Ancient Egypt's Mega Fortresses - 3D DOCUMENTARY
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- čas přidán 4. 06. 2024
- We explore the mega fortresses of Bronze Age Egypt! You can take control of the Nile and fight for survival during the Bronze Age Collapse with Total War: Pharaoh play.totalwar.com/Invicta
This history documentary covers the story of how Ancient Egypt defended its southern border. We first introduce the Egyptian civilization and the Nubian civilization which fought for control over the Nile along its numerous cataracts. This comes to a head in the Middle Kingdom with the reign of Senusret the Third who embarks on an ambitious building program to strengthen the Nubian frontier with a series of massive fortresses. In the ensuing New Kingdom period, these would be used to launch a complete conquest of the Nubian lands to the south.
We bring these to life in 3D by reconstructing the Buhen fortress of ancient Egypt. This involves highlighting the key defensive features of its desert wall, the Nile wall, and the inner citadel. Such a massive fortress would have stood as one of the strongest bastions of the Bronze Age and could have held out against virtually any siege. Cinematic battles in total war are great and all but they pale in comparison to the True Size of this fortress as we have rendered it in Unreal Engine 5.
Time Stamps:
00:00 Intro
02:38 The Borders of Egypt
04:17 Nubian Fortifications
06:21 Methods of Construction
08:13 Buhen Fortress
09:42 The Desert Wall
13:10 The Gatehouse
14:22 The Nile Wall
16:10 The Citadel
18:29 Central Facilities
19:14 Commander's HQ
21:04 Review of the Defenses
22:56 Outro
Sources and Suggested Reading:
The Fortifications of Ancient Egypt 3000-1780 BC by Osprey Publishing
The Middle Kingdom Egyptian Fortresses in Nubia by Brian Yare
Buhen by Randall-MacIver
Nubia, A Drowning Land by Margaret Drower
Credits:
Research = Sophia Ware
Script = Sophia Ware
Narration = Invicta
Art = Penta Limited
#history
#documentary
#totalwar
This was a revelation, never imagined Egyptian fortresses were so large and well designed.
Only reason I knew was from playing Age of Mythology
@@karwashblark7499 what a fantastic game. I redownloaded it recently and man… it’s hard.
Egypt was THE superpower of the day. Hilariously rich, hilariously powerful, and with a work force that frankly speaks for itself at Giza.
it's also a bit ironic that many look at other Egyptian buildings to determine the effectiveness of Egyptian defenses when those other structures have nothing to do with military defense. the real defensive structures are now under Lake Nasser hidden from view.
I recommend Histora Militim and his series on Roman Forts
Awesome. The first time I learnt about these fortresses, I could not even understand how did I miss such incredible arquitectonic masterpieces from the (supposedly) well-known Ancient Egypt
Yeah, we have some great historians and news media! ;)
there are literally whole cities and monuments still hidden in the vastness of the desert and under the sands. We continue to find such things after all.
I'm Egyptian and i work beside the mighty Buhen, a little bit to the north. Thank you very much indeed for this exceptional video.
What was it like for people living there when the dam put it underwater? Was this seen as a great local tragedy? Or as a necessary evil for reasonable economic purposes?
@@karwashblark7499 For me as a bioarcheologist specialised in Genetic Anthropology i find losing this precious area of land as a catastrophic tragedy just like the 3 historic Mediterranean Egyptian cities lost to the sea at Canopus. At the same time I'm aware how the modern dam structure has benefited Egypt in unprecedented ways.
Misris are not egyptians and does not matter how much you say that. You people invade the land of the true egyptians and now claim their cultural legacy
@@angrymonkeynoises imagine being this stupid. Masri is the name anceint egyptian used to describe themselves since forever, masri means son of ra the sun god of egypt infact egypt is the foreign name
Mas= son of
Ra= sun god
@@angrymonkeynoisesyour words are like your username and are of zero value.
I didnt know about Egyptian fortressess! Finaly some original Ancient Egyptian content on history youtube 😍
That's why i love this channel. Content is so original. You hardly will see anyone making a vid on Egyptian fortresses. Typically you'd think something medieval when you hear fortress.
I’d highly recommend checking out Histora Militim and his series on Roman forts
All Up An Down The Nile There Are Fortress’s that We Never Haven’t Seen In Before Like Buhen Fort is Amazing can’t wait to see The Next Nile Great Fortress 🔥🔥🔥
An outstanding testament to the incredible age and legacy of the Nile civilisations
The true size concept is new and wonderful . Also your presentations of such is outstanding.
For someone that has studied ancient and modern warfare for well over fifty years these are a godsend.
Thank you INVICTA!!!
Buhen Fort in Nubian Aswan was So Incredible
I'm really really excited to share the recreation with you all. I've been fascinated by this fort ever since I first heard about it a few years ago while researching our episode on the Nubians
There is no such thing as "Nubian Aswan", its Egyptian.
@@ashiinsane90 the Ancient Greeks The ones that called Nubia Land Of The Burnt people something Like that Take it up with the Ancient Greeks they are ones that called Nubia Nubia
@@pharaohmedjaylawofmedjay2680 huh? i didnt deny the existence of Nubians, just saying Aswan was never Nubian, its an Egyptian city thats all..
Nubia is not present now , but egypt survives and aswan is egypt.
The coolest sand castle ever.
Finally some historic content on africa, would love to see more about the rest of africa!
It is a shame that so many great monuments such as this enormous fortress have been lost in that region, although the dam was necessary, it is something sad that teaches us to think that we should make a greater effort to preserve places like this. I loved this documentary, it would be great if you made others about other fortresses of the past, since it is easier to understand the evolution of defensive constructions and it seemed very interesting that despite the age, many of the solutions applied in that mega structure, continued to be used several centuries later, but adapting to their respective times.
Oh my GOODNESS you have no IDEA how much I want to run a DnD/RuneQuest game inside your digital recreation.
The little digital standees just activated my neurons so much, I'm just picturing scenes of the commander greeting PCs in his court for quest-giving, or a seige with assaults on the ditches and gates with carefully trained Minotaurs and Hydras making up for the nascent technological state of seige weapons. 😄
Love it! Hope you do another on bronze age military architecture, or return to flesh out the other structures within the fortress walls!
I'm going to stick it in my Bronze Age GURPS campaign I'm putting together
A Bronze-age Mediterranean campaign would be great. So many monsters and deity cults and such scattered around it. I've got a similar idea lol.
This channel gets better and better
The graphics are awesome! Loved learning about Buhen. Can't wait to see more documentaries about these ancient fortresses. I'm sensing a great series!
Baffling how such impressive bronze age complexity can be translated into such an underwhelming game 😂
It's hard to beat the alternation provided by the tomb kings in Warhammer 3.
And the new weather effects seems to be more annoying then useful.
But we will see after release.
Translated would imply they even made an attempt at representing the Bronze Age. I hardly see that beyond the unit models. Like you don't even have tin trade or an actual Egyptian Empire or Hittite Kingdom. Wtf.
The total war devs didnt put effort, hence a total war saga or dlc quality
Looks awesome
Being able to enjoy such high quality videos for free is such a treat.
This makes one think that Egyptian Fortresses were more sophisticated than most of us thought.
I just learned that they exist but not how they looked like or how they were managed.
@@molybdaen11---Someone had to have managed what went on in this place daily.
Thanks for the video, also a sponsor i actually enjoy!
ancient architecture is very cool, more would vids like this would be awesome
Wow, incredible stuff. These forts really do rival thirteenth and fourteenth century castles in their complexity. I guess it really is true that nothing is truly new. But the game you're making me want to play is the old Impressions city-builder Pharaoh, which actually has a Buhen map somewhere in its campaign.
The Ditch Guy would be so proud......
ironic how CA know what channels we watch but they don't know what we want in a game.
Nicely done and many thanks
Love to see a video on the armies of bronze age Egypt
Hi Invicta, I absolutely love this content. Reconstruction and insight on structures is something I would love to see more of.
I think that what makes this channel different from the others is its focus on some "niche" or specific topics, such as: "How this did it", rare events (fossils, meteorites, exceptional campaigns and characters, etc.) and now this. Please continue to show the hidden crevices of history, they have a lot to offer and will make your channel stand out among others. We all have a "library" of YT history channels, and I go to your channel when I want immersion in ancient history (culture, daily life, random/specific events, and now structures and their use). Your battle videos are great, but there many other channels which excel at that too, I'm glad that you push for what makes you stand out.
I will write a comment on your "we have a problem" video to give you my insight and list of videos which I think were your best, or at least set out a style which I think is interesting. In the meantime, thanks to you and your team, you produce very good material and have created an interesting and different channel, regardless of the YT algorithm.
Thank you for this very nice visualization of this period's architecture, technology, and way of life.
Love from Ireland xx
finally, I waited for this video for a long-time thanks for making it.
Awesome Video. Egypt is very interesting indeed.
Thank you Sophia for an interesting documentary.
Great video! Fortress videos are always fun to watch. ❤❤❤
Love these videos of yours
Yes, thanks for the upload
Really loved seeing this video on this fortress! Perhaps we can see similar videos in the future?
Great visuals! These less commonly known periods of history are super interesting.. at least for me.
The true defensive capability of a fortress would depend on its location, no. of strong points, but most important of all, size of troops available to defend it. The larger the perimeter wall, more men power would be required to defend every corner. As described 3 faces of the inner wall was 700m, and it would have required 700 archers just to man the wall at 1m apart.
I understand the requirement of the fortress to accommodate tens of thousands of troops as staging area, hence the large space required. I would imagine that, should a substantial enemy encircled the fortress, the defender would immediately fall back to the citadel, waiting for reinforcement.
Excellent work !
I learn more history from Total War games than I did from all my years in college and university and primary (public and private) school.
That is an impressive fortress
Awesome video ❤
amazing documentary
I love fort videos so much
I would watch an Invicta let's play on Total War Pharaoh. Awesome video as always!
Mindblowing.
Great visuals and an upgrade to using Total war Rome 2. Just a suggestion to your ongoing 3D realistic scale documentary series; What if you showed the scale of the most famous historical battles in history? Like the sizes of the Roman and Gallic armies at Alesia relative to the 40km of earthworks dug around Alesia? Or the size of the armies at the battle of Lake Trasimene relative to the hills and lake?
*I saw the movie before, it was called **_Egypt: Engineering an Empire._*
Pretty brilliant.
Good stuff👍
These are so cool
Truly a historical loss the Buhen Fortress is. Unless unimagineable travesty befalls the Nile, we'll never see it again, if there is anything left to see at all sadly due to erosion. 😓😓
I suppose that ground erosion ought to have been a very present issue for these fortress builders. Even if it's possible that some areas could have been green in earlier periods.
"Fortresses of unimaginable size!"
>Shows perfectly imaginable rending of fortress.
Senusret III, justified.
Refuses to elaborate further.
Leaves.
Lmao
Nice video ! I love the music and its also very interessting 😊 i also want to mention that sapping in total war is nothing new. Just remember Rome Total War.
The algo knows. I already had that game in my wishlist 😅
I'm glad to have something in common with the ancient Egyptians. - How I name my fortresses.
Are we going to be treated with a DLC covering the later years of Pharaonic Egypt and of Roman Egypt years later?
that one outside tower on the corner of the fortress 9:58 river side seems like a massive weakness. no ditch, no outside wall and basically a blind spot from the wall.
Though mud brick structures were the most common the ideal that Egypt was a desert like it is today may not be entirely accurate. Similar to how the Sahara Desert wasn't always a desert.
In other words although Egypt has no forests today, there were wooded areas in antiquity, and, despite a lack of larger strong timbers, there were active industries of carpentry including boat-making. There is no other ancient civilisation from which so many wooden artefacts have survived.
So they didn’t just use mud bricks they had other materials to use in their construction projects.
Its also likely that forts built on the Nile river had a dock built because this was a primary mode of transportation.
Mud bricks were the most readily available buidling material and were widely used in Egypt and Mesopotamia and the Indus valley at the time. And after drying they would have been sufficiently strong enough for defensive walls, especially considering how thick the walls were built.
@zakariyaabdullahi5669 Yes but the point was that it wasn't the only material they used to build their structures.
Egypt around the Nile was fertile land with forests and other plant life the Egyptians would have found uses for. Hence the carpentry industry at the time.
@@John2r1 Yes they did have wood available and had a carpentry industry, which is why if you saw the fortress at the time there would definitely a lot of wood used in the structure. Gates would be made of wood, the interior of buildings would probably have a lot of wood. But wood wouldn't be nearly as available as mud brick, especially considering much of the fertile Nile valley would've been extensively farmed, leaving only a small portion for trees and forests. Probably a lot of the wood used would've been shipped in from Cyprus or Lebanon to the north, or from much further up the Nile down into tropical Africa.
@@zakariyaabdullahi5669 Correct but they also had much more in terms of trees back then than what we see today. Which was the only thing I was pointing out.
The reason Egypt doesn't have the forests it once had is because of the loging and carpentry industries they had back then stripped much of the region of its natural trees.
Please do some of these of Greece next
Interesting
The fortress layout reminds me to TRPG MegaDungeons
please, make one of tel siloh, tel meggido, tel hazor, thel batala (shequem), massada, Machaerus, tel laquish...
Can i ask which music you used in creating this great video
Are there forts like this in TW Pharaohs?
What might the stairways around the outer walls look like, specifically around the towers?
Thanks, very interesting. What wonders though is how the sea wall was protected from the nile flooding. The bricks and even the plaster would not have survived more than a decade. Might it be that there was a wooden palisade to protect the sea wall that was layered with additional water-resistant material? Who knows...
The ditch was massive as he mentions, even for a fortification. I assume it must have been to protect against flood waters in addition to attackers.
Wouldn't they make some canals or something to draw the nile in? Great video.
I miss the bronze age it was a million times better than this current era.
Pharaonic Egypt started even before the bronze age, the bronze age forms just a part of ancient Egypt's timeline
You may had your own land and low taxes, but hard work, constant risk of war and illnesses.
The horrors of the past are often forgotten.
The bronze age of humanity preferable, to now? 😂
not shure about the sponsor but good video
This video will get more play time than total war pharaoh
I've always been curious about the impact of this war on a global scale. Can you recommend any books or further resources for a deeper dive into this topic?"
Please make a video about Bam Castle
2:22 this "new" mechanic of sapping was present in rome total war ( 2004 ) xD
Q. Do you know if there are any records of these forts being besieged? How they held up?
If you segmented all the passing locations on your videos, you would get even much more views, likes, subscribers, followers, supporters, and sponsors.
Were any of these forts built in the 400 years prior to Amenhotep II?
while these 3d views are cool, i preffer 2d as it tends to be alot more clear and straightforward/simple to watch
I’ve been wanting to know what does the narrator mean when he said “central magazine”. I’ve tried to look it up online but couldn’t hit anything. Just out of curiosity, what is a “central magazine” in architecture?
Tbh, I'm not terribly surprised. I'm pretty sure these were along the same people who built such stuff like the pyramids and the Sphinx and, while not quite Bronze Age, I've been to some archaeological sites which were ancient towns which had some pretty large outer defenses, although stone and not mud.
Archaeologically speaking, my understanding is mudbricks really do not last once excavated and start disintegrating. I was at a site which it touted as the first known arched gate and the archaeologist in charge was replacing the cities walls because they were made of decaying mud bricks.
Crazy that such an ancient, intact site would be willfully destroyed to allow for the dam's reservoir...
Well, the modern Egyptians are longer afrait of nubia it seems.
Thank you for a very interesting tour. Good graphics incl. 3D. I was always amazed by the size of the Egyptian structures.
_"Total War: Pharaoh"_ looks amazing and sounds interesting. I loved playing Total War: Rome (the first), which b.t.w. had siege warfare _incl. sapping,_ so sapping ain't new but maybe revived mechanic.
"Bid them make bricks without straw!"
Great video.
But it seems that Buhen was highly vulnerable to anyone skilled in building siege equipment.
Cause unless I'm missing something?
It's seems there was little place left inside the fortifications for such things as stone or arrow flinging artillery, like what came about towards the end of the bronze age and into the early Iron age.
My guess is that this fortress stood up quite well until the Assyrians came along.
Mont-Saint-Michel isn't a castle, it's a monastery.
Sounds like only an army capable of conquering all of Egypt could conquer Buhen and the frontier fortresses... But would they still be able to conquer Egypt after facing those fortresses without the siege engines invented centuries later? And it sounds even those siege engines would have trouble with those walls.
The ancient Egyptians were great builders, I'm not surprised they could build such incredible fortresses.
i feel like we think egypt was simple and mostly just mud huts and stuff but they were really a whole advanced society not less complex than ours
They were mostly farmers. Of course they had a sophosticated government system and were briliant in many other diciplines. But this system was build on the backs of the farming and slave population. And it was not nearly as complex as ours.
@@stilicho8762 lol you are very wrong, and know nothing of Egypt, Egypt had very sophisticated society, not just farmers, there was law, people to enforce law and order, government, judges, women had more rights than any where even rivals today's.. There certainly was far more jobs the ancient Egyptians did, it shows on their temples.
@@stilicho8762 lmao, are you mad?
I know this isn't usually your forte, but would you be interested in making a video about the sources of Greek math? Was Pythagoras first at making the pythagorean theorem? Or did they get it from the Indian vedic scriptures that predates it by a hundred years? I remember the video you made about the reputation and propaganda of Sparta and this would be really interesting imo. Victor's write the truth and alexander occupied all of Persia. Who knows what narrative the created
9:09 What does the surface area matter if the build volume is significantly smaller??
When looking at the size of a settlement or fortress, we usually look at the area enclosed within the walls.
Maratha empire history please make video
Are you sure they didn't use kiln fired bricks? Plain mud bricks left out to dry would have been constantly falling apart during the torrential rains that Egypt gets.
Mud brick is more resilient than people think and is widely used even today in areas that receive a lot more rain than Nubia. Mud bricks are more susceptible to ground water than to rain, just like wood. It's more resistant to blunt force than fired bricks, which is excellent for fortifications, and Buhen was also situated in one of the least rainy parts of the ancient Egyptian lands.
Please do a similar video on Indian Forts 🕉️
Ik reading that tw Pharoah ad was painful
History Channel: It's Aliens.
There's is a draw bridge and arrow loops in these fortress
we've included these details!
I’m such a big fan of the Total War advertising strategy. Yes, please get me interested in a particular era of history by sponsoring educational CZcams
During the siege of Alexandria, did Caesar fortify one of these fortresses?
man you can tell CA gave you that script to read. CA blows, sapping and weather are not new. they are old. Otherwise! great video as always