Original subtitles

NARRATOR: Egypt, the richest source of archaeological treasures on the planet.

SALIMA IKRAM: Oh, that's a fabulous one!

NARRATOR: Beneath this desert landscape...

lies the secrets of this ancient civilization.

JOHN WARD: Wow, you can see why the pharaohs chose this place.

NARRATOR: Now, for a full season of excavations

our cameras have been given unprecedented access...

to follow teams on the front line of archeology...

ASHRAF MOHIE: I'm driving so fast because I'm so excited!

KATHLEEN MARTINEZ: It's an entrance. We can see an entrance.

NARRATOR: ...revealing buried secrets...

ANTONIO MORALES: I have just been told that they have found something.

DR. DON RYAN: Oh my God.

NARRATOR: ...and making discoveries that could rewrite ancient history.

This time, new secrets about one of Egypt's greatest rulers...

WORKERS: Hey-ah-ho!

NARRATOR: ...the Pharaoh Queen Hatshepsut.

Dr. Szafranski discovers buried treasures at her magnificent temple.

DR. ZBIGNIEW SZAFRANSKI: Her wish was to be remembered

for millions of years.

NARRATOR: The Darnells uncover how she formed

a mysterious double identity to seize power.

DR. COLLEEN DARNELL: "For my beloved daughter," not son.

NARRATOR: And John and Maria unearth a rare and intriguing statue.

WARD (off screen): Hold, hold, hold, hold, hold, hold, hold!

Do you realize what you've just pulled out of the sand?

(theme music playing)

NARRATOR: Luxor, Egypt,

a landscape strewn with ancient ruins and magnificent temples

built for the great pharaohs of Egypt.

Cut into the surrounding mountains lies the finest temple of them all.

Its owner was a revolutionary,

a rare female pharaoh,

called Hatshepsut.

Now archaeologists are searching for clues

to reveal more about this enigmatic pharaoh queen.

Leading the hunt is Polish archaeologist Dr. Zbigniew Szafranski.

DR. SZAFRANSKI: I've been working here since 30 years.

Every day is something new

to know

to discover

to find.

Perhaps a never-ending story.

NARRATOR: This landscape is dominated by Hatshepsut's immense temple,

constructed to commemorate her reign as a pharaoh.

Ancient builders carved the site directly into the towering rocky cliffs.

They constructed it in three separate levels,

each one a terrace connected by ramps over a hundred feet long.

At the top, 26 statues of the god of the underworld, Osiris,

stand as guardians.

This masterpiece of ancient architecture is the key

to the secrets of the Pharaoh Queen Hatshepsut.

DR. SZAFRANSKI (off screen): It is an exceptional building.

The temple is unique in the history of Egyptian architecture

and in the history of the world architecture.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: Dr. Szafranski and his team have been excavating and restoring

Hatshepsut's temple for the past 19 seasons.

DR. SZAFRANSKI: Hi, hi, hi!

NARRATOR: They are on a mission to piece the temple ruins back together.

A hundred and twenty years ago,

legendary British Egyptologist Howard Carter

was part of the team that excavated this site.

Much of the temple was buried and badly damaged,

and little was known about its owner.

♪ ♪

Today, Dr. Szafranski continues the work to restore and rebuild the temple,

to reveal the secrets of the Pharaoh Queen Hatshepsut.

DR. SZAFRANSKI: She was a volcano of ideas.

We hope to excavate,

to know more about her plans, about herself,

her dynasty.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: Hatshepsut was only the second woman ever to become a pharaoh,

and the first for nearly 300 years.

The fearless queen oversaw military campaigns to Egypt's southern borders,

and claimed to have visit the battlefield herself.

She built a fleet of ships to sail the Red Sea,

and reestablished an international trade network,

bringing back exotic goods and riches.

Under Hatshepsut, Egypt prospered, and she built giant monuments

across the country to show that she was in control.

Hatshepsut's temple was just one of around ten megastructures she built

during her 22-year reign.

Across the Nile, she erected vast swathes of a giant temple complex called Karnak,

and a 30-meter obelisk, the largest standing in Egypt today.

But the extraordinary life of this radical woman still poses many mysteries.

Now, archaeologists are on the hunt for new clues.

♪ ♪

Eighty miles south of her temple in Gebel el-Silsila,

lies one of Hatshepsut's quarries.

Here, on the banks of the Nile...

WARD: What do you want, mate?

NARRATOR: ...John Ward and Maria Nilsson from Lund University

are getting ready to excavate at the quarry.

WARD (off screen): These lovely eggs.

DR. MARIA NILSSON (off screen): Do you want some bread?

NARRATOR: They want to investigate how Hatshepsut used

the quarry during her reign.

And in dig season, they live on this boat with their baby son Jonathan,

daughter Freya, and dog Carter.

DR. NILSSON: What are you going to do today, Freya?

FREYA: Play in the sand.

-DR. NILSSON: Yeah? -WARD: When you're a little bit older,

you can come over and help Daddy, yeah?

DR. NILSSON: Archeology and Egypt itself has been with me since I was a kid.

I knew from the beginning.

That I'm here now is no surprise to family and friends back home.

The very day that I gave birth to Jonathan

we were going through what we actually needed on site.

WARD: We never stop, it never stops for us.

-DR. NILSSON: No. -WARD: Even on Christmas Day.

Guys, come on!

We ready?

NARRATOR: John and Maria have spent the last ten seasons

investigating this site used by Hatshepsut.

WARD: Hatshepsut was responsible for removing

hundreds of thousands of tons of sandstone from this quarry alone,

let alone the other quarries across the whole landscape.

NARRATOR: With evidence of over 10,000 years

of human activity across 15 square miles,

it's one of the largest archaeological sites in Egypt.

Here, the couple are excavating an abandoned statue

and want to know if it belonged to Hatshepsut.

DR. NILSSON: Good morning Sphinxy.

NARRATOR: An unfinished, ram-headed sphinx.

-WARD: It's a unique find. -DR. NILSSON: It is.

NARRATOR: The sphinx is a mythical beast modeled on a lion,

but with the head of a human.

Others were carved with the head of a ram and are known as "criosphinxes."

They act as guardians, protecting the entrances

to pyramids, temples, and sacred sites.

It's thought that Hatshepsut started the greatest display

of sphinxes known to ancient Egypt,

an avenue of sphinxes, enhanced over the centuries,

stretching nearly two miles between the great temples of Luxor and Karnak.

DR. NILSSON (off screen): It's absolutely amazing.

It's one of those dreams to work with this kind of monumental statue.

WARD: Come on. Let's go down.

NARRATOR: John and Maria need to dig out the buried sphinx

to confirm where this statue was meant to go,

and set to work to see what lies beneath the sand.

-KHALED SHAWKY: Okay, guys! Stop! -WARD: Good guys.

NARRATOR: A hundred and 20 miles from Luxor, in Aswan,

lies Qubbet el-Hawa.

This site is a densely occupied necropolis of around a hundred ancient tombs.

Some of these tombs have never been opened and hold secrets

to how the necropolis was being used during Hatshepsut's time.

DR. MARTINA BARDOŇOVÁ: It's amazing.

NARRATOR: Archaeologist Martina Bardoňová is part of a Spanish team

preparing to open up one of the unexplored tombs.

DR. BARDOŇOVÁ: When I was about 15, I read about archeology in Egypt

and I completely fall in love.

DR. BARDOŇOVÁ: It's been several years I'm coming and I'm still like, wow!

I can't believe it, you know.

Can you imagine how it is when your dreams come true?

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: Martina wants to excavate inside a new, unopened tomb,

but before she can get to it,

she needs to clear a pathway through the sand outside.

BARDOŇOVÁ (off screen): Everything is covered.

I'm thinking about which way to take off the sand--

the basic problem here.

NARRATOR: Strong desert winds have blown sand in front of the tomb entrance.

(speaking native language)

NARRATOR: But after just an hour clearing a path,

the team make a discovery that could put a halt to everything.

DR. BARDOŇOVÁ: Ah!

NARRATOR: One of Martina's team has found

parts of a body hidden in the sand.

DR. BARDOŇOVÁ: There is a burial.

Basically you can see the skull,

with the remains of the hair.

NARRATOR: These human remains appear to be ancient.

BARDOŇOVÁ (off screen): Basically, it's so fragile

when you touch it, or when you,

when even the sand around moves, it's just falling apart.

We can put wet toilet paper, because otherwise the bones crack.

WOMAN: Yeah.

NARRATOR: Martina needs to find out why this body is outside the tomb

and any clues that will help her to put a date on the burial.

As she clears away the sand,

the bones reveal something even more unusual.

DR. BARDOŇOVÁ: It looks like a child, it might be a child.

NARRATOR: In the quarry at Gebel el-Silsila,

John and Maria are excavating

what could be one of Hatshepsut's sphinxes.

WARD: Come and get your apples and pears now! Come and get them!

This is my archaeological field box.

It's a little bit heavy, but this is the prototype.

A new version will come next season, I hope, which will be lighter.

♪ ♪

At the moment we've just got a nice stony layer on top

which goes for the first two to three centimeters,

then, beneath that, if I stick my little magical tool inside

and then withdraw it...

it's full of that,

which to the untrained eye is just black powder.

Actually, that's iron filings from the chisels

of the quarrymen of these quarries.

The sand still today contains a memory of all that work

that took place here thousands of years ago.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: The sand even holds clues about what the workers had for lunch.

WARD (off screen): Fish bones.

Someone could've had a nice meal down by the belly of the sphinx.

NARRATOR: As work continues,

the team unearths something remarkable from under the sphinx.

WARD (off screen): Hold, hold, hold, hold, hold, hold, hold!

No, no, no, no, no! Stand there, stand there.

(laughs)

Do you realize what he's just pulled out?

A small sphinx! Ha!

Oh, wow!

That is absolutely beautiful.

A small criosphinx.

There's the two haunches.

There's the head, there's the head.

There's the body, here's the body.

What a discovery! I mean, it's fantastic, it really is.

-SHAWKY: Wow. -WARD (off screen): Isn't she beautiful?

NARRATOR: Large sphinx statues are seen throughout Egypt,

but a miniature on this scale is one of a kind.

WARD: Meet the child.

NARRATOR: And must be recorded by the dig inspector, Khaled Shawky.

Khaled is supervising the dig to report any finds back to the Egyptian government.

SHAWKY (off screen): This is amazing.

This is very wonderful.

WARD: Personally, I think it's a model.

Was it the son or a child, possibly,

or the apprentice copying the master?

-The master's making the real thing... -SHAWKY: This is a copy, yes, I think so.

WARD: ...and he's making a copy. You've got the horn here.

-SHAWKY: I see that, yes. -WARD: For that.

-But this side is broken off. -SHAWKY: Yeah.

WARD: He's gone in there and he's gone whack!

-SHAWKY: I see that. -WARD: And the whole, boom!

And that's probably why it was discarded.

NARRATOR: John thinks the miniature was carved out for practice.

-WARD (off screen): Fantastic. -SHAWKY: Brilliant, well done.

NARRATOR: It's an astonishing find.

WARD: Find me another one, guys.

NARRATOR: At Hatshepsut's temple, Dr. Szafranski

is investigating the paintings that she left on the walls.

The imagery holds clues about Hatshepsut's life,

and reveals a family power struggle

with her nephew, who was also her stepson, Thutmose III.

DR. SZAFRANSKI: Here we see Hatshepsut and behind her,

we have a figure of Thutmose III.

We have two kings.

NARRATOR: Images etched into these walls

reveal the story of Hatshepsut's extraordinary rise to power.

She was the first-born of a royal family,

but tradition dictated that only men could become the pharaoh.

So power was granted to her infant stepson.

But after seven years of acting as his aide,

Hatshepsut made an unprecedented move for power.

She overtook her stepson,

and proclaimed that she was now the king of Egypt.

DR. SZAFRANSKI (off screen): We see on the walls of this temple,

there are two kings, but Hatshepsut is always number one.

NARRATOR: Hatshepsut's move to claim power was revolutionary.

Now, Dr. Szafranski is searching for new evidence

to piece her mysterious life together.

In the ruins next to Hatshepsut's temple,

the team have discovered a ring of ancient mud bricks.

DR. SZAFRANSKI (off screen): We're on the top of something,

now we'll go deeper and see what is inside.

NARRATOR: They think artifacts could be buried here.

But after a day of digging, progress comes to a halt.

(conversing in native language)

NARRATOR: A one-ton block of sandstone is

precariously balanced on top of the mud bricks.

If the block falls, it could destroy any treasures buried beneath.

NARRATOR: Dr. Szafranski's team have no heavy-lifting equipment on site,

so they have to improvise.

WORKERS: Hey-ah-ho!

NARRATOR: If they can't move the block,

they won't be able to find out what's hidden beneath.

WORKERS: Hey-ah-ho!

(speaking native language)

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: Fifty miles from Hatshepsut's temple in El Kab,

Yale University professor John Darnell

and his wife, Egyptologist Dr. Colleen Darnell,

are beginning their season.

They are using digital technology to record ancient rock inscriptions

to figure out how hieroglyphic writing began.

PROF. DARNELL: I want to be absolutely certain that we have beak as it should be,

and that we have this here crest as it should be.

DR. DARNELL (off screen): Mm-hmm.

NARRATOR: The pair have spent over 20 years exploring

the deserts and temples of Egypt,

to interpret these ancient carvings.

(speaks native language)

NARRATOR: During dig season,

they analyze their findings for publication, here at their home.

DR. DARNELL: This is about as spectacular of an expedition house,

a dig house, as you can have anywhere in the world.

The view of the Nile, the mud-brick architecture,

it's really a dream come true.

These are about 90 years old, linen, it's pretty remarkable that it survived,

so it's fun to play archeology with clothing as well.

I have a 1920s jodhpur and suit set,

and a fun pair of 19-teens knickers.

NARRATOR: Today, the couple are heading across the Nile,

to investigate a mysterious set of inscriptions.

PROF. DARNELL: There's just no duplicate for looking at the inscriptions themselves

on the actual monuments, within these great architectural settings.

NARRATOR: Their destination is Karnak Temple.

Its beautiful chapels and decorated courtyards cover a massive site.

Here many great pharaohs, including Hatshepsut, left their mark.

But there's a mystery: Despite being female,

Hatshepsut is often depicted as a man.

DR. DARNELL: So here we see Hatshepsut and Thutmose III

and they are wearing identical crowns, broad collars,

starched kilts, so if you were to approach this wall

without being able to read the hieroglyphs,

you wouldn't be able to tell who is who.

NARRATOR: Throughout the site,

Hatshepsut continually represents herself with male features.

DR. DARNELL: She's wearing a male kilt, and even the pharaonic beard.

NARRATOR: But hidden in the hieroglyphic text,

Colleen finds evidence of her real gender.

DR. DARNELL: Here we have the female indication

of her gender within the text.

"For my beloved daughter," not son.

PROF. DARNELL: They know that this is a woman in the role

for which most of the iconography and most of the terms are masculine.

So the Egyptians are aware of this, and they work with it.

NARRATOR: Evidence on a temple wall reveals

Hatshepsut wasn't hiding her femininity,

she was proving she was a pharaoh.

A fake beard was a way to show a connection with the god Osiris.

Even male pharaohs wore an artificial beard.

But other items she wore were also reserved for men,

like the famous headdress, the nemes, and the kilt.

But she transformed herself with these symbols of power

to strengthen her image across the kingdom.

Hatshepsut dressed not as a man but as a pharaoh.

Hatshepsut blurred her gender to be considered equal.

But how equal was society for women in ancient Egypt?

Near Hatshepsut's temple, in a tomb site called Dra' Abu el-Naga'...

DR. SUZANNE ONSTINE: Take one side out of the corridor,

with the human remains on the edge.

NARRATOR: ...Archaeologist Suzanne Onstine,

and her team from the University of Memphis,

are investigating the roles of women in ancient Egyptian society.

DR. ONSTINE: One of the things that I really focused on in my career was:

What were women doing? What were women's lives like?

Every time I come to work here, I feel really excited

because there's no better feeling or job satisfaction really.

NARRATOR: It's Suzanne's tenth season excavating this tomb,

but it's still packed with the body parts of men, women, and mummified children.

Torn apart by ancient looters,

the team must piece the human remains back together.

DR. ONSTINE: This is skull fragments.

Not everybody feels comfortable working with the dead,

but this is my job in terms of bringing light to ancient Egypt

and bringing light to individuals.

WOMAN: No, that one's spines.

It's a pelvis.

DR. ONSTINE: Right now we're organizing the human remains.

We have hundreds, thousands and thousands of bones,

and so keeping track of them is a bit complicated.

I think...

Jesus, penises or packets?

-JESUS: This is... -DR. ONSTINE: Probably penis.

-JESUS: Hmm. -DR. ONSTINE: No?

JESUS: This is probably penis, this is probably packet.

-DR. ONSTINE: Okay. Too big to be penis? -JESUS: Yeah.

DR. ONSTINE: There's a lot of shrinkage in the afterlife.

We found several of these mummified pieces,

some of them are packets of the organs that were placed back inside,

occasionally, one is a penis that has been detached from a body.

Even King Tut lost his penis.

It actually had just sort of fallen down into the sarcophagus nearby,

but somebody noticed it was gone one day,

and there was a big situation looking for King Tut's penis.

NARRATOR: Handling the intimate body parts is not for the fainthearted,

but combing through the pieces, Suzanne makes a dramatic discovery.

DR. ONSTINE: She was probably about 20 years old,

and I'm inclined to think, nearly a hundred percent,

that she died as a result of childbirth.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: At the necropolis in Aswan,

Martina is unearthing the remains of a buried child

outside the tomb entrance.

DR. BARDOŇOVÁ: You can see quite well, he's very tiny and very fragile.

If I compare it with my four-years-old niece, so she's like that, that big.

It's emotional because you know it's, it's a child.

NARRATOR: Child mortality was high in ancient Egypt,

but it's rare to find them buried and preserved at this necropolis.

DR. BARDOŇOVÁ: Whenever you find some, it's... it's something.

NARRATOR: The team must move the bones of the child to get access to the tomb.

But as they clear the area, they find something else

staring up from beneath the sand.

DR. BARDOŇOVÁ: Ah! Oh my God.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: Martina's team have just uncovered

n ancient face mask made of cartonnage.

DR. BARDOŇOVÁ: (off screen): You can see this beautiful cartonnage.

It's skillfully, how they made the eyes.

NARRATOR: The mask covers the head of an adult mummy

buried outside the tomb,

but the team must strengthen it with resin

before they can attempt to move it.

This precious cartonnage mask was meant to help ensure a successful afterlife.

DR. BARDOŇOVÁ: Tutankhamun's head is gold and this mummy's is cartonnage.

And this one is more beautiful than Tutankhamun's one.

NARRATOR: The cartonnage should help the team reveal who these bodies are,

and when they date from.

But strong winds are on the way and the team must work fast.

DR. BARDOŇOVÁ: There is a time pressure.

We have to remove the burials.

You have to proceed as quick as possible.

It may happen that during the night a storm or strong wind comes,

and then everything is lost.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: A hundred and twenty miles north...

DR. ONSTINE (off screen): And just hold it for a minute.

NARRATOR: ...American archaeologist Suzanne Onstine is piecing together

the remains of women and children.

DR. ONSTINE: This child right here is really very touching.

His face is still preserved.

NARRATOR: She's searching for clues about their roles in society,

around the time of Hatshepsut,

and has found dramatic evidence of one individual's life and death.

DR. ONSTINE (off screen): The vagina is the hole here, it's still very distended,

so we know that within 24 hours of giving birth and passing a child

that she died, because otherwise the vagina

would've shrank back to its original anatomical position.

So to find real evidence for something that is sort of commonly spoken about,

that childbirth is a really dangerous time for women in antiquity,

really kind of unique, in a very dramatic fashion.

NARRATOR: The mortal dangers of childbirth are clear,

but Suzanne believes women still held positions of power.

DR. ONSTINE: Just looking at the paintings,

we have evidence for them participating in all levels of society.

The scenes throughout really emphasize their sort of equal stature.

NARRATOR: But the female Pharaoh Hatshepsut

wanted to be more than just equal.

In the ancient quarry at Silsila,

while John continues to dig out the sphinx,

Maria is investigating the site for evidence

of Hatshepsut's mass building campaign.

Inside a temple at the quarry,

the carved relief scenes on the walls have been changed.

DR. NILSSON (off screen): The reliefs that we see on the walls now

are not the original scenes.

If we start to look closer, in fact what we can see here

are the tell-tale signs underneath

of an original scene that is no longer here.

We can see a ship transporting an obelisk.

NARRATOR: The ghost images hidden in the wall reveal

how Hatshepsut may have been shipping obelisks from Silsila.

Hatshepsut was famous for her supersized

320 ton obelisk cut from granite further south,

but lifting it upright would stretch the limits of ancient engineering.

Builders dragged the obelisk up a ramp,

and then carefully dug away the earth beneath,

until the base hit the foundations in the rock.

Finally, an army of builders used ropes to pull this monumental obelisk upright.

DR. NILSSON: It's putting it all together.

It's making a full circle.

We have the beautiful golden sandstone,

we've got the workers active during the time of Hatshepsut.

I personally love working with queens and female pharaohs,

so for me, it's wonderful.

NARRATOR: Hatshepsut may have been shipping obelisks from Silsila,

but what was driving her to build these colossal monuments?

At the Karnak Temple,

John and Colleen Darnell think the answer lies on Hatshepsut's giant obelisk itself.

DR. DARNELL: "It's majesty of this noble god..."

PROF. DARNELL: "Who has made for her father..."

DR. DARNELL (off screen): She addresses future generations, and literally tells us

that people who shall come generation after generation

will know why she did this.

She's doing this for deep purposes of religious devotion.

But on the flip side, when you look up at the obelisk,

some of the largest hieroglyphs are the name of Hatshepsut herself,

so this is a giant statement of propaganda,

I mean, there's no missing the fact that this is a projection

on a monumental scale of pharaonic power.

NARRATOR: Hatshepsut built these monuments to immortalize

her name, not as a woman,

but as one of the greatest pharaohs of Egypt.

♪ ♪

Beside Hatshepsut's temple,

Dr. Szafranski and the team need to move

a one-ton sandstone block so they can excavate underneath.

WORKERS: Hey-ah-ho!

NATALIE: Mabruk! Mabruk, I think we're almost there.

WORKERS: Hey-ah-ho!

NARRATOR: With the block finally moved,

they can begin to dig through the sand layers.

NATALIE: Ah! Finally something.

NARRATOR: Underneath the temple ruins,

the team have unearthed ancient fragments of pottery.

MARIUSZ (off screen): I think we have the first complete pot.

-NATALIE: Look at that. -MARIUSZ: Yeah, the whole pot.

NATALIE: Wonderful huh? Isn't that nice?

MARIUSZ: We are very excited and happy because nobody--

maybe except ancient Egyptian were seeing this before.

NARRATOR: These small clues could help Dr. Szafranski

unravel the mysterious events after Hatshepsut's death.

When she died around the age of 50, her stepson Thutmose III

finally regained his power.

And higher up the cliff, Dr. Szafranski sees evidence of his temple.

DR. SZAFRANSKI: It was not possible to build a bigger temple

than the temple of Hatshepsut,

but it was higher.

NARRATOR: Hatshepsut's immense temple took up the prime spot

in the mountain of the Valley of the Kings.

So Thutmose III built his temple right next to it,

but in an elevated position.

Ancient builders constructed huge columns on top of a raised platform.

Dr. Szafranski's team have worked out what this temple would've looked like

and discovered its upper terrace was 11 feet higher than Hatshepsut's...

a political power play by Thutmose to finally overshadow his stepmother.

DR. SZAFRANSKI: It was better visible, point number one in the Valley.

He wanted this effect.

NARRATOR: Thutmose had tried to upstage Hatshepsut, but in a twist of fate

ancient earthquakes and landslides have left it badly damaged.

It may never look as it once did, but Dr. Szafranski and his team

are working to restore what remains.

DR. SZAFRANSKI: Today we have restored temple of Hatshepsut,

but after let's say five, ten years,

we'll have restored temple of Thutmose III as well.

It's only a matter of time.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: In Aswan, Martina and the team

are finishing their excavations outside the tomb.

DR. BARDOŇOVÁ: Tired? (speaking native language)

WORKERS: No, no, no. No, no, not tired.

NARRATOR: They have managed to move the bones

and delicate cartonnage into the onsite lab.

From studying the decorative style, Martina believes these burials dated

to a few hundred years before the time of Hatshepsut,

in a period called the Middle Kingdom.

DR. BARDOŇOVÁ: We know that it's a Middle Kingdom date,

the cartonnage was really well done, it was high quality work,

and we know that they were, let's say higher status persons.

NARRATOR: Martina thinks the child and adult burials are a family connection

to whoever owned the tomb.

But her season must carry on

to unearth the secrets of who or what is hidden inside.

DR. BARDOŇOVÁ: It's going to be amazing to see finally how it looks like.

NARRATOR: After a grueling few days, the team head back to the dig house.

DR. BARDOŇOVÁ: It's the best part of the day,

to relax, slow down, eat.

The first time I moved from the Czech Republic, I missed home.

My family I miss very much from time to time.

But now I'm looking forward.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: In the quarry at Silsila...

-WARD: Ahmed! -AHMED: Yes?

NARRATOR: ...John Ward is still excavating what could be

the remains of one of Hatshepsut's sphinxes.

WARD: What I've got is basically a dressed piece of sandstone,

and I can feel a nice right angle corner here.

What I'm hoping actually that is,

is the top part of the head here, which is missing.

One, two, three.

Good. Hold, hold, hold, hold.

WORKERS: Hold, hold. Up!

WARD: And turn him over. Turn him over.

Shuay, shuay, shuay.

The head of the sphinx.

So now we have a complete sphinx as far as I'm concerned.

Both Maria and I do not consider this a job.

This is life, Silsila is our life.

These guys are our family, and it's mankind's history.

All started here.

NARRATOR: After a long and hot dig, John can finally show Maria

the enormity of what they have unearthed.

DR. NILSSON: Oh, wow!

NARRATOR: The abandoned sphinx statue is nearly ten foot high.

DR. NILSSON: Wow! This is just silly.

Why on earth is it still here?

NARRATOR: It's the largest they've seen at the quarry.

DR. NILSSON: As far as I know, there's no records whatsoever

of any unfinished sphinx that is intact like this.

NARRATOR: It's in such good condition, it's a mystery

why this giant statue was abandoned.

It's possible a small fracture in the stone put a stop to the work.

But John and Maria still want to find out

where this sphinx would've been destined to go.

WARD: So we need to now look at all the sphinxes,

the Sphinx Avenue of Hatshepsut,

Karnak's, find out where we have one of this size.

You're looking at over five ton there, if not more.

-It really is. -DR. NILSSON: Wow.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: At the magnificent Karnak Temple,

Hatshepsut began construction of the Avenue of the Sphinx.

Some statues have been moved, damaged, or have even disappeared,

but hundreds still remain across the temple site.

WARD: How do you want to tackle this?

NARRATOR: John and Maria Ward have come to Karnak to try and find a match

for the sphinx they have discovered back at the quarry.

WARD: Our tail goes further along the back paw, then sweeps round.

These don't look big enough at the front.

NARRATOR: As well as matching the style, the couple are looking for black specks,

called "inclusions," within the sandstone itself.

DR. NILSSON: If we can find those black inclusions, the little black dots,

then we know that it's from, most probably...

BOTH: from the same quarry.

DR. NILSSON: And from the same period.

WARD: I'm not seeing any.

DR. NILSSON: These, so far, do not show any such marks.

No, I think we need to explore a little bit further.

NARRATOR: There's no sign of a matching sphinx

on the Avenue outside the temple walls.

But hidden inside the temple, they find another style.

WARD: They are different, Maria. They are different.

-That haunch... -DR. NILSSON: Yeah.

-WARD: Look at the belly cut. -DR. NILSSON: I would agree.

WARD: And look, look at the front, see the girth of the neck...

-DR. NILSSON: I would agree. -WARD: ...coming down.

And that would've, the paws--

DR. NILSSON: You've got the black inclusions.

WARD (off screen): Black inclusions. Wow! There we have it!

NARRATOR: Although damaged, the couple is certain these sphinxes came from Silsila.

WARD: At Silsila, they haven't been finished.

They're still in their raw state.

They would've been transported to here.

NARRATOR: The evidence suggests John and Maria's sphinx would've made

a remarkable journey, carved out at the quarry,

shipped 100 miles down the Nile and placed at Karnak Temple.

WARD: I'm feeling very proud, I feel like a proud father.

These are our children, this is from Silsila.

Everything, bit by bit by bit, has culminated in this one moment.

Bang. The sphinx.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: By Hatshepsut's temple,

Dr. Szafranski and the team continue their excavation.

NATALIE: Look at that treasure, it's filled with content.

DR. SZAFRANSKI (off screen): And the pot looks like New Kingdom.

NARRATOR: They have unearthed ancient pottery and food buried in the ground.

These were gifts to the gods, offerings made when the temple was first built.

MARIUSZ: It's a very important piece in this puzzle.

NARRATOR: Bit by bit, each of these small finds is helping

to unearth the secrets of this magnificent site.

For Dr. Szafranski, he has dedicated his life to reveal the legacy

of Hatshepsut, the incredible pharaoh queen.

DR. SZAFRANSKI: It was a heap of stones,

the whole area.

Her name was lost and her temple was not visible.

After our work, after our restoration, cleaning, conservation,

her names are visible, her figures restored.

And her wish was to be worshipped,

to be remembered for millions of years.

It happened, she is, we remember her.

Sometimes I say I'm hopelessly devoted to her.

NARRATOR: Hatshepsut was a leader, a politician, and a revolutionary

the likes of which the world had never seen.

Against all odds, Hatshepsut rose to become a pharaoh,

and through her magnificent temple, she is remembered once again.

Captioned by Point.360