Who were the pharaohs? And what became of them?

As you will see in our subjects devoted to the many monuments from another time that history has left us, we can't fully grasp their interest if we don't go beyond their purely physical, architectural, geographical or tourist dimension. You have to delve into their history to understand their culture and, by extension, their meaning.

So will you have asked yourself the right questions? After all, what is it that makes these ancient Egyptian cultures so innovative that they seem timeless? And also, fundamentally, who were the ancient Egyptians? Who were the pharaohs? Where did they come from and where are they today?

We'll try to give you the answers.

Pharaohs were the 'absolute' rulers of Ancient Egypt. In other words, they were the kings and queens who enjoyed a "superior" status. There were 345 of them throughout their reign, which lasted roughly 3,000 years, from 3150 BC to 30 BC, with the end of the Ptolemaic period and Cleopatra VII (i.e. Cleopatra, the daughter of Ptolemy VII).

You should also know that the Egyptians of the time were great historians and recorded the royal lineages on tables, made of stone or wood, of which 7 have survived to this day: The " Chronographiai", five books compiling the entire Egyptian chronology under the pen of the historian Julius the African (Sextus Julius Africanus), and the Royal Canon of Turin, a crucial papyrus since it details the lineage of 300 monarchs with their divine correspondences.

Which brings us to the absolutely essential dimension of the pharaoh: his relationship with the deities of the Egyptian pantheon. The pharaoh is, of course, the sovereign, but he is also the supreme religious leader. As such, he is the guarantor of Maat, the goddess of cosmic harmony and world balance, of peace and justice here below. There is therefore a direct, irrefragable link between the pharaoh and certain fundamental deities, starting with Ma'at.

The Egyptians therefore saw their monarch as a pivotal figure between themselves and their gods. From the 5th Dynasty onwards, they even equated him with the god Horus, son ofOsiris. At his death, following sophisticated ceremonies performed by the priests, Osiris became incarnate in the dead pharaoh, who was thus deified in the afterlife. He was also the incarnation of the "son of the god Re " or the god Amun. To prepare for these transmutations, the pharaoh, who is seen as a living god, is always shown wearing a false beard (or ceremonial beard) that imitates a braid, a talisman of his immortality. He wears a " nemes ", a piece of linen with blue and yellow or red and white stripes, as well as a " pschent ", which consists of two high crowns, nested one inside the other, and the "uræus", a cobra stuck on his forehead to attack anyone who comes to attack him head-on.

Other attributes include the crook-heqa and the flagellum-nekhekh. The crosier-heqa, with its rounded end resembling an almost closed hook, had all the appearance of a shepherd's staff of the time, while the flagellum-nekhekh was a flail for grain. Both served the Pharaoh merely as ornaments, in other words, as symbols: the Pharaoh was the supreme guide (image of the shepherd) and the guarantor of their prosperity (image of the harvest).

As lay Europeans, our knowledge of the history of Ancient Egypt and its figures is limited. We immediately think of Cleopatra, and her very Hollywood incarnation by the actress Elisabeth Taylor and her violet eyes. But what exactly do we know about her? Cleopatra is relatively close to us, since she was born 69 years before our era. As queen, she loved Julius Caesar, who fell madly in love with her. As a supposedly faithful representation, we only know a few stone busts of her and her famous portrait with red hair, lippish lips and Greek nose, taken from Herculaneum (Pompeii) and kept at the National Archaeological Museum in Naples.

The Ptolemies were a Greek dynasty descended from the Diadochi of Alexander the Great, who conquered Egypt. Cleopatra was the daughter of Ptolemy XII. But between Alexander the Great's conquests and Cleopatra's birth, 3 centuries passed and interbreeding may have taken place, even though we know that the pharaohs' families were incestuous so as not to corrupt their divine essence. It is also scientifically proven that Cleopatra had Macedonian origins.

Painted a few decades after her death, on the basis of eyewitness accounts or portraits that existed at the time, this representation of her is surely the most faithful. Her almost red hair is reminiscent of Berbers of Viking descent. In fact, a study of the remains of Ramses II, carried out in the 1970s at the Musée de l'Homme in Paris, revealed that he was Amazigh, or close to Amazigh, i.e. Berber.

It was also reported that Cleopatra's skin was the colour of honey. The cinema and Orientalist painters, such as Jean-Léon Gérôme, imagined her to be white and Europeanised. Probably because the Copts are the descendants of Cleopatra and her contemporaries.

About fifteen years ago, Hilke Thuer of the Austrian Academy of Sciences carried out an anthropometric study of the remains of Princess Arsinoe IV, one of Cleopatra's sisters. The results showed that Arsinoe had African features. Their mother was African.

Having said that, it should be noted that the Egyptians of antiquity had no regard for skin colour and intermarriage was as frequent as it was numerous.

Diodorus of Sicily, a contemporary of Cleopatra, asserts that, according to the Ethiopians, Egypt was then an Ethiopian colony, and therefore Black. Herodotus, who travelled in Egypt 5 centuries before our era, asserts that the ancient Egyptians were Black and had frizzy hair (Euterpe II, 104). But the mummies found at that time do not attest to this. Nor is it proof to the contrary. In fact, recent research points to strong intermingling with the neighbouring Lybians, and the ancient Egyptians may simply have been Berbers.

At the same time, the existence of Black Pharaohs is attested several centuries before our era. They were originally from Sudan, borderingEgypt. There is also the known case of Pharaoh Mentuhotep II, 1500 years before them (around 2055-2004 BC), who was probably Black too, as shown by this statue in the Cairo Museum. Ancient Egypt was therefore a melting pot between Africa and the Middle East. Some anthropologists have shown that Egyptians, at least some of them, could have Hinduorigins...

This dynasty reigned from 744 BC to 656 BC and was Nubian, i.e. Black. Originating from the kingdom of Napata or the kingdom of Kush, which lay at the heart of present-day Sudan, this XXVth dynasty enjoyed prosperity. Its pharaohs were called Piânkhy, Chabaqa, Chabataqa and Taharqa. But struggles between Upper and Lower Egypt, the Double Country, weakened their reign and Piânkhy had to face attacks from princes from Lower Egypt, such as Shepsesre Tefnakht, prince of Saïs, who disputed his pharaonic legitimacy and sought to unite the other princes of the delta against him.

Piânkhy then had to raise his armies and take back Hermopolis Magna, then Heracleopolis, and finally the whole north of the country, all the way to the Mediterranean. Once this had been achieved, the XXVth dynasty was able to reign for another century.

Ramses II is one of the most famous pharaohs, because he lived to be 92 years old and reigned for 3 generations! His tomb, originally buried in the Valley of the Kings, was moved by the priests of the 21st dynasty to a cave hidden from everyone, aptly named the "hiding place", at Deir El-Bahari, on the heights surrounding the temple of Hatshepsut, where it remained until it was found 150 years ago. Badly damaged, it was entrusted to France in 1975 for treatment and restoration.

So, around 1870, the Egyptian Antiquities Service investigated to find the tomb of the famous pharaoh and the investigation led them to two Bedouins who trafficked in coins to Europe, and Paris in particular, which they looted. Finally, one of them pointed to the famous "hiding place", a sort of Ali Baba's cave containing no fewer than 36 pharaohs' sarcophagi, including those of Seti I, Ahmôsis I and Thoutmôsis II, 3,000 funerary statuettes and 2,000 other precious objects.