The Ancients - The Silver Pharaohs

Episode Date: February 28, 2024

The Silver Pharaohs refers to a lesser-known set of ancient Egyptian rulers of the 21st Dynasty, named for the abundant silver discovered in their tombs.First excavated in 1939 by Prof Pierre Montet, the tombs were filled with fantastic solid silver death masks and elaborate chambers, on par with the likes of Tutankhamun. Despite this, they've failed to garner the same amount of attention.Today, Tristan is joined by Egyptologist and friend of the podcast Dr Chris Naunton to highlight the significance of these findings, what they can tell us about the rulers Psusennes I and Shoshenq II, how they paint a vivid picture of this important period of history.Enjoy unlimited access to award-winning original documentaries that are released weekly and AD-FREE podcasts. Get a subscription for £1 per month for 3 months with code ANCIENTS - sign up here.You can take part in our listener survey here.

Hi, I'm Tristan Hughes, and if you would like the Ancient ad-free, get early access and bonus episodes, sign up to History Hit. With a History Hit subscription, you can also watch hundreds of hours of original documentaries, including my recent documentary all about Petra and the Nabataeans, and enjoy a new release every week. Sign up now by visiting historyhit.com slash subscribe. It's the Ancients on History Hit. I'm Tristan Hughes, your host. And in today's episode, well, it's all about a pretty mysterious set of ancient Egyptian rulers nicknamed the Silver Pharaohs, the 21st Dynasty. We've all heard the name Tutankhamun, the Golden Pharaoh with his amazing death mask. But what about Shoshenk II, who was buried in an elaborate falcon-headed silver coffin? Or Soutanis I, who had his own great gold death mask?

These incredibly rich 21st Dynasty rulers are often overlooked, but they have an amazing story. And a good friend of the podcast, the renowned Egyptologist Dr Chris Naunton will ease back on the show today to explain all about these Silver Pharaohs. I really do hope you enjoy, and here's Chris. Chris, wonderful to have you back on the podcast. Always great to have you on. Thank you for having me again. It's always great to be here.

And for today's topic, the silver pharaohs. Now, the discovery of these pharaohs always seems to be overshadowed by Tutankhamun. And I must admit, I didn't know much about them until starting to research for this episode. But they're amazing. The treasures are almost as amazing as those of Tutankhamun. You're exactly right, yeah. I mean, Tutankhamun is, of course, the great exemplar of the golden pharaoh.

It gives us the great archaeological discovery, it does tend to overshadow other kings, other discoveries, other gold, or other precious materials, other very fine funerary materials. And if there's a kind of leading competitor, if you like, in terms of a sensational discovery, the revelation of a great hoard of treasure, it's the story of this group of kings that we've come to refer to as the Silver Pharaohs, to distinguish them, I think, really from King Tut. We will delve into these artefacts, but first off, to set the scene, when in Egyptian history are we talking about with these particular artefacts and the silver pharaohs?

They reigned for a period of a century to a century and a half. These kings are the better known of the 21st and 22nd dynasty groups. In this period, the 21st dynasty begins, if you think in very general terms of it, beginning around about 1000 BC. We're into the last thousand years before Christ, the last thousand years of, well, in fact, it's not even quite as much as that, the last few centuries of dynastic rule. And I suppose in terms of orienting listeners, we are talking about three centuries-ish after the time of Tutankhamun. If Tutankhamun and Koh represent or their era represents very much a high point in terms of Egypt's power and prestige at that time, but also in terms of what we in modern times know about them, their activities, their building

achievements, etc. The time of the Silver Pharaohs is one in which it's much harder to see Egypt as being a great power. It's not quite the power that it was in the ancient world by this time, a few centuries after King Tutankhamun. It's also a time when we, in modern times, know much less about Egyptian pharaohs and what was going on. So from that point of view, that also partly explains why we don't generally know so much about them, why they tend not to have captured people's imagination to the same extent, but also at the same time, why the discovery of all this material we're going to be talking about is actually so important because it helps to fill what was otherwise an enormous gap.

And this is following the likes also of those other kind of great pharaohs like Ramesses II and all of those Ramesses, isn't there? God, my goodness knows how many Ramesses there were in the end. There were 11 in the end, by which time I should think even most Egyptians were pretty fed up with kings called Ramesses, yeah. Not just 11 of them, but from 3 through to 11, no king had any other name. So just one after another. So when approaching this dynasty, the 21st dynasty, the time of these

silver pharaohs, so roughly 1000 BC, is it a we don't know answer when I ask me, do we know how they came to the throne, how they emerge following this golden age dynasties that come before? That's a very good question. And I can't help but wanting to sort of start off by saying that the discovery of their tombs and their treasures, which is how we come to give them the name silver pharaohs. Without giving too much away, there's lots of silver folks. Prior to that moment, we really knew very little about them. And I'm going to find it difficult here not to go to a pet favourite subject of mine, which is Manetho, the Egyptian historian writing in the early Ptolemaic period, one of the earliest narrative accounts of Egyptian history from the very earliest

times, in his account, in fact, the time of the gods, down to his era. And Manetho is very relevant to us today still because he provides us with the system of dynasties that we still use as the backbone for our history. And he gave us the lists of these dynasties and also the rulers that made them up. So we knew thanks to Manetho that there was a 21st dynasty and that it involved kings of such and such a series of names. But at the time these tombs were discovered, we knew very little else really about that period of history. I often think that in many ways you can see the history of Egyptology, if you like, as being the process of going from having Manetho's lists and not really knowing whether he was making the whole thing up or, you

know, was uninformed and everything was just nonsense, or, you know, whether actually his account is based on good sources and the names that he includes in his list of dynasties actually bear some relation to historical truth. And the last couple of centuries worth of Egyptology have been all about gathering evidence to test Manetho and to see where he was right and where he wasn't quite so right, and to put the flesh, if you like, on the bones of his chronology. And in the case of the 21st dynasty, we've been dependent on archaeological discoveries like that of these tombs to tell us anything really, even to demonstrate the existence of these kings. In terms of how they come to rule, the first thing to know about the 21st dynasty in particular

is that we now understand this was a time when Egypt was split into two. So it's not even a unified nation at this point. Tutankhamun and co, Ramesses, as you mentioned, all those kings called Ramesses, their era represents this great sort of period of about five centuries during which Egypt is as wealthy and powerful as it probably ever was. It was the dominant power in the ancient Mediterranean world at this time. We call that era, which comprises the 18th, 19th and 20th dynasties, the New Kingdom. So one way of defining the 21st dynasty, the era of the silver pharaohs, is to say, well,

it's what came after the new kingdom. And during that time, part of what characterizes Egypt in that time is that it was highly centralized. It was run by a pharaoh and his court. It expanded its influence beyond its own borders and controlled, in fact, an empire. But that eventually comes to collapse and shrink and the country even splits into two. And the moment, if you want to think of it as there as being a kind of a single moment when you get the end of the new kingdom and the beginning of what comes next is that moment of split in the country. And following that split, the pharaohs, the line of pharaohs continues essentially unbroken.

So the 20th succeeded by the 21st, but by the time of the 21st, their influence is confined to the northern half of the country. The capital by this point, from the beginning of the 19th dynasty actually, under the early Ramessides, Ramesses II, one of his innovations is to move the capital city to the northeastern delta, which is where the family is from, but it also reflects their strategic priorities. They're very much focused on the territory beyond their borders in the Levant region. It does mean that when the country splits and that line of pharaohs finds itself far distant in the northeastern delta from the religious capital of the country, which is way down in the south in Thebes, centered on the Temple of Karnak where Amun is worshipped. When there's then this split, you've got a divide and the pharaohs are suddenly marooned a long way away from the religious capital. And that is where a rival line, we think of them first and foremost as being priests, but they are priests who also hold all the other important titles in that region,

titles that give them control of the important bits of state, basically the army, the economy, the temple, the law. the army, the economy, the temple, the law. So those priests, in inverted commas, are effectively kings, if you like. And they are almost kings of name too. They hold equivalent power to the kings in the north. And also they must have control of the Valley of the Kings, where those previous pharaohs had been buried. But if we therefore go to the time of the 21st century they're in the

nile delta that's their new beating heart what is this center where they are ruling from in the north as i mentioned rameses ii founds a new capital at a place called he essentially calls it the house of rameses per rameses it's on a branch of the nile, which allows easy kind of transport and information links. It's important to remember that the Nile, we think of the Nile as watering the land and providing the fields with fertilizing silts and allowing crops to grow. And it's true. All of that's true. That is the basis of Egyptian civilization. The Nile is also the principal transport for people. The Nile is also the principal transport for people. It's also the principal means of communication because information is sent in written form via couriers or whatever up and down the river. So no use being far away from the river at all. So hence, the important centres are built on either the river itself in the N set up on a branch in the north and east. One of the defining features, perhaps, of the end of the New Kingdom in that part of the world is that that branch of the river begins to dry up or becomes unviable for some reason, which means that the city becomes unviable. So it has to move.

And it moves from Paramasi, which is at a site close to a village, which in modern times is called Kantir. We often refer to it as Cantier Pyramacy and they look for a new spot close enough because they don't really want to move it's only that the river channel dries up and there is a spot 30 kilometers or so to the north on a different branch of the River Nile which allows them to found or refound if you like their city and that spot is close to a village which in modern times is called San El Hagar, but we know it better by the name it went under in Ptolemaic and Roman times, or a version of it, Tanis. So that is the name we usually use to

refer to the capital city of the 21st dynasty kings. And do we know much archaeologically about the site of Tanis? Let's say it's a layout at this time, following the end of the 21st dynasty kings. And do we know much archaeologically about the site of Tanis? Let's say it's a layout at this time following the end of the 20th dynasty and the time of the silver pharaohs. Well yes and no. It is dominated by a temple in the centre. It shows up really brilliantly if you have a play around in Google Earth which is a great way of hunting archaeological sites in the delta. they tend to show up among the lush green fields as these great brown blobs. Brown because they often involve areas of raised ground, ground that is raised up too high above the water table to be farmed. They're also often

protected these days as archaeological sites. That brown colour is partly natural earth, but it's also partly decayed mud brick. So Tannis shows up as a great big brown splodge in the landscape, at the centre of which, and you can see this in Google Earth, is the remains of a great temple of Amun. Amun, of course, is the main state god and had been for centuries by this point. So Ramesses II, when he founded Paramus, built a temple of Amun in the centre of the city, the principal place of worship.

And that temple was dismantled block by block and moved 30 kilometres to the north when Tanis was founded and reconstructed in the centre of the city. The city itself then lay all around. Some parts of it have been excavated, but most of it hasn't. It's been mapped to some extent via remote sensing. So we know that there was a giant city surrounding this, but it's not really been investigated to the full extent. But the crucial thing is that there was a massive temple in the centre built of reused ramside blocks, which to some extent was extended over

the centuries. So huge temple. And that was well known from the early 19th century. The Napoleonic expedition visited, they recognised this was a significant site and saw sculptured pieces. It's important to say, I suppose, unlike some of the Nile Valley temples, which were largely still standing but buried, this was a ruin, properly a ruin, but you could still see huge relief carved blocks. So they knew there was something. I was going to say, I mean, for you, I know you've been to Tannis, but it must be such a different site to the likes of Luxor Temple or Karnak Complex, where there is still so much surviving. Trying to picture that Tannis was also this great royal centre

for, you know, 100 years with the time of the 21st dynasty, it's more difficult to imagine because of that. Yeah, you're absolutely right. And in some ways, actually, Karnak is anomalous. There are other temples that are extremely well preserved, but probably the three biggest in Egypt, the three biggest temples, the three biggest cult centres would have been Karnak, the cult centre of Amun. In Memphis, in the centre of the city, the cult centre of Tar, In Memphis, in the centre of the city, the cult centre of Tar,

that is nothing more than the Pile of Stones now, and the cult centre of the sun god Ra, Heliopolis. And that is now mostly underneath the suburb of Cairo. So of those three, you only really get to see one. And while, as you know, there are other temples preserved elsewhere, you've then got plenty of other places like Tanis where, as you say, we know for various reasons there must have been a giant temple there and yet it's now a ruin field. And there isn't anywhere in the Delta where you've got a substantially

still standing monument like that to give us that sense so we are left having to use our imagination a bit more you So if these 21st dynasty pharaohs are ruling from Tanis in the north and they can't any longer be buried in the Valley of the Kings further south for one reason or another, where were the royal tombs? This is a really exciting part of the story, the story of their discovery. This makes me think of the 20th dynasty because this situation with the country splitting, which characterises the 21st dynasty, actually happens halfway through the reign of the last king of the 20th dynasty, the reign of Ramesses XI. And we know from a very clever compilation

of little mentions of events here and there, we've been able to sort of piece together what happened. But there's a conflict which brings about a split in the country. But a tomb has already been prepared for Ramesses XI and the Valley of the Kings. And as far as we can tell, it was never used. And we guess on that basis that it's the split that occurs during his reign. So the tomb's probably in preparation from the beginning of his reign, certain point through the reign, country splits, and he's then perhaps even unable to visit Thebes, let alone be buried there. So a new burial ground is required. And if we understand things correctly, and there really is kind of antipathy between the North and the South, and the pharaohs of the North really can't even venture beyond their own borders, then they have

to have a new cemetery somewhere else. And kings have not been buried anywhere else other than the Valley of the Kings, with the exception of the Amarna interlude, anywhere other than in Thebes for the last five centuries. So there's no sort of obvious precedent. Tanis, in terms of being a capital city, is in a new place. There's never been a city there before. It is itself the successor city to Pyrrhamice, which never had a royal cemetery.

So they're having to make things up. And up until the moment of this great discovery, I don't know what the speculation might have been, but we simply did not know where these tombs were. I mean, I would have thought, if I sort of wind back to before the discovery was made, I would have thought somewhere like Memphis would probably be a decent bet. It's within the territory of the northern kings. It remains an important centre throughout. It's fortified. There is a tradition of royal burial there. We know that there are royal tombs of approximately that period, not tombs of kings, but members of the royal family there. You might have thought that was as good a guess as any, but where are they? We just don't

know, you know, up until this great moment. But enter this figure called Montaigne. Pierre Montaigne. Pierre Montaigne and the discovery of these tombs. What's the story? Well, Montaigne had been working at Tannis from the 1920s onwards. Archaeological projects don't really work like this anymore in Egypt, but back in the day, it's very much a 20th century thing, I think. You could establish yourself at a big archaeological site like this and be there for decades, you know, comprehensively looking at this aspect of the site or that aspect of the site.

The big research question for Monte at that time was various important locations that were known from text to exist in the delta somewhere. One of these is Avaris, the capital of the Hyksos, of the second intermediate period. One of them is the question of the location of Ramesses, the second great capital, Parameses. And then also what on earth happens in this sort of period afterwards. So Monte was there largely to try to answer some of these questions about the location of these great ancient cities.

And he had been working around the temple area, trying to clarify the layout of the temple. The temple, as with all these great state temples, which are kind of built and rebuilt by successive kings over centuries and more in some cases, just trying to sort of clarify the development of a big temple like this is very important. And he was excavating in front of the first pylon within the temple enclosure. So a pylon is a gateway, isn't it? Sorry, I should say. Yes, it's a term I think we borrow from Greek architecture. Right, yes. In Egyptian temple architecture, these are usually twin towers either side of a monumental entranceway. And temples normally feature several of these as you proceed through the monument.

So typically, pylon entranceway proceeds through the monumental gate to a courtyard, another pylon, another courtyard, another pylon. And the first pylon is the first that you encounter, not necessarily the oldest, first that you encounter. It's essentially the front of the building. Monte is excavating in this area, came down upon what appeared to be a stone pavement and found in this area some funerary material, which is odd because tombs are not generally to be found near temples

in the centre of cities. They are generally found far away. The Valley of the Kings is the classic example, far away in a remote wadi. So funerary material, a bit odd. And this pavement, and there is a story about one of his workmen actually sort of tapping the ground with his stick. This pavement appears to overlie some sort of open, empty space. It kind of feels as though it's sort of hollow to him or sounds as though it's hollow. So, they lift the paving stones, what they believe to be paving stones, to see what's underneath. what they believe to be paving stones to see what's underneath. And hey presto, they come down into a chamber decorated with inscriptions looking very much like a tomb.

Absolutely, can't emphasise this enough, not in the place where there are supposed to be tombs at all in front of a temple. But this is decorated with inscriptions mentioning the name of a King Ozorkon. And Ozorkon is a name that crops up several times in the lists of kings of the third intermediate period in the 22nd and 23rd dynasties. So Monte begins to think, my God, I appear to have landed on the tomb of a third intermediate period king. And in fact, this more or less turns out to be the most spectacular discovery he would ever make, certainly one of the great monumental moments of discovery in the history of Egyptian archaeology. And from this moment onwards, he reveals not just the tomb of

one king, but of a whole sequence. A whole series of treasures, and they're split into different chambers, aren't they? Take us through these different tombs that Monta finds. Well, again, I think it's important to try and put ourselves into the mind of Monta, if you like, and just how unexpected this is. He's not looking for tombs. He's not in a place where you would look if you were looking for tombs. And yet he's found funerary material and now a decorated chamber with inscriptions that more or less tell him what he's found. Once he's lowered down into this space, this chamber, it quickly becomes

apparent that there's not just one chamber, but actually there are a whole sequence of them. And in fact, he'd come down more or less in the middle of one building. So there were, in fact, chambers ahead of him to the left. And if you sort of proceeded a little bit to the left, to the left again, proceed ahead and then round to the right, there's a sort of labyrinth of these rooms, several of which are more or less completely filled with monumental sarcophagi. And again, we put our heads into where Montaigne would have been.

It's pitch black, it's underground, at least in terms of where the ground level was at that time. He thinks he's found a pavement, he thinks he's on the floor. Actually, no, there's this labyrinth of chambers underneath. Completely pitch black, he would have been exploring by torchlight, finding inscriptions everywhere, sarcophagi everywhere, sarcophagi inscribed. And it wasn't very long, in fact, it was during the course of the next days, couple of weeks, that he's able to reveal this is apparently a sort of group tomb involving the burial of at least two kings of the 22nd dynasty

and at least two others, one of whom is a son of a king, the other anonymous, but whoever this anonymous person was had an absolutely enormous sarcophagus, so not just any old somebody. This is a period which up until this point, as we were saying earlier, is a time when it was almost difficult to demonstrate the existence of these kings. And yet here we are, apparently we've got the tomb of at least two of them and possibly more. And it's all they could really do to gather up as much of this material as they could, knowing that there's plenty more

of what they thought was the ground up on the surface to explore, to see if there's anything else there. And it turns out there was. Well, come on then, we can't leave it there. So they've had this really exciting discovery, found these chambers and these pharaohs, as you said, have now been proven

that they actually did exist. There's more to unearth they go about doing that and this is when they make the first really amazing discovery yes if this wasn't enough i think it's the following season they decide to just try to trace the outline of this building the exterior of this building, the exterior of this building. And in so doing, they discover that it is butted right up against another building next door. And these two don't have entirely straight sides. It's almost as though one has been sort of built around the other. It's a little bit odd. But there's no access to this second building through the first.

So they've been through all the chambers in the first building. So they decide that they're going to have to go into this building the same way as they went into the first by lifting up some of what turned out to be the ceiling blocks. And they descend down into another antechamber and find that this chamber is again decorated, again giving the names of a king. But this time, it's the name of a king,

Parsev-Kainut, which is the Egyptian form of a name which was much better known then and now, really, by its Greek form, Susenies. And this is the name of a king, not of the 22nd dynasty, but of the 21st right so monte by this point is thinking okay wow this is also apparently a cemetery of 21st dynasty kings so must be the tomb of susan is great right in front of him he's confronted with the absolutely extraordinary sight of a plinth with a falcon-headed coffin of solid silver in front of him with two badly decayed mummies on the side of it. And again, difficult to overstate what a

staggering revelation this would have been. In this case, rather than there being monumental sarcophagi everywhere, the coffin is right there. It is a falcon-headed coffin, which we now know is a characteristic feature of 22nd Dynasty in particular, or that sort of era. This is a new thing for archaeology at this point, and falcon-headed coffins are pretty cool. Search an image of it online right now, and it is such an alluring piece. Yeah, as if a human-headed coffin isn't, you know, cool enough. Falcon-headed, it's pretty cool. And this is an absolutely beautiful piece of very,

very beautifully worked solid silver with these two rather eerie mummies either side. The coffin, it seems, doesn't belong to Susenis, which is a bit of a puzzler. It belongs to a king called Sheshonk and that is a name that belongs to a whole sequence of kings, again, from 22 a king called Sheshonk. And that is a name that belongs to a whole sequence of kings, again, from 22nd, 23rd dynasties. Beyond this, sort of facing Monte, are two blocked doorways. And there's been some attempt to conceal these doorways,

but they're clearly there. So they decide, obviously, they're going to have to open these doorways. And one of these chambers turns out to contain the burial of a queen. But the main one, the big news, is that the other contains the burial of the king, Susenis. Susenis I, the king who Montaigne has been expecting to come across from the inscriptions. He's buried in a very fine stone sarcophagus, actually recycled. It was originally cut for Rameses II's son and successor, Meremptar, reused. So this has been brought from the Valley of the Kings, interestingly enough, all the way up to the north, the North-Eastern Delta. They've got that much access to the Valley of the Kings,

even if they're not being buried there, there's some access. There's a very, very beautifully carved stone sarcophagus inside that. Inside that is a very, very fine silver, again, sarcophagus, coffin. Inside that, the intact mummy of the king adorned with a solid gold death mask. So, you know, just when you thought there was one incredible solid gold death mask, here I am telling you that a few years after Carter's great discovery, Monte found another one. A one that most people will not have heard of, the face mask of Sucinese I. Exactly, yeah.

of the face mask of Sousanese I. Exactly, yeah. So, of course, we have to ask ourselves, had Carter not had that final season with Carnarvon, had Tutankhamun's tomb not been found at that time, were it still lying underneath layers of flash flood debris in workmen's huts? If Monta had then made the first discovery of a solid gold death mask,

would that be the one that we're all talking about now? I think it probably would be, yeah. It is absolutely insane. And you have the falcon-headed silver coffin, you then have this other silver coffin, then you have the face mask of Sousanese, and I'm guessing there were lots of other artefacts and grave goods discovered there as well.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, what kinds of grave goods are we talking about? Well, he's buried with a whole horde of fantastic jewellery. We should emphasise, I think, that although the death mask is solid gold, it's extremely fine, it's a very beautiful object, overall, and Suseni's burial was found intact, completely intact, whereas the tomb of Tutankhamun, we think, was probably robbed, even if the robbers didn't get away with very much.

Suseni's tomb is completely intact, but overall, the treasures are not comparable, really, with Tutankhamun's. So it's a very fine nest of coffins and sarcophagi, some very fine vessels laid around the base of the sarcophagus, a set of shabty figurines. Really the very finest stuff in this case is the death mask and the jewellery associated with that. Some very fine sort of bracelets and that kind of thing. Although it doesn't have as many treasures as Tutankhamun's tomb, why still does it feel like this discovery, it doesn't get as much press coverage at the time as it should have done? It's a really good question. And I do think it's valid for us to say that if it weren't for

Tutankhamun, you know, it would get a lot more, you know, in some ways, Howard Carter and Tutankhamun just get there first. The world had maybe had enough of golden pharaohs by that point. Tutankhamun's story is a very compelling one in that once the mummy is analysed, we realise, oh my goodness, he was very young when he died. That means that if we work back, we know that he reigned for a certain number of years. Oh, well, goodness, he must have come to the throne at a very young age, hence boy king. That's a very compelling story. To Duncan Moon reigns, we now know, at this incredibly interesting moment in history, end of the Amarna period, little sort of interlude in the middle of this great period of prosperity for Egypt.

It's much harder to tell as rich a story for Sousanis because we simply are in the dark about him really, his life, his accomplishments. We know very little about, say, the building program of his predecessors and successors. So it's very difficult for us to get a sense of really what was going on. I think it's also true, if I'm really brutally honest, that the Death Mask of Tutankhamun is such an exquisite piece. It's not just that it's made of some very blingy stuff, but the modelling of the face, there is no better word than exquisite. You simply cannot imagine that it could have been sculpted in a more compelling way. Suseni's death mask is very fine, but it's probably not quite as, I can't think of a better word, as kind of compelling, alluring. You kind of can't

stop staring at Tutankhamun's face. I'm not sure that Soutani's death mask has quite got that. The other factor that we haven't talked about is the fact that these tombs were discovered by Pierre Montaigne in 1939. Ah, well, that also kind of helps, doesn't it? Yeah, and there were other things in the news at that time. And so, in fact, the story of these excavations is that he did as much as he possibly could, to some extent, perhaps even taking a bit of a risk by being in Egypt as late as 1940, doing this work in the north of the country as well. Okay, northeast, maybe you could argue the northwest was a little bit trickier even, but still probably not the very most safe place he could be.

And then he has no choice but to abandon the work for a few years and isn't able to resume until the other side of the Second World War. And people have got other stuff to think about by then. And maybe the story of the Third Intermediate Period is not at the top of everyone's list of priorities. But still, you know, that elaborate face mask, these discoveries that Monte make are absolutely extraordinary. And before we completely wrap up, you mentioned that kind of quality of face masks and how they're not quite on the same level of the lapis, including face mask of Tutankhamun.

In the 21st century, Sousanese's face mask seems to be the best of the best, but there are others that Montaix and his team discover, aren't there? Yeah, you're right. Yeah, so to try and sort of briefly, you know, summarise, Montaix does this whole series of seasons by the end on these tombs and is able, at the end of all of that, to say that in all likelihood most of the kings of the 21st and certainly the first half of the 22nd dynasty were buried in these tombs in Tanis. So both the main two tombs, we now call them NRT 1 and 3, occupied by a series of kings and others, one or two other members of the royal family, one or two other high-ranking individuals. There were also a handful of other smaller buildings around and about, which also contained the burials of kings and others. And yes, among these were a series of

other solid gold death masks. There were about three or four. Altogether, Amenemope is another one. Wenjeb Auenjed, who wasn't actually a king, he was a high-ranking soldier. He was buried with another whole series of gold and silver. Fantastic, fantastically peaceful objects. So in terms of filling in the gaps in what we understand of the funerary archaeology of the period, it's impossible to overstate how important this discovery was.

As a result of this, we know where the 21st and 22nd Tentasy Kings were buried, with a few exceptions, but they are exceptions now. We know that they were buried right in front of the temple, which is an extraordinary revelation. And we can now see that as a pattern for this period. And we see it elsewhere. We see it in Medina at Harbu down in Thebes, where the 25th dynasty princesses,

late Libyan and 25th dynasty, early 26th dynasty princesses are buried. It's almost certainly happening also in the forecourt of the Ramessium. It was possibly happening in front of the temple of the cat goddess, Bubastis, possibly also in the area of the temple of Tar at Memphis. That is a whole new idea, this idea of burying kings in front of temples or in temple areas. That's brand new. The falcon headed sarcophagus thing, which we now know is a phenomenon of that period. This is new as of the

Tannis tombs. And also the revelation that far from being a kind of age of decline, these kings had access to very, very great material wealth. And far from this being a period of declining artistic standards, we know that, you know, okay, even if we've just been saying that the metal working isn't quite up to the standards of the Tutankhamun material, they really knew what they were doing. And they were able to fashion gold, silver, and other metals into this fantastic, exquisite shapes. And the presence of silver lends a very, very distinctive character to this whole hall. Silver is known from plenty of other contexts, but it's the use of it and the quantity of it in these burials that gives them the name, gives them this very unique and distinctive character.

Silver pharaohs. Just quickly, they didn't find any underpants of Sucineans like they did with Tutankhamun, did they? No, they didn't. Oh, I mean, maybe maybe the fairies had learned their lesson by that point maybe they started to realize that you know if they put their pants in their tomb then eventually somebody would come along and rob them and it could be embarrassing so no they'd given up by then. They'd given up but it is such a joy I know names like Tutankhamun and Ramesses will never lose their magic, but it is so rewarding to do episodes and to look at the stories of other less focused on, you know, less well-known dynasties of ancient Egypt, which as this discovery has shown, had their own very unique and extraordinary treasures

with them. Yeah, absolutely. Well, I mean, I'm very glad that you asked to do this. I always like to think that when it comes to the less well-known dynasties, for anybody out there who's maybe getting a bit tired of this same old New Kingdom kings but is sufficiently interested in ancient Egypt, there's this whole other, well, plenty of other nooks and crannies in Egyptian history where there are treasures, there be treasures. And this is as good an example, I think, of a little-known period that is hugely rewarding for people who seek it out. Well, Chris, always a pleasure having you on the podcast.

And you've written a series of books, but one which includes searching for lost tombs and I'm guessing includes the likes of monte too it does yeah it does the these treasures and monte's discovery of them form the fifth chapter i think in searching for the lost tombs of egypt so that'll be the place to go searching for the lost tombs of egypt well there you go chris it just goes me to say thank you so much for taking the time to come back on the podcast thank you so much for having me again. Always a pleasure. Well, there you go. There was Dr. Chris Naunton talking you through the amazing story of these 21st dynasty ancient Egyptian rulers, the Silver Pharaohs. I hope you enjoyed today's episode. It's always really great when we can shine a light on these often overlooked,

more mysterious parts of well-known ancient cultures such as Rome, Greece and Egypt. Don't you worry, we've got more on ancient Egypt and the pharaohs coming your way in the near future. Now last thing from me, wherever you're listening to the ancients, whether it be on Spotify, on Apple Podcasts or another service, make sure that you are following, that you are subscribed to the podcast, and that you don't miss out when we release new episodes twice every week. But that's enough from me, and I will see you in the next episode.