Original subtitles

Narrator: Pyramids, temples, tombs --

these ancient wonders promise even greater secrets

still to be found under the sands of egypt.

Now cutting-edge science

decodes the mysterious land of the pharaohs.

With modern technology, we are gaining an insight

into the way the ancient egyptians lived

and the manner in which they died.

Narrator: This time, the beliefs and superstitions

central to ancient egyptians' society.

Can pine trees in california reveal new truths

about the plagues of the exodus?

Did these biblical plagues actually happen?

Narrator: Dna testing of cat mummies reveals a macabre secret.

Modern science is proving that the egyptians

were mass-producing these animal mummies.

Narrator: And could scientific testing of a baboon mummy

reveal the location of a land once thought only mythical?

Bard: And baboons are not indigenous in egypt.

So they had to have been brought from elsewhere.

Narrator: Ancient clues unearthed...

Long-lost evidence re-examined...

Precious artifacts brought into the light of the 21st century...

These are "egypt's unexplained files."

-- captions by vitac -- www.Vitac.Com

captions paid for by discovery communications

♪

the land of punt, long thought to be a mythical country.

Macca: We have reliefs or carvings on the walls

that seem to depict a great expedition to the land of punt,

a land of palm trees and wild animals.

Narrator: Its location has remained a mystery.

Punt is a legendary place.

We don't know where it is.

Narrator: Until now.

Egyptologists hope that by using cutting-edge techniques

to test the remains of a 3,000-year-old baboon,

they'll be able to find it.

Macca: Have we found the mythical land of punt?

Narrator: In 2004, archeologists were digging at a site

near the small egyptian harbor of wadi gawasis on the red sea.

Kathryn bard and her team from boston university

made a remarkable discovery.

We found pieces of ancient ships, 26 coil-papyrus ropes --

riggings from an ancient ship.

Narrator: These ships were not built for the river nile.

They were made for the open ocean.

The first seafaring vessels

ever to be uncovered from ancient egypt.

Alongside the rigging,

they discovered a set of strange boxes

and realized the incredible significance of the find.

Bard: This was a really wonderful find.

We excavated 43 discarded cargo boxes.

And why do we know that they were cargo boxes?

Because two of them were inscribed like a package label

with "the wonderful things of punt."

narrator: This was the first evidence

that the mysterious land of punt was a real place

and that the ancient egyptians were trading there.

But where was it?

♪

for over a century, the land of punt is thought

to be nothing more than a tall tale,

first discovered by researchers on a 4,000-year-old papyrus.

There is a wonderful fictional tale

dating maybe about 1900 b.C.

Called "the tale of the shipwrecked sailor."

and it's about a sailor who is on a seafaring expedition.

He washes up on an island, an island in the red sea.

And this is a magical island.

Narrator: The sailor tells stories of fabulous creatures

and exotic spices.

He is taken care of by a serpent king.

Darnell: In the course of this tale,

the serpent refers to himself as the lord of punt.

♪

narrator: Researchers now re-examined an ancient tablet

called the palermo stone.

They find accounts of voyages

that were previously considered fictional.

Could this help them locate the land of punt?

The palermo stone mentions voyages and interaction

with the mystical land of punt.

It was a place where they were importing

their exotic trade goods.

Narrator: The palermo stone reveals

that punt is the source of many essential goods

brought into ancient egypt.

Rose: Incense, wood, gold...

Elephant ivory, ebony --

punt was where exotic raw materials were obtained.

They were highly desirable for temple ceremonies,

especially incense.

Narrator: All the evidence

points to punt being a trading partner

for ancient egyptians using the boats found in the cave.

But the stone does not reveal its location.

Then teams excavating the ocean-going ships

make an incredible breakthrough.

They find shards of ancient pots,

which once contained goods from punt.

The team turns to science to try to locate the origin of the pots

and discover that the clay comes from the east coast of africa.

We have evidence now based on our excavation of pottery

that came from those regions.

Narrator: But exactly where on africa's coast

remains a mystery to researchers.

They turn to inscriptions at queen hapshetsut's temple

in deir el-bahari.

Here they find accounts of a voyage to punt.

The depictions of some of the figures on the wall

have long puzzled visitors.

They have a different skin color to the egyptians.

We have representations of foreign people with red skin

and chin beards much like the egyptians.

Narrator: Convinced that these are real people,

they look for more clues.

They find a passage which describes the animals

hapshetsut shipped back to egypt.

She brought back baboons, dogs, and living incense trees.

Narrator: Baboons are known to have been sacred

to the ancient egyptians.

Macca: The baboon was considered a really incredible animal --

almost human, but certainly divine.

It was considered a divine animal of wisdom.

Narrator: Baboons are not indigenous to egypt.

So if archeologists can determine

the origin of the baboons found in egypt,

it could help them pinpoint the exact location of punt.

They scour historical records and track down a baboon mummy,

originally discovered in the valley of the kings,

now kept in london.

There's one baboon in the british museum

that comes from a temple dating to the 20th dynasty,

so that would be maybe 1200 b.C.

Narrator: 2010.

A team of scientists at the british museum in london

test the baboon using a scientific technique

called stable oxygen isotope analysis.

Stable isotope analysis was done on some hairs from one baboon.

This gives us information about the region

in which these baboons would have lived

originally before they were brought to egypt.

Narrator: Will the location of punt be revealed at last?

The stable isotope analysis of these hairs

points to the northeast africa region

in what is today eritrea or eastern sudan.

Narrator: It's a revelation.

Modern science confirms the ancient egyptians

as intrepid seafarers,

sailing over 1,000 miles along the coast of east africa

trading in spices and exotic animals.

It finally proves not only that the legendary land of punt

is real but its geographical location.

♪

the tomb of king tutankhamun --

the greatest egyptian discovery of all time.

News of its wondrous treasures is overshadowed

by the tale of a deadly curse.

Day: Only months after the discovery of the tomb,

the earl of carnarvon suddenly died.

Narrator: Talk of a curse has endured for over 70 years.

Now a pioneering new science

could help answer once and for all

if there is any truth behind this supernatural story.

Is there any reality to the curse?

Can the death simply be explained by coincidence?

Narrator: 2009,

and the famous tomb of tutankhamun is under threat.

We've been very concerned in recent times about the state

of some of the tombs in the valley of the kings --

the impact that tourism has.

Let's face it, egyptian tombs

weren't made to pack millions of people in.

Narrator: The tourists who visit the tomb

are slowly destroying it with their breath.

Anthony: When people were coming into the tomb, we are exhaling.

And when the moisture gets onto the walls,

it desecrates the paint, the wall paintings.

Narrator: Conservationists race to solve the problem.

Anthony: At first, they limited the number of how many tourists

could go in at a time

and how many could go in per day.

But now they've built a replica.

So you can go in and breathe as much as you like.

Narrator: Specialist teams build this replica

using the latest 3-d laser-scanning technology.

It saves the tomb from the curse of the visitors.

Now, can egyptologists combine this data with more new science

to shed light on the supposed curse of tutankhamun?

♪

the tale of the curse dates back to the tomb's discovery in 1922.

Soon after howard carter and the earl of carnarvon

opened the tomb, disaster strikes.

Only months after the discovery of the tomb

and before they got as far as opening up the mummy

in the burial chamber, the earl of carnarvon,

the fifth earl, got an infection.

That he received a bite from a mosquito to his face.

And that whilst he was shaving a few days later,

he nicked this bite, and that it became infected.

Narrator: On the 5th of April 1923,

lord carnarvon dies from blood poisoning.

Newspapers connect his death to a deadly curse

supposedly written on the walls of the burial chamber.

Johnston: Within the tomb was discovered a little inscription

stating that "death will come on swift wings

to any who disturb the pharaoh's tomb."

the story of the curse spreads around the world like wildfire.

Narrator: Over the next decade, six more people connected

to the excavation of tutankhamun's tomb die suddenly.

Scientists previously looked for clues to the mysterious deaths

by looking at the mummified body of king tutankhamun.

Could the remains themselves be toxic?

Johnston: The theory is that the body

is still reacting with the unguents

and the linen wrappings.

And therefore when the sarcophagus is opened,

that there'll be a release of gas

given off by the body itself.

Ammonia gas could affect the eyes, the nose, the mouth.

Extreme cases, it could affect the breathing.

And if left untreated, could ultimately lead to death.

Narrator: But there's a big problem with this theory.

The one man who would have been hit by the toxic gas

does not experience any symptoms.

Given that howard carter is himself responsible

for opening these,

he would be the person most likely to be affected.

And he remains entirely unaffected.

I believe it's highly unlikely that the gases

could have done serious damage to anyone.

Narrator: Egyptologists now look for other possible causes

that could explain the curse.

They turn their attention to the tomb itself.

Specialist teams scrutinize every detail and find,

including a clue found in the plaster.

Dark patches which contain a strange black fungus.

They are unique to tutankhamun's tomb

in the valley of the kings.

Narrator: The team ask themselves

why this strange mold is not found in any other tomb.

They look for clues to how it got there.

Experts think it may be to do

with the tomb's rapid construction.

Johnston: It is very much a rush job.

And it's entirely possible that the plaster was still wet

when the paint was applied

and the doors were eventually locked.

I think that's the reason that we have this mold.

Narrator: Could this be the reason

people died once the tomb was unsealed?

It's been suggested that these fungal spots are responsible

for deaths connected with the tomb.

Narrator: The mold is tested to see if it's poisonous.

The team draw a blank.

The mold is harmless.

We have no evidence that mold is the reason

why anyone associated with these discoveries has died.

Narrator: Scientists conclude that nothing in the tomb

could have caused the deaths,

fueling doubts about the entire story.

They turn their attention back to the original curse,

reportedly carved into the tomb walls.

A linguistic study of the text reveals it is very different

to curses discovered in other tombs.

Johnston: Most of the curses,

they are not nearly as terrifying

as the curse that we know of from tutankhamun's tomb.

They tend to be made dreadful things happen to you --

"may you be eaten by a crocodile as you're swimming in the nile,

may you be savaged by a hippopotamus."

I mean, they're not good.

But with the same token, there's not this monolithic evil

attached to it, either.

Narrator: Historians begin to suspect

it is not written by the hand of an ancient egyptian at all.

And when they turn again to the tomb,

their investigations uncover no sign

of any inscriptions containing the curse.

There's nothing of the "death shall come on swift wings

to those who disturb the tomb of the pharaoh."

that never existed.

That inscription -- that was fake news.

Narrator: And scientific analysis suggests

to egyptologists that the curse of tutankhamun

is knowing more than a newspaper fantasy.

Everybody wanted to report on this tomb.

So they had to make up new news.

Let's invent the curse tale.

Day: It made sensational headlines -- instant press.

Money, money, money.

That's what it was really all about.

Narrator: Far from being a 3,300-year-old jinx

cast from beyond the grave,

modern analysis reveals the curse of tutankhamun

was a work of imagination by 20th-century journalists.

Ancient egyptians go to extraordinary lengths

to mummify and preserve their dead in readiness

for the afterlife.

But when egyptologists discover a tomb

containing dozens of mummified cats

instead of people, they are baffled.

Why were these cats mummified?

Narrator: Historians turn to science to try and decode

the meaning behind these cats.

This was a massive, massive religious experience.

Narrator: During the spring of 2018,

archeologists excavating catacombs outside cairo

make an unusual discovery.

Inside the maze of tombs,

they find dozens of mummified cats.

At other sites across egypt, even more are found.

How on earth did they get here? And why?

What's their purpose?

Narrator: Advances in technology may allow experts

to discover the secrets behind this bizarre practice

for the first time.

Day: Now we finally have the technology

to study things like their dna, their genetics.

Narrator: Scientific analysis delivers

an intriguing revelation.

Dna testing shows that these cats are very interbred.

Narrator: Scientists conclude the cats

have been specially bred on a cat farm.

Ikram: They are all quite closely related,

which means that they must have been factory farmed.

Or these were really kitten mills.

Day: Modern science is proving that the egyptians

were mass-producing these animal mummies.

Narrator: It seems to egyptologists

that the kitten mills are supplying animals

to a mummification industry.

Cats are mummified in a variety of ways.

But the best quality cat mummy

would have the cat gutted, eviscerated.

Oils and unguents are applied

to give the body a little bit of flexibility.

And resins are applied.

And then the cat is wrapped up in bandages.

Narrator: The bandaged cat was then creatively embellished.

They would often decorate the external appearance of the mummy

with things like eyes, false ears, whiskers.

Narrator: Cat mummification appears to be big business.

But why?

Researchers look for clues to discover

the scale of this industry.

They find an astonishing account

from the early days of egyptian archeology --

the mummified remains of 180,000 cats

found in a field at beni hasan outside cairo

in the 19th century.

A farmer puts his spade into the ground

only to discover that he's not digging soil,

but his spade has found a pit.

We're told that he falls into it.

And he discovers a catacomb filled with thousands

of mummified ancient egyptian cats.

Narrator: It's an extraordinary find

unlike anything seen before in egypt.

For egyptologists,

this is a hall of cat mummies on an industrial scale.

Johnston: They're variously wrapped,

some of them in quite gaudy wrappings,

others in more plain linen wrappings.

Narrator: It's the largest collection

of cat mummies ever found.

Now it's sent to England to be sold privately.

♪

accounts of cat mummies in such huge numbers

lead egyptologists to form a theory.

Those cats are being mass-produced

to be slaughtered for mummification.

X-ray technology provides scientists with more clues

to back up this theory.

The cats lived very short lives.

X-rays reveal injuries that show many died a brutal death.

These cats are being killed at a relatively young age

by having their necks broken.

Narrator: It's a disturbing revelation.

The outer package looked very impressive.

But the inner packet often contained

some poor little strangled kitten.

Narrator: But why did the ancient egyptians

create these mummies in such huge quantities?

Archeologists believe it points

towards a large-scale religious practice.

Mcknight: The shear number of these cat mummies

that are interred at sites like beni hasan suggest

that this was a massive, massive religious experience.

It was an activity that lots of people were taking part in.

This mass breeding of these cats shows that they were being

produced specifically to be given as offerings.

Cat mummies were made by the million

and deposited by the million.

It's a little bit like the way today

that some people go to churches

and light a candle, as a kind of an offering.

Narrator: Experts now understand

why there are so many mummified cats in egypt.

Their final question is what happened to the 180,000 cats

sent to England for sale in the 19th century?

When the cats arrive at the liverpool docks,

there are two large auctions which take place.

There's a story that one of the auctioneers uses

the head of a cat as a gavel.

Narrator: Despite the salesman's efforts,

the cat mummies don't attract much interest from buyers.

Nobody really wants to buy them

because they don't really know what these things are.

But they end up being sold for a very low price.

3 pounds, 13 shillings, and 9 pence per ton

of mummified ancient egyptian cat.

Narrator: The fate of the mummies is a shock.

They got ground down as fertilizer.

It is truly astonishing.

The cats which were murdered, mummified,

offered to goddess in ancient egypt

should then be ground up

and turned into fertilizer in victorian England.

Narrator: It's a wasted chance to study the lost cats,

but there may be more beneath the sands

waiting to be discovered.

♪

♪

the bible's book of exodus describes a series

of terrible plagues that hit ancient egypt.

The nile turns to blood.

A plague of frogs and biting insects and lice and flies.

Narrator: Could there be any truth

in these strange phenomena?

Can we really explain the phenomenon of the nile river

turning into blood as recorded in exodus?

Narrator: Growth rings contained within ancient trees

discovered in california could unlock the answer.

These forests include

some of the oldest living trees in existence

dating back to the times of ancient egypt.

Narrator: Now scientists look for the truth

behind the biblical story.

Did these biblical plagues actually happen?

♪

♪

narrator: 8,000 miles from egypt

in the white mountains of california...

Scientists study high-altitude trees

looking for evidence of global climate change.

Harrison: Bristlecone pine forests in california

are at roughly 9,000 feet.

And these forests include some of the oldest living trees

in existence, dating back to the times of ancient egypt.

Narrator: Investigators study tree rings from 3,500 years ago,

around the time the plagues supposedly hit ancient egypt.

The rings can be used to reveal information

about the global climate at that time.

They notice something intriguing.

When scientists examine the rings from the period,

they find that the distance

between these rings shrinks dramatically.

Narrator: Experts compare these results to records

from other ancient trees around the world.

They're almost identical.

For climate scientists, it's a revelation.

Harrison: This can mean only one thing --

global catastrophic climate change.

Narrator: Data from the tree ring studies

shows a massive worldwide drop in temperatures

around 3,500 years ago.

Scientists begin the hunt for an explanation.

They search records for a geological event big enough

to cause such a worldwide change in temperature.

What could cause such a thing?

Perhaps a meteor strike

or a huge volcanic eruption.

Narrator: Experts identify a possible culprit.

It's not in california but on the other side of the world,

on the tiny mediterranean island of santorini,

just 400 miles north of the egyptian coast.

There is a volcano called thera.

This volcano erupted around 1600 b.C.

And wiped out the local civilization.

This eruption in ancient times

was about four times more powerful than krakatoa.

And it would have spewed up hundreds of thousands of tons

of ash into the atmosphere,

effectively blotting out the sun.

Narrator: It coincides with the climate change event

recorded in ancient tree rings.

It also coincides with the story of exodus.

According to the bible, the pharaoh imprisons

the jewish people of egypt and refuses to release them.

Desperate to free his people, moses appeals to god.

And god sends plagues upon egypt.

Narrator: The bible tells how the land of the pharaohs

is beset with terrible misfortune.

The waters of the land turning to blood.

Killing the fish.

A plague of frogs and biting insects and lice and flies.

Narrator: Is it possible this geological event

could explain the divine retribution

cast down upon ancient egypt as described in the bible?

Rose: There's a team of geologists now

working off the coast of santorini

in the crater where the volcano used to be

and digging into the seafloor.

What they've discovered is a lot more ash

than anyone ever suspected, up to 30% more.

And what they've calculated is that the plume of ash

during the eruption

would have gone 25 miles up into the atmosphere.

So the question is, could that then have reached ancient egypt?

Narrator: An icelandic volcanic eruption in 2010

gives experts an idea of how far an ash cloud can travel.

The volcanic eruption in iceland was months of disruption.

It ejected so much ash into the atmosphere.

It went all around the globe.

And in doing so, disrupted airline traffic,

courier services, all packages being delivered --

everything ground to a halt for about a week.

Narrator: The scale of this modern eruption leaves no doubt

that an ancient eruption could easily reach egypt.

In the hunt for any volcanic telltale signs,

researchers now closely investigate

the geology of the nile delta

and find shards of volcanic rock.

Chemical analysis confirms their hunch --

the shards come all the way from santorini,

thrown hundreds of miles by the huge volcanic eruption.

It's a significant result.

And their investigation continues to reveal more clues

to explain the biblical plagues.

This ash cloud would have had a devastating effect

on the entire ecosystem that it came in contact with.

I mean, this is poisonous gas.

So as it's falling back down onto the earth,

it's falling into the nile.

It's falling into the red sea.

It's falling into the lakes throughout egypt.

And it's poisoning the water with sulfur.

Narrator: Large quantities of volcanic ash and sulfur

would have a major impact on the nile.

Scientists believe it could change the color of the water

matching the river of blood described in the book of exodus.

This acidic sulfuric deposit

could taint the river and pollute it,

turning it a deep red.

Narrator: It's the first solid evidence to link a natural event

to the accounts written in the bible.

Could this fouling of the nile also be linked

to the other biblical disasters,

like the plague of frogs or the infestation of flies?

Experts identify a toxic chain reaction.

Bianchi: The turning of the nile red

has a disastrous effect on the wildlife.

Harrison: Fish in the river would begin to die off.

And because of this, all of the life that lived

on the sides of the river, such as frogs,

would begin to move away from that toxic water.

Eventually other animals die and their corpses become infested.

And they in turn spawn the lice and the flies,

which continue to spread the plague.

Narrator: Modern scientific investigation

has revealed evidence

that the biblical stories could be based in fact

but driven by natural events rather than the wrath of god.

We could tie this all back to one catastrophic global event.

Narrator: The plagues and devastation described in the bible

may well have been the side effects

of a giant volcanic eruption.

Ancient egyptians often bury

mummified animals with them in their tombs.

Archeologists find cats, dogs, and even baboons.

But when they find coffins

containing mummified dung beetles, they're intrigued.

Godenho: Why on earth would the dung beetle be so central

to the ancient egyptians' religion?

Narrator: A new discovery

could help egyptologists find out.

♪

narrator: Experts exploring egyptian tombs

are used to finding carvings of majestic animals,

like the jackal or the falcon,

beasts which protect the dead in the afterlife.

But in 2018, at a tomb outside saqqara,

a team of archeologists find something else --

something extremely rare.

Wrapped in linen, they uncover tiny perfectly preserved

beetle mummies from 4,500 years ago.

Experts identify the insects as scarab beetles,

a type of dung beetle.

This is literally an insect

which lays its eggs in and feeds on feces.

Narrator: The find is highly unusual.

Researchers question why creatures

considered dirty and unclean

would be deemed important enough to be mummified.

Egyptologists suspect the attitudes

of the ancient egyptians towards bodily waste

must be worlds apart from our own.

In the ancient world, human and animal waste

isn't necessarily something useless and to be discarded.

People used it as fertilizer.

They used it to build their homes.

They used it to heat cooking fires.

It's used in magical medical texts

to cure particular ailments as part of medicine.

Narrator: Egyptians may not have been repelled by animal dung,

but that alone doesn't explain

the spiritual significance of the beetles.

One so important that it grants them a ritual burial.

For researchers, the insects' natural behavior

offers the next important clue.

Godenho: In the same way that the ancient egyptians noticed

the sun rolling into the sky onto the horizon each morning,

they noticed the dung beetle rolling a ball of dung.

And in the same way they noticed

the life-giving properties of the sun,

they noticed the newborn babies of the dung beetle

hatching out of this ball of dung.

Narrator: Egyptologists believe that the ancient egyptians

see the spherical ball of dung

as a representation of the sun --

making the beetle a sun god.

The ancient egyptians see the scarab beetle

as the god khepri.

Harrison: The solar god represented the rising sun,

the renewal of the sun,

and, therefore, the renewal of life.

Narrator: Researchers ask,

could this be a clue to the insect's role

in the journey to the afterlife?

Archeologists re-examine beetle carvings

found in sarcophagi containing dead people.

Each was discovered placed over the heart of the deceased.

Godenho: When ancient egyptians enter the afterlife,

they have to go through a series of trials.

And the very last part of those trials

is when they enter the hall of judgment before osiris

whom they want to join within the afterlife.

But they don't get to walk straight through.

Cooney: If you're not clean of heart,

then you won't be able to move into the afterlife.

And you would cease to exist in any space

of the living or the dead.

Narrator: Egyptologists form a theory that for a sinner,

the beetle over the heart is an insurance policy

to get into paradise.

They find charms called amulets in other tombs

that appear to serve the same purpose.

Cooney: There's a particular kind of amulet

known as the heart scarab.

It's in the shape of a beetle.

And on the back of this scarab is inscribed text.

And in this text, you read, "oh, heart of my mother,

oh, heart of my mother, do not turn against me

in the halls of justice."

harrison: If you had a scarab amulet protecting your heart,

it would stop your heart from testifying against you

in the hall of judgment.

The last thing you want is for your heart

to speak up against you

and to say that you are a sinner --

that you're not worthy of going into the afterlife.

And so you make sure that you put this heart

scarab beetle amulet on your heart to cleanse it

and make sure that you get into the afterlife intact.

Narrator: Experts now know that this tiny insect

is an ancient egyptian's ticket to paradise.

It seems that some need more help than others

in getting there,

enough to devote an entire sarcophagus

to a lowly dung beetle.

♪

on the ceiling of an egyptian burial chamber,

a 4,000-year-old mystery -- the figure of a strange animal.

One thing that stands out is this bizarre creature

with the body of a hippo.

She's got the paws of a lion and from the head up, a crocodile.

Narrator: It's unlike anything ever seen before.

Who is this creature?

And why does it have the form of three vicious predators?

What does it all mean?

♪

narrator: Experts have long known that certain animals

are associated with specific egyptian gods.

Ancient egyptians were very observant

of the animals that were around them.

Mcknight: They see things in the natural world

that they believe has connections to the gods

because they don't know how else to explain things that they see.

So for the egyptians, each animal was associated

with a god, had a power,

had some sort of mystical role to play in the cosmos.

Narrator: Research suggests there is a link

between how these animals behave and the deities they represent.

Take for example the season when the nile starts to flood,

frogs appear everywhere.

And so there's a deity known as heqet,

which is basically a frog goddess.

And she's not just the deity of renewal

and agriculture and rain but of fertility.

The baboon was also considered a really incredible animal.

They were associated very often with the sun god horus,

tied to the sky.

It wakes up, stretches to where the sun is going to rise,

does this, and cries out.

And it's thought to be this encouragement

to help the sun rise.

Narrator: 200 years ago,

the role of the gods was revealed in glorious detail

when explorer giovanni belzoni opened a painted tomb

in the valley of the kings.

This is the most spectacular tomb in the valley.

It's the biggest.

It's absolutely magnificent.

Narrator: Belzoni's gaze fell

on the familiar paintings of deities

that adorned the walls.

But he was mystified by a painting of an unusual goddess.

Rose: The body of a hippo.

She's got the paws of a lion and from the head up,

a crocodile.

Narrator: Now experts re-examine the goddess

and ask whether animal behavior could hold the key

to the identity of this historical enigma.

First, they examine why she is made up

of three ruthless killers.

One clue, maybe egypt's dangerous natural habitat.

You step out of the door, and it's terrifying.

In fact, you get out of bed, it's terrifying

because you never know if there's a scorpion

that's going to get you.

If you go down to wash or to clean your clothes at the river,

you also have to be kind of afraid

that you're going to be eaten

or dragged into the bottom of the nile.

There you are, a poor, feckless human being

with no fur, no claws, nothing.

So the gods have to protect you.

Narrator: Archeologists explore the theory

that the mysterious goddess

takes her form from fierce animals

so that she can offer protection.

But to whom?

Researchers analyze the three creatures

which make up the deity.

Her head belongs to a crocodile.

Mcknight: The egyptians see the crocodile as a powerful animal.

It's a very fearsome animal that lives in the nile.

It also is very good at protecting its young

and watching over eggs.

Narrator: Egyptologists believe the goddess' body

is another fiercely maternal creature -- a hippopotamus.

Hippopotami are very fierce mothers.

Anthony: If you've ever been to africa

and you're familiar with hippopotami,

you know that these are probably the fiercest creatures around.

You do not want to be engaged with these animals at all.

Narrator: The goddess also has the paws of a lion --

an animal that's yet another ferocious mother.

Experts form a theory that the goddess

has a maternal connection.

They hunt through records to find evidence of the goddess

on other tombs.

They find a match on the walls of a fertility temple.

Mcknight: We find the imagery in tomb contexts often belonging

to those of women sometimes who've died in childbirth

or at some stage of pregnancy.

Narrator: Further investigation of the ancient texts

reveals her name -- taweret.

Rose: Taweret is something like a mother goddess

to the ancient egyptians.

She protects women and children.

She's often depicted as this fierce demonic character

that's guarding the household.

Narrator: Taweret might seem alien to modern eyes,

but as guardian of pregnant women,

her fearsome features made her a powerful protector

of the most vulnerable in egyptian society.