All language subtitles for Lost.Treasures.of.Egypt.S03E02.PROPER.480p.x264-mSD

(overlapping chatter)

NARRATOR: In Egypt's
ancient sandstone quarries,

archaeologists search for
traces of mighty Pharaohs.

WORKERS: Yeah!

NARRATOR: The Holy Grail is
hieroglyphs that shed light

on the mysterious kings
who built the pyramids.

JOHN: Oh!

MARIA: Oh, this is wonderful.

JOHN: Look at that!

NARRATOR: The pyramids of Giza,

ancient Egypt's most
iconic monuments.

Egyptian civilization
spanned nearly 3,000 years.

But their great age of
pyramid-building lasted

just over four centuries.

Some 20 huge pyramids
date from this time,

concentrated on the
desert plateaus of
the Nile's west bank,

each built to house the
body of a mighty pharaoh.

Now, archaeologists across
Egypt are trying to unlock

the secrets of who these
mysterious kings were,

how they persuaded the
people of Egypt to build
their giant monuments,

and how they influenced
pharaohs for thousands of
years after they died.

30 years ago,
American Egyptologist,
Steve Harvey,

excavated the
very last pyramid built
by an Egyptian king.

He has spent a career
exploring these
royal monuments.

Today he's come to the
most famous one of all,

to investigate
the legendary pharaoh who
built it 4,500 years ago.

STEPHEN: The Great Pyramid
of Khufu here at Giza is the

culmination of hundreds
of years of

trial and
error in pyramid building,

but it's not
only the perfect shape,

it's the largest ever built,
and it's never surpassed.

NARRATOR: The Great Pyramid
was a fortress designed

to protect the pharaoh's tomb.

24 feet off center,
the entrance would
have been tricky to find.

At the top of a
130 foot passage,

a pulley system of ropes dropped
three enormous granite slabs,

sealing off the entrance
to the burial chamber.

Next, three giant blocks
slid down the shaft,

closing off a grand staircase.

This pyramid was a
masterpiece of engineering.

Capped with a layer of
flawless white limestone,

it was an unmistakable
symbol of the pharaoh's
supreme authority.

The Great Pyramid
was one of the first
true pyramids ever built.

None of the
Pyramid Age Kings
that followed Khufu

would match it.

The incredible scale
of his tomb suggests Khufu

wielded remarkable power,

but very little is known
about the king himself.

Steve has been granted
special access to explore the

restricted areas
inside the pyramid,

to hunt for any
clues to the life,

and death, of this
mysterious pharaoh.

STEPHEN: I'm gonna have
to stop for a minute, guys.

Really is getting dark,
hard to see anything.

It's not meant for coming
and going, that's for sure.

NARRATOR: Steve heads to the
king's burial chamber at the

very heart of the pyramid.

There, mourners
laid the Pharaoh's
body for his eternal rest,

tightly secured
behind giant rock barriers.

The chamber is
almost entirely bare.

STEPHEN: Even though this space
was protected by blocking,

it was completely robbed out,

and when archaeologists
came to the sarcophagus,

they found nothing inside.

NARRATOR: For Steve,
evidence of the king himself

survives in the only
thing that does remain,

the chamber walls.

STEPHEN: What really excites
me is that you can see this

incredible granite that's been
smoothed to a very high degree

and this one block is
something like 100 tons.

Brought all
the way from Aswan.

This is an exotic stone,
it's not the natural limestone,

so really, we have this
amazing box within this

huge mountain of limestone.

NARRATOR: Ancient
quarrymen cut the precious
granite in Upper Egypt,

then floated it
600 miles down the Nile.

Khufu spared no expense
to ensure his resurrection
to the afterlife,

not as a mortal,
but as a god.

Steve heads deeper
into the pyramid,

in search of a closed-off
second chamber.

Legend has it, Khufu built
this to hold his soul.

On the other side
of the necropolis,

Archaeologist John Ward
has come to Giza to explore

the monuments
of Khufu's dynasty.

He's spent a decade
unearthing the stonework
of New Kingdom pharaohs,

who lived 1,000 years
after the Pyramid Age ended.

JOHN: Watch your toes, guys!
Watch your toes!

NARRATOR: His discoveries
include an 11 foot tall
Sphinx statue,

a representation of a
god with the body of a lion,

an animal revered by Egyptians
as a symbol of strength.

It echoes the famous
giant sculpture guarding
the Giza Pyramids.

John wants to know what
was so special about these

kings that pharaohs
1,000 years later still
mimicked their statues.

JOHN: These iconic
monuments are just
shouting, screaming at us,

power, dominance, control.

I feel like this,
I feel so insignificant.

Together these pyramids
and the Sphinx and the temples
create a landscape of power.

NARRATOR: The huge sculpture
protects the necropolis,

a giant symbol of supremacy,

believed by many to have
the face of Khufu's son,

Khafre, owner of Giza's
second largest Pyramid.

Despite many visits here,
John has never been up close.

Today, he's been granted special
access to explore its enclosure.

JOHN: It's absolutely inspiring
I mean it's just, jaw dropping.

I've waited 50 years
to be here and now I'm
here, it's just, wow.

NARRATOR: 66 feet high,
the Sphinx gazes east,

toward the rising sun.

JOHN: I know what it's like
to work with the living rock

and how to carve it.

This would have been a
monumental challenge.

They only had
copper chisels,
wooden mallets,

it would have been
a harsh environment,

this dust would have been
everywhere and yet the workmen,

the craftsmen,
the masons, they were
all willing participants

loyal to Pharaoh.

NARRATOR: It would have
taken thousands of people,

decades to construct the
epic monuments of Giza,

but there's no evidence
the pharaohs enslaved
people to build them.

They didn't draw their power
over the people from force.

John believes what
stood these kings apart was
that they inspired devotion.

JOHN: The sheer volume of stone
that has gone into building

this and each individual block,

represents the loyalty
that they had for Pharaoh.

NARRATOR: The huge monuments
of Giza represent the peak

of the Pyramid Age.

So why was nothing built
on this scale again?

At the height
of Khufu's reign,

reliable seasonal
rains fed the crops that
ensured Egypt's prosperity.

For three months every year,

the Nile flooded and
inundated the farmland,

so farmers couldn't
work the fields.

The farmers were free to help
build the king's enormous tomb.

They believed he kept the gods
content and the country fed.

But soon after Khufu
completed his pyramid,

Egypt began to suffer drought.

As crop yields crashed,
so did the taxes coming into

the State's treasuries
and despite the free labor,

the Giza monuments
almost bankrupted Egypt.

The people's loyalty
began to falter.

The kings' tombs that
followed got smaller while

Khufu's Great
Pyramid remained,

dominating the
Nile's west bank.

JOHN: The sheer
power that he held.

It's absolutely unbelievable.

NARRATOR: It was a power
his struggling successors

were desperate to replicate.

At Abu Ghurab,
Italian archaeologist
Massimiliano Nuzzolo

wants to know how the kings
of the Pyramid Age held on

to power as their wealth
and status declined.

He's spent his entire career
trying to understand a very

different monumental structure,
an enigma whose mysteries

captured his imagination
in his very first student
course in Egyptology.

This enormous scatter of ancient
rubble was once a Sun Temple,

dedicated to the most powerful
god of the Pyramid Age.

NARRATOR: The pharaoh,
Nyuserra, didn't just want
to become divine in death.

He built this temple because
he wanted to be worshipped

as a god while
he was still alive.

Rising from the desert
was an enormous obelisk,

the centerpiece of the temple.

It was not a traditional
stone needle but
shaped more like a pyramid.

Monumental walls enclosed it,
creating a courtyard,

where people could come
to worship the sun.

The temple aligned perfectly
on an east-west axis with

the path of the sun.

So on the Summer
Solstice every year,

the sun rose through
the entrance,

travelled directly
over the obelisk,

and set at the western end.

This alignment is identical
to that of the pyramids.

Records suggest that six of the
pharaohs who followed Khufu

decided to build Sun Temples
as well as their pyramids to

underline their divine status
to the people of Egypt.

But almost all of
these temples are lost.

NARRATOR: Max hopes excavating
this sun temple will shed light

on these kings' power,
and perhaps help him crack

one of the biggest
mysteries in Egyptology,

the location of
the missing temples.

The problem is Max is
not the first to decode

this structure's secrets.

Early Egyptologists excavated
here more than 100 years ago

and left a mess of
archaeological confusion
in their wake.

NARRATOR: Along with their
discarded matchboxes,

early 20th century excavators
left 4,500 year old pottery

scattered across the site.

NARRATOR: If Max can find
undisturbed artifacts,

they might reveal clues the
first archaeologists missed.

Even the smallest of finds
could be crucial in the hunt

for the lost Sun Temples
of the Pyramid Age.

NARRATOR: The team is excavating
an area of the Sun Temple

earlier archaeologists
never touched.

The missing Sun Temples
could hold the secrets of how

the later Pyramid Kings who
followed Khufu held onto power.

Their location remains one of
Egyptology's greatest mysteries.

Untouched pottery here in
Abu Ghurab could help solve it.

Mohamed Osman is a
senior archaeologist here.

NARRATOR: Wheat beer was
a major source of nutrition
for ancient Egyptians,

but they used the same ceramic
containers in religious rituals.

NARRATOR: This could be an
offering made in worship of a

Pharaoh or an ancient
builder's discarded lunch!

Even after 4,500 years,

the answer could
lie in its contents.

NARRATOR: For Ancient Egyptians,

mud was a symbolic
replacement for food,

which they would
offer to the gods.

The jar is buried not far from
a curious row of stone basins.

Max and Mohamed
believe they were all
part of an elaborate ritual,

presided over
by the pharaoh.

Priests filled the
stone basins with water,

which flowed out across
the temple's limestone floor,

along 28 shallow grooves.

The sacred liquid washed over
jars placed in the channels,

purifying the offerings within.

The priests brought the
symbolic offerings to the altar

and left them to be
consecrated by the sun
god's heat and light.

They then climbed through
a passage in the obelisk,

to emerge on the platform,

facing east to
bless the rising sun.

The purification basins have
survived 4,500 years intact,

but the floor of Nyuserra's
Sun Temple has disintegrated.

Mohamed and the
team explore underneath

its fragmented remains.

Just inches down,

they find a
mysterious layer.

NARRATOR: Mohamed has found
mud bricks in several places

beneath the Sun Temple floor.

It suggests a large
building existed here before

Nyuserra's
Sun Temple was built.

If they find evidence
that the earlier mudbrick
structure was sacred,

it could even be one of
the missing Sun Temples of

another king
of the Pyramid Age.

At Abusir on a desolate plateau
within sight of Max's dig,

are the pyramids of the pharaohs
who built the Sun Temples.

Little more than
a century after Khufu had
built his Great Pyramid,

the Egyptian state
was weakened by drought.

The later pharaohs' treasuries
were emptied by the cost

of the previous
kings' giant tombs.

NARRATOR: Czech archaeologist,
Miroslav Barta,

has spent three decades
stripping back the sand

from this necropolis.

20 years ago,
he pioneered the study of
pyramids as viewed from space.

Today, he's firmly on the ground
in search of the secrets that

explain how the later kings of
the Pyramid Age clung to power

as their wealth and
status drained away.

On this spot in 2018,

he discovered the tomb of a
legendary wiseman, Ka-Irsu.

Ka-Irsu was a powerful
royal court official and

close advisor to
one of the later Pyramid Kings.

As "Overseer of Royal Works,"
he designed the king's pyramid,

and the temples that brought
the pharaoh closer to the gods.

But he was also the head
of the "House of Life,"

a philosopher bringing
the king's message
to the people of Egypt.

His writings preached
the importance of complete
loyalty to the pharaoh,

a message that
was still being repeated
1,000 years later.

Miroslav is digging in the
very heart of the cemetery,

in search of more elite tombs.

He wants to know how much the
later Pyramid Kings relied

on powerful officials,
like Ka-Irsu,

to improve their public
relations and promote loyalty.

Test pits have revealed
a tomb right next to the

pyramid of Neferikara,
one of the later Pyramid Kings.

It could be exactly
what he's looking for.

NARRATOR: After three
weeks of digging,

the team uncovers the
exterior structure.

But a crucial clue is
missing, the walls are bare.

Without inscriptions,
Miroslav can't
identify the tomb owner.

If he's to uncover the secrets
of the Pyramid Kings' power,

Miroslav will have
to dig deeper,

and find the burial chamber.

NARRATOR: Archaeologist
John Ward has returned to the

ancient quarry of
Gebel El-Silsila,

to join the Director of the
Swedish Archaeological Mission,
his wife, Maria Nilsson.

Last season, they excavated
an incredible monument,

a Sphinx similar in form
to the Great Sphinx at Giza.

This year, Maria and John want
to investigate the connection

between the kings who built
the mighty monuments at Giza and

the pharaohs who carved out
Sphinxes 1,000 years later.

MARIA: Are you ready
for some more fun, Carter?

NARRATOR: They believe the site
still hides stone monuments

that could reveal
the Great Pyramid Kings'
impact on Egyptian history.

A large pile of rock not far
from last season's statue,

is exactly the right size
to hide another Sphinx.

Today, they'll
try to dig it up,

but they're off
to a slow start.

JOHN: It's now coming
up ten to eight,

and I've got
absolutely no men here.

(shouting).

NARRATOR: Maria and John
have just under five
hours digging time to move

hundreds of
wheelbarrows full of stone.

JOHN: My hypothesis
is that we've got
another sphinx underneath.

NARRATOR: But the team
cannot afford to rush,

as they dig out the
mountain of loose rock.

JOHN: It's unstable spoil,
and if that came down on you,

then you're just,
you're just buried.

NARRATOR: With time
already against them,

the operation is a fine balance
between risk and reward.

JOHN: Be careful boys,
be careful.

NARRATOR: At Abusir,
in between the
pyramids Miroslav's

team has reached the
bottom of the burial shaft.

The chamber below could
contain the body of a

high-ranking member
of a pharaoh's court.

Two years ago,
he discovered the tomb of
a wiseman called Ka-Irsu,

an official whose job
was to promote loyalty to

the King among
the people of Egypt.

But was Ka-Irsu an anomaly,
or did all the later kings

of the Pyramid Age
have a dedicated official
helping them cling to power?

NARRATOR: It's clear that
ancient robbers have ransacked

the tomb of treasures.

But though the
tomb's been looted,

it may still contain evidence
of how the Pyramid Kings

held their power over Egypt,
even as their wealth declined.

The state of the sarcophagus
confirms Miroslav's fears,

the robbers did a thorough job.

NARRATOR: The mummy
may be destroyed,

but Miroslav's team has
alerted him to some faint red

markings on the back
of the sarcophagus.

It's a crucial clue.

It could be the one piece
of information he needs

to identify the owner.

NARRATOR: Was he, like Ka-Irsu,
an official propping up

a weakened Pyramid King?

The script is too degraded
to read with the naked eye,

but to an Egyptologist,
the general message is clear.

NARRATOR: A title means
the man was important.

He had a role in the
Pharaoh's court, but what?

Miroslav can't brush the dust
off the inscription in case

the paint flakes away.

Instead, he takes
high-resolution photographs

of every character.

NARRATOR: Miroslav must now
process the images and determine

if enough detail survives
to read the script.

The signs are promising.

NARRATOR: This man
was honored with a burial
amongst the pharaohs.

So, could he have played
a role in consolidating the

ailing Pyramid Kings' power?

To find out,
Miroslav must decipher
exactly what his titles were.

NARRATOR: In Abu Ghurab Max
and Mohamed's investigation

has thrown up surprising
evidence beneath
Nyuserra's Sun Temple.

The mud brick structure
below its foundations,

could help them find
the lost sun temples built

by the later Pyramid Kings.

It's a delicate task,
just identifying
the 4,500 year old

bricks relies on
technique honed through
years of experience.

NARRATOR: They've uncovered
bricks all over the site.

It suggests this
older mud structure is
far larger than expected.

At the edge of the site,
the team foreman,

Reis Khaled,
makes a discovery.

NARRATOR: It's a
huge breakthrough,

a column could be evidence
that the mudbrick structure

had a grand
entrance made of stone.

NARRATOR: The column base
goes down more than two feet,

suggesting it must have
supported a huge entrance arch.

NARRATOR: If there is a
lost Sun Temple underneath

Nyuserra's Sun Temple,
it would be a career-defining

discovery for
both Max and Mohamed.

NARRATOR: To prove the huge
mudbrick structure is one of

the legendary lost Sun Temples
of the later Pyramid Kings,

they still need more evidence.

On the Giza plateau Egyptologist
Steve Harvey is trying

to reach a mysterious
second chamber in the heart

of Pharaoh Khufu's
Great Pyramid.

STEPHEN: Oh, it's difficult.

NARRATOR: He's hunting
for clues to the mysterious

King's life, and death.

But deep in the Pyramid,
the tunnels get tighter

and more treacherous.

STEPHEN: What happened there?

STEPHEN: I guess
the power went out.

NARRATOR: In an ancient
tunnel riddled with pits,

the lack of light is a
real threat.

STEPHEN: The echo and the dark
certainly really reinforce the

fact you're in a hidden tomb.

NARRATOR: At the bottom of
a tunnel little more than

three feet square,
Steve finds the second chamber.

STEPHEN: It's extraordinary.

Just huge ceiling
with this vault.

You almost feel
the weight of millions of
tons of stones above you.

NARRATOR: Like Khufu's
burial chamber,

archaeologists found
this room entirely bare.

It was designed with a niche
believed to hold the giant

statue that housed
Khufu's soul.

Even this stood empty.

But when archaeologists explored
the finely polished walls,

they found small,
secret passages that
led out from the chamber.

STEPHEN: These are really
interesting features,

kind of mysterious features.

They go all the way to
the exterior of the pyramid
and head up towards the sky,

so what's most
likely is that they have

some kind of
symbolic connection to the
night sky and to the stars.

NARRATOR: Ancient Egyptians
were dedicated astronomers,

who religiously charted the
movements of the night sky.

Priests particularly
revered two bright stars,

ever-present in the north,

whose permanence they
associated with eternal life.

Khufu aligned his pyramid
directly with these stars,

believing that's where
the gods resided.

He may have built the shafts
to allow his soul to rise

to the heavens to
join the ever-present
stars and become a god.

What still confounds
archaeologists,

is the Pharaoh's final mystery,
he didn't leave a single

inscription to
celebrate his life.

STEPHEN: They haven't
decorated with images,

they haven't put hieroglyphs
on the wall and that's a choice

and a decision they made.

And we have
to think about why.

NARRATOR: The greatest
Pyramid King left no
lasting clue to his life,

except his giant monument.

His plan was to put life behind
him and become a god in death.

The weaker Pyramid Kings
who followed him

needed the power
of the gods in life.

NARRATOR: At Abu Ghurab,
Max and Mohamed
are uncovering a vast mudbrick

structure beneath the
foundations of the Pharaoh
Nyuserra's Sun Temple.

NARRATOR: If it is one of
the four legendary
missing Sun Temples,

it could help Max
explain how the struggling

Pyramid Kings held on to power
as their status began to fade.

But he needs evidence that
the building was sacred.

In the northeast corner
of the mudbrick structure,

workers have unearthed
an astonishing find.

NARRATOR: They delicately brush
the pottery to free the jars

from the surrounding earth.

NARRATOR: Ancient priests
used jars full of mud as
ritual offerings,

so these could be proof this
structure was a sacred temple.

NARRATOR: Even single ritual
offerings in the foundations of

such old buildings
are incredibly rare.

This is a huge cache.

NARRATOR: For Max,
they're crucial.

They show the mudbrick
building was a religious site.

NARRATOR: By building on top
of a previous king's temple,

Nyuserra was making his Sun
Temple all the more sacred.

Max's decade-long search
has finally born fruit.

NARRATOR: It's a huge discovery
and unlocks a new chapter

in the story of the
kings of the Pyramid Age.

The Pharaohs who followed Khufu
were weak shadows of the man

who built the Great Pyramid.

But whichever king built this
newly discovered Sun Temple,

did something Khufu did not,
he ensured he was worshipped

as the offspring of the sun god
while he was still alive.

His Pyramid may not
have rivalled Khufu's,

but with his Sun Temple,
he claimed the power of
a living god.

In the quarry at
Gebel El-Silsila

Maria and John are
searching for a new Sphinx to

match the statue they
unearthed last season.

They're trying to understand
the link between the legendary
Pyramid Kings of Giza,

and the pharaohs who
ruled 1,000 years after.

JOHN: As a symbol of power,
the Sphinx is everything.

And when I look at the sphinx,
I can put myself into,

into the sandals of
the craftsman chiseling
this one away.

And he did it for
the love of Pharaoh.

NARRATOR: John's team strips
away the top of a rockpile

beneath a quarried
pillar of stone.

JOHN: We're gonna clear
this area, level off,

we'll keep on cutting into
the sand because there's

a lot of sand here.

NARRATOR: The mound of spoil
has a core of ancient sand.

For John, it suggests the
pile could hide another find,

perhaps a sphinx.

JOHN: What happens is when
sand is blown in as you can
see now the wind is blowing,

coming from the
north and when it hits
something of course

it starts to build up
and build up and build

up, and that's what
we've got here.

NARRATOR: Just moments
after exposing the
sand beneath the spoil,

the team hits
something solid.

MAN: Yeah!

(speaking in native language)

JOHN: It's always the sand.

Wherever there's
a sand build-up.

You always guarantee
there's something there.

NARRATOR: The team delicately
works around the chunk of stone.

It could be a Sphinx,
or a precious part
of another monument.

JOHN: One has to be patient,
that's archaeology at the
end of the day,

we don't rush things,
it's not a race,

there's no reward
for coming first.

MARIA: Isn't there?

We race to learn!

Knowledge is the key.

NARRATOR: In the field lab,

near the
necropolis of Abusir...

Miroslav's computer software has
sharpened the script from

the high official's tomb.

The inscriptions should
tell him the tomb
owner's name and titles.

If he played the same role
as the wiseman Ka-Irsu,

it could prove he
was not unique,

and that other kings of the
Pyramid Age also depended on

their officials to maintain
the people's loyalty.

NARRATOR: In Ancient Egypt,
having a title meant power,

and sometimes,
access to the pharaoh.

NARRATOR: For Miroslav,
it's a highly
significant combination.

Not only was the tomb
owner a close confidant of
the Pyramid King,

but his name is similar in
form to the legendary wiseman,

Ka-Irsu, whose teachings
of loyalty to the pharaoh
lasted 1,000 years.

Miroslav believes the
owner of the new tomb must
be a direct descendent.

If so, Ka-Ires may have
had the same role in
the royal court,

spreading word of
the pharaoh's power.

NARRATOR: The pharaohs who
followed Khufu may not
have had his wealth,

but they masterminded ways to
bolster their fragile power.

They used officials
to promote loyalty,

and they cast themselves
as living gods.

So what legacy did they leave to
the Pharaohs 1,000 years later?

At Gebel El-Silsila...

Just a few feet from an
unfinished sphinx statue,

Maria and John's search for
more buried monuments has

turned up a stone,
embedded in windblown sand.

They hope it will
reveal clues to the legacy
of the Pyramid Kings.

JOHN: It's nicely in
the sand so the sand is
always a nice indication.

NARRATOR: The flat edges
and sharp corners suggest
it's not another sphinx.

But it could be
something even better.

JOHN: Oh!

NARRATOR: An inscribed stone
could reveal more about the

pharaoh who carved the
sphinx out of this quarry.

MARIA: Oh this is wonderful.

JOHN: Look at that.

NARRATOR: Decorated
with engravings,

the block appears to be a
missing piece of a monument

John and Maria have been
trying to piece together
for nearly a decade,

a shrine to the,
New Kingdom pharaoh
who owned this quarry,

Amenhotep the Third.

JOHN: This
really is beautiful.

We've worked with this
monument for years and when
you find a piece like this,

it just,
it makes your heart go.

MARIA: This is the
crowning detail,

it makes it all worth it,

the sweat, the tears,
the hassle.

NARRATOR: As the crew begins
the clean-up after five solid
hours of digging in the sun,

Maria and John begin to
analyze their discovery.

MARIA: Well, I have to say
that with or without sphinx,

this has made my day.

It says the great god, and
then you've got the son of Ra.

It is a real statement
that Amenhotep III was
the living god.

NARRATOR: The shrine stood
above Amenhotep's quarry,

proclaiming him an
offspring of the Sun God,

exactly as the later Pyramid
Kings had done to rescue their

status as supreme rulers.

MARIA: By claiming to be the
great god, and the son of Ra,

the sun disk, Amenhotep III
is following a tradition

all the way back from the
great pyramid builders.

I love it.

JOHN: It's a major
part of the jigsaw.

It's history. Wonderful.

NARRATOR: By carving sphinxes
and inscribing monuments

with statements
of divine power,

Amenhotep III connected himself
to his predecessors who
claimed to be gods on earth,

The Pyramid Kings.

Every season,
archaeologists draw these

ancient pharaohs further out
from the shadows of history.

Mysterious figures,

whose power rested
not on force,

but devotion.

Their officials promoted
loyalty through teachings

that echoed down
through the ages.

And their temples helped cast
them as divine descendants of

the life-giving god of the sun.

But 500 years after
they built the first pyramids,

Pyramid Age
civilization collapsed.

When Egypt rose again,

the Pyramid Kings' extraordinary
monuments remained

and their legacy inspired
pharaohs 1,000 years later.

Captioned by
Cotter Media Group.