Original subtitles

[Josh] On this episode of "Expedition Unknown,"

the epic conclusion of my mission to tackle the mysteries

of Egypt's Great Pyramid. -OK, here we go!

[indistinct chanting]

[Josh] On the shores of the Red Sea,

a long-lost cave contains the secrets of the pyramid builders

in their own words.

This document is...

The oldest writing on paper ever found.

Here's somebody telling us how the pyramids are built.

[Josh] And a daring experiment could answer, once and for all,

how massive two-ton blocks were moved by hand to construct

a world wonder.

If this works, you can build the pyramids.

[Josh] Then, the stunning secret

behind the pyramids' perfect alignment.

This is their survey system to build the Great Pyramid.

[Josh] And the groundbreaking results of a 3D scan to map

the inside of the Great Pyramid.

I've never seen anything like this.

[Josh] Could it rewrite history and reveal the hidden tomb

of a pharaoh?

Where is it?

-It should be right here behind this rock. -Yeah.

Find out right now on "Expedition Unknown."

Oh, my God, that's writing!

-Whoa! -[indistinct screaming]

It's working! Wait a minute.

What is that?

We could be looking at a lost passage in the Great Pyramid.

It is a lost passage.

[Josh] The past is all around us.

Oh, my God! It goes on forever!

[Josh] A world of mystery...

Come on! Look at that!

-...danger... -Hang on!

...and adventure.

It's just straight down!

I gotta get a new job.

[Josh] I travel to the far corners of the Earth to

uncover where legends end... -Yeah!

[Josh, over radio] We got it!

-Yes! -...and history begins.

Whoo-hoo!

Here we go!

I'm Josh Gates.

And this is "Expedition Unknown."

[Josh and Dr. El-Maguid talking]

[Josh] It may not look like it, but I'm in Egypt on a mission

to solve the mysteries of the Great Pyramid,

the last standing of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.

It's a monumental quest that's led me far from the deserts

of Giza all the way here to the shores of the Red Sea.

Dr. Mohamed Abd El-Maguid has promised me that the secrets

to the pyramid's construction can be found here, underwater.

[Josh and Dr. El-Maguid talking]

[Josh] The man I've been chasing, the pharaoh Khufu,

was the second ruler of Egypt's fourth dynasty.

He reigned for 30 years, and when he was done,

he was to be interred in the grandest tomb in history,

the most enigmatic building on Earth.

And that's where our mystery begins.

When the pyramid was first broken into by tomb raiders

in the 9th century, they couldn't find Khufu

or his riches.

There's no shortage of debate and wild conspiracy theories

about this ancient wonder,

everything from alien intervention

to lost advanced civilizations.

After all, people continue to wonder, how on earth was this

45-story skyscraper constructed without modern tools

or even the wheel? How is it so perfectly aligned?

And could there be hidden chambers inside

that might even conceal Khufu's lost treasure-filled tomb?

To learn the truth, I met with renowned Egyptologist Dr. Mark Lehner.

Acquiring exclusive access to the pyramid, we entered through

the so-called robber's tunnel.

[Josh] Look at this. Wow.

[Josh] From here, we tracked our position

in real-time as we mapped every inch of the labyrinth

of interior passages.

So this is where things get weird, right?

We've got two passages, original passages,

moving in two different directions in the pyramid.

[Josh] We made our way into the pyramid to the so-called

King's Chamber.

Look at this room. It is beyond impressive.

[Josh] But as for the king himself...

So one glaring problem here,

no Khufu. -Right.

[Josh] From there, we explored areas of the interior closed off

to the public, descending almost 100 feet through

the Egyptian bedrock to an unfinished subterranean chamber.

-[Josh] What the hell is this room for? -I don't know.

Really, nobody knows.

[Josh] The room here was clearly abandoned by the builders.

But is there more to find?

Could there be other chambers inside the Great Pyramid?

[Mark] You know, Josh, there was a time

when I would have said that's doubtful,

but now I'm not so sure. -Really?

[Josh] Several years ago, cutting-edge technology

appeared to image a strange void above a chamber

known as the Grand Gallery.

But short of dynamiting the top off the Great Pyramid,

there's no way to prove it -- or is there?

Right next to the pyramid, I met up with my old friend,

Danish archaeologist Soren Sindbaek,

at a strange set of tunnels to nowhere.

Does it look familiar?

Look what you're standing and what we're standing on.

Wait a minute, you're right.

This is like being in the Great Pyramid.

[Josh] The ancient builders appeared to have constructed a model

of the pyramid's tunnels here before carving the real thing.

[Josh] This is just like being inside the pyramid.

It's incredible.

[Josh] To determine if these so-called trial passages

actually match the ones in the pyramid,

we performed the first ever 3D digital scan inside.

Look at that. That's amazing.

[Josh] A scan we hope might also reveal hidden passages

or chambers within the pyramid itself.

[Soren] We need a few days to process it.

Once we've done that, we can go and compare it to

the Great Pyramid. -Amazing.

While we wait for the results of the scan, I've driven

150 miles to the Red Sea to tackle the mystery of

how the architects of the pyramid carved and moved

more than 2 million two-ton blocks into the sky,

and now the first puzzle piece is right in front of me.

[Josh talking]

[Josh] This harbor wall is more than 500 feet long

and once stood more than 10 feet high.

I follow Dr. El-Maguid inside the wall,

where we find more evidence of an ancient port.

[Josh and Dr. El-Maguid talking]

[Josh] We get to work cleaning the growth off this stone,

and soon we can make out features from when

it was last used.

[Josh and Dr. El-Maguid talking]

[Josh] Based on its design, archaeologists have dated

the anchor, along with more than 100 others that have

been found here to the time of Khufu.

[Josh and Dr. El-Maguid talking]

[Josh] Anxious to meet Mohamed's colleague,

I return to shore and dry off,

then jump into my 4x4 for a short trip back

into the desert.

OK, GPS says it should be up on the right.

I don't exactly see a road. It's fine.

Roads are overrated.

This might get bumpy, hang on!

After only a few minutes in the heat,

I glimpse what appears to be a mirage.

Look at this, tent city.

More than 50 of them, dotting the otherwise barren landscape.

And at the heart of this compound, a familiar face.

-Hey. -Hey, Josh.

The Chair of the Egyptology department at

the Sorbonne University in Paris, Dr. Pierre Tallet.

-Nice to meet you again. -Great to see you.

Last time I saw you, we were in the desert in the Sinai.

Yes.

[Josh] He and I first met exploring caves in the Sinai

when I was investigating the story of Moses.

And here we are again at a site where Pierre is leading

a team of nearly 100 people in another desert.

You are the man of the desert.

OK, so I have just come from this ancient harbor, Khufu's harbor.

Where are we now?

We are still in Khufu's harbor.

This is part of the harbor complex?

Wow. OK, so what's it doing here?

They needed copper to be able to cut the stone

for the pyramid.

[Josh] Copper mines across the Red Sea were essential

to making the tools used to build the Great Pyramid,

so Khufu would send boats from here at Wadi Al-Jarf across

the Red Sea to the coast of the Sinai Peninsula,

where mined copper was then ferried all the way back.

It would then be loaded onto mules for the 150-mile trip

north to the pyramid at Giza.

To hide them?

[Josh] Since the boats themselves were valuable commodities,

between trips, the Egyptians stored and hid them

inland here to keep them from being stolen.

And I know that after you started working here,

my understanding is that you found something very special.

We found something that totally transformed what

we know about the pyramids. Something extraordinary.

-Can you show me? -Yeah, of course.

[Josh] We walk out into the sweltering desert.

In fact, it's so hot, I half expect to see two suns.

It's like "Star Wars" out here.

Pierre leads me over to a row of hand-carved caves,

which, when he first found them, were sealed tightly

by immense blocks of cut limestone, curiously similar to

the blocks of the Great Pyramid.

And for people who don't know, papyrus is basically ancient

paper made of plant material.

Yeah, it's made of plant material.

[Josh] And where did you make the find?

-In this pit right there. -Right here?

-Between the two blocks. -[Josh] OK.

It was the last place to excavate.

What did you find?

I brought a copy of what we found to show you.

[Josh] Oh, my word. Look at this.

You found a complete roll of papyrus.

Yes.

Five zero, fifty?

Five zero, fifty, which was really incredible.

And so, what is it?

[Josh] And so, who is Merer?

[Pierre talking]

And this papyrus is giving information about the building

of the Great Pyramid of Khufu.

These documents tell us about the construction

of the pyramid. -Yeah.

Do you want to know what it says?

I'm dying to know what it says.

[Josh] This is the symbol for the Great Pyramid?

[Pierre] Yeah, this is the pyramid.

[Josh] The world's first pyramid emoji.

[Pierre] Yeah. Of course.

Awesome. Awesome.

So that means that this is being written during

the life of Khufu.

[Pierre talking]

-But it means that... -So wait a minute.

Wait a minute.

That means that this document is...

The oldest writing on paper ever found.

This is --

sorry, this is the oldest written document on Earth?

Yes, it is.

So this is 2,500 years older than the Dead Sea Scrolls?

The Red Sea Scrolls.

This is extraordinary, Pierre.

[Josh] And what these scrolls reveal is historic.

For centuries, one of the great debates about the pyramid's

construction was how the building's outer blocks

were transported to Giza from a remote quarry

in a place called Tura.

It literally tells us what they're doing,

where they're working, where they're sleeping.

Yeah.

[Josh] And the kicker?

Merer's diary solves the mystery of how these blocks

made it to Giza by revealing that the limestone was

transported there by boat, where workers rechanneled

the Nile to build artificial lakes, allowing them to

float the blocks right up to the edge of the construction site.

I mean, that's it. You have everything.

You have everything.

I mean, we know that they're cutting blocks.

-They're putting them on boats. -[Pierre] Yeah.

They're moving them down the Nile.

They're even moving them right up next to the pyramid.

Everything is here.

[Josh] Including the nature of the workers themselves.

There's long been a myth that enslaved people built

the pyramids, but the diary tells the true story.

It mentions the food allotted to the workers,

including portions of dates and honey,

rare commodities in ancient Egypt.

They were free workers,

and they were really skilled people.

It's so extraordinary because so many people like to say,

"We don't know how the pyramids were built.

"We don't understand how they were built.

It's such a mystery."

Here's somebody telling us...

-Yeah. -...how the pyramids are built.

That's right.

That's right.

[Josh] Now, Pierre and his team are looking for more puzzle pieces.

In the surrounding hills, they've completely excavated

31 caves, a feat that has taken them over a decade.

Teams of workers carefully excavate and brush sand into

baskets and wheelbarrows to be removed from

the cave and sifted.

Along the way, they've discovered pottery

made by Khufu's workers, museum-quality flint knives,

and even rope from the ancient boats that looks like

it could still be used today.

Pierre leads me over to meet archaeologist Séverin Marchi,

who assists as a research engineer here at the site

investigating another critical clue to

the pyramid's construction.

OK, so we have caves here, yeah?

OK, so they built actually a ramp system up to the caves.

[Pierre talking]

[Josh] This is a big deal.

These ramps were built by the same people

who constructed the pyramids.

Hell, the blocks they carved and moved here are identical to

what we see in Giza.

Soaring nearly 500 feet, the Great Pyramid was

the tallest skyscraper on Earth for thousands of years.

And for much of that time, people have been arguing how

the ancients elevated all those blocks.

Well, here's your answer. They built ramps.

We see them here, and there are remains of ramps

discovered in Giza.

The design of the pyramid ramp is still up for debate.

Theories range from big old ramp, to zigzag, to corkscrew,

to whatever you call this.

And while we don't know the ramp's exact layout,

here at Wadi Al-Jarf, we can see firsthand

that the actual pyramid workers themselves absolutely built

and used them.

So you're actually excavating --

this is what, like the core of the ramp?

Yeah, this is the core of the ramp.

Incredible. OK.

All right, let's see what's here.

OK.

[Josh] We begin examining the ruined ramp to see

what it might be able to tell us about the construction of

the Great Pyramid, and I do mean tell us.

What is that? Oh, my God, that's writing!

Are you kidding me?

What is that? Oh, my God, that's writing!

Are you kidding me?

[Pierre talking]

These are actual hieroglyphs in what, charcoal?

Yeah, it's charcoal.

[Josh] We're excavating an ancient ramp at an Egyptian work site

that was once used by the builders

of the Great Pyramid of Khufu.

And we just stumbled on a handwritten note

they left behind.

Come on!

[Pierre] This is a Neb sign.

It's clearly a designation of Khufu.

And then to finish with, you have this cross to

designate the Great One, which is part of workers.

This cross signifies a group of workers?

-The group of workers -- -Called the Great Ones.

[Pierre] The Great Ones, yeah.

So, 4,500 years ago, a worker right here etched on

this for the king, for Khufu. -[Pierre] Yeah.

That is really amazing. It really is.

It blows my mind.

To search for more writing, we leave no stone unturned.

Literally.

-Empty block. -Yeah.

No.

One cannot win every time.

-Right. -You know?

I feel like we're doing scratch cards at

the liquor store or something. Nothing.

Zero. I got nothing on that one.

[Pierre] Nothing.

[Josh] But eventually, we get lucky.

-Whoa. -Uh-huh!

-Hey! -Winner!

-Yeah, yeah, yeah. -Bravo!

[laughing]

[Josh] Oh, my gosh.

I'm hired?

[Josh] They're taking the time to mark even these small blocks.

To show that they were doing something.

Why does anyone sign anything, really?

It's to leave their mark behind.

-By the way it worked, right? -It worked.

They left their mark, they left their signature,

and we now found it. -Hey, yeah.

We don't have any royal inscriptions of Khufu,

but the workers that built the pyramid,

their mark remains.

[Pierre] The team of the flower is there.

Wow, team of the flower. Nice work, guys.

Here we have the signatures of the pyramid builders themselves

on ramps exactly like the ones they built at Giza.

But one huge, heavy question remains.

How the hell did they carve and move millions of two-ton

blocks up ramps like these without even the use

of the wheel?

One expert on Pierre's team believes he's discovered

the answer using only the tools available

to the ancient Egyptians. -[Josh] Hello.

-Bonjour. -I'm Josh.

-Clare. -Clare, nice to meet you.

-I'm Franck. -Franck, a pleasure.

[Josh] In a nearby quarry, I meet Franck Burgos

and his colleague, Dr. Clare Newton.

OK, you are a stonemason.

-Correct? -Yes.

OK, so I have a lot of questions for you.

Because people are mystified by the construction

of the pyramids.

And that really begins with the question of how all of

these millions of blocks were cut and moved.

Let's start with tools.

We know that people were coming to this part of the world

trying to find copper.

What were they doing with this copper?

[speaking in French]

[Franck's translator] They are coming out here to get copper to make these.

So this is a copper chisel that Franck made.

[Josh] And what were they hitting this with?

[Franck's translator] They were hitting it with wood mallets like this.

So when you came up here with these tools to try to replicate

this, how did it go?

[Franck's translator] Not good at all.

Not good?

[Franck's translator] Every day, the wood mallet would explode.

OK.

[Franck's translator] I estimated it would take 80 mallets to carve

a single block. -That's not good.

-That's not good. -[Josh] That's a lot of trips to Home Depot.

-[replies in French] -That's a problem, yes.

OK, so clearly they must have been doing

something different. -Oui.

[Josh] To figure out the answer, Franck didn't have to look far.

We're standing in an ancient quarry where workers carved

limestone blocks identical to those that the Great Pyramid

was built from.

Some of them are still hanging out of the walls,

ready to be popped out like ice cubes.

This is an unfinished block.

Yes, they started extracting it, but they never finished.

It's really something to see this in situ.

You can imagine people right here.

[Clare] Yes.

[Josh] And along the bottom of the block, Franck noticed

strange stone trenches.

OK, so what are these little reservoirs for?

[Franck's translator] The reservoirs here gave me the idea to use water.

Limestone is water-soluble, meaning water makes it softer.

So what happened when you added water

and then chiseled?

[Franck's translator] Once I added water, I was able to chisel down

five inches in ten minutes, and the mallet was fine.

It took you 10 minutes?

[replies in French]

Unbelievable. So, just add water.

That's the secret.

[Josh] Using this method, Franck was able to work like an Egyptian.

And further down the hill is the fruit of his labor.

Franck, what have you done? Did you carve this?

-Yes. -This weighs how much?

-[Franck's translator] It weighs two tons. -Two tons.

You carved a 4,000-pound block, and that weight is...

about the average weight of the blocks inside

the Great Pyramid, right? -[speaking French]

[Josh] It took Franck four days with four men to carve

the limestone, but now they had a building block

of the pyramid.

However, he still didn't know how the Egyptians could move

two million of these by hand up the steep incline of a ramp

without use of a wheel.

After several failed attempts, the possible answer presented

itself from where else but the ancients themselves,

whispering to Franck through a famous tomb painting,

which depicts workers moving a giant statue across the sand

using something called a sledge.

-And this is our sledge. -Oui.

[Josh] OK, so now the block is on a sledge.

Now how do you move it?

[Franck's translator] I had the idea of pulling the block on the sledge using

slats on the ground.

[Josh] With this much weight on top, a sledge will easily sink

into sand and get stuck.

But Franck believed that by placing wooden slats,

which would have been easily made by the Egyptians

ahead of the sledge, that should allow it to move

across the sand without sinking.

But even that wasn't enough

to keep this huge weight moving uphill.

Fortunately, Franck has a new plan.

He noticed this detail in the tomb drawing, a man on

the statue pouring water on the ground ahead of the sledge.

By wetting down the slats, Franck hopes it will further

reduce friction that would slow the block down.

So you're saying that if we wet these slats down,

that a group of people can pull

a 4,000-pound block up a hill?

[Franck's translator] I'm confident, 100%.

I mean, look, if this works, you can build the pyramids.

-[Franck's translator] Do you want to try it? -Let's do it.

[Josh] Time for this experiment to go from being theoretical

to back-achingly real.

We're about to try to build a pyramid, or at least a tiny

part of one.

Hold here. Uh-huh, OK.

[Josh] We begin by securing the block to the sledge with rope.

Like this? OK.

[Josh] Next, we attach two parallel ropes

that we'll use to drag the two tons uphill on

a more than 10 degree angle to mimic ramps at the pyramid.

Yeah, we're gonna need a little help.

[speaking foreign language]

OK, high five. Come on.

We got this. We got this.

Here we go. We got it.

Come on!

[Franck's translator] This gentleman will be directing the team.

He's setting the pace, OK.

[Josh] Our ragtag 30-man team lines up into place,

a far cry from the hundreds of men that likely populated

ancient Egyptian work gangs.

Now, before the starting gun goes off, we need to apply

our secret ingredient.

Water is poured over the slats and the runners on the sledge.

Finally, beams are brought in to lift the sledge out of

the sand as we make our first pull.

This seems improbable. It's a pretty steep grade.

-OK, Franck, are we ready? -[Franck] Ready.

[Josh] We establish a finish line hundreds of feet away

at the top of the ramp.

But in my mind, there's every chance this block isn't going

to move an inch -- time to find out.

-[chanting in foreign language] -OK, here we go!

[chanting continues]

Here goes nothing.

[chanting in foreign language]

[Josh] Oh my God. It's moving.

[indistinct chatter]

For Khufu!

[Josh] We're on our way to glory at the Egyptian dig site of

Wadi Al-Jarf, where French stonemason Franck Burgos

and 30 of his colleagues have been wondering how thousands of

two-ton limestone blocks could have been moved uphill to build

the Great Pyramid -- this is us finding out.

-[indistinct chanting] -[Josh] Whoa.

Ah!

It's working.

Pull, pull.

Ah! Pull.

Pull, pull.

-Stop! -Hey!

Whoo!

Yes.

Amazing. Whoo.

Yes.

[Josh] Against all common sense, 30 untrained men have been able

to run with a 4,000-pound stone several hundred feet up

a 10-degree ramp, thanks to ingenious ancient engineering.

Franck.

Amazing!

OK, guys, 2 million more blocks to go.

[cheering]

[Josh] What we did here at Wadi Al-Jarf was a big victory.

Using the oldest papyrus ever found, the crew here has

been able to show that even just 100 teams like

ours could have been enough to move the 350 stones a day

necessary to build the Great Pyramid

in the 30 years of Khufu's reign.

But before I can start scouting sites for the Great Pyramid of Gates,

I'm called back to the genuine article.

A few days ago back at Giza, I was working with

archaeologist Soren Sindbaek to perform the first ever

3D scan of a mysterious set of subterranean passages

just steps from the base of the Great Pyramid.

And I just received word from Soren's team that they are

almost done processing the data.

In the meantime, there's one more mystery to unravel.

We now know how the Egyptians carved and moved the stones,

but how on earth did they align them by hand to create

the mathematical perfection that is the Great Pyramid?

It's time to find out. Let's punch it.

From Wadi Al-Jarf, I drive 150 dusty miles north to Giza

and reconnect with archaeologist Mark Lehner

and Soren Sindbaek in the shadow of the Great Pyramid.

OK, so we've talked a lot about the who, Khufu.

Yep.

And we've talked a lot about the what, what's going on

inside this pyramid, and hopefully we'll get some

more answers to that as the data comes in.

But now we've got to turn to the other huge mystery

that dominates this pyramid.

We've just learned how they cut and moved the blocks,

but how did the ancient Egyptians arrange them so perfectly?

Because there are people who would say it's impossible.

-The alignment is too perfect. -There's no way we could do that today.

That's right.

There's no way we could even do it today.

The alignment is too perfect.

[Josh] I mean, just look at this thing.

The Great Pyramid looms 45 stories above Giza's desert

floor, and yet the whole thing is oriented to the cardinal

directions of north, south, east, and west within

one-fifteenth of one degree.

The four sides at the base are the same length

within two inches.

The vertical alignment from the center of the base to

the tip is nearly perfect with almost no deviation.

Oh, and the whole thing sits on a foundation the size of

10 football fields that is level from one end to the other

within about one inch.

Did I mention the Egyptians didn't have algebra,

calculus, or, you know, the wheel?

It is so impressive that many people simply aren't willing

to believe that ancient engineers pulled this off

without alien assistance or some lost advanced civilization.

But the truth, the real truth, isn't out there.

It's down here.

[Soren] The building site is right at your feet here,

and that's where many of the biggest clues to how

the work was processed.

There's all these things going on here on the floor.

-[Josh] Like this? -[Soren] Like this, yeah.

Strange things. Something was once there.

[Josh] OK.

So once the pyramid was done, these would have been buried

under a pavement? -Yes.

-Huh. -Never meant to be seen.

[Josh] Without the floor that was once covering all of this,

we're seeing evidence of the pyramid's

construction everywhere.

Dozens of mysterious square and round holes

dotting the perimeter.

The long, hidden fingerprints of the builders

who toiled here.

It is a gold mine of information.

So the question is, what were they used for?

[Mark] They must have something to do with the layout of the pyramid.

[Josh] Thanks to scanners like the one we deployed in

the tunnels, Mark and Soren may be close to learning exactly

how, by building the first ever 3D map of the Great Pyramid's

full foundation, revealing a complete digital

look at the long ignored marks of the pyramid builders for

the first time. -OK, I'm dying to see it.

-Should we look at it? -Let's go.

OK, what do we got? Here we go.

Moment of truth.

-Whoa! -Ooh, look at that.

Look at that!

The detail is extraordinary.

So this scanning didn't just hit the ground,

you actually scanned the faces of the pyramid as well.

Yeah, we scanned the entire pyramid.

-[Mark] It's amazing, really powerful. -That's incredible.

[Josh] But it's the scans of the post holes

that we're here to see. -Take a look at this.

You barely notice them when you're out there on the ground,

but here they stand out very clearly.

[Josh] Oh, look at how they jump out on the scan.

You can see that's where we are now.

Yeah.

And we have the holes coming in, dot, dot, dot, dot.

[Josh] Look at that -- they are in an almost perfect line there.

Yeah.

So we didn't know for sure, until we're seeing this.

[Soren] It's a post hole, so it was carved to hold

a post, presumably. -So this is evidence of...

-How they did it. -...a survey.

Yeah. This is their survey system.

They're inventing a survey system to build

the Great Pyramid.

-[Soren] It's a post hole. -This is evidence of...

-How they did it. -...a survey.

This is their survey system.

They're inventing a survey system to build

the Great Pyramid.

[Josh] At the Great Pyramid of Giza, archaeologists Soren Sindbaek

and Mark Lehner are deciphering a network of post holes around

the perimeter that appear to reveal the secret of

its remarkable precision.

What Soren is recording is the very final layout of

the pyramid, the stake holes, the lines, when they wanted

to get it just right.

[Josh] The ancient builders would place posts beyond the corners

of the pyramid, then use ropes to connect them,

pulling the lines taut and using simple measuring

tools to create a perfect right angle.

The other post holes along the sides are there to help

that guideline delineate the entire outline

of the pyramid.

This grid of posts and ropes were used with other tools

available to the ancients, like plumb bobs,

chisels, and saws, to perfectly square, align,

and level the pyramid's base to within fractions of an inch.

When they got it exactly right, they put a line there.

That's where they want the corner to be.

[Josh] The answer to all the debate about how the pyramids were

built has been sitting, quite literally,

under our feet.

What we are seeing here, in a sense, is somebody

framing a house. -Exactly.

And to do it more accurately than anybody had ever done it,

any other pharaoh or his workers,

nobody had done it this precisely.

[Josh] Even Khufu's heirs had trouble repeating his feat.

Next door, his son Khafre's pyramid exhibits twisting on

the edges as it approaches its apex.

And as to how Khufu's builders perfectly leveled the massive

half a million square foot plaza under and around

the Great Pyramid, the answer is they didn't.

Examinations reveal they left a huge raised core of natural

bedrock for the pyramid to be built on top of,

the way a dentist might prep a tooth for a crown.

It probably was a way of locking the pyramid down

onto the bedrock plateau.

[Josh] All they had to do was level the walkway around it.

So the Great Pyramid is no gift from outer space or the work

of Atlanteans, just ancient Egyptian ingenuity.

And nowhere is the Egyptians' precision more apparent

than in the so-called trial passages that Soren

and I explored earlier.

Constructed at the same time as the pyramid itself,

they're believed to be a test model

for the tomb's interior.

We scanned them to learn if the tunnels match,

and more importantly, to see if any deviations could point us

toward possible hidden passages or chambers within the pyramid,

such as the pharaoh's treasure-filled tomb.

Early the next morning, I receive word that Soren has

finished processing the scan data,

so I rush to see what we've uncovered.

Soren has also brought along Joe Steel, a specialist in

the cutting-edge field of augmented imaging.

Last time I saw you, we were in the bowels of

the British Museum. -And here we are today.

[Josh] Joe and I worked together to identify a sarcophagus

that might have once held the body of Alexander the Great.

It's just perfect.

We're meeting in the best places.

Absolutely.

Soren, a few days ago, we scanned this so-called

trial passage.

So the million-dollar question, tell me you have great data.

-We've got great data. -[Josh] Yes.

So I processed and cleaned what we had, and then I handed it

over to Joe, who did fantastic augmented reality visuals

that we can take into the Great Pyramid and compare directly

to what we see.

OK, so we're going to be able to compare those passages

to what's inside the pyramid.

Well, we haven't been in there yet, so I'm excited to see

if it works.

Let's go in and see what we got.

-Let's go. -Come on.

[Josh] We quickly make our way to the robber's tunnel to

re-enter the pyramid.

OK, here we go. Moment of truth.

OK, here we are at the main intersection inside

the Great Pyramid of Giza.

We've got our descending passage that starts at the main

entrance, and this is where it meets the ascending passage

that goes all the way up to that King's Chamber.

Exactly, and with those big granite blocks there.

With those terrifying granite plug blocks.

Yes.

So is this where we should check the scan data?

Yeah. It's the trial passage.

It's a model of something. This is what it models.

For sure. OK.

Let's see if it's a match. Here we go.

All right. Is this our spot?

OK.

First of all, everybody comfortable?

-Sure. -I've been comfier.

A little tight in here. OK.

All right, Joe. It's your show.

So I'm going to load in Soren's data

from the trial passage that you both scanned together.

Right -- yeah, why is it Soren's data?

I mean, I was there. I helped, didn't I?

I like to think of it as our data, Joe.

OK, fair enough. I'm going to load in your data.

Thank you. Thank you, Joe.

-You're going to overlay it. -Overlay it, exactly.

And we're going to see if it matches up.

I haven't done this before, so I hope this works.

Yeah, well, I do too. Believe me.

-Let's see. -Let's go.

-[Soren] Wow! -[Josh] Oh, my God.

-Wait, are you kidding me? -So it's lining up perfectly.

Wait a minute.

This wireframe is the data we collected in

the trial passage? -[Joe] Correct.

-You sure? -Yeah.

I mean, it looks just like what we're seeing.

It looks perfect. Wait, what?

When you look at it, it's actually hard to tell that

it's two different data sets because they are directly on

top of each other. -[Soren] It's literally the blueprint.

-It is. -Yeah.

It is the blueprint of what we are looking at.

[Josh] This is huge!

Explicit proof that the trial passages outside were the model

for the pyramid's interior construction.

They aren't just similar. They're clones.

I've never seen anything like this.

If builders today attempted to do something like this,

to build two identical sets of passages

that were this exactly aligned,

it would be hard, even with machinery and computers.

Yeah, and 4,600 years ago, they just did it.

They just did it. It is a 100% perfect match.

It's a 100% perfect match, except for one difference.

-There's a difference? -There is a difference.

There's something different in the data?

Absolutely. We've got to look up...

-[Josh] Wait. -...to see that.

We have to look up. OK.

Wait a minute. What is that?

Egypt may be famous for the Pyramids, but there is

another feat of balance and engineering that takes

place on the streets of Cairo every morning.

How hard could that be?

[Josh] I'll find out soon, but the bread starts its journey over here.

-[indistinct exclamation], ready?

Hyah! Hyah!

How do you say oven mitt in Arabic?

[Josh] Then I decide to put it as close to my scalp as possible.

Just like riding a bike, but with 200 loaves of bread on

your head. OK, here we go.

[groaning]

Sir, I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

Get out of the streets!

I got it. I got it.

How are you? Good to see you.

Fresh bread, everybody! You want some bread?

It's for you as much as you want.

-Can I have some falafel? -Thank you.

Oh, yeah. That was a good trade.

Oh, God! A speed bump?

A speed bump? Ah-yah.

Saved it! Mostly.

We have to look up, OK?

[Josh] What is that?

[Josh] I'm inside the Great Pyramid of Giza,

where augmented reality has just shown us that a tunnel

system dug in the bedrock outside is a perfect match for

the interior passages.

And that one thing that doesn't line up, it could be the key

to finding hidden chambers within the pyramid.

There's a vertical tunnel in the trial passage scan.

So, this vertical shaft was there

in the darkness of the trial passage.

-Oh, yes, it was. -But it's not here.

So, wait a minute. Where is it?

-It should be right here behind this rock. -Yeah.

We now know that the trial passage is a model for this

pyramid, and yet there's a missing passage.

They model something which is not here.

-Or which is not visible. -Or which is not visible.

[Josh] Right, exactly.

We could be looking at a lost passage in the Great Pyramid.

It is a lost passage, in a sense.

It was either one that was never built or one that

we can't see.

I've got another way of showing you guys how perfectly

matching the trial passage data is with

the tunnel system we're in. -OK.

I extrapolated the measurements that Soren gave me into

a 3D model, and let's have a look.

So, there it's coming in.

Wow!

So, trial passage in blue, Great Pyramid in gold.

[Joe] Correct.

It is a 100% match apart from this one section.

-[Soren] Missing tunnel. -[Josh] So what the hell is that?

[Soren] What the hell is that?

Maybe it was a planned escape tunnel.

Yeah.

Or it's something that was changed.

If the trial passage is like a key to the Great Pyramid,

that key is telling us about something that we don't see.

[Josh] We know that several years ago, a non-invasive scan

may have detected a void within the Great Pyramid,

roughly the size of a bus, somewhere above

the Grand Gallery.

And here, we have a mysterious vertical shaft that heads

in that exact same direction.

Given what we've learned about the Egyptians' exacting

precision, this hardly feels accidental.

If this does lead somewhere, it leads up.

Yeah.

Is it possible this is pointing us to that void?

Yeah, that's very intriguing, Josh.

[Josh] Somewhere amidst the six million tons of stone above us

is a potentially immense find, a possible passage

into the unknown.

But the cutting-edge technology that revealed this,

as well as the potential void above, can't yet show us

the full story.

It will have to be the next technological breakthrough

that will finally tell us what's inside and possibly unmask

the location of a lost chamber. -It's incredible.

I've never seen anything like this.

I've processed thousands of scans, and they could never,

ever match up as precisely as this.

And that is emblematic of this entire building project.

-[Joe] Yes. -It is all about precision.

This is innovation, if ever there was.

Yeah. Unbelievable.

We've answered one big question here, and directly above

our heads, we have a new mystery.

That's how it always is with this pyramid.

Exactly. The Great Pyramid of Giza.

-Answers and mysteries. -Well done, Josh.

-Well done, Soren. -Amazing job.

This is incredible. Whoo!

Can I get out of here now?

Yeah, let's get some fresh air.

Come on.

[Josh] The Great Pyramid is the closest thing to eternity

that humanity has ever created, bridging the sun and the earth

in a monument which has endured for millennia.

To move within its passages, to be humbled in its

Grand Gallery, to stand within the King's Chamber

is to join for a moment with that eternity.

The structure seems to radiate mystery and invite conspiracy,

but thanks to the hard work of passionate archaeologists,

answers are now within our grasp.

We've mapped its interior top to bottom, learned firsthand

how its blocks were carved, moved, and aligned.

Cutting-edge scans have hinted at the possibility of unseen

voids and hidden passages within the pyramid,

tantalizing possibilities for future explorers.

And thanks to the discovery of the world's oldest diary

and some long-forgotten graffiti, we can now reach

across time to meet the builders themselves.

Not aliens or Atlanteans or some lost advanced

civilization, but Egyptians.

After 5000 years, it's time to give them the credit

they so richly deserve.