Original subtitles

Inside the pyramid of an ancient Egyptian king,

a team of archaeologists is about to reveal a burial chamber

that has never been excavated before.

I am dreaming every day to the moment that I will

start exploring the burial chamber and the time

when this moment came.

The roof has collapsed,

burying valuable artifacts

and possibly even killing tomb raiders

from the ancient world.

How about right.

Now, finally,

the time has come to unearth

four and a half thousand years of history.

It's a huge responsibility.

I have to make sure that everybody is safe.

But as they dig deeper into the pyramid,

they must avoid being buried themselves.

The ancient pyramids of Egypt.

For over 4000 years, these iconic royal tombs have

captivated humankind with their majesty and mystique.

Today, more than 100 survive,

spanning over 1,000 years of pyramid building history.

Almost all of them have been explored by archaeologists

and found robbed of the king's mummy and treasures.

But seven miles south of the famous Pyramids of Giza

lies a smaller, lesser known pyramid

that has never been fully explored.

Good morning, everyone.

Shall we start.

In Abu Sir, Egyptian archaeologist

Dr. Mohamed Ismail Khalid and his team are about to begin

a remarkable new season of excavations.

They are preparing to enter an unexplored burial chamber

inside the pyramid of a king named Sahure.

What lies inside is a complete mystery.

I'm very excited to be back.

I can't wait to start getting inside the pyramid

and starting our exploration.

Since I was a child I liked history.

I like the names.

I like the life.

5000 years, people were living here in the same places that

we live right now in Egypt and to study their life,

it's really a big dream.

When complete, the pyramid of Saha Rae

would have been a shining edifice of white limestone,

with the king's mummy entombed within a central burial chamber.

But when early archaeologists first investigated the site,

they discovered masses of rubble inside,

collapsed from the pyramid above.

This prevented a full excavation.

Now, nearly 200 years later,

Mohamed has an incredible opportunity.

Our mission is to excavate the burial chamber

and to be the first.

Many Egyptologists tried before you to enter into this place.

But they couldn't.

I cannot express how you feel that you are

the first one after many, many years.

If we will find part of his sarcophagus or even part of

his mummy, this is would be the best moment in my life.

I dream of this.

Deep in the heart of the pyramid,

Mohamed's excavations have already revealed the

structure of eight new storerooms called magazines

looted of treasures by ancient thieves.

Opposite lies Mohamed's ultimate goal.

A large vaulted room that should be Sahure's

burial chamber.

Today, the massive ceiling beams are broken and rocks

from the pyramid fill the room up to eight meters high,

the remnants of a mysterious and catastrophic collapse.

Last season, Mohamed started to clear rubble

at the entrance to the burial chamber.

He found small fragments of dark basalt,

pieces of the king's sarcophagus,

and an unmummified human jawbone that

could be from an ancient tomb raider who was buried alive.

Now Mohamed and his team are back to find out

what really caused this pyramid to collapse.

And if tomb raiders really were buried,

could royal treasures still be hidden inside?

Their first job is a dangerous one.

They must secure a precarious sealing beam that covers

the entrance to the burial chamber.

We have a stone beam, nine meter high that has

a lot of cracks, it's of course a big problem

because behind this beam it's a lot of huge blocks.

If we did not support the beam,

huge blocks from the part of the pyramid will fall down.

It would be a big disaster and a big collapse.

Ahmed Abdelnaby is responsible for the safety of

the pyramid structure.

Climbing high above the chamber floor,

he reaches the cracked limestone beam.

It's very dangerous.

In this place, I prefer to be alone.

I just one guy helping me.

We have to have a little fear.

Just a little.

To be success.

To secure the structure of the beam.

Ahmed fixes a network of metal anchor rods inside the

limestone and then injects it with an epoxy resin.

This should stop any cracks from getting larger and

breaking off, but he'll need to finish over 20

before it's completely secure.

Anchor by anchor, the safety will increase.

As the repair work continues.

Mohamed and the team prepare the rest of the burial chamber

for excavation.

If they succeed,

their discoveries will add a new chapter to the history

of King Sahure, his life and reign.

Only 32 years after the colossal pyramids of Giza

are complete, Sahure becomes king.

He builds up Egypt's navy, sending trade missions to

foreign lands for exotic goods like frankincense and myrrh,

and constructs temples across the country to

grow the economy and be worshipped as a god.

At Abu Sir, his 150 foot pyramid was the vehicle

to take Sahure into the afterlife.

It was meant to last forever.

Up above the burial chamber, the stone beam is now secure.

We are now standing at the beginning of the

burial chamber and we hope that it extends up to

seven meter or more, seven meters and a half,

until we reach the end of the burial chamber.

Several large stone blocks are precariously

perched on top of a four meter mound of rubble.

The only way forward into the chamber is to bring them down.

Then we will start to take the debris down until

we bring the small blocks first

and then this large one in the middle.

Of course, in every single moment inside the pyramid,

it's very risky, but we try very hard to make sure to

make the situation as safe as we could.

Led by the excavation foreman

known as the Rais, the team start clearing

piles of pyramid debris.

My Rais and all the people and his team,

they have got this experience from their fathers and

their father got it from their fathers and grandfathers,

so it's inherited experience.

Of course, you cannot learn this in university or anything.

Ismail is one of the most experienced workers that

I've ever seen in my life.

He has no fear and also he has got

a very, very quick reaction.

Quick reactions are critical.

One wrong move could spell disaster.

Is it safe to come out now?

Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

It's very safe.

The team begins to clear the debris.

Almost immediately, Mohamed finds a tantalizing piece of

stone buried in the rubble.

So we have a piece from the basalt sarcophagus.

And this is it gives us really good indication that we are on

the right way and we are going towards the burial chamber

and the sarcophagus of the king.

On the other side of the pyramid, Mohamed checks

the team's progress,

restoring the newly discovered storerooms.

Parts of the chamber walls are missing or destroyed,

and these gaps offer a rare chance to see how

the inside of Sahure's pyramid was built.

We have a very unique part because we have seen the

inner walls of the north side of the pyramid,

as well as a very clear part of the bedrock.

See how large is the stones above the bedrock?

And then they start to use smaller blocks.

They come above each other,

but the first one is the largest.

As well as understanding the

pyramid's internal structure.

Mohamed believes clearing away the tons of rubble will give

an insight into why it collapsed.

Here, we have collected all the white

limestone that we found during our exploration.

And what's really interesting that we found very smooth

surface and this all comes from original walls.

The smooth limestone fragments from the original

walls seem to have been destroyed intentionally.

Mohamed thinks it's the work of robbers.

Our theory that a lot of destruction,

intentional destruction, happened inside the pyramid.

Either they reused the white fine limestone,

or they were searching for treasures without knowing,

without studying the things they start to cut the, the walls

and the stability of the pyramid became very weak.

Mohamed's excavations have revealed the

builders of Sahure's Pyramid dug a three meter pit straight

into the bedrock of the site and reinforced it with

local stone blocks before cutting a deeper outline

for the pyramid's internal chambers.

Thick white limestone walls, ceilings and

monolithic gabled beams are added,

holding the weight of 200,000 blocks from the pyramid above.

Mohamed thinks damage to the white limestone walls by tomb

robbers was instrumental in causing the pyramid's collapse.

Two miles south of Abu Sir,

in the ancient necropolis of Saqqara,

Egyptologist Dr. Meredith Brand has come to explore

the pyramid of Sahure's father, King Userkaf.

Similar in size and structure to Sahure's, she hopes to

reveal more clues about how these pyramids were built.

To understand why Sahure's may have collapsed.

It's actually pretty impressive.

From a distance it kind of just looks like a hill,

but when I get up close, I can see all of these

local limestone blocks that were used to be the core,

the fill of this pyramid.

Like Sahure's, the local stone blocks have

suffered from heavy weathering,

but originally a stronger limestone

would have encased the outside.

This is Tura limestone.

It's fine and white and bright, and it would have been

really valuable loot to people in Egypt.

You could use this ready-made stone to, to build buildings.

Heading inside, unlike Sahure's pyramid,

Meredith finds the colossal stonework intact.

It's nice to see that these walls are finished

the way that they would have been in Userkaf's time.

It's beautiful.

Along the corridor, Meredith spots a huge slab of

solid granite meant to defend the pyramid from looters.

In the corner, a hole has been chiseled away.

Oh, this is really incredible.

This is where the looters must have come in from.

It's clear Userkaf's pyramid was compromised

by robbers, but most of the structure is still standing.

Meredith's search is to find out why.

Inside the pyramid storerooms, she finds more remnants of

the fine limestone walls.

This is the foundation limestone for the wall.

And so this would have gone from here all the way up

to create a smooth surface.

Like Sahure's pyramid, lots of the wall is missing,

but instead of revealing blocks from the pyramid above,

it has exposed a roughly-hewn chamber

tunneled directly into the ground.

This entire space is carved out of the

bedrock here in Saqqara.

So it's secure, it's stable.

And the robbers knew that they could take the limestone

blocks from this area and it wasn't going to collapse.

The broken and stolen limestone walls may not

have caused a collapse here.

But what about the rest of the pyramid?

Back in the pyramid of King Sahure,

Mohamed and the team start to make

some intriguing finds.

Oh, it's alabaster piece.

It comes from alabaster vessels.

The alabaster piece is actually it was part of the

canopic jars of the King.

Canopic jars were used to hold the internal

organs of the mummified king.

For Mohamed, the discovery is bittersweet.

If you find some alabaster pieces here,

that means most of the alabaster and canopic jars

of King Sahure has been completely destroyed.

It's disappointing news for me, but it's also very

interesting to see even part of the canopic jars and

to see how it's really smooth and beautifully done.

It's perfect.

So no inscription.

So hopefully we will find more pieces that could

give us more information and more clues.

Soon, even more pottery emerges

from the rubble.

But this time, it appears more recent,

perhaps something the tomb raiders left behind.

It's a lower part of a pottery vessel,

and it has still remains of burning.

So maybe they use it for, uh, as oil lamp.

It's an important find.

An oil lamp is the first direct evidence of the

robbers working inside the burial chamber.

The question is when does it date from?

And were these robbers responsible for

the pyramid's collapse?

In Saqqara, Meredith is exploring the pyramid of

Sahure's father, Userkaf.

Deep inside the pyramid's dark corridors,

she reaches an opening.

Oh, wow.

Oh.

This is beautiful.

This is it. This is the burial chamber.

The room's huge gabled ceiling is intact,

revealing a marvel of ancient engineering.

It's a close match to what Sahure's burial chamber

would have looked like.

Structurally, this is the smartest thing for the

ancient Egyptians to do.

They wanted to have the entire weight of the pyramid

above this chamber.

Where I'm standing, I should be smack in the middle of it.

This is interesting.

There's a hole here in the back of the burial chamber.

So this is probably from looters trying to see if

there's anything else they could tunnel through and

maybe find more gold or jewels or precious items.

It seems tomb robbers have been busy

chiseling away the walls.

Parts of the original floor are also missing.

So down here is the bedrock.

This is the bottom of the pit that the ancient builders dug

in order to create the space for these rooms.

So it looks like the ancient thieves came and just

dug up this entire area.

Probably both looking for stone to loot and to see if

there's any hidden treasures below.

All over the Pyramid, tomb raiders

have left their mark.

But one incredible treasure still remains.

This looks to be the basalt sarcophagus lid

that would have housed the mummy of Userkaf,

so this is the actual lid of this sarcophagus.

We only have a fragment.

This is where the king would have been buried.

While the rest of his sarcophagus

may have been stolen.

For Sahure's father,

the structure and spirit of his burial chamber

has lasted for over 4400 years.

To feel the solemnness and sacredness

of this space, it's, it's quite moving.

Back at the Pyramid of Sahure, the team has

discovered even more artifacts the tomb raiders left behind.

Mohamed takes them to be examined.

He wants to know when they date from so he can

piece together the pyramid's history.

We have found three oil lamps from

the burial chamber.

Inside the pyramid?

Yes.

Dr. Reham Zaky is in charge of documenting

the finds at the site.

This is nice.

So we have our robbers, you know?

When you read about treasure hunting or tomb raiders

in the past and you ask in your mind,

how does this information come from?

What is the evidence of this?

So these are the evidence.

It is an oil lamp, I think, from medieval times,

maybe the 13th century,

you know, based on their features like the handle and

the shape of the body and also the glaze,

the color and technique.

It all offers us information about which times it was used.

The lamps appear to be around 700 years old

from the Ottoman era over 1,000 years after

even the last pharaohs of Egypt.

These items are quite rare because, you know,

we always read in references and books that

we are tomb raiders or treasure hunting.

And we saw the evidence inside the historic Cairo,

but not inside the pyramids itself.

The remarkable collection of oil lamps

indicates a whole team of robbers inside the pyramid.

And there's even evidence of their tools of the trade.

We have this hammer and we have this chisel.

And actually, as modern times, use this and use this to bash,

to knock it.

Like this.

So these together are fitting perfectly with each other,

you know, by knocking them the holes perfectly match

and they use it inside the pyramid.

So we have the whole context here.

We have the lamps and we have the robbing tool.

Back inside the pyramid.

So it's very good news.

We have reached the original floor of the,

of the burial chamber.

We have to be very careful and we have to use only

the brush just to see any mortar or any traces

left by ancient Egyptian.

I'm very happy every time when I see any original

wall or floor inside the pyramid.

The white limestone floor is intact.

But so far, the only evidence of the original walls are

small, broken fragments.

We found also another smooth limestone surface that

comes from the retaining walls of the burial chamber.

That means that the retaining walls of the burial chamber in

this area was broken in several pieces.

Once again, Mohamed thinks it's

the work of tomb robbers.

They were searching for some treasures,

and that's why they cut here.

Discoveries of oil lamps, stone cutting tools and

intentionally damaged walls mean evidence is growing that

tomb raiders were responsible for the pyramid collapse.

So could evidence of the king still be buried inside?

Oooh!

Mohamed's team has spotted hints of a large slab

of basalt stone inside the ancient pyramid.

They extend towards the burial chamber.

So what we are going to do now is just to clean this area

around in order to see how far this large piece goes.

I don't know how large it is,

but it seems to be very large piece.

It's getting more exciting.

The team add a gypsum mortar to stabilize

the loose debris and continue to dig.

What emerges seems to be part of

King Sahure's sarcophagus lid.

It's almost 130, one meter and 30 centimeter.

It's the largest piece that ever been discovered

in this burial chamber of King Sahure.

I can't believe my eyes.

Definitely, it's the lid,

because here we have another piece.

It's the corner.

It's very smooth surface here.

I cannot express my feeling now.

I need to, to know more and more.

And I'm calming myself a little bit because I need to

flip it on the other side to see the smooth surface.

Maybe we could find some written inscription on it.

Maybe not.

We will see.

With the lid lying upside down,

Mohamed examines underneath.

Wow. It's perfect.

It seems bare,

but he spots something unexpected attached.

They're actually ropes.

So those are the ropes that they were used

to pull the lid.

You see them.

This is ancient ropes, maybe 700 years old,

and they were using them in order to take the slate out.

Wow.

The ropes are an extraordinary clue.

Either the tomb raiders gave up dragging the lid or

something else stopped them from leaving with their loot.

Oh. Yes.

Perhaps even a fatal accident.

Another part of a jaw, a small one under the

lid of the sarcophagus.

It's amazing.

Maybe the people when they were doing this work,

something happened and they were buried just

waiting for us to discover

the lid and the tomb raider.

It's an incredible discovery for Mohamed

and the team.

Not only have they revealed a royal sarcophagus lid,

the first in Abusir, but they have stumbled across

an ancient crime scene where tomb raiders may have been

killed by the pyramid they were looting.

The team will keep digging for more evidence to

why it collapsed.

Mohamed hopes it will lead him to the king.

This is definitely the biggest thing until now

that we found here in the during our exploration

inside the pyramid of Sahure.

And we hope we will find the sarcophagus.

Less than a mile away from the pyramid are

the scattered ruins of a huge structure

built by Sahure's nephew.

According to ancient records, Sahure and his successors

each built temples like this one,

separate from their pyramids.

But mysteriously, Sahure's has never been found.

Meredith Brand has come to investigate what these

buildings were for.

Among the ruins,

she finds a gigantic alabaster offering table.

Oh, this is absolutely stunning.

I love this.

It's a beautiful piece of stone and craftsmanship.

This is well over 4000 years old, but its shape is a bit

strange for ancient Egypt.

Each side, there's four corners of it that have

the ancient Egyptian symbol hetep for offering.

And that's usually what's on an offering table.

But this one has something special in the four of them.

But even more so in the center is a giant circle

in the shape of the sun.

The design of this tells us exactly what's going on here.

It tells us that this is the place where

ancient Egyptian priests would have left the offerings

for the sun God to consume.

In addition to their pyramids, Sahure and

other fifth Dynasty Kings built dedicated Sun temples

to amplify the importance of the Sun God Ra.

As well as for religious purposes,

some temples functioned as economic institutions

endowed with land and wealth.

Each day worshippers presented offerings of meat and beer

at the temple's altar.

After Ra consumed the food's spirit,

it was redistributed like a tax

to serve the needs of other temples across Abusir.

An ancient papyrus that dates to around 100 years after

Sahure's reign, reveals the economic importance

of these temples.

This here is an accounting record.

It's basically like a spreadsheet,

and at the top it says where goods are coming from.

And then underneath it it says the type of good.

And then the vertical columns are days of the week.

And here we've got some key things.

We've got two rows that talk about bread.

And we have this third row that says Henekut.

That's the word for beer.

So these are crucial material goods offerings,

but also they were basically money

for the ancient Egyptians.

So in terms of jars of beer, this upside down V,

that's the number ten.

So each day there were ten jars of beer being sent

from here just to one location.

And that's only one of the transactions that

happens here every single day.

So having this place be a depot center that

took in money and then sent it back out again to

other places meant that this was an economic hub.

Sun Temples not only provided jobs for

high status elites, but a new way for the country

to distribute goods and wealth.

The shift towards building separate sun temples instead

of the colossal single pyramid projects like those at Giza,

marks a revolutionary step for the religion and economy

of ancient Egypt.

Fifth Dynasty kings like Sahure were part of

a new emphasis on the sun Ra,

where the sun was the most important God.

And temples like this attest to this change in religion,

change in belief.

And also the idea that temples are a key part of the economy.

They're a key focus of art and beauty as well.

And that carries on for the rest of ancient Egypt.

And yet, the whereabouts of Sahure's own

Sun temple is still unknown.

Sahure must have built a Sun temple.

We know of it because of the Abusir papyrus,

but we've never found the actual temple.

It's one of those mysteries.

Could clues to its location lie beneath

the rubble inside Sahure's pyramid?

Back in the burial chamber, the team finished surveying

and documenting the precious sarcophagus lid.

As they prepare to flip it over,

their anticipation is growing.

We are not sure if it will be some line of

hieroglyphic inscription or not.

We will see right now.

The body of the lid and the smooth surface is

in a good condition.

No inscription.

Nothing.

There are no clues inscribed in the stone of

Sahure's sarcophagus lid.

But Mohamed finds an unusual hole.

Or maybe the tomb raiders itself, they cut it

in order to move it from above the sarcophagus.

Just to move the lid a little bit.

As the team move the lid safely into storage,

Mohamed returns to see if more fragments of sarcophagus are

buried underneath.

So here are more pieces from the,

from the basalt lid, as well as the rope.

And not that they were using in order to pull the lid out.

There are more basalt pieces here, so maybe we could

find the rest of the lid here down.

But we have to clean this area.

The team carefully clear away the rubble.

But it's not more of the lid that they find.

Oh, we found here also another piece of a skull.

Human skull.

It seems to be part of an ill-fated tomb raider.

Together, the ancient ropes, the chiseled out walls,

the Ottoman era oil lamps,

and now the remains of a tomb raider

crushed by the pyramid,

evidence is mounting to explain how the

burial chamber collapsed.

I believe that they were everywhere here,

inside the pyramid, just searching for treasures

and destroying all the inner walls.

And that's why the destruction happened.

Despite myths of booby-trapped pyramids,

the evidence reveals a long history of looting

that eventually led to this pyramid's demise.

Mohamed thinks robbers first stole from the pyramid

during a period of widespread looting around 3000 years ago.

While inside the burial chamber, thieves likely

displaced the king's sarcophagus lid

to hunt for jewelry and amulets.

Later, around 700 years ago,

evidence shows Ottoman stone thieves

chiseled away the limestone walls,

searching for more hidden treasure.

But their efforts weakened the structure.

And while dragging away the sarcophagus lid,

at least one robber was killed by a catastrophic collapse.

The excavations have revealed the

pyramid's remarkable history.

Now, Mohamed is more determined than ever

to reach the back of the burial chamber,

where the rest of the sarcophagus

could still be in its original place.

We found many basalt parts.

We believe that all of them comes from the lid.

Nothing from the sarcophagus.

That's why we believe that the sarcophagus is still intact

because it's still far away,

up to six meters to reach the sarcophagus.

I'm very excited.

You cannot imagine.

For two weeks,

the team continues to clear rubble and go even deeper

into the burial chamber.

They build a new temporary wall to shore up the sides

and a column to support the next gigantic

limestone ceiling beam.

But there's a problem.

Yesterday, I was really disappointed because

we found out that this beam is, is totally broken from the edge.

Now we have to change completely our plan because

it's dangerous to leave the beam and they're almost

in the middle of the burial chamber.

The broken ceiling beam is only supported by the

rubble beneath and their temporary column to the side.

If they excavate, any movement could

bring down tons of stone debris from above.

To make the pyramid safe again,

the team will need to build another

supporting pillar to help prop up the broken beam.

It's a huge setback and time is against them.

We have only just two weeks ahead of us

and of course, this delay, our plans, I'm worried.

We hope that we will will be able to make it.

I hope so.

If Mohamed can't secure the beam before

the season ends,

the burial chamber could be at risk of collapse.

And the King's sarcophagus never found.

With the season coming to a close,

Mohamed calls in a specialist scanning team

to map the internal structure of the pyramid.

Creating a 3D model will reveal the team's

incredible progress during the excavations

and help them work out how far could be left to go.

In charge of the operation is Abdelrahman Abbas.

With the latest laser-mapping technology,

the team can produce a 3D model with millimeter precision

in a matter of minutes.

The results are breathtaking.

Wow.

It's fantastic.

It's, it's really wonderful.

The scans reveal the pyramid's corridors.

Eight fully cleared storeroom magazines.

It's crazy.

And the partially excavated burial chamber

in unprecedented detail.

This is the first time that we see the

complete plan of the magazine.

The complete structure.

It's like this.

It's perfect.

This is, will help us very, very much in order to get

the real and precise measurements,

as well as also the the new outline

of the pyramid from inside.

Wow.

Science fiction.

The scans show the team has advanced four meters

into the center of Sahure's burial chamber.

Based on the size of the magazines,

and the symmetry the pyramid builders used

to construct them,

Mohamed thinks there are still four more meters left to go.

Back inside the burial chamber.

The team is flat out.

They have almost completed the new supporting pillar needed

to safely continue the excavations.

But time is running out.

With only one day left and hopes waning that they can

make more progress into the burial chamber,

Mohamed calls an end to the season's work.

The pyramid is not ready to give up

all of its secrets just yet.

If you work in Egyptology, you may find

good surprise or bad surprise.

We have to stop because this is the end of our season.

But of course I can't wait to come back again to find the

sarcophagus and reach the end of the burial chamber.

With almost all of the internal structure

now exposed.

The discovery of the king's sarcophagus lid

and an audacious tomb raiding plot.

Mohamed's excavations are bringing the mysteries of

King Sahure and his forgotten pyramid

back to life once again.

In its prime, Sahure's pyramid complex would have been

the epicenter of the Egyptian economy and religion.

On the banks of the Nile,

priests would have disembarked with offerings

collected from his Sun Temple and beyond,

and walked along the pyramid's causeway to its

mortuary temple for worship of the king.

While today the pyramid's splendor has been lost to

robbers and ruin, until Mohamed is finished,

there remains a chance that Sahure himself

is still buried inside.

Mohamed's mission isn't over yet.

When I come to Sahure pyramid complex,

I feel that I'm home.

I feel that I'm attached to this king.

And in return, I have really a great belief that also

this king supports me somehow.

That's why I don't stop.

I go every time because it gives more and more

new information.

It changes more and more our history about this great king.