All language subtitles for Lost.Worlds.S01E03.Ramses.Egyptian.Empire.1080p.AMZN.WEB-DL.DDP2.0.H.264-BurCyg_track3_[eng]

[music playing]

NARRATOR: 1300 BC, the
mighty Egyptian civilization

is in its golden age.

Its ruler is Ramesses
II, a man who

intends to be the
greatest of the pharaohs.

He will make his
mark by building.

He built everywhere.

NARRATOR: Vast statues,
towering obelisks,

temples carved from living rock.

Ramesses is a giant of a man.

He dominates this
kingdom for 67 years,

pushing it on to
ever greater glory.

North, south, east, and west,
he's got a temple going up.

He's building a
new capital city.

He's creating jobs like
no one has created before.

NARRATOR: The ruins of what
Ramesses built still stand.

But 33 centuries on, with
the aid of new research

and cutting-edge
graphics technology,

the true scale of his ambition
can now be fully revealed.

Extraordinary feats
of engineering

performed with only
the most basic tools.

Thousands of people,
thousands of tons of stone,

all manipulated by
the will of one man.

We can now reveal "The Lost
World of Ramesses the Great."

[music playing]

Ramesses is the heir
to the throne of Egypt.

One day, he will become pharaoh,
ruler of a civilization already

2,000 years old.

But the empire he
stands to inherit

is emerging from a time of
great political and religious

upheaval, and Ramesses
is part of a dynasty that

has forced its way to power.

He watched as his grandfather,
the first Ramesses,

became the first of the family
to wear the Egyptian crown.

Now, he watches his
father, King Seti,

enforce his will
through military power.

You have to remember that the
Ramesides were a new family.

Ramesses I had only reigned
for a year and a half.

And then Seti comes
to the throne,

rules for about 11 years.

NARRATOR: Ramesses'
family has to show

that they are fit to rule.

They choose to do
it by building.

[music playing]

Building is the tool
that pharaohs have always

used to show themselves
to the world,

and they do it at Karnak,
the vast temple complex

in the great city of Thebes.

This is the domain
of the god Amon-Re,

the imperial god of the
Egyptian New Kingdom.

NARRATOR: Karnak is where the
pharaohs worship their god.

They are his chief priests.

By the time of Ramesses'
birth, Karnak is already vast.

Buildings were continuously
added or removed or changed.

NARRATOR: Amon-Re's
sanctuary lies at its heart.

Around it, each
pharaoh, in turn,

has made a demonstration
of his power and his piety,

adding his own new structure
or gateway pylon, a new pathway

to the god.

So in periods when you have
great pharaohs, pharaohs that

are conquering the world,
Karnak temple's expanding.

KATHYLN COONEY: Karnak is a
place where every Egyptian king

needs to make his mark.

So it makes absolute sense
that Ramesses II would

be one of those kings that would
need to extend Karnak temple.

NARRATOR: To make his mark,
Ramesses' father conceives

the idea of a grand
pillared or hypostyle hall.

His first born son, his chosen
heir will help him build it.

Well, I think the transition
between the reign of Seti I

and Ramesses II was
a very gradual one.

And Ramesses was given a
fair amount of responsibility

as a young man.

PETER BRAND: At the
age of 10, Ramesses

was made a general of the army.

NARRATOR: The site
for the building

is in the temple approaches,
between two great pylons.

Today, any visitor to
Karnak will be overawed

by what father and son built.

PETER BRAND: The hypostyle
hall is absolutely vast.

You could fit most of Notre
Dame Cathedral in Paris

within its walls.

NARRATOR: Investigators
are now trying

to decipher how the hypostyle
hall was constructed

and recapture what this
extraordinary building looked

like during the reign
of the man who built it.

This space was covered by a huge
roof resting on stone supports,

the columns packed closely
to accommodate the weight.

So if you want
a large room, you

have to put in an
awful lot of columns.

So, quite literally,
the hypostyle hall

is a vast forest of columns.

NARRATOR: We know that the
ancient Egyptian builders had

nothing more sophisticated to
work with than stone pounders

and copper chisels,
and yet, they

undertook a project which
would be ambitious even

by modern standards.

Well, you're not building
the columns individually.

What you do is you lay
out the foundations

for the entire building, the
column bases, and the side

walls.

NARRATOR: The building's
plans demanded 134 columns.

The central
colonnade had pillars

that were 7 stories high.

Clues to how the builders set
about the task lie in these

wall paintings from
a private tomb,

a kind of 3,000-year-old
construction manual.

When deciphered, they reveal
a highly inventive solution.

This wonderful 18th dynasty
scene of mud brick making

could be a photograph taken
in an Egyptian village

even today, because the
techniques that it shows

have not changed in
about 5,000 years.

Water is being dipped out of
a pool surrounded by trees,

and it's mixed with mud and
probably wheat chaff temper

to make the mixture, which
is then put into molds

and put on the ground to
dry for a couple of days.

The mud bricks are then carried
over and used to build walls,

or, in this case, a ramp
for the construction

of a hypostyle hall.

NARRATOR: The use of
ramps in the construction

is a key discovery.

On this wall painting,
the ramp leads

to a hall that appears buried.

Evidence indicates this
technique was used elsewhere

in Karnak because the
remains of one of these ramps

can still be seen.

It's now possible to work
out how the builders did it.

They didn't use scaffold or
cranes to raise the blocks

above the ground.

They raised the ground itself.

PETER BRAND: You lay the
first level of blocks for all

the column bases and you
fill inside with dirt

and you build mud brick
ramps on either side.

You bring your next
level of blocks--

these are all roughed
out-- and you place them

over the next level.

And then you fill
that in again, you

extend your ramps out further,
and repeat the process.

So when the building
is finished,

it is completely buried under
a mound of Earth and huge mud

brick ramps on either side.

NARRATOR: The ramps were
only temporary structures,

but they were hugely
labor-intensive.

The slope would have
been around 7 degrees.

To reach to the
height of the columns

in the height of hypostyle
hall, it must have been as long

as two football fields.

25,000 tons of stone were
dragged up these long slopes

to make the columns.

The column drums were so massive
that they had to be made in two

D-shaped blocks.

Each tipped the
scales at 10 tons.

Ramesses' masons lock these
stones together so tightly

that some haven't shifted
in more than 32 centuries.

Peter Brand hunts for
clues as to how they did it

with Denys Stocks, a specialist
in ancient building techniques.

The key lies in pieces of
wood fitted into notches

cut into the stone.

First of all, you have
to get a piece of hard wood

and cut out the shape so that
it fitted into the other side.

So the block is coming up to
it, you put it in, bang, bang,

bang.

It pulled the two
blocks together tight

so it couldn't move.

PETER BRAND: So these
are more to assemble it

rather than to hold it
together once it's built.

It is.

It's to line them up properly
and make sure that they can't

move at all while the
whole job is being built.

Of course, when it's
all solid and finished,

there's no way that it's
going to move after that.

NARRATOR: And then the stones
had to be sanded smooth.

We know they didn't
put the columns up smooth

from the beginning because
we have one here that's still

carved in the rough.

Now, I think they didn't have
time to be fussing with these

in the quarry.

They left it to the
builders of the site

to finish dressing them.

They were trying to produce
as many blocks in the quickest

amount of time possible.

When the columns
had been erected

and the rocks and the platforms
are gradually being lowered,

the workers will be smoothing
the stuff like this,

with a sandstone
rubber like this,

in preparation for the
cutting of the hieroglyphs.

NARRATOR: Ramesses and his
father oversaw this work.

But the time was coming
when Seti would die

and Ramesses become king.

He would be able
to do as he wished.

And the hall at Karnak
would be just the start

of the most ambitious series
of engineering projects

that his country had ever seen.

When Ramesses became pharaoh,
he became the most powerful man

in the world.

His entire life had been
a preparation for this,

and he grasped the challenge.

He took personal control
of the building at Karnak.

Artists working under his orders
depict him joining in the work.

It's hard to believe
that he would have gotten

his hands dirty, but a
formal foundation ceremony

demonstrated that what
his father had started

was now to be his
monument, his achievement.

PETER BRAND: First,
the king stretches

out a cord between two poles
in order to ceremonially survey

the temple.

Next, he takes a mattock
and he hacks up the Earth,

then he has to make
the first mudbrick.

And then, finally, he does the
ceremony of giving the temple

to its lord.

He seems to
claim in many texts

to have taken considerable
interest in it,

to have been involved
in the planning,

to have researched
historical records

to ensure the accuracy of--

of temple plans and designs.

NARRATOR: Kent Weeks has
researched these records

himself and built up a picture
of how hundreds of masons

scaled these columns, working
up to 70 feet in the air.

It's clear work didn't finish
once the columns were up.

Every surface was to be covered
with elaborate hieroglyphs.

There's good evidence that the
ancient Egyptians knew and used

scaffolding in their engineering
work, as in this tomb painting

from the 18th dynasty.

Here, the workmen have left
pieces of wood together

to create scaffolding so that
they can polish and prepare

larger-than-life-size
statues of the king.

NARRATOR: Every inch had to
be carved or shaped by hand.

KENT WEEKS: One man is using an
abrasive to polish the surface

of the stone, and this man
is working with a chisel

to carefully detail the eye.

NARRATOR: The size
of Ramesses' ambition

becomes even more astonishing
when you realize what

his men had to work with
this was a time before iron.

The masons had to carve
their stone with tools

made from soft copper.

Denys Stocks believes that the
only way we can understand what

these ancient builders
did is by attempting

to recreate their work
with the tools they used.

Having done that
and delineated

the edge of the sign.

All we need to do is take
out the middle with a chisel.

NARRATOR: Denys discovers that
although the ancient Egyptian

culture was highly
sophisticated,

they could achieve some of their
most complex work using Stone

Age technology, like
this flint tool.

Because it is
so hard and sharp,

it will delineate the
features of the sign

much better than the
copper chisel will.

NARRATOR: Each column, each wall
would be adorned in this way.

And the hieroglyphs are
more than decoration.

They are packed with political
and religious messages.

PETER BRAND: To the
average tourist,

the hypostyle hall seems
a jumbling confusion

of scenes and inscriptions.

But when you look
carefully at them,

you see there is an order.

The gods in the scenes
always faced as if they're

inside the temple looking out.

The king always approaches as
if he's coming from the outside

into the temple
to greet the gods.

NARRATOR: The walls
of this temple

describe the relationship
between the gods, Ramesses,

and the people of Egypt.

It's a demonstration that
Ramesses' authority is born

from divine power.

You stand there surrounded
by this forest of columns,

and it's meant to evoke
the feeling that you're

in a sacred space, enclosed
space that's contained

by the gods, where new
life comes into being.

NARRATOR: By bringing together
decades of research with

state-of-the-art
computer graphics,

we can reveal what this space
would have looked like when it

was first built. All this
weathered stone was once

covered with vivid painting.

Most temples in Egypt were--

appear to us today to be
pretty monotonic, but actually,

in antiquity, they
were a riot of colors.

NARRATOR: The kind
of raw pigment

that Ramesses' designers use
can still be bought today

in the markets of Luxor.

Now, as then, it's
mixed with vegetable oil

and bound with natural glue.

The ancient Egyptians had a
much more limited range than--

than what we see here.

They were basically working with
six colors, red, yellow, green,

blue, white, and
black, and that was it.

The most expensive pigments
were blues and greens.

KENT WEEKS: Can you imagine
a tomb painted in this color

blue?

KATHYLN COONEY: And would
actually really communicate

to the people looking
at this material

that you were able to
afford the very finest.

KENT WEEKS: I think we're
lucky that most of the paint

and pigment on
these temple walls

has faded because 3,000 years
ago, these must have been

the most garish places
you can imagine.

NARRATOR: Thousands of
man hours and vast expense

went into building and
adorning this hall.

And yet, only a privileged
elite of courtiers and priests

would ever get to see it.

KENT WEEKS: Ordinary
hoi polloi like you

and me might be allowed
outside the temple,

and maybe, on
festive occasions, we

might be allowed into
the first courtyard,

but that would be it.

NARRATOR: The temple was not
a public place of worship.

It was the private home of a
god, the place where, on behalf

of his people, the pharaoh
makes his offerings to that god.

It raises him above
all other mortals.

It gives him power.

The secret interior
of the hypostyle hall

would be hidden behind
monumental curtain walls.

And the walls themselves
would be a statement

of Ramesses' greatness.

This phase of the building would
require 7,000 tons of stone,

and only a certain
type of stone would do.

KENT WEEKS: Here
we are at Thebes

with these huge limestone
hills surrounding us,

and yet, limestone was
not the stone of choice

for the building of temples.

For that, the Egyptians
much preferred sandstone.

And the closest source to
that is about 100 kilometers

further south.

NARRATOR: The vast
majority of it

came from one area,
the Silsila quarries.

They are three days journey
up the Nile from Karnak.

Kent Weeks has
made this journey.

The pharaohs had an
enormous hunger for stone.

KENT WEEKS: When you consider
the number of cubic feet

of sandstone that had
gone into the New Kingdom

buildings constructed
at Thebes, Silsila

must have been a sight that
was going full bore practically

every day of the
year for 500 years.

NARRATOR: Silsila
was on the river,

but investigators have
found other quarries deep

in the Egyptian desert.

A team of
investigators have been

trying to map the
network of roads built

to service these quarries.

Well, it's probably the
best preserved road network

from ancient Egypt.

NARRATOR: The quarries
here are more than 2 miles

from the Nile.

PER STOREMYR: Interestingly,
all the roads coming down

from the quarries here, they're
leading in the same direction,

all towards this--
this0 point down here.

ELIZABETH BLOXHAM: The shortest
overland route to water.

They could have
stockpiled the stone

and then waited for
the highest floods

to then float the stone away.

KENT WEEKS: To quarry so many
blocks, drag them to the river,

load them on ships, bring
those ships in timing

with the Nile flood, offload
them at various sites

in the Karnak,
Luxor area, it must

have kept thousands of people
busy throughout the year.

NARRATOR: It took a
fleet of 50 barges

to keep Ramesses'
builders supplied.

They had to be
almost flat bottom

to take advantage
of the Nile's flood,

but they could still
carry huge loads.

We have shipping records
from the time of Ramesses

that tell us that there were
captains delivering loads

of stone from the
Gebel Silsila quarries,

each boat was carrying anywhere
from five to seven blocks

of stone.

NARRATOR: With the
Nile in full flood,

the boats could sail
right up to the temple.

This is the inundation
of year 28 of Ramesses III.

This tells us that 3,000 years
ago, during the annual flood,

the Nile reached to this level.

NARRATOR: Using
specially-built canals,

the blocks were delivered
as close as possible

to the construction site.

But they still had to be
manhandled into position

for the masons to begin.

Denys Stocks believes that
this was done using mortar.

It acted as a lubricant to help
the workers ease the stones

into place.

DENYS STOCKS: We've
got the mortar

on now, which lubricates
the block as they slide

across the other blocks.

Bit more.

That's it.

That's it.

NARRATOR: Block by block,
Ramesses' great hypostyle hall

was enclosed and the
pathway to the inner sanctum

was completed.

3,300 years on, we can
reveal a site once only

visible to the
priests of Amon-Re.

[music playing]

KENT WEEKS: The further
in you go, the closer you

are moving toward
the god who takes up

residence in this temple.

PETER BRAND: Here,
in the inner sanctum,

set the enormous gold-plated
bark of the god Amon-re

with a ram-headed
prow filled this room.

Every day, the king,
as the chief priest,

had to go into the sanctuary
of the god, clothe the god,

feed the god, anoint the god,
read a number of texts that

would awaken the god
and give him new life,

and then sacredly
close up that shrine,

leave no footprints behind.

NARRATOR: Ramesses had
made his mark on Karnak.

It had been impressive by
any standard when he started,

but now, it was one of
the wonders of the world.

He now turned his attention
to the other great shrine

in the city of Thebes,
the Luxor temple.

[music playing]

Even as the hall at
Karnak was being built,

Ramesses II began another
project, just as ambitious,

and located barely 2 miles away.

The road to the great temple at
Luxor was lined with sphinxes.

Every year, the pharaoh took
this route in a procession

to celebrate the most important
gift the gods could give

to Egypt, the Nile flood.

The flood kept the
land of Egypt fertile.

The ceremony that marked it
was called the Opet Festival.

KENT WEEKS: The ceremony
started out fairly somber,

but by the end of the week,
it had become a wild, almost

carnival-like atmosphere.

KATHYLN COONEY:
This would have been

a time of great
drunkenness, great joy,

lots of sexual abandon.

It was meant to help the
god Amon-Re recreate himself

so that he could
be renewed and help

Egypt get through another
year of growth and prosperity.

NARRATOR: Wherever
Ramesses built, he

was competing with the pharaohs
who had gone before him.

There was already a massive
colonnade at Luxor temple.

Ramesses would add to
it, make it his own,

and overshadow it by
building even bigger.

Worn down over three millennia,
but still clearly visible,

this wall carving shows the
scale of Ramesses' vision.

The statues would
be 40-feet tall,

the obelisks, even taller,
each carved from a single block

of red granite.

The obelisk would
be the first thing

illuminated by the sun's
rays every morning,

a symbol of the connection
between the king and the gods.

We know that Ramesses' engineers
took on the daunting task set

by their king and completed it.

The challenge for archeologists
is tracing the steps back

and deciphering from the
clues how they did it.

An obelisk needs to be
made from hard stone.

Ramesses' men chose red
granite, and the nearest source

of red granite is 100
miles south at Aswan.

PETER BRAND: Fresh granite
is a marvelous stone.

It's very hard, and there's
only one place in Egypt

you can get it, here at Aswan.

NARRATOR: This half-finished
obelisk is an incredible source

of clues.

It was abandoned only
after hundreds of laborers

had put in months of work.

Well, this obelisk
is quite incredible.

I mean, it would have
been about 130 feet long,

as maybe as wide as 9 feet.

When you get to
this point here, you

find that they dug
a deep trench here,

and then what they
would have had

to do is lower the stone down
and dug underneath the obelisk.

Now, they would have
had to undercut it

along its entire length, leaving
it only on a few supports.

NARRATOR: This was
the second challenge,

to remove a single
piece of stone

weighing close to 800 tons.

The tools were basic,
to say the least.

--sharp point.

That's very helpful
for cutting granite.

NARRATOR: Days, weeks, and
months spent chipping away

at the rock, the
body having to absorb

the shock of each impact.

That must have been hard
on your hands, though.

It is very hard.

The pressure of banging this
rock into another rock, it

must have been
excruciating work.

NARRATOR: Trials suggest that
with hundreds men working

at full stretch, it might
take a week to remove

even an inch of stone.

And this was precision work.

The visual impact of
an obelisk depends

on geometry and symmetry.

DENYS STOCKS: OK,
hold it really tight.

NARRATOR: To create the four
converging edges which travel

from the base to
the tip of the rock,

craftsman had to rely simply
on a length of string stretched

from fixed measuring rods.

Oh, yes.

Brilliant.

Now, this is right
on the nose here.

This is just touching the
underneath of the string, which

means it's exactly right.

NARRATOR: Once the
cutting was finished,

the task began of getting the
800-ton obelisk into place.

It would be floated down the
Nile on a vast, specially built

barge.

In Luxor, it would be
hauled into position.

It was then lowered into place
using temporary walls and sand.

They would have brought
the obelisk in butt

end up a big, huge
ramp, and then they

would have come to a
silo filled with sand.

As they slowly let the
sand out, the obelisk

would have floated down.

And it would have hit this
narrow groove at the bottom.

Then men with ropes could
come and they can tilt it up

to the final position.

NARRATOR: Ramesses
had achieved his aim.

The view that faced him when he
first saw this grand entrance

can now be revealed
33 centuries later.

He had eclipsed the achievements
of those who had built here

before, and he claimed
the temple for his own.

Throughout Egypt, the
story was the same.

This guy is building
everywhere, north, south, east,

and west.

He's got a temple going up.

He's building a
new capital city.

He's creating jobs like
no one has created before.

This is a time of
economic prosperity.

NARRATOR: Ramesses
wasn't just building

to ensure his place in history.

Turning his attention
to the southern gateway

to his kingdom, he would build
a new temple, Abu Simbel,

and here, he would
make himself a god.

[music playing]

Ramesses would reign for
67 years, almost three

times the life expectancy of
the average Egyptian male.

And during that time,
an army of masons

would be constantly at work,
carving his name and his image

onto walls, columns, and
statues throughout the kingdom.

But his next building
project would

take this a stage further.

On the West Bank of
the Nile at Thebes

stands his mortuary
temple, the Ramesseum.

It took 20 years to build,
had its own pillared hall,

and was dominated by a
statue of Ramesses which

lies smashed on the ground
by the building's entrance.

It would have resembled this
statue, only many, many times

larger.

It was one of the
largest sculptures

in the ancient world.

Calculations put it at
around 70 feet tall.

The entire structure would
have weighed over 1,000 tons.

That's 15 times the weight
of the Statue of Liberty.

The pharaoh intended
that when his time came,

the Ramesseum would be
his obituary in stone.

The evidence suggests that he
was doing much more than simply

following tradition.

These carvings
reveal that Ramesses

had a grand political
and religious plan.

He was rewriting history
the way he wanted it to be.

They tell the story of Ramesses'
most famous military battle,

Kadesh.

The Battle of Kadesh happened
in year five of the reign

of Ramesses II, and he faced
his strongest foe, the Hittite

Empire, and they met the
Orontes River in Syria,

and it was a near disaster.

We know that Ramesses II
did very badly in the Battle

of Kadesh, and, in
fact, we had information

from the other side, obviously,
written by the enemy,

of a peace treaty that was
signed after the battle had

been fought that suggests
that at best, the fight

between the Egyptians and
the Hittites was a draw.

NARRATOR: And yet, these are
images of Ramesses victorious,

supreme.

The pharaoh is shown as a giant.

The foes that
surround him are dead,

dying, or in complete surrender.

These carvings
distort the truth.

And in the Egyptian
way of thinking,

they are more powerful
than simple propaganda.

KATHYLN COONEY: When you
represent the Battle of Kadesh

in its ideal form
with the outcome

that you desire, then,
in the Egyptian mindset,

that's what will
come into being.

NARRATOR: Ramesses believed that
if he cast something in stone,

he made it happen,
even if it wasn't true.

And the Ramesseum was
only the beginning.

[music playing]

He is going to do what few
other pharaohs ever dared.

He is going to transform himself
and rule as a living god.

To make it happen, he will use
the stone cliffs at Abu Simbel.

PETER BRAND: Abu Simbel
is a unique temple

carved in the rock that
these giant statues.

It's so audacious.

NARRATOR: Ramesses embarks on
his most ambitious building

project, a vast temple on
the edge of his empire.

This temple is built far
afield to celebrate the king so

that he's not infringing on
the territory of the god, Amon.

NARRATOR: It has taken the work
of generations of investigators

to uncover the true scale of
Ramesses' achievement here.

With Abu Simbel, Ramesses is
literally breaking new ground,

because unlike his
other monuments,

this temple is not built,
but cut from the rock.

[music playing]

Instead of transporting
stone to the site,

they are carrying it away.

Teams of masons chipped the
sandstone away until four

great statues of their pharaoh
emerge, each one almost 70 feet

high.

They are a deliberate attempt
to intimidate the local Nubian

population.

KENT WEEKS: Nubians
were in possession

of Egypt's principal
source of gold,

and it was extremely important
that Egypt maintain control

over the gold mines
and the trade routes

that led into Africa, source
of Ebony, ivory, slaves,

and so forth.

NARRATOR: The
interior of the temple

is equally ambitious, a network
of chambers tunneled over

150 feet back into the cliff.

And on two days a year, there
is a dramatic demonstration

of the royal architect's
grasp of astronomy

and the precision
of his builders.

The Rays of the sun travel all
the way through these chambers,

hitting the inner
sanctuary, the place where

Ramesses' statue
stands with those

of three other divinities.

And so, Ramesses proves
a point to himself.

He is not merely the greatest
of the pharaohs while alive.

Ramesses II is one of the
few kings in Egyptian history

to declare himself
divine before he died.

KATHYLN COONEY: I think
many in ancient Egypt

would be awestruck that a king
could live to such an age,

could produce what he produced.

And it is quite possible
that some ancient Egyptians

did believe that he
was the god incarnate.

NARRATOR: Ramesses
made his mark,

but a final challenge
awaited him.

In the eyes of the people,
he was a living god.

He now had to build a tomb that
was worthy of his greatness.

[music playing]

Every pharaoh
builds his own tomb.

The planning begins the
moment he takes the throne.

As in every part of
his life, Ramesses

will build for his death
on a greater scale,

with greater vision than every
pharaoh who has gone before.

The traditional
royal resting place,

the Valley of the Kings
on the Nile's West Bank.

KENT WEEKS: Well,
in a rough sense,

as we cross from the East
bank to the West Bank,

we're crossing from
the city of the living

to the city of the dead.

NARRATOR: In the
time of Ramesses II,

this has been a royal
burial ground for 500 years.

The plans for his tomb
take these past burials

as a starting point.

But he lives into his 80s,
ruling for almost seven

decades.

And before he is
placed in his tomb,

he will bury many of
his own vast family.

As part of his work mapping
the Valley of the Kings,

Kent Weeks has discovered
an extraordinary complex

of underground chambers.

They have been
given the name KV5.

This is the largest tomb
complex in the valley,

and it is where Ramesses
buried his own sons.

We discovered that the
tomb contains more than 125

chambers.

And it has every earmark of the
reign of Ramesses II about it.

It's unique in plan, unique
in size, unique in function

as a family mausoleum.

It must have been a
very sad job and it must

have been a very difficult one.

And it may explain why KV5
is such an unusual tomb.

NARRATOR: This was one man's
attempt to keep his family

with him for eternity.

Making it a reality
required a special team

of workers who left their mark
here, written on the rock.

Deciphering these notes
has revealed a world of men

that history overlooks.

KENT WEEKS: They left behind
a great amount of material.

A lot of that consisted
of ostraca, notes

that they made to themselves,
from love letters,

to IOUs, from notes to
parents, to shopping lists.

And basically, they're just
a piece of limestone on which

they would make little doodles.

These are wonderful texts for
an archeologist and historian

because they tell us things
that we ordinarily know nothing

about in ancient Egypt.

This is the home of Kaha
and his wife, [inaudible]

Their nice-sized living room.

Kitchen with a mortar for
grinding grain on the floor.

It's a very substantial
house, but that makes sense,

because Kaha was a
very important figure

in the early Rameside period.

He was responsible for a
substantial amount of building

activity during the important
reigns of Seti I and Ramesses

II.

NARRATOR: Once every 10 days,
the work team made the journey

along the cliff face for
their tomb-building shift

in the Valley of the Kings.

KATHYLN COONEY: They worked
on a 10-day work week,

and they received, at least,
during the reign of Ramesses

II, two days off.

NARRATOR: Kent Weeks
retraces their path.

The builder's challenge
was, within this maze

of existing tombs
and passageways,

to find a suitable
site with enough space

to accommodate Ramesses' vision
of what his tomb should be.

KENT WEEKS: Every
tomb for a pharaoh

served the same purpose.

In the New Kingdom, that was
to ensure the safe journey

of the king from this
life to the next.

NARRATOR: Ramesses had
officiated at his father's

funeral, presided
over the ceremony

in which his beautifully
decorated tomb was sealed.

The images that
cover these walls

would have been
burned into his mind.

Seti he decided that he
wanted this entire tomb

to be decorated with very
elaborately painted and carved

reliefs.

And so the entire tomb, from the
entrance to the burial chamber,

is covered with a
reliefs and inscriptions.

NARRATOR: Ramesses
commands the man

who built this for his father
to build a tomb for him,

but more lavish,
more magnificent.

The task was daunting.

Before any decoration
could begin,

the tunneling had
to be completed.

KENT WEEKS: We know that
they worked two 4-hour shifts

every day, and they
timed their shifts

by using lamps to light
their work with wicks

of a certain length.

When the wick had burned out,
it was time to break for lunch.

After lunch, they put a
second wick in the lamp.

When that was gone, it
was time to go back home.

NARRATOR: The Egyptian
builders were highly

skilled and disciplined,
but they were also capable

of making mistakes.

With so many burial chambers
in the Valley of the Kings,

it was inevitable that
some of the tunnels

would cut into existing tombs.

What did they do when
they run into another tomb?

Well, in each case, they
had a different solution.

In one case, they
incorporated the earlier tomb

into the plan of the new one.

NARRATOR: Some of the most
impressive tunnel systems

were effectively
connected by accident.

Ramesses planned to be buried
in a magnificent chamber

at the end of a series of
long descending tunnels.

This chamber lay pristine
and ready to receive his body

for as much as half a century.

But the 3,200 years
since his death

have seen earthquakes
and floods.

The roof has
partially collapsed.

The decoration which would have
covered its walls is erased.

Only by studying the burial
chamber on which Ramesses based

his design can we recover what
the king's final resting place

looked like.

Religious symbols would
have covered every surface.

The ceiling would have been
adorned with a starry sky.

On each of the walls, an image
of the protective god, Isis,

would stand guard over
the pharaoh's sarcophagus.

Positioned in the
center of the room,

a multilayered stone casket
was as much of a feat of skill

as the tomb that housed it.

[non-english] come
on, [non-english]..

NARRATOR: Denys Stocks has been
trying to establish precisely

how the ancient Egyptians
managed to cut and shape

the rock into a casket.

DENYS STOCKS: This is very
hard granite, the hardest stone

in Egypt to cut.

NARRATOR: He discovers
that the Egyptians found

a way of cutting stone using
soft, copper-bladed saws.

DENYS STOCKS: The saw is
cutting this down probably

at a rate of a centimeter per
hour, which means it would take

several days to
cut this through.

NARRATOR: The sword
doesn't have teeth.

Sand is used as an abrasive.

It's labor-intensive,
but extremely effective.

DENYS STOCKS: Wind the
rope around the shaft.

NARRATOR: Hollowing
out the sarcophagus

would be even more difficult.
By studying wall inscriptions

from before the
time of Ramesses,

Denys believes he can recreate
the innovative techniques

that the masons used.

DENYS STOCKS: If you imagine
the top of the sarcophagus

being like this, an
oblong, then they

had to drill holes around
the perimeter in order

to delineate the shape of the
hollow inside the sarcophagus.

And then they could put some
weakening holes in the middle

and then break away all the
columns of rocks between, as

well as the cores, and then,
after four or five levels

of that, they will have reached
the bottom of the sarcophagus,

deep enough for pharaoh
to be put into it.

[music playing]

NARRATOR: Although this
process took a long time,

it was finished long
before Ramesses died.

Even his age marked
him out as remarkable.

He was in his 90th year when
he was laid in his sarcophagus.

PETER BRAND: By the very
length of his reign,

Ramesses achieved a
literally godlike status.

There probably was nobody
left alive in Egypt

that could remember
the reign of his father

or that had even been
alive when Ramesses

had come to the throne.

NARRATOR: The mummified
body of Ramesses II

lies preserved in Cairo museum.

3,000 years on, we can
still see his face.

We can still see the mark that
this builder king left

on his country.

PETER BRAND: Ramesses left
his stamp throughout Egypt.

You cannot go to a site in this
country and not find the name

of Ramesses II inscribed on
at least one block or statue.

NARRATOR: It is easy to see
why his achievements have so

captivated engineers,
archeologists, and historians.

Scarcely a ruler
in human history

had left more monuments than he.

KATHYLN COONEY: We're
interested in a king who

lived for so long.

We're interested in a
king who's able to marshal

incredible amounts of manpower
to make his mark on Egypt.

NARRATOR: The hypostyle hall at
Karnak, the tomb that he built

for himself, the temple he
cut in the rock at Abu Simbel,

these ruins are all
clues to the Egypt

that Ramesses built. But it is
only when they are brought back

to life, see them as
Ramesses saw them,

that we can truly
know what he achieved,

a world whose splendor has never
been equaled in 3,200 years.

[music playing]