Original subtitles

Narrator: Ancient egypt, this land of the pharaohs

Has captured our imaginations for thousands of years.

Bettany: It's one of the greatest civilizations the world has ever known

And it's left us with some truly astonishing treasures.

Narrator: I am professor bethany hughes.

I'm a historian and I spend my life travelling the world

To investigate the stories of the cultures and civilizations

Of the past and I love having the chance to share what I found with you.

Ancient egypt, a land ruled by pharaohs.

Bettany: Selecting just 10 treasures from this stunning civilization

Is seriously tough.

Narrator: But I've pulled together a top 10 countdown that reveals

Some of the world's most breath-taking monuments,

First, we'll be heading to cairo, today the capital

Of egypt for number 10 in my countdown top 10 treasures.

It's a gruesome tale of a 3,000-year-old cold case,

A royal assassination and our treasure number 10,

The mummified body of an almighty egyptian king

That was discovered somewhere rather surprising.

Bettany: The trail starts here in the ancient city of luxor when some rather

Curious things started to appear on the antiquities market.

Narrator: Incredibly valuable riches belonging to some of egypt's most famous pharaohs

But no one knew where they were coming from.

In the spring of 1881, the suspicious authorities started to make enquiries.

They discovered that they were being sold by a local farmer called abdel rasoul.

He was immediately taken in for questioning.

Bettany: Under torture, abdel rasoul revealed the source of his treasures.

He led investigators out here to this rocky cliff face overlooking the nile valley.

Narrator: Back then this remote location was entirely unexplored.

Bettany: He led them to this spot and to a shaft in the sheer cliff face,

Which is now known as tt320.

The terrified suspect claimed that one of his goats had fallen down this hole

And that he'd scrambled down to rescue it.

Narrator: Rasoul had made a remarkable discovery.

When the investigators lowered themselves into the shaft,

30 metres deep no one was prepared for what they found.

Bettany: Down there, there were over 40 mummies, um,

They were pharaohs and queens and other members of the royal family

And the story of how they got there is truly extraordinary.

Narrator: Close on to 3,000 years earlier a priest called pinedjem discovered

That robbers were raiding tombs in the valley of the kings

And valley of the queens where egypt's pharaohs and super rich were buried.

And the robbers weren't just stealing all the tomb treasure,

Pinedjem realised they were taking the bodies too.

Bettany: For him, this wasn't just robbery this was desecration.

This was destroying their chances of an eternal afterlife.

So he knew he had to act fast.

Narrator: Pinedjem summoned trusted followers for a high-risk mission,

To break into the tombs, steal the royal bodies,

Smuggle them up this mountainside and then stash them in this shaft.

They hid here undisturbed for close on 3,000 years until abdel rasoul's goat

Gave away their hiding place.

Today, the pharaoh mummies found in the shaft are all together in cairo

And it's a truly extraordinary sight.

Bettany: What you've got here is basically a roll call of ancient egyptian power.

Many of the great pharaohs are here, there's seti I and rameses the great

And even that quick thinking priest who rescued these bodies over 3,000 years ago.

Narrator: But one particular pharaoh here is number 10 in our countdown.

Bettany: Meet rameses iii.

Narrator: Rameses was a man with lots of enemies,

He had to fight off invading armies from the middle east to defend egypt.

Bettany: But the real trouble came from within the kingdom.

His wife queen tiye wanted her son on the throne so she hatched a plot

To assassinate her husband.

Uh, now we know all about this because it's recorded on a papyrus that's now

In turin and this historical event is known as the harem conspiracy.

We're told that the plot failed.

The conspirators were arrested and were sentenced to death but what happened to rameses?

Narrator: The papyrus doesn't let on and rameses simply disappears from the history

Books sparking a theory that he died of natural causes.

For over a century, the mystery remained until a few years ago a group

Of forensic scientists carried out a post mortem

And subjected the dead pharaoh to a ct scan.

Ahmad samir a curator at the egyptian museum was stunned by what they found.

Bettany: Is there any evidence on this mummy

That tells us exactly what happened to rameses?

Bettany: Wow. So that was definitely so this was a mortal wound.

So he, he couldn't have survived it?

Bettany: That's the incredible thing about history

Is that it's constantly changing.

There are, there are constantly new stories, new chapters being written in.

Samir: Without doubt.

Narrator: But the story doesn't quite end there.

In the horde of mummies, there also appears to have been rameses' son

Prince pentawere the man who conspired to replace his father on the throne.

Now known as the screaming mummy this body shows signs of strangulation.

Most likely he was hanged for his part in the assassination plot.

We can tell he was in disgrace because his mummy was crudely wrapped

In a rough sheepskin instead of the traditional linen.

So now the guilty son and his murdered father rameses lie side by side.

The mummy of rameses iii is number 10 in my treasures of egypt because

It reminds us that ancient egyptians were people with real lives,

Full of scandals and tragedy and intrigue.

And that modern science is at last allowing us to tell their incredible

Sometimes gruesome stories.

Bettany: Egyptian mummies are obviously humans

And so have to be treated with huge respect.

Um, the mummification process was designed to give individuals immortal

Afterlife and in some ways that is exactly what's happening.

Uh, the mummies here are slowly revealing their secrets

So we know intimate details about how the ancient egyptians

Lived and in the case of rameses iii, exactly how he died.

Narrator: Next in our countdown, it's number nine,

A brilliant discovery that brought a dead language

Back to life and helped us to decode the secrets of this ancient civilization.

At number 10, we've met the mummy of rameses iii.

And now we're exploring the nile delta in search

Of number nine in our countdown of great egyptian treasures.

Bettany: The story starts here with the discovery of a modest bit of stone

That's probably the best-known stone fragment in human history,

The rosetta stone.

Narrator: This slab of rock is just three and a half feet tall but the intricate

Writing on it has given us a key to unlock the secrets of ancient egypt.

In 1799, it was discovered here at this fort that protects the town

Of rashid that was better-known back then as rosetta.

Narrator: This fort was on the front line of a power struggle for egypt

Between the british, the french and the turks of the vast ottoman empire.

Bettany: A small french garrison was based here and they received reports

That an ottoman army had landed just 20 miles up the coast.

Uh, this fort was all there was that stood between the attackers

And the glittering city of rosetta and so soldiers and military engineers

Immediately set to, to try to repair these dilapidated walls.

As they were working one french officer noticed that a number

Of the stones in the fort had carvings on.

You can still see some here.

But there was one particular one that caught his eye.

Narrator: It was a stone covered in egyptian hieroglyphs

But that's not all.

Underneath there was what seemed to be a translation in ancient greek.

It was incredibly tantalizing.

Egyptian hieroglyphs had been a total mystery for 1,500 years.

The greek translation could help decode this lost language.

But before they could make a start on the translation,

The french suffered a shattering defeat and the precious stone

Fell into the hands of the victorious british army.

Shipped back to london it ended up at the british museum.

International experts got to work, desperate to decode egypt's hieroglyphs

And to explore ancient egypt's secrets.

Bettany: So what you're looking at here, um, are two languages.

There are ancient egyptian hieroglyphs at the top and greek at the bottom

And in the middle there's a kind of street form of ancient egyptian.

Narrator: The experts began by looking at the greek which they could still read

And they found the world ptolemy which they knew was a pharaoh's name.

The challenge was to find the ancient egyptian equivalent.

Bettany: What they did was they looked in the hieroglyphs to try to find a cartouche,

It's a bullet-shaped thing and inside that's where

The pharaoh's name was always written.

Narrator: This was the very first word they were able to read

In ancient egyptian hieroglyphs.

The first step in deciphering a language

That had been dead for 1,500 years.

Bettany: So down here, you've got the name ptolemy in greek and then up here

Is the name ptolemy in ancient egyptian

But this is how they managed to decode it.

So what you have is a square that stands for a p, a semi- circle for a t,

That kind of rope shape is an o, the lion is an l,

Underneath here you've got an m and then these two reeds are a y.

So slowly, slowly it meant that they could start to piece together an ancient

Egyptian alphabet and that meant they could suddenly translate ancient egyptian.

Narrator: A dead language had been brought back to life.

And ancient egypt's temple walls, tombs, scrolls and treasures all of them

Covered in hieroglyphs could suddenly speak to us once again.

For the first time, we discovered intimate secrets of the pharaohs.

We could learn about murders and love affairs that shaped the story of the world

But we also heard about the ordinary people who built

These monuments and painted these walls.

Bettany: Suddenly, ancient egypt was filled with real people and their real voices.

Narrator: And our understanding of how the ancient egyptians lived

And loved and fought and died was completely revolutionized.

Bettany: The rosetta stone is possibly not the most beautiful or spectacular

Of our treasures but arguably it is the most important.

Writing was power in ancient egypt so by being able to read the ancient egyptians

Words we can really understand the lives of not just the great

And the good but also ordinary women and men on the street

And that is why it deserves to be in our list of top 10 treasures.

Narrator: Rediscovering how to read hieroglyphs

Transformed our relationship with ancient egypt.

The walls of temples and tombs became like the pages of a book,

Packed with myths and fabulous history.

And next, we're going to investigate a lost treasure that was plastered

In so many hieroglyphs it took 40 years just to copy them down.

When they were finally all translated, they told tales of incest and murder

And at the center of it all the family of egypt's most famous queen, cleopatra.

To get there, we're travelling more than 600 miles up the river nile

To a city in upper egypt for treasure number eight.

Bettany: If you'd come here in the middle of the 19th century then the whole place

Would've looked like this.

Just a very typical bustling egyptian market town.

But if you knew where to look you could've spotted a rather intriguing clue.

Just the very tip of a massive ornamental gateway poking out of centuries' worth of sand.

Narrator: But this wasn't any old gateway.

This was a gateway that once belonged to queen cleopatra.

That was enough to entice explorers and treasure hunters to the town of edfu

And they began to dig.

Bettany: It took them seven whole years to excavate this site

And if you follow me you'll understand why.

It is absolutely vast.

It's one of the biggest temples in the whole of egypt

And it is beautifully well preserved.

I mean it really is in the most fantastic state.

There's a very particular reason for that.

It was abandoned when it was relatively new, only a few hundred years or so old

And slowly it was buried in the desert sands and then a town you can see the remains

Of it up there was built right on top of it so its secrets were kept secure.

Narrator: This splendid temple was built by a single royal family

Known as the ptolemys who ruled egypt from the 4th century bc until the last

And most famous of the whole dynasty, cleopatra.

The entire building tells the story of the great egyptian queen and her family

Through the words and pictures carved into the stone walls.

Bettany: This whole gateway was built by cleopatra's dad,

Ptolemy and you can see ptolemy there rather graphically shown

Slaying his enemies and sacrificing prisoners.

Narrator: But ptolemy's enemies weren't all outsiders.

His own daughter, cleopatra's older sister,

Led an armed rebellion against him which he brutally crushed.

He had her killed leaving little cleopatra as his heir.

With a family like that you could say that for cleopatra this temple wasn't a symbol

Of royal harmony but a nest of snakes as generation after generation

Of close family members engaged in a deadly game

Of intrigue, murder and incest.

Bettany: Obviously incest is illegal and taboo today but for the pharaohs,

It was completely normal.

The royals believed that they had divine and pure blood that should never be

Contaminated by that of mere mortals but the thing was these incestuous

Relationships often caused more problems than they solved.

Narrator: Cleopatra's parents were probably also brother and sister

And the entire family was a vicious web of personal alliances and rivalries,

A bloody ancient egyptian soap opera.

In fact, out of these 12 ancestors of cleopatra every single one was

In an incestuous marriage and at least seven came to a sticky end.

So when cleopatra herself came to the throne in 51bc,

She inherited a tricky family legacy to say the least.

But also this stunning temple, a family power base.

Bettany: In its heyday, this place would've been an absolute riot of color.

We're told there were flagpoles outside that were 130 foot high

Made of cedars of lebanon with flags fluttering on the top

And that many of the surfaces were decorated with polished copper.

Narrator: And I can't help but imagine what it would've been like if cleopatra

Had walked through here.

There was an aviary where falcons were bred and a perfume factory

Filling the air with gorgeous scents.

Bettany: Oh my god. It must have been the most incredible sight.

Narrator: But behind all that sensuous glory, the gruesome soap opera continued.

Cleopatra's main rival to the throne was her own husband ptolemy xiii who was also,

True to form, her younger brother.

They started off as co-rulers of egypt

But their sibling rivalry soon broke out into open warfare.

Bettany: Cleopatra finally won out but only with the help of a certain roman

General called julius caesar.

These two were the power couple of the ancient world

And the result of their liaison is hidden just over here.

This is almost certainly caesarion who was the son of julius caesar and cleopatra

And a product of their celebrated love affair.

Narrator: When the boy was just three years old

His father julius caesar was assassinated.

Cleopatra tried to survive but even egypt wasn't a match for rome's power.

Soon emperor augustus would overthrow her kingdom

To become the first roman ruler of egypt.

In despair, cleopatra took her own life.

Now no one was safe not even her son.

Bettany: Caesarion was another who met a violent end.

Augustus' assassins pursued him to alexandria where they strangled him to death.

The age of egypt's true pharaohs was over and rome had tightened its grip

On this glorious civilization.

(music)

Revealing the secrets of my favourite wonders of ancient egypt

And there's still so much more to come.

Just outside egypt's capital cairo is one of the most famous treasures in egypt,

It's our treasure number seven.

Bettany: It's over 240 feet long and 70 feet high, part lion,

Part man it radiates mystery.

At number seven on our list of treasures it's the great sphinx at giza.

Narrator: The sphinx crouches at the entrance to one of the busiest

Tourist sites in the world, the giza plateau.

Famous for its mindblowingly huge pyramids

But even in this epic setting the sphinx is a showstopper.

Bettany: I always find the sheer scale of this incredible creature

Absolutely jaw-dropping.

It was the biggest sculpture made in ancient egypt

And it's still one of the largest anywhere in the world.

Narrator: But that wasn't obvious when explorers first encountered the sphinx.

The giant statue was buried neck-deep in sand.

All they could see poking out was an enormous stone head.

They were mystified.

But once they'd cleared the sands they could appreciate

The sphinx in all its crazy glory.

A human head and shoulders on the body of a lion, taller than a six-storey building.

The sphinx was built on such a massive scale because it had an incredibly important

Job to do basically to be a giant guard dog,

Carved out of the rock to keep watch over the pharaoh

Buried in the pyramid behind.

Egyptologist clare malleson loves this incredible sculpture.

Bettany: For us, it's very weird that this is half animal,

Half human but this would've been completely normal

In the minds of the ancient egyptians.

Malleson: Yeah absolutely. The sphinx with the lion's body,

The pharaoh is taking on board the attributes of a lion,

The fiercesomeness, the awesomeness, the strength of the lion in himself.

Bettany: Why do you think we should care about this monument?

What does the sphinx tell you about the ancient egyptians?

Malleson: It really encapsulates the ambition of the ancient egyptians.

Bettany: They certainly never did anything by halves.

Malleson: No, not at all.

Narrator: Generations of ancient egyptians came

To respect and fear this otherworldly creature,

Really believing that it had supernatural powers.

And the fascination with the sphinx shows no sign of letting up.

Archaeologists are investigating under the statue

Because there are tantalizing clues that the sphinx sits right on top

Of an ancient network of chambers and tunnels.

Usually hidden from view, a deep hole near the sphinx's tail is thought

To be connected with a large chamber beyond.

Bettany: And there's actually another smaller one

Right at the front underneath the paws.

The truth is we have absolutely no idea what these were used for

But it's a mystery that researchers are currently trying to solve.

Narrator: And some are hopeful that these hidden tunnels may lead us

To new undiscovered treasures.

Bettany: The sphinx deserves to be on our countdown of top 10 treasures because

It has such an incredible life story.

It starts out basically as a monumental guard dog

Watching over a pharaoh's tomb.

It comes to be worshipped as a god with supernatural powers

And now it's a guardian of ancient egypt's secrets.

Narrator: To get to my next treasure, you need to travel hundreds of miles

From giza across the egyptian desert all the way beyond egypt's far-flung southern

Border but it's a journey that's worth every moment to reach number six

In our countdown of top 10 treasures.

Bettany: It's a wild remote landscape here, um, and you'd be forgiven

For thinking there's not much to write home about.

I mean it's certainly nothing on the scale of the monuments that we've already seen

But actually beyond the desert here there is something truly spectacular,

Uh, it's the most extraordinary place with an extraordinary story

Because it was built not once but twice.

When you finally get here to abu simbel it is impossible not to be awestruck.

Narrator: This temple was built by rameses ii

Probably the greatest of all egyptian pharaohs.

He ruled for an astonishing 66 years one of the longest reigns in history

And boy he loved to build.

This whole temple is a monument to his reign and out here beyond the southern

Border he's also giving a powerful warning to the neighbors.

It's saying I'm in charge, don't mess with me.

This is rameses' ego built in stone and it has left us

With the most awe-inspiring place.

Narrator: The temple walls are covered with ferocious images of the pharaoh

Defeating his enemies.

Bettany: But there are actually two temples here at abu simbel

And I've got a particular soft spot for the other one.

Let me show you why.

Narrator: The second temple here reveals another much more gentle side of rameses.

It was built in honor of his favorite wife nefertari.

Bettany: Nefertari actually means beautiful companion but rameses described her

As the woman for whom the sun rises and he built this temple,

This divine abode for the wife whom he loves.

I really love this place but at one point there was a real possibility

That all of this was going to be lost.

Narrator: You'd be forgiven for thinking these giant statues have stood here

For thousands of years but you'd be wrong.

Today abu simbel stands beside one of the largest manmade lakes in the world,

Lake nasser.

In the 1960s, the government launched a plan to build

A giant dam to create the enormous lake.

But there was a problem, the thousands of square miles of land to be flooded

Included the site of these temples.

If rameses' temples were to survive they would have to be moved.

So a team of archaeologists and engineers worked against the clock to dismantle

The temples and transport them 200 metres to safety on higher ground.

There they painstakingly reassembled them block by block.

It took four whole years but there was another challenge.

In their original site, the temples were built into the side of a mountain

So the engineers didn't just have to move the temples they had to build a new mountain.

Today a nondescript door in the side of the hill

Is the only outward clue to this amazing achievement.

Bettany: As a historian, I'm used to investigating hidden doorways, um,

But I'm promised something particularly special in here.

Narrator: Thanks to abdelmanem said, the regional director of antiquities

I'm getting rare access to this extraordinary place deep inside the temple mountain.

Bettany: Ah. Amazing, that's extraordinary.

And ge can we get further up?

Said: Why not? Bettany: Oh, I love it.

Said: Thank you. Bettany: I love why not.

Narrator: What looks from the outside like a desert mountain turns out

On the inside to be completely hollow.

This hollow dome is so big you could stack

Five double-decker buses underneath it.

Bettany: That is remarkable. Said: Have a look from here.

Bettany: Because when you're inside you've got absolutely no idea you come here

And it's this kind of futuristic construction.

Said: You never feel at home when you are inside the great temple, that temple was moved.

Bettany: Yeah. Said: That temple was cut.

Bettany: No. Said: All that was, uh, a manmade concrete dome.

Bettany: Amazing. What an enormous project it must

I tell you what I love about it, rameses never did anything by halves he,

He liked his projects to be big what,

What do you think rameses ii would think of all of this?

Said: Well if he could hear about something huge like that

I'm sure that he would be happy more and more. Bettany: Yeah exactly.

I think he'd definitely approve of the scale.

So this should be called the rameses dome. Said: Nowadays yes.

-Nowadays yes. Bettany: The ram rameses' great dome. It's amazing.

Honestly, thank you so much for bringing me in here.

This is a real privilege to be here.

It's the future helping the past isn't it?

Said: Exactly.

Bettany: Abu simbel is one of my top treasures of egypt

And deserves to be on our countdown.

It was truly remarkable when it was first built

And then its move and its rebuild makes it double extraordinary.

Uh, this place is a testament to the power of human ingenuity

Right across the centuries.

In the punishing desert on the edge of cairo, number five in our countdown.

It's an egyptian city of the dead.

Bettany: This is the incredible site of saqqara

And the whole place is an archaeological treasure trove.

Um, it's dominated by that brilliant building, the step pyramid.

Narrator: It might not look that impressive now but appearances are deceptive.

The step pyramid is revolutionary.

The world's first ever pyramid 150 years older than the sphinx

And the famous great pyramid at giza.

Bettany: It's not what's above ground that gets saqqara onto our list of treasures

But what lies underneath my feet because down here

There is a whole subterranean world and not only

That but here there are thousands, possibly millions of mummified bodies.

Narrator: This is the final resting place for 16 of egypt's earliest pharaohs

But it was also a graveyard for queens and nobles

And ordinary egyptians for 3,000 years.

So many mummies were buried here that saqqara became egypt's biggest city

Of the dead stretching over 4 square miles.

All these mummies are remarkable enough,

But archaeologists have also discovered something else.

There aren't just humans hidden here

But animals too in numbers that beggar belief.

8 million mummified dogs in one mass grave, 4 million ibis birds in another.

The necropolis was also home to cats, baboons, crocodiles,

Fish and some well it's anyone's guess.

People mummified and buried these animals as gifts to the gods

Hoping their prayers would be answered in return

And there's one particular tomb here hiding something really extraordinary

Which for me beats the bizarreness of everything else.

When it first came to light 150 years ago, it was a sensational find.

Bettany: In the middle of the 19th century, the french archaeologist

Auguste mariette discovered a rather promising clue.

It was a sphinx buried in the sand.

Narrator: Intrigued, he and his team began to dig and soon they found

A second sphinx and then a third until there were over 100 sphinxes

Lined up along a grand roadway.

Bettany: All leading to this spot here.

Narrator: Mariette spent months clearing the path packing the sphinxes off

To paris and on the 12th of November 1851

He finally reached a mysterious subterranean entrance.

Bettany: Now that was all pretty exciting but nothing

Could prepare him for what was down here.

Narrator: The sphinxes had led him to a labyrinth of underground passages

Carved deep into the rock.

Bettany: Just imagine what it would've been like to have been the first

To explore down here, um, when all you had were flame torches

Or lamp light and no idea what was round the next corner.

Narrator: There are hundreds of meters of tunnels built to create something incredible.

Bettany: This is an underground palace and it's no ordinary palace.

This is a palace of the dead.

What you're looking at here is the most enormous coffin.

Um, it's made of solid granite and together this weighs around 90 tonnes.

So you have to ask yourself, what creature would be buried in something like this?

Narrator: The archaeologists had never seen anything

Like this before and were desperate to find out what was hiding inside.

Bettany: All of the coffins had been robbed

But then they realized there was just one intact.

The team used dynamite to open it up and what they discovered inside

Was a massive mummified bull.

Narrator: They realized that the ancient egyptians had built these huge coffins

And this entire site as an underground cemetery for enormous prized bulls.

The bulls were worshipped by the ancient egyptians

Who thought that they were supernatural beings with magical powers.

While alive, each bull was treated to a five-star lifestyle.

Bettany: It was given a special diet and even had its own harem of cows.

And in death it was buried with all the pomp and circumstance of a pharaoh.

Narrator: In total, there are 24 of these monstrous stone coffins.

Just think of the superhuman effort to get them all down here.

And with only a fraction of saqqara's city of the dead excavated so far

Who knows what might be discovered next?

Bettany: The site at saqqara is brilliantly rich and beautifully bizarre

And that's why it's one of our top 10 treasures.

This was a place where the world of the dead

Was as important as the world of the living.

And it's a fantastic reminder that although the ancient egyptians are very like us

They often did things that are frankly completely weird,

Um, and that's why I love it and them.

Narrator: Next time, I'll be counting down my final four.

Male: Look at that. Bettany: No way. Look at this.

It's extraordinary down here.

Narrator: As we reveal my top treasure of egypt.

Bettany: That is truly special.

That is something I'm gonna treasure.

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