All language subtitles for the Valley of the Kings BBC

Ancient Egypt.

One of the most fascinating
civilisations on earth.

But what was it like to
be an Ancient Egyptian,

living in this incredible place?

It's OK trying to understand
Ancient Egypt on a visual level,

pyramids, King Tut, mummies.

But to really get into the head
of the Ancient Egyptians,

you've got to walk in their
footsteps.

I'm Egyptologist, Dr Joann Fletcher,

and I've spent over 40 years
obsessed with this lost world.

'While the magnificent temples
and tombs of the Pharaohs can

'tell us one story,
I'm interested in another.

'The story of ordinary people,
the real Egyptians.'

It's such a privilege,
we are amongst their family here.

This feeling of closeness,
of warmth, of love.

'I'm going to uncover evidence about
how they lived their lives...'

Oh, wow!

It's a glimpse into the sort
of world of Ancient Egyptian

interior design.

'..and reveal what
they hope for in death.'

There was no Grim Reaper,

just this beautiful goddess wanting
to embrace them in her warm arms.

'There is one very special couple
I want to get to know

'as I journey to their desert
village home

'and examine the treasures from
their tomb...'

You can only imagine his pride
and joy at receiving

such a mark of royal favour.

'..as we discover what life was
really like in Ancient Egypt.'

Welcome to Deir el-Medina.

Or, as the people who used to live
here 3,500 years ago

used to call it, Pa-demi,
which simply means, "the village."

Today, this village feels remote
and inhospitable.

But 3,500 years ago,

this community
lay at the heart of Ancient Egypt.

Situated on Luxor's West Bank,

it was a suburb of Egypt's
great city, Thebes.

Now, this is the landscape of
kings and gods, Pharaohs, and yet

these are the homes of ordinary
people leading ordinary lives.

Men and women, aunts
and uncles, grandparents and kids,

they all lived here in this
tightly-packed community.

And by re-imagining how people
lived, in the colours, the sounds

and smells we have an instant
gateway,

right back 3,500 years to these
ancient people who

lived here in this remote little
village in the desert.

Now, in order to piece together
the lives of such people

I have got an amazing set of clues.

The earthly remains
of a husband and wife who once

lived in the village...

but now reside nearly 2,000 miles
away,

here at the Egyptian Museum
in Turin.

Meet Kha and Merit,
Kha the architect, Merit his wife.

Now Kha and Merit were two of the
leading lights of the village.

Kha's actual title,
was the Chief of Foreman,

so he was in charge
of the workforce.

Merit, her official title was
Lady of the House,

which is ancient
Egyptian for "housewife."

This is the only known statue of
Kha,

almost certainly an idealised image

- it nonetheless suggests a proud
and rather handsome man.

This death mask is one of the few
representations we have of Merit,

which reveals a soft
and beautiful face.

Although these mummies have never
been unwrapped,

what lies beneath has been
revealed by x-rays and CT scans.

We know that Kha, who stood about
five foot six,

was a very striking

looking individual,
with a rather prominent nose

and a great fondness for lots
of black eyeliner.

But, then when we turn
to his diminutive wife, Merit,

a very dainty little lady,
standing about five foot two.

She also had a long, crimped
wig of dark brown,

wavy hair which would have made her
look really, really beautiful.

But what really brings Kha
and Merit back to life is this.

The collection of objects
discovered in their intact

tomb in 1906,

where they had lain
undisturbed for over 3,000 years.

A leading Egyptologist
from the time wrote -

This is really a unique find
because of its intactness, but also

because of the wealth of material
that was in the tomb.

Tables and chairs and stools
and more chairs and coffers,

and coffers packed with linen

and the coffers packed with
cosmetic vessels.

Shaving equipment
packed into a little leather pouch

and his hip flask - everything is
there.

Even the shaped breads wrapped
with palm fronds to keep them fresh.

It is really incredible,

there is material there for
research for another few generations.

The collection not only gives us
a fascinating

insight into the burial, but also
the lives Kha and Merit lived.

The finds, ranging from death masks

and coffins, to their most
intimate belongings used in life.

Like this, Merit's beauty box.

This is basically the contents
of Merit's dressing table,

the perfume, cosmetics, moisturisers

and all the things that the ancient
Egyptians regarded as so essential.

Well used and well loved, this
stunning cosmetic chest tells us

Merit was a well-to-do woman,
who cared about her appearance.

This is Merit's glass, black
coal eyeliner,

glass was very rare at this time,

and it's in the classic Egyptian
colour combination of blue and gold.

The black eye paint that Merit
herself applied everyday to

her own eyes is
still inside this vessel.

It's got its wooden applicator
stick in the top,

and Egyptian ladies today still use
this in exactly the same way.

This stone alabaster perfume vessel
has still got the original

contents running down the outside

and it's extraordinary to think
that, in some cases, with the

Ancient Egyptians, it's not just
a question of the visuals,

it's how to reach back in time into
their world through other senses,

the sense of smell, for instance,
and to be able to smell

the things that they smelt,
the cinnamon, the lotus, the cedar.

Clearly, this is an expensive item,
so how would a fairly

ordinary Egyptian like Merit
afford such luxuries?

The answer lies in the village,
and the very special

occupation of its inhabitants.

These were Egypt's
tomb and temple builders.

From the foreman to the stonemason,
from the draughtsman

to the carpenter, they all lived
here with their wives and children.

About a mile to the north-west is
where they worked.

The most famous cemetery on earth.

This is the great and majestic
necropolis of the millions

of years of Pharaoh life, prosperity
and health in the west of Thebes.

Or, as we know it today,
the Valley of the Kings.

For nearly 500 years,
men like Kha created

the tombs of some of Egypt's most
famous Pharaohs.

Hatshepsut, Amenhotep III, and
Tutankhamen were all buried here.

They were an elite,
a kind of crack force of workmen

and architects, the very
best of the Egyptian culture.

They were the craftsmen that
implemented what Pharaoh wanted -

to sustain Pharaoh's
soul for eternity.

They were almost magicians,

operating secretly within this
stunning landscape.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

As the life story of Kha and Merit
begins back in the village.

Here I want to explore how they
may have met and fallen in love.

They probably grew up
in the village,

but how did a young couple like them
go about courting?

To find out,
I don't have to go very far.

As here, on the outskirts
of the village, is the great pit.

It's a long abandoned
attempt by the villagers to find

a groundwater source.

They dug down and down
and eventually reached
more than 50 metres.

They wanted to become
self-sufficient in water,

but sadly for them, they never did.

And yet, what the pit did become
was a community dump,

a mine of information.

When this pit
and the surroundings were

excavated by archaeologists, they
made some remarkable discoveries.

And this was what was found here,
literally tens of thousands of these

pieces of pottery and stone,
some with pictures,

many more with words -

giving us the real history
of the village, because these

are their notes, their reminders,

their love songs,
their laundry lists.

The very voices of this village.

Some of these voices tell us
about falling in love.

WOMAN'S VOICE: "Your hand is in my
hand. My body shakes with joy.

"My heart is so happy
because we walk together.

"To hear your voice
is like pomegranate wine."

This is a typical love poem,
written on papyrus, as well as stone

or pottery fragments, they capture
the feelings of young mothers.

They're so common,

it seems our village was
a real hotbed of passion.

Every single one of the
love poems from Ancient Egypt

come from this village, except one.

Some of the titles
are really evocative,

there is Your Love, Down To
The River, All Night And All Day,

and the rather suggestive,
Shedding Clothes.

"I go down to the water
to be with you,

"and come up again with a red fish
looking splendid on my fingers.

"Oh, my warrior, my beloved.
Come, look at me."

And it's nice to imagine that such
beautiful lines of love played

a part in the courtship of
Kha and Merit.

Today, we might seal the deal
with a proposal,

engagement and marriage.

But some Ancient Egyptians seem to
have taken a rather more

direct approach.

Kha may well have
signalled his commitment to

Merit by bringing her his bundle.

To "bring the bundle" meant that
you wanted to indicate your desire

to move in with the person who
took your fancy.

The bundle is thought to have been
a kind of dowry,

consisting of everything
the man owned.

It's likely that presenting it
to your intended was

one of the first steps of setting
up home together.

However, this didn't always go
to plan, as one villager recounts.

In a note the man left,
he tells us this very sad story.

He lists all his worldly goods,

which, I must say, aren't that
impressive,

and then he tells us
he went to the woman's house.

But all her family simply threw him
out, and as he says himself, "So I

"went again, with all my property
in order to live with them -

"and see! She acted in exactly the
same way and threw me out again!"

You can almost feel he is outraged
because this woman has not

just turned him down, but all
the things he could bring with him.

Presumably she was unimpressed
by the size of his bundle.

We can assume Kha suffered no such
indignity, as evidence from

the tomb suggests that he and Merit
were a loving and monogamous couple.

The scenes on this beautiful box
show Kha and Merit seated together,

to share the offerings which will
sustain them in the afterlife.

But in life, too, we also have clues
to their devotion.

Now, although the Ancient Egyptians
didn't have a marriage

ceremony as we would understand,
they simply moved in together,

they nevertheless would
exchange love tokens,

quite often in the form of rings.

This ring was discovered underneath
the death mask of Merit.

It's so precious that it is not
yet on display here in Turin.

This is the ring that was
found inside the mask,

almost as an afterthought, of Merit,

so, it was shoved in their just as
she was being buried.

It spent all those
thousands of years just tucked away,

hidden away,
within Merit's own wrappings.

A very ad hoc thing,
a very spontaneous gesture.

The image on it,
looks like the cow of Hathor.

That's exactly what it is.

The Goddess Hathor is often
depicted as a cow.

She was seen as the eternal mother
figure, to both the living

and the dead.

In life, she aided fertility and
provided protection in childbirth.

While in death she ensured
safe passage into the afterlife.

This represents the love
between Kha and Merit,

and in this tiny little object,
it is perhaps the most important

thing from the entire tomb for me,
personally.

It's wonderful.

Kha and Merit lived in a glittering
age in Egyptian history.

Sustained by the annual
floods of the River Nile,

the Egyptian state had
existed for almost 2,000 years.

By 1400 BC,
it was at the height of its power

and now ruled by the
18th royal dynasty.

Its kings are among the greatest
names of Ancient Egypt.

We have a so-called boy king,
Tutankhamen, the great female

Pharaoh, Hatshepsut, and
the so-called bad boy, the heretic,

Akhenaten.

But, really, at the very heart of
all this is Akhenaten's father,

this man, Amenhotep III.

The dazzling sun god himself,
and the very personification,

at least, he thought, of ancient
Egypt's greatest deity, the sun.

He's my favourite Pharaoh, because
he presided over a golden age,

when Ancient Egypt really did rule
the ancient world,

and this is the very Pharaoh
who was Kha's boss.

Kha worked for him.

Kha's job was to ensure
the Pharaoh's immortality.

He did this by helping design
and build some of Egypt's most

extraordinary monuments,
both tombs and temples.

This is one such project from the
reign of Amhenhotep III.

The solar court in Luxor Temple.

It's a revolutionary design,
as it moved away from the dark

and cloistered shrine to an open
celebration of the sun.

In return,
like all state employees,

Kha and Merit were given the things
they needed in the village.

A home, a tomb, food,
water, even servants.

This was the highly organised
world of the middle classes,

women had rights,
many kids an education,

and literacy was far higher in the
village than elsewhere in Egypt.

In Kha and Merit's time, the village
consisted of about 20 houses,

and while we do not exactly which
one was their house, it was almost

certainly one of the larger ones,
here at the northern end.

Perhaps even this one.

So, we go into the front room here,
and this would be an area, really,

where the woman of
the house hung out,

chatted, gossiped and so forth.

Kids running in and out.
Up the stairs.

Around the corner into perhaps the
most important room in the house.

And here, I absolutely love this.

This is built-in furniture.

It's kind of like a divan,
a chaise longue if you like.

And this is where the gentlemen of
the house would sit of an evening

drinking beer, having a chat.

Then back up this little step
and then into this area,

which is quite a considerable size
for a room like this.

Probably storage but also a bedroom

where the beds or the sleeping mats
would have been placed.

So as we progress a little further
into the highest part of the house,

we come into a storage area,

maybe for clothes but almost
certainly for food and drink also,

because this area directly adjoins
this wonderful fitted kitchen.

This is extraordinary, because we've
actually got the built-in oven

at the back of the house.

We even see these when they're
doing little sketches of ladies
blowing into the oven

to keep the fire hot and then they
can cook the bread and so forth.

And then here an Ancient Egyptian
refrigerator

where you'd place pottery vessels
with drink in.

You'd want a cool drink on a day
like this, you can understand why.

And the only way to do this was to
sink the vessels

into a pit deep in the ground.

A little temporary roof over it to
keep it as chilled as possible.

So fridge, oven.
They've got everything they needed.

And, of course, at either side
aren't rooms of this house,

but these are the neighbours houses.

These are a terraced street,
if you like,

of back-to-back houses of the sort
Britain had in the
Industrial Revolution.

So the neighbours were never
very far away

and the concept of privacy
certainly in this little corner

of Ancient Egypt was a completely
unknown thing.

Life in the village was almost
entirely supported by the state.

A daily procession of donkeys would
carry water up from the Nile Valley

to be decanted
into a central cistern.

Each household was entitled to
an average of 100 litres per day

for drinking, cooking and bathing.

Les than half a mile
from the village

lies another crucial remnant of this
highly organised infrastructure.

Although built a little
after Kha's time,

grain stores like these
acted as a kind of bank.

Money didn't exist in Egypt at this
time so at the end of each month,

Kha would have received his salary
as a ration of wheat and barley.

Granaries like this would have
held an immense amount of food.

These granaries alone would have
held over 40,000 individual
sacks of grain.

Chief workmen like Kha were entitled
to seven and a half sacks
of grain a month,

five and a half of wheat,
and two of barley.

Plenty for Merit and their
servants to produce the staples
of Egyptian life, bread and beer.

The villagers also received
fish and vegetables

and could trade their excess grain
for luxuries like meat and wine.

These places would have been full of
life.

People bustling here and there,
scribes taking record,

making an account of all the stuff
being delivered.

A constant stream of men carrying
sacks, depositing them here,

people coming to collect their
rations.

It's a simple system
but one that endured,

fuelling Egypt's success
and political stability for
thousands of years.

Indeed, it was a system so important

it was represented on
numerous tomb walls.

These scenes are from the tomb
of the scribe Menna

contemporary with Kha himself.

Here we can see the whole
process of the wheat and barley
being harvested and distributed.

And here the principle food it
produced, bread.

Kha and Merit had no less than
50 loaves of bread in their tomb.

Now, bread was the key ingredient
in the Ancient Egyptian diet.

The Ancient Egyptians added many
different things to it.

You could add dates or honey to
make it sweet,

or savoury things, cumin seeds,
coriander seeds,

all manner of ingredients to
really vary it.

And in the tomb there's a whole
range of different sizes and shapes,

including what appear to be
gingerbread men,

little shapes of fruit, flowers
and animals.

Although they didn't have yeast as
such, the technique

of combining flour, water
and salt to make bread

is virtually unchanged
in 3,500 years.

I mean, this is a completely
timeless scene,

this fabulous mud brick oven is
typical of the ovens

we find in Ancient Egyptian
settlements.

It's totally believable to
imagine Merit baking bread
to feed her family.

It's a completely timeless scene.

SHE SIGHS AND SPEAKS ARABIC

It's a real direct link
back into their world.

The smell of this wonderful stuff,
the feel of it, the way it was made.

All Egyptians would have eaten
this on a daily basis.

It was the sort for stuff that you
offered to the gods.

And even when the bread
had gone mouldy

the Egyptians used it
as a form of medicine,

which wouldn't be fully understood
for thousands of years.

The medical texts actually advocate
take bread in mouldy condition

and apply to the wound in question.

And although they didn't know why
it worked it did work,

because mouldy bread contains,

of course, penicillin, which we in
the West think we discovered.

And yet the Ancient Egyptians
fully appreciated its benefits
5,000 years ago.

It's very good stuff.

While Merit's responsibilities were
largely focused on life at home,

Kha's duties were dominated by
working for the pharaoh.

He and his fellow tomb builders
took this path from the village
to their workplace,

the Valley of the Kings.

It starts here at the southern
end of the village

and follows that path there.
See right up over that coll?

And then we go straight up
and over the top of the mountain.

Kha and his workforce would have
regularly made this journey,

sometimes camping out
during the working week

in small huts in the Valley.

In Kha's day there were probably
about 40-60 men making this journey,

probably singing, probably carrying
water pots themselves

and the day's rations maybe.

Kha must have walked this path
hundreds of times,

first perhaps as a carpenter,

but eventually as the
Royal Architect and Overseer.

So if we've been walking about
45 minutes in the full sun,

and it's really, really hot,

then Kha and his men coming up this
path to work,

they do the walk and then they had
to do the work.

Exactly.

Their regular commute took them
further west into the
Land of the Dead.

In fact, from up here you can see
why this place

was so carefully chosen as it
mirrors the Ancient Egyptian
spiritual beliefs.

If you worship the sun as a god,

then two times of the day
take on special significance,

sunrise in the east and sunset in
the west.

Sunrise is the birth of the god, so
the east is the land of the living,

sunset is the death of the god,
so the west is the land of death,

So they picked this spot to make
their tombs for the dead.

This one spot... Life, death.

The Nile Valley,
the Valley of the Kings.

And it is that stark, isn't it?
It is.

Continuing our hike,
we finally reach the western
branch of the Valley of the Kings.

Where time has virtually
stood still.

Remnants of the tomb builders world
litter the landscape.

This is a great staircase.
It's superb, isn't it?

Beautifully constructed though
further up.

It's absolutely perfect.

This is it, this is the start of
Kha's domain.

This is actually a guard hut and
one man would be on guard
in here 24 hours a day.

And you can see...

..even ancient pottery has
been preserved at this site.

That's 3,500 years old.

So this piece is like one of Kha's
empties, his empty beer jar.
There you go.

And we know this is authentic
because this part of the West Valley

was only ever used for royal tombs
in Kha's day. That's right, yeah.

The guards in these huts maintained
a watchful eye over everything that
went on in the Valley.

What it was guarding against
was obviously tomb robbery
for the pre-existing tombs,

but while the new king's tomb was
under construction the materials

used in the construction of a tomb
were also very valuable.

Metal. Copper.
The copper chisels especially.

The paints, the plaster,
the oils for the lamps.

This was all very valuable material.

Although deathly silent today,
3,500 years ago these walls

would have reverberated with the
sound of Kha's construction teams.

There'd be the mallets hitting
the chisels in the tomb,

they're be the pounding of the people
making the plaster,

the mixing bowls for the paints.

And they would be the voice of the
Overseer telling people off or
telling to do this or that.

Building a tomb for the king was
hazardous work, although not all
the dangers are immediately obvious.

Apart from the normal hazards of
hitting your hand with a mallet or
getting cut with a chisel,

falling off scaffolding, breaking
legs, falling down the tomb.

The other risk is because this is
a wadi, it's a dry riverbed,

there are flash floods
now and again, and all
this would come crashing down.

And they would have to run.

During his lifetime,
Kha worked on three royal tombs,

initially as a craftsman.

These copper chisels found in his
tomb were the tools of Kha's trade.

He then rose to become
Royal Architect and Overseer
responsible for the design

and construction of at least
two pharaoh's tombs.

It was a task on which
Egypt entirely depended

since each pharaoh must be able to
reach the afterlife

to ensure both their immortality and
the wellbeing of their subjects.

Build it correctly and
all would be well, fail
and Egypt would fail with it.

So how did Kha and his men
actually undertake this
most onerous of tasks?

I'll follow in your footsteps.
Right.

This is tomb KV25.

Thought to have been started
for Amenhotep III's son Akhnaton,

it was left unfinished when
Akhnaton suddenly moved his
capital away from Thebes.

It's as if the workmen only downed
tools yesterday.

So you can see, Jo,
the unfinished wall.

It's been chiselled smooth
but it hasn't been plastered.

And you can actually see the gouge
marks of the chisels where they've
gouged out the material.

What a treat to be able to see this
kind of working surface.

As an architect Kha meticulously
planned the tomb's layout

using the Ancient Egyptian unit
of measurement, the cubit.

In modern terms the cubit was
roughly 52.5 centimetres long.

And it is subdivided into what was
called seven palms.

The palm of your hand. One, two,
three, four, five, six, seven.

And on the end
we have four fingers there.

Perfect. Perfect.

And the way this would have been
used was for marking out

and measuring your way down the tomb.

In fact, you can see the dots there
where they've been marking out. See?

As they came down...

It corresponds exactly! Indeed.

And it's so usable. So simple.

Very elegant.
It is elegant, isn't it?

And at the end of the day's work,
Kha could fold it up,

pop it back in its leather
carrying case and take it home.

Just imagine Kha and his team
of 30 or 40 men

toiling in this
extreme heat and choking dust.

And to light their way all they had
were these simple oil lamps.

I think being down here in the dark
with a lamp like this

really increases the respect I have
for Kha and his workforce,

that they were able to
create such sublime monuments
with such simple tools.

The evidence reveals Kha was
highly respected in life.

This beautiful object
is a golden royal cubit.

It was presented to Kha in
recognition for his work

for the pharaoh Amenhotep II.

It can only be equated to a carriage
clock or an engraved tankard

that you're given for good service.

And you can only imagine Kha's pride
and joy at receiving such
a mark of royal favour.

Had the Ancient Egyptians
had a mantelpiece this
would have been on it.

But I think the true value of this
special cubit is the fact

it's been personalised to such a
great degree.

And it actually sums up Kha
in a single item.

It's the tools of his trade and yet
it's been embellished.

The inscriptions on this
are wonderful.

There's so many little details about
Kha's career,

about the fact that he built
a small shrine or temple,

not even in Thebes, further
north at a site called Thermopolis,

so he was clearly active
outside of Thebes.

It's pretty hard to describe how it
feels to hold something like this

that Kha and probably Merit
would have held quite a lot,

just to sort of marvel at it

and congratulate themselves on being
so high up in Pharaoh's favour.

I love it. I absolutely love it.

With Kha's career on the rise,
he and Merit also started a family.

Childbirth is a risky time in
any woman's life

and certainly in Ancient Egypt.

Merit would have sought help
from Hathor then pre-eminent
goddess of motherhood.

All Ancient Egyptian women
wanted to be like Hathor,

she's like a modern female celebrity
that all women aspire to be.

She had it all
and she was worshipped here.

This is the funnery temple
of the great female pharaoh
Hatshepsut, at Dier El-Bahari.

Situated just two miles from the
village, it's located at the base

of the very cliffs in which Hathor
herself was believed to reside.

But how might the goddess have
touched Merit's life?

These columns are each one topped
with the image of the
goddess herself,

the face of a beautiful woman

but with cow's ears poking through
the mass of hair to reflect

the goddesses cow-like, docile,
sweet nature.

She's seen as an eternal
mother figure

that can nurture all those
around her who would then take
care of your soul for eternity

and allow you to be reborn each
morning with the rising sun.

Ordinary people like Merit could not
enter the actual temples themselves.

These were sacred places reserved
for the clergy and the pharaohs.

So Merit would have turned to a more
domestic form of worship.

Now, this wonderful thing
is an exact replica

of a bowl found in the village

and it shows the double heads
of the Goddess Hathor.

I think they very much regarded
this as a potent talisman.

Almost like an amulet that they
could have about the house

to bring the beautiful face
of Hathor into their daily lives.

So, whatever they put in it, be it
food, beer, wine, even flowers,

the contents would
be almost sprinkled

with a little bit of Hathor's magic.

Yet Hathor wasn't only the goddess
of fertility and motherhood,

she was also the deity
of sexual pleasure.

And the evidence suggests
that enjoying sex

was as important then as it is now.

This is a replica of the section of
the so-called Turin Erotic Papyrus.

What it shows are couples actively,
very actively, having sex.

The men all appear quite
rough and ready,

some have receding hairlines,
stubble, pot bellies.

Each one has an enormous phallus.

As for the women,
they are very beautiful, very agile,

each has got a very
exquisite hairstyle

fronted by one of these fragrant
lotus blossoms.

And so there's this desire
to almost tap into the erotic.

These aren't, kind of,
showing women as slabs of meat

simply there for male pleasure,
not at all.

These are active women engaged
in acts of pleasure, acts of love.

They are using sex as a, kind of,
form of leisure,

of entertainment as well
as doing it, portraying it.

And while Hathor might have offered
sexual inspiration, her presence

was needed most during the dangerous
time of pregnancy and childbirth.

Women, like Merit , would have
looked to her for protection.

The outer precincts of the temple
here at Deir el-Bahri

were a focus for such worship.

This faded scene is a rare
representation of a pregnant woman.

In this case, the mother
of the female pharaoh, Hatshepsut.

There she is as the unborn foetus

and you can just make out the gentle
swelling of her mother's abdomen,

here, as the unborn Hatshepsut

resides within the safety
of her mother's body.

When the archaeologists excavated
all around here a century ago

they found such amazing
things as baby clothes

that had been specially made
with an image of Hathor,

almost like a Post-it Note
to the goddess.

These would be left here in the hope
that these women could conceive.

Merit had three children that we
know of - two sons and one daughter.

Their images appear in Kha
and Merit's tomb chapel

and on the painted boxes
found in their tomb.

With infant mortality
as high as 50%,

Merit would've needed all
the help she could get

but the villagers didn't
just turn to the gods.

This is the Kahun Papyrus,
it details the prescriptions

and spells used to tackle illnesses
suffered specifically by women.

"Examination of a women who is
aching in her rear, her front

"and the calves of her thighs.

"You should say of it,
it is discharges of the womb

"and you should treat it with one
measure of carob fruit,

"one measure of incense pellets,
one unit of cows milk.

"Boil, cool, mix together and drink
on four consecutive mornings."

What they are trying to do
is bring some sort of order,

some form of understanding, to a
host of complex medical conditions.

And in the root cause of many
of the problems

associated with woman's illnesses
there is apparently a wandering womb

because the Egyptians thought that
this part of the female anatomy

wasn't fixed in situ but would,
kind of, wonder all over the body.

This bizarre condition had
an equally bizarre cure.

The woman would, sort of,
stand over burning incense

in the hope that this rising
sweet smell of the fumes

would encourage this wandering
womb down into its proper place.

And while today this may
seem rather strange,

such a diagnosis and treatment may
have had some positive effect.

Certainly, to the woman in labour,

to have a medical practitioner
present, reading out these

medical prescriptions, would have
had an almost placebo like affect

and I think that's the strength
of documents like this.

Used in conjunction with all the
amulets and all the magical spells

that could be brought to bear
by the village midwife.

The recitation of text like this
would have brought a further layer

of order to a very difficult
and complex time in a woman's life.

Alongside raising her children,

Merit would have been
responsible for her home.

She is likely to have been
just as house-proud as you and me.

Yet, far from the monochrome
beige we see today,

the world of ancient Egypt
was a riot of colour.

The vestiges of this can still be
seen - if you know where to look.

When we look up at the ceilings,

the areas which had been sheltered
from direct sunlight,

the colours are absolutely superb.

The condition, the brightness,
the vivacity.

They're, sort of, leaping out
of the walls and ceilings,

right into our eyes.

And this temple,
with its vibrant colour,

was created by the later
Pharaoh Ramesses III.

The Egyptians were far from subtle
in their use of paint.

Primary colours - red, green,
blue - all these amazing,

vivid hues and the blues and greens
are particularly bright.

This, of course, is more of a status
marker for the king who commissioned

such a brilliant piece of work
because blues and greens weren't

naturally occurring pigments and had
to be manufactured at great cost.

And so this is a way
for the monarch to say,

"Look at me,
look at the wealth I possess."

The effort and expense involved
in producing such synthetic colours

was way beyond the reach of most
ordinary people.

Instead, it they used locally
sourced materials,

ones that could, literally,
be picked up from the desert floor.

This rock, in my hand,
is kind of like a colour box

that brought Ancient Egypt to life

because on one side we have
the red iron oxide,

on the other the yellow iron oxide.

And so, by splitting
a rock like this

into the component yellows and reds,

you could crush these up,
mix with water

and then apply
to the design surface.

I think the best way to, sort of,
try to reanimate these colours

is probably to use that old standby,
a little bit of spit.

Always works! Rub the stone.

It's very, very vivid.

You can see the effect
it has against white.

So, you have these two shades that,
for the ancient Egyptians,

really did reflect blood,
life, vivacity

and then the yellow
of the golden sun.

I want to see how villagers,
like Kha and Merit,

used colour to decorate
their homes...

..and I'm in luck because here,
at the southern end of the village,

a single precious clue remains.

Here it is!

Now, if I lift this cloth

I'm going to see something
I've waited a long time to see

and it's, basically,
an original wall scene

from an Ancient Egyptian house.

So, here goes.

Oh, wow!

It's a phenomenal piece.
The colours are so fresh.

It's a glimpse into
the, sort of, world

of Ancient Egyptian
interior design.

It's the lower half of a female
musician and she's playing a flute.

She's got gold bracelets,
gold anklets,

but the most exciting thing
are these two tattoos

of the household god Bes.

So evocative, so warm, so sumptuous
in its lavish use of colour

and these fabulous, fabulous leaves.

Heart-shaped, draping down the sides
to, sort of, inject some much-needed

vegetation, greenery, into this,
sort of, desert environment.

It's an intriguing thought that
here, in the very village where

the men who built and painted
the royal tombs -

would they have been commissioned
by one of the housewives here

to come and paint my house?

Or did the women paint these
images for themselves?

It's something we'll never know

but I like to think that the lady
of the house would have had

a direct input into
the kind of scene

she wanted around her as she went
about her daily chores

with the kids and her friends,
and female relatives.

Such fragments from the past

allow us to get closer
to the real Kha and Merit.

In the case of Merit, she seems
to have been a loving wife

and hard-working mother.

A delicate and beautiful woman,
the epitome of taste and style.

But, sadly, this is where
Merit's story ends -

the evidence suggesting
she died quite suddenly

to leave her beloved Kha
as a grieving widower.

He even had to bury her in a coffin
intended for him,

for not only is it far too
large for Merit,

the inscriptions name only Kha.

Yet, Merit was immortalised in the
tomb chapel she shared with Kha,

located just yards
from their village.

And this is where Kha and their
children would have come

to bring regular offerings
and to pay their respects.

It's such a privileged glimpse
into their everyday life.

We're amongst their family here

and that's what this whole tomb
chapel chamber has all around it.

This feeling of family,
of closeness, of warmth, of love.

What's interesting here is that Kha
and Merit are shown several times...

..and yet the one constant child
that's with them is their daughter,

Merit , named after her mother.

And this is Merit the mother, here,

and this is Merit the daughter,
behind her.

On the other wall we have
the daughter, Merit,

who's leaning forward,
towards her father, Kha,

and she appears to be trying
a necklace around his neck,

or perhaps anointing him
with perfume.

I'd like to think that
it was Merit, the daughter,

who cared for Kha in his old age.

But what happened to Kha,
the proud and talented architect?

These elegant walking sticks may
suggest he lived on into old age...

continuing to oversee the most
important commission of his life.

So, I've come back to this remote
part of the Valley of the Kings

to find the final resting
place of Amenhotep III.

It was actually the third of the
royal tombs that Kha worked on,

so it's so exciting
to be going in here

and following in Kha's
wonderful footsteps.

My enthusiasm is well founded
because the tomb,

currently under restoration,
has been closed for decades.

Hardly anyone gets to see this.

SHE SNIFFS

This isn't very professional, is it?

SHE SNIFFS

This is so beautiful. It, literally,
has brought tears to my eyes.

It is so stunning. The colours
are fantastic, it's exquisite.

It's Amenhotep III

being received into the care
of the gods of the underworld.

And there's Anubis handing
out the sign of life to Amenhotep.

You think, Kha and his men
designing these images.

Just putting the King's vision
into practice and just...

..literally,
it's taken my breath away.

Look, the artist hasn't just
come along with his blue paint

and the palette and boshed on the
paint, somebody's taken the trouble

to apply individual
curls of hair, here.

Can you see the texture?
The curls, here?

That's textured hair.

And there, also,
Amenhotep with Osiris,

green-faced God of vegetation,
new life and resurrection.

And that's really what
this tomb does.

It's a time machine,
it's the place Amenhotep III's mummy

would have finally been
laid to rest.

You can clearly see that no expense
was spared and for good reason.

For this is where the Pharaoh,
then revered as a god,

would dwell in the afterlife -
his next seat of power.

Oh, and down we go, deeper
and deeper into the underworld.

Wow, it really does evoke a sense
of going down into the subterranean

underworld, into the blackness,
into the darkness, into eternity.

This elaborate network
of chambers and stairways

was designed to protect
the Royal mummy

and all the glittering treasures
which once surrounded it.

Now, look at this very clever
trick of the architect, our boy Kha.

Look at this, can you see
the way the images

were once all along this wall,

just the whole way around,
images of the King and the gods

and, yet, originally,
this would have been packed

with mud brick, probably.

Plastered over, the images drawn
and painted over it,

so that any would-be tomb robbers
would come down here, think,

"Oh, this is it, nothing
much in here,"

and hopefully leave
by the way they came in

because this is actually
the next stage of the tomb.

So, it's, kind of,
like a hidden portal.

This is the burial chamber,
the most important part of the tomb

and there it is...

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

The man considered a god,
both in life and in death.

How do you bury a god?

Well, obviously, surrounded,
dripping in gold,

semi-precious stones and the most
beautiful funerary items...

..all of which would have
been choreographed,

planned by Kha and his colleagues.

Everybody wants to take
care of the King.

Within the royal mummy
dwelt the soul,

the immortal soul, of Egypt itself.

This cumulative build-up of every
royal pharaoh who had gone before

resided within the mummy
who once lay down there.

Oh, wow!

It's been 46 years waiting
to see this tomb

and it's been well worth it.

Although we can now appreciate
his consummate workmanship,

it seems Kha himself never
saw the finished tomb,

for he died before his king.

But like his king, Kha's own body

was prepared for its eternal
journey into the afterlife

before he too was buried.

Since this journey has given us
a chance to get that little bit

closer to Kha and Merit, I think
we could almost call them friends.

Their worries and concerns
are not unlike our own -

hard work, family
and, above all, love.

Yet, this is only the beginning
of their story.

What comes next is a journey into
a world very different from our own.

A world of ritual, of magic

and the unswerving belief that
life really can go on for ever.

And here we have Kha's name,
right down the middle

and to speak the name of the dead
is to make them live again -

Kha and Merit.

So, join me next time

as we travel deep into the heart
of the Egyptian afterlife.

It's an extraordinary journey

on which we uncover Kha and Merit's
costly preparations for death.

All played out in a series
of complex and elaborate rituals

as they attempt to achieve
their place in eternity.

'At the dawn of the 20th century,
a unique discovery was made.

'It redefined how we understand
life and death in Ancient Egypt.'

How wonderful to have been
in that team of archaeologists

who came down
that day in February 1906...

..a procession of men
eager to know what lay at the end

of this really atmospheric
series of tunnels and chambers.

'What they'd found
was an intact tomb,

'undisturbed for over 3,000 years.

'And inside were not
the treasures of pharaohs

'but a unique window on the world
of ordinary Egyptians...

'..the mummies and possessions
of a working man called Kha

'and his wife Meryt.

'I'm Egyptologist Dr Joann Fletcher,

'and I'm exploring
the world of Kha and Meryt...

'..to find out about
their lives and their deaths.

'Last time, we looked at how they
lived in their tiny desert village.

'We've seen where Kha worked...'

What a treat, to be able to see
this kind of working surface.

'..what they ate...'

It's a direct link
back into their world,

the smell of this wonderful stuff.
the way it was made.

'..and how they relaxed.'

And this is where the gentleman of
the house would sit of an evening,

drinking beer, having a chat.

'In many ways, their lives
were quite similar to ours.

'But their relationship with death
was completely different...

'..because to Ancient Egyptians,

'life was really
just a dress rehearsal

'for the perfect afterlife
that they were trying to reach.

'I want to travel back into
this strange and mysterious world.'

This isn't a funerary building, this
is a building to keep life going.

'To reach the afterlife,

'they spent fortunes on funerary
equipment, buildings and rituals...'

Kha's Book of the Dead
would have been incredibly costly.

'..and expected to face
numerous trials along the way.'

This is the great devourer.

All evil souls, their hearts were
fed to this creature, consumed,

and that was it, finished for ever.

'So with Kha and Meryt
as our guides,

'we'll journey back into the world
of death in Ancient Egypt.'

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'The Ancient Egyptians
held a fundamental belief...

'..your death was in many ways the
most important moment in your life.

'If you'd prepared for it, you would
enter the perfect afterlife...

'..an idealised eternity
based on life in Egypt.

'So for any Ancient Egyptian,
be they farmer or pharaoh,

'the biggest investment they made
was for death and the world beyond.

'And here in Ancient Thebes, death
was the biggest business in town.'

Now, in this part of Egypt,
death was THE major employer.

From the men who built

these wonderful funerary temples
and the rock-cut tombs

to the people who embalmed the dead,

who provided all the funerary
equipment they would need,

the little funerary figures,

the artists who composed
the funerary text,

even the florists who put together

the huge bouquets of flowers
offered to the dead in their tombs,

this was THE major industry.

'Our couple, Kha and Meryt, lived
at the very heart of this industry,

'in the desert village
now known as Deir el-Medina.

'It's close to the spectacular
Valley of the Kings,

'where Kha designed and built tombs
for the mighty pharaohs.

'And although he spent his working
hours creating the tombs of kings,

'he spent much of his spare time
preparing for his own death.

'But in order to be ready
for the journey into the afterlife,

'Kha needed to plan his route
carefully.

'This was where his investment
started, with a guidebook.

'This scroll is known
as the Book of the Dead.

'Kha's was found in his tomb,
and this is a facsimile.'

The Book of the Dead is a collection

of funerary spells and texts
and incantations,

a kind of road map of the afterlife,

and it was designed
to allow the deceased,

with the help of these spells,

to navigate his or her way
through into the next world.

'Its words seem mysterious
and strange,

'but they had a definite purpose.'

If you were going to meet

some dangerous demons or monsters
in the underworld,

you had to have powerful spells
to counteract them,

to diffuse their magic

and to negotiate your way past them
to achieve eternity.

'Most Books of the Dead were simply
off-the-shelf versions,

'mass-produced by local artists.

'But Kha's copy was
specially commissioned.

'It was the deluxe version,

'featuring personal references
and grandiose claims.'

Words spoken by the great chief Kha:

'While plain rolls of papyrus
were relatively cheap,

'at around a fifth of
a worker's monthly salary,

'one inscribed with
funerary texts like this

'could cost the equivalent
of six months' wages at least.'

So many hours of work have gone
into its almost 14 metres of texts.

The ink's had to be prepared,
the colours ground up and mixed

and then applied so carefully
and with such a lot of thought.

'It's rare to find
a Book of the Dead so intact.

'Yet somehow, Kha and Meryt's
had remained safe

'in their undiscovered tomb
for over 3,000 years.

'The only evidence that they had
existed at all was this.

'I've come to see the small chapel

'that Kha built on the outskirts
of their village.

'And although another major expense
on Kha and Meryt's death bill,

'it was the vital link
between the living and the dead.'

It's like a little
jewel box of colour.

You come in from the glare and heat
of the desert and the cliffs

and you enter this little oasis
of calm and quiet.

'The chapel is situated
close to their house,

'because when
these Ancient Egyptians died,

'they simply moved
across the street.

'And as the living and the dead
existed side by side,

'this was the place that families
could pay their respects.'

And looking around,
the colours used are sumptuous.

You've got the gold background,

and then, as the vaulted
ceiling rises up,

the artist's done
something very clever.

They've changed the palette

to these blues and greens
of the Egyptian landscape.

The Nile is suggested,
the sky is suggested.

Very cooling, refreshing

and a wonderful juxtaposition of
the gold, the blues and the greens.

'Blues and greens were among
the most costly colours to produce,

'so Kha had clearly
spared no expense.

'The walls depict all the things
he and Meryt loved in life

'and hoped to enjoy
in the afterlife.'

It is like walking into
Kha and Meryt's sitting room.

They're all here.
They're all around us.

This isn't a funerary building, this
is a building to keep life going,

kind of like a giant generator

with everything that life meant
to Kha and Meryt

encapsulated in
this tiny little room.

'This chapel was the first clue

'in a trail that would ultimately
lead archaeologists

'to Kha and Meryt's tomb...

'because after three millennia,
the chapel was discovered

'by an Italian diplomat,
Bernardino Drovetti.

'Appointed French consul to Egypt
by Napoleon in 1803,

'Drovetti's main interest
was amassing antiquities.'

I think it's safe to say

that Drovetti's methods were
very, very unscrupulous.

He used a range of agents

to basically ransack their way
through Ancient Egypt.

And in doing so,
he managed to acquire

a stupendous series of collections
of Egyptian antiquities,

many of which he then sold on
to sufficiently wealthy individuals.

'Drovetti sold
his personal collection

'to the King of Sardinia,
who put it here...

'in what is now the superb
Egyptian museum in Turin.

One of the most important items
in this collection

'was taken from
Kha and Meryt's chapel.

'This costly painted funerary stele
was a kind of memorial stone

'made to ensure
that their names would live on,

'and its presence in Turin

'would eventually lead to
the discovery of their tomb.'

It shows Kha twice,
both left and right,

worshipping the archetypal
gods of the dead,

Osiris and then the black
jackal-headed god Anubis.

And you can see he's praying to them
for a long and successful afterlife.

And then in the register below,

it's kind of like a family snapshot,
if you like.

You have Kha and Meryt

seated in front of a huge table
full of food, drink, flowers.

And then on the right-hand side,
with the arm raised,

is their eldest son, Amenopet,

and he's kind of saying
his prayers to his parents.

So in effect,

the next generation is wishing
a long and happy afterlife

full of good things.

It's likely that this funerary
stele was actually made

during the lifetime of Kha.

He would have almost certainly
commissioned it

and would have selected
which deities he wanted,

the kind of whole layout,
the scenario, the colours.

And this was a typical thing
for the Ancient Egyptians to do,

to commission their funerary
monuments in their lifetime

so they could get things
just right.

And then, of course, after death,

the images represented would
magically continue to be effective

throughout eternity, so it was
kind of like good insurance

for what was going to happen to them
in the next world.

'The elaborate Book of the Dead,
their chapel and its funerary stele

'were just the beginning
of Kha and Meryt's preparations

'for eternal life.

'The main investment
would be their tomb.

'So I'm travelling
to the Valley of the Kings,

'where Kha supervised
the building of royal tombs.

'It's the best place to find out

'how he might have organised
and paid for

'the construction of his own.

I'm meeting geologist Steve Cross

'to see an unfinished tomb,
a work in progress.'

The way they cut the tombs was they
started with the slot of the ceiling.

And then worked outwards, right?
And then excavated downwards.

'Slowly chiselling away at
the bedrock, a tomb of this size

'would have taken around 40 men
years to complete.

'And although a tomb like this

'was way beyond the means
of most ordinary Egyptians,

'Kha had both the skills
and the inspiration

'to create such a tomb for himself.'

Now, this of course is a royal tomb,

but in terms of Kha's
own personal tomb,

how on earth would he have persuaded
anyone on their time off

to have given him a hand
excavating his tomb?

Well, what they did was they all
helped each other, and it was barter.

"You do work in my tomb,
I'll do work in your tomb."

Right? So Kha, being the architect,

might have designed tombs
for other people

in trade-off for them
coming to work on his tomb.

So he got the better part of the
deal, really. Probably he did, yes!

Don't forget, these tomb makers
are THE experts.

That's why the tombs
in Deir el-Medina

are amongst the best in the world.

'With the help of his colleagues,

'Kha clearly invested a huge amount
of time, effort and resources

'into building his tomb.

'So security was critical.

'Tomb robbing had already been
a big problem for 2,000 years,

'and this explains why he did
something highly unusual.

'Ordinary Egyptians
who could afford a tomb

'built it directly beneath
their chapel complex,

'which of course made it easier
to find and rob.

'But Kha had learnt
from the pharaohs.

'He decided to hide his elsewhere.

'It remained secret
for over 3,000 years.

'But in 1906, another Italian
began explorations

'in Kha and Meryt's village.

'Egyptologist Ernesto Schiaparelli

'was director of
the Egyptian museum in Turin.

'He was very familiar
with the stele of Kha and Meryt

'and also knew
their tomb had never been found.'

He could read the hieroglyphs.

He knew there was an important
individual called Kha,

had a wife called Meryt,

and he knew they had to be buried

somewhere in the vicinity
where the stele was discovered.

'Schiaparelli was determined
to find the tomb.

'But where to look?'

Look at that instrument there.

'Eleni Vassilika,

'the present-day director
of the Egyptian museum in Turin,

'has accompanied me to Egypt
to follow in his footsteps.'

They must have looked around and
said, "The tomb is here, somewhere.

"Is it that trench there or...
Where can it be?"

But Kha was clever, wasn't he?
Kha was... He was sly!

He knew what was going to go into the
tomb so he wanted to hide it.

I think as Schiaparelli must have
stood here,

scratched his head and said -

knowing the stele was
already in the museum, since 1824 -

he must've said, "Where the hell is
the tomb?

"It's got to be near here,"

and looked at the landscape
which most archaeologists do...

..and said, "I think we need to take
that detritus away."

It was just a theory

but Schiaparelli had a huge
workforce at his disposal.

He moved his 250 workmen to
the foot of this rock face

close to the chapel.

They just dug for 30 days,

he says, until they discovered
the perforation in the bedrock there.

And then they came to a bricked wall,

took that down
and then they saw the door.

Wow, that must've been
an amazing feeling. Yeah!

A sealed door in an Egyptian tomb.
Wow.

It was a moment really
incredible for them

because all these tombs - most of
these tombs - had been sacked

at some point
and very few intact tombs,

and, of course, so well furnished as
this one is...

In essence, really, what
Schiaparelli had found

is the most important non-royal
tomb... Yes.

..probably from the whole of this
period

if not the whole of Egyptian
history because it tells us so much

about reality, real lives in ancient
Egypt, not just gods and Pharaohs.

What a moment.

Since Schiaparelli, hardly anyone's
been into the tomb.

But Eleni and I have been granted
special access.

I think this is... This is it.

I think so. This is it! Yeah.

BOTH GASP

He was a clever guy! He was really
sly. He was a very clever guy.

That's why his tomb stayed
secret for so long

because it is so unexpected.
Exactly, yes.

Situated at the bottom of this
rather deep shaft, getting down into

the tomb is no easier today than it
would have been in Kha's time.

ELENI GASPS

Wow! Look at this.
I don't believe it.

Is that "Schiaparelli woz here?"

BOTH LAUGH
Yeah, more or less!

It says, "Discovered intact by the
Italian archaeological mission

"in 1906." And look.

They've written over the ancient red
ochre marks... Yes, yes.

..of the draughtsmen planning out
the lines. Yeah, here we go.

These are the red ochre pigment
that was applied by the workers as

they were constructing the tomb to
give them a sense of

the measurements and so forth
and simply whereabouts to chip away.

They had to keep this as close to
plan as was possible so they'd

be using their equipment to give
this lovely 90-degree angle here.

It was blocked up twice.

That sense of excitement
Schiaparelli and his men

must've felt because here they
were,

not just one intact doorway blocked,
but two. But two, yes.

Having removed the blockage
from the second brick doorway,

Schiaparelli and his team found
themselves in a large antechamber.

It contained Kha's exquisitely
crafted bed,

beautifully painted pottery
and floral bouquets.

But there was much, much more
to come.

It's really exciting approaching
the burial chamber

and this is where presumably...
This is the door

and this is where Schiaparelli
rapped on the door

and then turned around and said
"How about the key?"

BOTH LAUGH

So he must've known that he was
onto a good thing

after having seeing a bed out here,
he knew there was more to find.

Something beyond. And this was
sealed.

'One of the men who entered the tomb
with Schiaparelli was Englishman

'Arthur Weigall, Chief Inspector
of Antiquities for Upper Egypt.'

'He immediately recorded
the astonishing sight.'

When Schiaparelli 's team arrived,

the chamber was crammed
full of objects.

'But today, all that remains is
a colony of bats.'

BATS SQUEAK

The photographer took
a photograph from there, looking in.

Then he stepped in right here
where I'm standing right now,

he turned around and he took
a photograph of everything behind.

Along this wall is
the coffin of Meryt.

ELENI JUMPS
It's all right.

This place is full of... Yes, I
know, thank you! ..small bats.

Stand behind me, I'll protect you.
OK.

And then that back wall, that was
Kha's sarcophagus and coffin.

Which was substantially
larger than hers. Yeah.

In ancient Egypt, children didn't
always inherit

their parents' belongings.

And almost everything Kha and Meryt
owned was sealed up

inside their tomb to be used
in the afterlife.

So very few people have been
privileged to come in here

and it makes so much more sense now,
knowing all the material that

was originally in here,
the belongings of Kha and Meryt,

placed so lovingly and so carefully
in here and now displayed

so beautifully in the museum
in Turin.

It's fantastic to be able to put all
the pieces of the jigsaw together,

to really get a feel how
Schiaparelli

must've felt coming in here in 1906.

It's...
It's a rare treat, it really is.

The wealth of objects that had been
discovered in the tomb

testify to the great investment
Kha and Meryt had made.

Of their hundreds of belongings,
many have been designed

and made at great expense,
purely for use in the afterlife.

This intricate statuette of Kha
shows him

with his palms on his starched kilt,
a sign of humility before the gods.

Such statues were idealised,

a vision of how the deceased wanted
to look in the afterlife.

It was also insurance
providing an alternative home

for your soul in case anything
happened to your mummified body.

The kilt is also inscribed with
a funerary prayer

and a small garland of real flowers
still hangs around Kha's chest.

One of the most precious
purpose-made items found in the tomb

is Meryt's fabulous death mask.

Made with great skill and with
costly materials, the eyes,

brows and decorative collar
are made with coloured glass

which the Egyptians had only begun
to manufacture in Kha's lifetime.

Cheaper yellow ochre was often
used to imitate gold

but Kha had chosen the real
thing for Meryt's mask

which is covered in precious
gold leaf.

But the most costly of all,
worth well over a year's wages,

was the coffin in which Meryt was
buried -

again, covered in gold leaf.

Almost certainly intended for Kha,
it is only inscribed with his name.

But it was used for Meryt because
it seems she died first.

But how did Meryt die?

Was it the result of a long illness
or was it a sudden death,

perhaps in an accident?

We've been granted special
permission to examine Kha

and Meryt's mummies
and their CT scans.

In order to preserve the mummies -

they cannot be unwrapped,
of course -

but the scans allow us to see what
lies beneath the wrappings.

I've asked pathologist
Peter Vanezis

and radiologist Curtis Offiah
to take a look at Meryt's CT scans

to see what they reveal about her
on the day she died.

She's certainly not in the early
20s, I would've put her

more in the middle age group so 30s,
possibly even 40s.

Yes, I would certainly agree
with that.

There is a good indication
here of lifestyle.

The fact her joints are quite
well preserved indicates

she's led rather a charmed life,
so to speak.

She's had a pretty lucky existence

and I would say she probably lived
in the lap of luxury.

There's certainly no indication
there of any chronic disease

which has affected her bones.

There's no indication that she has
perhaps been lying immobile

for a long time because that would
reflect

in the density of the bone
structure as well

so my feeling is that she's either
had a very short illness

or she's died suddenly. Mm.
Possibly unexpectedly.

'So Meryt's death left Kha
little time to prepare.'

'But the costly and time-consuming
process of mummification

'had to begin immediately.'

Mummification was a way to
preserve the body

so it could provide a home
for the soul in the afterlife.

The process took around 70 days
and the first step was to remove

the internal organs to prevent
decomposition.

This included the brain which was
usually removed down the nose.

But Meryt's scans reveal
something very surprising.

This is a cross-section
looking down into Meryt's skull

through the top of her head.

As you can see quite clearly,
this white feature is in fact

her brain which has fallen down to
the back of her head

and wasn't removed.
So what? Why is this important?

Well, what it tells us

is that there were other ways to
preserve the brain.

The next step was to dry out
the body, which took about 40 days.

This usually involved piling dry
salt on top of the corpse

to draw out all the body fluids.

But analysis of Meryt's mummy
has revealed that she was

preserved differently.

Instead of using dry salt,
Meryt had in fact been

submerged in a highly
concentrated salt solution -

essentially, pickling her.

This allowed her organs to
remain inside the body,

without causing decay.

If you look at the angle at which
the brain has fallen to

the back of the skull, it appears to
be on a tilt because the body,

when it was draining out,
was laid at a different angle,

a slightly different angle, at a
tilt to allow the fluids,

which would've initiated
decomposition,

to completely leave,
to exit the body.

It may have been the most up-to-date
preservation technique

but it didn't come cheap.

And once Meryt's body had been
dried out,

she was wrapped in layers of costly
linen and an outer red shroud.

But the expense didn't stop there.

By chemically analysing minute
samples of Meryt's wrapping,

we found something intriguing.
Oil from the tilapia fish.

Yet this oil had no preservative
power, it was purely symbolic.

And it set Meryt apart,

for there was something special
about this fish.

What the tilapia does is to take
its young into its mouth

in times of danger and when the
danger has passed,

to then spit them out back into the
water

and when the Egyptians saw this,

they saw it as a miraculous thing,
as if it was a self generating fish

that could simply spit out
its young in this way.

And so by association, the tilapia
became connected directly

with the goddess Hathor
and fertility and rebirth.

'This fish oil, which was also mixed
with exotic, imported ingredients,

'would've cost Kha a small fortune.

'But it was worth it if it put Meryt
on a fast-track to the afterlife.'

But Kha's efforts didn't
even stop there.

As in today's most exclusive
nightclubs, the Egyptians knew

that they had to look their best to
gain admittance to the afterlife.

The scans reveal Meryt was all
dressed up for death.

And under her wrappings
she still wears

an amazing array of jewellery.

So, what today would form
a treasured inheritance

went with her into the afterlife.

The most striking piece is this
huge, broad collar necklace.

And to find out what it looks like,

I've come to
the Petrie Museum in London.

It houses one of
the most comprehensive

collections of Egyptian
jewellery in the world.

Now, what we've got
in front of us here

is an absolutely superb
broad collar necklace.

It's the typical Egyptian necklace

that you see in the tomb scenes
and in the art,

and it's basically made up
of numerous little moulded amulets

that have been made in these
sumptuous, jewel-like colours.

And this is exactly the same thing
that Meryt still wears,

her mummy is still adorned
in this beautiful broad collar,

which we can see on the image
of Meryt here.

Now, the top five rows were made up
of these rather elongated,

green beads, and they are
actually cos lettuces.

Now, the lettuce was sacred
to the fertility god, Min,

and, in wanting to be laid out
in a necklace such as this,

it basically associates Meryt with
this god of fertility, of new life.

You have then two more rows of
what look like mini hand grenades,

and they're actually
bunches of grapes, these blue,

shiny bunches of the grapes,
which not only, again,

look very beautiful,
but produce the wine

which was something sacred
to Hathor,

the goddess of sex,
of love, of new life,

the goddess who took
the dead into her care.

And Meryt was effectively dressed
in a collar like this,

not only to look beautiful,
but to associate her

with these two deities
who were so intimately involved

in new life, in rebirth,
in eternal life.

As well as the broad collar,

Meryt wears two pairs
of huge gold earrings,

and around her waist a belt of gold
cowrie shells similar to this one.

She was laid out to appear
very seductive,

and we know this from tomb scenes
where dancers, musicians,

those associated
with the goddess Hathor

appear almost naked at this time.

They're wearing broad collars,
they're wearing huge earrings,

their hair is very beautiful,
and they have these gold belts

with little cowrie shells
and coloured elements

to look very alluring,
very erotic,

capable of sex and of producing
the next generation.

So, it can only be compared,
perhaps,

to laying out a modern woman
in like a negligee -

a vital, sexual being,

as capable of living in the next
world as she had been in this one.

So, Meryt didn't want to spend
eternity as a wise old lady

but as a youthful
and attractive woman.

In the afterlife, you wanted to be
the very best you could be.

And Kha made sure Meryt also
had her most personal belongings

with her, all carefully prepared.

One of her most prized possessions
was her magnificent wig.

It was housed in its own tall box,

to which funerary prayers
had then been added.

This one on the lid reads:

Some of her other possessions
were also adapted

for Meryt's journey
into the afterlife.

This is her bed,
which she'd used in life.

It was now repainted
to freshen it up.

Another funerary inscription
was added along the side.

Kha clearly gave careful thought

and spared no expense when preparing
his wife for eternity.

And, although he'd
overseen her burial,

Meryt probably remained
very much alive to him.

It's even likely he would have
continued to communicate with her.

We know the Egyptians actually wrote
to their dead relatives

about all sorts of things,

from the mundane to the serious,
in notes like this.

What we're looking at here

is one of the so-called
Letters To The Dead,

and it's a pottery bowl,
it's a piece of everyday tableware.

And the amazing thing about this is
it's actually inscribed in black ink

by a woman wanting to communicate
with her dead husband.

And we know for a fact that
the living wrote to the dead.

They sent them letters on papyrus,

on small pieces of limestone,
on ostraca.

She says, "Oh, husband,
you should be here helping me.

"Settled the score with him
who does what's painful to me,

"for surely I shall triumph
over anyone, dead or alive,

"acting against me
and our daughter."

It's that typical, you know,
"Where are you? What are you doing?

"You might have died, but that's
not really an excuse, is it?

"Come on, help me."

And it expresses this real belief
that the dead can help the living,

that they had just
passed through

into a different sphere
of existence.

And this woman is maintaining
the dialogue

that she would have had on Earth.

She's bending her husband's ear.

But the ancient Egyptians
didn't only communicate

with their dead through writing.

They also did it through play.

THEY LAUGH

Now, we're playing the ancient
Egyptian game of Senet.

It's a board game that the
Egyptians absolutely loved.

It dates back to at least 3000 BC

and was played by kings
and commoners alike.

It was the ancient Egyptians'
version of turning on a soap opera

on TV at night, putting their
feet up and enjoying themselves.

'Senet was essentially a race,
a game of chance.

'It is used in the Book Of The Dead
as a metaphor

'for the journey into
the next world.'

We're having a bit of a stab of it
there, and it is quite fun,

but I'm sure we don't get
the complexities

and the nuances that were inherent
in the ancient Egyptian version,

because for them it symbolised
the ultimate game of chance.

To succeed at Senet meant
you succeeded in life

and succeeded in the transition
from this world to the next.

Hence, the living
played it not only at home

but also in close proximity
to the tombs.

Because, by playing this game,
step by step,

they were assisting the transition
of their deceased relatives through

all the perils and problems they
might encounter in the underworld.

And so it kind of was
a reflection of the great unknown

to play Senet -
the outcome was never sure.

Would you win,
or would death ultimately triumph?

You win!

THEY LAUGH

This Senet board was
one of the items found
in Kha and Meryt's tomb.

And Kha might have played this
game close to their chapel,

hoping to ease Meryt's path
through the underworld.

As there had probably been
an age gap between them in life,

it seems it wasn't long
before Kha died, too.

Peter and Curtis are examining
the scans of his body.

In terms of an age, I would have
to put him of greater years

than Meryt, and I think
we're probably talking

50s onwards, I think, at least,
so maybe even 60s to 70s.

The skeleton is of a very healthy -
for his years - specimen.

We're not seeing any evidence
of broken bones

or chronic healing
of fractures in the spine.

Looking at the skeleton overall,
and the fact that he has got

bones which look sturdy,
he hasn't got anything

which indicates
that he's had a chronic disease,

so, again, I think, like his wife,
he has probably led

a reasonably healthy life
up until close to when he died.

So, Kha died quite suddenly,
like his wife,

And, like Meryt,
Kha would have undergone

the costly mummification process.

Again, his brain remains inside
his skull cavity, just like hers.

He, too,
wears large hoop earrings,

and valuable jewellery
around his neck.

But the scans also shows something
else, placed on his forehead.

This is a snake's head,
the head of a cobra,

beautifully rendered in
carnelian, an orange stone,

with the two menacing eyes of the
cobra and the ridges on the body.

This amulet was used to provide
refreshment to the throat
in the afterlife,

since it refers to the way
a snake's throat swells out.

So it should really have been
placed on Kha's throat,

and not on his forehead.

The only people in ancient Egypt
allowed to have the cobra

at the forehead was
the king and the queen.

So, I like to think
that the embalmers

were paying their own
little tribute to Kha.

They're sort of elevating Kha
in death.

He was their leader, he was
their chief, he was their overseer,

and the people in the
village were maybe paying
their own special tribute,

and so he was sent off into eternity

like a mini king in his own
mini kingdom. I love that.

Kha was an important man
in the village.

As such, the next step of
his journey to the afterlife

would have been a grand affair.

His funeral would have begun
with a magnificent procession

up to their chapel, just as Meryt's
would have done before him.

The great procession would have
wended its way up this path,

up towards the cliffs
up there, where their tomb
was actually situated.

Now, it's hard, here today,
to try and get a sense

of the noise, the colour, the life.

That's a good word, actually,
at a funeral ceremony, "the life".

The vivacity of all the ingredients
that the ancient Egyptians

brought to their funeral ceremonies,
because they were all there

to try and get
the dead to live again.

Life, in some ways,
was almost a dress rehearsal

for this very moment,
when the funeral ceremony

marked the transition
between this world and the next.

The dead were going to be reborn
in the safety of their tombs.

So, it's essential that all the
equipment they'd used in their lives

and all the equipment that was there
to give them a good send-off

came with them, accompanied them
into the darkness of the tomb,

where everything would work
in tandem to revive

the soul of the deceased and
send them off into eternity.

And, as Kha's body in
its nest of coffins was
carried towards his tomb,

all his worldly possessions would,
of course, have accompanied him.

These wall scenes give a real sense
of what the procession
would have looked like.

This is the tomb
of Ramos, governor of Thebes,

who lived at the same time
as Kha and Meryt.

Now, this is a really colourful,

lively portrayal
of a funeral procession.

You can see these sort of rows
of men, of servants and bearers,

carrying all the belongings
of the deceased.

You can see the bed
made up with the bed linen,

the headrest which acted as
a pillow, just like Kha and Meryt's.

You've got these beautiful
painted wooden boxes

carrying all the personal
items of the deceased.

A walking stick, just like Kha's.

Then you've got the chair
of the deceased,

just like the one that Kha
would have sat on that
was found in his tomb.

You've got all sorts of things -

the jars of perfume, the flowers,
the food and drink.

WEEPING

A funeral on this scale
didn't come cheap,

and these scenes reveal
yet another expense.

These are professional mourners.

They were hired to make
the maximum noise possible

to give the deceased a great
send-off,

because the higher the
decibel level, the more important
this individual was.

Their plaits are dishevelled
and if you look really closely,

they're crying.

They're such professionals,
they're crying so much,

forcing themselves to produce tears,
their black eyeliner is running.

Any women that wear mascara
understand the problem.

You start to cry,
the make-up runs down your face.

The ancient artist has portrayed
this so beautifully

with these dots of black
coming down the women's faces.

Once the procession had
reached their chapel

it was time for yet another
elaborate and opulent ritual.

The Opening of the Mouth ceremony,

a 75-stage, sensory assault
to reanimate

the soul of the deceased
within their mummified body.

In order for this to happen,

every one of the five senses
needed to be reawakened.

Having dragged the huge,
black sarcophagus of Kha

all the way up here on ropes,

the bearers would carefully raise up

Kha's black and gold
anthropoid coffin

and place it here looking out,

exactly where I'm sitting today,

as if Kha was preparing to be

relaunched into the next world
if you like.

It would have been a very dramatic,
profound moment for the family

as Kha once again stood upright

in front of his tomb chapel

and at this point the eldest son,
Amenopet,

would have stepped forward
with the special chisel.

He would have touched his father's
mouth symbolically

like this,

to reanimate his power of speech,
of breathing,

so the eyes would have been
magically opened,

the ears touched

so Kha could once
again hear in the next world

and all his senses restored.

The ritual would also be
performed on Kha's statuette,

his insurance policy should
his mummified body be destroyed.

And it was vital that the
sense of smell was restored,

so incense too would be presented.

The Egyptians loved to present
flowers to the dead

from the characteristic water lily,
or the white and blue lotus,

which are often shown in tomb scenes
being literally pressed against

the noses of the deceased,
so they could inhale that fragrance.

To restore the sense of taste

delicious food offerings
were presented.

And after the Opening of the Mouth
ceremony had finished,

the funeral party moved on to
the tomb for the final burial,

where an entire banquet
was laid out.

This was for Kha
and Meryt to enjoy in the afterlife.

What we see in front of us here
in glorious Technicolor

is basically the food that was
found in the tomb

and it's quite wonderful stuff.

You have the staple of your ancient
Egyptian life,

the bread accompanied by the
all-important onions and garlic.

This was the standard workman's
packed lunch.

One of these on a daily basis with
the garlic here,

that's an ancient Egyptian packed
lunch, a glass of beer,

an ancient Egyptian ploughman's.

And we do know that in the case of
the onions and garlic

when Schiaparelli
and his team went into the tomb

they smelt them.

For 3,500 years they were
still as pungent as the day

they'd been placed there.

No fewer than 50 loaves of bread
were found in the tomb,

along with jars of roast duck, fish,

bowls of vegetables,
fruit and spices.

There were grapes,
dates and these amazing things.

He had several
sackloads of these - doum palm nuts.

Although I've never personally
eaten one

they apparently taste
like caramel.

All this kind of food
in the tomb of Kha and Meryt

set out very
carefully as a kind of

formal banquet for the deceased

would have allowed the very souls
of Kha and Meryt

to have enjoyed the very
essence of all this food.

But Kha's Book of the Dead

shows he wanted his afterlife to be
fuelled by drink as well as food.

This is spell 148
in the Book of the Dead,

which is basically the spell of
provisioning

the soul of the deceased
in the next world

with all
the food and drink that they need.

As well as the desire for goose,
for beef,

for wine and so forth,

the basis of Kha's wish list
is the standard bread and beer

that formed the basis of the ancient
Egyptian diet

for rich and poor alike

throughout the whole of ancient
Egyptian culture.

In fact the word "beer"
does appear rather often.

Here with the twisted symbol,

the small, black one here,

and then this wonderful
determinative of the beer jar.

But it's this
repetition of the word "beer",

this desire of Kha to have beer to
drink for eternity -

if you like, an eternal supply
of beer. Which can be no bad thing.

They wanted to enjoy
an eternal banquet

but there was also work to be done.

In ancient Egypt, just about
everyone was obliged to work
the land.

Even death was no excuse

so you needed figurines like these,

found in Kha and Meryt's tomb.

Known as "shabti figures" they were
the little helpers who would

do all the work for you
in the afterlife.

They even have their own
miniature farming tools.

So with all the work taken care of,
Kha and Meryt,

like all ancient Egyptians,

intended to have a really good time.

This is clear to
see from the scenes in their chapel.

It's OK trying to understand ancient
Egypt on a visual level,

everybody does that - pyramids,
King Tut, mummies.

But to really get into the heads
of the ancient Egyptians

you've got to walk in their
footsteps, you've got to experience

the senses they experienced and one
of these, a crucial one, is sound.

What did it sound like to
be in ancient Egypt?

And this is Kha and Meryt giving us
an idea of that.

Here we have Kha and Meryt's band.

These are the musicians
playing their music

to sort of lull them into eternity.

And it's quite a pacey number

because the lute player's legs
are shown asymmetrically

to give a kind of sense of movement,

maybe dancing.

The ancient Egyptians, then as now,

loved music, loved to dance,

loved to express
themselves in a joyful manner.

These musicians
are from the University of Cairo.

Using images from wall scenes

and surviving ancient instruments,

they've been able to recreate
ancient Egyptian music.

WIND INSTRUMENT
PLAYS OVER DRUMS

Kha was finally laid to
rest in his tomb.

His large black sarcophagus
was already waiting for him.

The belongings of Kha and Meryt
were set out all around them

and covered in dust sheets.

Then, leaving the lamps still lit,

the funeral party left the burial
chamber, sweeping away

their footprints as they went

and locking the wooden door
behind them.

LOCK TURNS

The workmen then bricked up
and plastered the two walls

and backfilled the tunnel
with rubble.

But Kha's journey into the afterlife
was not yet complete.

No matter how much you'd spent,
there was one final test

that all Egyptians must pass.

Although this scene dates from about
1,000 years after Kha's time,

it clearly depicts the crucial
moment

in the soul's journey
to the afterlife.

This remarkable scene

is known as
the Weighing of the Heart.

It's the ultimate
judgement of the dead.

It shows that the deceased,
their soul,

has successfully negotiated all
the hazards into the next world

to arrive here at the ultimate
Hall of Judgement.

It's presided over by the goddess
Ma'at, the goddess of truth,

who is shown here with
the feather of truth,

which she wears as a kind
of crown on her head.

At the far end is the goddess Iris,

the kind of ultimate
judge of all dead souls.

He's here to watch over these
proceedings

because we have here
central to the scene

a typical Egyptian-style balance.

And here on this pan

it's the heart
of the deceased individual

and it's being weighed very
carefully against this.

This is the feather of Ma'at
which she wears on her head.

It represents truth, goodness,
purity.

If the deceased had lived a good
and blameless life,

their heart would be light
and free of sin.

However, if they'd been naughty,
bad,

done anything to upset the gods,

then the heart would be
heavy with sin.

And as such, they couldn't then pass
through

into a blessed afterlife,
into eternity.

And so the heart was literally taken
up like a piece of meat

and thrown to this terrifying
creature here.

This is the Great Devourer,

a kind of terrible
composite of lions' parts

a sort of crocodile- or
hippo-featured being

with the tongue out

dribbling at the
thought of a fresh heart to consume.

And it's at this point

that the deceased would
ultimately die.

This would be dying a second death,
the final death.

Earthly death isn't anything to be
afraid of

because you pass through into
a subliminal state of existence,

if you've been good.

All evil souls, their hearts were
fed to this creature,

consumed, and that was it,
finished for ever.

But once again there was something
you could buy to help you

through this final trial.

And Kha's scans show that
on a chain around his neck

there is also a large amulet
known as a heart scarab.

This example from the Petrie
Museum

gives us a sense of what it
actually looks like.

For the Egyptians the heart was
the seat of all learning,

of all intelligence.

When the deceased's spirit
was in the presence of the gods

in the next world and had to
account for their actions in life,

had they lead a good life,
they were interrogated by the gods.

Sometimes there was always
the danger the heart might

suddenly speak up against its owner.

"Oh, well, they didn't lead such
a blameless life after all."

And so the heavy heart scarab was
a means of suppressing the heart,

keeping it quiet.

The spell invokes, employs
the heart, "Keep quiet,

"do not give false witness
against me."

Basically, "Shut it."

So it seems that Kha had purchased
every form of insurance

he possibly could to ensure
the perfect afterlife

that he and Meryt had always
dreamed of.

From their elaborate golden coffins,

to their well hidden,
subterranean tomb

and expensively
decorated Memorial Chapel.

And, of course, the intricate Book
of the Dead

in which Kha describes

how he wants to spend his eternity.

In Kha's Book of the Dead by far
the largest section,

200 separate rolls,

are devoted to the so-called
spells of transformation

listing all the variations that Kha
wanted his soul to become,

all the many forms
he could take in the afterlife.

A lot of these relate to birds,

the soul wants to rise up to join
the gods

and fly through the heavens.

He wanted to be a Phoenix,
he wanted to be a heron,

he wanted to be a great, golden
sparrowhawk.

Yet I think for me what is most
poignant

is that in addition to all these
various things

that he could become at will

his heart's desire was simply to sit

with his beloved wife Meryt
in a garden

in the summerhouse.

Now, for us in the modern West

it's all too easy to see these
elaborate preparations for death

as completely pointless.

Death is death and that is that.

And yet, and yet.

Having met Kha and Meryt,

having entered their world,

I think they've really achieved
a kind of immortality

because 3,500 years later,

we're still talking about them.

The ancient Egyptians truly
believed that to speak

the name of the dead was to
make them live again.

And surely they do.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd