Ancient Egypt

Four and a half thousand years ago, a man named Ptahhotep sat at the right hand of a pharaoh and chose to spend his final years writing down what he had learned about how to live well and lead with integrity. His Maxims --- among the oldest surviving ethical texts in the world --- were not a manual for acquiring power but a reckoning with what power asks of those who hold it. Harmonia takes us to the limestone plateau of Saqqara, introduces us to Maat --- an old friend --- and traces a thread of wisdom that runs unbroken from ancient Egypt to the questions we are still asking today.

In a gallery in Brooklyn, a 21-foot gilded papyrus has just been unrolled for the first time in centuries. Harmonia was there when it was made --- and she remembers the man it was made for. Today she takes us into the Hall of Two Truths, where every soul that ever lived in ancient Egypt faced the same extraordinary question: is your heart as light as a feather? The Egyptian Book of the Dead is not a book about death.