Customer Reviews

Great Cities of the Ancient World - The Pyramids and the Cities of the Pharaohs [VHS]

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This program packs much information into its well thought-out presentation. The video opens with the narrator reminding the viewer just how old "Ancient Egypt" is: The "Old Kingdom" dates back 3000 years before the time of Christ, when other civilizations in the Med were neo-paleolithic at best. This underlines just how impressive this civilization was..and remains. As one might expect, all the major sites are visited: Giza, Luxor, Abu Simbel, Alexanderia, with excellent computer imagery recreating what the original appearance of these monuments may have been. The program also shows the viewer some glimpses of Egyptian life such as food, housing and clothing. The video concludes with a discussion of, naturally, the Ptolemy's most famous resident of Alexandria Cleopatra VII ("Cleopatra" in the video). However, while the site of the lighthouse is visited and recreated, none of the recent research on the palace now under water was included (in fairness possibly due to the discoveries being made after production). Overall, this would be a great value, except for the production itself. On my copy, the narrator's voice is recorded in a very annoying reverb that seems to be intentional. If this was intended to convey the scale of the constructions the viewer is watching-it fails. Provided you can get past the narrative -this is a great intro to Egyptology.

This is a good video, very informative. It compares favorably with, for instance, National Geographic and Reader's Digest videos. The computer recreates of the ancient structures are good. When superimposed on the modern grounds, you can see it's artificial because the lighting is wrong. It would be nice if all ancient structures that can be restored and rebuilt are done so.
This video puts much emphasis on the Pyramids and Sphinx of Giza having been built by the ancient Egyptians. Not everyone believes that.
The video could have had normal color footage, instead of that faded black and white footage for the ancient everyday scenes.
This series of 3 should also be available on DVD.