Original subtitles

(mysterious music plays)

NARRATOR: Deep in the Egyptian desert,

-(unintelligible chatter) -(stones scraping)

NARRATOR: a team of workers dig down through the sands…

We will keep our fingers crossed. Then we will see.

NARRATOR: In the hunt for Queen Cleopatra's Egypt.

-(unintelligible chatter) -(music continues)

NARRATOR: They've found an ancient grave.

They are the most critical part of the job.

NARRATOR: One of the dead is about to give up their secrets.

BASEM: It's amazing. Unbelievable.

(music bellows)

(music crescendos)

(thematic music plays)

NARRATOR: From the tombs and temples of ancient Egypt.

One pharaoh has become not just a name,

but a character that has captivated the world,

in history books and Hollywood.

Cleopatra.

-(music intensifies) -She ruled Egypt for 21 tumultuous years.

The last of her murderous and incestuous dynasty of Greek pharaohs, the Ptolemies.

A woman in a man's world, in a land and culture, never truly her own.

She overcame it all to achieve greatness.

Today, archaeologists across Egypt

are searching through the remnants of her reign,

to uncover her path to power.

She had to make incredibly difficult decisions.

NARRATOR: And how she became one of the most famous pharaohs of all.

-(music bellows) -In Taposiris Magna,

next to a colossal temple from Cleopatra's era,

archaeologist Kathleen Martinez is hunting for Cleopatra's tomb

and she's fallen under the legendary queen's spell.

When I study Cleopatra's life properly,

I discover she was the most charming lady in history.

I came to Egypt and I decided to search for her tomb.

I came here to Taposiris Magna, and then the moment I entered this location,

this ancient temple, I knew it was here. And then it changes everything for me.

NARRATOR: 17 years ago, Kathleen was

a qualified lawyer in the Dominican Republic,

but gave it up to search for lost treasures in the land of the pharaohs.

I had to change my career because it's incredible to be an archaeologist.

When you discover something, you can change history. You can rewrite history.

NARRATOR: Taposiris Magna is a temple

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

(thematic music bellows)

Last season, Kathleen and her team followed survey data

to explore part of a tunnel running beneath the site.

The tunnel has been painstakingly cut through the bedrock, and even decorated,

so must have had an important purpose.

KATHLEEN: We can see clearly there are some traces of painting.

NARRATOR: Kathleen hopes it could lead to Cleopatra's tomb.

KATHLEEN: Cleopatra's tomb has never been found.

But every season I'm getting closer and closer to make this discovery.

I feel the tunnels are the clue.

NARRATOR: This season, her team returns to the tunnel

to resume the hunt for Cleopatra's final resting place.

What I'm looking for is to find out in the network of the tunnels,

if there's any branch going to the temple.

NARRATOR: Kathleen gets the report back from Mohamed Boghdadi,

her chief of workers.

-Is the tunnel dry? -Yes.

No water. Okay.

-And the electricity? -Yeah.

Okay, so it's ready for me to go down. Okay, perfect.

NARRATOR: Everything is in place for Kathleen

to investigate the tunnel herself.

Her biggest fear is the perilous 30 foot drop down the vertical shaft.

I'm always very concerned about the rope because if we fall there, that's it.

(mysterious music plays)

NARRATOR: In Dendera, 500 miles to the south,

American Egyptologist and vintage fashion fan,

Colleen Darnell, has come to the temple complex,

one of the best preserved ancient sites in Egypt.

She's here to find out how Cleopatra rose to power.

It's hard to overestimate the majesty of this place

and to see buildings from all different periods.

This really is like a history book of Egypt

told through beautiful stone temples.

NARRATOR: One structure dominates the site. A vast stone temple 140 feet wide,

with an entrance hall boasting 24 gargantuan columns.

This temple has ancient roots,

but it was modified and added to throughout the millennium.

(music continues)

NARRATOR: Dendera is a holy site that dates back to Egypt's Old Kingdom

more than 2,000 years before Cleopatra.

This temple is literally covered with inscriptions.

Virtually every surface is decorated with hieroglyphic texts,

scenes of deities and kings, and above all, the goddess Hathor.

NARRATOR: The temple complex sits on the west bank of the Nile.

In antiquity, it spread over 48,000 square yards,

enclosed by a mud brick wall.

At its heart, Egypt's largest temple to Hathor,

the popular goddess of birth and motherhood.

To the south, a smaller temple to the goddess Isis,

and to the west, a sacred lake and more shrines built under Greek and Roman rule.

For over two millennia,

thousands of worshippers would gather in this holy site each year

to celebrate a festival in honor of Hathor.

The temple is covered with inscriptions of pharaohs from down the centuries.

Colleen ventures inside to look for evidence of Cleopatra.

This is the cartouche of Ptolemy the 12th. We have a wonderful portrait of him here.

And this writes his name Pto-le-my, so Ptolemy,

"living forever and beloved of the god Ptah and the goddess Isis."

NARRATOR: Ptolemy Auletes was the 12th in a dynasty of pharaohs

in which all men bore the name Ptolemy,

and he was father to Cleopatra.

Ptolemy the 12th is on the walls in the crypt

because he's the one that started this temple

that Cleopatra would then add on to.

NARRATOR: This grand temple to Hathor was built in large part by Cleopatra

when she was pharaoh.

I think this is amongst the most beautiful Ptolemaic reliefs I've seen.

It's really incredible.

NARRATOR: Women seldom ruled as pharaohs in ancient Egypt,

but when Ptolemy the 12th succumbed to ill health, he made an unusual decision.

At the very end of his life, Ptolemy appoints Cleopatra as co-regent

probably because he knew how difficult things were going to become for her.

-(music bellows) -NARRATOR: When Ptolemy the 12th died,

the 18 year old Cleopatra was meant to share the throne

with her ten year old brother, Ptolemy the 13th.

But Cleopatra had different plans.

She minted coins with her likeness instead of her brothers,

and she signed official documents as Egypt's sole ruler.

The young Ptolemy's advisers plotted against her.

And eventually seized power in the capital, Alexandria.

-(music intensifies) -Cleopatra was stripped of her crown.

(music crescendos)

Conflict breaks out between the supporters of Ptolemy the 13th

and those of Cleopatra, and Cleopatra is forced to flee.

NARRATOR: The young queen headed east

to hide out in the Roman province of Syria.

(dramatic music plays)

Cleopatra was now in exile and an enemy of the state.

Colleen wants to explore how she retook the throne.

-(music bellows) -In the ancient city of Philadelphia.

(unintelligible chatter)

Egyptian archaeologist Basem Gehad and his team

are excavating a vast necropolis used during the time of Cleopatra.

Basem has spent more than a decade digging in his native country,

but his fascination with the age of Cleopatra goes back much further.

When I was a child, there was a lot of books and stories about Tutankhamun

and, uh, different tombs with these treasures.

NARRATOR: Basem was more interested in the end of ancient Egypt.

Now, as a director of a Ptolemaic era site,

he gets to try and answer all the questions he pondered as a boy.

I was lucky because nowadays I'm working on Philadelphia

and it gives me all the things that I was dreaming. It makes my dream come true.

(unintelligible foreign language)

NARRATOR: Basem and his team are searching

for the lost tombs of Queen Cleopatra's subjects.

(thematic music plays)

So from the pottery that we have found with these graves,

we can date these graves to the late Ptolemaic period,

which might be corresponding to the reign of Cleopatra.

NARRATOR: He believes their graves could be key

to understanding her power in Egypt.

We are trying to understand their life from digging in their afterlife.

NARRATOR: His skilled workers dig in

several locations to maximize their chances.

And it's not long before one team uncovers

the rectangular outline of a mud brick grave.

The bricks form a stepped roof, concealing any grave goods below.

Removing the first bricks is a delicate job. It can easily cause a collapse.

(mysterious music plays)

Before they risk going any further,

Basem uses a miniature camera to take a first look.

BASEM: It's amazing.

NARRATOR: It looks like the top of a coffin.

BASEM: It's an amazing discovery.

(thematic music plays)

NARRATOR: At Deir El-Bahari, in southern Egypt,

is the mortuary temple of Hatshepsut,

a female pharaoh who was able to take the throne

as regent for her three year old stepson.

She lived 1,400 years before Cleopatra,

and yet she built a monumental structure

honoring the very same deity Cleopatra honored at Dendera, the goddess Hathor.

(music intensifies)

When pharaoh Hatshepsut built her mortuary temple,

she added a shrine on the southern side.

In the entrance, 32 columns carved from sandstone,

featuring Hathor, goddess of maternity and symbolic mother of all pharaohs.

At the back of the shrine,

a statue of Hathor in the form of a cow protecting Hatshepsut.

Something about this divine maternal figure

appealed to both Hatshepsut and Cleopatra.

-(thematic music plays) -Polish archaeologist Patryk Chudzik

has been exploring Hatshepsut's Temple for 12 years.

He believes the shrine to Hathor could have influenced Cleopatra.

This was possibly the place which was visited many times,

by the later female pharaoh, by Queen Cleopatra.

(dramatic music plays)

Coming here and seeing what the female pharaoh Hatshepsut from the past did,

uh, possibly, she wanted to follow this path as well.

She wanted to do something great, like Hatshepsut did.

(music intensifies)

NARRATOR: Patryk has been given privileged permission

to excavate inside the sacred Hathor shrine.

He's searching for areas where the stone flooring

doesn't match the rest of the shrine.

We have here a group of blocks,

which are much smaller than the floor slabs of the sanctuary.

And this is very curious, you know.

It can mean that this part of the floor was put here after,

to hid something which could be explored underneath.

NARRATOR: The strange slabs, could conceal a hidden chamber.

We are going to start first with removing one of these small slabs.

Then we start to dig down, and if we do not find a bedrock,

then it means that something is hidden beneath.

(music crescendos)

NARRATOR: Patryk brings in his chief worker,

Ahmed Ibrahim, to help him lift the slab.

-(unintelligible foreign language) -(dramatic music plays)

-(both grunting) -(stone scraping)

It's a little bit bigger than we expected.

NARRATOR: There is no bedrock, just sand. This hole goes further down.

It looks good, but we will see.

NARRATOR: As Ahmed delves deeper, the sand throws up an unexpected find.

We have a fragment of a painted cartonnage here.

NARRATOR: Cartonnage is a material used in death masks.

-It's a promising find for Patryk. -(music bellows)

This is a very clear sign that it might be a shaft here beneath the floor.

NARRATOR: Patryk must bring the rest of his team in

and start a full scale excavation.

I cannot wait to check what is hidden beneath.

Something is hidden in this place.

(music bellows then crescendos)

(thematic music plays)

NARRATOR: In Dendera, Colleen is investigating

how Cleopatra returned to power

after her younger brother had forced her into exile.

Cleopatra completed a lavish temple here when she was pharaoh,

and dedicated it to Hathor, making it a key place to look for clues.

It's incredible to turn the corner and see this beautiful carving

of a man and a woman offering to the gods.

NARRATOR: Images of figures making offerings like this

were used by ancient Egyptians to depict royalty.

This is a monumental relief of Cleopatra and a male figure.

Now, if we look at the cartouche,

it actually tells us this is Cleopatra's child,

none other than Caesarian, the son of Cleopatra and Julius Caesar.

NARRATOR: The cartouche, an oval shape containing the royal name,

reveals Cleopatra's relationship with Rome's great general.

(music intensifies)

In 47 BCE, Julius Caesar arrived in Alexandria.

Cleopatra stole into the city to meet him.

The two began an affair, and she eventually bore his child.

Caesar waged war on Cleopatra's rival, her brother Ptolemy the 13th,

and eventually got the upper hand.

A defeated Ptolemy pulled his army back to his fleet on the Nile.

But in the chaos he drowned.

Cleopatra reinstated herself as pharaoh, this time with the next male heir in line,

Ptolemy the 14th, as co-regent.

The relief makes it clear that Cleopatra had returned to power.

But there was one more thing holding her back.

Sharing the throne left her and her infant son Caesarion vulnerable.

Colleen investigates the hieroglyphs for clues to how she seized total control.

Here we have Queen Cleopatra, her son Caesarian.

The second cartouche then, the Horus, represents the Falcon God of kingship.

She is proclaiming for the world to see that this is her co-regent.

And this begs the question, where is her brother?

NARRATOR: Ptolemy the 14th had ruled Egypt

for just three years as co-regent with his elder sister, Cleopatra,

when Julius Caesar was assassinated in Rome.

It was a devastating loss for Cleopatra.

But she acted fast to consolidate her grip on power.

According to rumor, she poisoned her younger brother.

Then installed her three year old son, Caesarion, as co-regent in his place.

At last, she sat unrivaled on the Egyptian throne.

Cleopatra was ruthless.

But then again, she had to be to maintain her power on the throne.

She had to make some difficult decisions and often violent ones.

NARRATOR: The inscription here heralds her triumph

and proclaims her regal authority for all to see.

Even though Caesarian is technically king,

we all know that Cleopatra is the power behind the throne.

She is attaining her right to be king of Egypt through him.

NARRATOR: Cleopatra had purged her palace of threats.

The only danger now was from the people she ruled.

(dramatic music plays)

At the ancient city of Philadelphia,

Basem is investigating a grave.

(unintelligible foreign language)

NARRATOR: Inside, is what looks like an intact burial.

BASEM: From the hole, we could see exceptional large painted wooden coffin.

NARRATOR: Basem is searching for the lost tombs of Queen Cleopatra's subjects.

The unstable period of Queen Cleopatra drove us

to think about the question of how a young lady was struggling

to keep the throne with her people who are living in Egypt

and also to get involved with the Roman leaders.

It is a big mystery, and one of the keys to solve it

is to search for the people who were living during her reign.

NARRATOR: His team needs to dismantle the mud-brick enclosure

without damaging what could lie beneath.

BASEM: It's the most critical part of the job,

to remove the mud bricks carefully and safely from on top of the coffin.

Otherwise, you can destroy it. So it takes time and it needs a lot of patience.

We keep our fingers crossed, then we will see.

(dramatic music bellows)

NARRATOR: Hours of painstaking work by Basem and his team,

slowly reveals a 2,000 year old coffin.

This kind of coffin and also the information behind it,

is the things that we were looking for since the beginning of the season.

NARRATOR: It is almost perfectly preserved,

with a gabled roof lid made from fine timber

and decorated with a painted black and white pattern.

BASEM: Finding such a large coffin from imported wood and painted.

It's a strong indication of the status of the owner of this coffin.

He should be one of the elites.

NARRATOR: The beautiful coffin is evidence the wealthy Greek elite

were not confined to Cleopatra's capital, Alexandria.

They lived across Egypt,

helping Cleopatra and all the Ptolemaic pharaohs maintain their power.

Now the pressure's on to extract this wonderful find in one piece.

(mysterious music plays)

BASEM: It is really tight and very well made and built,

in a way that it makes things very difficult to…

to maneuver even around the mud-bricks.

We have to take it block by block, and it's really fragile.

NARRATOR: Once the coffin is completely exposed…

(speaks in foreign language) They're fragile due to damp.

It's clear to me. I'll dig underneath it.

NARRATOR: The team prepares to lift it.

(mysterious music continues)

BASEM: (speaks in foreign language) Lift it only slightly and carefully. Get ready!

(music bellows)

NARRATOR: In Taposiris Magna,

Kathleen is set to continue her search for Cleopatra's tomb.

She makes final checks with the ladder crew

as she prepares to climb down the shaft to the tunnel below.

KATHLEEN: They walk in the edge, but for me, it's scary.

I can fall and that's it.

NARRATOR: The shaft is 30 feet deep.

Piece of cake. (nervous chuckle) Yes. Oh my gosh. Okay.

(music intensifies)

(music continues)

It's, uh, it's really very exciting to be down here again.

It's not flooded, which is really important.

NARRATOR: Kathleen has to check the conditions

before excavation can begin in earnest.

The tunnel runs in two directions, south towards the temple

and north, towards the sea, where Kathleen heads first.

I'm very concerned about the condition of the ceiling in this section of the tunnel.

You can see has been damaged seriously by the water effect.

Even the plaster is about to collapse and it's really dangerous for us.

-(ominous music bellows) -NARRATOR: Kathleen heads back south.

She's searching for a concealed branch of the tunnel heading under the temple,

and any clue that could lead to what may be Cleopatra's tomb.

But the further along she goes, the worse the conditions get.

You can feel the air. It's so heavy, you cannot stay.

It's not that easy to breathe down here.

It's hurting all my body, my muscles. It's only two men can start here.

And I have to change them every hour.

-(music bellows) -NARRATOR: The air quality is so poor,

that each worker can only stay down here for a limited time.

Kathleen needs to explore further. But there's a problem.

The tunnels are blocked by a mountain of debris.

I'm going to go further a little bit, but then I will bring the workers

and they will start cleaning this part of the tunnel.

-(music continues) -NARRATOR: The workers begin digging

and Kathleen heads to the surface for some much needed fresh air.

KATHLEEN: This is really hard.

NARRATOR: But before she reaches the ladder,

she's called back. They've found something.

(music bellows and intensifies)

KATHLEEN: Look at this. Oh, full of surprises.

-Wow, it's beautiful. -(unintelligible chattering)

NARRATOR: It's an ancient piece of pottery…

that could be a clue to the tomb's location.

But right now, Kathleen is running out of time.

She'll soon start to suffer the ill effects of the poor air.

We'll have to take it to the surface because we need to look at it outside.

But we have to go.

-(grunts) -(music crescendos)

-(thematic music plays) -NARRATOR: In Dendera,

Colleen is searching the temple structure for clues to Cleopatra's rise to power.

She had finally taken full control of the country,

but she still needed to win support from her native Egyptian subjects.

Egypt was in a very difficult state. There had been famine.

There had been all kinds of conflict.

So Cleopatra is facing an uphill battle.

And as a woman, it's going to be even harder for her to rule successfully.

NARRATOR: The continued expansion

of the ancient Dendera temple site was part of her plan.

By funding a temple for Hathor at Dendera,

by tapping into the beliefs of the Egyptian people outside of Alexandria,

Cleopatra was consolidating her power.

NARRATOR: It made sense for Cleopatra to pour royal money into a popular cause.

But she had greater ambitions than just funding the temple.

Colleen examines the carvings for clues.

In this scene, a king is making an offering to the goddess Hathor.

In between the king and Hathor is the child god, Ihy.

Ihy is the son of Hathor. And what's remarkable about this,

this is the theological power that Cleopatra is channeling for her reign.

She is the goddess and her son is the god.

(thematic music plays)

NARRATOR: Cleopatra was using Egyptian religion in a way no male pharaoh could.

She was not just claiming Hathor's approval,

she was assuming Hathor's identity as a divine mother figure.

(music bellows)

Hathor was the goddess associated with maternity,

mother to the child god, Ihy, and other major gods.

She sometimes took the form of a cow,

nursing the young pharaohs or their heirs, and legitimizing their rule.

Every year at Dendera,

regular Egyptians worshipped and celebrated Hathor with feasts and dancing.

It was a great use of propaganda for the ruling pharaoh.

Cleopatra embraced Hathors' identity as divine mother figure

to legitimize her rule and her own son as future heir to the throne.

On this wall and all throughout Dendera temple,

we see a goddess who is a mother as well as her divine son.

This is what Cleopatra is tapping into.

This is why she chooses to elevate Caesarian to be co-ruler.

That makes her the goddess and Caesarian the divine child.

NARRATOR: Cleopatra took her vulnerability as a female ruler

and used it to her advantage, portraying herself as Hathor,

the supremely popular mother goddess.

She projected this message for all to see.

The exterior of the temple became her billboard,

advertising her divine makeover.

Cleopatra made the savvy decision to put the largest relief,

the largest we know of her, on the wall of the temple of Hathor.

And by showing herself in monumental scale,

she too could be worshipped as a goddess.

By very publicly supporting the traditional cults of Egypt,

Cleopatra is attempting to reinforce her power as queen,

not just as a Greek ruling from Alexandria, but as an Egyptian goddess.

NARRATOR: It was a PR masterstroke.

Cleopatra made efforts to connect with the Egyptian people

in a way that few of her ancestors ever did.

Egypt's last great pharaoh had proved herself to be one of its shrewdest.

(music crescendos and bellows)

In the necropolis of Philadelphia,

Basem and his team prepare to lift the delicate wooden coffin out of the ground.

BASEM (speaks in foreign language): Let's go guys!

(dramatic music plays)

(speaks in foreign language) Slowly and carefully.

Support it from the bottom! I said support it from the bottom!

(music intensifies)

That's it, thanks guys!

All right, thank you.

-(people clapping) -(music crescendos)

(unintelligible foreign language)

NARRATOR: The coffin will be analyzed for its contents later.

Right now, Basem and his team

need to get as much out of the ground as possible in the time they've got.

And as they continue their dig, they make an unsettling discovery.

This is a child because of the size of the coffin.

(dramatic music bellows)

NARRATOR: Basem examines his team's latest find.

(thematic music plays)

We have here, uh, pottery coffin in the shape of the tube.

And it has a small burial of a small child.

And we are trying to maneuver around the pottery coffin

in order to safely lift it up from the grave.

NARRATOR: Basem is investigating the graves of Cleopatra's subjects

to find out more about how she secured her rule over Egypt.

BASEM (speaks in foreign language): Gently.

Don't hold it at the top. No! Put your hand underneath. Your hand underneath!

Take it over there very slowly. and don't drop it, place it down gently.

Thank you, all right!

NARRATOR: A simple pottery coffin was common amongst lower class burials,

especially for children and infants.

This child's remains are little more than dust,

but beside the body, there's a rare find.

A small cloth bag made brittle with time.

One miniature carving has already fallen out.

(gentle music plays)

BASEM: This kind of amulet.

I think this was one of the Egyptian deities, which is Bes.

(unintelligible foreign language)

NARRATOR: Bes was a popular god in Cleopatra's Egypt,

seen as a protector of small children and pregnant women.

This seems to mark the burial as an Egyptian one.

Inside the crumbling textile bag, there are other trinkets…

Earrings, seashells and a carved hand of the Egyptian god, Osiris,

that also gives protection.

Alongside these, there's an amulet that Basem can identify as Greek.

This is the shape of the Ptolemaic altar. And for me, this is pure Greek influence.

It dates to the late Ptolemaic period, which is the Cleopatra reign.

NARRATOR: Here in the grave of a small child,

there are Egyptian and Greek religious artifacts side by side.

(music continues)

The Egyptian god Bes, was there to provide protection

and the Greek amulet was to reunite mother and child in the afterlife.

Such a things was a gift from a mother to a child.

NARRATOR: Together, they are evidence of a blending

of Greek and Egyptian religious culture.

Such wonderful things during the Ptolemaic period is really, really rare.

It's an amazing discovery. Unbelievable.

Uh. We are lucky. This was a lucky day today.

NARRATOR: At the beginning of the Ptolemaic era,

there was a clear divide between the early Greek rulers and their Egyptian subjects.

But Cleopatra embodied both Greek and Egyptian culture,

and Basem's discoveries in Philadelphia

show that her subjects were following her example.

Instead of two distinct cultures, there was integration and harmony.

A hallmark of a successful reign and a successful ruler.

-(gentle music crescendos) -(thematic music bellows)

NARRATOR: At Deir El-Bahari, in Hatshepsut's Temple,

Patryk's hunch that the floor beneath the Hathor shrine

conceals a hidden shaft-- has paid off.

(music intensifies)

Here in a very small, very narrow niche,

we found the mouth of a shaft, which we are digging now, at the moment.

NARRATOR: Patryk has spent three weeks excavating it.

A dig that started with the clue of a small scrap of cartonnage,

ends 13 feet below ground, where the team finds a chamber.

This is totally unique and it's a very big surprise.

They are really quiet, so it means that probably they found something.

Something really exciting.

(music bellows)

What do we have here? Thank you.

This is part of a mummy.

And still, some paintings remain here, so we have just the fragments of paintings.

Wow! That's amazing, really.

NARRATOR: They are the legs and feet of a mummy, more than 1,000 years old.

-It's confirmation of the shaft's purpose. -(music intensifies)

That's the first mummy from this tomb.

So, we know for sure it was prepared to store the burials.

That's great.

NARRATOR: The team has to work slowly, bringing up these historical treasures.

There is a lot of debris down there. Very dusty as well.

So it means that there is a big problem to breathe down there.

(speaks in foreign language) Slowly and carefully. Ok? Then bring it to here.

Place it carefully next to the mummy close to the wall.

NARRATOR: One of the last things to come up is the most striking find of all.

PATRYK: Oh my goodness. That's amazing.

(music bellows and fades)

(dramatic music plays)

NARRATOR: The team has safely brought the find to the surface.

Now Patryk can examine it properly.

It seems to be, uh, a new mummy. It's a huge one.

NARRATOR: The intact mummy completes

a treasure trove of objects beneath Hathor's shrine.

These mummies here just have come from the tomb inside.

It's, uh, really amazing because it's almost completely preserved.

NARRATOR: As the team excavates further, more and more mummies emerge.

We found at least five or six individuals until now.

but it's still very hard to say which of them is the original owner of this tomb.

NARRATOR: If the mummies can be dated,

they will show how long this tomb was in use.

In this very early stage of our research on this material.

we can say that this tomb was re-used at least one time in later periods.

NARRATOR: Patryk searches for clues that

will help pinpoint when the mummies were buried.

This one which is still covered with linen, painted linen,

the colors and the paintings and the style of this decoration is very typical

to the Roman period at the end of the second and early third century A.D.

NARRATOR: It's an incredible discovery.

200 years after Cleopatra died,

and 1,700 years after Hatshepsut built her temple,

people still came here to bury their dead close to the goddess Hathor.

The temple of the female pharaoh Hatshepsut

in ancient times was called the Holy of Holies.

So probably that was one of the reasons why later generations chose this place

as a final resting place for their mummified bodies, as we can see here.

NARRATOR: These mummies show that the goddess Hathor

remained popular for thousands of years and long after Cleopatra's death.

This enduring appeal and popularity helps explain why

Hatshepsut and Cleopatra's strategy of portraying themselves

as the mother goddess gave them power during their reigns.

(thematic music plays)

-In Taposiris Magna… -Oh, I'm so tired.

NARRATOR: A breathless Kathleen, emerges from the temple's tunnels,

boosted in her search for Cleopatra's tomb

by the unexpected pottery find, down below.

It's so difficult to be down there.

But those tunnels are the most important features here.

I'm sure of that.

NARRATOR: Kathleen examines the pottery fragment in the daylight

to try and identify what it is and when it's from.

It looks like the neck of a pottery wine jar, beer jar.

And this is where the handles should be. And this is the rim.

NARRATOR: This style of wine jar dates to the late Roman period,

some three centuries after Cleopatra died.

In the minds of the ancient Egyptians,

wine was associated with the blood of Osiris,

and wine was often used during temple rituals.

To find it inside the tunnel means that maybe they use the tunnels

also to transport the wine jars to the port, to the sea.

NARRATOR: It's a crucial find.

If the tunnel was used to take wine jars north to the sea for shipping,

then the south end could connect to the temple itself.

And it could lead Kathleen closer to any subterranean tombs beneath the temple.

(thematic music plays)

Egyptian royal graves were always well hidden.

But Cleopatra had a very compelling reason to conceal her tomb.

Because she knew it was the end of Egypt, and she was the last chapter of Egypt,

and she knew that she would be at the mercy of the conquerors.

NARRATOR: The later Roman Emperor, Augustus, had Egypt in his sights,

and he was no friend of Cleopatra.

Her armies were overwhelmed. Fearing public humiliation, she committed suicide.

Her final strategy to protect her legacy

was to make sure her tomb stayed hidden forever.

For Cleopatra, she was more afraid of anonymity than death.

So she tried to do something to become a myth. She died. And she disappeared.

(thematic music continues)

NARRATOR: All across Egypt,

archaeological investigations are revealing Cleopatra's path to power.

She outmaneuvered her brothers to claim the throne for her own.

She ruled a kingdom that was truly a blend of peoples and cultures,

cleverly using a link to goddess Hathor,

to secure her power and become a god in the eyes of her subjects.

In death, Cleopatra still evades an army of archaeologists.

What is remaining about Cleopatra?

It's her personality, her charm, and her name.

NARRATOR: Leaving behind only myth and a name that has lasted for millennia.

(thematic music crescendos)