All language subtitles for BBC.Tutankhamun.in.iufiosuupçjvçlçx~çv~çlxvkç~lkvç

There has never been a discovery
like it - not before, nor since.

ARCHIVE: We were to witness a
spectacle, such as no other man in
our time

had been privileged to see.

Everywhere the glint of gold.

On the 26th of November 1922,
after five long years scouring

Egypt's legendary Valley
of the Kings, British Egyptologist

Howard Carter and his aristocratic
backer, Lord Carnarvon, broke

into the tomb of Tutankhamun.

The wonders they discovered
captivated the world.

A coffin made of solid gold...

..and the famous gold mask...

..were just two of over 5,000
precious objects.

Wouldn't it be wonderful to know
what it felt like

when the discovery was first made

for the archaeologists, the
spectators

and for people around the world?

The discovery was captured
using amateur films and early

newsreel for the cinema,

along with thousands of high-quality

black and white photographs.

But these images can seem to consign
the story to history, and make

it difficult to capture
the intensity

of this extraordinary event.

I want to relive the discovery,
just as people did at the time.

And now using cutting-edge
colourisation technology,

we can witness these events
for the first time in a century,

almost as they were, in colour.

That's amazing, the fact
that they're carrying the chair.

I hadn't even really made
that out in the black and white

footage at all.

By transforming old images,
I'm going to rediscover

these stunning objects,
just as they were found

and in incredible detail.

33 centuries had passed

since human feet last trod the
floor on which we stood.

This is Tutankhamun In Colour.

My name is Elizabeth Frood.

I'm Associate Professor of
Egyptology

here at Oxford University.

I'm also Director of the Griffith
Institute, a place dedicated

to the study of Egypt
and the ancient Near East.

Back in 2015, my work was put
on hold by a catastrophic illness.

Sepsis, often called blood
poisoning.

I lost my legs below the knee,

part of my nose, and much
of the function of my hands.

Thanks to incredible support,
I've returned to work.

And now I'm ready to embark
on the exciting journey to bring

the search for Tutankhamun's
tomb back to life.

One of my institute's greatest
treasures is the remarkable archive

of the man who discovered the tomb,

Howard Carter.

We have his personal
diaries, maps, plans of the tomb

and hundreds of photographs,
all carefully preserved by dedicated

archivists like Cat Warsi.

We've got copies of these two.

Our records start with Carter as a
young man.

They're really striking
photographs. I mean, here,

he just looks...

..he looks so young, but you still
get that sense of kind

of intensity that you can see
in this photograph here.

At just 17 when this picture
was taken,

Howard Carter was preparing
to follow his father into a career

as an artist.

Then through family friends,
he landed an amazing job - in Egypt,

copying the paintings and reliefs
of its ancient monuments.

Even his earliest work was
exceptionally careful and accurate.

He was clearly entranced
by his subject.

This one is probably one of Carter's
most accomplished watercolours

that we have here in the archive.

It's absolutely stunning.

Carter's copies capture everything
from the rich colours to the loss

of paint from the ancient surfaces.

Remarkable recording of colour.

You just get all the shading
of the falcon's wings

and all the detail of the spread
of the wing here.

The work of artists like Howard
Carter in Egypt is often overlooked

nowadays, but at the time
it was absolutely crucial

recording of details
that are often lost to us now.

And it brings colour, and the
richness of that colour, to a world

of archaeological recording
that was very black and white

in terms of photography
and sketches and plans.

So it really is an extraordinary
record.

Carter's stunning artwork made
the wonders of Egypt accessible,

preserving them in paint and paper.

And I want to do something similar -
to transform the black and white

archive into colour, bringing
the discovery of the tomb to life

and recapturing those scenes
from 100 years ago.

Paris-based art director
Samuel Francois-Steininger

and his international team
are specialists in colourisation.

So how do you begin the process
of converting old black and white

photographs into historically
accurate coloured images?

When you work as an historian,

you are asking questions
about the big picture,

whereas we are going to focus
more on the history

of details, like objects, or

how people are dressed.

We are spending a lot of time to do
extensive researches, to find

the answer to these questions,

that make us recreate the colours
of such scenes.

As a test, we're going to start
with the young Carter.

In order to recreate each
image accurately, Sam's team

will have to decide on the authentic
colours for every single object.

So I guess all I can say
at this point is that I'm really,

really excited to see what you can
do, and I'm really curious to see

how much it changes my feelings,
and my knowledge

of these photographs.

So how did Howard Carter go
from artist to the man who made

the world's most famous
archaeological discovery?

His rapid ascent began in 1892,
when he was given the opportunity

to work for this man,

leading British Egyptologist
Flinders Petrie.

Petrie earned the nickname Father
of Pots for the way he meticulously

recorded ancient objects,

no matter how ordinary.

He taught Carter to read the history

of an ancient site from the minute
detail of its archaeology.

From his season with Petrie, Carter
really learnt

how to record objects,

also, the need to draw
and photograph things,

all of which really, although
nowadays these are obvious things,

until Petrie came along,

they weren't the sort of thing,
necessarily,

anybody would always have thought
of.

Unlike many of his contemporaries,
Petrie also highly valued

his Egyptian workers, on whom
he depended completely.

What we're seeing here,
which we don't see in any other

museum that has ancient Egyptian
collections, is the photograph

of the workmen who actually
made the discovery -

so they are equally acknowledged.

Petrie was the only foreign
archaeologist who would assign

the name of the Egyptian workmen
who made the discovery on the tomb

plan that is discovered.

Carter was inspired, and wrote,
"Petrie's training

"during those months transformed me.

"It became my great desire
to be an excavator.

"To me, the calling
had an extraordinary attraction."

Working here in the ruins
of the ancient city of Amarna

on the Nile,

Petrie introduce Carter to the world
of Tutankhamun.

Over 3,000 years ago, Amarna
was home to an infamous

pharaoh, Akhenaten, his principal
queen, Nefertiti,

and their six daughters.

They rejected most of Egypt's
gods and embraced just one.

The Aten or Sun Disc.

Akhenaten also had a son.

This tomb relief shows him
on the right.

The young Tutankhamun,
with Maia, his nurse or tutor.

Soon after the death of Akhenaten,
Tutankhamun became king

and a figurehead for Egypt's return
to traditional religion.

Over three millennia later, Carter
may have worked

where Tutankhamun once lived.

And here in the Ashmolean Museum,
we have a fragment from a floor

from a building that they both
might have walked through or near.

The scene of wild geese taking
flight

was painted in the free style

so characteristic of the art
of Akhenaten's time.

But the budding archaeologist had no
idea that one day he would find

something of Tutankhamun's
that was even more spectacular.

Back at Sam's studio in Paris,
colourisation of the first

photograph is complete.

Oh, wow.

It really does look like he could
stand up at any moment, and step

out of the frame, and shake my hand.

I did not imagine myself having such
a strong kind of emotional

reaction to this, but
it's really incredible.

Thank you so much. It really means
something to me and to my team.

Colourising still images is one
thing, but how about black

and white film?

How do you do the colourisation
work with moving images?

Well, working on very damaged
footage -

with grain, with scratches,

frame rate is not the right one,
so we need to work on that as well.

And then we can only start
putting colour.

Sam's first task is to convert
all of the footage to the correct

speed, before cleaning up
the scratches and dirt.

It's really remarkable to see

this photograph of Howard
Carter in colour.

I can't wait to enter
the extraordinary world he stepped

into, in brilliant colour, but now
through the much more complicated

process of colourising moving
images, of colourising film.

Carter built industriously
on everything

he had learned from Petrie.

And by the early 1900s,
he was one of the most accomplished

archaeologists working in Egypt.

This was a regular sight -
riding his horse around the temples

and tombs of Luxor.

But Carter's problem was his prickly
character,

and he often found it difficult
to hold down a job.

Then in 1909, he met a man
who would transform his life, paving

the way for the most famous

archaeological discovery of all
time.

You might recognise this place.

It's Highclere Castle.

Also very well known from the hit
television series Downton Abbey.

And it's the family seat
of the Carnarvons.

In the early 1900s,

it was home to George Edward
Stanhope Molyneux Herbert,

5th Earl of Carnarvon.

Carnarvon was a fellow Egypt
obsessive and a keen amateur

archaeologist and photographer.

He quite often put his camera
on a timer and then ran

around and sat in it.

So sometimes his eyes are
still closed.

So this was in the second...

In the basement of Highclere,

the current Earl and Countess
of Carnarvon keep an exhibition

of some of his work.

Carnarvon had the wealth
to fund his own excavations,

but he needed an expert.

So he hired Howard Carter.

Wow. Oh, man, I'm going to have to
come back and have a look.

This is actually Howard Carter's

first Christmas present to
Lord Carnarvon.

It's one of his paintings.

He did six watercolours and he gave
them to Lord Carnarvon for

Christmas in 1909.

So I thought, "Frame them, and put
them on the wall."

They're wonderful. Quite fun, isn't
it?

He was not an easy man,
Howard Carter, but he discovered

in Lord Carnarvon a man
who was equally passionate

about Egyptian works of art,
about the country,

about the wildlife.

The experience of being in Egypt.

So they found they had a lot
in common, and they were

both very dedicated.

The two of them seem
to have actually clicked.

They seem to have worked
together extremely well.

And while Carnarvon was still
around, I think he managed

to sort of moderate Carter.

The exhibition includes some
of their early discoveries together,

but what the pair dreamt of finding
was something never seen

before - an intact royal tomb.

And they knew exactly where
they wanted to look for one.

Here in the Valley of the Kings,
part of a dried-up

watercourse near Luxor.

Between 3,600 and 3,200 years ago,

this was the burial place

of the pharaohs.

Hidden in the rock are magnificent
tombs.

This one, the tomb of Seti I,
stretches nearly

the length of St Paul's Cathedral.

From the names of kings recorded,
for example, on temple walls,

Egyptologists knew which tombs ought
to be in the valley, but not

all of them had been found.

However, a few objects belonging
to Tutankhamun

had been unearthed there.

And this convinced Carter
that his tomb was somewhere

in the valley.

As he slowly brings Carter's Egypt
to life, Sam has finished

colourising our first film
sequence.

It shows some European tourists
visiting Egypt in the 1920s.

The original film was cleaned
and converted into digital files,

then sharpened up - film grain
and damage removed from each shot.

Meanwhile, the colour of the clothes
and buildings is researched.

Then each object is carefully
coloured and the colours animated

to follow the objects.

Wow, that's amazing.

I mean, just looking at that,
there's all these details

that popped out at me that I hadn't
even seen in the black and white.

The texture of the temple wall,
the light on people's clothing

and their faces.

I can almost feel the Egyptian
heat just looking at it.

After our conversation about

the technical aspects of the
process,

I expected myself to be looking
for that, you know,

and kind of paying attention to,

"Oh, how did you do that?"

But I didn't. I was just...

You just get completely absorbed
by all the details that you can see,

and all the new things
that emerge from the footage.

In 1914, Carnarvon finally decided
to back Carter's hunch and obtained

the permit, or concession, to
excavate in the Valley of the Kings.

But almost as soon as Carnarvon won
the concession, war broke out.

This put an immediate stop
to most archaeology.

Egypt was forced to become a British
protectorate and troops

from the far reaches of the Empire
arrived to prepare for a fateful

attack on Gallipoli, in what is now
Turkey.

These are Anzac forces,
from Australia and New Zealand.

This has a really strong
personal resonance for me,

as my great-great-uncle
was among them.

He was roaming around the pyramids
just like these guys.

I've even found a photo.

I think that's him.

Harry Northcroft squinting
in the sun.

He and many of his comrades
would soon be killed at Gallipoli.

The war changed everything.

Including the Egypt that Carter
knew.

A third of Egyptian men were
forced

to supply provisions for the British
Army,

fuelling a seething resentment...

..a resentment that would eventually
cause real trouble

for Carter and Carnarvon.

But for now, they remained focused
on the Valley of the Kings,

and the search for Tutankhamun.

It was a task that required
the rigorous archaeological approach

Carter had learned from Petrie.

This is Carter's actual map
of the Valley of the Kings,

that he used to organise

his excavation work
there, season by season.

It's laid out on a grid,

and the plan was to work through
every square

and excavate down to bedrock.

Each sector is around 30
metres wide.

Removing all the stones
and debris one sector at a time

was a massive undertaking.

But by 1917, there was a large
archaeological workforce in Egypt.

This is really on an industrial
scale.

I mean, these photographs show

dozens and dozens of workers,
and some of them are children.

Loading rubble onto these railway
carts, and then the carts were put

on this narrow railway
to take the rubble away.

You can see the clouds of dust
coming up.

I mean, it's just such an
extraordinary operation,

so much labour involved.

Since the time of Petrie, Egyptian
archaeological teams had become

increasingly well organised.

Each one of them knows exactly
what they are meant to do.

There are some who would sieve,
some who would take the sand

in the baskets, move away, others
who would move the rocks away.

We would usually see the boys taking
the sand away, and it's usually

the men digging.

And most of these workmen
were actually farmers.

And that meant they were
very qualified, not only of knowing,

of understanding the landscape
and the soil and the land, but also

in their digging techniques.

The methods of archaeologists today
are certainly more refined,

but they still use the systematic
approach Carter deployed.

But systematic or not,

by 1922, after five backbreaking
seasons, there was still little sign

of Tutankhamun's tomb.

And following the worst war
in history, even Lord Carnarvon

was beginning to feel the pinch.

Income tax in England in 1914
was 6%.

In 1918 it was 60%.

In June 1922,

Lord Carnarvon was reviewing
his overdraft, and he had said

to Howard Carter, "I can't continue
to finance

"these concessions in Egypt."

It was the ultimate frustration
for Carter.

There were just two of his sectors
left to excavate and finish the job.

He pleaded for one last season.

I wonder what Howard Carter said
to Lord Carnarvon. I mean, I think

he really did love Egypt.

He loved spending the winters
out there.

And I think it was probably quite
easy to persuade him to have one

more final season.

Their final season began
on the 1st of November 1922.

Clearing the last two sectors
of Carter's grid

would be a delicate job.

He would have to dig around
a popular tourist attraction,

the tomb of Ramses VI.

And he had to excavate and clear
the remains of ancient huts left

by the builders of Ramses' tomb.

But it was worth it.

A discovery came almost immediately,
on the 4th of November.

Although it was Carter who was
unquestionably the driving force

behind the operation,

it wasn't him who actually
discovered the tomb. It was one

of his Egyptian team.

To keep the workforce going demanded
a steady supply of water delivered

by boys on donkeys.

The clay water containers
had round bottoms, so the waterboys

had to make small pits to stand
them in.

As one boy, Hussein Abdel-Rasoul,
did this, he hit

a hard surface below.

And reported his discovery
immediately.

A team started carefully removing
rocks to reveal a flight of steps

descending deep into the bedrock.

At the foot of the steps
was a blocked entranceway.

Carter was convinced he had finally
found what he'd been searching for.

He ordered his men to refill
the hole and dispatched a telegram

to Lord Carnarvon.

And Lord Carnarvon opened it,

and it was a telegram from Howard
Carter saying,

"At last have made a wonderful
discovery in valley, a magnificent

"tomb with seals intact, recovered
same for your arrival.

"Congratulations."

I mean, I'm not sure he knew
exactly what it would lead to.

And they'd had so many false starts.

Once Carnarvon arrived
with his daughter, Lady Evelyn,

the workers dug out all
of the rubble to reveal

a blocked doorway.

Carter took a quick snap.

This is the photograph that Carter
took of the doorway.

It's covered in seal impressions.

Now seen in colour, as Carter saw
it, for the first time in a century.

On this photograph of the fragment
here, you can actually

read the seals.

This was taken once Carter
had broken down the doorway.

The oval shape tells us
it's a royal name.

The scarab beetle in the middle
reads "Kheper", the three strokes

make it plural, reading
"Kheperu."

The basket reads "Neb"
and the sun disc "Re",

giving the name Nebkheperure.

This is the throne name
of Tutankhamun.

So it was reading this that Carter
realised what he had discovered,

that he had discovered the tomb
of Tutankhamun.

It was an incredibly exciting find,
but there was also something

very worrying for Carter.

Looking again at this photograph,
you can see that the left side looks

a little different, like
it's been broken and replastered.

Carter knew what he was
dealing with.

Somebody else had entered the tomb
and then the tomb doorway

had been repaired
and resealed. Who were they?

And what had they taken?

It's possible that the robbers
were connected to those who built

the royal tombs,

and would have known its location
and, perhaps, contents.

When Carter's team broke the wall
down, they met only a passageway

packed with even more rubble.

Once the rubble had been cleared
from this passageway, Carter reached

a door here, and took an iron rod
and drilled through that door,

to create a small hole
that he could look through.

Carter wrote...

.."With trembling hands, I inserted
the candle and peered in.

"At first I could see nothing.

"The hot air escaping
from the chamber, causing

"the candle to flicker."

It's really hard to imagine
how Carter must have felt,

as he made the first
break in the door, knowing

that there could well be absolutely
nothing there.

It all might have been robbed out
thousands of years ago.

Then Carter writes, "Presently,
details of the room emerged slowly

"from the mist.

"Strange animals, statues and gold.
Everywhere, the glint of gold.

"I was struck dumb with amazement.

"And when Lord Carnarvon inquired
anxiously, 'Can you see anything?',

"it was all I could do to get
out the words,

"'Yes, it is wonderful.'"

Thanks to colourisation, we can now
get an extraordinarily clear

impression of what Carter,
Carnarvon and Lady Evelyn

saw that day.

To the left were four dismantled
gilded chariots inlaid

with brightly coloured glass.

They were in disarray caused
by the tomb robbers.

On the wall in front of them,
three gilded ritual beds.

One is in the form of the mother
goddess, Taweret, with the head

of a hippopotamus.

Taweret protects the sleeper,

the dead king, and assists
in his rebirth in the next world.

Another bears the head of a cow,

the goddess Mehet-Weret.

Underneath there is a pile
of ancient wooden lunchboxes

containing offerings of meat
and poultry, to sustain the king

in the afterlife.

Everywhere there were signs
of the intruders.

And to the right, a pair of
life-size wooden statues

with golden headdresses.

The black colour of the skin
is associated with fertility,

after the black soil of the Nile.

It was extraordinary,

all of them to look through and see
what they saw, these extraordinary,

strange animals, the gold glinting
everywhere, and the sense

that somebody had last stepped
inside there 3,000 years earlier.

If you've been working in Egyptian
archaeology for your entire adult

life, and you've seen what
you'd normally expect to find,

suddenly finding something
which you never dreamt

would be possible to find

must've just blown his mind.

These stunning, now iconic, black
and white images of the tomb's

treasures were captured
by the renowned archaeological

photographer Harry Burton a few days
after the tomb was first entered.

Over the course of the ten-year-long
excavation, Burton took over 2,000

photographs on large glass
negatives.

They may have been taken a century
ago, but thanks to the size

of these plates, their clarity
and resolution

is far beyond that of any camera
available on the high street today.

By adding colour, we can dive deep
into the context and detail

of every object.

I can almost feel the texture
of these Egyptian

alabaster unguent vessels.

And colourisation highlights

easily overlooked items such
as the bust of the king, peeking out

from behind a chariot.

But whilst these were incredible
finds, there was still no sign

of Tutankhamun himself.

Even so, news of Carter's amazing
discovery gripped the world.

The discovery of the tomb
comes at the perfect moment.

The world has been involved
in a massive global conflict.

And then hot on the heels
of that conflict, we have a global

pandemic which kills
more than 50 million people.

And then suddenly there is good news
from the ancient world.

It's exciting, it's engaging,
it's thrilling, and everyone can get

on board with it.

But Lord Carnarvon now faced
a concerted assault by reporters

hungry for details.

How do you deal with it?
You simply cannot manage,

you know, the press from America,
from England, from

South Africa, from Australia, from
Japan.

So he ended up choosing
The Times, which he felt

was a sensible choice.

Carnarvon negotiated an exclusive
and very lucrative deal

with The Times.

Which meant that all the rest of
the press,

particularly the local press, felt
they were being hard done by,

they were being
short-changed.

Carter, though, was more concerned
with figuring out how to tackle such

a massive task.

This exhibition, for instance,
has just a fraction of the tomb's

treasures and is spread
over five galleries.

The treasures are wonderful,

but instead of being presented

with care, as they are here,
many of them were in a total jumble.

It wasn't what Carter had expected.

He'd found something
really spectacular.

But what was it?

Because this isn't what you'd expect
to find at this point

in a royal tomb.

You'd normally have expected a
further corridor,

more chambers and things.

The objects here were designed
for a tomb far, far larger.

So initially he was wondering,
"Is this some kind of dumping

"ground for objects?"

Why wasn't Tutankhamun's
tomb anything like this

later one of Seti's? And most
importantly, where was the body?

Close inspection revealed
a discoloured area

made from mud plaster, stamped
with more seals.

Was there another chamber beyond?

Desperate as he was to break
through,

Carter insisted that first each
item in the antechamber

must be individually analysed.

Carter knew it would take a long
time to clear the tomb.

There were literally thousands
of objects and each one

had to be photographed, catalogued,
conserved and carefully packed.

He gathered a team of experts
to work with the objects, and one

by one, for the first time
in over 3,000 years,

they emerged into the dazzling
sunlight.

A few short clips of work
around the tomb survive,

which really come to life
when colourised.

This is the moment that a child's
chair, made from ebony, inlaid

with ivory and gold, appears
under armed escort.

That's amazing, the fact
that they're carrying the chair.

I hadn't even really made that out

in the black and white footage,
at all.

Then emerges a golden chariot.

Its wheels...

..and body.

The nearby tomb of Seti II
was commandeered for use

as a laboratory.

Archaeologist Arthur Mace
and chemist Alfred Lucas worked hard

to give the objects necessary
intensive care.

The change in atmosphere
from the hermetically sealed tomb

to the desert air led to some
objects cracking and needing

to be stabilised using paraffin
wax.

Once they were conserved,

the objects were carefully packed,

and loaded onto railway trucks.

It took 50 men to push the trucks
by hand.

And because there were only a few
pieces of track, they had to keep

hauling them in a relay
to the front of the train.

A journey of five and a half miles
took 15 hours in the baking sun,

until they reached the Nile.

The journey would take nearly
two days.

But what was interesting
is how the journey of all the crates

or the objects was followed by,

I would say, a procession
on the sides.

Any of the Egyptians who would see,
like, the barge in the Nile,

there were ladies who were mourning
the death of the king

as if he had a second funeral.

There's no question that this was
an amazing find, a unique

one for Egyptology.

But a century ago, it was
to have a global impact, like no

discovery before or since.

There is an aura of glamour
about Tutankhamun.

He is almost like a film star.

But one of the other important
aspects of the tomb artefacts

is the fact that
so many of them are personal,
personal to the king himself...

..which allowed people to feel
that they understood this ancient

king rather better than just
a figure of might and majesty.

We have the idea that he is also
a real human being.

He even became part of popular
culture, and inspired

this fabulous jazz number, Old King
Tut.

# 3,000 years ago
In history we know

# King Tutankhamun ruled
A mighty land... #

Egypt blossomed as a tourist
destination for rich Europeans,

as their home movies, which Sam
has now colourised, reveal.

After a pleasant
trip across the Mediterranean,

they could stop off in Cairo
and take in the sights...

# In old King
Tut-Tut-Tut-ankhamun's day

# Beneath the tropic skies... #

..perhaps even clamber right to the
top of the pyramid of Khufu...

# Now old King Tut-Tut-Tut
was always gay

# Cleopatra, she sat upon his knee

# Pat! That's where she sat
The girls would dance for him... #

..then sail up the Nile to Luxor...

# They'd move and move and move... #

..where they could visit the
temples...

# A thousand girls
would dance each day... #

..and other sites, such as the
towering Colossi of Memnon.

# ..Tut, King Tutty's day... #

But the climax would be a bumpy ride
to the Valley of the Kings.

And after, a picnic on the way to
see

the newly discovered tomb
of Tutankhamun.

# Peaches of that land
They were never canned

# Pears most anywhere

# Why, Sam from Alabam'
Would not run, one, two, three... #

And, if they were lucky, they'd get
a glimpse of something emerging

from the tomb.

Perhaps the sight of Howard
Carter himself.

# In old King
Tut-Tut-Tut-Tut-Tut-Tut-Tut

# King Tutty's day! #

By 16th February 1923,
the day had finally come.

Having cleared the antechamber
of all its precious objects,

Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon
broke through the sealed entrance

to reveal what lay beyond.

As the dust cleared, a dazzling
screen of gold and blue emerged

on the other side.

Part of a shrine in a small room
with vividly painted walls.

Just as they had dreamed,
they had found

the king's burial chamber.

Carter made his way around
the shrine, and discovered

a gilded doorway.

But its seal had already been
broken.

Had the tomb robbers removed
Tutankhamun's body?

With bated breath, he peered
inside, to discover a second door.

But this one was still sealed.

Carter recounted the experience
in an early BBC recording.

When we came to a golden shrine,
the doors closed and sealed,

we realised that we were
in the presence of the dead king.

Breaking the seal revealed yet
another shrine, and another.

In all, there were four shrines,

each within the next.

With intense excitement, I went
forward and unbolted the inner door.

There, filling the entire area
within, stood an immense

yellow quartzite sarcophagus.

The four nested shrines almost
entirely filled

the small burial chamber.

Removing them would be like taking
a model ship out of a bottle.

And there was even more.

Peering out of a side room
was the jackal deity, Anubis, a god

of mummification and the afterlife.

Anubis was wrapped in a linen
shirt, inked with a name that

could be that of Akhenaten,
Tutankhamun's father.

Carter called this room the
Treasury.

Anubis guarded model boats,
evoking travel in this world

and in the next,

and beautifully decorated boxes.

Opening a chest made from ebony
and ivory,

they discovered an exquisite
bejewelled pendant necklace.

In recognition of his contribution
to the discovery, it was modelled

by one of Carter's team.

So you've got here Hussein
Abdel-Rasoul,

the famous waterboy of
the discovery

of King Tutankhamun's tomb,

wearing the pictorial pendant
of the king

himself, and the pendant is
quite heavy.

This can explain the way his face
looks a bit strained and he looks

a bit tense. So maybe because of the
heavy weight of the pendant.

It's a precious moment that we can

now witness in colour for the first

time in a century.

It's really remarkable, and just the
way that the light is catching

the surface of some
of the elements.

So you get a real sense of it as a
kind of a living object.

It's just amazing how the scarab
beetles, made of lapis lazuli,

pop out, along with the sheen of the
solar discs in gold

and deep red carnelian.

It's remarkable, absolutely
remarkable.

At every turn, new discoveries
were being made

that amazed a waiting world,

and they hadn't even got to the
mummy yet.

And then disaster struck.

The death of Carnarvon was a tragedy
for the whole process.

He was bitten by a mosquito,
on the face, and what he should

have done was simply not shaved
for a few days while it healed.

I think the stress, and the
pressure, he had no rest.

Everybody was criticising everything
he did, or the reasons he did it.

In a sense, that definitely
compromised his health,

which was not the strongest anyway.

He cut himself shaving. In a sense,
he was so tired and forgetful,

he forgot to put some iodine on it,

and, you know, it did, in the end,
lead to his death.

His cut became infected.

He developed sepsis, or blood
poisoning, and died.

For a hungry
press starved of information,

this was irresistible.

The curse almost certainly comes
from the exclusive deal

with The Times of London,
because we have journalists standing

about outside the tomb with nothing
to report.

And two of those journalists
would appear to have developed

this idea between them.

And the curse is, "Death will come
on swift wings for he who disturbs

"the tomb of the King."

The curse of Tutankhamun was totally
made up, partly to sell newspapers.

But for Carter, there may
as well have been a curse.

Without Carnarvon, he was on his
own,

and he lacked Carnarvon's social
confidence.

How on Earth would he manage
all the politics by himself?

Howard Carter, for a month
more or less went into complete

mourning, unable to do anything,
and he was not, and never

really had been, best suited
to the role of a diplomat.

That was Lord Carnarvon!

Nor did he know all the Egyptians,

and the Ministers of State
who Lord Carnarvon did know.

So that's where there was a bit
of difference.

Carter tried to concentrate
on the technically challenging job

of recovering the king's coffin.

First, he had to completely
dismantle the entrance wall

to the burial chamber...

..then carefully remove the gilded
roof of each shrine.

And finally, the surrounding
gilded screens.

At last, the sarcophagus stood
on its own in the burial chamber.

But what lay inside?

This, a decisive moment.

None of us but felt the solemnity of
the occasion.

In a dead silence, the huge lid,
weighing over a ton and a quarter,

was raised from its bed.

Light shone into the sarcophagus.

But how disappointing - the contents
were completely covered by linen
shrouds.

But as the last shroud was rolled
back, a gasp of wonderment

escaped our lips. So gorgeous
was the sight that met our eyes.

A golden effigy of the young king,
of magnificent workmanship,

filled the whole of the interior.

This was but the lid of a series
of three coffins, nested one

within the other,

enclosing the mortal remains of the
young King Tutankhamun.

Laid on that golden outer lid
was a tiny wreath of flowers,

as it pleased us to think,

the last farewell offering

of the widowed girl-queen to her
husband.

Among all that regal splendour,

there was nothing so beautiful
as those few withered flowers.

Carter now prepared for the climax
of the excavation,

the opening of the coffin itself.

But he was finding himself
under increasing pressure

from a surprising quarter.

Ever since the tomb's discovery,
the great and the good

had been desperate to see it.

The head of the Egyptian Antiquities
Department,

a Frenchman called Pierre Lacau,

here with the distinctive white
beard,

frequently led tours

of the tomb for government
officials.

So we've got here one of the
official visits to the site

of the discovery, Tutankhamun.

It also takes the shape
of a massive Egyptian party.

You would see like the tent
that is built in it.

This is a very Egyptian way.

You would have it either
for a funerary or for a wedding.

For this new nationalist government,
Tutankhamun was a much-needed

symbol of independent Egyptian
power.

But for the irascible Carter,
this interference was intolerable.

Without the diplomatic skills
of Carnarvon to back him,

he fell out with Lacau
and the authorities.

And it was now that the story
took an extraordinary turn.

In February 1924, on the verge
of his greatest triumph, work

on the tomb was suspended.

Across the country,
there was little sympathy

for this British archaeologist.

Political rallies were held
in celebration of the tomb

being returned to Egyptians.

It took a year of diplomacy,
and a change of government,

before Carter and his team
were eventually invited back.

So at last in October 1925,
they began

to open Tutankhamun's coffin.

As the lid was removed,
another shroud was exposed.

Carter carefully peeled it back
to reveal a second coffin.

This was hoisted out of the first.

It was even more magnificent,
decorated with iridescent blue,

green and red glass inlay.

And inside that...

..a third coffin.

But it was covered with a thick,
black, perfumed, resinous material.

Using a mixture of hammering,
chemical solvents and heat, Carter's

team gradually cleaned it.

No-one could believe their eyes.

It was made of solid gold.

But there was still more.

Removing the lid took eight
men, and revealed

the most incredible sight.

Tutankhamun's mummy covered
in jewels and crowned

with an exquisite rendering
of the king's face,

perfectly crafted in solid gold,
glass and precious stones.

This is that golden mask.

But here in context, as Carter
would have seen it,

what colourisation does
is it brings out the detail

of the necklaces, all of
the brilliant colours

of the jewellery start to pop out,

and we really get a full sense

of how Carter would have seen
Tutankhamun for the first time.

The image shot around the world,
but nowhere was its impact greater

than in Egypt itself.

This was a very highly emotional
moment in Egypt.

The discovery was used as the

assertion of the Egyptian identity

and a proof of us being
the descendants

of the ancient Egyptians,

which means that we're not supposed
to be ruled by any foreigners.

This meant that Tutankhamun
had to stay in Egypt,

and it was for the Egyptians.

But as Carter struggled to remove
the mask from the mummy, its beard

became detached, seemingly
highlighting his boyish looks.

And here we have an explanation
of why his tomb was so small.

Tutankhamun's remains were
not those of old King Tut at all,

but of a teenager.

He died age 19, before his official
tomb had been finished.

The jumbled tomb that Carter
discovered was a rush job

for the untimely death of
a young man.

This was an especially poignant
discovery for the time.

A lot of young men died in foreign
countries during the war.

A lot of parents unable
to fully grieve.

And the death of Tutankhamun
millennia ago

allows them to make a strange
connection there,

allows them to be able to heal,
in some respects.

Tutankhamun's grave gives some
measure of respect

for the many young men who had no
graves.

A century later, the power
of Tutankhamun seems undiminished.

What fuels our fascination?

What makes this the most famous

archaeological discovery
of all time?

Of course, it is these incredible
objects, but it's more than that.

It's the powerful stories
of two men.

Howard Carter and Tutankhamun.

And restoring the astonishing images
of the moments that connect them

has made me feel closer than ever
to those extraordinary stories.