All language subtitles for Lost.Treasures.of.Egypt.S02E07.WEBRip.x264-ION10.en

NARRATOR: Egypt,

the richest source
of archaeological treasures

on the planet.

MAN: Oh, wow. Look at that!

NARRATOR: Hidden beneath
this desert landscape

lie the secrets of this
ancient civilization.

MAN: I've never seen
something like this.

NARRATOR: Now, for
a full season of excavations,

our cameras have been
given unprecedented access

to follow teams on the
front line of archaeology...

WOMAN: This is
the most critical moment.

[men grunting]

NARRATOR: ...revealing
buried treasures...

WOMAN: Oh!

MAN: Very lucky today.

MAN: Wow, lots of mummies.

WOMAN: The smell is horrible.

NARRATOR:
...and making discoveries

that could rewrite
ancient history.

MAN: We've never had
the proof until now.

WOMAN: This is
where it all started.

MAN: My goodness.
I never expected this.

[applause]

NARRATOR: This time,
archaeologists hunt

for evidence of the death
of the pyramids.

MAN: My god,
these pieces are huge.

NARRATOR: Claire follows
the tracks of the craftsmen

tasked with building
the giant monuments.

CLAIRE SOMAGLINO:
You can see very clearly

that this site
was abandoned here.

NARRATOR: Myriam
uncovers the mysteries

of the pharaoh's temples.

MYRIAM SECO ALVAREZ:
This is from Tomb 22,

the mummy deposit.

NARRATOR: And Alejandro
comes face-to-face

with the afterlife...

ALEJANDRO JIMENEZ-SERRANO:
It's incredible.

NARRATOR:
...in the long forgotten tombs

of Egypt's far south.

ALEJANDRO: I have no words.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: The west bank
of the River Nile,

home to the world's
most iconic monuments--

the mighty Pyramids of Giza.

The pyramids once housed
the bodies of the pharaohs.

But though ancient
Egyptian civilization

lasted for nearly 3,000 years,

its kings only built huge tombs like these for a few centuries.

Egyptologists are still
trying to piece together

why the pharaohs stopped
constructing giant pyramids.

For Egyptologist
Chris Naunton,

the majesty of the ancient
structures makes the fact

that Egyptians gave up building them all the more incredible.

Ten miles south of
the legendary Pyramids of Giza

is Saqqara.

CHRIS NAUNTON:
When we think about pyramids,

we tend to think of Giza,
I think,

and the Great Pyramid of Khufu,
in particular,

but actually this is
where it all began.

NARRATOR: Chris has come to the birthplace of pyramid building

to search for clues
to why Egyptians built

giant pyramids
for less than 500 years.

Constructed a century before
the iconic pyramids at Giza,

Egypt's first pyramid is
a 200-foot-tall mausoleum

of six huge
limestone platforms,

carefully engineered
to spread the weight of rock

and prevent collapse.

Deep inside is a giant shaft,

26 feet wide and 82 feet deep.

At the bottom, the intended
final resting place

of the pharaoh Djoser.

CHRIS: Ultimately,
that's what it's all about.

It's where the body of the king
is going to rest in eternity.

And to have gone to all
this trouble to create

this incredible monument
around the body of that person

is pretty amazing.

NARRATOR: To house his mummy,
huge chunks of granite

were slid down a passage
into the shaft and stacked,

creating a giant sarcophagus
19 feet long and 11 feet high.

CHRIS: My god,
these pieces are huge.

Wow, it's amazing.

Pfff.

NARRATOR: But this wasn't
just a tomb designed

to secure the pharaoh's
physical body for eternity.

Crucially, for success
in the afterlife,

the pyramid ensured the king
was remembered by the living.

Completed around 2650 B.C.,

it sparked
an architectural revolution.

Djoser's six-tier giant wasn't
just the first pyramid.

It was the world's
first monumental structure

built in stone.

Over the next century, Egypt's
kings developed the concept,

building monumental tombs all along the Nile's west bank,

including the first
geometrically true pyramid,

the Red Pyramid,

and a misshapen experiment,
the Bent Pyramid.

Then a dynasty of pharaohs

built the most iconic
monuments in Egypt,

the Pyramids of Giza.

But just a few short centuries

after the Great Pyramid
of Khufu rose from the desert,

a new era was on the horizon.

400 miles south of the pyramids in modern-day Aswan

is the heart of ancient Egypt's southernmost province.

Professor
Alejandro Jiménez-Serrano

has spent 11 seasons here,

unearthing the burials of the region's wealthy governors.

He believes they played a part
in the pyramids' demise.

The pyramids
were symbols of power,

separating the kings
from the rest of society,

offering them privileged access to the afterlife.

But as the pharaohs erected
their pyramids in the north,

southern elites
were becoming richer

and making their own plans
for eternity,

digging increasingly elaborate
tombs deep into the cliffs.

Today Alejandro's
excavating a new area

of their ancient necropolis.

NARRATOR: It's 8:00 A.M.,

and his team has already
called in a find.

ALEJANDRO:
We will see if we are lucky

with this discovery.

Not every day
you discover a tomb,

so finger crossed.

NARRATOR: A smooth area
of rock excites the crew.

ALEJANDRO: In this area,
you can see the ancient carving

trying to make a plane
that was going to be

the facade of the tomb.

NARRATOR: The naturally
jagged rock face

has been smoothed
with ancient chisels.

If this is an elite tomb,
it could have inscriptions

which shed light on the role
the governors played

in the pyramids' decline.

ALEJANDRO: This is
the typical tomb of members

of the elite here
in Qubbet el-Hawa.

So, what we are looking for
is the door.

NARRATOR: 400 miles downriver
on the Nile's west bank,

Chris has come to Giza

to explore the peak
of pyramid building.

He wants to understand
how these monuments evolved

from the early pyramids
at Saqqara

and to search for clues

to explain
why they were abandoned.

These stone giants
included new designs

to protect the body
of the pharaoh from robbers

after his death.

On the outside
of Khufu's Great Pyramid,

a seamless cover of gleaming
limestone slabs and blocks

conceal the only way
into the pyramid,

a narrow tunnel
60 feet above the ground.

But this passage, too,
was sealed.

Intruders would have
to break through

huge, six-foot-deep
granite blocks

to reach a steep shaft leading
to the center of the pyramid.

At the top, they would face

three more
massive granite slabs

before they finally
reached the tomb chamber,

where the king
and his riches lay buried.

Alongside the Great Pyramid,

Khufu's son, Khafre,
built his own pyramid,

and below it, a complex
of monuments and temples

designed to aid
his successful resurrection.

Priests would come here
to make offerings

in the shadow of the pyramid,

ensuring the pharaoh's name
was kept alive.

One of these monuments
carefully positioned

is the ancient world's
most enigmatic sculpture,

the Great Sphinx.

CHRIS: The Egyptians were
very interested in alignment,

and one of the great
achievements here

at Giza Plateau
is in their ability

to lay out monuments like this
on a vast scale.

The Sphinx and the temple
in front of it

and the pyramid behind

are actually all very carefully
aligned with one another.

NARRATOR: Chris searches
for evidence

of when the pharaohs
abandoned their monuments.

Between the creature's paws,

he finds a slab
of a different stone

added 1,000 years later,

the Dream Stele.

CHRIS: It's called
the Dream Stele

because the text
describes a story in which,

before he was king,
Thutmosis IV had a dream

in which the Sphinx spoke
to him, and the Sphinx says,

"I am not in terribly
good condition.

I've fallen into disrepair."

NARRATOR: The hieroglyphs
claim the Sphinx

had been allowed to drown
in the desert sands

but that Thutmosis
would be rewarded

for restoring the sculpture
to its former glory.

CHRIS: If Thutmosis IV to-be
could make the repairs

that are necessary
and clear the sand away,

then in exchange,
the Sphinx itself

will bestow the kingship
upon the young prince,

so in other words, the deal is

if Thutmosis IV does what the
Sphinx wants, he'll become king.

NARRATOR: Thutmosis believed
that to become pharaoh,

he had to please
his glorious ancestors

and make sure the ancient
pharaohs' monuments

were remembered and respected.

When he became pharaoh,

Thutmosis did
renovate the Sphinx

during a period
known as the New Kingdom,

the pinnacle of Egyptian power

in a history stretching back
thousands of years.

The first small settlements
sprang up on the Nile

around 5000 B.C.,
farming the fertile land

and eventually growing
into the state of Egypt.

Around 2700 B.C.,
the Old Kingdom began,

the time of the great
pyramid builders.

But in 2175 B.C.,

their civilization
came crashing down

as rule disintegrated and
Egypt descended into chaos.

500 years later,
the New Kingdom was born--

the golden age of Tutankhamun,
Queen Nefertiti,

and Ramses the Great.

But these pharaohs
built no pyramids at all.

By the time Thutmosis IV

had rescued the Sphinx
from the sands,

the pharaoh's construction of
Egypt's most iconic monuments

had been totally abandoned.

But why?

75 miles to the east
of the pyramids

is Ain Sokhna
on Egypt's Red Sea coast.

French archaeologist
Claire Somaglino

has been digging up ancient structures here for nine years.

She believes
this remote outpost

holds secrets that explain
the pyramids' boom and bust.

Many of the structures
she has found

date to the peak
of pyramid construction.

NARRATOR: But of all
the buildings she unearths,

none shows any sign
of long-term occupation.

Ain Sokhna appears to be
an encampment.

NARRATOR: Claire
searches for clues

to what this camp could reveal

about Egypt's age
of the pyramid builders.

Graffiti carved
into a nearby rock face

could provide evidence.

NARRATOR: In the cliffs
above Ain Sokhna,

the dry environment has
preserved etchings in the rock

made by people
who passed through.

Some of the carvings date
back only half a century,

but others are
thousands of years old.

NARRATOR: The graffiti suggests the camp of Ain Sokhna

was a staging post
in a supply chain,

one providing the resource
that the pharaohs needed

more than any other
for their pyramid building,

the must-have metal
for ancient stone carving--

copper.

Claire believes it came
from the mines of Sinai

across the Red Sea.

When the pharaoh
needed more copper,

he sent an army of workers
east across the desert.

Some of them carried
flat packed boats,

which were assembled
at the coast

and sailed across the Red Sea.

The men spent two months

laboring in the mines
of the Sinai,

digging out hundreds of pounds
of copper ore.

And once they'd
filled up the ships,

they returned with the ore
to the mainland,

ready to haul back to the Nile
and to the pyramids.

The discoveries reveal
the Port of Ain Sokhna

was critical to building
the largest structures

the world had ever seen.

NARRATOR: If Claire's
to find evidence here

of the pyramids' downfall,
she needs to dig.

On the west bank of the Nile,

Egypt's ancient
Land of the Dead,

hieroglyphics expert
Christelle Alvarez

is at the pyramid
archaeologists consider

to be the last built
in the great age of pyramids.

The tomb of Pharaoh Pepi II
was built 400 years

after the original
step pyramid at Saqqara.

NARRATOR: She hunts for clues
to why the obsession

with pyramid building
began to end here.

Hieroglyphs cover
almost every surface,

including the royal sign

bearing the pharaoh's name.

NARRATOR:
The walls of Khufu's tomb

in the Great Pyramid at Giza
were left blank.

But here in Pepi's tomb,

they're filled
with incantations

designed to help the pharaoh
enter the underworld safely.

NARRATOR: As the age
of the pyramids progressed,

the pharaohs
filled their tombs

with more and more
magical protection

for their bodies and souls.

The texts kept their faith

in the power
of the pyramids alive,

just as their power
over the kingdom of Egypt

was about to collapse.

Pepi II's rule was marred

by droughts, famine,
and civil unrest.

[arguing and shouting]

Worried about his afterlife,

he covered his tomb
in magical inscriptions

to guarantee
his spirit's security.

When Pepi died without an heir, a power struggle ensued,

resulting in a century
of weak, short-lived kings.

Lacking wealth and resources,
their pyramids were tiny

compared
to the mighty structures

of the great pyramid age.

NARRATOR: The pyramid,

a tradition that
defined a civilization,

was effectively extinct.

At Qubbet el-Hawa,

near the southern
Egyptian city of Aswan,

Alejandro hopes the burials

of ancient Egypt's
most powerful elite

could help explain
the death of the pyramids.

If this chiseled
flat rock wall is a tomb,

their secrets could
be just below his feet.

He spots another clue
that a door is nearby.

ALEJANDRO: We have here
remains of termites.

They used to eat the fresh wood
of the coffins.

We are following
the pathway of the insects.

NARRATOR: With delicate
artifacts potentially close,

the team needs Alejandro's
experienced hand.

ALEJANDRO:
Here we have the, the entrance.

Amazing.

Ah-ha! The end of the door.

[exhales]

It's amazing.

Yeah.

I have no words.

Probably we are the first
that see this door

in more than 4,000 years.

NARRATOR:
The neatly cut opening

matches the style for elites

in southern Egypt at the end
of the pyramid age.

It's a huge moment
for the entire team.

[speaking Arabic]

NARRATOR: The race is on
to open up the doorway

before the site closes for the
day in just a few hours' time.

NARRATOR:
It's already mid-morning

on Alejandro's dig
at Qubbet el-Hawa,

and the workers' shift
ends at 1:00 P.M.

Termites may have led him
to an elite burial,

but to expose the doorway,

the team must excavate
not just the opening,

but the entire area
in front of the tomb.

If they don't, the sand
will just flow right back in.

It allows Alejandro a moment

to remind himself
what he's looking for--

evidence of powerful
Egyptian nobles

whose rise spelled the end
of the age of the pyramids.

ALEJANDRO: In the period
that we are excavating,

the head of the state
was the king,

and under him was the vizier,

and below the vizier, we have
the provincial governors.

So these people, we might say

that they were the number three
in the state.

NARRATOR: Over 11 seasons
working here,

Alejandro has found evidence

that in this era
of Egyptian history,

the pharaohs were
losing their grip on power.

While the kings got weaker,

the governors of Egypt's
provinces got richer.

Alejandro discovers that
just as Pharaoh Pepi II

was building what would prove
to be the last great pyramid,

the tombs of a governor
at Qubbet el-Hawa

were expanding.

Over the course
of Pepi's reign,

they increased in size
fivefold.

The afterlife wasn't
just for pharaohs,

and pyramids weren't
the only kind of tomb

that could get you there.

ALEJANDRO: This is
what we hope to find

in the tomb that
we have just discovered.

It is a false door,
and it was the magic door

that the dead used
to receive their offerings.

NARRATOR: Egyptians believed
the spirit of the deceased

would reveal itself
to visitors,

taking offerings of food to sustain it in the afterlife.

If the new tomb
has a false door,

it could hold a wealth
of hieroglyphic information

about how powerful
the governors had become

at the end of the pyramid age.

ALEJANDRO: What we are
hoping to find in the new tomb

is inscriptions showing us
not only the name,

but also his position
in the society.

NARRATOR: With the site
ready to close

for the day at 1:00 P.M.,

they've excavated just far enough for one person to enter.

Alejandro gives in
to temptation.

MAN: In?

ALEJANDRO:
We have a lot of sand.

And there is no trace
of plundering.

NARRATOR: Looting was rife
in ancient Egypt.

[grunts]

Even the giant Pyramids
at Giza

were ransacked
and cleared of valuables.

With no evidence of robbery,

there's good reason for
Alejandro to be optimistic

about the treasures that may
lie beneath the tons of sand.

ALEJANDRO:
Archaeology is patience.

It's patient work that
sometimes has lucky strikes.

NARRATOR: At Ain Sokhna
on Egypt's Red Sea coast,

Claire's team
opens a new trench

at the ancient encampment.

[speaking French]

Her colleague,
archaeologist Adeline Bats,

is piecing together
the history

of the pharaoh's
copper expeditions.

[speaking French]

NARRATOR: She notices
a gap in the record.

NARRATOR:
A thick layer of mud,

laid down over decades
by winds and flooding,

covers the ashes of
the workers' cooking fires

from the age of the pyramids.

The discovery shows
no one came here

for a century or more.

It's critical evidence
of the death of the pyramids,

revealing that
the pharaohs gave up

their copper expeditions.

The decline in their wealth
meant they could no longer

afford to build
giant pyramids.

As quickly as it had begun,
the pyramid age was over.

But the pharaohs' belief
in the afterlife

was stronger than ever,

so how did later kings
protect their bodies

and secure their
passage to eternity?

NARRATOR: 700 years
after the pharaoh Pepi II

built the last great pyramid,

the pharaohs
of the New Kingdom

had re-established
their supreme power in Egypt

and moved their capital south
to Thebes, modern-day Luxor.

Chris crosses the Nile River
here to investigate

how the New Kingdom rulers

sought to guarantee
their afterlife.

These wealthy pharaohs
could have afforded tombs

as grand as
Khufu's Great Pyramid,

but during the chaos following

the end of
the old pharaoh's reign,

the ancient pyramids
were ransacked.

Ancient texts
describe the turmoil

as bodies were cast out
from tombs

and funerary
goods disappeared.

The pharaohs' mummies
were stolen or destroyed,

along with their dreams
of eternal life.

Desperate to avoid that fate,

the pioneering New Kingdom
pharaoh, Thutmosis I,

embarked on a revolution
in royal tomb building.

Echoing the governors
in the south,

he decided to cut his tomb
into the rock.

His plan to protect his mummy
was to hide.

In a valley west of Thebes,

the king picked a spot
and dug a shaft

over 600 feet deep
into the mountain.

It had subterranean chambers

for the riches he'd take
into the afterlife.

And in a lavish tomb
at the bottom of the tunnel,

a sarcophagus would
keep his body safe.

Following his example,

nearly every pharaoh
for the next 500 years

dug tombs
into the mountain here

to provide underworld palaces,

creating a subterranean city
of dead royals

that became known as
the Valley of the Kings.

One of the best preserved
tombs in the valley

belonged to one of Egypt's
greatest pharaohs, Ramses III.

CHRIS: As soon as you enter

this tomb, you're really struck

by the sort of monumental scale.

All the surfaces are decorated.

Hieroglyphic inscriptions
everywhere.

Large images of the king.

Really, really impressive.

NARRATOR: Just as Pepi II
covered the last great pyramid

with hieroglyphic spells,

Ramses hoped magical art
would secure

his dangerous passage
to resurrection.

CHRIS: It's a very
perilous journey,

it's a very hazardous journey,

and he encounters all kinds
of demons along his way.

But with the help of the gods,

who accompany him
throughout the tomb,

he's able to make
that journey successfully.

NARRATOR:
The New Kingdom pharaohs

believed their rock-cut tombs
would protect their mummies

where the pyramids had failed.

But Ramses' architects
left nothing to chance,

designing precipitous shafts as they tunneled into the rock.

CHRIS: This is a pretty
important part of the tomb.

It's a well shaft, which is
a characteristic feature

of tombs in
the Valley of the Kings

designed to deter robbers,

beautifully decorated
with images of gods.

NARRATOR: Even buried
hundreds of feet

down in the heart
of the mountain,

Ramses feared his tomb
would be pillaged.

CHRIS: Even though the tomb
would have been sealed

and the idea would
have been, of course,

that nobody would ever,
ever come in here again,

it's still incredibly
beautifully decorated.

For the eyes of the gods
only perhaps.

NARRATOR: There was
just one problem.

To live on in eternity,

a king needed not just
to preserve his body,

he had to be remembered
by the living.

The pyramids had monuments
and temples attached

where priests celebrated the memory of the dead pharaoh.

Ramses did not want
to advertise the location

of his body and his riches
with a pyramid,

but he still needed a monument
to keep his name alive.

On the west bank
of the Nile, near Thebes,

Ramses erected
a gigantic 80-foot gate

on which he carved huge images
of himself smiting his foes.

Behind it,
his mortuary temple,

two courtyards lined
with his statues

led to a series of chapels
and a false door,

where priests would make
offerings and repeat his name.

Surrounding the temple,

he built mud brick walls
30 foot thick,

stretching more
than half a mile

to turn his temple
into a fortress of worship.

Just a mile
from Ramses' temple

lies another great monument
to a New Kingdom pharaoh,

Thutmosis III's
Temple of Millions of Years.

The temple has crumbled
since ancient times,

but Dr. Myriam Seco Alvarez

is leading a project
to resurrect the site.

MYRIAM: When we started
the project in 2008,

all this was
a mountain of sand.

Nothing was visible.

NARRATOR: She wants to discover exactly how these new monuments

were intended to secure
the pharaoh's afterlife

without a pyramid.

Archaeologist Manuel Abelleira
searches outside the walls

for clues to how
the temple was used.

He meticulously records
every find workers unearth

around the temple walls.

MANUEL ABELLEIRA: Nice.

[speaking Arabic]

NARRATOR: Ancient Egyptians
made offerings of food,

like dates, to the memory
of the pharaoh,

but among
the 3,500-year-old fruit,

he finds
more valuable objects.

NARRATOR: The beer jar
offerings mean

archaeologist
Javier Martinez-Babón

can track
the temple's history.

Some bear the signature
hieroglyphs of later pharaohs.

NARRATOR: The jars prove
that for centuries,

Egypt's rulers made
offerings at this temple

to keep Thutmosis III's
name alive,

while his mummy lay
safely hidden

in the Valley of the Kings.

But Myriam is discovering that
Egyptians didn't just leave

offerings of beer and food
at the temple.

With just minutes before
the site closes for the day,

Myriam's team
unearths a burial.

[speaking foreign language]

The site has
strict time curfews,

and a skeleton can't be
left exposed overnight.

MYRIAM: If we find a body, we
have to remove in the same day.

If we find something special,
we have to remove to be secure.

NARRATOR: The team scrambles
to move the ancient skeleton

before the site shuts down.

MYRIAM: In 20 minutes,
we will finish,

so that's why we are
a little in a hurry.

[speaking Spanish]

NARRATOR: With minutes to go
before the gates slam shut,

the skeleton is safe
and ready for analysis.

It could hold clues
to how well the temple

safeguarded
the pharaohs' afterlife

in the era after the death
of the pyramids.

NARRATOR:
The skeleton unearthed

outside Thutmosis III's temple

is not the first
Myriam's team has discovered.

It's one of more
than 125 ancient bodies

they've unearthed
around the site,

many from a single tomb.

Why they are here
is a mystery,

but some are preserved
in almost pristine condition.

The bodies could shed light
on how Thutmosis' temple

was supposed to function
after his death.

Myriam has made it her mission

to search every ancient body
for clues.

Next in line is
a fully wrapped mummy.

She can't risk removing
the linen bandages,

so dental expert
Dr. Roger Seiler uses x-rays

to scan for information.

MYRIAM: We want to see
who was this individual,

if it's a male or female.

We want to see their age,

what they eat,

as much as possible
about this person.

We have a head.

WOMAN: Mm-hmm.

NARRATOR: Roger examines
the skull to determine

the skeleton's sex
and age at death.

ROGER SEILER: So, the individual
was about 18, 20, 25 years old.

The teeth are in good health.

So it's a young individual.

MYRIAM: Ah, okay.

ROGER: But that's
important for--

MYRIAM: We know
if it's male or female?

ROGER: The angle here
could say that it's female.

MYRIAM: Female. Maybe female?

ROGER: Maybe female,

together with the form
of the chin.

NARRATOR: The x-ray suggests
the body is of a young woman.

MYRIAM: This is from Tomb 22,
from the late period,

where we found
the mummy deposit?

ROGER: Yes.

NARRATOR: The tomb
she was buried in

dates to a time
nearly 1,000 years

after the temple was built.

It's a hint that the temple
was considered sacred

long after Thutmosis III
had died.

If he was still remembered,
then his afterlife was secure.

MYRIAM: Now we have to go
deeper to get more information.

NARRATOR: Myriam needs to
discover who these people were

to shed light
on why they were buried here.

They work through the dozens
of mummies found at the site.

ROGER: The head is missing.

But this is a,
I think it's an organ package,

so they took out
the inner organs,

they mummified them separately,
and put them back.

Good mummification technique.

MYRIAM: So, some of the mummies
in this mummy deposit

were high quality.

ROGER: High quality
mummification.

MYRIAM: Mummification, yes.

NARRATOR: The mummies suggest

that high-status
ancient Egyptians

were burying their dead here

almost to the end of
ancient Egyptian civilization.

They believed this site
held a power

that would help propel
their souls to the afterlife.

The team will need
to keep examining

and comparing the finds,

but with this analysis
complete,

Myriam can return the body
to its eternal rest.

They carefully lower
the precious remains

15 feet down
the vertical shaft.

MYRIAM: This is
the most critical moment,

and always we are worried.

[speaking foreign language]

NARRATOR: The mummy is safely
in the burial chamber.

MYRIAM: Well done.

NARRATOR:
The team lays it to rest.

MYRIAM: We have one more
individual in peace.

NARRATOR: Myriam's discoveries
suggest the temple

remained sacred
for nearly 1,000 years

after Thutmosis III's death,

preserving his memory
and his eternal life

just as long
as his body lay safe

in the Valley of the Kings.

The New Kingdom pharaohs'
afterlife plan

appeared to be working.

On the hillside
of Qubbet el-Hawa,

near modern-day Aswan,

Alejandro and his team
have removed

more than 1,000
cubic feet of sand

from the
newly discovered tomb.

ALEJANDRO: We have been working
outside and inside,

and we have the possibility
to have access

to check if we have some remains
of the original burials.

NARRATOR: If the tomb contains
hieroglyphic inscriptions

or grave goods, it could
help him identify the owner

and uncover the burial
practices of the nobles

challenging the pyramid
building pharaohs' power.

ALEJANDRO: I can see
several fragments of bones.

NARRATOR: The bones survive,
but whose are they?

NARRATOR: Alejandro's
discovery of human remains

proves beyond doubt
that he's found a new tomb

at Qubbet el-Hawa.

But what he needs
is hieroglyphs

to identify the tomb owner
and their status.

If a mummy once lay
in this chamber,

perhaps the valuable
funerary artifacts

remain in an adjacent cavity.

ALEJANDRO: It's incredible.

We have just the same material

as we found
in the other chamber.

NARRATOR: The tomb's
second chamber is empty.

It has almost certainly
been entered by thieves,

but Alejandro finds that it
hasn't just been robbed.

Telltale tracks on the walls
show it has been ravaged

by an even
more destructive force.

ALEJANDRO: We can guess
that here there were coffins.

There were perhaps boxes.

And everything was eaten
by the termites.

I've never seen
something like this.

[sighs]

It's wherever you look.

Look at that.

These are termites.

I hate termites.

Quite disappointing.

The deception.

But it's part of the game.

Let's go.

NARRATOR: Like the pyramids,

the tombs cut
into the rock here

couldn't always save
the owners from destruction.

Their carefully laid plans
to secure their afterlife

were thwarted.

But the rich necropolis
at Qubbet el-Hawa

may one day reveal yet more

about the path the governors
of the south played

in the pyramids' decline.

ALEJANDRO:
We have been very lucky

during all the seasons
that we have been working

in Qubbet el-Hawa,

we have discovered
three new tombs,

nine intact burial chambers,

but we have
discovered also that,

that sometimes the story
has not the same ending.

NARRATOR:
He may not have found

hieroglyphic treasures
this time,

but next time,
Alejandro could be luckier.

In the Valley of the Kings,
the New Kingdom pharaohs

dug their tombs
deep into the mountains

to protect them from robbers.

Chris has come
to the most iconic tomb of all

to find out how well
they succeeded--

the tomb of Tutankhamun,

discovered deep beneath
layers of rubble

by archaeologist
Howard Carter in 1922.

CHRIS: So, this is the exact
spot where Carter would,

for the first time,
have made a little hole

in this blocking here

and been able to see through
into the antechamber.

So this is the moment
where famously he's asked,

"Can you see anything?"
And he says, "Wonderful things."

That's because he's looking into
this chamber, the antechamber,

which is absolutely
stuffed full of objects,

as the whole of the tomb was.

NARRATOR: Carter had uncovered
the richest collection

of artifacts ever discovered
from Egypt's golden age,

including the pharaoh's
famous mask.

But for Chris,
the modern mythology

of the riches
of Tutankhamun's tomb

is not the full story.

It did contain
wonderful things,

but the tomb
was not undisturbed.

Tutankhamun's
funerary furniture

was piled up chaotically
as if ready to be removed.

CHRIS: The tomb was robbed,

perhaps just a few days
after the funeral,

when Tutankhamun's body
was introduced to the tomb

for the first time.

NARRATOR: Small valuables
seem to have been taken

by opportunistic looters.

They had left the larger items, perhaps intending to come back,

but something stopped them.

CHRIS: We now know there was
a flash flood in the valley,

which deposited
a mass of material

on top of the entranceway
to the tomb,

and once it dried out,

it solidified to
the consistency of cement.

It was impenetrable, and the
location of the tomb was lost

until Howard Carter
excavated the tomb in 1922.

That was the first time
anybody had seen it

since the late 18th dynasty.

NARRATOR: Tutankhamun's tomb
wasn't the only tomb

in the Valley of the Kings
plundered by ancient thieves.

All the tombs discovered
so far

were robbed
of their treasures long ago.

They offered
no better protection

than the mighty monuments
they replaced.

The pyramids, too,
had been no match

for determined grave robbers.

And after years
of drought and conflict,

the pharaohs could no longer
afford to build them.

But the pharaohs achieved

a different kind
of immortality.

Their astonishing pyramids
remain as an iconic reminder

of the greatest civilization
of the ancient world.

Captioned by
Side Door Media Services