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Learn the real stories behind King Tut's mysterious death, the Sphinx's missing nose, and the workers who built the pyramids.
Host Justin Dodd (@juddtoday) breaks down some common myths and misconceptions about Ancient Egypt.
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Misconceptions About Ancient Egypt | Mental Floss
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0:00
Starting around 3100 BCE, Egypt had a roughly three millennia run as the preeminent society
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on the planet, erecting astonishing structures of breathtaking scope, size, and beauty
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The pyramids were so ambitious, and in a time period well before heavy machinery and workplace
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safety protocols, the people have long been taught the only way they could have been built
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was with forced labor. How else could a primitive society inspire Las Vegas architecture
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Actually, enslaved people did not build the pyramids. Yeah, game changer. We clear that
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up and more on this edition of Misconceptions. Let's get started. Hi, I'm Justin Dodd, and if you're like me, ancient Egypt conjures up images of the
0:48
Sphinx, Cleopatra, and Steve Martin. But pound for sand-encrusted pound, nothing says Old
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kingdom like the pyramids. These structures have inspired wonder from the time they were first built
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It might have taken up to 10,000 people to build a single pyramid, with workers moving stone blocks
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weighing up to 15 tons. And much like modern-day road construction, it took decades. It's easy to
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understand why historians believe these massive undertakings would require forced labor to
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produce. But does the available historical information support this oft-repeated explanation? The pyramids were built with forced labor
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This myth has long been perpetuated by depictions of Egyptian slave work in popular culture
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It actually dates back to Greek historian Herodotus, sometimes called the father of history
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or as I call him, History Daddy. But it may actually be based on a misreading of his work
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Herodotus talks about 100,000 Egyptians being compelled into work, but he only explicitly
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mentions these workers building a road—not the pyramids, per se. Even if he meant for his audience
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to infer that those same workers were forced into labor on the pyramids themselves, contemporary
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experts disagree. In 2003, Egyptologist Mark Lehner spoke about his decades of research
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in Giza and how most archaeological clues point to there being a working class of Egyptians
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who tackled the pyramids much like a construction crew works under the watch of a foreman. The
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pyramid builders had their own living quarters and were fed pretty well. Lehner uncovered
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a large quantity of cattle bones from young animals, indicating a diet rich in what we'd
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basically call prime beef today. There also appeared to be a sense of camaraderie among
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the workers. In the early 20th century, Harvard researcher George Reisner found Egyptian graffiti
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that labeled teams like Friends of Khufu or Drunkards of Mancora, who presumably knew how
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to unwind after a long day. When these builders died, they were buried with their belongings
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close to the pyramids occupied by the pharaohs, a kind of hollowed ground that an enslaved
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person probably wouldn have been allowed to occupy Still it was grueling work and tens of thousands of pyramid workers got their hands dirty So if it wasn slavery what was it Dr Lehner suggests that ancient Egyptians subscribed to a strong sense of civic duty
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not unlike the Amish of today. Just as the Amish might collectively raise a barn because of its benefits for the community
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Egyptians of the era might have volunteered to work on the pyramids out of a sense it
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was contributing to the greater good. Some Egyptians may have also been working off debt, known as Bak, to a higher-ranking
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Egyptian. Again, not quite slavery since even lords themselves owed Bach to other lords
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As for how they did it? Historians still aren't totally sure, but the stone was likely mined
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from nearby quarries and transported across sand that was dampened for easier sliding
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One theory says that once the stones were at the construction site, it's possible that ramps and a rope and pulley system were used to maneuver them into place
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So not slavery, but still not too cushy a job either. Excavated skeletons of workers
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showed some pretty serious arthritis, which is kind of what you'd expect when moving literal tons of stone around. But as we found out in our episode of Misconceptions about
3:45
health, their arthritis was not caused by cracking their knuckles. Napoleon shot off the Sphinx's nose Giza is also home to the Sphinx, possibly the single
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most recognizable piece of Egyptian iconography in the world. At 240 feet long and 66 feet
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high, it's a monument to the ingenuity of the Egyptians and also to Pharaoh Khafre
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who's thought to have ordered construction of the Sphinx near his father, Pharaoh Khufu's Great Pyramid
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Unlike the pyramids, the Sphinx is not made of numerous stone blocks. It's one gargantuan piece of carved limestone
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And it's notable not only for its beauty, but because of the fact the Sphinx's nose is missing
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As the legend goes, Napoleon Bonaparte did the deed during the French campaign in Egypt in 1798
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He ordered his soldiers to fire a cannon at the Sphinx and knocked its honker clean off
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Great story. Not true at all. A painting by Danish explorer Frederick Louis Norden in 1737 shows the Sphinx with its nose
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already missing, over 60 years before Napoleon was even around. Instead, it's more likely
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that a Sufi Muslim named Mohammed Saim al-Dar broke the nose off in the 14th century. He
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was protesting the Egyptian practice of idolatry after feeling disgusted watching Egyptian
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peasants making offerings to the Sphinx in order to ward off floods—sort of a cutting
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off the nose to spite your enemy's face kind of thing. Also, he might have been executed
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for the monumental nose job, though the historical record is kind of murky on that
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And no, we don't know what the Sphinx looked like before it lost its nose. The Egyptians
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didn't keep a record of that. This isn't the only interesting story involving Napoleon and
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a missing body part, by the way. Check out our List Show episode about the notable body parts of
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historical figures to find out, in the words of my esteemed colleague Ellen Gotosky
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the fate of the little corporal little corporal King Tut was murdered The mysterious death of King Tutankhamen pharaoh of the 18th Egyptian dynasty would have made a great episode of
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Unsolved Mysteries Ancient Egypt Edition. The host of that show, Robert Stack. Now
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would you have accepted Denysus Farina? I'm so sorry. Anyway, Tut ruled the Rusth around the 14th
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century BCE after the death of his father, King Akhenaten, when Tutankhamen was just nine years old
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What does a kid know about ruling Egypt? Not much, but he had advisors, so it largely worked out
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Then, at the tender age of 19, he died, was mummified, and placed in a sarcophagus
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You could say it was a rap for Ol' King Tut, but I think I'm nearing the legal limit for
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groan-worthy jokes in a single segment, so I won't. Tut's tomb was discovered by British
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archaeologist Howard Carter in 1922, which led to decades of investigation. In 1968
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researchers conducted an x-ray exam and were puzzled by the fact that his skull had bone
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fragments in it, pointing to a possible blow to the head. Some thought King Tut may have died while
6:29
on a chariot, which is a fairly badass way to go out. Or maybe a political rival disenchanted with
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the Kid King had decided to dethrone him. One theory held that it was his trusted advisor, Ai
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who coveted his throne and feared losing control once King Tut became a man
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As the widely accepted theory goes, King Tut died and his widow
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Queen Anka Sinemun wrote to the enemy Hittites and begged them to send along a prince to fill
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the void. She wrote, The Hittites wouldest, or at least they tridest. They sent a prince, but he was murdered along the
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way. While that might seem to lend some credibility to the foul play theory
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science has proven otherwise. During a scan of his body in 2005, scientists determined that
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damage to King Tut's skull had been suffered not in life, but in death. Either Carter had simply
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mishandled the mummy, or the Egyptians drilled a hole in Tut's skull to extract his brain
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as one does. Later research revealed King Tut had a host of health problems, including malaria
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and a femur fracture from a fall. That thigh injury led to a leg infection that later turned
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gangrenous. It was that infection that likely spelled his doom, not an assassination, although
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scholars aren't in universal agreement on that. Why so many health issues? King Tut had some
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deformities, likely due to inbreeding—pretty popular activity among Egyptian royals. In fact
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his parents were siblings, and Queen Ankesinamun was also his half-sister. Really, the murder story
8:01
might have been a little more flattering. Only rich Egyptians got mummified
8:05
Mummification. It's one of the most intriguing aspects of ancient Egypt. scores of rich pharaohs being laid to rest in elaborate gold coffins after being mummified using treated linens their brains delicately and respectfully removed from their skulls via their nose or another newly created hole Their dried bodies were preserved
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for what the Egyptians hoped would be a fruitful afterlife, where the soul could live on and harass
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British archaeologists. Commoners, on the other hand, had their organs liquefied by chemicals and
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were probably buried in shallow graves, their families grieving over mounds of dirt. Right
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Wrong. Turns out the practice of mummification was available to just about anyone. In fact
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by the time of King Tut's reign, there was a kind of mortician gold rush in ancient Egypt
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with mummy artisans vying for all that sweet corpse business. Mummification was affordable
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and its practice by experts wasn't just reserved for the elites. So what benefits
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did pharaohs and other upper-class Egyptians enjoy post-mortem? Mainly, careful attention to the heart
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Egyptians believed the heart was a must-have organ for afterlife activities, and it wasn't unusual
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to remove the heart from a departed commoner so the privileged can enjoy a peasant-free eternity
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Yikes. Retaining the heart was actually a trade secret kept among morticians
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Other than that, mummification came down to the personal preferences of the person doing the
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wrapping. Some stuffed the skull with linen or resin, the golden hue of which represented the
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divine power of the sun. Sometimes animals were mummified like sacred bulls and even cats
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Hieroglyphs are ancient emojis. We see a lot of references to emojis being the modern-day
9:38
version of hieroglyphs, or sacred carvings, the form of Egyptian writing that uses pictures as a
9:43
form of communication. See a hieroglyph of a house, and you'll think the writer means house. They can
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but it can also signify the sound per, p-r, in English. Egyptians use hieroglyphs not only as
9:53
logograms, which represent entire words, but also as phonograms, which represent sounds
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and determinatives that can clarify a word's meaning. In other words, hieroglyphs aren't
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necessarily an image for word translation. A hieroglyph of a house followed by a bird
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doesn't necessarily mean there's a bird in the house. And really, by the time you've
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carved that note for the family, the bird's probably flown back out anyway. Early Greek and Roman scholars believe hieroglyphs were symbolic in nature. A hawk, for example
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might indicate swiftness. It wasn't until shortly after Napoleon swooped in on Egypt
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in 1798 that the Rosetta Stone was discovered. This rock was basically a key for deciphering
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the hieroglyphs into Greek script. The Egyptians also used demotic, a form of cursive writing
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that was a little cruder but faster than carving pictures into walls. And there were no vowels
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which made everything a little bit trickier. So no, hieroglyphs are not emojis. Despite being conceived thousands of years ago, they're
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far more sophisticated than the thumbs-up graphic you're going to be using
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Speaking of, don't forget to hit that like button and that fancy bell which means subscribe
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Oh, and my editors told me that this means I'm Justin Dodd and thanks for watching Mental
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Floss on YouTube. I'll see you next time
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