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00:00the Valley of the Kings an ancient burial ground for Egypt's greatest
00:11pharaohs it never gets old it's truly a really special place and the most famous
00:19archaeological site in the world Yalabina let's go now for the first time in over
00:27a hundred years an elite team of archaeologists will excavate the tomb of one of the most powerful
00:36Kings to have ever lived Ramses the third the story of Ramses the third is sensational even
00:45the tiniest clues about Rams the third tomb would be an incredible find shield a lot more with
00:52unprecedented access the team will dig for three months to unearth clues I'm very excited and find
01:03lost treasures this definitely belongs together unraveling a 3,000 year old murder mystery this
01:12is a mortal wound that exposes one of the most treacherous conspiracies of the ancient world the
01:20idea that the Pharaoh was assassinated is extraordinary in the burial chamber of Ramses
01:27the third new evidence will be revealed and 3,000 year old secrets discovered only in ancient Egypt
01:40can you actually do this sort of thing
01:50the valley of the kings is some place of promise of excitement it is silent it is mysterious it's like
02:15you in another world the valley of the kings lies in the very heart of Egypt hundreds of
02:24kilometers south from the great pyramids of Giza three and a half thousand years ago the Pharaoh stopped
02:32building giant pyramids to transport their mummies into the afterlife instead they moved to the valley
02:39to build incredible underground tombs the tombs are absolutely stunning and they served as this
02:51kind of resurrection machine to help the king enter the afterlife in their tombs the king's mummies were
03:00buried in nested coffins with everything they would need in the netherworld food furniture clothing little
03:08magical artifacts that are supposed to you know help you and lots and lots of gold
03:14the wealth of ancient egyptian kings was the stuff of legend it's the reason that archaeologists have
03:22scoured this unique and exclusive location for centuries and its secrets continue to be revealed
03:31that's an extremely challenging place but the idea that archaeology of
03:36the valley of the valley of the kings is finished is not correct
03:42now an elite team of archaeologists are beginning an excavation they hope will change history
03:51in charge of the mission is dr anchor viva
03:54for more than 10 years i always imagined what could be below my feet this is the history of humankind
04:10it's an honor to become part of this anchor has negotiated exclusive access to dig for three months
04:19in one of the most prestigious tombs in the valley
04:37beneath the valley floor lie over 60 tombs cut into the rocky landscape
04:43in the center the final resting place of the legendary boy pharaoh tutankhamun
04:53but just 30 meters away is the site of anchor's mission tomb kv 11
05:01inside decorated corridors plunge deep into the rock leading to a secret dig site piled high with debris
05:10this is the unexcavated burial chamber of king ramses the third
05:21ramses the third is one of the towering figures from ancient egyptian history
05:28he defended egypt at a crucial pivotal time of not just egyptian history but in fact the entire
05:37mediterranean world ramses the third is considered egypt's last great warrior king
05:46hieroglyphics reveal he ruled for 31 years building vast temples and battling marauding armies that
05:56threatened to destroy egypt's empire
05:58he was found almost 150 years ago almost a kilometer from his tomb high in the mountains above
06:18the valley of the kings it was really one of the most earth-shattering finds
06:24you get to actually look at ramses the third not just a statue but at him
06:31the story of ramses the third is sensational any sort of information no matter how little we can
06:38glean from all of this that would be very exciting
06:41now for the very first time anchor's elite archaeological team will fully excavate inside the great king's tomb
06:57its entrance has already been beautifully restored filled with hieroglyphic text designed
07:04to transport the king into the afterlife
07:11but deeper down lies the tomb's secret
07:16an ancient scene of destruction off limits for over a century and never fully excavated before
07:26ramses burial chamber
07:28it's absolutely incredible to be inside his burial chamber where ramses the third and the sarcophagus
07:36once rested to revive him for the afterlife
07:41anchor's mission is to clear away the debris to unearth the tomb's lost artifacts
07:47and finally unravel the mysteries of this great pharaoh's life and death
07:55this is our task now bringing back the magic of the burial chamber
08:02the more we reveal and uncover from the sand the more we will know about the person himself
08:07and find something that was last seen by our ancestors
08:19first the team must haul out the surface debris and search for any ancient artifacts that lie beneath
08:27today we are very excited and this is the day we were waiting for i hope that we are lucky
08:33the team works quickly but excavating here is not without risk massive chunks of rock have tumbled
08:41six meters from the ceiling above leaving the tomb incredibly fragile
08:48anchor believes it's a result of violent flash floods around 100 years ago we are looking to get
08:56more information about the flooding events but the area is very unstable
09:04to avoid further damage the workers must wrestle the huge boulders by hand
09:13as they clear away the debris something begins to appear
09:18it seems as if this would be a piece of metal
09:21it's actually it's very unusual to find metals we try our best to get it out in one piece in order to
09:30see what it actually was but as the team clears away the sand there's a surprise this is not metal
09:40it's a piece of wood going into this direction and what we have here are
09:46a piece of mummified human spine is an intriguing clue and a mystery because anchor believes it
10:12shouldn't be here in tomb kv 11 at all the mystery is actually why do we have uh any kind of uh remains
10:23inside kv 11 we would never expect it here because we know that the mummy of frames is the third is
10:30not placed in kv 11 anymore who does this mummified spine belong to and why is somebody else buried inside ramsey's tomb
10:42it's one of the most famous monuments in egypt medinet habu
11:12i love medinet habu temple it's really stunning because it's so complete
11:23inside there's amazing colors it's so well preserved
11:29this is one of my favorite temples from ancient egypt
11:34this temple was built for rameses the third so that people could give him offerings and celebrate
11:39him during his life and after his death so what was celebrated about rameses the third's reign
11:48on almost every facade is a scene of terror
11:53spilt blood
11:57severed hands
11:57and captured victims glorified the battles of the pharaoh looking at these walls it's clear that
12:08rameses the third wanted to show himself fighting enemies smiting everyone this temple says i'm rameses
12:14the third and i'm a warrior king so who was rameses fighting against
12:20on the side of the temple meredith finds a fierce conflict at sea
12:28it's quite faint but i can make out this massive image of rameses the third shooting a bow and arrow
12:34at this melee of a battle we have ships and soldiers and everyone's falling over into the water it's pure
12:41fighting in chaos the chaos reveals a group of marauding tribes known as the sea peoples
12:50and they aren't the only adversaries threatening the borders of egypt
12:55there's battles of him fighting the nubians there's two separate battles fighting the libyans
13:02rameses the third was enmeshed in warfare rameses temple records his astonishing victories
13:09over the enemies of the egyptian empire rameses the third was not a warrior pharaoh necessarily by
13:18choice this was thrust upon him he truly truly lived at one of the most difficult times in which
13:27a king could reign and the fact that he managed to make out of it what he did is a true testament to
13:34how great a king he was rameses was a celebrated and successful warrior king so how did he die
13:46and why are the mummified remains of someone else buried inside his tomb
13:51one hundred and thirty meters deep into the bedrock of the valley of the kings
14:07ancaviba and her team delicately free the ancient spine from the floor of rameses the third's burial
14:16chamber around her even more human remains are beginning to emerge including what looks like a
14:23mummified limb we found here a large part of a mummy very clearly we can see the layers of linen um that
14:35was soaked with um rising in order to preserve this body for eternity so for now we can't tell
14:45exactly which part of the mummy this is um however it's very exciting um because it's uh somehow
14:54like coming closer to all these uh people who once were part of the history of kv 11.
15:04rameses the third's mummy is no longer inside his tomb it's preserved in a museum
15:11so who do these body parts belong to and why are they here
15:17anchor spots a new clue nearby
15:22what we have here are parts of an ancient egyptian coffin there are remains of a cluster on top of the
15:30surface you can see this dowels inside dowel holes an expensive plaster covered coffin suggests the mummies
15:38were once members of the elite anchor believes they were probably buried here hundreds of years after
15:45ramsey's death when egypt was weak and fractured they won't be able to precisely date the burials
15:53until a lab analysis but anchor has a theory on why they were here everybody wants to be something
16:01special everybody wants to become part of the history of something so it is most likely uh that the
16:09people uh high ranking officials decided oh yeah why not uh being buried inside the tomb of one of
16:16egypt's most interesting and greatest pharaohs of all time
16:22ancient elites chose to be buried in the valley's magnificent tombs
16:27to pay homage to the kings that came before them and ramses the third was one of the greatest kings of
16:35them all so what was it that killed him
16:47meredith brand has come to the national museum of egyptian civilization to investigate
16:52it's such a unique and special aspect of ancient egyptian culture that they preserve the dead and
17:00that now for us we can look into the face of some of the greatest kings and queens of ancient egypt
17:08the pharaoh queen hatshepsut ramses the second and none other than ramses the third himself
17:18it's so remarkable to to stand here and see this very important and and very powerful king
17:31this mummy is beautifully preserved you can see his facial features even his teeth and his hair
17:39the ancient egyptians mummified the dead to preserve their bodies
17:43they believed it would allow their body and soul to reunite in the afterlife
17:50and they strived for perfection
17:55a mummy like ramses the third was done with such care and attention the embalmers would have removed
18:01his internal organs washed him with oils and perfumes packed his body with salt
18:08and then wrapped his entire body up in linens if something was wrong the embalmers could fix it
18:17so that when the deceased got to the afterlife not only would their body be there but it would be more perfect
18:25on the surface ramses mummy looks completely intact
18:29but x-ray scans reveal a different and shocking story
18:39beneath the bandages six healing amulets are packed around ramses foot
18:46that conceal a missing toe cut off with a heavy blade
18:51on ramses neck embalming resin fills a deep gash
19:01that splits the throat right down to the bone
19:08the cut on ramses the third's neck this severed the trachea and the esophagus
19:14and even nicked the bone in his vertebrae this is a mortal wound
19:22this kind of gash makes it clear that his death wasn't some kind of accident or a result of old age
19:29he met a violent end and all the evidence points to murder
19:34the idea that the pharaoh was assassinated and by something as violent as that is extraordinary it is
19:44an extraordinary and terrifying thought
19:48it would have been almost unthinkable in ancient egypt to try to assassinate the pharaoh
19:56can you imagine how difficult kind of an undertaking that would be
20:00first of all it's not a one-man job you need allies in this sort of thing you also need a motive
20:08why are you killing the king surely you must have a really good reason to actually undertake something
20:16so incredibly risky who killed ramses the third and why did they want him dead
20:30so deep inside ramses burial chamber
20:38anchor and the team search for clues
20:43but the surface of the tomb is a chaotic jumbled mess of fines making this mystery difficult to unravel
20:52we have pieces of pottery that belong to a larger vessel all these fines are mixed
20:59both ancient robbers and colonial era explorers have rummaged through the debris like a crime scene
21:06that has been revisited for centuries we know that this area is disturbed it's always puzzling for us
21:15to say what actually happened but step by step we will investigate what happened here in kv 11
21:21but hidden within the debris anchor spots something that may have belonged to ramses iii himself
21:31we have here the lower part of a wooden ushapti it's rather destroyed however you can still see here
21:39this is the beginning of the lower part of the feed it could be over 3 000 years old
21:45across the chamber the team finds the missing head this definitely belongs together they must have been
21:53disconnected somehow that's amazing
21:58ushaptis are ancient figurines often around a foot tall that were buried with the deceased
22:05a king like ramses would have had hundreds they acted as servants inscribed with magic spells
22:20so that if the dead was made to work in the afterlife
22:24the ushapti will say here i am and do the work for him
22:30the team analyzes the statue pieces searching for inscriptions that could reveal a name we have the
22:40hope that they belonged to the pharaoh rams is the third but hard evidence of its original owner
22:47has been lost eroded away from the ushaptis delicate surface
22:54the team will need to keep searching the mass of dried out mud and rubble
22:59covering the chamber's floor
23:03any scrap of ancient material could reveal brand new details about the death and burial
23:11of one of egypt's greatest kings
23:29the death and burial of the death and burial of the death and burial of the death and burial
23:35at the monumental temple of medinet habu built to honor pharaoh ramses the third
23:43egyptologist meredith brand investigates the king's brutal murder
23:49she wants to establish a motive for his royal assassination
23:57and believes the sheer number of battle scenes on his temple walls reveal a deeper story than just
24:03ramses military prowess
24:05ramses these scenes show ramses the third as this victorious ruler who was indestructible
24:12in some ways it is true but there was a larger issue ramses the third was surrounded by war
24:21and this war took a toll on egypt and its economy
24:26ramses never-ending battles begin to drain the resources of the country
24:33and inflation spirals out of control
24:37strikes civil unrest and even famine strangle the heart of egypt
24:43was ramses killed because of the crumbling economy or were there other motives at play
24:53nobody ever blamed the pharaoh for anything he was theoretically perfect a divine ruler what we do know
25:01is that he had a number of wives and a large number of children and we don't think that he designated
25:11an heir during his lifetime
25:17in ancient egypt the firstborn son would normally inherit the throne
25:22but with no designated heir the stage is set for a coup
25:30let's say you do have a motive okay how do you do it how do you find the allies how do you know where
25:37where people's loyalties stand so you have to sort of start you know um checking the pulse as it were
25:45see who might have grievances perhaps once you have that in place you need an entire network of people
25:53but also they need to be close to the person of the king
25:57and they need to be close to the people of the king
26:04meredith investigates a copy of an ancient papyrus originally discovered near the site
26:12this is an image of an amazing papyrus from the time of ramses the third
26:17it tells us about a conspiracy to kill the king it reveals the proceedings of a murder trial
26:28it's shocking the number of people involved in this conspiracy
26:32it has everyone in the palace it has people involved with food it has security army and it
26:39has women of the harem including queen tia the wife of ramses the third this is a courtroom drama
26:47playing out in front of our eyes that tells us when and how ramses the third was killed
26:53one of ramses secondary wives queen tia leads the conspiracy to place her son a younger more minor prince
27:03on the throne some believe that after a great festival at medinet habu ramses is steered into the
27:11apparent safety of his horine hear the attackers pounce and slice off ramses toe in the struggle
27:24before dealing the mortal wound
27:27of ramses in the world
27:30here's the critical thing the assassination attempt that plot certainly succeeded we know
27:39ramses the third died as a result but ultimately the coup was not successful
27:49over 30 perpetrators were caught tried and sentenced
27:53the punishments outlined in this papyrus are quite severe some people had their nose and ears cut off
28:02but those actually in the center of the conspiracy they were executed
28:06and ramses treacherous younger son never made it to the throne
28:14he was examined the judges found him guilty they left him where he was and he killed himself
28:20ramses murder was a shocking family feud but his death makes ramses even more important
28:30a vast funeral procession leads his mummy into the valley of the kings
28:36on a new journey
28:40to become a god
28:41how cool is it that we can talk about so much detail around this historical event that took place
28:52around 3 000 years ago only in ancient egypt can you actually do this sort of thing
29:00inside ramses's tomb anchor and the team want to investigate what happened after the king's death
29:15how did his tomb transform ramses into an immortal god
29:20hidden below the debris they have unearthed incredibly fragile pieces of 3 000 year old tomb decoration
29:33so beautiful what we found here is a piece of the wall decoration and it's the food
29:42of this god here in the middle and he's standing right on top of a snake
29:49it's very amazing and very touching because it's the first time that we have such a complete
29:55piece it's a very lucky find very happy about it
30:02the snake is a crucial clue that connects with the decoration in the rest of the tomb
30:08this is so impressive the paintings tell the story of an elaborate mythological journey ramses must go on
30:17to achieve eternal life
30:22as night falls ramses follows the path of the sun god
30:26as he voyages through the dangerous waters of the netherworld
30:32to prove he is righteous he must navigate the flames of a lake of fire
30:39and appease apophis the chaos serpent who threatens to plunge the world into darkness
30:47if he succeeds the pharaoh rises as the sun god ra bringing order and safety to the universe
31:00the king in ancient egypt served an important cosmological role
31:05he was during his lifetime and after his death the embodiment of the sun god
31:11the tomb itself it was really a machine to make you go from this world to the next
31:17to ensure the king's safety to ensure that day followed night and the entire cosmos would continue
31:25to exist in the burial chamber the team carefully glues the fragile painted plasterwork
31:34it's so delicate they must lift it out with a stabilizing block of sand below
31:41it's jamie thanks god we have it uh i'm quite relieved actually uh yeah that's a very very special object
31:54but hiding among the rubble is something even more tantalizing
32:00more than 3 000 years after its construction
32:16the crumbling burial chamber of pharaoh ramses the third could still hold secrets
32:26a month into her mission deep beneath the egyptian desert
32:30dr anka weber and her team unearth a mysterious stone clues concealed beneath the debris could help
32:40unravel how the king was buried after his brutal assassination this is amazing we have found here
32:47a piece of rose granite i didn't expect that here so we are going to lift this object out now
32:56very carefully here rose granite is an expensive high quality stone far more precious than the
33:04surrounding limestone of the chamber right inside the valley of the kings it would have been brought
33:13in from over a hundred kilometers away to create one thing the pharaoh's sarcophagus
33:25other oh my gosh that's amazing please dry clean it um make all your notes i want pictures from before
33:39the cleaning and after the cleaning and uh we will see that's amazing the team keeps digging and reveals
33:48even more of the precious granite pieces
34:11we have a very clear corner here
34:14i'm quite speechless there are many possibilities what this can actually be
34:20that it is most probably a part of a foot but um one thing is clear it is amazing
34:30if this is the foot of ramses the third sarcophagus it's a huge discovery
34:35this pieces would be an incredibly rare clue about how the king was buried
34:43but something doesn't add up
34:46because a sarcophagus belonging to ramses the third already exists
34:51in paris at the musée de louvre
35:08egyptologist christophe barbotin explores the museum's collection of ancient burial equipment
35:14deep in the crypt lies one of the most prized ancient objects in the museum's entire collection
35:36a giant rose granite sarcophagus beautifully inscribed on every surface with hieroglyphic evidence
35:46to know who belonged to this sarcophagus we have to look at these two ovales here
35:51which we call a cartuch
35:53we read here
35:54in
35:55ouser
35:56maat
35:57re
35:57mery
35:59amon
36:00if we traduce it literally
36:02puissante la justice de re l'aimé d'amon
36:04et ici
36:05re
36:07mes s
36:08c'est-Ã -dire ramses
36:09qui veut dire l'enfant du soleil
36:11heka yunu
36:12le souverain de la ville d'héliopolis
36:15ces deux cartouches sont ramses 3
36:18donc on n'y a aucun doute sur l'identification du monument
36:26removed from tomb kv 11 around 200 years ago the complete sarcophagus is an 18-ton behemoth
36:35topped with a colossal matching lid
36:38itself now stored in a museum in england both parts are covered with religious texts bearing
36:45the name of the king and the top is carved with ramses as osiris the god of death
36:54je trouve ce sarcophage magnifique et surtout il m'intéresse beaucoup pour tout
37:04ce qu'il tout ce qui signifie les pharaons étaient enterrés dans des sarcophages de pierre pour
37:11protéger le corps la momie la momie étant indispensable pour tous les morts égyptiens
37:17afin qu'ils puissent continuer de survivre dans l'au delà la protection de la momie que
37:22soit royal ou non est un emboîtement de défense de défense contre l'ennemi visible ou invisible
37:28la défense ici est matérialisée par le motif de d'enceinte qui se trouve au bas de au bas du
37:35sarcophage c'est ça manifeste bien l'aspect protection christophe examines de granite searching for evidence
37:42of damage the sarcophage ramses-3 que vous voyez est presque intact comme beaucoup de sarcophages
37:49atipocla en fait c'est c'est un monolithe c'est-à -dire qu'il est dans un seul bloc de granite énorme
37:55qui résiste à tout seul si on décide de le casser
37:59the body of the sarcophagus shows barely a chip of damage the chunk of broken granite anchors found
38:07in kv-11 can't possibly have come from this but the lid is a different story it still bears the scars
38:18of some ancient heist le couvercle fitz william reisum de cambridge est un petit peu endommagé
38:24parce que les voleurs l'ont basculé lorsqu'ils vont lui accéder à momie donc il est tombé brutalement sur
38:30le sol et c'est fragmented notamment au niveau des pieds ramsey sarcophagus
38:36is now housed thousands of miles from his tomb in england and france and there are pieces missing
38:44from them is it possible that they never left the burial chamber has anchor's team found one of
38:53them buried in the ancient rubble anchor inspects a digital model of the lid for clues she finds the
39:04granite at the bottom around the pharaoh's feet is missing and has been reconstructed for display
39:11this is the exciting thing the feet are missing it is most likely that this object here is a part of
39:21this sarcophagus lid anchor has a missing piece of ramsey's the third's three thousand year old sarcophagus
39:29lid that's so incredible and it would be my dream to virtually reunite these pieces if they can
39:38unearth more pieces the team might decode the most critical part of ramsey's burial chamber
39:48the sarcophagus is the focal point of the burial containing the king's instructions for navigating
39:57the afterlife the king didn't make it to the afterlife the sun might not rise the world might end it was
40:05so important to have a sarcophagus to protect his body so his afterlife maintained the cosmic balance
40:11of ancient egypt so the stakes were pretty high inside ramsey's the third's tomb the granite pieces keep
40:25coming and now crucially with inscriptions we keep finding pieces of rust granite actually almost daily
40:36we can see we can see that here on top the surface is sculpted with a snake and here on the sides we
40:46have hieroglyphs that tell us more about the deceased person and that he was actually here he's called a god
40:55named as a god it is almost certain to belong to ramsey's sarcophagus
41:00and the pieces even fit together oh wow wow that was very way it fits exactly it's absolutely amazing
41:13but something is strange great can you check this piece please these newest pieces of granite don't
41:20match with any part of the lid that is already known for anchor it can only mean one thing
41:27i guess that we have something that is even more exciting so it might be that we have here one or even
41:36two other lids that probably belong to ramses the third it would mean that ramses didn't just have one
41:45sarcophagus but two or even three nested inside each other
41:52why would the ancient egyptians build such a difficult and complicated construction
42:05outside in the valley of the kings anchor investigates
42:09the ramses the first place she explores a nearby tomb
42:16its long corridors extend deep into the rock and open to reveal the burial chamber of one of ramses
42:26predecessors a king named merump tar his tunes actually worked like a template
42:35it's basically a clue of how the tomb of ramses the third ones look like
42:42in the center of the burial chamber assembled from granite fragments is a gigantic box
42:48four meters long and over two meters high it's the largest sarcophagus in the valley of the kings
43:01next to it anchor finds a seven ton granite lid covered in beautiful religious carvings
43:09the pieces are part of a set of four colossal stone sarcophagi that all once nested inside each other
43:21it's unbelievable that they were able to lift these tons and tons of massive material inside
43:27the burial chamber and anchor has a theory why the ancient egyptians went to such lengths
43:35it was of religious significance to protect the deceased pharaoh
43:42so nesting and nesting and nesting until you come to the centerpiece wrapped
43:47in his royal linen for the mummy protecting the mummy of the pharaoh was critical
43:54but very few kings in history had nested sarcophagi this large and elaborate
44:01was this how ramses the third's mummy was buried too
44:06oh it would be spectacular if maybe just maybe ramses the third was in fact buried in more than one
44:13sarcophagus it's such a rare find these tombs have been robbed in antiquity so to find extra evidence
44:23anything that lets us piece together how these incredible figures from history were buried
44:29we'd all be all the richer for it more than 3000 years after his death at the hands of his own family
44:40ramses the third's tomb is still giving up secrets but anchor's campaign deep beneath the pharaoh's
44:49sacred valley is far from complete if we imagine uh what we have here this hill in front of us
44:59there must be more below
45:06next time
45:08anchor and the team dive down into the limestone rubble
45:11in search of clues left on the chamber's original floor
45:24could a surprise discovery implicate a legendary archaeologist in the theft of another pharaoh's
45:31riches this is the first hard proof that objects had been taken out of the tomb of tutankhamun
45:42what can ancient graffiti reveal about why ramses body was snatched everyone thought that these mummies
45:49had been lost oh this is incredible wow the mummies were here for a reason and can anchor be the first
45:59archaeologist to uncover original grave goods from the valley of the kings in more than a century
46:05the sign hacker means ruler it's amazing with weeks of digging still to come the full story of egypt's
46:14last great pharaoh could be just below the surface
46:20we never know what we will find still there are mysteries to solve
46:33so
46:41so
46:42you
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