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00:00Deep beneath Egypt's eastern desert...
00:13Archaeologists discover a section of an ancient emerald mine,
00:17untouched for 2,000 years.
00:21It could be like a kind of photograph
00:23of a mining workday inside of the mines.
00:27The team follows the perilous trail of miners
00:30who risked their lives to find precious resources
00:33that made Egypt wealthy and powerful.
00:36Over 2,000 years, Egypt was ruled by dynasties of native-born Egyptian pharaohs.
00:51Khufu, Tutankhamun, Ramses the Great.
00:54For centuries, these pharaohs also controlled the resource-rich lands
00:57of their southern neighbors, the Nubians.
01:00Then, everything changed.
01:02It changed.
01:03It changed.
01:04It changed.
01:05It changed.
01:06It changed.
01:07It changed.
01:08It changed.
01:09It changed.
01:10It changed.
01:11It changed.
01:12It changed.
01:13The Nubian dynasty, the Kushites, took control of Egypt for 100 years.
01:28Today, archaeologists hunt for clues to how these Nubians wrested power
01:35from the mighty Egyptian pharaohs.
01:39look at that this is really cool actually they investigate the complex
01:45relationship between the Egyptians and their southern conquerors so here's my
01:50treasure and explore the legacy the Kushite kings left on this great
01:56civilization unbelievable
02:02deep in the eastern desert in an area known as wadi secate
02:11Spanish archaeologist Juan Ullier Guzman and his team are just beginning their dig season
02:18I am in love with the center it's an amazing amazing place they're driving up into the
02:28mountains to a vast warren of emerald mines that were on the border between Egypt and Nubia in
02:36the mines the idea is to continue increasing our knowledge of how they extracted the emeralds
02:40any stuff that we can find inside the mine is interesting Joanne wants to understand what
02:46life was like for the miners here and what it took to supply the Egyptian Empire with a vast
02:52quantity of emeralds it demanded to the ancient Egyptians the vivid green of emeralds symbolized
03:03fertility allegedly making them a favorite of Queen Cleopatra the richest source was emerald mountain in
03:14in the eastern desert which was riddled with hundreds of mines like the one Joanne has come to explore
03:21are we ready yalla this area has at least 150 mines their shafts stretch for miles beneath the mountains
03:37Joanne is mapping each mine one by one the view is amazing as you can see it's certainly amazing
03:47because you have all these mountains all these wadis so it's worth it to come here I think sure in the
03:54largest mine they found so far it's taken two full seasons to document half a mile of the winding
04:01tunnels today they will enter a completely unexplored section in the mines it's always exciting because
04:09you never know what will you find inside in 80 degree heat they begin by digging out the 10 by 5 foot
04:24entrance to the mine we just found here in the rubble two fragments of papyrus with some letters which
04:42is really really amazing because we haven't anything like that in all the area this confirms that this
04:48is a really a special mine oh it's amazing wow in Luxor Egyptologist Arto Belegdanian is traveling
05:07across the Nile to the Theban necropolis he's searching for clues to how the Egyptians ruled over the Nubians
05:16tomb TT 40 dates to Egypt's golden age the new kingdom a period of total domination over their
05:26southern neighbors look at this place the preservation is remarkable the colors are so vibrant and so many
05:39cool details the walls of the tomb depict stunning scenes of life in the Egyptian royal court and for
05:50Arto one scene stands out in ancient Egyptian art you can always tell who's Egyptian and who is not and
06:00and these guys are clearly not Egyptians and they are bringing gifts the products of their lands including cattle
06:10shields a chariot very prized kind of possession indeed the procession appears to end at the feet of the king
06:22and that king and that king is none other than the famous Tutankhamun these are all clearly tribute bearers and
06:33right here look at that the inscription reads noob that is the Egyptian word for gold
06:43who are these foreigners bringing gold to the feet of the Egyptian king
06:50Arto searches the ceiling for clues
06:55look at that oh absolutely beautiful and we have here the name of the deceased the tomb owner
07:06and right there Aminhotep Khomei and right there his most prominent title the king's son of Cush
07:14in other words he was responsible for the governance of the land of Cush on behalf of the king
07:23so the tribute bearers over there therefore they're Cushites
07:29Cush was a small but highly developed kingdom south of Egypt in the region known as Nubia modern-day Sudan
07:38rich in gold and the highly valued products of inner Africa Cush was ruled by the Egyptian pharaohs
07:47who demanded these resources in return for peace
07:50as viceroy to Cush Aminhotep Hui was the pharaoh's diplomat in Nubia
07:57a physical reminder of the might of Egypt
08:00in the time of Aminhotep Hui Cush was the main source of Egypt's gold
08:07and it was part of his job to make sure it stayed that way
08:11these images depict a time when the Egyptian pharaohs were at the height of their power
08:20but they were right to keep a close eye on their neighbors to the south
08:26because well 500 years later they would be the ones in charge
08:33so how did the smaller kingdom of Cush manage to turn the tables on the mighty Egyptians
08:40next Arto wants to explore how the pharaohs lost their grip on power
08:47the island of Elephantine close to as one on the river Nile
08:57it is pharaonic Egypt in a nutshell privilege to work on such a side because compared within Egypt is
09:06is unique German archaeologist Martin Seilhoof is investigating a settlement on the island
09:14that sits on the southern border between ancient Egypt and the kingdom of Nubia
09:18his team is excavating a massive 13-foot thick mud brick wall that dates to the earliest pharaohs
09:292,000 years before the Kushite takeover the wall might be comparable to medieval town walls in Europe
09:38that is defining a space and also controlling the space inside and also outside the island of
09:49Elephantine would have been highly prized by both the ancient Egyptians and the Nubians trade routes up and
09:57down the river Nile could be controlled from here
10:00a forensic examination of the perimeter wall could tell Martin's team more about how the relationship
10:09between the Egyptians and the Nubians developed
10:12they plan to investigate the materials used to build the wall
10:17we're just taking one month break out to analyze its recipe
10:23in Luxor
10:32Arto wants to find out how the Kushites who ruled Egypt's southern neighbor Nubia managed to seize control of the land of the pharaohs
10:41he's come to Karnak temple complex in the ancient capital of Thebes
10:48over the course of the thousands of years of history here every Pharaoh who could
10:56would add to this place in a show of wealth power and piety
11:03although most of this temple was constructed during the new kingdom
11:08when pharaonic power was at its height there is still astonishing evidence here of how this power began to crumble
11:17in the small temple of Khonsu built towards the end of this period
11:25he finds a clue
11:27look at that
11:34this is really cool actually
11:36the figure on the right
11:38that's the god of moon
11:39the one with the tall twin plumes on his head
11:42in front of him
11:44normally you would have
11:46the king presenting offerings
11:48coming into the presence of a god
11:50one of his peers essentially
11:52but
11:53that's not what we have here in fact
11:56a different figure is depicted where the pharaoh usually stands
12:01it reads
12:03the chief priest of a moon
12:06Harryhor
12:07the son of a moon
12:10Harryhor by placing himself in these scenes here
12:14being portrayed as the one physically giving the offerings to the gods
12:20he is portraying himself as king
12:26in 1069 BCE
12:29Pharaoh Ramses the 11th
12:31facing declining harvests and famine in Egypt
12:34was losing his grip on power
12:37a high priest called Harryhor
12:39leader of a cult called the priests of our moon
12:42challenged the authority of Ramses
12:45vying for control of the kingdom
12:51Egypt was now ruled by the pharaohs in the north
12:54and the priests in the south
12:57the split through the Empire
12:59into three centuries of chaos
13:02and this instability gave Egypt's oppressed southern neighbors
13:06the Kushites
13:07an opportunity to take control
13:09around 750 BCE
13:13for the first time
13:15a Kushite king took southern Egypt without a fight
13:20soon after
13:21his successor
13:22King Pianchi
13:23marched his army further north
13:25all the way
13:26to the Mediterranean
13:29a six-foot-high victory stealer
13:32reveals the many Egyptian rulers
13:34he vanquished
13:36Jedhamun
13:37Iwefach
13:39Shashank
13:41Osorkan
13:43and finally
13:44here
13:46Tefnacht
13:48it was by exploiting
13:49this sort of division
13:51and having
13:52his own allies
13:53as well
13:54that Pianchi
13:55this Kushite ruler
13:56a non-Egyptian ruler
13:58managed to step in
14:00and claim
14:01the title
14:02of
14:03kingship
14:04pharaoh
14:05quote
14:06I
14:07am the king
14:09the representation
14:10of
14:11God
14:12Pianchi
14:13the Kushite dynasty
14:15was now the one
14:16in control
14:19Pianchi
14:20was one of six
14:21Kushite kings
14:22who ruled over Egypt
14:23for almost 100 years
14:25so how did
14:28an invading foreign
14:29force
14:30hold on to power
14:31in a kingdom
14:32as steeped in ancient
14:33tradition
14:34as Egypt
14:36to find out
14:37Arto needs
14:38evidence of how
14:39the Kushite kings ruled
14:41once they held
14:42the Egyptian throne
14:49in the eastern desert
14:50at Wadi Sekhet
14:52Joanne and his team
14:55are clearing an entrance
14:56to this vast
14:57emerald mine
14:59this is really
15:00a good start
15:02analysis of the
15:03papyrus fragments
15:04they've discovered
15:05shows they are inscribed
15:07with Greek letters
15:08the language of
15:09Roman Egypt
15:12the team has
15:13uncovered evidence
15:14that the Romans
15:15held these mines
15:16sometime after
15:17the fall
15:18of the last
15:19Egyptian pharaoh
15:20Queen Cleopatra
15:22this is one of the
15:23questions we had in there
15:24was there some kind of
15:25recording system
15:26for the emeralds
15:27extract in there
15:28well it seems that
15:29probably yes
15:30so hopefully we'll find
15:31more of those
15:32the mine entrance
15:34is clear
15:35and the archaeologists
15:36venture inside
15:37for the first time
15:38this season
15:43there we go
15:44they squeeze through holes
15:52some as tight as 15 inches
15:54in diameter
15:55dug by the ancient
15:56miners
15:59in the tunnels
16:00they find small
16:01ledges
16:02chiseled into the
16:03walls
16:04where the Roman miners
16:08balanced their oil
16:09lamps as they worked
16:10Joanne's team reaches one
16:15of the main chambers
16:16from here tunnels lead
16:18off in all directions
16:19there is all these veins
16:22of mineral which are where
16:24the guys were actually
16:25trying to find the emeralds
16:29the tunnel walls reveal
16:31the working methods of the
16:32miners
16:33scrape marks are left
16:35where they used iron chisels
16:38and picks
16:39to carve out the rock
16:40as they followed the veins
16:44the miners were digging
16:45through schist
16:46a flaky stone
16:47that's easy to split
16:49so it's inherently weak
16:51and prone to collapse
16:55David
16:56Yes
16:57We're waiting
16:58David
16:59after almost an hour of
17:10crawling through the narrow
17:12tunnels
17:13Joanne reaches a blockage
17:17You
17:20can see
17:23the veins
17:24that they were following
17:25in there
17:26they duck to match
17:28much and the ceiling collapsed the tunnel behind the collapse may have been sealed off for almost
17:352 000 years if this is the case the team wants to see what the miners may have left behind
17:44if they escaped the collapse we have everything untouched inside it could be like a kind of
17:50photograph of a mining work day inside of the mines they've worked over two seasons documenting
17:56this vast mine this is the first sealed section they have discovered oh it's perfect
18:26on the island of elephantine at egypt's border with ancient nubia
18:34archaeobotanist jessica isak is removing a mud brick from the vast perimeter wall
18:42her analysis of mud bricks on this island so far suggests the materials used could indicate the
18:48status of a structure i'm looking for the organic material in it and also the inorganic one so i
18:55know what kind of a mixture it was the recipe changes in mad bricks depending on the structure
19:06for smaller buildings like houses ancient egyptians mixed mud from the nile with sand straw and small
19:13pieces of ceramic as this mixture dried in the molds it could shrink and crack weakening the bricks
19:26bricks made with extra organic material like dung and grass were more flexible so produced fewer cracks
19:36these bricks were stronger and more durable ideal for military or royal structures
19:42thank you jessica's analysis of the brick could tell her more about how the resources on this island were used
19:54in the construction of this wall okay that's enough perfect what we do is we just soak it in water
20:04the island of elephantine had limited organic resources
20:07it's founded on granite making it hard to grow crops on most of the island it's possible that the
20:16island's precious organic material would have been prioritized for larger state-run building projects
20:23like a city wall okay so the mud brick dissolved now they sieve the mud separating it into two grades of
20:35material heavy and light i'm trying to also figure out how did the landscape look because the mud brick
20:43captured like a little time capsule all the information from the environment around it for me it's information
20:50about how people lived how the environment looked how they managed and adapt to the environment
20:56tomorrow these bags will be dry and jessica can analyze the brick recipe which might give clues
21:04to the purpose of this settlement on the frontier with nubia
21:11in the eastern desert at wadi saccade oh my goodness joan and his team are the first to enter this area
21:21of the emerald mine on the border of egypt and ancient nubia for almost 2 000 years look joan roman basket
21:34i told you it must be some baskets it's perfect it's totally good and there are three more inside
21:41three more yes two of them are in a pretty good state but this one is the best one the best one look at
21:49the team has uncovered a cache of stunning hand-woven baskets from the roman period there are no skeletons
21:57which suggests the miners escaped hurriedly leaving their baskets as the roof collapsed
22:11extracting these fragile 2 000 year old baskets will take great care
22:18they have to be very careful it's very fragile
22:26but it's it seems also intact basically it's perfect you can see the handles and everything
22:34unbelievable unbelievable this is clear that they were made not to carry heavy things you see
22:45thin handles just to carry precious things like emeralds for instance not to carry the debris or stones of
22:54course the veins of mineral containing the emerald were too hard for the miners hand tools so they dug out
23:03the softer schist around the veins to extract the emerald carried in these baskets
23:10the three baskets are too large and too fragile to safely maneuver through the narrow tunnels to the
23:17surface the team has no choice but to carefully document them in situ and leave them in this safe dry
23:25environment
23:31wow
23:32there are names here
23:39amazing it was key that they were attaching this tax to baskets
23:43it was a property or the work of ellie's
23:47ellie's ellie and phoebes even the miners lunch has been preserved in these dry conditions
23:58remains of onions they find the stopper of an amphora for water or wine and a harness for carrying the amphora
24:07this is a photograph of a mining day exactly this is what they were using one day while they were
24:15working it's everything in there untouched it's like a mining pompeii you know because they left
24:22all as was one day two thousand years ago this undisturbed area of the emerald mine
24:30is shedding new light not only on the ancient working practices but also on the people who worked here
24:38and the incredible finds keep coming
24:41in luxor
24:54arto is searching for evidence of how egypt's new kushite rulers having overthrown the great pharaohs
25:01held on to power for almost 100 years
25:04he's come to the vast temples of medinet habu where the kushite kings might have left clues
25:14now you might think that an invading force would want to erase evidence of past glories
25:20but that's not what the kushite kings seem to have done
25:23ramses the third built medinet habu around 1175 bce as a temple to the god amun
25:39a maze of giant halls and spacious courtyards
25:45it featured monumental gates adorned with scenes of the king's victories in battle
25:54instead of demolishing this monument to the egyptian god the kushites added to it
26:00building chapels and dedicating them to the wives of amun
26:10the god's wives of amun were not themselves goddesses they were real people with real economic power
26:19kind of like a female equivalent to the high priest the office of wife of amun had existed since the
26:30beginning of egypt's golden age
26:35but by the time of kushite rule their influence had increased to the point where they were almost on a
26:41pa with a king look at this one right here this is the god's wife of amun amenirdis even though she's
26:53depicted as an egyptian we know that she was the sister of king piankhi so she was in fact kushite
27:04and she was installed into this position by her brother as a power play
27:13the invading kushites did not want to destroy egyptian traditions
27:19instead they worked inside the structures of egyptian politics seizing power from within
27:25they didn't want the egyptians to see them as conquerors but rather as the rightful inheritors
27:34of power from her position of power amenirdis could wield influence on pianki's behalf
27:45but with egypt secured what did the kushite kings do with their power
27:50on the island of elephantine at the ancient border between egypt and nubia
28:02this is fine the mud from the brick is dry and ready for jessica to analyze so here's my treasure
28:10the lightest sediment is most likely to contain organic material we have fragments of straw
28:21gracchis and little seeds charred seeds also it's a lot this mud brick was very rich in organic material
28:31they used the processed chaff from bakeries and from also um yeah dung
28:37it's clear this was no ordinary mud brick the plant material allowed the brick to flex as it dried
28:47reducing cracks and strengthening the wall
28:53the limited organic resources on this island appear to have been prioritized for this wall
28:59suggesting it was part of a state-run building program
29:03perhaps to protect against attacks from nubia to the south
29:09what i love about working in egypt is that the material is so perfectly preserved due to the dry
29:15conditions i sometimes find onion skins 3 000 years old onion skins but they look like the ones that i
29:22threw away in my apartment two weeks ago it's breathtaking in my opinion if this was a military outpost on the
29:29frontier with nubia what can the other buildings here tell them about what went on within the fortress walls
29:38martin yes i'm coming
29:42oh wow
29:43on the island of elephantine the ancient gateway on the nile between egypt and nubia
29:57if we open the ground we don't know exactly what would come out
30:00the team is now digging down to the bedrock to investigate the earliest structures here
30:06this is like the goal of the season to find as much as possible the first building phases in this area
30:15martin's team has uncovered the bases of two grain silos built to store barley and emma to make bread
30:23and beer for the inhabitants of the town the silo which is already founded on top of the granite over
30:30there we can say okay this is the first phase of building just wanted you to see what we found what
30:38do we have embedded in these earliest structures archaeologist fernanda is finding pottery that allows
30:46the team to date the beginnings of the settlement it seems we have a mar clay vessel storage vessel oh wow
30:54the rim and other bits of the vessel tell us about the form the type and thus the dating so it is for
31:03us like the safest way of how to date within a layered the earliest structures date to shortly before the
31:14oldest sections of the wall confirming the wall was built around a pre-existing settlement
31:20they also uncover the base of an ancient furnace at the bottom there was not so much heat it started
31:29somewhere from here it's getting the orange color this is probably reworking you have old copper tools
31:38and you've made it again to make a new cover tool these discoveries seem at odds with the theory that this
31:45was a fortress the furnace could not produce heat high enough to forge weapons and they can only find
31:53two grain silos not enough to feed an army although the thick perimeter wall appears it might have had a
32:03defensive function inside the perimeter martin has found no evidence of military activity
32:11instead he thinks this was a place of trade between egypt and nubia
32:19a lot of objects which came from south of egypt ivory ebony wood pearls and also ostrich feathers
32:27they must have been traded here through elephantine
32:33the wall and settlement inside date to the earliest years of a unified egyptian state
32:39the fortified wall is likely to have been a royal effort to distinguish an egyptian border
32:46laying claim to the island of elephantine as a trading post both sides benefited from that exchange
32:53but the ferroic orniculture taking here the island of elephantine in order to have the control of what is
33:00going in and what is going out martin's work is adding valuable evidence to our picture of this ancient border
33:10over two thousand years from the earliest pharaohs until the reign of the kushite kings
33:16the egyptians dominated the nubians using diplomacy and trade to exert control over their southern neighbors
33:30in wadi secade 150 feet below the eastern desert
33:35johan's team has found a stunning silver ring in this untouched area of the emerald mine
34:03it's amazing you know found anything like that this is typical for miners to work with these tools
34:11with a ring is dangerous so it was hanging on a tiny rope you see the ring was clearly precious to the
34:18miner unable to stop to find it as they escaped the collapsing tunnel there is like an inscription
34:25to understand the significance of this find joanne will make a close analysis of the objects back at
34:33camp it's the most amazing finding we made in our mind so far all these things together in the same
34:39spot because probably they were running away and leaving everything this opens a whole new perspective
34:45in this area of course unbelievable in just one morning joanne and his team have made their greatest
34:53discovery in the seven years they have been exploring these mines a mining moment frozen in time the
35:03increasing in the knowledge of the how these people work and live in there it's uh completely astonishing so
35:07yeah for sure we'll dedicate the rest of the season it's just this part of the mine for sure
35:20in the team's research tent joanne and his wife delia are logging and analyzing the mining treasure trove
35:29they have uncovered okay so this is an amazing piece it is a silver ring it was found just
35:37close to the baskets and at some point he lose it and of course probably this was in this moment where
35:43the ceiling collapsed and this guy had to run out from for his life and he left the ring in there and
35:51never came back the detail on the ring is exquisite at the beginning we thought it was some kind of
35:57horseman but now that it's cleaner we think that it's probably a lion a lion eating someone or some animal
36:03and this is interesting because it's not a typical ring that you should expect on a guy working on a
36:08mine it's a silver ring it's a good ring so it gives some ideas about that maybe another general idea of
36:14poor people slaves working in the mines maybe it's not the case joanne and delia hope the ceramic name
36:23tags found with the baskets can tell them more about the individual miners they have greater names on
36:30them so we think that those were kind of tax attached to the baskets to know who was the person that was
36:36extracting the these emeralds and taking them out and this is extremely interesting because it is showing
36:41that it was a strict register of all the work that they were doing inside so that can get paid in
36:48relationship with this amount of emeralds the discovery of these name tags challenges modern views of this
36:55type of work we have here phibes and these two are from ellis we think that maybe this could be a female
37:09in the eastern desert at wadi secate these name tags suggest women once worked in the emerald mines here
37:18if we can confirm that that would be extremely interesting because it would help to break another
37:23of these typical ideas about the people working in the mines that they could only be men until today's
37:28discovery it was generally assumed only men braved the harsh conditions in these emerald mines
37:36but it looks like women also came here to get their share of the riches
37:43it's a remarkable find
37:45we could show that uh in fact there were female working inside of the mines joan thinks these finds
37:55date to after the last great pharaoh queen cleopatra when the romans ruled egypt
38:03now he wants to find out if the nubians ever challenged the mighty roman empire for these valuable borderlands
38:09so he's come to the temple of secate a huge complex of chapels and shrines carved into the rock
38:22it was important for them to have the protection of the god so they created this building one of the
38:27most impressive uh religious structures probably in all the eastern desert we have materials coming from
38:32the egyptian tradition we have materials from the greco-roman tradition and we have also materials from this
38:37nubian blemian tradition which means that these blemys arrived here and they reused this temple again as a religious space
38:46the evidence here shows it was a nubian tribe called the blemys who finally conquered this region
38:53after a power struggle lasting hundreds of years
38:55the blemys were nomads from lower nubia who took over the emerald mines from the romans around 400 ce
39:13while the romans had greatly expanded the mines the blemys continued to mine emeralds from the existing
39:19tunnels they wanted to control probably the economic resources of the area which were huge probably
39:26still with an important relationship of trading with romans for sure but being let's say that the bosses in
39:32the area the blemys patiently waited until the roman empire weakened before claiming the riches of the
39:40eastern desert just as a thousand years earlier their nubian cousins the kushites had taken on the egyptian
39:49empire and won the throne
39:55back in luxor
39:58arto has returned to karnak temple in his search for evidence of the nubian kushite king's approach to
40:05the ruling egypt
40:09deep in the heart of the temple complex he finds an immense column
40:14this here is both beautiful and awe-inspiring in equal measure
40:22this gigantic column of stone is shaped like a graceful papyrus plant
40:29it was built by king taharka and i can see his cartouche right there taharka was the fourth kushite
40:38king to rule egypt by building this here taharka was showing his reverence to egyptian gods
40:46so clearly the kushite kings were very big on respecting ancient egyptian religion
40:51during taharka's reign karnak was the most sacred temple complex in egypt and it's here that he decided
41:02to make his mark the kushite king erected two rows of columns shaped like papyrus plants
41:10symbolizing youth life and vigor he paved the area with luxurious rose-colored granite
41:17in the center he placed a polished calcite shrine perhaps to support the boat of amun
41:26part of an ancient egyptian religious ceremony this was quite possibly all part of the kushite's grand plan
41:38egypt was in crisis for most of the 300 years since the collapse of the new kingdom
41:45so when the kushite kings came in they did not see themselves as conquerors but restorers
41:53rather than impose nubian culture on their egyptian subjects the kushites chose instead to reboot
42:00egyptian traditions breathing new life into the kingdom the nubians had come to adopt ancient
42:08egyptian egyptian theology they had begun to worship ancient egyptian deities it was a renaissance
42:18one question remains if the kushites brought back stability and tradition to ancient egypt
42:24why have they been so overlooked by historians there was this prejudice by early archaeologists
42:34how could these black pharaohs from the south of egypt how could they possibly match the ancient
42:40egyptians but here's the thing the more that people have studied nubian culture the more of an
42:48appreciation has evolved for these great kings so maybe it is time to give them a bit more credit
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