Original subtitles

There's always been one part of human history

that's really captured my imagination.

I'm talking about Ancient Egypt.

Almost 100 years ago, Howard Carter and his discovery of Tutankhamun,

crowned a golden age of tomb exploration.

But right now...the archaeologists are back.

It's going down very deep.

And the world of Egyptian tombs...

It's full of snake holes!

..is more exciting than ever.

So I'm joining them...

I've got a bone here.

..on the hunt for new tombs.

Oh, yes, there's hieroglyphics here.

..and awesome discoveries.

It's the blood of a mummy!

If there's one thing we know about the Ancient Egyptians,

it's that they did death better than anyone else.

From mighty pyramids, to tombs cut in hillsides,

they come in all shapes and sizes,

and give us an intriguing glimpse into their extraordinary world.

I'm heading across Egypt...

Oh, God!

..on a tomb adventure...

Argh!

..which has been 4,000 years in the making.

This is just like the movies, isn't it?

Welcome to a magical land.

One that contains more treasures and mysteries

than anywhere else on Earth.

This is Egypt!

And I'm heading to a beautiful but remote spot

where the rocky hills on both sides of the Nile

squeeze the river to its narrowest point.

The secrets of what went on here are now finally being revealed

in some remarkable tomb discoveries,

which I'm about to join.

Whatever happens, I'm in for an adventure.

I'm meeting an archaeological double-act.

For several months a year,

this place is both their home and their office.

This is really hot.

I wish you could feel heat on the tele, but believe me, this is hot.

Maria!

John, hello. Tony!

Welcome to the site. Thank you.

Dr Maria Nilsson is from Sweden.

Her husband John Ward is from Hereford.

And together, they've been living and breathing this site since 2012.

Can you show me some tombs? Can I show you some tombs?

Come this way. Great.

Among the rocks and sand just yards from the Nile,

John and Maria have been systematically revealing

a large burial ground, known as a necropolis.

Quite literally, a city of the dead.

You weren't kidding about a lot of tombs, were you!

Just a few.

But the first stop is their very latest discovery.

On the edge of the site, Maria and the team are excavating

a small area of sand and rock.

Why are you cutting this section back?

We're hoping to do lead the way to what's behind you.

Which is... Oh!

How interesting!

When did you discover that there was actually a slot here?

Yesterday! (CHUCKLES)

That's true? You're not just saying that for the tele?

Actually, honestly, this was dug yesterday.

This small crack in the rock is man-made.

Some more work by the team should reveal the doorway to my first tomb.

The roof is literally here, you can feel it.

Let's have a feel. You feel the roof?

Can you feel the chisel marks where my hand is? Yeah, yeah.

So no-one's been in here and no-one has got a clue what's in it?

We've got to take this doorway down at least a metre

so you can be possibly the first

in the last possible 2,000-3,500 years to be inside that tomb.

Ah!

But why are so many ancient Egyptians buried here,

on this remote bank of the Nile?

You've got to imagine the landscape.

There would have been men, women and children all working in this area.

The local name for this place is Gebel el-Silsila,

and it was once the engine room of ancient Egypt.

Thousands of workers would have been here,

quarrying and sculpting the stones that built a great civilisation.

Look at that!

Look at that, John, that's a wondrous sight.

Welcome to the galleries.

In the hills above the tombs,

are the greatest quarry sites of the ancient world,

where sandstone was cut from the bedrock, to build temples,

monuments and statues.

It's mercifully cooler than outside.

Imagine what it must have been like in here.

You've got the dust, you've got the banging,

chiselling and look at the height.

You've got another 10 metres beneath your feet.

You've got to take all this sand out.

So there's 10 more metres of quarried stone under our feet.

All the way down. Oh.

There are dozens of quarries like this here at Silsila.

And hundreds of people would have worked in each and every one.

Somewhere, at some point,

the owner of our new tomb must have been involved.

See that niche just there? Yeah.

That's one block.

And they've taken systematically block by block by block.

I see. So they start working from the top.

And the steps also provide access as you go further down.

Exactly, they're creating a transportation route

all the way down to the Nile.

Many of the workers here

served under Egypt's greatest Pharaoh, Ramesses II.

1,200 years before Cleopatra,

he ruled Egypt at the very peak of its powers

and pushed Egyptian building to new heights.

But every great pharaoh needed a highly skilled workforce.

So what's the news?

Well, just five minutes ago down here on the floor area

we found this little chap.

Can I put him in my hand? Hang on.

That's a shapti.

And what is a shapti?

A shapti was the embodiment of a worker or slave

that would have been buried with the dead,

to help them in the after-life.

Just like the Pharaohs, Egypt's workers liked to be buried

with their possessions,

and ensure that they'd be well looked after for eternity.

He would have brought him food.

He would have attended to his land.

This guy would have been buried with the owner.

But to find that owner we're going to have to do some digging.

Right let's go in.

The sand itself comes away very easily.

It's just all the vegetation.

What do you think the entrance would have looked like

in its glory days when it was brand-new?

Basically a slab would have slid

all the way in front

and that would have actually sealed this tomb.

The Nile was infested with crocodiles.

Oh, yeah, it never occurred to me

that a crocodile might lumber up here and eat a mummy.

Now I'm going to move this blockwork here.

And that's quite a big block.

One, two, three. (GROANS)

But beyond the block there's still a load of debris

between me, and being able to explore this tomb.

It's one of those archaeological highs and lows.

I come here. We get a find.

We've got the gap which will lead in to the tomb.

But then we try and open up the tomb. Ta-da!

It's got loads of sand inside it.

But with a bit of help from John's team...

OK guys, get them in.

..our small crack in the rock, is beginning to look

like a proper entrance.

Tony, after you.

Here I go.

There really isn't very much room here at all.

I'm absolutely flat on my stomach now.

What are you seeing Tony?

There's a lot of horizontal cut marks. Uh-huh.

I can see like the shape of what appears to be

picks in the ceiling.

Yep, that's chisel marks.

I'm just going to crawl in a bit more.

This is a sizeable chamber, cut out of the solid rock,

most likely 3,500 years ago.

But it's almost entirely filled with sand.

Just do be mindful of any critters, though.

If I saw a snake I'd just have to pretend I was another snake.

(GROANS)

Interestingly, there is a hole in the rock

and I can see light through.

I guess what you're seeing is the tomb next door.

I see, yeah, that would make sense.

But if this is going to make any more sense,

I'm going to have get out, so the expert can get in.

'Cause, quite frankly, I don't think the two of us

can get in there together.

OK, I see what's happening here.

It's full of snake holes!

Oh, really?!

Actually, it's a beautiful tomb.

It's a lovely chamber. Yeah.

It's been squared off.

I can see the chisel marks to the ceiling.

I can see the dress marks to the wall.

What can you tell me about the extent of the tomb?

It's about 3.5 to 4 metres square.

And it's a fairly classy tomb. It's not just a load of old rubbish.

Given it's size, it's definitely a worker of some kind of status,

within the community.

Can we do any more here now?

To be honest, not really.

We've got a two metres of sand further beneath me to remove.

OK.

Removing this amount of sand, slowly and carefully,

will take several weeks to complete.

But this isn't the first rock-cut tomb

John and Maria have found.

What are we looking for John?

Whoa! Come and have a look at this!

Wow!

200 yards away, is a tomb of similar size,

and it shows what might be hidden...

Go on, you go first. ..beneath all that sand.

I'll just take my stuff off.

Now watch your head as you go in, OK? Yeah.

Oh! I thought I was just going to see an empty room,

but there's a couple of sarcophaguses here, aren't there?

That's it. (GASPS)

Now this feels like a real tomb,

complete with stone sarcophagi,

that once contained mummified bodies.

Why are there more than one sarcophagus here?

This was a family tomb.

We actually had 12 people in here. 12!

However they would have been looted

in antiquity.

It appears that the mummies had been burned...

..and what remained was left scattered around the tomb.

Why did they burn them?

Basically to remove the amulets.

Any gold. Bronze.

They burnt the mummy so they could actually take them away.

So it wasn't 'cause they were scared of them?

No, no, it was purely just robbery.

Come on!

So in just one day I've entered two tombs.

It took Indiana Jones about half a movie to see a tomb!

I've been looking for tombs of the men and women who once built

a great civilisation.

But, now I've come to Luxor!

More than 3,000 years ago, this was Egypt's capital,

the seat of Ramesses the Great.

So, if you want to find big tombs, and temples built of stone,

Luxor is the place to come.

(TAXI BEEPS HORN)

And there's one temple that stands above all others.

Karnak.

Built with sandstone from Silsila,

it became the biggest religious complex in the world.

And the signs of one Pharaoh's involvement are everywhere.

It's that man again. Ramesses II.

Ramesses the builder.

Look at his face there.

Absolutely brilliant.

Ramesses had more than 60 years on the throne

and left us with more statues and images of himself

than any other pharaoh.

He is credited with finishing Karnak's most impressive feature -

its gigantic hall of 134 pillars,

some almost 80 feet high.

This doesn't disappoint, does it?

It's absolutely sensational.

Imagine when this whole thing

had got a sandstone roof to keep out the sun,

which was supported by all these sandstone pillars,

quarried and prepared at Gebel el-Silsila.

Mind you, I'm not here just to look at temples.

I'm on a hunt for big tombs.

Just across the river from Luxor lies the famous Valley of the Kings

where Ramesses himself was buried.

His mummy was discovered in 1881.

One of the few pharaohs whose body has survived largely intact.

But the valley next door is also chock-full of big tombs,

one of which is being explored for the first time since 1921.

Oh, Antonio! Hey!

It's quite a walk to your office. How are you doing? Nice to see you.

Antonio Morales heads an international team,

working on the tomb of Ipi.

Some 700 years before the time of Ramesses,

Ipi held the exotic title of Vizier to the Pharaoh.

What is a vizier?

A vizier is actually like a prime minister.

He was the most powerful man in Egypt under the pharaoh.

As prime minister, Ipi's tomb reflects his status.

This is huge! Welcome to the tomb of Ipi.

You could put a London Underground train in here.

Yeah! (LAUGHS)

The last time archaeologists were here

was nearly 100 years ago.

They spent just a few days in this tomb,

and there's plenty they didn't find.

Hello, what's going on down here?

This is a surprise, suddenly it plunges away.

The tomb extends 40 metres into the mountain and 20 metres down.

Imagine if you were having to carry a mummy down here.

It is so steep.

After the day of Ipi's funeral, no-one was ever meant to go

where we're now going -

his burial chamber.

Oh, wow, that's fantastic!

Imagine being buried somewhere this isolated.

This giant stone sarcophagus

would once have contained Ipi's mummy.

So beautiful, I love these grey colours.

Thousands of years of dust and dirt

are now carefully being removed

to reveal the decorations and hieroglyphs.

How heavy do you reckon that sarcophagus is?

This is a huge block of seven tonnes and a half.

So the amount of work that went in to bringing this here

was absolutely staggering.

And yet, we know very little about Ipi,

beyond his name and important role.

What we do know is that robbers had smashed their way into this chamber

long before the first archaeologists made it here.

He couldn't find the corpse, he couldn't find the coffin.

And actually, we know that most of the tombs in ancient Egypt

were stolen some weeks or months after the burial.

That's really interesting 'cause I always think of tomb robbing

as having taken place in the middle ages

or in the 17th or 18th century,

but it could easily have been the mates of the guys who originally put this in...

Exactly! You are right.

..who came back a few weeks later and nicked all the stuff.

So Ipi's mummy may have gone missing a full 4,000 years ago!

(MAN SHOUTS IN ARABIC)

But while we may not have his mummy,

the story of Ipi is far from over.

In fact, there's been the most grisly of discoveries.

Towards the end of last season, the archaeologists had a great find

in this discreet little pit.

Where is it?

Well, as on most archaeological sites, it was right next to the tent

where the archaeologists have their breakfast.

If I hold this up then maybe you can get through

and I can show you more about it.

Mummification is a really complex process,

particularly if you're someone like Ipi and who is very grand.

Now, with a bit of luck, the camera is going to be able to adjust

to the darkness while I show you these 56 pots

which are all the waste material from Ipi's body,

all the cloths, all the gore,

all the blood from when he was mummified.

Nothing tinged with Ipi's bodily fluids or tissues

could be thrown away.

So stained bandages, and embalming materials

were chucked in these pots,

and stored just outside the tomb...

..until now.

One of the big tasks this season is to scour through these 56 pots,

and already they've had what is my favourite find

since I've been in Egypt.

OK.

So these are some of the finds out of the big jars.

Thanks, Raul. Cheers.

Now, that was the bandage

that went round Ipi's mummy.

This, what looks like a white table cloth

was the wrapping round the mummy.

And this... Yes! Ipi's blood.

Ipi's blood stains. It is like a horror film, isn't it?

But the creme de la creme.

Antonio, tell us what this is.

Well this is the heart of the vizier Ipi.

Can I just say that again?

It's the heart of the vizier Ipi.

How did you find that? Well, it's a surprising discovery.

It was found within one of the jars.

Can I hold it? Yeah, sure.

It is a bit creepy touching this. (CHUCKLES)

It feels almost like stone, doesn't it?

It feels as though it's been carved.

Am I right in saying that even the aorta

has been packed with linen?

Yeah.

Did they know much about the heart?

So, the ancient Egyptians thought the heart

is where is resided the intelligence.

That's why in the process of mummification

they don't mind basically removing the brain.

But his heart should never have been separated from Ipi's body.

It's a very strange case because usually, what they did

was remove the heart from the chest of the mummy,

mummify it, and then put it back into the chest of the mummy.

Oh, right.

It seems that a mummified heart looks a lot like

one of the salt bags used to dry out Ipi's body.

So they saw something that looked like one of those and chucked it away too.

Exactly. So they messed up.

Yeah, probably.

I am holding a 4,000 year old heart.

I've moved to the southern city of Aswan.

On the west bank, I'm meeting the Egyptian Government's

Director of Antiquities here in the city.

Abdul Moneim has agreed to show me

some new and unexpected tomb discoveries.

How many tombs? One? Two? Three?

So far, nine tombs. Nine?! Wow.

Archaeologists had no idea these tombs existed.

But people living close by did.

In 2011, while violent uprisings caused chaos across Egypt,

some locals shifted sand, and smashed their way

inside the tombs.

So how did the guys move all that Earth?

By using mechanical digging, loaders and so on.

Maybe more than 25 or 30 people per night.

So, a whole gang. Yes.

And they weren't doing it subtly and with care,

they were just busting it open to see if there was anything gold.

Of course, because the main point for them was to steal treasures.

You can still see signs of the robbers' work.

A mechanical digger smashed the stone roof of a tomb here.

Tomb doorways have been damaged and broken.

It's possible these tombs lay undisturbed

until a few years ago.

And this is the first time anyone has been allowed to film them.

Welcome, Tony.

How beautifully carved this is!

Who's this guy here? The owner of the tomb. Imhotep.

The ruler of this local area.

Imhotep controlled Aswan around 1450 BC,

just a few generations

before Tutankhamun and Ramesses the Great.

But it's not painted, it's not finished.

That's why this tomb is very, very important and interesting.

When you see a tomb like that it means it hadn't been finished yet.

Imhotep almost certainly died

before work on his tomb was complete.

His builders and craftsmen stopped what they were doing

so the tomb could be occupied.

But there is one bit of painting.

And that's Imhotep's eye.

Oh, fantastic, you have good eyes, Mr Tony.

That really is quite spooky.

Suddenly, 3,500 years doesn't seem quite such a long time.

The robbers may have stolen treasures and artefacts...

Oh, it's a bit of a struggle, isn't it?

..but they couldn't remove the beautiful artwork on the walls.

Oh! Now, this is interesting.

Look at that colour.

The next-door tomb belonged to User -

ruler of this area

during the reign of Tutankhamen's grandfather.

Have you done anything to this painting

since you first excavated it?

Nothing. Everything is as it was.

And it survived like that!

The paintings show User,

his wife

and his sister-in-law,

all of whom are believed to have been buried here.

This is such a privilege. How many people have seen this?

Not more than 20 people.

Including the archaeologists? Including the archaeologists.

Oh, wow.

In a few months a team will return to examine anything

not taken by the robbers,

and explore further chambers

which might yet contain a mummy.

And what happens to the tomb?

We hope to be open for visitors in the future.

Oh, fantastic! Yes.

We'd never have found it if it hadn't been for the robbers.

Although don't thank them too much. Not too much!

50 miles downstream, I'm heading back to Silsila,

and the extraordinary world of Maria Nilsson and John Ward.

You like those ones that Daddy has got.

When they're not busy with daughter Freya,

and baby Jonathan,

they're systematically revealing the resting places

of the men and women who built ancient Egypt.

Nice.

They've now found 70 rock-cut tombs.

What have we got here then?

But one recent discovery is something quite different,

and they've promised me we can tackle it together.

Look down there. That is scary!

Do we have any idea what it is?

JOHN: No, it's unique.

All of our tombs are surface tombs. Yeah.

This is a shaft.

Now, I do know that it goes for five metres straight down. Yeah, yeah.

Because we dug that out.

But as soon as we started moving the sand, the water came.

What I don't understand is, we are in the middle of the desert.

All around us there are tombs that are absolutely dry.

Here, suddenly, we've got water like it's an oasis. What's going on?

It could be one of many things. It could be the Nile.

It could be just groundwater.

It could be surface water from the desert irrigation

filling through the fissures and here we have it here.

What I can tell you is that the water is warm.

It's salty to the taste.

And it's clear.

Do you think we can pump it out?

I want to get Shihad and the boys.

I want to get the pumps in, get them going.

Hopefully, we'll be able to see at least the bottom of the shaft.

That's great. Come on, boys.

John has got two petrol-driven pumps both with long hoses.

Let's get both these pumps going.

They should be able to suck water from the shaft,

and dump it into the Nile.

How good are these pumps?

Uh... Yeah.

That means, "Uh, no"? Uh...

But if the pumps can pump quicker than the water is seeping in

then we should find out if this ancient theatre of heavy industry

is about to get a new tomb.

(PETROL PUMP WHIRRS LOUDLY)

(LOUDLY) I reckon this is the intensity of sound

that would have been going on here 3,500 years ago,

beautifully recreated by a petrol pump.

Let's hope the pump holds out!

While the water level slowly drops...

..there's a chance for me to find out

a bit more about the people who worked here.

On the edge of the old quarries...

Maria!

..there's a unique piece of art.

Commissioned by Ramesses the Great,

it proves how important

the people who worked, and are now buried here, were to him.

So, it's like a cartoon.

An ancient type of cartoon

that puts us in the footsteps of the ancients.

These are the masons with the mallet hitting the chisel.

And you see the rectangle in the middle?

That's the sandstone block, that's just been extracted

from the quarry face.

You got on the right side, a doctor.

He's attending an injured worker who's stretching out his leg.

I can see that leg really, really clearly. Yes.

These are well looked after, skilled masons and craftsmen.

Why do you think it was so significant for Ramesses

to show this?

He wants to show that he's the great builder,

he's the greatest king of them all.

The fact that he had this many men that could be involved

in the process of extracting blocks, and build all these temples...

So would it be fair to say that these are the people

whose tombs that you have been finding?

It appears so, yes.

These skilled workers really were the engine room of Egypt.

But we're only just getting to know them.

This is a funny-looking old thing, isn't it?

Oh! I can see what it is now!

There's a beard here.

And there would have been a big head on top of it.

It's a sphinx! Exactly.

But what's it doing here?

Silsila is not just famous for its quarries.

It was a workshop of anything that was made of sandstone.

Why didn't they finish this off and transport it?

This poor old girl, unfortunately, due to the cracking, was abandoned.

Oh, yeah, I can see a big crack along there.

Oh, imagine if you'd been the mason doing that!

"Oh, dear, start again."

Nevertheless, you can't help but have

immense respect for the skilled workers of Silsila.

Good boy. (DOG BARKS)

And just maybe, the tomb of one or more of them,

lies hidden in our mysterious shaft.

biggest-ever stone quarries.

A little bit further on down there

are the tombs of some of the people

who worked in those quarries, 3,500 years ago.

These people built Egypt into the greatest civilisation

of the ancient world.

And on their trail are Maria Nilsson and John Ward.

This is the dream team.

They're tackling one of their most intriguing discoveries yet.

Ahmed, are they going over the canal?

A large vertical shaft,

which, despite being in the desert, is full of water.

But with John's pumps just about holding out...

It's going down quick.

..he's promised that he and I can be the first to find out

if this shaft leads to a new tomb.

(NOISY PUMP TURNS OFF)

Ah, that's better! Oh, what a relief!

With the water gone,

we're faced with a very deep man-made pit.

It's remarkably perpendicular, isn't it?

But at the bottom there's already what looks like an opening,

an entrance maybe,

that could lead to something else.

We're going down?

Let's make it so, shall we? Yeah.

I'll go first.

I can guide you down then.

But now the pumps are off, the water is seeping back in.

OK.

Right, let's go down.

Ooh, it's just this initial bit that's so scary, isn't it?

It's almost 20 feet to get to the bottom of the pit,

and what's down there, we don't know.

I've got my diving boots on,

because John said he didn't want me

to wear my ordinary shoes

'cause when I'm in the mud he doesn't want me crushing anything.

You're doing really well there, Tony.

Thanks, mate. Oh!

There's still a load of water in here!

And it's rising.

Oh, I'm going to need a new pair of trousers when I get out of here.

Mind you, I would have anyway 'cause I'm so scared!

Wherever this water is coming from,

it's flowing in quickly through the mysterious opening.

Wow, that is astonishing, isn't it?

Now we're down here, it's clear

this really is an entrance,

even a doorway.

Portcullis closure. Look at it.

Oh, yeah! Where the slab would have gone all the way through.

This is just like the recess

for a medieval portcullis in a castle, isn't it?

That's it, exactly.

It would have come straight down over here,

protected the front of the door, so that nobody could get in.

This is a proper tomb, isn't it?

Exactly. It's pretty dark, though. We're going to need some lights.

Yes, please.

(SHOUTS) Can we have some lights down here please?

The lengths that the ancient Egyptians went to,

to plan and build

this inaccessible space are staggering.

Right, lights. Yeah.

OK.

Shall we put these in there together?

Wow! Oh! Tony.

This is a huge chamber. Look at it.

You see that at the back? Oh, yeah!

Is that a door, is that a niche? What is that?

Let's get in. I'll try and stick this light...

Is that pottery next to you?

In Egyptian tombs broken pottery

is perhaps the most common of all finds.

It's a beer jar.

But there's a few things here that aren't pottery.

Skeletal remains.

This is just like the movies, isn't it?

(LAUGHS)

Look at this.

What do you reckon would be in there?

I really don't know.

It's totally different to any of our tombs

that we've found at Silsila.

If that secondary chamber is another burial

we are not talking about just a family.

We're talking about 50, 60 people plus.

And all their bits and pieces are mixed in beneath our knees. Yeah.

Human soup.

The idea that so many workers might have been buried down here,

is pretty eerie.

And someone at least must have been of real status.

This chamber has been carefully chiselled out.

And this doorway, beautifully finished.

What's intriguing me is that the ceiling is vaulted.

What do you mean by vaulted?

Well, it's got an arch to it.

But I'm not seeing any painting, I'm not seeing any names.

I'm not seeing any writing.

What can you see?

Are you seeing that? Yeah, yeah.

It's a central painted line down the entire alignment.

What do you think its function is?

It's basically to allow the stone workers,

the guys who were hewing this chamber out...

To do it equally each side. Exactly.

To give them a central line, from the doorway.

And that goes all...

I mean, let's follow it.

I mean, it's going all the way to the centre of that doorway.

There seems no doubt there's another key part

of this tomb beyond this second doorway.

That is completely flooded.

Do you think we could get that pumped out?

If we could get the pumps further in here,

we could probably take that water level taken down.

Ahmed! AHMED: Yeah?

Can you try and bring the other pump in here? Yes!

If the hose is long enough...

..we may just get to see what's beyond the door.

I don't know if you've felt it, but it's warm water.

It can't be coming from the Nile,

so therefore it has to be

some kind of natural reservoir under the mountain.

Or it's coming from the desert, from irrigation,

just naturally filtering through.

And as the water-level inside this chamber goes down...

What's that next to you? Ooh, yeah! What is it?

..there's a discovery in the very far corner.

Looks like a handle.

Yeah, it's a pot. It's a big, big, big pot.

There's a huge pot here.

Do you want to hold the little camera for a moment?

Yeah, I'm here.

Look how far it goes!

This is massive, it goes right down!

I'm fairly sure we've discovered a large amphora.

I can even feel the rounded bottom of the great jar.

I am right on the end of it. And the top's here, isn't it?

Yeah, yeah.

It must be at least 2 feet tall, mustn't it?

In all my years of finding pottery,

I've never found anything like this.

It's like a huge whale.

What do you reckon this was used for?

It would have held some kind of food substance

that was buried with the dead.

And what I love is that it's actually intact.

That is beautiful.

But, unfortunately, it's lying on its side

and stuck fast in the mud.

We wouldn't be able to get it out now?

No, without having to really remove all this mud and this silt.

That's stuck in there.

Well, that alone was worth coming to Egypt.

But now there's a fresh problem.

(MANS SPEAKS ARABIC) What's happened?

The pump is broken.

With one motor out of action,

there's no way we can keep the water level down inside the tomb.

This is actually going to start rising any moment soon.

What I want to do is get as close to that doorway as possible.

Let's have a good peek in here, and then I think we should back out. OK.

If I wasn't wet and muddy already...

(GROANS)

..I am now.

What do you think, Tony?

Well, it just goes on and on, doesn't it?

I mean, this is fantastic.

It is a vaulted ceiling again.

I mean, that's a good four or five metres.

We don't know where the walls are.

All we're seeing is ceiling.

That means this chamber could be huge!

Whatever is in front of us, this is a first for me.

Elbow deep in silt and water, five metres underground,

in a tomb built 3,500 years ago.

But this is about all we're going to be able to do, isn't it? I think this is it, mate.

I think we need to get out of here

before this water really starts to rise.

Entering a space like this is a real adrenaline rush.

But for this tomb, this is just the beginning.

Until a way can be found to hold back the water,

you get the feeling this place, its occupants,

and my pot will hold onto their secrets.

What an amazing adventure.

We know where these people worked.

We know what their achievements were.

We know where they died.

But there's still so much about them that we don't know.

So many mysteries!

From the giant tomb of a prime minister...

..to the mysterious burials of people

who built a great civilisation,

this has been a window into Egypt at the peak of its powers.

And for John and Maria, the rest of their working lives

is here under their noses.

It's work that most archaeologists can only dream of.

Captions by Red Bee Media (c) SBS Australia 2019