Original subtitles

♪♪

Narrator: It's Egypt's biggest excavation in 100 years.

Archeologist Dr. Zahi Hawass.

Is here to explore the last great tract of wilderness.

In the valley of the kings.

His mission... To find a missing tomb

from Tutankhamun's royal line filled with treasure.

Hawass: We are looking for a royal tomb

hidden in the silence

and the mystery of this unique valley.

Finding an intact tomb would be absolutely spectacular,

mind blowing.

It would be the biggest thing in the history of Egyptology.

Narrator: 150 workers will dig for six months...

We really haven't seen anything on this scale before.

Narrator: ...In temperatures over 100 degrees.

They need to move thousands of tons of rock and rubble

in sweltering desert heat.

And they'll do it all by hand

to realize Zahi's ultimate ambition.

It is my dream to discover that tomb

of the famous magical Queen, Nefertiti.

It's like a wall to hide something.

The marks.

This is an entrance of a tomb.

There is something here.

Nefertiti.

♪♪

Narrator: The valley of the kings...

The world famous burial ground

of the greatest pharaohs of ancient Egypt.

And the setting for the archeological

find of the 20th century.

Hawass: Carter found the golden tomb,

the tomb of Tutankhamun.

Look, this is the steps.

When Carter found the steps,

he was not sure that this tomb was intact.

He excavated this corridor step by step.

And he came to the second door.

And that is the moment that Carter was sure

that the tomb is intact.

Narrator: What Howard Carter found inside stunned the world.

Bianchi: My perception is that when Tutankhamun died,

they hired the Egyptian equivalent of a packing company,

and anything and everything that was associated with him in life

was packed and then crammed into that tomb.

Narrator: Over 5,000 treasures,

worth millions of dollars today.

Epic stories of Carter's discovery

inspired the young Zahi.

Hawass: I live in the past every minute in my life

thinking about something in archeology.

This is because of the passion to continue that adventure.

Bianchi: The name of Zahi Hawass

is synonymous with Egyptian archeology.

Ikram: If he were to find an intact tomb,

he would go down in the history books

much as Howard Carter has done.

Narrator: For 40 years,

Zahi has dreamt of finding one of the missing tombs

from Tutankhamun's royal family.

But where to start?

64 tombs have already been found here,

and archeologists have been scouring the area

around the tomb of Tutankhamun for the last few decades...

Without success.

Zahi's idea... to search a place that has been overlooked.

Only a few hundred feet away over a plateau

lies a little known branch of the valley of the kings,

the west valley.

Virtually unexplored by archeologists,

and no wonder.

Remote,

hostile,

and buried deep in centuries of rubble,

it's a forbidding place and the ultimate test of perseverance.

But Zahi is convinced

that this is where the last royal tombs are hidden.

Hawass: The reason that they came here,

scholars never excavated here,

everyone wanted to go to the east valley

because the east valley had the faith,

the tomb of Tutankhamun.

Narrator: Zahi believes he has found a clue

that could lead him to a missing tomb.

An archeologist map from 1830 marks the outline of three huts

to the north of the valley.

Hawass: This map, it is the starting point

for a big discovery in the west valley of the kings.

Narrator: But first, his team

has to dig through 3,000 years of debris.

Zahi suspects these huts could have been used by workers

on a tomb-building project.

A rule for archeologists...

If you find worker huts, that is tombs.

♪♪

Narrator: But Zahi needs evidence.

His team will have to sift through the materials

around the huts for clues,

Hawass: The music of excavation.

Looking, removing, discovering.

Only two finished tombs

have been discovered in the west valley.

Both of them belong to pharaohs from Tutankhamun's royal line.

The first, the tomb of his grandfather Amenhotep III,

and the second, the tomb of tut's successor, king ay.

Bianchi: The west valley is interesting

because we've got two identifiable tombs

you have the tomb of Amenhotep III

almost immediately as you enter.

You walk in a little bit of a circuitous route,

and then at the very end, you have the tomb of ay.

There's an enormous expanse of space

between the bookends that any number of tombs

could still possibly be found.

Narrator: Out of Tutankhamun's royal family,

there are several members whose tombs are yet to be discovered.

Zahi has his heart set on finding one in particular,

the tomb of Egypt's most famous Queen Nefertiti,

an iconic Queen who married the son of Amenhotep III

and became stepmother to king Tutankhamun.

Nefertiti ruled during Egypt's golden age

and became famed for her legendary beauty.

Ikram: She's referred to as a living God,

and she really was one of the most powerful women

ever to be a Queen in the 18th dynasty.

Narrator: Could she have been laid to rest here

in this hidden branch of the valley?

It's absolutely conceivable that Nefertiti was buried

in the western valley near the tomb of Amenhotep III.

Narrator: Zahi is convinced.

I am sure Nefertiti is here, 100%

but where? This is the question.

♪♪

♪♪

Narrator: Were the huts marked on the map

in use in Nefertiti's time?

[ Man shouts ]

Before long, a clue.

Fragments of ancient pottery.

Their provenance can reveal vital information

about this site.

Pottery is very important in archeology.

Pottery can lead us to understand

the function of any place.

Narrator: As the team peel back the layers,

more pottery is unearthed,

suggesting there were workmen here.

Zahi brings in his right hand man...

Field director and fellow archeologist Afifi Rahim.

All this stuff belonged to the daily life of the workers,

so it means there is a big activity in this area.

Thank you.

Aisha Mohammod and her team catalog every item.

I receive the material here to draw it...

And record it...

And prepare everything for the study.

Narrator: Each fragment will be dated and sent to the lab.

The dig throws up more and more pottery,

typical of the 18th dynasty.

We have to be patient, and we have to keep digging

to get answers for our questions.

Narrator: The team wants to find out

if the huts date from the time of Nefertiti.

And then among all the plain fragments...

...Afifi spots something significant,

it's a blue pigment.

A smoking gun.

This ethereal shade of pale blue wasn't developed

until the 18th dynasty.

Hawass: All this pottery, all of this is from Nefertiti.

Narrator: This shade of blue is not only rare and expensive,

it is associated with one of Nefertiti's closest relatives,

her father-in-law, Amenhotep III.

The largest of the two finished tombs in the western valley

belongs to Amenhotep III.

He was the wealthiest and most powerful pharaoh

Egypt had ever seen.

Hawass: This king wanted to have a unique place for his family

by choosing the west valley for his period tomb.

Hartwig: Amenhotep III chose the western valley for his tomb

because he wanted to start a new dynasty.

He wanted to build his tomb as far away

from the tombs of predecessors

and also Mark out a landscape where his sons and his daughters

and the rest of the generations would be buried

narrator: At several thousand square feet,

Amenhotep's tomb is one of the largest

in the valley of the kings and reflects his great wealth.

A thin, long tomb in the rock

covered with beautiful seats

of the king in front of many Gods.

Narrator: It's a labyrinth of corridors and chambers.

On the walls, a distinctive color...

...pale blue,

resembling the prized pottery associated with Amenhotep reign.

Based on the pottery,

all of it that's found in these huts is from Nefertiti.

No one single pottery, 19th or the 20th,

and therefore, I really considered this valley

as a place exclusive for Amenhotep III and his family.

Narrator: It appears the huts were servicing

the build of an undiscovered royal tomb nearby.

And there's more exciting news

next to the original three huts.

The shape of several more is emerging from the dust.

There are still huts.

I didn't expect that I will find a huge number of huts.

Narrator: So, what was thought to be 3 huts is now, in fact, 10.

So, it means that the number of the workers

who were in this area was a huge number.

Narrator: But what were they building?

Could these workers have been constructing a tomb

worthy of a Queen?

♪♪

Zahi Hawass and his team are four weeks

into Egypt's biggest archeological dig.

Hartwig: If anybody can find a tomb in the western valley,

Zahi Hawass can.

Narrator: They've uncovered what looks like ancient huts.

Could these structures have been used by workers

building a royal tomb for one of Tutankhamun's family members?

Zahi hopes it will lead him to the ultimate prize,

the lost tomb of Nefertiti,

the most iconic Queen of ancient Egypt's golden age.

As excavators dig around the structures,

more and more huts are revealed.

It's now looking more like a street of stone dwellings,

up to an incredible 30 in total.

Hawass: The three houses are only three in the map,

then we thought this could be more huts,

but never anyone knew this big extension

of the discovery of 30 houses.

So, exciting to find something like this.

The walls are connected together like a street.

Narrator: But to Afifi,

the structures don't appear to be ordinary workers' huts.

Rahim: First, we saw that all of this is just a hut,

but it is not normal to find another doorway

and another subset of rooms connected with main rooms,

Hawass: The houses are different.

For all the workmen have found in the east

or the west valley.

They're bigger.

Zahi thinks the structures are too extensive

and sophisticated to be simple workers' huts.

Could they be the remains of a workmen's village?

Only one such settlement has been found nearby.

One mile south of the dig lies a unique site.

3,000-year-old Deir El-Medina.

It's isolated desert setting is no accident.

For almost 400 years,

this was home to an elite group of skilled builders

dedicated to a single task... Constructing the royal tombs

in the valley of the kings.

This village is unique.

It started on dynasty 18.

It has 68 houses.

Look... the 68 houses, each house

consists of four rooms and a kitchen.

Hartwig: The village of Deir El-Medina was inhabited by the workmen

who worked on the valley of kings,

and it was a community.

It wasn't just the workmen,

but it was also their families and their children.

Narrator: Pharaohs didn't want to risk workers

sharing the secret location of royal tombs with outsiders.

Hawass: This is how they cook, they eat, they love,

they hate... everything is here.

The rooms are really big,

the houses are built from mud brick.

Narrator: Are the 30 structures uncovered in the west valley

a second Deir El-Medina?

Zahi is not convinced.

The 13 houses that were found

in the west valley are completely different.

They're not rooms for the workmen to live permanent.

I don't think that the workmen lived in the west valley.

Narrator: If they're not dwellings big enough for workers

and their families,

then what were these mysterious structures for

and how might they relate to a royal tomb?

♪♪

Afifi and the team have uncovered an unusual feature,

a limestone slab with a hole

which almost certainly held a door post.

This was no workman's shelter.

What was going on inside these huts

that was so important,

it needed to be kept under lock and key?

The answer may lie in the artifacts

being recovered from the site.

♪♪

This is a needle.

We found it in the house number 16.

It's made of bronze, would be used

for making some clothes for the king

to put it inside the tomb.

It's so rare to find something like this.

I think there's only one needle in a museum.

Narrator: There is even jewelry that might have been crafted

to grace the royal mummy itself.

We have a group of beads, different colors.

And also, we have a big bead,

but without completing the hole inside it,

so it means unfinished.

So, maybe they were preparing a necklace

for the Princess or the Queen.

Narrator: Finally, a piece of evidence which takes the purpose

of the lockable huts to a whole new level,

a tiny chip of black rock.

This represented the pupil inside the eye in the statues.

In the old kingdom, it appeared rounded like a circle,

but it in 18th dynasty, this shape.

I think it's obsidian.

Narrator: A volcanic rock, obsidian was used to craft

the eyes of Tutankhamun in his famous death mask.

It was the greatest treasure recovered from his tomb

and remains the most famous Egyptian artifact in the world.

To Afifi, obsidian can only mean one thing.

Someone was making a royal mask in these huts.

If he's right, these stone structures were a workshop

making luxury items for a royal tomb.

So, we have called these structures workmen's huts.

I think better to call them workmen's ateliers

or perhaps artists studios where fine-crafted work

is being conducted like a jeweler's shop

or like a great ceramic studio.

It's very important for the tomb to be equipped

with artifacts that the king would use in the beyond.

Bianchi: What makes that discovery

a little bit more momentous is that we've now found

material in them that tell us the function of the building.

Narrator: This is the first funerary workshop ever found in Egypt.

Not only that, teams of artisans

were crafting funeral items on an industrial scale...

You would have 30, 40 rooms that are all linked together

and each room would be in charge of a specific facet.

Narrator: ...Suggesting luxury goods

were being created for a ruler, a king or a Queen.

♪♪

Of all the members of Amenhotep's royal line

whose tombs are yet to be discovered,

only one of them was a ruler...

Queen Nefertiti.

Narrator: In the search for the missing tomb of Queen Nefertiti,

Zahi's team has made a monumental discovery...

...the first funerary workshop ever found in Egypt.

Hartwig: Finding this industrial workshop,

it is unique, and it is unique for the valley of the kings.

Narrator: 3,000 years ago,

this would have been a buzzing hive of industry.

Teams of artisans would have crafted luxury items

for a royal tomb.

Furniture...

Vases...

Jewelry...

Items a king or Queen would need in the afterlife.

Hawass: Artifacts like gold and silver

would be stored and sealed by a door in a house like this.

Rahim: We found many things that tell us

that they finished funeral stuff here

before it gets into the tomb directly.

Narrator: News of the discovery has attracted the world's press

to this forgotten branch of the valley.

Hawass: For the first time, we made major discoveries.

Number one, we found an industrial area.

30 houses were found. Inside the houses.

We found workshops for making pottery,

workshop for making furniture.

Narrator: The discovery is a world first,

a game-changer for Egyptian archeology.

And for Zahi,

it signals a crucial step towards his ultimate dream.

♪♪

Narrator: To work out where the tomb is in relation

to the funerary workshop,

Zahi needs to get in the mind of an Egyptian tomb builder.

And to do that, he has uncovered clues

written in the cliff faces of this ancient landscape.

Geologist John Paul Zonneveld has analyzed

how Egyptian tomb builders use natural features in the rock

when choosing a tomb site.

The valley of the kings has large-scale vertical fractures

that occur at regular intervals and fault systems,

most of which are related to the natural weakness

of the rocks themselves.

Narrator: The natural process that formed the valley

left its limestone cliffs riddled with fractures.

Zonneveld: The ancient Egyptians clearly understood

the orientations of these fractures,

and when they picked sites for their tombs,

they are very, very careful to find the orientation

of the fractures in the area.

Narrator: Tomb builders knew that multiple fractures

made the rock dangerously unstable.

Zonneveld: They avoided what we refer to as fracture swarms.

When you have a whole bunch of small fractures near each other,

your rocks break into small chunks.

Finding the right sort of fracture

could make the colossal task

of carving a tomb out of solid rock

a whole lot easier,

as an unfinished 18th dynasty tomb

in the east valley demonstrates.

Zonneveld: It's apparent that the ancient Egyptians

used the natural fracture system in this mountain

to aid with tomb construction.

In this case right here,

we could see a major fracture network

that runs all the way along the roof right here

towards the edge of that secondary doorway.

This is really quite amazing. As they came down the shaft,

they clearly use this next fracture system

as a way of creating this beautiful tabular wall

right here, this beautiful straight wall.

Narrator: To help him identify which fracture patterns

could lead him to a tomb,

Zahi must get a bird's eye view of the landscape.

And for that, he needs to bring in technology.

Specialists will conduct

an aerial photogrammetric survey of the valley

to produce a highly accurate 3-d map,

Downes: We're into new territory of accuracy

on the scale that we're at.

If we needed to, we could go down

and you'll you'll see you'll see small, small stones in this.

Giant model, extremely high-resolution model.

Narrator: The data will be used to produce

the first 3-d model of the west valley.

It's something really amazing.

This accuracy, it didn't exist before.

This is cutting-edge technology,

so, they think this is right?

Yeah, it's looking good to me.

Yeah, me too. Let's go.

♪♪

Narrator: The drone takes one photo per second

of the entire valley,

from the tops of its cliffs to its desert floor.

♪♪

It's not long before the team can analyze the results.

The 3-d model highlights several key fracture points

around the site of the funerary workshops.

But Zahi is honing in on one particular area.

It's a point where the valley forks

only 150 feet from the workshops.

Here, a wall of evenly spaced large fractures,

the type favored by tomb builders.

Could this be the final resting place of Egypt's

most famous Queen?

He relocates his 150-strong excavation team.

It's a huge gamble.

When you deal with Dr. Zahi Hawass,

it makes me feel pressure,

because Dr. Zahi trusts in me.

You can't say no to him.

[ Chuckles ] You will just take his orders.

Take a breath.

[ Laughs ]

♪♪

Narrator: Egyptologist Zahi Hawass

has just three months left

before the west valley's brutal summer heat

will end the digging season.

♪♪

He has discovered the first ever workshop

crafting grave goods for a pharaoh.

But now he needs to locate the lost tomb

they were destined for.

When you think about it in a forensic way,

truly exciting, because where you find huts,

you find tombs.

Narrator: To find a tomb entrance or cut means digging

right down to the bedrock.

It won't be easy.

Parched desert canyons

are among the most challenging places on earth

for archeologists to work...

...not because of the lack of rain,

but what happens to the landscape when it does.

Zonneveld: When rain starts, it dampens the upper level of the sediment,

Clay minerals swell, and they create a surface

that nothing can penetrate.

There's no vegetation to hold back that water

it's a dry landscape.

And, so, everything comes coating down these canyons.

Even if only a centimeter of rain falls,

we're still getting around 10 liters of water

for every square meter of surface behind us.

There are thousands of square meters of landscape

feeding into every one of these canyons.

It creates an amazing erosional force

that comes through these canyons transporting everything with it.

Narrator: Repeated flooding over 3,000 years

has transported millions of tons of rubble down the valley,

burying the entrances to any hidden tombs.

In the east valley, Howard Carter

spent seven years clearing the valley floor

before he had any chance of locating Tutankhamun's tomb,

the west valley remains how the east valley

looked a century ago,

barely excavated virgin territory.

Zahi must follow in Carter's footsteps

and clear three millennia of rubble

using the same method... Muscle power.

Heavy machinery is forbidden.

It could destroy crucial evidence.

It needs a brave archeologist,

we are brave.

The Egyptian, when they came to the new kingdom

to choose this valley, they thought the valley is difficult.

It's away from the people. You have hidden areas.

It's a perfect hiding place.

Narrator: A successful dig

relies on a well-organized team of excavators.

Leading this team, Reis Ali is one man

who has archeology in his blood.

He's from a family that all their lives

are connected with archeology.

[ Shouts in foreign language ]

♪♪

Narrator: After only a few days digging at the new location,

Reis Ali stumbles on something.

I think it's not gold.

Not gold.

Maybe bronze? Maybe bronze.

During the 18th dynasty,

bronze was a highly valued material.

Can the hieroglyphic engraving reveal its origin?

We can't say anything now about the owner of this ring.

We just need more cleaning.

Rahim: I was so happy.

It was really amazing to find a big ring in this area.

A specialist in jewelry restoration

reveals the hieroglyphs.

Zahi's first interpretation is tantalizing.

Could this be the signature ring

of the famous Queen of Egypt's golden age?

Nefertiti was a pivotal figure at the heart of the royal family

of Amenhotep III.

She married Amenhotep son, Akhenaten,

and ruled alongside him

before becoming stepmother to Tutankhamun.

Hartwig: She was definitely Akhenaten's partner in crime

and was part of his religious revolution,

stood by his side through thick and thin.

She's part of this long line of Egyptian Queens

during the 18th dynasty who really held their own.

Bianchi: She becomes a major, major player

in any discussion of the development

of that historical period, and that's undeniable.

Hartwig: Nefertiti most likely ruled in her own right.

We also think that after Akhenaten died,

Nefertiti ruled for three years before tut took the throne.

Narrator: Did this ring once adorn the finger of a Queen?

Could the ring have been dropped in the dust

on the way to a tomb?

Narrator: In the remote western branch

of the valley of the kings,

Zahi's search for the tomb of Nefertiti

is making slow progress.

It's taken several weeks to clear 15 feet of rubble...

By hand.

♪♪

But the hard work has paid off.

Reis Ali has made an incredible discovery.

If the ring is inscribed with Nefertiti's royal insignia,

then this will be a game changer,

but it's not conclusive.

The second part of the symbol is a hieroglyph

Zahi hasn't seen before.

Nobody can translate the title of this ring

because it's a strange title.

And nobody see this title before.

Narrator: Afifi sends a photograph of the ring

to hieroglyph experts.

We asked many specialists in the ancient Egyptian language.

Narrator: Could this be the royal crest of Queen Nefertiti?

Later that day, one of Afifi sources

responds with a translation of the hieroglyphs.

The one who is united with the two masters.

Narrator: It's not Nefertiti, but it is a royal title.

And it is from her family.

It celebrates the reign of her father-in-law,

Amenhotep III,

the wealthiest and most powerful pharaoh Egypt had ever known.

He commissioned more statues and temples than any king

before him, including the Luxor temple.

But this wasn't his greatest influence.

He would be the catalyst for a religious revolution.

Pharaohs were semi-divine in life and divine and death.

What does he do? He makes himself divine while alive.

This is a whole new game.

Narrator: Amenhotep was to become Egypt's first living God.

Here we have the God Amun-Ra seated on a throne,

and we've got Amenhotep III kneeling beside him.

What Amun-Ra was doing is he's bestowing his blessing

on the coronation of Amenhotep III.

And you'll also note Amenhotep III is wearing

the ram's horn that's associated with the God Amun-Ra.

He has already joined with the God

and is now divine while alive.

Narrator: The Luxor temple celebrates this unification,

a powerful symbol of his divine status.

Hartwig: Before, temples were smaller. They were enclosed.

There wasn't as much space as you have here,

we're in the middle of the sun court.

This is about the celebration of the king joining with the sun.

What Amenhotep III brings to us

is a sense of theatricality of the king

presenting himself in front of the throng

and proclaiming his divinity while alive.

Narrator: 3,000 years ago,

this Godlike pharaoh would have commanded a loyal following.

Many of Amenhotep's family members may have worn a ring

to show their devotion to their God king.

Hawass: People in that time, royal and nobles,

could have the name of Amenhotep III to be touched with him.

Narrator: It's proof that the ring is from the right dynasty.

It also confirms that workers have reached

beneath the flood deposits to the precise era.

Hawass: The west valley, in my opinion,

is the place that could contain all the people

who are related to Amenhotep III,

and this type of people should have this ring.

♪♪

♪♪

As workers sift through the dust for more clues,

they find something unusual,

a dark layer that looks like ash.

Reis Ali: Doctor.

Narrator: Amid the ash, Reis Ali makes a discovery.

Gold.

♪♪

He's discovered items

that Zahi thinks were destined for a royal tomb.

It was a big surprise to discover

these beautiful artifacts.

For example, oh, this is very interesting.

This is gold. It's beautiful.

When the king goes to war.

He will wear a vest.

In the vest, it has decoration.

Imagine that this vest has all these tiny bits here.

This is very rare that you can see it.

It has a hole in here and a hole here

for tying them on the vest of the king.

A royal piece. Very interesting and very important.

Let us see what else is here.

Now, in my opinion, this is a very important discovery.

Narrator: Dozens of exquisite glass inlays in the shape

of teardrops and arrowheads.

3,000 years ago, glass was a highly prized material,

its manufacture was regulated by royalty

and used to create ornaments and decorate jewelry.

Hawass: This represents the wings of Horus

because when you put this on the coffin as a decoration,

it means that the king is connected with Horus.

Narrator: The God Horus was depicted as a falcon

and one of the most important Egyptian deities.

As God of both the heavens and kingship,

he was seen as the protector of the pharaoh

and was often represented on coffins.

Zahi wants to find out if these glass inlays

are a match for other royal coffins from the 18th dynasty,

confirming his hunch means a journey to Cairo.

The Cairo museum houses one of the largest collections

of ancient Egyptian coffins in the world,

if Zahi can find a match to the glass inlays,

it's further evidence that he's on the trail to a royal tomb.

On the coffin of Nefertiti's husband, Akhenaten,

the inlays are virtually identical.

But what about the sarcophagus of Nefertiti's stepson,

the most famous pharaoh of all?

It's amazing when I look at the coffin of Tutankhamun.

If you look at what we discovered,

you have the blue arrow and you have the red arrow.

It's the same style, the same color,

and actually the blue is a typical color

dated from Amenhotep III.

Narrator: The inlays aren't just similar,

they are an exact match in every way.

It's proving it's royal.

I am not losing the hope the tomb is there.

Narrator: The next big question is where.

Narrator: It's Egypt's biggest dig in a century.

Bianchi: We know that archeology

doesn't always have a "Eureka" moment.

I mean, it takes time...

Patience...

Dedication...

Determination...

To be able to reach an objective.

Zahi's determined that he will find

whatever may be hidden in the west valley.

The west valley, it's a perfect place

to fit with the mind of the ancient Egyptian.

Their mind is to hide a tomb... Security.

It could be protected. It could be intact.

Narrator: Perhaps even the tomb of the most iconic Queen

of the 18th dynasty.

The location of Queen Nefertiti's missing tomb

is one of Egypt's greatest unsolved mysteries,

Bianchi: The imagination runs wild when one tries to predict

what would be found in the tomb of Nefertiti.

The expectation is, yes,

let's hope that if it is complete,

we'll find beautiful objects

because we know dynasty 18, the reign of Amenhotep III

to ay is the high watermark of Egyptian art.

That's why it's so highly prized

by museums and collectors.

Zahi is not the only one on the hunt for the tomb.

Back in 2015, a new twist to the tale.

British archeologist Nicholas Reeves

suggested that her remains might lie in a chamber

hidden inside Tutankhamun's tomb.

I go where the evidence takes me,

and the evidence at the moment suggests

there may be another doorway

behind the west wall of the burial chamber.

Narrator: But no such chamber was found,

Zahi has his own theory.

He thinks the Nefertiti hunters are looking in the wrong place

and that her tomb lies in the west valley.

Zahi believes that when tut's powerful grandfather

Amenhotep III sited his tomb here,

he was making a statement,

inaugurating the west valley as the new burial ground

for all his family.

He wanted to start a new dynasty.

He wanted to build his tomb

as far away from the tombs of predecessors

and also Mark out a landscape where his sons and his daughters

and the rest of the generations would be buried.

Narrator: Supporting this theory

is one of the dynasty's final rulers,

king ay, king tut's successor.

Ay located his tomb at the other end of the west valley,

not far from Zahi's dig site.

Hawass: I really love this tomb.

The scenes here are beautiful.

Daily life scenes. Ay is in his boat.

Narrator: But if the west valley was the family burial ground,

why wasn't Tutankhamun laid to rest here?

King ay's tomb holds a clue.

I believe that this tomb was originally made for Tutankhamun.

The reason that I think it is connected

with the tomb of Tutankhamun is this scene...

The same scene of the 12 baboons.

It's exactly the same in the tomb of Tutankhamun.

Most of us believe that this tomb

was originally made for him.

He wanted to be beside his grandfather,

and therefore he built this tomb in this area.

The sudden death of Tutankhamun meant

this tomb was not ready for him.

Ikram: The fact that Tutankhamun was buried

in the small, awkwardly shaped tomb for a king

in the valley of the kings has led to endless speculation

that he died very quickly,

and so he had to be hastily buried.

His successor, ay, decided,

"oh, I'll put you in the small tomb

and to take the tomb in the west valley

that's been cut for you, and I will take that over."

Narrator: And there's another reason

why Zahi thinks that the missing tomb of Queen Nefertiti

will be found like ay's tomb in the west valley.

She is widely believed to have been king ay's daughter.

[ Shouting in foreign language ]

Back at the dig site...

A worker sifting through layers

of ancient debris raises the alarm.

He's found a second ring,

Afifi and jewelry specialist Mahmood

take a closer look.

After you clean this ring,

which material do you think it's made of?

The material may be silver.

The ring will need testing to confirm it is made of silver,

but if Mahmood is right,

it would be a highly significant find.

Silver is so rare in ancient Egypt,

so it is more valuable than the gold.

Ancient Egypt was rich in gold.

There were plenty of mines in the eastern desert.

But silver had to be imported from Syria and Greece,

making it more precious to Egyptian kings than gold.

Bianchi: We have commodity lists from ancient Egypt,

silver is habitually listed above gold.

So, the Egyptians believed that silver

was the more precious of the precious materials.

Did you work in something like this before in other sites.

No. No. No.

I worked in many sites before.

I never find any silver object before.

This is the first time to find something silver.

Narrator: It's not just its rarity that makes this ring exciting.

And from the shape, we can say it is a female ring.

I think it is something special to find this ring here.

If silver is the most precious material,

and we find a ring, small diameter

to be able to fit what we think is a petite hand,

not a masculine hand,

we might suggest that the ring belonged

to a royal female member of the court.

Narrator: Could this precious ring have belonged to a Queen?

Could it even have adorned the finger of Nefertiti herself?

Narrator: Egyptologist Zahi Hawass

is on the mission of a lifetime.

To find the lost tomb of an 18th dynasty Queen.

His search has just been boosted.

By the discovery of a woman's ring

which looks like silver.

Silver was more valuable than gold in ancient Egypt

and so rare that it was often intermixed with other metals.

Time to see whether the ring silver content

is pure enough for a Queen.

An X-ray fluorescence machine

will analyze the ring's chemical composition.

X-rays beamed onto the ring

will detect how much silver it contains.

♪♪

The ring is 97% pure silver.

A ring of such high silver content is an incredible find.

Silver was a really rare commodity in Egypt

because it needed to be imported.

Gold was literally in the backyard.

We think about tut and all the objects that he was buried with.

Only five were silver.

Narrator: This vase is one of those five silver items

found in Tutankhamun's tomb.

It is now housed in the research labs

of Cairo's grand Egyptian museum.

Narrator: It's the first time since its discovery in 1922

that this 3,000 year old vase

has been analyzed with X-ray technology.

Okay, start.

[ Device beeps ]

Hawass: 81% silver.

Yes, there's a difference between them.

Okay.

Incredibly, the silver vase discovered in king tut's tomb

is not as pure as the silver ring

uncovered by Zahi.

The design of the ring

also gives a clue to its provenance.

It mimics a painting discovered

in the palace of Amenhotep III.

Bianchi: A ring decorated with spirals...

That is a particular royal motif

that is associated with the court of Amenhotep III.

I think we have a smoking gun here.

Maybe we do have the tomb

of a female member of the dynasty

still to be discovered in the valley.

This is a major boost to Zahi's theory.

Hawass: It seems that this person was important enough

to be able to have a silver ring.

The ring was being used for the deceased Queen to wear it

in the afterlife.

♪♪

Narrator: Months into the dig,

Zahi has found plenty of fascinating artifacts...

But no sign of a tomb.

And the temperature is rising.

In a few weeks, the heat will bring an end

to the digging season.

Under pressure to discover a royal tomb,

the team widens their dig area.

But before long, they encounter a problem,

excavators uncover the opening to what looks like a shaft,

but there is something blocking their path.

And if you look at the shape of the stone,

it looks like the shape of the pit itself.

So, it means this was used as a cover for this pit.

Narrator: Before Zahi and Afifi can be totally sure,

they need to keep digging.

But first, workers have to move the huge Boulder

without it rolling back into the shaft.

We need to excavate all the area underneath of this huge stone.

But our problem now... How to move this stone.

No, I have special workers. [ Laughs ]

Very strong and very smart

they have a good experience with this kind of work.

[ Men chanting ]

They will do it.

All the work that you see here, moving stones, digging.

It is ancient Egyptian technique.

Pushing the stone with wooden sledges,

ropes to pull,

and they're singing, "push... Push... Push!"

[ Men chanting ]

[ Shouts in foreign language ]

And it's done.

[ Cheers and applause ]

It is ancient Egyptian technique,

narrator: Only 100 feet from the excavation,

Afifi calls Zahi to the scene of an eerie discovery.

It looks like a mummy.

♪♪

♪♪

This looks like part of a body.

[ Conversing in foreign language ]

Narrator: It looks like human remains.

Clues found in the same layer

allows Zahi to estimate the date.

You look at the pottery that we found near this mummy,

the blue-decorated pottery is a typical dynasty 18.

I think you are in front of an important discovery

that will reveal important evidence for us,

narrator: But are these mummified remains from the 18th dynasty?

If they are, Zahi could be on the verge

of a huge breakthrough.

Narrator: Zahi Hawass is on a quest to find tombs

of the lost female members of Tutankhamun's royal line.

Really, he's leaving no stone unturned.

So, if there is a tomb to be found,

I am sure that he would find it,

narrator: The discovery of what looks like

a mummified body part poses more questions.

What's it doing here out in the open?

Afifi calls in an expert.

Dr. Zeinab hasheesh is a specialist

in analyzing ancient mummy remains.

It's easy to record a complete mummy,

but it's very difficult to record tiny pieces of bones

and mummified remains.

Narrator: There's not much to go on,

but Zeinab establishes the remains are a hip, thigh,

and knee joint belonging to an adult.

Hasheesh: In this case, this is the left side.

And, also, this is very interesting here.

There is flesh and ligaments.

This is the skin.

And on the top of the skin, a soft layer of resin.

The ancient Egyptians believed that a person's Ka,

their spirit,

could survive death and live on in the afterlife

if their body was perfectly preserved.

Ikram: Mummification was one of the most important parts

of the funerary rituals

because, of course, you needed your body to be preserved

so your soul could animate it, and you could enjoy

all the benefits of this world in the next.

Narrator: Mummification was a long and expensive process

that used a mineral salt called natron.

Ikram: They would take out your internal organs,

wash you out with palm wine,

and then using this natron, they would dry you.

And then after 40 days when you were dry,

they'd remove you from the natron, sort of dust you off.

And it makes you really stiff.

So, after that, they would have to take

some oils and unguents,

massage them into the body to give you some flexibility.

And also wrap you in multiple,

multiple layers of pure linen.

And they put amulets and jewelry,

so after the total of 70 days, you are a mummy.

Narrator: And the more important you were,

the more time and money was spent on the process,

providing a critical clue to this money, social status.

Hasheesh: They spent a lot of money to get this result

of mummification.

From the treatment of the body,

I assume it's elite royalty.

But to be sure, we should do analysis.

It looks likely that the mummy fragment could be royal,

and the pottery found nearby dates it to broadly

the right era, but Afifi saved the big question till last.

Is it male or female?

If we take the width of this wall,

we can know if it's a female or male.

So, she's female.

She's female. Good.

I hope so.

Narrator: For Zahi, it's another boost to his theory

that the west valley is home to the missing tombs

of Tutankhamun's wife, sisters,

and his illustrious stepmother, Nefertiti.

But it's a bittersweet discovery,

finding what could be the mummy of a royal female

out in the open

proves that the tomb it was buried in has been looted.

The lure of treasure- filled royal tombs

made the valley of the kings a magnet

for ancient Egyptian tomb raiders.

After stripping the tomb of its valuables,

they would abandon anything they couldn't sell,

including the mummified body.

This was the sad state

that befell Tutankhamun's own grandmother.

In 1898, archeologists came across 12 mummies stored

in a side chamber of someone else's tomb in the east valley.

They had been reburied there

after their original resting place was looted.

Among them, a mummy with the chest and abdomen torn open,

possibly by tomb raiders searching for ritual amulets.

She was later found to be Queen Tiye,

the great royal wife of Amenhotep III.

She now lies in the Cairo museum.

This mummy was found behind a wall in KV35.

We did compare DNA with Yuya and Tjuyu

the father and the mother of Queen Tiye,

and we found they're identical.

This proves that this lady

was actually Queen Tiye.

If you look at her statues,

that she's almost equal to the king,

and this to show her power on Amenhotep III.

He loved her.

Narrator: Even found in the wrong tomb,

recovering her mummy allowed archeologists

to correctly identify Queen Tiye.

Could the mummy fragments found by Zahi's team

belonged to another of tut's female relatives,

even Nefertiti herself?

Zeinab, you are sure that this is a female?

Hasheesh: Yes, I am sure.

Okay. Now, in your opinion, what dynasty?

I think it's from 18 dynasty

because the mummification techniques is perfect.

The layers that they used to wrap this mummy,

it has 15 layers of linen, three different kinds of linen.

What does this mean?

This means it's a royal

because they use a lot of techniques

to take care of this mummy.

And I really believe when I saw this

the mummification is perfect.

Do you think that this piece could be of a Princess, a lady?

Yeah.

Because this is beautifully mummified.

It could be belonged to a Queen.

Yeah.

Narrator: It's all just as Zahi hoped.

But Zeinab has observed something else intriguing

about the mummy.

She was overweight.

Because we have here folded in in the skin here

and here and here.

Towards the end of the 18th dynasty,

king Akhenaten and his wife, Queen Nefertiti,

brought sweeping changes to Egyptian culture,

introducing what's called the Amarna period.

Hartwig: Akhenaten was known as the heretic pharaoh.

He took all of the Egyptian Gods and boiled them down to one,

the sun disc, the Aton.

Narrator: As well as making the sun God Aton the prime deity,

there was a new ideal of beauty.

Royal women, previously portrayed as slender,

became noticeably more curvaceous,

their hips and thighs growing fatter,

this pear shaped Queen is Nefertiti herself.

Could the fat-hipped mummy be Nefertiti?

If so, Zahi could be within touching distance

of Egyptologists most elusive prize,

the tomb of Egypt's most iconic Queen.

♪♪

Narrator: Zahi is returning to the west valley

with incredible news.

Experts have confirmed that the mummy fragment found here

belongs to a royal female from the right period.

It may even be the remains of Nefertiti herself.

Work has been intensified on the area

around the mummy find to reach the bedrock.

Zahi's hopes lie on finding a cut

leading to a tomb's entrance.

But Zahi is met with bad news.

The workers have reached the bedrock with no sign of a tomb.

It's a huge blow.

I think this area is finished now,

but in our work, you shouldn't give up.

Narrator: Zahi reassesses the mysterious ash layers found here

alongside gold artifacts and glass inlays.

He comes to the conclusion the area was a tomb raiders' camp.

They would bring looted sarcophagi here

and burned them down to recover precious metals and gems,

which means the fragment of female mummy

could have originated anywhere in the valley.

It's time to move the dig.

But where? The west valley is a vast area.

Rahim: If we wanted to check all the valley,

it will need many years.

Hawass: We have to be patient.

We have to wait until the right moment comes,

then we'll discover it.

A great discovery, in my opinion, will happen.

Narrator: There are only 10 days left

until the end of the digging season.

But Zahi has a plan.

Until now, he's focused his search for the tombs

of the missing royal women

close to the tomb of Nefertiti's father, king ay.

Now he's moving closer to the valley's other royal tomb

built for Amenhotep III,

the 18th dynasties greatest king.

Now, the important area for us to concentrate

is the area of Amenhotep III,

the perfect place to host all the tombs of his family.

Narrator: The new dig site is a location

where the valley widens up to a width of 450 feet.

In one last throw of the dice,

Zahi splits his 150-strong workforce into 10 groups

and assigns each of them a patch.

They start to dig test trenches

where the valley floor meets the cliffs,

the place where tomb builders

would have sited a tomb entrance.

Reis Ali, is on the lookout

for the telltale signs of tool marks in the rock.

Narrator: In just a few days,

the summer heat will become unbearable,

and they must pack up. And leave.

Then, with just three days to go, a breakthrough.

♪♪

Ancient chisel marks gouged into the rock.

Further digging reveals a site

that gives Zahi goose bumps.

Look at the chisels here, the marks that you see,

evidence of the cutting,

then this is only cut in the rock.

Then all of this, it's completely clear

it was made by the ancient Egyptian and dynasty 18.

Compared it with what Howard Carter found

at the entrance of the tomb of Tutankhamun.

It was completely identical.

And I did not sleep at all.

The entrance is an entrance of a tomb.

Narrator: Artifacts found at the bottom of the cut

support Zahi's theory...

Including a pottery fragment that hints at royal secrets.

What's here? Seated monkey.

He's raising his hands, and he's closing his mouth.

It means the monkey is giving directions.

No one can talk about the royal tomb.

It's hidden in a very special place

that no one can talk about it.

Narrator: The monkey drawing

echoes imagery found in the tombs

of king ay and Tutankhamun.

And there's more.

This ancient tool had a very specific purpose.

Amazing... a tool that captured my heart.

The Egyptian will use this for carving scenes

and inscriptions in the tombs

that they could take the paint from this pottery vessel.

They put it in the wall, and they smooth the wall.

Was this, tool.

We have one tool like this found in the valley of the kings.

It is now with the British museum.

We are in front of an important discovery.

We are revealing history and history can be seen

that this was used 3,000 years ago

in the time of dynasty 18 for constructing a royal tomb.

Look at this animal skin.

This has been hidden under the sand for 3,000 years.

Narrator: So, what are they doing here?

Zahi believes that the builders completed a tomb

before ritually burying their tools

and other materials in the abandoned cut.

Suggesting a royal tomb lies close by,

the strongest evidence of all

is this pair of unassuming wooden Poles.

This is important evidence, which is a clue

to tell us what we're going to discover.

Narrator: They look like carrying Poles

similar to ones found in Tutankhamun's tomb

where they were used to carry a shrine.

Even more intriguing is the hieroglyph carved into the wood.

It's a word called "nb twy,"

meaning the king of the two lands,

upper and lower Egypt.

The title, nb twy, refers to a ruler

and could be male or female.

So, when you find an inscription that says,

lord of the two lands,

as we found on a wooden artifact,

the possibility that it could refer to a female is plausible.

Narrator: Could the Poles belong to the royal tomb

of Queen Nefertiti?

To Zahi, it means he could be just yards from the lost tomb

of the most elusive Queen of the 18th dynasty, Nefertiti.

Hawass: We are in front of a major important discovery.

We are going to make the whole world to wait

until we show another tomb

similar to the tomb of Tutankhamun.

[ Cheers and applause ]

Narrator: The digging season is over, but Zahi and his team

can leave the mysterious west valley feeling optimistic.

They have revealed a royal mummy ripped from her tomb by raiders,

priceless rings worthy of royalty,

rare glass inlays and gold jewelry,

the first ever workshop complex making treasure for royal tombs,

and a ritual burial of workers' tools revealing that Zahi is

tantalizingly close to discovering a royal tomb.

In four months, they will resume their quest

for the 3,000-year-old tomb of Egypt's Queen Nefertiti.