- 3 months ago
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00the treasure of Tutankhamen is absolutely staggering there are more than 5,000 different
00:22pieces including 2,000 items of gold and jewelry Tutankhamen's mask alone is 10 kilos of gold
00:33and his inner coffin is 110 kilos of solid gold some of the objects are part of the typical funereal
00:47paraphernalia of a pharaoh but there are clearly everyday objects too it was in 1922 the British
01:04Egyptologist Howard Carter discovered the tomb of Tutankhamen four small rooms and an extraordinary
01:11treasure the antechamber with Tutankhamen's chariots and three funeral beds the annex with its dozens of
01:21chairs tables ceramics and other everyday objects the treasure chamber where the embalmed internal
01:28organs of the Pharaoh were found preserved and the burial chamber with its four wooden shrines
01:34surrounding the sarcophagus and the three coffins inside of which the body of the king lay
01:41we can see there's a first cartouche encircled with black but beneath it there are traces of a
01:49second cartouche ring a hundred years after the discovery the Pharaoh's treasure is revealing some
01:58new secrets hidden signs from a forgotten character the feminine symbol was filled in covered over in
02:08gold leaf polished up and became invisible in the tombs of the great figures of the new kingdom scientists
02:18have been studying the objects up close in order to get to the origin of the treasure three thousand
02:24three hundred years after the events they're writing a new chapter in the history of the Pharaoh's reign
02:29the bracelet should have been removed from the funeral paraphernalia or the cartouche reworked but as we
02:38all know there's no such thing as the perfect crime
02:59why did the pharaohs more than three millennia ago choose this place to be buried no doubt because this rocky
03:20peak resembles the shape of a pyramid
03:22it's the valley of the Kings and it's situated on the west bank of the Nile opposite the city of Luxor
03:35formerly known in the ancient world as Thebes and it's here that the most spectacular discoveries were made
03:42twenty-one tombs belonging to pharaohs have been exhumed here
03:58but there are also those of several important individuals whom the kings wish to reward with
04:02the privilege of being buried alongside them
04:04it was here on the morning of november the 4th 1922 that the story of the discovery of tutankhamen's tomb began
04:25on that day howard carter arrived and what struck him most was the silence
04:28the workers had fallen silent because after years of searching they had just found something
04:37a decisive clue to lead them to the tomb the first step of a staircase heading down into the ground
04:42over the course of the first day as they revealed successive steps they uncovered a strip of wood
05:02it came from the top of one of the chests and howard carter immediately recognized it
05:07on it there were several royal cartouches
05:12the strip of wood was on the last step of the staircase amongst debris that at first appeared of little interest
05:23it was the remains of a chest recently reconstructed in the laboratories of the grand museum
05:31the strip of wood had found its place
05:35there were two names on it two key names in the hunt for tutankhamen's tomb
05:39that of his father the pharaoh akhenaten and that of his elder sister meritatin
05:52two names intimately linked to the history of amarna a town located 200 kilometers to the north of thebes
05:59and the valley of the kings
06:08and the valley of the kings
06:17amarna the capital city built by akhenaten tutankhamen's father
06:21the pharaoh dedicated it to a single god athen and to his manifestation on earth the sun disk
06:37you have to try and imagine how big this project was it was colossal a whole town spread across 10 kilometers
06:43that was created in under six years
06:48the king decided to call this new place akhetaten which means horizon of the athen
06:54it refers to his belief that amarna was the place where the sun appeared on earth
07:02this new religion gave rise to a new kind of architecture
07:05here temples had no roofs enabling the sun to enter the sanctuary
07:25the temples of aton have almost totally disappeared all that remains are a few tiny fragments and the foundations
07:31british archaeologists working on the site use these stones in order to mark out on the ground where the walls were
07:41above them you have to imagine walls several meters high made from special prefabricated blocks called talatats
07:47these blocks were produced in an almost industrial manner in egyptian quarries and their major advantage
08:02was that they weighed around 50 kilograms as such they could be carried by regular construction workers
08:08which allowed the pharaoh's architects to construct buildings very quickly because they could be laid one after the other
08:17the problem of course is that if you can build walls very quickly you can dismantle them very quickly too
08:31and soon after the end of akhenaten's reign they decided to tear down all these temples down to the
08:36foundations and all these blocks were used in new constructions
08:39ten years after work started the king's magnificent project ended in fiasco and the fate of the royal family turned to tragedy
08:56and what has this got to do with the fragments of the chest found by howard carter at the foot of tutankarmen's tomb
09:01why do the names of akhenaten and his daughter meritatan appear on the chest
09:17the answer is to be found in the royal tomb of amarna
09:25a tomb dug into the mountains which overlook the former city
09:31the relief carvings are now very badly damaged but they enabled researchers to reconstruct the
09:41terrible end to akhenaten's reign
09:50on the left-hand side you can see two little princesses lying down dead on the funeral bed
09:54they were princesses setipenra and her younger sister nefer neferura
10:01in front of them in front of the bed is the royal couple and they're crying
10:06akhenaten is in front grieving and he's holding the arm of his wife nefertiti who's sobbing and reeling with pain
10:13the valet to the exit one of the rooms there's a character who is highlighted in the arms of a nurse
10:28and who could only be prince tutankarten born just before his two elder sisters died
10:33there are women from the royal entourage who are grieving their heads in their hands weeping
10:43as they accompany the royal family in the face of the deaths of the two young princesses
10:48in a neighboring room the terrible story continues
11:01sickness has struck again and another princess is dead
11:11here she's depicted as a statue with the royal couple lamenting before it
11:18this is princess meketaten she was around 10 years old when she died
11:33a sobbing akhenaten and nefertiti are accompanied by the next three princesses
11:38the oldest was princess meritaten then akisenparten and the last one the youngest was princess nefer
11:45for neferuaten tasherit whose outline has disappeared indeed she was the next to die
11:54we know she died soon after and after her it was the turn of the queen mother tayye akhenaten's mother
12:00and then the royal wife queen nefertiti who died in the year 16 at the end of the reign
12:05what could be behind all these deaths that decimated the royal family
12:18diplomatic correspondence between akhenaten and the king of babylon mentions another of the pharaoh's
12:23wives who died of the plague which affected the royal harem in amarna
12:27mary tetan the pharaoh's oldest daughter survived the epidemic
12:38after the death of her mother queen nefertiti
12:41she married her father akhenaten and took the title of great royal wife
12:48her brother tutankhamen was still a very young child
12:51which left her in a strong position to take over
13:06the next part of the story can be found in the museum of cairo
13:10and this time in the treasure of tutankhamen itself
13:13mark gabold is one of the leading specialists on tutankhamen
13:22he suspects that certain objects have a hidden identity
13:27and he intends to prove it
13:31this is rock crystal it's great
13:38mark gabold starts his examination with one of the canonic chests in which the
13:42pharaoh's internal organs were found
13:46on the outside there's nothing unusual
13:53nothing unusual inside either
13:57it's really difficult to glean any information about who this belonged to from this cartouche
14:06but inside the lid some unusual markings soon catch his eye
14:12you can see tutankhamen's cartouches but underneath there are small marks that were made prior to these
14:26there's tutankhamen's cartouche and then there are traces of previous engravings that the egyptologist is immediately able to identify
14:33it's very difficult to be sure of how to read it but from other examples we can reconstruct the original cartouche
14:43which is that of a pharaoh queen who is also called she who is good for her husband
14:51so that means that these little sarcophagi for internal organs were usurped from her
14:56this pharaoh queen was almost certainly none other than meritatin and if these little sarcophagi originally
15:07belonged to her and were then re-baptized for king tutankhamen what then of the four alabaster
15:15of the statues inside of which they were contained
15:25mark gabald has been allowed to examine them with the glass protection removed
15:38the amazing thing is that given the position of the cover
15:41there's a kind of dialogue between these two effigies who stare into each other's eyes across the space
15:47of a few millimeters and i find it extremely moving to witness this staging orchestrated by the ancient
15:53egyptians for the king's organs
16:01on the box containing the four alabaster sarcophagi are the two cartouches of pharaoh tutankhamen
16:08on the left the name of his reign on the right his birth name
16:15just below the last character the little basket there's a horizontal line
16:20which no doubt corresponds to a first name
16:25and similarly on the right we can see there's a first cartouche encircled with black
16:30but beneath it there are traces of a second cartouche ring
16:34it's clear that the name was changed sometime in the distant past
16:38it was changed so that this monument would be attributed to tutankhamen
16:46it would seem therefore that one of the most sacred objects in the treasure of tutankhamen
16:50was made for somebody else here again meritatan is the most likely candidate
17:05and then there are the objects for which there is no doubt
17:07such as this bracelet which was discovered among tutankhamen's jewelry
17:21the priest responsible for the pharaoh's burial must have missed it
17:24you can see the two names of a king who bear the epithet she who is good for her husband
17:37that's a reference to a pharaoh queen who reigned prior to tutankhamen
17:41and this bracelet is one of the rare instances where the name of the queen is intact
17:51it's a mistake the bracelet should have been removed from the funeral paraphernalia or the
17:56cartouche reworked but as we all know there's no such thing as the perfect crime
18:00other than this bracelet all the objects belonging to meritatan without exception were renamed for tutankhamen
18:19there are some unmistakable signs and the physique of this character is one of them
18:31the magnificent statuette in gilded wood shows a pharaoh on the back of a black panther
18:38it's also part of tutankhamen's treasure it was found in the pharaoh's tomb and is supposed to represent him
18:48except there's one detail that's not quite right
19:00the definitive proof that this pharaoh queen truly existed is in this figurine which was usurped and
19:14found in the tomb of tutankhamen if you look carefully at the chest the curve of her breasts
19:19clearly show that she's a woman a young woman aged 16 who ruled and who was no doubt meritatan
19:27the oldest sister of tutankhamen
19:35what is extraordinary is that it's the only complete statue of this queen that we have
19:40so it's an absolutely unique and extremely precious item and there's nothing else like it
19:49meritatan as this statue shows was part of a very small club of pharaoh queens who reigned over egypt
19:57mixed
19:59aged 15 or 16 she was able to assert herself while her country the great power during that period
20:05was in the process of losing its supremacy
20:18Not only was Egypt hit by an epidemic,
20:21it also found itself lacking in something absolutely essential for its armies.
20:29Bronze, an indispensable metal for the manufacture of effective weapons.
20:38Egypt lost its supply when it lost control of the strategic city of Kadesh.
20:48The role of Kadesh is extremely important in Egyptian history,
20:54because it controlled a natural corridor from modern-day Turkey,
20:58which back then was the Kingdom of the Hittites,
21:01to the Near East, the Syro-Palestinian corridor.
21:13And that was where a great deal of critical international trade passed,
21:17in particular the transport of tin and copper,
21:21which are what you need to make bronze.
21:28Without copper and tin, it's impossible to produce bronze,
21:31and therefore weapons.
21:36And whoever couldn't control these trade routes
21:38would be condemned to sudden death at the hands of their enemies.
21:49Akhenaten ordered the city of Kadesh to be retaken,
21:51so that trade could be re-established.
21:57But against all expectations, his armies were defeated.
22:00The Egyptians hadn't been beaten in the Near East for decades,
22:06because they controlled that area.
22:08And this defeat at Kadesh was very serious.
22:11It was a bit like their Vietnam at the time,
22:14because it opened up a breach that allowed the Hittites
22:17to steal everything they controlled in the Syro-Palestinian corridor.
22:22And then the king died.
22:27He was buried here in the cave he'd had dug out of the mountains,
22:31near Amarna, a few kilometers from the palace
22:34where he spent the last part of his life.
22:40The Egyptians were in serious trouble,
22:43and they started to doubt the king.
22:46They began thinking Akhenaten had led them astray,
22:50because they felt they were being punished by the gods,
22:53that they'd stopped being protected by them.
22:57So fairly quickly Akhenaten was relegated into the annals as a bad king.
23:02They wanted to rid themselves of any trace of his existence.
23:05We can see here on this wall that Akhenaten's presence has been completely removed and covered up.
23:18Where the king was here, all that remains is a ghost beneath the rays of the sun disc of Aten.
23:23But the radiating disc of the god remains, because the god wasn't prescribed.
23:27It wasn't the fault of the god.
23:29It was the fault of his sovereign servant,
23:30who hadn't fulfilled his role as an interface between human beings and the divine.
23:37When her father died, Meritatin was just 14.
23:40Both elder daughter and great royal wife of Akhenaten,
23:46she was first in line for the throne.
23:48And her brother, Tutankhamen, would only have been around four years old.
24:07Meritatin then started putting together her burial trousseau, as every new pharaoh would do.
24:12At the Museum of Cairo, Mark Gabald is continuing his investigation into the treasure of Tutankhamen.
24:23He is now studying everyday objects.
24:26And here again, he believes he is once again seeing the shadow of the pharaoh queen.
24:31Here you can clearly see Tutankhamen's name in hieroglyphics.
24:34But beneath it are the traces of a previous name.
24:38You can clearly see Ankh, which is the symbol for life.
24:42Repair, the scarab beetle.
24:44And below, traces of the name of Akhenaten.
24:47It says Anke Repairore, beloved of Akhenaten.
24:51And that's the name of the pharaoh queen.
24:57The usurpation is even clearer on the other button on the chest.
25:00The golden hieroglyphs clearly correspond to the name of King Tutankhamen.
25:09But the first of the hollowed out characters clearly form the name of the pharaoh queen.
25:15This box belonged to the pharaoh queen and was recuperated and modified for the burial of Tutankhamen.
25:31A small object now catches Mark Gabald's eye.
25:42An item of jewellery, also taken from the king's treasure.
25:47An item of jewellery that contains a representation of the goddess Nut.
25:52But during the reign of Akhenaten, worshipping this goddess had been forbidden.
25:56The only god that was worshipped was Aten.
26:00The owner of this object had therefore returned to traditional religion.
26:05So who was the owner?
26:08Words spoken by Nut.
26:11I reach out my arms to my son, the king, Nepne Ferrare, triumphant.
26:20I make my feathers quiver over your perfection.
26:27Tutankhamen.
26:28In this cartouche, Tutankhamen's name can be clearly seen.
26:41But you can also see underneath traces of a first name, which is also easy to read.
26:46Nefer Neferuaten, which means she who attends to her husband.
26:50In other words, the queen pharaoh.
26:52This means that it was Meritatan and not Tutankhamen, as was thought up to now, who ended the chapter started by her father.
27:04A major decision which changed the history of the kingdom.
27:07And then there's the question of the most sacred objects in the tomb.
27:17Those objects that were in contact either directly or indirectly with the remains of the pharaoh.
27:22The solid gold anthropoid coffin itself contained within two gilded wooden coffins.
27:27And all of that on a bed, together placed inside a pink granite shrine, which itself was placed inside four more sarcophagi, covered in gold leaf.
27:50Mark Gabald is now going to examine one of these shrines.
27:57This time, the writing of the pharaoh's name is perfect.
28:07But there is an anomaly in the arrangement of the characters.
28:12A too large space between two hieroglyphs, which catches his eye.
28:18Tutankhamen is living from truth.
28:21And yet here, you can see that there are three signs, one above the other, but they're not aligned.
28:28So, there's space for a missing sign.
28:31That means that originally, it was written with the feminine form of living.
28:35And subsequently, it was covered over in gold leaf, polished up, and became invisible.
28:41Except that there's a sign missing.
28:43It's extraordinary.
28:57The gold is phenomenally beautiful, with hints of red.
29:02You can see very clearly that this monument has a history, and it's a complicated one.
29:06In all the places where there's the king's name, you can see that the gold leaf is lighter than in other areas where it's darker.
29:21So, originally, it was done for one sovereign.
29:28Then they took off the names of that sovereign, reapplied the gold decoration, and then added a new name.
29:35But this new gold was much yellower and stands out clearly against the red background of the original color of the monument.
29:42It's very obvious.
29:44Lastly, there's the question of Tutankhamen's mask.
30:05Ten kilograms of pure gold, the most famous object from the pharaoh's treasure.
30:09Was it made especially for him?
30:14Or was it usurped from his older sister?
30:20Mark Gabald has found some more clues to suggest it was indeed made for Meritatin.
30:31A cartouche that once again contains tiny traces of a previous engraving.
30:35Once reconstituted, they again suggest that the object was originally cast for the pharaoh queen.
30:44Her cartouche was no doubt then replaced by that of Tutankhamen's.
30:53Such extraordinary objects were no doubt created for every pharaoh.
30:58But Meritatin was both a woman and very young.
31:03So, for her, such privileges would have been harder to obtain than for a male pharaoh.
31:09Perhaps she had to demonstrate exceptional merit.
31:12A tomb in Amarna suggests that might just be the case.
31:13The tomb of Merir II, superintendent of the royal harem under pharaoh Akhenaten.
31:15The tomb of Merir II, superintendent of the royal harem under pharaoh Akhenaten.
31:16The tomb of Merir II, superintendent of the royal harem under pharaoh Akhenaten.
31:17The tomb of Merir II, superintendent of the royal harem under pharaoh Akhenaten.
31:21The first image shows the twelfth year of the royal harem.
31:24The tomb of Merir II, superintendent of the royal harem under pharaoh Akhenaten.
31:28The tomb of Merir II, superintendent of the royal harem under pharaoh Akhenaten.
31:31The tomb of Merir II, superintendent of the royal harem under pharaoh Akhenaten.
31:47The first image shows the 12th year of the reign before misery struck the royal family.
31:56This represents an idyllic moment.
31:58The couple looks happy and united.
32:02And there's this detail of Akhenaten taking Nefertiti's hand in his.
32:07The queen is probably already pregnant with the future prince Tutankhaten.
32:11And the six princesses are shown behind the king and his wife.
32:21The second image is of three years later, when Akhenaten and Nefertiti are dead.
32:28Another royal couple is shown.
32:33To the right is Meritatin.
32:36To the left, a certain Smenkare, a pharaoh who never actually reigned.
32:41The scene depicts a plot.
32:47A tale of cunning and power, led by the pharaoh queen against her chief enemy, the Hittite empire.
32:58First, Meritatin ensures that her little brother Tutankhamen is protected and kept away from the court.
33:03Here he is with his nurse.
33:07He's barely five years old.
33:11Then she turns to the king of the Hittites, the kingdom that is causing all kinds of trouble for Egypt, by blocking its trade with the east.
33:18She asks him for one of his sons in marriage.
33:25Several months later, she receives a letter from the king.
33:31I sent my son, he wrote.
33:33But he was murdered along the way.
33:34Clearly, Meritatin had never intended to marry the Hittite prince.
33:46She'd simply bought some time.
33:50The time that her armies needed to re-establish their supplies of copper and tin.
33:54So we don't actually know if he was murdered or if his death was a lucky accident for Egypt.
34:02But in any case, this diplomatic marriage is one of the greatest coups carried out in the entire diplomatic history of the ancient world.
34:10By pulling off this diplomatic coup, when she was still only in her teens,
34:14Meritatin probably earned herself a significant amount of credibility in the eyes of the Egyptian people
34:19and in Egyptian ideology that required the pharaoh to maintain the cosmic order for the good of the country.
34:29It was at this point that Meritatin dispensed with the idea of a single god,
34:32thus breaking with her father's views and life's work.
34:38She decided to leave Amarna and return to Thebes, where all the traditional gods were worshipped.
34:49Meritatin took every member of her family with her, including the dead ones.
35:03And she had them placed in a new tomb in the Valley of the Kings.
35:07For her mother, Nefertiti, and her grandmother, Queen Tayyeh,
35:21she chose the last residence of her grandfather, King Amenhotep III.
35:29A note in the hieratic writing system used for daily life in ancient Egypt
35:33marks the date of the ceremony.
35:37The two women were placed in new coffins alongside the sarcophagus of the pharaoh,
35:48the major figure of this era who had reigned for over 40 years.
35:59The year three, third month of the flood, day seven.
36:04This is the last trace of the pharaoh queen.
36:07One month later, according to the so-called restoration tablet,
36:16her brother acceded to the throne.
36:21Tutankhamen became king.
36:24Meritatin disappeared.
36:25It was almost certainly no coincidence,
36:28but that's all that we know today.
36:29The most likely hypothesis is that she died making way for her brother to claim the throne.
36:42The only thing we know for certain is that she wasn't buried in the tomb she'd had prepared,
36:47since it was totally reused for Tutankhamen.
36:50She was almost certainly buried, but we don't know where.
36:56Perhaps in a tomb that we already know of, but which was entirely pillaged,
37:01or maybe another tomb that is yet to be discovered.
37:04We have no clues as to where she ended up.
37:07Tutankhamen was probably still a child when he became pharaoh.
37:27Among his treasure, one object throws some light on what he was like at the start of his reign.
37:38His famous throne, also found in his tomb.
37:41On the back, here he is with Anka Senemun, his other older sister,
37:49whom, almost certainly, he'd just married.
37:55The throne is undoubtedly adult size.
37:59But can we be sure that it had been built for the king at the time of his coronation?
38:03It's the lower part of the royal chair that has caught Mark Gabald's attention.
38:14It's clearly suffered some damage.
38:21You can see that there were some decorative elements here that have come off the sides.
38:30This may well have been due to normal wear and tear.
38:33But it's also conceivable that something a little different might have happened.
38:41What could there have been between the legs of Tutankhamen's throne?
38:47Something no doubt similar to the decoration on the other chair that belonged to the pharaoh,
38:51a children's chair that was also found in the tomb.
38:57Woven reeds, symbolizing the union of the two lands of Upper and Lower Egypt.
39:03Imagine a seven-year-old child sitting on this throne, which was made for an adult.
39:13And what would any normal seven-year-old child, who has to sit on an adult's chair for a long time, do?
39:25It would no doubt be swinging its legs and kicking the chair, damaging it,
39:29eventually causing the decoration to be destroyed.
39:31Once the decoration was broken, it was no doubt removed all around to make the chair look better.
39:41But this is probably the proof that King Tutankhamen was very young,
39:45age seven or eight, when he sat on this throne.
39:48And that this throne was made for an adult, and therefore not originally intended for him.
39:53And if that's the case, then who did the throne originally belong to?
40:04The answer lies on the back of the chair.
40:05Our hypothesis is that the golden leaf from the original decoration was taken off.
40:18And when it was taken off, it tore.
40:21Then the new decoration was added, and the leaves stuck back on.
40:27Another clue that could confirm this hypothesis
40:29is a mysterious phrase inscribed on the restoration tablet
40:33marking Tutankhamen's accession to the throne.
40:43Then, after days had passed with this,
40:46His Majesty appeared on His Father's throne
40:49and governed the banks of the Horus.
40:53On the restoration tablet, it says Tutankhamen sat on His Father's throne.
40:58So we can probably take this text at face value
41:01and assume that it was indeed the throne of Akhenaten
41:04that was subsequently modified for Tutankhamen
41:07so that he could reign.
41:15Once on the throne, the young pharaoh
41:17would have had to carry out one last symbolic act.
41:24His father, who was buried in Amarna,
41:26was maybe thought of as a bad king.
41:28But Tutankhamen had to follow on from him.
41:34And so, there was something he had to do.
41:37This indentation corresponds to the exact spot
41:40where Akhenaten's sarcophagus was placed.
41:43He was buried here.
41:45So it was also here that the representatives of Tutankhamen
41:48removed his mummified body
41:50to rebury it in the Valley of the Kings.
41:52They left the sarcophagus behind,
41:55which was then broken up,
41:57probably to prevent it being reused,
41:59but perhaps also because the memory of the pharaoh
42:01is going to end up on the scrap heap of history.
42:07Re-burying Akhenaten wasn't just about bringing his body
42:10back to the Valley of the Kings,
42:12where all the pharaohs of the new empire were buried.
42:14It was also about conforming to dynastic law,
42:20as stated on this papyrus.
42:24He that buries will inherit, it says.
42:28In other words, the person who buries the pharaoh
42:30is his legitimate successor.
42:37Tutankhamen chose the tomb of a commoner.
42:41The deceased pharaoh was laid to rest
42:43in the sarcophagus of one of his foreign wives,
42:46Kya, who had fallen into disgrace.
42:54And that's how, on a November day in the year 1327 BCE,
42:58Tutankhamen finally became the new pharaoh.
43:00Tutankhamen was around 17 years old when he died.
43:21He'd just celebrated the 10th year of his reign.
43:28We know when he died,
43:29thanks to a necklace of flowers
43:30placed around his mummified body.
43:34These flowers only bloom
43:36between the end of March and early April.
43:42In ancient Egypt,
43:4370 days had to pass between death and burial.
43:47So we can now be certain
43:48that the pharaoh died somewhere
43:49between December and February.
43:50His body was then totally shaved
44:02and scrupulously cleaned.
44:04Then, exceptionally,
44:05his brain was removed
44:06not only through his nose,
44:08but also through an incision in his neck
44:09at the level of the 10th vertebra.
44:11A resinous liquid was then poured into his skull.
44:21His guts, lungs and heart were removed.
44:23And sachets of natron,
44:27a kind of salt,
44:28were placed in and around his body
44:29for 60 days
44:30in order to dry out the organic matter.
44:36Resin-soaked fabric
44:37was then inserted into the abdomen.
44:39And the same liquid,
44:42mixed with sweetened wine,
44:43was poured over the body of the deceased.
44:51This treatment was more severe than usual.
44:53It burned the flesh of the king
44:55so much so that Tutankhamen's mummified body
44:57is one of the least well-preserved
44:59of all royal mummies ever discovered.
45:09Once the body had been treated,
45:12the king was given a beaded cap
45:13and an earthenware collar
45:15was placed on his chest.
45:17Caps were placed on his fingers,
45:19his feet shod with golden sandals
45:20and his arms covered with bracelets.
45:26The body was then wrapped
45:28in 16 layers of bandages,
45:30in between which were placed
45:31dozens of amulets with magic powers,
45:34necklaces
45:35and some amazing weapons,
45:38such as a golden knife,
45:39and a dagger
45:40whose blade was formed
45:42from some extraordinary metal.
46:03When Carter found it,
46:05it was absolutely intact.
46:07There was no rust,
46:08just a smattering of finely polished dots of oxidation
46:12and when he tested the blade on his thumb,
46:15it was perfectly sharp.
46:22We know that Tutankhamen's grandfather,
46:24King Amenhotep III,
46:26had been given a dagger
46:27by the king of Mitanni,
46:28which corresponds
46:29to modern-day Kurdistan.
46:31This dagger, then,
46:32this dagger, then,
46:34was described as having an iron blade,
46:37a handle set with blue stones,
46:39a golden sheath,
46:41and a pummel
46:41made from rilabi stone,
46:43which we can guess
46:44must have been rock crystal.
46:46The last extraordinary characteristic of this metal
46:55is that it was meteoric iron.
46:58It was fairly common in antiquity
47:01to use iron from meteorites,
47:03which was then hammered and forged
47:04into excellent weapons.
47:06In death,
47:11Egyptians needed to be able
47:13to protect themselves
47:14from hostile forces,
47:15and this iron dagger
47:17was almost certainly
47:18a much better weapon
47:19than one made from bronze.
47:21It was no doubt placed
47:22on Tutankhamen's mummy
47:23to help the king
47:24in the afterlife.
47:26It was an extremely effective weapon.
47:28Efficace.
47:3733 centuries later,
47:39it took Howard Carter
47:40several weeks
47:40to undo what the Egyptian priests
47:42had done.
47:45He had to separate the coffins
47:47without damaging them
47:48in order to reveal
47:49the pharaoh's body
47:50and examine the mummy.
47:58Carter arranged a wooden structure
48:04around the sarcophagus,
48:06then lifted the lid
48:08and that of the first coffin.
48:14Then he set up
48:15a complex system
48:16of ropes and pulleys,
48:18finally managing
48:19to reach the coffin
48:20of solid gold.
48:24In a neighbouring tomb,
48:25he had to free
48:26the mummified body,
48:27which had been sealed
48:28in the coffin
48:28with resin poured in
48:30at the moment of the burial.
48:32Lastly,
48:32he heated the upper section
48:34of the golden coffin
48:35to separate it
48:36from the first one.
48:40Then he turned
48:41to examining the mummy.
48:43It was impossible
48:44to remove the bandages
48:45as they too
48:46had been solidified
48:47using resin as liquid.
48:50So the mummy
48:50had to be dissected.
48:52And that's how
48:53Howard Carter discovered
48:54some 200 objects
48:55tucked between
48:56the layers of fabric.
48:57When Carter had finished,
49:10the king's body
49:10was totally naked,
49:12apart from the skull,
49:13which had a beaded cap
49:14encrusted into it.
49:17This was almost certainly
49:19the cap he'd worn
49:19as a baby.
49:20There was also
49:25a superb collar
49:25in gold and blue
49:26earthenware
49:27on the king's chest,
49:28encrusted
49:28into the pharaoh's flesh.
49:38But when Howard Carter
49:40went to place
49:40the king's body
49:41in a crate
49:42and put it back
49:42in the tomb,
49:44most of the collar
49:45had disappeared.
49:45In the years
49:50that followed,
49:51tomb raiders
49:52cut the torso
49:52of the king
49:53to make off
49:54with the rest
49:54of the collar
49:54and they also
49:56stole his birth cap.
50:02Which explains
50:03why today,
50:04in his tomb,
50:04the king has none
50:05of the accessories
50:06that were placed
50:06on his body
50:07when he was buried.
50:08Tutankhamen's tomb
50:17had lost
50:18some of its treasure.
50:21But at the heart
50:22of the funereal chamber,
50:24the superb
50:24pink granite sarcophagus
50:25of the pharaoh
50:26still remains.
50:30Tutankhamen
50:31was buried
50:31in a very small tomb,
50:33just over 100 square meters
50:34in size,
50:36probably belonging
50:37to a commoner.
50:38and decorated
50:39according to his wishes,
50:40just before the ceremony.
50:43The decoration
50:44of Tutankhamen's tomb
50:45contains an exceptional scene
50:47that is unique
50:48throughout the whole
50:48of Egyptian art.
50:50It shows,
50:51for the first
50:51and the only time,
50:52a pharaoh
50:53burying his predecessor.
50:58On the right,
50:59you have the pharaoh Ai,
51:00who has just been crowned,
51:02executing the last
51:03funeral rites
51:04on the mummy
51:04of the young Tutankhamen,
51:06who has just died.
51:08What is really surprising
51:14about this representation
51:15of the pharaoh Ai
51:17is the youth
51:18with which he is portrayed.
51:19He has exactly
51:20the same juvenile traits
51:21as Tutankhamen,
51:22the person he is burying.
51:24But we know
51:24that there were
51:25two generations
51:26between these two characters.
51:27Ai was old enough
51:29to be Tutankhamen's grandfather,
51:30and it's possible
51:31that he was
51:32on the mother's side.
51:33So here we have
51:35a grandfather
51:36burying his grandson
51:37who has died prematurely.
51:42The pharaoh Ai
51:43only reigned
51:44for three years in Egypt.
51:46His death marked
51:47the end of this turbulent period
51:49and the beginning
51:50of a renaissance.
51:51Tutankhamen would soon
51:56be long forgotten.
51:58That is,
51:59until Howard Carter
52:00brought him back to life
52:013,300 years
52:03after his death.
52:04ORCHESTRA PLAYS
52:34ORCHESTRA PLAYS
52:37ORCHESTRA PLAYS
Recommended
52:15
|
Up next
44:04
1:27:58
33:10
52:51
2:06
44:55
50:38
48:17
45:12
48:25