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00:02The Bent Pyramid, Egypt's most mysterious ancient megastructure.
00:10The ambitious dream of a godlike pharaoh.
00:13At this time, the Bent Pyramid would definitely have been the biggest construction project Egypt had ever seen.
00:19Why is the Bent Pyramid such a bizarre shape?
00:22We can't really look into the minds of these people. We have to go on the clues left behind.
00:28Today, archaeologists dig beneath the sand and explore inside crumbling age-old tunnels to discover its secrets.
00:36This place was terrifying when we first came in here. There were stones hanging from the ceiling.
00:41Was this huge pyramid always meant to look like this? Or did something go catastrophically wrong?
00:48We are undoubtedly looking at a major dislocation in the structure.
00:52The only way to solve this mystery is to raze the ruins of Egypt's strangest pyramid.
01:01Blowing it apart stone by stone.
01:05Lifting its temples out of the desert.
01:08And exploring hidden burial chambers.
01:12We'll uncover how this bizarre monument paved the way for the age of the pyramids.
01:26Egypt. The land of the pharaohs.
01:30More than a hundred pyramids line the Nile Valley.
01:37One stands out from all others.
01:41The Bent Pyramid of Dashur.
01:44There isn't another pyramid in Egypt that looks like this.
01:48Named after its crooked profile, it baffles archaeologists.
01:51It is the first pyramid with smooth sides ever completed.
01:57And the only one whose shape changes dramatically halfway up.
02:02Why?
02:04I think the Bent Pyramid is probably the most mysterious pyramid.
02:09Did this bizarre construction alter the course of Egyptian architecture forever?
02:17The Bent Pyramid is a 4,600-year-old megastructure built to last for eternity.
02:27Hidden inside, two passageways that lead to a pair of traditional burial chambers.
02:35Each chamber is seven stories tall.
02:41Encased in over three million tons of limestone blocks.
02:46It is almost a classic pyramid.
02:49Except for its angled summit.
02:52Was it designed this way?
02:54Or is its bizarre appearance the result of a catastrophic disaster?
03:02The Bent Pyramid was the second of three pyramids,
03:06built by the pharaoh Sneferu in the third millennia BC.
03:12Most archaeologists believe that Sneferu wasn't buried here,
03:15but in a neighboring pyramid.
03:19So why did he build this strange monument?
03:22And why did it take this shape?
03:29Archaeologist Daniela Rosano believes clues lie buried in the surrounding sand.
03:35We're standing in front of the Bent Pyramid here,
03:37but it's important to keep in mind that the pyramid is only one element of a pyramid complex.
03:44Daniela thinks that the first step towards understanding Sneferu's grand vision for this pyramid
03:49is to resurrect the whole of this ancient area in all its glory.
03:54It is really fantastic to be able to bring this site to life.
04:01Over 4,000 years ago, the Bent Pyramid was covered by a blanket of finely polished casing stones.
04:11It formed the centerpiece of a large religious complex.
04:15At its southern side, a smaller satellite pyramid stood about 96 feet tall.
04:23A holy shrine was flanked by two standing stones inscribed with the pharaoh's name,
04:31all enclosed behind a thick limestone wall.
04:34A causeway provided a monumental entrance.
04:39What can this complex reveal about the pyramid and the bizarre shape it took?
04:49Today, Daniela investigates an area half a mile to the northeast of the pyramid.
04:54So was it all just filled with yellow sand until you hit the ashes?
05:01Here, her team uncovers the remains of a mysterious building lost for thousands of years.
05:08We're situated on the desert plateau here, and there can be quite harsh gales.
05:13So sometimes when you clean something, it has disappeared half an hour later.
05:16So you have to be very quick.
05:19Today, only a small section of the building is still visible.
05:23But a geophysical study using radar to map the site reveals that a grand structure once stood here.
05:31When we had a look at the results of the geophysical survey,
05:34we realized that there's actually quite a large settlement.
05:38It's actually a settlement even bigger than the pyramid itself
05:41and covers an area of about 350 by 200 meters.
05:46Daniela and her team tried to piece together what this vast building might have been.
05:51What we see here is one of the walls of the building covered by a nice layer of mud and
05:56then a beautiful layer of white lime plaster.
06:00It wasn't there at all to make the building any stronger. It was just there to make it prettier.
06:05As Daniela's team removes sand built up over thousands of years, they unearth ancient rooms alive with color.
06:16We have discovered quite a large amount of tiles, which probably decorated the walls or the floor of the rooms.
06:23And you can imagine it must have been a really beautiful contrast with the white walls and then the turquoise
06:28tiles.
06:30The sheer quantity of rooms here and their quality suggest that this was once a very impressive residence.
06:39Why was such a luxurious house built in the shadow of a tomb? And who lived here?
06:45So the pottery we've discovered so far all dates exclusively to the reign of Snofro.
06:52The date and the location of this structure leads Daniela to a surprising conclusion.
06:58This could have been home to the architect of the Bent Pyramid.
07:03It really makes sense to think that whoever lived here was somehow connected to the building process of the pyramids.
07:10This entire complex was worthy of a king. The villa and the surrounding buildings spread across an area 50 times
07:18the size of the White House.
07:21You just get an idea what a really prestigious project pyramid building was at the time.
07:29The royal architect held one of the most powerful positions in ancient Egypt.
07:34He not only supervised the construction, but also the logistics of building a pyramid.
07:42Projects could take decades to complete, so the architect of the Bent Pyramid probably lived in a splendid home.
07:52Here he worked among a lavish tree-lined garden oasis, surrounded by servants, to comfort and shade him as he
08:01monitored the progress.
08:04The royal architect enjoyed luxurious meals, and maybe even a visit from the pharaoh himself.
08:16All the evidence suggests that building the Bent Pyramid was of great importance to Snofro.
08:22The pharaoh clearly intended this tomb to be his final resting place.
08:29It was the first pyramid with smooth sides to be finished, and it was the largest so far attempted, almost
08:36twice the size of earlier pyramids.
08:39At this time, the Bent Pyramid would definitely have been the biggest construction project Egypt had ever seen, possibly even
08:46the world.
08:48Sneferu spared no expense in his plans for the afterlife.
08:53So why was he never buried here?
08:56Did he simply change his mind?
09:00Or was this pyramid's strange shape not what he intended?
09:04And what can a buried temple reveal about Sneferu's plans to cheat death and live forever?
09:27The Bent Pyramid, Egypt's strangest megastructure.
09:34It was the biggest building project the country had ever seen.
09:41But what explains its strange shape?
09:45Was it designed this way, or was there a construction disaster?
09:52Its inner core could hold the key.
09:56Inside the pyramid hides evidence of the techniques that ancient engineers used to build it.
10:03At the center, roughly cut limestone blocks are piled many stories high, and filled with rubble and mortar.
10:14But on the outer edges, the blocks are positioned at an angle.
10:19They lean towards the heart of the pyramid, piled on top of each other, layer after layer, creating a gentle
10:28outer slope.
10:31Can these layers help explain the pyramid's strange shape?
10:40The answer could lie six miles north, here in Saqqara.
10:47This royal burial ground is home to Egypt's oldest pyramid-shaped structure.
10:54It's called the Step Pyramid.
10:58It was built for a pharaoh who reigned over 30 years before Sneferu.
11:04Specialist engineer Dennis Lee has spent almost a decade trying to decode the mystery of how this pyramid was built.
11:10It's amazing that a structure like this, four and a half thousand years old, is still standing.
11:17It may look rough and ready, but standing back, it's a pyramid. The pyramid shape is there.
11:24Dennis believes this monument might have inspired the builders of the Bent Pyramid.
11:30Could it reveal the reason for its strange shape?
11:35At first sight, the two structures look very different.
11:40The pyramid at Saqqara is made from gigantic steps,
11:45unlike the Bent Pyramid, which has smooth sides.
11:49But both have a core where rows of stone lean inwards.
11:56Dennis thinks these layers reveal that the two pyramids shared a common ancestor.
12:02They both evolved from Egypt's very first burial mounds called mastabas.
12:11Egypt's earliest rulers were buried in simple tombs dug into the ground,
12:16sealed by layers of stone blocks.
12:21Step by step these mastabas grew, as more and more layers of tilted stones were added, until a rough pyramid
12:30emerged.
12:33This same construction method could be at the heart of the Bent Pyramid.
12:37A primitive stepped core might be hidden inside the monument.
12:43But there's a problem. The Step Pyramid is in danger of collapsing.
12:49So could the Bent Pyramid have similar structural issues if it was built in the same way?
12:55And could this explain its strange shape?
12:58Dennis and his team climbed down narrow passageways into the heart of the Step Pyramid
13:05to strengthen it with 21st century reinforcements.
13:09At the end of a 90 foot long tunnel, they emerge into a huge but crumbling burial chamber.
13:17This place was terrifying when we first came in here.
13:20There were stones hanging from the ceiling you didn't touch or brush.
13:24If you brushed against the ceiling, mud fell off.
13:27It was a frightening experience.
13:31Today, Dennis and his team use the latest techniques to fortify and stabilize the chamber ceiling.
13:38It's falling down one block at a time.
13:42They install steel anchors to pin the stones together.
13:48That was a hard front stone.
13:51The work is painstaking and nerve-wracking.
13:57I was very nervous drilling it all.
13:59It's a lot of pressure.
14:01There's millions of tons of stone above us at this very minute, right now.
14:06Sometimes you have to put out of your mind and blank out how much weight is actually above us now.
14:11When that weight of stonework on top of you, just try and forget it while you're working in you.
14:17What's going on inside this ancestor of the Bent Pyramid?
14:23Dennis thinks that the burial chamber here once had a flat ceiling, held up by wooden beams.
14:30This simple design was copied from the early must of us.
14:35But it wasn't nearly strong enough to cope with the crushing weight of a pyramid.
14:40What you see is left is a natural arch that's formed by the stones in the middle collapsing.
14:45This couldn't handle the weight of the stones on top of it and the wood that was supporting it disintegrated
14:52or collapsed down onto the sarcophagus, which is 23, 24 meters below us.
14:59The builders of the steppe pyramid followed the traditional mastaba tomb design and supersized it.
15:06They had no idea that this would cause the entire structure to start collapsing in on itself.
15:13There was no blueprint for a pyramid in those days. The pyramid hadn't been started then. So they were making
15:20this up as they went along.
15:22The builders of the steppe pyramid had exceeded their knowledge.
15:28Could the strange shape of the bent pyramid be the result of a similar mistake?
15:34And can it explain why this pyramid is completely empty?
15:52On the desert plain of Dashur in Egypt stands the unique bent pyramid.
15:59It was built by the great pharaoh Sneferu over 4,000 years ago.
16:05It was the first complete pyramid in the world to have smooth sides and the only one to have this
16:12strange shape.
16:15Did something go terribly wrong during its construction like it did with the steppe pyramid in Saqqara?
16:23Engineering geologist Colin Reeder believes that the pyramid's crooked outline might actually be an ancient attempt to prevent a fatal
16:31disaster.
16:34We're here at the bent pyramid at Dashur and we're investigating whether there's any signs of movement or settlement within
16:40this pyramid.
16:42Colin thinks the bent pyramid might have suffered from even more damage than its steppe predecessor.
16:51Underneath the cracked outer stones, the bent pyramid has far bigger problems than just a crumbling ceiling.
17:02Inside the northern passage is a fracture.
17:06This indicates a dangerous fault line that caused part of the pyramid to slip under its colossal weight.
17:14Sneferu's builders encountered similar problems in the western passage.
17:21Forcing them to seal and abandon the entrance.
17:25How serious was this damage?
17:28And did it force the builders to change the shape of this pyramid?
17:36Colin examines the exterior.
17:38Here the damage looks superficial.
17:42There are cracks. You can see from the casing around us that there are cracks running through it.
17:46But that shouldn't be unusual.
17:49Buildings like this will move as they're constructed. The ground will settle.
17:53But Colin soon spots something more serious.
17:58As we've come up to the entrance door, this seam in the casing seems to drop around the entrance.
18:06If you look over there, it's flat, it's horizontal as all the joints are.
18:10But as we get to this point over the passageway, the casing drops down, runs horizontally and then rises up
18:17again.
18:17That might be superficial.
18:19We perhaps have to look at whether that goes any distance inside the structure.
18:25Colin heads down a narrow passageway.
18:29Just a short way inside the northern entrance, he finds other stones have also slipped.
18:36We're at a point about 10 meters inside the northern passage.
18:40And at this point, we've got quite a major movement.
18:43This block here has dropped about 20, 25 centimeters.
18:48This crack running right across the passageway concerns Colin.
18:56What this big drop tells us is that that dip we saw on the casing just by the entranceway isn't
19:03superficial.
19:04It runs the full length of this passageway for about 10 or 11 meters.
19:08We are undoubtedly looking at a major dislocation in the structure as it was being built.
19:16What does all this mean?
19:18Colin believes that the pyramid has split in two.
19:22One section, 32 meters thick and weighing thousands of tons, has cracked and slipped down.
19:29He thinks this is because the pyramid was constructed in two different stages.
19:37The bent pyramid started as a stepped pyramid.
19:41But in the pharaoh's quest for perfection, workers added a second layer to cover its huge steps.
19:48It gave the pyramid smooth sides.
19:51But with nothing locking the steps and the outer shell together, the layers began to split and slip down.
20:00Was this enough to change the shape of the pyramid?
20:04The damage is severe, but it seems to be limited to just a few places.
20:08That disturbance of the casing we saw over the entrance, though, suggests to me that this is localized.
20:14This movement here is the passageway only.
20:18Taking it all together, it doesn't seem to be evidence for a dramatic collapse.
20:23So did the builders catch the problem here just in time and save the rest of the structure?
20:37Colin travels 30 miles south of Dashur to Meidum to hunt for further clues.
20:45Here he discovers what would have happened if the builders of the bent pyramid had ignored the first signs of
20:51damage.
20:56Meidum is the first of the three pyramids Sneferu built.
21:01Archaeologists believe that it was started just before the bent pyramid, using similar construction techniques.
21:08What we've got from this pyramid at Meidum and also at the bent pyramid is mason's marks, graffiti that were
21:13painted by the quarry gangs or the builders of the pyramids.
21:16And that graffiti is quite similar. Some people have suggested that it's so similar that the two pyramids were built
21:22at the same time.
21:25Colin suspects that if he can work out what happened here, it might explain what went on at Dashur.
21:33Like the bent pyramid, Meidum has a stepped core, but this is the only part of it that remains.
21:40The huge pile of rubble around the pyramid is its crumbled outer layer.
21:48Sneferu intended to build a smooth sided pyramid here, but it went terribly wrong.
21:54The angle of the pyramid was too steep. The top was too heavy.
22:00And the sides slipped off.
22:03Just as the evidence suggests, this pyramid collapsed during the last phase of building, taking that stepped structure and converting
22:09it into a smooth sided pyramid.
22:12Colin thinks what happened here terrified the architect of the bent pyramid, who was building it in a similar way.
22:20What they intended to build at the bent pyramid was a true straight sided pyramid.
22:25But with collapses here, they might have been concerned something was going to go wrong at the bent pyramid.
22:32Disaster at Meidum may have forced the builders of the bent pyramid to radically change their design.
22:40At first, the bent pyramid's cracks may not have looked too serious.
22:46Then the Meidum pyramid collapsed catastrophically.
22:51Fearing the same fate, the architect designed a much safer but shallower summit.
22:57This gave the bent pyramid its strange shape.
23:00By reducing the angle at the top of the pyramid, making the whole structure more stable, it reduced the possibility
23:06or the likelihood that yet another pyramid was going to collapse.
23:11Sneferu had invested over a decade constructing the bent pyramid at Dashur.
23:16He wasn't about to let his eternal resting place implode into a pile of rubble.
23:22But if the Egyptian stonemasons worked out how to reach the top safely by building upwards at a shallower angle,
23:30why didn't they go back and change the bottom half to match it?
23:35And did Sneferu do much more than just revolutionize pyramid design?
23:39Did he pioneer a new method of large scale construction?
23:56The Bent Pyramid had finally reached its summit.
24:01Finished with a gentler but safer angle.
24:05Why didn't the builders rework the lower section to match it?
24:12Engineer Colin Reeder heads into the very heart of the building.
24:20He thinks another flaw inside this giant tomb might hold the answer.
24:28The Bent Pyramid is unique for having two entrances.
24:34One leads to empty lower chambers cut into the bedrock.
24:40A roughly finished tunnel connects them to the main royal burial chamber.
24:46Its tapered ceiling rises over 52 feet high,
24:50bridging the enormous void with a series of gradual steps.
24:55But this chamber was left entirely empty before being sealed shut.
25:02Can this abandoned burial chamber reveal why Sneferu decided to keep this pyramid's angled summit?
25:12Colin investigates the first of two unoccupied burial chambers.
25:16At this time, and let's not forget, we're talking about 2500 BC.
25:21They couldn't close a roof across such a big space as this.
25:25So they took each step of masonry, or each layer of masonry, and stepped it in slightly.
25:31One step at a time, like a series of staircases, meeting high up above our heads.
25:37This style of ceiling is called corbelling.
25:42The first pyramid ever built, the Step Pyramid, only had a simple wooden ceiling.
25:49Far too weak to hold the enormous weight of the pyramid above.
25:54So inside the Bent Pyramid, Sneferu used an ingenious corbelled ceiling to spread the weight and prevent it collapsing.
26:04In the lower chamber, the ceiling is finished to perfection.
26:08The edges of these cobalt, the edges of these steps are really neatly formed, neatly carved, almost accurately built cobalt
26:16ceiling.
26:19Colin must crawl through narrow tunnels to investigate the most important room in the pyramid, the main upper burial chamber.
26:30Inside, he finds something very different from the beautifully carved ceiling he saw lower down.
26:37Here, the stones are jagged and rough.
26:40The corbelling seems to have been reworked, attacked, cut away.
26:44So we've got this irregular finish.
26:46What happened here?
26:50Colin thinks the builders wanted to enlarge this burial chamber by hacking into the step stones.
26:57But it didn't go according to plan, and the ceiling was ruined.
27:02They've cut the cobalt back, they've chiseled away at it, and once you get to that point, there's no going
27:07back.
27:07You can't, if you cut someone's hair too short, you can't clear it back on again.
27:13This pyramid was destined to hold the body of Sneferu.
27:18But once the ceiling was damaged, it was no longer fit to be the pharaoh's eternal home.
27:23So all the chambers were left empty.
27:27You'd expect this to have been the burial chamber for Sneferu.
27:30But when eventually people got into here, there was no sarcophagus.
27:35No evidence.
27:36It had been used as a burial.
27:39One crucial mistake meant more than a decade of work had gone to waste.
27:44But Sneferu was determined to give it another try.
27:47It looks like they abandoned it, they gave up here, and they started again.
27:56Over a mile to the north stands Sneferu's third and final attempt.
28:01The Red Pyramid, the world's first true pyramid.
28:07This time, both the sloped walls and the ceiling of the burial chamber would be perfect.
28:15In the Bent Pyramid, Masons tried to enlarge the burial chamber during construction,
28:21but damaged the ceiling beyond repair.
28:25Finally, in Sneferu's Red Pyramid,
28:27Masons built a higher, steeper ceiling right from the start,
28:32and created a tomb worthy of the pharaoh.
28:38At last, Sneferu had achieved the perfect tomb, inside and out,
28:43and all thanks to his earlier mistakes.
28:47It seems they took everything they learned from the construction of the Bent Pyramid
28:50and applied it to the construction of the Red Pyramid several hundred meters to the north.
28:54We can only assume that was the final resting place of Sneferu.
29:00But a mystery remains.
29:03Despite its obvious flaws,
29:05Sneferu still covered the Bent Pyramid with Egypt's finest limestone.
29:12If the Red Pyramid was now his tomb,
29:15why go to this huge, needless expense?
29:19And, can a mysterious temple reveal how this mighty pharaoh planned to live forever?
29:39The Bent Pyramid.
29:41A construction disaster built by one of Egypt's greatest pharaohs, Sneferu.
29:48Why was it finished with expensive limestone when it would never be used?
29:55Could Sneferu's quest for immortality be a clue?
29:58The afterlife was a very important concept in ancient Egypt.
30:03Every Egyptian wanted to have a tomb and wanted to be remembered eternally,
30:07but it was obviously only the king who could actually end up with something as big as a pyramid.
30:15Sneferu spent years trying to build the perfect tomb.
30:19The Red Pyramid saw his dream finally come true.
30:23But could Sneferu have always had far bigger plans than just creating the perfect resting place?
30:32This causeway links the Bent Pyramid to the Nile Valley.
30:36At the end of it stands the remains of an impressive and mysterious temple.
30:43Daniela thinks it could provide a clue as to why Sneferu completed the Bent Pyramid.
30:51These crumbling stones were the start of a valley temple.
30:55Aligned along the royal axis, north to south,
30:59it would have been a place to worship a dead pharaoh.
31:04Flanking the entrance were four rooms.
31:08And beyond, an open courtyard.
31:11With two rows of pillars at its end.
31:16Inside the holy sanctuary were six niches
31:20that housed larger than life-size statues of the pharaoh.
31:25Building this impressive temple was an enormous job.
31:29What can it reveal about why the Bent Pyramid was finished?
31:35Very little is known about the valley temple's decoration or function.
31:39When the temple was discovered in the early 50s,
31:42obviously it was not a standing temple anymore.
31:45Its stones eroded over time.
31:49Robbers destroyed what was left.
31:53But a surprising discovery deep under the desert sand suggests the pyramid and the temple may have been used in
32:00an unexpected way.
32:03One of the archeological methods we use is conducting drillings.
32:08We realized that there is another huge structure buried under two to three meters of sand.
32:13A road made of limestone blocks.
32:16Daniela discovers that this road dates back to about 1,000 years after the pyramid was finished.
32:24She carefully documents its paving slabs.
32:28She thinks this road was built out of material from a demolished building.
32:32The weird thing is that we actually found decoration on these blocks and of course normally a road is not
32:38made of decorated blocks.
32:40This rather hints at the fact that the blocks here were reused and originally belonged to another building.
32:47Daniela has no doubt about which structure they come from.
32:51Putting all of this evidence together, the material, the style of the carving, we were very sure that these blocks
32:58originally come from the valley temple of the Ben Pyramid.
33:01A millennia after Sneferu's death, the valley temple was dismantled.
33:07Workers reused its stones to build a road.
33:10But Daniela quickly recognizes the scenes these carvings once depicted.
33:17This small fragment we actually learn about a much, much bigger scene.
33:23This is actually the hand of the king holding the hair of one or several of his enemies.
33:30This belonged to a scene called smiting the enemies, where Pharaoh is depicted holding a mace in one hand and
33:38with the other hand grabbing one or several of his enemies.
33:41And he is shown basically exactly in the moment before he is striking.
33:47One particular pharaoh appears in these images.
33:51We found some blocks with inscriptions which gave us the name of King Snofuo.
33:56The high quality carvings reveal Sneferu finished the Ben Pyramid's temple to the highest level.
34:03So the blocks give us quite a good idea about how the valley temple would have looked like when it
34:07was completed.
34:08Why did Sneferu complete both this pyramid and its temple even though he had no intention of being buried here?
34:17Daniela believes it was part of Sneferu's bigger goal, to create a new form of worship that would grant him
34:23more power in the afterlife.
34:30Early Egyptian burial grounds were desolate places.
34:34Known as the land of the dead, they were separated from the world of the living on the banks of
34:39the Nile.
34:42Sneferu's valley temple was a design pharaohs would follow for centuries.
34:46It used a causeway to bridge the gap between these two worlds.
34:53The valley temple shows carvings of Sneferu receiving bountiful offerings brought from every region of his kingdom.
35:03After his death, the temple remained an active place of worship, immortalizing his name forever.
35:12At the end of the day, the pyramids were not the only thing Sneferu left behind.
35:17He also left behind this beautifully decorated valley temple.
35:23Sneferu wanted to ensure he achieved immortality.
35:27The Bed Pyramid still served a useful purpose.
35:31That clearly shows that the whole project was very close to Sneferu's heart, and indeed the pyramid and the whole
35:37complex stayed a place of worship for many generations.
35:41Despite its crooked profile and its ruined burial chamber, the Bed Pyramid was celebrated as part of Sneferu's legacy.
35:50He created a pioneering template for constructing pyramids that was followed by Egyptian pharaohs for hundreds of years.
35:58There were actually no valley temples before Sneferu's, so what we have here are the remains of the very first
36:03valley temple in ancient Egyptian history.
36:05And that's why every scene we discover is so important, because many of the scenes that later on become standard
36:11in these kind of temples appear here for the very first time.
36:17Sneferu's bent pyramid complex was far more important than once thought.
36:22It launched a whole new tradition of ritual buildings and worship.
36:28But did his innovations go far beyond religious architecture?
36:33What can new discoveries right next to the greatest pyramid ever built reveal about how the Bent Pyramid turned Egypt
36:41into a superpower of the ancient world?
36:56The Bent Pyramid of Dashur, a giant hulk more than 300 feet high, one of the largest man-made objects
37:04of its time.
37:05Did it play a bigger role than once thought?
37:08Did Sneferu's legacy go far beyond construction techniques?
37:14Just over ten miles north at Giza, three giant pyramids tower over the landscape.
37:21Among them, the Great Pyramid of Khufu, the last surviving wonder of the ancient world.
37:29Just how much does it owe to the builders of the Bent Pyramid?
37:36Archaeologist Mark Lehner has spent decades excavating at Giza.
37:41He believes that Sneferu's bent pyramid didn't just transform the way pyramids were built, but the whole of Egyptian society.
37:50Sneferu started big. Khufu comes along and builds even bigger here at Giza.
37:58Giza's pyramids were all commissioned by Sneferu's heirs.
38:01They wanted to surpass their famous ancestor.
38:06But to achieve this, they needed a supporting infrastructure on a massive scale.
38:14Before the time of Sneferu, Egypt was mostly made up of small villages.
38:21Mark's excavation, half a mile from the pyramids, suggests this was all about to change.
38:28We clear away the sand over an area of about seven football fields and find houses and barracks.
38:36Barracks through time have been mostly for men and mostly for young men.
38:40And we think that's probably who occupied these barracks.
38:45He finds what looks like a settlement housing up to 20,000 people.
38:50It's buildings date back to the same time as the pyramids.
38:56This was a place with a purpose.
39:00One of the things we find all across the site are these heavy dolerite hammer stones
39:06that the Egyptian masons and quarry people used to basically smash the rock away,
39:14to carve out channels to define huge blocks of stone.
39:19The fact that we find these dolerite hammer stones all over the site
39:23is just one of many indications that workers and pyramid builders were living here.
39:31Tens of thousands of laborers were brought together to build these pyramids.
39:36Their settlements gave rise to the first cities and paved a way for Egypt to become a superpower of the
39:42ancient world.
39:44Mark thinks it all began with the bent pyramid.
39:48The excavations of the settlement now at Dashur, the settlement contemporary with the building of those pyramids,
39:55that is the precedent for everything that we have found here at Giza.
40:02To build his pyramids, Sneferu likely developed a method of bringing huge workforces together,
40:08a system his heirs would copy to build their tombs.
40:12If you add up the total volume of all the pyramids that Sneferu built,
40:16it exceeds that of the Great Pyramid of Khufu by a significant amount.
40:21He actually did more pyramid piling up than his son Khufu.
40:27Sneferu's pyramids may not all have been perfect,
40:30but his invaluable experience was passed on to the next generation.
40:35This was the culmination of a long research and development program
40:39carried out largely under Sneferu.
40:44Without the bent pyramid and Sneferu's determination,
40:48our world might not have the Great Pyramid of Giza.
40:53I imagine that if Sneferu could come back and see that,
40:57especially when it was complete, with all its elegance, massiveness and perfection
41:03shining on the horizon, he would have been very proud of his young son Khufu.
41:16Sneferu's desire for immortality led him to build bigger and higher than ever before.
41:22But his plans almost ended in disaster.
41:27His grand vision drove him to finish this pyramid with a safe but imperfect summit.
41:33An opulent valley temple completed the ritual complex,
41:38and ensured that Sneferu's name would live on forever,
41:42not just in stone, but in the new society he left behind.
41:47His hard-won triumphs combined to earn Sneferu his rightful place as the king of the pyramid builders.
41:56The last two years.
41:56The last three years.
42:08The next three years.
42:11The coronal
42:14The next three years.
42:25AVAILABLE NOW
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