Original subtitles

(dramatic music)

NARRATOR: Deep in the Egyptian desert...

in a necropolis from the age of Alexander the Great.

DR. GEHAD: Disturbed tomb.

NARRATOR: A mysterious burial chamber...

DR. GEHAD: Amazing.

NARRATOR: ...contains hidden riches.

DR. GEHAD: It's just amazing. Gold is everywhere here.

NARRATOR: Revealing the rise of one of the world's greatest warrior kings.

(dramatic music continues)

NARRATOR: In the 3000 years of ancient Egyptian civilization,

many Pharaohs led their armies into battle.

But one Pharaoh stands out for his unparalleled military success.

One of the most famous names in human history: Alexander the Great.

NARRATOR: He ruled Egypt from 332 BCE until his death nine years later.

He spent his entire adult life at war.

Alexander was already a successful military leader, aged just 18.

(dramatic music throughout)

By the age of 30, he ruled one of the largest empires of the ancient world.

Today, archaeologists across Egypt are investigating...

Wow. It looks like Alexander.

NARRATOR: ...how this brutal warrior king became revered as a great pharaoh,

how he transformed ancient Egypt forever,

and they will try to solve one of the biggest mysteries of all,

the location of Alexander's lost tomb.

(suspenseful music)

NARRATOR: In Alexandria, a city founded by Alexander the Great,

British Egyptologist, Chris Naunton,

investigates the rise to power of one of Egypt's most famous pharaohs.

DR. NAUNTON: Alexander the Great really interests me,

and I kind of feel like if you want to know about Alexander the Great,

you need to be here. You need to know Alexandria.

NARRATOR: Alexander founded Alexandria on the coast of the Mediterranean in 331 BCE.

It became Egypt's capital and grew into one of the biggest cities of its time.

Wide avenues set on an urban grid plan, connected royal palaces,

temples, theaters, and sporting arenas,

all protected by a ten-mile-long defensive wall.

A causeway from the mainland to the island of Pharos

created separate harbors for commercial and military fleets.

Towering more than 350 feet above it all, a majestic lighthouse,

one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.

(suspenseful music continues)

NARRATOR: Chris visits the Alexandria National Museum

to see what treasures remain from ancient Alexandria

that could reveal more about Alexander the Great's rise.

Amongst the many statues of ancient Egyptian pharaohs,

Chris finds one that looks strangely out of place.

This is really exciting for me,

because this was found quite recently, and very near here as well.

It's a statue in marble of Alexander the Great.

In his right hand was probably, originally part of a spear,

or some other kind of weapon.

And that, of course, speaks to Alexander's great prowess as a military leader.

DR. NAUNTON: But what's really striking about it is that,

even though he was pharaoh of Egypt, and this was found here,

it's a very un-Egyptian statue in lots of ways.

NARRATOR: Egyptian pharaohs were depicted clothed,

wearing items that symbolized their royalty.

They were standing or seated in formal poses,

and their statues were less lifelike than Alexander's.

DR. NAUNTON: It's full of movement, which is a real contrast

to the very rigid statues we're used to seeing of Egyptian kings.

And that's because this is a Greek-style statue.

The reason for that is that Alexander himself was Greek.

NARRATOR: Born in 356 BCE,

Alexander grew up in the northern Greek kingdom of Macedonia

and was tutored by the great philosopher Aristotle.

After his father, Philip II was assassinated,

Alexander took the throne at just 20 years of age.

(dramatic music)

His military ambitions led him on huge campaigns

to conquer territory south and east of Greece.

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Then, at the tender age of 24, he entered Egypt and was made Pharaoh.

NARRATOR: At its height, Egypt's armies could be up to 100,000 strong.

But ancient records bear no mention of a deadly battle.

DR. NAUNTON: So how could it be that this young Greek king and military warrior

came to be Pharaoh of Egypt?

(suspenseful music)

NARRATOR: At the ancient site of Philadelphia,

Egyptian archaeologist, Basem Gehad is excavating in an enormous necropolis.

The city was established shortly after Alexander came to Egypt.

Basem has been working at Philadelphia for six years.

Last year, he investigated several unexplored tombs

and found a stunning mummy from the period following Alexander the Great.

(suspenseful music continues)

NARRATOR: He wants to find out how the arrival of Alexander

transformed the lives of people in Egypt.

And he thinks the tombs of Philadelphia could hold the answer.

DR. GEHAD: Now the question is, could we still see the impression of these people?

Could we track these people? Could we identify how they lived?

NARRATOR: Basem and a core of workers live out in the desert during their dig season.

DR. GEHAD: This is the family of the dig.

We are staying here the whole two months together

and there are people from different places, hopefully from Egypt.

But we understand each other very well and we know what we are looking for

and how we could obtain a good conclusion and result.

NARRATOR: His team has already made an unusual find;

the top of a circular tomb that extends below ground.

This is something unique and new for us, to find something like this.

Most of the structure is rectangular,

but this one is the first one we have here in this area in a circular shape.

NARRATOR: The structure is one of the biggest

Basem has ever excavated in this necropolis.

It could be an intact burial with a mummy and a collection of grave goods.

The team get to work, carefully removing the surrounding earth

and taking measurements as they go.

DR. GEHAD: The width of the wall is 70 cm. You got that Abdullah?

NARRATOR: The thick walls and the precision of the structure

suggest a lot of money was spent on this tomb.

It's amazing because it's quite a perfect circle.

The radius is always the same measurement at any point that you measure.

NARRATOR:The shape alone is a strong indication

that Basem is on the right track

in his search for Alexander the Great's impact on Egypt.

DR. GEHAD: These kinds of tombs were invented just after

Alexander the Great came to Egypt.

We don't have any older examples, earlier than the third century B.C.

NARRATOR: There could be a treasure trove of information

waiting for Basem beneath the sand.

After hours of digging, the team has uncovered a way in,

and Basem climbs down to get a first glimpse.

DR. GEHAD: It is just amazing. Amazing.

(dramatic music throughout)

NARRATOR: At Taposiris Magna, to the west of Alexandria,

Kathleen Martinez is exploring a huge temple complex

that goes back to the era of Alexander the Great.

KATHLEEN: This season is going to be amazing.

NARRATOR: 17 years ago, Kathleen gave up a career

as a criminal lawyer in the Dominican Republic to begin excavating here.

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KATHLEEN: Since the moment I enter Taposiris Magna the first time,

I knew it was an important archaeological site, and it means everything to me.

NARRATOR: The temple was built just 50 years after Alexander's death.

The huge complex is the size of a city block.

Dedicated to Osiris and Isis, the king and queen of the gods.

In past years, Kathleen has scanned and crawled through hidden spaces

in every corner of the site.

This season, she is focused on a tower outside the temple walls

that was built around the same time.

Its design resembles one of the most famous structures in ancient Alexandria.

The Greek historian Strabo described in detail the lighthouse of Alexandria

and we found here the same features in miniature.

NARRATOR: The purpose of this smaller lighthouse

at Taposiris Magna has long been a mystery.

KATHLEEN: It doesn't have all the structures that

the lighthouse used to have in Alexandria.

Then the Mediterranean Sea over there and this is in the wrong side of the hill,

and then it's surrounded by tombs. So, what could it be?

NARRATOR: Kathleen's team are excavating around the base of the tower

and have made a huge discovery beneath a mound of rocks on the south side.

KATHLEEN: Right now, I'm standing just beneath the lighthouse structure.

It looks like a cave, but after cleaning up outside all those big blocks

we realized it was not a cave, it was not a hole, it was a tomb. A magnificent tomb.

NARRATOR: Among the rubble and debris, Kathleen discovered a large sarcophagus.

KATHLEEN: So, we discovered through excavations

pieces of marble covering all the walls.

Once we discovered this area,

we realized that maybe the lighthouse was not a real lighthouse, but symbolic.

It was a temple tomb, and it has a replica of the lighthouse of Alexandria on top.

This was a rich, rich tomb, but who could afford this?

NARRATOR: Pottery finds around the tomb indicate

it was visited long after it was first built.

We have a lot of ceramics covered in 300 years,

so we know for 300 years, something was happening here.

NARRATOR: One possibility is that people were coming here in an act of worship.

We believe it was a pilgrimage area

and people used to come here to visit whoever was the owner of the tomb.

And this is what we need to find out.

NARRATOR: The person buried in this lavish tomb from the age of Alexander

was revered for centuries.

If Kathleen can find more clues around the tomb's entrance,

she could reveal who it was.

This area has 2000 years and nobody has ever touched it.

We don't know what we will find beneath.

(suspenseful music)

NARRATOR: In Saqqara, on the outskirts of Cairo,

Chris is retracing the footsteps of Alexander the Great

to try to understand how he managed to conquer the mighty Egypt.

(suspenseful music continues)

NARRATOR: In the shadow of the step pyramid, Egypt's first ever pyramid,

the catacombs at Saqqara were an important religious site,

in use both before and after the time of Alexander.

DR. NAUNTON: I really love this place.

It's a very special place for the ancient Egyptians,

and very special place for me as an archaeologist as well.

And it's the kind of place Alexander the Great would have been aware of, for sure.

And he might even have visited as well. And it's huge.

NARRATOR: One catacomb is full of giant sarcophagi,

inscribed with the names of dozens of pharaohs.

They chart the rise and fall of Egyptian royalty for more than 1,000 years.

One of them might shed light on Alexander's conquest.

(dramatic music)

So this here, if you can believe it, looming up in front of me,

is a massive sarcophagus and sarcophagus lid.

And what I would love to find here if I can, is an inscription.

And I cannot see any.

(suspenseful music)

NARRATOR: This sarcophagus dates to 200 years before Alexander the Great.

Chris searches for a name.

On top of this massive sarcophagus lid,

there is a band column of hieroglyphic signs running down the center.

Car-Anh-Bi-Chet. Something like that.

And that's really interesting because that is the closest the Egyptians could get

in their hieroglyphs to the name we might know better as Cambyses.

Cambyses was not Egyptian.

NARRATOR: Cambyses was the Persian Emperor. This isn't his tomb,

but this huge sarcophagus commemorates his rule over Egypt.

What this tells us is that he was recognized here as king

because at this point in history, Egypt had become a part of the Persian Empire.

NARRATOR: Before Alexander, Ancient Egypt, one of the mightiest

civilizations in history, had already been conquered.

(dramatic music)

NARRATOR: The Persian Empire, based in what is today Iran,

took over Egypt in the sixth century BCE.

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Alexander's tiny kingdom, Macedonia,

sat beyond the western edge of the Persian Empire.

In 334 BCE, he led his Army east,

tearing through the Persian forces in Asia Minor before setting his sights on Egypt.

NARRATOR: Alexander arrived in the Egyptian capital,

Memphis, and met no esistance.

The Persian forces had already left Egypt,

and the Egyptians welcomed him as a liberator.

The Persian governor surrendered,

handed over a vast quantity of gold from the treasury

and gave Alexander control of Egypt.

Taking control was one thing,

keeping control of the country was going to be just as difficult

because these were turbulent times for Egypt.

NARRATOR: Successive Persian emperors had treated the country poorly.

The Egyptians had attempted multiple rebellions

in the century before Alexander.

As another foreign ruler, Alexander needed to find a way

to win the support of the Egyptian people and cement his power.

NARRATOR: At Taposiris Magna, Kathleen and her team

are excavating beside the grand tomb site to discover who its revered owner was,

and what it can tell them about Alexander the Great's impact on Egypt.

KATHLEEN: We're excavating right here, and we're expecting we have still a meter

and a half and maybe we can discover who was the owner of this tomb.

NARRATOR: The area they need to dig is covered by a firepit they think dates back

to the Muslim conquest of Egypt in the seventh century C.E..

This fire pit, which is from the Muslim occupation,

it may have nothing to do with the Greek period, but it has to be preserved.

NARRATOR: It's Kathleen's duty to make sure no information is lost,

regardless of what period it's from.

The team must carefully excavate and record

anything they find in these later layers

before digging down to reach the Greek period of ancient Egypt beneath.

We believe that maybe beneath the fire pit, we might find something

that has more information to find out who built this temple tomb.

NARRATOR: The team start sifting through the layers of ancient charcoal.

Almost straight away, they make a tantalizing find:

an unusual shard of pink stone.

KATHLEEN: This is a good sign because it's a piece of statue

that has been broken and maybe other parts are here.

So, it's good, it's pink granite,

and usually important statues were made out of it.

NARRATOR: This pink granite, a small fragment of an opulent statue,

could be a sign of bigger finds to come.

The team are still working their way down through layers of sand, charcoal,

and animal bones, when they make another discovery.

-KATHLEEN: Wow. -NARRATOR: Ancient coins.

NARRATOR: In Philadelphia, Basem is excavating the mysterious circular tomb

from around the time of Alexander the Great that he has just discovered.

-He peers inside for the first time. -DR. GEHAD: It's a catacomb.

You just open a very small window from the...

that we could look inside with a torch.

NARRATOR: A catacomb isn't a single tomb.

It's a large underground chamber with multiple alcoves,

each one containing a body.

This incredibly rare discovery could contain an entire family.

We still have to go deeper in order to be able to descend inside it.

NARRATOR: Basem hopes this catacomb will help reveal Alexander the Great's impact

on Egyptian life and death.

He doesn't want to miss a single clue,

so workers carefully sift through every bucket of sand.

They shift over a ton in the next five hours.

Finally, they clear a path inside.

(dramatic music throughout)

DR. GEHAD: Disturbed tomb.

NARRATOR: It looks like someone else has been in here

since the catacomb was first used.

Now, since we are finding now, remains of textiles and very fine sand,

it seems that this might have been looted, I would say, 100 years ago.

NARRATOR: But Basem is undeterred.

Because he is on a treasure hunt of a different kind.

DR. GEHAD: It's not only finding objects, but also trying to write history

by reading information from the materials inside.

This is the main objective, finding good things,

but also finding wonderful information.

NARRATOR: The team continues to remove the sand and debris from the tomb.

Once it's clear, Basem calls down archaeologist, Mahmoud Ibrahim,

to begin picking through the piled up material discarded by the looters.

The remains of as many as 20 people could be buried in this catacomb

a potential treasure trove of information.

NARRATOR: It isn't long before they find a decorated fragment.

This is a clue for us. A key.

NARRATOR: At the temple of Taposiris Magna,

Kathleen's team are digging for clues to the owner of the lavish tomb

built underneath the replica of the famous lighthouse of Alexandria.

They are hoping to find out more about the era of Alexander the Great,

and they've discovered coins in the remains

of what they believe to be a seventh century fire pit.

KATHLEEN: Wow. I'm so excited. It's starting to give us information.

We were not expected to have coins here.

The coins could be a sign of something beneath.

I'm very, very, very excited.

NARRATOR: When Kathleen takes a closer look, she makes a surprising discovery.

This is a Roman coin. We can see the horses.

And this powerful man leading the horses.

And the other side, is the head and it says T-R-A-J-A-N.

Here is very clear. Trajan...

Emperor Trajan.

NARRATOR: Roman emperor, Trajan ruled Egypt in the second century C.E.

Finding these coins dates the firepit to the same period.

At the beginning we thought it was Islamic,

but we're always full of surprises here.

NARRATOR: This means the material they're digging through

is much closer in time to the building of the temple and the tomb

and they could be much closer to discovering who this tomb was for.

Kathleen heads to the replica lighthouse above the tomb

as her team carefully excavates the final layers of the firepit.

NARRATOR: They are hoping for Alexander-era artifacts

as they work their way down through the sand to bedrock.

What? A discovery? I have to go!

We have a head.

(dramatic music)

NARRATOR: In Saqqara, Chris is exploring a giant royal catacomb

in use before and after the time of Alexander the Great.

He's investigating whether it holds any clues

to how Alexander cemented his power in Egypt.

DR. NAUNTON: This is not an ordinary sarcophagus.

It's much, much bigger than the ones we would normally see in a tomb.

NARRATOR: Some of the sarcophagi here are nearly eight feet high,

well beyond what's needed for a human body, even for a mighty pharaoh.

DR. NAUNTON: These three hieroglyphic signs here

at the beginning of the sequence read "Hep",

which is the name we know better as Apis.

It's the name of the Apis Bull, a God living on Earth

manifest in a real-life living bull.

NARRATOR: This catacomb stretches over 600 feet beneath the Saqqara Desert.

Branching off an extended network of galleries,

dozens of chambers that hold 24 gigantic granite sarcophagi,

each weighing up to 70 tons.

Inside, Egyptians placed a sacred mummified bull, Apis,

that they believed was an incarnation of the creator God, Ptah.

NARRATOR: Each subsequent reincarnation of Apis, over 50 bulls in total,

was buried in a vault here, in a long-established cult

that was popular throughout Egypt

as far back as the first dynasty of Egyptian kings.

NARRATOR: When the Persians ruled Egypt, traditions like this began to suffer.

Later Persian rulers looted Egyptian temples and their treasuries,

and drastically cut their income, making it harder to maintain the cult.

Evidence suggests no Apis Bull was mummified for an entire century.

When Alexander became pharaoh,

he had to decide whether he would allow the Apis cult to continue.

DR. NAUNTON: So what happens when Alexander comes along?

How does that affect things? How does that change things?

Well, in fact, one of Alexander's great strengths

was his capacity to embrace local tradition.

NARRATOR: The hieroglyphs reveal that many of these bulls

were installed after Alexander's arrival.

He allowed the Apis Bull cult to continue,

and that makes him a very popular ruler with the ancient Egyptians.

NARRATOR: Ancient sources reveal that one of the first things Alexander did

on arrival in Egypt was pay his respects to the Apis Bull.

DR. NAUNTON: It's all a part of his way of winning over people and territories.

It's very canny, and that puts him in a very strong position

to rule the country as a popular leader.

NARRATOR: While the Apis Bull tombs were important,

Egyptian pharaohs were more concerned with the scale and grandeur of their own tomb.

Chris wants to find the still undiscovered tomb of Alexander.

NARRATOR: In Philadelphia, Basem is investigating the rare rotunda catacomb.

He's searching for clues to help him understand

how Alexander the Great transformed the lives of the people buried here.

Mahmud just found here a very important thing.

This is made out of textile and then gold sheets.

Real gold sheets.

NARRATOR: As their excavation continues,

Basem and the team collect more signs of a wealthy family.

From luxurious amounts of fine quality mummy wrappings

to fragments of shimmering gold leaf.

DR. GEHAD: Amazing.

You can see the gold is everywhere here.

NARRATOR: It's evidence that Philadelphia was a wealthy city,

home to people rich enough to afford the grandest of Egyptian burial practices.

People here were prospering after Alexander's arrival.

I could see amazing stuff here.

(suspenseful music)

This is a kind of complete pot.

NARRATOR: This beautiful piece of ancient pottery

is a clue to when the tomb was built.

There is a complete profile here that we could use for dating of these tombs.

It seems that this is end of Ptolemaic, early Roman.

NARRATOR: The Ptolemaic dynasty, the Greek pharaohs that followed Alexander,

lasted for three centuries,

meaning this tomb dates to 300 years after Alexander came to Egypt.

NARRATOR: And yet the people here were still building their tombs

in the style he imported.

DR. GEHAD: This kind of circular structure that is on top of this burial chamber

is copied from burial examples in Alexandria.

NARRATOR: The catacomb and its circular superstructure

are proof the city founded by Alexander the Great

was seen as an example to follow.

The architect at that time

wanted to simulate the buildings that they loved at Alexandria here in Philadelphia.

NARRATOR: Alexander's Greek culture had spread from

Alexandria to other parts of the country.

DR. GEHAD: Philadelphia was established from scratch on basis of the Greek style,

which came to Egypt by Alexander the Great.

NARRATOR: Alexander's lasting impact on Egypt is becoming clearer.

But the catacomb hasn't given up all its secrets yet.

MAN: Doctor! Doctor!

NARRATOR: Basem heads back to the tomb to see what his team has discovered.

-DR. GEHAD: Did you find something? -MAN: Yes.

-DR. GEHAD: Honestly? -MAN: I swear by the name of Allah!

(dramatic music)

NARRATOR: Two near-perfectly preserved panels of a mummy portrait.

Rare works of funeral art not seen in Egypt before Alexander.

These wax paint portraits preserved a person's likeness after death

in the hope their soul could find their body in the afterlife.

DR. GEHAD: Omar found one part that was stuck to the floor,

and it fits perfectly to the first part to complete the face of the man,

including the rest of his neck,

his right eye and a big portion of his face.

NARRATOR: These rare and precious portraits allow Basem

to look into the eyes of the people that lived here some 2000 yearsago.

Together, the finds here paint a picture of Philadelphia

as a city with a thriving economy.

You wouldn't have this quality of tomb unless you have a good architect.

You wouldn't also have this kind of portrait

unless you have the high-class artist.

Which means that Philadelphia was really important,

and it was attracting people from the capital to come here

and to live here or to work here.

NARRATOR: Philadelphia was booming,

and the mummy portrait stands out as the perfect illustration

of how the arrival of Alexander the Great in Egypt

transformed the lives of people here.

DR. GEHAD: The mix technique of painting is Greek.

Preserving the face for the afterlife: it's purely Egyptian culture.

NARRATOR: Persian rulers had suppressed Egyptian traditions,

looting temple treasuries and stifling practices like the Apis Bull cult.

Basem's discoveries reveal that under Alexander,

Philadelphia and Egypt flourished with the melding of Greek and Egyptian culture.

DR. GEHAD: Philadelphia was a big melting pot,

starting a new era where people from different backgrounds,

different civilization, different culture, were mixed together.

So, a multicultural place.

NARRATOR: Chris has come to Alexandria to search for evidence of

Alexander the Great's tomb.

(dramatic music)

I've been looking for ancient tombs in Egypt for most of my career,

and the tomb of Alexander the Great is pretty close to the top of my list.

NARRATOR: The search for his final resting place is difficult,

because Alexander moved around almost as much in death as he did in life.

NARRATOR: After a banquet in Babylon, far to the east of Egypt,

Alexander suddenly fell ill and died, aged just 32.

His body was on the way back to Macedonia, escorted by an entourage,

when his bodyguard and lifelong friend, Ptolemy, stopped them.

Ptolemy took Alexander's body to Egypt to bury him in the city of Memphis instead.

Ptolemy became Pharaoh and then built a new tomb for Alexander in Alexandria.

But its exact location remains a mystery.

It's difficult to think of a tomb that would be a greater sensation

if it was discovered than the tomb of Alexander the Great.

There are little scraps of evidence, clues, if you like,

that could help us to get close.

DR. NAUNTON: We have good reasons to think that the tomb of Alexander

was located in the royal quarter. So that's the part of Alexandria

where there would have been the royal palaces, all the great buildings of state,

including a monumental tomb for a great leader like Alexander.

NARRATOR: Digging beneath modern Alexandria is difficult

so there is little direct evidence of exactly

where the ancient royal quarter once was.

But Chris has a clever technique that could point the way.

DR. NAUNTON: I have a photo here showing one of the obelisks,

called Cleopatra's Needle, at the time it was being moved.

NARRATOR: Two obelisks, tall, monumental pillars,

are believed to have marked the entrance of a former temple

in the ancient royal quarter.

NARRATOR: But they were removed and taken to Britain and America in 1877,

the same year the building in the background was constructed.

The over 200 ton red granite obelisks were shipped to London and New York,

but the building behind them might still be here.

DR. NAUNTON: If we can find that building,

then we could be getting close to the tomb of Alexander the Great.

(suspenseful music)

NARRATOR: Chris hits the streets of Alexandria

searching for the building in this photograph

in his quest to find the last resting place of Alexander.

Okay. So, I think this might be the one.

So, we've got, the full windows across the center,

a little shape in the center as well.

So, if this is the spot, then more or less exactly where I'm standing

is where Cleopatra's needles were, where the temple was built.

NARRATOR: Now that Chris knows where he is in ancient Alexandria,

he can use an historic map of the original city to continue his search.

The method of city planning in Alexander's time

could help Chris identify the most likely location of his tomb.

In ancient times, cities like this were designed around a main kind of crossroads,

and that's where often the main buildings of state, the most important buildings,

would have been constructed.

NARRATOR: Chris matches the main streets of modern Alexandria

with what he thinks could be the central crossroads of ancient Alexandria.

DR. NAUNTON: So this amazingly busy spot might actually correspond

to the very center of ancient Alexandria.

And if that's right, and if we are in the area of the crossroads,

then the tomb could be here somewhere.

NARRATOR: Chris could be standing directly over the remains

of the tomb of Alexander the Great.

But it's almost impossible to set up a huge archaeological dig

in such a busy part of the modern city.

At the moment, even if we can be pretty confident that it might be here,

we can't verify it.

NARRATOR: Whatever grand monument holds Alexander's remains

is tantalizingly out of reach.

NARRATOR: At Taposiris Magna, Kathleen is still on the hunt

for the owner of the grand Alexander-era temple tomb.

She hurries down from outside the tower to the dig site

to see what her team has found underneath the remains of the fire pit.

Wow.

(dramatic music)

KATHLEEN: Oh, my God. He's so beautiful.

NARRATOR: A perfectly preserved head of a stone statue.

KATHLEEN: We reached the bedrock, and he's telling me,

when they were just removing the sand with no hope,

in the very bottom, we found this head. You never lose hope in archaeology.

Bravo!

Be free!

You're going to buy us dinner, right?

NARRATOR: This head's position, beneath the Roman firepit,

indicates that it's from the period of the temple tomb's construction.

Kathleen examines the head itself to see what more she can learn.

KATHLEEN: Wow.

It has all these details. It has a helmet and the hair.

KATHLEEN: Its style...

...and all the details, so you can see the nose and the eyes, the ear.

The work in the hair.

But it's so beautiful. And this is what our work is about.

It's so rewarding when we get and recover these pieces that were lost forever.

I'm so excited.

It looks like Alexander.

NARRATOR: If the team can identify the figure,

it might help them identify the tomb's owner.

KATHLEEN: Wow.

Look at the eyes. It looks like it's alive.

(inspiring music throughout)

We know it's Greek.

The carved helmet appears to be a Greek design.

-Yes, it could be a god? Or a goddess? -Yes.

-It's a woman. -Woman.

-Woman? -With a helmet?

Pallas Athena. Athena.

NARRATOR: The statue head could be that of Athena, the Greek goddess of war.

In other temples of Egypt, you see Egyptian gods.

But in this specific place and in this temple tomb, you see Greek gods.

And that means that at the very highest level of society,

Egypt was taken over by the Greeks.

NARRATOR: Kathleen still needs to find out who the owner of the tomb was.

KATHLEEN:This is not conclusive.

But if it is Athena and it's confirmed by the expert,

the owner of the tomb was a warrior and was Greek.

NARRATOR: Because of the tomb's special location

next to the temple and under the replica lighthouse,

Kathleen believes it could belong

to one of the Greek pharaohs that followed Alexander the Great,

the Ptolemies.

KATHLEEN: We're putting all these pieces together

and there's very few historical names would stand to have a tomb like this.

NARRATOR: Not one of the Greek pharaohs' tombs have ever been found in Egypt.

This could be a truly momentous discovery.

The head itself needs careful conservation before it can be assessed properly.

See you soon.

NARRATOR: In the weeks to come, Kathleen will continue digging for more clues.

KATHLEEN: There's a lot of new information here.

We're still searching for the owner, but it gave us a very important clue.

Okay, let's continue working.

NARRATOR: Alexander the Great was renowned for his military conquests,

yet his conquest of Egypt was of a completely different kind.

Capturing the kingdom with almost no bloodshed,

he established Greek culture and religion at the top of Egyptian society.

But he also supported local traditions,

eventually creating an inclusive Egypt

that was a hybrid of Greek and local beliefs.

KATHLEEN: This is the legacy of Alexander the Great.

NARRATOR: An Egypt that prospered for hundreds of years after his death.

TRANSLATOR CREDIT