Lost Treasures of Egypt (2019) s03e02 Episode Script

1
EZZ: We are ready to go inside the tomb.
Oh, my God, wow!
NARRATOR: In a newly opened,
3,000-year-old tomb,
archaeologists investigate
the last mystery
of the boy king, Tutankhamun.
A lot of human remains
a lot of skeletons.
I need more light.
Oh, my God.
Skulls everywhere.
Wow.
It looks like it could be a mummy.
NARRATOR: The Valley of the Kings,
an ancient desert necropolis
and, in the second millennium BC,
the final resting place of the pharaohs
of Egypt's new kingdom.
Here, 100 years ago,
archaeologists made
one of their greatest ever discoveries.
They found the most spectacular
treasures ever recovered
from one of the most alluring
civilizations in human history,
the lost tomb of Tutankhamun.
Tutankhamun became Egypt's pharaoh
at just nine years old.
He died only ten years later.
The boy king
and the treasures buried with him
made headlines around the world.
But compared to other pharaoh's tombs,
Tutankhamun's burial chamber
is small and poorly decorated.
Why is he buried
in such uninspiring surroundings?
What could it reveal about his life?
Now, at sites across Egypt,
we follow teams of archaeologists
and investigators,
working to unlock
Tutankhamun's last mystery.
OLA: Wow. It's wow, wow, wow, wow.
NARRATOR: Egyptologist, Aliaa Ismail,
has worked
in the Valley of the Kings since 2014.
At just 30, she leads a team
of fellow Egyptians
who in a world first time
are digitally reconstructing the
valley's tombs, and recording
them for posterity.
They're searching for clues
as to how King Tutankhamun's tomb
was built that might explain the mystery
of his strange burial.
This tomb is very small and you notice
that once you get in.
Also, the figures, they look very
different from other tombs in the valley.
They're almost like child's drawing.
Immediately I can understand that
there's something wrong with this tomb.
NARRATOR: Deep inside
the valley of the kings,
tunnels burrow deep into the rock.
In the largest tomb,
there are more than 100 chambers.
In the center of the valley
lies the most famous tomb of all,
the tomb of Tutankhamun.
It was discovered full of treasures
and with a coffin
made of over 240 pounds of solid gold.
But all this was packed
into just four tiny rooms.
Archaeologists have studied
the tomb for a century,
but it's still to give up
all of its secrets.
ALIAA: There is certainly something
not right about this tomb.
It's very different from other tombs
in the Valley of the Kings.
NARRATOR: To better
understand the strangeness
of Tutankhamun's tomb,
Aliaa compares it to a tomb
created less than 50 years
after Tutankhamun's burial,
the tomb of Seti I.
Seti's tomb has ten rooms compared
to Tutankhamun's four.
Most of these rooms
were likely full of treasures.
They are still lined with stunningly
carved and painted reliefs.
It's spectacular
compared to Tutankhamun's.
Here you can see so much work,
so much effort has been put
into making this tomb
what it is today.
NARRATOR: Aliaa uses
the world's most precise
3D scanner to map
the walls of Seti's tomb.
She compares her results to the scans
the team have already made
of Tutankhamun's tomb.
The scans allow Aliaa
to analyze the tomb's carvings
and paintings and compare the level
of craftsmanship at work in each.
The comparison could reveal
crucial information
about Tutankhamun's last days
and may explain why he ended up
in such a tiny and poorly decorated tomb.
We are trying to get
all the little details that
one wouldn't see with our eyes,
out into the scanners.
NARRATOR: What lost details
will Aliaa's scans reveal?
Can they explain the mystery
of Tutankhamun's tomb?
In Gebel el-Silsila,
Swedish archaeologist, Maria Nilsson,
and her British husband,
Archaeologist John Ward,
are heading out to a dig
for the first time
since the global COVID pandemic
forced them off site.
JOHN: It's gonna be an amazing day today.
I expect the same.
NARRATOR: Maria and John
are picking up where they left off.
They are following the lead
of a 120-year-old archaeological report
that briefly mentions a now lost temple.
The report doesn't describe
the temple itself,
but it does describe its location,
claiming that it once stood
on the Nile's West Bank
where the quarry workers' village lies.
When they were last here,
Maria and John dated the
quarry workers' village
to the reign of Tutankhamun
and they suspect he built
the lost temple too.
They are now searching for evidence
that could back up their hunch.
To get to their dig,
they must cross the Nile.
The team's effort to board
their boat bright and early
didn't go quite as quickly as planned.
JOHN: It's one of those usual mornings,
when we go over to Tut's Village
it's always chaos
because we've gotta get everything
on the boat first.
The first day is always chaos
because you need to move
all the equipment.
JOHN: Alright, guys.
(speaking in native language)
MARIA: (in native language) Thank you.
NARRATOR: (in English)
On the West Bank of the Nile,
the team make the tough hike
across open country,
toward the workers' village.
JOHN: There's nothing easy
about going up this hill.
NARRATOR: Once there, Maria searches out
Tutankhamun's inscription.
MARIA: So we know that this
is the name of Tutankhamun,
based on the combination of hieroglyphs
that you have here.
NARRATOR: There's lots of evidence
of Tutankhamun
in this quarry workers' village.
Considering that we have Tutankhamun here,
we have it in-- in the workers' village,
we do have a hunch that the temple
was also constructed by Tutankhamun.
NARRATOR: Before they set off
to search for any ruins,
John and Maria check their bearings.
From here onward, everything they excavate
is in archaeologically
uncharted territory.
- JOHN: If Tut's village is here.
- MARIA: Mm-hmm.
JOHN: And then our wadi is in here.
MARIA: So we believe
that the temple is somewhere
- in this part here.
- Somewhere in that area.
MARIA: This is exciting.
JOHN: It is indeed.
MARIA: We're finally here.
JOHN: Finally.
NARRATOR: The team gets to work,
searching the landscape.
They scan the surface material,
hunting for evidence
that the lost temple stood here.
JOHN: I wanted to start
from that big stone.
- AHMED: Yep.
- JOHN: And I want them to sweep,
as a line, taking in that edge,
and then we work our way up, okay?
But they have to look
at every single stone.
NARRATOR: A meticulous search
across the valley floor
eventually delivers a result.
Team foreman, Ahmed Mansur,
brings over something special.
MARIA: What you got?
- Oh, ooh!
- JOHN: Oh, yes, yeah!
- (speaking in native language)
- MARIA: Excellent work!
JOHN: Yes!
NARRATOR: In Luxor,
behind the Valley of the Kings,
lies the sprawling necropolis of Asasif.
An ancient burial ground
for the elite nobles
who served the pharaohs.
Egyptian archaeologist,
Ezz El Noby and his team
are excavating a giant tomb
with an impressive pillared entrance.
Ezz was fascinated
by Ancient Egypt as a boy
and has spent his entire adult life
excavating the tombs here at Asasif.
We hope it's an intact tomb.
Inshalah, we hope.
NARRATOR: Can this huge tomb
shed light on the mystery
of Tutankhamun's tomb
and help reveal why it lacks
the usual majesty?
EZZ: Until now, we don't know
the name of the owner.
They may have a job
like a scribe or a priest
or a high priest or a vizier.
Who knows?
NARRATOR: The workers labor
beneath a hot desert sun,
to haul each 10 pound bucket of sand
up and out of the 20 foot
deep tomb courtyard.
But soon the team uncover a clue.
He found a little rope.
We don't know the function of the rope.
This may be part
of the bandages of a mummy.
NARRATOR: The rope looks as good as new,
but it's over two-and-a-half
thousand years old.
It's a big clue that inside the tomb,
there may be ancient mummies.
NARRATOR: Ever since Tutankhamun's
treasures were discovered,
unopened tombs have been
a holy grail for archaeologists.
Ezz's team clears away sand
to open up this tomb's entrance.
Expectations are high
that there are treasures inside.
As they dig, they uncover more
and more pieces of fabric and bone.
The sheer quantity of finds
is a good sign.
They found some linen bandages, I think.
Yeah, we have human bones
linen, ropes.
NARRATOR: The number
of artifacts coming out of the sand
suggests that this is a very large tomb.
Debris like this is strong evidence
it was raided in the past.
To drop this much material
on their way out,
tomb raiders must have found
a significant hoard inside.
I think we will have more than one mummy
because we have many kinds of linens
different colors and different fabric.
NARRATOR: The team works
all morning to clear sand
from the tomb's entrance.
Finally, there's enough room
for Ezz to take a peek.
Wow. I'm very excited.
I want to know what's inside.
Wow, my God, there's a very big hallway.
NARRATOR: At Saqqara,
Egyptian archaeologist, Ola El Aguizy,
is also trying to unearth a lost tomb.
Ola is looking for new evidence
to understand
how tombs were built
in Egypt in the generations
that follow Tutankhamun.
That evidence might shed light
on the mystery of Tutankhamun's own tomb.
Ola has been studying
Egypt's tombs since the 1970s,
when she became fascinated with decoding
and understanding ancient hieroglyphs.
We are expecting
to find something important,
so we are waiting in suspense, yes.
NARRATOR: Three years ago,
Ola discovered an intriguing
limestone lintel here,
with a name engraved into it,
Ta Mwiyah.
Her investigations reveal this figure
was born into a military family.
He lived just 50 years after Tutankhamun.
What we found in this whole area
are military men.
This habit of getting military buried here
has began since the time of Tutankhamun.
NARRATOR: Ola directs her team
to search for the tomb's entrance,
near where she found the lintel.
Soon, white limestone blocks
emerge from beneath the sand.
OLA: Oh, I can see
hieroglyphic texts here!
A wall!
Oh, my God, so nice.
NARRATOR: To be sure this is the entrance
to Ta Mwiyah's lost tomb,
Ola investigates the ancient inscriptions.
OLA: The great overseer
of the stables in the temple
of the King of Upper
and Lower Egypt and then the name
of the deceased, Ta Mwiyah.
NARRATOR: The hieroglyphs confirm,
this is the entrance to Ta Mwiyah's tomb.
Now, Ola's team must excavate further.
They have to dig through
several tons of sand
and hope the tomb and it's treasures
are intact after 3,300 years.
Just inside the tomb's entrance,
they reveal something extraordinary.
OLA: You found something?
NARRATOR: A beautiful
painted artwork on plaster.
OLA: Wow. It's, wow, wow, wow, wow.
NARRATOR: At Gebel el-Silsila,
near a quarry workers' village
on the West Bank of the Nile,
Maria and John's search
for evidence of a temple that
may have been built by Tutankhamun,
unearths a precious clue.
MARIA: That is gorgeous!
JOHN: Oh! Isn't that beautiful?
MARIA: Oh, it's a typical Amarna ware.
JOHN: Look at the lotus.
This pottery is so typical
for what we know as the Amarna period,
so from Amenhotep III through
to Tutankhamun.
NARRATOR: The pottery shard
is painted with blue lotus flowers.
A typical motif
from the time of Tutankhamun.
This find confirms that the old reports
of some kind of permanent settlement here
are accurate
and that this settlement
dates to the era of the boy king.
It's easy to imagine that this was once
part of a massive water vessel
that once stood in the courtyard
of the temple
that once stood in this wadi.
And for us, that is a beautiful
piece of datable material.
NARRATOR: To find conclusive evidence
that a temple once stood here,
the team starts
the first of several trenches.
If they can find pieces
of an ancient wall,
it will be a significant clue
that a large structure once stood here.
As the workers remove
the top levels of sand,
they make another discovery.
JOHN: Amazing!
I love you.
(speaking in native language)
JOHN: Where? Where did you find it?
NARRATOR: It's a piece
of worked sandstone.
It's small, but that has now,
that's just made my day.
That is from the interior
of the structure,
whether that be a temple, kiosk, shrine,
whatever it was.
It has plaster and
then painted inscription,
relief over the top.
NARRATOR: The team find more
and more pieces of dressed stone
in the trenches
and among the surface scatter.
This proves that there was something here
that was more substantial.
NARRATOR: The dressed stone
is evidence
that the team could have found
Tutankhamun's temple.
You know, no one's ever
documented this temple
and we're the first ones to do it
and to me, that's just amazing,
it's awesome.
NARRATOR: Less than a mile
from Tutankhamun's tomb
in the Valley of the Kings,
Ezz is preparing to enter
a tomb he has just opened.
The discoveries awaiting Ezz
inside may have lain unseen
by human eyes for nearly 3,000 years.
By the end of the first workday,
the tomb's entrance is completely clear.
EZZ: We are ready to go inside the tomb.
Oh, my God.
Wow!
A lot of human remains
a lot of skeletons.
I need more light.
Oh, my God.
Skulls everywhere.
There's hundreds of skulls,
hundreds of human remains.
It is a very big discovery.
The biggest discovery of my career.
NARRATOR: Today's discovery
is a once in a lifetime find.
It's instantly clear
that the tomb is far bigger
than the burial chamber
in Tutankhamun's tomb
and doorways lead off to more rooms.
To discover who this tomb was built for,
Ezz must investigate
the far end of the chamber.
To get there, the team must remove
each of the 100 plus bones
littering the floor.
It's likely that these are the bones
of many generations of the same family.
We have to work carefully with the bones
because they're so fragile.
NARRATOR: With clear access,
Ezz finds further passageways
leading off the main hall
and a false door.
A false door is a doorframe
carved into solid stone.
Those buried here believed
their souls would pass through this door
and into the afterlife.
It's a very big tomb
lot's of room, lot's of bones.
NARRATOR: The false door
often carries inscriptions
identifying the tomb owner,
but here there's no evidence
of their identity.
No inscription for this.
I can't tell the name
of the owner of the tomb.
NARRATOR: For a moment,
it looks like the tomb hall
may have revealed all of its secrets.
But, in the corner, Ezz spots
a mysterious shape under the sand.
EZZ: Wow!
Looks like it could be a mummy.
NARRATOR: Ezz's team work quickly
to free the mummy from millennia of dust.
I think maybe
the owner of the tomb
or one of his family.
Ahmad!
Please, come.
NARRATOR: Now, the team must move
the mummy to the site's conservation area.
Ahmed Mohamed, the team's conservator,
prepares the linen
to stop it from disintegrating.
(in native language) Alls is well?
Do you think we can take it out?
Yes, it'll come out.
NARRATOR: (in English) Workers face
a tough challenge
to maneuver the mummy out of the tomb
and up a flimsy scaffold
to the top of the 20 foot deep courtyard.
The operation is fraught with danger,
for both the work crew and the mummy.
(in native language) Hold on, wait,
remove your hand.
Be careful, climb up the ladder. Climb up.
So up from Abu Ali's side, that's it.
Watch the pole, that's it.
Right here.
Put it down.
Praise God.
(speaking in native language)
NARRATOR: (in English) The workers deliver
the mummy to the restoration team,
without it or them coming to any harm.
Analysis of the mummy
will help the team uncover
this tomb's lost secrets.
Why did a servant
of the pharaohs get a bigger tomb
than Tutankhamun himself?
I am very, very happy.
We found tombs, we found mummies,
we found a big number of human remains
but still a lot of work ahead.
NARRATOR: Mummification
was practiced for 3,000 years
of Egyptian history
on pharaohs like Tutankhamun
and their servants buried here.
They believed it preserved
the body for the afterlife.
Belief in this afterlife
was constant and unshakable,
except for one brief and shocking moment
in Egyptian history when the pharaohs'
faith in eternal life vanished.
It was a revolution
that shaped Tutankhamun's
short life.
Did it also shape his mysterious tomb?
At Gebel el-Silsila,
Maria and John have found evidence
of a building on the valley floor.
Their finds suggest
the structure could be a temple,
dating to the time of King Tutankhamun.
JOHN: This little shard,
this little fragment
is all that I have left,
at this present moment,
of what was once
a highly decorated temple,
situated somewhere in this wadi.
NARRATOR: Maria and John
will continue their investigation,
but another mystery here
could help explain
Tutankhamun's tomb
and the religious revolution
that surrounded his life.
Previous generations of pharaohs,
including Tutankhamun's father,
built on the East Bank of the Nile,
but strangely, Tutankhamun quarried
and built on the West Bank.
When we look at the reasons
why Tutankhamun
had his quarries on the West Bank,
we do think that it has a strong link
with the priesthood,
the priesthood of God Amun
and that they wanted
to see him with a fresh start.
NARRATOR: Tutankhamun's
powerful high priests
wanted a fresh start because
they were fighting for their survival.
When Tutankhamun's father,
Akhenaten, became pharaoh,
he led a revolution
that transformed Egyptian religion.
He abandoned sacred temples
and he banned belief in the old Gods
and the afterlife.
He replaced them
with a single God, the Aten.
Akhenaten built a new capital, Amarna,
abandoning the traditional home
of the pharaohs at Thebes.
When Akhenaten died,
Tutankhamun faced a choice:
carry on his father's
unpopular religious revolution
or restore the old Gods to their temples
and their priests.
JOHN: Tutankhamun's father, Akhenaten,
not only did he close the temples
and reduce the pantheon of Gods
down to just one, the Aten,
he created a chaotic system
which, unfortunately,
Tutankhamun inherited.
NARRATOR: Tutankhamun's father,
as a self-proclaimed God on Earth,
declared that he alone
could communicate with the
sun God, Aten.
Neither the high priests
nor Egypt's nobles were happy.
When the boy king,
Tutankhamun came to the throne,
many of his most important
advisors demanded he reverse
his father's revolution.
Tutankhamun was a young pharaoh
and he would have relied heavily
upon his advisors
and the court around him.
NARRATOR: Tutankhamun agreed
to return to the old ways.
He quarried and built on the opposite bank
of the Nile to his father,
to make clear his opposition
to his father's reforms.
I think he was able to,
in his short reign,
reestablish the power of Egypt.
Tutankhamun was able
to revive Egypt like a phoenix,
out of the chaos
that his father had left behind.
NARRATOR: Did Tutankhamun's
counterrevolution succeed?
And can this decisive moment
in Egyptian history
explain the mystery
of his unimpressive tomb?
Just four miles from Luxor,
in the Valley of the Kings,
Aliaa and her team
are using a 3D scanner to investigate
the tombs of Tutankhamun
and Pharaoh Seti I.
Seti is buried
in a majestic ten room tomb.
Tutankhamun's four room tomb is so small,
it hardly seems fit for a pharaoh.
At the team's HQ,
Aliaa compares the scan results
to reveal hidden details
in each tomb's wall decorations
and investigates if they are connected
to the religious revolution
that shaped Tutankhamun's reign.
So, this is our lab,
where the magic happens. (laughs)
NARRATOR: Aliaa puts
the scans of each tomb
side by side and investigates.
The difference
between Seti and Tut is visible.
Seti's tomb, it
has so many carved details,
it's so intricately done and very special.
But however, when we go into Tut's tomb,
it's just plaster and paint.
NARRATOR: Her 3D scans reveal unique
and unprecedented details.
So Aliaa can see a remarkable flaw
in Tutankhamun's tomb.
ALIAA: When you zoom in,
you can have a look at the faint
outline of the brush marks.
It's obvious that the plaster
was still wet
when they started painting over it.
NARRATOR: The brush marks point
to an extraordinary theory.
ALIAA: It seems that somebody wanted
to rush Tutankhamun's burial.
Clearly someone wanted
to close the tomb doors quickly,
not even waiting for the plaster
to dry before applying the paint.
NARRATOR: The rush to finish Tutankhamun's
tomb adds to the mystery
of its small size.
Who was responsible
for leaving the boy king
in this underwhelming tomb?
Was it revenge
for his father's revolution?
NARRATOR: Inside King Tutankhamun's
tiny tomb,
Aliaa continues her investigation.
There is certainly something
not right about this tomb.
NARRATOR: A crucial clue
to the identity of the person
who buried Tutankhamun
in this unworthy tomb,
rests with a puzzling portrait,
painted onto the tomb walls.
Before Tutankhamun's body
was taken down into his tomb,
a figure dressed in leopard skin performed
a sacred ritual.
He touched a serpent-headed blade
to the eyes and lips of Tutankhamun,
believing it allowed
the dead pharaoh's soul
to see and breathe.
His spirit could now take part
in a feast with his mourners,
sustenance for the journey
that they believed Tutankhamun
would make into the afterlife.
It was a ritual traditionally performed
by the heir to the throne.
Was the leopard skinned figure
also responsible
for Tutankhamun's tomb?
Aliaa travels to the nearby
Valley of the Monkeys
to investigate the mysterious man.
ALIAA: This tomb is the tomb of Ay.
This is my first time here.
NARRATOR: Ay is the man who is depicted
guiding Tutankhamun's soul
to the afterlife
on the walls of Tutankhamun's tomb.
He was possibly the father
of Tutankhamun's step mother, Nefertiti,
and a trusted advisor to the boy king
throughout his reign.
It's amazing
how the background color is yellow,
which is the same as Tut's tomb
and the drawing style is also the same.
The same opening
of the mouth scene exists in Tut.
Also, there is no carving.
The wall is just plaster and paint.
It's almost like the same person
did the two tombs.
NARRATOR: Tutankhamun
died young with no heirs.
His premature death
led to a power struggle
among those with a claim
to become the next pharaoh.
Was Ay, and his battle to become king,
responsible
for Tutankhamun's strange burial?
At Saqqara Necropolis,
Ola's team of archaeologists
is searching for the tomb of a man
called Ta Mwiyah.
He was an important aide
to the pharaoh who ruled Egypt
fifty years after Tutankhamun's death.
Tutankhamun was intent on reversing
his father's religious revolution.
Did his plan succeed?
Ola's Egyptian colleague, Tarek Tawfik,
spots a piece of intriguing evidence.
TAREK: Ta Mwiyah
and his wife, on limestone,
this is good news.
OLA: And I think I will have
the name of the wife now.
Married F, his beloved
and then this is supposed
to be her name, Tubi.
NARRATOR: Carved reliefs
of Ta Mwiyah and his wife, Tubi,
fill the tomb walls.
TAREK: We have the deceased and his wife.
OLA: Mm-hmm.
TAREK: And they are going
and being received by a God.
OLA: Uh-huh.
And it's not Osiris
and it's not Ptah, so who was it?
Atum maybe?
OLA: This is significant.
Religiously significant.
NARRATOR: The reliefs depict
the couple's journey to heaven
and their eternal life in paradise.
Similar scenes adorn the walls
of Tutankhamun's tomb.
Ancient Egyptians,
just 50 years after the death
of Tutankhamun,
still believe that carvings
like these on tomb walls,
magic the afterlife into reality.
But to which Gods are these paintings
and reliefs dedicated?
Who do the Egyptians worship now,
after Tutankhamun's death?
And what does it mean
for the mystery of his tomb?
NARRATOR: Tarek and Ola
continue their excavations.
They could shed light
on whether Ancient Egyptians
still worshiped the sun God, Aten,
as demanded by Tutankhamun's father,
or had they returned to the
older pantheon of Gods.
On site, the workers continue to search
for this tomb's burial chamber.
TAREK: It's always exciting.
Sometimes there is even,
between the workmen,
a bit of competition, who will find first?
NARRATOR: While conservators
move the painted walls
to the store rooms for safekeeping,
Tarek spots something in the sand.
TAREK: We have a pillar
and I can see already,
there is a Djed pillar decorated on it.
NARRATOR: It's an important find.
This pillar confirms the nature
of Ancient Egyptian religious beliefs
in the years after the Amarna Revolution
and Tutankhamun's death.
This is exciting,
the deceased appearing now
as he would have been carrying
the Djed pillar.
NARRATOR: The Djed symbol
represents the God Osiris,
who arose from the dead to live again
as king of the afterlife.
Ancient Egyptians painted the symbol
on the bottom of coffins,
and wrapped the mummy with Djed amulets
to summon Osiris
and rejuvenate the soul of the deceased.
They also carved Djed symbols
onto the pillars in their tombs
to follow Osiris to the afterlife.
In the time of Amarna,
they told them that there is no afterlife.
After there was a reaction,
then extreme worshiping Osiris.
NARRATOR: The team has found inscriptions
to Osiris and Ptah,
Gods whose worship Tutankhamun's
father had forbidden.
It's more evidence
Tutankhamun had abandoned
his father's revolution.
He has restored belief
in the afterlife and the power
of all Egypt's Gods.
The religious revolution,
demanding the worship
of a single sun God, was over.
This was a feat that deserved
a magnificent burial and a majestic tomb,
so why didn't Tutankhamun's mummy
get the tomb it deserved?
In the Valley of the Kings,
Aliaa is investigating this mystery.
Why did Ay banish Tutankhamun
to such a small and poorly decorated tomb?
Aliaa examines Ay's tomb
to look for clues.
That's a baboon wall.
Both Tut and Ay opted for the same scene,
almost like the same person
chose what goes in each tomb.
NARRATOR: The uncanny
similarities between the two chambers
suggests a common hand
was at work on both,
but only Ay's tomb was fit for a pharaoh.
It's very similar to the tomb
of Tomb of Tutankhamun.
The style, the artwork, the sarcophagus.
But it's so much bigger!
NARRATOR: The artistic style
of the two tombs suggests that
Ay may have been responsible
for decorating both.
Investigators now suspect
that when Tutankhamun died,
unexpectedly young,
the lavish tomb he ordered
for himself was not finished.
Ay seized the moment.
He ordered Tut be buried
in a smaller tomb.
It was quickly decorated
and sealed before the paint
had a chance to dry.
With Tutankhamun gone,
and before any challengers
could oppose him,
Ay crowned himself Pharaoh
and decreed that when he died,
he would take Tutankhamun's tomb.
ALIAA: Ay buried Tutankhamun
in the smaller tomb,
so he could have
the bigger tomb for himself.
This is the tomb
that was intended for Tutankhamun,
the tomb of Ay.
NARRATOR: Ay banished
Tutankhamun to an unworthy tomb
to secure his place as pharaoh.
Later pharaohs
erased Tutankhamun from history,
smearing his name as the son of a heretic.
But 100 years ago,
when his tomb was discovered,
Tutankhamun was reborn a superstar.
Now, experts use the clues
to piece together
his true legacy.
As a boy king, dealing with the aftermath
of his father's religious revolution,
Tutankhamun navigated
a royal court in turmoil,
but heeding the advice
of his most trusted advisors,
he reinstated the priesthood,
he rebuilt Egypt's temples
and he replaced the sun God, Aten,
with the Egyptian Gods of old.
After his father's years of misrule,
the reign of the young Pharaoh Tutankhamun
saw Egypt restored to greatness.