All language subtitles for Mistérios das Pirâmides - S01E01

From the dense
jungles of Central America,

across the globe
to the arid deserts of Sudan,

pyramids stand as mysterious
monuments to ancient civilisations.

People have gazed in wonder

at the precision and the effort
and the scale of this,

and they have asked questions,
as we will ask questions.

How do they build them?
Why do they build them?

It's a resurrection machine.
Right.

The entire pyramid is essentially
a capstone on top of the hole.

What do we still not know,

and what are
some of the crazier theories

we've come up to explain those gaps?

There is a line of thought
that the very structure,

the shape of a pyramid is somehow
divine and can channel energy.

It really is beyond what the
ancients should've been capable of.

'I'm going to explore the mysteries

'behind these astonishing
structures.'

Oh, that's incredible.

There are over 5,000 pyramids
on our planet

that have intrigued us
for millennia,

but what better place on Earth
to start than Egypt?

Oh, my God.

'Helping me solve these mysteries

'will be archaeologist
Raksha Dave...'

Why wouldn't they pimp up
their graves? I would.

'..and Egyptologist Chris Naunton.'

In the Egyptian mindset, there's
something much bigger going on here.

Was there any sense
that the pharaoh,

that they would become a star?

Absolutely!

So join me as we explore
the mysteries of the pyramids.

Behold the magnificence
of the Pyramids of Giza -

built more than 4,500 years ago,

at a time when Stonehenge
was merely a ditch.

I'm starting at the biggest and
most puzzling pyramid of them all.

The last surviving
Ancient Wonder of the World,

the Great Pyramid of Giza.

This building has stood
for more than 4,500 years,

and for most of that time,
people have been clambering over it,

digging underneath it,
have been inside it.

And yet, even now, in this age where
we have all the world's information

at our fingertips,

this building asks more questions
than it answers.

The Great Pyramid's
imposing exterior

hides a puzzling interior of narrow
passageways and hidden chambers.

This is the entrance tunnel
to the Great Pyramid at Giza.

All of this stone was put in place
for one man,

and this path should lead to the
burial site of the Pharaoh Khufu.

'Around 2600 BCE,

'it's believed that Khufu reigned
for about 30 years.

'He left seven sons,
including two future pharaohs,

'as well as
this astonishing building.'

Oh, my God. Oh, that's incredible.

Huge gallery, three storeys high.

'After navigating a series of hot,
claustrophobic tunnels,

'I've emerged into the cavernous
atrium called the Grand Gallery.'

And this isn't even
where they buried the King.

This is just the entrance hall.

What an enormous space.

I mean, you could really do
something with a space like this.

I mean, obviously, this wouldn't
just be the living area.

You could knock through.

Oh, no, wait.
You couldn't knock through.

It's an absolutely
astonishing place.

'Intended as a final resting place
for Khufu,

'the pyramid draws me ever closer
to its central chamber.'

Oh, this is amazing.

Wow! The burial chamber of the King.

What a huge room to be in the middle
of such a massive building.

And that's a big sarcophagus.

Imagine being the first
to come in here and then find...

nothing.

Yes, the remains of Khufu
aren't here.

No-one knows
where the remains of Khufu are.

That's just one of the many
mysteries of these pyramids.

'Fortunately, I have
Egyptologist Chris Naunton on hand

'to enlighten us, and looks like
he is also feeling the heat.'

Chris, how are you?

Hi, Dara. I'm good, thank you.
How are you?

Overdressed is how I am,

because this is hotter work
than expected. It is a little warm.

This is the burial chamber...
We think it is, yes.

...except that there's nothing in it.

Yeah. So,
there's a bit of a problem there.

There is no mummified body
of the King.

But then we've found almost no human
remains in any of these pyramids.

These were all, we think,
robbed a very, very long time ago.

ls there also talk that there
might be another burial chamber?

We ll, yes.

So, if you look closely up at these
massive granite ceiling pieces,

there are cracks along the sides,

and these seem
to have been repaired,

perhaps at the time
the pyramid was being constructed.

So what's probably happening
is that this vast weight of stone

above us here - intimidatingly -
was causing these cracks,

and there are people
that have suggested that

if this burial chamber
was on the brink of failing,

there's no way that they would have
buried the King here.

They must have buried him
somewhere else.

Ancl there are other chambers
in the pyramid we know about.

There are also potentially
other chambers...

or there's hints of other chambers,
which we don't know so much about,

so there is still this thought

that maybe the King actually IS
still in the pyramid,

just in the chamber
we haven't found yet.

And... how do we possibly know that?
How would he...?

Well, there are hints
here and there...

that there could be cavities
behind what we have thought,

more or less up to now,
to be entirely solid walls.

But, of course, until
we can prove it one way or another,

imaginations can run wild.

'So even with the journey
just beginning,

'we have mysteries aplenty,

'and clambering through the innards
of this building,

'feeling the sheer scale of it,

'does make you wonder,

'why did they go to so much effort
to build a tomb?'

It's remarkable.
It's an incredible space.

Yeah, I mean,
incredible achievement.

But in the end, it's difficult
not to ask yourself, you know,

"So, why are they doing this?"

In the Egyptian mindset, there's
something much bigger going on here.

The reality is
that Pharaoh is a god,

and if you want things to continue

and everything to be OK
and Egypt to be the greatest,

then you have to build
these enormous monuments.

It does seem inefficient...
as well as majestic and fantastic!

Because what we saw,
there's not a lot...

there's not another west wing,
not a lot of other stuff.

Not that we know for certain, no.

'And because there's so much
we don't know for certain,

'people have rushed to fill the gap
with all sorts of outlandish ideas.'

The alternative...

perhaps more spiritual
or paranormal way of thinking

about the Pyramids
and the Great Pyramid

as this exceptional structure

would point towards
ancient Atlantis -

an ancient race of people
who had knowledge

far in excess
of what we have in the modern clay.

That they had technology
that enabled them

to build the Great Pyramid,
to build things

that no other civilisations
had been able to achieve.

'Look, you know me.
I have no truck with this stuff.

'But I can see
how wild theories can spread

'when the pyramid itself offers
so few clues.'

I mean, it is also
the most enigmatic of pyramids

in as much as
there's no detail in there.

Yeah, and so one of the reasons
why we're so perplexed

by so much of this is that, unlike
for other monuments elsewhere,

no inscriptions here at all.

But if we were to look elsewhere,

we might be able
to get more of an insight,

and then maybe that will allow us
to reflect more.

So we should go see other pyramids,

which would explain
the whole role of pyramids better.

I think that would be a good idea.
Let's do that.

'So I'm travelling
34 kilometres south of Cairo

'to find
a more illuminating pyramid.

'I've come to Saqqara
to meet Salima lkram,

'who I hope is going to enlighten me

'about what these pyramids
were actually for.'

Salima. Hello.
Hello, Dara. How are you?

I'm doing very well,
but I have many questions.

Well, we hope we can answer them.

'Salima is an Egyptologist

'who specialises in
ancient Egyptian funerial customs.

'And this pyramid, built
100 years after the Great Pyramid,

'is of special interest.

Mind your head.
I will, yeah.

You're a bit tall. They weren't
built for the large man, were they?

'It's for a pharaoh called Unas,

'and the first pyramid
to have any inscriptions.'

These are our first hieroglyphics.
Yep. This is it.

Oh, well, this is very much
what I was expecting.

And it's conspicuous in its absence
in the Great Pyramid.

But these weren't presumably
just for decoration?

No, no. These are actually
a way for the King

to become one
with the eternal stars.

This is really the texts,

the magic that get him
from this world to the next.

It's essentially a machine
to get the King to the afterlife.

It's a resurrection machine.
Right.

But that's what it is.
It is to protect the King,

but it is
the whole sort of infrastructure

to go "whoop"...
into the after world.

And so the idea was that,
at some point,

quiet point after the King
had been laid to rest here,

he would rise and read from this

the instructions as left
by the priests or... Yeah.

'The legends go that,
before entering the afterlife,

'Osiris, god of the underworld,

'presides over the judgment
of the dead pharaoh's soul

'among 42 terrifying gods,

'including the Bone Breaker
and the Eater of Entrails.'

If we go into his burial chamber,
I can show you how it's laid out.

It's a bit like a bedroom.
Oh, please do.

Mind your head again.
I will.

'Every plea for innocence
held immense significance.

'Failure resulted in
an agonising second death.

'This trial not only determined
if the pharaoh would be allowed

'into the afterlife,
but also the future of all Egypt.'

This is absolutely gorgeous.
Isn't it fabulous?

If I rise from the dead,

where am I supposed
to start reading this?

OK, so, you've got
the sarcophagus here,

and the King is lying down,

and then the King sort of is
supposed to rise out of his bedroom

and suddenly see the first spell,
and it says, "O Unas, arise".

And then he reads it spell by spell,

and it gives him
explicit instructions.

And that's kind of the point, is it?

This is why this was all done,
because he had to rise up,

become one with the eternal stars
and live forever.

And, of course, also,
part of his job was to make sure

the cosmos was in balance
and the sun rose and Egypt was safe,

and so his resurrection
was key to that process.

To ask a very fundamental question,

does it go left to right,
up to down? Yes.

It goes up to down.
The easiest thing to do

is look at the way the animals
are facing and read into them. Fine.

Here, this is his name,

and the bunny is a very nice way
of finding him.

OK, fine. OK.
HE LAUGHS

'The great thing about the afterlife

'is that you could take a whole load
of worldly goods with you.'

The things they brought with them,

were they to guarantee
a safe passage,

or were they things
they would enjoy in the afterlife?

You would have stuff
that you wanted.

Because, I mean, if you're
going to live in the after world,

you want to live comfortably,
so you better take it with you

because you don't know
what's at the other end.

It might be a Holiday Inn rather
than The Ritz. Yes, absolutely.

'It's fascinating that, in Egypt,

'the pyramid was a kind of machine
to protect the pharaoh

'and allow him to take useful things
to the afterlife.

'Over 2,000 years later,

'11,000 kilometres away in China,
something similar happened.

'The Chinese pyramids
of the Han dynasty

'are burial mounds
built for powerful rulers.

'In the tomb of Emperor Wudi,
swords and crossbows were concealed

'to protect the emperor
in the afterlife.

'That was nothing.
1,200 kilometres away,

'Emperor Qin Shi Huang's tomb
housed a terracotta army

'of 8,000 life-size soldiers
to protect him in the afterlife,

'only unearthed in 1974.

'Back in Egypt

'the Pyramid of Unas
that I'm exploring with Salima

'has also recently revealed
a hidden secret.'

So we could,
if we get the lights off...

OK, we can do that.
Can we get the lights off?

WHISTLE
Whoo! Well done.

OK.
OK, let's see if we can...

Oh, my God.

Can you see that?
I didn't see that at all.

'This ghostly figure was uncovered
as recently as 2007.

'A closer look reveals a king
wearing the crown of Lower Egypt,

'a harpoon in his right hand,
hunting a hippopotamus.'

No, it's hidden.

'The hieroglyphs only divulge
the beginning of his name,

'but many Egyptologists believe this
to be none other than Khufu.'

But that is absolutely stunning.

'Was this stone recycled from
one of Khufu's tombs or temples,

'or was it intended to honour
this long-dead legendary king

'who built
the greatest pyramid ever?'

So these places really are magic.

Pretty cool.

'Next, I go deeper

'into Khufu's mysterious journey
into the afterlife.'

Was there any sense that, like,
if a pharaoh ascended,

that they would become a star?
Absolutely!

DARA O BRIAIN:
'I'm here exploring the mystery

'of these magnificent
Wonders of the Ancient World.'

MAN: Hello! Welcome to Egypt.

'And, as a bit of a numbers guy,

'I find some of the figures
behind the Pyramids' construction

'truly mind-boggling.'

CAMEL GRUNTS

Perhaps the most incredible wonder
about these pyramids

is the sheer feat of engineering.

In that first 100-year burst
of pyramid-making,

they moved 15 million tonnes of rock
from quarries to here.

There is a piece of granite inside
this pyramid which weighs 80 tonnes.

And even these standard rocks here

were being brought here
at a rate of 200 to 300 every day,

which meant that these rocks
were being put into place

one after another after another
every two to three minutes.

'And as if that formidable work rate
isn't astonishing enough,

'archaeologist Raksha Dave
has promised to show me

'something even more extraordinary.'

Raksha, of all the amazing things
about the Pyramids,

what's the most incredible thing
to you?

Well, I think the thing
that's the most mind-blowing

is just how accurate they are,

that how the structure was built.

So, for example,
if I get my phone out,

I can show you on my compass -
if we're actually stood properly -

it actually points to north.

So in order to get true north, they
would essentially use the stars.

That, presumably,
is what they lined it up with.

Well, there's another method
that you can use - using the sun.

So, you can actually get a stake,

put it in the ground
during the summer solstice,

and then you track its shadow.

Ancl obviously,
they didn't have telly back then,

so, you know, somebody
could stand there the whole day

and watch the shadow track around
and mark its track.

Once you've got that,
you can then get a piece of string

and walk around
and create an east-to-west axis,

and then you could then get
your 90-degree angle off that

and then point to true north.

'With just a stick, some string

'and a good knowledge
of the solar system,

'the ancient Egyptians
achieved alignments

'maybe 40 times more accurate

'than you can get
on the compass on your phone.

'So perhaps the ancient Egyptians
just wanted to build something

'that was really precise and
aligned perfectly with the heavens,

'maybe to honour their dead king.

'And because they knew their stuff,
they could do it.

'However, the perfection
of the Pyramids

'has baffled and intrigued
all that have seen them,

'including one famous
little Frenchman.'

Napoleon.
Yes.

When he came here
for his little campaign

to take over Egypt and Syria
in 1798,

it was kind of, like,
a bit of propaganda.

He obviously wanted to control
trade routes, the Red Sea,

so he brought
all of these scientists over

to kind of survey
what happened in ancient Egypt.

Ancl there was a young chap called
Jomard, who was 19 years old,

and he was absolutely fascinated
and taken with the Pyramids.

He set about and measured them.
SHE LAUGHS

He got the height, the length,
got really excited about it,

and then started
extrapolating wildly.

'jomard concluded that the length

'from the midpoint
of the base of the pyramid

'to its tip was exactly a "stade",
an old Greek measurement

'that was based
in the circumference of the Earth.

'But he got carried away
and made a critical oversight.'

Was it right? Not really,
because he forgot one thing.

Oh, yeah, this stuff,

which we're only seeing
a small section of here...

Yeah.
..which is...

ls "cladding" the wrong word to use?

I would like to call it
outer casing. There we go.

That's my archaeological term.
OK, fine.

What's that, then, archaeologically?

So, that's what we call the core.
Right.

They are blocks.
They're put together really nicely.

But then you want your building
to look beautiful and pretty,

so they had white limestone then
put on the front, and it's smooth.

So you would've had
just smooth triangular sides,

and they would've looked
spectacular.

I mean, can you imagine,
just these pyramids...?

There's the remains of it still
at the top of the second pyramid,

Khafre's pyramid, and that
would have been all the way down.

All the way down.

Now, they've been removed over
the years for other building work.

Yeah, butjomard forgot about it,

so his measurements
were inaccurate anyway.

'A later, more precise survey
that revealed different dimensions

'didn't dampen jomard's enthusiasm.

'He spent the next three decades
writing a book which continued

'to throw up speculative theories
about the Pyramids.'

So, jomard mismeasured the Pyramids,
got obsessed with them,

wrote a book about them,
and, in many ways,

his crazy extrapolations,
his, like, leaping to conclusions

has been the path ever since.

That a lot of people have taken
his work and other people's work

and gone, "Ah-ha! Well, therefore,
this is of greater significance

"than probably it is."

But, wow, people really run with it.

They do.
They do.

'The precision and accuracy
of the Pyramids

'has strangely made them
even more intriguing.'

The precision was outrageous
for what was needed,

if it was a tomb,
if it was a temple.

You don't even get that today
in some construction.

This is, like, better than you get
in the modern era,

so why were they going
to these extremes?

Other people have actually suggested
it's all about water,

and there's, like,
a water pump theory,

and they would pump water
in and out of it,

and this would create
an energy system as well.

Ancl so, when you go inside
the Great Pyramid,

it doesn't feel like it's a temple,
doesn't feel like it's a tomb.

It doesn't feel like
it's kind of the sacred space.

It feels like you're in a machine.

'Of course, there's no
scientific evidence to back that up,

'but that level of obsession
with the Pyramids is nothing new.

'Little wonder subsequent societies
were obsessed with pyramids

'and all things Egyptian.

'In 30 BCE,
the Romans came to conquer.

'Antony and Cleopatra
had been doing their thing,

'and the style,
elegance and architecture of Egypt

'became wildly fashionable.

'So much so that several pyramids
were built in ancient Rome.

'The Pyramid of Cestius
was built in 12 BCE

'using cutting-edge Roman
building materials of the age -

'a brick-face concrete core
with a marble veneer.

'Standing at a height of 36 metres,

'it is just one 600th the volume
of the Great Pyramid

'and still straddles
the ancient Roman city walls.

'The Great Pyramids of Egypt
are 4,500 years old.

'Their size, precision and design

'has led to people speculating
wildly on who built them.

'Look, I'm a science nerd,

'so I'm left cold
by a lot of these theories.

'But I do wonder,
why are they so prevalent?

'I'm gonna talk to Nick Pope,

'who worked for 20 years
on the mod's UFO desk.'

Nick, have the Pyramids
always been so attractive

to alternative theories,
or is that a very modern thing?

No, I think they've always held
this fascination for people,

and I think people forget
just how old they are,

that even by the time
of the Romans,

they were already
thousands of years old.

And then in the Middle Ages,
there was religious speculation.

People were theorising, for example,

that maybe
the Devil had constructed them,

or maybe
some of the biblical figures.

So I think
there's been an enduring mystery.

Well, so, describe for me

some of the more
commonly expressed theories.

Well, I think
they fall into two categories.

Number one is that there was
a mysterious lost race

of pyramid builders,
people with ancient wisdom

that spread that knowledge
all around the world,

and many indigenous cultures
and other ancient civilisations

have this narrative
of people coming as teachers.

The related theory,
which is Ancient Astronaut theory,

which essentially says
that humanity had teachers,

and those teachers were actually
extra-terrestrials who came here,

were worshipped as gods,

and then we constructed
great monuments,

structures in honour of them
to commemorate this visit,

perhaps even with their help
or with technologies,

techniques which they had shared
with us.

These things are fun,
I find, the alien stuff,

but I just feel
it always gets in the way

of what is a genuinely astonishing
human achievement.

Whatever the truth of this,

I think the ancient Egyptians
clearly did know much more

about astronomy, mathematics,
geometry and architecture

than we perhaps give them
credit for.

Nick, an absolute pleasure
to talk to you.

Thank you very much.
Thank you.

'Pyramids globally appear to be
catnip for alternative theories,

'and speculation
around extraterrestrial involvement

'is not confined to Egypt.

'Over 2,000 years ago in Mexico,

'the Mayans established
the city of Palenque

'and built
the Temple of the Inscriptions,

'which has been called the greatest
Mayan funerary pyramid on Earth.

'King Pakal is buried
directly below the pyramid,

'and on the lid of its sarcophagus
is a carving,

'which again,
in some people's minds,

'resembles an astronaut
in a spaceship.

'The position of his tomb
is significant,

'hovering between the living
and the dead,

'the world below
and the cosmos above.

'Now, with the heavens in mind,
I decide to take in the night sky

'in Cairo
with Egyptologist Arto Belekdanian

'to explore the relationship

'the ancient Egyptians had
with the cosmos.'

While this would have been
an incredible vista

back in the days of the pharaohs,

there is now a city of 22 million
surrounding Giza,

and the glow of that means that...
Jupiter, and there's Sirius,

and there's Orion, and that is
literally all we can see.

But Orion is a good one to see
at least because the belt of Orion,

for a long time, people felt
this was a very significant thing.

Yes, it's called
the Orion correlation theory. Right.

Ancl basically, the idea is that the
three Pyramids of Giza are aligned.

Their positions
relative to one another

sort of mirrors the configuration
of the stars in Orion's belt.

Right. But there's really
nothing to indicate

that that's actually true, though.

'This theory gained popularity

'after publication in 1995
of the book The Orion Mystery.

'While the Pyramids
are roughly aligned

'like the three stars
of Orion's Belt,

'there seems to be little evidence
to prove this was intentional.'

I mean, they're just three dots
in a line.

OK, I mean,
that is a nice coincidence.

The other thing that's mentioned is
that there are two vents, let's say,

going out of the chambers
in the Great Pyramid.

Yes.
And people have thought,

"Oh, maybe they point
to a particular point in the sky."

In this case, we're actually
on much firmer ground

because these...
they're sometimes called vents,

sometimes called air shafts,
but, in fact,

they seem to be passages
from the underworld

out into the celestial realm
with the king's ancestors.

So they're sort of, like,
guiding you.

They're pointing in that direction.

'These shafts pointing to the cosmos
have always created great debate.

'In 2020, a robot designed
by a team from Leeds University

'was sent into one of the shafts
coming from the Queen's Chamber.

'The shaft is just
20 centimetres square

'and points upwards at 45 degrees.

'Breaking through a blocking stone,

'a small painted chamber
was discovered,

'which has unusual markings.'

MAN: All right, we're clone.
Whoo!

APPLAUSE

'Deeper into the shaft,

'the robot encountered
yet another blocking stone.

'Frustratingly,
this obstacle proved insurmountable,

'leaving the mystery unsolved.'

But, that aside,
the whole purpose of these pyramids

was the notion of sending
the pharaoh into the afterlife,

and the afterlife was in the sky,
wasn't it?

Yes. Certainly, we know through text

that that is what
the ancient Egyptians believed.

The king, upon death
and ascending into the sky,

he would become one of the stars.

And was there any sense that, like,

if a pharaoh ascended,
that they would become a star?

Absolutely!

But at no point did they go,
"That new star hasn't appeared yet.

"Where's that new star gone?"
HE LAUGHS

"Promises were made of new stars,
and the promises weren't kept."

Did the Egyptians have
constellations?

Oh, yeah, and they all had
so many associations

with different divinities.

'In fact, they had a rollicking good
creation myth set in the heavens

'and starring the Big Dipper,
constellation of Orion

'and their favourite god-king,
Osiris.

'Osiris was a kind and wise ruler.

'He did marry his sister,

'but, you know,
things were different back then.

'His brother Seth was strong
but unruly and envious of Osiris,

'so he turned himself into an ox
and kicked Osiris to death,

'therefore becoming king.

'But never fear.

'Osiris was resurrected by the magic
of his wife-slash-sister

'just long enough to impregnate her
with a golden phallus. Don't ask!

'She then gives birth to a son,
Horus,

'who would later avenge his father
and recapture the throne of Egypt.'

I love the stars because
I love these big balls of helium

that are exploding in the sky.

But I also love the fact
that they are basically

a map of the human imagination.

And every culture
attached different stories

and different myths and legends
to them.

It's wonderful. And the Egyptians
are no different in that.

No, they weren't.
It's very nice.

It's glorious. I mean,
I wish we could see a star or two.

THEY LAUGH

'Next, Raksha demands
that I use my imagination

'for her latest revelation.'

That there was the harbour

at the time that those pyramids
were being built.

But we're miles from water.

It goes without saying
that most pyramids around the world

took a phenomenal amount
of human effort to construct.

The Egyptian pyramids, however,

really have people
scratching their heads.

They're so old and so precise
and so gigantic

that the big question
still remains -

how were they actually built?

Well, we've seen how massive
the pyramids are.

We've also seen,
in conversation with Raksha,

just how precisely built they were.
Yep.

But what... The stone itself,
what was that cut with?

Well, we think that they were using
harder stone pounders.

Ancl then, in terms of
the final parts of the cutting,

they were using chisels
made of copper.

Copper is a soft metal.

Yeah, exactly.
So it's all in the technique.

I mean, to be fair, the lads are
making a pretty good job of this.

They're denting it pretty well.
Yeah.

'The majority of the stone
used to build the Giza pyramids

'is limestone,
quarried locally like this.

'But crucial structural components
were made from granite.'

The limestone isn't as difficult
to cut and shape and transport

as the granite
because it's much further distance,

it's a much harder stone,

it's got a high level of quartz
in it.

But they did it, and they did it
abundantly in ancient Egypt.

Ancl so they had
some technique to do that.

Ancl if you look at it
from a modern perspective,

we have engineers
who've looked at this

and tried to recreate
how they did it,

and they believe they must have had
electricity and power tools,

because you need
diamond-tipped metal kind of saws

to go through the granite.

But when you look
at some of the detail

and some of the precision
you find in Egypt,

it really is beyond

what the ancients
should have been capable of.

'Well, they did it,
even without power tools,

'4,000 years
before man harnessed electricity.

'The estimated workforce
of between 30,000 and 40,000 men

'must have known
what they were doing.'

Can I try?
Yeah.

Yeah.

OK, so I'm intrigued to know.

That or that?
Go on.

That, there?

I think the accuracy
is the biggest problem.

This is good. If civilisation
is ever gonna recover,

then we're gonna need to relearn
these skills.

Look, I mean, this is...
I've got no transferable skills.

No, I'd be the guy telling jokes
in the camp at night.

"Hey, what about that limestone,
eh?"

'That limestone
that I've been hacking away at

'was clearly popular stuff
when it came to building pyramids.

'3,000 years after
the Egyptian pyramids were built,

'limestone was also used
as the primary building material

'in the Yucatan Peninsula
in Mexico

'for the great Mayan pyramids
at Chichen ltza.

'Using chisels
made from much harder stone

'like flint and obsidian,

'they cut grooves that wooden wedges
were then driven into,

'splitting the stone cleanly.

'The Mayans employed advanced
engineering techniques,

'such as arches
and stepped construction,

'to build tall,
steep-sided pyramids.

'A bit like what I'm doing.'

Yeah, you're nearly there.

Only 7,000 more of these to go.

How long have they been doing it?
How long have I been doing it?

Yeah, yeah?

Perfect. It's clone.
That's good.

Thank you very much.

Hang on, hang on.
What's happening there?

Jesus!

You're kidding me.

God.
That's so clever.

Wow. Right.
And then you square it off,

and then Bob's your uncle.

Jesus.
It's sort of reassuring as well.

In a week when so much speculation
is done over these,

"How do they do it?"

Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Here's six guys doing it.

A bunch of guys
with the right knowledge.

Yeah.
The right tools.

Ancl presumably, as with these guys,

years and years of skills
and experience. Yeah.

We've witnessed the evidence
of what can be achieved

with the simplest of hand tools,

but what about
the immense quantities of stone

transported from
hundreds of kilometres away?

Apparently, Raksha
has some revelations in store.

Now, Raksha,
in all her archaeological wisdom,

said to me, "Why don't you meet me
at the edge of the pyramid site

“at Khufws harbour?“

This is very much the bit
where the pyramids meet the city.

I'm not seeing any harbour here.

In fact,
the only water here is the Nile,

which is about two miles that way.

So, what's going on?

Where are we now?

What do you think we're looking at?

We're looking to Cairo.
SHE LAUGHS

Well, I can tell you that that there
was the harbour

that used to service
the Giza construction site.

Wow.

You can see actually see
the harbour wall there.

Yeah, but we're miles from water.

Well, you say that.
If you actually look at the site,

and you see little clamp patches
everywhere?

Is that groundwater, is it,
coming out? That's groundwater.

From doing a lot of excavations
ancl things like pollen analysis,

and they found
that there was fresh water plants

that were growing in the bottom
of an extinct branch of the Nile

that ran all the way up here

at the time that those pyramids
were being built.

4,500 years ago, Giza would have
appeared very different.

The climate would have been wetter
and the vegetation more lush.

The River Nile flooded every year.

A harbour was dug out,

and the water would have flowed
right to the base of the pyramids.

Barges and boats
from Egypt and beyond

arrived here laden with granite,
limestone, wood,

and all the materials needed
for pyramid construction.

So, it was so close by.

Ancl then people would unload,

take the blocks
to the construction site just there,

and shape them.
Wow, that's incredible.

'Archaeologists long suspected
the use of boats

'to transport stone to Giza,
but lacked any solid proof.

'However, in 2013,

'one of the most important
archaeological finds of the century

'provided the smoking gun.

'Ancient fragments of papyrus
found near the Red Sea

'finally confirmed the
transportation of white limestone

'to Khufu's pyramid,
in a kind of shopping list.'

It had lots of kind of
quite boring inventories in there.

Right.

Feathers for this,
leopard hide for this.

But in this, he does actually
mention this harbour.

So, he does mention some blocks
coming to the harbour here.

The archive is the Diary of Merer,
an overseer in charge of 160 men,

and it details journeys
from quarries ten miles away

to the Great Pyramid.

What have now become known
as "the Red Sea Scrolls"

appear to be hard evidence
that confirms

that the ancient Egyptians
built the pyramids.

But, for some, it is not enough.

just because we have proof

that people were ordering limestone
to be taken to a pyramid,

I don't think
that invalidates the idea

of there being a spiritual dimension
to their construction.

Was there an outside influence
in the construction of the pyramids?

You could,
if you were so inclined,

go down the ancient astronaut
extraterrestrial road.

Is it a within thing, a human thing,
to have had these great visions

and ideas
about how to construct something?

Or did it come from without?

This sort of speculation
must be frustrating

for academics like Chris,
who spent their whole careers

doing careful and precise
scientific research on the subject.

So, despite the fact that
all the evidence we have suggests

that these are monumental tombs,

there are people that want
to see them as being much older,

not tombs at all.

You know, why would they build
something so big?

You know, they were only,
you know, relatively short.

It must have been giants!
It must have been something else.

Must have been alien technology,
possibly. And are they even tombs?

I mean, for some people,
even that's not very plausible.

They must have some other purpose!

Why not an electrical
hydraulic power station?

That's a serious suggestion
that people have made.

I think people want a wrapped mummy,
you know,

almost ready to sort of rise up
out of the coffin and say,

"No, it is me, it's Khufu."

Until we have that sort of amount
of evidence,

the door seems to be open

for people to reinterpret
these things as whatever they want.

I know, but the thing on Brass Eye
about how, actually,

these are giant ears
for a massive cat statue

under the ground -
that's the one.

There's something in that.
I believe that one.

'Next, I unravel one of the great
mysteries of the pyramids.'

I'd have done it exactly like this.
There you go.

Yeah.
Problem solved.

There we go. I mean, this Egyptology
is a doddle, isn't it?

'Step by step, we're unravelling
the Great Pyramid puzzle.

'But we still haven't got
to the bottom of how on Earth

'the ancient Egyptians got over
2 million heavy stone blocks

'up into place.'

We know where the blocks came from.
We know how huge these were. Yes.

And I know how they do
the first layer. Ha-ha! Yes.

But do we know how they do
the second layer,

the third layer, and all the way up?

Well, the short answer
is no, we don't.

We know the Egyptians used ramps,

and that ramp has either got to be
ludicrously steep,

or it's got to be enormously long.

Can they really have built a ramp

that's a kilometre and more long
out of mud?

For some people,
that's just not good enough.

'Experts
have been debating the mechanics

'of how these huge blocks
were raised

'hundreds of metres into the air
for centuries now,

'and it appears no-one can agree.

'Over the past decade,
French architect jean-Pierre Houdin

'has been working on
an intriguing theory.

'Centralto his idea
is an internal ramp system,

'with the Grand Gallery
playing a key role.'

This is the Grand Gallery
we've been in before.

Yes.
Still as hot.

Yes, it is. Sorry.
THEY CH UCKLE

And still is both astonishing,
but also perplexing.

It is just a fantastic, beautiful,
mightily impressive space. Yeah.

Why go to the trouble of building

this enormous,
extremely high passageway?

It's an unnecessarily grand chamber,

given that no-one
is supposed to ever see it,

and it's not gonna help him
on his way to the afterlife.

Not as far as anything in here
tells us, no.

And actually,
if you look closely again,

there are a few clues here and there

that might provide
something of an explanation.

The blocks at the side,
at this level,

there are what appear perhaps to be
little linear scratch marks,

almost as though something
has been sort of pulled along

in this direction,
very, very close to the wall,

kind of banging up against it.
Yeah.

A little video here
which has been put together.

Houdin's theory suggests that
the Grand Gallery was constructed

to accommodate
a massive counterweight system.

This involved a wooden carriage

carrying some of the heaviest
granite blocks

along rails and rollers
to get them up to higher elevations.

So, we're kind of descending
back through it now.

The theory is that, in fact,
this is the means

by which some at least
of the very heaviest blocks,

the granite blocks
that are casing the burial chamber

and the ones that are placed
along the top, forming the ceiling,

perhaps came this way
and were dragged up here

using counterweights and ropes.

So, like a cable car system.

Almost, you might say.

Actually, I was... I was wrong
to say cable car, I meant funicular.

Now, if you'd said funicular
to start with,

then, yeah, absolutely.
You know exactly what I mean.

That sounds sufficiently technical.
It's a counterweighted system

that would allow you
to use one weight

to draw the other weights up,

then all you have to do
is lift that other weight again,

pull another weight up. Could work.
That's the way I'd have done it.

I'd have done it exactly like this.
There you go. Yeah.

Problem solved.
There we go.

I mean, this Egyptology
is a doddle, isn't it?

With all that sorted,
I feel we can move on

to King Khufu, who is still missing,

but there have been
recent revelations.

An international team of scientists
using cutting-edge muon technology

have been scanning
the Great Pyramid,

and have unearthed not one,
but two previously unknown voids

within the pyramid.

When the first chamber they found

was finally revealed
with an endoscopic camera,

it was found to be empty.

But there's another,
high above the Grand Gallery,

that is still to be explored.

It's tantalising, the idea
of there being more empty spaces.

Yeah, Egyptology, and, you know,
the world of Egyptophiles,

loves a hidden chamber, you know.

Ancl we know these chambers are often
filled with treasure, so...

GASPS
You know, what could be here?

Of course,
the next thing is we gotta...

we gotta get there,
we gotta get inside.

What would it take for somebody
to actually take a drill

to the inside of the Great Pyramid?

Well, the authorities
need to be really, really clear

that there's a good,
very valid, very strong reason.

It dangles enigmatically.
It does, doesn't it?

This is why the show isn't called
Stuff We Know About The Pyramids.

Right, exactly. There you go.

That's why the show is called
Mysteries Of The Pyramids. Mystery!

When I came to Egypt,
my head was filled with questions

about these maddening,
enigmatic buildings,

and my heart was filled with
the desire

to live like lndianajones
for a while.

Well, a lot of clambering later,

I have a lot of answers
I'm very happy with

about how they built the pyramids,
indeed, why they built the pyramids.

Of course, now I'm wondering
where Khufu's body is

and what that cavity is
that turns up in all the scans.

That's the problem with these,
they keep offering more questions.

So in the next episode, we'll try to
address two of the hugest questions.

Firstly, why did they stop
building pyramids?

And also, what is the final score

in the eternal battle
between pharaohs and tomb raiders?

Next time, I meet the boy king

who dodged the tomb raiders
without a pyramid

to become the most famous pharaoh
of all.

Hello, Tut. You're the most popular.

That's the way history works
sometimes.

You're the one everyone knows.