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00:02A couple of kilometers west of Cairo lies one of the greatest mysteries of ancient Egypt.
00:09Here, in Abu Rwash, no pyramid seems to be visible.
00:13But when looking from higher up, archaeologists discovered fascinating clues.
00:20This is a pyramid torn open. We can see all the construction details. You can't see that anywhere else.
00:29Above this giant pit, there used to be one of the greatest buildings of ancient Egypt.
00:34The pyramid of a pharaoh ready to do anything to get the most beautiful tomb of all.
00:39Jed Frey.
00:42This substructure speaks very big ambitions.
00:48Experts see this torn open building as a treasure that can be studied from every possible angle.
00:53If you want to know how the pyramid was built, Jed Frey pyramid is the best location for you to
01:00know that.
01:01But what exactly did this pyramid look like? And why was it completely dismantled?
01:10In order to find out the answer, scientists received the special authorization to scan this peculiar pyramid from the air,
01:17thanks to innovating technologies such as photogrammetry.
01:24This powerful tool is used to obtain an extremely accurate digital 3D copy of the monuments through thousands of pictures.
01:33There's an algorithm in the background that puts the geometry we saw in the field back together.
01:38This photo is very well showing the whole situation. Concerned with the geomorphology of the site.
01:45Photogrammetry, drones, 3D images, technology will help us uncover the mysteries behind pyramid building
01:52thanks to the expertise of the greatest archaeologist and Egyptologist from the United States, Egypt and Europe.
01:59Together, they'll try to solve the final mysteries of the pyramid of Abu Rawash.
02:05Welcome to Archaeology 2.0.
02:32Archaeology 3.0.
02:46Archaeology 3.0.
02:59Abba Rawash is located eight kilometers from Cairo.
03:03This is a colossal complex from ancient Egypt.
03:08This exceptional site has long been buried under the sand, and one must prove worthy of it.
03:16Indeed, one needs to climb uphill and sometimes take uncharted paths to discover one of the best-kept secrets of
03:23the pharaoh dynasties.
03:30Here, Egyptologists believe there once stood a perfect pyramid that was the tomb of the pharaoh Jedfright.
03:38When it comes to pyramids, Abba Rawash is a key element related to how they were built.
03:46We have an aerial view of the burial chamber, and we can imagine above it and around the whole pyramid.
03:54A pyramid for which Egyptologists have no written record.
04:05To try to picture the size and volume of the monument, we have to go eight kilometers east, to Giza.
04:12There stands a small pyramid, that of King Mankore.
04:22The pyramid of Mankore shows how Jedf's pyramid probably looked like when it was completed, or at least something similar.
04:33Such a pyramid was vital for the king, in order to enforce his power and mark his reign.
04:40According to Egyptian beliefs, it was intended to help pharaohs achieve eternal life.
04:45A critical building for Jedfright.
04:51Because he wanted to surpass his forefathers, and especially his father, the famous Khufu,
04:57whose pyramid is one of the seven wonders of the world, the only one still standing.
05:02And so, to distinguish himself from the great Khufu, Jedfright used a trick.
05:07He didn't build his tomb like his father in Giza, but eight kilometers away, in Abu Rawash.
05:15And the pharaoh didn't pick this specific site randomly.
05:20We don't know what his psychology or what his thinking was, because we don't have Jedfright's thoughts down in writing.
05:26But we could assume that one of the reasons he chose Abu Rawash is because the mountain rises much higher
05:34than the plateau of Giza.
05:35So he could look down on the plateau of Giza, he could look down on the pyramid of his predecessor
05:41Khufu.
05:44Jedf wanted his pyramid to be as high as his father's.
05:47So, following the local topography, he picked a higher location, Abu Rawash.
05:54Meanwhile, in Abu Rawash, there was already an ancient necropolis, very rich, so this was probably already a sacred area.
06:03And that extra height will prove useful.
06:06By building the pyramid up there, Jedfright will naturally be higher than Khufu, although the latter reached 146 meters.
06:15Thanks to the mountain, Jedfright's pyramid reaches 226 meters above sea level, whereas Khufu is only 206 meters.
06:26That's an impressive pyramid, but it's less than half the size of Khufu.
06:31His pyramid is much smaller, 106.2 meters on each side and 67 meters high.
06:39But the pyramidion is about 25 meters above Khufu's, and so he had managed to beat his predecessor.
06:52The pyramidion is the very tip of a pyramid, resting on top of the building.
06:59And so Jedfright surpassed Khufu thanks to a clever trick.
07:04Yet today, this is what's left of this grand idea, ruins.
07:10The pyramid is almost completely gone.
07:14Jedfright wanted his memory to outshine that of the other pharaohs, but he didn't stand the test of time.
07:21Only 12 meters are left of his tomb.
07:24But why?
07:25What happened to such a majestic building?
07:29What did it look like?
07:37In order to solve the mystery, archaeologists have received, for the first time, a special authorization to film this secret
07:44place and to study it from every possible angle.
07:50For the first time, a drone will fly over the mortuary complex of Abu Rawash, more than 500 meters above
07:58the ground.
07:58This is the only way to fully uncover this huge site.
08:03To try and solve the riddle of this pyramid and understand why it has almost completely disappeared, Egyptologists agreed to
08:10embark on a scientific campaign unlike any other.
08:14We're going to create a three-dimensions modeling, with a resolution down to the millimeter.
08:21The site is relatively unknown, so our work will make it accessible not only to experts, but to the general
08:27public as well.
08:29To listen to the secrets of the stones, they use digital data gathered thanks to a modern technique that is
08:34part of archaeology 2.0, photogrammetry.
08:40The idea is to take hundreds, even thousands of pictures of a building, and then an algorithm will automatically analyze
08:47the shots and recreate the geometry that we witnessed in the field.
08:56Thanks to the drones, the whole area has been scanned, just like a radioscopy.
09:01Put the drone pretty low, slowly take an image.
09:07Okay, turn it on this side.
09:10These unique pictures will then be analyzed for several weeks in a laboratory in Paris.
09:16Okay, perfect. Let's go.
09:19For Egyptologists and experts, this new technology is incredible.
09:26At any given time, a researcher will be able, from his office, to check a measurement, an angle, to confirm
09:32his theories.
09:33It will introduce a new way of working, basically.
09:38In the case of Abu Rawash, a military site often off-limits for researchers, this new technology will be a
09:46vital source of information.
09:48After weeks of work, experts will be able to supply the first discoveries.
09:55Such research could potentially help understand what happened to the pyramid torn open.
10:04This site has been of special interest to the Swiss Michel Valogia.
10:11For 12 years, during the early 2000s, and without the current technology,
10:16this archaeologist has brought the site buried under the sand back to life.
10:20A colossal endeavor.
10:25I rented the largest crane in Egypt.
10:27An 80-ton crane.
10:29It was amazing.
10:31Its arm could reach more than 20 meters long, and from there lift blocks that weighed 11 tons.
10:38This is the equivalent of four trucks.
10:41Such a massive endeavor enabled them to excavate this incredible pit
10:44that was at the time almost completely full of boulders.
10:49Year after year, Michel Valogia and his team uncovered the foundations.
10:55And the Egyptologist is positive about one thing.
10:58This was a pyramid.
11:02When we arrived on the site, it's like the pyramid is under construction.
11:07We almost expect workers to show up with their stones and start piling them up.
11:12All of this cannot be observed anywhere else since the pyramid has been dismantled.
11:19We didn't really know so much about what the original pyramid would have looked like
11:24if it was even completed.
11:26But now, thanks to the work of Michel Valogia, we have some idea.
11:34This archaeologist went back in time.
11:36He studied the existing base to find out information about Jed Frey's pyramid.
11:42Thanks to these excavations, Abu Rawash now offers the unique opportunity to study the inside of a pyramid closely.
11:50Which is impossible anywhere else.
11:53An amazing opportunity to try to understand the mysteries behind the construction of legendary pyramids
11:59such as those in Dashur, Saqqara or the Giza Plateau.
12:07If you want to know how the pyramid was built, Jed Frey's pyramid is the best location for you to
12:15know that.
12:15You can actually see inside of a pyramid, which you are not able to do at the pyramids of Giza,
12:22where you now have the finished pyramid and can't see how they actually look inside.
12:29Today, we can observe the bared heart of the pyramid.
12:33Yet to analyze this huge gap as best as possible, new technologies are vital.
12:42Photogrammetry is essential if we are to study the pit in detail and from various angles.
12:52After several months of work, experts of Technology 2.0 have completed their mission.
12:58Computers have analyzed thousands of images to put together the whole site of Abu Rawash in three dimensions.
13:13When you arrive in Abu Rawash, you are facing a massive structure, but you can't observe the construction details.
13:20Here, however, we have a global view of the pyramid and the topography of the area.
13:32Thanks to the model made of thousands of images, we're only one click away from an aerial view or a
13:38zoom on some specific details.
13:44Photogrammetry analyzes the reliefs, the perfect tool to understand just how massive this pit really is.
13:56Here we have an aerial view.
13:59The photogrammetry shows the shaft and inside there's a burial chamber divided into two rooms.
14:06It's really obvious here.
14:11To be able to witness the details of the construction of a burial chamber is exceptional.
14:18Better yet, the model generated through photogrammetry shows us two very different rooms.
14:25This makes Abu Rawash unique.
14:29We discover two different rooms as if they were under construction.
14:34Two chambers supposed to shelter King Jedfrey's sarcophagus.
14:40We never found the sarcophagus itself, since it completely disappeared.
14:44But we can imagine that it was embedded in the floor and that the head pointed towards the north.
14:52The sarcophagus might have laid here, at the bottom of this pit.
14:59A mysterious pit with impressive dimensions, 23 meters high.
15:08We can actually see how they were constructing the burial by then cutting a huge pit into the ground.
15:16That is then something we cannot see in all of the other pyramids.
15:24This giant gap continues to surprise archaeologists today.
15:30Mark Lehner is an American Egyptologist who spent his life studying pyramids.
15:37He believes that this incredible hull illustrates the power of King Jedfrey.
15:43A nice light on this now, isn't it amazing?
15:46It's like an artificial canyon.
15:49Jedfrey might have started smaller, less than a quarter the area of his father's pyramid.
15:55But all of this substructure speaks very big ambition.
16:02Mark Lehner considers this burial chamber to be completely different from the one inside the pyramid of Jedfrey's father, Pharaoh
16:09Khufu.
16:11What's critical here is they're not putting these chambers up in the body of the pyramid like Khufu did.
16:21Jedfrey totally changes the building habits of burial chambers.
16:24He doesn't copy what his father Khufu did, meaning burial chambers built higher up inside the body of the pyramid.
16:36Thanks to a 3D view, we can see that the chambers inside Khufu are built quite high, away from the
16:42ground.
16:45Jedfrey, on the other hand, wants to innovate.
16:49By looking at a transparent image of Abu Rawash, it's quite obvious that the chambers are built deep inside the
16:55ground.
16:58This is a brand new architectural process.
17:02But why choose such a solution?
17:07This is very, very different than what Khufu did.
17:11Jedifrey's builders, maybe learning from that, said let's just go down,
17:15put such a chamber down below the foundation level, below the baseline of the pyramid.
17:22This is not only more practical, perhaps, but also faster.
17:26Meaning it takes him less to get to the point.
17:30This pit was indeed a key step in the pyramid building process,
17:35before being used as a burial chamber.
17:40This digital image allows us to look below the plateau.
17:44First conclusion, the shaft is also used as a foundation for the pyramid.
17:52Once the chamber is set deeply, it's time to build the pyramid on top.
17:58The entire pit was filled with masonry, and the immensity of the pyramid rose above.
18:06And yet this pyramid marks a kind of new beginning,
18:09and can serve as a model for some pyramids, both finished and unfinished, that came afterwards.
18:19Jedfrey marks the beginning of a new era in architecture.
18:24Thanks to photogrammetry, and the complete view over the site down to the millimeter,
18:28experts are able to explore the mysteries behind the construction of Abu Rawash.
18:35Two researchers from the French Institute for Oriental Archaeology in Cairo,
18:39are discovering the models and are immediately struck by the location of the pyramid on the plateau.
18:49We realize how high the structure is.
18:52But why did they build this so close to…
18:55Yes, the edge of the plateau.
19:00The advantage of this is that we can go beyond the structure itself,
19:04and focus on the external topography.
19:08We can look and study elements that we wouldn't normally see at first,
19:12because the accuracy of the topography is very high.
19:20By going beyond the structure of the pyramid itself,
19:23and the external cartography, photogrammetry leads to other discoveries.
19:29We can see a mountain here. This monument was built on a mountain.
19:36You mean, this is the only bit of mountain left in the area?
19:41That's for sure.
19:45What photogrammetry clearly shows is that Jedfrey's architects very cleverly used the existing rock as a base.
19:56The Egyptians weren't dumb. They didn't pick sites randomly.
20:02An existing natural hill means that 44% of the total volume of the pyramid is already there.
20:1244%, almost half of the pyramid.
20:15This means months, perhaps years of work, can be saved during the building process.
20:23During his excavations, Michel Valagia was able to calculate this high percentage.
20:29Jedfrey copied the process of his father Khufu, who had already used a rock base for his pyramid.
20:37But Jedfrey goes one step further by choosing a mountain.
20:41This then saved them time.
20:43Especially in this lowest part of the pyramid, there is quite a lot of stone that you would need
20:48to build this base. So it made it faster in the first phase of the construction.
20:58The Egyptian architects used the hill as a base in the building process to save time.
21:07Jedfrey wanted to be quick and limit the cost by using the mountain and saving stones.
21:19Some Egyptologists believe such a construction method, one that relies so much on the mountain,
21:25also tells us more about who this king was.
21:29There's a first clue in his name, Jedfrey, which means, as stable as Ra, the sun god.
21:39In order to look like Ra and be closer to him, Jedfrey picks this hill.
21:45Another clue, the stone used to build the pyramid.
21:49An expensive and shiny stone that represented his power.
21:55Thousands of bits of that stone can be found on the ground.
21:59Granite.
22:00A key element to understand what the building looked like.
22:08Everywhere, everywhere, you see, saw these piles of granite chips.
22:13I mean, it's one of the evidences that Jedfrey used a lot of granite in his casing.
22:20There are limestone blocks. It's quite cheap. We can get them nearby.
22:26But at the end, we add other blocks. Granite. Very tough. Much harder than limestone.
22:32There's a clear goal of building this monument in granite, since they brought it so high and from so far
22:38away.
22:39Perhaps not the whole building, perhaps just the base.
22:42I saw that on the eighth layer, so about eight to nine meters high, there were still granite blocks.
22:50So we can imagine that the casing at the bottom was granite.
22:54And then it was built with limestone.
23:00Such massive blocks of granite are extremely solid, but difficult to carve.
23:05And yet the hypothesis is confirmed in the field.
23:08You can see that they cut, they made emplacements, for each individual granite block.
23:15Why does one rise up, then it sinks down?
23:19The reason is, because when they moved the granite block in here, it was easier to cut away the soft
23:27bedrock,
23:28to bring the tops of the granite blocks flush, than it was to cut the top of the granite block.
23:35Granite is much harder.
23:38To go even further and analyze the area from angles that are impossible in the field,
23:44photogrammetry proves once again a useful tool for Egyptologists.
23:52Archaeology 2.0 lets us decipher this careful process of ground preparation.
24:00You can see quite nicely where the casing was placed.
24:04They were placing first the stones from the corner, and then afterwards placing here these,
24:10going all along the front side of the pyramid.
24:13So you can really then reconstruct the sequence of the stone they were first placing.
24:21Such extensive use of granite is an important discovery.
24:24This is a clue that links various pharaohs together.
24:30It seems that Jed Frey's pyramid in Abu Rawash is a missing link in analyzing the evolution of the pyramids.
24:40His father Khufu only used fine limestone for the casing.
24:44However, Jed Frey's successors, Kafre and Menkore, used granite as well.
24:49And so the pyramid in Abu Rawash is the very first one that makes use of granite for the casing.
24:58The granite blocks used for the outer casing have mostly disappeared.
25:03But the idea was copied.
25:06Indeed, granite casing can be found in Menkore's pyramid, Jed Frey's nephew.
25:15By using such noble material for the casing, Jed Frey turned out to be a precursor and distinguished himself from
25:22his father Khufu.
25:24The stones weigh several hundred tons, like giant monoliths.
25:29So how in the world could Egyptians, 2,500 BC, manage to move them around and bring them so high?
25:40An expert in ancient Egypt was particularly interested in the question.
25:48Yanis Godon closely studied a famous theory, the theory of the ramps.
25:54Roads like slopes whose ruins can sometimes be found on certain sites.
25:59There's none left in Abu Rawash though, but experts believe they made it possible to bring the stones from the
26:05bottom to the top of the pyramid by letting them slide.
26:10Construction ramps are a key element in Egyptian architecture.
26:15The ramps had to have a slope of 5 to 10 percent.
26:19For instance, for a single straight ramp, we'd need one or two kilometers of ramp to reach the top and
26:26bring there extremely heavy blocks.
26:31However, during recent excavations, Yanis Godon discovered a quite unique ramp in the Khatnub, in the south of Egypt.
26:40That discovery questions what Egyptologists thought they knew about ramps.
26:46We discovered in Khatnub a ramp with a slope of about 20 percent.
26:52It means a much shorter distance, around 700 meters, to reach the top of the pyramid.
27:01And these ramps, according to the latest theories, could be installed outside the pyramid, but also inside.
27:12In Abu Rawash, the fact that the pyramid is built against the rock, on the mountain, gives us clues as
27:19to what ramp was used.
27:22For the base of the pyramid, we can be quite sure that in this case, they were not using these
27:27ramps inside the pyramid,
27:29because there you have this rock core, but the ramps had to be outside.
27:36But another mystery remains.
27:38How could such blocks, carved to fit each other, be lifted and placed precisely where they should, according to the
27:44architect's blueprints?
27:47When we take a very close look at the monolith, we discover that they're perfectly fitted, sometimes without pointing to
27:54join two stones.
27:56Archaeological excavations help us better understand what tricks the pharaohs used.
28:02We're at a time when people lifted blocks of almost 200 tons.
28:06They put the big blocks on a tough wooden sled, and then they'd slide on ramps, and they went up.
28:13So bringing this massive monolith, and sliding it right there, demanded some work indeed.
28:19There was probably a ramp that would help bring it here, and slide it in that specific slot.
28:26The final adjustment of the stone probably would have been done with levers, and even maybe rollers.
28:33You always want to keep the stone a little bit up off the surface, so you can move it, maneuver
28:39it, and then you, boom, set it down.
28:45Numerous archaeological studies have contributed to understanding how the blocks could be placed so perfectly.
28:51And those same studies also proved that each block was carefully carved.
28:58This was, in a sense, custom-made.
29:01So we could have a block measuring 1.5 meters, and the next one would only be 60 or 50
29:07centimeters.
29:09So Egyptians could create tailor-made pieces.
29:12And they knew how to be accurate down to a millimeter.
29:15They also mastered giant constructions.
29:19Such extraordinary abilities are made obvious thanks to photogrammetry.
29:24Indeed, this modern technology enables new ways of working.
29:32Images from the air show us ruins that the naked eye cannot see.
29:38For instance, this road that is barely visible, buried under the sand.
29:44A road experts call causeway.
29:49Abu Rawash's causeway is a ramp connecting the temple in the valley, located near what used to be a canal,
29:55to the mortuary temple of the pyramid.
29:57So the causeway was huge. It was remarkable.
30:05The causeway went all along this track, up to the mountain, to the northern wing of the retaining wall.
30:13Jedifra has this extraordinary, massive causeway, 1.7 kilometers long.
30:20I mean, it's huge.
30:24In the case of this causeway, lost amidst the landscape and barely visible when standing in front of it,
30:30the 3D model is used as radioscopy to analyze the whole area.
30:40On this perfect view, we can see the causeway, which was leading from the Naive Valley up to the mountains,
30:47on the top of the mountains, where the pyramid and the temple was constructed.
30:52And this photo is very well showing the whole situation.
30:56Because it's showing the relations of the monuments in concern with the geomorphology of the site.
31:05During the construction, it was used for the transportation of the blocks,
31:10which was a very complicated, logistic thing.
31:16Photogrammetry proves that this causeway was a vital element, 4,500 years after being built.
31:24It was the main road leading to the mortuary temple.
31:34But there's another thing experts find intriguing.
31:38Abu Rawash has two giant outer walls, whereas most temples only have one.
31:43First anomaly.
31:46By going to one of the temple's doors, another construction detail surprises the Egyptologists.
31:58We're at the entrance gate on the east side, and we can clearly see how it was built.
32:03We have limestone and granite around, but the face is made of black bricks.
32:08This is the Nile's silt.
32:10They gathered mud and mixed it with straw, but this is a problem for me.
32:15We're at a time of great builders of stone pyramids.
32:18Why would Jedifra use brick, especially for his mortuary temple?
32:24The fact that Jedifra has these mud brick structures, even the chapel and the inner chapel for worshipping Jedifra is
32:32mud brick,
32:33it looks very different than what came before with Khufu.
32:37It looks very different, this Jedifra complex.
32:41This doesn't look like a mortuary temple for a king of the 4th dynasty, but that's just my opinion.
32:51If the site of Abu Rawash remains so mysterious, it's also because of the outer walls that are clearly seen
32:58thanks to photogrammetry.
33:02The full view over the site allows researchers to analyze the architectural space in its entirety.
33:10When studying the 3D images, the experts are surprised by the wall, whose position in regards to the pyramid is
33:16uncommon.
33:21We clearly see the wall. It stands out.
33:24The outer wall.
33:27It seems that if we extend the wall, it would come all the way to the edge of the plateau.
33:34We can see part of the wall here, so it could be that it turns next to the edge of
33:39the slope.
33:44Photogrammetry confirms the presence of an outer wall all around the building.
33:49The wall disappeared near the edge of the slope, but is still obvious on the image.
33:53And there's another surprise.
33:55The second wall surrounding the building.
34:00We have a second outer wall surrounding the building, and which mortuary temple or complex have you seen gates with
34:07the temple?
34:07None.
34:09That's why I don't think this is a mortuary monument.
34:12The map of this place hasn't been planned like other mortuary monuments.
34:19Finding hypotheses, giving meaning to the various buildings, such is the difficult work of Egyptologists.
34:30Vassal Dobrev believes this brick wall and curious gates prove that Abu Rawash was not a pyramid used as a
34:37tomb.
34:38Why?
34:39Because a mortuary temple is closed to the public.
34:42Only high priests can go inside.
34:45But Vassal Dobrev sees in these gates the sign that the place was open to the public.
34:53He believes Jed Frey ordered the construction of a sun temple for the god who created the universe, Ra.
35:02If I want to start a sun worship, if I want to be closer to the sun, that's where I'd
35:08go.
35:08Why Abu Rawash?
35:10Abu means the place in Egyptian.
35:13Ra is Ra.
35:14Wash means to honor God.
35:16Why looking for a mortuary pyramid?
35:22Although sun worship was growing at the time in Egypt, other experts have a different opinion.
35:28And on this specific point, there are many theories.
35:32We know that at this time there was a big emphasis on the sun worship and the sun and its
35:39combination with kingship.
35:41And that therefore that shows this was a symbolic, a temple, a kind of shrine of sorts to the sun
35:47rather than the king's tomb.
35:50I don't think that's correct.
35:53It is not a sun temple at all. The pyramid looks like a hole and this is why it needs
36:00some people to think it's a sun temple.
36:02But it's a pyramid that was built for Jed Frey.
36:07Yet this mortuary complex built with bricks rather than noble stones remains a mystery.
36:15Why would Jed Frey accept this?
36:17After all, he wanted to build a pyramid that would be higher and more majestic than that of other kings
36:23before him.
36:27It's quite possible that the king died after the pyramid was completed.
36:31But before the rest of the structures that were supposed to ensure the permanence of his mortuary cult were finished.
36:39And that would be a reason that would explain why architects chose raw bricks for such structures.
36:48So Jed Frey was perhaps an important king who imagined a magnificent tomb that was completed in a rush.
36:55The rest of the pyramid proves that Egyptian architects built an amazing monument.
37:01A monument that shows their mastery of geometry and mountainous areas.
37:07It's especially visible in the huge slope that crosses the pyramid.
37:11A very steep corridor that Egyptologists call the Descending Passage.
37:20The Descending Passage was supposed to lead to the burial chambers.
37:24However, at the time, once the work was done, the pit and the gap were totally invisible, hidden by the
37:30body of the pyramid.
37:32You can still see some of the evidence, some of the masonry, from this original passage,
37:38which would have been narrow, maybe as narrow as two cubits, 1.05 meters.
37:44So what looks massive today was actually reduced to a tiny corridor where you had to bend forward to be
37:51able to reach the burial chamber.
37:55Thanks to photogrammetry, we can go below the pyramid, inside the hill itself.
38:03Here, we discover a 3D version of the Descending Passage and the burial chamber.
38:08So the Descending Passage in Abu Rawash is a model to help understand how the corridors leading to the burial
38:14chambers were built.
38:19In pyramids such as Khufus, before they were completed, they also had such big gaps leading to the burial chambers.
38:28And so the very narrow corridors were first big slopes, such as the one in Jedfrey's pyramid.
38:38Al Abu Rawash is just one phase of the building.
38:43So now it looks so different, but if it ever was finished, it would have looked quite similar to the
38:49pyramids of Dashur, for example.
38:54Another discovery also helps to understand another element found in many pyramids.
39:01When searching Abu Rawash around the year 2000, archaeologist Michel Valogia and his team calculated the angle of the access
39:09corridor
39:10and reached a result of 27 degrees, a very symbolic number for Egyptians.
39:18The 27-degree angle points towards the North Star, which is a circumpolar star, meaning a star that never disappears
39:26and that the dead king wants to be associated with.
39:29It's another way of being reborn.
39:37The passage was thus created to be a path to eternity for the pharaoh.
39:45Just like in every building they make, Egyptians use cosmogony to come up with perfect results.
39:54What's striking is their ability to combine the religious dimension with technical aspects.
39:59The descending passage is 5.5 meters wide, which is huge for a path that's supposed to receive a coffin
40:07that is maybe 50 centimeters wide.
40:09You need it in order to introduce all the materials, including huge granite blocks, probably for the burial chamber.
40:17So basically it's a construction ramp first, and then they build the passage within it in this fine limestone, and
40:26then fill in around it.
40:29Excavations let us see how the descending passage in Abu Rawash was also probably a construction ramp.
40:37And so its role wouldn't be purely religious, but practical too.
40:42It is thanks to this ramp that workers were able to build a sumptuous burial chamber in granite.
40:49Here, to the western part of the pit, I see here a granite block sitting on the limestone subfloor.
40:56It definitely is in place because here's the mortar bonding it to the mother rock.
41:02All of these blocks of granite couldn't possibly come from the outside, so it's a proof that one or more
41:09inner chambers were covered in granite.
41:14The fact that the chamber was covered in granite is another clue for archaeologists.
41:21It confirms that the burial chamber was indeed here, because such costly stones have been used in other pharaoh's tombs.
41:32Just the fact that they do remain in place, probably, is an indication, is an evidence that there was a
41:39granite vault here.
41:41And we have to reconstruct what was here on the basis of such evidence, but also on the basis of
41:48parallels with other royal tombs just about this time period.
41:54Everything seems to indicate that this is indeed the royal tomb of Jetfrey, a tomb that has been completely devastated
42:01and plundered.
42:03But how?
42:04When the tomb was built with granite, a stone that is incredibly difficult to carve.
42:11On the western side, he found a tunnel cut right here through the pavement of the passage and even through
42:21the bedrock right across the corner to the west end of the pit.
42:26We have the blueprints of the whole process from the entrance of the pyramid.
42:31They dug inside the limestone, followed the descending passage, and went down inside the floor of the vault.
42:43It probably happened soon after the burial of the king, because these people knew what they were doing.
42:51To confirm this hypothesis and visualize the path the thieves took, photogrammetry is the perfect tool.
43:04We still see the beginning of a hole going below the burial chamber.
43:08This hole only makes sense if there was a mountain, a chamber, and if the masonry was made of granite,
43:13which is extremely hard to pierce.
43:16If this masonry was made of granite, it was very difficult to pierce.
43:23Jetfrey's tomb was therefore completely vandalized by his contemporaries.
43:27But what about the rest of the structure?
43:35Pyramids have stood the test of time because their architects were able to build extremely solid monuments.
43:41And the foundation of Jetfrey's pyramid is perfect.
43:46Experts believe the answer is simple.
43:48There was a time when these piles of granite chips fed into the idea that there was some violent family
43:57dispute.
43:57And that's why Jetfrey came to Abu Dawash, to leave the household of Khufu at Giza.
44:03But what is very clear now, from the Michelle Velogia and his team excavated, this represents Roman quarrying of Jetfrey's
44:13granite casing.
44:16This discovery was made by Michelle Velogia during excavations in Abu Dawash around the year 2000.
44:24Right from when the Romans invaded Egypt in 200 BC, Jetfrey's pyramid was completely dismantled.
44:34We uncovered things layer after layer.
44:36We saw layers of sand that were brought by the wind.
44:40And below there were pottery fragments from the Roman period.
44:44We even found traces of cranes at the bottom of the descending passage, used to remove blocks, gather them, and
44:51use them somewhere else.
44:52The site has been used as a quarry since the Roman time, and almost up until the 19th century.
44:58Part of the reason that Jetfrey's pyramid was so robbed of the granite, in Roman times, it may be that
45:06this causeway was a very convenient way to take the granite and haul it down from the high plateau.
45:14Unlike Giza, which is hard to reach and lost in the middle of the desert, Abu Dawash had this causeway
45:21connected to the Nile.
45:22The Romans had everything they needed.
45:25A monument to be used as a stone quarry and a road to carry the stones.
45:30The pyramid is quite close to the city of Cairo.
45:36At any time during the Roman period, the medieval period, the stones could have been used for the city walls
45:44of Cairo, for example, or for the palaces and so on.
45:52And so, Abu Dawash was used to build Cairo.
45:57But Jetfrey's pyramid, despite being dismantled today, offers a fascinating image.
46:03It's as if it's in the middle of its building process, as if time had stopped.
46:09A pyramid that offers insight to understand how pyramids were built.
46:16This pyramid, actually, in my opinion, it's a perfect place to find out how the pyramid was constructed.
46:23And yet here it marks a kind of new beginning, where kings built pyramids with chambers and passageways just at
46:32or just below ground level.
46:35This is a site that gives us a lot of information on the ancient empire.
46:39I wish it would be preserved, so the general public could grasp the tremendous efforts, intelligence and cleverness of the
46:49Egyptians who created such extraordinary monuments.
46:56Jetfrey's pyramid in Abu Dawash remains a key element to understand the secrets of Egyptian architects.
47:04Advanced analysis, thanks to technologies used in archaeology 2.0, have confirmed theories archaeologists had regarding the processes to build
47:13pyramids.
47:14But the site has yet to be fully searched, and could very well still be hiding important elements.
47:23Jetfrey's pyramid has yet to reveal all its secrets.
47:27Let's see.
47:29Let's see.
47:29Let's see.
47:33Let's see.
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