Original subtitles

Every year, this is what I, I wait for.

Hidden 23 feet underground,

the tomb of an ancient Egyptian noble

from the era following Tutankhamun's death.

Oh. What's that?

The chambers look undisturbed for thousands of years.

What are we going to find here?

Buried inside, an archaeologists dream discovery.

Oh, my God. Wow.

I think I found something. It's amazing. Ooh.

The Valley of the Kings,

the final resting place of some of Egypt's greatest pharaohs.

Here, in November 1922, British archaeologist Howard Carter

discovered the tomb of the boy king Tutankhamun.

His discovery was a global sensation

and the biggest archaeological find of the century.

Tutankhamun became Pharaoh in 1333 BCE.

He died in mysterious circumstances, aged just 19.

His tomb and its stunning golden treasures

offer a window into how the pharaoh lived, ruled and died.

Today, our experts across Egypt investigate Tutankhamun

to unlock the secrets of his reign.

They search for evidence the boy king may have been murdered,

of who may have had a motive to kill him,

and look for clues in the Egypt he left behind.

Near the city of Luxor, in the Valley of the Kings,

Egyptologist, Aliaa Ismail investigates a mystery

surrounding Tutankhamun's death.

Did Tutankhamun die of natural causes?

Or was his death a murder?

For six years, Aliaa has led an Egyptian team

which has scrutinized every inch of Tutankhamun's tomb.

The team is digitally scanning and mapping the valley's tombs

to recreate them in high definition;

an aid for researchers and restorers.

Now she is returning to the Boy King's burial chamber,

hunting for clues to his death.

It's amazing to be here by myself

and so close to the walls and the paintings.

Aliaa searches the tomb for anything unusual

that could reveal suspicious circumstances

around Tutankhamun's burial.

She soon spots a clue on the walls.

Looking at the tomb, I could tell that this was a rushed job

and that is because of these black marks that you see all over the wall,

which were developed when the paint was painted

directly on the wet plaster.

The black marks are spots of ancient microbial growth.

They're evidence that the tombs paint was still drying

when the chamber was quickly sealed after the king's burial.

The reason that everything was hurried

was that Tutankhamun died very young and unexpectedly.

Tutankhamun died around 1324 BCE after only a decade on the throne.

He was buried in a tomb in the Valley of the Kings

that was so small it could barely contain

all his lavish gold and grave goods.

He had no son and his stillborn twin daughters were buried

in small coffins alongside him in the tomb.

His royal bloodline ended, leaving his widow, Queen Ankhesenamun,

in need of a new husband and Egypt in need of a king.

Aliaa wants to examine Tutankhamun's mummy

to find out if there is any evidence to explain

why he died so unexpectedly.

Today, it remains on display in his tomb inside a special climate-controlled case.

This mummy is thousands of years old.

At first sight, the mummy contains few clues

to the cause of the young Pharaoh's death.

His mummy overall is not in a very good condition.

It's really hard to tell how he would have died.

But then I found that early archaeologists have done some X-ray scans.

In 1968, British anatomist, Professor Ronald Harrison,

conducted an X-ray examination of the mummy.

Inside Tutankhamun's skull, Harrison discovered loose bones.

It appears his skull was fractured.

Perhaps a sign that the young pharaoh was bludgeoned on the head.

Part of his sternum and ribs were missing.

And unlike most mummies, his heart had been removed.

Later scans revealed a fracture at the base of his left femur.

The cause of the broken leg is unknown.

But the scans suggest it's possible that Tutankhamun died

as a result of foul play.

Harrison's X-rays caused a global sensation.

This is what led people to think that Tutankhamun was murdered.

Tutankhamun's death had become a murder enquiry,

Ancient Egypt's greatest murder mystery.

To find out if Tutankhamun was murdered,

Aliaa wants to investigate the people closest to the doomed pharaoh.

I want to find out who would have benefited

the most from Tutankhamun's murder.

In Saqqara, 20 miles south of Cairo,

archaeologist Ola El Aguizy and her team are excavating an ancient necropolis.

It contains the tombs of the Egyptians

who seized control of the country after Tutankhamun's reign ended

with no heir on the throne.

Tutankhamun, who died very early, it was very dangerous for the country.

Ola has been an archaeologist for five decades

and has been digging at this site since 2005.

Working in Saqqara and discovering and working on these tombs

is very, very exciting for me.

I like it because I feel I'm alive here.

I feel that I am in the heart of archaeology.

Ola's interest in Egyptology began with her love of ancient languages.

She can decipher and translate hieroglyphs fluently.

I am now a full professor of ancient Egyptian language.

Last season, Ola uncovered the upper parts of a tomb

belonging to a man called Ptah Mwia.

Oh, I can see hieroglyphic decks here.

The name of the deceased, Ptah Mwia.

This season, Ola and her team hope to find

Ptah Mwia's intact burial chamber.

Intact chambers are incredibly rare

and may contain stunning grave goods, including a coffin or a mummy.

Hopefully, yes.

Maybe the coffin on the lower level.

Ancient Egyptians were buried with things they thought

they needed in the afterlife.

Any artifacts that remain would hold clues to Ptah Mwia

and reveal more about those who ruled Egypt after Tutankhamun

and may have benefited from his death.

Ola's team has located the top of the shaft filled with sand

at the center of the courtyard in Ptah Mwia's tomb.

Its position suggests the shaft will lead to his burial chamber.

We have begun to dig the shaft,

which is always in the middle of the pillared hall.

The shaft is likely to be more than 20 feet deep.

It could take the team a week to remove all the sand.

Site director Tarek Tawfik oversees the operation.

The team quickly dig out the top layers of sand,

but now seven feet down, they are too deep to pass

the heavy bucket to the surface by hand.

Now they're putting the winch that they were using

to lower the buckets for the sand.

They will not be able to go down without it.

The giant hand-operated rope winch

should help the workers lift full buckets of sand

and speed up the excavation.

It might look primitive, but it's very effective and quick.

But it's not long before they hit a problem.

We are finding the block in the shaft.

Workers discover large pieces of limestone blocking their way.

We have to remove these huge blocks from inside.

The shaft is now almost ten feet deep.

They need to work out a way to remove the heavy limestone blocks

if they are to reach the bottom

and find out if there's a burial chamber below.

In the cliffs near the southern city of Aswan.

Italian archaeologist Patrizia Piacentini

is investigating a vast necropolis.

I am here because I want to know something

about the history of the past and to know the people.

It's the beautiful part of our work, really, to not only to study the pharaohs,

but also the normal people and the child.

This season, her efforts are focused on a tomb filled

with the bodies of young adults and children.

Tutankhamun died a young man and Patrizia wants to know if the bodies here

can offer clues to why Egyptians, from Pharaoh to farmer, died so young.

We have still a lot to do here.

We are just, I'd say, at the beginning of a great adventure, I hope.

Patrizia found the rock-cut tomb buried beneath the sand

during an earlier season.

It has burial recesses carved into the walls.

Patrizia's team uncovered dozens of mummies inside,

and she's convinced there are more to be found.

My friends are still here.

Human remains and objects that they catalogued last season

still line the floor.

Ah, yes. Still good.

Still, all the bones are still here.

They've already made one key discovery.

We found wood, and at some point,

some hieroglyphic inscription came out,

and we discovered that the name of the first owner of the tomb.

The name is Pah-meh-ich, Pah-meh-ich, and he was the chief of the army of Aswan.

Pamehich was a standout figure in his lifetime,

but he was just the first of many who used this tomb over the centuries.

We found more than 40 mummies.

But Patrizia's most shocking find was several mummified children.

We had a very incredible discovery because just here,

there is the child in between the father and the mother.

Patrizia wants to know if the bodies here can offer clues

to why ancient Egyptians like Tutankhamun died so young.

There is one uncleared recess left to investigate.

This is the last part.

We didn't touch this because it was too late last season.

Patrizia must remove the mummies

from the recess to analyze the remains properly.

But this is too delicate a job for Patrizia to do on her own.

The workers. Thanks.

The remains are thousands of years old.

Patrizia's team must carefully remove them, one by one.

Slowly slowly...

It's a painstaking process.

Each mummy is incredibly fragile and could easily break.

Very careful.

Very, very careful, it's fragile.

At Luxor Temple on the Nile's East Bank.

Aliaa is investigating Tutankhamun's death.

After more than 3000 years, direct proof

of who might have murdered the Boy King no longer exists.

Instead, Aliaa wants to scrutinize those closest to Tutankhamun

to work out how they may have benefited from his death,

and therefore had motive to murder the young pharaoh.

Wow. Here we have the statue of Tutankhamun

hiding away behind the column.

I can tell it is him because of the soft skin, round face.

And all this is like features of youth.

And he's presented in here with his queen and wife, Ankhesenamun.

Ankhesenamun wasn't just Tutankhamun's wife.

She was also either his sister or his half-sister.

It was common for Egyptian royals to marry their siblings.

They believed it would maintain their family's sacred bloodline

and seemed unconcerned by the health problems inbreeding causes.

We see it in a lot of representations

that they were quite close together.

Ankhesenamun would have had ample means

and opportunity to murder Tutankhamun.

But Aliaa wants to know if the Queen had the motive to kill him.

In an ancient tablet likely written by Ankhesenamun,

Aliaa has found evidence of the impact

Tutankhamun's death had on the young queen.

This clay tablet, it was written in cuneiform,

and that was used by the Hittites.

The Hittites and Egyptians were fierce rivals at this time.

In the letter here, it says that Queen Ankhesenamun

wanted to ask King Suppiluliuma the First to send her one of his sons

for her to marry because her husband died.

The plea hints that after Tutankhamun's death,

Ankhesenamun was worried about who she might be forced to marry

and that her new husband, crowned Pharaoh by their marriage,

would not have royal blood.

She could not bear the thought of marrying

somebody who was not of royal descent,

and therefore she asked for help externally.

Marrying a non-royal seems an unlikely prospect for a queen.

Purity of the royal bloodline was vital to ancient Egyptians.

Her sending this letter shows to us that she was scared.

Suppiluliuma, the Hittite King, and enemy of Egypt,

was suspicious of this unconventional marriage request

and summoned his counsel for advice.

After verifying the letter was genuine, he sent one of his sons,

Prince Zannanza, to marry the Egyptian Queen.

But the prince died before he reached Egypt, and his young bride to be.

So Ankhesenamun was left with two potential husbands:

Tutankhamun's chief adviser, Ay, or the head of his military, Horemheb.

The marriage would hand either of them the throne.

Reaching out to Egypt's enemy was an act of desperation.

It suggests to Aliaa that Ankhesenamun did not benefit

from the death of her husband

and that she did not have a motive to kill Tutankhamun.

There's no way that Ankhesenamun would have killed Tutankhamun

because his death was a devastating disaster in her life.

Now, Aliaa wants to continue her investigation

to uncover if there's any evidence

that either Ay or Horemheb murdered Tutankhamun.

At the Saqqara Necropolis, Ola's team is trying

to remove large limestone blocks from a deep shaft.

Ola wants to find out if the shaft will lead

to the burial chamber of a man called Ptah Mwia,

who lived in the era following Tutankhamun's death.

It's a block, a very big block.

It might be still part of the lining of the shaft.

Ola hopes that the burial chamber

could reveal more about Ptah Mwia.

We would have hoped to be down further two meters at least by now.

The first block comes out easily,

but the next is larger and heavier.

It will put the wooden winch to the test.

It takes the strength of six men to lift the block.

Opa!

The team find no more blocks,

so they can now make faster progress.

Finally they reach the bottom of the shaft.

I'm excited to see what's going to be found.

To see what lies at the bottom,

workers must carefully lower Ola down in a large metal bucket.

It's, it's an adventure

But the team must take care.

The shaft is now 23 feet deep.

A fall here could be fatal.

At Luxor Temple, Aliaa investigates Tutankhamun's death.

She wants to find out if the two most powerful men under Tutankhamun;

his trusted advisor Ay, or his military general,

Horemheb, had motive enough to kill the Boy King.

Aliaa searches a part of the temple built by Tutankhamun.

Carved into a wall, she spots an intriguing clue.

Here we can see an image of Tutankhamun,

and he's burning incense for the gods.

He's doing this for the Opet Festival ceremony.

During the Opet Festival, statues of ancient gods

were paraded from Karnak to the temple here at Luxor.

What is very surprising are these two of car touches,

because they are the car touches of Horemheb.

Why is Tutankhamen standing next to the cartouche of Horemheb?

The image of Tutankhamen appears elsewhere across the walls,

but his official name, written in an oval box or cartouche, is missing.

This is where Tutankhamun's birth name

and throne name would have been.

So probably these car touches were usurped.

Horemheb chiseled them out and put his own name,

and that way he was erasing Tutankhamun altogether.

This name here in this temple,

this is eternity for a pharaoh.

And when the pharaohs name is erased,

you are taking away this eternity from him.

And to take that away from Tutankhamun,

Horemheb has done him a great wrong.

The altered images suggest that Horemheb

tried to wipe Tutankhamun's name from history.

Horemheb wanted to erase Tutankhamun.

Next, Aliaa plans to investigate Horemheb's tomb,

to find out more about this suspicious military general

and uncover whether he had motive to murder the young pharaoh.

In Aswan, Patrizia and her team are removing mummies

from a recess at the back of the tomb.

This tomb was filled with the mummified remains of children.

Patrizia's work could offer clues to why ancient

Egyptians like Tutankhamun often died so young.

To Patrizia's trained eye, even a mummy

in this condition ca n contain useful information.

Oh my God. Okay. So, aye aye aye.

They begin to remove the second mummy from the recess.

This mummy is in better condition.

The recess now looks clear.

Patrizia wants to check that they haven't missed anything.

It's yet another child mummy.

Patrizia plans to examine all the remains collected from the tomb.

In Saqqara, Ola descends a narrow shaft

to search for Ptah Mwia's burial chamber.

She hopes an intact grave and grave goods might reveal more

about him and those in power after Tutankhamun's death.

Oh. What's that?

The shaft leads to a chamber with several connected rooms.

It's quite big.

This is probably for the offerings.

The rooms have been looted.

The tomb raiders have left only scraps.

There is some pottery here.

This is something part of the tomb,

part of the architecture of the tomb,

because it has a shape here and rounded from here.

Part of a column, maybe.

As Ola investigates, she realizes

the room needs work to make it safe.

Enough. Enough here, because it's dangerous.

You see here, clearly you see this?

I just put my hand here and it's going.

See?

I'll go out.

Chunks of ceiling lying across the chamber's floor

are a worrying sign it could collapse.

All this has fallen from the ceiling and from the rock all around.

Of course, it is dangerous.

If we don't do anything to support these walls, they might fall anytime.

But near the exit, Ola spots what could be another shaft in the floor.

If we remove this sand, we might find the staircase

that leads to where we find the burial itself.

But of course, it will need some time to remove all that.

Another shaft could lead to a lower level in the tomb.

It's a promising sign the tomb raiders may have missed the burial chamber.

The lower shaft that's still full of sand,

we don't know how deep it will go because it is quite wide.

Till now, there are no clues until we remove this sand.

A lot of work still to be done.

In the Valley of the Kings near Luxor,

Aliaa heads to the tomb of Tutankhamun's military general, Horemheb.

She wants to find out if he had a strong motive to murder the young pharaoh.

I'm really excited to be here; I've never been here before.

The tomb is remarkably well-preserved.

Intricately decorated scenes cover the walls from floor to ceiling.

It is so beautiful to be here.

The colors are vivid and the carving is strong.

You can see it.

I think this is one of the most beautiful scenes I've ever seen.

This was not a normal individuals tomb, it's huge.

At the center of the burial chamber lies Horemheb's sarcophagus.

His name and titles are inscribed on its sides.

Here you can see his royal name.

It says Heb-er-ru-ra setib-en-ra.

The huge stone sarcophagus inscribed with royal titles reveals

that Horemheb ruled as a pharaoh after Tutankhamun's death.

He clearly had something to gain from the boy king's demise.

Horemheb had the means and the opportunity to kill Tutankhamun

if he wanted, because he had the command of the military

and he could have easily directed anybody to do the job for him.

Horemheb is definitely a suspect.

Horemheb was a soldier of humble origin.

He worked his way up the ranks to become head of the military.

When Tutankhamun died, Horemheb was leading Egypt's army in the north.

But one of his soldiers at the royal court

could have easily assassinated the boy king.

Following Tutankhamun's death, it was the Pharaoh's top advisor, Ay,

who seized the chance to be crowned King.

He may even have married the widowed Queen Ankhesenamun.

Ay is a suspect, too.

He ruled as pharaoh for four years before he died

and was replaced by Horemheb.

Last season, Aliaa investigated the tomb of Ay and revealed

that he was probably responsible for Tutankhamun's rushed burial.

Ay buried Tutankhamun in the smaller tomb

so he could have the bigger tomb for himself.

Ay's actions are also highly suspicious.

If Tutankhamun was murdered, right now there are

two prime suspects, Ay and Horemheb.

Both Ay and Horemheb had powerful motives to murder Tutankhamun.

But there's another possible killer.

Now Aliaa, wants to re-examine the young Pharaoh's injuries

in greater forensic detail.

At the Necropolis at Saqqara,

Ola's team has secured the tomb's unstable ceiling

and cleared the sand from the mysterious staircase in the floor.

It is exciting and that's why I come back every year.

Ola hopes the staircase might lead

to the intact burial chamber of a man called Ptah Mwia.

If we find his burial chamber,

it would also lead us to what person he is.

The workers prepare the bucket

for Ola to descend into the tomb again,

and investigate what lies at the bottom of the stairs.

Every year, this is what I wait for.

If there's a chamber containing Ptah Mwia's burial treasures,

it would be a monumental discovery.

Oh. What are we going to find here?

Oh, my God.

Look, look,

it's amazing.

Ooh, this, it looks like a sarcophagus, you see here.

Ola spots the faint outline of a giant

sarcophagus buried beneath the sand.

I just want to remove all the sand over it.

It is a nose, it is a head.

And ah, it has also the beard.

The sarcophagus confirms this is the tomb's burial chamber.

It is a hugely significant find for Ola and her team.

The scenes are very nicely carved.

The face is so nice; the smile.

He seems to have been a nice guy.

Ola notices that a piece of the lid has broken off.

The damage indicates the sarcophagus was broken into

by the ancient tomb robbers.

But the hole gives her an opportunity to peek inside to see what's left.

It's empty. It's only some rubble, some bones.

Although the sarcophagus is empty,

it's almost complete and Ola can reassemble it.

The part that is missing, we're going to put it back

where it's supposed to be, and when we empty all the sand around,

we will be able to understand the texts written

on top on the surface of the lid.

Now, Ola needs to find inscriptions and a name

to confirm this is Ptah Mwia's sarcophagus.

Ah, it's a big one, you see.

All the texts on the... Ipu, the god Anubis.

Now let's see the name, because all these are gods,

these are the four sons of Horus.

Ah yes, here you have the same title, it is Ptah Mwia,

it is the owner of the tomb.

Finding a complete sarcophagus

in its original tomb is incredibly rare.

It's the most important discovery for us.

It's the first time we find the sarcophagus

of the owner as it is complete like this.

Studying the carvings and inscriptions

reveals more about Ptah Mwia's life.

The texts are very important and very clear.

It tells me that he is a very important person.

The inscriptions show Ptah Mwia was born

into a military family and educated as a scribe,

around 50 years after Tutankhamun's death.

He started his career overseeing the cattle

and other resources of the King's temples.

He rose to become chief treasurer to the reigning pharaoh,

managing the wealth of the state.

When he died, he was buried in a lavish tomb in Saqqara,

alongside members of the ruling military elite

who controlled Egypt after Tutankhamun's death.

Ptah Mwia and his grand burial provide an insight

into a tumultuous period of Egyptian history.

Less than five years after Tutankhamun's death,

a new breed of military pharaoh took over.

Men like Horemheb, not of royal blood, who relied on officials

like Ptah Mwia to support their position as pharaoh.

Ola's team now have a lot of work ahead of them.

They need to remove the rest of the sand and carefully study

the remarkable sarcophagus to uncover

the full story of Ptah Mwia's life.

This is the great discovery of the season.

The greatest of the season.

In Aswan, Patrizia is investigating a tomb filled

with the mummified remains of children,

to find out why Egyptians like Tutankhamun died young.

Her team moves the mummies recovered from the recess

outside into the daylight for closer examination.

She believes the three bodies might be a family.

So let's see my family outside. Okay.

So because of the height, it's of course, a man.

This is the woman, let's say the mother.

And of course, this is the child.

To discover, who were these people and this family,

I mean, I think it would be just great.

At the team's dig tent.

Patrizia's colleague, Carmelo Messina, is analysing the rest

of the tomb's remains to identify how the people died.

From looking at bones, we can obtain a lot of information like age,

sex, the ethnicity, possible disorder, possible disease

and possible, maybe cause of death.

These are all bones of a child.

You see how small the bones are, this is, for example, a tibia.

Oh, okay, Carmelo, so what's new here?

Carmelo spots a clue to a probable cause of death.

I found some interesting things.

For example, look at this vertebra.

It's completely deranged.

Inside we have these holes.

I think it's more like to be infected disease, it may be even tuberculosis.

And in a late stage of tuberculosis, so probably this could be even

a person with the with a systemic severe disease.

Tuberculosis is a bacterial infection

that can affect all areas of the body.

Left untreated, it can kill.

In ancient Egypt, over one in three children

did not survive beyond the age of five.

Many died from infectious diseases.

Malaria was spread by mosquitoes in areas close to the Nile.

And tuberculosis thrived in the cramped housing of the poor.

With no recourse to modern medicine, such as vaccinations,

even the children of Kings died young.

But the ancient Egyptians believed death could be overcome

and that mummification could help their lost children rejoin them

in the afterlife.

This to me is very interesting because

we are discovering many children inside.

In the past, children were found, of course, inside tombs.

But here it is a kind of concentration.

So this is one thing that we will study.

It's still unclear whether illness,

famine or some other tragedy is the reason

so many child mummies were found in this tomb.

But the remains discovered here prove that disease was rife in ancient Egypt.

Analysis of Tutankhamun's mummy could reveal

if disease played a role in his death, too.

Four miles from Luxor at the Valley of the Kings,

inside the world famous tomb of Tutankhamun,

Aliaa investigates the latest scientific study

that sheds light on the mystery of how the Boy King died.

I found the CT scan and it allows us to see the bones

in greater detail. And there's DNA testing

that was done to help understand

if Tutankhamen had any infections.

Computerized Tomography Scanning produces detailed images

of internal organs, blood vessels and bones.

The CT scan of Tutankhamun revealed that he was not a healthy King

to begin with.

Ancestral inbreeding led to a weak immune system and a club foot.

Scientific examination of the fracture in his femur suggests a bad leg injury

became seriously infected just before he died.

DNA analysis, coupled with mosquito bites on his neck and cheek,

indicate that he also suffered from persistent malaria.

Most experts now believe that Tutankhamun's weakened natural

defenses couldn't cope and the infection in his neck likely led to his death.

Early archaeologists thought that Tutankhamun was murdered,

and that is because of the fracture at the back of his head.

The scans further show the dents, it's very evident.

But the latest scans suggest that the damage

to Tutankhamun's skull was likely caused when

the embalmers removed his brain during the mummification process.

The studies help clarify the decades-old debate around Tutankhamun's death.

Ay and Horemheb had the motive,

means and opportunity to kill Tutankhamen.

However, archaeologists nowadays think

that Tutankhamen died of natural causes.

Despite a wealth of resources at his disposal,

Tutankhamun's death shows that no one in ancient Egypt,

not even a pharaoh, was safe from the brutal ravages of disease.

Tutankhamun died young and left no heir.

But he lives on for eternity.

Not because of a resurrection in the afterlife,

but thanks to his remarkable discovery 100 years ago.

His tomb and its beguiling golden treasures

remain one of the most captivating archaeological discoveries ever made,

offering a unique insight into one of history's greatest civilizations.