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00:00Archaeologists make a remarkable discovery in Egypt's Valley of the Kings.
00:06They discovered the burial chamber to an undiscovered tomb.
00:12But instead of finding the remains of a burial, the tomb was mostly empty.
00:18Is it possible that this mysterious empty burial ground
00:22was once the final resting place of a female member of the Egyptian royal family?
00:27Extraordinary structures are revealed in the Jordanian desert.
00:32The sheer scale of them shows that they were clearly important.
00:36But what were they for?
00:38On the outskirts of an Israeli town, excavations unearth a strange complex.
00:44At first glance, it looks like just a low crumbling wall sticking out of the sand.
00:50But after some digging around, they discover that it's actually part of a bigger complex.
00:56All told, the complex covers roughly 10,000 square feet.
01:02So what was this place?
01:04Ancient lost cities.
01:07Forgotten treasures.
01:09Mysterious structures.
01:11As new technology uncovers remarkable tales hidden beneath the deserts of the world,
01:17the secrets in the sand will finally be revealed.
01:22Spreading over 160 square miles of the Egyptian desert, just east of the Nile River, the city of Luxor is one of the hottest and driest urban centers in the world.
01:32Summer temperatures frequently hit 104 degrees Fahrenheit, and its low annual precipitation is on par with the driest sections of the Sahara.
01:53Luxor has a special place in history as the former city of Thebes, the religious capital of ancient Egypt.
02:00It's famous for its ruins of 4,000-year-old temples, palaces, and monuments.
02:05Some of those are still standing today, making the city one of the largest open-air museums in the world.
02:11But the most renowned landmarks are the series of tombs west of the Nile in an area called the Valley of the Kings.
02:18The Valley of the Kings was the chosen necropolis for most of Egypt's New Kingdom rulers and pharaohs.
02:27The Valley of the Kings is a small valley surrounded by these steep limestone cliffs.
02:32That is a topography that is perfect for carving individual tombs into the hillside.
02:38And of the 62 tombs that have been found so far, the most famous is that of the boy king.
02:45Tutankhamun discovered with most of its artifacts intact in 1922.
02:52A team of archaeologists is working near the western edge of the valley, about a mile from where most of the rulers' tombs lay,
03:01when they come across a surprising discovery.
03:04They found an entrance to a 32-foot passageway, which was almost entirely filled with debris.
03:12So it took a long time to clear.
03:14When they finally got through, they discovered the burial chamber to an undiscovered tomb.
03:22But instead of finding the remains of a burial, the tomb was mostly empty.
03:28There were fragments of clay vessels scattered on the chamber floor.
03:33One of the pottery pieces bore a label indicating it had contained the substance natron,
03:38which was commonly used for embalming.
03:40So that confirmed a burial did take place, at least initially.
03:45The tomb was discovered in an area mostly reserved for the wives, mothers, and daughters of the pharaohs, the Valley of the Queens.
03:54So it was suggested that it belonged to a woman.
03:57After all, the closest tombs in the vicinity belonged to the wives of King Thutmose III.
04:02Is it possible that this mysterious, empty burial ground was once the final resting place of a female member of the Egyptian royal family?
04:13A detailed survey and investigation of the inner tomb leads to some critical clues.
04:19In addition to the broken shards of pottery, there were fragments of tiling that had fallen from the ceiling.
04:26After piecing them together like an ancient jigsaw puzzle, a pattern emerged.
04:31It was a painted blue night sky decorated with yellow stars, a design traditionally associated with the pharaoh.
04:41More significantly, the walls were decorated with hieroglyphic scenes from the Amduat.
04:47That's this sacred funerary text that describes the sun god Ra as it makes this nightly journey through the twelve regions of the underworld.
04:56It symbolizes death and rebirth.
04:59And, as with the painted night sky, the Amduat was typically reserved for Egyptian rulers only.
05:07Putting two and two together, this undiscovered tomb was in a section of the necropolis populated mostly by women.
05:14And yet it bore the distinct hallmarks of a pharaoh's funeral rites.
05:19So is it possible that this is the secret tomb of a female pharaoh?
05:25Most of Egypt's rulers were men.
05:28One of the few exceptions was Queen Hatshepsut.
05:32Hatshepsut was the eldest daughter of the 18th dynasty king Thutmose I.
05:37She was married to her half-brother, Thutmose II, who inherited the throne around 1500 BCE.
05:44Now, when Thutmose II died 13 years later, the throne normally would have just gone straight on to his son, Thutmose III.
05:52But Thutmose III was still an infant, so his wife and half-sister, Hatshepsut, acted as regent for the young king.
06:02By most accounts, her reign was a successful and peaceful one.
06:09She defended Egypt's borders, and her foreign policy was based on trade, not war.
06:15Seven years into her reign, Hatshepsut was given a full royal title, essentially making her a female king.
06:23Interestingly, it was at this point that she stopped being depicted as a female.
06:28In paintings and sculptures, she began to appear wearing male clothes and regalia, including a beard.
06:34Scholars believe this wasn't an attempt on anyone's part to pass her off as a man,
06:38but rather to indicate she deserved the respect of a king.
06:42The continued examination and analysis of the tomb's walls and floor results in a breakthrough.
06:50There were small pieces of a broken alabaster jar that probably once contained ointment.
06:57Now, the same jigsaw puzzle approach was used to piece this jar together, but this time it revealed a name.
07:04King Thutmose II.
07:07The assembled jar also included his wife, Queen Hatshepsut's name,
07:11and the full inscription clearly indicates had Shepsut buried her husband right here.
07:20This was an incredible turn of events.
07:24First discovery of a royal tomb in the Theban necropolis in a hundred years.
07:30The implications were enormous.
07:33Egypt was at the peak of its power in the New Kingdom as it continued to amass great wealth along with its growing empire.
07:43Plus, this discovery presented an opportunity to study a pharaoh about whom very little was known.
07:52Thutmose II was an 18th dynasty pharaoh who came to power in the second millennium BCE.
07:58Some historical records state that during his reign he squashed a rebellious uprising in Nubia, what is now northern Sudan.
08:05There was also an indication that he may have campaigned with his armies to the eastern Mediterranean, as far as Syria.
08:11But Thutmose II was best known for being the king who married the future female pharaoh of Egypt.
08:19So was Queen Hatshepsut truly instrumental in selecting her husband's tomb, as the inscription suggests?
08:25If that's the case, why did she select an area over a mile away from the traditional burial ground?
08:32The Valley of the Kings was the main burial ground of the Theban necropolis for New Kingdom pharaohs for just under 500 years.
08:42According to tradition, the pharaohs, including future pharaohs in line for the throne, planned their own funerary rites, sometimes while they were still children.
08:53This included choosing the location and overseeing the full construction of the tomb.
08:59So, Hatshepsut may have overseen the actual burial, but it was likely Thutmose who had the tomb constructed here.
09:08It also appeared that Hatshepsut had planned to be buried close by, since an uncompleted tomb just over 1,500 feet away was discovered with inscriptions stating it was intended for her.
09:22But in another twist to the story, when Hatshepsut eventually did pass away, 20 years after Thutmose's death, she was interred in the Valley of the Kings, along with the other male pharaohs.
09:36This was likely because she had acquired the official title and status of king.
09:41There were likely several factors that played a role in Thutmose's unusual tomb location, and we may never know all of them.
09:48But one thing was noticeable.
09:50Unlike King Thut's tomb, which was discovered overflowing with trinkets, jewels, and other grave goods, Thutmose's tomb was empty.
09:58So you have to wonder, was it looted by grave robbers?
10:02Tomb Raiders
10:11Tomb Raiders were a persistent problem in New Kingdom, Egypt, and their precious stolen goods were a normal part of the local economy.
10:19In some cases, they were professionals, organized gangs who knew the tomb's lair, how to access them, and how to sell them on the black market.
10:29In other cases, it was the families of the deceased who stole from their tombs.
10:36The problem was so widespread that officials took a range of steps to prevent it, such as carving curses on doors to scare would-be looters away.
10:45But it seldom worked, and the Tomb Raiders were frequently brazen and highly disruptive, smashing sarcophagi and tearing through the mummy's wrapped textiles to access jewels and amulets.
10:56After a thorough assessment of the tomb, the possibility of a raid was ruled out.
11:03There's no evidence of looting, no signs of forced entry, so if the grave goods aren't there and they weren't stolen, they must have been moved to a different location.
11:13So the question is, why?
11:15A closer look at the history of ancient Egypt's funerary practices reveals a possible answer.
11:24During the Old Kingdom from approximately 2700 to 2200 BC, the pharaoh's preoccupation with death and the afterlife led to the creation of the Great Pyramids.
11:38The more valuable artifacts and offerings within the tomb, the better prepared for the afterlife.
11:47But this came at a cost. The mere sight of a pyramid essentially announced the location and the opportunity for Tomb Raiders to plunder.
11:54Eventually, officials were unable to protect the mummies of the old Kingdom rulers.
11:59This, in part, is what led new Kingdom rulers to opt for concealment and secrecy by digging hidden tombs deep in the hills of the Theban Necropolis.
12:08Despite the authorities' best efforts to keep the new location of the tombs a secret, looters eventually caught on.
12:19Officials were bribed, and many of the workers who built the graves got conscripted by gangs to help them.
12:25In response, new Kingdom priests and royalty began to secretly remove the mummies from the underground tombs and take them to a second, even more hidden location, referred to as the Royal Cache.
12:37But the Royal Cache was intended as a temporary hiding place for the mummies.
12:42This wasn't an attempt to reconstruct entirely new tombs for each of the pharaohs.
12:47In the case of Thutmose II, it's hypothesized that an undiscovered second tomb likely does exist somewhere.
12:56And that all those missing valuable grave goods are probably just sitting somewhere waiting to be uncovered.
13:03An extended search of the surrounding area leads to a curious discovery.
13:10An enormous man-made mound was discovered not far from the original empty tomb, made up of piles of limestone rubble reaching 75 feet in height.
13:21It appeared that the mound was deliberately constructed to conceal something underneath.
13:26Could it be the opening to Thutmose's second tomb location?
13:31The excavation of the limestone mound is still pending.
13:35In the meantime, the discovery of Thutmose II's original tomb represents a crucial missing piece in the history of Egypt's 18th dynasty.
13:45And while it helps solve one enduring mystery about the ancient pharaoh, it continues to pose new questions about his fate and his legacy.
13:54The basalt flats of the Arabian Peninsula extend tens of thousands of miles across the borders of Jordan, Syria, and Saudi Arabia.
14:15These basalt fields are known as Harats, which comes from the Arabic for stony area or lava field.
14:22They formed millions of years ago when the Arabian Plate began to shift away from the African Plate along the Red Sea Rift.
14:29This gradual movement thinned the Earth's crust and allowed magma to rise from the Earth's mantle to the surface.
14:36An archaeologist conducting aerial surveys above the sprawling lava deserts of Jordan spots something strange.
14:46He began to notice enormous structures stretching across the Harats.
14:51They were relatively uniform in their shape and clearly man-made.
14:55But what stood out the most was their size.
14:58The structures are essentially huge rectangles formed of two thick bands connected by much longer, thinner rows of rock.
15:09Today, we know these structures as mustatils or gates because of their unique shape.
15:16Early surveys of the Harats showed that the gates were often clustered in groups of two or three.
15:23But the total number remained a bit of a mystery until Google Earth changed everything.
15:29With mainstream satellite images available to the public,
15:32archaeologists around the world could explore the desert from their own homes.
15:38So far, more than a thousand of these gates have been found.
15:41We can't be sure, but we believe they were built by nomadic tribes thousands of years ago,
15:46the ancestors of the modern-day Bedouin people.
15:51The sheer scale of them shows that they were clearly important.
15:55But what were they for?
15:58These extraordinary gates aren't the only monumental sculptures on the Arabian Peninsula.
16:04South of the Jordanian Basalt Flats lies the Harat Khaybar,
16:10one of Saudi Arabia's largest lava fields.
16:13Among the volcanic cones, vast stone shapes known as kites have been sculpted into the landscape.
16:20Over 900 of these kites have been spotted in Harat Khaybar alone.
16:25These structures are even larger than the gates, with some measuring over a quarter of a mile long.
16:31Many of these structures date back roughly to the Holocene humid period,
16:37which spanned roughly 9,000 to 5,500 BCE.
16:43Back then, the desert belt of North Africa and Arabia was far greener and more fertile,
16:50an ideal hunting ground for people living in the area.
16:54And these structures weren't just random formations.
16:58They were built with a clear and deliberate purpose.
17:03These kites have been referred to as mega traps, and that's exactly what they were.
17:08It's believed the ancient nomads used the kites' long walls or strings
17:13to drive herds of prey toward the head, where they would become trapped.
17:22The traps would have taken weeks or even months to build
17:25and would have required a huge amount of manpower.
17:28Just like the gates, they demonstrate an advanced early engineering,
17:32which makes us wonder whether they served a similar function.
17:36Could the gates farther north have also served as huge hunting traps?
17:42When archaeologists on the ground get a closer look at the desert gates,
17:47they see just how intricate these structures are, and they discover a hidden feature.
17:53Taking a closer look at the Mustatils,
17:56we can get a sense of how much care was taken in their construction.
18:00Each of the gates' long bars is made of two parallel lines of specially chosen flat stones
18:05placed on their edges facing each other.
18:08The space between these larger rocks was then filled in with rubble.
18:14At the top of the Mustatils, we find the head,
18:18a platform filled with rocks that once stood several feet high
18:23and formed the thickest band in the structure.
18:27At the very center of the heads of most gates lies a hidden chamber.
18:33These chambers are relatively small, typically 10 to 30 feet wide.
18:38While excavating the walls of one Mustatil,
18:42a team of archaeologists makes a shocking discovery.
18:52While excavating the walls of one Mustatil,
18:55a team of archaeologists makes a shocking discovery.
18:59They began to uncover human bone fragments.
19:04The bones belong to nine separate individuals.
19:07Two infants, one child, a teenager, and five adults.
19:11So could these structures be something other than animal traps?
19:16Could they actually be elaborate funerary monuments?
19:20The search for answers leads to another nearby site,
19:25where ancient roadways in Northwest Arabia are flanked by mysterious stone sculptures.
19:32These aren't gates or kites, but keyholes.
19:35As the name suggests, they're made up of two main components,
19:38a circular section at one end placed at the point of an elongated triangle.
19:43Nearly 18,000 of these keyholes have been found over roughly 100,000 square miles of the Arabian desert.
19:52Like the gates, the keyholes are often grouped in elaborate formations leading away from a central corridor.
20:00It's believed that they may have been used to shepherd animals into specific pastures.
20:06But they also serve another, more symbolic function.
20:12Inside the circular ends of these structures, we find piles of stones called cairns.
20:18These aren't decorative, they actually mark tombs.
20:23Looking at them from above, you can see that the tombs have been deliberately organized,
20:27with a central roadway running through them near the widest point of the triangle.
20:32Today, we now know these arrangements as funerary avenues.
20:38It could be that people wanted to bury their loved ones on frequently traveled routes,
20:42so that their memory would be kept alive by people passing by.
20:46Could the monumental gates in Jordan have served a similar function?
20:51Excavations of ancient gates in Saudi Arabia unearth yet more skeletal remains.
20:58But these bones point to a different possibility.
21:02It turns out that many of these mustatillos contain thousands of bone fragments.
21:08But the vast majority of these bones aren't actually human.
21:12They're animal bones.
21:13There's evidence that some of these animals were wild, like gazelles, but most appear to have been domesticated.
21:21Radiocarbon dating shows us that they're up to 7,000 years old.
21:28Which makes these stone monuments about 2,000 years older than both Stonehenge or the earliest Egyptian pyramids.
21:39Cattle herding would have played a central role in the lives of ancient people living in the region at the time,
21:47providing a vital source of food.
21:49But why were they buried here?
21:51Why go to the trouble of building such an elaborate burial ground for animals?
21:55As work on the mustatillos continues, researchers working a site at Yemen's Wadaha sub-district within the Sanaha government come across another remarkable cattle burial.
22:06They found a ring of more than 40 cattle skulls that had been planted nose down in the earth.
22:13At the center of the ring, there was one more skull, also buried facing downwards.
22:19This deliberate arrangement suggests the skulls represented some kind of ritual or symbolic significance.
22:25The cattle remains were found near a stone platform and surrounded by several hearths.
22:33The skulls and hearths combined paint a vivid picture of some kind of ritual feast,
22:40one that seemingly involved the sacrifice of domestic animals.
22:44The discovery of ritual cattle sacrifice in Yemen leads to a revelation for experts working on Arabia's colossal stone gates.
22:56We now believe that these huge stone gates were built to host similar rituals.
23:01Each of the gates has a narrow entrance built into its base.
23:07These are typically less than three feet wide, which may have been to encourage people to enter the structure in single file.
23:16We can't be sure, but the large courtyards inside the gate could have accommodated lots of people,
23:23perhaps an audience for the animal sacrifices.
23:27It's thought that these mustatils are some of the oldest monuments built by these Neolithic cattle cults.
23:35They've been found over an area of just under 80,000 square miles,
23:40which tells us that their beliefs and rituals were extremely widespread during the late Stone Age.
23:48Over time, the ritual significance of these sites appears to have changed,
23:53with animal sacrifices slowly giving way to human burials.
23:57There isn't any evidence to suggest that the humans buried here were sacrificed themselves.
24:02Instead, the continued use of these monuments as graveyards
24:07only emphasizes how important these spiritual landmarks were to the people who built them.
24:14Today, work continues to excavate and date even more of these enigmatic gates
24:19to chart the lives of the ancient Arabian cattle cults.
24:24But who or what these cults worshipped remains an enduring mystery.
24:28Around 35 miles southwest of Jerusalem, in Israel's Negev Desert, lies the Bedouin town of Rahat.
24:45With a population of just over 75,000, it's the largest of the Bedouin cities, but roughly 60% of the people who live there are under the age of 18.
24:55So its nickname is the City of Children.
24:59It's on the edge of a desert, so it has a hot, semi-arid climate, and sees only about 10 inches of rain each year.
25:06The city is surrounded by small rolling hills made up of lois, a fine material comprised mostly of silt and dust distributed by the wind.
25:14On the southern outskirts of town, a team of archaeologists is carrying out excavations in advance of a future construction project
25:26when they unearth something surprising.
25:29At first glance, it looks like just a low, crumbling wall sticking out of the sand.
25:35But after some digging around, they discover that it's actually part of a bigger complex.
25:40It consists of several rooms of varying sizes joined together, some rectangular, others more square.
25:50And they're all separated by walls made up of stones cemented together.
25:55All told, the complex covers roughly 10,000 square feet, a large area, and looks to be very old.
26:05So what was this place?
26:10Another stone structure was discovered not too far from the complex of Rahat.
26:20Researchers determined it to be one of the oldest rural mosques ever found.
26:26It's mostly just one small square room, around 65 square feet.
26:33But one of the walls isn't a straight line.
26:35It has a half circle jutting out of the middle of it facing south, the direction of Mecca, the holy city of Islam.
26:41The half circle is a prayer niche called a mirab.
26:43Using pottery and coins discovered at the site, researchers figured this dates to the late 7th century or early 8th century CE.
26:54Now, it's known that Islam did originate about 100 years before that, in what is now Saudi Arabia.
26:59But it didn't become the dominant religion in this region for at least 200 years.
27:06So, finding a mosque this old is rare.
27:09Given the mosque's proximity to the complex and the similarities in construction style, I think it's safe to assume that the complex was from around the same period around 1200 years ago.
27:23But what was it?
27:29As the team explores the complex further, something strange happens.
27:34When they knock on some of the stones, they hear an echo emanating from beneath the ground.
27:40They're able to create a small hole to lower a camera down and are shocked at what they see.
27:47There's an incredible underground complex of vaults.
27:51They're built out of limestone blocks about 18 feet under the ground and measuring roughly 8 feet tall.
27:58The compartments are linked by tunnels and have arched ceilings, also constructed out of stone.
28:05These vaults were probably used as storage areas.
28:09But for what?
28:11The area around Rahat was once an ancient farming community.
28:15There's evidence to suggest that the Negev had large-scale agriculture between the 4th and 11th century CE.
28:23This was no easy task considering the environmental factors.
28:26I mean, there was always the threat of a drought.
28:29And a drought could last for several years.
28:32But the people who lived here had extremely clever ways of managing water.
28:36They used a damming technique, building stone terraces into hillside plots of farmland, and also had a system of channels for collecting runoff from slopes.
28:46Using these methods, they were able to grow various legumes and grains, including wheat and barley.
28:51So maybe the structure discovered at Rahat was used for storing food supplies, or even a produce marketplace of some kind.
29:01Further investigation of the site reveals architectural details that may just support this theory.
29:06The western area has a series of big rooms, and the eastern side contains a large open hall.
29:14These spaces would be ideal for conducting commerce or further storage beyond the underground vaults.
29:21But if the complex was for storing food products or used as a marketplace, there would probably be evidence left behind.
29:29But all they found in the vaults were some clay shards from oil lamps.
29:33So I think it's unlikely that the structure was used for that purpose.
29:38It must have been for something else.
29:43Given its size and location on the outskirts of the city, maybe the building had a military function for protecting Rahat from invading armies.
29:51The vaults could have been for storing weapons or a system of defense.
29:53In central Turkey's historic Cappadocia region is Derinkuyu, an ancient city with extensive underground complexes that some experts believe were vital to its defense.
30:07During the Byzantine period, Christians were under constant threat of attack from the Romans.
30:11And it's thought that these tunnels were built to hide the people of the city from persecution.
30:20Some of the tunnels are not very big, which might appear to be a design flaw.
30:25But it was likely done on purpose so that if attackers tried to enter, they would have to be in a single row and punched over, making it easier for defending soldiers to kill them.
30:39Maybe the underground system at Rahat served a similar purpose.
30:43But there's no historical documentation to indicate that this was an important town that needed defending back then.
30:52It was a simple rural agricultural community.
30:56And there's also no archeological evidence of conflict.
31:00No military artifacts were discovered.
31:03As the team continues to investigate the site, they find certain items that may just provide some answers.
31:13They came across two ovens.
31:16Now, that might not sound like a big deal because people had to cook, right?
31:19But these ovens are way bigger than conventional ones.
31:21Too big to be just for preparing regular family meals.
31:24And right next to one of them is a water cistern.
31:28Olive pits were also found at the site.
31:30And they found the site.
31:32They found the site.
31:33They found the site.
31:34They found the site.
31:35They found the site.
31:36They found the site.
31:37They found the site.
31:38They found the site.
31:39They found the site.
31:40They found the site.
31:41Olive pits were also found at the site.
31:44All of this adds up to one thing.
31:46On top of being a residence, this complex was probably used to manufacture soap.
31:53The ovens were likely used to cook up a mixture of ingredients.
31:57They would have needed olive oil, which explains all the olive pits.
32:01And they would have needed water.
32:02And lo and behold, one of the ovens is right next to a cistern.
32:06This was the perfect location for soap making, with all the necessary ingredients found in the surrounding region.
32:15Old soap recipes require saltwort plants, which are indigenous to the Nejiv desert.
32:21And olives were extensively available in the nearby South Hebron hills.
32:26Soap making in the ancient world goes back much farther than the early Islamic period.
32:34Soap first being used for personal hygiene dates back to the ancient Egyptians, around 1550 BCE.
32:41They created a soap-like substance by combining animal and vegetable oils with alkaline salts for both cleaning their bodies and treating skin conditions.
32:49As Islam spread to become the primary religion in the Middle East, an emphasis on hygiene and cleanliness emerged.
32:59Islam is a very ritualistic religion.
33:02And certain hygiene-related customs are expected to be followed.
33:06Muslims are encouraged to perform ablution, known as wudu, before prayers, which involves washing the face, hands, arms, feet, and rinsing the mouth and nose.
33:22Good grooming and the use of perfumes, tatyib, are also expected.
33:27A devout Muslim should show loyalty to God and respect for his fellow Muslims by smelling good, particularly at group prayer.
33:33The cleanliness of clothing, living spaces, and the body are a high priority.
33:39Researchers believe that the complex at Rahat may be the oldest soap-making facility ever discovered in Israel.
33:47At the time, family recipes were heavily guarded secrets, handed down from generation to generation.
33:53And as Islam grew in popularity, the demand for soap grew with it, and made some people extremely wealthy, including whoever lived in this once magnificent complex.
34:06Tucked into the northern reaches of Egypt's western desert lies the Fayum Basin, a vast limestone depression spanning more than 6,000 square miles.
34:25The Fayum Basin is incredibly unique because it's home to an oasis.
34:30For thousands of years, humans have been diverting water from the nearby Nile River into the basin to irrigate the land.
34:38These irrigation systems supported large towns during the ancient Egyptian Middle Kingdom and the Roman period.
34:43There are dozens of well-preserved Egyptian, Greek, Roman, and Coptic Christian sites dotted around the oasis, making it an archaeological treasure trove.
34:56As extraordinary as these ancient settlements are, the oldest remains in the basin predate humans by millions of years.
35:02One of the best examples is Wadi Al-Hitan, or Whale Valley, a stretch of land roughly 100 miles from Cairo, where archaeologists have found fossils dating back more than 40 million years to the earliest aquatic whales in the final stages of losing their hind legs.
35:21For years, archaeologists have carefully catalogued the marine mammals of the Fayum depression.
35:26But during a dig in the arid desert, one team spots an entirely different set of remains.
35:36They had been digging for several days when they spotted a set of huge teeth sticking out of the desert floor.
35:43They quickly realized the teeth were attached to a nearly perfectly preserved skull.
35:49It's some kind of mammal, and this thing is clearly a predator.
35:52It's got these teeth that are sharp and look like they're perfect for slicing into prey.
35:57Plus, it's got these big crests on the skull that suggest it had really powerful jaws.
36:03Based on the skull's size, we can estimate this animal was about the size of a modern-day leopard.
36:09So, what was it, and how long ago did it roam the Fayum Basin?
36:13The discovery of the predator's skull prompted comparisons to a set of remains unearthed in the region 120 years earlier.
36:24These fossils belonged to a creature known as Secmatops.
36:29Secmatops was a formidable predator, roughly the size of a modern-day lion with a large, heavy head.
36:34It shares many qualities with a newly discovered skull, including its razor-sharp teeth, specially adapted to bring down large prey.
36:43So, could the creature found in the Fayum Basin be from the same species as Secmatops?
36:47Secmatops
36:56Searching for answers, the team performs a detailed analysis of the skull in the hopes of establishing its age.
37:04And the results are rather surprising.
37:07The skull is around 30 million years old.
37:10This means that this creature is from the Olegocene period, which spanned from approximately 34 to 23 million years ago.
37:18The same time frame as Secmatops.
37:21So, it's entirely possible that the two animals are closely related.
37:27While it might be tempting to think Secmatops and the newly discovered animal belong to the same species,
37:33there are differences between them.
37:37Besides being smaller than Secmatops, the skull has distinctly feline features with a shorter, cat-like snout.
37:44The differences between the remains tell us that we're looking at two distinct species of an order known as Hyenodonta,
37:52extinct, hypercarnivorous mammals that lived on virtually every continent.
37:57These animals varied widely in size and shape, from 11 pounds to over 1,000.
38:01The new skull represents an entirely new species of Hyenodont that lived alongside Secmatops.
38:09Following the tradition of naming these ancient carnivores after Egyptian deities,
38:13this new species was named Bastetodon in honor of Bastet, the cat-headed goddess of protection and fertility.
38:20Further analysis of the Secmatops alongside the Bastetodon leads to a breakthrough.
38:27When Secmatops was first discovered, they originally placed the species within a group of European Hyenodonts and assumed that that's where Secmatops originated before migrating to Africa.
38:39But, using the Bastetodon fossils, that family tree has painted a very different picture.
38:45The results of the analysis proved that the opposite of what we once believed was actually true.
38:52Secmatops and the Bastetodon weren't European in origin.
38:56They represented an entirely new group of African Hyenodonts that originated right where they were found, in Egypt.
39:03Hyenodonts lasted as an order for approximately 50 million years.
39:12To survive that long, they had to successfully survive some of the Earth's most dramatic climactic changes.
39:18One of these extreme changes occurred around 34 million years ago, when the planet began to cool.
39:27Ice sheets expanded, sea levels dropped, and forests slowly transformed into grasslands.
39:34Today, we know this period as the Eocene-Oligocene boundary.
39:41This boundary is also known as the Grand Coupure, or Big Break, because of its devastating effects on species across the world.
39:48On the African and Arabian peninsulas alone, approximately 60% of mammal species vanished.
39:54But Hyenodonts survived, with new species emerging in the wake of the disaster and adapting to the changing environments.
40:01Throughout the Oligocene and the Miocene, African Hyenodonts maintained their position at the very top of the food chain.
40:10And this was in part because of their ability to adapt, and in some cases, become supersized.
40:16The global extinction of the Hyenodonts remains an enduring mystery.
40:20But some experts believe that the answer may lie in dramatic environmental shifts.
40:28During the Oligocene, about 26 million years ago, tectonic shifts pushed the Arabian and Eurasian plates closer together.
40:36Over millions of years, these shifts created new land bridges for ancient species to spread between continents.
40:43So creatures that were previously isolated in Europe migrated south into Africa.
40:47During the Miocene, this faunal exchange really picked up, and we start to see modern-looking predators like cats, dogs, and hyenas appear on the African continent.
40:59Unlike Hyenodonts, these predators had flexible wrists and forearms that allowed them to adopt new hunting techniques.
41:07We now believe that these new predators began to compete with Hyenodonts for prey.
41:13The very same attributes that once made the Hyenodonts so formidable may have accelerated its downfall.
41:21Its dentition was extremely specialized, and the predators' rigid bodies meant that they relied almost exclusively on their huge jaws and heads to bring down their prey.
41:30When competition increased, these animals may have been physically unable to adapt to different food sources.
41:37Eventually, they went extinct, leaving cats and dogs to take their place at the top of the food chain.
41:42The exact cause of the Hyenodonts' extinction remains a complex web of unanswered questions.
41:51But with every new species that emerges, our understanding of this ancient apex predator grows a little clearer.
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