All language subtitles for Raiders.Of.The.Lost.Past.With.Janina.Ramirez.2019.1080p.WEBRip.x264.AAC-[YTS.MX]

I'm on a voyage
along the River Nile...

..tracking a 100-year-old tale
of adventure...

..and mystery.

Over there, the greatest
archaeological discovery

of all time took place -

the tomb of Tutankhamun.

And the most glittering
treasure hoard on Earth.

All this can tell us the story
of the Golden Boy.

A century later,

meeting the Boy King
is a dream come true.

I didn't think I'd get emotional!

I can't believe
I'm stood here by this.

The name of the man who found him
was Howard Carter.

His discovery is
the stuff of fantasy.

Everywhere, the glint of gold.

But this tale
of two very different men

is not what it seems.

Can you see over here? Yeah. There's
a little bit of a cracking here.

It's full of myths and mysteries...

There aren't complete innocents
and there aren't complete villains.

..big egos...

He hasn't studied at Oxford,
hasn't studied at Cambridge.

..and missing treasures.

He made the wrong choice.

So hunting through cities,

tombs,

and castles,

my plan is to uncover the truth
behind the legend of Howard Carter

and the legend of Tutankhamun.

Before I start on this quest,
there's something I want to know.

What does Tutankhamun mean here,
in Egypt?

Noura Khedr is an Egyptologist
and tour guide.

What's all this? So, basically,
the graffiti of Tutankhamun,

back in 2011, he was everywhere,

with the headdress
in the modern way.

On this? On these walls?
Everywhere! All over the streets.

Tutankhamun ruled Egypt

3,500 years ago,

but in 2011, as young Egyptians
protested against corruption,

Tut became their Che Guevara,

their Guy Fawkes.

A 21st-century people's pharaoh.

He was everywhere.
I think of Tutankhamun,

I always say that he's the
best marketeer

for the Ancient Egyptian
civilisation

and Egypt in the modern time.
And look at that! Oh, my God!

Even the car, the little van,
with the face,

the very iconic, imposing face
of Tutankhamun.

He's everywhere. You cannot help it.

People love him so much.

HORNS BEEP

But what about the man
who found Tut?

He was born 3,500 kilometres away

to an ordinary family in London.

Before I left the UK, I tracked down
the start of his story.

He was far from the typical
aristocratic explorer.

These are Howard Carter's
handwritten memoirs.

I love the title -
An Account Of Myself.

This makes for
a pretty miserable read.

His father was an artist who didn't
make an awful lot of money

and it seems that the family lived
in a sort of genteel poverty.

Howard was born in 1874.

Three older siblings
had already died,

so as a sickly child
he was sent, alone,

to live with his aunts
in Norfolk.

"As I was not strong,

"I was debarred from
public school life and games.

"As the youngest
in an artist's family,

"there was a necessity
to start earning my living

"from the age of 15."

To escape his lonely existence,

Howard taught himself
to draw the Norfolk wildlife.

Wow.

It's so realistic.

You can see each individual feather.

Even the wrinkles around the eye,

it's just amazing.

And I love his use of colour.

I love the care
of his brush strokes.

Marketing this talent
was Howard's ticket out.

In Victorian England, a poor boy
needed a rich benefactor,

and Carter got one.

The local lord and lady
of the manor in Norfolk

were so impressed
by Howard's artistic skills

that they set about
finding him a position.

They were extremely well connected,

and some of their friends
had begun to finance

the fashionable pursuit
of archaeology.

To his complete astonishment,

soon Howard Carter found himself
on his way to Egypt.

Dawn on the first day
of my Nile adventure.

This river is
the lifeblood of Egypt.

Either side,
these lush, green, fertile strips,

before sudden sandy barrenness.

This is its West Bank.

Three-and-a-half millennia ago,
it was the land of the dead,

where the pharaohs built
vast tombs and temples.

At just 17,
Howard was an excavation artist.

One of his first jobs was here.

Back then, Tutankhamun's name
was hardly known,

but this temple was built by Tut's
great-great-great-great
grandfather's half-sister,

Hatshepsut.

Yeah, you see so many fragments...
Even today, archaeologists
like Dr Stephen Harvey

employ artists
to capture every detail.

So with this strong sun of Egypt,
the sun god Ra hitting the stone,

there's a play of shadow.

And the shadows make this readable.
That was the whole point.

And that's the sort of thing,
I guess, that Carter's picking out
in his drawings.

He's trying to show those elements
that might be flattened out
otherwise. Yeah.

It takes an artist
to really convey the line here.

And, you know, there is
no such thing as a photograph

that captures the way that
this looks at all times of the day,

but a drawing can.

When Howard arrived in 1891,

the world's eyes were on Egypt.

Relics of the pharaohs
were emerging from the sand.

But the country
was under British control.

There was plenty of opportunity
for Howard.

His talent for drawing wildlife
made him a natural for Egyptian art,

a vital tool in unlocking
the secrets of the pharaohs.

He hasn't studied at Oxford,
hasn't studied at Cambridge,

and they want probably a
dogsbody too,

someone to really sort of do
the lower level work,

and I bet that quickly they realised
how skilled he was

and probably wanted to keep him on.

I really think you can't get
inside the mind of an artist,

until you have a go yourself.

This part in particular
is really special to me.

There are so many birds
in this area.

That's something I myself
am really interested in.

Howard Carter, of course, would have
been up on a scaffolding,

getting really close,
taking in every single detail.

And in that process of reproducing,

he was training himself up
as an Egyptologist.

The sickly boy was a
self-made success.

And he was already plotting
his next move.

This is the most famous
of the grand hotels

that Howard would have seen
springing up

on the opposite side
of the Nile.

Egypt had become the winter
playground of the rich and famous.

The Winter Palace
hosted Agatha Christie,

author of Death On The Nile,

silent movie stars
Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford,

and the Tsar of Russia.

Howard hung out at the hotels,

selling paintings to tourists
for extra cash...

..and impressing the rich men
who ran Egyptian archaeology

with his artistic skills.

What I find so incredible

is not only the sheer skill
of his draughtsmanship,

but also the scale of art
he was having to produce.

There was so much there.

His work ethic paid off.

Soon, he was excavating.

And by 25, in 1899,

he was appointed Chief Inspector
in charge of archaeology.

His beat was Luxor...

..the West Bank of the Nile,

with its tombs and great temples,

and the East Bank,
with the bustling, modern city.

Howard's job was to protect
the country's heritage

and supervise excavations.

But in a British protectorate,
this wasn't straightforward.

I'm meeting archaeologist
Dr Monica Hanna to find out more.

Objects would cross the Nile
to the East Bank where you had

these French, American, British
antiquities dealers

who would buy the loot

and, of course,
you have these foreigners

coming here to shop for objects.

And I guess this Nile river
is the motorway

out of here with the goods. Exactly.

This is the highway to Europe

where they don't want their
suitcases checked at Alexandria

because they were
just full of objects.

Tourists travelled from Alexandria
to Cairo.

Then up the Nile to Luxor

and the Valley of the Kings.

Carter installed steel gates
and guards,

but it seemed impossible
to stop the tomb raiders.

Some of the most visited tombs
were those of the 18th Dynasty,

whose powerful pharaohs ruled Egypt
3,500 years ago.

The name Tutankhamun
was still barely known,

but this was his family.

I'm heading into the tomb
of Amenhotep II.

That's Tutankhamun's
great-great-grandfather.

In 1901, Howard Carter
had left the West Bank

and was travelling across Egypt,

but one night someone broke in here.

Inside the tomb was a sacred boat
known as a barque.

The tomb robbers stole it,
damaging a mummy in the process.

As soon as he heard the news,
Carter rushed back.

This was his chance
to play the great detective.

The gates he'd installed
hadn't been up to the job.

Clue number one.

The padlock had been broken,

forced open using a metal bar,

but then it had been glued
back together

to give the impression
that the tomb was unopened.

Now Carter had seen this
somewhere else before.

It was the MO of a notorious
local tomb raider.

Howard Carter had a suspect.

The suspect had pulled off
a string of robberies.

This time, Howard wanted him
behind bars.

Clue number two.

A bare footprint
next to the sarcophagus.

Inspector Carter measured it,

and was convinced he could
match it up to his suspect.

Now he knew he had his man.

But the suspect had friends
in high places

who bought his stolen treasures.

He walked away Scot-free.

Howard was furious.

There was a reason that Carter was
so concerned about this break-in.

This tomb didn't just contain
the remains of Amenhotep II,

but also a collection of mummies,

members of Tutankhamun's family
that were brought here in antiquity

to keep them safe from robbers.

The pharaohs were buried
with great treasures.

Now almost all that was left
was their bodies.

There was Tutankhamun's
great-great-grandfather,

his grandfather,

his grandmother
and, perhaps, his mother.

Now they were vulnerable to
a new generation of tomb raiders.

There was only one solution.

Carter carefully packaged them up,

catalogued them and then sent them
for safety to Cairo.

Howard gave the pharaohs pride
of place in Cairo's new museum,

where you can still
see their statues today.

This is, essentially,
the family photo album

of Ancient Egypt's 18th Dynasty.

And here is its grand matriarch,
Hatshepsut.

She was half-sister to Tutankhamun's
great-great-great-great-grandfather.

The family album continues in here.

Some experts think that this
is Tutankhamun's dad,

Akhenaten.

And over here, his first wife.

This is Nefertiti.
Her name means beauty.

And, of course, look how beautiful
she is in that sculpture.

This is interesting.
It's the royal family.

There's Akhenaten again.
And his other wife,
known as the younger lady.

Now that is probably
Tutankhamun's mum.

Last, but not least, Amenhotep III,

also known as
Amenhotep The Magnificent,

the pharaoh responsible for taking
Egypt to its absolute zenith
of power.

And right next to him
is his wife, Queen Tiye.

Here she's shown ever so slightly
higher than her husband.

And that shows that she was
a powerful and important ruler
in her own right.

And there you have it,
Tutankhamun's grandparents.

But one member of the family
was still missing,

known only by the hieroglyphs
spelling out his name,

including the symbol
of the scarab beetle.

At still just 27 years old,

Howard Carter may have seen this
as a chance to make a name
for himself

by finding the 11th pharaoh
of the 18th Dynasty -

King Tutankhamun.

Logically, Tutankhamun's tomb had
to be in the Valley of the Kings.

Howard didn't have the money
to fund an excavation.

What he could do was keep his ear
to the ground.

Carter loved to hang out in cafes.

He would listen, chat to the locals,

but this was viewed with suspicion
by his British colleagues.

It was not the done thing.

Howard was hard-working
and very ambitious,

but he didn't always follow
establishment rules.

One night,
drunk Western tourists picked
a fight with some excavation guards.

Angrily, he took the side
of the Egyptian staff.

"I have a hot temper

"and that amount
of tenacity of purpose

"which unfriendly observers
sometimes call obstinacy

"and which nowadays,
due to such idiosyncrasies,

"it pleases my enemies to term me

"as having 'un mauvaise caractere'.

"Well, that I can't help."

Not only was Howard fired
as Archaeological Inspector,

he was now unemployable.

He turned to dealing artefacts.

Here is Luxor Temple.
Directly opposite

is the Luxor Hotel.

Howard Carter would stay here when
he was excavating on the West Bank.

Alongside is this street.

It was peppered with the shops
of dealers in antiquities.

So this whole set-up
was very convenient
for Howard Carter's enterprises.

As Inspector, Howard had fought hard
to protect Egypt's heritage,

but on the side,
like his contemporaries,

he'd sold some finds
to collectors and museums.

Objects were still taken
without proper excavations,

and the whole idea of taking
these objects for the museums

was the thing that was fuelling
such plunder in the 19th century.

Egypt was under British control.

The rules said that half of the
finds could be removed from Egypt,
half had to stay.

We hear about these tomb robbers.
Who are the tomb robbers?

Well, they're always the Egyptians,
you know.

And you see this usually -
a very greedy person.

While actually it's the Westerners
who want to buy these objects. OK.

Howard Carter - cop? Robber?
Or both?

I think there aren't complete
innocents and there aren't
complete villains.

I think he was a mix of both.

He probably at some times tried
to do his best to protect the sites

and at other times he did what was
best for his own interests.

Even in his wilderness years,
Howard dreamed of discovery.

But with no wealthy patron,
he had no hope of funding a dig.

He needed a stroke of luck

and, boy, did he get it!

For 350 years,
this Hampshire estate has been home

to one of England's
most prominent families,

but you probably know it
as Downton Abbey.

Howard became a regular visitor.

Just cram-packed
full of beautiful art.

Wow.

Look at this staircase!

SHE GASPS

Ah, beautiful.

That is quite a haul.

Must have made
such an impression on him.

And it's incredible to think
that it's still used as the family
home of the Carnarvons.

At 34, Howard had
the luckiest encounter of his life,

with George, Earl of Carnarvon.

The current Lord C
is his great-grandson.

He was probably one of the last
great sort of Edwardian adventurers,
really.

Firstly, quite a gambling mentality.
Oh! You know.

He was mad about the horses.

He was an owner, breeder
and racehorse owner.

He helped found Newbury racecourse.

George Carnarvon spent his money
on fast horses and fast cars,

but after a nasty accident,
he needed a safer hobby.

He had this idea of a quest
for something hard to touch,

something amazing. So he was
sort of drawn to history,

drawn to archaeology even as
a young boy? Absolutely.

Without that,
he would never have been someone
who would have gone to Egypt

and embarked on what might appear
to be a crazy idea

of digging up the earth
to find something amazing
from past civilisations.

They often met here,

where archaeological deals got done.

They have these glorious gardens,
you can stroll around,

you can be by the river
in the cool of the evening.

The decor inside where you had
your gin and tonic of the time,

they could have made a plan,
cooked up together,

of how they were
going to work together.

Howard got a taste
for the high life.

There's a sense, isn't there,
that Howard Carter was aspiring
to be like your great-grandfather?

He, I think, wanted to emulate

the general style
of my great-grandfather,

which of course may well mean
going to the same tailor,
having the same sort of clothes.

He also wanted to be
the English gentleman abroad.

Finally, Howard Carter, the loner,

had found a kindred spirit.

Together, they planned
what seemed impossible -

to find an untouched pharaoh's tomb.

Howard was back on the West Bank,
with a new house,

paid for by George Carnarvon.

Oh, this is nice.

It's bigger than I was expecting.

I think for a single guy,
he's got a lot of space here.

Before every excavation,
Carter put together a shopping list

of the little luxuries that
an Englishman might want abroad.

There's some pate de foie gras,

And quite a lot of alcohol.
Then there's practical things.

Yardley's soap. But, interestingly,
he's gone for the Bromo
toilet paper.

That's the rough, scratchy stuff,
not the soft, luxurious one.

In comparison to the other houses
on the West Bank,

this was big, comfortable
and luxurious.

Soon, everyone was calling it
Castle Carter.

Only so many digs were allowed
in the Valley of the Kings.

So while they waited, they started
to dig just outside the Valley.

This footage was shot
by George Carnarvon himself.

He could afford to pay
hundreds of local workers,

but they were more than labourers.

They brought Howard
vital intelligence.

In his memoirs,
he said that a man called Gad Hassan
came to visit him here,

in the gardens of Castle Carter.

Hassan wanted to sell him
some information

about the location of a tomb
that had just been revealed
after heavy flooding.

Now Carter thought this could be
the tomb of the pharaoh Amenhotep I.

And I think, I might be wrong,
that this is Tutankhamun's

great-great-great-great-great-great
grandfather.

The tomb had been robbed,
but it was still a big find.

Howard and George
were now major players.

So was this mysterious man,
Gad Hassan,

who had basically told Carter
the location of a pharaoh's tomb?

Well, he came from
one of the nearby villages,
just over there.

Gourna is now abandoned.

but it once housed hundreds
of Howard Carter's workers.

When I read the records of Carter,

they're referred to as natives,
native workers,

or just not referred to at all.

Well, I'm looking for them

at the National Egyptian Archive
of Egypt.

I'm looking into peopling the past
of Egyptian Egyptology.

We know the expressions of Carter
and we know the expressions
of Lord Carnarvon,

but we never see
what did the Egyptians say.

They're not given a voice.
You see that in the photos, too.

They're almost like props and
supports... Exactly. ..to Carnarvon
and Carter. Exactly.

They do not come out as individuals.

They come out not so different
from the objects that were being
discovered.

But their knowledge was essential.

So these people have been living
in this landscape and they have been
not just living,

but they have been using it
in multi purposes.
And so such use of landscape

lets you know where the water would
go when there's a flash flood,

they'd let you know
where the inundation arrives.

They were his right and left hands,
basically.

I think this is how he built his
glory, on top of their shoulders.

The years that Howard had spent
hanging out in cafes with the locals
was paying off.

He knew exactly
who to hire for tomb hunting.

The details are in his diary.

Routine payments to Gad Hassan,

and a second foreman, Ahmed Gerigar.

In 1917,
they got permission to enter...

..the Valley of the Kings.

A rich American
called Theodore Davis

had dug here for 11 years,

but he had declared the Valley empty
and thrown in his trowel.

When Howard Carter
finally got permission,

he found a valley full of rubble

and everyone thought
that all the royal tombs
that were going to be discovered

had been discovered,
but Carter did have two things
on his side.

The first clue
was this channel in the cliffs.

Howard's team knew
it had been cut on purpose
by the tomb builders

to direct flood water
away from the tombs.

This narrowed the search.
There was no point digging
in the outflow.

The second clue had been found
by Theodore Davis.

But he'd missed its meaning.

It was a cup
bearing the name Tutankhamun,

including the symbol of the scarab.

Even with this knowledge
on his side, though,

it wasn't going to be that easy.

The work was more like engineering
than excavation.

For five long years, the Carter crew
spent more time shifting rubble
than sifting treasure.

What little they found had
nothing to do with Tutankhamun.

Then, in June, 1922,

Howard received a summons.

In the aftermath of WWI,

high taxation was putting
stately homes at risk.

I think Great-grandfather was
getting to the stage it was all
becoming quite an expensive thing.

I think he probably said
to Howard Carter,

"Look, my friend,

"we've had a great time out there,
but maybe we should be
drawing stumps

"because this is costing more
and more and we haven't made
any great breakthrough."

Howard argued passionately
for just one more season.

Ultimately, what seems to come
across is they were friends.

Yes, they were friends.
He came here many, many times.

It was at one of these occasions...

..in June, 1922,

that they made the decision
to continue for another year.

Egypt was still big news.

The world wanted a new discovery.

Carter had just one more season left
to make that big find

that he was convinced
was out there somewhere.

It's like a Hollywood movie.
The tension is incredible.

He focused on one spot.

Over there,
under that ridge of earth,

is the tomb of Ramesses VI.

He was pharaoh roughly
two centuries after Tutankhamun.

At the very bottom was a pile
of rubble that had never been
properly excavated.

Carter worked his way through this,
and discovered the huts

of the workers that had originally
dug out Ramesses' tomb.

But what if he was to dig
further back through the past

and go deeper?
What would he find then?

On the 4th of November,
Howard wrote,

"First steps of tomb found."

But who found them?

On the day of the discovery,
when he arrived on-site,

he was met by the sound of silence.

What this meant was that the team
had already discovered
something important.

The site foreman was Ahmed Gerigar.

It was the Egyptian workers
who had found

the first step down into the most
important archaeological discovery
of all time.

At the bottom was
the sealed entrance to a tomb.

Howard stopped,

to wait for George.

He sent a famous telegram saying,
"Appears have made amazing discovery
of intact tomb.

"Await your arrival."

It took three weeks
for George to arrive in Egypt.

On 26th of November, 1922,

the moment came.

As Howard peered through
a hole in the wall,

George asked,
"Can you see anything?"

Howard replied, "Yes.

"Wonderful things."

33 centuries had passed

since human feet last trod
the floor on which we stood.

We were to witness a spectacle

such as no other man in our time
had been privileged to see.

The most extensive
pharaoh's treasure ever found.

Crammed full of objects.

To accompany Tutankhamun
into the next life.

But when we came to a golden shrine,

the doors closed and sealed,

we realised

that we were in the presence
of the dead king.

So beautiful.

Amazing to see this colour.

The scale of the figures over there!

Tutankhamun is shown

with his characteristic headdress.

And behind is his Ka, his soul,

clasping on to the ankh,

representing eternal life.

And he's embracing

the figure of Osiris.

So this is about

the eternal life of the pharaoh.

Tutankhamun is surrounded
by symbols of divine protection.

This, for me, is the highlight.

It's these women on the corners,

one on each corner,
their arms stretched around,

and their wings touching
and overlapping.

It's only when you move around it

you get a sense this feels like
a real body.

It feels like something
three-dimensional.

You can see her breasts, her hips.

It's just beautiful.

The excavation of the tomb
made Howard the most famous
discoverer on Earth.

But he was also
one of the most meticulous,

recording and wrapping
each treasure.

Each one brought Ancient Egypt
back to life.

There were over 5,000 objects
in Tutankhamun's tomb,

but there's only one
that everybody wants to see.

I get shivers every time I see this.

The golden mask of Tutankhamun.

Up at the top there,
you see Wadjet, the cobra.

and Nekhbet, the vulture,

symbolic of Upper and Lower Egypt.

And Tutankhamun is king over it all.

Carved on the back here

were these
incredibly precise hieroglyphs.

It's a protective spell.

It says,
"Your forehead is of Anubis.

"The nape of your neck is of Horus.

"The strands of your hair
are of Ptah-Sokar.

"You are in front of Osiris,
Tutankhamun."

It truly is

THE icon of Egypt.

Dr Zahi Hawass is the country's
most famous living archaeologist.

He's spent his life
decoding these works of art.

Why do you think
the Tutankhamun collection

is so important
to the Egyptian people?

It's not to the Egyptian people.

It is to the whole world.

If you go in any city in the world
and say, "Egypt,"

they will say, "King Tut!"

Because the Golden Boy captured
the hearts of people everywhere.

You have the Anubis shrine,
you have the canopic jars,

you have the throne. You know,
the throne is also amazing.

The throne is inscribed
with his birth name,

Tutankhaten.

Toys that he played with,
drinking beer and wine.

All these kind of artefacts
can tell us

the story of the daily life

and the religious beliefs
of the Golden Boy.

Tutankhamun would have been
a sensation in any age,

but, in 1922,

he set the world alight.

World War I was over.

# Wah wah!
It was party time!

# Wah wah... #

Youth and dazzling wealth made Tut
the perfect Jazz Age celebrity.

The New York Times,

February 18th, 1923.

"There is only one topic
of conversation.

"One cannot escape the name
of Tutankhamun anywhere.

"It is shouted in the streets,
whispered in the hotels."

Egypt became a global craze.

And against all the odds,
Howard Carter had made it.

But his work had only just begun.

Before he removed anything
from the tomb,

he recorded each artefact
with meticulous care.

I asked the curators for a closer
view of my favourite object.

Wow.

Amazing.

It was designed
to be worn by the pharaoh.

Up in that disc at the top,

you can see
a tiny version of Tutankhamun.

The centrepiece - the scarab beetle.

The reason that scarab is
so significant

isn't just for its symbolism.
It's for what it's made of.

That beautiful yellow stone
in the centre

is one of the rarest stones
on the planet.

It is Libyan desert glass.

And it was created

when a meteorite hit the Earth,
roughly 26 million years ago.

What was it doing in the tomb
of Tutankhamun?

It's not found in any other
Egyptian artworks.

We'll never know,
but the Ancient Egyptians understood
how rare it was.

And that's why they used it
to offer this protection
to their young pharaoh.

These treasures made him immortal.

George Carnarvon
had spent a fortune.

To recoup, he did an exclusive deal
with the London Times.

Nonetheless, the global press
descended on Egypt.

The pressure on Howard was enormous.

His only protection was George.

Then, disaster struck.

It all happened here
in the bathroom of the Royal Suite
at the Winter Palace.

Lord Carnarvon had been bitten
by a mosquito

and then later, when he was shaving,

he opened up the wound
and it became infected.

Very soon, Lord Carnarvon was dead
from blood poisoning.

Just four months
after the tomb was opened,

Howard had lost his patron
and friend.

My amazing great-grandmother has
flown out in a de Havilland plane,

with a doctor. Gosh. She was
the great nursing, medical expert.

To be with him.
It wasn't enough to save him.

He even said a few hours beforehand,
"I feel I'm, you know..."

He had this terrible thing of dying
in the hour of his triumph.

Disaster number two.

The whole of the world's press
were also gathered here
at the Winter Palace,

and they were turning on Carter.

Lord Carnarvon's death provided them
with the perfect opportunity.

The curse of Tutankhamun was born.

The rest of the media was furious
at being excluded from the world's
biggest story,

so the American press
simply made one up.

It's a great story because
the pharaohs always said

that anyone was cursed
who breaks into a tomb.

And the cobra was everywhere,
symbolically protecting.

The truth was more routine.

I'm afraid it's really the fact
that he was not the strongest
physical character

because of his general sort of shape

and it was just appallingly bad...
bad luck, really.

George's own cine camera captured
the last footage of him alive.

The curse was an invention,

but Howard was alone again,

left to manage personal grief
on top of professional stress.

Political change was under way.

The Egyptian authorities were
breaking free of British control

and insisting on oversight
of Carter's work.

The pressures
were reaching breaking point.

Finally, Howard lost it completely,

posting a public notice in the lobby
of the Winter Palace Hotel.

"All my collaborators, in protest,
have refused to work.

"After the press view of the tomb,
between ten o'clock and noon,

"the tomb will be closed and
no further work will be carried out.

"Signed, Howard Carter."

In other words,
"I'm not playing any more.

"I'm taking my ball and going home."

Howard and George had expected
to keep half the treasures.

Those days were gone.

Egypt insisted everything must stay.

But Howard could continue
to run the excavation.

He was the right man
for the next step -

revealing the body of Tutankhamun.

This is as close as I can get
to his experience.

I can't believe this is happening!

As the last shroud was rolled back,

a gasp of wonderment
escaped our lips,

so gorgeous was the sight
that met our eyes.

The lid
of a series of three coffins,
nested one within the other,

enclosing the mortal remains

of the young King Tutankhamun.

I didn't think I'd get emotional.

I can't believe
I'm stood here by this.

It feels such an honour.
I just can't believe I'm...

..having this experience.

I used to dream about Ancient Egypt
as a girl.

Among all that regal splendour,

everywhere the glint of gold.

Tutankhamun's innermost coffin

is 110kg

of solid gold.

There's this delicate feathering
that runs all over it.

You've got the protective goddesses

covering the body with their wings.

Then the winged vulture and cobra,

covering his chest, protecting him.

And then, all the way up,

these delicately-carved feathers,

they curve right behind
and embrace the body of the pharaoh.

There's so many incredible details
that I can only see

now I'm so close to it.

It's unbelievably,
beautifully worked.

The way the light just bounces off.
It's breathtaking.

Howard Carter had gone through
so much

and, ultimately,
this was the very last obstacle

between him and Tutankhamun himself.

Or so he thought.

In fact, the body was covered
in rock-hard resin.

Howard's emergency solution
is pretty shocking.

In order to remove the mummy,

and the bracelets
that were attached to it,

they ended up having to use
hot knives and chisels

and take the body out,
piece by piece, limb by limb.

Until, eventually,

all that was left

was the great gold mask
and Tutankhamun's head.

They then...

..carefully reconstructed the body,
bit by bit,

so it could be placed
back in the tomb.

To satisfy 20th-century curiosity,

Tutankhamun was stripped
of all his divine protection,

and autopsied.

He was 19.

He was just a couple of years older
than my son.

I've set up a meeting here
at the Winter Palace

to try and get to the bottom of
one of the biggest Tut mysteries -

how did he die?

In 1968, a series of X-rays showed

shocking evidence
of multiple injuries.

This unleashed decades
of speculation on his violent death.

But is his fragile mummy
a red herring?

Professor Salima Ikram
is an expert on mummification.

OK. I'll see to the tea.

Yes, darling, if you do that... OK.

..I will open up
this lovely portfolio.

Here you go.

So this is the leg. Uh-huh.

Can you see over here? Yeah. There's
a little bit of a cracking here.

And people have been talking about
he was thrown from a chariot

or something happened in battle.
Right.

Let me remember that one.
There's so many! Yeah.

The chest is quite extraordinary
over here. Yeah.

But you can see
that the ribs are all gone.

Yeah. There's a theory about,
"Oh, a hippopotamus bit him,"

or a horse kicked him.

Now, that's not very likely
with the horse

because, generally,
the king would be not that stupid
to walk behind a horse.

It seems Tut's famous injuries
happened after he died.

During World War II, he was left
unguarded in his tomb.

Raiders ripped a necklace
from his chest

and shattered his ribs.

There's the famous head. Yeah.

Now what I love here is
this bit of bone,

which for a long time was,
"Tutankhamun was murdered!

"Someone hit him on the side
of his head!" Etc, etc.

So this piece of bone that we can
see here, that's disconnected,
that's come away?

Yeah, this is, in fact, probably
something that happened when
they were handling the mummy

afterwards. It has nothing
to do with his death.

Howard Carter may well be
one of the culprits.

The truth is
we'll never know how Tut died,

but since the Jazz Age,
the idea of a delicate boy

living a life of luxury
has captured our imaginations.

There's still something that...

that seems to stick,
which is that Tutankhamun was
this poor, fragile little boy.

I think we're projecting a great
deal onto him from our modern times

because he was probably
relatively robust.

And he wasn't a little boy.
He was 19.

And we even know that he was,
in fact, a strong, virile man.

So I don't think this poor, pathetic
boy thing holds water.

But what about the idea
that Tutankhamun was powerless?

Forgotten because he made
no mark on Egypt?

These walls commemorate
the festival of a great pharaoh.

You see this figure right here
coming out of the temple

and going
in an incredible procession

all the way to Luxor Temple
to celebrate with the people.

We even have drinking songs
inviting people to join in
in the festival

and we see it in all of the art.

It's now believed this ruler
is none other than Tutankhamun.

CHANTING

So, in 2021,

Egypt recreated his festival.

His magnificent reign
brought back to life.

Here what we see is the pharaoh
Tutankhamun on this sacred barque
of one of the gods

in procession on the water.

21st-century Egypt
has rediscovered Tut

as a symbol of national pride.

It now seems this god-like statue
is the mighty Tutankhamun

complete with
a rather splendid collar.

When Howard Carter first opened
Tutankhamun's coffin,

an almost identical one was there
on the pharaoh's body,

but, unlike the other treasures,
it then went missing.

There's a final twist to this tale.

One of the most famous guests
at the Winter Palace

was Agatha Christie,

author of Death On The Nile,

starring the great Belgian detective
Hercule Poirot.

I'm meeting another detective,

who's been on the trail
of the collar thief.

Marc,
what's happened to this collar?

What is strange is that there is
nothing of this collar,

not any part in Egypt now.
So it was a big mystery
until very recently.

Howard Carter had made
detailed drawings

of every piece of the collar,
which should be in Cairo.

So why did Marc spot this item
on display in Kansas City, USA?

I was very surprised
because it looked very well
to the description of Carter.

And why, in 2015, did he see pieces
up for auction in London?

You were putting it together in your
mind like an Egyptian jigsaw puzzle!

Yes, yes. Yes, yes.

And for this you must have
all the information in your brain

because it is the only device
that works perfectly
for these kind of things.

Marc could now account
for much of the missing collar.

And the thief?
None other than Howard Carter.

Very often in Howard Carter's life,
when he had some choice to do,

he made the wrong choice.

It seems Howard took the parts
back to London

hoping, perhaps,
to reconstruct them.

Instead, he gave them away
to acquaintances.

It was a different time, I suppose.
It's very difficult.

100 years after the events,
it's difficult to have a judgment.

We can only say,
yeah, he should not have.

But it happened. It happened.

Howard gave away
at least 24 small objects

that should have stayed in Egypt.

Despite his fame, he cut
a lonely figure late in life,

haunting the scenes of his glory
at the Winter Palace.

He had no close friends.

But he was always ready to tell
strangers the tale of Tutankhamun.

He died in 1939.

It took him ten years
to record and remove

all Tutankhamun's treasures
from the tomb.

In his attention to detail,

Howard Carter was
far ahead of his time.

The details are...mindblowing.

For all his many faults,

he left a great gift to the world.

Ah...!

The last word on Tutankhamun
must come from Egypt.

I believe he means how powerful
Egypt was at that time.

The sense of the belonging
to this land,

being part of this heritage
and huge, amazing history.

Like this is the heritage
of the world, yes,

but also this is Egypt.

Now, more than ever,
the story of these two men

goes far beyond a hunt for treasure.

The archaeology of Ancient Egypt
is now in the hands of Egyptians.

And they are constantly adding
new chapters to the narrative

that aren't just about pharaohs
and treasures.

I won't be taking anything with me
from Egypt,

apart from my memories and a sense
that Carter's discovery

was only the start of the story.