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00:00Egypt, timeless land of the pharaohs, born amidst the sands of the Sahara.
00:10A kingdom which derived its power from the river Nile.
00:15But legend has it that its first female pharaoh, Queen Hatshepsut, had ambitions far beyond these shores.
00:24Her aim, to conquer the sea.
00:26At Luxor, in the temple where she's entombed, a bus relief illustrates the voyage of five royal ships she's sent to a land named Punt, returning laden with fabulous riches.
00:41To put a boat on the sea that's going to float and it's going to make it stay down to Punt and back, is a greater achievement in many ways than building a pyramid which just sits there.
00:53Did it really happen, or is it a myth?
00:56For the first time, archaeologists will attempt to recreate the voyage, in a full-size replica of one of those ancient ships.
01:05The team's first challenge, to figure out how the Queen's ship designers could have built seaworthy vessels nearly 3,500 years ago.
01:14We have to find out, in only one year, what they have had thousands of years to learn, and it is a daunting task.
01:25Using only ancient techniques, can they build a boat to withstand the stormy seas?
01:30If they succeed, it may help prove the ancient Egyptians navigated the Red Sea to lands far beyond.
01:38Hatshepsut's life is shrouded in mystery.
01:54She was the first woman to reign over Egypt, 1,500 years before Christ, and long before Queen's Nefertiti and Cleopatra.
02:03She governed for more than 20 years, during a period of relative peace and prosperity.
02:11But after her death, Hatshepsut's memory was deliberately and savagely destroyed.
02:17Murals bearing her portrait were desecrated, temple statues were smashed, and no one knows why.
02:27The first Queen of Egypt disappeared from official history, taking with her the secrets of her nautical expedition to Punt.
02:35Exciting new discoveries by an international archaeological team have revived the debate over Queen Hatshepsut's seafaring adventures.
03:05The pottery and ceramics excavated here suggest this place was used as a bivouac.
03:35Could it have been the base camp for voyages to the mythical land of Punt?
03:46Buried in the sand, a set of wooden boxes provides an important clue.
03:54The first time I saw these boxes, I was truly astonished.
03:59We had no idea that anything like this existed or would be here still.
04:05after 3,800 years.
04:12We found an inscription on one of the boxes that in translation said the wonderful things of Punt.
04:20Did the ancient mariners cast off for Punt from the bay that once existed here?
04:37Could they have left other traces of their presence?
04:42Could they have left other traces of their presence?
04:44Could they have left other species of Punt?
04:47At Merseqawasi's in a cave hewn into a coral terrace, Cheryl Ward, an archaeologist who specializes in ancient boats, makes a spine-tingling discovery.
04:59dozens of coiled ropes left in the caves by ancient seafarers nearly 4,000 years ago
05:09I think there were several of us who had tears come to our eyes the first time we saw this
05:14it was so incredible so unbelievable
05:16we are all as amazed I think as Howard Carter must have been when he saw the treasures of Tutankhamun
05:27the sense of the ancient Egyptians was so present they left it here we were the first to see it
05:37in 4,000 years but the most precious find is a wooden plank whose distinctive shape immediately
05:54reminds Cheryl of the boats depicted at Luxor which part of the boat is this one this is from the
06:01punk belief of course and what we see is this is a plank that can fit exactly here and it touches
06:10here on the center of strike several dozen marine timbers are unearthed over the course of the
06:19excavation and they are to be treated as delicately as if they were human mummies
06:23okay can you get in okay so this way yeah today to the other cave
06:29the ancient mariners apparently set sail from these shores for the land of Punt
06:40but why would Queen Hatshepsut have ordered such an ambitious expedition
06:47expedition
06:54before she became Pharaoh Hatshepsut was a princess
07:02the eldest daughter of King Thutmose the first and Queen Amos
07:09to preserve the royal bloodline her father decided she would marry her half-brother and
07:12queen Amos the eldest daughter of King Thutmose I and Queen Amos
07:13to preserve the royal bloodline her father decided she would marry her half-brother and queen Amos
07:19daughter of King Thutmose the first and Queen Amos to preserve the royal
07:28bloodline her father decided she would marry her half-brother who inherited the
07:34throne soon after their union
07:38but soon after his coronation he fell ill and died
07:52the young Queen Hatshepsut was
08:07now a widow with a stepson too young to become Pharaoh
08:13so Hatshepsut became regent taking the reins of the kingdom but she was a
08:20woman would patriarchal Egypt accept a female leader Hatshepsut's challenge was
08:30to impose her power and mounting a spectacular expedition at sea was one
08:35way to do it
08:49the discoveries made at Mersa Gawasis have rekindled the controversy over the
08:55seafaring capacity of ancient Egypt
09:01many of Cheryl's fellow researchers are skeptical of the finds value arguing the
09:06items are not clearly dated and don't prove anything they believe the voyage to
09:12point never really happened how could she prove her case
09:17Cheryl believes her only option is to reconstruct one of the boats in Hatshepsut's fleet based on the
09:27archaeological finds from Mersa Gawasis that way they'll know whether the boat was seaworthy
09:34and a whole range of tools and some very good to carry out her project
09:44Cheryl teams up with Tom Bosma a shipbuilder who is also an archaeologist
09:49Tom has designed and supervised the building of several replicas of ancient sailing vessels
10:04he lives in Oman in the Middle East where he studies the old boats of the Indian Ocean
10:10when I was growing up my father had a hobby of building ship models they were old ship models all
10:19around the house that he had built and I've been fascinated by old ships by the sea by sailing as
10:28long as I can remember and although I grew up 800 miles from the sea the first chance I got to
10:37leave home I went and I just went sailing
10:46Cheryl and Tom's investigation begins in the maritime museum in Paris
10:54the two researchers know that building a 3,500 year old replica of Hatshepsut's boat
11:00presents a tremendous challenge
11:06how can they recreate a ship when practically no physical trace of it exists
11:13all they have right now are a few planks some ropes several anchors and a reproduction of the bas-relief in Deir El Bari
11:25figuring out how to make this ship watertight is going to be one of the major goals I have
11:31any caulking looting there is no sign of caulking nothing jammed in between the seams
11:38there's no bitumen there's no resin there's no pitch there's nothing
11:42I mean to put a boat on the sea is that's going to float is going to make it say down the punt and back
11:48is a greater achievement in many ways than building a pyramid which just sits there
11:54I think one of the things we need to do now is to go to Deir El Bari and look very carefully
12:01at the reliefs there
12:08what is the name of the extras of this tent
12:14it is not different
12:15and it is a rubbing of theOnline
12:16you need to move to the tent
12:18and it turns out to the tent
13:21We haven't quite sorted out what they're trying to depict exactly, and I think we'll get to that when we start building models and have the actual things in front of us, and then we can sort out what those images are actually telling us in some cases where it's a bit of a mystery.
13:37But if we can get some of the basic measurements down, that'll help a lot too, because they seem to be proportional.
13:45These bas-reliefs are the only known images of the ancient vessel, but they're not complete.
13:52They only show the boat from one side.
13:55I'm just checking to see.
13:58In Merse-Gawasis, Cheryl found wooden planks and a rudder, whose shape was identical to the one on Hatshepsut's boats.
14:08Do you want the blade width at that point?
14:09Knowing ancient Egyptians averaged 1 meter 65 centimeters in height, Cheryl and Tom conclude the bas-relief has in fact been drawn to scale.
14:20Now they can calculate the length of the ancient ship.
14:26Hatshepsut's boats must have measured a little over 20 meters.
14:30Hatshepsut knew that to rise from the rank of regent to pharaoh, she would have to undergo a spectacular metamorphosis.
14:52To appear as a genuine monarch, she needed to relinquish her femininity, don the short kilt worn by kings, put on a false beard, and wear the pharaoh's crown.
15:05She also knew her success would depend on forging good relationships with the powerful priests of Egypt.
15:25An expedition to the land of Punt, though risky, might succeed in bringing back a valuable gift for the priests.
15:42Large quantities of myrrh, the rare and highly sought-after incense they use daily in their temple ceremonies.
15:55An oracle had been sent by the gods.
16:15Hatshepsut ordered her royal steward Sennenmud to build five ships outfitted with sails.
16:25Three and a half thousand years later, Cheryl and Tom embark on the next stage of their journey.
16:40They've come to study a much larger boat, resting at the base of the Cheops pyramid.
16:49And I think that really, ours is going to look a lot like this, in terms of the general hull shape.
16:54I mean, this is a huge boat.
16:56This impressive 43-meter vessel carried the mummies of pharaohs down the Nile more than 1,000 years before Hatshepsut's reign.
17:05But in some ways, it's very similar.
17:09Cheryl is intrigued by its keel.
17:12It looks so much like the Punt reliefs, where you've got that nice little profile.
17:18Now, these are common, I think, in boats that have to be beached, or that are operating in areas where they may have reefs or other sand areas.
17:25Because if you've got an ordinary keel dropping down there, like a lot of modern sailboats do,
17:31that keel is going to get caught on anything that goes by.
17:34The two researchers continue their investigation at the Cairo Museum.
17:51The display of model boats gives them valuable clues to the shape of the hulls and the earliest sails used in ancient times.
18:01So these are Middle Kingdom models from the very beginning of the Middle Kingdom, around 2100.
18:06An ancient fishing boat, excavated at Dashur, south of Cairo, provides some crucial information.
18:15It's very similar to Hatshepsut's boats.
18:19Same shape, same proportions.
18:24Cheryl and Tom can now calculate the approximate width of their boat.
18:29Almost five meters.
18:36Now it's time to draw it, combining the relics of antiquity with the tools of the 21st century.
19:00In a modeling laboratory in Florida, the boat takes on a concrete form for the first time.
19:06The next challenge is to figure out how to build it, based on the evidence found at Mercer-Kawassi's.
19:29There are a lot of difficulties right now because there are literally thousands of decisions to be made.
19:36How long is this plank?
19:37How wide is this plank?
19:39What angle should this shape be?
19:43Every plank is unique.
19:45We have about 45 planks on each side, and they all fit together in an interlocking way.
19:52They're not straight edges, and that's part of the ancient Egyptian plan for helping the hull to stay integrated,
19:58locked together like a jigsaw puzzle.
20:00One of the amazing things, I think, in Western lines anyway, is that there's no skeleton to build this boat around.
20:19We build the hull plank first, and the planks, the shapes of these planks that I'm working on now,
20:26actually determines the shape of the hull, not the shape of any frames or molds or anything like that.
20:31Is it possible to make one?
20:39If Queen Hipschepsut's ship's got to Punt, it is possible.
20:47Whether we'll be able to do that is another thing.
20:51But I think if you get the company ship right, they may think it's strange,
20:58but it's certainly possible to work something out like that.
21:02Cheryl has asked her friend, Egyptian archaeologist Mohamed Abdelmawid,
21:22to help her find the best shipbuilders.
21:25It seemed an impossible mission, but after searching for several weeks,
21:31he finds some craftsmen keen to take the challenge of building the vessel,
21:35a family of shipwrights living on the Nile, outside Alexandria.
21:47Boat building here is a family affair, but have they the skills to do the job?
21:52The oldest shipwright, Mossad, is the most familiar with traditional building techniques.
22:00Yozri usually works on fishing boats.
22:03Their three brothers, Maruz, Hassan and Hamdi, will soon join them.
22:15The first step is to study Tom's model.
22:18That's the initial few strikes of planking.
22:26Very nice, Tom.
22:26Trying to understand how these all fit together.
22:29These two were very easy.
22:31This one is easy.
22:33These two, very difficult.
22:35Yeah.
22:36It did.
22:37I think with this model, they have been able to see, um, in the three dimensions,
22:52I think with this model they have been able to see in the three dimensions what is perhaps
23:06a little bit confusing in two dimensions, but now they can translate it completely from
23:10the drawing to this and they go, aha, this is how it works.
23:22Thousands of years after Queen Hatshepsut's reign, the shipbuilders of Rashid are summoning
23:37the skills of their ancestors.
23:45The archaeologists know there are no easy shortcuts.
23:49For the project to have credibility, the boat must be built using ancient techniques.
23:57But it's an enormous challenge.
23:59There's no textbook explaining the methods of the distant past.
24:03The techniques have to be reinvented.
24:19Every boat that's ever been built begins with laying the keel and the
24:49precision with which these shipwrights work with these very simple tools, levers, wedges,
24:55strings with the plumb bob.
24:57To see this happening here in Egypt where we have the oldest plank boat, 5,000 years old,
25:03is very special for me.
25:07What I've really enjoyed about this process is seeing this whole shipyard come together
25:16and concentrate on this one piece of work.
25:18It's just really quite remarkable.
25:20They all know exactly what they're doing and here we go again with the third piece.
25:27It's fantastic really.
25:49Three months have passed and it's getting hotter by the day.
25:53The temperature has tipped 40 degrees Celsius.
25:56Work has slowed.
26:01Cheryl and Tom have had to return home.
26:05Mohammed is now in charge of overseeing the construction process.
26:09The Egyptian archaeologist becomes the third pillar of the scientific team.
26:14I'm writing a diary.
26:15I keep a diary, in fact, for the running of the work.
26:19This helps me to remember everything that I do in the morning, especially that it is very hot.
26:25So, it is better to write now because if you return back at your hotel, you will forget everything.
26:34Examination of the planks discovered at Merse-Gawasis reveal the ancient Egyptians didn't use nails or metal.
26:47They fastened the pieces of wood together through a complex mortise and tenon system
26:52that our modern boat builders are attempting to copy.
26:56But as the work progresses, the shape of the planks, which have to be curved along their length and width,
27:02makes things very complicated.
27:10The rows of tenons and mortises must be made with greater, more painstaking precision.
27:16The fit must be perfect.
27:30The archaeologists are convinced the ship will become watertight when the wood swells after being launched.
27:44Two months later, their labour continues, piece by piece.
28:00The
28:28The pharaoh's fleet needed a captain.
28:47Hatshepsut chose Nahizi, a valiant soldier who had served her father in the past.
28:57When he agreed to take on this mission, Nahizi knew he'd be venturing into the dangerous
29:01unknown.
29:02The gods alone would decide his fate.
29:06In order to seek their favors, he had several cartouches of divine protection engraved on
29:11the stone anchors.
29:16And then they've attached it down there, and then they're able to just...
29:20Thirty-five centuries later, David Van is the captain who will follow in Nahizi's wake.
29:25Because it's just...
29:27It's gonna be so tippy, and once it gets rocky, it's gonna...
29:30Before he ventures into the Red Sea, the skipper comes to take a look at his boat.
29:38I've never sailed anything like this.
29:40This is the kind of boat they were sailing up to 4,000 years ago.
29:43Compared to a boat now, of course, the technical term would be a pig.
29:49We would call it a pig now.
29:50You know, it's a beamy, heavy, short, fat boat that's gonna move terribly through the water.
29:56I'm a little worried about this.
30:08I had a crack once in a boat, just a little hairline crack, and the title of my book about
30:13it is A Mile Down, because that boat sank in 5,000 feet of water.
30:18A big 90-foot, very strong steel boat, because of a little crack, and these are really big
30:22cracks, and I've been reassured by a couple of people that it's okay in wood to have these
30:28cracks that, from the drying process, it's normal.
30:31A potentially leaky boat is one challenge.
30:51The rigging is another.
30:55The bas-reliefs at Dier El Bari show dozens of intertwined ropes and complex knots keeping
31:01the sail attached to the yard.
31:04What is most puzzling is how the ropes are wrapped around the mast.
31:12No other visual image of these boats exists.
31:17The only hope is that these ancestral techniques have transcended the ages.
31:25Cheryl travels from Alexandria to nearby Lake Barolus in search of a clue.
31:30So, at Barolus, when I first saw these boats, the first thing that I saw was the short
31:36mast and the yoke on the mast, because suddenly I could see the relief from the temple and exactly
31:45what the function of that yoke around the mast is for.
31:49Because all we see is the little twisted line, and in fact, it's the backstay, I think.
31:55As you can see right now, I see something out there, and there's no backstay, so that mast joke is substituting
31:59for backstay.
32:00Lake Barolus has some strange-looking flat sailboats with short masts and huge sails.
32:14The way the mast is fixed to the hull intrigues the archaeologist.
32:21An enormous knot, made up of several ropes, reminds her of the rigging seen in the bas-reliefs
32:27at D.A.L.
32:27Burry.
32:28To me, this is just amazing.
32:30It's another one of those times when you can touch the past.
32:33Right.
32:34It's amazing, yeah.
32:35Thousands of years ago.
32:36Yeah.
32:37The very same system.
32:38People are using the same forces, the same mechanics, slightly different materials.
32:42Yeah.
32:43So we'll have the mast and then two pieces of wood on either side, and then the tie going
32:47around the middle, and that should keep the wood from breaking, and it should be a very
32:51strong attach point for the line.
32:53Okay.
32:54Wah.
32:55Wah.
32:56Wah.
32:57Wah.
32:58Wah.
32:59Wah.
33:00Wah.
33:01Wah.
33:02Wah.
33:03Wah.
33:04Wah.
33:05Wah.
33:06Wah.
33:07Wah.
33:08Wah.
33:09Wah.
33:10Wah.
33:11Wah.
33:12Wah.
33:13Wah.
33:14Wah.
33:15Wah.
33:16Wah.
33:17Wah.
33:18Wah.
33:19Wah.
33:20Wah.
33:21Wah.
33:22Wah.
33:23Wah.
33:24Wah.
33:25Wah.
33:26Wah.
33:27Wah.
33:28Wah.
33:29Wah.
33:30I don't know.
34:00I don't know.
34:30A few minutes after the boat is launched, water seeps in through the tiniest cracks in the hull.
34:39According to the archaeologists, the wood should absorb the water and begin to swell.
34:43They predict it will be two weeks before the hull reaches maximum expansion and becomes watertight.
34:51The boat has now been in the water for two weeks.
35:10After 12 hours, all of the water is finally pumped from the hull.
35:18Mohammed leaves the boat.
35:20But is it watertight now?
35:22Mohammed leaves the boat.
35:43We have a problem.
35:50At the beginning it was very good.
35:53The construction, the choice of the road,
35:58the efficiency of the work, the duration of the work.
36:03There was a relationship between quality and speed
36:11which was very, very good.
36:14But that doesn't mean that there is a problem.
36:17We have to find a solution.
36:27Archaeologists have never found any evidence
36:30to show that the Egyptians ever corked their boats.
36:37So how can they make the boat watertight
36:39using an authentic ancient technique?
36:42What did the Egyptians do?
36:48Muhammad and Tom will find the answer to their problem
36:50right in the shipyard itself.
36:56So this is linen fibre?
36:58Yeah.
36:59I wonder what would happen if we put this between our planks.
37:04For hundreds of years, people here have been stuffing plant fibre
37:11into the cracks between planks of wood as a method of waterproofing.
37:17In ancient times, other seafaring peoples, such as the Greeks,
37:22used beeswax to make their boats watertight.
37:25So why not use beeswax as well?
37:27With no other alternative or additional archaeological evidence,
37:32this becomes their chosen option.
37:37The boat has now been under construction for 10 months.
37:40The final touches are being made.
37:42Two rudders are carved out of huge pieces of wood.
37:46Cotton sails, each measuring 15 metres in width, are woven.
37:52In the streets of Rashid, a dozen men are busy making the rigging.
38:00Using strands of hemp fibre,
38:02they twist together several kilometres of rope in different thicknesses.
38:06Oaxики of hy хотiumesses
38:13Oh, Isis!
38:15Oh, Isis!
38:17Oh, Isis!
38:18Oh
38:48Oh
39:18.
39:20.
39:23.
39:28.
39:33.
39:35.
39:38.
39:40.
39:46I'm really amazed to be at this point, to see this mast up finally, and I just, I mean we've been waiting, waiting, organizing this, and finally, okay, here it is, the mast is up, now I'm just anxious to get on with the rest of it, you know, why do we have to break for lunch?
40:15I want to get the yachts on board, sort out this mess of lines, make some water out of it, and just get on with it.
40:27Before it leaves the shipyard, the boat is christened Min, in honor of a fertility god in the Egyptian pantheon.
40:45A few days before the original expedition set sail, Queen Hatshepsut had the temple priests create a statue of herself with the god Amun.
40:54It would be offered as a token of friendship by the expedition's captain to the inhabitants of the land of Punt.
41:03The winds were blowing in the right direction when messengers brought the news to the Queen that her fleet was finally ready to sail.
41:24All they required was her signal.
41:28She gave the order for the ships to depart.
41:31Elia.
41:48Elia.
41:49There we go.
41:52Elia.
41:54Good, yes.
41:56Elia.
41:57Elia.
41:58almost a year after construction began Min is ready for her maiden voyage what
42:15seemed an impossible challenge has become reality the boat engraved in bus
42:22relief at the air albari has come back to life 3,500 years after its first
42:29expedition
42:38but now they are out on the open sea new questions arise will the boat weather the
42:45gusty winds is it strong enough to withstand the swells of the Red Sea
42:52will it find the route Hatshepsut's fleet took to reach the land of Punt
43:11yeah well I want to just go straight downwind first see how it is what the
43:16speed is and then we can change a little see how the speed is yeah just try to
43:20learn today
43:28one of the crews primary concerns is the rigging the archaeologists have
43:33recreated as faithfully as possible the sail and mast system seen in the Dierre
43:39albari bus relief but getting a hang of the ropes isn't easy when you look at the
43:47sail looks like we have a lot of lines going and then it's very confusing and
43:52complicated the 16 below and six above we never change those they're just stay
43:56they stay in place so it's actually much simpler rig than it looks like when you
44:00first look at it we only have four lines to pull up the sail and and two lines
44:05really to control side to side and two others that we don't really use but that's
44:09it so it's really simple actually much simpler than it looks
44:12the boat seems to be going really well right now
44:15we're certainly surfing on some of these swells down to you know at seven eight knots sometimes
44:22and getting a nice push from behind with the wind it's going really well
44:27so
44:38pin's voyage is a far away echo of the journey Hatshepsut's fleet may have undertaken
44:44don't go hard on it at sundown nahisi's fleet probably lowered sails and came back to short
44:54arrest get their bearings find water and cook tonight min is at anchor in a sheltered bay
45:06how would Hatshepsut's crew have felt were they anxious about the sailing conditions
45:16the strength of the breeze or where they were headed did they fear for their lives
45:36Hatshepsut nervously awaited nahisi's return the accounts of past expeditions made her
45:47anxious nahisi had warned her that she'd be waiting months before receiving news
45:58would her five ships succeed in reaching the land of the gods and return safely
46:08uh most of us didn't sleep at all last night min was rocking really wildly and there was a lot of
46:35wind uh and today there's too much wind to do the full sail there's about 20 knots of wind and that's
46:43too much for our main sail so we'll have to take that down and put up just a very small sail and I
46:50think it'll be rougher on the rudders today I think there'll be bigger waves um so not not a lucky turn
46:57of events for us because we've only had a couple days on this boat and it'd be nice if the conditions
47:01could remain a little lighter so we'll see anticipating bad conditions David and Cheryl had a second heavy
47:15weather sail made its smaller surface area should work better in strong winds
47:20however the crew is apprehensive about going out to sea this morning will men cope in the wind and waves
47:33the success of the project depends on her ability to withstand these conditions
47:40so
47:42so
47:47so
47:52so
47:54so
47:59Okay, we need to do something pretty quickly here.
48:29The waves were about, we had about six to eight feet earlier.
48:42We did have a few bigger ones, and then a few became in sets of two or three, and pushed
48:47us around quite a bit so that our starboard rail was even with the water, and we took
48:51some water over the port rail, so that was certainly exciting.
48:54I thought she rode the wave really well.
49:03The wall was like a pig, but you'd expect that with this whole ship, really.
49:10What I'm really amazed at is I'm not seasick.
49:17At the end of the day, the cracking sounds at the rear of the boat are the only signal
49:32she's been through some tough sailing conditions.
49:33A few waves did throw her off balance, but Min was able to reach the place where they'd
49:39planned to camp.
49:41For the crew, this is a first success.
49:48We had a few minutes today, when we were coming into harbor tonight, where it was very tempting,
49:55and the first mate said to me, he said, you know, we could just put some lights on this ship
50:02and take off.
50:03He said, we could sail a long way.
50:04We could sail a long way.
50:33We could sail a long way.
50:38The archives in Egypt contain a papyrus on which it is written that, 400 years before
50:44Hatshepsut, a steward named Henu went on an expedition to the land of Punt.
50:53The pharaoh, her royal steward, Senenwut, and her captain, Nahisi, must have known about
50:58this journey.
51:03Henu's papyrus describes the events of his journey, but it does not reveal the location
51:09of the land of Punt.
51:20Studies of wind and current patterns for the Red Sea show that they travel southward
51:25from June to September, making them favorable for departing vessels.
51:31Is Punt to be found somewhere in Africa, modern Sudan, or in Eritrea?
51:37Or is it on the other side of the Red Sea, in Yemen, or the Arabian Peninsula?
51:44To answer this question, Cheryl and Tom need to know what Min is capable of doing.
51:53Can she sail against the wind, allowing her to reach the far side of the Red Sea?
51:58Or is she only able to sail dead before the wind, forcing her to remain close to the coast?
52:11For modern boats, it is the rudder combined with the action of the sail that enables the crew to change direction.
52:20For Min, the matter is more complicated because of her shallow keel.
52:25Her crew needs to find out whether she can change course by filling or flattening the sail,
52:30and by turning it in different directions in relation to the hull.
52:35A new experiment gets underway.
52:38Six-three! Six!
53:03Six-two! Six!
53:10After a few days of tests and adjustments, Min is able to do much more than run before the wind.
53:17She tacks, points her stern towards the open sea, and heads back towards the coast.
53:22The fact that the boat can make progress despite variations in the wind tells us the land of Punt could have been Sudan or Yemen.
53:43Min pursues her journey.
53:50The strong wind that was blowing for several days has now eased, leaving a heavy swell that challenges the boat and her crew.
54:00But they're in luck again. The swell settles and their journey continues.
54:25Day after day, the crew put Min to the test.
54:31They rediscover the actions of the ancient seafarers, as if they had sailed back through time.
54:37They were in a world that they knew much better than I know.
54:51And they had the ability to stop and wait when the winds are up like today.
54:56And yet they also knew where they were going, exactly what they would find there.
55:01And still, it was a huge journey for them.
55:05The chance to repeat one small part of it, even if we can't go all the way to the land of Punt, brings all of us that much closer.
55:15To really appreciating the ingenuity, the creativity, the intelligence, the skills, the craftsmanship of our ancient predecessors.
55:25And it's a very humbling experience.
55:32I am certain who is going to get involved in this building.
55:36It's kind of a Audi indoor air, to build, connect with each other in the idols of the landscape.
55:38So it's the natural magnet that pipesнуть around in the middle.
55:41It means that to me, the lights are so beautiful and beautiful, that this isn't a value.
55:45And that to me, we've found that this building is the most measurable for the herd.
55:49On Monday, 2019, Mexico is Har цвет Sc iba.
55:51The dreaming is a world that tässä parks through communications, Disney, Sam headlines and Atlantic Corps,
55:55This isn't a unlimited kennedy since mirac Fontaine's view of the city.
55:57So I didn't want to collaborations in some parts of generations.
55:59When Hatshepsut's fleet returned, most of the population made it to the shore to see
56:11the ships laden with extraordinary treasures.
56:17There was a dazzling procession of precious woods, rings of gold, semi-precious gems,
56:23ivories, animal hides and ostrich feathers, and a menagerie of animals, giraffes, panthers and cheetahs.
56:32And among these marvels, the most valuable of all, were the 31 live myrrh trees and other
56:39fragrant resins that Nihizi had brought back from Punt.
56:53Hatshepsut had all that she wished for.
57:02The precious incense from Punt had gained her the favors of the priests of Amun.
57:08Their appeasement allowed her to rule unchallenged for more than two decades.
57:18Hatshepsut, whose memory was desecrated and whose name was expunged from the roll call
57:23of pharaohs, could have been wiped forever from Egypt's history.
57:28Could she have imagined that many thousands of years after her death, her fleet's voyage
57:33would be so lovingly recreated, and her legacy raised from oblivion?
57:48Coming up tonight, secret scandal and the absolute truth.
57:54What do our diaries reveal about us?
57:57Richard E. Grant investigates in the first part of a brand new series.
58:00Dear Diary is next.
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