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00:00:00There's always been one part of human history that's really captured my imagination.
00:00:11Talking about ancient Egypt.
00:00:18Almost a hundred years ago, Howard Carter and his discovery of Tutankhamen
00:00:23crowned a golden age of tomb exploration.
00:00:26But right now, the archaeologists are back.
00:00:33It's going down very deep.
00:00:35And the world of Egyptian tombs...
00:00:37It's full of snake holes.
00:00:39..is more exciting than ever.
00:00:43So, for the next two nights, I'm joining them.
00:00:47I've got a bone here.
00:00:49On the hunt for new tombs...
00:00:52Oh, yes, there's hieroglyphics here.
00:00:54..and autumn discoveries.
00:00:57It's the blood of a mummy.
00:01:00If there's one thing we know about the ancient Egyptians,
00:01:03it's that they did death better than anyone else.
00:01:06From mighty pyramids to tombs cut in hillsides,
00:01:10they come in all shapes and sizes
00:01:12and give us an intriguing glimpse into their extraordinary world.
00:01:18I'm heading across Egypt...
00:01:20Oh, God!
00:01:22..on a tomb adventure...
00:01:24Hi-ya!
00:01:25..which has been 4,000 years in the making.
00:01:29This is just like the movies, isn't it?
00:01:30Welcome to a magical land,
00:01:40one that contains more treasures and mysteries
00:01:44than anywhere else on Earth.
00:01:47This is Egypt.
00:01:51And I'm heading to a beautiful but remote spot
00:01:54where the rocky hills on both sides of the Nile
00:01:57squeeze the river to its narrowest point.
00:02:01The secrets of what went on here
00:02:04are now finally being revealed
00:02:07in some remarkable tomb discoveries,
00:02:10which I'm about to join.
00:02:13Whatever happens,
00:02:14I'm in for an adventure.
00:02:16I'm meeting an archaeological double act.
00:02:25For several months a year,
00:02:26this place is both their home and their office.
00:02:31This is really hot.
00:02:32I wish you could feel heat on the telly,
00:02:34but believe me, this is hot.
00:02:39Maria?
00:02:41John, hello.
00:02:42Tony.
00:02:45Welcome to the site.
00:02:46Thank you for letting me...
00:02:47Dr Maria Nilsson is from Sweden.
00:02:50Her husband, John Ward, is from Hereford.
00:02:52And together, they've been living and breathing
00:02:54this site since 2012.
00:02:57It's ours.
00:02:58Can you show me some tombs?
00:02:59Can I show you some tombs?
00:03:00Come this way.
00:03:01Great.
00:03:03Among the rocks and sand just yards from the Nile,
00:03:07John and Maria have been systematically revealing
00:03:09a large burial ground known as a necropolis.
00:03:13Quite literally, a city of the dead.
00:03:18Cool.
00:03:18You weren't kidding about a lot of tombs, were you?
00:03:20Just a few.
00:03:23But the first stop is their very latest discovery.
00:03:27On the edge of the site,
00:03:29Maria and the team are excavating a small area of sand and rock.
00:03:33Why are you cutting this section back?
00:03:37We're hoping to lead the way to what's behind you.
00:03:40Which is...
00:03:41Oh!
00:03:42How interesting.
00:03:46When did you discover that there was actually a slot here?
00:03:49Yesterday.
00:03:51And that's true?
00:03:52You're not just saying that for the test?
00:03:53That's actually honesty.
00:03:54This was dug yesterday.
00:03:57This small crack in the rock is man-made.
00:04:01Some more work by the team should reveal the doorway to my first tomb.
00:04:06The roof is literally...
00:04:08Here, you can feel it.
00:04:10Feel the roof?
00:04:11Can you feel the chisel marks where my hand is?
00:04:13Yeah, yeah.
00:04:13So no-one's been in here and no-one has got a clue what's in it?
00:04:17We've got to take this doorway down at least a metre
00:04:19so you can be possibly the first in the last 2,000, 3,500 years
00:04:25to be inside that town.
00:04:28But why are so many ancient Egyptians buried here
00:04:31on this remote bank of the Nile?
00:04:36You've got to imagine the landscape.
00:04:38There would be men, women and children all working in this area.
00:04:43The local name for this place is Gibal-el-Silcila
00:04:47and it was once the engine room of ancient Egypt.
00:04:52Thousands of workers would have been here
00:04:54quarrying and sculpting the stones that built a great civilisation.
00:04:59Look at that! Look at that, John!
00:05:03That's a wondrous sight!
00:05:05Welcome to the galleries.
00:05:07In the hills above the tombs
00:05:09are the greatest quarry sites of the ancient world
00:05:13where sandstone was cut from the bedrock
00:05:16to build temples, monuments and statues.
00:05:21It's mercifully cooler than outside.
00:05:25Imagine what it must have been like in here.
00:05:27You've got the dust, you've got the banging, the chiselling.
00:05:32Look at the height.
00:05:33You've got another ten metres beneath your feet.
00:05:37You've got to take all this sand out.
00:05:39So there's ten more metres of quarried stone under our feet?
00:05:41All the way down.
00:05:45There are dozens of quarries like this here at Silcilla
00:05:48and hundreds of people would have worked in each and every one.
00:05:52Somewhere, at some point,
00:05:54the owner of our new tomb must have been involved.
00:05:57See that niche just there?
00:06:00Yeah.
00:06:01That's one block.
00:06:03They're taken systematically, block by block, by block, by block, by blocks.
00:06:06I see.
00:06:07So they start working from the top
00:06:10and the steps also provide access as you go further down.
00:06:13Exactly.
00:06:13They're creating a transportation route all the way down to the Nile.
00:06:17Many of the workers here served under Egypt's greatest pharaoh,
00:06:25Ramesses II.
00:06:291,200 years before Cleopatra,
00:06:32he ruled Egypt at the very peak of its powers
00:06:35and pushed Egyptian building to new heights.
00:06:41But every great pharaoh needed a highly skilled workforce.
00:06:46What's the news?
00:06:47Well, just five minutes ago, down here on the floor area,
00:06:52we found this little chap.
00:06:55Can I put him in my hand?
00:06:57Hang on.
00:06:59That's a shabti.
00:07:01And what is a shabti?
00:07:03A shabti was the embodiment of a worker or slave
00:07:07that would have been buried with the dead to help them in the afterlife.
00:07:12Just like the pharaohs,
00:07:14Egypt's workers like to be buried with their possessions.
00:07:17And ensure they'd be well looked after for eternity.
00:07:22He would have bought him food,
00:07:23he would have tended to his land.
00:07:25This guy would have been buried with the owner.
00:07:27But to find that owner, we're going to have to do some digging.
00:07:31All right, let's go in.
00:07:39The sand itself comes away very easily.
00:07:41It's just all the vegetation, isn't it?
00:07:44What do you think the entrance would have looked like in its glory days when it was brand new?
00:07:49Basically, a slab would have slid all the way in front.
00:07:53And that would have actually sealed this tomb.
00:07:55The gnar was infested with crocodiles.
00:07:57Oh, yeah. It never occurred to me that a crocodile might lumber up here and eat a mummy.
00:08:01Now, I'm going to move this block work here.
00:08:05And that's quite a big block.
00:08:08One, two, three.
00:08:13But beyond the block, there's still a load of debris between me and being able to explore this tomb.
00:08:21It's one of those archaeological highs and lows.
00:08:23As I come here, we get a find.
00:08:25We've got the gap which will lead into the tomb.
00:08:29But then we try and open up the tomb.
00:08:31Ta-da!
00:08:32It's got loads of sand inside it.
00:08:35But with a bit of help from John's team...
00:08:37OK, guys.
00:08:38Yellow bin.
00:08:39..our small crack in the rock is beginning to look like a proper entrance.
00:08:45Tony, after you.
00:08:47Here I go.
00:08:53There really isn't very much room at all here.
00:09:01I'm absolutely flat on my stomach now.
00:09:03Tony?
00:09:06What are you seeing, Tony?
00:09:08There's a lot of horizontal cut marks.
00:09:12I can see, like, the shape of what appears to be picks in the ceiling.
00:09:17Yep, that's the chisel marks.
00:09:20I'm just going to crawl in a bit more.
00:09:22Will you bear with me?
00:09:24This is a sizeable chamber cut out of the solid rock most likely 3,500 years ago.
00:09:32But it's almost entirely filled with sand.
00:09:36Just do be mindful of any critters, though.
00:09:38If I saw a snake, I'd just have to pretend I was another snake.
00:09:43Interestingly, there is a hole in the rock and I can see light through.
00:09:52I guess what you're seeing is the tomb next door.
00:09:55I see.
00:09:56Yeah, that would make sense.
00:09:58But if this is going to make any more sense, I'm going to have to get out so the expert can get in.
00:10:05Because, quite frankly, I don't think the two of us can get in there together.
00:10:08OK, I see what's happening here.
00:10:13It's full of snake holes.
00:10:17Oh, really?
00:10:17Actually, it's a beautiful tomb.
00:10:21It's a lovely chamber.
00:10:22Yeah.
00:10:23It's been squared off.
00:10:24I can see the chisel marks to the ceiling.
00:10:26I can see the dress marks to the wall.
00:10:28What can you tell me about the extent of the tomb?
00:10:31It's about three and a half to four metres square.
00:10:33And it's a fairly classy tomb.
00:10:35It's not just a load of old rubbish.
00:10:36Given its size, it's definitely a worker of some kind of status within the community.
00:10:42Can we do any more here now?
00:10:44To be honest with you, not really.
00:10:45I've got two metres of sand further beneath me to remove.
00:10:52OK.
00:10:55Removing this amount of sand slowly and carefully
00:10:58will take several weeks to complete.
00:11:02But this isn't the first rock-cut tomb John and Maria have found.
00:11:07What are we looking for, John?
00:11:09Oh!
00:11:10Come and have a look at this.
00:11:12Wow!
00:11:14200 yards away is a tomb of similar size,
00:11:17and it shows what might be hidden...
00:11:20Go on, you go first.
00:11:21..beneath all that sand.
00:11:22Just take my stuff off and I'm a ghost.
00:11:25Now, watch your head as you go in, OK?
00:11:26Yeah.
00:11:28Oh!
00:11:31I thought I was just going to see an empty room,
00:11:32but there's a couple of sarcophaguses here, aren't there?
00:11:34That's it.
00:11:36Now, this feels like a real tomb,
00:11:40complete with stone sarcophagi
00:11:42that once contained mummified bodies.
00:11:45Why is there more than one sarcophagus here?
00:11:47This was a family tomb.
00:11:49We actually had 12 people in here.
00:11:5212!
00:11:52However, it had been looted in antiquity.
00:11:59It appears the mummies had been burned,
00:12:02and what remained left scattered around the tomb.
00:12:07Why did they burn them?
00:12:13Basically, they removed the amulets.
00:12:15Any gold, bronze, they burnt the mummies
00:12:17so they could actually take them away.
00:12:19So it wasn't because they were scared of them?
00:12:20No.
00:12:21It was purely just robbery.
00:12:24Come on.
00:12:25So in just one day, I've entered two tombs.
00:12:29It took Indiana Jones about half a movie to see her tomb.
00:12:31And round here, they come in all shapes and sizes.
00:12:37Wow, this is huge!
00:12:39Coming up...
00:12:40You could put a London Underground train in here.
00:12:42There's the vast tomb of an Egyptian prime minister.
00:12:46I'll see what Ramesses and his workers achieved.
00:12:49This doesn't disappoint, does it?
00:12:52And find what happens when mummification goes wrong.
00:12:56I am holding a 4,000-year-old heart.
00:13:01Welcome back to the colourful world of Egypt.
00:13:10I've been looking for tombs of the men and women
00:13:12who once built a great civilisation.
00:13:15But now I've come to Luxor.
00:13:19More than 3,000 years ago, this was Egypt's capital,
00:13:24the seat of Ramesses the Great.
00:13:27So if you want to find big tombs and temples built of stone,
00:13:34Luxor is the place to come.
00:13:42And there's one temple that stands above all others.
00:13:49Karnak.
00:13:50Built with sandstone from Silcilla,
00:13:55it became the biggest religious complex in the world.
00:13:59And the signs of one pharaoh's involvement are everywhere.
00:14:05It's that man again.
00:14:07Ramesses II.
00:14:08Ramesses the builder.
00:14:11And look at his face there.
00:14:12Absolutely brilliant.
00:14:13Ramesses had more than 60 years on the throne
00:14:17and left us with more statues and images of himself
00:14:21than any other pharaoh.
00:14:24He's credited with finishing Karnak's most impressive feature,
00:14:29its gigantic hall of 134 pillars,
00:14:33some almost 80 feet high.
00:14:36This doesn't disappoint, does it?
00:14:39It's absolutely sensational.
00:14:40Imagine when this whole thing had got a sandstone roof
00:14:46to keep out the sun,
00:14:48which was supported by all these sandstone pillars,
00:14:52quarried and prepared at Gebel El Silcilla.
00:14:57Mind you, I'm not here just to look at temples.
00:15:01I'm on a hunt for big tombs.
00:15:03Just across the river from Luxor lies the famous Valley of the Kings,
00:15:11where Ramesses himself was buried.
00:15:14His mummy was discovered in 1881.
00:15:20One of the few pharaohs whose body has survived largely intact.
00:15:24But the valley next door is also chock-full of big tombs,
00:15:33one of which is being explored for the first time since 1921.
00:15:40Oh, Antonio!
00:15:42Hey.
00:15:42It's quite a walk to your office.
00:15:44Nice to see you.
00:15:45Antonio Morales heads an international team
00:15:48working on the tomb of Ippi.
00:15:50Some 700 years before the time of Ramses,
00:15:57Ippi held the exotic title of vizier to the pharaoh.
00:16:01What is a vizier?
00:16:02A vizier is actually like a prime minister.
00:16:05He was the most powerful man in Egypt under the pharaoh.
00:16:08As prime minister, Ippi's tomb reflects his status.
00:16:16This is huge!
00:16:18Welcome to the tomb of Ippi.
00:16:19You could put a London Underground train in here, couldn't you?
00:16:23The last time archaeologists were here was nearly 100 years ago.
00:16:28They spent just a few days in this tomb,
00:16:30and there's plenty they didn't find.
00:16:33Hello, what's going on down here?
00:16:36This is a surprise.
00:16:38Suddenly, it plunges away.
00:16:43The tomb extends 40 metres into the mountain and 20 metres down.
00:16:50Imagine if you were having to carry a mummy down here.
00:16:55It is so steep.
00:16:57After the day of Ippi's funeral,
00:16:59no-one was ever meant to go where we're now going,
00:17:03his burial chamber.
00:17:05Oh, wow!
00:17:05Oh, that's fantastic.
00:17:11Imagine being buried somewhere this isolated.
00:17:15This giant stone sarcophagus
00:17:18would once have contained Ippi's mummy.
00:17:21It's so beautiful.
00:17:22I love these grey colours.
00:17:24Thousands of years of dust and dirt are now carefully being removed
00:17:31to reveal the decorations and hieroglyphs.
00:17:34How heavy do you know that sarcophagus is?
00:17:39This is a huge block of seven tons and a half.
00:17:42So the amount of work that went into bringing this here
00:17:46was absolutely staggering.
00:17:48Yeah.
00:17:49And yet we know very little about Ippi beyond his name and important role.
00:17:59What we do know is that robbers had smashed their way into this chamber
00:18:03long before the first archaeologists made it here.
00:18:06He couldn't find the corpse, he couldn't find the coffin,
00:18:09and actually we know that most of the tombs in ancient Egypt
00:18:12were stolen some weeks or months after the burial.
00:18:17That's really interesting, because I always think of tomb robbing
00:18:19as having taken place in the Middle Ages or in the 17th or 18th century.
00:18:24But it could easily have been the mates of the guys who originally put this in.
00:18:29Exactly.
00:18:29Who came back a few weeks later.
00:18:31You are right.
00:18:31And nicked all the stuff.
00:18:33So Ippi's mummy may have gone missing a full 4,000 years ago.
00:18:45But while we may not have his mummy, the story of Ippi is far from over.
00:18:52In fact, there's been the most grisly of discoveries.
00:18:57Towards the end of last season,
00:18:59the archaeologists had a great find in this discreet little pit.
00:19:05Where is it?
00:19:06Well, as on most archaeological sites,
00:19:09it was right next to the tent where the archaeologists have their breakfast.
00:19:14If I hold this up, then maybe you can get through,
00:19:16and I can show you some more about it.
00:19:19Mummification is a really complex process,
00:19:23particularly if you're someone like Ippi, who's very grand.
00:19:27Now, with a bit of luck,
00:19:32the camera's going to be able to adjust to the darkness
00:19:34while I show you these 56 pots,
00:19:40which are all the waste material from Ippi's body,
00:19:45all the cloths, all the gore,
00:19:47all the blood from when he was mummified.
00:19:51Nothing tinged with Ippi's bodily fluids or tissues could be thrown away.
00:19:57So stained bandages and embalming materials
00:20:00were chucked in these pots and stored just outside the tomb.
00:20:05Until now.
00:20:07One of the big tasks this season
00:20:09is to scour through these 56 pots,
00:20:12and already they've had what is my favourite find
00:20:17since I've been in Egypt.
00:20:21OK, so these are some of the finds out of the big jars.
00:20:27Oh, thanks, Ron.
00:20:28Cheers.
00:20:29Now, that was the bandage that went round Ippi's mummy.
00:20:35This, what looks like a white tablecloth,
00:20:38was the wrapping round the mummy,
00:20:40and this, yes, Ippi's blood.
00:20:43Ippi's bloodstains.
00:20:44It is like a horror film, isn't it?
00:20:46But the creme de la creme.
00:20:49Antonio, tell us what this is.
00:20:51Well, this is the heart of the vizier Ippi.
00:20:54Can I just say that again?
00:20:55It's the heart of the vizier Ippi.
00:20:58How did you find that?
00:21:04Well, it's a surprising discovery.
00:21:07It was found within one of the jars.
00:21:10Can I hold it?
00:21:11Yeah, sure.
00:21:14It is a bit creepy, Tushimus.
00:21:17Feels almost like stone, doesn't it?
00:21:19It feels as though it's been carved.
00:21:22Am I right in saying that even the aorta
00:21:26has been packed with linen?
00:21:28Yeah.
00:21:30Did they know much about the heart?
00:21:32So in ancient Egyptian thought,
00:21:33the heart is where it resided the intelligence.
00:21:36That's why in the process of mummification,
00:21:38they don't mind basically removing the brain.
00:21:41But his heart should never have been separated from Ippi's body.
00:21:46It's a very strange case,
00:21:47because usually what they did was remove the heart
00:21:50from the chest of the mummy, mummify it,
00:21:52and then put it back into the chest of the mummy.
00:21:54Oh, right.
00:21:54It seems that a mummified heart
00:21:56looks a lot like one of the salt bags
00:21:59used to dry out Ippi's body.
00:22:02So they saw something that looked like one of those
00:22:04and chucked it away too.
00:22:05Exactly.
00:22:06So they messed up?
00:22:07Yeah, probably.
00:22:09I am holding a 4,000-year-old heart.
00:22:12Coming up...
00:22:20This is a funny-looking old thing, isn't it?
00:22:22I find an abandoned Egyptian treasure.
00:22:25It's a sphinx.
00:22:27I'm on the trail of modern tomb robbers.
00:22:29Welcome, Tony.
00:22:31And back at Silcilla, there's a mysterious discovery.
00:22:35Look down there.
00:22:36That is scary.
00:22:38Do we have any idea what it is?
00:22:39Welcome back to the Nile.
00:22:50I've moved to the southern city of Aswan.
00:22:55On the west bank,
00:22:57I'm meeting the Egyptian government's director of antiquities
00:23:00here in the city.
00:23:01Abdel Menem has agreed to show me
00:23:05some new and unexpected tomb discoveries.
00:23:10How many tombs?
00:23:10One, two, three?
00:23:11Two, four, nine tombs.
00:23:13Nine?
00:23:13Nine.
00:23:14Wow.
00:23:15Archaeologists had no idea these tombs existed,
00:23:18but people living close by did.
00:23:21In 2011,
00:23:23while violent uprisings caused chaos across Egypt,
00:23:27some locals shifted sand
00:23:29and smashed their way inside the tombs.
00:23:32So how did the guys move all that earth?
00:23:34By using mechanical digging loaders and so on.
00:23:38Maybe more than 25, 30 people per night.
00:23:42So a whole gang?
00:23:43Yes.
00:23:44And they weren't doing it subtly and with care.
00:23:46They were just busting it open to see if there was anything gold.
00:23:49Of course, because the main point for them to steal treasures.
00:23:53You can still see signs of the robbers' work.
00:23:58A mechanical digger smashed the stone roof of the tomb here.
00:24:03Tomb doorways have been damaged and broken.
00:24:07It's possible these tombs lay undisturbed until a few years ago.
00:24:12And this is the first time anyone has been allowed to film them.
00:24:18Welcome, Tony.
00:24:19How beautifully carved this is.
00:24:24Who's this guy?
00:24:26The owner of the tomb, Imhotep,
00:24:29the ruler of this local area.
00:24:33Imhotep controlled Aswan around 1450 BC,
00:24:38just a few generations before Tutankhamun and Ramesses the Great.
00:24:45But it's not painted. It's not finished.
00:24:48That's why this tomb is very, very important and interesting.
00:24:52When you see a tomb like that,
00:24:54it means that it hadn't been finished yet.
00:24:59Imhotep almost certainly died before work on his tomb was complete.
00:25:04His builders and craftsmen stopped what they were doing
00:25:08so the tomb could be occupied.
00:25:11But there is one bit of painting and that's Imhotep's eye.
00:25:18Oh, fantastic. You have good eyes, Mr. Tony.
00:25:21It really is quite spooky.
00:25:24Suddenly, three and a half thousand years doesn't seem quite such a long time.
00:25:29The robbers may have stolen treasures and artefacts.
00:25:37It's a bit of a struggle, isn't it?
00:25:38Yeah.
00:25:39But they couldn't remove the beautiful artwork on the walls.
00:25:43Oh!
00:25:45Now this is interesting.
00:25:47Look at that colour.
00:25:48The next door tomb belonged to Usser,
00:25:56ruler of this area during the reign of Tutankhamun's grandfather.
00:26:01Have you done anything to this painting since you first excavated it?
00:26:06Nothing.
00:26:07Everything is as it was.
00:26:10And it survived like that.
00:26:12The paintings show Usser, his wife and his sister-in-law,
00:26:19all of whom are believed to have been buried here.
00:26:24This is such a privilege.
00:26:26How many people have seen this?
00:26:28Not more than 20 people.
00:26:30Including the archaeologists?
00:26:31Including the archaeologists.
00:26:33Oh, wow.
00:26:36In a few months, a team will return
00:26:39to examine anything not taken by the robbers.
00:26:42and explore further chambers.
00:26:46Which might yet contain a mummy.
00:26:50And what happens to the tomb?
00:26:51We hope to be opened for visitors in the future.
00:26:56Oh, fantastic.
00:26:57Yes.
00:26:58We'd never have found it if it hadn't been for the robbers.
00:27:00Although, don't thank them too much.
00:27:02Not too much.
00:27:0350 miles downstream,
00:27:14I'm heading back to Silcilla
00:27:15and the extraordinary world of Maria Nilsen and John Ward.
00:27:19You like those ones, but that is not.
00:27:23When they're not busy with daughter Freya and baby Jonathan,
00:27:27they're systematically revealing the resting places
00:27:29of the men and women who built ancient Egypt.
00:27:33Nice.
00:27:34They've now found 70 rock-cut tombs.
00:27:42What have we got here, then?
00:27:44But one recent discovery is something quite different.
00:27:48And they've promised me we can tackle it together.
00:27:51Look down there.
00:27:55That is scary.
00:27:57Do we have any idea what it is?
00:27:59No, it's unique.
00:28:00All of our tombs are surface tombs.
00:28:02Yeah.
00:28:03This is a shaft.
00:28:06Now, I do know it goes for five metres straight down.
00:28:10Yeah.
00:28:10Because we dug that out.
00:28:12But as soon as we started moving the sand, the water came.
00:28:15What I don't understand is, we are in the middle of the desert.
00:28:19Yeah.
00:28:20All around us, there are tombs which are absolutely dry.
00:28:23Here, suddenly, we've got water like it's an oasis.
00:28:26What's going on?
00:28:27It could be one of any many things.
00:28:28It could be the Nile.
00:28:29It could be just groundwater.
00:28:31It could be surface water from the desert irrigation
00:28:34filling through the fissures, and here we have it here.
00:28:36What I can tell you is the water's warm,
00:28:40it's salty to the taste, and it's clear.
00:28:43Do you think we can pump it out?
00:28:44I want to get Shahad and the boys.
00:28:46I want to get the pumps in, get them going,
00:28:48and hopefully we'll be able to see at least the bottom of the shaft.
00:28:52That's great.
00:28:53Come on, boys.
00:28:55John's got two petrol-driven pumps, both with long hoses.
00:29:00Let's get both these pumps going.
00:29:01They should be able to suck water from the shaft
00:29:04and dump it into the Nile.
00:29:07How good are these pumps?
00:29:09Er, yeah.
00:29:11That means, er, no?
00:29:12Er, you've got one right here.
00:29:16But if the pumps can pump quicker than the water is seeping in,
00:29:20then we should find out if this ancient theatre of heavy industry
00:29:24is about to get a new tomb.
00:29:27I reckon this is the intensity of sound
00:29:36that would have been going on here three and a half thousand years ago,
00:29:41beautifully recreated by a petrol pump.
00:29:45Let's hope the pump holds out.
00:29:47While the water level slowly drops,
00:29:56there's a chance for me to find out a bit more about the people who worked here.
00:30:03On the edge of the old quarries...
00:30:05Maria!
00:30:06..there's a unique piece of art.
00:30:09Commissioned by Ramesses the Great,
00:30:11it proves how important the people who worked and are now buried here were to him.
00:30:18So it's like a cartoon, an ancient type of cartoon,
00:30:22that puts us in the footsteps of the ancients.
00:30:27These are the masons with the mallet hitting the chisel.
00:30:30And you see the rectangle in the middle?
00:30:34That's the sandstone block that's just been extracted from the quarry face.
00:30:40You've got on the right side a doctor.
00:30:43He's attending an injured worker who's stretching out his leg.
00:30:48I can see that leg really, really clearly.
00:30:50Yes.
00:30:54These are well looked after skilled masons and craftsmen.
00:30:59Why do you think it was so significant for Ramesses to show this?
00:31:05He wants to show that he's the great builder,
00:31:08he's the greatest king of them all.
00:31:11The fact that he had this many men
00:31:14that could be involved in the process of extracting blocks
00:31:17and build all these temples.
00:31:19So would it be fair to say that these are the people
00:31:22whose tombs that you have been finding?
00:31:25It appears so, yes.
00:31:26These skilled workers really were the engine room of Egypt,
00:31:31but we're only just getting to know them.
00:31:36This is a funny-looking old thing, isn't it?
00:31:40Oh, I see what it is now.
00:31:44There's a beard here,
00:31:46then there would have been a big head on top of it.
00:31:48It's a sphinx!
00:31:49Exactly.
00:31:51But what's it doing here?
00:31:52Well, Susila, it's not just famous for its quarries.
00:31:56It was a workshop of anything that was made of sandstone.
00:32:00Why didn't they finish this off and transport it?
00:32:02This poor old girl, unfortunately,
00:32:04due to the cracking, was abandoned.
00:32:06Oh, yeah, I can see a big...
00:32:08Yep.
00:32:09...crack along there.
00:32:11Oh, imagine if you'd been the mason doing that.
00:32:14Oh, dear.
00:32:15Start again.
00:32:18Nevertheless, you can't help but have immense respect
00:32:21for the skilled workers of Silcilla.
00:32:23Good boy.
00:32:25And just maybe the tomb of one or more of them
00:32:29lies hidden in our mysterious shaft.
00:32:32Coming up...
00:32:36Right, let's go down.
00:32:37John and I brave water and mud...
00:32:39I'm going to need a new pair of trousers when I get out of here.
00:32:42..to see if we really do have a new tomb.
00:32:45Oh, Tony, this is a huge chamber.
00:32:52El El Silcilla.
00:32:54Over there are the remains of ancient Egypt's biggest ever stone quarries.
00:32:58A little bit further on, down there,
00:33:02are the tombs of some of the people who worked in those quarries
00:33:053,500 years ago.
00:33:08These people built Egypt
00:33:10into the greatest civilisation of the ancient world.
00:33:14But on their trail are Maria Nilsson and John Ward.
00:33:18Bousher.
00:33:19This is their dream team.
00:33:21They're tackling one of their most intriguing discoveries yet.
00:33:24Young men, they're going over to the canal.
00:33:28A large vertical shaft, which, despite being in the desert,
00:33:33is full of water.
00:33:36But with John's pumps just about holding out...
00:33:39It's going down quick.
00:33:41..he's promised that he and I can be the first to find out
00:33:45if this shaft leads to a new tomb.
00:33:48Oh, that's better!
00:33:53Oh, what a relief.
00:33:54With the water gone,
00:33:57we're faced with a very deep man-made pit.
00:34:00It's remarkably perpendicular, isn't it?
00:34:04But at the bottom,
00:34:05there's already what looks like an opening.
00:34:08An entrance, maybe,
00:34:10that could lead to something else.
00:34:14We're going down.
00:34:15Let's make it so, shall we?
00:34:16Yeah.
00:34:17I'll go first.
00:34:19I can guide you down, then.
00:34:21But now the pumps are off,
00:34:24the water's seeping back in.
00:34:28OK.
00:34:30Right, let's go down.
00:34:32It's just this initial bit that's so scary, isn't it?
00:34:37It's almost 20 feet to get to the bottom of the pit.
00:34:40And what's down there, we don't know.
00:34:45I've got my diving boots on
00:34:48because John said he didn't want me to wear my ordinary shoes
00:34:53because when I'm in the mud,
00:34:55he doesn't want me crushing anything.
00:34:58You're doing really well there, Tony.
00:35:00Thanks, mate.
00:35:01Oh.
00:35:03There's still a load of water in here.
00:35:04And it's rising.
00:35:06Oh.
00:35:07I'm going to need a new pair of trousers when I get out of here.
00:35:09Mind you, I have anyway, because I'm so scared.
00:35:14Wherever this water's coming from,
00:35:16it's flowing in quickly through the mysterious opening.
00:35:21Wow.
00:35:22That is astonishing, isn't it?
00:35:24Now we're down here,
00:35:26it's clear this really is an entrance,
00:35:29even a doorway.
00:35:33Paul Cutler's closure.
00:35:34Look at it.
00:35:35Oh, yeah.
00:35:35The slab would have gone all the way through.
00:35:37This is just like the recess for a medieval portcullis in the castle.
00:35:41That's it, exactly.
00:35:42It would have come straight down over here,
00:35:45protected the front of the door,
00:35:47so that nobody could get in.
00:35:53This is a proper tomb, isn't it?
00:35:56Exactly.
00:35:56It's pretty dark, though.
00:35:58We're going to need some lights.
00:35:59Yes, please.
00:35:59Can we have some lights down here, please?
00:36:03The lengths that the ancient Egyptians went to
00:36:06to plan and build this inaccessible space are staggering.
00:36:11Right.
00:36:13Lights?
00:36:13Yeah.
00:36:14OK.
00:36:16Shall we put these in there together?
00:36:18Yeah.
00:36:19Wow.
00:36:29This is a huge chamber.
00:36:31Look at it.
00:36:34Do you see that in the back?
00:36:35Oh, yeah.
00:36:37Is that a door?
00:36:37Is that a niche?
00:36:38What is that?
00:36:39Hang on, let's get in.
00:36:40I'll try and stick this light.
00:36:44Is that pottery next to you?
00:36:45In Egyptian tombs,
00:36:48broken pottery is perhaps the most common of all finds.
00:36:51It's a beer jar.
00:36:54But there's a few things here that aren't pottery.
00:37:00Skeleton remains.
00:37:09This is just like the movies, isn't it?
00:37:14Look at this.
00:37:16What do you reckon would be in there?
00:37:21I really don't know.
00:37:22It's totally different to any of our chambers that we found.
00:37:27That secondary chamber is another burial.
00:37:30We're not talking about just a family.
00:37:32We're talking about 50, 60 people plus.
00:37:36And all their bits and pieces are mixed in beneath our knees.
00:37:40Yeah.
00:37:41Human soup.
00:37:42The idea that so many workers might have been buried down here is pretty eerie.
00:37:49And someone, at least, must have been of real status.
00:37:53This chamber has been carefully chiseled out.
00:37:57And this doorway, beautifully finished.
00:38:00What's intriguing me is that the ceiling is vaulted.
00:38:06What do you mean by vaulted?
00:38:08Well, it's got an arch to it.
00:38:10But I'm not seeing any painted.
00:38:12I'm not seeing any names.
00:38:13I'm not seeing any writing.
00:38:14What can you see?
00:38:19Are you seeing that?
00:38:20Yeah, yeah.
00:38:22It's a central painted line down the entire alignment.
00:38:25What do you think it's function is?
00:38:29It's basically to allow the stone workers, the guys who are actually hewing this chamber out.
00:38:34To do it equally each side.
00:38:35Exactly.
00:38:36To give them a central ribbon from the doorway.
00:38:39And that goes all...
00:38:40I mean, let's follow it.
00:38:41I mean, it's going all the way to the centre of that doorway.
00:38:44There seems no doubt there's another key part of this tomb beyond this second doorway.
00:38:50And that's completely flooded.
00:38:53Do you think we could get that pumped out?
00:38:55If we can get the pumps further in here, we can probably take that water level down.
00:38:59Ahmed!
00:39:00Yeah?
00:39:01Can you try and bring the other pump in here?
00:39:03Yes.
00:39:05If the hose is long enough, we may just get to see what's beyond the door.
00:39:13I don't know if you've felt it, but it's warm water.
00:39:16Yeah.
00:39:16It can't be coming from the Nile.
00:39:18So, therefore, it has to be some kind of natural reservoir under the mountain.
00:39:23Or it's coming from the desert, from irrigation, just naturally filting through.
00:39:28And as the water level inside this chamber goes down...
00:39:33What's that?
00:39:33Oh, yeah.
00:39:35What is it?
00:39:36There's a discovery in the very far corner.
00:39:39Looks like a handle.
00:39:41Yeah.
00:39:42It's a lot.
00:39:43It's a big, big, big pot.
00:39:45There's a huge pot here.
00:39:46Do you want to hold the...
00:39:48Yeah, I'm here.
00:39:49...little camera for a moment.
00:39:50Look how far it goes!
00:39:55It's just massive.
00:39:56It goes on right down.
00:39:58I'm fairly sure we've discovered a large amphora.
00:40:03I can even feel the rounded bottom of the great jar.
00:40:06I'm right on the end of it, and the top's here, isn't it?
00:40:09Yeah, yeah.
00:40:10It must be at least two foot tall, mustn't it?
00:40:15In all my years of finding pottery, I've never found anything like this.
00:40:21It's like a huge whale.
00:40:24What do you reckon it's used for?
00:40:25It would have held some kind of food substance that was buried with the dead.
00:40:31Now, what I love is that it's actually intact.
00:40:33That is beautiful.
00:40:35But unfortunately, it's lying on its side and stuck fast in the mud.
00:40:40And we wouldn't be able to get it out now?
00:40:42No.
00:40:42Without having to really remove all of this mud and silt, that's stuck in there.
00:40:49But that alone was worth coming to Egypt.
00:40:57But now, there's a fresh problem.
00:41:02What happened?
00:41:03The pump's broken.
00:41:05Up up.
00:41:06With one motor out of action, there's no way we can keep the water level down inside the tomb.
00:41:13This is actually going to start rising any moment soon.
00:41:17What I want to do is get as close to that doorway as possible.
00:41:19Let's have a good peek in it, and then I think we should bug out.
00:41:22OK.
00:41:24If I wasn't wet and muddy already...
00:41:27I am now.
00:41:33What do you think, Tony?
00:41:36Well, it just goes on and on, doesn't it?
00:41:40I mean, this is fantastic.
00:41:42It is a vaulted ceiling again.
00:41:44I mean, that's a good, what, four or five metres?
00:41:46Because we don't know where the walls are.
00:41:50All we're seeing is ceiling.
00:41:52That means this chamber could be huge.
00:41:59Whatever is in front of us, this is a first for me.
00:42:03Elbow deep in silt and water, five metres underground, in a tomb built three and a half thousand years ago.
00:42:15This is about all we're going to be able to do, isn't it?
00:42:17I think this is it.
00:42:17I think we need to get out of here before this water really starts to rise.
00:42:25Entering a space like this is a real adrenaline rush.
00:42:28But for this tomb, this is just the beginning.
00:42:38Until a way can be found to hold back the water,
00:42:41you get the feeling this place, its occupants,
00:42:45and my pot will hold on to their secrets.
00:42:48What an amazing adventure.
00:42:55We know where these people worked, we know what their achievements were,
00:42:59we know where they died,
00:43:01but there's still so much about them that we don't know.
00:43:06So many mysteries.
00:43:08From the giant tomb of a prime minister
00:43:13to the mysterious burials of people who built a great civilisation.
00:43:20This has been a window into Egypt at the peak of its powers.
00:43:26And for John and Maria,
00:43:28the rest of their working lives is here under their noses.
00:43:33It's work that most archaeologists can only dream of.
00:43:38Tomorrow night,
00:43:43I thought you and I could take a little trip down the Nile.
00:43:47Finding a tomb proves to be very dangerous.
00:43:53I'll meet the ruler of ancient Egypt's southern border.
00:43:57Look at the eyes staring at us across time.
00:44:01And enter a priest's tomb,
00:44:03which might lead us to a new pyramid.
00:44:06His name is Arty,
00:44:07which means I'm alive.
00:44:09I hope he's not alive now.
00:44:16There's always been one part of human history
00:44:18that's really captured my imagination.
00:44:23Talking about ancient Egypt.
00:44:25Almost a hundred years ago,
00:44:31Howard Carter and his discovery of Tutankhamen
00:44:34crowned a golden age of tomb exploration.
00:44:39But right now,
00:44:41the archaeologists are back.
00:44:44It's going down very deep.
00:44:46And the world of Egyptian tombs...
00:44:48It's full of snake holes.
00:44:50It's more exciting than ever.
00:44:56And I'm joining them.
00:44:58I've got a bone here.
00:45:00On the hunt for new tombs.
00:45:03Oh, yes, there's hieroglyphics here.
00:45:06And awesome discoveries.
00:45:08It's the blood of the mummy.
00:45:11If there's one thing we know about the ancient Egyptians,
00:45:14it's that they did death better than anyone else.
00:45:17From mighty pyramids to tombs cut in hillsides,
00:45:21they come in all shapes and sizes
00:45:24and give us an intriguing glimpse
00:45:26into their extraordinary world.
00:45:28I'm heading across Egypt...
00:45:31Oh, God!
00:45:33..on a tomb adventure...
00:45:35Hi-ya!
00:45:37..which has been 4,000 years in the making.
00:45:40This is just like the movies, isn't it?
00:45:47In last night's programme...
00:45:49I'm going to need a new pair of trousers when I get out of here.
00:45:51..I was hunting for the men and women who built ancient Egypt...
00:45:55This is a huge chamber.
00:45:57..when Egypt...
00:45:58..was at the peak of its powers
00:46:00and the tombs were spectacular.
00:46:03You could put a London Underground train in here.
00:46:06Oh, wow!
00:46:09But right now, I'm turning the clock back several more centuries
00:46:13and moving to what was once the edge of the Egyptian world.
00:46:20Welcome to southern Egypt.
00:46:23Below me is the mighty river Nile.
00:46:26On the far bank is the city of Aswan.
00:46:28But my focus for this programme is going to be right here under my feet.
00:46:364,000 years ago, this was ancient Aswan's most important burial ground.
00:46:42It might look like any other old rocky, sandy slope rolling down to the river,
00:46:48but this is much, much more.
00:46:51This is a necropolis, a city of the dead.
00:46:55And today, it's a hive of activity once more, with archaeologists coming from all over the world
00:47:03who are making the most amazing tomb discoveries, and one of them has said that I can join him.
00:47:10Archaeologist Dr Martin Bomas has been digging in southern Egypt for nearly 30 years.
00:47:16More than anyone, he knows that beneath the sand and rubble here, there are still many tombs to find.
00:47:23This is your first day here?
00:47:24It is. Congratulations.
00:47:25Yeah.
00:47:26Martin's starting a new three-week dig season, and he's brought his biggest team ever,
00:47:34including archaeology students, trainee lecturers, a leading pottery expert,
00:47:42and 22 all-important diggers.
00:47:48You've got hundreds of tonnes of sand in a great arc round here.
00:47:54How on earth did you decide where you wanted to put your energy for the next few weeks?
00:47:59Our focus for our exploration period this time is just the hill in front of us,
00:48:04you know, the big mound of rubble.
00:48:06High up this slope are some of the biggest tombs in southern Egypt.
00:48:12Many were found over a century ago with the help of a young Howard Carter,
00:48:17long before he found fame discovering Tutankhamun.
00:48:21But there are large parts of this site that have never been touched.
00:48:26So, here's the River Nile here, which is down in that direction.
00:48:30Yes.
00:48:31We're currently standing here, looking up the hill,
00:48:35which from the Nile looks like a massive sand dune falling into the Nile.
00:48:39So, have all these been discovered, then?
00:48:43Yes.
00:48:44So, these are all tombs that have already been excavated.
00:48:46Mm-hm.
00:48:47And where's your site on this map?
00:48:49So, this is the area we're going to work on.
00:48:54Martin's team will now be working a six-day week
00:48:57to try and prove that there are undiscovered tombs here.
00:49:03But they've only got three weeks to do it.
00:49:05After that, the temperature will get so ridiculously hot
00:49:09that the whole digging season in Egypt comes to an end.
00:49:12And, in addition, this year they've got me and a camera team to contend with.
00:49:18So, no pressure.
00:49:22While they get started, I've been given special access
00:49:25to a tomb that's already been excavated here at the City of the Dead.
00:49:32But it's a heck of a climb to get there.
00:49:34Now, Necropolis is tied together by a series of causeways like this one.
00:49:39They're sort of ancient staircases that ascend from the river.
00:49:47The dead would have been processed up here as part of their funeral.
00:49:51At least, if they weren't dead at the bottom,
00:49:54they would have been by the time they got to the top.
00:49:56To be fair, though, climbing the causeways is well worth the effort.
00:50:11Who wouldn't want to be buried up here?
00:50:16For at least 500 years,
00:50:18the most important people in southern Egypt were buried at this necropolis.
00:50:22The pharaoh himself gave permission for new tombs to be built.
00:50:27And, right now, I'm looking for one of the very grandest.
00:50:32This extraordinary courtyard dominates the whole of this side of the cliff,
00:50:39swinging all the way round here as well.
00:50:42Imagine what this would have looked like originally
00:50:45when it was beautifully polished and sanded.
00:50:48And this was just the place where people gossiped about you
00:50:52after you'd died.
00:50:53The tomb itself is in here.
00:51:01Wow!
00:51:03Isn't this magnificent?
00:51:05It's a privilege just to stand here.
00:51:07This is the tomb of a guy called Sarumput II,
00:51:12who was governor here a mere 3,860-odd years ago.
00:51:20And look at these stone columns,
00:51:23all of them hewn out of the solid rock.
00:51:27They haven't been painted.
00:51:29This, what appears to be, decoration.
00:51:31It's just the lines in the rock itself.
00:51:35The governor Sarumput was one of Egypt's local rulers,
00:51:42controlling regions on behalf of the pharaoh.
00:51:45Here on the southern border,
00:51:48Sarumput protected the gateway to the rest of Africa.
00:51:52And now we come to a corridor where there's a statue of him.
00:52:00He's lost his head, but apart from that, he's great.
00:52:04Here's one with its head still intact.
00:52:08And I think, yep, another one here.
00:52:12So we've got one, two, three, four, five, six statues.
00:52:16Look at the eyes on that one, staring at us across time.
00:52:21So where's Sarumput?
00:52:27Well, I'm told that his mummy was never found.
00:52:31It was robbed, I suppose, hundreds, even thousands of years ago,
00:52:35because of all the jewels that would probably have been on it.
00:52:39So as for the man himself, all that's left now
00:52:43is a painting in a little cupboard.
00:52:47Back outside, the team are looking for the next big tomb.
00:53:04But already, Martin's discovered something else,
00:53:08the sort of find that could only happen in Egypt.
00:53:12There's your first mummy. What?
00:53:15Look at that.
00:53:19This is a mummy.
00:53:21Well, that's the upper part of a mummy only.
00:53:23Oh, extraordinary.
00:53:24Because the pelvis is just around your back.
00:53:26Ah!
00:53:27Look at that.
00:53:28That's the pelvis.
00:53:29It's tapping me on the shoulder.
00:53:30Yes.
00:53:31This remarkable find, a headless mummy,
00:53:35simply appeared this morning
00:53:37as the wind blew just enough sand away to reveal it.
00:53:40Do you think that this would originally have been a stone tomb?
00:53:44Yes, but perhaps the dog's pulled it out.
00:53:47Is there anything that we can say about this mummified body?
00:53:51So what we're looking at here is just the torso.
00:53:53The legs are missing.
00:53:55It's lying on its tummy.
00:53:57You see the arm here.
00:53:58This is his arm?
00:53:59Exactly, yes.
00:54:00This seems to be the elbow.
00:54:02Just here, yes.
00:54:03Leading up to the shoulder, where your finger is.
00:54:05And it must have been burned as well because it's rather black here.
00:54:08But look at the mummy bindings.
00:54:10There's such a good quality.
00:54:12Look at the quality of the linen here.
00:54:14That's really nicely done indeed.
00:54:16Such a wonderful quality.
00:54:17It's just great stuff.
00:54:19Must have been a very rich person.
00:54:21Am I allowed to touch it?
00:54:22Yes, of course.
00:54:23It's quite snake-like, isn't it?
00:54:26Right.
00:54:27And although it's hard, it's not solid, you feel as though you can press it in.
00:54:32Yeah, well, it's hollow inside.
00:54:33Why is that?
00:54:34Because they took out the internal organs, which were preserved separately, according to Egyptian custom.
00:54:40How old do you think it is?
00:54:42Well, I believe it's a Roman mummy.
00:54:44I didn't know there were such things as Roman mummies.
00:54:47Well, they adopted, you know.
00:54:48The Romans had a very strong presence here in Aswan.
00:54:51So this mummy is about 2,000 years old.
00:54:53It is.
00:54:54And the tombs we're looking for are about 4,500 years old.
00:54:57So there's more time between our tombs and this mummy than there is between this mummy and us.
00:55:04That's correct, yes.
00:55:05My first mummy discovery is proof of how much waits to be discovered here, just beneath the surface.
00:55:13Elsewhere around the dig, the finds are less grisly, but more likely to point to new tombs.
00:55:24The sandy slopes of Martin's dig site are littered with ancient bricks made out of mud.
00:55:31That is not rock, is it?
00:55:34It's clearly man-made.
00:55:38But at the end of day one, the most definite find so far...
00:55:42The one, two, three levels and perhaps the fourth levels.
00:55:46...is what's running straight up the hill.
00:55:49Look, can you see how here this is all loose sand?
00:55:57Well, that's what this whole area was like at the beginning of the day.
00:56:00But now, since they've done all the work, can you see how hard that is?
00:56:05How impacted?
00:56:06All of this is a man-made surface.
00:56:10And what we think it is, is the pavement of a causeway that once went from here, whoosh, right the way up to there.
00:56:21And at this city of the dead, previous causeway discoveries have led the way to big tombs.
00:56:28If Martin's right and he is digging in the right place, then we could be about to reveal a brand new chapter in the story of the city of the dead.
00:56:44How cool would that be, to be the first people to uncover and enter a great Egyptian tomb?
00:56:51Which reminds me that when Howard Carter was excavating the tomb of Tutankhamun, he chiselled a little hole in the door of the tomb and he peered in.
00:57:03And behind him was his sponsor, Lord Carnarvon, and Carnarvon was going, Carter, can you see anything?
00:57:12And Howard Carter said, yes, wonderful things.
00:57:19Coming up, I'm on the trail of a missing pharaoh.
00:57:23Oh, wow.
00:57:24But among the pyramids, there's an unexpected turn.
00:57:28You don't see something like this every day.
00:57:30And it leads to my deepest tomb yet.
00:57:34This does feel a bit Indiana...
00:57:36Oh, yes!
00:57:49I've been looking for tombs at ancient Aswan's greatest burial ground.
00:57:54This site rose to prominence over 4,000 years ago.
00:57:59Whilst elsewhere in Egypt, the pharaohs were busy building pyramids.
00:58:08I've travelled over 400 miles north of Aswan.
00:58:11Whoa!
00:58:12God!
00:58:13But this is no sightseeing tour.
00:58:15I thought we were going to go over the edge there.
00:58:17Dr Vasco Dobrev has been working in the desert outside Cairo for the past 30 years.
00:58:25And he's on the hunt for a new pyramid.
00:58:29What is a pyramid?
00:58:30Ah, a pyramid.
00:58:31The pyramid is the tomb of the king.
00:58:33But there is something more.
00:58:35In the pyramid, he will resurrect.
00:58:37He can go up to the sky.
00:58:39Pyramid points towards the heavens, helping a deceased pharaoh to take their place among the gods.
00:58:50How many of these pyramids are there?
00:58:52About 120.
00:58:54Wow!
00:58:55About 120 all around Egypt.
00:59:00Often we only think of the famous pyramids of Giza.
00:59:03But this site, called Saqqara, boasts the first pyramid and a great many more.
00:59:12Why Saqqara, Vasco?
00:59:13Why did so many pharaohs build their pyramids here?
00:59:16Well, for a very simple reason.
00:59:18Saqqara is exactly in front of the capital of Egypt, Memphis.
00:59:23And where's Memphis now?
00:59:24Just behind there.
00:59:25Behind the hill.
00:59:26See the green palm trees?
00:59:28Yeah.
00:59:29This is Memphis from the time of the pyramids.
00:59:32Pyramids here span six centuries of Egyptian history.
00:59:37But one dynasty of pharaohs in particular chose to build their magnificent tombs in Saqqara.
00:59:45This is a small pyramid.
00:59:46This is Pepe II.
00:59:47His father's here.
00:59:49His great-grandfather is just behind.
00:59:52All the family's around.
00:59:56Some of the pyramids are in a sorry state.
00:59:59Over centuries, their beautiful outer layer of stone has been stolen.
01:00:04But the key to Vasco's thinking is that some pyramids may never have been completed.
01:00:13We're climbing up the plateau.
01:00:15I have to accelerate a little bit not to get stuck, huh?
01:00:18I have a feeling you really enjoy driving this vehicle.
01:00:22Yeah.
01:00:24We're heading to a flat plateau top.
01:00:29The site, Vasco believes, of an undiscovered pyramid.
01:00:32Which pharaoh do we think we're talking about here?
01:00:39So maybe we have here the pharaoh Uzarkare.
01:00:42And how long did he last?
01:00:44That's the problem.
01:00:45He didn't reign for a long time.
01:00:46Maybe three, four years.
01:00:47He cannot finish a 52-metre high pyramid in three years.
01:00:51Uzarkare may only have had time to create his pyramid's base
01:00:55and construct his burial chambers beneath it.
01:00:59OK, so this is the big question.
01:01:02We've got activity all over the place.
01:01:05So why do you think the pyramid is right here?
01:01:08First of all, we are on the good height.
01:01:10Yeah.
01:01:11We discovered that all these pyramids that are in Saqqara,
01:01:14they are on the same level.
01:01:16So there is a kind of pyramid level.
01:01:18And here we have his father to the north.
01:01:22His son is just there.
01:01:24His grandson, Pepe II, is behind.
01:01:27So you see, from north to south,
01:01:29this family is following one after the other.
01:01:31And we have something else.
01:01:34New technology.
01:01:35Geophysics.
01:01:36Geophysics!
01:01:37Electromagnetic waves.
01:01:39We have something with right angles.
01:01:42This is not naturally made.
01:01:44We have a kind of square here, 80 by 80 metres,
01:01:47which is exactly the size of the pyramid of that period.
01:01:51But Vasco's most telling evidence by far...
01:01:55..is just 50 yards from where he believes the pyramid to be.
01:02:01Here we are.
01:02:02Oh!
01:02:04You don't see something like this every day, do you?
01:02:08Wow!
01:02:09Look at all this!
01:02:11Over the last few years, Vasco has unearthed tomb after tomb.
01:02:19We have more than 60 tombs on the surface already.
01:02:23And these are sizeable tombs for important Egyptians.
01:02:28They must have had good reason to be here.
01:02:32If you have people here, they don't come just by chance,
01:02:37it's because there is somebody important just behind.
01:02:40So this isn't only fantastic archaeology in its own right.
01:02:43This is cast-iron evidence that people came here
01:02:46because there's a king buried somewhere around here.
01:02:49Exactly.
01:02:50And Vasco's keen to show me his latest discovery.
01:02:55On the edge of his site is an unusual chessboard-like structure,
01:03:00dating from just after the time of our missing pharaoh.
01:03:04This is huge, this area here, isn't it?
01:03:07Yeah, it's an enormous structure, 12 by 12 metres,
01:03:10and we have 23 shafts.
01:03:13Each of these shafts should lead to a tomb.
01:03:18And there's one that Vasco's started to explore.
01:03:26Look at this!
01:03:27Oh, my goodness, yeah!
01:03:30That's deep!
01:03:33And there's no way Vasco's letting me leave without joining him...
01:03:38..on a little adventure.
01:03:43Right, just popping back 4,000 years.
01:03:48Not more than a handful of people have ever been down this shaft.
01:03:53At least not for a few thousand years.
01:04:00Just catch the handle?
01:04:02Yeah, I'm holding onto the handle like crazy.
01:04:04OK, that's it.
01:04:05At 15 metres, this shaft is deeper than three double-decker buses at all.
01:04:22What are these depressions in the side of it here?
01:04:24That's how the Egyptians were going down.
01:04:27They didn't use, like us, ropes.
01:04:29They were going attached to the mountain itself.
01:04:32Oh, no!
01:04:33That's extraordinary!
01:04:35These little rudimentary steps.
01:04:37Yes, yes.
01:04:38With bare feet, you can do it.
01:04:39That would be absolutely terrifying, wouldn't it?
01:04:46When you started digging,
01:04:48had you any idea that you would go down as far as you actually did?
01:04:52Absolutely not.
01:04:53I was expecting to go not more than 4, 6 metres.
01:04:57Yeah.
01:04:58And what happened when you got down that far?
01:05:01Then I was expecting to find the chamber, the funerary chamber.
01:05:03Yeah.
01:05:04Nothing.
01:05:05So I had to continue 7, 8, 9, 10, nothing.
01:05:08Yeah.
01:05:09So I didn't know where to go, huh?
01:05:12Have we got any idea what the name was of the man who was buried down here?
01:05:18His name is Ankti, which means I'm alive.
01:05:22I hope he's not alive now.
01:05:26Welcome to the bottom of the shaft.
01:05:29OK, I'm down.
01:05:31Like many of his neighbours here, our tomb owner, Ankti, was a priest.
01:05:38Let's take out the light.
01:05:39There we go.
01:05:40A priest laid to rest over 4,200 years ago.
01:05:45So, Tony, you can go first.
01:05:46OK.
01:05:52Oh, this does feel a bit Indiana.
01:05:55Oh, yes, there's hieroglyphics here.
01:05:57Do you know, I thought it would just be an empty cave.
01:06:09I didn't realise that we'd be decorated like this.
01:06:13This is beautiful.
01:06:19These are the oldest paintings and hieroglyphics I've ever seen.
01:06:28Was it filled with sand?
01:06:30It was filled with sand until here.
01:06:32You see the trace, you see?
01:06:34Just down there.
01:06:35Yes, like this.
01:06:36Not completely filled.
01:06:37And down there, we found the body of the priest.
01:06:40Down here?
01:06:41Exactly, on his place.
01:06:42Where I am now.
01:06:45The body of Ankti was not in a good state.
01:06:48At this time, over 2,000 years before Cleopatra, mummification wasn't far advanced.
01:07:00The body tissue had rotted away and Ankti's bones are about all that survive.
01:07:08They've been removed and will be studied and x-rayed in due course.
01:07:12Still here, though, are the fantastic images of offerings to sustain Ankti in the afterlife.
01:07:22Here, the food offerings.
01:07:24The best choices of meat, some salads, also to drink, maybe milk or even wine.
01:07:33In the antiquity they had a lot of nice wine.
01:07:35And you've got this big sand line again down here.
01:07:37Exactly the same.
01:07:38Then you've got this red rectangle at the bottom.
01:07:40And yes, here we're coming to the most important part of the tomb.
01:07:44The door.
01:07:45This is a door.
01:07:47Because when he'll resurrect, he has to go out.
01:07:50He wouldn't stay here.
01:07:51That's not the way he imagined his life after death.
01:07:55Through this door, he will go out to the right.
01:07:59This beautiful art was painted over 4,000 years ago and 15 metres underground.
01:08:08Tomb decoration like this was fashionable during the reign of Ankti's pharaoh, Pepe II, whose name appears inside the tomb.
01:08:19So perhaps Ankti's job as a priest was to service the tomb of Pepe's grandfather, the missing pharaoh Usakare.
01:08:27I'm coming up lads, hold onto that rope.
01:08:30But is Usakare's tomb hiding in the sand just yards away?
01:08:36It's a spine-tingling thought.
01:08:39And between here and there, there's already a great many more tombs to find.
01:08:46Ah, it's extraordinary to get out into the fresh air again.
01:08:55You know, down there, what we saw was so stunning.
01:09:00And up here, there must be, I don't know, the possibility of 50, 60, 100 more shafts just like that one.
01:09:10Now, if we found that down there, imagine what people might find us sometime in the future.
01:09:18Sorry I was out of breath.
01:09:20Coming up...
01:09:25I thought you and I could take a little trip down the Nile.
01:09:28I'm back in Aswan, where the dangers of tomb hunting become clear.
01:09:35But the hard work does finally pay off.
01:09:38A tomb!
01:09:39Yes!
01:09:40Yay, we've got a tomb!
01:09:50Welcome back to Egypt, where I'm returning to Aswan's ancient city of the dead.
01:10:01Looks pretty good in the morning light, isn't it?
01:10:05Dr Martin Bomas and his team are on the hunt for new tombs.
01:10:11And while I've been away, there's been some progress.
01:10:14Archeology student Dominica Chop is busy revealing a whole new structure.
01:10:21Dominica!
01:10:22Oh, hello!
01:10:23Sorry, I didn't mean to startle you, but this is looking really promising, isn't it?
01:10:26Yes, yes.
01:10:27What do you think it is?
01:10:28It's a tomb!
01:10:29A tomb!
01:10:30Yes!
01:10:31Yay, we've got a tomb!
01:10:32This is what we came here to find.
01:10:33I know.
01:10:34It's a very little tomb, or at least it looks interesting.
01:10:36Oh, it's not the entrance to it.
01:10:38There's an entrance there.
01:10:40That does look more like something you'd see in a movie if you were looking for a tomb.
01:10:46Wow!
01:10:47So, why aren't you ploughing ahead with this straight away?
01:10:49We're very keen to.
01:10:51However, we have to first assess how big it is.
01:10:56So, with a bit of patience, our city of the dead is going to have a new tomb.
01:11:02What's more, there appears to be more than one.
01:11:06And if I look behind me, I can see some little blocks here.
01:11:10Yes, and right behind you.
01:11:11But just here, this is another one?
01:11:13Yes, yes.
01:11:14Wow, so there's a whole load of them here.
01:11:16It looks like there might be streets of them.
01:11:18And do you think they would go right up the hill?
01:11:20Yes, yes.
01:11:21But to properly reveal even one of them, there's a heck of a lot of sand to be shifted.
01:11:27So, before I get roped into any serious work, I thought you and I could take a little trip down the Nile.
01:11:36Hi, Mohammed.
01:11:38Thank you very much.
01:11:39You're welcome.
01:11:40If Martin does find a mummy, the question, of course, is going to be, whose was it?
01:11:49And what did they do before they ended up on the hillside?
01:11:52Well, I'm told there are some clues which might answer that, just on the far end of that island.
01:11:594,000 years ago, just like today, the vast majority of Egyptians lived very close to the Nile.
01:12:10And you don't get much closer than Elephantine Island, where the people buried at the City of the Dead once lived.
01:12:23For centuries, the town here at Elephantine Island was the hub of southern Egypt.
01:12:28It was so well protected with the Nile on all sides.
01:12:32This was a street with a lot of houses along here and houses on this side too.
01:12:40Some of these buildings have been reconstructed in recent years.
01:12:46But there's one that definitely hasn't.
01:12:50This is like going into the back room of a really big museum.
01:12:55And in theory, it should be the grandest building in town.
01:13:04This, believe it or not, is the Governor's Palace, the place where the elite of Elephantine Island lived.
01:13:10And when they died, there'd have been a funeral procession starting here.
01:13:14And then they would have gone down to the Nile, sailed all the way around, and then been buried in their beautifully carved tombs.
01:13:22But what really gets me is this wall. Look at it. Frankly, it's rubbish, isn't it?
01:13:31It's mud brick. It's dotted with little chips and bits of shell.
01:13:36They appear to have spent far more money on what happened when they were dead than when they were alive.
01:13:43Which I suppose does make sense in a strange kind of way.
01:13:48After all, you are a long time dead.
01:13:50On the other side of the river, at the City of the Dead, the governors of Elephantine picked the very best spots for their tombs
01:14:05and built grand causeways to access them from the river.
01:14:09But at the top of his newly discovered causeway, Martin hasn't found a tomb, but a mysterious stone wall.
01:14:21What we have here now is perhaps the end of the causeway.
01:14:24So we want to find out more by digging deeper with the trowel.
01:14:30The end of the causeway should point the way to a large tomb.
01:14:34But excavating anything this old on such a steep slope is a dangerous operation.
01:14:42You cannot go too far so the whole thing doesn't crumble.
01:14:48The whole thing is moving.
01:14:53The whole thing is moving. I really suggest you get out of the path of that.
01:14:57Sam is coming out from the behind.
01:14:59OK.
01:15:00I'm not one of them.
01:15:04One of the giant blocks holding up the wall has shifted a good six inches.
01:15:11The rest of the wall hasn't budged yet.
01:15:14But there's a real risk it could collapse.
01:15:21We cannot go any further.
01:15:23The tombs must be behind the retention wall.
01:15:26We have to think very carefully whether next year or so we will remove the wall in order to follow the causeway.
01:15:34But not this year.
01:15:36Otherwise we risk the lives of our workmen.
01:15:39The hunt for tombs is rarely straightforward.
01:15:43And here in particular there are risks and dangers.
01:15:51But luckily Martin and the team have already found at least one new tomb.
01:15:56So a few days later I'm returning to the lower part of the causeway to check on progress.
01:16:05Martin.
01:16:07Oh hello Tony.
01:16:08This has come on fantastically hasn't it?
01:16:11Yeah.
01:16:12What a lot of work you put in.
01:16:13You can really see that it is a proper road now.
01:16:16Yes exactly.
01:16:17It's three metres wide and 92 metres long.
01:16:20And of course where there are causeways there are tombs.
01:16:25How's that panned out?
01:16:26Well just look behind you.
01:16:28Hey.
01:16:29It looks very different right?
01:16:30That's come on too isn't it?
01:16:32Goodness.
01:16:34That really is an entrance isn't it?
01:16:35Yes it is.
01:16:36That's great.
01:16:38So what's this bit here?
01:16:40Well we believe this is the offering niche.
01:16:42Sorry, offering niche is not a phrase I've ever heard before.
01:16:46Well a tomb in ancient leadership needs to have two things in order to be operational.
01:16:51A burial chamber and a place where the living can donate offerings to the deceased.
01:16:56And that's that thing here?
01:16:57Exactly.
01:16:59Have you got any idea yet how old this tomb is?
01:17:02Oh we were so lucky Tony.
01:17:04The offering niche I was just talking about.
01:17:06We found an intact pot that people left there for the deceased untouched.
01:17:12Oh result.
01:17:13Perfect dating evidence.
01:17:14Exactly.
01:17:15The pot dates to 2430 BC.
01:17:19We can date it rather precisely.
01:17:21So that is around about four and a half thousand years old.
01:17:24It's also the oldest tomb that we have found so far.
01:17:26It's almost a little bit older than the pyramids in Giza.
01:17:29So it's a pyramid age.
01:17:31Wow.
01:17:32Just the beginning of it.
01:17:33Really really old.
01:17:35So what happens here now at the big money end?
01:17:38Well actually we are looking for someone who is going to volunteer to go down that shaft and look into the burial chamber.
01:17:44So this is the same kind of age as the pyramid at Giza.
01:17:48It is indeed.
01:17:49And I'm going with it.
01:17:50Yes.
01:17:51If you want to.
01:17:52That's so cool.
01:17:53Coming up.
01:17:54Do we have a problem?
01:17:55The dangers of this steep site return.
01:17:56How did it appear?
01:17:57Did it just slump in?
01:17:58Before I'm finally allowed to peek inside the tomb.
01:17:59This might be the last time you'll ever see me.
01:18:004,000 years ago this hillside of rock and sand overlooking the river Nile was the most important burial site in the tomb.
01:18:07In the past fortnight it's been the focus of attention once again.
01:18:37Dr. Bomas and his team are in the last week of their dig season.
01:18:43They've already discovered a tomb which has lain hidden for thousands of years.
01:18:48It may be the oldest tomb found so far in the city of the dead.
01:18:53And Martin has invited me to be the first person to go inside.
01:18:58But as soon as I arrive on site, it's clear things aren't going to plan.
01:19:11Martin.
01:19:12Hey, Tony.
01:19:13Do we have a problem?
01:19:14I don't know as yet.
01:19:15There seems to be a hole.
01:19:16And through this hole, sand trickles in.
01:19:17How did it appear?
01:19:18Did it just slump in?
01:19:19Yeah, it just slumped in.
01:19:20There must be some void underneath here.
01:19:22There might be another tomb or it's part of the tomb we are currently working on.
01:19:28It's so difficult excavating in sand.
01:19:30If we were in English clay, everything would stay where it was for 24 hours.
01:19:35Exactly.
01:19:36Here you dig something, five minutes later it's just gone.
01:19:38Yes, it seems that there's something underneath that sucks all the sand into one place, which we have to assess first.
01:19:51Perhaps the entire area is too weak.
01:19:54Events like this show just how unpredictable and dangerous Egyptian archaeology can be.
01:20:01But while Martin decides if it's safe to enter, I'm going to see a remarkable discovery made by the dig team.
01:20:10The beautifully preserved pot, left as an offering for our tomb's owner.
01:20:19It's now being examined by pottery expert Dr Iman Khalifa.
01:20:26It is actually the sort of find that archaeologists dream of, isn't it?
01:20:29It is.
01:20:30We don't come across complete pots here very easily.
01:20:33It's in situ, which means that it was exactly where they left it.
01:20:36What's so special about it is the way it was manufactured.
01:20:39The top part is wheel thrown and you can see the marks and the lines of the wheel.
01:20:44But the bottom part is made by hand and you can see the fingers of the potter who modelled it.
01:20:50Can I touch it? I've got my gloves on. Thanks.
01:20:54So what does that tell you about the dating of it?
01:20:57It tells us that this was actually made at a certain period when they were using two techniques.
01:21:02So what is the date that you're pretty confident of?
01:21:064,430 years.
01:21:094,430 years.
01:21:12That is massively old, isn't it?
01:21:15Yeah.
01:21:16Look at this.
01:21:17Over the years I must have held up hundreds of pots towards a camera but I don't think I've ever held one that has been such clear dating evidence from so long ago.
01:21:28I'll give it back before I squeeze it too hard.
01:21:31Oh, please don't.
01:21:34500 feet away, the mysterious landslip has stabilised.
01:21:40And Martin has agreed to let me be the first person to look inside our tomb.
01:21:46I don't think Howard Carter had to cope with all this rubbish.
01:21:53I'm ready, Martin.
01:21:55Hi, Tony.
01:21:56Hi.
01:21:58Just turn everything on.
01:21:59You look very prepared so let's get inside.
01:22:04You first.
01:22:05It's very steep and it feels quite precarious.
01:22:14There is something rather eerie about going into a 4,000-year-old tomb.
01:22:18That's true.
01:22:22It's maybe the last time you'll ever see me.
01:22:24Take care.
01:22:25Be sure that you only do what you're really comfortable with.
01:22:27Sure, sure.
01:22:33All right.
01:22:34Yeah.
01:22:39Well, the first thing that I can see is that the ground itself at the bottom of the slope appears to be hard rock.
01:22:50And the actual tomb is hacked out of that.
01:22:55So it's not mud brick or anything.
01:22:58Hold on.
01:23:01To my left, there's a niche.
01:23:04A little recess.
01:23:05Oh, that's good news.
01:23:07That's what we would expect.
01:23:08A space like this would have stored pots, plates and food offerings to help our owner reach the afterlife.
01:23:17Is there anything left there?
01:23:18No.
01:23:20Were you hoping it would be full of something?
01:23:22It might be the case that someone's been in there, but it doesn't mean that they went any further.
01:23:26All right.
01:23:27Well, I'll go on a bit now.
01:23:32Can you tell me whether you're facing a corridor right now?
01:23:35I am.
01:23:37And does it go left or right?
01:23:39That's important for me to know.
01:23:41Well, it certainly doesn't go right.
01:23:42It's curving round to the left, but there's a load of sand here.
01:23:57Yeah, there's definitely a tunnel to the left, but it's completely blocked off.
01:24:07Perhaps the sand comes from the hole that emerged today morning.
01:24:11Well, I'm no sand expert, but some of it does seem quite fresh, I must admit.
01:24:16Oh.
01:24:17I can't really go any further than this.
01:24:19Well, then don't, you know, you have to be safe most of all.
01:24:21Yeah.
01:24:22Because if it's indeed connected with the hole, then even more sand would come down on you.
01:24:27Yeah.
01:24:29But you see, the left turn would have led us to the burial chamber.
01:24:33So the burial chamber's there, but we just can't get at it right now.
01:24:37Yes, I'm afraid so.
01:24:39Hey, it's in the sand.
01:24:40I've got a bone.
01:24:43Just above it, there's some pottery.
01:24:47Oh, good.
01:24:49And just below it, there is not only some pottery, but I've got a bead.
01:24:54Yay.
01:24:55I've got two beads.
01:24:56Oh, that's great, Tony.
01:24:57Tony, I come and then join you.
01:24:58Okay.
01:24:59Just hang on.
01:25:01Oh, it's nicely cooled down here.
01:25:03It is.
01:25:05All right.
01:25:06Come over here.
01:25:08There's the bone?
01:25:09Yeah, I'll show you the bone.
01:25:10Here we go.
01:25:12That's a great bone.
01:25:14Seems to be the end of a pelvis.
01:25:16Yeah.
01:25:17And what about the beads you were promising?
01:25:18Okay.
01:25:19Three.
01:25:20One.
01:25:24Two.
01:25:26Oh, look at that.
01:25:27Look at that.
01:25:28There we are.
01:25:29Wonderful.
01:25:30Like little eggs, aren't they?
01:25:31Yeah.
01:25:32Two round faience beads.
01:25:34What does faience mean?
01:25:35It sounds like a certain type of quartzite made jewelry, glazed with cover that turns blue.
01:25:42The colour Egyptian blue comes from that.
01:25:45And you reckon it would have been a necklace?
01:25:47Yes.
01:25:48Absolutely, yes.
01:25:49It must have been a necklace.
01:25:50Well, these are expensive.
01:25:52And what a privilege it is to hold something so personal to our tomb's owner.
01:25:57Well, this clearly hasn't got all the shiny pillars and statues associated with the tomb of a governor, but there's a lot of work here, isn't there?
01:26:08Well, you know, it was probably the second man in line.
01:26:11He had access to a fantastic bow site and engineers excavating out of this standing rock.
01:26:20This may not be the grandest tomb at the City of the Dead, but it might be one of the oldest.
01:26:25It could mark the moment almost four and a half thousand years ago when this important burial ground was established on Egypt's southern border.
01:26:38Given what we found here, what might you expect to find when you eventually do manage to shift all that sand?
01:26:46Well, you probably have two metres of work here, and then we might face a barrel chamber that includes a sarcophagus, a wooden sarcophagus, hopefully.
01:26:53Or perhaps two sarcophagus, we still have to solve the question of whether these beads belong to a man or a woman.
01:27:00Or a man and a woman being buried here.
01:27:02Oh, I see.
01:27:04But unfortunately, that work will have to wait until Martin's next digging season.
01:27:10Thanks.
01:27:11Right, here we go.
01:27:12One, two, three.
01:27:13Yay!
01:27:14How have we got?
01:27:15Good.
01:27:16Well done.
01:27:17I like to see these are a clear light of day now.
01:27:19Oh, wonderful.
01:27:20Look at those.
01:27:21Oh, beautiful.
01:27:22Yes.
01:27:23Well...
01:27:24Great find.
01:27:25Thanks for all that.
01:27:26We now know where the tomb chamber is.
01:27:30We got our lovely find.
01:27:33To be continued.
01:27:34Hopefully see you next year.
01:27:37See you.
01:27:38See you, mate.
01:27:39Bye, Tony.
01:27:40Thanks for coming.
01:27:42For me, the fascination of Egypt lies in its unending mysteries.
01:27:49We're still looking for a pharaoh's missing pyramid.
01:27:54We're just beginning to know the thousands who built ancient Egypt.
01:27:59And tombs we've known for a century are still throwing up surprises.
01:28:04It's the blood of the mummy.
01:28:09But what really strikes me is the sheer scale of what's still left to be found.
01:28:16Aswan's City of the Dead certainly hasn't given up all of its tombs, not by a long chalk.
01:28:22And for archaeologists like Martin, it's a real privilege and just plain exciting to be uncovering new tombs,
01:28:29unveiling new secrets and adding just a small chapter to the story of this incredible land.
01:28:59We'll see you next time.
01:29:00We'll see you next time.
01:29:01Bye.
01:29:02Bye.
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