All language subtitles for Truthseekers.S01E01.The.Great.Pyramid.of.Giza.1080p.AMZN.WEB-DL.DD+2.0.H.264-playWEB_track4_[eng]

[narrator] A team of
truthseekers is on a mission.

Scientists. Historians. Archaeologists.

All on the trail
of history's enigmas.

Searching for the truth

behind the greatest mysteries

known to humanity.

The Great Pyramid
is the largest

of three vast
monuments at Giza.

But who built it?

How did they build it, and why?

It remains standing
after 4,500 years,

but could there still be
ancient treasures

and secret chambers hidden
within its stones?

In London, our team assemble.

Our four truthseekers
combine decades of experience

in different fields.

But they all have one goal.

To apply their knowledge,
and reveal the truth.

There are mysteries
and then there are mysteries.

I have always loved uncovering
the secrets of the past.

We need to go back and unpick
the untruths from the truths.

Age-old problems that
we've been asking ourselves

for over 100 years, really,
can now be solved.

[narrator] They'll follow
the clues left behind.

Unravel the secrets
of the past.

Separate fact from fiction.

And together,
they'll uncover the truth

behind the greatest
mysteries ever.

[epic music playing]

[Fern] I love
the Great Pyramid

because it is
this intense mystery.

We've all grown up seeing it.

On stamps, in films,
in documentaries...

[Tony] The Great Pyramid.

Its sheer scale,

its fantastic age

at four and a half
thousand years,

and the fact that
it's the last

of the seven great wonders
of the classical world

that's still with us today.

It's an enduring symbol
of the past.

It connects us to this past
that we all share.

[Karen] Pyramids are
one of those constructs

that we see almost universally
across cultures,

and it represents
kind of a unique crux

of, specialized knowledge
of technology, economy,

aesthetics, and cosmology.

And when you think "pyramid,"
well, immediately you think

the Mack Daddy,
the Great Pyramid of Giza.

[narrator] The Great Pyramid
is the largest

of three vast monuments
at Giza.

It stands with the pyramids
of Chephren and Menkaure,

all built within
100 years of each other.

It is more than four and a half
thousand years old.

It was built in a time
when Egypt was a mighty power.

Ruled by a king,
a pharaoh named Khufu,

Egypt's empire stretched
around the Mediterranean

from modern Libya in the west

into what is now Turkey
in the north.

But this golden age
did not last forever.

Other powers rose.

The Egyptian Empire crumbled.

And time buried the secrets
of the pharaohs in the sand.

The mystery of the Great Pyramid
hinges on three big questions.

Who built it, how did they
build it, and why?

Theories have created mysteries,

and I can't wait
to start investigating.

[narrator] Anthropologist
Karen Bellinger

has been taking a closer look
at the builders

of the Great Pyramid.

I'm Dr. Karen Bellinger,
and I'm an anthropologist.

I've traveled the world
exploring sites

from prehistory
to the modern day

in search of what it means
to be human.

Typically, when people think
about the Great Pyramid,

they think about Khufu,
the pharaoh who built it,

and who was buried there.

But honestly, what excites me
most as an anthropologist

is getting behind that façade.

[narrator] The Great Pyramid
was built on a rocky plateau

on the west bank
of the Nile River

in the 25th century BC.

At its base,
the Great Pyramid is a square

roughly 230 meters
by 230 meters.

The four sides rise together
to a stubby peak

138 meters above
the surrounding sands.

The Great Pyramid today
is incredibly impressive.

It's a mountain
of rough-hewn limestone

rising up out of the desert.

But what's really incredible
is that, in ancient times,

it was all the more spectacular.

The outer surface of it
was clad

with a glittering white
Torah limestone

that would have shone
under the desert sun.

The Great Pyramid
was the largest thing

anybody had ever seen in terms
of human-built structures.

And what's even more amazing

is that it remained
the tallest structure

for thousands of years.

It wasn't surpassed
until the high Middle Ages,

the 13th century,

when the age of cathedrals
dawned in Europe.

[narrator] The Great Pyramid
consists of around

2.3 million blocks of stone,

some weighing
as much as 80 tons.

[Karen] I think it would be hard
to overstate the impact

the Great Pyramid would have had

on any who beheld it
in ancient times.

You know, in 2500 BC,

there's this colossus
rising out of the desert.

There was nothing like it
visible anywhere.

[narrator] Its sheer size has
created doubt in some minds.

How was it even possible
for the ancient Egyptians

to build such a monument?

We've been trying to understand
who built the pyramids

ever since the Western world
fell in love with them

in the 18th century.

And there's always been a degree
of cynicism in some quarters.

That this was just
an impossible task

for a civilization that
existed that long ago.

Baseless claims that
the ancient Egyptians

could not have built
the pyramid

falls right in line
with other theories

put forth about
indigenous black

and other people of color

whose amazing achievements
are denigrated.

But, you know, you rarely see
people suggesting that

the ancient Greeks or Romans
didn't build

all of the monuments
that are attributed to them.

[narrator] For centuries,
it was assumed

that slaves built
the Great Pyramid,

tens of thousands of them.

The ancient Greek historian Herodotus

journeyed to Egypt in
the 5th century BC.

He wrote the wonders
he saw there

and the stories that he heard.

He was told of
the Pharaoh Khufu,

the king who built
the Great Pyramid.

Herodotus heard that
he was a tyrant

who enslaved hundreds
of thousands of people

to construct his great tomb.

But Herodotus was
writing his histories

in the 5th century BC,

2000 years after
the pyramids were built.

But Karen has uncovered
more recent archaeological finds

that have suggested
something very different.

[Karen] The pyramid workers
are really the heart

of this construction process.

The pharaoh could have
all the money in the world

to build his pyramid, but
without a workforce to do it,

there's no pyramid.

And clearly, this was a massive
construction project.

Even if it didn't take an army
of a hundred thousand people,

there would still have been
a large workforce required,

and that workforce would have
needed food and shelter.

[indistinct chatter]

[narrator] In the late 1980s,

archaeologists
went looking for it.

On a sandy plain
south of the Great Pyramid,

they discovered a "lost city"
buried beneath the earth.

It was an enormous complex
of buildings.

To the west, there were
larger dwellings,

possibly housing administrators
and overseers.

To the east,
on the banks of the Nile,

there was a large village
of support staff.

Bakers and blacksmiths.
Doctors and cooks.

And nestled in between
were the homes

of the pyramid workers themselves.

[Karen] Archaeologists
found evidence

for a series of large barracks

that would have
comfortably held

40 to 50 individuals.

This wasn't the height of luxury
by any means,

but neither were they slums.

And there's more evidence
that suggests

these pyramid workers
were looked after rather well.

They also found quantities
of animal bone butchered,

indicating that these workers
were fed

a really high-quality
protein diet,

which would have been
fairly unusual

for everyday workers
at the time.

A nearby cemetery
yielded skeletal remains

that showed that
these individuals

often had broken bones

that were properly set
and healed.

This was, in sum,
a well-housed, well-fed,

and well-cared-for population.

This was not an army of slaves
building the pyramids.

[narrator] Not indentured
or enslaved laborers

who would have been worked
to exhaustion,

disposed of
as and when necessary.

The vision of slave laborers

forced to work under
the punishing Egyptian sun

can now be debunked.

[dramatic music playing]

Today,
many Egyptologists believe

that the pyramid workers
were either conscripts

or volunteers
for the great cause.

Master craftsmen may have
been on-site full-time.

The precise cutting and setting
of the outer stone particularly

was no work for amateurs.

But it's thought likely that
there were thousands more

unskilled workers.

They served a limited term
at Giza

before returning
to the villages they came from.

[Karen] They worked
together in teams.

We know this from graffiti

that has been found
actually on the Pyramid.

In hidden little spots,
workers wrote down

the names of their work gangs.

They made their marks
on history.

And good for them.

Because although the Pyramid

was built for the pharaoh,

it was so much more.

The site of the Great Pyramid
was more

than just a gigantic
construction site.

It was a place
of social transformation.

It was a place where individuals

who had probably never left
their village

to come together
for a period of time

to be involved in building
this great monument,

not just to
an individual leader,

but to their whole nation.

I mean, it was
to the glory of Egypt,

and it fulfilled every
very important religious belief

this society held dear.

[narrator] Together, they were
shaping the pyramid,

and the pyramid
was shaping them.

Thousands of Egyptians,
hundreds of villages,

all now one people.

[clapping echoing]

[Karen] The pyramid workers
are really the heart

of this construction process.

You know, the pharaoh could have
all the money in the world

to build his pyramid, but
without a workforce to do it,

there's no pyramid.

[narrator] The truthseekers
have established that

the workers who built the
Great Pyramid weren't slaves.

We know where they lived.
What they ate.

The teams they worked in.

But there is one thing
that is still unknown.

How did they build
the Pyramid itself?

The Great Pyramid of Giza.

The largest of three
gigantic monuments

on the west bank
of the Nile.

It has stood for four
and a half thousand years,

and its silent stones
still hold many mysteries.

[dramatic music playing]

As our team of historians,
archaeologists, and scientists

continue on their quest
to uncover its truths,

one of the biggest questions
is exactly how

was this marvel of ancient
engineering constructed.

This structure
still continues to fascinate,

being four and a half
thousand years old,

140 meters high.

Just how exactly
did people build this?

We're still wrestling
with this question,

as the Romans did
centuries ago.

I'm Tony McMahon,
and my approach to the past

is about investigating
those mysteries

that have been seemingly
impossible to solve.

Distinguishing fact
from fiction.

Separating history
from mystery.

[narrator] There is still
little consensus around

how these massive structures
were built.

Tony is looking at the
engineering behind the pyramid,

and the most recent
exploratory science

to examine the evidence
and get to the truth.

[Tony] In two and a half
thousand BC,

you have to imagine that
the state of human technology

was still relatively primitive.

There are no sophisticated
pulleys and cranes.

And yet, this enormous structure
is created by people

at the earliest stages
of human civilization.

[narrator] Most of
the Great Pyramid

is constructed out of limestone
quarried at Tura

just south of
the construction site at Giza.

But there are 8,000 tones
of granite

in the structure as well.

These gigantic blocks of stone

came from much further afield.

To reach Giza,
they had to be transported

800 kilometers
from Aswan in the south.

How did all this stone
reach the construction site?

Could they really have
done this unaided?

[Tony] There's been
growing interest for many years

in how the pyramid was built,

and a fascinating document
was discovered in 2013.

In an ancient harbor
on the Red Sea coast,

the excavators discovered
hundreds of fragments

of an intriguing document.

They were the oldest examples
ever found of papyrus,

the thick, paper-like material

used to write on
in Ancient Egypt.

The fragile document
dated from the time

the Great Pyramid
was being built.

This has been rightly called

the greatest discovery
in Egyptology this century.

"The Diary of Merer,"

which is essentially inventory
kept by an overseer,

but it gives
an incredible insight

into the day-to-day
building activity

that created the Great Pyramid.

[narrator] Merer was
a mid-ranking official

at the quarries at Tura.

The quarries produced
the finest quality

white limestone in Egypt.

On the Great Pyramid,
it was used

for the outer shell
of the monument.

When you go
to the Great Pyramid today,

you're confronted by
what is essentially

a huge mound of blocks.

But originally,
the whole pyramid

was cased in limestone.

Its sides were smooth.

[narrator] The logbook found by
the archaeologists in 2013

details the transportation
of limestone

from the quarry to Giza.

What we learned
from what the overseer Merer

wrote on that piece of papyrus

is that this was
a very sophisticated operation

to build the Great Pyramid.

It involved the transporting

of huge blocks of stone

from quarries
hundreds of miles away

using a system of canals
and using the river Nile,

and this would have
necessitated a national effort

in order to be able to conduct
this kind of operation.

[narrator] Using hieroglyphics,

Merer recorded
his team's work every day.

They hauled the heavy blocks
down to the Nile on sledges,

where boats waited
to carry them downriver.

The round trip took three days.

Over the five-month period
in the log,

Merer's team of boatmen moved

around a thousand blocks
of white limestone

to the construction site.

That's 20 blocks of limestone

weighing on average
2.5 tons each

being transported
20 kilometers.

They would have used
the natural current of the Nile

to aid their return
downstream to Giza,

but it remains impressive,

even by today's standards.

But getting the blocks to Giza
was only part of the problem.

The stone still had to be taken

from the river
to the construction site

and lifted into position
on the pyramid.

[Tony] If we work on
the assumption that

the Great Pyramid took about
20 years to build,

that means that they must have
been laying down a block

every two minutes.

Now, that begs the question,

how on earth did they do that

with the technology
of the time?

For at least 2,000 years,

it's been assumed
by many analysts

that some kind of system
of ramps was involved

to get those stones
increasingly skyward.

But what kind of ramp?

[narrator] Ramps made of
sun-dried mud bricks

have been found at other
ancient Egyptian sites.

But the Great Pyramid would have
required an enormous slope,

wide enough for teams of men
to pass each other

and strong enough to carry
blocks weighing many tons

up to the higher levels.

How would this
have been possible?

Tony has been digging into
the many different theories.

[intriguing music playing]

[Tony] If we take
one of the ramp theories,

that there was
one single mega ramp

up against the pyramid side,
that's perfectly feasible.

But the problem is,
there is no evidence

that such a ramp ever existed.

The great Roman writer Pliny

discounted the idea
of a mega ramp,

but nevertheless,
it's fascinating

that the Romans,
who built on such an epic scale

all over the empire,

were nevertheless fascinated
by this structure

that was already two
and a half thousand years old

by the time
that Pliny was writing.

[narrator]
Over the centuries,

different forms of ramp
have been suggested.

A zig-zag ramp that snaked up
one side of the pyramid.

Or a spiral ramp that
climbed around it

and encircled
the whole structure.

But the problem is,
there just isn't any evidence

for any of these
external ramps,

and they all present
logistical difficulties.

[no audio]

[narrator]
This missing evidence

led one investigator

to a new theory.

In 1999, a French architect,
Jean-Pierre Houdin

came up with an intriguing,

and, I think,
quite plausible theory,

for how a ramp might have been
used to build the pyramid.

So he believes that, initially,

there would have been
an exterior ramp

to build the first two-thirds
of the pyramid.

But then that external ramp
was dismantled

and taken inside the pyramid

to use those building blocks

to create
the last part of the pyramid,

but from the inside.

And that's why there's no sign
of an external ramp.

[narrator] Houdin's theory
is a controversial one.

Some Egyptologists claim
his ideas are too complex.

That his internal ramp
would weaken

the structure
of the Great Pyramid.

But a mysterious discovery
from the mid-1980s

suggests there may be more
to Houdin's ideas

than his critics think.

[Tony] There had been
an earlier study in 1986

with a microgravity detector

looking for hidden chambers
within the Great Pyramid.

And there'd been
a rather kind of mysterious

swirling pattern detected
of lower-density material.

Now, that didn't seem to make
much sense at the time,

but with Houdin's theory
years later,

it does suddenly
fit into the idea

of some kind of
internal ramp system

being used to build the pyramid.

[narrator] There was a problem
with Houdin's theory though.

How did these blocks of stone
navigate around

the tight corners
of his internal ramp?

Well, there must have been
some kind of space

created in a system of notches,

in order to be able to maneuver
those stones around.

[narrator] Houdin theorized
that the ramp

twisted up through
the inside of the pyramid,

and that where it turned,
the structure

was initially left open.

Working with
an American Egyptologist

called Bob Brier,

Houdin went looking
for these notches.

In 2008,
Brier was given permission

to climb the Great Pyramid.

He wanted a closer look
at what he and Houdin

thought might be
one of those openings

on the outside of the Pyramid.

[Tony] He went up
about 80 meters,

when, on the northeast side,

he found a kind
of uneven platform

and a niche into which he looked

and saw what he described
as an L-shaped room.

Now, this kind of tallies
with the idea

of blocks being moved internally,

and, of course, they'd have
been very awkward to move.

If anybody's moved a sofa
through a house,

they'll know
what we're talking about here.

So you would have had to
maneuver the block through,

and every so often push
the block back into a space

in order to be able to
turn it into position.

[narrator] The notch was
exactly where Houdin's theory

predicted an opening
would be found.

He was certain
he had found a junction

where the structure
was left open

to allow the great blocks
to turn on their journey

up to the top of the pyramid.

But conclusive proof
for Houdin's intriguing theory

is yet to be found.

There remains
one other possibility.

That there is no evidence
for a ramp

because there was no ramp.

In this daring theory,

the pyramid itself
was the ramp.

[Tony] There are ancient
Egyptian depictions

of huge objects, statues,
for example,

being dragged along the ground
using rope.

The Egyptians were very good
at making rope.

Water, grease, and so on,

in order to slide
these heavy weights along.

[narrator]
Teams of men using ropes

could have pulled the blocks
up either a wooden track

or along the polished
outer stones

of the Pyramid itself.

A system of counterweights
could have been used as well,

empty sledges
returning to the ground

helping to lift
the next stone up.

But, we're talking
about heavyweights

not being slid
along the ground,

but slid upwards.

And whether or not that's
really feasible beggars belief.

[narrator] A straight ramp
or a spiral ramp.

An internal ramp,
or no ramp at all.

Each theory has its supporters.

Definitive evidence
is yet to be found.

The hunt for the truth goes on.

But how the Egyptians
completed the monument

is far from the only enigma
of the Great Pyramid.

The greater mystery is why?

The countless stones
of the Great Pyramid of Giza

still hold many secrets.

Over the centuries,
they have inspired

wonder and curiosity.

As the team of scientists

continue sifting through
the evidence

in their quest for clues,
the focus now turns

to the real purpose
of this monument.

In London, a team
of scientists and historians

is sifting through
the evidence,

searching for clues
and seeking out the truth.

We now know who built it,

and we have got closer
to understanding how.

But the biggest mystery is why?

What was this all for?

[narrator] Dr. Fern Riddell
is a cultural historian.

She wants to know
how we've seen

the pyramid
throughout history,

what meaning have
we given to its purpose,

and what clues
that might provide.

[Fern] In ancient times, Greek
historians like Herodotus

identified the Great Pyramid
as a tomb

for the mighty Pharaoh Khufu.

But over the centuries,

there have been
many other theories

about the purpose
of the Great Pyramid,

all of which have added
to the enduring mystery.

[narrator] Early scholars
looked to the Bible

for an explanation
for the massive structures

in the desert.

The Book of Genesis in
the Old Testament

tells the story
of an Egyptian pharaoh

who is troubled by his dreams.

[solemn music playing]

Firstly, he sees seven
really fat cows,

followed by seven cows
that are terribly lean

and staggering and sick.

Then he sees seven
ears of corn

that are really
fat and juicy,

followed by seven ears that
are really thin and straggly.

And he wakes up terrified.
What could this mean?

It turns out that in prison,

he has a young Jewish man
named Joseph,

who can answer
and interpret these dreams.

What Joseph says is there's
going to be a terrible famine,

and the only way the pharaoh
can save his people

is if he stockpiles
as much food,

as much wheat,
as he possibly can.

[indistinct chatter]

[narrator] Biblical scholars
calculated that

vast structures
must have been needed

to house all that grain.

At Giza, they thought
they found them.

So this belief that the pyramids
are the granaries of Joseph

really exists from
the 6th century onwards.

By the 1200s,
especially 1204,

this incredibly beautiful mural

is made in St. Mark's Cathedral
in Venice,

depicting the pyramids
as the granaries.

[narrator]
For medieval Christians,

whose entire worldview
was based on the Bible,

the granary myth was
a convenient explanation,

but one that eventually
began to be challenged.

By the 14th century, we have

an amazing travel memoir
by John Mandeville.

And he says he sees
the pyramids,

but while he agrees that
they are the granaries,

there's kind of this air
of confusion and hesitation.

And we know by the 15th
and 16th century,

as trade and commerce,
and, more importantly, tourism

really starts to kick off,

people see the pyramids
for themselves,

and they start to realize
the church was wrong.

The pyramids are
such a mystery, though,

that just as the church
was trying to explain them,

we're still trying
to explain them today.

[narrator] There are still many
who refuse to believe

the pyramids were created by
the Ancient Egyptians.

They must have been built
by an advanced civilization

now lost to history.

Or by aliens.

And they weren't tombs.

They were designed
to produce rain

in the barren lands
west of the Nile,

or to harness electro-magnetism
as some gigantic power plant.

I think the reason
why people prefer

those insane theories
about aliens

or people levitating blocks,

is because the idea

that people four and a half
thousand years ago

were cleverer than us,
could build

these structures
we still don't understand,

is one a lot of people
don't really want to accept.

[narrator] Mysteries are
littered with examples

of people not acknowledging

that our cousins from
the ancient past

were smart, innovative,

and as capable as we are today.

And this has given birth
to many strange theories.

[Fern] While these theories
often sound crazy,

and many of them are,

they can tell us a lot about
the people proposing them.

Their culture,
their motivations,

their own obsessions
and fears.

[narrator] One such man was
the 19th-century astronomer,

Charles Piazzi Smyth.

Charles Piazzi Smyth was the
Royal Astronomer for Scotland,

and he's a man who had
an absolutely exceptional life.

At the age of 16, he was already
traveling the world,

investigating time and space

and trying to fit and explain

all of these mysteries that
we have to ordinary people.

[narrator] Smyth became obsessed
with the Great Pyramid,

how it was built,
and what its meaning was.

He was convinced it was built
under the direction of God

by a lost tribe of Israelites

who went on
to settle Britain.

In 1860, he tried to convince
the Royal Society

to fund an expedition to Egypt

to solve this mystery
once and for all.

The Royal Society,
unfortunately, refused,

but that didn't stop him.

And Charles Piazzi Smyth
took himself

and a number of other
people out to Egypt

to answer this mystery
of the Great Pyramids.

He did this by surveying

and creating an entirely new way

of measuring and understanding
the Great Pyramid itself.

[narrator] Smyth claimed
to have discovered

the unit of measurement used by
the Ancient Egyptian architects.

The Pyramid Inch.

Every part
of the Great Pyramid,

from the height of its blocks

to the width
of its chambers,

was supposedly
based on it.

[Fern] So the Great Pyramid inch
is nearly identical

to the British inch,
and this is something

that Charles Piazzi Smyth
was very proud of.

He felt that it really showcased

how important the British system
of measuring was for the world.

Because, at that time,
people were really captivated

by this new thing called
the metric system,

which had been invented
in France

and was less than
a hundred years old.

And Charles Piazzi Smyth felt
that if you could measure

the Great Pyramid
by British inches alone,

well, that was
the way we had to go.

[narrator] Smyth's motivations
weren't just driven

by the Victorian obsession
with empire.

He felt that
the Great Pyramid was a way

that humans communed
with the heavens.

He calculated that
the number of inches

in the perimeter of the base

matched the days
in a solar century.

He also claimed that
the height of the pyramid

was numerically related to
the distance from Earth

to the sun.

[Fern] One of the things that
Charles Piazzi Smyth

really believed
was that England itself

represented one of
the ten lost tribes of Israel.

And he felt that written into
the stones of the Great Pyramid

was an answer
and an explanation

that Britain had this kind of
intense Christian heritage.

Of course,
it's completely untrue,

but what it shows us is
that kind of

Victorian imperialist attitude

to make white Europeans central
to the story of the world.

[narrator] In 1867,

Smyth released a book
about his obsession.

"Our Inheritance in
the Great Pyramid"

was over 600 pages long,

but it quickly became
a best-seller.

Smyth believed that
the monument at Giza

was a model of the earth
and its history,

from its beginning
to its end.

By precisely measuring
the pyramid,

he also fixed a date
for the Apocalypse.

So, Charles Piazzi Smyth
believed that

because the Grand Gallery
in the Great Pyramid

measured 1,881 inches,

the world would
probably end after 1881.

He believed from 1882 onwards,

the world would be plunged into
revolution and war and chaos.

This would be the coming
of the Antichrist,

even the second coming
of Christ.

But basically,
the Apocalypse was here.

One thing we have to understand
is that the Victorian century

was full of apocalyptic cults

because this is a time
of huge progress

and excitement and technology.

People fear change.
They fear the end of the world.

The problem is, of course,
when 1882 rolls around

and everything is fine,

your credibility is
somewhat damaged.

And he is satirized
in newspapers globally

across the Western world,

and it must have been
a very painful time for him.

[narrator] Despite this
humiliating failure,

inadvertently, Charles Piazzi
Smyth was responsible

for one of
the most important discoveries

ever made in the Great Pyramid.

In September 1872,

a British engineer
was working in a chamber

deep within the Great Pyramid.

His name was Waynman Dixon.

He was testing joints
between the masonry

on the south wall
of the chamber

when he discovered that one of
the stones sounded hollow.

Dixon broke through.

On the other side,
he discovered a hidden shaft,

a small tunnel disappearing
into the pyramid's interior.

Dixon then checked
the north wall of the chamber

and found another
secret shaft there too.

And that was not all.

At the bottom
of one of the shafts,

he discovered three objects.

[Fern] So, Waynman Dixon
found the only objects

that have ever been uncovered
in the Great Pyramid,

and they were a copper hook,
a dolerite stone ball,

and a cedarwood sample.

[narrator] Two of
the Dixon Relics

are now in the British Museum.

The fragments of wood
were given

to the University of
Aberdeen in 1946

and promptly lost.

So these Dixon relics,

the copper hook
and the stone balls,

stayed with the British Museum,

but the cedarwood sample
went missing.

Abeer Eladany,
an Egyptian curator

at the University of Aberdeen,

was investigating
the holdings in 2020,

when her eye was suddenly
drawn to a cigar box

that had an old
Egyptian flag on it.

Opening it, she realized
it was holding the remains

of the cedarwood sample
from the Great Pyramid,

an unbelievable rediscovery.

[narrator] And a rediscovery
when the wooden fragments

can be examined by modern
science for the first time.

But carbon-dating a sample
of the ancient wood

threw up an unexpected result.

[Fern] Radiocarbon dating
is a way of measuring

the age of something that has
organic material, like wood.

We all absorb carbon
throughout our lives,

but when we die,
it starts to decay.

And we have
this incredible system

of measuring how much
is left of it in a sample.

Radiocarbon dating has shown us

that the cedar wood sample
is over 3,000 years old.

That's 500 years older than
the Great Pyramid itself.

So it's this incredibly old
bit of wood

in an already ancient building.

So, as always with
the Great Pyramid,

you find one thing
and it leads you

to a host of other mysteries.

[narrator] Today, Charles
Piazzi Smyth's theories

about the Great Pyramid
are almost forgotten.

Most scholars now agree

with the historians
of Ancient Greece.

The Great Pyramid
was built as a tomb,

the last resting place
of the Pharaoh Khufu.

But Charles Piazzi Smyth's
work left a legacy,

not only in his precise

measurements
of the Great Pyramid,

but in the discoveries
he made inside.

The shafts uncovered in 1872

may hold the key to unraveling

the final mysteries
of the Pyramid.

The mysteries hidden
within its stones.

The King's Chamber in the heart
of the Great Pyramid.

It has stood empty
for thousands of years.

But the enormous granite
sarcophagus inside

once contained the mummified
body of the Pharaoh Khufu.

So this age-old problem of
what's inside the Great Pyramid,

that's something
that still fascinates us,

and we're using
the latest techniques,

the latest technologies, really,

to explore this question.

We're using thermography,
even using nanoparticles

to understand what's going on
inside the Great Pyramid.

Non-destructive ways, basically,

to get at this
age-old problem.

And so we're finding hollows,
we're finding cavities

within the Great Pyramid
that mystify us.

[narrator] Dr. Mark Altaweel
has been investigating

the mysteries of
the pyramid's interior.

When the Great Pyramid was
completed, it was sealed up.

Its interiors were never
meant to be disturbed.

But that didn't last.

Nobody knows who first breached
the Great Pyramid or when.

The first recorded exploration

came more than three thousand
years after it was built.

So, the way they broke
into the pyramid

was basically hacking.

It's literally a hack job,
using spears, even fire,

to sort of crack the rock
and move it away.

So they used whatever metal
tools they had, literally,

but mostly spears
and sometimes fire

to kind of try to crack
the rock effectively

and get into the pyramid.

[narrator] By then,
the great Egyptian Empire

ruled over by Khufu
was long gone.

Egypt had been conquered
by foreign powers

again and again.

First came the Persians
in the 6th century BC.

Then it was the forces
of Alexander the Great.

In 30 BC, Egypt was annexed
into the Roman Empire

and ruled by the Caesars
for the next 600 years

until it was conquered by
the Rashidun Caliphate.

The Great Pyramid witnessed
all this change,

but across those many centuries,

we have no record
of anyone going inside.

Nothing until the 9th century.

The ruler of the
Rashidun Caliphate, Al-Ma'mun,

ordered his men to tunnel
into the Great Pyramid.

They smashed their way
into the north side,

approximately 17 meters
up the slope.

[Mark] So it was quite
a substantial effort.

They tunneled through
27 meters of rock.

I mean, you'd think
after a few meters,

it's really hard going work
removing all those stones

and giant boulders, really.

Yet they were able
to kind of go through this,

eventually reaching
an endpoint.

[narrator] What the men
of Al-Ma'mun found

when they emerged from
their tunnel was a passageway.

It was low and cramped.

When the men looked down it,
they saw

that the passageway
was blocked.

Three great granite stones
sealed off the entrance.

[Mark] Whatever lay at the
other end of this narrow tunnel

was something the builders
of the Great Pyramid

wanted to protect.

So, of course, these explorers

followed this passageway.

They went another
30 or so meters,

stooping because
the ceilings are so low.

And then they emerged
into the Grand Gallery.

[narrator] With walls
of finely jointed granite,

the Grand Gallery
slopes upwards,

cutting deeper into
the heart of the pyramid.

[Mark] So, the Grand Gallery is
a bit of a deceptive name.

It's really a shaft.
Ascending shaft.

It's about 46 meters long,
nine meters in depth,

and about two plus meters
in width,

and actually decorated
with nothing.

[narrator] The men of Al-Ma'mun
climbed the slanted gallery.

A low doorway led to
an antechamber,

and, beyond that, the room
the Pyramid builders

had tried so hard to protect.

A large chamber clad in smooth,
dark red granite.

[Mark] So they walk
through the passageway,

the shaft that connects up
to the Grand Chamber,

what's called
the King's Chamber,

and they do find one thing,
a sarcophagus.

But unfortunately,
it was empty.

There was absolutely
nothing else in that room.

A relatively undecorated room

with a large sarcophagus.

So, it does look like a place
fit for the king,

given its size
and large sarcophagus.

But no treasures,
nothing else to be found.

So the question emerges,
what happened?

What happened to Pharaoh,
his body, the mummy,

as well as what happened
to the treasures?

[narrator] The burials
of wealthy Ancient Egyptians

were lavish.

A great pharaoh such as Khufu

would have been mummified,

his body wrapped
in linen bandages,

and placed in an ornate coffin.

Accompanying him
into the afterlife

would have been
vast quantities

of treasure, furniture,
and jewelry.

So, two main theories emerge.

One is, of course,
you see an empty chamber

that looks appropriate
for a burial

for a king, for a pharaoh,
and you see nothing there,

you just assume, well,
then maybe it was robbed,

that the treasures were stolen.

But a second idea is potentially

that the ancient Egyptians,
of course,

knew tombs will be robbed.

So they would have potentially

created a fake or false chamber,

right, kind of
dead passageway, if you will,

leading into a chamber that
has absolutely nothing in it.

[narrator] Over the centuries,
other explorers

have dug deeper into the dark
and airless interiors

of the Great Pyramid.

The large room
with the sarcophagus

has been dubbed
the King's Chamber.

A "Queen's Chamber"
lies below it,

linked to the Grand Gallery
by a horizontal corridor.

And down another passageway,
beneath the pyramid,

buried into the bedrock itself,

is a subterranean chamber.

[Mark] Most pyramids,
you have a burial chamber,

and usually that's
below the entryway,

kind of even
subterranean, really.

That sort of derives from the
old tradition of the mastabas,

the ancient pre-Pharaonic tombs,
which were usually subterranean.

So what's strange about
the Great Pyramid

is that you have this
upper chamber,

or this chamber where,
you think, perhaps

Pharaoh may have been buried.

So that's quite different
from other pyramids.

The purpose of all these rooms

in Khufu's pyramid
is mysterious.

If we assume the King's Chamber
was the burial chamber,

then what were the others for?

The subterranean chamber
is clearly unfinished

and there was no Queen
in the "Queen Chamber,"

that was just a name
given to it.

And this is not
the only mystery.

[narrator] In both the King's
Chamber and the Queen's Chamber,

narrow shafts disappear
into the pyramid's interior

from the north and south walls.

There are shafts
in the King's Chamber

that extend all the way
to the outside

of the pyramid.

There are also
the narrow tunnels

discovered by
Charles Piazzi Smyth's engineer

in 1872.

The purpose of these shafts
continues to perplex scientists.

[Mark] What's really strange
about that is that

the shafts actually
don't appear

to have any connection
to the outside.

They just seem like
little narrow tunnels

that go through the pyramid
but mysteriously end

or reach to
what looks like a door,

a kind of passageway, perhaps.

So we don't actually quite know
where these shafts go.

[narrator] In 1993,

a team of German archaeologists

sent a robot up the shaft

in the southern wall
of the Queen's Chamber.

[Mark] So one of the times,
they sent these robots.

They went further along,
about 63 meters up the shaft

in the Queen's Chamber,

and they see a door,
or a kind of passageway,

blocked by a limestone block,

but with two hinges,
these kind of copper hinges,

that seem to be connecting
to the rest of the pyramid.

So, something was meant
to pass through there.

[narrator] This block wasn't
the roughhewn limestone

that makes up most
of the pyramid.

It was
the Tura white limestone,

the high-quality material
that decorated

the outside of the pyramid.

But why was it used here?

And the purpose
of the copper hinges

baffled the archaeologists.

Later projects tried
to solve the mystery.

More advanced robots
climbed into the shaft.

They went even further.

Drilling a tiny hole
through the stone door,

scientists were able
to photograph the other side.

[Mark] It found another
potential passageway.

So, it doesn't quite end,
but mysteriously,

another passage that
leads to some other place,

as well as inscriptions,
and what looks like

decorations with some paint.

So it's clear that this
is some kind of

significant passage
of these shafts.

But what was it used for?
It's unclear.

We don't have the answer yet.
The shaft might continue.

There might be other chambers.

There could even be signs
of Houdin's internal ramp.

These were obviously built
with a purpose in mind.

There could be some sort of
ritual or religious reason.

[narrator] In Egyptian
religion of the time,

a watery realm
called the Abyss

lay beneath the ground
and beyond the stars.

It was these cosmic waters

that gave new life to the dead,

much as the annual flooding
of the Nile

gave life
to the lands of Egypt.

Traditionally,
Egyptian burials

were underground,
in the Abyss.

But in the Great Pyramid,
the pharaoh's tomb

was high in the structure,

lifted above the earth,

above the realm of the Abyss.

The cosmic waters relates back
to the creation myth, really.

In ancient Egypt,
pyramids themselves

are meant to sort of be
kind of like

mounds covering something

where the creation myth
of how Earth came about

was basically a giant mound

with the cosmic waters
coming out.

And so, perhaps,
this means the shafts

actually brought water
to the pyramids,

it brought water
to the burial of Pharaoh.

And Pharaoh, of course,
considered himself a god.

So being a god, you want
to bend reality to you.

It certainly would have been
a grand gesture,

a grand kind of display
of how mighty Pharaoh was.

[narrator] It's possible that
all the chambers in the pyramid

could have been used as tombs.

If the Pharaoh Khufu died

before his monument
was completed,

he could be placed
in one of the lower vaults.

The subterranean pit
was started first.

But it was abandoned unfinished

once the Queen's Chamber
higher up was completed.

Then the larger King's Chamber
was made ready above.

The pharaoh was still
alive at this point,

so the Queen's Chamber,
with its ritual shafts

pointing north and south,

was no longer needed.

[Mark] The two shafts
were then sealed up

and forgotten until
an explorer came along.

[narrator] The search goes on.

In 2017, scientists scanned
the Great Pyramid once again.

Using thermal imagery

and measuring the variations

in cosmic rays known as muons,

they made
a remarkable discovery.

Evidence of another,
previously unseen chamber

located above the Grand Gallery.

Its exact size and shape
are still unknown.

Its purpose is
yet another mystery.

It seems in the vast darkness
of the Great Pyramid,

there are still more secrets
to be found.

We have discovered that the
pyramid workers were not slaves,

but worked together
to build a new Egypt.

[Karen] The site
of the Great Pyramid

was more than just
a gigantic construction site.

It was a place
of social transformation,

to be involved in building
this great monument,

not just to
an individual leader,

but to their whole nation.

I mean, it was
to the glory of Egypt,

and it fulfilled every
very important religious belief

this society held dear.

[narrator] We have explored
how they might have built

such a monument.

[Fern] The idea that people

four and a half thousand
years ago

were cleverer than us,

could build these structures

we still don't understand,

is one a lot of people
don't really want to accept.

[narrator] And we've examined
the reasons why they did it.

I think it would have been
miraculous from the period.

Certainly would have been
a grand gesture,

display, of how mighty
Pharaoh was.

[narrator] But even
after centuries

of exploration and research,

the tomb of Khufu
still clings to its secrets.

The work of historians
and scientists goes on

to unravel the
Great Pyramid's mysteries

and seek out the truth.

The Great Pyramid has
inspired historians

for generations,

and will continue to do so.

[Mark] There's so much
we've learned,

but there's still
so much to learn.

It's incredible how alive

this investigation is,

four and a half thousand
years on.

New technologies are being
developed all the time.

I think the answers
are out there.

It will be an adventure,
finding out.

[epic music playing]