All language subtitles for Tutankhamun With Dan Snow Series 1 Part 3 1080p

Welcome to Egypt.

We're in the mighty temple
of Karnak in Luxor.

Now, in Tutankhamun's time,
Luxor was known as Thebes

and it was the biggest city

in the vast empire that he ruled over
like a living god.

3,300 years ago, the teenage King

was sealed in
his treasure-filled tomb

and there he laid undisturbed

until he was discovered in 1922
by Howard Carter.

JOHN SERGEANT: We've been exploring
how Tutankhamun died

and how Carter's excavations

revealed the greatest
archaeological discovery ever made.

DAN SNOW: This time...

It's coming off, here we go.

..I discover there's something
very suspicious

about Tutankhamun's burial treasures.

This coffin over here,
this seems a bit different facially,

which suggests it wasn't
intended for Tutankhamun.

RAKSHA DAVE: I examine
the astonishing items

that may well have been used
in his mummification.

WOMAN: We think that this
was tied into Tutankhamun.

So, I'm holding something that's
been in somebody's dead body then?
Yes.

And I'm the first person
to see brand-new 3-D scans

shedding fresh light
on the mysteries of Tut's tomb.

WOMAN: Tutankhamun's burial
was very much rushed.

Someone wanted him
to be buried very quickly.

JOHN SERGEANT:
While my Strictly days

are not over just yet.

No, no, John. (LAUGHS)
What's wrong with that?

So, join us as we count down
the final days

before the death, burial
and rediscovery of Tutankhamun.

The Valley of the Kings -

for 500 years the sacred burial place
of ancient Egypt's pharaohs.

In 1323 BC,

another would be laid to rest here,

because 19-year-old Tutankhamun
was close to death,

suffering from malaria
and bone necrosis.

Then, in this weakened state
he broke his leg.

The broken bone never healed.

Tutankhamun simply wasn't strong
enough to survive the trauma.

Chances are the wound
would have become infected

and he was unable to fight it off.

Within a week of breaking his leg,

the teenage Pharaoh was dead.

It was a tragically early death.

The death of any pharaoh in ancient
Egypt had huge repercussions.

They were an absolute monarch.

They had the power of life and death
over their subjects.

They were a semi-divine figure!

And in the case of Tutankhamun,
that would be particularly so.

Who could have expected the death

of this 19-year-old,
in the prime of life?

And he was childless.

This lack of a clear successor

means there would have been
a state of political turmoil

while preparation for Tut's elaborate
mummification and burial began.

And it's thanks to that process

that over 3,000 years later,
I can meet the 'Boy King',

because his body
still lies in his tomb.

And here he is. King Tutankhamun.

It is astonishing

that I can come face to face

with a ruler who lived

more than 1,000 years

before Jesus Christ.

There are hints of
individuality here.

You can see he seems to
have slightly bucked teeth.

Perhaps I'm just fooling myself,

but you get a sense of what he might
have looked like in real life.

He is still,
after all these millennia...

..I think, recognisable
as a real person.

That is thanks to the process
of mummification -

a complex procedure
devised by the ancient Egyptians

to keep bodies looking lifelike.

The process of preserving the body

would have started
as quickly as possible,

and that's partly because
here in Egypt, it's so hot

that corpses putrefy very fast.

The procedure would have begun
within a few days of Tut's death

and taken up to 70 days to complete.

Now, extraordinarily,
the materials used

in the mummification process
for Tutankhamun

have actually been found
in this valley.

Raksha has been given special access

to have a look at
this astonishing discovery.

RAKSHA: In 2005,
just a few metres from Tut's tomb,

archaeologists found a chamber.

It was the first new discovery
in the Valley of the Kings

since 1922.

No-one has been into it
for 10 years.

Hey, Salima.

So nice to see you again.

Lovely to see you again.
How are you?

But Professor Salima Ikram
is allowing me inside.

So, shall we go and explore?
Yeah.

First foot on the rung.

I'm going down.

The chamber is at the bottom
of a five-metre vertical shaft.

So, was this absolutely
chock-full with debris, then?

There was debris
in the shaft and then

all of this was filled in
with objects.

So, it was a bit like
what Howard Carter found

when he went into
Tutankhamun's tomb,

except there was no bling here.

But it's quite a small place,
so a body wouldn't have been
in here, would it?

Actually, no. Although I'm
calling it a tomb, it's not.

This chamber is really
an embalming cache.

It was filled with coffins and jars,
but none of them contained a body.

But they did contain materials
used in mummification

dating to the time of Tut.

These items were so sacred
they were buried here in the valley.

I thought you'd like to see

some of the artefacts
that we found in KV63.

Amazingly, I'm getting to see them.

It's the first time
they've ever been filmed.

All of the things in KV63 had
something to do with mummification.

So, basically, mummification
is all about desiccation.

So, you cut open the body
from the left side,

you remove the internal organs -

the lungs, the liver,
the intestines and the stomach.

The heart's supposed
to stay in the body.

Then you wash it all out, dry it.

And then you bury it in natron

and that is
a naturally occurring mixture

of salt and baking soda, basically,

which is found
in the Wadi El Natrun in Egypt.

There were bags and bags of natron.

Oh, look at that!
So, this is naturally occurring?

And it defats and desiccates.

So, it's just like
you were, you know,

curing meat and you put it in salt.

So, you make these bags
and you pop them into the body

and it desiccates you from inside.

So, it sucks all the liquid out.

Mm-hm.
And then?

And then your body is
entirely buried in natron.

So, I'm holding something that's
been in somebody's dead body, then?
Yes.

Lovely, yeah?

What's interesting is we think

that this was tied into
Tutankhamun's time period.

A lot of the materials,

like all the pottery jars
and some of the coffins,

are all about the same date.

Could some of this belong
to Tutankhamun?

'Cause KV63 is really linked in

to the Tutankhamun burial
and time period.

It's incredible.

I could be holding something used
in Tut's mummification.

Salima's going to show me how
that mummification process worked.

Oh, it's so hot out here.
Don't know how you do it.

Now, we're not going
to do a real body.

Oh, that's a shame.
I know.

No-one offered themselves up
and so we have a bit of steak.

A rather whiffy bit of steak.
It has become so.

We are going to bury
the steak in natron.

It's soaking up my sweat
rather nicely.

It's very good.
Yeah, it'll dry you out really well.

Here's our steak.
So, think of that as being...

The body.
The body.

Do you want to?
Yeah, I do.

Feel free. Feel free.

In your body, there's
little bags of natron put in.

You are buried
like the steak is buried.

Then it stays like this.

Now, of course,
for a human being, it's 40 days.

The process for a steak
only takes a week.

So we don't have to wait,

Salima has brought along one
that's already dehydrated.

See?
Oh, that is pretty cool.

It's really hard.

She can now show me the next stage
of the process - the wrapping.

So, what is this?
This is tree resin.

Sort of frankincense and myrrh

like the Kings brought
for the baby Jesus.

But smells a lot nicer
than the meat, right?

Oh, a whole heap nicer.

This sweet-smelling resin

was applied between
each layer of wrapping.

During Tut's wrapping,

over a hundred pieces
of precious jewellery

were placed on his body
and between the bandages.

Now, while this was happening,
there's incense burning,

priests are chanting
and this is done slowly.

So, Tutankhamun would've gone
through this process?

Yes, except he had so much resin,

more than his predecessors
or his successors.

He had gloops of it and, in fact,
the mask had so much resin,

the head was really well stuck in.

The quantity of resin used
wasn't the only highly unusual thing

about Tut's mummification.

Tutankhamun had
a completely wacko mummification.

In what way?

Most people have
a small embalming cut,

and his is a large one,
like a big slash.

Some people think that maybe
he died away from home unexpectedly,

so they didn't have
any of the embalmers,

so they tried to do a quick job
and they had to redo it.

So, there's all kinds of stuff.

There we go.

So, a memento.

Your very own steak mummy.
Why, thank you.

This botched mummification

wasn't the only strange aspect
of Tut's burial.

As the Pharaoh's body dehydrated,

the vast array of goods that would be
buried with him had to be gathered.

On the 27th of December 1922,
nine weeks into his excavation,

Howard Carter started removing
those same items from the tomb

and transporting them here
to the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.

Just like the mummification process,

there are some intriguing
and unexpected anomalies

with some
of Tutankhamun's grave goods.

Hi, Dan. Good to see you.
Good to see you, mate.

Egyptologist Dr Glenn Godenho
is gonna show me some of them.

First, we're looking at the jars
which held Tut's internal organs

following their removal
during his mummification.

Are they supposed to look
like Tutankhamun?

'Cause they don't look like the King?

This is the point.
That would be the logical thing.

You'd expect this being
in Tutankhamun's tomb.

It's got his name
on the sides of it.

You'd expect these to look
like Tutankhamun.

However, when we have a look
at these characters,

they're all similar, four of them
originally facing each other.

Very slender features,
very slim lips,

very high cheekbones.

Not entirely what we see when
we look at images of Tutankhamun.

They look a whole lot more feminine.

And there are
lots more objects like this

that don't appear to be
original Tutankhamun pieces,

but appear imported into his tomb.

There's also an inconsistency
with the most important burial items

of all, Tut's coffins.

He was buried in three,
like a Russian doll.

The innermost is made of solid gold.

And amazingly we've been allowed
to remove the case.

So, it's coming off. Here we go.
Incredible.

Oh, my goodness. Here we go.
The whole thing is coming off now.

Wow. That's incredible.

It is like nothing else
I've ever seen in my life.

What an opportunity. No glass.
It's incredible.

I never thought I'd be
lucky enough to do this.

I just never believed I'd be up this
close to one of the most precious

and recognisable objects
in the whole of human history.

So, apart from just admiring it,
what are you looking

at as a historian,
as an Egyptologist?

What's it going to tell us?

This innermost one, the facial
features agree quite well

with the outermost coffin.

However, the middle coffin
looks slightly different.

It's just over here.
This is the middle coffin.
Oh, OK.

The features appear slightly
thicker than this one.

Oh, I see what you're saying.
The mouth is, yeah...

If you compare the mouths, they seem
a little bit more downturned

on this one, in the corners.

The eyes essentially
are a little bit larger as well.

As I say, the thicker features
around the nose and the facial shape
as well.

It stands out compared to the first
coffin and the outer coffin.

Which kind of suggests that maybe
it wasn't intended for Tutankhamun.

Could the face on this middle coffin
be the same woman on the jars?

If so, who was she?

Me and Raksha are enjoying
a little Nile cruise.

Tutankhamun, though, in our story,
having a slightly less good time.

He is undergoing mummification,
his body has been packed

in a kind of salt called natron
and it's dehydrating.

But what about his tomb
itself, Raksha?

Because there's some really unusual
elements to it, aren't there?

For example, it's much smaller
than we'd expect

for a royal tomb from that time.

It's absolutely tiny
compared to other pharaohs,

and his mummification
is a complete botched job.

It's absolutely rushed, not like
what a pharaoh should be.

And what about these grave goods?

You know, some of the little statues
produced in the tomb, for example,

seem to belong, well,
to a mysterious woman.

Yeah, and we're going off
to the Grand Egyptian Museum

to look at the treasures,
and they might give us a clue

as to who that woman could be.

The Grand Egyptian Museum's
conservation centre is home

to many of Tut's treasures
not on public display.

Here, Glenn Godenho and I can
examine up close

an object that may reveal the
identity of that mystery woman.

Wow. Look at that.

The lid of this chest
found in Tut's tomb

has only recently been restored.

Glenn, I think Christmas
has come early for you.

Great.

It's the first time it's been seen
in its complete state.

So, Glenn, this is really
interesting, isn't it?

It is. It's just nice to see it
all reassembled like this,

but the interesting thing for me
are the hieroglyphs.

Burial items are sometimes marked
with the owner's name.

On this lid,
there's a list of royal names

which may help identify
the mystery woman.

What we're looking for
is the name of Tutankhamun

because it came from his tomb.

So, one thing we'd expect to see is
Tutankhamun's cartouche somewhere,

which is like a name tag for a king.

That should look
something like this.

Now, you'll have to forgive
my hieroglyphs.

Oh, my hieroglyphs are terrible.
You haven't seen mine yet.

So, we are looking for
something like that.

OK.

If you have a look and see
if any of these match up.

The first one is here,
and that's not a match.

That reads Ankhkheperure.

But the next two cartouches,
neither of those match this either.

They refer to Akhenaten.
That's his father.

That's Tutankhamun's dad
most probably, exactly.

And then a little bit further down,

we do have a match
for that one up there.

So, this is Ankhkheperure again.

But we know a little bit more about
this person.

It's Ankhkheperure-Neferkheperure

Gosh, that's a mouthful.

Yeah, that is possibly Nefertiti.

So, two of the cartouches
meaning Nefertiti,

the beautiful wife of Tutankhamun's
father Akhenaten.

She's thought to be
Tutankhamun's stepmother.

So, there's everybody almost
in his family apart from him.

Apart from Tutankhamun.

And that's really interesting,
because this box

comes from his tomb, but
it doesn't have his name on.

So, who does this box belong to?

Well, this is the most
prominent cartouche here,

so if that's Nefertiti, then
this box would have belonged

to Nefertiti's burial originally.

And it's interesting actually
because thinking of those images

from Tutankhamun's tomb
that look quite feminine,

could they be Nefertiti?

It just really adds to
the mystery, doesn't it?

Absolutely.

It's now believed that
80% of the ritual items

found in Tut's tomb
were not intended for him,

and some were made for
Nefertiti's burial instead.

This is more evidence,

along with the comparatively
small size of Tut's tomb,

that his burial was
almost cobbled together.

Peculiarities that were apparent
to Howard Carter as he continued

to remove the objects from the area
of the tomb he'd found so far.

But the burial chamber itself,

the tomb's holiest of holies
had not yet been found.

Or so Carter claimed.

He was sure another chamber
lay sealed behind this wall

protected by two guardian statues.

But he said he didn't
break through it

until he'd got permission
from the Egyptian authorities.

But Lord Carnarvon, who was Carter's
sponsor and business partner,

seemed to have admitted
in a newspaper article

he'd never actually end up
publishing,

that they did have a sneaky peek
through the wall

into the next chamber
before they'd got permission

from the authorities, and that's why
Carter could never admit it.

This is the room they were talking
about. This was the antechamber here.

This wall was completely blocked up
here, bricks and mortar,

and beyond it lay Tutankhamun's
burial chamber.

They knocked a small hole
through the bottom of the wall.

By the time this photo was taken,

Carter had cunningly hidden it
with a wicker bowl.

Now, it's believed that Carter,
Lord Carnarvon

and Carnarvon's daughter,
Lady Evelyn,

squeezed through the little hole
into the burial chamber

on the very first night
they entered the tomb.

And really who can blame them?

They came in here, went
through the tiny hole,

then dropped down
into the burial chamber,

and what they found
was extraordinary.

A giant gilded box filled
this entire space,

inside of which was
Tutankhamun's sarcophagus.

They had just made
the first discovery

of an undisturbed Egyptian pharaoh's
burial site in history.

As they crawled around
the edge of this room

with their electric torches,
they shined them up on the walls

and they saw the first artwork
they'd seen in the tomb.

But here were more
abnormalities with the burial.

There were no carved decorations

and the painting
was relatively simple.

Not what you'd expect
in a pharaoh's tomb.

Some of them aren't even properly
finished, which is weird

given the extraordinary care
and attention

that the artisans lavished
on these paintings in tombs.

Check this out.

There are black lines around
all of the penises on the baboons...

..except this one here.

Someone was in a hurry.

In 2009, researchers made
an ultra-high-resolution scan

of this artwork to allow it to be
studied in minute detail.

The same team have now
moved onto another tomb

in the Valley of the Kings,
that belonging to Seti I.

Raksha has gone to visit them

to find out how these
two tombs compare.

The vast tomb of Seti I
is the longest and deepest

in the Valley of the Kings.

It's almost eight times
the size of Tut's...

(LAUGHS) Wow.

..burrowing an incredible 137 metres
into the mountain side.

Aliaa Ismail and her team
have just begun 3-D scanning

every inch of the tomb.

I'm the first person
to see their work.

So, what are you doing here?
It looks all very high-tech.

So, basically you see this red beam
that's on the wall,

it moves over the surface,

taking the shape of the surface
through the cameras.

And then through that video
we can actually obtain a 3-D model.

So, it kind of spits it out
and there's this, like,

perfect 3-D model of
this entire tomb.

Yeah.

I want to know how the decoration
of Seti's tomb compares to Tut's

and what it reveals about
the mysterious circumstances

of the young pharaoh's burial.

Aliaa has invited me to her 3-D
scan centre to see their results.

It's a very cool office
you've got here.

This is the data from Seti I.

You can see right away how intricate
the details are

and you can see the outlines
of every single figure.

It's very beautiful and stylised
and very clean to look at.

Yes, you can see so much
of the details

that you wouldn't be able to see
with your naked eye in the tomb.

The amazing method allows the paint
to be electronically stripped

from the wall, exposing
the plaster underneath.

Seti's plaster is beautifully smooth
and intricately carved.

But under the paint in Tut's tomb,

it's uncarved, rough and shoddy.

Right away you can tell,
this is definitely Seti's.

And when you look at Tutankhamun,
it was done very quickly.

Not enough time, not enough effort.

These high-resolution images even
expose light impressions

left in the plaster by the artist's
brushes as they painted Tut's tomb.

This proves the plaster hadn't
dried out before it was painted.

I was quite taken aback
when I walked into Seti's tomb

because the detail is phenomenal,
it's quite exquisite.

Absolutely, and it's like Tutankhamun

is almost like child's play
compared to the master in Seti.

You know, and you can imagine, like,
how many people have worked on this
tomb.

As opposed to Tutankhamun,
it was a rush job.

And that's not all,
there are more peculiarities.

When you enter, you see
all this mould on the wall.

See how it's growing?
Good grief. Yeah.

All these, like, really dark brown
dots everywhere. So that's mould?

Yes.

This mould isn't seen
in any other royal tomb.

It only grows in damp conditions,

indicating the paint was still wet
when Tut was sealed in his tomb.

So, the decoration must have taken
place in the last few days

before his burial.

One can only think of one thing,

Tutankhamun's burial
was very much rushed.

It's not like he just died young,
but rather it seemed that someone

really wanted this tomb
to closed right away.

Someone wanted Tutankhamun
to be buried quickly.

So many things just don't add up.

A botched mummification,
a small tomb,

burial treasures not for him
and now last-minute artwork.

I can't believe that all of these
anomalies are down to the fact that

Tut died very young, very suddenly.

I think it was also to do with
the fact that he was childless.

I think somebody was
in a rush to bury his body

because they were in a rush
to take the crown.

Despite Tutankhamun's burial
here in the Valley of the Kings

appearing rushed,

his mummification, including
the dehydration and wrapping,

would have taken around 50 days.

He was now ready to be placed
in his tomb...

..along with the thousands
of burial items

that had been gathered together.

A process that over 3,000 years later
was happening in reverse...

..as Howard Carter carefully removed
those same items from Tut's tomb.

All of those fragile, priceless
treasures were carefully lifted out

of Tutankhamun's tomb just down
there, carried all the way up here

and taken to the tomb just up there.

Carter had been allowed to use
Seti II's tomb as a conservation lab.

The journey of the objects
from the tomb down there,

up this valley to the laboratory here
was like a carnival, like a parade.

The most trusted of his Egyptian
workers carried the objects

closely supervised by Carter himself.

The hillsides, the edges
of the valley were covered

in spectators and journalists,

so there were plenty of armed guards
to ensure security and order.

It must have been an amazing sight.

Carter was understandably
concerned about security.

The millennia-old crime
of tomb robbing

was alive and kicking in 1920s Egypt.

Three teams of guards watched Tut's
tomb and each other day and night.

The parade of objects
from Tutankhamun's tomb

up through the valley was an
uncanny echo of what had gone on

right here over 3,000 years before.

In Tut's burial chamber,

there is a painting of
his funeral procession -

his mummified body being
pulled to his tomb on a sled.

But this captures only one element
of the elaborate ceremony.

Raksha has gone to investigate
what happened

around three days before Tutankhamun
was finally sealed into his tomb.

I'm heading to the tomb of Ramose,

a powerful noble who lived a few
decades before Tutankhamun.

The reason why I'm here is
because there's a beautiful frieze

on the back that shows us what
funerals were like in ancient Egypt.

Ramose was a vizier,
second-in-command to the pharaoh.

His funeral procession depicted here

would have been similar
to Tutankhamun's.

So, right at the top you can see
these golden shrines

being pulled on by a sled,

and then you can see this general
funeral procession going past here.

You have these individuals carrying
the burial goods and boxes of goods.

Not too dissimilar to the ones
Tutankhamun had his clothes in.

And as we carry on,
we have these wonderful scenes

of mourning and grieving.

These women, they have
got their hands up to the sky

and they are wailing.

It's all very epic.

The grieving women
would also crouch down

and sprinkle dust on their heads.

As with all funerals,
there is a wake,

and you can see at the top
there's some kind of party

where there would have been drinking
and dancing and music.

And who better to show us
what took place

than the star of Strictly,
John Sergeant?

Oh, dear, I thought my television
dancing days were over,

but maybe I'll prove better
at dancing like an Egyptian

than dancing the paso doble.

My partner this time is expert
3-D scanner Aliaa Ismail,

a keen dancer who has researched
ancient Egyptian dance.

Oh, that's good.

In funeral processions
in ancient Egypt,

just like that of Tutankhamun's
and any other pharaoh,

they would have had
what we call the muu dancers.

Muu dancers wore strange headdresses
made of papyrus reeds.

Their role is very important
in the procession.

They help the deceased soul
move from this world to the next.

So, do we know what moves
they made, these muu dancers?

I would love to show you
how they're done,

but to do that shouldn't we, like,
change into the right outfit first?

The right outfit. OK, alright.

Aliaa has used tomb paintings
to work out the muu dancers' moves.

What do you think, eh?
Pretty good, eh?

Now, look, what about me doing it?
Can I start?

Yes. Please start, John.

What about this one? (HUMS GRUFFLY)

No. No, John.
What's wrong with that?

I thought it's...
No, that's not how we do it.
What do we do?

The muu dancers, they would have
had, like, movements.

If you notice, their hands
would have been more like this.

OK.
Yeah.

And they would have had, like...

It's not very...
You feel like, it's a bit of a sway.

Which way are we swaying?

Just go bom, bom.

They look like they are swaying.
Like, you know, sway, sway.

I'm losing my voice.

It's too exciting.

Remember the hands.

Well, this is fine for a funeral,
but a bit dull.

I'm ready for something more lively.

Like this one here.
Oh, right.

See? Not too easy to do
but we can try.

OK, put your leg up in the air.

Yeah, leg in the air.

Let me show you. So basically
I would imagine it like that.

So, you'd be like, ah,
and then you go down,

so that, you know, it
looks like you're happy.

Ha!
You're happy.

And then you go down.

John.

That's good, isn't it?
It's fun, right?

(BOTH LAUGH)

BOTH: Whoo!

Whoa!

Wow, I think I'm
getting good at this.

Three, two, one.

It seems Tutankhamun's funeral
would be a strange mixture

of mourning and celebration -

wailing and crying combined
with feasting, dancing and music.

It encapsulates the ancient
Egyptians' ideas on death.

It was like waving goodbye
to a loved one

on a long and luxurious holiday.

Sad certainly to be saying goodbye,

but assured that
they'd be in paradise

and one day you'd see them again.

John will be pleased to hear
the funeral festivities

would have lasted up to three days.

Afterwards, Tut's body would have
been placed in his burial chamber.

This was complicated.

First, the golden mask was placed
directly on his mummy.

The mummy was then sealed
inside the three coffins.

These were then placed
inside his stone sarcophagus.

Finally, everything was
encased by four shrines,

huge gilded boxes that
fitted over one another.

So, in total nine layers
surrounded his body.

Back at the Egyptian Museum,
Glenn Godenho and I have been given

rare access to the outermost shrine.

This is close to what it must have
been like for Howard Carter

when he got up and saw this
inside that final chamber.

It's incredible, isn't it?
What a privilege.

But what is really interesting
about these is they're massive,

and Tutankhamun's tomb
is not that massive.

The actual chambers are not massive.
Yeah, that's right, exactly.

When Carter broke through
to the burial chamber,

he saw what he thought
was just a golden wall.

That's how big this thing was and
how much of the room it occupied.

The outer shrine was so big, it
almost filled the burial chamber.

The only way to get the shrines
into the tomb was in pieces,

then reassemble them
like a flat pack.

But here is a hieroglyph,
that reads Resi or Resu,

and that means south.

So that suggests that this panel
is to face south for the south wall.

And it's not just that one,
there's one on the door there.

But what's really interesting
is that although these indicate

that this whole face
should be the south,

actually this was the east.

So that kind of suggests that
when they got these things

in there, they couldn't
follow the instructions

because there just
wasn't the space to do it.

Back at Tut's tomb,
there's more evidence

of the struggle to
squeeze everything in.

You can see a big section of wall
here has been roughly cut out

and they had to do that
because the workers were desperately

struggling to get the panels
for the shrines

into this very small burial chamber.

Imagine how difficult that was.

They had to construct an outer shrine

around all the other ones
already in place.

They also had major problems
with Tut's stone sarcophagus.

Look at this, the lid is cracked
right down the middle

and then has been roughly
stuck back together.

Perhaps that occurred at the same
time as they realised

the lid didn't fit
on the sarcophagus.

We know that because look here.

They've had to shave the toes
off the outer coffin,

so that the lid could go on
and sit nice and snug.

And we know that happened
at the last minute

because Carter inside the sarcophagus
found all the wood splinters.

It's more evidence Tut
was buried in a hurry.

But why?

I'm turning back to his burial
chamber paintings for a clue.

This painting on
the wall here depicts

the Opening of the Mouth ceremony
for Tutankhamun.

There is Tutankhamun there,
his corpse,

and his mouth is about to be opened.

This important symbolic ritual
took place

just before Tut was sealed
in his tomb.

It is astonishingly rare
that this is depicted

on the wall of a royal tomb.

Usually, it is the son and heir
of the departed pharaoh

who conducts the ceremony, but we
know that Tutankhamun died childless.

So the question is, who's that?

Fortunately we know
because his name is above him.

It's Tut's vizier,
his second-in-command

and head of his government, Ay.

By showing himself performing

the crucial Opening of the Mouth
ceremony,

Ay is attempting
to legitimise himself

because his succession was by
no means a foregone conclusion.

There was another powerful
contender for the throne.

And it seems likely that
this whole story,

the strange circumstances
of Tutankhamun's burial,

the rush to get him into the ground,
the repurposing of the treasure,

it's all connected with
a power struggle

that had been raging
in ancient Egypt for decades.

Across the Nile from Tutankhamun's
tomb in the Valley of the Kings

is Karnak Temple...

..the largest religious construction
ever built.

Many pharaohs added to it,
including Tutankhamun himself.

I'm here to meet Dr Arto Belekdanian,

to find out what
may have been the cause

of Tut's strange, rushed burial.

There was a lot of political
struggle after Tutankhamun died

because he had no male heirs.

So what happened was,
the two most powerful men
in the country at the time,

Ay the vizier and Horemheb
the General, they probably
didn't get along.

Does this struggle between
the civilian and military,

Ay and Horemheb explain why
Tutankhamun was buried in a hurry?

Well, we do know that the Egyptians
were fighting against

the other great superpower
in the Middle East at the time,

the Hittites.

Potentially, Tutankhamun died
at the same time as Horemheb

was off fighting the Hittites and
conveniently Ay took over power.

So this explains why Ay
was keen potentially

to rush the burial of Tutankhamun.

Exactly.

Given that Horemheb was abroad,
if you want the throne for yourself,

you take care of the burial,
make yourself appear

as the legitimate successor
before Horemheb gets back.

But things didn't work out
brilliantly for Ay.

He died only four years
after seizing power

and General Horemheb
finally became Pharaoh.

Possibly in revenge, he erased
Ay and Tutankhamun from history

and tore down their buildings.

Here at Karnak, archaeologists have
discovered thousands of fragments,

many from buildings
Horemheb destroyed.

This is the block yard
of Karnak temple.

A lot of structures
that have been dismantled,

their individual blocks
are placed here for study

and then potentially maybe
reconstruction one day.

So this is actually one of
the only places in Karnak

that you can still find
the name Tutankhamun.

There is a lot of them around here.
We just need to find it.
OK.

Oh, this is it. I got it.
Right here, look at this. How cool.

Oh, yeah, that's him. There it is.

Well spotted.

So, where do we think
this may have come from?

Well, some people think
that this is all from

Tutankhamun's memorial temple.
OK.

So Kings used to build,
along with their tombs,

a temple for their cult,
for their soul after they die.

And some people think
that these blocks

are all from that temple
that was dismantled.

Wow, just taken apart
brick by brick.

And who would have done that to him?
None other than Horemheb.

Within a few years of his death,

Tutankhamun's name was being
torn down off temples and monuments

right across Egypt -
he was being eradicated from history.

And that is one possible reason
why the tomb robbers

that scoured the Valley of the Kings
hundreds of years later,

may not have been actively
looking for Tutankhamun's tomb.

They may not have known
that he even existed.

And that helps to explain why
he was able to rest in peace -

for a few thousand years at least.

Tutankhamun's peace ended,
officially, on 16th February 1923

when Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon
broke down the entire wall

sealing his burial chamber.

Dignitaries were invited,

none aware the pair had probably
sneaked in months earlier.

VIPs sat here in neat rows
to watch the unsealing,

but it was said by many at the time

that the Pharaoh was protected
not just by the guardians

but by deeper black magic.

And indeed, a tragedy occurred
only two months later

that seemed to confirm
the truth of this ancient magic.

John has bravely gone
to find out more.

JOHN: When Carter first entered
Tut's tomb,

it's reported he discovered
a stone tablet near the door.

Written on the tablet
was this curse -

"They who enter this sacred tomb

"shall be swift visited
by the wings of death."

And sure enough, there were deaths.

Lord Carnarvon, Carter's dig partner

and the rich financier
of the excavation,

was the first victim.

When in Luxor,
he generally stayed here

at the rather swanky
Winter Palace Hotel.

But here he was being plagued
by journalists.

So, soon after the unsealing
of the burial chamber,

Carnarvon set off on a Nile cruise...

..where he was bitten on the cheek
by a mosquito.

And while he was shaving
with his cutthroat razer,

he nicked the bite,

and it soon became sore and inflamed.

The infection spread
throughout his body.

Raging with a fever,
he was brought back here to Luxor,

and then he was rushed to Cairo
to hospital.

But within a few weeks, he was dead.

It's said that at the exact moment
of his death

there was a complete power failure
and blackout in Cairo.

Simultaneously, at his home,
Highclere Castle,

his faithful dog Susie
howled and dropped dead.

This all seemed to confirm
the curse of Tutankhamun had struck.

The story exploded in the press.

Hello.

Hello. Please enjoy, Mr John.

It was, of course, utter nonsense.

There was no cursed tablet -
it was fake news.

This hotel was full of journalists

anxious to make headlines
about Tutankhamun,

but Lord Carnarvon had sold
the entire story

exclusively to The Times.

And so I can imagine,
with my experience as a reporter,

all the journalists
sitting around here thinking,

"What are we going to do?"

And someone would have
thought up the answer,

"What about saying
that there was a curse?"

And so that's how was born
the famous Curse of Tutankhamun.

I'd have agreed to that.

The truth is, 26 people attended
the unsealing of the burial chamber

and six died within a decade.

But many of them were getting on a
bit, so it's not really surprising.

But surely if anyone deserved to be
struck down by the curse

it would be Howard Carter,

but somehow he managed to avoid
the wrath of Tutankhamun.

He lived on for many years
in tip-top health.

DAN: But the excavation
wasn't plain sailing.

At one stage Carter left the
sarcophagus lid

hanging by ropes and went on strike
in protest at what he thought

was interference by the
Egyptian authorities.

It was almost three years
after the discovery of the tomb

before Carter finally began
opening Tut's coffins.

By November 1925, Carter had removed
the body from the sarcophagus,

taken off those beautiful golden
coffins and was preparing to remove

the final layer of
the famous golden mask.

But it was difficult, it was stuck
fast with so much resin on it

from the preparation, they had
to use hot knives to prize it off

and only then could Carter see,
as he described it,

"the beautiful and well-formed
features of the King."

And they're here for us all
to see today

because his body is preserved
in his own tomb.

And finally, back in 1925,

Carter and the King
came face-to-face.

Two men separated by more than
3,000 years.

The determined archaeologist

and the long-forgotten Pharaoh.

Together they secured
their place in history.

Well, that brings our time in Egypt
to an end.

It's been an enormous adventure

and it's been a huge privilege,
of course,

going into all those tombs

and seeing all those iconic objects
and treasures up close.

I loved learning about Carter.

The fact that he managed
to discover that tomb

even though it had been lost
for millennia.

Well, I think King Tut got what
he wanted - life after death.

He is now one of the most famous
people in history

with a name that echoes down
through the centuries.

And that's not changing anytime soon.

There are so many mysteries
to solve,

the story of Tutankhamun
is not at an end.

But this program is, sadly.

So, thank you for joining us
in Egypt.

Bye-bye.
BOTH: Bye.

Captions by Red Bee Media
(c) SBS Australia