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00:02The Valley of the Kings, the afterlife home of some of Egypt's most powerful rulers.
00:12The sheer beauty of it is just one part of the story.
00:17And the repository of 3,000 years of ancient secrets.
00:21There are places where we don't know what lies beneath the sand.
00:25Now, an elite team of archaeologists has secured access to one of the valley's most mysterious tombs.
00:32The unexcavated burial chamber of Egypt's last great pharaoh, Ramses III.
00:40Ramses III is one of the towering figures of ancient Egyptian history.
00:47Even the tiniest clues about Ramses III's tomb would be an incredible find.
00:53Shield Al-Athul.
00:54In three months of high-stakes digging, the team has an unprecedented opportunity...
01:02I'm very excited.
01:04...to unearth the pharaoh's lost treasures.
01:07Wow, this is a very incredible find.
01:10...discover brand new evidence...
01:14This is terrifying.
01:15...of the murdered pharaoh's afterlife.
01:18It's so dark in here.
01:19...and even unravel a scandalous robbery involving Howard Carter, the man who found the most famous pharaoh of all.
01:29This is the first hard proof that objects had been taken out of the tomb of Tutankhamun.
01:37Deep beneath Egypt's golden sands, history is about to be rewritten.
01:44Only in ancient Egypt can you actually do this sort of thing.
02:01The west bank of the river Nile.
02:05Ancient Egypt's land of the dead.
02:07Some 3,000 years ago, the pharaohs of Egypt's golden age abandoned pyramids and chose to be interred deep underground,
02:17in secrecy.
02:21Hundreds of miles south of the Giza pyramids, the Valley of the Kings was meant to be an everlasting paradise...
02:28...where Egyptian pharaohs, where Egyptian pharaohs could live out their afterlives in peace and splendour.
02:37The valley may be the world's most famous graveyard.
02:42But even today, some of its sacred burial chambers remain unexplored by professional archaeologists.
02:57Cut deep into the valley's rocky outcrops are some 60 royal tombs, including the most famous archaeological discovery of all
03:07time.
03:08The tomb of Tutankhamun.
03:13But within 30 metres of Tut's burial, is the mysterious tomb, KV-11.
03:21Its opulent corridors plunge deep into the mountain, towards a secret burial chamber that has never been fully excavated.
03:30The tomb of one of Egypt's last great pharaohs, Ramses III.
03:40Reis Mahmood, sheil al-silk.
03:46Archaeologist Dr. Anka Weber is leading an elite team of specialist excavators on a landmark mission.
03:57For two months, she has been clearing the remains of the chamber's partially collapsed ceiling.
04:04She wants to unravel 3,000 years of tumultuous history that links Ramses, his mummy, and even the archaeologist who
04:15unearthed the tomb of Tutankhamun,
04:18Howard Carter.
04:22So far, they have unearthed sacred Ushabti that were meant to help the pharaoh in the afterlife, and the body
04:30parts of other ancient elites.
04:33But critically, Anka believes she has found pieces of the most important burial artifact of all, the pharaoh's sarcophagus.
04:45We are following the traces of the past to reveal the mysteries that are surrounding Ramses III.
04:52For me, he was a hero.
04:56Ramses III ruled Egypt for 31 years, leaving an indelible mark.
05:04His vast monuments still rise from the desert floor, proclaiming his divine power.
05:11Ramses III was perhaps the last great pharaoh of Egypt, but he was one who was dealt a very difficult
05:18hand.
05:19There was a lot of civil unrest, political turmoil, and attacks on Egypt from abroad.
05:26So really, he had a very difficult reign.
05:32Just as his kingship was marked by brutal warfare, Ramses' reign ended in violence, with an assassin's blade to the
05:41throat.
05:43Archaeologists know this, because although thieves destroyed his burial chamber in antiquity,
05:49somehow, incredibly, his mummy survived.
05:53Rarely do you have someone famous from ancient history.
05:57You can see what they look like.
05:59You know how tall they were.
06:01It's amazing to look at the face of a pharaoh.
06:06It's truly remarkable.
06:09What happened in Ramses' crumbling burial chamber?
06:13How did Ramses' mummy survive?
06:17And could the pharaoh's priceless treasures still lie hidden beneath the debris?
06:25Now, halfway through their three-month mission inside Ramses' tomb,
06:30Anka and her team are determined to unlock its secrets.
06:35So far, we have found around about 29 pieces, larger pieces of a sarcophagus.
06:43Anka is now sure there are at least two new sarcophagi that have never been discovered or recorded before.
06:51It's quite amazing, because if we imagine what we have here, this hill in front of us, there must be
07:00more below.
07:01With enough pieces, like a giant puzzle, the team could rebuild Ramses' missing sarcophagi
07:09and reveal to the world how this great king was supposed to rest for eternity.
07:19In the heart of his tomb, Anka believes that Ramses would have laid cocooned inside two immense nested sarcophagi.
07:31All encased by a gigantic outer box.
07:37With the walls painted with religious spells.
07:43And burial treasures filling every chamber.
07:48Ramses' tomb was designed to be the ultimate resurrection machine.
07:59What Anka is slowly revealing, square by square, painstakingly, is an extraordinary insight into what was deemed necessary for a
08:10king to reach the afterworld.
08:14For any pharaoh, their tomb is your gateway to eternal life, so where your body is supposed to rest undisturbed,
08:23where you are memorialised with the gods.
08:28But Ramses III's body was not undisturbed.
08:33What used to be a glorious tomb, today lies destroyed.
08:40The once-nested sarcophagi have been smashed to pieces, which would have left Ramses' mummy completely exposed.
08:50Here's the big mystery. If you were to go right now to Cairo, you would see Ramses III himself, his
09:00mummy, Ramses III in the flesh.
09:03So then, what gives?
09:08If such a magnificent tomb has descended into chaos and destruction...
09:15How did Ramses III's mummy survive?
09:23Inside the tomb of Ramses III, Dr. Lutz Popko is in charge of deciphering the hieroglyphic texts.
09:35Just above the burial chamber are ancient inscriptions.
09:40Graffiti carvings, graffiti carvings that record visits to the tomb after Ramses' death.
09:46It's basically a list of names, so one name and one title per line.
09:54Lutz decodes the texts.
10:00And one name stands out.
10:05Butahamun, scribe of the royal tombs.
10:09It was a very famous person.
10:14Butahamun was born around 50 years after the death of Ramses III.
10:20But he was strongly connected to him.
10:25Who was Butahamun?
10:28And why was he in Ramses' tomb after the king had died?
10:34Ramses III's death was a turning point in Egyptian history.
10:39He stewarded Egypt to this successful point.
10:44But after him, everything seems to have caved.
10:48Whether it was as a military power, economically, it really started to crumble.
10:54The result was a lapse in public security, public safety, such that the tombs in the Valley of the Kings
11:02began to suffer grievously from tomb robberies.
11:08Butahamun, whose name was written in the tomb graffiti, robbing the tomb of Ramses III.
11:14He is known as the father of Ramses III.
11:15He is the one who dies.
11:21Behind the great temple of Medinet Habu, Meredith investigates the ruins of a once-magnificent pillared house.
11:32that could provide a missing clue.
11:35It's vast. It has these huge columns, and it's in this prime location.
11:40It's clear the house belongs to a member of the wealthy elite,
11:45and Meredith finds the owner's name inscribed on the pillar.
11:50It says here that his name is Buta Amun,
11:55and he's an overseer of the royal treasury.
11:58A code for the king's tombs.
12:01Hidden just two kilometers away.
12:04Ancient Egyptians didn't have coin money.
12:06Rather, Buta Amun's house was so close
12:09to an underground treasury for ancient Egypt.
12:12The tombs of the pharaohs in the Valley of the Kings
12:14had a vast amount of wealth buried under the ground.
12:22With the economy crumbling and the valley's security failing,
12:26the wealth is too much for the authorities to ignore.
12:30Just 84 years after Ramses III is buried,
12:35Buta Amun is sent orders from the top.
12:40Inspect the royal tombs.
12:43Unwrap the pharaoh's mummies.
12:46And remove all of the treasures inside.
12:52What better way of getting gold than just going and digging up the kings
12:55and taking what they could?
12:59Egyptologists are still trying to work out
13:01how Buta Amun actually carried out what he did,
13:06how much he left behind, what he took.
13:09But for the most part, he was pretty thorough in what he removed.
13:15Buta Amun was no ordinary thief.
13:19He was in charge of a government plan to dismantle the Valley of the Kings
13:24and take the pharaohs' treasures from their tombs.
13:30Buta Amun is such a fascinating figure
13:32because we really don't fully understand his motivations.
13:36We know he was in the Valley of the Kings.
13:38We know he was re-wrapping the mummies.
13:41But one of the biggest questions is,
13:43was Buta Amun robbing the pharaohs?
13:45Or was he saving them?
13:53For 3,000 years, Ramsey's mummy was never seen again.
13:59Everyone thought that these mummies,
14:01the kings and queens, had been lost.
14:06Until 1881.
14:09Authorities receive a tip-off from a local family of goat herders.
14:16They had come upon a secret hidden tomb,
14:19high in the mountains.
14:25It was to become the greatest archaeological discovery
14:29in Egypt's history.
14:46Meredith has come to explore the secret tomb.
14:50This is incredible.
14:53This is so remote.
14:55No wonder it was hidden for 3,000 years.
14:59Today, the tomb is only open to those with special access
15:04and a way to scale down the precarious 12-metre shaft.
15:16This is such a rare chance to go down this shaft,
15:19but it's a massive drop.
15:22I'm a little bit scared.
15:23All right.
15:26This is terrifying.
15:43In the mountains above the Valley of the Kings...
15:46This is so crazy!
15:50Egyptologist Meredith Brand is following the trail
15:53of Ramses III's mummy.
15:57I never thought in a million years I'd do this.
16:00She's trying to uncover
16:01why his body wasn't found inside his tomb.
16:05Good job.
16:07Good job.
16:09That was incredible!
16:12I get so high up, I can't believe I did that.
16:15That's laughing.
16:22Oh, all right.
16:25It's so dark in here.
16:32It's a bit eerie.
16:36This is hacked out of the mountain.
16:40It seems like, in a hurry,
16:42there's absolutely nothing even here.
16:46There's no decoration.
16:48There's no nothing.
16:50It makes it feel like a cave,
16:52not something that a human could have made.
17:03Over 60 metres into the mountain,
17:07Meredith finally reaches an opening.
17:11Oh, wow.
17:14This is amazing.
17:17It's the site of a secret cache.
17:22Oh, this is incredible.
17:24Wow.
17:26This was the hiding place
17:28of over 50 royal mummies,
17:31including the mummy of Ramses III.
17:36This tomb looks carved in a haste
17:39and a bit unplanned.
17:41But the mummies were here for a reason.
17:44The king was a living god.
17:46The mummy was vital.
17:49This was an official program
17:51of removing the mummies
17:53from the tombs in the Valley of the Kings
17:55and hiding them here.
17:57Although Bhuta Harmun,
17:59overseer of the royal treasury,
18:02strips the kings of their burial goods
18:04to rescue the failing economy,
18:08he also leads a mission to protect the kings
18:11and queens for eternity.
18:16Eventually, the authorities hide over 50 mummies
18:19in labelled wooden coffins
18:21to save their sacred bodies from destruction.
18:29The discovery of this cave
18:31filled with the royal mummies of the kings
18:32is probably the most important discovery
18:35in all of Egyptology.
18:38We can now look at Ramses III.
18:41We have his mummy.
18:46To stand in front of the royal mummies,
18:48it's sort of a game-changer.
18:50You are there
18:52with the most powerful people
18:55in the ancient world,
18:56but also you are being able to,
19:00on some level,
19:01interact with them.
19:03It is a telescoping of time.
19:06It is meeting an ancient Egyptian.
19:10The mummy of Ramses III lives on.
19:14And so, too,
19:16does his legacy
19:17in the Valley of the Kings.
19:25Anka now has one crucial question.
19:30Could there be lost burial treasures
19:32that belong to the great pharaoh
19:34still hidden inside his tomb?
19:38Finding something like this
19:40would be so rare.
19:41It hasn't happened in over 100 years.
19:52Since the time of Howard Carter,
19:55since they were working
19:56in the tomb of Tudachamun,
19:59no original burial equipment
20:01of an ancient Egyptian pharaoh
20:03has been found here
20:05in the Valley of the Kings.
20:07It would be amazing
20:08to find some pieces
20:11that belong to Ramses III.
20:17Anka is relying on the expertise
20:19and eagle eyes
20:20of her right-hand man,
20:23Rice Mahmoud Abu Diab.
20:28India is the one who is
20:30and the other who is
20:32Ahal, ahal, a real son.
20:33Ahal.
20:33Ahal.
20:33Ahal, a real son.
20:36Ahal.
20:37Ahal.
20:39Ahal.
20:40Ahal.
20:41Ahal.
20:42Ahal.
20:46Ahal.
20:47so that the things that you have to do is correct.
20:54Our Egyptian workmen are a great team.
20:58Believe me, it's very challenging.
21:01You have to lift very heavy limestones
21:04and on the other way around,
21:06you're like brushing tiny pieces out of the sand.
21:10It's absolutely incredible.
21:13The best thing that we have to do
21:16is that we're working with the king's village
21:18and it's beautiful for me.
21:21After almost a month of heavy lifting,
21:24the team has now cleared the top layers
21:26of limestone debris from the tomb.
21:30Come on, the Arabs, come on, come on,
21:32come on, come on, come on.
21:35Come on.
21:37Beneath, the entire floor of the burial chamber
21:41is encased in a rock-hard layer of dried out mud.
21:48Evidence of intense flooding sometime in the recent past.
21:58The team gives each clump of sediment an ID number
22:03before hauling them out of the ground.
22:08They will need to break apart and sift every one.
22:17But it is what's beneath the mud that captures Anka's attention.
22:21This is not normal.
22:23An unexpected sand layer.
22:27It doesn't look like the same sand found in the Valley of the Kings.
22:31And the layer, 30 centimetres deep,
22:34is smoothed out across the entire floor of the burial chamber,
22:37as if it has been filled up by someone on purpose.
22:43It's very intriguing and puzzling what this actually is.
22:48This is almost everywhere on the same level.
22:50There's only a difference of a couple of centimetres,
22:54and this is quite mysterious.
22:57Anka takes the sand to the team for analysis.
23:01Under the microscope, the grains confirm her suspicions.
23:05The sand doesn't come from the Valley of the Kings.
23:10We are very curious about the sand.
23:13It's very clean and uniform,
23:16not the typical sand that you would expect.
23:21Now we want to try to find out where this originates from
23:25and why it was brought there in this area.
23:27Why would anybody bring over 20 tonnes of sand into this burial chamber?
23:36Anka has one outlandish theory.
23:39It involves the most famous discovery of all time.
23:44Tutankhamun and the man responsible.
23:47Howard Carter.
23:50There are many rumours surrounding the mystery of Howard Carter.
23:56One of those describes that Carter actually hid some objects
24:01from the tomb of Tutankhamun in order to keep them for himself.
24:07We know that Howard Carter was a chief inspector
24:10inside the Valley of the Kings.
24:12And we know that he worked inside the tomb of Ramses III.
24:18We never know what we will find.
24:21Still, there are mysteries to solve.
24:25Could this mysterious layer of sand have been brought here by Carter?
24:30Did he use it to hide Tutankhamun's treasures inside Ramses' tomb?
24:47In the hills above Ramses III's tomb in the Valley of the Kings,
24:53Egyptian heritage expert, Sally El Sabahi, is following Howard Carter's trail.
25:01She hikes to one of the most sacred lookouts in Egypt.
25:05No matter how many times I've come to the Valley of the Kings,
25:09I'm still always struck by just the scale of the place.
25:14It just, it never gets old.
25:16You just keep learning, you keep feeling humble.
25:19It's truly a really special place.
25:21Sally examines photographs taken over 100 years ago.
25:27They reveal the beginning of Carter's mission.
25:31To find the lost tomb of a forgotten pharaoh,
25:35named Tutankhamun.
25:39From the valley floor, Carter removes thousands of tons of rubble.
25:47Ancient floods have completely concealed any sign of a tomb.
25:53Carter was dealing with almost impossible circumstances.
25:58You really get a sense from this photo of just the immense amount of material there was to work through.
26:05After five years of digging, Carter is still no closer to finding the tomb.
26:11By this point, he had one last season with funding secured, so it was make or break.
26:17If he hadn't found the tomb at that exact moment in time, he probably never would have.
26:24On November the 4th, 1922, battling the heat and dust,
26:29finally Carter finds what he's looking for.
26:34A buried staircase that leads to a sealed doorway.
26:42And that's when he kind of carved out a little hole and stuck a candlestick through
26:47and looked through.
26:48And he made that famous statement that he had seen wonderful things
26:51because he basically saw a full tomb with all of its funeral equipment,
26:56which is something that we had never seen before or since.
27:07Inside the tomb, Carter finds a room crammed full of chariots,
27:16thrones and gilded statues.
27:20In the burial chamber is an intricately carved sarcophagus and a coffin made of solid gold that housed the mummy
27:31of the king.
27:33It's hard to understand now the magnitude of the discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun,
27:38but in 1922, it was the biggest news story in the world.
27:44And the gold, the glamour, the glitz, it made everyone completely crazy about ancient Egypt.
27:53Finally, we actually got a tomb in which all that wealth of ancient Egyptian kings came to full display,
28:02like real, actual objects reflecting the splendor of the kings of the new kingdom.
28:10The discovery was a game changer for the Valley of the Kings, archaeology and modern Egypt itself.
28:18Personally speaking, as an Egyptian, this was such an amazing moment in our history
28:23because it was really, it took place at a turning point when Egypt was forming its own independent identity.
28:31And Tutankhamun literally was the face, he gave us that identity that was something of our own.
28:45But despite the earth shattering find, Egypt's growing independence left Carter with a bombshell.
28:54Until that point, what had dictated all of the discoveries made by foreign nationals and missions in Egypt was a
29:0150-50 split.
29:02And so Carter anticipated that they would be able to keep 50% of whatever they found here.
29:09And literally just mere weeks actually before the discovery,
29:12the antiquities department changed that law and got rid of the 50-50 split.
29:20I think this was a tough pill to swallow for a very long time and Carter did fight it for
29:24a while.
29:25Carter had no treasures to call his own and he was suspected of stealing.
29:34There was always a concern from officials that something could be taken without their knowledge.
29:39And so because of that, Carter had to tread very carefully.
29:45Would Carter really have stolen from the tomb of Tutankhamun?
29:49And if so, could he have buried treasures nearby in the burial chamber of Ramses III?
30:04Inside the tomb...
30:10..Anca finds a clue.
30:12A fragment of glistening blue pottery.
30:16It's broken, but its vivid colour and decoration suggests something ancient and royal.
30:25Wow, that's a beautiful piece.
30:28What is this treasure?
30:30And more importantly, which pharaoh does it belong to?
30:46Sally El Sabahi investigates suspicions that Howard Carter stole royal treasures and hid them in Ramses III's tomb.
30:58Just outside the valley, she explores his old dig house for clues.
31:07You really feel like you're in the home of somebody with a very strong personality and character.
31:13And I think that's such a critical part of understanding who this person was.
31:21Inside the house, Carter's team had a dark room.
31:26And created thousands of photographs of the dig and its treasures.
31:34Everything was photographed in excruciating detail.
31:38That was unprecedented.
31:45By all measures, I think that we can safely consider Howard Carter a pioneer in terms of how he handled
31:52this discovery.
31:55And yet, despite his forensic approach, Carter had a secret.
32:02Rumours of stealing treasures have followed Howard Carter for over a century.
32:08Now, finally, hard evidence has come to light.
32:14Shown for the very first time are unpublished letters from ten years after the discovery.
32:20Between one of Carter's colleagues, Alan Gardner, and other experts.
32:27It's apparently addressing an amulet that Carter gave to Gardner as a gift.
32:34So this letter opens with this really interesting sentence that reads,
32:39The Wim amulet you showed me has undoubtedly been stolen from the tomb of Tutankhamun before the objects were sent
32:45to the museum.
32:50The amulet, like this one, was a perfect match with others that were kept at the Egyptian museum.
32:58Gardner confronts Howard Carter in a letter.
33:02I deeply regret having been placed in so awkward a position.
33:06The concern from Gardner was probably to have an object like that in his possession.
33:11And I think there also must have been a bit of embarrassment knowing that he had also kind of outed
33:17Carter.
33:20What's really important about these letters is that this is the first, not just written, but hard proof that objects
33:28had been taken out of the tomb of Tutankhamun, apparently directly by Carter himself.
33:35So why was the theft covered up for almost 100 years?
33:40What these letters really show me is that there was really a concerted effort to not tarnish this incredible discovery
33:49by revealing unsavoury things about Carter.
33:53Because at the end of the day, this was not about Carter.
33:57He was the discoverer, yes, but this was about Tutankhamun and his tomb and this incredible legacy of the Valley
34:04of the Kings.
34:06Hero or villain, the discovery raises a new possibility for Anka's mission.
34:13There were over 5,000 artefacts found in the tomb of King Tut.
34:18Maybe Howard Carter took some of these small finds out of the tomb and who knows where they are.
34:25Carter once worked in Ramses III's tomb, just 30 metres away from Tutankhamun's.
34:34Did Carter hide stolen treasures beneath the unexpected sand that Anka has found?
34:50At the team's dig house, Anka and her colleague Leah Rees investigate.
34:59They want to find out when the sand was dumped there.
35:02And they find a clue in notes left by an explorer from the late 1800s.
35:09Here we have one from the year 1891.
35:12He is writing how vivid the colours are in the burial chamber.
35:17As of 1891, the burial chamber was still in pristine condition.
35:24And a couple of years later, in 1895, he is writing here that the looms are much damaged and need
35:33detain the traveller for a short time.
35:36So this means that already something must have happened and destroyed the rear compartments so heavily that they were inaccessible.
35:45In just four years, by 1895, flooding must have already destroyed the chamber.
35:52It means the sand must have been dumped long before Carter worked in the valley in the 1900s.
36:00It would mean that Howard Carter is not the one who could have brought the sand layer inside.
36:07So the blue pottery doesn't belong to Tutankhamun.
36:12But could that mean something even more intriguing?
36:15Could it belong to Ramses III himself?
36:33Inside Ramses III's tomb, Anka Weber's team has now unearthed over 20 pieces of the mysterious blue pottery.
36:45We have here some very dazzling, blue, shining, glazed fragments that came out of the bottom from our excavation.
36:56It could be the first royal burial treasure discovered in a valley of the king's tomb in 100 years.
37:04They begin the painstaking task of trying to glue the fragments together.
37:12Anka thinks they once belonged to a set of vases that held sacred oils and perfumes.
37:20We are thinking that it must have been in the realm of beauty, making yourself fresh in the morning.
37:28They are remarkable pieces.
37:31But Anka hasn't been able to prove the owner.
37:36Until now.
37:37We found a very, very special piece.
37:40So we can probably compare that here on one of the pillars.
37:45The writing almost perfectly matches Ramses III's name on the walls of his tomb.
37:51The sign Reca means ruler.
37:55Without any doubt, we have here a part of the original burial equipment of Ramses III.
38:02It's amazing.
38:04An original artifact that brings Anka closer to the great pharaoh and his spectacular burial.
38:15The fragments reveal Ramses was buried with at least four blue vases.
38:22Designed to hold sacred perfumes and oils.
38:28Placed within his tomb.
38:30They may be the last surviving treasures that belonged to Ramses III.
38:43It's simply beautiful to have all these pieces here together to see them shining and to know that you actually
38:51hold something that was supposed to be with Ramses III in his afterlife.
38:57It's an incredibly rare find.
39:00The kind of which hasn't been seen in the Valley of the Kings for over 100 years.
39:06To now be finding actual burial equipment of the king whose tomb you're excavating is pretty damn cool.
39:13And it really does add a huge amount of information about what was being buried with these kings.
39:21Dr. Anka Weber and her team have just two more weeks to try to excavate Ramses III's burial chamber.
39:30The last mystery to unravel is why almost everything they have found so far has been damaged or destroyed.
39:38We collect everything, we take notes, pictures to see the wider context of an area.
39:45All the finds must be meticulously recorded.
39:48Once something is excavated, it is gone forever.
39:53This is why it's so important to do a decent job with that.
39:57With the end of the dig approaching, the team hits a major milestone.
40:02We are reaching parts of the original floor level of the burial chamber.
40:07This is absolutely amazing.
40:10Some parts of the tomb's original floor may not have been seen for hundreds, even thousands of years.
40:18But everywhere Anka looks, she spots something odd.
40:23These are burnt traces.
40:24It's a mixture of the burnt wood, limestone and ashes.
40:31A fine layer of ash coats many stones on the burial chamber floor.
40:37We have actually a lot of evidence for burning here inside the burial chamber.
40:42That tells us a story about large fires with immense heat.
40:48The heat was so intense, it's broken down the limestone the burial chamber is carved from.
40:55As soon as you touch it, it starts chipping from all sides.
41:00You can crack it open like a cake.
41:03So it's in a very, very bad shape.
41:08It's puzzling because nobody brought charcoal or wood from outside.
41:14What has been burning inside the burial chamber?
41:18The team finds small pieces of wood scattered around.
41:22Pieces of coffins, including the bodies that were once inside.
41:27We didn't find a complete mummy.
41:31All the remains that we find are only pieces.
41:33This is quite suspicious, but we also found traces of burning.
41:40It leads Anka to one gruesome conclusion.
41:43We know that in the 18th and 19th century mummies served as a fuel.
41:50We have to imagine that there was no electricity.
41:54So the individuals who visited needed light in order to experience the tomb and to have a look at the
42:00artefacts.
42:02We believe that these are firing places that were used to enlighten the darkness of the burial chamber.
42:12Robbers and modern explorers would have lit huge fires in the tomb, burning everything and anything they could find.
42:24Anka Weber's project in KV-11 is cutting edge and innovative.
42:31Using modern technology to explore the tiny, minute remains is telling us so much about the tomb of Ramses III.
42:39The paintings and this kind of the sheer beauty of it is just one part of the story.
42:46It's really a 3,000 year history of activity that begins with the king and ends with our modern time.
42:55Layer by layer, Anka and the team can now finally piece together the complete story of the tomb.
43:06Inside a nested sarcophagus, Ramses III lay in peace for less than a hundred years.
43:13Before his mummy was moved into the safety of the mountains.
43:18Now empty, others used Ramses III's tomb for their burials.
43:25Then came nearly 3,000 years of destruction.
43:29Fires, brute force, robbers and explorers all scarred the king's tomb.
43:41Until finally, floods inundated the chamber and brought its roof crashing down.
43:54And the history of the tomb is still evolving.
43:58After three months of non-stop digging, the team has cleared two shipping containers worth of debris.
44:05Discovered original burial treasures and opened a new chapter in the story of ancient Egypt.
44:15It feels absolutely incredible to have achieved so much.
44:21We finally excavated it, we cleared it from rubble and debris and we found so many amazing and wonderful things
44:27inside.
44:29Now at the end of the field season, I feel like I became part of the history of the tomb.
44:36We grew closer to this ancient pharaoh.
44:40It's a long life dream that came true.
44:43The last great pharaoh of ancient Egypt, who was brutally murdered, came to be buried in a spectacular tomb.
44:59With an army of servants and nested sarcophagi, the tomb was Ramses' portal to eternal life.
45:11In the heart of the valley of the kings.
45:18There is still a lot of work to be done in the valley.
45:22Even now, there are places where we don't know what lies beneath the sand.
45:27There is so much more out there to find. There's so much more to excavate. This is a never-ending
45:32quest.
45:33Now, Anka's goal is to restore and conserve the structure of the burial chamber and make it safe for visitors
45:42to enter.
45:42So that the world can bear witness to the greatness of Ramses III.
45:49We are the connecting point.
45:52Everything that we excavate that tells us something about our history will bring us to a past that can shape
45:59a better future.
46:07It's a quest that will fulfil the pharaoh's ultimate wish.
46:12Speak the name of the dead and make them live again.
46:19Ramses III lives on.
46:33The full story of their rise to the top.
46:36Bruno, Ben, Eubank and Lewis. The Four Kings starts tomorrow from 10.
46:41Then tough men in a tough environment Monday at 10.
46:44A bunch of veterans and an arctic adventure.
46:47Outrageous entertainment, wall-to-wall action and an awful lot of car chases next Mission Impossible.
46:52Dead Reckoning.
46:53Lovely meeting.ielt
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