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00:02Deep in the heart of Egypt, beyond colossal, magnificent temples,
00:13lies a secret mountainous valley, hiding some of the most spectacular archaeological finds
00:22the world has ever seen. It may look like a barren desert wilderness, but 3,500 years ago,
00:33this was the royal cemetery of the pharaohs, the mighty rulers of ancient Egypt. It's known
00:42as the Valley of the Kings. Pharaoh after Pharaoh was buried here in their own grand underground
00:50tombs, with hordes of priceless golden treasures, each hoping to rest in peace for eternity.
01:03But 200 years ago, the valley became a battlefield and a gold rush between adventurers, robbers and
01:09nations who raced to find the lost tombs and claim that treasure. Now I'm telling the incredible
01:18cutthroat story of the hunt for the valley's secret riches. This is one of the most gorgeous places
01:26in all of Egypt. Every wall covered in gold. Unraveling a tale with more twists and turns
01:34than a Hollywood blockbuster. With spine chilling adventures. He was scared. He was so scared.
01:45Culminating in the greatest discovery of all time. This is the Valley of the Kings.
02:13Modern day Cairo. Downtown. The famous Egyptian museum.
02:21And pride of place is given to the most outstanding archaeological prize in all of history.
02:32The golden death mask of Tutankhamun.
02:39So here it is. It is the most famous piece of art ever made. It is the most famous and
02:47beautiful
02:48archaeological treasure ever recovered. When I'm this close, I realize it's not only a thing of extraordinary
02:55beauty, but it is such a powerful representation of the young man himself. You feel like you're in his presence.
03:04It's breathtaking.
03:09Tutankhamun was buried with 5,000 priceless treasures. A magnificent coffin, a golden throne and caskets.
03:19For over 3,000 years, all were hidden deep beneath the ground. Until 1922, when they were discovered
03:29they were buried in a hidden tomb in the Valley of the Kings. This was the evidence of the astonishing
03:37wealth of the Egyptian pharaohs,
03:38and of the fact that there was gold buried beneath those desert sands. But this wasn't the start
03:45of some gold rush to uncover the lost treasures of Egypt. This was the culmination of a frenzied
03:52century of searching in the Valley of the Kings, like a tale out of Indiana Jones.
04:07300 miles from Cairo. The Valley of the Kings lies across the river Nile from the ancient Egyptian
04:14capital Thebes, now modern-day Luxor. Thebes was the land of the living. The Valley, the land of the dead.
04:28Getting to it, even today, is an epic journey, crossing what was the Theban Mountains,
04:34finally reaching one of the most awe-inspiring and challenging landscapes imaginable.
04:43It's the strangest feeling. It's like you're heading into a barren moonscape, just driving
04:50straight into the heart of a desert mountain range. You'd never guess what was up ahead.
05:05There's nowhere on earth like this place. I was trying to imagine what it was like for those first
05:11archaeologists that came here, and all they had to go on was whispers. No hint of what was underground.
05:18It must have been incredibly exciting. For the 3,000 years after the pharaohs were buried,
05:27the rubble piled up high in the valley. Most of the valley's tombs completely disappeared from view.
05:34The pharaohs and their treasures lost and buried deep. Apart from whispered legends of hidden gold,
05:43this rocky gorge appeared largely empty and forgotten. Then, just over 200 years ago, all that changed.
05:58One of history's most famous empire builders, Napoleon Bonaparte invaded Egypt.
06:06Captivated by stories of the mighty pharaohs, his forces entered the valley.
06:14Napoleon's team didn't find gold, but they did record 12 visible tombs in the valley,
06:21and their visit had a far greater impact. It quite literally put the forgotten valley on the map,
06:28and began a new era. From now on, the valley would begin attracting fanatical treasure hunters.
06:36The pharaohs of ancient Egypt had hoped to lie here in peace for eternity, but now their secret was out.
06:50In 1817, a rather unusual and iron-willed treasure hunter sailed down the Nile towards the valley.
07:01He was Italian by birth, but he would become Britain's secret weapon in the battle for the valley of the
07:07kings.
07:09His name, Giovanni Belzoni.
07:15So this is the great Belzoni. Not exactly the dusty, fusty archaeology scholar that you might expect,
07:25but a huge man, six foot seven tall, as you can see in this picture, powerfully built, barrel-chested, very
07:32charismatic.
07:33You do what this man told you. He trained as an engineer, then done a stint as a circus strongman.
07:43In October 1817, after taking advice from local Egyptians, Giovanni Belzoni began to search the valley.
07:51He was hoping that 3,000 years after the pharaohs were buried with their treasures, he'd discover an intact tomb.
08:01And incredibly, he soon found not one, but two previously undiscovered tombs.
08:08Then, on the 9th of October 1817, he discovered two more on the same day.
08:14And the next day, another. Five in total.
08:20None contained treasure.
08:23But they were definitive proof that there were two still hidden within the valley.
08:28And one of them might just contain lost riches.
08:41In the middle of October 1817, the British team were hunting harder than ever.
08:48Belzoni thumping the ground with a stick.
08:54Hoping for the telltale, hollow sound of a void beneath the rocks.
08:58By this time, Belzoni had a few potential targets in his sights.
09:03He just had to decide which one to really go for.
09:05He had a good think about it and worked out that one of them felt a bit more substantial than
09:10the rest.
09:17Belzoni's team dug and dug for the next 24 hours with barely a break.
09:26This wasn't easy work.
09:27By lunchtime, they dug nearly 20 foot that gaping hole down there behind me now.
09:33It was exhausting.
09:35They must have been begging for Belzoni to give up.
09:38But he pushed on.
09:39And suddenly, something emerged.
09:42They weren't sure what it was at first.
09:45They cleared more rubble.
09:48The energy levels rising this time.
09:50Until at last, they exposed a door.
09:56Belzoni had no idea what he'd find behind the door.
10:01But he was about to take his first steps into one of the most remarkable archaeological discoveries of all time.
10:18It's a very different experience entering this tomb today.
10:21It's solid underfoot.
10:22I can stand upright.
10:24And it's well lit.
10:25Belzoni came in here in 1817 clutching a candle.
10:30Crawling across mounds of spoil and broken rock.
10:33Close to the ceiling in parts.
10:35Hot bats whizzing past him.
10:44As he got deeper and deeper, he could see it was wondrous.
10:49He was the first person possibly in here in three and a half thousand years.
10:54How exciting must that have been?
10:59And he was seeing glimpses.
11:01The tops of some of the gods and goddesses and pharaohs.
11:05Images just emerging from the wreckage.
11:08Only getting a tantalizing glimpse of the full majesty of the decoration.
11:20I'm six foot six, and I can walk through here today.
11:23But the six foot seven Giovanni Belzoni faced obstacle after obstacle.
11:28Progress would have been painfully slow.
11:31Every inch he crawled through, a battle.
11:34But then his descent became even more dangerous.
11:38The steep shaft suddenly gave way to a sheer vertical drop.
11:48Belzoni talks about it in his account.
11:50He says there was a pit 30 feet deep.
11:54The upper part adorned with figures from the wall of the passage to the ceiling.
12:02For a moment, he was stopped in his tracks.
12:05Another man might have given up, but he had an idea that he thought might just work.
12:12And the next morning, he returned.
12:15By means of a long beam, we succeeded in sending a man up into the aperture, which is this bit
12:21here.
12:21And they built a kind of bridge across it.
12:26With the makeshift bridge in place, he was able to crawl precariously across the shaft to the chamber beyond.
12:36And what he found there was extraordinary.
12:42As he crept deeper, the tomb became less and less buried with rubble.
12:48Now, at every turn, he encountered another beautifully decorated passageway and another spectacular chamber.
12:57He must have been completely overwhelmed.
13:09But there was more to come.
13:12As he continued through the tomb, he saw another shaft that descended even deeper into the ground.
13:23To help me appreciate the wonders that lay ahead, I'm joined by the world-renowned Egyptologist Salima Ikram.
13:34I want you to imagine that you are Belzoni and you've been crawling down this tomb and it's filled with
13:41dust and bats.
13:42And then you've been swinging over places where there are big chasms and you've gone about 450 feet deep into
13:49this mountain.
13:49And now you have come here and you think, is it almost over?
13:54So, you open your eyes now.
13:58That is astonishing, isn't it?
14:00Every wall covered in gold.
14:04Paintings on every inch.
14:06It's extraordinarily beautiful.
14:08This is one of the most gorgeous places in all of Egypt.
14:11I think it's probably the most beautiful place in the world.
14:13All of this glittering and Belzoni holding his flaming torch and seeing these walls glimmering with images of the king
14:22with the different gods.
14:25Then, with a few final steps, he could go no further.
14:32He'd at last reached the climax of the tomb.
14:38The lost burial chamber of Pharaoh Seti I.
14:43And it was magnificent.
14:48It's incredible. It's like three stories high, actually. It's wild.
14:54It's enormous and you've got this beautifully arched roof, which is sort of the Ark of Heaven.
15:02And here you've got the Egyptian constellations beautifully painted so that the king could be reborn with the sun.
15:08And then on either side, you've got these goddesses guarding him and funerary texts.
15:14And right in the middle is where you would have found the king.
15:18In his sarcophagus.
15:19That's right. And in fact, Belzoni was very lucky because he came here.
15:23And there was a beautiful Egyptian alabaster sarcophagus.
15:27The giant decorated box in which they placed the body of the king.
15:30Yep. That would have been right there.
15:33And was the king in there?
15:35No. Unfortunately, he had moved on.
15:39Just finding the tomb itself, it's still one of the most astonishing discoveries of all time.
15:45Well, this was, in fact, and is the deepest and most decorated and most beautiful tomb.
15:51So I think in terms of Egyptology, this was pretty spectacular.
15:58In the journal he kept of his adventures in Egypt, Belzoni wrote the day on which he found this tomb,
16:02a fortunate day. One of the best days, perhaps, in my life. And I can well believe it.
16:09And this triumph would be enough for me. But for him, he had even greater ambition.
16:13He wanted to share news of this discovery with Britain and the rest of the world.
16:29In 1820, Belzoni arrived back here in the UK.
16:33And he put together a smash hit exhibition. It was in a building right here. It's gone now,
16:40so the street's completely changed. But we do have an image of what it was like.
16:44Look how enticing that is. An exotic facade advertising the Egyptian treasures that lay inside.
16:52And in that building, Belzoni, ever the showman, built a scale model of Seti's tomb.
17:012,000 people visited on the first day alone. He had a big success on his hands.
17:07Sudden, Egypt was destination number one for the world's archaeological treasure seekers,
17:13prepared to take on the brutal challenge of the valley with the passion to hunt deeper.
17:22In the 1890s, around 70 years after Belzoni's great discovery of Seti's tomb,
17:28another archaeologist arrived, determined to discover lost royal tombs. His name was Victor Loray.
17:39The French were back in the hunt.
17:43The Egyptian government had made Loray the chief superintendent of antiquities.
17:49This job gave him total control over who could dig in the valley.
17:58The special access soon paid off.
18:04Within a few months of arriving, Loray found three tombs, the first to be excavated in 70 years.
18:14They were all badly robbed.
18:17Then, a month later, he found another one.
18:29Even today, approaching this tomb, which is right at the bottom of this cliff,
18:33there's a sense of foreboding, there's a real atmosphere here.
18:38Cliffs rise up on either side, overhanging.
18:42But whatever I'm feeling today was nothing compared to what Loray experienced.
18:50Buried deep into this mountainside was something that would make his blood run cold.
18:59He had no idea what lay ahead of him when he stepped down into the dark mouth of the tomb.
19:12Much more hidden entrance, I'd say. Quite high up in the hillside as well.
19:16They didn't want everyone to see where it was.
19:19I see.
19:21Even for me, the descent into this tomb is unsettling.
19:27For Loray, relying just on candlelight to guide him, it must have been terrifying.
19:34The pitch black tunnel that never seemed to end.
19:41As Loray descended from the shaft into a cavernous chamber, he wondered what on earth he'd uncovered.
19:50The walls were bare. Could this really be the resting place of a mighty pharaoh?
19:58It's not really finished, this one, is it?
20:01Not very well decorated, as you can see. There's still all the dots from where they were taking out blocks.
20:08Loray pushed on, and then something remarkable happened.
20:14He stepped into another chamber, and everything changed.
20:19The End
20:39Suddenly we're back in the painted pharaohs and goddesses and goddesses.
20:44Look, it's fantastic, because you have all of that plainness, and then suddenly, boom!
20:49And finally, at the end of this magnificently carved room, the prize Loray craved most.
20:56A sarcophagus.
21:00And so that is the original sarcophagus?
21:02Yep, this is it.
21:03Still lying here at the heart of the tomb.
21:06Intact here, with its lid.
21:08Wow.
21:09It was really quite an extraordinary thing to find, because also...
21:13The body was in there?
21:14Yeah, the body was in there.
21:15Brilliant.
21:17The grand coffin made Loray certain the tomb belonged to a king.
21:22He could even read the pharaoh's name. Amenhotep II, great-grandfather of Tutankhamen himself.
21:30But something wasn't right. Amenhotep was not the only one buried here.
21:38In a corridor leading off to the side, Loray glimpsed a small wooden boat.
21:45And on it, a sight that shocked him to his core.
21:51The way he describes it is terrifying.
21:52The legs and arms were bound, a hole exposed in the sternum, an opening in the skull.
22:00Was this the victim of human sacrifice? Was a thief murdered by his accomplices in a bloody division of loot?
22:07You know, you're here crawling through with this one lamp, lighting your way or a torch, and then having that
22:13face leap out at you.
22:16As he scoured further side chambers, he found more bodies.
22:21And as he began to examine them, he noticed something incredible.
22:27They all appeared to be royal.
22:32It was a fantastic find, and at first, Loray didn't realise how extremely important it was.
22:39But soon he figured it out because there were labels on these coffin saying which king it was.
22:45So he suddenly thought, oh, my God, here we have half of the royalty of Egypt.
22:53Loray had unearthed one of the Valley of the King's most significant finds so far.
22:59A secret hiding place, known as a royal cache, where the mummified remains of the pharaohs and their families had
23:06been hidden far from their own tombs to keep them safe.
23:10Loray's discoveries may have been gruesome, but they showed there were still plenty of treasures to be found in the
23:15Valley of the Kings.
23:16News spread all over the world like wildfire.
23:19The problem was, it wasn't just the archaeologists that would be lured here.
23:26On November the 24th, 1901, three and a half years after Loray had discovered it, the tomb was robbed.
23:35Its precious contents were taken, including all the royal mummies.
23:41Some of the greatest finds in the valley had been lost.
23:53Were the guards overpowered or were they simply paid to look the other way?
23:58One thing was for certain.
24:00An investigation would have to be launched and the treasured mummies recovered.
24:07Enter Howard Carter, an English Egyptologist who had become the most successful tomb hunter of them all.
24:16At the time, Carter was working with a local archaeological inspector.
24:22He'd always dreamt of digging inside the valley and finding a lost royal tomb.
24:30But right now, his main mission was finding out what had happened to the royal mummies and try and recover
24:36them.
24:37Carter had the advantage of knowing the local area and two suspects were on his radar.
24:43The brothers, Mohammed and Ahmed Abdel Rasul.
25:08Ten years before, another tomb had been robbed.
25:10Shortly after, precious ancient treasures and papyri began turning up on sale here in the Luxor market.
25:21Around that time, people started noticing that the Abdel Rasul brothers were suddenly inexplicably extremely wealthy.
25:31In the valley, Carter had investigated the crime scene.
25:35The robbers had been careless, leaving their footprints in the sand.
25:41Carter took photos for evidence and paid a professional tracker to hunt them down.
25:47They followed the trail and, surprise, surprise, it led straight to the house of the Abdel Rasul brothers.
25:55They broke in.
25:57There were the mummies and the precious treasures.
26:01Carter recovered them.
26:02In doing so, he became quite the hero.
26:12After recovering the mummies and treasures from Amenhotep's tomb, Carter could now focus on digging in the valley himself.
26:2715 miles from Cairo, some tourists forced their way into another tomb near the Saqqara pyramids.
26:36Carter wanted them punished.
26:41Carter wanted to throw the book at them.
26:43Rules were rules.
26:44But these tourists seemed to have friends in high places and Carter was encouraged to let them off.
26:50He was furious and he handed in his resignation.
26:54Without his job, Carter had no reliable income.
26:58But worse, he no longer had the permission to dig in the Valley of the Kings.
27:03But someone was about to come to Carter's rescue.
27:09Lord George Herbert Carnarvon.
27:20In 1907, Lord Carnarvon sailed to Luxor, Egypt, on a mission to hunt for lost tombs and treasure.
27:28He set himself up in luxury on the banks of the River Nile.
27:34Carnarvon headed straight here, the Winter Palace Hotel.
27:38Fairly plush, isn't it?
27:39In fact, when he was here, it was also brand new, opened just a couple of years before.
27:43It shows how the discoveries of the Valley of the Kings were attracting the world great and good.
27:50And certainly very rich.
27:53Carnarvon had money, but he now needed to find a local expert before he could start digging.
27:59And, after asking around, one name cropped up.
28:05Howard Carter.
28:09It didn't take much conversation for them both to realise this could be a match made in heaven.
28:16Carnarvon had power and wealth.
28:19Carter had knowledge and expertise.
28:22And they both burned with an unstoppable passion.
28:25What happened here that day was the start of the most famous archaeological partnership in history.
28:35Immediately after the meeting, Carnarvon and Carter began to work.
28:40But they had a problem.
28:43They couldn't actually dig in the valley itself and were forced to explore the hills around it.
28:49The Egyptian archaeological service only issued one licence to dig in the Valley of the Kings at any one time.
28:58And for the moment, the wealthy American, Theodore Davis, clutched that coveted licence in his hands.
29:05And he wasn't going to let go of it any time soon.
29:09Theodore Davis was a rich, retired lawyer.
29:12Just like Carter and Carnarvon, he was obsessed with the promise of buried tombs and golden treasures.
29:20By 1913, Davis had excavated nearly 30 tombs.
29:26Now, a total of 61 tombs had been identified in the valley, more even than the ancient texts had promised.
29:34But despite his years of trying, an intact, treasure-filled tomb remained elusive.
29:40And bit by bit, Davis was losing heart.
29:45Carter and Carnarvon had been digging around the valley for five years, circling like vultures, waiting for their chance to
29:52swoop.
29:53Then came the news they'd been waiting for.
29:56Davis had grown old and he'd lost his patience with the Valley of the Kings.
29:59He was giving up.
30:01Carter and Carnarvon immediately snapped up the permit to dig in the valley.
30:07Carter felt certain that there was another pharaoh buried in here.
30:12What's more, he believed that pharaoh's tomb was intact and still filled with its royal treasures.
30:20Carter even thought he knew the name of the pharaoh whose tomb he was looking for.
30:24A little-known ruler called Tutankhamun.
30:28Eight years earlier, Theodore Davis had discovered a pit full of mummification items.
30:35And on one of them, the name of a pharaoh, Tutankhamun.
30:40But no tomb had ever been discovered.
30:46Carter and Carnarvon began the hunt.
30:52For the next seven years, every year they investigated a new area, their hunt increasingly desperate.
31:02When his predecessor, Davis, had been digging here in the valley, he'd had the remarkable hit rate of averaging one
31:08new tomb every year.
31:16Carter was summoned back to England, to Carnarvon's home, Highclere Castle.
31:21Enough was enough.
31:23Carnarvon had decided to call it a day.
31:29Desperate, Carter pleaded for one more chance.
31:32He even offered to pay for the work himself.
31:34It wasn't a very realistic offer, but somehow it did the trick.
31:42Carnarvon was so impressed by his passion that he made a deal.
31:46He'd fund one more dig.
31:48It would be Carter and Carnarvon's final throw of the dice.
31:59In November 1922, Carter was back in Luxor.
32:03He prepared to start digging once again for Tutankhamun's tomb and its lost treasure.
32:12I can just imagine the pressure that Carter was under.
32:16Time was now against him.
32:17There was no more room for mistakes.
32:19He had to choose the right spot.
32:26Then he had a brainwave.
32:28In all the time he'd been digging, he'd ignored one spot.
32:34And thinking about it, it was an obvious target.
32:39The pit that Davis had found, containing the embalming objects with Tutankhamun's name on it,
32:44was somewhere around here.
32:46And no one had thought about excavating over here,
32:49because it was right next to the mouth of a tomb belonging to Ramesses.
32:52And the ancient Egyptian builders of that tomb had covered this area with their spoil.
32:58And no one had thought it was worthwhile checking underneath that.
33:01Until now.
33:09Carter and his team started digging once again.
33:14It was slow, back-breaking work.
33:18And then suddenly, on day three of the excavation, there was a breakthrough.
33:24What happened next is the stuff of legend.
33:28But it was an accident.
33:29It wasn't really even down to Carter.
33:34A 12-year-old boy, Hussein Rasul, was employed on site as a water carrier.
33:40The story goes that he was about to do something that would change history.
33:47On November the 4th, Hussein put one of his big flasks of water down on the ground
33:52and accidentally knocked it over.
33:55Now, rather than pooling on the rock a bit like this,
33:58it seeped into the ground, suggesting there was a void below.
34:04He immediately set his team to work.
34:07After two long days of clearing rubble, spirits had been flagging.
34:12But this discovery had been the injection of energy everyone needed.
34:17Then, in a matter of mere hours, they discovered something.
34:23I've got a copy of Carter's personal diary for that fateful day, the 4th of November 1922.
34:29No regular, neat little notes here.
34:32Instead, just one sentence dashed off any old how across the page.
34:36First steps of tomb found.
34:38You can feel his excitement here.
34:40He doesn't have time to write things down.
34:41He wants to get on with the job of finding the rest of Tutankhamen's tomb.
34:47Over the next few hours, more rubble was removed.
34:51It was clear that the steps continued down.
34:53And then, suddenly, something appeared.
34:57It looked like the blocked door of a tomb.
35:00The door was still sealed.
35:02And on those seals was a name.
35:04A name that he'd been hoping to see for years.
35:08It's the name of Tutankhamen.
35:12Lord Carnarvon hurried across for England.
35:16On November 24th, Carnarvon and Carter made their way to the unopened tomb.
35:22But almost instantly, as they came down the top steps to the blocked door, the sense of excitement evaporated.
35:31Something wasn't right.
35:34Looking close to the door, which was right here, it was clear that someone had been through it.
35:40It had been tampered with.
35:41But it had then been closed and resealed.
35:47It wasn't the news he'd wanted.
35:49But Carter pressed on.
35:52Eventually, the stone blocking the doorway was cleared.
35:54Carter and Carnarvon began to edge their way down the entrance shaft.
35:59Both were prepared for the worst.
36:02But the tomb had been robbed and then resealed.
36:05The next two days must have been torturous for them.
36:08As they moved slowly down this passage, it was pitch black and full of obstacles, dust and debris that had
36:16gathered over the millennia.
36:17But much more worryingly, there were signs of broken pots and jars.
36:23Carter wrote in his diary, these were disturbing elements as they pointed towards plundering.
36:40Over the next two days, Carter and Carnarvon held their nerve, continuing their inch-by-inch advance along this corridor,
36:48clearing away the debris.
36:51At 4pm, after nine metres of digging, they found another door.
36:56It was right here.
36:57Mysteriously, again, this one showed that someone had been in.
37:01But it had been closed up, it had been resealed and even re-plastered.
37:10The team continued digging.
37:14Carter sent for more candles to work in the darkness.
37:18And carefully, they began to make a hole just big enough to see what was beyond.
37:25With Carnarvon just behind him, Carter peered into the darkness.
37:30It was some time before one could see, the hot air causing the candle to flicker.
37:36But as one's eyes became accustomed to the light, the interior of the chamber gradually loomed before one.
37:44What happens next was probably the singular, most famous, most miraculous moment in the history of archaeological discovery.
37:54Carter was looking through the small hole that he'd made here.
37:58He wrote that Carnarvon said to me, can you see anything?
38:03I replied to him, yes, it is wonderful.
38:13Years later, he put it a bit more poetically, he wrote,
38:17As my eyes grew accustomed to the light, details of the room within emerged slowly from the mist.
38:22Strange animals, statues and gold.
38:26Everywhere, the glint of gold.
38:34When Carter and Carnarvon eventually broke through into the chamber, both were overwhelmed.
38:41Egyptologist Alia Ismail has joined me to describe the amazing discovery.
38:46So these are the things you saw stacked up.
38:49What kind of things are these?
38:50So this would be like beds over here, these, and some food mummies,
38:55because they thought they needed this food in the afterlife.
38:58You could see even the chariots.
39:00Okay, so this is the room we're in right now.
39:02Isn't that amazing?
39:03Yes.
39:03By the candlelight, it would have just been flickering.
39:05It would have been just magical.
39:07Yes.
39:08It's always more romantic with this candlelight.
39:11I mean, to think of it how it was.
39:13But 100 years ago, as Carter looked more closely,
39:17he suddenly became gripped with a sense of foreboding.
39:22Something seemed wrong.
39:23The place was a mess.
39:25It's more like a ransacked storeroom than an undisturbed tomb.
39:30Coming in here, you would think, I mean, did people just stash things?
39:34Did they not think about putting it in order?
39:37He didn't know.
39:38And then he was scared.
39:39He was so scared because he wanted to find a tomb.
39:43Digging for five years, looking for the tomb,
39:45and then he finds a cachet was a disappointment for him.
39:48If you call it that disappointment,
39:48I think anyone else in the world would have been thrilled to discover that.
39:51I know, but he wanted a tomb.
39:55But then as Carter looked further, something caught his eye.
40:00Two guardian statues.
40:02He saw those statues flanking the either side of the wall.
40:07He thought, no, I mean, these statues and their placement,
40:11there might be something beyond that wall.
40:16Although the two statues were against a wall,
40:19they looked carefully placed,
40:22as if flanking the entrance to a burial chamber.
40:26Carter and Carnarvon felt confident enough to make their discovery public.
40:31They headed across the Nile into Luxor.
40:35In late November 1922,
40:38Carnarvon and Carter summoned the world's press here
40:40to the Winter Palace Hotel in Luxor
40:42to announce what they had discovered.
40:45The whole world was instantly captivated.
40:48But did Tutankhamun and his treasures still lie buried in the tomb?
40:55Carter had thoroughly surveyed this chamber,
40:58and it was time now to take his search beyond the wall that stood at this end.
41:03You can still see the outline of where it used to be.
41:06He believed that through here he would find the innermost sanctum,
41:10the burial chamber of the pharaoh Tutankhamun.
41:15On February 17th, 1923,
41:19Carter and his team carefully took down the wall piece by piece.
41:22What lay behind it was incredible.
41:25Not a room, but a solid wall of gold.
41:29This was surely the burial chamber.
41:35To prepare for the next excavation phase,
41:38the dig closed down for ten days.
41:41While Carter stayed in Luxor,
41:43Lord Carnarvon decided to sail down the Nile for a holiday.
41:47It should have been a triumphal trip
41:49after seven years of digging in the valley.
41:54While he was away, Carnarvon was bitten by a mosquito.
41:57He should have been fine,
41:59but he managed to slice the top of the scab off
42:01while he was shaving here at the hotel.
42:03The wound went septic.
42:06Carnarvon died.
42:13Without Carnarvon's money and support,
42:16the world's most exciting archaeological discovery was now in jeopardy.
42:24Carter was distraught.
42:26He hadn't just lost a great friend,
42:27and he'd lost his financier and the licence to dig.
42:32The money and the permission were both in Carnarvon's name.
42:36The tomb was only half excavated,
42:38and now the whole project was in jeopardy.
42:45Carter had little choice.
42:47Despite the fact she was still mourning the loss of her husband,
42:52Carter approached Lady Carnarvon.
42:54If she would agree to continue the financing,
42:57he could continue to excavate.
43:00Lady Carnarvon agreed to take up the licence in her name.
43:10Six months after Carnarvon's death,
43:14work began again.
43:19Until Carter had explored that burial chamber,
43:22discovered whether Tutankhamen still lay there undisturbed,
43:26his quest was incomplete.
43:30He began investigating the Golden Wall.
43:33What he'd discovered was incredible.
43:37It was part of a huge box,
43:39filling a room from floor to ceiling.
43:43It took six weeks and an army of workmen
43:46to pack and remove the gold from the tomb.
43:49And finally, the burial chamber of Tutankhamen
43:53lay before Howard Carter.
43:57Now, this is much more familiar.
44:00These beautiful paintings of humans and gods.
44:05It's amazing.
44:06You can see a lot of images of Tutankhamen.
44:09Every inch of the walls were covered with mysterious,
44:14and in the centre of the room, the sarcophagus itself.
44:19This is what he'd been hoping, praying to see for years.
44:24It was a magnificent sight.
44:26So, you can see here, the sarcophagus is flanked by four protection goddesses,
44:31and you can see their wings on either side protecting him.
44:34And you can see his name, of course, and his titles.
44:37So, that's his signature there, if you like.
44:39Absolutely.
44:40That's his royal name.
44:42That's his birth name.
44:43You can see both of them.
44:46With the king's name engraved across the sarcophagus,
44:50Carter finally had the confirmation he needed
44:52that it belonged to Tutankhamen himself.
44:55Everybody else had been trying.
44:57No one had ever found an intact royal tomb in the Valley of the Kings.
45:02Absolutely.
45:02And people thought Carter was a madman to go and dig there
45:05and look at him, what he's found.
45:10But there was just one final task before Carter could celebrate fully.
45:15The most important one of all.
45:18Lifting the lid on the sarcophagus.
45:32Carter was now standing next to the sarcophagus,
45:36surrounded by a group of officials and archaeologists.
45:40As this one and a quarter ton lid was winched off,
45:45there were gasps of astonishment.
45:48Inside, there was a golden coffin
45:50bearing the image of Tutankhamen himself.
46:01The first intact royal burial had surfaced from the Valley of the Kings
46:06after 200 years of hunting.
46:09And within the spectacular, beautiful coffin
46:12lay the greatest treasure the world had ever seen.
46:17The golden death mask of boy king Tutankhamen.
46:23Three thousand years after his tomb was sealed up for eternity,
46:29his treasures still take your breath away.
46:36The battle to discover the secrets of the Valley of the Kings
46:39is as fascinating and full of intrigue
46:42as the story of the ancient tombs themselves.
46:46From Belzoni's inspired discovery of Seti's magnificent tomb,
46:52to the disturbing revelations of Loray's tomb of horrors.
46:58And ultimately, the passion, determination and glory
47:02of Howard Carter's hunt 100 years ago.
47:07Today, few people would claim with any certainty
47:11that this valley has given up all its secrets.
47:13How could they, with hundreds of years
47:16of extraordinary discoveries, tombs and precious objects?
47:21I think this rocky canyon in the desert
47:24will go on dazzling us with its treasures.
47:33When a small town gets thrown into high fashion,
47:36the results are both hair-raising and heart-warming.
47:39The true story of how a Danish entrepreneur revolutionised hair care.
47:44Carmen Curlers.
47:45Stream free on SBS On Demand.
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