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00:00Beyond the pyramids, beyond all you think you know, lies an undiscovered Egypt.
00:09There are archeological horror stories.
00:12Death was not an end, but the beginning of eternity.
00:15It's simply a changing of state.
00:17It was an underworld that rewarded the worthy, but the wicked had cause to beware.
00:23What awaited was every Egyptian's greatest nightmare.
00:27Now, Peter Woodward guides you through an Egypt few are privileged to see.
00:32Egypt Beyond the Pyramids.
00:43Thirty-five centuries before the Christian era, and some 2,500 years before the Old Testament prophets,
00:50ancient Egyptians were already pondering the deepest, most mystifying subject of human existence.
00:59All societies struggle with the greatest mystery of life, death.
01:04But few have approached death with greater directness or with such enormous respect,
01:09ceremony and ritual as the ancient Egyptians.
01:14For them, death was just one of a whole series of cycles.
01:17The Nile rose and fell, crops were planted and harvested, a person lived and died.
01:24But if you are properly prepared, the greatest cycle of all began after death.
01:36From the dawn of their history, Egyptians believed strongly in the concept of an afterlife,
01:42an existence which could continue for eternity.
01:46For these early people, death was simply a transition.
01:53In ancient Egypt, death was ever before the people,
01:57because to them it wasn't the great end that it is to us.
02:01It's simply a changing of state, and of course they're going to go on living,
02:06and their spirit, their life force, their personality is going to be able to transcend all the actual trauma of death
02:13and go on into the next life.
02:21The Egyptian concept of eternal life was somewhat different
02:25than that of the Christian cultures which would follow in later centuries.
02:30Egyptians were not hoping for a better life, some celestial paradise after death.
02:37They simply wanted a continuation of the life they knew and loved here on Earth.
02:44An enormous amount of energy in Egyptian society was taken up with the rituals surrounding death.
02:51In studying these ancient rites, archaeologists try to learn not only how people died,
02:57but, hopefully, more about how they lived.
03:10How do you deal with death?
03:12It's the old question.
03:14Archaeologists are still trying to find out how the ancient Egyptians answered it.
03:18We're picking our way through some rice paddies, Zabelger, here in the Nile Delta,
03:24on our way to an excavation of a very early burial site.
03:29It's Old Kingdom, 4,500 years ago.
03:34Dutch Egyptologist Willem van Huylen is leading an international dig there,
03:40and if we don't break an axle as we go along, then we're almost there.
03:51Most of Egypt is desert, and the bodies of ancient Egyptians buried there
03:56have remained intact for thousands of years.
04:00But conditions in the Nile's Delta region are very different.
04:05Here, the many branches of the Great River feed a water table which is very close to the surface.
04:12Most things buried in the Delta mud decompose quickly.
04:18I joined Willem van Huylen at the ancient cemetery he's excavating in the Delta region.
04:23For archaeologists like van Huylen, this is a frustrating place to look for the past.
04:28But I was lucky enough to arrive on a day when a body from an early grave was being removed for study.
04:35Willem introduced me to Alexey Kol, a specialist in human bones from Russia.
04:41So, Alexey, tell me what you have here. What sex is this skeleton?
04:46We know that it was a male, about 25, 35 years old.
04:53And we didn't observe any trace of disease on his bones.
04:58So this was quite a healthy person?
05:00Yes, quite healthy.
05:02So here we have the legs, and this is the pelvis area?
05:06Legs, pelvis, you can see arms here.
05:10And the ribs?
05:12Yes, ribs.
05:14And this is the skull?
05:16Yes, this is the skull.
05:18And you can see the jaw here.
05:21With the teeth?
05:23And 13 beads.
05:27How old is this skeleton?
05:29Very broadly spoken, between 2500 and 2000 BC.
05:35So it's between 4000 and 4500 years old.
05:38But even with this crude burial, it's still quite old.
05:42But even with this crude burial, it's still quite old.
05:45But even with this crude burial, it's still quite old.
05:48But even with this crude burial, it's still quite old.
05:51But even with this crude burial, it's still quite old.
05:54But even with this crude burial, it's still quite old.
05:57But even with this crude burial, it's still quite old.
06:00But even with this crude burial, it's still quite old.
06:03But even with this crude burial, it's still quite old.
06:06But even with this crude burial, it's still quite old.
06:09But even with this crude burial, it's still quite old.
06:12Are you going to be taking the bones out today and the offering jars?
06:15Yes.
06:17And if you want, you can help us by taking out some of the beads, for example.
06:21That would be great, thank you.
06:23No Egyptian was buried without preparation for the life to come.
06:27This man was sent to eternity with a necklace.
06:30I was able to find several stone beads from that necklace,
06:33which will be saved for further study.
06:35So, that's the next one. How do you keep track of all these?
06:38We give this number three, because there's a small one in between we haven't taken out yet.
06:42And then we put them in film boxes with the number written on it,
06:46so we can reconstruct the exact order according to the sketch I made.
06:50You must have thousands of film boxes.
06:52Yes, we have. They're very useful for taking samples and small finds and things like that.
06:57For as much as Van Halem and his colleagues are learning about this 4000-year-old man,
07:01there is much we will never know.
07:04What was his name?
07:07What did he do to earn his living?
07:09Did he have a family?
07:12What we can be sure of is that he hoped he could find his way to eternal life.
07:21But moving from the world of the living to the everlasting life of the dead was not automatic.
07:26It was a complex and highly ritualized event,
07:29which could only be successfully negotiated by those who had lived a moral life.
07:35But even they had to be prepared to overcome many obstacles.
07:39Passage to the afterlife occurred in a region the Egyptians called the Underworld.
07:45And presiding over this deeply mysterious realm was the great god Osiris.
07:53The spirit of the dead person was taken before Osiris and a court of 42 other judges.
07:59Here the spirit was asked a complex series of questions or riddles about his or her life.
08:05Giving the correct answers to these riddles was vital to gaining the afterlife.
08:11They had to pass a moral and ritual test before they could enter the afterlife.
08:17There was a judgment of their moral and ethical value.
08:23They then had to become empowered with magic in the afterlife
08:28so that they could defeat the many dangers which existed there.
08:36The most critical part of this examination was known as the weighing of the heart.
08:43In this ceremony, the heart of a deceased candidate was weighed against a feather.
08:49If the heart balanced the feather, the person could enter the afterlife.
08:55With so much riding on such tests, it was only natural the ancient Egyptians would look for help.
09:03While the physical body was being mummified and entombed,
09:06the spirit was undergoing its great journey through the underworld
09:10in the hope of being reborn in the afterlife.
09:13Now there were maps, guides to this journey.
09:17They're commonly called the Book of the Dead
09:19and it's parts of that that you'll find on the walls of every tomb.
09:23They were directions, instructions to the departed spirit.
09:29Sometimes these funerary texts go to the extent of either describing or even providing a map
09:36of what the afterlife is like and what are the routes through the afterlife
09:41and that's very important because the routes are very dangerous to follow.
09:47For those who failed the exhaustive examination for entrance into the afterlife,
09:52what awaited was every Egyptian's greatest nightmare.
09:56Those who were judged unworthy were cast into hellish pits and tortured.
10:01Those who failed the test were fed to the great beast, Ammit, the eater of the dead.
10:07But for a people who so loved their land and the life it gave them,
10:12perhaps the greatest fear was the thought of spending eternity without their beloved Egypt.
10:32His name was Maseharti, general of the army, high priest of Amonre
10:37and one of the sons of the pharaoh Penegym I.
10:41He suffered from severe headaches.
10:43We have some of the letters he wrote to his doctor asking for a cure.
10:47Maybe it didn't work, though he lived to the relatively advanced age of 52.
10:52But for all the details we know of his life, to the visitors to this museum, he is just a mummy.
10:59From the Greeks and Romans to the Hollywood screenwriters,
11:03no part of Egyptian life has more fascinated the world than mummification.
11:08And this is a very successful example which means that as far as Maseharti is concerned,
11:15he is still alive.
11:24The world's fascination with mummies is not a recent phenomenon.
11:28Napoleon was intrigued by mummies when he invaded Egypt in 1798.
11:34Early archaeologists seemed obsessed with these preserved corpses.
11:40Other than gold, nothing dominated their efforts more than looking for mummies.
11:47But in their zeal, they weren't always too careful in the way they handled the dead.
11:52The result was an imperfect understanding of the human condition.
11:57It was an imperfect understanding of the meaning of mummification
12:00and how this remarkable practice came about.
12:05Ancient Egyptians believed that our friend Maseharti could continue to live after death
12:10only if his body had been preserved.
12:14I think the fact that they did go to so much trouble
12:17makes it very clear that the actual body was going to have some continuing existence in the afterlife
12:23and that they would be able to re-inhabit their body
12:27and their body would be able to take on the form of a living being again.
12:34It was critical that the dead person's spirit be able to find its own body,
12:39which was the base or home for the spirit.
12:42The corpse had to be as recognisable as possible.
12:47In the earliest years of Egyptian civilisation, preserving the body had been fairly easy.
12:52The dead were simply buried in shallow pit graves.
12:56The hot desert sand ensured that the body tissues dried out before the corpse could rot.
13:02But as Egypt became more sophisticated,
13:05people began to want a resting place that was more than just a pit in the sand.
13:13By 3400 BC, upper-class Egyptians were being buried in tombs above the ground.
13:19But without a bed of dry sand, their bodies decomposed.
13:27What was needed was a better method of preservation
13:30because without the body, there would be no chance of an afterlife.
13:34It took the best part of a thousand years,
13:37but what evolved was a highly complex system of mummification.
13:43The earliest methods entailed little more than wrapping the body in linen
13:47and covering the linen with a liquid resin.
13:51But as time passed, it became apparent to Egyptians that, like all organisms,
13:55the human body's internal organs were the first to decay.
14:00By the 4th dynasty in 2600 BC, they began removing these organs,
14:05and true mummies at last appeared.
14:11The process became progressively more sophisticated
14:15and reached its peak in the New Kingdom,
14:17some 1500 years before the Christian era.
14:22Making a mummy began with evisceration.
14:25The brain came out in small pieces through the nose.
14:29The stomach, lungs, liver and intestines were taken out through a small incision.
14:34Each of them was placed in a special canopic jar, just like these.
14:39These jars were then stored close to the mummy
14:42so that it could recognise his or her spare parts.
14:50Not all people were mummified in the same way.
14:53Like a car buyer being offered a choice between leather or fabric seats,
14:57six or eight cylinders, the family of the dead in ancient Egypt
15:01could choose what sort of mummy they wanted.
15:06Both the lower and the upper classes all hoped to preserve the body
15:10to the best of their abilities, but of course it was a matter of economics,
15:13so lower classes couldn't necessarily afford detailed mummification.
15:18There were different levels of mummification in Egypt,
15:21even though most mummification was only available to the better-off people anyway.
15:25But within that group, there were less expensive and more expensive means of doing it.
15:31And obviously for a pharaoh, he would have the very best processes available.
15:38For the pharaoh's body, the act of mummification was an exacting process
15:43which lasted some 40 days.
15:46The most precious ingredients were used to anoint the body.
15:50Resins from pine and juniper trees were carried from the land of present-day Lebanon.
15:55Frankincense and myrrh were brought from today's Somalia and the Arabian Peninsula.
16:01Cinnamon and beeswax were also used to scent the corpse and seal the body.
16:07Once the body had been prepared, it was carefully wound in linen strips
16:13right down to individual fingers and toes.
16:18As centuries turned into millennia, the quest for the ideal mummy continued.
16:23Recognition of the mummy was so critical,
16:26Egyptians sought any technique which would help to preserve the likeness of the dead.
16:32The great pharaoh Ramesses II's most obvious facial feature was his large, hooked nose.
16:39Preserving this distinctive nose required an innovative solution.
16:44Zero radiographs made in 1977 revealed that the pharaoh's nasal cavity
16:49had been filled with dozens of peppercorns
16:52to ensure the legendary nose could be recognised for eternity.
16:57In the New Kingdom, they had started inserting small onions under the eyelids
17:02because eyes are mainly water, so when you desiccate them, they all get sunken in.
17:06So for various of the royal mummies, we had small onions inserted in
17:10so that they have a nice naturalistic lump, so they look like they're just sleeping.
17:16Painted stones also replaced eyes.
17:20Sawdust, straw, sand and lichens were all used at various times
17:24to stuff or mould facial features into some approximation of lifetime appearance.
17:31We don't know much about the people who actually performed the process of embalming the dead.
17:36We do know that the final wrapping of the mummy was often done by priests
17:40wearing masks of the god Anubis, the deity responsible for mummification.
17:45Once the wrapping of a pharaoh's mummy was complete,
17:48it was often covered with a funerary mask bearing the likeness of the pharaoh.
17:54The most famous of these is the fabulous golden mask
17:58which covered the face of the New Kingdom boy king, Tutankhamun.
18:06Most experts agree that by the time the Roman Empire had taken over
18:10Egyptian civilisation in the 1st century BC,
18:13the standards of mummification had changed.
18:16Although the practice remained of critical importance to Egyptians,
18:21the quality of work done by embalmers often slipped.
18:26There are, you know, archaeological horror stories
18:28of unwrapping what looks like a perfectly viable mummy
18:31and finding that it's actually the parts of several bodies
18:34which have just been pushed together,
18:36but identified to the family as Mr X or Mrs Y
18:40and given to them as the body to be buried.
18:44So that it looks like that embalming became a pretty sloppy process very often.
18:51What never changed was the belief
18:54that the mummy must be identifiable to the deceased.
18:58These wonderful portraits of the dead were painted on boards
19:02and placed over the faces of mummies.
19:05They appear Roman in style, but they are in fact the faces of Egyptians.
19:11They stare out at the ages in the hope they will be granted their wish
19:15to spend eternity with their gods.
19:21Just as the process of mummification had slowly evolved,
19:25so did Egyptian attitudes about where to bury their loved ones.
19:29The earliest Egyptians had been buried in the sand.
19:35By the time of the first pharaohs,
19:37the concept of death and the afterlife had become more sophisticated
19:41and Egyptians began to look for better ways to entomb the dead.
19:45Over 3,000 years before the Christian era,
19:48Egyptian attitudes towards burial began to change.
19:52Simple pits in the desert were no longer seen as adequate.
19:56What was needed was a more permanent, substantial home for the dead.
20:00A structure with space for all the things that the dead would need
20:04on his long journey through to the afterlife.
20:07And a special place for the dead.
20:11The kind of tombs which evolved are known today as mastabas.
20:15They were simple, rectangular structures with a single burial chamber.
20:19Groups of mastabas became cities for the dead.
20:23As funerary practices became more complex,
20:27so did the mastabas.
20:29The mastabas were the first to be buried in the sand.
20:33They were the first to be buried in the sand.
20:37As funerary practices became more complex, so did the mastaba tombs.
20:41Egyptians believed that as long as the dead was honoured
20:45and his name repeated, that person remained alive.
20:51Separate chambers were added to the mastabas
20:54where friends and loved ones could pay homage to the deceased
20:57and offer prayers in his name.
21:02For Egyptians, the dead person's spirit frequently returned to the body
21:06to rest and take refreshment.
21:08So food, water, even wine was brought to the mastaba
21:12for the deceased to enjoy.
21:15Hundreds of mastabas were built here on the Giza Plateau.
21:19All around us are buried the high officials and attendants
21:22at the court of the pharaohs.
21:24Most of these tombs were excavated in the 1930s,
21:27but some remained hidden.
21:29Dr Anne Roth of Howard University is leading a team here
21:34to explore this whole field of mastabas.
21:36They're trying to find the missing tombs
21:39and to learn more about the burial practices of the old kingdom.
21:44Mastaba tombs like the one I'm sitting on
21:46were built in the old kingdom period and even earlier
21:49as sort of artificial mounds
21:52that would cover the body of the dead person.
21:55And we're coming back to some tombs that were excavated
21:58mostly in the late 1930s
22:00and trying to find out, by looking at them a little more carefully,
22:03if we can trace the activities of the people who built them
22:06and the people who owned them
22:08and the people who worked here as priests
22:10and the people who visited here as tourists
22:12and really sort of reconstruct the life in the cemetery.
22:15So this is one of the mastabas that you've been re-excavating?
22:20Not this one, actually, the one over there.
22:25Brad spent a couple of days clearing off
22:27where this mastaba had fallen down over this one
22:31and actually when he started clearing the actual surface of the mastaba itself
22:34he found first one burial chamber and then another.
22:37And these are unusual because they don't seem to have shafts above them.
22:40We haven't quite figured out how they got into them.
22:42They may have actually buried the people
22:44and then built the whole mastaba over the top of them.
22:46So Brad, hi, you've been busy.
22:48Yes.
22:50Tell me what you found here.
22:52Well, when we first opened the chamber
22:55there was the top of the skull
22:58so we knew that there was a burial here.
23:00This one is apparently a rather young woman
23:03perhaps somewhere around 18
23:06and we can tell that from the way that the bones have not quite completely fused
23:10and as you grow, of course, bones change.
23:13The burial here is only one of two burials
23:16that we think we've got in this tomb.
23:18We were looking for the shaft of that
23:20and while we were looking for the shaft we ran across a second one
23:22which I think you're about ready to open, aren't you?
23:24Yeah, I think so.
23:26This body is partially excavated
23:28and in this other spot we have probably a complete burial.
23:31That's extraordinary.
23:33May we have a look?
23:35Allison, we've got another body for you.
23:40Can you see anything down there?
23:43I can see a skull.
23:45Would that be a tibia or a leg bone?
23:47Yes, it's a leg bone.
23:49What will you do now in order to uncover this skeleton?
23:52Well, I'll do a lot of sweeping
23:55trying to carefully not move the bones.
23:58The problem with these burials is, as you've noticed,
24:00it's a very small space.
24:02Basically, it does look disturbed.
24:05It's possibly female.
24:10The bones are pretty small, clearly an adult.
24:13All right, we'll have to dig it out
24:15and find out what it is, who it is.
24:17Great.
24:19Another body.
24:21Excavating bodies is a sort of scary thing to do actually
24:25because they are people
24:28and we have to remember they are people
24:30and we try and treat them with a lot of respect.
24:32We had one body that was found
24:34with the hands underneath the head
24:37and the hands were resting on a little stone pillow.
24:40It tells you almost something about their personality.
24:43There's a real sense of connection
24:46with these ancient people that were buried in these tombs.
24:49This is the skull of a woman who died about 4,400 years ago.
24:54She was between 30 and 39 years old, probably about 35.
24:58And so dying at that age was not uncommon.
25:03She's been kind of interesting.
25:05She has an active dental abscess.
25:08The abscess, you can see it here.
25:13It's in her left first molar
25:16and you see these two holes here.
25:18Probably very painful
25:20and possibly related to her death.
25:23It is possible to die from an untreated dental abscess.
25:26The Egyptians had a very high rate of tooth wear
25:29because they ground their grain on stone, grindstones
25:34and that put a lot of grit into the flour
25:37and there's a lot of ambient dust.
25:39And so you can imagine that a lifetime of eating bread made that way.
25:42It's like chewing on sandpaper.
25:44Through their work, Anne Roth and her colleagues
25:47may be offering the ancient people they study
25:50the eternal life they so desired.
25:53We hope we make them live longer
25:56by studying them and telling something about their lives
25:59because the ancient Egyptians believed that part of your soul
26:02was what other people thought of you.
26:04So by forming these human connections with these dead people again
26:07we hope we're atoning for any disrespect
26:10that we may be showing to their bones.
26:13The bones contained in these mastabas at Giza
26:16belonged to common middle-class people.
26:20But even for pharaohs, death at last arrived.
26:25Egyptians believed that when their king passed on
26:29he joined the great god Ray
26:31to endlessly carry the sun across the sky
26:34in a celestial boat.
26:39To make sure the pharaohs had a craft at their disposal
26:42for this important journey
26:44boats such as this were sometimes buried near the royal tombs.
26:50At first glance, this would seem to be an unlikely spot
26:54to find such a royal boat
26:56much less a fleet of them.
26:59These huge walls are almost all that remain
27:03of a vast complex of mortuary temples.
27:07They were built in the desert near the ancient town of Abydos
27:11to honour dead kings who ruled Egypt almost 5000 years ago.
27:17It was here in 1991
27:20that Dr David O'Connor of New York University's Institute of Fine Arts
27:24made a startling discovery
27:26the first of a number of boats buried just outside these walls.
27:31New discoveries were being made even as I arrived.
27:35Matthew Adams is associate director of the project.
27:38He explained how these ancient vessels were first found.
27:42We noticed initially in our work
27:45there were some very unusual walls poking up out of the sand
27:49just in this area.
27:51Let me show you.
27:53I can see them, yes.
27:57Initially we thought that these were the walls of some building.
28:03You can see the mud bricks here
28:06and just a bit of the original plaster face of the wall.
28:10But they had these unusual shapes at the end.
28:13This is the corner and the end comes around and is curved, rounded.
28:19So what was the answer to the mystery?
28:22The answer to the mystery is that these walls contained,
28:26were built to contain wooden boats.
28:29The boats were placed in a small pit
28:32and the brickwork was built up against the outside.
28:35Each one of the boats inside these structures
28:39is filled with mud brick
28:42and then the whole thing was capped off with nice mud plaster.
28:46And they're actually in there now, those wooden boats?
28:49There are wooden boats inside these structures right now.
28:52And what's the boulder?
28:54The boulder, we think, is some kind of symbolic anchor
28:57to permanently or eternally moor the boats in place.
29:00That's amazing.
29:02So what you have here is walls surrounding an actual wooden boat
29:06and this is the prow or the stern of the boat?
29:09We're not quite sure whether it's the prow or the stern.
29:12It's a very clear shape, though, isn't it?
29:15Very clear, yes.
29:17How long is it altogether?
29:19The longest is about 90 feet by about 10 or 12 feet wide.
29:2390 feet? 90 feet.
29:25These would be substantial things, wouldn't they?
29:28Very substantial craft.
29:32It's a big job clearing away the tonnes of sand which cover these boats.
29:37After that, the plaster caps must be carefully removed
29:41and one can begin to sense what these boats once looked like.
29:50As the sand is swept away,
29:52it's possible to reveal the wooden planks
29:55of the long, narrow vessels placed here almost 5,000 years ago.
30:00Wow, look at that.
30:02Here you actually see a number of the longitudinal planks
30:06which ran the length of the boat.
30:08You can see the spaces between them.
30:10So these planks seem to be really thick here.
30:13That's right.
30:15They're about between two and three inches thick
30:18and we're not quite sure about the length yet.
30:21We don't have enough exposed.
30:23And what wood is this?
30:25It seems to be cedar wood from modern Lebanon.
30:27It's 1,000 miles away. That's right.
30:29So this would be the bottom of the hull
30:31and then the hull would come up like this?
30:33And what's this here?
30:35This is the wood that's left along the sides of the hull.
30:38And these holes, is it these insects eating these holes?
30:42No, these are actual holes that were cut in the wood
30:45when the boat was constructed
30:47for the rope lashings that held the planks together.
30:50They were woven through here.
30:52Here's a set, here's a set, here's another one here.
30:55Debbie, what exactly are you doing there?
30:58What are you using on that wood to keep it?
31:01Well, after the wood is exposed,
31:04we consolidate it immediately using an acrylic resin.
31:09And this is to help hold it together,
31:12to protect it from drying out more.
31:15And what's that along the side there?
31:18On the side we have some yellow pigment.
31:21You can see it here, running along here.
31:25So this would be a painted boat
31:27like you see on all those tomb reliefs?
31:29That's right.
31:30And what are you going to do with it now?
31:32Well, when we finish strengthening the wood,
31:34we intend to take the pieces out one by one
31:37for more detailed study.
31:39But there are 12 of these boats.
31:41That's right. We're only dealing with this one now.
31:44And we thought for many years that there were only 12,
31:47but we got a surprise just a few days ago.
31:49Let me show you.
31:53So you knew that there were 12 boats here?
31:56That's right.
31:57And just behind you, you see boat number 12.
32:01And until just two days ago,
32:03I would have sworn that there were no more than 12.
32:06But then our excavations this year
32:09showed this line of brickwork coming up,
32:12and this is boat number 13.
32:14I mean, there could be lots more of these.
32:16You could have hundreds of boats
32:17stretched right the way along the desert.
32:19It's possible.
32:20Basically what you have here is an ancient marina complex.
32:23We have a royal fleet moored in the desert.
32:27Egypt's secrets are still being revealed.
32:30Not long after I left Abydos, a 14th boat was found.
32:35Together, they are the world's oldest.
32:42This royal fleet of boats,
32:43which Matthew Adams and his colleagues are trying to save,
32:46was buried near the mastaba tombs of early kings.
32:50After centuries of using the simple mastaba,
32:53burial customs had become more complex.
32:56By 2700 B.C., Egypt's kings were ready
33:00to build tombs on an even greater scale.
33:11For centuries, the mastaba had fulfilled the needs of the dead.
33:15But as the old kingdom flourished,
33:17Egypt reached a peak of prosperity.
33:19Now the living pharaohs required something more,
33:22not just a tomb, but a monument to their own greatness.
33:41Some 2600 years before the Christian era,
33:45Egypt's pharaohs created the greatest tombs the world has known.
33:51The largest contains almost 2.5 million limestone blocks,
33:56each weighing at least 2.5 tons.
34:02Beginning in the old kingdom,
34:04pyramids provided a final resting place for the pharaohs
34:07for over 900 years.
34:09But these great mausoleums consumed enormous resources.
34:13The construction of even smaller pyramids strained Egypt's economy.
34:21Even when buried deep within the pyramids,
34:24the tombs of the pharaohs were not safe from the robbers
34:27who so successfully plundered their remains.
34:33Late in the old kingdom,
34:35Egyptian royalty began to look for other locations
34:38where their dead could rest
34:40on their long and difficult journey to immortality.
34:45By the start of the new kingdom, around 1570 B.C.,
34:49there was a change in religious observance.
34:51At the same time, it had become clear that the Mastaba tombs,
34:54even the great pyramids,
34:56were not going to be safe from the ravages of the tomb robbers.
34:59So Egypt's rulers began to look for a more secure site
35:03for the tombs of their Great One.
35:06They chose this barren valley near Thebes.
35:11The pharaohs were carried here to begin their eternal lives
35:15in the place that is now known as the Valley of the Kings.
35:23The remote isolation of the valley
35:25seemed to provide the necessary protection.
35:28Construction of a pharaoh's tomb here
35:31usually began soon after he succeeded to the throne.
35:35Some workers excavated great chambers in the limestone mountains.
35:41Others covered the walls with magnificent carvings and paintings.
35:46And still others inscribed the tomb with the proper texts
35:50to assure the king a successful passage into the underworld.
35:57Ancient texts reveal that when the news arrived of the king's death,
36:02final decoration and elaborate adornment
36:04were hurriedly added to the waiting tomb.
36:11After mummification,
36:13the pharaoh's body was carried up the Nile by boat.
36:17Then an entourage of many priests and mourners
36:20accompanied the mummy as its coffin was slowly dragged
36:24up the dusty valley path to a waiting tomb.
36:34It would have taken many days
36:37It would have taken many days of ritual and ceremony
36:40to bring the mummified body of the pharaoh
36:42from the banks of the Nile here to the entrance of the tomb.
36:46Since the day the pharaoh died,
36:48there would be frenetic activity preparing this place.
36:51Now at last, the final act of the king's life would begin.
36:56The smell of incense and the sound of chants would fill the air.
37:00Priests would lead the procession into the tomb,
37:04followed by the mourning royal family.
37:12At last, the procession reached this place,
37:15the burial chamber deep within the tomb.
37:18The mummy was lowered into its waiting sarcophagus,
37:21final ritual prayers were chanted,
37:24and the heavy lid was moved into place.
37:27The mourners returned to the land of the living,
37:30and the pharaoh was left in his new home for the afterlife.
37:38For over five centuries, the new kingdom pharaohs buried in this valley
37:42had ruled over Egypt at the peak of its grandeur and influence.
37:46But 1,000 years before the Christian era,
37:49the power of Egypt and her kings began to fade.
37:53Other, stronger cultures took Egypt's place of power in the Near East,
37:58and at last occupied her territory.
38:01Persians, Hellenistic Greeks, and finally Romans
38:05controlled the land of the pharaohs.
38:08Surprisingly, none of these invaders imposed their religions.
38:12Egyptians continued to worship the old gods,
38:15and attitudes about death remained remarkably unchanged,
38:19a fact dramatically illustrated by a recent discovery.
38:28We're in Egypt's Great Western Desert, some 200 miles west of Cairo.
38:33It's not a place for a flat tyre. It's over 100 degrees out there.
38:37Driving across this place, it seems impossible to believe
38:41there's anything between here and the Libyan border
38:44except heat and lots of rock and sand.
38:47That's not quite true.
38:49There are certain places where depressions in the desert floor
38:53make it possible to reach down and tap vast supplies of water.
38:58The result is five lush oases.
39:02We're driving towards one now, Bahariya,
39:06where the Egyptian archaeologist Zahi Hawass
39:09is overseeing work on an incredible discovery.
39:16When Egypt was part of the Roman Empire,
39:20the vast oasis of Bahariya was a thriving community of 10,000 people.
39:25The oasis in the 5th century BC was famous for its dates and wine.
39:30Today, it is famous for a donkey accident.
39:36In 1996, a workman was riding his donkey here in the Bahariya oasis.
39:42Suddenly, the animal's leg broke through the crust of the desert floor.
39:47There was a hole.
39:49He looked in it, and there were mummies, lots of them.
39:53They were the first of what may prove to be
39:56the greatest cache of mummies ever found.
40:01Almost 4,000 years after the ritual of mummification began,
40:05these mummies look a bit different than earlier examples.
40:08Most have no coffin.
40:11Instead, their faces are covered
40:14with a papier-mâché-like mask called cartonnage.
40:17But the importance Egyptians placed
40:20on preserving the body for the afterlife was unchanged.
40:25The gilded cartonnage of these faces has given this place its name.
40:32The Valley of the Golden Mummies.
40:40Dr Zahi Hawass of the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities
40:44is in charge of the excavation of these tombs.
40:47He gave me a tour of the work that has been done so far.
40:53So, Doctor, which tomb is this?
40:55This is the latest tomb that we discovered here
40:58in the Valley of the Golden Mummies.
41:01In this tomb only, we discovered 41 mummies.
41:05That's an amazing number of mummies here.
41:07I've never seen so many mummies.
41:09It's interesting that if you look at this type of mummies here,
41:12you can see at least three different types of mummies.
41:16If you look at the one that has a face that's covered with gold,
41:21and this is the mummy that's completely wrapped with linen only.
41:25It's beautiful, isn't it, the way that it's done?
41:27It is. Yes. It's extraordinary work.
41:29And this mummy, what's it called, covered with cartonnage.
41:32And you can see here the scenes of gods and goddesses on them.
41:37And look at this child.
41:40We took one child like this for X-ray.
41:43But this is, I believe, a child within the age of maybe,
41:47you can say, two years maximum.
41:49This is beautiful. It is.
41:51And it is in a very good condition.
41:53That's why I'm telling you that it is wrong that people should say
41:57that the mummification in the Roman period was deteriorated.
42:01That's not true. It is in a very good condition.
42:05I believe that this mummy in the middle here,
42:07that this man could be the head of the house.
42:10Oh, that's why he's in the middle. He could be the head of the family.
42:13Because he's buried in the centre of the room,
42:17and they put him in a kind of a high level of a stage,
42:23and this is why I believe that he's the head of the whole family.
42:26It's very moving that a family should be buried together like this.
42:29Exactly. Is it the same in the other tombs?
42:31Each mummy is different from the other mummy,
42:33and each mummy tells us a story about the people.
42:36And let us go.
42:46Into another tomb. Yeah.
42:48How many of them are there that you've found so far?
42:50We found in all the tombs until now, 207 mummies.
42:55207 mummies. Yeah.
42:57In this section here, if you look at this mummy,
43:01you know how they inlaid the eyes here?
43:04Oh, that's remarkable.
43:05Yeah, it's very beautiful, really, with the gold and the cartonage.
43:09Would this have been a richer person than most of them?
43:12Yes, this is...
43:14Any mummy that you have gold on it
43:18means that this man was rich enough.
43:21And this one's plaster, isn't it?
43:23Yes, but this, I believe, was a bride.
43:26She died before she got married.
43:28Oh, I see.
43:29And I believe that her family put the make-up on the lips
43:33and on the sides,
43:35and then she can get married in the afterlife.
43:39And how many more tombs like this do you think you're going to find here?
43:42I believe that I will spend all my life excavating,
43:46revealing secrets from the mummies
43:48and revealing lots of stories about the life of the people here.
43:51And I said many times that at least we'll discover 10,000 mummies,
43:56and I call it the Valley of the Golden Mummies.
44:02It is easy to think of the act of mummification
44:05as pertaining only to the great pharaohs.
44:08It is their tombs that have attracted so much effort and attention
44:12from archaeologists.
44:15But the tombs at Baharia are filled not with royalty,
44:18but with common people.
44:20A father, buried with his child resting on his chest.
44:24A woman gazing at the mummy of the man she loved.
44:28They remind us that the average citizens of ancient Egypt
44:32also sought to cheat death's corruption of the body.
44:36For most of 4,000 years,
44:38mummification was an important part of Egyptian family life.
44:48The Egyptian family's pain at the death of a loved one
44:51was just as real as ours would be.
44:53And even while they grieved,
44:54they knew that the deceased was at that very moment
44:57struggling to survive their great journey through the underworld.
45:01Meanwhile, the family had to embark on a long series of rituals and celebrations.
45:05The body itself must be mummified to receive the spirit after death.
45:09For every family, this was a huge effort and expense.
45:13Why did they do it?
45:15This was not some morbid obsession.
45:17They did it because they cared so much.
45:21For them, mummification was a huge act of love.
45:25They absolutely believed that death was not the end of life,
45:30but the beginning of eternity.
45:51¶¶