All language subtitles for Egypts Unexplained Files Part 7 Lost City of the Sun Cult 1080p

Narrator:
Pyramids, temples, tombs --

these ancient wonders
promise even greater secrets

still to be found
under the sands of egypt.

Now cutting-edge science
finally 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
of which they died.

Narrator: This time,

the mysteries behind
the rise of a superpower.

Can a new discovery
at last explain

how the ancient egyptians
built the pyramids?

The papyrus gives us
the final piece in the jigsaw.

Narrator:
Will reconstruction technology

reveal the true face

of egypt's powerful queen,
cleopatra?

Oh, my gosh. She is not
this most-amazing beauty.

Narrator:
Can modern dna analysis

finally uncover
the surprising origins

of egypt's ancient people?

This is something
we've never seen before.

This changes everything.

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

125 miles east of cairo,

archaeologists dig
on the shores of the red sea.

They unearth perhaps

the greatest egyptian discovery
of the 21st century --

a handwritten diary
that's over 4,500 years old.

These are the oldest papyri
we have to date.

It's probably the closest thing
we're going to get

to having a time machine.

Narrator: Experts believe
the ancient scrolls

could finally solve
one of egypt's

most enduring mysteries --

how the ancients transport
vast quantities of stone

to build the great pyramid
in the isolation of a desert.

♪

naunton:
Why build at giza?

The papyrus gives us
the final piece in the jigsaw.

♪

narrator:
The great pyramid.

A masterful feat
of engineering...

Designed to provoke awe
and wonder in all who behold it.

The great pyramid at giza
is 50 stories high,

and for the ancient egyptians,
it's meant to be sunlight,

sunlight translated into stone.

Narrator: Egyptologists
now know what we see today

is the monument's
inner structures.

Cooney: When the outer casing
stone was on these pyramids,

they were bright white,

and they would have
been blinding to look upon

when the sun
was shining on them.

Narrator: Under the orders
of the great pharaoh khufu,

construction begins
around 2580 bce...

And takes decades to complete.

There were probably
20,000 to 30,000 people

involved with building
the great pyramid.

It's beyond belief.

It's still the largest
stone structure in the world.

It is the great pyramid.

♪

narrator: Within sight of the
great pyramid lie two others.

All three built
within just 70 years.

Cooney: Looking up at these
three mountains of stone,

they seem impossible
to have built.

It's something that can't
possibly exist in this world.

Narrator:
It makes egyptologists question

how the ancients
are able to build

these vast and complex
structures

in a desert wilderness.

Naunton: Why is it that they
come to be built so far away

in such an inhospitable
environment?

This is one of the driest,
hottest places on earth.

Narrator:
The quest for an answer

triggers decades of research,

yet a mystery remains.

Archaeologists have long known
that some of the rock

used in the construction
of the pyramids

is sourced
from two remote sites --

tura, about 15 miles
from the pyramids,

and aswan,
a phenomenal 500 miles away.

♪

experts doubt the ancients could
drag sleds across the desert,

so they investigate
how else they could transport

vast amounts of stone
hundreds of miles.

Clues emerge using
a new archaeological tool --

images captured from high above
the earth of the river nile.

♪

naunton:
Satellite imagery is proving

to be something of a revelation.

We had been thinking that
the river nile is where it is

and that that is where
it always was,

but the satellite images

are showing us
that that's not the case

and that actually
it might have moved over time.

If that river
is moving hundreds of meters,

then how we understand
the relationship

between archaeological monuments
and the river

is completely transformed.

Narrator:
Egyptologists begin to consider

an astonishing possibility --

the stones
of the great pyramid at giza

could be transported
vast distances by boat

along the nile.

♪

to explore
this remarkable new theory,

scientists peer beneath
the sands of the giza plateau.

We're using
remote-sensing techniques,

including drill coring.

It's a kind of keyhole-surgery
form of archaeology

which allows us to see
deep beneath the ground

in areas where water
would have been.

Narrator:
The analysis confirms

that the ancient path
of the river nile

runs close to the pyramids.

♪

in areas which are completely
dry in the 21st century,

we now know would have been
filled with water

in the old kingdom at the time
of building of the pyramids.

♪

narrator:
When archaeologists dig

to find physical evidence
of a harbor,

they discover something
on a truly grand scale.

♪

a marina estimated
at over 1,500 feet long

and 1,300 feet wide.

Dash: It was really
waterfront property back then.

The harbor at giza was probably

the largest harbor in the world
at its time.

Naunton: The idea that
there's a harbor at giza

is so far removed from the idea
we previously would have had.

We now know they would
have arrived on water, on boats.

♪

narrator:
Yet, if all this is true,

another riddle emerges --

precisely how did
the pyramid boatmen

transport stone
sometimes weighing up to 10 tons

hundreds of miles
along the nile?

♪

in 2013 comes the final piece
of the puzzle.

Excavating more than
30 honeycombed caves

on the banks of the red sea,

archaeologists uncover
beautifully preserved scrolls,

the oldest-known papyri
in the world.

Manuelian:
You may have gold statues

or colossal figures
in other places,

and so scraps of papyri
may not seem that exciting,

but it's the words --
it's what they tell us

that brings so much.

Narrator:
Translating the writings,

experts conclude this is
the diary of a man named merer,

a transport inspector

in charge of a team
of 40 boatmen

working on the great pyramid.

These are really
day-to-day records of a person

who clearly participated in the
construction of the pyramids.

It's really remarkable
and not something

that would have been expected.

Narrator: Merer's diaries
reveal in intricate detail

how the pyramid stones

make their long journey
from the quarry.

Naunton:
Merer is traveling

from the red sea
westwards towards giza,

and he stops
in the area of tura,

which is a place
well-known for the quarrying

of the very finest kind
of limestone

to provide the final layer,
the casing on the pyramids.

It confirms that it is the nile

that allows the stone
to be conveyed to the site,

and that explains
why giza is chosen

as the place
for pyramid building.

Narrator: As the only known
firsthand record in existence

of how the pyramids
are constructed,

the scrolls prove that
without the waters of the nile,

one of the world's
greatest architectural feats

would not have been possible.

♪

cleopatra.

Ancient egypt's
most famous queen

and ultimate seductress.

She is this extraordinary
femme fatale.

Narrator: Now
facial-reconstruction technology

may finally shed light

on a discovery that
baffles experts for decades,

to reveal the real cleopatra --

a great beauty
or hardened leader.

Fletcher: We have
these two opposing faces.

So which one
is the real cleopatra?

♪

♪

narrator: She is the name
on everybody's lips,

immortalized by the world's
most glamorous actress.

Cleopatra, for us,
is elizabeth taylor,

a very glamorous,
sensual woman.

Played fast and loose
with the hearts

of any roman
who happens to pass by.

But is that how
she really looked?

♪

narrator: A twist of fate
means, for egyptologists,

this is not an easy question
to answer.

We don't know
what cleopatra looks like

because we don't have her body.

We've never found her.

Narrator: To explore
the truth behind the legend,

experts first trace the origin

of cleopatra's image
as a seductress

and find it stems
from roman writings

detailing her relationship

with two of rome's
most infamous men --

the emperor julius caesar

and mark antony,
a military general.

These historical records

describe cleopatra
as a great beauty,

yet egyptologists are reluctant

to rely upon roman testimony
as unbiased.

We have to remember
that history is written by men.

There's a roman propaganda
campaign against her

to just frame her
as a seductress.

Narrator:
And then, by complete chance,

another clue to cleopatra's
appearance emerges,

one which leads researchers in
an entirely different direction.

Experts rediscover
a hoard of roman coins

long forgotten in a bank vault
in newcastle, England.

Johnston: In amongst that
huge collection of coins,

there is a coin,
a silver denarius.

Narrator:
The coin dates back to 32 bce.

It is minted in armenia
when under the control

of the roman general
mark antony.

On one side,
it shows mark antony,

but on the reverse,
we have a representation

of queen cleopatra.

-She has a hooked nose.
-And a pugnacious chin.

Fletcher:
Masculine, if you like.

Johnston: It's not the cleopatra
that we've come to learn

from films
and television series.

Oh, my gosh. She is not
this most-amazing beauty.

♪

narrator:
Egyptologists believe

cleopatra's
unflattering depiction

may be evidence
she demands a quality

with her male counterpart,

an image of her own creation.

Fletcher: So, on one side,
you have mark antony,

the famous soldier.

On the other,
you have cleopatra,

the equally famous soldier.

Johnston:
Represented as equals.

She portraying herself

as the correct and genuine
ruler of egypt.

♪

narrator:
The coin not only suggests

the modern stereotype
of cleopatra

as a seductress
is deeply flawed,

but that she is a master
of political spin.

Still, experts have a problem.

♪

neither the historical records
nor her image on coins

can be fully trusted.

So egyptologists devise
an innovative way

to investigate the face
of egypt's most famous queen.

They examine records
of cleopatra's family.

One tragic sibling stands out.

We know that
cleopatra's sister, arsinoe,

is murdered in ephesus.

♪

narrator:
Historical records reveal

arsinoe is buried in turkey.

Some experts believe
her tomb resembles

the great lighthouse
of alexandria

in her native egypt.

If archaeologists
can pinpoint her remains,

they may be able to determine

what arsinoe looks like
from her skull

and, from there,
paint a reliable picture

of her older sister, cleopatra.

♪

experts re-examine
a tomb in turkey.

Although the bones within
are discovered decades before,

only recently
have experts considered

the potential importance
of the find.

Johnston:
In 1926, in ephesus,

we find a skeleton of a girl

who is between
15 and 18 years of age.

Narrator: The tomb appears
to match the descriptions

of arsinoe's
final resting place.

Fletcher:
And because the tomb

has certain
architectural features

that relate to
egyptian architecture,

they assume the person
buried inside must be egyptian.

Narrator: Many researchers
believe the grave yields

an incredible link to egypt's
most enigmatic queen.

This may well be
the sister of cleopatra.

It may well be arsinoe.

Narrator: But there is a problem
with the skeleton.

Sadly, we no longer
have the skull.

Narrator: Archaeologists
search the records

collected at the time
of the dig,

hoping to uncover information
about the missing skull.

Johnston:
We do have photographs,

we do have measurements
that were taken

at the time of its discovery.

Narrator:
From these measurements,

scientists generate
a likeness of the woman

they believe
is cleopatra's sister.

Johnston:
Using facial reconstruction,

we're able to build up the
layers of muscle on the bone,

we're able to get
a clearer indication

of how to flesh up that skull

so that we can see what the face
might have looked like.

Narrator:
If researchers are right

and this is the face
of cleopatra's sibling,

then this process will reveal

the most accurate likeness
of cleopatra yet.

♪

johnston: You see a face
which is much younger,

much more feminine

than the coin portrait
that we have of cleopatra.

It's hard to see
any resemblance at all.

Narrator:
It is so different, in fact,

that some egyptologists
are skeptical of its accuracy.

♪

fletcher: The experts
who are reconstructing the face

have to work with the limited
data that they do have --

a set of measurements
of the skull --

and they can only hope
to create a partial likeness.

♪

narrator: Others believe there
can be an even bigger problem,

a question surrounding
the identity of the remains.

Anthony: The skeleton,
the body that was found there

was that of a 15-year-old girl.

And there is a slight problem
in that we understand

that arsinoe was probably
in her mid-20's when she died.

Narrator:
Egyptologists remain divided.

Johnston: I think
it's safe to say, at this time,

the question of
cleopatra's appearance

still waits to be answered.

Narrator:
2,000 years after her death,

the legend of the most famous
queen in history lives on.

♪

built by the iconic pharaoh
akhenaten,

the utopian city of amarna
is legendary.

Akhenaten wants it to be
an incredible city,

something that people
are going to remember.

Narrator: Now a new discovery
could explain why the city

is abandoned less than two
decades after its construction,

to reveal a deeply sinister side
to akhenaten's paradise.

Was amarna a glorious revolution
or was it hell on earth?

♪

narrator: 1350 bce.

A new pharaoh ascends
the throne of egypt,

his name, amenhotep iv.

Amenhotep iv comes in,
and he says,

"we're going to completely
change things up."

narrator:
He constructs a new order,

starting with his own persona.

He changes his name
to akhenaten.

Fletcher: The name change
is like a complete

rebranding of the pharaoh.

Narrator: His new name

makes him chief representative
to the sun god.

♪

with his wife, nefertiti,
at his side,

he revolutionizes
egypt's religion

by eliminating every god
his people hold dear, bar one.

In this radical step,

akhenaten rewrites
a nation's entire belief system.

Mcginn:
Akhenaten announces to everyone

that they're going to
completely change the religion,

and they're going to change from
worshipping hundreds of gods

to just worshipping one.

♪

narrator:
He builds an entire city

dedicated to the worship
of this one god, the sun,

a new spiritual epicenter.

One of the major
physical manifestations

of his religious revolution

is moving the religious capital
of egypt from thebes

to a city now called amarna.

This is a massive operation.

Maca: He was moving
thousands of people

to a completely new area
of egypt,

hundreds of miles away
from traditional capitals.

Narrator:
For over a decade,

amarna flourishes,
a thriving utopia.

And then records show
it mysteriously collapses.

Now egyptologists
are trying to figure out

what disaster
may have taken place here.

♪

searching for clues, they dig in
the ruins of the abandoned city.

Over a century, they unearth
evidence of great wealth --

opulence that is off the scale.

Darnell:
We know that the elites,

they're building
very large villas

and probably maintained
a very lavish lifestyle.

Absolutely no expense
is being spared

in the building of this city.

♪

narrator:
The findings seem to confirm

the lives
of the people of amarna

are exactly
how the legend suggests.

Fletcher: We know from the texts
and the images from the time,

akhenaten and nefertiti
are giving hundreds

and hundreds
of individual offerings

to the sun god
on a daily basis --

the best food, the best wine,
the best of everything.

Akhenaten wants it to be
an incredible city,

something that people
are going to remember.

Narrator: But something
puzzles archaeologists.

It is common
for pharaohs to display

their military conquests
in carvings and paintings,

but depictions in amarna
appear to show

a very different
military presence.

When you start to look at the
art that's created at amarna,

you're very struck
by the number of soldiers.

This is a royal couple
who have to maintain

a very high military presence
to guard against rebellion.

These are people
who need their bodyguards.

Narrator:
It suggests akhenaten

may be at risk
from his own people.

Darnell: There could be some
religious reasons for this,

but it could've also
been purely for security,

that he was not beloved
by much of his population.

Narrator:
If this theory is correct,

then life for regular egyptians

is starkly different
from akhenaten's legend...

And amarna is not the utopia
he proclaims it to be.

Maca: Akhenaten re-creates
egyptian society in amarna,

a utopian society.

But were the people treated

as well as a utopian society
intends?

Narrator:
In 2006, archaeologists

begin to dig
at a cemetery in amarna.

They know the bones
may yield vital clues

to the living conditions
of the people.

Human remains are
an extremely effective way

to truly understand

how people lived their lives
in the ancient past.

Everything they did
shows up in their bones.

Narrator:
Archaeologists uncover

hundreds of
partially intact skeletons

preserved by
the dry desert heat.

But the graves
are not what experts expect.

♪

mcginn: The bones are found
buried directly in the sand.

It becomes clear
to the archaeologists

working at this site

that they are finding
the bones of very poor people,

because the rich
would have been buried in tombs.

♪

narrator: Finding intact remains
of everyday people

is extremely rare.

When experts
examine the condition

of the bones and teeth,

they find evidence
of catastrophe.

Not a natural disaster,
famine, or drought,

but something far more ominous.

The bones at amarna
really tell us a horrific story.

Mcginn:
We can see from these bones

that the working-class
people of amarna

are doing hard manual labor
day in and day out.

Maca: These people
didn't have enough food.

Mcginn: They had dental
abscesses, cavities,

so the diet was poor.

There were high levels
of anemia.

Children were sick.
Malnutrition was prevalent.

♪

narrator: Then, in one of
akhenaten's temples,

archaeologists
examine the remains

of 1,700 ritual offering tables,

once seen as evidence of the
tremendous wealth in the city.

Now the food altars point
to a very different reality.

♪

fletcher:
Hundreds of altars

open to the sun,
to the open air,

crammed with the finest cuts
of meat, bread, beer --

all the standard offerings --
all left out in the sun

for the sun
to absorb their goodness...

And yet the workers
who built this place

are receiving so very little.

You would think
that he's almost going to create

a kind of utopian society
and treat his people very well.

But that's not what
the evidence shows.

♪

narrator: The finds at amarna
are rewriting the story

of akhenaten
and his legendary utopia.

Fletcher:
Modern archaeology,

it's revealing akhenaten
for the man he was --

a dictator,
a brutal, brutal king

who worked his people
almost to death.

It must have been hell on earth.

Narrator: And now egyptologists
have an explanation

for why, when akhenaten dies,

his city is abandoned
by his people,

allowing amarna's tragic secrets

to lie hidden beneath the sand
for over 3,000 years.

♪

the mighty pyramids at giza

hide an enduring secret
about the men who build them.

Who did the labor?
Who actually moved the stones?

Narrator: Now a set of
remarkable discoveries

may finally shed light
on the mystery

to reveal
if the pyramids are built

by tormented slaves
or willing artisans.

♪

narrator: It is a powerful image
made popular by hollywood.

Thousands of pyramid builders
toil under the desert sun,

slaves to an oppressive pharaoh.

♪

egyptologists trace this idea
of slave labor

to an ancient greek historian,

writing about the
fourth dynasty pharaoh khufu,

the king who commissions
the great pyramid.

Darnell:
Herodotus tells us

2,000 years after
the great pyramid is built

that 100,000 people

participated
in its construction.

Dash: Herodotus
was the first historian.

He's called
the father of history.

He lived during
in the golden age of greece.

He traveled the world
and then would write stories

about what he had seen.

Cooney: He talks about khufu
as being wicked,

almost evil,
and exploiting his own people,

living so long and demanding
such a large structure,

that he pushed them too far.

And when we look
at that structure today,

it's no surprise that slavery
might pop into our head.

♪

narrator: In 2002,
archaeologists uncover something

that could shed light
on the popular belief.

They dig on the giza plateau,

uncovering walls
and outlines of buildings.

Egyptologists believe
it is a workers' village

just 1,300 feet
from the pyramids.

Darnell:
On the giza plateau itself,

archaeologists have discovered
the administrative structures

where the workmen
who constructed the pyramids

both lived and constructed
their own tombs.

♪

narrator: They also unearth
artifacts that reveal

the workers' diet and lifestyle,
evidence of how they live.

The most common pottery types
we find at giza

are bread molds and beer jars.

We find thousands of them.

So they were eating bread
and drinking beer.

Narrator:
Along with beer jars,

archaeologists find something
entirely unexpected --

fragments of over 150,000
animal bones

from fish, birds,
and, remarkably, from cattle.

Dash: At the city
of the pyramid builders,

we have found enough cattle bone

to have fed 7,000 people meat
every day for 20 years.

Darnell:
Beef would have been

a fairly expensive meat
in ancient egypt.

And the fact that
that's one of the things

that they were eating

shows that this is a major
state-sponsored activity,

and they intended the workers

who constructed the pyramids
to be well-fed.

Narrator: The evidence
from the workers' village

suggests a new theory --

that the pyramid builders
aren't slaves at all...

But are living
in tailor-made housing,

getting paid in beer and bread
and the finest cuts of meat.

♪

then, inside the great pyramid,
more evidence emerges.

Archaeologists study writings in
a chamber above the king's tomb.

While it's common practice

for explorers
to leave their names,

creating a unique record
of exploration,

among the modern marks
are strange symbols.

♪

written on one of
the massive roof slabs --

a hieroglyph
from 4,500 years ago.

Red markings denote
which crew was responsible

for dragging that giant block.

Narrator:
This hieroglyph reveals

the workers' relationship
to the pharaoh.

It is a crew name --
"the friends of khufu."

♪

it suggests a crew
united in their task,

working for the king.

Darnell: We should really
imagine these work crews

with a spirit of togetherness.

And you get more of that sense

of highly organized,
concentrated labor

as opposed to our imaginings
of slaves being whipped

as they bring stones
up the ramps to the pyramids.

♪

narrator: It leads egyptologists
to a final conclusion

about the pyramid workers,
disproving the long-held belief

that the pyramids
are built by slaves...

And part of a growing
body of evidence

that suggests they are
highly specialized artisans.

Darnell: Our modern
archaeological discoveries

have established
beyond a shadow of a doubt

that the pyramids
were constructed by laborers,

paid by the state --

masons, specialists, quarrymen,

overseers, architects.

Narrator: It means experts
can now consider the pyramids

as more than tombs for a king.

They're time-tested monuments

to the ingenuity and skill
of the men who build them.

Darnell: The workers
who participated in the pyramids

knew that their labors would be
seen for thousands of years,

and that sense of pride
in creating

both immortality for the king

and a monument that would stand
for thousands of years,

it is all really remarkable.

Narrator:
The people of ancient egypt

are perhaps
the most fabled on earth.

Now analysis
of 3,000-year-old remains

may shed light on their origins,
answering an age-old question --

what is the ancestry
of the ancient egyptians?

Ancient dna
is actually providing us clues

that are opening the door
on who these people really were.

♪

narrator: How did this group
of remarkable people

spark the rise
to a superpower nation?

Bard: Over 100 years ago,
there were theories

that ancient egyptian
civilization

did not originate
in the nile valley,

but was introduced
from somewhere outside.

♪

narrator: Some believe
this outside influence

may originate with the oldest
civilization on earth --

mesopotamia in modern-day iraq,

over 800 miles from egypt.

There was a suggestion that
individuals from mesopotamia

came into egypt
and were the catalysts

that enabled the egyptians
to create themselves.

Narrator: The theory suggests
this eastward migration

takes place
even before egypt is created,

over 5,000 years ago.

The problem is,
egyptologists can find

no archaeological evidence
to support it.

Bianchi:
In the intervening years,

the theory about
the mesopotamians coming over

has been discounted.

♪

narrator:
Another theory emerges

when experts investigate
a more recent dynasty.

They examine
the upper nile valley

and egypt's southern border.

Bianchi:
In the '60s and '70s,

there was a renewed interest
in nubia.

Narrator: Ancient nubia
is on the southern side

of the sahara desert
from egypt.

♪

experts study nubian hieroglyphs
that date to around 700 bce,

searching for evidence

that these people
may have migrated to egypt.

Bianchi: We have
hieroglyphic inscriptions,

and they discuss the conquest
of egypt by the nubians...

When black africans from nubia
ruled egypt

as pharaohs in their own right.

Narrator: The inscriptions
show that ancient egyptians

have strong connections
to sub-saharan africa,

but without biological evidence,

experts cannot yet prove
an ancestral link.

♪

in 2017, scientists explore
ancient genetic ties

using the latest technology
for dna testing.

They investigate mummies
found in the 19th century

in the northern egyptian village
of abusir el-meleq.

Buckley: This study
involves looking at 150 mummies

from this one site
and looking at their dna.

Narrator:
Because the mummies' age range

spans nearly 2,000 years,
beginning in 1380 bce,

it provides scientists
with a broad sample size.

It's really the first
scientifically credible study

that's telling us something
about the origins

of who
the ancient egyptians were.

Narrator:
But there is a nagging problem.

When the mummies are discovered,

the genetic code
is not properly understood.

Archaeologists
could not have imagined

the mummies would be tested
100 years later.

As a result, they're transported
to europe unprotected.

Now experts believe
they may be contaminated.

At that time, for sure, nobody
was thinking about dna testing.

Everybody
who's touching the mummy

leaves his dna traces.

Narrator: Contaminated samples
could introduce

other genetic profiles
to the study,

tainting the results.

Despite the difficulties,

scientists isolate
what they believe

is ancient genetic code
from the cells' nuclei.

Buckley:
Out of 150 mummies studied,

they recovered dna
from 90 of those,

but only from three of those
did they get the full genome,

the nuclear dna.

Narrator: Extracting the full
genome from the three mummies

is an incredible
scientific feat,

an ancient egyptian first,

and the results
prove astonishing.

Buckley:
These results certainly show

population
over a long time period,

originated in what is now

turkey, syria,
israel, palestine.

So these are people coming from
the near east, down into egypt.

Narrator: It means the mummies
from abusir el-meleq

have their deepest genetic links

with mediterranean neighbors
to the east.

But there is
a fundamental issue.

Because all the mummies
come from a single town,

making any large-scale
conclusions is impossible.

It's only from one site
in northern egypt,

so it doesn't necessarily
inform us on what the population

may be like further south
in egypt, for example.

Narrator:
Despite the complications,

it's a hopeful beginning.

And as geneticists
sample more mummies

from every corner of egypt,

the results will give
a precise picture

of the migration patterns
of the ancients,

answering the question
of ancient egypt's ancestry

once and for all.

♪

near the necropolis of thebes,

archaeologists uncover
a hoard of ancient records.

Manning: Something like
100,000 documents or so.

It's perhaps
the best-documented village

not only from ancient egypt,

but for the entire bronze age,
globally.

Narrator: The documents
show egyptian workers

hold the world's
first labor strike

and reveal if they were
successful or crushed.

♪

narrator: 1170 bce.

Pharaoh ramesses iii

rules egypt during
the tumultuous 20th dynasty.

It's not a quiet reign.

He has several attempted
invasions of egypt

from various places --
from the libyans

and from a confederation
of mediterranean people

we call "the sea people."

and he's quite proud
of fending them off.

He seems to have been a very
powerful and successful pharaoh.

♪

narrator: Experts wonder

if his extraordinary
military success abroad

may come at a cost
at home in egypt.

Enmarch: But we also know that
towards the end of his life,

economic problems
began to gather in egypt.

Narrator:
As egyptologists investigate

how a failing economy
affects ordinary egyptians,

new evidence emerges.

♪

deep in the valley of the kings,

buried in the arid desert sands,

archaeologists unearth
a previously untouched village

dating to the 20th dynasty.

What they discover inside

is immaculately preserved
by the desert's dry heat.

Darnell:
The community at deir el-medina

was further out into the desert

than your standard
egyptian village.

Cooney:
It was on the west bank,

the land of the dead,
deep in the desert.

And the reason
that it's so special

is because it preserves things

that aren't preserved
anywhere else on the planet.

Narrator: Buried in the ruins
of deir el-medina,

archaeologists find
tens of thousands of documents,

from work records
to intimate letters.

But the most intriguing?

Court files giving a window
into the everyday conflicts

and concerns of the ancients.

♪

among the documents,
experts uncover records

that suggest the men living here

are employed directly
by the pharaoh ramesses iii,

constructing tombs in
the royal cemetery of thebes

less than a mile away.

The documents show
the high social status

of these important craftsmen.

Cooney: They knew
the greatest elites of thebes

because they built coffins
for them

and finished tombs for them,
as well.

So these men
were really hanging out

with the very wealthiest
of thebans

even though they were
craftsmen themselves.

Narrator: Further research
reveals something unexpected.

Some documents point
to a strained relationship

between the craftsmen
and their bosses.

Darnell: During the reign
of ramesses iii,

we have evidence that
the workmen at deir el-medina

were not being paid on time.

Manning:
And, of course, if you're
not paid in bread and beer,

which is the normal salary,
literally, in ancient egypt,

how can you work?
How can anything else happen?

Narrator: So the craftsmen take
matters into their own hands.

Nonpayment leads to the first
recorded strike in history.

They demand payment.

Cooney:
The documents are pretty clear

that they didn't go on strike
just once.

This happened repeatedly
over time -- this nonpayment

and the refusal to work
because of the nonpayment.

Narrator: What the documents
reveal next is remarkable.

♪

darnell: They're not fired.
They're not punished.

They seem to be successful.

And the pharaoh does relent
and paid them.

Narrator: Egyptologists believe
this extraordinary evidence

calls into question whether
the 20th dynasty pharaoh

rules like a dictator.

Manning:
The king is actually

constitutionally constrained
by the society,

so the limits of royal power
were very real

even in a place
like ancient egypt,

despite the perceptions
of the king

being this absolute
kind of monarch.

Narrator: The cache of documents
found at deir el-medina

provides a vivid snapshot

of the people
who build ancient egypt.

Manning: Even though the ancient
egyptian world is different

than ours in a lot of ways,
they are human beings,

and human struggles,
human emotions,

human worries about daily life,

about making a living,
about feeding your family,

about love interests all come
to life in these documents.

Narrator: It is a discovery
that reframes the relationship

between the ordinary working man
and his pharaoh...

And recasts
this egyptian superpower

as a functioning nation

complete with conflicts
and conquests,

just like any nation today.

♪