Original subtitles

Narrator: The tomb of tutankhamun,

Filled with treasures from the life of the boy king.

Naunton: Over 5,000 items were found in the tomb.

It was a real treasure trove.

Narrator: The riches are perplexing from gold chariots,

To plant seeds, weapons of war,

(sword clangs)

To the mysterious mummies of two stillborn children.

Ikram: To find them in their own little

Beautifully decorated coffins must have been quite a shock.

Narrator: But now experts suspect tutankhamun's hoard

Was actually his secret weapon

For a special mission after his death.

Tyldesley: There must be a purpose for every single item

That was put inside that tomb.

Narrator: For ancient egyptians,

This was the true destiny of their beloved pharaoh.

Naunton: This is going to be a real odyssey and epic journey.

Narrator: It would be a supernatural fight

Through the afterlife.

Ikram: There is quicksand, there are lakes of fire.

Naunton: The possibility is always there

That he might not make it.

Narrator: If tutankhamun won,

(sword clangs)

Egypt would flourish.

If he failed, the earth faced oblivion.

Ikram: We would be plunged into eternal darkness.

Narrator: But could tutankhamun's treasure trove

Guarantee him victory in his ultimate challenge?

Naunton: If this danger can't be overcome,

That's the end of it all.

(dramatic music)

Narrator: The relics of the past hold secrets

Written in gold,

Stone,

And blood.

We can unlock them.

These are the secrets of history's greatest treasures.

(reserved music)

The treasures of tutankhamun.

For almost a century,

Experts have studied this unique collection of riches

To piece together the mysterious life of the young pharaoh.

Tyldesley: It's quite often seen

As a sort of snapshot of tutankhamun's life.

He's got games in there,

He's got chariots, he's got sandals.

Narrator: But now,

Egyptologists believe these treasures

Have another story to tell,

Not of the young king's life on earth,

But of his life after death.

Naunton: It's a story that hasn't really been told,

But it's such a wonderful story

That I think it really deserves to be told.

It's a tale that can only now be deciphered

Because for the first time

Since tutankhamun's tomb was discovered,

His treasures are finally being brought together

In one place, cairo's brand new grand egyptian museum.

In their entirety, this priceless treasure trove

Is now revealing that tutankhamun's most important

And vital task as pharaoh was after he died.

Naunton: For the egyptians, death was very much not the end.

One of the great pre-occupations of their time

On this earth would be preparation for the next life.

(captivating music)

Narrator: The full collection

Of tutankhamun's grave goods seem

To be a perplexing mix of the luxurious and the everyday.

There are spectacular golden chariots

And over a hundred simple loincloths,

Baskets of fruit, fine wines and mummified meat,

And most shocking of all, the bodies of two infant girls.

But egyptologists suspect each item would have had

A very specific use in the pharaoh's afterlife.

Tyldesley: These aren't in there randomly,

They've been chosen to be in there for some reason.

There must be a purpose for every single item

That was put inside that tomb.

Narrator: When decoded, this unique ancient hoard reveals

The perilous supernatural mission tutankhamun had

To undertake in the underworld,

A mission against the forces of evil that he had to win,

Because failure would mean the end of egypt and the world.

(mellow music)

The story of tutankhamun's journey into the underworld

Starts 300 miles south of cairo

In the valley of the kings.

Here, on the morning of November 5th 1922,

British archeologist howard carter peered

Through a chink in the door of a long-forgotten tomb

To make the greatest archeological discovery

Of all time.

Naunton: This was a sensational discovery,

Over 5,000 items were found in the tomb.

Just about all of them made to the very finest standards

Of the very finest materials.

It was a real treasure trove.

Narrator: Carter hadn't just discovered an ancient king,

He had unearthed a unique collection

Unlike anything ever seen before or since,

The only egyptian royal tomb to remain virtually untouched

Since the day it was sealed.

Naunton: There are many kinds of objects in the tomb

Which we don't have anywhere else.

So it's very, very difficult to overstate

How important that collection is.

It's absolutely unique in being as complete as it is.

Narrator: There's one object, one clue above all others

That offers egyptologists an insight into the story

Of tutankhamun's life after death,

And it's still in his tomb,

Tutankhamun's mummified body.

The pharaoh died over a thousand years before christ,

But his body remains intact and his features individual.

Naunton: I find it very moving really to think that along

With all of this abundance of treasure,

We have the man himself,

And we can still look upon his face.

Narrator: It's clear the ancient embalmers went

To extraordinary lengths to preserve

The young pharaoh for eternity.

Naunton: The body has to be purified,

It has to be washed,

It has to be dried out using salts,

And then certain organs have to be removed.

So for example, the brain is removed through the nose,

A rather kind of gory process,

But it all helps to ensure that the individual

Can be preserved as closely as possible

To how they were in life.

Narrator: Egyptologists think this complex

Mummification process lay at the heart

Of ancient egyptian religious belief

That if the dead could preserve their human likeness,

They could then be brought back to life

As actual, physical beings.

Tyldesley: I think it's worth stressing that to them

This wasn't a theoretical thing,

This was a very real thing.

It's not something strange or mysterious

Or something that we might read in a fantasy book,

It was a fact.

Narrator: The ancient egyptians' many religious texts

And inscriptions reveal a complex

And elaborate set of beliefs.

To achieve eternal life,

The dead needed the help of a colorful cast

Of shape-shifting gods and supernatural beings.

And the paintings on the walls of tutankhamun's tomb show

That the boy king was hoping for all the heavenly help

He could get to reach the afterlife.

Naunton: At the left hand-end of the north wall is osiris,

The lord of the underworld, the afterlife,

In white, with green-colored skin symbolizing fertility,

And this idea of birth, rebirth.

He's embracing and being embraced by tutankhamun.

(mysterious music)

Narrator: Behind tutankhamun stands a second figure.

The hieroglyph above his head reveals

He's tutankhamun's spirit or ka.

Naunton: The ka separates from the corpse

Of tutankhamun at the point of death.

Narrator: It was tutankhamun's ka

That would undertake

The perilous journey to the next life.

If it arrived safely, it could then return

To the pharaoh's mummified body, reanimate it,

And allow tutankhamun to rise from the dead.

Naunton: The ka is kind of the king's double, his shadow.

So he's here, partly embracing tutankhamun,

Helping usher him through to the next life.

Narrator: The ancient egyptians believed

That every person, rich or poor, had a ka.

And to enter the afterlife every ka had

To face interrogation by the lord of the underworld.

But archeologists have discovered that,

Even before he could face his interrogation,

Tutankhamun had a problem.

Sealed inside his coffin and hidden beneath bandages,

His mummified body concealed a shocking secret.

A secret that threatened to condemn tutankhamun to oblivion.

(engaging music)

For almost a century, tutankhamun's dazzling treasures

Displayed in the cairo museum,

Have told the story of the boy king's short life.

But now, as all of his 5,000 treasures

Are being brought together at the new grand egyptian museum,

Another, far stranger, tale is emerging,

Not of tutankhamun's life,

But of his supernatural experiences after death.

Tyldesley: The ancient egyptians weren't obsessed with death,

They were obsessed with living,

And they wanted to live the best life they could.

And they wanted that to continue if they could after death.

Narrator: Egyptologists believe this is

Why tutankhamun's tomb was crammed full of everything

From golden statues to simple loincloths.

His tomb was a colossal, supernatural suitcase,

Packed with everything he'd need to help him navigate

The afterlife and live there forever.

But what did tutankhamun expect to find when,

Or if, he got there?

For egyptologist salima ikram, the answer lies

In some of the smallest items discovered in his tomb.

Ikram: You needed to eat in the afterlife,

And tutankhamun was a teenage boy,

So clearly he wanted to be well supplied.

And so he had bread, he had wine, he had pomegranates,

Little green onions and garlic

So he could flavor his food or munch on a green onion.

And there are dates, there are piles of dates here.

But what's really amazing about tutankhamun's dates is

That they were pitted,

So he wouldn't have to chew around and throw out the pit,

So these are really posh dates for the afterlife.

Narrator: And these were just the appetizers,

For the entree tutankhamun could choose

From an all-you-can-eat buffet of egypt's finest meats.

Ikram: He had ribs, he had large joints of meat,

Coming from the full leg of cattle,

And there are all these boxes of mummified poultry.

Often the containers are made in the shape

Of what they are supposed to contain.

Narrator: It was a feast fit for a pharaoh,

Pre-cooked, pre-packed, and preserved for eternity.

Ikram: It was sort of like going to a grocery store

Where you could always just pop off the top

And munch on something whenever you were hungry.

Narrator: But where did tutankhamun hope

To eat these eternal picnics?

And what, apart from eating, did he expect to do there?

A clue can be found across the hills

From the valley of the kings

In the ancient village of deir el-medina.

Here, thanks to an extraordinary discovery,

It's possible to glimpse the kind of afterlife

Tutankhamun may have believed in.

The village was home to the workers

Who built the nearby royal tombs, including tutankhamun's.

(singing in foreign language)

Here, they spent their spare time and money

Constructing their own burial vaults

And this is one of the finest.

It belonged to a mason called sennedjem.

And it contains a rare, detailed depiction

Of the egyptian afterlife.

Naunton: Sennedjem chose to decorate the east wall

Of this vaulted chamber with a very elaborate

And beautiful scene of the field of reeds.

Narrator: The field of reeds was the name

The ancient egyptians gave to the afterlife,

And it would have been

Instantly recognizable to tutankhamun.

Naunton: It's the place that they hoped to be in,

In the afterlife forever,

And it's a kind of agricultural idyll.

Narrator: In the field of reeds crops flourish,

Water flows freely,

And the trees are laden with fruit.

Naunton: Everything is kind of abundant.

It's like this life,

It's just a sort of souped-up, perfect version.

Narrator: So when any food buried in the tomb ran out,

There was a plentiful and infinite supply,

As long as you were willing to work for it.

Naunton: As in life, lush fields don't simply farm themselves,

There is still work to be done.

So sennedjem and his wife are shown here,

And threshing corn, underneath they're working flax,

They're driving cattle here, plowing the fields.

Narrator: But a hoard of hundreds

Of doll-like figurines discovered

In tutankhamun's tomb suggest the pharaoh had no intention

Of getting his hands dirty.

Instead he took his own supernatural workforce

With him to the grave.

Ikram: The idea of the afterlife

With field of reeds is that it's wonderful,

But actually you were expected to do some work.

And of course, because he really didn't want to do that,

The ancient egyptians invented the shabti.

Narrator: In the afterlife,

The ancient egyptians believed these models would be

Magically transformed into fully operational servants.

Ikram: So if you have to do something unpleasant,

Like work, in the afterlife, the shabti will do it for you.

Narrator: Tutankhamun was buried with 413 shabtis,

Some designed for farming, others for ruling.

Ikram: You really don't have to do anything,

Your ka can have a good time,

And these poor shabtis do the work.

(tranquil music)

Narrator: But admission to the field of reeds

Wasn't guaranteed.

Ancient egyptian religion demanded

That even a pharaoh had to win his place in paradise.

And that meant his spirit, or ka, must face interrogation

By the lord of the underworld, osiris.

Tyldesley: We know from the texts that you don't actually

So much as had to do good, as to have not done wrong,

Because you will recite the negative confession

And you will say "I haven't done this,

"I haven't been a bad person,

"I haven't stolen,"

And that is what gets you through.

Narrator: But the next test was far tougher.

Ikram: You would have your heart weighed

Against the feather of truth.

So in this balance, you have your heart on one side,

The feather on the other.

Narrator: The ancient egyptians believed the heart,

Not the brain, was the center of thought,

And its weight determined whether the deceased had lived

A good or bad life.

Ikram: If they were in balance,

You could go and be received by osiris,

Lord of the underworld.

Once he received you, you could enter into eternal life.

Narrator: But if the scales tipped

In the wrong direction,

A terrifying fate awaited, even for a pharaoh.

Ikram: If your heart was heavier,

The demonic goddess, ammit,

Made of a crocodile, a hippopotamus and a lion,

Would devour you entirely.

Then you're done for, you don't exist anymore.

Narrator: According to ancient egyptian religion,

Every soul, whether farmer or pharaoh,

Would be banished to this eternal abyss,

Unless their heart could pass the test,

And for tutankhamun that was a problem.

For this vital task,

Tutankhamun's heart should have been left

Inside his body after death,

But archaeologists discovered it was missing.

(tense music) (heart thumps)

Tyldesley: Maybe he died as a result of an accident,

Too far away from an expert at mummification,

So that by the time they did come to preserve his body,

The heart had already decayed and couldn't be saved.

We'll never know,

But that seems to be probably

The most likely reason for it being missing.

Narrator: Without a heart to weigh,

Tutankhamun faced an eternity of nothingness.

Unless there was a way of replacing it.

And incredibly, egyptologist salima ikram believes

That's exactly what happened,

Thanks to an intriguing beetle-shaped object found

On tutankhamun's chest,

Close to where his heart should have been.

Ikram: We have in this case

A lot of the scarabs of tutankhamun,

But one of the most important ones

Is this one with a bird carved on it.

Narrator: To the ancient egyptians,

The heron and the scarab beetle were symbols

Of the sun, creation, and rebirth.

And they believed these qualities

Could be magically transferred

From the object to the wearer.

Ikram: The text on the back, it's also supposed to evoke

All the things that the heart knows,

And the heart is supposed to do.

Narrator: So when the scarab was placed

On the dead pharaoh's chest,

It became a magical, substitute heart.

Ikram: Should the heart be lost,

As tutankhamun's heart was,

This heart scarab is absolutely crucial

Because without it the king cannot achieve eternal life.

(intriguing music)

Narrator: By ingenuity and cunning,

The people who prepared tutankhamun's body had solved

The problem of the pharaoh's missing heart.

The scales would tip in tutankhamun's favor.

And his spirit could finally enter the field of reeds,

The reward that awaited every virtuous egyptian.

But tutankhmun was more than that,

He was a pharaoh,

And that meant he had another duty to fulfill.

It was a duty that would take tutankhamun

Into a terrifying underworld,

And bring him face to face with the forces of darkness

In an epic battle for the survival of the world.

(captivating music)

At the new grand egyptian museum,

Tutankhamun's 5,000 treasures are revealing

An extraordinary, supernatural story

Of a pharaoh prepared for a peaceful eternity in paradise.

But alongside luxury items and fine foods,

Tutankhamun was also buried with weapons of war,

And the ancient equivalent of a kevlar vest.

So what were they for?

The answer lies in what the ancient egyptians

Thought happened to a pharaoh's soul,

Or ka, after his death.

Ikram: We think he had basically two afterlives,

One was like everyone else,

You go off and you live in the field of reeds

And have a wonderful time.

But the other one

Was much more complex and not nearly as pleasant.

(haunting music)

Narrator: The ancient egyptians believed

That as a pharaoh, tutankhamun had not one but two kas,

A personal ka and a royal ka.

Both left his body at the moment of death.

But while his personal ka went to paradise,

His royal ka took a very different path,

A path followed by the pharaohs that had gone before him.

Ikram: His royal ka would join up with the other royal kas

Because there was something else he had do,

There was a much greater,

Far more important mission that he had to accomplish.

Narrator: But what was this mission?

The storage rooms of the grand egyptian museum

Are now full of the pharaoh's grave goods,

And for egyptologists they provide clues

To the nature of tutankhamun's royal task.

Ikram: Tutankhamun's tomb contained a lot of model boats,

And there were all kinds, some with rigging

Like you have over there and there.

We have papyrus skiffs,

We have boats with cabins,

Things that could be pulled like barges.

And what is really extraordinary is that the bows

Of all of them were pointing to the west.

(gentle music)

Narrator: By facing west, the boats were poised

To set sail towards the sunset.

And for the ancient egyptians,

The sunset was an event steeped in spiritual significance.

Naunton: The egyptians understood natural phenomena

In terms of belief in gods and goddesses and divine acts.

So to the egyptians the sun is a god, the god ra.

When the sun sets every day,

It doesn't just then do nothing until reappearing.

(tense music)

Narrator: The egyptians believed at sunset,

The sun god ra died.

In order to be reborn at sunrise,

Ra had to travel through a dark, watery underworld,

And that journey was far from plain sailing.

Naunton: The journey is fraught with danger.

The underworld was inhabited

By gods, goddesses, demons, beasties.

The possibility is always there that he might not make it.

Narrator: And ancient egyptians believed

That would mean the end of everything.

Ikram: There would be no light

And we would be plunged into eternal darkness.

Narrator: This would be tutankhamun's royal mission,

To make sure the sun would rise again

By supporting ra during his treacherous

Nightly journey through the underworld.

Tyldesley: When he was alive,

Tutankhamun would have been responsible for making sure

That the priests of the sun god ra worshiped every hour

And helped the sun across the sky.

But that responsibility didn't end when tutankhamun died.

He was then sailing through the underworld

Helping the sun god to fight off all sorts of dangers

Which might have obstructed the sun

And prevented the sun from being reborn in the morning.

And this was of vital importance to the egyptians.

Ikram: If the king were not doing his job,

There was always the fear that at night,

The evil powers would win,

And there would be no daylight,

There would be no good,

And the world would simply collapse.

(entrancing music)

Narrator: This critically important mission

Would require a vessel of exceptional power and beauty,

A boat fit for a god.

And salima believes this is it,

A boat specially designed for the sun god,

And known as a solar boat or barque.

Ikram: Tutankhamun and all kings had to have a solar barque

In their tomb so they could join with the sun god

To carry out this very, very vital battle.

Narrator: A clue to what lay ahead for tutankhamun

And his solar boat can be found in another royal tomb

At the other end of the valley of the kings

Because tutankhamun wasn't the first,

Or the only pharaoh to undertake this journey.

He would be joining generations of past pharaohs,

Including pharaoh thutmose iii,

Who ruled and died around a hundred years earlier.

Naunton: It's here in the text and scenes decorating the walls

Of thutmose iii's burial chamber

That we get to see that journey in full.

This scene represents the first of the 12 hours

Of the night according to the book of amduat,

What is in the netherworld.

Narrator: A cast of gods, goddesses, and dead pharaohs

Join ra in his boat.

Naunton: He needs to assemble this huge crew,

All of whom he's going to need to help him

To ward off his enemies

And make this journey through the night successfully.

Narrator: When tutankhamun died,

He would have expected to join this divine crew,

And set sail into the underworld.

(riveting music)

Naunton: We get a sense from this scene very clearly

That this is not going to be an easy journey,

This is going to be a real odyssey, an epic journey.

Narrator: For three hours,

Ra and his army of gods and pharaohs fight their way

Through treacherous waters and sinister swamps.

Naunton: As we move in to the fourth hour of the night,

The landscape changes.

(wind howls)

It's become a kind of a sandy desert landscape,

And the journey at this point takes

A strange sort of zigzagging route

Across the scene here.

You very much get a sense of a real world,

A landscape which is changing as the boat makes its progress

Through the night, and of this constant threat.

Ikram: There is quicksand.

There are pathways that don't match up.

The sun god and the king have to face

All kinds of demonic creatures.

(uneasy music)

Tyldesley: There are snakes that take very strange forms.

He's fighting off demons.

(unsettling music)

Ikram: There are lakes of fire.

All kinds of things are happening.

Narrator: The attacks are relentless,

The attackers nightmarish.

But using all their experience as rulers,

The crew of dead pharaohs and gods had the expertise

To survive the first six hours of their journey

Through the underworld.

(dreary music)

Now, in the deepest, darkest hour of the night,

The sun is reborn.

And the ancient egyptians believed

That just as the sun was reborn at midnight,

So was the pharaoh.

Tutankhamun's spirit and senses would return to his body,

And together the pharaoh and the sun could begin

The journey to sunrise and the continued survival of egypt.

But the greatest threat was still to come.

In the hours between midnight and dawn,

The sun's deadliest enemy lay in wait.

Naunton: The fate of the sun god is at stake,

But also the fate of every egyptian.

If this danger can't be overcome,

That's the end of it all.

Narrator: Defeating this demonic force

Would take more than tutankhamun's magic spells

And an arsenal of bows and arrows.

It would take a supernatural secret weapon.

(dramatic music)

In a 21st century museum

And a three and a half thousand-year-old tomb,

Egyptologists are piecing together the supernatural story

Of tutankhamun's life after death,

Of a pharaoh on a mission through the underworld

Fighting against the forces of darkness

To save the sun and the earth from annihilation.

With the highest possible stakes,

The people who packed

Tutankhamun's tomb did everything

In their power to ensure

He was prepared for the mission ahead.

Ikram: The ancient egyptians were very big on insurance,

So they had lots of safety nets

In case one thing didn't work,

One spell didn't work,

There was a back-up spell.

If this got destroyed,

There was another back-up object.

So you always had things that would help you get

To where you wanted to.

Narrator: Egyptologists now believe

This is why tutankhamun took 5,000 objects to the afterlife.

The more he took,

The more chance he had of defeating the demons

And overcoming the obstacles that lay ahead.

But one shocking find has always perplexed archaeologists,

The mummified bodies of two baby girls.

Today, their fragile remains are being conserved

At the grand egyptian museum.

Ikram: Although tutankhamun's tomb was filled with marvels,

One of the most extraordinary finds

Were these two fetuses that carter found.

(somber music)

There was really nothing to lead him to think

That he would find three burials in a tomb,

And certainly not ones of these tiny individuals.

So to find them in the tomb,

In their own little coffins,

Beautifully decorated and mummified,

Must have been quite a shock.

Narrator: Dna analysis reveals these two tiny girls

Were most likely tutankhamun's daughters.

But tragically both had been stillborn,

One girl at around four months,

And the other at nearly full term.

Ikram: There was such a high mortality rate

For infants and stillborn children

In the ancient world that it's not surprising.

But it is extraordinary to have them carefully mummified,

Wrapped up, cocooned, put in these coffins,

And placed in their father's tomb.

Narrator: These tiny mummies are

An incredibly rare discovery.

But egyptologist joyce tyldesley believes

There is an explanation for their burial

Alongside the pharaoh.

She suspects they were the ultimate insurance policy.

Tyldesley: Tutankhamun was very wealthy,

He could have dug a grave

For his daughters any time he wanted to.

So the fact that their bodies have been saved

To be buried with him suggests

That, perhaps, it's not just a practical reason,

But there's a ritual reason for them being there as well.

Narrator: In ancient egyptian art,

Women and girls were often cast as protectors,

Standing alongside their fathers or the gods.

Tyldesley: It seems that daughters can have

A very protective function.

So I think it's not surprising

That tutankhamun's baby daughters

Are buried with him in the tomb.

They will give their feminine support to him.

They will back him up.

Narrator: And for joyce,

They were more than simply good luck charms,

They were active participants

In tutankhamun's journey through the underworld.

Tyldesley: By being either physically

In the boat with tutankhamun

Or just having their spirits supporting him

While he's in the boat,

Tutankhamun will be protected by these two daughters

Who he has in the tomb with him.

Narrator: But why was it necessary

To go to such extreme lengths?

On their journey through the underworld,

The sun god ra and the pharaohs had already survived

The first six hours of the night.

But now, in the seventh hour,

The forces of darkness were about

To unleash their deadliest weapon,

Ra's immortal enemy,

The monstrous serpent apep.

Naunton: He is the greatest threat

That the sun god will face

In the entire journey through the night.

He represents the forces of chaos and destruction.

(serpent growls)

Narrator: The serpent is poised,

Ready to wrap its colossal coils around the solar boat,

And drag the sun god to a watery death.

(gloomy music)

Protected by his infant daughters

And armed to the teeth,

Would tutankhamun's precautions be enough

To save him from the serpent's deadly embrace?

The fate of the pharaoh, the sun,

And all egypt rests on this one moment.

Ikram: If apep were to win,

Then that would be the end of the world.

There would be no light

And we would be plunged into eternal darkness.

(tense music)

Narrator: The serpent strikes,

The gods raise their knives,

And spear the snake along the length of its body.

The sun's worst enemy has been defeated,

Good triumphs over evil,

And tutankhamun's journey can continue.

Naunton: Beyond the seventh hour,

There are more obstacles to overcome,

More threats to be neutralized

By the sun god and his helpers,

But the sun is well on his way towards resurrection.

Tutankhamun by extension

Is also well on his way to eternal life.

(subdued music)

Narrator: By the 12th hour,

All the forces of darkness have been defeated,

And the sun could rise again.

Ra and the pharaohs can be reborn into the sky.

Naunton: Tutankhamun can then join the spirits

Of the other deceased kings in the afterlife for eternity.

Narrator: Egypt was saved,

But only until sunset.

Ikram: Tutankhamun had to do this night,

After night, after night.

Narrator: This was

Tutankhamun's destiny and his duty,

To save the world every night, for all eternity.

(dramatic music)

But outside his sealed tomb,

The wheels of treachery were turning,

And plans were underway to wipe the young king

From the face of history.

(captivating music)

The treasure trove found in tutankhamun's tomb

Reveals he wanted, and expected, to live forever.

Armed with everything he'd need to triumph

In his mission through the underworld,

The boy king had every reason to believe

He'd join the list of dead pharaohs celebrated

For saving the world.

And for the young pharaoh it was vital

That his name would live on long after his death.

Because to truly live forever,

Tutankhamun's name needed to be remembered.

Ikram: "may your name live forever,"

Is something the ancient egyptians frequently said,

And in their tombs you write the name

Here and there and everywhere

Because you want your name to live forever

Because that's how you survive.

Narrator: But that's not what happened.

For three and a half thousand years,

Tutankhamun was forgotten.

His name is barely mentioned in ancient texts

And scarcely appears on monuments.

And for a pharaoh, that was a fate worse than death.

Tyldesley: To be forgotten is possibly the worst thing

That can happen to you.

If you can make sure you were remembered,

Then the hope is that you'll be able to live forever.

But once you're forgotten

There's no coming back from that.

Narrator: A shocking piece of evidence

In the cairo museum suggests

That not only was tutankhamun forgotten,

He was deliberately erased from history.

(tense music)

Ikram: This is a king list,

And basically, as the name suggests,

It lists kings in sequential order.

Narrator: This official document

Records 58 of egypt's pharaohs,

And covers the period of tutankhamun's reign.

Ikram: This one dates to the reign of rameses ii,

And he had a lot of king lists scattered all over egypt.

Tutankhamun has been left out of almost all of them.

Narrator: The line of pharaohs stops

With tutankhamun's grandfather amenhotep iii

And starts again with the next pharaoh but one.

Tutankhamun, his father, and his immediate successor

Have been deliberately omitted.

(gripping music)

But why would his successors want tutankhamun

To be forgotten?

What had the boy king done

To deserve an eternity in oblivion?

A clue lies with the king list,

And in the name that should have appeared immediately

Before tutankhamun's, akhenaten.

He was tutankhamun's father,

And one of the most infamous of all egypt's pharaohs.

Driven by religious fanaticism,

Akhenaten banned the worship of egypt's many gods

And replaced them with just one.

He closed the temples and uprooted the capital city.

And he pushed the country to the brink of collapse,

With thousands dying during the turmoil of his reign.

Ikram: The egyptians really couldn't stand it,

They felt that the idea of order, or ma'at,

Was being violated

And that the gods were going to get angry with them.

So everyone was very upset

Because it turned things topsy-turvy.

(tense music)

Narrator: After akhenaten's death,

Tutankhamun set out to undo his father's works

In a bid to get the country back on track.

Ikram: He did everything in his power

To restore the old order and all the old gods,

But it wasn't enough.

(somber music)

Narrator: Tutankhamun couldn't escape

The sins of his father.

So from the moment he died, his successors set

About wiping tutankhamun's name from history,

Starting with his tomb.

Ikram: Tutankhamun was given a relatively small tomb,

It was so low in the valley, people forgot it was there.

It was tiny, and it got covered over by chippings

From other people's tombs.

Narrator: Next, came his many monuments.

Ikram: His major successor, horemheb,

Wanted to take the credit

For bringing back the old religion.

So, when tutankhamun erected monuments saying,

"I brought back the old gods.

"I brought the temple of amun to life again,"

Horemheb erases tutankhamun's name and puts in horemheb.

So he gets credit for everything unjustly.

Narrator: By erasing his name,

Usurping his legacy, and sidelining his tomb,

Tutankhamun's successors believed

They'd condemned him to be forgotten.

But in a bizarre twist of fate,

These acts of sabotage set tutankhamun

On the road to immortality.

Tyldesley: Tutankhamun's tomb was covered

In rubble and debris,

And hidden and forgotten.

And when people came back later to look for all the kings,

Because he'd been erased from the king list,

They forgot about him.

Narrator: Tutankhamun's treasures were safe

From the attention of the robbers

Who ransacked the other tombs in the valley of the kings.

Ikram: Obviously, even though the memory

Of tutankhamun was erased,

He himself and his different kas,

Managed to survive into the afterlife

Because everything in his tomb was intact.

Narrator: For three and a half thousand years,

The pharaoh lay surrounded by treasures,

Waiting to be remembered

Until November 4th, 1922.

Ikram: When tutankhamun's tomb was found, it was madness.

Everyone went totally berserk.

Tutankhamun became, sort of,

Star of stage, screen, newspaper.

(entrancing music)

Because, of course, there had been no intact

Royal egyptian tomb found ever, ever, ever.

Narrator: Almost overnight, the little-known king

Became the most famous pharaoh of all.

Naunton: Thanks to the survival

Of the tomb and tutankhamun's grave goods,

His name and his face are celebrated everywhere.

His journey from earthly life

To immortal afterlife is complete, he's succeeded.

Narrator: Today, tutankhamun's 5,000 treasures

Simply tell the story of that journey.

But for the ancient egyptians,

It was the treasures that made it possible.

An artificial heart,

Mountains of food,

And a supernatural workforce

Allowed tutankhamun to live a life of luxury in paradise.

While in his solar boat,

Armed with weapons and protected by his daughters,

He could save the world from destruction.

Now thanks to his scheming successors' attempts

To erase him from history,

Tutankhamun's immortal journey continues.

Tyldesley: Since we rediscovered him,

We keep saying the name of tutankhamun over and over again.

And in so doing, we enable him to carry on sailing

In the solar boat of the sun god until the end of time

Which I think is what he would have hoped for.

Ikram: So tutankhamun, to this day,

Is fighting to make sure that the world survives.