Empires: Egypt's Golden Empire

You know if Zahi Hawass is involved its probably not only exaggerated, its probably inaccurate. I love Egyptian history and when history is falsified, its very sad. I was hoping to find a documentary I could trust.

A documentary whirlwind that rages over the highlights of the 18th and 19th dynasty of Ancient Egypt, with the particulars of Ahmosis, Hatshepstut and Thutmosis III, Achnaton and Thutanchamun and Ramesses II.

It is indeed a wealth of information that comes to us, founded in well-documented letters (from the Armana period), temple inscriptions and stèles, and it gives a reasonable overview of one of Egypt's most exciting times.

But this PBS project is getting more and more into the heavy-handed style of National Geographics, where there's only time for the highlights but scanty attention to a cohesive storyline. We hop from great name to great name without much feelings for the great age itself. It's Empire Busting Time!

Nevertheless one is indeed carried away by the enthusiastic comments (by Keith David) and the visuals are by times breathtaking.

This was a nice show, not a great documentary mind you. I don't have the knowledge of Egypt the other people reviewing this has, but what they are saying makes sense. I did enjoy it, but they recycled a lot of the scenes. One thing that really irked me was how the narrator over and over mispronounced Amon Ra as Amon Ray. Anyone that narrates needs to do their own research if they are going to narrate. I wonder if they tried correcting him, and stubbornly decided to pronounce it the way he wanted to.

The series "Empires: Egypt's Golden Empire" is interesting. It also has great looking visuals, nice locations shooting and lots of experts on ancient Egypt. So, it is a quality show. However, as a retired history teacher, I also noticed that the academic rigor of the show was often suspect. In other words, the show never really admitted that many of their conclusions were educated guesses--theories designed to try to explain gaps in information. Again and again, this episode talked as if it was all factual--which is a problem for history of times as old as 4000 to 5000 years ago. I really wish that the show had used words like 'perhaps', 'possibly' or 'it would seem'--and had been much more truthful in the process.

As for the rest of the show, it's a mixed bag. It often is very interesting and the production values are lovely. It is something folks will probably enjoy. But, the show is strange in many ways. While it talks about the 'Golden Empire', the film really bounces around a lot--highlighting some very important pharaohs as well as some very minor ones who just happen to better documented (such as Tutankhamen who did very little of importance in his short life as well as Nefertiti who, according to the show was 'pretty'). It also ignores HUGE chunks of ancient Egyptian history. So, for a HUGE fan of Egyptology, it's disappointing. For the average Joe, though, it's worth seeing even if the scholarship is occasionally disappointing.

Many images shown in this episode are totally inaccurate. First of all, the ancient Egyptians during the New Kingdom (1560 BCE-1080 BCE) never ate "corn" (maize) - which is a visual error repeated throughout this episode. Maize never existed outside of the Americas until after Columbus in 1492 CE. If the producers and writer were referring to the biblical reference in Genesis 42:3 of the Old Testament "So the ten brethren of Joseph went down, to buy corn in Egypt", the old word "corn" actually means "grain", which refers to barley or wheat. The Egyptians were very fond of beer, so a more accurate set of images would have been fields of wheat or barley waving along the river banks of the Nile.

The other major error displayed in this episode are the images of metalsmithes hammering and forging steel. Unfortunately, this was not likely from the beginning of "Part I" with Makare Hatshepsut to the end of Usermare Ramesses II (1503-1212 BCE) in "Part III" because refined iron tools and weapons did not start to transition out of the Eastern Mediterranean until around 1200 BCE . Richard Cowen, Geology, University of California, Davis (1967-2003) states that even though Nebkheprure Tutankhamun (reign:1334-1325) was found with an ornamental iron dagger and several small iron chisels, "(w)rought iron was usually softer than well-manufactured bronze, and rusted quickly". So how could they have carved a hard stone like granite? With, as others have suggested and shown, equally hard stones like dolerite. I know this because I have done a fair amount of stone sculpting myself. As long as your tool-stones (pounders and mauls) are harder than the working stone, you can do it. Interestingly, PBS has a NOVA online "Secrets of Lost Empires - Pharaoh's Obelisk" which explains some of these possible techniques.

It makes me wonder if there were other errors made of which I am not aware. What is most disturbing and intellectually dangerous about these colourful documentaries are that they are simple to understand and are also probably very popular, therefore they are like "anti-educational" tools, creating ignorance instead of knowledge. If you were to ask any child after watching this show "What were some of the foods eaten by these Egyptians?", I would bet you one of those rings of gold that they will say "corn" in the list of items. My suggestion is to look elsewhere for accurate educational information on Ancient Egypt.