

00:59:52.480 --> 00:59:55.040
She's not stepping in as
a regent for a boy king.

00:59:55.200 --> 00:59:57.520
She's stepping in
alongside her husband.

00:59:57.520 --> 00:59:59.120
I just told you you're
not supposed to have

00:59:59.200 --> 01:00:01.520
those parallel power
structures, right?

01:00:01.520 --> 01:00:03.040
It's supposed to be a linear.

01:00:03.120 --> 01:00:05.200
Well, he must feel
very vulnerable.

01:00:05.760 --> 01:00:08.640
This is potentially the only
person that he can trust.

01:00:08.960 --> 01:00:12.240
He pulls in somebody to help
him to continue this rule,

01:00:12.400 --> 01:00:15.200
happens to be his great
royal wife, now no longer,

01:00:15.280 --> 01:00:16.800
and now a co-king.

01:00:17.120 --> 01:00:20.799
And one Egyptologist,
Nicholas Reeves, even

01:00:21.040 --> 01:00:23.520
believes that the mask
and all of the burial

01:00:23.520 --> 01:00:26.000
equipment of Tutankhamen,
including the three nesting

01:00:26.080 --> 01:00:28.799
coffins, was not made for
Tutankhamen, but was made

01:00:28.880 --> 01:00:32.000
for a certain Ankheperure.

01:00:32.160 --> 01:00:34.880
And indeed, he's shown,
and I stood next to the case

01:00:35.120 --> 01:00:36.560
when they opened the glass

01:00:36.640 --> 01:00:39.440
And I got to see the mask and
the shoulder from that far

01:00:39.600 --> 01:00:41.200
away, so I'm a believer too.

01:00:41.280 --> 01:00:44.080
And he's shown this to
Dieter Arnold, Mark Gabolde,

01:00:44.080 --> 01:00:48.000
and Ray Johnson, they also
buy it that this is re-curved,

01:00:48.080 --> 01:00:51.200
and that the traces of the
old name are Ankheperure.

01:00:51.440 --> 01:00:52.720
Which is the coolest thing ever.

01:00:52.720 --> 01:00:55.600
Makes all the
Egyptologists go, 'Ah!'

01:00:55.840 --> 01:00:58.640
Because this could have
been made for Nefertiti.

01:00:58.960 --> 01:01:01.520
This that it's burned into
your mind's eye, right?

01:01:01.600 --> 01:01:03.600
That you can see without
even, without me even

01:01:03.760 --> 01:01:04.479
showing you this.

01:01:04.480 --> 01:01:07.040
That could have been made
for Nefertiti as co-king

01:01:07.280 --> 01:01:08.880
for her husband, Akhenaten.

01:01:08.880 --> 01:01:11.520
And I'm not gonna go into this,
but I have interesting ideas

01:01:11.600 --> 01:01:14.960
about the double cobra uraeus,
which is also unusual and

01:01:15.040 --> 01:01:17.279
not something that you see
on other burial equipment.

01:01:17.280 --> 01:01:18.320
What's going on here?

01:01:18.880 --> 01:01:21.600
A graduate student of mine,
Nicholas Brown, we argue

01:01:21.600 --> 01:01:22.640
about this all the time.

01:01:23.520 --> 01:01:25.360
We'll continue to
argue about it.

01:01:26.960 --> 01:01:29.279
I encourage my graduate
students to argue with me.

01:01:29.280 --> 01:01:30.480
It makes life more fun.

01:01:30.880 --> 01:01:34.080
Did Nefertiti then
become sole king after

01:01:34.240 --> 01:01:35.520
the death of Akhenaten?

01:01:35.600 --> 01:01:38.000
And this was where the
Egyptologists really start to

01:01:38.080 --> 01:01:39.600
throw the blows at each other.

01:01:39.680 --> 01:01:43.759
Because I would say, you know,
40% believe that, yeah,

01:01:43.840 --> 01:01:46.640
Nefertiti is there stepping
in as sole king after the

01:01:46.640 --> 01:01:48.960
death of Akhenaten in a
time period of crisis.

01:01:48.960 --> 01:01:50.160
And other people
are like, 'Look,

01:01:50.160 --> 01:01:51.359
there's just no
evidence for it.'

01:01:51.440 --> 01:01:52.960
I'm not gonna talk
about the tomb.

01:01:52.960 --> 01:01:55.600
If you guys wanna talk about
that in the Q&A, we can, but

01:01:56.160 --> 01:01:57.760
I'm gonna leave that for now.

01:01:57.920 --> 01:02:01.680
And I told you I'm skipping
Tawosret because I ain't

01:02:01.680 --> 01:02:04.480
got no time, and she's
all Game of Thronesey,

01:02:04.480 --> 01:02:06.320
so you can read the book.

01:02:06.400 --> 01:02:09.100
This woman was pretty
badass so check her out.

01:02:09.100 --> 01:02:09.620
(audience members laugh)

01:02:09.620 --> 01:02:12.560
Came in as a regent for a
son who was not her own, and

01:02:12.960 --> 01:02:14.960
a kid with a club foot to boot.

01:02:15.040 --> 01:02:18.319
But let's quickly talk
about Cleopatra so we

01:02:18.320 --> 01:02:21.440
can have some questions,
and hopefully answers.

01:02:21.520 --> 01:02:25.200
So, Cleopatra of the
Ptolemaic dynasty also

01:02:25.440 --> 01:02:27.040
does not rule alone.

01:02:27.200 --> 01:02:29.600
She also rules her
almost 22 years,

01:02:29.680 --> 01:02:31.359
like Hatshepsut
before her.

01:02:31.520 --> 01:02:35.680
She rules alongside Ptolemy XII,
who needs a co-ruler and

01:02:35.760 --> 01:02:39.120
brings Cleopatra VII
into the situation.

01:02:39.280 --> 01:02:41.920
She rules alongside,
though in many ways

01:02:42.000 --> 01:02:45.759
quite unwillingly,
her brother Ptolemy XIII,

01:02:45.840 --> 01:02:48.480
and he dies in battle
fighting against her.

01:02:49.200 --> 01:02:53.440
Then she moves on to Ptolemy
XIV, whom she has assassinated.

01:02:53.600 --> 01:02:57.600
So, now that she's killed all
of her Ptolemaic companions

01:02:57.680 --> 01:03:00.320
and has no one else to bed
with and to rule with,

01:03:00.480 --> 01:03:03.759
Cleopatra is so canny,
she still knows she

01:03:03.840 --> 01:03:05.760
cannot rule alone.

01:03:06.240 --> 01:03:09.279
Egypt is no longer happily
ensconced in its own little

01:03:09.280 --> 01:03:11.760
bubble of geographic
protection, however.

01:03:11.920 --> 01:03:15.040
It is now perched on the edge
of the Mediterranean Sea from

01:03:15.040 --> 01:03:17.040
its capital city of Alexandria.

01:03:17.120 --> 01:03:20.080
It is part of a globalized
Mediterranean world.

01:03:20.160 --> 01:03:22.960
So, she's gotta look to
a globalized partner,

01:03:23.040 --> 01:03:25.120
and she launches upon,
or he launches upon

01:03:25.280 --> 01:03:27.280
her, Julius Caesar.

01:03:27.680 --> 01:03:28.960
We all know the story.

01:03:29.120 --> 01:03:32.720
She snuck into his chambers
as he's in the Palace of

01:03:32.800 --> 01:03:36.720
Alexandria in a bedroll,
her brother is sieging

01:03:36.800 --> 01:03:38.640
the city, it's perfect.

01:03:38.720 --> 01:03:40.959
She gets in and they hang
out for a couple of months

01:03:41.120 --> 01:03:44.799
And she's going to give birth to
Caesarion, known as Ptolemy XV,

01:03:44.800 --> 01:03:46.880
the Egyptologist,
sometime after that.

01:03:47.520 --> 01:03:49.280
This works out
quite well for her.

01:03:49.600 --> 01:03:53.040
She's got a Roman warlord
to rule and partner with.

01:03:53.120 --> 01:03:54.720
He's a sperm donor to boot.

01:03:54.720 --> 01:03:56.480
She doesn't even have
to marry the guy.

01:03:56.640 --> 01:03:59.440
He doesn't want to marry her,
she doesn't want to marry him,

01:03:59.440 --> 01:04:00.480
that wouldn't quite work.

01:04:00.480 --> 01:04:04.000
But as a partnership of
rule, this is quite useful.

01:04:04.240 --> 01:04:06.100
But we all know what happens.

01:04:06.100 --> 01:04:06.620
(laughs)

01:04:06.620 --> 01:04:09.120
She's in Rome when
he is murdered on the

01:04:09.120 --> 01:04:10.240
steps of the Senate.

01:04:10.400 --> 01:04:12.880
She has to hightail it
back to Alexandria and

01:04:12.880 --> 01:04:16.160
figure out what to do,
and she needs another partner.

01:04:16.240 --> 01:04:18.240
She knows she cannot rule alone.

01:04:18.320 --> 01:04:21.600
And so, she launches
upon Mark Antony.

01:04:22.080 --> 01:04:24.160
She shows up,
he apparently writes

01:04:24.160 --> 01:04:26.480
her multiple times,
'Meet me in Anatolia,

01:04:26.480 --> 01:04:28.400
meet me at Tarsus,'
and, 'Come and visit.

01:04:28.400 --> 01:04:30.400
'come and,' and she's like,
she's playing hard to

01:04:30.400 --> 01:04:31.439
get, 'No, no, no.'

01:04:31.440 --> 01:04:33.200
And finally,
she shows up

01:04:33.760 --> 01:04:34.960
dressed to
the nines,

01:04:34.960 --> 01:04:36.480
dressed as a
goddess in this

01:04:36.560 --> 01:04:39.520
barge that is covered
with gold, just showing

01:04:39.600 --> 01:04:40.720
her wealth and her riches.

01:04:40.800 --> 01:04:43.600
The Romans go crazy writing
about them, saying, "Look at

01:04:43.600 --> 01:04:46.240
this woman who wastes money,
look at all of the success,

01:04:46.240 --> 01:04:48.799
this is what kingship gives
you, this is horrible."

01:04:48.880 --> 01:04:51.440
Well, Cleopatra knew
exactly what she was doing,

01:04:51.600 --> 01:04:53.680
depicting herself as a goddess.

01:04:53.920 --> 01:04:57.280
Nothing less than a goddess,
as a beholder of great wealth.

01:04:57.360 --> 01:04:59.279
She wants these Roman
warlords to work with

01:04:59.280 --> 01:05:01.520
her and do what she says,
she needs to make sure

01:05:01.600 --> 01:05:04.560
that they see that she's
holding many cards herself.

01:05:04.880 --> 01:05:05.759
They need the money.

01:05:05.840 --> 01:05:07.760
They're constantly fighting
each other in a civil

01:05:07.760 --> 01:05:08.960
war that never ends.

01:05:09.120 --> 01:05:11.680
They need cash,
she's got some cash,

01:05:11.920 --> 01:05:13.680
perfect partnership.

01:05:13.920 --> 01:05:16.800
Better in terms of age
as well, and she launches

01:05:16.960 --> 01:05:18.960
up with Mark Antony.

01:05:19.280 --> 01:05:22.800
Now, Cleopatra,
I say she's a failure.

01:05:22.800 --> 01:05:24.799
She does not leave Egypt
better than she finds it.

01:05:24.880 --> 01:05:27.440
It becomes a province
of Rome after her death.

01:05:27.600 --> 01:05:31.440
However, Cleopatra comes
the closest out of any of

01:05:31.520 --> 01:05:34.320
the women that we're talking
about, in having it all,

01:05:34.560 --> 01:05:37.040
in being the man in a
sense, at the center

01:05:37.120 --> 01:05:38.240
of the wheel of power.

01:05:38.400 --> 01:05:43.520
Because she has such a strong
womb and constitution, whoops,

01:05:43.600 --> 01:05:47.279
she is able to, oh, I hate this
like my, hold on, National

01:05:47.280 --> 01:05:48.560
Geographic made me do this.

01:05:48.560 --> 01:05:49.680
And they wanted
it to be animated,

01:05:49.680 --> 01:05:51.120
and I'm like, "Oh, okay.

01:05:51.120 --> 01:05:52.320
Let's try again."

01:05:52.320 --> 01:05:54.480
And every time,
I mess up the animation.

01:05:54.480 --> 01:05:55.120
Here we go.

01:05:55.120 --> 01:05:56.480
'do I do another?'

01:05:56.560 --> 01:05:58.320
'yes, one more.'

01:05:58.380 --> 01:05:58.900
Boom.

01:05:58.960 --> 01:05:59.520
Okay.

01:05:59.600 --> 01:06:03.040
So, she comes the closest
out of any of our women to

01:06:03.200 --> 01:06:07.360
creating a legacy of her own
genetic lineage that is going to

01:06:07.440 --> 01:06:09.840
pass on to future generations.

01:06:10.640 --> 01:06:14.000
She even creates this big show
where she names each of her

01:06:14.080 --> 01:06:17.279
children as leaders of different
parts of her Eastern empire.

01:06:17.440 --> 01:06:20.960
One kid in charge of Cyrenaica,
Libya, one kid in charge of the

01:06:20.960 --> 01:06:24.400
Levant, one kid in charge of
Cyprus, and so on and so forth.

01:06:24.560 --> 01:06:27.040
And they don't seem to be
fighting with each other.

01:06:27.120 --> 01:06:29.440
She seems to have created a
family that's not trying to

01:06:29.440 --> 01:06:31.839
kill each other constantly,
which for the Ptolemies

01:06:31.920 --> 01:06:33.120
is a serious win.

01:06:33.280 --> 01:06:36.799
And it looks like she has it
all working out in her favor.

01:06:36.880 --> 01:06:38.560
She doesn't have to
marry Mark Antony,

01:06:38.560 --> 01:06:40.400
but he seems to be
staying in Egypt.

01:06:40.640 --> 01:06:44.080
They have a real chance
of creating an Eastern

01:06:44.080 --> 01:06:46.400
dynasty that can work
in opposition to that

01:06:46.400 --> 01:06:48.240
Western dynasty that is Rome.

01:06:48.320 --> 01:06:50.640
And yet,
it all goes

01:06:50.640 --> 01:06:51.840
horribly wrong.

01:06:52.240 --> 01:06:54.080
Mark Antony,
before this happens,

01:06:54.160 --> 01:06:55.440
invades Parthia.

01:06:55.440 --> 01:06:58.720
What do they say about
a land invasion of Asia?

01:06:59.200 --> 01:07:00.240
A land war in Asia?

01:07:00.240 --> 01:07:04.100
Anyone see 'The Princess Bride?'
Never have a land war in Asia!

01:07:04.100 --> 01:07:04.620
(audience members laugh)

01:07:04.620 --> 01:07:05.520
He tries that.

01:07:05.600 --> 01:07:08.560
It goes horribly wrong,
and he never recovers

01:07:08.640 --> 01:07:11.920
from it financially,
emotionally, physically.

01:07:12.160 --> 01:07:14.799
And then they're on the
back foot when they try

01:07:15.040 --> 01:07:19.440
to fight Octavian, soon
to become Caesar Augustus.

01:07:19.600 --> 01:07:21.840
They're on the back foot,
they don't have maybe all

01:07:21.840 --> 01:07:23.680
of the allies that they
could or all of the strong

01:07:23.840 --> 01:07:26.400
allies that they could,
didn't prepare for it properly,

01:07:26.400 --> 01:07:28.799
and certainly didn't strategize
well in terms of how the

01:07:28.880 --> 01:07:30.080
battle should happen.

01:07:30.320 --> 01:07:33.840
Should we be surprised that
Cleopatra as the woman hightails

01:07:33.840 --> 01:07:36.160
it out of there as soon as she
sees what's going on?

01:07:36.640 --> 01:07:39.440
The Romans write about this
and say, 'Look at that coward.

01:07:39.520 --> 01:07:40.560
Look at her run.'

01:07:40.560 --> 01:07:43.200
And Mark Antony only stays for
a little bit longer before he

01:07:43.440 --> 01:07:45.680
also flees with his life intact.

01:07:45.760 --> 01:07:48.799
But I guess he let a little
more of his soldiers die

01:07:48.960 --> 01:07:51.760
before and that makes him
strong and powerful, I don't,

01:07:52.080 --> 01:07:53.919
more manly, more noble.

01:07:54.880 --> 01:07:56.319
But anyway,
this goes

01:07:56.320 --> 01:07:57.280
horribly wrong.

01:07:57.440 --> 01:07:59.520
If it didn't go horribly wrong,
I think we would talk

01:07:59.600 --> 01:08:01.600
about Cleopatra very
differently, but we can't.

01:08:01.600 --> 01:08:03.920
I can't write a revisionist
history, I can't make her

01:08:04.320 --> 01:08:05.839
make a different choice.

01:08:06.240 --> 01:08:10.160
As it is now,
she is meant to

01:08:10.560 --> 01:08:12.959
wait out the year
in Alexandria trying

01:08:12.960 --> 01:08:15.040
to save her children,
trying to figure out

01:08:15.280 --> 01:08:18.000
how to get herself out
of this deep dark hole.

01:08:18.000 --> 01:08:20.319
And given that she's had
all of her children with two

01:08:20.399 --> 01:08:24.160
Roman warlords who have now
died in a civil war or some

01:08:24.319 --> 01:08:28.720
other political aggression,
she has a target on her back

01:08:28.880 --> 01:08:31.279
and on her children's backs
that she cannot remove.

01:08:31.359 --> 01:08:33.120
There's nothing that
she can really do to get

01:08:33.200 --> 01:08:34.800
herself out of this situation.

01:08:35.040 --> 01:08:39.520
And the story is that
she then commits suicide.

01:08:39.680 --> 01:08:43.759
It's a wonderful story
for the Romans to give us.

01:08:44.240 --> 01:08:46.960
While this is happening,
her children, all but one,

01:08:46.960 --> 01:08:48.560
are hunted down and murdered.

01:08:48.720 --> 01:08:53.840
Caesarian, known as Ptolemy XV
to us, is heading down south to

01:08:53.840 --> 01:08:55.920
flee and he receives a letter,
'You're gonna be made

01:08:56.000 --> 01:08:57.200
king by Octavion.'

01:08:57.200 --> 01:08:58.240
It's gonna be okay.

01:08:58.319 --> 01:08:59.200
He comes back.

01:08:59.359 --> 01:09:01.840
You may think it's naive,
but the Romans had allowed

01:09:01.920 --> 01:09:04.639
the Ptolemies to rule this
place for some time.

01:09:04.720 --> 01:09:07.040
So, I think maybe he thought
he could get away with it.

01:09:07.040 --> 01:09:08.639
Well, he's murdered
on the way back.

01:09:08.880 --> 01:09:11.840
Other sons and daughters
are murdered as well.

01:09:12.080 --> 01:09:15.520
Cleopatra herself is
said to commit suicide.

01:09:15.680 --> 01:09:18.880
This works very well for
Octavion's propaganda.

01:09:18.960 --> 01:09:22.000
It's the reason that I am so
suspicious of anything the

01:09:22.080 --> 01:09:26.720
Romans tell us about Cleopatra
and her manner of dying,

01:09:26.880 --> 01:09:28.719
because there's no way to know.

01:09:28.800 --> 01:09:30.720
We don't even know what
the manner of suicide is.

01:09:30.800 --> 01:09:33.120
I once listened to a
whole academic discussion,

01:09:33.200 --> 01:09:35.439
a panel discussion, about
whether it was an asp,

01:09:35.439 --> 01:09:36.880
or whether it was this,
or whether it was that,

01:09:36.880 --> 01:09:38.960
and there really is no
way to know how Cleopatra

01:09:39.040 --> 01:09:41.279
committed suicide,
or I would argue

01:09:41.359 --> 01:09:42.559
if she even did.

01:09:42.880 --> 01:09:45.439
It makes the most sense
for Octavion to say, 'Oh,

01:09:45.439 --> 01:09:48.240
she took a hero's way out,
committed suicide.'

01:09:48.399 --> 01:09:52.399
Much the way they say Boudica
left us, or Zenobia left us.

01:09:53.040 --> 01:09:55.440
It works for the hero's way out.

01:09:55.440 --> 01:09:58.320
But for the Egyptian,
it's brutal, because it's

01:09:58.400 --> 01:10:00.879
the mother abandoning her
children to their fates.

01:10:01.120 --> 01:10:04.559
It's the mother not wanting to
have to be walked in chains in

01:10:04.640 --> 01:10:07.440
a triumph, deciding to just,
'Screw it, I'm done with this,'

01:10:07.440 --> 01:10:09.200
and just leave everybody behind.

01:10:09.440 --> 01:10:12.000
From the Egyptian perspective,
to say that she committed

01:10:12.080 --> 01:10:15.360
suicide is one of the most
brutally affected pieces of

01:10:15.440 --> 01:10:17.760
propaganda that Octavion
could ever produce.

01:10:17.840 --> 01:10:20.480
And it is the reason that
I am so suspicious of it.

01:10:20.560 --> 01:10:22.320
Again, until I get
my time machine,

01:10:22.320 --> 01:10:24.480
I'll never be able to
prove it true or false,

01:10:24.560 --> 01:10:26.160
but this is where I fall.

01:10:26.640 --> 01:10:29.200
So, it's 2 50, yah!

01:10:29.440 --> 01:10:32.000
Where else did women
try to rule the world?

01:10:32.000 --> 01:10:35.679
Well, nowhere like Egypt,
but there are other women.

01:10:35.760 --> 01:10:39.200
Jezebel, Athalia, her daughter,
who tried to rule on behalf of

01:10:39.200 --> 01:10:41.200
her son, both killed for trying.

01:10:41.360 --> 01:10:44.800
Boudica and Zenobia both
fought Rome and died.

01:10:45.120 --> 01:10:49.440
Empress Lu, Empress Wu Zhetian
fought for extend, sorry,

01:10:49.440 --> 01:10:52.719
ruled for extended periods
of time in Imperial China,

01:10:52.960 --> 01:10:56.719
also never ruled alone,
ruled alongside others.

01:10:56.720 --> 01:10:58.000
And of course,
we know the many

01:10:58.160 --> 01:11:00.799
female rulers of a
fragmented Europe,

01:11:00.880 --> 01:11:02.880
including Elizabeth
I, Catherine the Great,

01:11:02.880 --> 01:11:04.240
et cetera, et cetera.

01:11:05.920 --> 01:11:08.480
Different situation in a
fragmented Europe where you

01:11:08.560 --> 01:11:11.920
don't want a Spanish cousin to
come in just because he's male

01:11:12.160 --> 01:11:15.280
and you would rather have the
female because she's British.

01:11:15.360 --> 01:11:19.760
So, this is more a situation
where the fragmentation of

01:11:20.000 --> 01:11:23.520
Europe works for the females,
in the females' favor.

01:11:23.920 --> 01:11:28.000
In all of these cases, in Egypt
and elsewhere, almost all,

01:11:28.320 --> 01:11:32.480
success is ignored and the
failure is aggrandized.

01:11:32.640 --> 01:11:36.720
We have a cultural memory of
the failures, like Cleopatra.

01:11:36.800 --> 01:11:39.840
Shakespeare writes
plays about Cleopatra.

01:11:39.920 --> 01:11:43.040
We have epic poems
about Semiramis,

01:11:43.760 --> 01:11:46.639
who also was a ruler of
the ancient Near East,

01:11:46.640 --> 01:11:48.959
who apparently epically failed.

01:11:49.040 --> 01:11:53.200
But those women who did it all
right, women like Neferusobek,

01:11:53.440 --> 01:11:57.840
women like Hatshepsut, who left
Egypt better than they found it,

01:11:57.920 --> 01:12:00.160
or the ones that are not part
of our cultural memory,

01:12:00.240 --> 01:12:04.320
whose names were effectively
replaced, and to whom credit,

01:12:04.640 --> 01:12:07.840
from whom credit was taken
away and given to the men

01:12:08.000 --> 01:12:10.559
who who either preceded
them or came after them.

01:12:10.720 --> 01:12:13.920
And so, in the end,
I usually end this

01:12:14.160 --> 01:12:20.240
discussion with this.

01:12:20.240 --> 01:12:20.800
(audience members laugh)

01:12:20.800 --> 01:12:22.960
And I am trying,
so just a quick point,

01:12:22.960 --> 01:12:25.360
and then I'll let you guys
ask me a couple questions.

01:12:25.840 --> 01:12:28.880
I am trying to make this as
topical as I possibly can.

01:12:28.960 --> 01:12:31.600
I'm trying to bring this
back to why do we still

01:12:31.760 --> 01:12:33.280
distrust females in power?

01:12:33.360 --> 01:12:37.120
What is it about the female
that sets us so on edge?

01:12:37.200 --> 01:12:39.280
What was it about,
what is it about the

01:12:39.360 --> 01:12:42.000
possible lies of a female
candidate that are so much

01:12:42.080 --> 01:12:45.440
more powerful than the absolute
untruths of the male candidate?

01:12:45.760 --> 01:12:47.040
What's going on here?

01:12:47.120 --> 01:12:50.000
And why are we still
in this conundrum?

01:12:50.000 --> 01:12:51.759
And this, I think,
is the reason.

01:12:52.160 --> 01:12:55.280
That we assign women
a mercurial nature.

01:12:55.440 --> 01:12:58.400
We assign women ups and
downs of emotionality

01:12:58.560 --> 01:12:59.760
that cannot be controlled.

01:12:59.920 --> 01:13:02.000
Now, I'm not gonna stand
up here and tell you this

01:13:02.080 --> 01:13:04.240
is true, because I actually
don't believe it is.

01:13:04.400 --> 01:13:06.000
I, first of all,
don't believe that we

01:13:06.080 --> 01:13:07.360
only have male and female.

01:13:07.440 --> 01:13:10.400
We are the ones that have
culturally constructed a binary.

01:13:10.640 --> 01:13:13.040
When you talk about a
transgender and you talk about

01:13:13.120 --> 01:13:16.400
the complications of sexuality,
you talk to a biologist and

01:13:16.480 --> 01:13:18.640
talk about all of the sexual
expressions that are allowed for

01:13:19.600 --> 01:13:21.760
us humans, it's extraordinary.

01:13:21.920 --> 01:13:24.960
This is an oversimplified
agricultural system.

01:13:25.120 --> 01:13:27.920
But this is what we live with,
this is what we have, and so,

01:13:28.000 --> 01:13:30.320
then I'll look at this and
I would like to turn this

01:13:30.480 --> 01:13:33.680
on its head and say, if we
assume that females are so much

01:13:33.760 --> 01:13:37.440
more emotional than men, and if
cognitive scientists do tell us

01:13:37.520 --> 01:13:40.639
that on the whole you and I can
read each other's faces better,

01:13:40.800 --> 01:13:43.200
that we actually are more in
touch with our emotions,

01:13:43.280 --> 01:13:46.400
less likely to, I don't know,
stalk an ex-spouse or pick up

01:13:46.400 --> 01:13:48.639
a gun and kill up the whole
family and then kill ourselves

01:13:48.720 --> 01:13:50.800
'cause we're not in touch
with our emotions, right?

01:13:51.040 --> 01:13:53.360
If that is the case,
then I would encourage

01:13:53.360 --> 01:13:55.920
all of us to look at this
emotionality more positively

01:13:56.240 --> 01:13:59.280
and think of that emotionality,
whether wielded by men or

01:13:59.520 --> 01:14:02.320
by women, as the ability
to feel something before

01:14:02.480 --> 01:14:04.960
you decisively act upon it.

01:14:05.120 --> 01:14:08.080
That this emotionality could
be the very thing that got,