Original subtitles

Egypt. 164 BC.

A bull that is worshipped as a god has died.

Two children, twin girls, are plucked from poverty

to be priestesses of the Apis bull cult.

The true story of the sacred twins is told in a letter

they wrote to the Pharaoh over 2,000 years ago.

lt's a tragedy that unfolds in an unforgiving world.

A tale of betrayal, greed, and murder.

On the edge of the Nile valley, stands Saqqara, city of dreams.

ln the shadow of Egypt's first pyramid,

pilgrims from around the kingdom come in search of answers to their prayers.

ln Saqqara, you can pay for the gods' protection,

glimpse your future for a handful of coins,

or buy charms to boost fertility and pleasure.

ln the city's temples, the faithful who've come to buy the blessings of the gods

mingle with priests and sacred prostitutes.

Saqqara is also the home of the dream interpreter, Ptolemaios.

He's paid by pilgrims to decipher their hopes and fears, and predict their future.

But the young twin girls who've come to him, aren't here to tell him their dreams.

They need his help.

They've been abandoned by their mother, and their father has been murdered.

On their behalf, Ptolemaios writes a letter to the Pharaoh.

Their letter to the Pharaoh was discovered 2,000 years later,

in the ruins of the ancient temple city.

Ptolemaios kept a copy of every letter he wrote,

and the twins' plea for justice was found in this extraordinary archive.

ln the letter the young girls tell the story of how they fell from a life of privilege,

into the shadowy underworld of Saqqara.

The story begins one year earlier in nearby Memphis.

Taous and Tages are the daughters of a wealthy businessman.

Their mother Nephoris has a son from a previous marriage, Pakhrates.

They live in the largest city in the world.

Memphis is cosmopolitan and rich.

But since Alexander the Great invaded Egypt,

it's now dominated by a new, Greek elite.

ln the market the twins and their mother shop for luxuries from the Mediterranean.

But like all respectable young women they also weave fine linen cloth,

which their mother sells in the market for a very good price.

Money is an innovation recently introduced by the Greeks.

And it's about to play a big part in the twins' lives.

Their mother has a secret.

She has a lover, a young Greek soldier called Philippos.

The pair want to get married,

but first Nephoris has to get rid of her husband.

Argynoutis has no idea of his wife's infidelity.

Nephoris has two options.

She can divorce Argynoutis and walk away with her dowry,

and a third of his property.

But if the courts uncover her infidelity, she'll get nothing.

There's only one way to have her Greek lover and her husband's money.

Murder.

There are plenty of spells for Egyptian women

eager to rid themselves of their husbands.

But Nephoris is a modern woman.

She's got no time for the uncertainties of magic.

As Argynoutis disappears into the Nile,

the lovers' plans are falling into place.

Having got rid of her husband, Nephoris is determined to hang on to his money.

The twins should inherit two-thirds of his property.

Not if their mother has her way.

The girls are thrown out onto the streets.

Taous and Tages record their despair in the letter to the Pharaoh.

The girls have no other family in Memphis.

They can think of only one person who might help them.

A childhood friend of their father's lives across the valley,

in the temple town of Saqqara.

Ptolemaios, the dream interpreter,

has lived in the dream chambers of the Serapeum temple in Saqqara

for eight years.

Pilgrims come here to sleep and tell Ptolemaios their dreams.

Dreams are messages from the gods,

which only the initiated can decipher.

Ptolemaios wrote down dozens of dreams, which still survive in his archive,

a window into the minds of ordinary Egyptians.

He uses his special gift to guide his clients through their worries about love,

money and the future.

The twins have arrived in a strange world to find their father's friend.

The Serapeum is a walled city within the Saqqara.

A temple devoted to the worship of sex and death.

This is where infertile women and impotent men come in search of cures.

When Ptolemaios came here he was down on his luck and looking for refuge.

ln return he took a vow to serve the temple and never to leave its walls.

He is a servant to the pilgrims and their dreams.

His brother, Apollonios, is his link to the outside world.

Bound by loyalty to his childhood friend,

the dream interpreter agrees to take in the girls.

Meanwhile in Memphis their father's body has been recovered.

Now, officially a widow, their mother can take control of the dead man's fortune.

ln the dream chambers in Saqqara, Ptolemaios considers the two girls' future.

He can't afford to support them for long,

and trapped within the temple he knows he can't offer them a normal life.

ln one of his letters, he records his fears for their future.

For 3,000 years Saqqara has been the burial ground for the city of Memphis.

lt began as the resting place of kings.

Now in between the temples, plots are available for those who can afford them.

Apollonios leads the girls across the city to see a lawyer.

His offices are in the grounds of the temple of Anubis.

This part of Saqqara is full of hostels and bars for the pilgrims visiting the city.

The area is full of prostitutes,

other young women who've come here down on their luck.

Some are sacred temple prostitutes,

one of the special attractions of Saqqara.

Sleeping with them is one way for male pilgrims

to achieve direct communion with the gods.

Without their inheritance, this could easily be the twins' fate.

The temple lawyer is the local official

responsible for marriage contracts, divorces

and wrangles over property.

The twins need his advice.

lf their father is dead, they should inherit two-thirds of his fortune.

lf their mother refuses to recognise them, they need to know what else they can do.

But in Memphis their mother is selling her husband's possessions.

This is expected of an Egyptian widow. Funerals are expensive.

But Nephoris doesn't intend to spend the money on her dead husband.

She is converting his property to cash and reinvesting it in her own name.

The lawyer can't help them.

The girls have no hope of getting back their inheritance.

And their father has no chance of a decent burial.

With his body dumped in the desert, his soul will never reach the afterlife.

The twins are now without hope.

But an act of fate is about to play a part in their lives.

On the 7th of April 164 BC,

news of another death shakes the city of Saqqara.

The sacred bull is dead.

This bull, called the Apis, represents the fertility and strength of Egypt.

ln its lifetime it is worshipped.

ln death, it is honoured as a god.

ln its temple in Memphis, the bull is washed and anointed with perfumed oils.

lts body is drained of blood.

This is the beginning of the bull's mummification.

The whole process will take 70 days.

ln the Serapeum in Saqqara, the bull's death is exciting news.

ln 70 days its mummified body will be carried in state from Memphis to Saqqara,

and buried here.

A funeral will bring thousands of pilgrims to Saqqara.

This is a national event most Egyptians will see just once in their lifetime.

The cult of the Apis bull demands two special mourners,

virgin twins,

handmaidens who will guide it on its passage to the underworld.

Taous and Tages will be honoured as priestesses.

At a stroke, their luck has changed.

They will receive a small weekly wage, just enough to live on,

paid in the form of tokens.

They also get a promissory note,

a cheque they will be able to cash in when the bull is buried in 70 days' time.

lt's worth a small fortune.

Now, every day, until the next bull dies,

the girls will dress in mourning to worship its spirit.

For the first time, since their mother threw them out, they are secure.

At this time Tages tells Ptolemaios one of her dreams,

which still survives among his letters.

Despite everything she's done to them, the twins still long for their mother's love.

At the bull's temple in Memphis, the job of mourning begins.

As handmaidens to the dead bull, Taous and Tages are now celebrities.

But soon, their half-brother Pakhrates reappears unexpectedly in their lives.

ln their letter the girls take up the story.

Pakhrates has done nothing to help the twins.

They've no reason to trust him.

But he manages to convince them.

Perhaps Tages believes he will be the way to the reconciliation with their mother

she longs for.

Whatever their reasons the girls take Pakhrates back to Saqqara with them.

lt's a decision they will regret.

For hundreds of years each Apis bull has been embalmed in exactly the same way.

The process is described in a document that still survives today.

The bull's organs are removed, washed and dried in salt.

Only its heart, which the Egyptians believe is the seat of the soul,

is put back into its body.

The brain is considered to be of no importance,

and is removed through the nostrils.

The bull's body will then be covered with salt for 40 days,

and finally wrapped in linen, ready for its burial in Saqqara.

On the day of the funeral, the traders in the Serapeum get ready

for the biggest business opportunity in a generation.

Pakhrates, who's been living with the twins for the past two months,

will be left behind while they go to Memphis for the start of the procession.

He discovers their promissory note with the rest of their earnings.

Now it seems that Pakhrates also has business in Memphis.

The high priest of the cult of the Apis bull is about to appear.

The funeral has begun.

Taous and Tages, the bull's sacred twins,

take their place in the procession to Saqqara.

While the procession goes through the streets of Memphis,

the twins' mother gives her instructions to Pakhrates.

He reaches the Serapeum well ahead of the procession.

The bull and its servants descend into the catacombs,

where it will be buried.

Taous and Tages will now remain virgins and serve the Apis bull

until they are replaced by the next pair of twins.

lt could be 20 years before they regain their freedom from the temple.

Only the promissory note guarantees them a future.

The twins have lost everything.

Their savings, the promissory note,

and any deluded hope that their mother loves them.

ln the dream chambers of the Serapeum,

the twins compose their plea to the Pharaoh.

A letter is their last resort.

The twins' letter was never answered.

Perhaps they were naive to think that the Pharaoh would help them.

And we can only assume that they never got back their stolen fortune.

We know from his archive that Ptolemaios lived out his life

interpreting dreams within the confines of the Serapeum.

lt's his brother, Apollonios, who gives us our last glimpse of the twins.

lt seems he fell in love with Tages,

and in a letter written four years after these events, he says:

Beyond this we know nothing more about the lives of the twins.

Saqqara, the city of broken dreams, is now a desert,

dominated by the 5,000-year-old pyramid of King Djoser.

150 years after this story, Egypt was absorbed into the Roman Empire.

The Serapeum temple was destroyed.

But below ground the catacombs of the Apis bull cult still survive.

They were rediscovered in the 19th century.

Over 60 bulls were buried here.

Each of their granite coffins marks the lives of a pair of sacred virgin twins.

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