Original subtitles

♪ ♪

Egypt,

the richest source of archaeological treasures on the planet.

Oh, that's a fabulous one.

Beneath this desert landscape

lies the secrets of this ancient civilization.

Wow. You can see why the Pharaohs chose this place.

Now, for a full season of excavations,

our cameras have been given unprecedented access

to follow teams on the front line of archeology.

I'm driving so fast because I'm so excited!

It's an entrance. We can see an entrance.

Revealing buried secrets...

I have just been told that they have found something.

Oh my gosh.

A sphinx!

And making discoveries that could rewrite ancient history.

♪ ♪

This time,

the pyramids reveal startling new secrets.

Ashraf makes an incredible discovery

in a 4,500-year-old tomb.

I feel there is something down there.

Something is waiting for us.

Iwona is on the hunt for human remains.

This is a lovely left foot, so we've got a pair.

And John unlocks the secrets of

the oldest known tomb in the Valley of the Kings.

I'm truly in the final resting place of a Pharaoh.

♪♪

♪ ♪

Rising out of the Egyptian desert

stand some of the most magnificent monuments

in human history...

the Giza Pyramids.

Constructed from around five million stone blocks,

and standing up to 480 feet tall,

these are where the Pharaohs of ancient Egypt entombed

their mummified bodies and priceless treasures.

Each giant pyramid is a grand tomb

and place of worship, built to ensure

the Pharaohs Khufu,

Khafre,

and Menkaure

would never be forgotten.

Stop here, Hamid, and we wanna...

get our drone on the pyramid.

In charge of this ancient site

is Director of the Giza Pyramids,

Ashraf Mohie.

You see, this is my office.

I work as an Egyptologist more than 20 years.

I envy myself to be working here,

you know, nearby the pyramid.

Ashraf has recently made a remarkable discovery

in the shadow of the Menkaure pyramid,

the last to be built by the Pharaohs in Giza,

and is taking to the skies to survey his excavation site.

♪ ♪

So, I can see the pyramid from the top over here.

Can we get closer to the temple?

Next to the entrance of Menkaure's pyramid

are the remains of a grand temple and a cluster of tombs.

It has been surrounded by tombs for high officials.

Everybody want to have

an honor to have his tomb nearby Menkaure.

Ashraf is excavating one of these tombs.

Its location was first documented

by the American archaeologist George Reisner

over a century ago.

Reisner, he started to work here in 1907,

but he didn't go inside.

He didn't find the entrance.

Just dig for few days, that's it.

So, we continued the work. We found the entrance.

♪ ♪

We are working now in the shafts.

We started with the first one over there.

We got the edges, and the workers,

they are working down there.

Reisner did not excavate this tomb.

Ashraf and his team will be the first archaeologists

to enter it in over 4,500 years.

We're going to work down step by step

to see if there is something in the sands or not there.

I'm so honored to be here between the pyramids.

It's my lifetime dream to dig.

It's gonna be something

very important for every Egyptologist

at the pyramids area.

Menkaure ruled Egypt for over two decades,

And like his father and grandfather,

he built a pyramid as his final resting place.

His stands at the center of a grand cemetery

where only those closest to him could be buried.

So, the tomb Ashraf has unearthed

must be for someone important.

It appears to be a flat-roofed structure called a Mastaba.

On top, two shaft openings suggest

it could hide more than one burial chamber.

But, any bodies won't be found inside the Mastaba.

They'll be deep beneath it, in solid bedrock.

I wanna go deeper to see what it will gonna be inside the shaft.

But we'll see at the bottom if there is a chamber

and a sarcophagus down there.

Menkaure would be the last Pharaoh

to build a pyramid at Giza.

4000 years ago,

they were suddenly abandoned.

♪ ♪

The answer to why the Pharaohs deserted the pyramids

may lie 300 miles south,

in the Valley of the Kings.

Hidden within these remote cliffs

is the final resting place of some of Egypt's greatest

and most famous Pharaohs.

- Mr. Mahmood? - Hi, yes.

You've got the keys?

Yes, everything.

Here, British archaeologist John Ward,

is investigating why the Pharaohs stopped building pyramids

and decided to be buried in this secret location.

We're on the way to one of the oldest tombs here in the Valley.

It's where it all began.

You lead the way.

Dangerous and unstable,

tomb KV20 is closed to the public

and has not been excavated since 1904.

Give me the pliers.

There we go, sir.

Despite the risks,

John has been granted special permission

to investigate inside...

Open Sesame as they say!

And will attempt to navigate the dark and crumbling corridors

to reach the burial chamber,

hidden over 320 feet below ground.

Beneath our feet lies an intricate warren

of engineering masterpieces, where tunnels,

chambers, and pits

all designed to create

a space in which Pharaoh can achieve immortality.

♪ ♪

The Valley of the Kings is a remote limestone gorge...

and in a secluded corner

was one of the first tombs to be carved into the Valley.

Built for the powerful Pharaoh Thutmose I,

3,500 years ago,

ancient engineers chiseled a long and narrow corridor

that plunges over 320 feet underground

to a secret burial chamber.

Here, the body of the Pharaoh was placed

in a giant sarcophagus,

so that, hidden from sight, the King,

with his treasures, could hope to rest in peace for eternity.

One of the things, Mahmood,

that I'm feeling as we're walking down,

you really get that sense that you're...

climbing down into the underworld!

Building a tomb could take years

and required a village of workers.

Look at that. Okay.

It must have been awful down here. To have carried up

all of this chiseled,

flaky limestone, and the dust. I mean,

we're just walking here, and I'm breathing the dust in.

It must have been hell!

John has been descending into the darkness

for over 45 minutes,

but he still hasn't reached the burial chamber.

Wow!

This shaft just continues!

♪ ♪

Above ground,

a team of over 170 workers

are excavating an area known as

the Valley of the Nobles.

It contains the tombs of ancient Egypt's social elite...

important enough to be buried close to the Pharaohs.

So, I will lead you up the excavation site right now.

Egyptologist Andrea Loprieno-Gnirs from Basel University,

has been investigating this site for 16 years.

We really feel very privileged

to have the opportunity to work here.

We want to learn more about

who used this tomb, who entered the tomb,

who maybe planned the tomb,

who used them for burials and who used them for living,

over the long time span.

This season, Andrea and her team

are clearing tons of earth and rubble from the tombs.

In one tomb, called TT95,

they've made an exciting discovery.

♪ ♪

It's quite a huge coffin chamber,

cut into the bedrock.

Among the material that was still left by the tomb robbers,

we came upon painted pottery vessels

that bear the name and the title of Hunai.

Inscriptions on the pottery suggest

a noble woman called Hunai was buried here.

But, who was she, and what was her connection to the Pharaohs?

To answer this, the team is searching for Hunai's remains.

But, she's not the only one here.

This tomb was re-used by others to bury their dead

and contains hundreds of body parts.

Robbers ripped the bodies apart in search of

gold and amulets wrapped in the mummies.

Finding Hunai will take a forensic investigation.

One ear preserved.

There's no jaw, just a fragment.

In charge of analyzing these human remains,

is British bio-archeologist,

Iwona Kozieradzka-Ogunmakin.

I've worked in Egypt 13 years, I think,

so I've got substantial experience with this kind of material.

This is a lovely left foot.

When I'm sometimes asked what I do,

I'm kind of hesitant to say

because there's usually two types of reaction I get.

One is "ew!" And the other is, "oh, really!"

I suppose it's not for everybody.

♪ ♪

Finding Hunai's remains

is like looking for a needle in a haystack.

There you go. That's the left arm.

We estimate the minimum number of individuals

to be... just over 80.

That's quite a big number, really,

when you think about an adult individual having

206 bones,

and imagine the skeleton is dispersed.

Every site has different challenges,

and this one is definitely challenging.

So, we've got torsos with no arms or no legs, or heads.

♪ ♪

300 miles North, at the pyramids...

This is the last of the sands that's coming out from the shaft.

Ashraf and his team have been digging for two days

to locate the burial chamber

in this unexcavated tomb.

It should be there is something here.

Finally, the workers reach the bottom of one of the shafts.

We are so close to the burial chamber.

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

This ancient shaft

should lead to the entrance of a 4,500 year-old burial chamber,

but something is wrong...

I can hear, you know, the sound of the rock.

The axe is hitting the rock.

This is not a good sign. It mean the shaft is unfinished!

Ashraf thinks they have found a false shaft,

deliberately made by the tomb builders

to fool thieves trying to find the burial chamber.

♪ ♪

And it's an anti-theft technique he's seen before,

in Menkaure's Pyramid.

Something very smart and amazing

was done inside this Pyramid here.

Menkaure was afraid about his treasures.

So, after the main passage, he put some blocks,

like a portcullis, to seal the entrance of the shaft

to not to be easy for robbers to rob it.

Menkaure constructed the pyramid

to protect his body and treasures,

but the giant pyramid also attracted thieves.

Inside, engineers tried to protect the burial chamber

with a series of heavy stone slabs...

But these barriers of solid rock weren't enough

to keep out tomb robbers,

and the Pharaoh's body and treasures were looted.

♪ ♪

Like the place we are standing here now, this is the place,

where they had the blocks to seal this passage.

We found many small fragments of the blocks

because it was broken to pieces.

Some blocks about three tons or four tons there.

With these huge stone walls destroyed,

the robbers could finally enter the pharaoh's burial chamber.

So, we are here inside the King chamber.

And this is the place where

the sarcophagus should be here.

But the sarcophagus has been taken,

and we lost the coffin of Menkaure.

Nothing remains of Menkaure's mummy or his treasures.

Ashraf believes the threat of tomb robbers was the reason

the Pharaohs stopped building these giant pyramids.

The Pharaohs started to think about something more secure

and instead to have a big pyramid

that would be easy for robbers to go inside to rob it,

the Pharaohs learned the lesson from the Pyramid.

They moved from here to the Valley of the Kings

to have tombs that were cut inside the rocks

to deceive the robbers.

♪ ♪

To keep their bodies hidden from looters,

the great pharaohs chose a secluded location.

The Valley of the Kings.

How much further, Mahmood?

- We are close! - We're close?

John Ward is in one of the first tombs to be built in the Valley,

and is descending over 320 feet below ground

into the sacred burial chamber.

We're coming towards the end of this tomb!

The final steps.

Wow!

♪ ♪

I'm in the belly

of the final resting place

of a Pharaoh.

I can't even begin to imagine

what it must have been like to be digging this out.

Truly, an amazing feat.

Although crudely completed,

KV20 was a successful experiment,

and in this chamber,

archaeologists found two stone coffins,

one inscribed with the name of Pharaoh Thutmose I.

The other, for the Pharaoh Hatshepsut, his daughter,

and one of Egypt's most powerful female rulers.

♪ ♪

For the next 500 years,

The pharaohs built their tombs deep underground.

So far, 65 have been found,

but experts suspect there could be at least

two great pharaoh's tombs yet to be discovered.

With their tomb entrances hidden from sight,

the pharaohs believed their mummified bodies and treasures

would be protected from grave robbers.

They had solved one problem,

but they still needed to find a way to be worshiped

and for their legacy to be remembered for eternity.

Whereas the pyramid contains everything,

the burial, the place of worship.

Here, that's all separated.

Here, we have the tomb, the last resting place of Pharaoh,

but he still requires that place to be worshiped.

♪ ♪

The Pharaohs wanted to be remembered forever,

but with their bodies hidden in the Valley,

their followers would need somewhere to worship.

John wants to investigate

how they ensured their legacy would never be forgotten.

♪ ♪

In the Valley of the Nobles,

Andrea and her team are on the hunt for clues

that can shed light on the life of a noble woman called Hunai.

They've found pictures on a tomb wall

which suggest she shared an unusual bond

with the Pharaoh Amenhotep II.

It's really unusual. You will not find another tomb

showing this very personal relationship with the King.

In this case, you can really recognize that

she is giving him her breast.

♪ ♪

The wall paintings reveal Hunai was a royal wet-nurse

who breastfed the future Pharaoh when he was a child,

and this intimate relationship

explains why Hunai was buried so close

to the Valley of the Kings.

This was originally the burial place of Hunai,

and this is also where we found more individuals.

In search of Hunai's remains,

Iwona is sifting through thousands of bones

found in her tomb.

That's super-orbital ridges, that are usually...

pronounced in males.

Looking at the sutures, cranial sutures, and the teeth,

this person was definitely over 35.

The wall inscriptions also reveal

Hunai had a grown-up son,

who was a high official.

So, Iwona believes

Hunai was a middle-aged woman when she died.

You can see some depressions here.

Could be menopause.

This person seemed to have

quite a pronounced nose.

I've got confident one female, question mark female,

so that's two,

and the other four

most likely male individuals.

♪ ♪

To find out if either of the female skulls belongs to Hunai,

Iwona needs to look for signs of a gruesome mummification procedure

only performed on the wealthy elite.

The lady we're looking for definitely had her brain

pulled out in pieces.

♪ ♪

In Giza,

Ashraf and his team have been working hard to clear the second shaft

of the unexcavated tomb at the foot of the Menkaure Pyramid.

And their hard work has paid off.

It's in a small hole and there's no light there,

so we need a torch to see what over there.

So, I'm going to send Mohamed to tell us what will be there.

The workers think they have found an entrance

to a burial chamber carved into the bedrock,

and Egyptologist Mohammad Ahmed

will be the first to venture inside.

Wow!

Can you see if there is a coffin, a sarcophagus?

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

This is the opening

which lead to the burial chamber.

Very excited.

Sealed with rocks and hidden at the bottom of the 30-foot shaft,

this burial chamber could contain

the 4,500 year-old remains

of the tomb owner and their treasure.

Mr. Ashraf?

I see darkness.

- Put your head in the hole! - Okay.

You think I'm gonna wait after you found a hole?

You are kidding me!

Now, I will get inside.

Okay.

Done.

Wow.

♪ ♪

This slab, it was blocking

the doorway to this burial chamber.

When I see the sloping gravels and stones,

I feel that someone gets inside before me.

The tomb has been looted by grave robbers,

but Mohamed finds bones that have been left behind.

This bone is from the chest.

This is from the pelvis,

and I think

this big long bone is the thigh.

The treasures may have been taken, but these ancient bones

inside a burial chamber by the pyramid

is an incredible discovery,

and the remains will be collected and analyzed by the team.

Mohamed,

why you didn't get out to tell me and show me the footage?

- Okay, sir! - You have to get out now!

♪ ♪

So, it has been looted.

Few bones only and remains of...

- wood. - Yeah.

I'm a little bit disappointed

because I was expecting to find a coffin with a mummy.

But, I'm still happy

because we have the discovery.

The fragments of bone

found in this burial chamber won't be enough

for Ashraf to identify who was buried in the tomb,

But he's convinced there is another burial chamber here,

so excavations will continue.

I feel there is something down there,

so I hope there's something waiting for us.

Just a mile from the Valley of the Kings

on Luxor's West Bank,

♪ ♪

stands the vast mortuary temple,

Medinet Habu.

So, here it is. Medinet Habu.

They call it the Mortuary Temple,

the house of millions of years.

To safeguard from robbers,

the pharaohs kept their tombs hidden,

but they also needed to be worshiped and remembered.

They chose this temple to honor their legacy.

Whereas today we would go to the graveyard or the cemetery,

we'd lay a flower at our gravestone,

this is a gravestone.

This is the legacy of Pharaoh.

Ramses, Amenhotep III, Hatshepsut.

They've all put their mark here.

♪ ♪

The pharaohs built mortuary temples like Medinet Habu

as vast palaces,

dedicated to preserving their memory for eternity.

Each temple had a loyal staff of priests,

devoted to maintaining a cult

that would continue worshiping the king forever.

The pharaohs had their royal names,

written as special symbols called cartouches,

carved all over the temples.

Their names were important because these ancient pharaohs

believed that to achieve immortality,

their names must be spoken for eternity.

We have this whole development

from pharaoh being buried in the pyramid,

to being buried over there, in the Valley of the Kings,

and this, his mortuary temple,

and they are immortalized here.

♪ ♪

But for some pharaohs, simply having their name

inscribed on a palace wall was not enough.

On the Banks of the River Nile

stands the vast Luxor Temple.

Here, an elite team of engineers

are working to restore a giant statue dedicated

to one of Egypt's greatest pharaohs.

This is the statue for Ramses II,

the most important king in Egypt.

♪ ♪

Mahmood Farouk has a daunting challenge.

He needs to rebuild the giant statue of Ramses II

that stands over 30-foot tall.

It was destroyed by an earthquake.

Now, it's time to put the King back where he belongs.

Today, I will lift the statue from here

to the real place on the top.

If you look here, you can see the two feet.

We will put the face here.

It will look nice after if we do it.

If we make it perfect one time, it will be nice.

Mahmood and his team are using modern steel girders to hold

the pieces of statue together,

and they must line up perfectly with the legs

standing at the entrance to the Temple.

One wrong move could send the 3000-year-old statue

crashing into the temple wall.

♪ ♪

Moving the heavy statue into place

is an intricate challenge for the team.

The metal girders fixed to the body and the legs

must fit perfectly together.

Now, I'll go to the top to check everything.

♪ ♪

It might look finished,

but Mahmood needs to check the alignment

of the statue's eyes.

According to Egyptian custom,

they must look straight ahead to reflect the King's power.

We have to take it down again to move it to the front.

The measurements show the eyes are pointing down.

The team will have to start again.

♪ ♪

In the Valley of the Nobles,

Iwona is continuing her forensic analysis of human remains.

To identify Hunai, she's looking for evidence

of a rare burial practice.

The traditional way of mummifying

the body would be to remove the brain.

The tool would have been inserted through a nostril,

and then the ethmoid bone would be broken through

to get access to the brain cavity.

Only high-status individuals

underwent this mummification ritual.

So, as a nurse to the pharaohs,

it would have been performed on Hunai.

So, here we have

a complete skull, and it's quite interesting.

The person lost all the upper teeth,

except one!

I think there is a small... opening here.

This skull seemed to be...

seems to be fitting the description so far.

The small hole is strong evidence that the brain was scraped out...

but to prove her theory,

Iwona will use digital technology

to take a closer look inside.

♪ ♪

At the pyramids,

Ashraf has received some exciting news.

You know, I just got a phone call from Mohamed.

He's telling me he found a shaft.

The team have found a third shaft above the tomb...

Morning.

Which could lead to another burial chamber.

The site is get more exciting. We are get more excited

to see, to know more information about the situations here.

♪ ♪

To help speed up the dig,

the team have built a pulley system.

It's a little bit windy, but still good.

This kind of good weather for workers to work.

But suddenly, Ashraf's team is in trouble.

The heavy metal frame has collapsed into the shaft...

and the workers inside are not responding.

It wasn't stable enough.

Thanks to God everything was okay now.

So, we are using this rope ladder now.

So, you see the workers are okay?

♪ ♪

The workers have escaped relatively unharmed.

Ashraf can press ahead with his excavations.

We are so close.

The right-hand side,

I believe this is the opening of the burial chamber.

But, a giant rock slab is blocking their way.

They are going to drop some ropes to tie

this stone to take it out there.

Ashraf has opened the entrance to the burial chamber.

Now, he's ready to find out who,

or what, is inside.

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

At the Luxor Temple,

engineer Mahmoud is trying

to position the 65-ton statue

of Ramses the second at the entrance to the Temple.

But, his first attempt failed.

It's difficult for me and my workers.

Now, we will change a little bit, and it will be better.

His team have just a few hours to cut and reshape the girders.

They must ensure the statue's eyes

point straight ahead to the horizon,

a symbol of power.

Only then will they have restored

this great pharaoh's legacy.

It's heavy stone and it's not easy.

I don't know know, in ancient times, how they did this work.

Slowly and carefully, they winch it into position...

♪ ♪

I hope this...

Success, yeah.

And this time, everything lines up perfectly.

The giant statue of Ramses II

now stands exactly as it did 3,000 years ago,

restoring his legacy

as one of the greatest Pharaohs to rule Egypt.

And now, if you come to the temple of Luxor,

you will see Ramses saying welcome to you.

Welcome to Luxor.

♪ ♪

Across the Nile...

Iwona and her team have turned to digital technology

in their hunt for the royal nurse, Hunai.

We actually have the X-ray of that particular skull

that we think could potentially

belong to Hunai.

Her being a woman of high social status,

we would expect her body to have been

prepared accordingly for the burial.

Ancient Egyptians believed the brain

had no value in the afterlife,

so they pulled it out in pieces through the nose during mummification.

We can't see any brain residue inside the skull.

The brain was removed.

♪ ♪

The X-ray confirms Iwona's theory.

All the evidence suggests this is the skull of Hunai.

It's a huge discovery for the team.

Hello. So,

may I present

a female,

an older female.

Her brain was removed.

If we are looking the best candidate

for Hunai,

this would be the skull.

This is really amazing results.

- That's exciting news. - Yeah.

3,000 years after her death,

Hunai's memory has now been restored.

It was her unique role as a royal nurse

that earned her a tomb

next to the Valley of the Kings

so that she could join the Pharaohs for eternity

in the afterlife.

We were able to uncover

a great royal nurse

of Amenhotep II when he was a prince.

So, I think we are very lucky.

I'm very happy about this.

♪ ♪

At the pyramids,

Ashraf's team are preparing to enter the newly-discovered

4,500 year-old burial chamber.

I'm so excited that we found the bottom of the shaft,

but I'm a big guy, and the shaft down there is so small.

That's why I'm sending my colleagues to go down there.

I'm talking about 33 feet. It's deep!

And to have your people down there,

it's not easy, but these people have the passion

to find something new.

It's adventure to be Egyptologist,

to find something new.

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

Ashraf has brought in specialists

to investigate the chamber.

Senior Archaeologist Wael Fathi

and anthropologist, Sara Saber.

I'm so excited to tell me what you're going to see.

We make sure that everything is okay first...

And after this, we'll let Sara to get down there.

Good. Sara, your turn.

She's getting down now.

You're doing a good job, Sara.

It's one of your adventures!

I think they are ready to go inside the burial chamber.

♪ ♪

It's strange here.

You see, its bones...

here, everywhere.

Once again, grave robbers

have ransacked the burial chamber.

This is the remains of a skull.

Yes.

But this time, they left more evidence behind.

This is the sacrum.

It is very important to know,

sometimes, the age or the sex.

We must collect all the bones.

A seal?

A seal?!

Wow!

- What is it? - It's a sealing stamp.

♪ ♪

It's an astonishing find.

These stamps were used to seal offering jars

left with the owner of the tomb during their burial.

It's rare to have survived over 4,000 years.

It's inscribed here with hieroglyphic signs.

I can see glyphs.

This person to stamp his name,

or her name, or his title, something like that.

So, this is a big discovery.

This is the first day for Sara here,

you know, and we found such a discovery.

It's a great day.

This discovery could hold vital information about

who was buried so close to Menkaure's pyramid

and why.

We found from the skull,

this part is the mastoid process...

- Yes. - So, it's very, very small.

Also, we found

this section of the vertebrae.

It's very spongy.

This refers to a woman,

maybe for plus 50 years old.

♪ ♪

The bones reveal the tomb belongs to a woman.

- We have another evidence. - Okay.

But, can the inscriptions on the seal provide a name?

Amazing.

You can see that the two arms up, this is Ca.

- It means Kawu! - Shepset Kawu, yeah.

Shepset Kawu! So, this is for Shepset Kawu!

You brought good luck for us!

You know, because I was happy and satisfied with bones,

with a skeleton, but you came,

and you brought luck for us,

and we found the stamp!

♪ ♪

What a big day for our mission.

Robbers didn't care about bones.

So, thanks to the God because they didn't care about them.

We found them. We found the bones and we found the stamps

that tell us about the lady, the owner of the tomb,

Shepset Kawu!

To have her tomb nearby Menkaure,

it means she was very important lady.

For us as Egyptologists, to find an inscription,

like a name for an unknown tomb,

is a great discovery.

What the grave robbers left behind

has helped Ashraf and his team restore the name

and memory of Shepset Kawu.

And now, like the pharaohs who built the giant pyramids,

the vast mortuary temples,

and the hidden tombs in the Valley of the Kings,

her memory will live on.

Captioned by Point.360