Original subtitles

On the edge of the Nile delta...

The whole complex is huge.

...A major archeological dig has begun.

We found this skull.

...In the hunt for Cleopatra.

You're talking about a woman

who rules one of the greatest empires in the world.

Her name's synonymous with seduction...

beautiful and bad.

She has been thoroughly demonized by the ancient sources

and heavily mythologized for this brand of demonic sexuality.

Now cutting-edge technology...

If there's any anomaly in the bedrock,

it will be seen.

...And painstaking archeology

unearth new discoveries

that transport us back to the time of Cleopatra.

Oh, my god. There are two mummies!

...Captions by vitac... www.Vitac.Com

captions paid for by discovery communications

Egypt...

The home of archeology.

From the first recorded dig in 1798

to countless expeditions since,

they have uncovered dynasties

that lived in unimaginable splendor.

But despite years of searching,

not a single pharaoh's tomb has been found in Egypt

from the time of the ptolemys,

the last of the Egyptian dynasties.

The most famous Ptolemy of them all...

Cleopatra.

She remains a mystery.

One of the problems with Cleopatra

is that we really have no decent contemporary sources.

A lot of prose, literature,

history from that period simply does not survive,

and that's a terrible loss.

Since the greco-Romans

first started writing about her, the location of her tomb

and with it, details about her life,

has remained unknown for over 2,000 years.

Plutarch says that Cleopatra's tomb

is in a beautiful city

or a beautiful area with lots of tall buildings around.

Her tomb probably was not in the traditional Ptolemaic area

of Alexandria for burials, called the sema or the soma.

The latest, however, is that she may have had

her funerary monument actually outside of Alexandria

in a place called Taposiris Magna.

The archeologist behind

that latest theory is Dr. Kathleen Martinez.

This temple is the only one that reunites

all the conditions that I believe

Cleopatra will choose to be buried.

Taposiris Magna was built

2,300 years ago.

Beyond the walls of the enormous temple complex

lies a vast necropolis

honeycombed with tunnels and catacombs.

And at the far end of the site, a funerary monument

modeled on Alexandria's famed lighthouse.

The whole complex is huge.

We have excavated 16 catacombs.

After studying the remains carefully in the pottery

and all that has been discovered inside the tombs,

everything is from the time of queen Cleopatra.

Now a major archeological expedition

to find any evidence from Cleopatra's time

and perhaps even her tomb itself is under way.

It's the 14th year of her quest,

and Dr. Martinez has brought with her her biggest team yet.

it's 9:00 a.m.

The mercury is hitting 90 degrees.

Is this the right place over there?

But I want to... I want to check

more right side.

Dr. Martinez

and surveillance expert Leonid Krynytskyi

are searching for anomalies in the ground

that might point to more undiscovered tombs.

Archeologists can use satellite imagery

to reveal areas of interest.

Color anomalies on the surface indicate

that there could be cavities

or man-made structures hidden underground.

They go in for a closer look, using ground-penetrating radar.

The machine emits high-frequency radio waves

that can penetrate bedrock and find cavities.

I believe in this area might be other tombs.

If there's any anomaly in the bedrock,

it will be seen in the screen.

The apparatus is highly sensitive,

requiring careful deployment at regular intervals.

Leonid is worried

that they aren't getting an accurate reading.

50 centimeters, sometimes 20.

It's making a difference.

A difference that could mean missing out

on a burial chamber.

No, I will do it. I will do it.

You concentrate...

In the screen.

Advertise your product or brand here contact www.OpenSubtitles.org today

okay. I like this place. So maybe try here.

Here?

Yeah, from here. From there.

do you think you've got something?

more. More.

From here? Yeah.

the radar shows a big anomaly here.

Could be an entrance to a tomb.

It could be a shaft.

We're going to make a trench...

From that point.

One meter by two meters.

It's a trench exploration.

Then if you see something interesting,

you call immediately. Okay.

They're looking for a step

that could be the first in a stairway leading to a tomb.

While the team get to work, Dr. Martinez

takes the opportunity to check up on a tomb

they uncovered using ground-penetrating radar

last season.

Close to the lighthouse monument,

it's so important she needed

to inform the Egyptian authorities before proceeding.

It's called tomb number five.

The tomb has the stairs.

And we start cleaning the stairs,

we didn't know what we would find.

We discovered that the tomb has two inner chambers.

The human remains that were discovered in this chamber

beneath was the remains of a woman

mummified with an ibis also.

A wading bird with a slender down-turned bill,

the ibis was the symbol of the god of wisdom, Thoth.

This is a key find.

To be mummified with an ibis suggests

this was an important, educated woman,

but that's not all they discovered.

The last day of last season,

everything was finished here and then we discovered

there was one more inner chamber.

It was so well hidden.

This could be the first intact tomb

found at Taposiris Magna.

And with a person of importance

found buried in the same catacomb,

Dr. Martinez is keen to find out who else is buried here.

nobody has been inside this storm for 2,000 years.

It's completely sealed

because the tomb was hidden beneath the tomb

that we already discover last season.

Every step of the opening must be recorded.

It's one of the greatest moments

as an archeologist,

the chance to discover an intact tomb.

The tomb is extraordinarily well hidden.

The ancient Egyptians designed it

to be directly below another one.

Dr. Martinez has never seen this before.

The top tomb was looted,

but this one appears undisturbed.

okay, okay.

We have a big block and a second block.

we need a chisel and a hammer.

we'll open the first hole here.

we have to be careful because we cannot let

the block go inside the tomb.

okay, it's open.

Oh, my god. There are two mummies!

At Taposiris Magna

on the Egyptian shores of the Mediterranean,

archeologist Dr. Kathleen Martinez

has just removed the first stone from a sealed tomb.

Okay, it's open.

Oh, my god.

There are two mummies!

We have two mummies.

Dr. Martinez is the first person

to set eyes on these mummies for close to 2,000 years.

They are two mummies.

One seems like it's complete.

Bone specialist Dr. Linda Chapon

is on hand to take a look.

- wow. - They are fantastic.

They are very well-preserved.

Look, they have gold.

It looks like gold leaf once covered the mummies.

They hope to find an amulet or cartouche

inside their wrappings to help identify them.

Amulets were protective devices.

They could be worn in life or in death.

In death, we see them placed strategically

in the linen wrappings

once the body had been mummified.

The most important is the heart amulet,

asking the heart not to testify against the deceased

in the weighing of the heart.

That would either allow or forbid the deceased

from entering into eternal life.

The mummies appear to be in a delicate state.

The challenge is to excavate and examine them

while keeping them preserved for the historical record.

Within their wrappings,

these mummies might contain more information on the ptolemys

and perhaps even the last Egyptian queen herself,

a woman who has become a myth,

even a caricature of her own story.

The sources on Cleopatra are problematic

because they're written entirely,

as all our ancient sources are,

by upper-class, elite males.

And there's nothing wrong

with being an upper-class, elite male.

It's just that you get a certain viewpoint.

Cleopatra's empire stretched from Libya in the west

through Egypt and north as far as present-day Syria.

Across the Mediterranean sea was another great power...

Rome.

And for the men of Rome,

Cleopatra was perceived as the enemy.

And so the propaganda begins.

Cleopatra is different

from so many other women in history

for the sheer fact that her presence is enlarged,

her importance is enlarged, initially by Octavian.

He needs to turn Cleopatra into some sort of monstrous foe.

And this only, of course, enlarges her importance.

Her wealth becomes greater.

She becomes more sinister and more seductive

than she had ever been in her lifetime.

Cleopatra was very powerful, but never quite as powerful

and as domineering as she will begin to appear

in the roman literature.

Very, very quickly, this frightening, seductive,

beautiful, eastern, very un-roman image of Cleopatra

is preserved in the classical writers, particularly Plutarch.

It gets picked up by people like Chaucer.

But by the time it goes into Shakespeare,

it's also got quite confused.

Cleopatra is slightly transformed

from being an evil woman, an enemy,

into being a woman who has given all for love.

Cleopatra inspires artists throughout history.

From this portrait found at Herculaneum

made around a century after her death

to these evocative baroque works.

Ultimately, her life is laid bare on the silver screen.

Hollywood depictions of Cleopatra

very much fit the era which they were made for.

Originally, she's very seductive.

She's a vamp...

glamorous and darkly seductive.

By the 1930s,

we have Claudette Colbert's Cleopatra.

She likes sex and drink and witty conversation,

and she is a fast woman and fast women are fun.

But, of course, the one that people remember is the version in 1963

starring Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton.

That's the big one.

Quite often people perceive Cleopatra

as being a beautiful woman who fell in love with two men

and committed suicide with a snake.

The narrative set out in roman propaganda

still remains prominent to this day,

but that queen is built out of words,

not archeological evidence of which there is so little.

Kathleen hopes that her research

will help to set the record straight.

And a find at Taposiris Magna

will bring us face-to-face with Cleopatra herself.

At Taposiris Magna, the sheer size of the site

and the searing temperatures make this

a tough environment to manage.

There are challenges everywhere.

They found a snake.

Guys, wait.

They found a snake. It's still alive.

It's a baby asp,

one of the most poisonous snakes in Egypt.

Cleopatra herself used its venom to execute prisoners

and so, the myth goes, to kill herself.

Better set it free.

Set it free.

The snake is a crucial creature

to the ancient Egyptians...

...Often appearing in the artwork on their monuments.

It is the serpent that symbolizes

their divine authority, linking the pharaoh to the gods.

In ancient Egypt, religion permeated everything.

It was the central organizing factor of society.

The ancient Egyptians

believed in over a thousand gods.

As their leader, the pharaoh was a living god.

One of the few pieces of evidence on the real Cleopatra

comes from reliefs on temples.

She is always assimilated with imagery

of the goddess ISIS...

with snakes around her head.

Isis is an extremely important goddess

to the Egyptians.

Her name actually means "the throne."

ISIS had always been associated

with the political seat of power.

Isis was a popular goddess

and many temples were dedicated to her.

She believed that she was ISIS.

She behaved all her life as goddess ISIS.

She wouldn't be happy with a small place,

with a backward temple.

Everything she did, she was in a big scale.

That is why in 2005, Dr. Kathleen Martinez

came to Taposiris Magna.

At that moment when I came here,

I decided to excavate the temple myself

to prove that the temple was dedicated to goddess ISIS.

A large temple dedicated to ISIS

so close to Alexandria could make for an ideal

resting place for a living incarnation of the goddess.

When I came to Taposiris Magna,

the level of the sand was about that.

You can see the new construction of the wall.

The part, which you see,

is where I've been excavating through years.

As the teams dug down,

revealing the inner walls and rooms of the complex,

2,300 years of history began to emerge.

One incredible discovery...

the statue of a Ptolemaic pharaoh

wearing a kilt known as a shendyt.

A carved inscription found nearby identified the statue

as king Ptolemy iv,

Cleopatra's three times great grandfather.

It links the temple to the ptolemys,

the last of the great Egyptian dynasties.

Their reign began in 305 b.C.

When Ptolemy the first, Sodor, declared himself pharaoh.

Cleopatra would take to the throne in 51 b.C.

Cleopatra inherited the throne of Egypt from her father,

and her father has had a very troubled reign.

He's brought Egypt into debt. He's had civil unrest.

So Egypt is in a bit of turmoil at the point where he dies,

Ptolemy the 12th, and Cleopatra

and her brother Ptolemy come to the throne.

The ptolemys distinguish themselves for sibling marriage.

Cleopatra's parents are almost certainly brother and sister.

Her great grandfather would have been her

great grandfather several times over.

But this strategy created deep family feuds.

Anyone who is a blood relative is a potential threat.

Especially when the throne of Egypt was at stake.

Siblings fighting siblings, mothers decapitating children.

It's a pretty bloody, butchering group of people.

It was either kill or be killed.

And Cleopatra upholds that tradition.

I think we should give her a lot of credit

for living long enough

to actually be able to take the throne

and being the survivor in that family,

because that must have been a really hard thing for her to do.

To really tie Taposiris Magna to Cleopatra,

Dr. Martinez needed to prove

that this was a temple dedicated to ISIS.

This first season,

I was able to discover which...

...The foundation plates.

Foundation plaques are typically deposited

in foundation deposits,

which we find usually positioned

at he corners of a sacred space.

So if you can imagine an architect outlining

the area upon which the temple would be built.

Foundation plates

named the pharaoh who built the temple

and were also used to dedicate a temple

to a particular god.

In the Ptolemaic period,

we can even see bilingual foundation plaques.

So with the Egyptian hieroglyphs on one side

and the same thing written in Greek on the other side.

Carved into these foundation plates was the confirmation

Dr. Martinez had been looking for.

The inscriptions state that this is a temple dedicated to ISIS

built by Ptolemy IV, Philopator.

But there was more.

They excavated the altar, where priest and priestess

made offerings to the goddess ISIS.

Here is the altar.

Inside, actually, we discovered 200 coins.

Coins are a great way to date

when a temple was in use.

But made of bronze,

these coins were heavily corroded over time,

making it impossible to gain any information.

Weeks of careful scrubbing reveal on one side in Greek,

her name and on the other, her face...

queen Cleopatra...

proof that Taposiris Magna

was still in use during her reign.

When I found the first coins for Cleopatra,

was one of the greatest moment of the excavation.

With so little remaining

from the last Egyptian dynasty,

these coins provide precious archeological evidence.

The only accurate indications we have of what Cleopatra

looks like would have been her coins.

And on those coins, she looks very much like her father.

She has a hook nose. She has a high forehead.

She has wide, sunken eyes.

She has a somewhat indented chin.

She's not a beauty.

Cleopatra's coins were minted to her instructions.

She has her hair divided and twisted back.

It was often studded with jewels.

So pearls were especially popular in the ancient world.

Around her head,

she wears what's known as a diadem, a filet,

a strip of cloth that's tied in the back.

And this is the symbol of royalty for Hellenistic kings.

She was sending the message that she was as good as

and as valid ruler

as any of the men who had gone before her.

By using these coins as a blueprint,

3-d artists have expertly re-created

how Cleopatra chose to represent herself to her people

as she ruled Egypt 2,000 years ago.

It's an image that delivers power over beauty.

Cleopatra was much more concerned to have a strong

and dominant appearance

rather than to be pretty or beautiful

by any feminine standards of the day.

These stunning images of Cleopatra allow us

to get close to the woman behind the throne.

For Dr. Martinez, the coins found in a temple of ISIS

where they have also found Ptolemaic statues

of Cleopatra's ancestors is all proof

this was an important place to her and her people.

I believe that the tomb of Cleopatra,

if there's any place to be found,

it would be at Taposiris Magna.

Dr. Kathleen Martinez has opened a tomb

with two intact golden mummies inside.

Now she can finally examine these mummies,

which have remained untouched for 2,000 years.

It's open.

Oh, my god.

There are two mummies!

Today we're going to remove all the blocks

and try to enter.

This tomb is carved out of the bedrock

directly below another.

It is a rare find.

The ancient Egyptians created the perfect hiding place.

oh, god.

The tomb is sealed by heavy limestone blocks.

I'm holding the block so it doesn't fall

inside the tomb.

One false move,

and the fragile mummies could be destroyed.

the block is in one piece.

each block weighs close to 80 pounds.

Okay. It's gone.

We continue removing the plaster

to take the other blocks...

...And open the tomb completely.

I'm very worried that the block

will go inside the mummies now.

We're trying to hold it.

okay.

perfect.

Oh, okay.

Go on.

Now we can put the light.

Linda, we are ready here.

Alright. Coming.

Bone expert Dr. Linda Chapon

joins Dr. Martinez

to take a first look at the mummies.

And I can see now they are from the Ptolemaic period,

which means the time of queen Cleopatra.

This is a first for Taposiris Magna...

the first unlooted tomb,

complete with two mummies covered in gold leaf.

It's amazing.

This is the moment I've been waiting for.

The mummy on the right, mummy number one,

looks to be complete.

I think we have a very important treasure

in this mummy.

This is a unique moment.

however, the mummy on the left, mummy number two,

has not been so lucky.

It seems that the hole that I can see

in the back of this tomb

is where the water came inside the vault.

Dr. Martinez will need to x-ray the mummies

to find out who they are.

So she needs them in good condition.

They need a plan how to get the mummies out in one piece

before they fall apart.

They need to act fast before the desert heat

and humidity crumbles them to dust.

At Taposiris Magna, the search for artifacts

from the last Egyptian dynasty is gaining pace.

Multiple areas of interest across this huge site

are being investigated.

and a new find provides an extraordinary link

to the heart of Cleopatra's story.

All this area was completely covered with sand

and big blocks.

And this morning, when we were excavating,

we discovered this artifacts.

we have this beautiful sword.

It's broken in four pieces.

We have the remains...

what is remained of the sandals

with the hole or the shoes.

It's the big foot.

It means it was strong soldier.

It's leather.

Part of a belt or the shoes.

What Dr. Kathleen Martinez has uncovered

is the military kit of a roman soldier,

another first for Taposiris Magna.

This is also like iron.

This goes with this.

This is the incredible thing when you're an archaeologist,

to go back in time.

When you're looking for Cleopatra,

it's hard not to run into a roman.

The Egyptian queen, the ptolemys and the fate

of the Egyptian empire are inextricably linked to them.

In 48 b.C., Cleopatra is fighting for her throne

when Caesar sails into Alexandria harbor

wanting to secure Egypt for Rome.

Cleopatra grabs the opportunity to win Caesar's favor

and patronage to survive.

At the time that Caesar and Cleopatra encountered each other

in Alexandria, Caesar was 52 years old.

Cleopatra herself was 21.

She saw this as an opportunity to gain his support

and to do so in a way

that no Ptolemaic ruler had ever done before.

What begins as a strategic relationship

at some point fairly early on,

clearly turns into something else

because Cleopatra bears Caesar's son nine months later.

Cleopatra has this remarkable ability

to have children at precisely the right times.

She's the queen of Egypt.

She can sleep with who she likes.

A major, major part of her duty

is to obtain an heir to the throne.

She gets an heir. She gets a son.

And the son really, really strengthens

her right to rule Egypt.

Cleopatra had hit pay dirt...

a male heir to both Egypt and Rome.

Her throne is secure.

Until in 44 b.C., Julius Caesar is assassinated,

and Rome descends into a civil war.

Cleopatra has to choose a side.

Get it wrong and she'll lose her throne.

She comes up with a strategy.

Cleopatra is looking for a new protector.

She's looking for whoever is going to take

the place of Caesar.

She needs to ingratiate herself with whoever that's going to be.

There are two possible contenders for this role.

One is Octavian and one is mark Antony.

Octavian is Julius Caesar's great nephew and heir.

Mark Antony had been Caesar's right-hand man.

Mark Antony is recognized as the more charismatic,

he's good-looking, he's more experienced.

Mark Antony has all of Caesar's charm

and none of his self-control.

He's a man of tremendous fatality.

He is a man of tremendous sexual vigor.

He's a bluff, hale, hearty fellow, loves to drink

and loves to party, loves to play pranks.

Her knowledge of the weakness of his character

will play straight into her hands,

especially as he needs money for his military campaign.

He decides that a good idea would be to hit up

Cleopatra for troops and supplies,

since she has been known to help the Romans on occasion.

Mark Antony summons Cleopatra

to his garrison at tarsus in present-day turkey.

She wants to make an impression.

She knew at this point that mark Antony

was promoting himself as Dionysus,

and Dionysus is one of the possible consorts for ISIS.

So it made a very suitable match that she would go and match him.

Cleopatra asks the shipbuilders of her age

to build her a ship like no other.

Today, Alexandria is still known for its shipbuilding.

The shipyards in Alexandria

were the biggest in the Mediterranean

through the entire Ptolemaic period.

They were the biggest in terms of size

and in terms of the size of ships they were building.

The ptolemys built the largest fleet

in the ancient world.

Legend says it was 4,000 naval ships.

The real advance, or the real achievement

on the ptolemys were warships.

Hellenistic kingdoms,

either in Egypt or in Greece,

were always competing over the borders for territories,

especially between the Egyptians and the kings.

And the way to compete is through arms, through navies.

Cleopatra has the shipyards,

the expertise and the wealth at her disposal

to create a boat of power,

a strategic, theatrical play to win mark Antony.

Building a boat in antiquity was an amazing job,

which had... which was done 100%

relying on experience.

In ancient times,

the keel would have been late first,

then the planks would be installed.

And after that, the frames would be installed inside the ship.

A mosaic dating from the time of Cleopatra

shows the boats that were used in Egypt.

Cleopatra's boat

would not have been that simple, obviously.

So you would expect it to be full of bells

and whistles, full of all sorts of things

that would impress the enemy

coming from the Egyptian civilization

with all its glory and all its gold.

And this would have been very impressive

for the Romans to see.

After many months, the boat was complete.

It was huge with several banks of oarsman on each side.

On top, there would have been a cabin

and large square sails.

We know from the roman source Plutarch

how Cleopatra's boat would have been decorated.

And she does it in style.

So she turns a kind of what really is a summons

for mark Antony into a kind of beautiful spectacle.

And Plutarch describes it best for us.

It was clad in gold, and it has purple hangings.

She's dressed as Venus

and her handmaidens are dressed as nymphs.

She has pages playing flutes and harps

and she has incense burners sort of wafting perfume

out along the riverbank.

Traveling east from Alexandria,

Cleopatra's boat would have hugged the coastline,

sailing up past present-day Lebanon and Syria

onto the Turkish coast.

Covering about 25 miles per day, it would take over a month

to reach the garrison where mark Antony is stationed.

Cleopatra's mode of arrival

was certainly intended to stun Antony and all onlookers

with the wealth and power of Ptolemaic Egypt.

It is a calculated move with one aim...

to seduce mark Antony and form an alliance.

She's much more than just a kind of, you know, sex kitten.

She's much more than a sexual libertine.

She's very astute. She's very politically cunning.

She has a degree of political acumen

that, you know, many rulers did not possess.

Cleopatra's move works.

She bears Antony's children

and the future of Egypt appears safe.

the story of this meeting and alliance

written by the Romans becomes a salacious love affair

passed down through the ages.

But it isn't just archeology

that has given modern-day historians a fresh perspective

on the last queen of Egypt.

There are still ancient texts to be uncovered.

When I was a student at Cairo university,

I used to make me wonder,

why are we studying all the time

great eminent professors in the west?"

So Dr. El Daly went in search of Arabic texts.

To my surprise, there were hundreds of manuscripts

which have never either been published or studied properly.

Manuscripts from the middle ages

compiled by Arabic scholars...

scholars who independently researched Cleopatra,

collecting oral testimonies

and studying Egyptian hieroglyphs, culture and maps.

It's a very interesting issue.

The absence of any reference of her physical beauty

is completely irrelevant.

It is her ability to manage her affairs as a monarch

and to rule the country and have dealings with others.

These manuscripts plug a 1,000-year gap

where it was previously thought

very little had been written about Cleopatra.

They revealed a sharp-thinking,

well-educated and strategic ruler.

She was a sage,

a philosopher who elevated the ranks of her scholars

and enjoyed their company.

She also wrote books on medicine, germs and cosmetics.

In addition, many of the books

are ascribed to her.

this is definitely interesting because in the west,

we have a certain picture of Cleopatra as a kind of lover

who is very decadent and maybe very cruel.

And in the east, there's a very, very different,

very different picture of her.

A learned person, great intellectual abilities,

linguistic ability.

She spoke all these languages,

great understanding of the abilities of her own nation.

This is the Cleopatra that has been lost in time.

The search for the real Cleopatra goes on.

At Taposiris Magna,

on the shores of the Mediterranean,

the biggest search for Cleopatra's tomb is on.

In the shadows of the lighthouse structure,

Dr. Kathleen Martinez's team have a new lead.

They are clearing a rock-cut corridor leading to a tomb,

but the corridor has secrets of its own.

We are excavating outside tomb 14,

and we found this today.

It's probably three burial, for three mummies or more.

We need to know what is beneath the sand.

So we are in a hurry to search.

And it seems that it's from late period,

maybe a roman.

And I think we're starting to find something here.

In fact, we have a bone.

It is a bone already. Yes.

yes, we will reach the skeleton.

If people wanted to be buried

at the time of queen Cleopatra here,

it has the reason and the reason probably is

because she was buried here.

And they wanted to be close to her.

The discovery of human remains

acting as guardians to a tomb

is rarely found anywhere else in Egypt.

It is further evidence to the theory

that Taposiris Magna is an important site

and begs the question of who they are protecting.

When we open inside,

we discover that it has a center chamber

and we have two rooms in both sides.

And then the most important and striking discovery

is a shaft inside a tomb.

This shaft leads down to a hidden tomb,

but not hidden well enough.

Looters have been there before them.

oh.

it took us a long way to get here.

We have to remove thousands of cubic meters of sand

to get to this point.

As they sift through the sand, clues begin to emerge.

Oh.

Oh, this is a scarab.

It's an amulet.

And this is Anubis, the jackal.

They are dolomite.

They are amulets for the deceased

to go to the other life.

We found the skull.

Bone expert Dr. Linda Chapon

is keen to examine the remains.

Oh.

I think it's a man for now.

Because we see the mandible.

This area is quite big.

It's like square one.

As they sift out more of the sand,

bones suggest an entire family was here.

they also find traces of marble

suggesting it's likely this was a tomb for a wealthy family

who would have wanted to be buried close to important

and influential people.

Just 30 miles up the coast from Taposiris Magna

lies Alexandria.

Today, it is the largest city on the Mediterranean.

During the Ptolemaic era, it was the seat of power

and the largest city in the world.

Alexandria, by this time, may have had

about a million inhabitants.

It had a large multicultural population.

Native Egyptian people, of course,

who lived there in the area and in Alexandria itself,

the Greeks who lived there.

There was quite a sizable Jewish colony that lived in Alexandria.

And because it was such a hub of trade and travel,

there were people really from all over the Mediterranean

passing through Alexandria and residing in Alexandria.

Alexandria was the city of culture and of education.

It was a city to which you went if you wanted a tutor,

if you wanted a master craftsman.

Alexandria was the place to visit.

It showcased the wealth and power of Cleopatra's empire.

The Greek geographer Strabo describes a causeway

leading to the famous lighthouse of pharaohs,

one of the seven wonders of the ancient world.

Covered in white marble,

it stood over 100 meters high with a mirror

that reflected a light out onto the Mediterranean.

It was the most splendid-looking city.

It would be almost impossible to get a sense of the luxury today.

The main avenue of Alexandria was 90 feet wide.

Eight carriages could drive abreast down the main avenue.

It was a city built of onyx and alabaster.

It was colorful and sumptuous, extremely heterogeneous.

there were two ports.

There were markets attached to that.

There was a hippodrome, there were theaters,

there were amphitheaters.

There was a library, a big library.

Today a modern library stands close

to what was once a jewel

in the crown of this cultural city.

Every text written in Greek was in that library.

In his gluttony for books,

Ptolemy had essentially confiscated any book

arriving from anywhere else in the world

and put it into the library and handed a copy back

to the original owner of the book.

The library was a second home to Cleopatra.

It's where she studied

and became one of the smartest rulers of her time.

We know that it was attached to the palace

so that it would have been

the library Cleopatra used in her day.

And we know that it was the marvel of its world.

A world that was Cleopatra's birthright.

She was no fool,

educated to the highest level at the top seat of learning.

She would have read all of the classics.

She would have learned to write and to read.

She would have learned how to deliver a speech.

She would have learned her rhetoric.

She would have learned her maths.

Everything that was the best of an ancient education

would have been hers.

Plutarch tells us she spoke nine languages,

so she was very well-educated.

The ptolemys loved to collect intellectuals around them

and surround themselves with scholars

and poets and musicians.

She's the only Ptolemaic ruler to learn Egyptian, the language

of the 7 million people over whom she rules,

which says something about her.

This is a replica

of the only surviving manuscript

from Cleopatra's time.

One of the most heartbreaking things for the ancient world

is that the library at Alexandria was burned

on several different occasions.

Now, it held between 200,000 and 500,000 book rolls.

And when I think of all that ancient literature and poetry

in history that was just lost to us,

it's really quite heartbreaking.

The disasters didn't stop there.

Her royal palace was later destroyed

by a tsunami in 365 a.D.

Evidence of Cleopatra's life slipped under the waves

and disappeared from the historic record.

today, with so little information remaining,

every piece of archeological evidence becomes gold dust.

The intact tomb Dr. Martinez opened on day one

is fast becoming her worst nightmare.

It's starting to crack.

It would be better to take it out.

The humidity and heat of Egypt is causing the mummies

to disintegrate in front of her eyes.

Her team now face a race against the elements

to preserve the precious evidence.

Dr. Kathleen Martinez believes she has found

an intact Ptolemaic tomb.

It could hold clues that would help solve the mystery

of the life of the last of the pharaohs

if the archeological team can work out who they are,

but the situation is precarious.

And Dr. Martinez is in danger of losing evidence.

When we open the tomb,

the change in the temperature inside

and the oxygen started to degrade the mummy.

They had hoped to x-ray the mummies in situ,

but the tomb is too small.

The plan is now to carefully remove them.

But the mummies are incredibly delicate.

We need to move fast.

We can see every hour, the degradation of the mummies.

This is a rock-cut tomb,

suspected to be from the Ptolemaic period.

They are not decorated

or filled with objects from the deceased's life,

unlike those from Tutankhamun's era.

Instead, the ptolemys depicted their lives

with paintings on the cartonnage

or amulets and charms in the wrappings of the mummies.

Mummification was essential to the Egyptians

because they wanted to be able to live on forever.

The corpse needed to be preserved

and this was done through mummification

precisely so that as the corpse lay in the tomb,

the Ba, a part of the spirit of the individual,

could fly free and move around the earth,

but would always recognize the home

that it needed to return to.

Look. This was perfect.

Now, every time we go down...

we have to do something before it's broken.

The team get to work using glue and tissue paper

to reinforce the cartonnage

and prepare the mummies for removal from the tomb.

I'm trying to protect this area of mummy number one

because with the passing of time, it's starting to crack.

Dr. Linda Chapon is hoping that she can halt

further deterioration of mummy number one.

Because they are inside... the skull.

So the skull was very weak.

We decided to fill it with cotton,

mixed with a bit of glue so that the cartonnage joined together.

We hope that the cartonnage will not fall down.

These are paintings on the cartonnage

that the team are desperate to save.

These can provide clues to understanding the lives

of the mummies or who they were.

We can see this scarab here.

She can... at the end, what can you see there?

A sign, the sign of the west.

Or the... that...

so maybe here we have the sign of the east.

So the sun sets on the west and rise in the east.

And the mummy can be born again.

Visible on the left-hand mummy

is a stunning painting of a scarab.

A scarab is a beetle.

In Egyptian, it's called a kheper.

It was seen in the desert rolling a ball of dung.

And this was understood by the Egyptians

to be moving the ball of the sun

and the sun god Ra through the horizon.

Kheper also means an Egyptian coming into being.

And so there are many different interpretations of a scarab

as a way of coming into being again in the afterlife.

Ancient Egyptians believed they would be

reborn after death.

The scarab painted in gold leaf symbolizes eternal life

and rebirth, ensuring the mummy's future in the afterlife.

Unfortunately, mummy number two is beyond saving in one piece.

But the painting of the scarab is precious.

They reach a decision...

to remove the cartonnage it is painted on

and reconstruct it later.

don't... just take the bandage.

You have to cut, like a surgery.

the team have finally extracted the painting

of the scarab from mummy number two.

Now they must delicately prepare it for transport

so it can be taken to the laboratory

for a full reconstruction.

Linda, how the process going?

Well, we are making stronger the base

of the art of the cartonnage that we found.

And the process...

how long you think it will take?

Well, it takes a while because we have to put

one layer and then let it dry

and then put another layer

until it is strong enough to work with it.

So this kind of... it's complete.

Yeah.

That's wonderful. Little pieces are missing.

But there's also missing in the original one.

It is hoped a full restoration of the painting

at the lab will reveal more information

about who these mummies were.

With the cartonnage safely prepared,

Dr. Martinez and Dr. Chapon

begin to examine the skeletal remains of mummy number two.

So here what we have is, like, remains

of a textile that is, like, becoming dust.

And then we have this kind of wood dust

that they used to use in the mummification,

like, to fill inside.

But mostly what we have is linen from the mummification.

But from what I see here is a man.

It's a man. Yeah, looks like a man.

Very careful to recover our fragments.

There was some kind of decoration

with gold leaf.

Gold leaf was used to make the mummies look like gods

to help them on their way to the afterlife.

The bones are very fragile.

Those are quite damaged.

We are excavating the mummy

by layers and photographing

and documenting the way it was buried.

We are full of hope,

and we will be excavating for the rest of the week,

working with the mummy, working with the cartonnage,

and trying to put all the pieces together.

Meanwhile, excavations on another part of the site

convince Dr. Martinez

she is closer to Cleopatra than ever before.

At Taposiris Magna,

incredible discoveries are being unearthed in the hunt

for Cleopatra.

We found the skull.

But time is running out.

The permit only lasts for another three weeks.

While one team focus on saving the mummies in tomb number five,

everyone else is focused on the lighthouse.

They are trying to remove huge limestone blocks

that appear to have fallen in an earthquake.

Yesterday, we were able to move this big block

and suddenly we really find...

what is really, really interesting...

we found the chamber.

We have to be very careful here

because the blocks could collapse any time.

So here it is.

is full of debris and we are excavating very carefully

because we don't know if we take the pressure of the debris

from the big blocks, they can collapse.

Fragments are already being unearthed

that hint there is much more to be found.

We have discovered pieces of marble,

different kind of marble,

which explain the grandeur of this tomb.

And we have, in different areas, remains of the marble

that cover this tomb that we believe is more than a tomb.

The red granite came from the quarries of Aswan,

700 miles away up the Nile.

Found together with marble,

these materials were the preserve of the elite

and royalty who had the means to transport it.

We've put this information together as a puzzle

and then we can go back

for what really was happening here at Taposiris Magna.

And this is why I love archeology.

But it isn't just fragments of marble they found.

The team bring together all of their latest discoveries.

They're starting to build a picture of not just a tomb

but a temple.

During excavation, we discovered pieces of statues

and then we realized that one belongs to this niche

and another belonged to these other niche.

And in ancient times, it was two monumental statues

at the entrance of this temple, tomb.

We believe it was really, really magnificent.

But still, we are searching for pieces.

These statues are dressed in the robes

of the greco-roman era,

the exact time when Cleopatra lived and died.

This is a male.

This is strong. It's very powerful.

And this other side looks more of a woman,

maybe she had something wrapped in the hip.

These statues near a temple of ISIS

close to where Cleopatra lived and died

give us a vital clue in the search

for her final resting place.

The fact that it has two sculpture at the entrance

means that it could be more than a tomb.

It could be a temple, a funerary temple.

For thousands of years,

pharaohs would build grand superstructures

to mark their tombs, commemorate their lives,

and provide ceremonial locations.

Perhaps the most impressive of all is the funerary temple

for queen Hatshepsut at Deir el-Bahari.

Built 3,500 years ago,

it tells the story of her life in hieroglyphs.

For Cleopatra or any of the Ptolemaic pharaohs,

no mausoleum or funerary monument has ever been found.

Dr. Martinez is hoping this could be such a monument.

The clock is ticking at the site of Taposiris Magna.

Time is running out on the permit.

And with so many new discoveries,

they need to prioritize.

At tomb number five,

the team are trying to stabilize the mummies for removal.

But still, they must document everything they do.

The stress is beginning to show.

Even the equipment is struggling in the conditions.

My camera don't want to work.

this is normal.

When we try to take pictures of mummies,

always has problems...

all the cameras has problems.

Okay, can I have the second camera?

The team tried to stay calm

and focus as the thermometer hits 113 degrees Fahrenheit.

It's slow, painstaking work,

but this find could provide vital clues about the ptolemys.

We have to be very careful when we move this one

to protect mummy one

to not let this area weak.

So that this one can fall.

They protect these two skeletons

in a very special way.

That means the priest of Taposiris knew them well

and tried to protect them for the afterlife.

They could have been priests of the temple.

Somebody special.

The evidence is stacking up.

These mummies were buried close to Taposiris Magna

in a catacomb with an educated woman

and are covered in gold leaf.

Dr. Kathleen Martinez suspects they may be priests

of the temple of ISIS.

And priests played a key role

in maintaining Cleopatra's power.

In a purely Egyptian temple,

you would find only the king being able to offer to the gods.

And this is why if you look at the temple walls,

you see only the king doing the offerings.

Because Cleopatra is, as a ruler,

the head of all the cults,

she technically should be making all the offerings

in all the temple throughout the land of Egypt.

She clearly can't do that. She appoints high priests.

The priests were extremely powerful

and keeping the priests in line and happy

was very important to Cleopatra,

a very good relationship,

it seems, with the priests in her day.

The tomb is right outside the walls

of the temple of Taposiris Magna,

a temple Dr. Martinez proved was dedicated to the goddess ISIS.

But the whole site is named after ISIS' husband,

Osiris, lord of the underworld.

Taposiris Magna is a Greek version

that incorporates some Egyptian name in there,

the Taposiris being the Egyptian part.

Osiris obviously referring to the Egyptian god of the dead

and the underworld.

The myth of Osiris is the classic Egyptian version

of the dying and resurrected god.

And so, ISIS and Osiris are in love.

They are brother and sister.

In the myth, Osiris is killed

by the Egyptian god of death, set, who then dismembers him

and tosses his dismembered limbs all up and down the Nile.

And so ISIS starts seeking out the mutilated body

of her dead brother

and she manages to collect the pieces and put them together.

While the wider complex is dedicated

to the god of the dead, Osiris, the inner temple

was a grand Ptolemaic structure

dedicated to ISIS that would have stunned all who approached.

The ISIS myth also includes a story with her consort,

which involves the consort being killed and dismembered

and the child surviving that marriage,

which works beautifully for Cleopatra after Caesar's death.

And she will exploit that imagery as well

after the death of Caesar.

As pharaoh, Cleopatra declared herself

the living embodiment of ISIS

and her partner, mark Antony, Osiris.

In 31 b.C.,

mark Antony and Cleopatra face a challenge from Octavian,

who is plotting to be the first emperor of Rome.

They meet at Actium off the coast of Greece.

Actium was a minor battle but with major repercussions.

And it would have been clear from that moment

that the die was cast,

that there was absolutely no escaping Octavian.

Cleopatra and Antony flee

to Alexandria with Octavian in hot pursuit.

As Octavian approaches, it becomes clear to both

mark Antony and Cleopatra that they have two choices.

They can either do away with themselves

or they can leave the task to Octavian.

Antony makes his choice

and attempts to take his own life.

Mortally wounded, he is taken to Cleopatra

and dies in her arms.

Cleopatra must have been despairing.

Her army is gone. The battle is lost.

Her lover has killed himself.

She really had very little alternative

but to commit suicide

unless she was prepared to be taken to Rome as a prisoner,

maybe paraded through the streets as a triumph.

And then publicly executed.

How Cleopatra commits suicide

has become the stuff of legend...

And the silver screen.

Somehow she gets an Egyptian peasant

to bring in a basket full of beautiful, luscious, ripe figs.

Hidden amongst the figs was poison.

What happens in that room

is clearly that she poisons herself in some way.

She knows her poisons.

She's been studying and experimenting with her poisons.

She knew how to kill herself in proper, honorable fashion.

And by the time Octavian arrives, she is dead.

Soon after she died,

there were rumors that it was by snakebite.

This is very appropriate because the snake

is a symbol of Egyptian royalty

and Egyptian queens have snakes on their brows.

So to connect Cleopatra with snakes in this way

made a lot of sense.

You know, it was very symbolic. It was a good death.

Once they are both dead,

the trail of Cleopatra goes cold.

Ancient Egyptians were very averse to speaking

about evil or any bad things.

And so we don't have a lot of references to suicide

in ancient Egyptian texts.

Having found the corpses of Cleopatra,

I have to imagine that their families would have come

to reclaim the body and prepare them in whatever way

would have been appropriate for a dignified burial.

It would have been an Octavian's interest

to have indulged the Egyptians

in letting them bury their queen in a way that made them happy.

I think it's possible

that Octavian could afford to be magnanimous.

And so he had Cleopatra and Antony buried together.

Many believe they are buried in Alexandria,

but despite countless expeditions,

no trace of their tombs has been found.

That is why Dr. Martinez believes

they are buried here at Taposiris Magna.

If they can extract mummy number one

and it is a priest or priestess, it could hold a clue

to Cleopatra's final resting place.

It's been weeks since tomb number five was opened

and Dr. Kathleen Martinez's permit is coming to an end.

The intact mummy number one has finally been extracted.

When we discover, the position of the tomb was very difficult.

It was the first intact tomb ever discovered.

And I was ready to do whatever it takes

to protect those mummies because we need to study those mummies.

We need to get the information.

We need to know who they were.

Now the mummy is out, the analysis can begin.

This is a big moment.

What secrets might be hidden

under the cartonnage?

Dr. Martinez hopes an x-ray might reveal more information.

Mummy number one.

We want to know if the mummy has all its bones.

We don't know if it was mummified with the boss.

We have seen other mummies which are not complete.

In Ptolemaic Egypt, mummification was a dying art.

While older mummies almost always had

all of their organs removed,

laterally it was easier and quicker to leave them in.

But it's not hearts and livers the team are after.

But the most interesting thing

is if it has amulet or cartouche

and we will know through the x-ray.

They hit a snag.

The radiologist is having problems getting a good picture.

the electricity here... it is...

it's not strong enough to move...

to make the x-ray work.

Always, we're facing so many challenges.

Finally, the power problem is resolved

and the radiologist can get to work.

osteologist Dr. Tahir inspects the x-rays for clues.

All the bones are there? Yeah.

Yes.

Dr. Tahir also notices

that the femoral head is small.

Further confirmation that the mummy is female.

That's not all she's noticed.

It's amazing. Now we know the sex.

And we've been discussing it and it's been confirmed

by the osteologist and the radiologist.

Now we know there was a man and a woman

in this tomb.

In this tomb, yeah.

What can you say about the mummification process?

They didn't remove anything for the mummification.

This makes it highly likely the burial was

from the Ptolemaic era or later, since prior to this,

organs were almost always removed for mummification.

Pharaohs are often buried

with their arms across their chests,

carrying the staff and flail.

This mummy was buried with its arms

lowered across the pelvis, which the team believes

is indicative of a woman of high status.

Their discoveries are building a picture

of a burial of a priestess.

But that's not all the x-ray can tell us about her life.

The fracture was before, not during the process of mummification.

No, no.

So they could have suffered from

an attack, an accident. Yeah.

An incredible discovery.

This healed fracture gives a window

into the life of this woman.

She had time to recover. She was cared for.

Then near the chest,

they discover something not anatomical.

What we see in this area,

there are things which are not bone.

We all agree it doesn't look like bone.

If this is an amulet or an inscription on stone,

it could tell us vital information

about her and who she was.

The humerus and we can...

Final analysis will take some time.

The discovery of this tomb, it is a huge step

in the scientific world concerning this necropolis.

And this is one of the greatest moments for me and my team.

The first intact mummies

found at Taposiris Magna,

found in a hidden tomb from the Ptolemaic era,

opens a world of possibilities.

As the analysis continues over the next few months,

it is hoped they might reveal more about the ptolemys

and this incredible site.

The last queen of Egypt is dead

and 3,000 years of rule

by the pharaonic dynasties comes to an end.

Cleopatra was the last queen of Egypt,

the last Ptolemaic queen of Egypt.

Her children by Antony go on to be raised in Rome.

Caesarion is put to death.

He's a son of Caesar and Octavian cannot have that.

Egypt becomes part of Rome.

It will lose its autonomy,

which it doesn't regain again until the 20th century.

And all of that splendor, all of that sense

that Alexandria was the center of the world will end.

So that that Rome with the great monuments

and the great statues, the city that we know today,

that's largely built by Cleopatra,

by the Egyptian craftspeople, by their heirs.

For the past eight weeks,

Dr. Kathleen Martinez

has scoured the archeological site of Taposiris Magna

for clues to the ptolemys

and the life of the last queen of Egypt, Cleopatra.

Oh, my god. We have two mummies!

Her discoveries,

coupled with the research of international experts,

enable us to reveal a clearer picture of Cleopatra

than ever before.

The Cleopatra we think we know

is an evolution of popular culture

born out of roman propaganda.

the real Cleopatra was a well-educated,

shrewd political leader.

Cleopatra is a very active participant in her world.

In a world when most women were encouraged to be passive,

to be quiet,

most women in the ancient world did not have political rights.

They don't vote. They can't stand for office.

They can't have high-powered careers.

And Cleopatra is very visible.

She almost bends things to her own will.

Insofar as we can actually get who she was,

insofar as we can clear away the myth

and the misconception and reconstitute her,

there is someone who is able, against incredible odds,

to hold on to a kingdom.

It's a really astonishing act of endurance

as well as of thinking.

A queen who was born,

raised and ruled in the biggest, most cultural city in the world.

Educated to the highest level and fluent in nine languages.

And to her people, she was a living goddess.

She saw herself as goddess ISIS.

And she worked for Taposiris Magna

to be a great religious center.

I believe she visited many times and she made Taposiris Magna

one of the most important religious temple for ISIS.

From Dr. Martinez's research,

she believes that she is walking in the footsteps of Cleopatra

and that Cleopatra could have entered this temple

alongside the priests and priestesses who ran it.

How much she goes into the temples and makes the offerings,

we don't know.

How much she even communicates with the priests of the cult, we don't know.

It's not recorded for us at all, unfortunately.

It'd be fascinating to know that,

because, of course, she is the living ISIS.

And if the mummies in tomb number five

are the priest and priestess,

it is possible they were close to the queen herself.

I can imagine two different types of interchange

between Cleopatra and her priest.

For example, a high priest might have come to the palace

in Alexandria to offer advice,

confer about benefits to particular temples

to serve as an adviser, if you will.

On the other hand,

if Cleopatra was then going to a temple,

she would have been then making offerings

and leading rights on behalf of the particular goddess

or god of the temple.

Many conclusions can be drawn

from the life of Cleopatra.

But her intelligence and strategic ability

has lasted over the centuries in one crucial way.

Cleopatra is resourceful.

She was cunning. She was so cunning, in fact,

that we don't really know how she died.

We don't know because that's how cunning she was.

And in not really knowing how she died or where,

every clue that is uncovered at Taposiris Magna

is like gold dust.

I think Cleopatra's always going to be a mystery,

but a fascinating one.

Maybe one day, we'll make a fantastic find

and we'll just suddenly float into place

and we'll understand the full story.

As for the final resting place

of the last Egyptian queen, the hunt continues.

It remains a mystery for now.

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