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00:00The 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.
00:22There 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.
00:41Ramses 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.
00:52Shilda Al-Athul.
00:54In three months of high-stakes digging, the team has an unprecedented opportunity...
01:03I'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...
01:13This 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.
01:43Only in ancient Egypt can you actually do this sort of thing.
01:49The west bank of the river Nile.
02:03Ancient Egypt's land of the dead.
02:06Some 3,000 years ago, the pharaohs of Egypt's golden age abandoned pyramids...
02:13...and chose to be interred deep underground, in secrecy.
02:18Hundreds of miles south of the Giza pyramids...
02:23...the valley of the kings was meant to be an everlasting paradise...
02:28...where Egyptian pharaohs could live out their afterlives in peace and splendour.
02:38The valley may be the world's most famous graveyard...
02:42...but even today, some of its sacred burial chambers...
02:46...remain unexplored by professional archaeologists.
02:57Cut deep into the valley's rocky outcrops are some 60 royal tombs...
03:03...including the most famous archaeological discovery of all time...
03:08...the tomb of Tutankhamun.
03:09But within 30 metres of Tut's burial is the mysterious tomb, KV-11.
03:21Its opulent corridors plunge deep into the mountain...
03:25...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 as silk.
03:44Archaeologist Dr Anka Weber is leading an elite team of specialist excavators...
03:52...on a landmark mission.
03:54For two months, she has been clearing the remains...
04:00...of the chamber's partially collapsed ceiling.
04:02She wants to unravel 3,000 years of tumultuous history...
04:09...that links Ramses, his mummy, and even the archaeologist...
04:15...who unearthed the tomb of Tutankhamun, Howard Carter.
04:19So far, they have unearthed sacred Ushabti...
04:26...that were meant to help the pharaoh in the afterlife...
04:30...and the body parts of other ancient elites.
04:33But critically, Anka believes she has found pieces...
04:38...of the most important burial artefact of all...
04:41...the pharaoh's sarcophagus.
04:44We are following the traces of the past...
04:47...to reveal the mysteries that are surrounding Ramses III.
04:52For me, he was a hero.
04:55Ramses III ruled Egypt for 31 years...
05:00...leaving an indelible mark.
05:02His vast monuments still rise from the desert floor...
05:08...proclaiming his divine power.
05:11Ramses III was perhaps the last great pharaoh of Egypt...
05:16...but he was one who was dealt a very difficult hand.
05:19There was a lot of civil unrest, political turmoil...
05:23...and attacks on Egypt from abroad.
05:26So really, he had a very difficult reign.
05:29Just as his kingship was marked by brutal warfare...
05:35...Ramses' reign ended in violence...
05:39...with an assassin's blade to the throat.
05:42Archaeologists know this...
05:45...because although thieves destroyed his burial chamber...
05:48...in antiquity...
05:50...somehow, incredibly, his mummy survived.
05:53Rarely do you have someone famous from ancient history.
05:56You 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?
06:16And could the pharaoh's priceless treasures...
06:20...still lie hidden beneath the debris?
06:22Now, halfway through their three-month mission...
06:28...inside Ramses' tomb...
06:30...Anka and her team are determined to unlock its secrets.
06:36So far, we have found around about 29 pieces...
06:41...larger pieces of a sarcophagus.
06:42Anka is now sure there are at least two new sarcophagi...
06:47...that have never been discovered or recorded before.
06:51It's quite amazing because if we imagine what we have here...
06:56...this hill in front of us, there must be more below.
07:00With enough pieces, like a giant puzzle...
07:05...the team could rebuild Ramses' missing sarcophagi...
07:09...and reveal to the world how this great king...
07:12...was supposed to rest for eternity.
07:14In the heart of his tomb, Anka believes that Ramses would have laid cocooned...
07:26...inside two immense nested sarcophagi...
07:31...all encased by a gigantic outer box...
07:34...with the walls painted with religious spells...
07:43...and burial treasures filling every chamber...
07:47...Ramses' tomb was designed to be the ultimate resurrection machine.
07:52What Anka is slowly revealing square by square painstakingly...
08:05...is an extraordinary insight into what was deemed necessary...
08:10...for a king to reach the afterworld.
08:14For any pharaoh, their tomb is your gateway to eternal life.
08:18So where your body is supposed to rest undisturbed...
08:23...where you are memorialised with the gods.
08:28But Ramses III's body was not undisturbed.
08:33What used to be a glorious tomb...
08:36...today lies destroyed.
08:39The once-nested sarcophagi have been smashed to pieces...
08:44...which would have left Ramses' mummy completely exposed.
08:50Here's the big mystery.
08:52If you were to go right now to Cairo...
08:56...you would see Ramses III himself, his mummy...
09:01...Ramses III in the flesh.
09:03So then, what gives?
09:04If such a magnificent tomb has descended into chaos and destruction...
09:15...how did Ramses III's mummy survive?
09:23Inside the tomb of Ramses III...
09:26...Dr Lutz Popko is in charge of deciphering the hieroglyphic texts.
09:30Just above the burial chamber are ancient inscriptions.
09:36Graffiti carvings that record visits to the tomb...
09:40...after Ramses' death.
09:42It's basically a list of names.
09:45So one name and one title per line.
09:49Lutz decodes the texts.
09:52And one name stands out.
10:02And one name stands out.
10:04Butehr Amun.
10:06Butehr Amun, scribe of the royal tombs.
10:10It was a very famous person.
10:12Butehr Amun was born around 50 years...
10:16...after the death of Ramses III...
10:20...but he was strongly connected to him.
10:25Who was Butehr Amun?
10:28And why was he in Ramses' tomb...
10:31...after the king had died?
10:33Ramses III's death was a turning point in Egyptian history.
10:38He stewarded Egypt to this successful point.
10:42But after him, everything seems to have caved.
10:47Whether it was as a military power...
10:50...economically, it really started to crumble.
10:54The result was a lapse in public security, public safety...
11:00...such that the tombs in the Valley of the Kings...
11:02...began to suffer grievously from tomb robberies.
11:05Was Butehr Amun, whose name was written in the tomb graffiti...
11:11...robbing the tomb of Ramses III?
11:21Behind the great temple of Medinet Habu...
11:25...Meredith investigates the ruins of a once magnificent pillared house...
11:31...that 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 Butehr Amun...
11:54...and he's an overseer of the royal treasury.
11:58A code for the king's tombs...
12:01...hidden just two kilometers away.
12:04Ancient Egyptians didn't have coin money.
12:06Rather, Butehr Amun's house was so close...
12:09...to an underground treasury for ancient Egypt.
12:13The tombs of the pharaohs in the Valley of the Kings...
12:15...had a vast amount of wealth buried under the ground.
12:19With the economy crumbling and the valley security failing...
12:25...the wealth is too much for the authorities to ignore.
12:30Just 84 years after Ramses III is buried...
12:34...Butehr Amun is sent orders from the top.
12:38Inspect the royal tombs...
12:41...unwrap the pharaoh's mummies...
12:46...and remove all of the treasures inside.
12:51What better way of getting gold than just going and digging up the kings...
12:55...and taking what they could?
12:58Egyptologists are still trying to work out...
13:02...how Butehr Amun actually carried out what he did...
13:06...how much he left behind, what he took.
13:08But for the most part, he was pretty thorough in what he removed.
13:14Butehr Amun was no ordinary thief.
13:18He was in charge of a government plan...
13:21...to dismantle the Valley of the Kings...
13:24...and take the pharaoh's treasures from their tombs.
13:29Butehr Amun is such a fascinating figure...
13:32...because we really don't fully understand his motivations.
13:34We 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...
13:43...was Butehr Amun robbing the pharaohs?
13:45Or was he saving them?
13:53For 3,000 years, Ramses' mummy was never seen again.
13:58Everyone thought that these mummies, the kings and queens...
14:03...had been lost.
14:05Until 1881...
14:08...authorities receive a tip-off...
14:11...from a local family of goat herders.
14:14They had come upon a secret hidden tomb...
14:18...high in the mountains.
14:25It was to become the greatest archaeological discovery...
14:29...in Egypt's history.
14:30Meredith has come to explore the secret tomb.
14:49This is incredible.
14:52This is so remote.
14:55No wonder it was hidden for 3,000 years.
14:57Today, the tomb is only open to those with special access...
15:02...and a way to scale down the precarious 12-metre shaft.
15:06This is such a rare chance to go down this shaft...
15:08...but it's a massive drop.
15:10I'm a little bit scared.
15:12All right.
15:14This is terrifying.
15:16This is terrifying.
15:18In the mountains...
15:20...above the sea...
15:22...the sea...
15:24...the sea...
15:25...the sea...
15:27This is terrifying.
15:28Egyptologist Meredith Brand...
15:29...is following the trail of Ramses III's mummy.
15:30I never thought in a million years I'd do this.
15:31In the mountains above the Valley of the Kings.
15:47This is so crazy.
15:50Egyptologist Meredith Brand is following the trail of Ramses III's mummy.
15:57I never thought in a million years I'd do this.
16:00She's trying to uncover why his body wasn't found inside his tomb.
16:07Good job.
16:09That was incredible.
16:12I get so high up, I can't believe I did that.
16:23All right, it's so dark in here.
16:26It's a bit eerie.
16:36This is hacked out of the mountain.
16:41It seems like in a hurry there's absolutely nothing even here.
16:45There's no decoration.
16:48There's no nothing.
16:50It makes it feel like a cave, not something that a human could have made.
16:54Over 60 meters into the mountain, Meredith finally reaches an opening.
17:10Oh, wow.
17:14This is amazing.
17:17It's the site of a secret cache.
17:22Oh, this is incredible.
17:24Wow.
17:25This was the hiding place of over 50 royal mummies, including the mummy of Ramses III.
17:34This tomb looks carved in a haste and 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 of removing the mummies from the tombs in the Valley of the Kings and hiding them here.
17:56Although Bhuta Harmoon, overseer of the royal treasury, strips the kings of their burial goods to rescue the failing economy,
18:08he also leads a mission to protect the kings and queens for eternity.
18:16Eventually, the authorities hide over 50 mummies in labelled wooden coffins to save their sacred bodies from destruction.
18:26The discovery of this cave filled with the royal mummies of the kings is probably the most important discovery in 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, it's sort of a game changer.
18:49You are there with the most powerful people in the ancient world, but also you are being able to, on some level, interact with them.
19:03It is a telescoping of time.
19:06It is meeting an ancient Egyptian.
19:10The mummy of Ramses III lives on.
19:13And so, too, does his legacy in the Valley of the Kings.
19:25Anka now has one crucial question.
19:30Could there be lost burial treasures that belong to the great pharaoh still hidden inside his tomb?
19:36Finding something like this would be so rare, it hasn't happened in over 100 years.
19:52Since the time of Howard Carter, since they were working in the tomb of Tudachamun,
19:58no original burial equipment of an ancient Egyptian pharaoh has been found here in the Valley of the Kings.
20:07It would be amazing to find some pieces that belong to Ramses III.
20:17Anka is relying on the expertise and eagle eyes of her right-hand man,
20:23Reis Mahmud Abu Diab.
20:28Our 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 are like brushing tiny pieces out of the sand.
21:10It's absolutely incredible.
21:12After almost a month of heavy lifting,
21:24the team has now cleared the top layers of limestone debris from the tomb.
21:29Beneath, 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.
21:52The team gives each clump of sediment an ID number
22:02before hauling them out of the ground.
22:08They will need to break apart and sift every one.
22:12But it is what's beneath the mud that captures Anka's attention.
22:21This is not normal.
22:23An unexpected sand layer.
22:25It 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,
22:38as if it has been filled up by someone on purpose.
22:42It's very intriguing and puzzling what this actually is.
22:47This 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.
23:06The sand doesn't come from the Valley of the Kings.
23:09We 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.
23:29Why would anybody bring over 20 tonnes of sand
23:32into 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,
23:48Howard Carter.
23:50There are many rumours surrounding the mystery of Howard Carter.
23:56One of those describes that Carter actually hid some objects
24:02from the tomb of Tutankhamun in order to keep them for himself.
24:07We know that Howard Carter was a chief inspector inside the Valley of the Kings,
24:12and we know that he worked inside the tomb of Ramses III.
24:16But we 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?
24:34In the hills above Ramses III's tomb in the Valley of the Kings,
24:52Egyptian heritage expert Sally El-Sabahi is following Howard Carter's trail.
25:01She hikes to one of the most sacred lookouts in Egypt.
25:04No 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.
25:13It just, it never gets old.
25:16You just keep learning.
25:17You keep feeling humble.
25:19It's truly a really special place.
25:22Sally 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 named Tutankhamun.
25:37From 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.
26:04After 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 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 and 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.
26:59Inside the tomb, Carter finds a room crammed full of chariots,
27:16thrones and gilded statues.
27:19In the burial chamber is an intricately carved sarcophagus
27:26and a coffin made of solid gold that housed the mummy of the king.
27:32It's hard to understand now the magnitude of the discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun,
27:39but in 1922, it was the biggest news story in the world.
27:44And the gold, the glamour, the glitz,
27:46it made everyone completely crazy about ancient Egypt.
27:50Finally, 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.
28:09The 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,
28:24because 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.
28:34He gave us that identity that was something of our own.
28:39But despite the earth-shattering find,
28:49Egypt'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
29:01was a 50-50 split.
29:03And so Carter anticipated that they would be able to keep 50% of whatever they found here.
29:08And literally, just mere weeks, actually, before the discovery,
29:13the 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 a while.
29:26Carter had no treasures to call his own, and he was suspected of stealing.
29:32There was always a concern from officials that something could be taken without their knowledge.
29:40And 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...
30:05Anka finds a clue, a fragment of glistening blue pottery.
30:17It's broken, but its vivid colour and decoration suggests something ancient and royal.
30:25Wow, that's a beautiful piece.
30:27What is this treasure?
30:30And more importantly, which pharaoh does it belong to?
30:46Salih el-Sabahi investigates suspicions that Howard Carter stole royal treasures
30:52and 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.
31:17Inside the house, Carter's team had a dark room
31:25and created thousands of photographs of the dig and its treasures.
31:34Everything was photographed in excruciating detail.
31:38That was unprecedented.
31:40By all measures, I think that we can safely consider Howard Carter a pioneer
31:50in terms of how he handled this 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.
32:06Now, finally, hard evidence has come to light.
32:14Shown for the very first time are unpublished letters
32:18from 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.
32:33So this letter opens with this really interesting sentence that reads,
32:39The whim amulet you showed me has undoubtedly been stolen
32:42from the tomb of Tutankhamun
32:44before the objects were sent to the museum.
32:50The amulet, like this one,
32:52was a perfect match with others
32:54that were kept at the Egyptian museum.
32:58Gardner confronts Howard Carter in a letter.
33:01I deeply regret having been placed in so awkward a position.
33:06The concern from Gardner
33:08was probably to have an object like that in his possession.
33:12And I think there also must have been
33:13a bit of embarrassment
33:15knowing that he had also kind of outed Carter.
33:20What's really important about these letters
33:22is that this is the first,
33:25not just written, but hard proof
33:27that objects had been taken
33:29out of the tomb of Tutankhamun,
33:32apparently directly by Carter himself.
33:35So why was the theft covered up for almost 100 years?
33:40What these letters really show me
33:43is that there was really a concerted effort
33:45to not tarnish this incredible discovery
33:49by revealing unsavoury things about Carter.
33:53because at the end of the day,
33:55this was not about Carter.
33:57He was the discoverer, yes,
33:58but this was about Tutankhamun and his tomb
34:01and this incredible legacy of the Valley of the Kings.
34:06Hero or villain,
34:09the discovery raises a new possibility
34:11for Anka's mission.
34:12There were over 5,000 artefacts
34:16found in the tomb of King Tut.
34:18Maybe Howard Carter took some of these small finds
34:21out of the tomb
34:22and who knows where they are.
34:25Carter once worked in Ramses III's tomb,
34:29just 30 metres away from Tutankhamun's.
34:34Did Carter hide stolen treasures
34:36beneath the unexpected sand
34:38that Anka has found?
34:40At the team's dig house,
34:53Anka and her colleague Leah Rees investigate.
34:59They want to find out
35:00when the sand was dumped there
35:02and they find a clue in notes
35:05left by an explorer
35:06from the late 1800s.
35:09Here we have one from the year 1891.
35:13He is writing how vivid the colours are
35:15in the burial chamber.
35:18As of 1891,
35:20the burial chamber
35:21was still in pristine condition.
35:24And a couple of years later,
35:27in 1895,
35:29he is writing here
35:30that the looms are much damaged
35:32and need detain the traveller
35:34but a short time.
35:36So this means that already
35:38something must have happened
35:40and destroyed the rear compartments
35:42so heavily that they were inaccessible.
35:45In just four years,
35:47by 1895,
35:49flooding must have already destroyed the chamber.
35:51It means the sand must have been dumped
35:55long before Carter worked in the valley
35:57in the 1900s.
36:00It would mean that Howard Carter
36:02is not the one
36:04who could have brought the sand layer inside.
36:06So the blue pottery
36:09doesn't belong to Tutankhamun.
36:12But could that mean something
36:14even more intriguing?
36:16Could it belong to Ramses III himself?
36:18Inside Ramses III's tomb,
36:36Anka Weber's team
36:38has now unearthed
36:39over 20 pieces
36:40of the mysterious blue pottery.
36:45We have here
36:46some very dazzling
36:48blue, shining, glazed fragments
36:51that came out
36:52of the bottom
36:53from our excavation.
36:56It could be the first
36:57royal burial treasure
36:59discovered in a valley
37:00of the king's tomb
37:01in 100 years.
37:04They begin the painstaking task
37:07of trying to glue
37:07the fragments together.
37:12Anka thinks they once belonged
37:14to a set of vases
37:15that held sacred oils
37:17and perfumes.
37:18We are thinking that it must have been
37:22in the realm of beauty,
37:24making yourself fresh in the morning.
37:28They are remarkable pieces.
37:31But Anka hasn't been able
37:33to prove the owner.
37:36Until now.
37:38We found a very, very special piece.
37:41So we can probably compare that here
37:44on one of the pillars.
37:46The writing almost perfectly matches
37:48Ramses III's name
37:50on the walls of his tomb.
37:52The sign Reca means ruler.
37:56Without any doubt,
37:57we have here
37:58a part of the original burial equipment
38:00of Ramses III.
38:01It's amazing.
38:05An original artifact
38:06that brings Anka closer
38:08to the great pharaoh
38:09and his spectacular burial.
38:15The fragments reveal Ramses
38:17was buried with at least
38:18four blue vases.
38:20designed to hold sacred perfumes
38:25and oils.
38:28Placed within his tomb,
38:31they may be the last surviving treasures
38:33that belonged to Ramses III.
38:36It's simply beautiful
38:45to have all these pieces here together,
38:48to see them shining
38:49and to know
38:50that you actually hold something
38:51that was supposed to be
38:53with Ramses III
38:54in his afterlife.
38:57It's an incredibly rare find,
39:00the kind of which
39:01hasn't been seen
39:02in the Valley of the Kings
39:03for over 100 years.
39:06To now be finding
39:08actual burial equipment
39:09of the king
39:10whose tomb you're excavating
39:11is pretty damn cool
39:12and it really does
39:14add a huge amount
39:15of information
39:16about what was being
39:19buried with these kings.
39:21Dr Anka Weber
39:22and her team
39:23have just two more weeks
39:25to try to excavate
39:26Ramses III's burial chamber.
39:30The last mystery to unravel
39:32is why almost everything
39:34they have found so far
39:35has been damaged
39:36or destroyed.
39:38We collect everything,
39:40we take notes,
39:41pictures to see
39:43the wider context
39:44of an area.
39:45All the finds
39:46must be meticulously recorded.
39:49Once something is excavated,
39:51it is gone forever.
39:53This is why it's so important
39:55to do a decent job with that.
39:57With the end of the dig approaching,
39:59the team hits a major milestone.
40:02We are reaching parts
40:04of the original floor level
40:05of the burial chamber.
40:07This is absolutely amazing.
40:10Some parts of the tomb's
40:12original floor
40:13may not have been seen
40:14for hundreds,
40:15even thousands of years.
40:17But everywhere Anka looks,
40:20she spots something odd.
40:22These are burnt traces.
40:25It's a mixture of the burnt wood,
40:28limestone and ashes.
40:30A fine layer of ash
40:33coats many stones
40:34on the burial chamber floor.
40:37We have actually
40:38a lot of evidence
40:39for burning here
40:41inside the burial chamber
40:42that tell us a story
40:44about large fires
40:47with immense heat.
40:49The heat was so intense,
40:51it's broken down
40:52the limestone
40:52the burial chamber
40:54is carved from.
40:55As soon as you touch it,
40:57it starts chipping
40:58from all sides.
41:00You can, like,
41:01crack it open
41:02like a cake.
41:03So, um,
41:05it's in a very,
41:06very bad shape.
41:08It's puzzling
41:09because nobody brought
41:11charcoal
41:11or wood
41:12from outside.
41:14What has been burning
41:16inside the burial chamber?
41:18The team finds
41:19small pieces of wood
41:20scattered around.
41:22Pieces of coffins,
41:24including the bodies
41:25that were once inside.
41:27We didn't find
41:29a complete mummy.
41:31All the remains
41:31that we find
41:32are only pieces.
41:34This is quite suspicious,
41:35but we also found
41:37traces of burning.
41:40It leads Anke
41:41to one gruesome conclusion.
41:44We know
41:45that in the 18th
41:46and 19th century,
41:47mummies served
41:48as a fuel.
41:50We have to imagine
41:51that there was
41:52no electricity
41:53so the individuals
41:55who visited
41:56needed light
41:57in order to experience
41:58the tomb
41:59and to have a look
42:00at the artefacts.
42:02We believe
42:04that these are
42:05firing places
42:06that were used
42:07to enlighten
42:08the darkness
42:09of the burial chamber.
42:12Robbers
42:13and modern explorers
42:15would have lit
42:16huge fires
42:17in the tomb,
42:19burning everything
42:20and anything
42:21and anything
42:21they could find.
42:24Anke Weber's project
42:26in KV11
42:27is cutting-edge
42:29and innovative.
42:31Using modern technology
42:32to explore
42:34the tiny, minute remains
42:36is telling us so much
42:38about the tomb
42:38of Ramses III.
42:40The paintings
42:41and this kind of,
42:42the sheer beauty of it
42:43is just one part
42:45of the story.
42:46It's really
42:47a 3,000-year history
42:49of activity
42:50that begins
42:51with the king
42:52and ends
42:53with our modern time.
42:55Layer by layer,
42:57Anke and the team
42:57can now finally
42:58piece together
42:59the complete story
43:01of the tomb.
43:06Inside a nested sarcophagus,
43:08Ramses III
43:09lay in peace
43:10for less than
43:11a hundred years
43:12before his mummy
43:14was moved
43:15into the safety
43:16of the mountains.
43:19Now empty,
43:20others used Ramses' tomb
43:22for their burials.
43:25Then came nearly
43:263,000 years
43:28of destruction.
43:30Fires,
43:31brute force,
43:33robbers,
43:34and explorers
43:35all scarred
43:36the king's tomb.
43:41Until finally,
43:43floods inundated
43:44the chamber
43:45and brought
43:46its roof
43:47crashing down.
43:54And the history
43:55of the tomb
43:56is still evolving.
43:58After three months
43:59of non-stop digging,
44:01the team has cleared
44:02two shipping containers
44:03worth of debris,
44:06discovered original
44:07burial treasures,
44:08and opened
44:09a new chapter
44:10in the story
44:12of ancient Egypt.
44:15It feels
44:17absolutely incredible
44:18to have achieved
44:20so much.
44:21We finally
44:22excavated it,
44:23we cleared it
44:24from rubble and debris,
44:25and we found
44:25so many amazing
44:26and wonderful things
44:27inside.
44:29Now,
44:30at the end
44:30of the field season,
44:31I feel like
44:33I became part
44:34of the history
44:35of the tomb.
44:36We grew closer
44:38to this ancient pharaoh.
44:40It's a long-life dream
44:41that came true.
44:44The last great pharaoh
44:46of ancient Egypt,
44:47who was brutally murdered,
44:52came to be buried
44:55in a spectacular tomb.
44:57with an army of servants
45:01and nested sarcophagi.
45:06The tomb was Ramsey's portal
45:08to eternal life,
45:10in the heart
45:12of the Valley of the Kings.
45:14There is still a lot
45:20of work to be done
45:21in the valley.
45:22Even now,
45:23there are places
45:23where we don't know
45:25what lies beneath the sand.
45:27There is so much more
45:29out there to find.
45:30There's so much more
45:30to excavate.
45:31This is a never-ending quest.
45:34Now, Anka's goal
45:35is to restore
45:36and conserve
45:37the structure
45:38of the burial chamber
45:39and make it safe
45:41for visitors to enter
45:42so that the world
45:44can bear witness
45:45to the greatness
45:46of Ramsey's III.
45:49We are the connecting point.
45:52Everything that we excavate
45:54that tells us something
45:55about our history
45:56will bring us
45:57to a past
45:58that can shape
45:59a better future.
46:00It's a quest
46:09that will fulfill
46:10the pharaoh's
46:11ultimate wish.
46:13Speak the name
46:14of the dead
46:15and make them
46:16live again.
46:19Ramsey's III
46:20lives on.
46:30The full story
46:35of their rise
46:35to the top.
46:36Bruno, Ben,
46:37Eubank and Lewis.
46:38The Four Kings
46:39starts tomorrow
46:40from the 10.
46:41Then tough men
46:42in a tough environment
46:43Monday at 10.
46:44A bunch of veterans
46:45and Arctic adventure.
46:47Outrageous entertainment,
46:48wall-to-wall action
46:49and an awful lot of car
46:50chases next.
46:51Mission Impossible
46:52Dead Reckoning.
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