All language subtitles for Egypts Sun King The Mystery Tombs Part 1 1080p EN SUB

NARRATOR: In early 2011,

as defiant crowds gather
in the streets of Cairo

calling for the overthrow
of the president...

..500 kilometres to the south,

a team from Basel University
makes not one,

but two remarkable discoveries.

In the Valley of the Kings in Luxor,
almost unnoticed,

the team stumbles on a tomb

containing the remains
of more mummies

than had ever been discovered before
in the valley.

WOMAN: The fact that
we have so many individuals,

roughly 30 people, buried in
this one tomb is absolutely unique.

And as they begin to investigate
this amazing find,

they discover something
even more remarkable - a new tomb.

We had now something
that we were the first.

It's only the second new tomb
to have been discovered

in the Valley of the Kings
since Tutankhamen.

As their excavations continue,

these tombs will turn out
to throw a revealing new light

on a king who many consider
Egypt's greatest pharaoh -

Tutankhamen's grandfather,
Amenhotep III.

Amenhotep III was really
the most important Pharaoh

in all of Egypt's history.

He was the wealthiest,
most powerful ruler

in the entire ancient world.

And they help to explain
why some have called him

'The Pharaoh with a Thousand Wives'.

He's the love of my youth,
of course!

The pharaoh Amenhotep III
ruled Egypt

when it was at the pinnacle
of its wealth and power,

around 1400BC.

Amenhotep spent his money lavishly.

Look at Luxor today
and much of what we see -

the structures which recall
the might of ancient Egypt -

was built by Amenhotep III.

Temples, palaces,
hundreds of colossal statues.

He left a remarkable legacy,
much of which can still be seen,

three and a half thousand
years later.

His mortuary temple was
the biggest temple ever built
in Egypt.

Until recently, little could be seen
of this great temple today -

just the colossal statues of him
sitting at the entrance

that have survived everything
over the millennia.

But now Amenhotep's vast temple
is re-emerging from the fields.

WOMAN: Amenhotep III wanted
to make the biggest, the best,

the most beautiful.

Everything, to the best
of what arts and architecture
and sculpture can do.

New statues and new inscriptions

all testify to the might
of Amenhotep III.

Foreigners addressed him
as 'The Sun',

and he called himself
'The Dazzling Sun'.

And while the reconstruction
of his temple is
providing new evidence

of the importance of his reign,

so too are the excavations
in the Valley of the Kings.

The work in the Valley
began some 10 years ago

when archaeologists from Basel
were granted a concession

to explore some unidentified
and apparently uninteresting tombs

in one small side valley.

As the team,
led by Professor Susanne Bickel

and Dr Elina Paulin-Grothe,
set out to explore these tombs,

they had no idea
what they would find.

The tombs had all been discovered
in the 19th century,

or even earlier, by treasure hunters,
but had been dismissed as unimportant

and were never properly excavated.

Wow. This is great.

So many pots. Lovely.

But they discovered that many
of the tombs were not unimportant.

That became startlingly clear

in one of the first tombs
they investigated -

Tomb Kings Valley 32, or KV32.

At the time,
the tomb was full of debris.

WOMAN: Many others have been in
in the 19th century

but when they saw
this big amount of debris

and no decoration on the walls,

I think they said,
"We don't work here."

However, as the team from Basel
began closer examination,

they made some astonishing finds
amongst the debris -

fragments of material that revealed
the tomb belonged to a queen.

Queen Tiaa,
seen here with her son Tuthmosis IV.

Queen Tiaa was also grandmother
to the great pharaoh Amenhotep III.

It was a very significant find.

This important discovery
that very little remains of debris

could contain very informative
and important material.

Yes.

It was the starting point
that attracted interest

to this kind of tomb.

So if KV32 belonged to Queen Tiaa,

who did all the other supposedly
'unimportant' tombs belong to?

Was it possible that
all of the tombs in the side valley

of the royal necropolis might belong
to other members of this family?

The link to Amenhotep III
was reinforced

when they started
to find small pieces of painted wood

all around the small valley.

And visible on many of the pieces

are references to the name
of just one pharaoh - Amenhotep III.

So this actually links
this part of the valley

to the time of Amenhotep III.

There must have been
elegant wooden boxes

that were taken out by the robbers,

probably dismantled,

and these pieces then
just were left on the surface.

Here is a beautiful piece
with the name of Amenhotep III -

his cartouche still
very nicely visible.

Here is another piece.

It's all decorated
with the names of Amenhotep III.

The team now suspect
that this small valley

could be the family necropolis
of the great pharaoh.

Amenhotep III is well known
to Egyptologists,

but he has been overshadowed by
other pharaohs in the public mind.

People remember instead his son
Akhenaton,

the great heretic who abandoned
all the traditional Egyptian gods,

changed the style of Egyptian art,

and began worshipping the disc
of the sun called the Aten.

And of course,
people remember Akhenaten's son,

and Amenhotep III's grandson,
the boy king Tutankhamun.

He did little as a ruler
except restore the old ways in Egypt,

but his astonishing
treasure-filled tomb,

discovered virtually undisturbed
in 1922,

amazed the world.

Amenhotep III, by contrast,
tends to be forgotten,

although he presided over a period
now seen as a golden age.

He inherited an empire
that had been carved out

over 100 years before
he came to the throne.

Now the empire was largely peaceful.

Amenhotep III rarely had
to ride into battle himself.

Instead, he could enjoy the benefits

as the fruits of empire
flowed into Egypt from his subjects.

Tributes of every kind poured in,

including vast quantities
of gold from Nubia.

And with this wealth,

the town now know as Luxor
at the heart of Amenhotep's empire

was transformed.

As the Basel team continue
their excavations

in a side valley
of the Valley of the Kings,

they suspect they're in an area
used by the family of Amenhotep III.

By 2011, they're ready to investigate
another long forgotten tomb, KV40.

Although first explored long ago,
nothing now is visible

except a slight depression
in the ground.

There are no records and they have
no way of knowing what is there.

We started excavating

and quickly realised
that it was a shaft tomb,

so that meant that we would go down,
and deeper down.

As they dig out the shaft,

they discover that at the bottom
it opens onto a corridor.

This discovery is going to need
a lot more investigation.

They begin preparations
for a cover over the tomb entrance

to protect it from thieves.

It needed, of course,
clearing all around.

We started doing that,

and the interesting event
then happened on the left side.

They cleaned the surrounding area
of 40, and I was inside.

When I came out, they said,
"We have here something man-made,"

and it was a straight edge.

All of a sudden appeared something
that clearly looked man-made.

We didn't want to go too quickly
to conclusions,

thinking, dreaming that
it might be a tomb.

We just had three corners
of this man-made structure.

Could this be a shaft,
the entrance to a new tomb?

The timing of their new finds
could not have been worse.

It's the start of
the Egyptian revolution.

So, it was the 25th January,

and when we informed
the authorities,

they came to see it
and they said,

"If it's something
and if there is some treasures,

"now it's the revolution,
it's impossible that we dig more

"and find anything important."

So we had to fill up again,
and make protection over it.

The police and the army, they left,

but since I have been here now
30 years,

a lot of things have happened
in this time,

so I was not really worried,
because why should I leave?

We had all the valley for ourselves,
we had pottery to restore,

and so we stayed.

As the army and police at the gates
of the Valley of the Kings

disappear into thin air,

all news of the new find
is suppressed.

Any rumours of a new tomb
will attract the robbers,

already descending on antiquity sites
across the country.

The team suspect
they might have stumbled on new tombs

of members of the Sun King's family -

but they know they are not the tomb
of the pharaoh himself.

Amenhotep III's tomb was found nearby
by Napoleon's expedition to Egypt

early in the 19th century.

Susanne Bickel has worked on projects
linked to Amenhotep III

for much of her working life,

and now has the chance
to view his tomb.

It's something
she's long wanted to do.

Here it is.

She's joined by colleague,
Tanja Alsheimer.

You can see all the chisel marks,
all the flints.
Yeah.

These flint lines.

And the corners are so straight.

Perfect.

Oh, wow.
Now we're coming to the shaft.

Oh, wow!
That's the first part
that's decorated.

Oh, it's amazing.
Look at this!

I've been hoping
to see that for 25 years.

The tomb is currently being restored.

For the ancient Egyptians,

where and how you were buried
was crucial

to your prospects in the afterlife.

The tomb paintings are designed
to help the pharaoh

make the transition.

He's shown being welcomed
by the gods.

Look. She's smiling,
the goddess there.

Oh, she is. She definitely is.

And he's smiling.

Well, he's just welcomed
by all the gods.

"Welcome to my world."

Despite all this preparation
for the afterlife,

Amenhotep's mummy was moved
out of here in antiquity

to protect it from tomb robbers.

All that's probably left
from the sarcophagus
in granite is the lid,

but it has his cartouche,
it has his name on it.

Oh, yes.

It's incredible to be here.
It's so beautiful, it's so delicate.

The whole architecture
is impressive.

I'm quite moved by the fact that
you can really feel

how people have prepared this tomb
for Amenhotep III.

It's clearly one of the most
beautiful tombs I've ever seen.

It's apparent from this tomb
that Amenhotep was concerned

not just for his own afterlife,
but for his family's too.

He also intended
this magnificent tomb

to be used by his wife
and one of his daughters -

separate chambers
were built for them.

Perhaps he wanted to be surrounded
in the other world

by the two generations.

That's very important also.

His concerns
for his family's prospects
in the afterlife

may help to explain why there were
so many tombs for his family

in the Valley of the Kings.

Now the team from Basel
have two more finds

they suspect are the tombs of other
members of his family - but who?

It's a full year later,
in January 2012,

that the team finally get clearance

to resume work
in the Valley of the Kings.

Their plan - to investigate
the new man-made feature.

As they start work,

they soon establish
that this is indeed a shaft.

Have they really discovered
a new tomb right beside KV40?

It was very exciting.

What was intriguing is
that it's so close.

All the other tombs
are at a distance

of some 10, 20 metres
from each other,

whereas this, the shaft rims are
only a metre 20 from each other.

As they dig
and the shaft continues downwards,

their expectations grow.

Finally, at the bottom,

they find large blocking stones
still in place.

This is, after all, a new tomb,
and it's apparently undisturbed.

After some metres,
we found some big stones

accumulated against the back wall.

We took one stone off
and we looked in.

Full of anticipation,

the team remove one of
the blocking stones

and push their camera through.

Out of the blackness
looms a wooden coffin.

It appears completely undisturbed.

And there's a beautiful
painted wooden stela

standing beside the coffin.

This is only the second new tomb
to be found

in the Valley of the Kings
since Tutankhamen,

and the first to contain a burial.

This major new find
would be called KV64.

We were very happy.

Although the tomb
was totally without decoration,

we knew that we had found something

that was hidden
for some thousands of years.

Of course,
this made the team very happy.

We had now something
that we were the first.

To remove the coffin from the tomb,
it has to be opened.

Inside is the small
but untouched mummy.

With great difficulty,
the lid of the coffin

and then the coffin itself
are removed.

And both parts are taken away
with the stela to be studied.

Examination of the wooden stela,
or tablet,

reveals the tomb's owner was
not royal -

but a noble woman
called Nehmes Bastet.

And it looks as though the stela
was painted by two different artists.

You can see that this part
and this part here is much coarser

than this extremely delicate,
high-quality painting here.

So, it might have been prepared
and then commissioned

by the person
who wanted to buy the piece

to have it made for Nehmes Bastet,

and then a second,
much more gifted artist

prepared the very delicate parts.

This is absolutely exquisite.

Her coffin too reveals
further information

about the noble woman
buried in the tomb.

The hieroglyphs on the outside
of the coffin explain

that Nehmes Bastet
was a songstress of Amun.

Like many noble women,

she took part in ceremonies
in the temple at Karnak.

The coffin, however,
presents a puzzle.

The style indicates that
it dates from the 22nd Dynasty,

some 400 years after Amenhotep III.

So why was this much later burial
amongst the tombs

linked to Amenhotep?

The team decide to examine
the mummy itself.

To assist with the examination,

a group flies in from Zurich
with advanced X-ray equipment.

This machine should be able
to produce images

of the person inside
through the mummy's wrappings,

and even through
the wood of the coffin.

We cannot take the mummy out
of the coffin

because it's glued with resin,

and this is why we have to try to do
the X-ray pictures through the wood.

The wood is quite thick,

but I'm sure we'll get
good pictures, at least from above.

On the sides will be probably
a little bit more difficult.

The X-ray machine focuses an
X-ray beam through the mummy

to an electronic sensor underneath
which replaces the X-ray film.

The sensor will send an instant image
through to a computer.

But will they get a good image
through the wood and the bandages?

It's astonishing that they can make
so good pictures through the wood.

WOMAN: It's a good-quality image,
actually.

I'm satisfied with the quality
of the image.

The image of the mummy's head
is excellent.

Next they move down
the body to the hips.

They'd like to confirm
that she's a woman.

So, she's a lady!

(LAUGHTER AND INDISTINCT CHATTER)

For me, it looks like a lady.

There are no parts of a male
in the area of the hips.

But how old was she when she died?

An X-ray of the teeth
should answer that -

and they attempt an even more
difficult X-ray from the side

through two thicknesses of wood.

We didn't expect to get it
through the wood as well.

WOMAN: Oh, wow.
Whoa, the teeth are still there.

It looks like the lady
still has the complete teeth

and even the wisdom teeth
are not out yet

so she's not as old
as we thought her to be, somehow.

We imagined she was an old lady,
but maybe she died young.

Even I thought she's smiling.
Looks... The mouth.

The image is better
than they'd hoped,

and reveals that Nehmes Bastet
was a woman,

probably still in her twenties.

The team hope that eventually
she can be returned to her tomb.

I would prefer her to go back
to the tomb.

Then I think she will rest in peace
once again -

another 3,000 years.

We'll see, we'll see.

The coffin was a remarkable find,

but the team are interested
in what might still be in the tomb.

Is KV64 really a much later tomb?

They want to excavate it further.

As they remove more of the debris
from the tomb,

they begin to find artefacts
from the time of Amenhotep III -

the 18th Dynasty.

When we emptied

the shaft completely,

we came to the floor

and we found this flowerpot,
which is like a modern flowerpot.

And this was the container
for the mud

which was used for
the sealing of the tomb.

And we knew from this type
it was the 18th Dynasty.

Underneath where
Nehmes Bastet's coffin had been

there's a pile of rubble.

As they search through it,

they find even more objects
from an earlier 18th Dynasty burial.

We came to the lowest levels,

and there is where we found
many 18th Dynasty objects.

We had this inlay eye -
very skilful inlay,

the black stone in the white one.

Another thing what is from
the 18th Dynasty

is this very nice small glass vase.

Now it's restored. It was in pieces.

This is also something
that not every burial has.

Glass was very, very new
in this time.

What we also found, but very broken,
were pieces of this canopic jar.

We found two canopic jar heads
with human face,

but they are now in the magazine.

The heads are definitely
two of the best examples

of these heads that go with
the canopic equipment at that time.

And we date them

maybe at the very beginning
of the reign of Amenhotep III.

The canopic heads
seem to belong to a man,

but the ancient Egyptians often used
heads of the wrong gender.

Eventually, emerging from the rubble,

they find the remains of
an 18th Dynasty mummy.

We had here on the back side
the remains of a mummy

which was robbed.

No coffin, nothing. Just the body.

And then they find the first clue
to the name of the tomb's owner.

This small tag of wood,

which is not complete,
it's only a half with the text.

Here we have the inscription.
It is clear.

It says, "The daughter of the King,
Satiah."

In the 22nd Dynasty, Nehmes Bastet
had reused a much earlier tomb.

The original occupant appears to be
a princess

from the time of Amenhotep III
called Satiah.

This is a major find.

The tomb KV64,
where this lady was buried,

was thoroughly looted in antiquity
and left a very sad picture.

Even her mummy was unwrapped.

All the bandages that
would have made a wonderful mummy

were taken away,

And what is left over actually is
just her mummified, dried, body.

You can see the rest of the bandages
that would have covered her arms.

Her entire body,
her head would have been covered.

She had quite high-standard
burial goods

if the two canopic jars
with these lovely little heads
belonged to her.

A tomb for her own
might also be a factor

that indicates her status,
her importance.

She might be this Princess Satiah.

From the entire context

we can gather that
she is from the royal family.

So they've discovered a new member
of Amenhotep III's family.

Is this a daughter,

or perhaps an aunt or sister
of the Sun King?

None of Amenhotep III's
known children or relations
had the name Satiah.

It seems the team may have discovered
an unknown princess.

This despite the fact that more is
known about Amenhotep III's life
than almost any other pharaoh.

Amenhotep III was still a child
when his father died

after only 10 years on the throne.

The new young pharaoh was probably
around 12 years old.

But he went on to rule Egypt
for almost 40 years

in a reign of
unprecedented prosperity,

and he channelled his wealth
into monumental building projects.

His achievements are described
in detail on a surviving stela.

Salima Ikram is an Egyptologist
who is working with the Basel team.

Now, here, in a place
where we're not generally allowed

and we have to squeeze through,

you can see
this extraordinary stela,

which is very important

because it tells us all about
Amenhotep III's building program

in the Theban area.

This is all about Amenhotep III
giving things to the god Amun.

He talks about how
he built in Luxor Temple for Amun,

how at Malqata, at his palace,

there was a big viewing platform
dedicated to Amun,

and how in his mortuary temple

there were, again, things
that were dedicated to Amun.

And he also goes on
to talk about Karnak

and the Third Pylon
which was extremely ornate.

And he said, "I used gold
and electrum and lapis lazuli,

"and other precious stones,"

so it really must have been
a dazzling sight.

The pylon Amenhotep built

at Karnak Temple in Luxor
is still there,

but if it was ever covered in gold
and precious stones,

they've long since disappeared.

From Karnak, he built
a sphinx-lined ceremonial way

two and a half kilometres long.

And at the other end,
he built a new temple

now known as Luxor Temple.

On the walls of this temple,

a series of scenes spell out
his divine descent

from the god of the sun, Amun-Ra.

Amenhotep III had this big program
to sort of self-deify.

He wanted to make sure
that the priests of Amun
didn't have too much power,

and one of the ways of doing that
was to reinforce the idea
that the king was god.

This room was filled with images
of his divine conception and birth.

Here you have Amun and the queen
having their moment,

and it's really
the intertwining of hands

and the crossing over of the legs
that gives you a sense

that there's some sort of
physical intimacy going on.

Beneath, you have the two goddesses
who are slightly tickling the feet,

so that's a sort of euphemistic way

of showing that they're having
a very nice time.

And then it's the birth scene

and all the gods and goddesses then
wind up greeting Amenhotep III
with great joy

because Egypt will once again
have a truly divine ruler.

Throughout his reign,

Amenhotep III placed
increasing emphasis on solar worship,

and he brought back
an ancient concept

into Egyptian temple architecture -
the solar court.

In this great open court
at Luxor Temple,

the sun god could be observed
and worshipped

as he crossed the sky.

The sun court was very important.

We must remember
that in pyramid temples,

sun courts were a very crucial part
of the architecture.

So what Amenhotep III is doing
is really going back

and linking himself
with the earliest rulers of Egypt

and recreating himself
as a manifestation of the sun,

and he did call himself
'The Dazzling Sun'.

Amenhotep's greatest building project

was on the other side
of the River Nile.

It was his own funerary temple

and was the largest temple
ever built in Egypt.

He called it
his Mansion of a Million Years.

But it didn't survive
a million years.

It lasted perhaps only 200

before it was demolished
by an earthquake.

And for generations afterwards,

the remains of his temple were used
as a quarry.

This can still be seen
at the Temple of Khonsu,

part of the Karnak complex.

It seems that much of this temple
was built using stone

from Amenhotep's ruined temple
across the river.

Here we can see
a lot of the original decoration

of the time of Amenhotep III.

They just took the blocks,
built this pylon,

and didn't really care
whether there was decoration

on these stone surfaces.

These are obviously blocks
from Amenhotep III.

We have one of the priests
whom we know from this time,

so there is no doubt

that we're in the period
of Amenhotep III.

Now here we are on top of the pylon
of the Temple of Khonsu,

which was entirely built from blocks
that come from over there,

the Funerary Temple
of Amenhotep III.

Until recently, the whole area
where the funerary temple stood
had reverted to fields.

Nothing was visible

except two colossal statues
of Amenhotep III

which have survived alone
at the temple entrance.

These statues were named
by the ancient Greeks

the Colossi of Memnon -
a name people still use today.

But they're no longer alone.

Starting some 10 years ago,

archaeologist Hourig Sourouzian
and her team began

patiently digging out the statues

and any stonework that was left
from the mud

and re-erecting them
in the right position.

This land beside the Nile
used to flood every year,

producing the fertile strip
along the river

that has fed Egypt
throughout its history.

And over the millennia, the remains
of Amenhotep's great temple

has slowly sunk into the mud.

Now the team have drained the land

and piece by piece
the temple is re-emerging.

This is part of
the largest alabaster statue known.

We don't have such
a gigantic alabaster statue,

not in Egypt, not in the world.

We have not found
anything like this,

and now we know the reason.

Because this alabaster
is a beautiful

but very problematic stone.

Alabaster is an attractive stone,
but it cracks easily,

and before they dare
lift this piece of the statue

they want to separate
the smaller section

of Amenhotep III's hand.

What we are doing here is now
we're using the air cushion system.

When we have a big chunk -

the chunk is estimated
to be 280 tonnes -

we need to remove anything
that wants to separate already

from the shock of
its first fall in antiquity.

In their work, the team use
a remarkable combination

of ancient
and very modern technology.

The air cushion system that
they're using is state of the art.

Everything else would have been
familiar to the workers' ancestors.

As the air pressure builds
and the bag inflates,

Amenhotep's hand
successfully separates

from the larger piece of stone.

(AIR HISSES)

The hand alone weighs
some two and a half tonnes,

but now they can lift it
out of the hole it has sunk into.

(SPEAKS IN ARABIC)

The next stage is to prepare a ramp

using a series of
massive wooden beams.

(MEN SHOUT IN ARABIC)

Then Amenhotep's hand
is lowered onto a sled,

with rollers inserted underneath.

Now it's down to brute force.

(MEN SHOUT IN ARABIC)

This is the technique
that was almost certainly used

to move the stones
when these structures were built

3,000 years ago.

Two pieces of
this alabaster colossus -

Amenhotep's chest and his hand -
are now reunited.

And as this temple
begins to take shape again,

it's possible to understand
its layout

and to see just how big it was.

You're just entering
this huge temple.

Imagine that from where
I'm standing until the palm trees,

we're talking about 550 metres,
which is half a kilometre.

And from the axis to the south
and to the north,

we're talking about
a 700-metres width of a temple.

So, I'll take you through

the imaginary heart of the temple,
right?

This gateway to the temple,

known as the First Pylon,
was massive -

even taller than
the Colossi of Amenhotep.

And it was nearly
20 metres thick.

Beyond it lay the first court.

This was 70 metres across,

and probably had
colonnades on each side.

At the far side
was the Second Pylon.

Now we're approaching
to the Second Pylon,

and now again
the two Amenhotep III colossi,

in quartzite, again,

they are welcoming us to enter from
the first court to the second court.

The Second Pylon was nearly
as big as the first,

and led into another huge court.

And on the far side was
the Third Pylon,

fronted by
the largest alabaster statues
known in the world.

So, now you're just
stepping into the workshop

of what we are doing
for the alabaster colossi.

You see the wall there
behind me, the mud brick?

This is the Third Pylon,

from where we will pass into
a passage to the next space.

The Third Pylon,
with its alabaster statues,

was the entrance to a walkway

that led to the next court
of the temple.

Now we are on our way towards
the peristyle court,

and we have left the Third Pylon.

So, what was the connection
between the two?

It must have been a passage -
we know it's a passage.

And we have two suggestions.

The first suggestion is that
it was an avenue of sphinxes.

The second suggestion is that
it was somehow double columns,

and the passage through
the double columns,

like in Luxor Temple.

They suspect that an avenue
of sphinxes is more likely,

and it led to the peristyle court

where dozens of statues
have been found.

So, now we are exactly
at the centre

of the peristyle court here.

This is the location where

our team has been able
to excavate completely.

While excavating, we found
a lot of remains of statues

during the Amenhotep period.

You have to imagine huge columns -
they were 15 metres.

And then huge colossi
that are 7 metres.

A piece of beauty.

In the middle, a beautiful court,
and full of Sekhmets.

We have been excavating
more than 100 Sekhmets.

The statues of the goddess Sekhmet

have been moved to the magazine
for safety.

No-one's sure why Sekhmet was
so important to Amenhotep,

but she's the goddess of war,
disease and healing,

and she was presumably providing
protection to the king.

This is all our Sekhmets
which we have discovered on site.

And it was not just
regular excavations.

Actually, when we were planning
for the drainage system

to lower the water table
in the peristyle courtyard

so that we could do our proper
excavations and go deeper,

this is when we hit
this huge number of Sekhmets.

We were just stunned with the tonnes
of Sekhmets that were coming out.

Each one has a different character.

You think they are identical

because their posture is the same,
but they are not.

Each one is a piece of art.
It's a magnificent piece of art.

So far, they've found dozens
of these statues.

And some people speculate

there may have been
one for every day of the year.

So we know definitely that
there were more than 100,

then why not 365?

Maybe he would have wanted
one for each day, to protect him.

They think the hundreds
of Sekhmet statues

were arranged around the four walls
on the outside of the peristyle court

protecting the temple.

And excavating at the site
of the temple,

the team are still finding
more statues of Sekhmet

and ever more statues
of Amenhotep himself.

There are now more known statues
of Amenhotep III

than any other pharaoh.

Over 1,000 statues
of Amenhotep as king or god survive,

including the foot
from a 21-metre colossus at Karnak.

This was the biggest statue
ever built in Egypt.

Unfortunately, nothing remains
but the base of the statue,

with Amenhotep's name...

..and his foot.

There were so many of these statues
that succeeding pharaohs

often didn't bother
to carve their own.

The famous giant head of Ramses II
in the Ramesseum

is said to be a head of Amenhotep III
taken from his mortuary temple.

It wasn't just the quantity
of sculpture

during Amenhotep III's reign
that was extraordinary.

The quality too was outstanding.

Some of the sculpture
carved at this time

ranks amongst the finest
ever produced.

Much of it is in the tombs
of his officials,

who shared in the country's wealth

and were able to build
lavish tomb complexes.

This is the tomb of Ramose,
one of Amenhotep's leading courtiers.

And it has exquisite reliefs
on its walls.

PROFESSOR IKRAM: This is one of
my favourite tombs

because the carving is
so exquisite and subtle.

The modelling is so fine.

You can see the faces
of each individual,

and they're recognisable.

And the way that the wigs
and the details of the clothing -

you can, in fact, see
all the folds of the drapery

and the knots
and the little bit of a fringe.

And obviously the artists
and sculptors of this period

really had a firm control
and command over their materials.

Really beautiful things.

Other arts and crafts
also flourished,

like the wall paintings found
in the tombs of that period.

During the reign of Amenhotep III,

there was this huge explosion
really of the arts.

I think he was more interested
in the arts

and the luxuries of life
than he was in warfare certainly.

The kinds of things that you see
are extraordinarily lavish -

beautiful glassware, furniture,
very luxurious

with inlays of ebony
and ivory and gold.

ARIELLE P KOZLOFF: Amenhotep III

insisted on the most
exquisite workmanship.

He must have been
extremely demanding,

must have had a very fine eye
for detail.

The demand for perfection
has to come from the top,

because it pervades all areas
of his artistic work.

And again, he had the gold
to make it all happen.

This was the sumptuous world
in which Amenhotep, his family,
and his court lived.

Now, in the Valley of the Kings,

two new tombs, thought to belong
to members of Amenhotep's family,

have been found
by the team from Basel.

The first of these tombs -
the newly named KV64 -

has proved to be a major find.

It appears to belong to
a previously unknown princess
from that time, Satiah.

And right beside it
is a much bigger tomb, KV40,

which has not yet been excavated
and remains a mystery.

They've already discovered

that the shaft of the tomb leads down
to a corridor.

Now they can investigate
what lies beyond.

Now, when we first came in,

the shaft and the whole corridor
was filled with material -

with sand and rubble -
we cleared it.

We came to this big room,
and it was all filled

with heavily looted burials -

bones, skulls, parts of mummies,
parts of coffins.

Pottery was just smashed
to about 30cm over the ground.

Altogether, there are four rooms
in much the same condition -

and it is clear that looters have
caused terrible damage down here.

The roof is totally black.

The place has suffered
from a heavy fire.

It must have become very, very hot.

This is why the limestone
is totally baked and blackened,

whereas on the floor

the temperature
didn't rise very high

because the fire didn't last long,

and the material remained
very fragmentary.

Covered with soot in many places,
but lots of fragments.

A rough count suggests

that these had been the mummies
of more than 30 adults,

as well as several children.

By any measure,
this is an astonishing find.

Most tombs
in the Valley of the Kings

were intended for a single pharaoh.

But over 30 people in one tomb?

This is unheard of,

and immediately presents the team
with an obvious question -

who are all these people?

And are they somehow connected
to the princess

they found in the adjoining tomb?

The team sets about sorting through
the vast quantities of debris.

It's an enormous task,

but as they sift through
the material,

they make a number of finds

which provide the first pointers
to who was buried in this tomb.

One of the early discoveries is
a piece of crumpled fabric.

Eventually,
this is lovingly restored,

and it turns out to be
a fine linen sock.

It's very nicely sewn.
It's made to be worn with sandals.

It's made of linen,
and it's a very rare piece.

We hardly know socks
from ancient Egypt.

From the size,
you can see it's very small.

It's something like a 35,

so we can imagine
that it was worn by a young lady.

This sock dates these finds
to the time of Amenhotep III.

It would have been worn
only by the elite.

But confusingly, they also find
other objects from a much later date.

This is cartonnage,
a material of linen and plaster,

a bit like papier-mache,
used to make funerary masks.

But this dates from
the 22nd Dynasty,

four hundred years later
than Amenhotep.

As with the tomb next door,
this tomb has clearly been reused.

The puzzle of trying sort out
who all the occupants of the tomb are

has suddenly become
much more difficult.

Solving this puzzle will take
several years.

As revealed in the next program,

it will involve
a lot of painstaking detective work,

and make use of a range
of scientific techniques.

The archaeologists
will call on the help

of world-renowned
physical anthropologist Frank Ruhli

to examine and X-ray the bodies.

FRANK RUHLI: It's important

to see how many people
were buried in there.

I think this makes it
even more fascinating.

It's a bit of a puzzle -
a puzzle of human remains -

and that's something
which is always very challenging,

particularly in this unique setting
of the Valley of the Kings.

When I first went in KV40,
I could not believe my eyes.

The remains after a heavy fire,

we know that there are members
of the royal family in this tomb.

She's clearly a princess.
This is her name.

This is her title.

"Royal daughter Taemwadjes."

And as they piece together
the remarkable story

of who this group of people are,

one of the world's leading
forensic identification laboratories

will attempt to reconstruct
one of their faces.

MAN: From doing forensic casework,

we know that this process
is accurate enough

to be recognisable by a friend
or a family member.

For the revelation
of the astonishing truth

of who was in the tomb,

see the next part of
Egypt's Sun King: The Mystery Tombs.

Captions by Red Bee Media
(c) SBS Australia 2018