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00:00Home to the pyramids of Khufu, Kafra and Menkor, the Giza Plateau is often perceived as the cradle of Egypt's
00:07Age of Pyramids.
00:09However, over 4,500 years ago, there was an amazing edifice a few kilometers away from here,
00:15one of ancient Egypt's first pyramids, built long before that of Khufu.
00:20And yet, nothing can be seen at first glance.
00:23But by excavating into the sand, archaeologists discovered a buried pyramid in the necropolis complex of Saqqara, the Pyramid of
00:31Pharaoh Sechemket.
00:32A rather shadowy figure in the history of Egypt was Sechemket.
00:37The story of discovery of this tomb is one of the most extraordinary and even sad stories in all of
00:44Egyptian archaeology.
00:45All that remains of this pyramid is the underground tomb and this magnificent sarcophagus.
00:50The Pyramid of Sechemket is full of unknowns and one of them is, why is that sarcophagus empty?
00:58This monument to eternity isn't open to the public.
01:01No film crew has ever had access to it until now.
01:05As they enter it, our crew members are about to make an extraordinary discovery inside this tomb.
01:10And I'm kind of overwhelmed with this feeling of how grand it is, the grandeur of it.
01:16Could the Pyramid of Sechemket have been a construction mistake?
01:19Why is its discovery so crucial for Egyptologists?
01:23How will the galleries of this pyramid enable us to unveil one of the most best-kept secrets about ancient
01:29Egyptians' construction techniques?
01:31To try and solve all these mysteries, our scientists have been granted permission to enter ancient Egypt's most emblematic pyramids
01:38with a new generation laser scanner.
01:47This technology will enable them to get a digital copy of the inside of the edifice with utmost precision.
01:53With a few clicks, we can perform measurements that would be extremely hard to carry out on the ground.
01:57These tools will provide our experts with new clues to further a scientific investigation that started 200 years ago.
02:12To be continued...
02:37Frank Meunier is an engineer and Egyptologist specializing in the Great Pyramids.
02:41He has passionately dedicated his life to architecture and the study of these sand giants.
02:47Based on the information available, he has drawn a plan of the Buried Pyramid of Sekemket.
02:53Although it has been the object of very little research so far,
02:56this pyramid is key to understanding the secrets of the mythical pyramids like that of Pharaoh Khufu.
03:03I made a planned view of the Pyramid of Sekemket, its base and burial chambers.
03:08Now what I really like to scan is the burial chambers because this plan view established from the few existing
03:13plans
03:13depicts a very schematic representation of those spaces with straight lines as you can see here.
03:20But in fact we know that's not what they're like.
03:23We decide to set up an exceptional mission in Saqqara to scan the inside of this unknown pyramid.
03:30Our goal is to produce a digital 3D copy of the monument with unequaled precision.
03:39The discovery of this pyramid 70 years ago unearthed the oldest stone sarcophagus of the age of the pharaohs.
03:46Now, thanks to our new generation scanners, our teams will try to unveil the last remaining secrets of the pyramid,
03:52particularly the reasons behind its current state. Why is it buried?
03:57The pyramid of Sekemket is truly atypical and largely unknown.
04:02It goes completely unnoticed and on top of that it's strictly forbidden to visit its burial chambers.
04:08There's no knowing for sure if we'll be able to worm our way along its underground galleries.
04:14We still don't know how deteriorated the tomb is when French archaeologist Albon Brice Pampo reaches the site.
04:24His mission is to collect data with the scanner.
04:29This state-of-the-art technological equipment will enable researchers to carry out an unprecedented analysis of the buried pyramid.
04:42It is hard to imagine that a gigantic monument had been erected right here.
04:48When we arrive at this site, we can hardly picture what it used to look like because there's a pyramid
04:53right here.
04:54But most of it is buried in the sand, so we'll discover all of it with the scanner.
04:59The archaeologist has to make a three-dimensional record of the interior of the pyramid,
05:03of what's known as the underground burial chambers.
05:08This tool is a portable miniature LIDAR, which can make thousands of measurements of a space per second through a
05:14laser beam.
05:16These measurements will be used to create, for the first time ever,
05:20a very precise, high-definition 3D model of the scanned environment.
05:27This is one of the rare moments in history when daylight will have penetrated this pyramid.
05:35It's with great precaution that the archaeologist treads these sand-covered passageways.
05:44After the machine has been switched on, he'll have to be quick.
05:48His time inside the pyramid is limited.
05:52First of all, some stones may break loose,
05:54but besides that, we've only been granted an exceptional permission of two hours,
05:59so as to not damage any further what remains of the pyramid.
06:02The King's Chamber delivers a majestic discovery.
06:06It boasts the oldest stone sarcophagus in the history of Egypt,
06:10an extraordinary alabaster monolith.
06:14Alban finds his way in this maze by following the plans that Frank Monnier entrusted him with.
06:20I came in here and walked down this gallery to reach the King's Chamber.
06:24So now we're in this small diverticulum right behind the sarcophagus.
06:30On his phone, he compares the plan against the real-time preview of the data he has collected.
06:38This green line shows my trajectory, and this green circle here indicates where I am right now.
06:45All the white dots are digitization points.
06:51Not only will Alban try to better know the interior volumes of the pyramid,
06:55but he'll also be able to document the state of deterioration of the tomb.
07:02We tend to lose track of the depth and our bearings as we move underground,
07:06so the scanner enables us to get the full picture
07:09and really make out the different layers, heights and transformation levels globally.
07:17The miniaturized scanner image enables the archaeologist
07:21to enter very narrow and virtually inaccessible spaces.
07:28Let's keep going.
07:39I'll wait a while to capture some data.
07:45We're here, and this is where we were just now.
07:49The scanner has captured the positions of the passageways in relation to each other.
07:56Albon keeps collecting all the data he can, which will later be processed by the computer.
08:03His time inside the pyramid is running out because the monument can't stay open too long.
08:18The pyramid of Sik'emkhet, now buried in the sand, is about to unlock its mysteries.
08:24How did it disappear? What happened?
08:28This is very much off the beaten track in Saqqara.
08:31And even walking around, because it's actually below the level of high desert, you couldn't see it.
08:38You would completely miss it if you walked by.
08:412,700 years BCE, at the very beginning of the age of pyramid construction,
08:46the pharaoh's burial chambers weren't built inside gigantic monuments like the ones of Giza.
08:50Instead, they were carved into the rock underground.
08:53We can very clearly distinguish the bedrock here from these laid stones,
08:59the actual burial chamber and the galleries that stretch out from it,
09:02carved into the living rock, the bedrock going down in the earth below the pyramid.
09:08After weeks of hard work, the data captured by the scanner can finally be analyzed.
09:14This 3D document of the pyramid of Sik'emkhet is nothing short of extraordinary.
09:18The substructure is very clear, and it's a nice record.
09:22The substructure is very irregular, so you can't do better than photogrammetry or laser scanning for such an irregular surface.
09:32This extremely precise digital copy enables access to the underground structure,
09:37which is normally closed to Egyptologists.
09:40It will allow us to better appreciate why the pharaoh decided to build his pyramid at this particular spot.
09:46It was definitely not an arbitrary choice.
09:50In the Sak'a necropolis complex, Sik'emkhet had his grave built 40 meters above the riverbed,
09:55on a rocky plateau covered in sand.
10:02Mark Lennar wants to discover the secrets of one of the greatest mysteries surrounding the Egypt of pharaohs.
10:09Why is this pyramid buried in the sand while only a few dozen meters away other pyramids still rise on
10:16top of Sak'ara Plateau,
10:174,000 years after they were built?
10:22This American archaeologist is going to gather clues to help us understand how this unknown king's burial chambers were built.
10:33He's been studying the pyramids for over 40 years.
10:38This is the first time he's been inside the pyramid of Sik'emkhet, and he is certainly thrilled.
10:46Mm-hmm.
10:49Rock fallen from the ceiling.
10:59The soft bedrock fragments falling from the ceiling, which doesn't inspire confidence, but just shows you, you know, the weakness
11:09of this bedrock.
11:13We are 18 meters below ground.
11:16Try to imagine workers digging these galleries 4,000 years ago.
11:22And they're also building in the natural clay of the bedrock, which is tufla.
11:26It's a calcareous desert clay. It amounts to, you know, hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of tons.
11:34Nowadays, walking these galleries is like visiting a cave.
11:37It's really an amazing experience when you're really in here and you think about, you know, people, quarrymen cutting all
11:47this out, this huge deep corridor going down.
11:50They show you the human hand. They show you how they were doing it. They show you their methods.
11:56And I'm kind of overwhelmed with this feeling of how grand it is, the grandeur of it.
12:03You know, being in here, you see this is a huge, almost cathedral-like corridor.
12:10Sekemket had a plan. What was the project of the builders who dug out this unknown pharaoh's pyramid?
12:16It speaks to ambition, power, and confidence.
12:21Confidence, you know, that all this is going to get done and be a truly grand monument like Djoser's.
12:28I think he had something truly ambitious in mind. I think he thought he was going to do another Djoser
12:34Step Pyramid complex.
12:36This long, narrow corridor is under one meter in width and descends 80 meters into the earth.
12:42It's the descending passage. It's the entrance to the pyramid. It originates on the north side of the monument.
12:52The descending passage, which is the first section of the burial chambers, heads to the pole star region.
13:00In ancient Egypt, those stars were known as the indestructibles. They were undying stars.
13:06The pharaoh was supposed to join the indestructibles after death, so he would become immortal himself.
13:12A descent of 25 degrees leads to the burial chamber, where the king's tomb is located.
13:18The approximately 25 degree gradient of the descending passage serves a double purpose.
13:23The passage heads approximately to the polar star region, and it also provides a simple slope ratio to control the
13:29gradient of the descending passage.
13:33French expert, Franck Monnier, wants to find out more about this pyramid on which there's very little literature.
13:41He decides to go there.
13:45But reaching the pyramid of Sikemget requires determination, and the journey out there is ridden with obstacles across the desert.
13:53There aren't any clear trails, and the car may easily get stuck in the sand.
14:00When he eventually gets to the subterranean structure, Franck Monnier can hardly contain his excitement.
14:12This is the first time I've been inside this pyramid.
14:16I'm deeply moved because I've been studying it now for a very long time.
14:20So this is very special to me, especially because this is one of the first pyramids.
14:26It is the second pyramid in the history of humankind.
14:30The further down we go into the pyramid, the more impressed we are by the state of the rock and
14:35the structure of the burial chambers.
14:38We can clearly see how fragile and flaky the calcareous rock is.
14:42It's made of countless minute layers that built up on one another along millions of years prior to the construction
14:48of the pyramid.
14:50Underneath the crust, there's a thick layer of sand, which means the ground is soft and the calcareous rock clay.
14:56It's called tefla.
14:59We're 30 meters underground.
15:01The further we go, the less ventilated the galleries are, the air in them becomes hard to breathe.
15:09The rock is visibly fragile.
15:11At any moment a chunk of it, or a stone, can crumble and fall.
15:18We need to walk cautiously along the galleries.
15:21You see this slab?
15:23It's about to come apart.
15:25Better not bang your head on it or it'll fall on you.
15:31Frank Monnier spots a red line on the ceiling of one of the galleries.
15:39This red line was painted when the pyramid was being constructed.
15:43Basically, over 4,600 or 4,700 years ago, a worker or a technician came here with a brush and
15:50some red ink and painted this line, which is still here.
15:56This line was destined to disappear as its purpose was to help workers dig and level the sidewalls symmetrically.
16:05Workers in ancient Egypt used very rudimentary tools to carve into the rock.
16:11The Egyptian workers who dug out the galleries and burial chambers of the pyramid of Sekumket must have been equipped
16:17with chisels and mallets.
16:21The mallet was a kind of a hammer. It was like our hammer.
16:24And their copper chisels were our drills. So they carved the rock with mallets and copper chisels.
16:30Copper is quite a soft metal. They were extracting the copper from mines in the Sinai, so quite far away
16:37from Memphis, from Saqqara.
16:40And then they would bash those copper chisels with mallets made of wood.
16:46And together with this very simple technology, they could work limestone very easily.
16:51It takes a good deal of imagination to picture what this pyramid looked like 4,000 years ago.
16:58As late as the 1950s, this monument had remained hidden in the sand. It had never been documented.
17:06Egyptologist Sakarya Ghanem was intrigued by the unusual relief of the ground on this site and decided to explore it.
17:14In his excavation mission report, he wrote that his discovery had somewhat been the result of a happy accident.
17:21He noticed, relatively nearby Djoser's tomb, that there were slight irregularities in the ground and he could see some kind
17:30of wall peeking out of the soil a little bit.
17:33So eventually he started excavating.
17:37Ghanem realizes that this is actually not just a small place with a small tomb, but a huge pyramid complex.
17:44Many football fields, size, huge thing. He says at one point that digging here was like working in an area
17:52several times the size of Trafalgar Square in London.
17:56Hundreds of workers flocked to the archaeological site to help him excavate it.
18:00And they found this. And this is the entranceway into the unfinished step pyramid.
18:08This raised great hopes, both for him and all Egyptians, as Tutankhamen's tomb had only been discovered a few decades
18:14before.
18:16Ghanem assumed this was another sensational discovery and he invited journalists from around the world to a press conference.
18:22Inside, there was a surprise. A sarcophagus made out of one gigantic piece of alabaster.
18:31So with great pomp and circumstance attended by important people, he opens the sarcophagus and he finds nothing inside.
18:42Disappointment and embarrassment took over Zakaria. All hopes of finding a treasure like that of Tutankhamen were suddenly dashed.
18:55The absence of a mummy raises several questions.
18:58Who could this tomb have belonged to? Why was the sarcophagus empty?
19:04Despite his misfortune, Ghanem was still able to find a few remaining clues left behind, particularly pottery fragments.
19:12There were seals on those jars bearing the name Sekimket. The discovery of those inscriptions enabled him to establish who
19:20had commissioned that monument.
19:22Besides that, the archaeologists also found a stone engraved with the name Djoser.
19:29So who was this mysterious Sekimket? And how was that king, who had remained unknown until then, related to a
19:36very important flower of the third dynasty, Djoser?
19:39There are many mysteries around Sekimket, from his historical person to this architectural construction.
19:47Apart from this pyramid, unearthed in 1950, there's only one other mention of Sekimket, hundreds of miles from Saqqara.
19:55We really only have one mention of him, and that's at an inscription in the Sinai.
20:05Which is very interesting, because it shows that he went to the Sinai on expeditions, and this was an important
20:14place for mineral resources, and in particular, copper.
20:17Two bas-relief sequences were found in the name of King Sekimket, with images of the pharaoh.
20:24He's depicted once with the red crown on, and once with the white crown on.
20:28And we also see him slaughtering the Bedouins of Sinai, and taking possession of the copper and turquoise mines of
20:34Sinai.
20:37Sekimket was therefore a king of the third dynasty, who developed trade in Egypt during his reign.
20:45Experts agree to say that Sekimket could have been the successor, or maybe even the son of Djoser.
20:51But several mysteries still remain, which our mission is poised to solve.
20:59Why was the sarcophagus empty, when the man who discovered it entered the burial chamber?
21:06Sekaria Gonim thinks the pyramid might have been robbed.
21:10Pyramids were robbed, and in fact all tombs in Egypt were probably robbed at some point quite near when they
21:17had first been built,
21:19and people had been buried.
21:21But how would the thieves have gone in?
21:24After all, the entrance to the pyramid was sealed when the archaeologists discovered it.
21:30Seventy years after its discovery, on a rare occasion in the history of this pyramid,
21:35it is once again being analysed, every nook and cranny of it.
21:39But this time, experts are using state-of-the-art technologies.
21:42Frank Monnier has spotted a vertical shaft, which starts halfway down the descending passage,
21:48which then leads to the king's chamber.
21:54We've asked Alban Brice Pampot to complete the information we already have available.
22:01Attached to a pole, his scanner can go several metres up.
22:06Its extreme precision makes it possible to squeeze into the smallest gaps.
22:10We can reach a height of six metres, so we can still collect some data,
22:14but I'm not sure we'll have lots of details from the top.
22:17The idea is to scan all the way up the shaft and see the different geological layers,
22:21and perhaps find out how it was carved.
22:23By doing this, he reveals cavities that are undetectable to the naked eye.
22:27The scanner shoots a laser beam at the surrounding walls,
22:31and in so doing measures the volumes of the space.
22:35It collects millions of measurements in a few minutes.
22:38They're extremely precise data.
22:42The immediate result is a scatter of points,
22:45a big and very dense mesh of hundreds of millions of coordinates.
22:50It would seem this shaft served several purposes.
22:54First of all, it was used for the construction of the burial chambers.
22:58They needed to evacuate the materials from the spaces underground
23:00that were much further down and away.
23:03Besides, these spaces had to be oxygenated because, as we can feel,
23:06there's very little air down here.
23:07So we have to imagine the conditions in which those builders were working back then
23:10in dust with very little light and oxygen.
23:14The purpose of this shaft was, therefore, to remove rubble,
23:17but also to air the site during construction work.
23:21The 3D model provides another crucial hint of its role.
23:26It's like having the monument saved in the computer,
23:29which makes our tasks significantly easier,
23:31as we're free to make any measurements we want.
23:34So in its present state, the height of its shaft,
23:38from its lowest point to its highest point,
23:42is about 19 meters.
23:46This shaft linked the pharaoh's burial chambers with the Saqqara Desert.
23:51If you were to employ traditional methods, we'd have to be inside the monument
23:54and it would require expensive means.
23:56We need scaffolding and long ladders,
23:58and it would take us days to perform these measurements.
24:00Whereas here, with just a few clicks, we get the height of the shaft.
24:04This provides an important hint on what happened to Pharaoh Sekemket's mummy.
24:10It's likely that after Pharaoh Sekemket's funeral,
24:13the shaft was the thieves' main entry access.
24:17They may have spotted the shaft up on the ground,
24:19cleared it, and descended through it to reach the burial chamber.
24:25It's hard for historians to pin down the exact moment when the pyramid was desecrated.
24:30We know about people robbing the tombs, and they were the people who built the tombs.
24:35But in fact, maybe the robbers are much later,
24:38when the idea that the pyramid was some kind of storehouse for treasure emerged.
24:45This robbery explains one of the great mysteries around the pyramid of Sekemket.
24:50The Pharaoh's mummy was in fact stolen,
24:52and its funeral furniture removed through the shaft we've been able to model.
24:59However, there remain a few details that the thieves left behind,
25:03and they're all clues for Egyptologists.
25:07One of the most intriguing finds in the pyramid of Sekemket is gold treasure.
25:15When explorer Sakarya Goname excavated the pyramid,
25:19he found 21 gold bracelets and a small jewelry box shaped like a scallop shell.
25:25There are these beautiful bracelets that are perfectly polished and delicately carved.
25:33That jewelry has enabled archaeologists to draw up a portrait of Sekemket,
25:37the unknown Pharaoh of the Third Dynasty.
25:39It attests to the craftsmen that were not just architects, but were true artists that could make objects of beauty.
25:49Such treasure demonstrates how King Sekemket developed his country's economy 2,600 years BCE.
25:56There was control over gold resources probably as far south as southern Egypt and Nubia.
26:03That there was a massive economic network of mining gold, bringing it back to the Nile Valley,
26:09and this demonstrates an economic network of luxury goods, the royal power and control over all of what was thought
26:18of as Egypt,
26:19and the ability to harness that control to produce amazing things.
26:24These precious artifacts are now kept in the storage facilities of the Cairo Museum.
26:33Alban Brice Pampou needs more data to work out the outline of the buried pyramid.
26:40He believes aerial views will help him better understand this colossus of the sands.
26:47He seeks support from a team of drone specialists to scan the area.
26:51This is, that's the entrance.
26:54Okay.
26:55So we're interested in, it's not written in here, but you have the wall.
26:59It's not that, it's a white wall.
27:01It's above this area.
27:03This wall should be there.
27:04It's not written in the map, but it's here.
27:06Okay.
27:06So you have to imagine that it's all this area north, which is interesting for us.
27:11Okay, where's the entrance?
27:12This is that.
27:13This?
27:13Just that.
27:14So I think we shall fly and see.
27:18Yeah, yeah.
27:19Let's have a look.
27:26The drone soars into the sky.
27:30The experts scan the entire area as if they were performing a radioscopy.
27:35The images recorded will be analyzed by the computer,
27:38and the drone views will be added to the scanner digital data,
27:42thanks to which the 3D model will be more comprehensive.
27:48So what was King Sikkim Geth's project when he had his resting place erected 2,000 years BCE?
27:58To have an idea of the possible size and volume of the pyramid, Egyptologists can count only on these few
28:04blocks of stone.
28:06What's hidden here beneath this desert surface is the first step of a step pyramid.
28:14And this is something that you don't get at other sites.
28:17This is important clues and vital information to understanding the pyramid building process.
28:23When Zakaria Goname discovered this mysterious pyramid in 1954, it rose 8 meters above ground.
28:32Nowadays the pyramid is no longer excavated or visited.
28:36It keeps disappearing into the sand day after day, and only a few rows of stones are still visible.
28:44These blocks are angled at a 15 degree position, and so they lean in.
28:50And this is the exact way that step pyramids are built, is with this exact same angle and same position.
28:56And in fact, it's very similar, essentially identical to the construction technique used in Djoser's pyramid just over there.
29:06Sikkimket's project was probably to have a step pyramid built, as his predecessor, Pharaoh Djoser, had before him.
29:15To better understand Sikkimket's goal, one needs to look a few hundred meters north from here.
29:22That's where the very first pyramid in the history of humankind rises.
29:26No other king was able to match Djoser's vision and the scale of his architectural project in terms of innovation
29:35and ritual space and combining old ideas with new forms.
29:40Djoser was truly unique.
29:44Djoser was the pharaoh that ushered Egypt into a new era, the Age of Pyramids, the first big limestone monuments
29:51ever built.
29:52A step pyramid is the earliest incarnation of the great pyramids of Egypt.
29:58It started out as a one level tomb called a mastaba, which is the Arabic word for bench.
30:04It's just a rectangular platform.
30:06While mastabas were built of mud bricks, which were easy to produce and light enough to transport,
30:12Egyptians revolutionized architecture when they started to erect stone pyramids 2,600 years BCE.
30:19But then Djoser, in the third dynasty, the predecessor of Sikkimhet, decided it would be great to build another level,
30:28another level, and another level, and another level.
30:30And this was an architectural revolution.
30:33But also a cultural and religious revolution.
30:36It brought in a fundamental change to how ancient Egyptian kings were buried, and it shows that there was evolving
30:43conceptions about the afterlife.
30:45This is made of steps.
30:46So it's really a stairway to heaven.
30:49And it is the idea of ascending to the sky.
30:54Ancient Egyptians believed the pyramid enabled the pharaoh to attain eternal life.
30:59It allowed him to then go into the afterlife safely and play very different roles there.
31:07He would help the sun god battle against the forces of evil.
31:11He could go and have a pleasant afterlife like other private individuals.
31:22So it's a massive stairway that allowed the pharaoh to ascend all the way to heaven.
31:27And once he was up there, he would be able to come back down.
31:30That was very important for Egyptians, because the king wouldn't just stay up there.
31:34He could come back.
31:35It was a cycle of eternity, ascending, descending, and ascending, descending.
31:41Building tombs in this shape required a technique that wasn't known until the Third Dynasty.
31:46A step pyramid is made up of tiers that are arranged a bit like onion peelings.
31:51Like a system of buttresses, those tiers are inclined and lean in against the pyramid's internal pillar.
31:59It was a radically new architectural procedure, based on tilting the stones towards the center of the monument at an
32:05angle of about 15 degrees.
32:08That way, the blocks were supported by the core of the edifice.
32:13This method of laying the stone blocks so they'd lean in is the technique of inclined beds.
32:20The goal was to accrue the resistance of the structure to make it more stable.
32:26Inspired by his predecessor, Sikkim Khet probably devised an even more ambitious project than Djoser's.
32:33Perhaps that's why his pyramid presented no resistance in the face of passing time.
32:40Archaeologist Vassil Dobrev has been looking in the sand for the remains of what appears to be the first step
32:45of the pyramid.
32:47These stones formed the first step of the pyramid of Sikkim Khet, and we can clearly see how they were
32:52inclined.
32:54But more importantly, these blocks are slightly bigger compared to those of the pyramid of Djoser, who use smaller blocks,
32:59a bit like big bricks.
33:01But then ancient Egyptians gradually realized that bigger blocks meant faster construction, as they took up much more space.
33:09So Faro Sikkim Khet wanted to replicate the model of his predecessor Djoser.
33:14But in a few decades, construction techniques changed, and Egyptians understood the benefits of using bigger blocks.
33:23It enabled them to build faster and higher.
33:27If the architect got to continue their work, then this would have gone up and up and up and could
33:31have reached the height of 70 meters.
33:34And to have only the first step gives you this almost frustrating look at what could have been.
33:42While the pyramid of Djoser is 62 meters in height, that of his successor, Sikkim Khet, was supposed to rise
33:48to a height of 70 meters and to have eight steps.
33:54So why is this pyramid just a mound of sand now?
33:59Were there construction mistakes?
34:01Or was this not a suitable location?
34:10Looking at this 3D model, we can see the shape of what remains of the pyramid.
34:15When the pharaoh decided to place his pyramid at this particular site, he was not making an arbitrary choice.
34:21There was some kind of experimentation going on about laying out grounds, or maybe probing the ground.
34:27But remember, all of the pyramid landscape might have been used for other monuments previously.
34:33Sakkar was already a very sacred place.
34:35It was a necropolis complex used by the notables of the Old Kingdom.
34:39And its ground was familiar to the king's architects for the construction of tombs.
34:44The ancient Egyptians had to balance religious concerns about where a pyramid should be situated, along with geological concerns about
34:52where was best in terms of structure, in terms of it being a solid enough piece of ground to build.
34:59And they didn't always get it right.
35:02Basically, the pharaoh and his architect had to choose a place that could bear a colossus that weighed thousands of
35:08tons.
35:09Could they have chosen the wrong site?
35:12By observing the nature of this rock in detail, we realize it's marley limestone.
35:16In other words, it's very stratified and followed by layers of clay.
35:21The quality of the site chosen was at the origin of deterioration that may not have been predictable at the
35:25time.
35:27So the piece of ground they chose wasn't suitable for the construction of such an imposing monument.
35:32But the ground wasn't the only criterion for choosing a place to build a pyramid.
35:38This gigantic edifice was also a political instrument for the king.
35:44It had to be visible all the way from Memphis, the capital.
35:48The idea was to be seen. It was to make a statement.
35:51So therefore, the location had to be prominent.
35:55One last criterion was critical for the construction of this monument.
35:58There will also have been the question whether or not the stone on the location was suitable,
36:04providing stone for actually building it as well within a reasonable distance.
36:102,600 years before our era, quarrymen sourced limestone blocks on the spot.
36:16While Sekim Ket's burial chamber and the subterranean galleries were carved directly into the rock,
36:21the outer casing was erected with 50 centimeter limestone blocks.
36:27The vast majority of the limestone used came from the pyramid site itself.
36:33Quarries would be opened close to the pyramid site and that's where the stone came from.
36:38Archaeologists have found quarries 3 to 4 kilometers northwest from the location of the Pyramid of Sekim Ket.
36:44Blocks weighing several hundred kilos were extracted from those quarries.
36:50Those blocks were most likely placed on sledges, two parallel wooden planks with upturned front edges joined by cross pieces.
37:02The blocks were laid on those sledges and tied to them.
37:08The sledges on which the blocks were placed were pulled over the sand by workers with the aid of ropes.
37:15A few dozen men could easily transport the blocks that were used to build the pyramid of Sekim Ket.
37:21But after that, how were ancient Egyptians able to take those stones up to erect a pyramid that must have
37:27reached the height of 70 meters?
37:30Remains were found on a construction ramp against the west side of the Pyramid of Sekim Ket.
37:38A construction ramp was a structure that enabled workers to raise the ground as construction progressed.
37:45Unfortunately for us, the remains of that ramp are completely buried in the sand.
37:50Such remains, which were discovered during Sekarie Gonheim's excavation in the 1950s, are extremely rare.
37:56Because once the pyramid was finished, those ramps were usually taken down.
38:04These marks left on the buried pyramid of Sekim Ket provide the key to one of the best kept secrets
38:10about the construction of edifices in ancient Egypt.
38:14Construction ramps were built outside, around the pyramid.
38:18They enabled workers to take the stone blocks from the bottom to the top of the monument.
38:22The important thing for moving those sorts of things is having a smooth way to actually move them on.
38:29So actually preparing the desert surface to be able to transport stone was the important point.
38:37Oil was poured on the ground between the workers and the sledges to facilitate gliding.
38:42The stone blocks were hauled up the ramp by sheer arm strength.
38:47Who were the workers that built the pyramid of Sekim Ket?
38:50How many people were involved in this astronomical project?
38:56We have to imagine thousands of workers milling about this construction site on the desert plateau of Sekarie.
39:04They were arranged in teams and everyone had a specific role, like cutting the stone blocks or hauling them here.
39:10It was supervised by priests, five groups of priests, who supervised all the work on the construction site.
39:17Some bringing the rubble, others bringing and working on the fine stone, others carving out the bedrock and the channels
39:24and passageways and burial chambers underneath the pyramid.
39:29Several recent studies have shed new light on the working conditions of those men who built a monument that was
39:34destined to last for all eternity.
39:44These are sort of elite working teams who are well taken care of and even have a close relationship with
39:52the king.
39:53Is that true down here in the underground galleries of the Sekib Ket pyramid?
39:58I don't know. You've got to really love the king to be down here, blasting out these corridors and all
40:05these little compartments.
40:07Mark Lenner has studied the working conditions of the men who built the pyramids of Giza.
40:12In general, they were engineers who were close to the king.
40:16But down here, in the harsh underground environment, the workforce might not have been the same.
40:21There were Egyptian workers, but also captives that were captured in foreign lands and forced to work on the king's
40:28project.
40:30We can assume the hardest jobs on a construction site were imposed on prisoners and convicts as punishment.
40:38This rough and painstaking work went on for several years.
40:42The builders followed a plan designed by the king's architect.
40:46We carry on with our investigation.
40:48While exploring the galleries, Mark Lenner spots an extraordinary clue left behind 4,600 years ago.
40:57Just lying here, this is a crude redware jar.
41:04No doubt, just left behind, broken, one of the workers for something, whether it's for mortar or water.
41:16And right there is where I would say one or two people, probably men, were chopping away through the bedrock
41:24to push this gallery forward.
41:27And boom, work stopped.
41:30The American archaeologist believes this to be evidence that the builders had to suddenly stop constructing the pyramid.
41:38But why?
41:40What happened?
41:42That's a nagging question for Egyptologists, who still don't know the buried pyramid very well.
41:48To find out more, we need to explore King Sikkimket's burial chamber.
41:54So there it is.
42:02Amazing.
42:05Oh, look at that.
42:07Another mystery of an empty royal sarcophagus.
42:13Not the only one, but certainly one of the weirdest.
42:18An alabaster monolith weighing several tons of an incredible transparency.
42:24Unlike most sarcophagi of ancient Egypt, this one doesn't have a top cover, but a side hatch.
42:30I think it's unusual to find it, though, as a way of closing the sarcophagus.
42:35It's a portcullis-like mechanism, with holes on top of the slab through which ropes would be pulled to lower
42:40and raise the hatch.
42:43I've never seen one like this before.
42:45I think there's only one, Sikkimket.
42:49This is the oldest sarcophagus carved out of stone that Egyptologists know of.
42:56It wasn't put here by chance, as the 3D model helps us understand.
43:01The sarcophagus is supposed to be at the direct center underneath the point of the pyramid, the most potent place.
43:10Placed exactly underneath the apex of the pyramid, which is its highest point,
43:15it was a vessel that would take the king on his journey to the afterlife.
43:19It was believed to be a sort of ship that would enable the mummified king that lay inside it to
43:24reach heaven, basically.
43:25It was a barge that would take the king to the world of the gods.
43:30The sarcophagus was kind of like a mini pyramid, in the sense that it was another resurrection machine.
43:40It encased the body, protecting it.
43:44In essence, it's a miniature tomb encasing the body of the mummy that helped the mummy further his journey into
43:53the afterlife.
43:53The archaeologist did not find the mummy of Sikkimket in the sarcophagus, because it must have held a strong appeal
43:59to thieves.
44:01Not so much because of the king's body it encased, but because of the treasure it could enclose.
44:07What happened was, the Egyptians dug tunnels to gain access to the burial chambers.
44:11Then they took all the precious items they found in it, and unwrapped the mummy entirely to take the jewelry
44:17the king had been buried with.
44:20What could have been the appearance of King Sikkimket's mummy?
44:24We know that in the third dynasty, Egyptians already mastered the art of mummification.
44:30Mummification was in its infancy.
44:32They already had some mummifying skills and processes.
44:36The very hot and dry weather enabled an initial state of mummification.
44:41But the fact is, the old kingdom in a way perfected the art of mummification, as they managed to preserve
44:46bodies very efficiently.
44:49But how can we prove that?
44:52That's the real problem when we study ancient times.
44:55Those tombs were visible.
44:56The Egyptians knew they contained treasures, so they were massively robbed.
45:01Despite the protection hatch system of this very unusual sarcophagus.
45:08Why did they decide to make the king's coffin with this kind of stone?
45:13This alabaster was used by the Egyptian monarchy across all the periods of its history,
45:19with great emphasis during the old kingdom precisely.
45:23It's very likely that their preference for that stone was due to its white, smooth, shining and sparkling surface,
45:30that could evoke the light of the sun.
45:34How was such an imposing monolith brought all the way down here, 30 meters underground?
45:40We have strong reasons to believe that the alabaster piece of this sarcophagus came from the Khatnam quarries,
45:46situated in Middle Egypt a few hundred kilometers south.
45:49A monolith was then extracted from those quarries and transported to the Sacchera Plateau.
45:54Only when it got there was it carefully cut into a sarcophagus.
45:57That way, they avoided damaging the sarcophagus during transport.
46:01Frank Meunier examines the inside of the sarcophagus attentively.
46:06He has noticed very discreet marks, which tells us something about how this unique piece could have been cut.
46:12This sarcophagus was entirely hollowed out through this hatch.
46:16It was carved from this opening.
46:21This is absolutely fantastic because marks like these ones are extremely rare.
46:25We could still make out the marks made by tubes, most likely copper tubes.
46:30This means that the stone was dug into with tubular drills.
46:35This procedure is identical to that of a drilling system.
46:38And the task required the work of hundreds or even thousands of hours to accomplish.
46:44They rotated the tubes, most probably with abrasive sand on their tips.
46:48The abrasive sand wore the stone away and that's how parts of it were removed.
46:53They were put in the detached parts.
46:56While examining this sarcophagus, Mark Lennar notices another detail, which will help us find out why this pyramid was left
47:03unfinished.
47:06Something happened to this piece.
47:08You see where there were cracks and they chiseled out along the crack and then put in patches that they
47:14cut to match exactly the break.
47:17The patching that can be made out in the neon light indicates that something was broken.
47:24By further examining it, the archaeologist reaches the conclusion that such restoration wasn't made as well as it should have
47:31been.
47:32Oh, look at this.
47:34That's interesting.
47:37All the indications are this was finished very quickly.
47:40The back of the sarcophagus, you can actually see the hammer marks where they were pecking it into place.
47:46And right down there, that's where they stopped.
47:51They're trying to do it as nice as possible, and it is nice.
47:55But, yeah, hurriedly.
47:58Something else was going on.
48:00Something else went wrong.
48:03Whatever could have happened?
48:04Why was the construction of the Sycamquette Pyramid suddenly interrupted?
48:09We know that every pyramid building, construction project, is in fact trial and error.
48:16So, there would have been inherently problems here, too.
48:20I think the biggest problem was time, and it seems like Sycamquette's time ran out.
48:25And it was never finished.
48:26We don't know the precise dates of Sycamquette's reign.
48:31What we do know, though, is it was very short, perhaps only six years.
48:37So, Sycamquette probably died before his monument to eternity was finished.
48:43Certainly, it seems that the king's premature death could have been a valid reason for the architects to stop building.
48:53He must have had a relatively short reign, and no heirs that really wanted to go to the trouble of
48:59finishing the pyramid,
49:00although they were probably keen to give him a decent burial.
49:04One of the great mysteries of the pyramid of Sycamquette is why did no one even attempt to finish it?
49:12The mobilization of an entire people, thousands of workers, and the general enthusiasm were not enough to successfully complete the
49:20building project of the king who descended from Djoser.
49:23However, as the pyramid was supposed to enable the pharaoh to survive for all eternity,
49:28the builders insisted on constructing storage areas for the vittles the king needed in his journey to the afterlife.
49:38Scanner and modeling are powerful tools at the service of modern Egyptologists.
49:44This 3D model reveals the architectural design of these galleries,
49:47which an archaeologist employing traditional methods could not even suspect.
49:53By navigating through the image, we see galleries that aren't exactly straight.
49:58What's interesting about this scanned image is, by comparing it against the existing plans,
50:03we realize those plans are an ideal version of the monument.
50:06These galleries aren't straight, and these niches aren't exactly opposite each other,
50:11whereas they're symmetrically laid out in the plans.
50:14It's interesting because it shows all the imperfections and flaws that aren't in the plans.
50:20With this data, the scientist will be able to publish new, more accurate plans,
50:25which no archaeologists have ever been able to do until now.
50:29It seems the pyramid of Sekemket was struck by a curse,
50:32because Zakaria Gonim's discovery would turn against him.
50:36He was falsely accused of stealing antiques.
50:40As a result of that accusation, he was struck off the scientific community of Egyptologists who was forbidden to practice
50:47his profession for life.
50:49Can you imagine the tragedy that was for a man like him?
50:52He threw himself in the Nile and committed suicide very sadly, not long after this discovery.
50:58So the whole story is tinged with a little bit of sadness.
51:02And unbelievably, no one has ever returned to excavate out this complex.
51:06He left a vast archaeological site with important discoveries to be made by future Egyptologists.
51:12The complex of Sekemket is actually almost as large as that of Djoser, the neighboring complex.
51:17We can only imagine the wealth of potential discoveries that remain to be made on this site.
51:23We hope someone will continue his work in the future.
51:274,000 years ago, pyramid builders decided to construct the graves of pharaohs with limestone so they would last eternally.
51:36History has proven them right. Many monuments have withstood the ages.
51:41But there are no texts explaining the construction techniques of these abodes of eternity.
51:46More than any other, this unfinished pyramid allows us to unveil the construction secrets of the first pyramids in history.
51:54No king got a pyramid off the ground starting with Sekemket.
51:58He was the first to try and failed.
52:01No pyramid got off the ground after Djoser until the great king Sneferu comes along
52:07and does all the research and development that makes the great pyramid of Khufu possible.
52:14The pyramid of Sekemket, which is still largely unexplored, remains buried in the hot sands of Saqqara.