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Egypt's Great Pyramid...

..the only survivor of the seven
wonders of the ancient world.

The Great Pyramid wasn't just
a building,

it is where the king would have
lived eternally.

Nothing on this scale had ever
been built before.

It all started with a quest to make
a gigantic pyramid that was perfect.

Exactly how a Bronze Age society

managed to haul and fit together
2.5 million stone blocks

is one of the world's
greatest enigmas.

Today, archaeologists may finally be
able to solve this mystery,

thanks to extraordinary
new evidence.

An entombed ship being excavated
right now

at the foot of the pyramid.

These boats were
made for the afterlife.

And the long-lost journal
of a sailor that is being decoded.

While leading experts to
investigative ships

and ancient waterways

could actually have been the key
to this desert build.

It's the infrastructure behind the
construction of the pyramid

that, for me, is fascinating.

Now, this team is about to undertake
a unique experiment...

..to put these new
theories to the test...

..to see if they can finally
unravel the secret

of how the Great Pyramid was
built...

..and how Khufu's innovations
transformed his country.

The Great Pyramid of Giza is
the tomb of a god king named Khufu.

He commissioned it over
4,500 years ago

as a giant fortress to keep his
corpse safe for eternity.

This was an essential requirement to
prosper in the afterlife.

Khufu designed his tomb to be
the biggest burial chamber

ever seen in Egypt.

To build it, more than six million
tonnes of stone

had to be sourced and hauled here.

This wasn't just for the
140-metre-high cull

that we see today,

but also for the brilliant
white casing

that's been plundered over time.

Archaeologist Mark Lehner believes

that this lost outer layer
of limestone

was one of the most striking
elements of the pyramid's design.

This is some of the last
remaining casing stones,

here at the centre of
the north base.

That's what they used to cloak
the outer pyramid,

making joins so tight you can't get
a knife blade in-between.

So, I mean, truly it
was otherworldly.

They didn't want you to see
the human hand,

they wanted it to be a huge
special effect.

Sourcing the 170,000 tonnes of
high-quality limestone

to encase the pyramid was Khufu's
biggest challenge.

This could only be mined from
faraway quarries

at a place called Tora.

Nobody has ever been completely sure

how so much stone was brought to
Giza to complete the build

in just over a quarter of a century.

But now new evidence is revealing
that Khufu

may only have managed this with a
fleet of specially built boats

and highly trained sailors.

Today, at the foot of the pyramid,

a unique find is shining
light on this theory.

These pieces of wood are in fact
a dismantled boat.

A ceremonial ship that Khufu would
command in the afterlife.

It's a unique insight
into the vessels used at the time.

Eissa Zidan oversees the excavation.

Figuring out how this boat was built

could help investigators understand
the shipping technology

that was used to transport stone
from distant quarries

to the pyramid's construction site.

But time has taken its toll
on the wood...

..and reassembling it is a
challenge.

This plank represents one of
the larger planks

that we've worked on...so far.

There will be bigger ones, I'm sure,

but this one is about eight and half
metres long.

Presumably one of the depth
planks near the edge of the boat.

If I can make this plank strong
and stable,

then we can learn a lot from the
material, from the boat itself.

It's like a giant, but very fragile
jigsaw puzzle.

So, the team uses new technology to
help them find answers safely.

The 3-D scans reveal that holes in
many of the planks line up.

Channels like this would have been
used to loop rope through.

It's clear that Khufu's huge boat
was literally sewn together.

Now investigators have found
evidence that rope wasn't just used

to hold ceremonial ships together,

it was also used to build
rock-carrying boats too.

The discovery was made 150 miles
away in Wadi Al-Jarf.

Here, archaeologists,
including Severine Marchi,

are unearthing fragments of vessels

that were stored securely
when not in use.

They believe they were designed
to transport stone.

Investigators working here
want to know exactly how

these boats were used for the
pyramid build.

And another find unearthed just
metres away

is proving to be one of the most
crucial new pieces of evidence.

Archaeologist Pierre Tallet has
found an ancient scroll of papyrus.

It's taken Pierre four
years of painstaking analysis

to decipher the papyrus fully.

It reveals in great detail

how sailors worked on the
pyramid's construction.

The author was a man called Merer.

He was an overseer in charge
of a cargo boat...

..and a team of 40 elite workmen.

He describes how his team's
daunting job

was transporting the pyramid's
precious white casing stones...

..along the River Nile.

It's the only first-hand account

of the construction of the
Great Pyramid.

The ceremonial ship,

Merer's papyrus,

and the remains of his cargo vessel

are giving investigators a
new insight

into the vital role boats played in
the pyramid's construction.

Now they want to uncover what it
actually took

to ship such vast quantities
of stone.

In Cairo, one archaeologist
is devising

a bespoke experiment to find out.

Mohamed Abd El-Maguid and his team

aim to learn more of Merer's journey

by recreating every step of it.

Mohamed's plan is to build a wooden
cargo boat

using Merer's ancient techniques...

..and cut a casing stone from the
same quarry that he used.

He will then attempt to sail the
stone block across the Nile

before dragging
it to the foot of the pillar.

Mohamed's first challenge is to
construct the vessel.

But no complete cargo boats from
the time have ever been unearthed.

So, what did it look like?

To find out,

Mohamed is searching for clues
inside the underground tomb.

It's the final resting
place for a man called Ti.

There are no first-hand accounts of
how Merer built his cargo boat,

so deciphering these scenes

helps Mohamed select the right
tools and techniques.

Mohamed can tell that the Egyptians
made their boats

strong enough to carry huge rocks

through the precision and strength
of their joinery.

But most importantly,

Mohamed can finally see what these
cargo boats really looked like

and the exact shape they took.

Now he can draw up plans
for his vessel...

..and his team can begin to build.

They need to fit each of the
planks together

before starting the job of stitching
them tight.

Mohamed's designing this vessel to
carry one average-sized casing stone

weighing two and half tonnes.

But building boats was only
part of the answer

to finishing Khufu's pyramid.

These vessels needed to get far
closer to the construction site

than the Nile would allow.

The solution would involve another
ambitious engineering project

that would completely
transform the landscape.

New discoveries in Egypt

are revealing how highly skilled
shipping teams

were the key to building the
Great Pyramid.

Now, at this workshop
in Cairo, Mohamed Abd el-Maguid

is constructing a replica
wooden vessel...

like the one used by the ancient
sailor Merer.

It's part of an experiment

to investigate how boats transported
the pyramid's heavy casing stones.

Mohamed's team is using techniques
learned from ancient tomb carvings

to assemble the
eight-metre-long boat.

Now they're ready to fix the
pieces together

by stitching them with rope,

just like the ceremonial
ship of the pharaoh Khufu.

The team threads over three miles
of rope...

..through holes along the length
of the vessel.

After months of planning
and construction...

the boat is finally finished.

At this nearby quarry, archaeologist
Adel Kelany leads a team

that's mining the stone block
for Mohamed's vessel to transport.

Carved from Tora limestone,

it will be just like the casing
stones Merer shipped to the pyramid.

It's quite important to have very
little cracks,

one colour, the hardness is
OK and good, and in general,

this is a good spot for
cutting the stone.

This is a chisel with a
pointed edge

and this is actually one of the main
tools that ancient Egyptians used.

The sound actually with hammering,

it was kind of like music
for the workmen.

It kept them active.

It takes 12 workers two hours to
hack deep into the rock

to rough out the shape of the block.

The stone is completely free
from the whole site,

but the bottom, which is really the
most important

and also the most difficult part.

OK, guys, it's working.

Now they need to lever
the block off the quarry face

and roll it onto flatter
ground below.

CHATTERING

CHATTERING

Merer would investigate the blocks

before transporting them to
his boat,

otherwise it would be a big
problem for him.

The block passes inspection
and is ready for shipping.

But there's still a missing
piece in the puzzle.

For ships to be effective,

they needed to get far closer to the
pyramid than the Nile would allow.

Now, in Wadi al-Jarf,

Pierre Tallet is decoding the
long-lost journal of sailor Merer

to find out how the ancient
Egyptians achieved this.

It turns out that Merer's skills
may have included engineering.

He writes that his crew were
involved in a scheme

to transform the landscape.

They opened giant dykes
to divert water from the Nile...

..and channel it to the pyramid
through man-made canals.

Now archaeologists are uncovering
evidence of this

at the Giza Plateau.

On the surface,

there's no sign of any canals
at this site,

but Mark Lehner, who's been
investigating the pyramid

for more than 40 years, and is one
of the world's leading experts,

thinks that clues lie underground.

He's collected samples of earth
from the plateau

to help track down the lost
waterway.

For many metres the drill chords
came up with nothing but dry sand

and then suddenly they came down
onto very concentrated, thick silt.

The contrast couldn't be more stark.

And the several metres of this
concentrated clay

told us that there must be an
ancient waterway,

so we knew Nile water had to
be there,

filling an ancient waterway with
that clay and silt.

We've outlined a central
canal basin,

which we think was the primary
delivery area

to the foot of the Giza Plateau.

Mark have discovered how ancient
pyramid builders

completely re-engineered
this landscape.

They dug a series of deep
canals by hand...

..and created an inland port...

..when Merer's men opened
the dykes.

The Nile's water filled these
cuttings to the brim.

This allowed his heavily-laden
boat to dock

within just a few hundred metres
of the pyramid.

Without this clever hydraulic
engineering,

it would have been impossible to
ship in casing stones...

..and complete Khufu's pyramid
on time.

But the scale of these works was
beginning to change the country too.

Khufu started something that must
have been, truly,

a very complex port city,

perhaps the largest port city
of its kind.

And that's why I'm more interested,

not in how the Egyptians built
the pyramids,

but how the pyramids helped to
build Egypt.

Water was key to Khufu being able
to construct his Great Pyramid.

But the mighty Nile wasn't just
vital for transport,

Khufu also used it to get people to
devote their lives

to the construction of his tomb.

The nation believed that their own
god king

controlled the river's flow

and that pleasing him was essential

to ensuring they had enough water.

On an island in the Nile,
Egyptologist Salima Ikram

is investigating this link between
the river and the pharaoh's power.

The Nile was key to
Egyptian civilisation.

Without the Nile,
Egypt wouldn't have existed.

This is a nilometer, built to
measure annual floods

that were not only important
for shipping loads to the pyramids,

but also for irrigating land.

The water would come in and it would
climb and climb and climb

as the flood rose, and you could see
all of these markings here

that measure the height.

In Khufu's time, a good
flood suggested

the pharaoh was pleased with his
people

and a bountiful harvest would
follow.

About here is where it would have
been an ideal flood situation.

Too far below, people would have
been starving to death.

Too far above, they would have been
washed away,

so there was no-one left to starve.

Khufu's supposed power
over the Nile

gave him incredible control
over his people.

The king was Egypt, the land of
Egypt, and that also meant the Nile.

So, if the land was fertile
and strong,

it meant that was because the king
was strong and good.

If the Nile was failing,

it clearly meant that there was
something wrong with the king,

so the king's success and his
strength as a ruler,

in fact, was also very much tied to
the strength and power of the Nile.

Without the Nile,

the Great Pyramid would have been
impossible to build.

The river was a source of power
over workforce

and the only way to
transport enough stone.

Now investigators are ready
to recreate

one sailor's dangerous mission

to discover first-hand exactly
what it involved.

In Egypt, archaeologists
are investigating whether boats

and elite teams of sailors were
the secret to building

Khufu's Great Pyramid.

They've uncovered the long lost
journal of the sailor called Merer,

who transported huge quantities
of stone along the Nile to the

pyramid site.

Mohamed Abd El-Maguid and his team
are conducting an experiment

to discover exactly how he did it.

Like the ancient Egyptians,

they've built a boat that is sewn
together by rope alone.

They're about to find out

if it will take
the load of a Pyramid block.

Merer's team would
assemble their vessels on the shore

and slide them to the
water on wooden rollers.

The ancient Egyptians knew that
water would initially

seep into these stitched-together
boats...

..but this would make
the joints swell.

And Mohamed's boat is slowly
becoming watertight.

It's a successful launch.

But can the boat hold
the weight of a heavy stone block?

Pyramid construction would
grind to a standstill

if rocks were delivered late.

So sailors like Merer had to work,
exacting timetable.

In Wadi Al-Jarf, Pierre Tallet has
been decoding Merer's journal,

to find out how sailors working
on the monument were organised

and motivated to avoid delays.

The papyrus shows that Khufu
divided his workers into teams

with clear responsibilities
and targets.

A crew of 40 men, like Merer lead,
was known as a "file".

Four files formed
a "gang" of 160 elite labourers.

And it took many of these gangs to
make up a huge workforce,

thousands strong.

Khufu didn't have general labourers.

He had focused, elite squads.

Pierre's team is investigating
another discovery

unearthed at Wadi Al-Jarf.

These water jars reveal how each
file was given its own clear

identity as motivation.

These pots reveal that
Merer's file was called

"the followers of the boat"...

..named after the snake
on its figurehead.

Pierre's crew is uncovering team
names on hundreds of objects,

found right across the site.

They've discovered the identities
of six separate boat crews so far.

By giving each file a clear
identity,

Khufu may have deliberately

fostered a sense of pride
and competition among his workers.

On the banks of the Nile, Mohamed's
team is ready to recreate

the specific task assigned
to Merer's file.

The ancient Egyptians probably
dragged rocks onto their boats

over wooden ramps from jetties.

Their heavy cargo had to be placed

evenly across the vessel
to prevent it capsizing.

They check the hull for leaks.

Mohamed's team discovers that
boats stitched together with

nothing more than rope really can
cope with heavy loads.

Now, they'll attempt to sail
the vessel across the mighty Nile.

The limestone block will make it
difficult to both propel

and to steer.

But Merer's papyrus reveals
the best way to do it.

He writes that the quarries were
upstream from the Pyramid.

This meant that when the boat was
fully loaded his team could

paddle quickly with the current.

Then they used regular northerly
winds to sail their empty boat

back against the flow.

Mohamed's crew will try to
manoeuvre their cargo

straight across the Nile.

That's far shorter than Merer's
regular run.

The rocking of the boat is causing
the limestone to slip.

If the rock keeps sliding,
the boat could capsize.

They need to get control.

Heading straight across the Nile
is only making it worse.

So they decide to row with
the current and head downstream...

..just like Merer.

Rudders at the stern angle the
vessel towards the opposite shore.

Finally they approach safe harbour.

It's clear how skilful the ancient
Egyptians must have been,

to transport 70 tonnes
of stone at a time.

Adel's team will take over
from here.

They'll investigate how workers
hauled these stones from the water

right up to the Pyramid face
using manpower alone.

When they delivered their heavy
cargo to the Pyramid site,

Merer and his team would
overnight here.

Khufu needed to look
after his workforce

to keep them healthy and motivated.

And archaeologist Mark Lehner
thinks that housing them

by the port played a role.

Here he's uncovered
the ruins of a whole lost town.

Are we on the spot where Merer
and his men stayed overnight?

We put a grid over the whole
place in order to map it.

And then we can decide where to
excavate, down to the floor level,

to the houses
and places where they lived.

New walls were built to protect
the original ruins.

And these now reveal how
buildings were laid out.

Mark thinks this one is a style
appropriate for a team leader

like Merer.

You come into the main living room.

Now, opening off this same central
room, you also have,

in effect, his bedroom.

This is a rather substantial
sleeping platform, as we call them.

And so it's just about the right
length, you know, for

an official of moderate height,
like myself, to stretch out.

But houses like this were too grand

for the workers that Merer
commanded.

Around each of these house compounds
I expected to find smaller

houses of the dependants.

Well, we found some of that.

But in the centre of the site
we found something very different.

Mark has unearthed the outline of a
building that is 35 metres long.

It's the perfect size to
sleep 40 people.

The number of workers that
Merer's journal suggests

he's likely to have
had in his team.

The thick walls supported arches
and a flat roof.

Laid side-by-side, these barrack
blocks were an efficient

way of housing a huge workforce.

The structure Mark's found here was
used just after Merer's time.

But he thinks his team was put
up in similar vast, modern blocks,

just like this.

This would have been occupation
of a density unseen

anywhere else in Egypt,

in any village or town
site of that time.

Providing adequate accommodation was
only part of Khufu's problem.

Investigators want to find out how
he fed the thousands of hungry

labourers working here.

Archaeologist Claire Malleson is
looking for clues.

These are samples of ash
from within

one of the houses of the town.

And the plants are preserved
when they're charred,

and we can identify what
plant it is just by the shape.

Wheat is the most important
crop for making bread.

To feed just the individuals staying
in the barracks area,

it would need over 200 loaves of
bread a day.

This was food production
on an industrial scale,

and Claire has found the proof.

So we've got various different
sizes of bread mould.

The mould itself
weighs about seven kilos.

So you imagine this full of bread
as well.

It was pretty hefty.

And we have hundreds of these.

Hundreds and thousands
and tonnes of fragments of them.

People talk about how the Pyramid
was physically constructed -

it's the infrastructure behind how
that was done that, for me,

is much more fascinating.

Pyramid building was starting to
transform Egypt.

A fast and efficient way to feed and
house people was being developed.

But things weren't just
changing at home.

Archaeologists are beginning to
discover how Khufu's great

build had consequences
far beyond his own nation.

In Egypt,

investigators are discovering
that shipping

was vital for transporting stone

that originally encased
the Great Pyramid,

giving it a brilliant white finish.

WORKERS TALKING

Now, new excavations are exposing
just how far afield

these boats needed to travel
to achieve Khufu's dream.

At the ancient port of Wadi al-Jarf,

Pierre Tallet's team has made
an important discovery.

Builders needed copper chisels

so they could cut and shape pyramid
stones with mathematical precision.

But the ancient Egyptians
had a problem.

Mines near the monument couldn't
produce the huge quantities needed.

So, workers had to
look further afield.

Pierre has discovered the
place where he believes

the builders headed to
solve this problem.

Three miles from Pierre's
main excavation,

he's unearthed another
significant find -

the ruins of a lost ancient jetty.

Pierre's team has mapped
out the jetty at low tide

to reveal that it stretches 200
metres out to sea in an L shape.

This harbour was built to be big
enough

to protect a large
fleet of cargo boats...

..that would sail to
the Sinai Peninsula.

Without this harbour,

Khufu's dream could never
have been achieved.

And Merer's papyrus reveals
just how extensive

Khufu's shipping
routes needed to be.

Decoding the hieroglyphs

shows that copper imports were
just the tip of the iceberg.

Building the pyramid
was such big business

that a vast transport
network was needed

to funnel commodities
to the monument.

The project was a truly
international affair.

Food for the workers was
farmed in the Nile Delta.

Wood for shipbuilding
came from Lebanon,

400 miles to the north.

Limestone for the pyramid's
casing came from Tura.

And granite, for its
internal chambers,

from Aswan, far to the south.

But it wasn't just Khufu
and his pyramid

that would benefit from this
massive new infrastructure.

This huge construction project
was transforming the nation

through the movement of goods and
people on an unprecedented scale.

Archaeologist Mark Lehner
is overlooking the area

where many of these materials
and products arrived.

It was a teeming,
bustling, busy port.

Through this water transport
infrastructure

came people from all over Egypt.

It's at this port that Merer would
have docked

with his limestone blocks.

The most forgiving place
offered by the Giza plateau

to Merer and his men for
off-loading their stone

and getting it up to
the Khufu pyramid

would've been the area now just
out in front of the Sphinx.

There's a natural ramping up.

In fact, the modern road from the
Sphinx to the Khufu pyramid

follows that very incline.

Mark has identified the route.

But how were heavy stones
hauled half a mile uphill

through manpower alone?

WORKERS TALKING

Near the pyramid,

archaeologist Adel Kelany has
assembled a team of 40 men.

He wants to see how thousands
of giant stones

were transported their
final few hundred metres.

Now the workmen are preparing for
putting this stone on this ledge.

They have to be very
careful with this step

because the stone is really very
heavy.

Recent excavations prove that the
blocks weren't simply dragged

across the sand by sheer force.

The Egyptians used a
clever system of rails

and, possibly, rollers as well.

WORKERS CHANTING

You can listen for the sound
of the workmen, actually.

It shows that they are very happy
and working very, very fast

for transporting these blocks.

Once they get going,

it's surprising just how
much speed they can reach

with such a heavy stone.

The Egyptians had an innate
understanding of force,

acceleration and momentum.

WORKERS CHEERING

WORKERS CLAPPING

When the blocks arrived
at the pyramid face,

they had to be perfectly shaped to
fit the sloping sides of the tomb.

This was a job for trigonometry,

not trial and error.

The ancient Egyptians are
very clever with mathematic,

including, you know, the angles that

they needed for these kind
of large buildings.

Ancient engineers figured out

that they only needed to
take two measurements -

a horizontal distance of 11 units

and a vertical distance of 14 units.

Joining them gives the
pyramid its perfect slope,

an angle of 51.8 degrees.

It was actually surprising for me

because, to making this shape, it
was taking more than three hours.

It's taking more time, actually
more than, you know,

splitting the stone
from the quarries.

These bright white stones

were the final chapter in the story
of building the Great Pyramid.

When the monument was finished,

it looked very different to today.

It's 68,000 casing stones were
fitted so tightly together

the seams were barely visible.

But Khufu's huge
construction project

achieved far more
than just his tomb.

It brought life-changing
innovations.

A massive network of waterways
and an artificial port

revolutionised Egypt's
transit system.

And a sophisticated new city

enabled the workforce to be
organised and cared for

on a whole new scale.

Once they had put all these systems

and all this infrastructure
in place,

there was no going back.

They became more important
than the pyramid itself...

..and set Egyptian civilisation
off on a course

for the next two or
three millennium.

Khufu's workers believed
this giant project

would reap rewards
in the afterlife.

But their real success

was in helping to create a
modern and powerful nation.

Subtitles by Ericsson