Lost Treasures of Egypt (2019) s03e04 Episode Script

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MOHAMED: This is the
entrance to the pyramid.
It's really very exciting.
NARRATOR: Archaeologists
are on the brink of the
discovery of a lifetime.
MOHAMED (off-screen):
Nobody entered here.
It's a really important
moment for all of us.
NARRATOR: Ahead, the burial
chamber of a mysterious ancient queen,
untouched for 4,000 years.
MOHAMED: We will see if this
wooden beam is really stable enough.
(overlapping chatter)
We will remove this part.
Let's hope it's safe.
(shifting rocks)
(speaking in native language)
NARRATOR: Egypt.
The land of the pyramids
and mighty monuments.
Built by all powerful Pharaohs
great kings like Khufu,
Ramses and Tutankhamun.
But now archaeologists are
revealing new evidence of
rulers of a different kind who
could wield great power and
even become Pharaohs themselves
the Queens of Egypt.
How do these women
rise to power in a world
dominated by men?
To investigate American
Egyptologist Colleen Darnell
explores a temple built by
one of Egypt's greatest queens
Hatshepsut.
COLLEEN:
This temple is fantastic.
NARRATOR: A row of imposing
statues lines the temple.
COLLEEN: Oh, my goodness,
this is amazing!
These statues are images of
the pharaoh in the form of Osiris,
but we know it's a king
because of the double crown
of upper and lower Egypt.
NARRATOR: This is the
temple of Queen Hatshepsut,
but there are statues of kings everywhere.
COLLEEN: The king
wears a divine beard,
and holds a crook and a flail,
typical symbols of royalty.
NARRATOR: Even though
she was a woman,
Hatshepsut portrayed herself as a man.
Colleen investigates why
COLLEEN: I would like to find
a cartouche that has a royal
name written in hieroglyphs.
NARRATOR: A cartouche is
an oval-shaped box used
in Egyptian inscriptions.
Only kings or queens could
put their name inside one.
Colleen hunts inside the temple.
It's a difficult task.
Many cartouches here have
been hacked out or destroyed.
COLLEEN: Aha!
This is the cartouche
I've been looking for.
Hat-shep-sut.
Over here is the word "saat" for daughter.
Now this is a big clue
The daughter of Re,
of his body, Hatshepsut.
NARRATOR: Hatshepsut's
cartouche identifies her as
a daughter, not a son.
It's clear she was not hiding her gender.
But the only way Hatshepsut
could project her power as a pharaoh,
was to portray herself as a man
As a king.
Hatshepsut was a queen
of Egypt and one of only
a few women ever to rule as king.
She restored broken trade
routes with foreign lands,
bringing a wealth of
luxuries like gold, myrrh,
and ebony into Egypt.
In the capital, Thebes,
she erected colossal monuments,
signifying the power, riches,
and order she brought to her country.
And her mortuary temple
is one of the grandest ever
built in Egypt.
Its splendor is a monument
to Egypt's success under
Hatshepsut's rule.
But how did this famous and
celebrated queen become king?
Colleen investigates.
COLLEEN: This is a
really interesting wall.
The name of Thutmose III is
here and these would have been
the cartouches of Hatshepsut.
NARRATOR: Hatshepsut was the
daughter of one pharaoh and
married to another.
When her husband died,
her infant
nephew Thutmose the Third became king.
COLLEEN: Thutmose III
was just a child,
so Hatshepsut essentially
ruled Egypt as queen,
but then she transforms
into Pharaoh herself,
into a co-regent, with Thutmose III.
NARRATOR: Hatshepsut
ruled as co-regent for
20 prosperous years.
The magnificent temple
is testament to her rule.
But why is it so hard to
find evidence of her here?
COLLEEN (off-screen):
After Hatshepsut's death,
Thutmose became sole pharaoh,
and later on in his reign he hacked out
the names and images
of his aunt, Hatshepsut.
NARRATOR: Thutmose wanted to
erase the memory of Hatshepsut
and her children to secure
the throne for his son.
Yet, Hatshepsut's name
survives as evidence of the
power women could attain in ancient Egypt.
COLLEEN (off-screen): She
was a spectacular pharaoh.
From monumental building campaigns,
to expeditions to far off lands,
but I want to
know more about how she ruled as a woman.
NARRATOR: Archaeologist
Patryk Chudzik is also
exploring the temple of Hatshepsut.
Like Colleen, he's on the trail of how she
ruled as a woman.
PATRYK: From
22nd-23rd dynasty.
NARRATOR: Patryk always
dreamed of becoming an Egyptologist.
Now he leads the Polish
mission at one of Egypt's most
famous monuments.
PATRYK: Hatshepsut
is my favourite pharaoh.
It's a specific
story of a woman who became a female king.
NARRATOR: His team excavates
ground beside the temple.
The old pathway leads to an ancient tomb.
PATRYK: To me it's the most
exciting tomb in the Hatshepsut temple.
NARRATOR: 100 years ago,
American archaeologist
Herbert Winlock excavated here.
But he left a secret
hidden beneath the Temple:
a tomb that he recorded
but never fully excavated.
PATRYK: We know that
this tomb was erected
around five hundred years
before Hatshepsut's reign.
And when she built her temple in this area
she left the area empty.
NARRATOR: Hatshepsut could
have destroyed the tomb to
build her temple here, but she didn't.
PATRYK: The question is
why she left the tomb open?
NARRATOR: Patryk hopes that
the mystery of the tomb might
explain why Hatshepsut built
her temple here and reveal
something of how she
ruled as a pharaoh queen.
At Saqqara, Mohamed Megahed
is also investigating
the queens of Egypt.
He is exploring the remains of
a pyramid built for a queen.
MOHAMED: I like our work
because it's not boring,
every day you have a change,
every season you come here you
have something new.
NARRATOR: Mohamed, who
lives in the Czech Republic,
has been returning to his
native Egypt for 12 years
to excavate this site.
He sees archaeology as
a forensic investigation.
MOHAMED: This is
our crime scene, every piece of sand,
every piece of limestone it
gives us an idea of how the
site looked like.
NARRATOR: Mohamed heads up
to the top of the pyramid.
The core has collapsed,
forming a deep crater in the center.
But he plans to search for
the original entrance tunnel.
MOHAMED: Today we will
start digging and finding the
entrance of the pyramid.
NARRATOR: This is the
biggest pyramid ever built
for a queen.
She must have been
extraordinarily powerful.
Who was she?
MOHAMED: For
hundreds of years,
we knew that this pyramid was a mystery.
NARRATOR: The last attempt
to excavate it in 1952 failed
to find the burial chamber.
MOHAMED: We knew that
it was built for a queen,
but we never knew who was buried inside.
We used to call this pyramid,
'The pyramid of the unknown queen.'
NARRATOR: Mohamed discovered
the identity of the owner
two years ago.
MOHAMED: We found the granite column
lying in this area and on the column,
we have the name of
the queen and her titles.
MOHAMED (off-screen):
Now we can say that this pyramid belonged
to Queen Setibhor.
NARRATOR: Setibhor was
the wife of King Djedkare,
a powerful Old Kingdom Pharaoh who ruled
4,400 years ago.
Djedkare built a pyramid 170-feet tall,
cased with white tura limestone,
and capped with a stone pyramidion
plated with gold.
Around his pyramid sprawled
a vast complex of columns,
statues, and temples.
To the northeast is a
second pyramid for his wife,
Queen Setibhor, with blocks
weighing up to 30 tons,
rising 110-feet from the desert sand.
Clad in brilliant limestone,
it had a burial chamber at
its heart to keep Setibhor's
body safe for all eternity.
Queen Setibhor's pyramid
is the largest remaining
with an unexplored
burial chamber in Egypt.
MOHAMED: The pyramid of
Setibhor is really the last pyramid
to enter in the modern time.
Nobody entered here.
It's a really important
moment for all of us.
NARRATOR: Discoveries in her
burial chamber could explain
her importance and why
she has such a huge pyramid.
But today, large parts
of the pyramid are missing and
filled with sand.
Mohamed has to dig deep
to find any remains.
A metal scraping catches
Mohamed's attention.
MOHAMED: We have here for
the first time today some
nice white limestone.
NARRATOR: The high-quality
limestone block could be a
sign of the entrance.
MOHAMED: We have
to still go deeper.
NARRATOR: After many
hours of hard digging,
Mohamed feels he is getting close.
MOHAMED (off-screen):
I'm so excited.
Underneath here, I'm
definitely sure that we will
have the entrance of the pyramid.
NARRATOR: No one in
the modern era has entered
Queen Setibhor's burial chamber,
but Mohamed has discovered
an ancient passage.
He could soon be the first
person to step inside the
chamber in over 4,000 years.
But ahead, a wall of sand blocks the way.
A team excavated here in 1952.
They built a wall and propped
up a collapsed ceiling before
they abandoned their search
for the burial chamber.
MOHAMED: We will see if this
wooden beam is really stable
enough and if it's not stable,
we have to build here a small
wall to support this.
NARRATOR: Thousands of tons
of rubble and stone are
directly above their heads.
MOHAMED: Let's hope it's safe.
We will remove this part of wood
and we'll build here.
NARRATOR: Mohamed must make
the corridor safe immediately
or risk a collapse.
MOHAMED: We cannot
leave it for tomorrow.
We have immediately to build it.
Today.
NARRATOR: At
Deir El-Bahari near Luxor,
Colleen is investigating
the reign of the pharaoh
Queen Hatshepsut and how she
ruled a society dominated by men.
COLLEEN: See,
this is interesting.
Hatshepsut is being breast
fed by goddesses and this is
something that we know kings claimed.
That they were consuming
the milk of various goddesses.
NARRATOR: The engraving
reveals that Hatshepsut
claimed kingship as her divine right.
She was the choice of the gods.
COLLEEN: This is the
god Amun, and he's seated,
his legs are, are slightly
overlapping those of Ahmose,
the mother of Hatshepsut.
Amun is handing an Ankh sign,
the sign of life to Queen Ahmose
and what this means is that Amun is
impregnating the queen.
This is the moment of
Hatshepsut's conception.
NARRATOR: Hatshepsut
claimed divine birth,
that she was the daughter of the god Amun.
It was a powerful claim.
COLLEEN: Hatshepsut is
being very clever here.
Only the king can claim
to be of divine birth.
She's using as propaganda
the divine birth,
claiming her right to be a pharaoh.
NARRATOR: Egyptians expected
the pharaoh to be male.
Hatshepsut's royal birth
and marriage were not
enough to claim the throne.
She had to invoke the will of the gods.
COLLEEN: She was
the daughter of a king,
and the wife of a king,
but the divine birth scenes
enabled her to become king.
NARRATOR: Hatshepsut
relied on clever propaganda
to legitimize her revolutionary rule.
COLLEEN (off-screen): From the
beginning of Egyptian history,
queen mothers could rule
when pharaohs were very young.
But Hatshepsut does something different.
She becomes pharaoh herself,
co-regent with Thutmose III,
and here in Hatshepsut's temple,
we see her remarkable rise to power.
NARRATOR: Hatshepsut was
the firstborn of a pharaoh.
She married the next pharaoh,
her half-brother.
But when he died,
the next male heir was her
infant nephew Thutmose.
When the child took the throne,
she ruled by his side for seven years,
but then she made a power grab,
declaring herself a true Pharaoh.
As Pharaoh, Hatshepsut
launched a campaign of propaganda.
Painting scenes showing
the great god Amun as
her father and of her birth,
in the presence of the gods,
legitimizing her as the divine heir to
the throne of Egypt.
COLLEEN: Ooh,
this is incredible!
This is Hatshepsut as a
sphinx and you can see her
long curling tail and what's
awesome are the legs of the
enemies flying up in the air,
as she tramples them.
Even though Hatshepsut was a female king,
this depiction of her as a
trampling sphinx indicates the
ferocity of her rule.
NARRATOR: Hatshepsut had to
project a carefully crafted
image of physical
strength and divine right.
She was a prototype for ruling
queens throughout history.
COLLEEN: As a female pharaoh
Hatshepsut had tremendous power,
but what I want to know
is did other queens exert
the same authority?
NARRATOR: Colleen wants
to find out if more ancient
Egyptian queens followed
Hatshepsut's example.
Or if there was another
way to be a powerful Queen.
At Saqqara, Mohamed's team
races to reinforce the
entrance to queen
Setibhor's ancient pyramid.
While Mohamed waits,
the rest of his team excavates
the strange ruins next to her pyramid.
They have found huge stone
blocks buried in a deep
sand-filled pit.
They could reveal
clues to the role and power of Setibhor.
But first they have to dig them out.
MOHAMED: It was a very simple
calculation: The block weight
is six and a half tons.
For moving heavy stones like
this you don't need muscles,
you need brain.
NARRATOR: As the
men get started,
Mohammed spots ancient
hieroglyphs carved into the granite.
MOHAMED: It's mentioning
twice the name of the queen
and one of her titles, that's it.
Interestingly, she's not
mentioning that she's the king's wife.
NARRATOR: The hieroglyphs
suggest Setibhor is not just a
royal wife.
Also, the block itself could be part of an
important structure next to her pyramid.
And could reveal the extent
of her power and importance.
MOHAMED: This is the
fun maybe in our work.
We collect small pieces
and it makes you try to
understand the rest of the story.
NARRATOR: The men
roll the block again,
until it sits precariously on the rails.
MOHAMED: Six ton and a half,
any mistake it could cause an injury.
NARRATOR: The block
is finally moving
The wrong way.
NARRATOR: The men struggle
to move the granite block
from the pit.
(cheering)
But Mohamed has a new plan to get it out
using a chain block.
MOHAMED (off-screen): We will
see if it will work or no.
(speaking in native language)
So finally, it's working!
It's slow but it's working.
NARRATOR: At last,
the men move the block and
set it aside.
MOHAMED: Wow they did it.
NARRATOR: So Mohamed
can examine it in detail.
MOHAMED: It's so beautiful.
This was the door hinge,
so the door socket was here.
NARRATOR: Mohamed discovers
the block is a lintel that
would have sat above a grand doorway.
MOHAMED: Now we know
exactly the width of the door.
In the future, we can reconstruct it.
NARRATOR: The lintel
bears Queen Setibhor's name
a clue it's part of
the mysterious structure
built next to her pyramid.
MOHAMED: She's using
very special granite,
which was only used
for kings, not for queens.
NARRATOR: Was Setibhor
acting as a king?
What will this mystery
building, and her pyramid,
reveal about Queen Setibhor's power?
At Deir El-Bahari near Luxor,
Patryk is also investigating
a queen, Hatshepsut.
Strangely, she preserved
an ancient tomb beneath her
magnificent mortuary temple.
Patryk wants to know if
it can shed light on how
Hatshepsut ruled as a pharaoh queen.
The original occupant of
the tomb remains a mystery.
PATRYK: We are sure
that it wasn't a prince
or even another son of a king.
NARRATOR: A hollow in
the floor once held a mummy
in a wooden coffin.
They are both long gone.
But Patryk's uncovered
some significant clues.
PATRYK: We are
cleaning the tomb inside.
Among the thousands of kilograms of debris
we found magnificent
objects from the tomb.
NARRATOR: Their excavations
confirm that the tomb
pre-dates Hatshepsut's
temple by hundreds of years.
Hatshepsut built her
temple with three huge,
layered terraces carved
into the rocks and parades
of 22 columns.
She adorned the walls with
scenes that proclaimed her
divine right to rule Egypt.
But in the far corner
she left a small entrance
to a corridor that led down
to a plain burial chamber.
Patryk's team excavated
rubble containing thousands of
ancient artifacts including pottery and
mysterious wooden figurines.
Why did Hatshepsut
build her temple on top of
this hidden tomb?
PATRYK: Unfortunately there
is no inscriptional evidence
but I want to get to know what the objects
which we revealed from
the debris will tell us.
NARRATOR: Pottery expert
Ania Wezranowska is working
through the thousands
of finds from the tomb.
She thinks she's found
something important.
ANIA: I wanted to show you,
there's a complete one, actually.
Ever seen something like that?
PATRYK: Never before.
Oh, that's impressive.
NARRATOR: Even the smallest
find could help reveal the
secrets of the tomb,
and what significance it
holds for Hatshepsut.
In Saqqara, deep inside the pyramid,
Mohamed's team has built
an extra supporting wall.
Now, he can resume the search for
Queen Setibhor's burial chamber.
MOHAMED: We have
measured above the pyramid,
and we are almost in the
middle of the pyramid here.
NARRATOR: If Mohamed
can reach her tomb,
it may answer vital questions.
Why did Setibhor have
the biggest pyramid ever
built for a queen?
What was the extent of her power?
But to get any further,
Mohamed faces his toughest obstacle yet.
The end of the corridor is
blocked by an unstable wall of
sand and rubble.
It could avalanche down
at the slightest touch.
MOHAMED: I called now the
Rais to instruct him how to proceed.
I also trust him, so I will take
his opinion if this is stable.
NARRATOR: The foreman, the
Rais gives a cautious go-ahead
to continue the search
for the burial chamber.
(rocks shifting)
(speaking in native language)
From the top of the pyramid,
Mohamed can see the problem.
A hole is forming in the crater.
The rubble is falling
straight through to the
men in the tunnel.
MOHAMED: The bad sign is
part of the ceiling is not preserved.
The good sign?
We are not very deep, so we are
very close to the burial chamber.
NARRATOR: Down below, the
rubble just keeps on coming.
NARRATOR: The dust slows
the work of Mohamed's men.
But finally, they make a breakthrough.
MOHAMED: For the first time,
we have daylight inside the
burial chamber of the queen.
We have to continue removing the rubble
and limestone chips.
NARRATOR: Mohamed
checks the pyramid core.
But he must tread carefully where
the tomb ceiling has collapsed.
MOHAMED: Part of the north
wall of the burial chamber of
Queen Setibhor which
is fantastic to see from
the other side.
NARRATOR: There's still
a lot of ancient rubble to
remove before he can investigate inside.
He only has one week left
on his permit for the site.
Will it be enough time
to reveal the secrets of
Queen Setibhor's burial chamber?
At Abu Simbel, near
Egypt's southern border,
Colleen visits one of Egypt's
most remarkable monuments.
She is investigating how
women wielded power as queens
in a world dominated by men.
Hatshepsut turned herself into a King.
But was there another way
for queens to exercise power?
Colleen has come to the
temple of one of the most
exalted queens of all to find out.
COLLEEN: I want to investigate
one of the greatest
queens of history.
Her name is Nefertari and she's the wife
of Ramses the Great.
NARRATOR: Ramses the Second
ruled Egypt for 60 years.
He expanded the empire
and built more monuments
than any other ruler.
His achievements earned him the title,
"Ramses the Great."
COLLEEN (off-screen): This is
a statue of Queen Nefertari
to either side are
images of her husband, Ramses the Second.
But what's remarkable is
she's almost of equal height
to the pharaoh himself.
NARRATOR: In Ancient Egypt,
size meant power.
Nefertari was portrayed as
having virtually equal power
as Ramses himself.
But Colleen finds an inscription revealing
something even more impressive.
COLLEEN: Here's an
inscription that tells us
Weben-Ra en Mirit-as,
"Ra Rises for love of her."
NARRATOR: Ra was the
ancient Egyptian sun god.
COLLEEN: This column of
Hieroglyphs means that
Nefertari was one of
the few queens to achieve
the status of a goddess.
NARRATOR: Nefertari was
honored as a goddess even
though she was not a
pharaoh queen like Hatshepsut.
What did she do to
deserve this exalted status?
COLLEEN: So now
I want to know,
is this just propaganda for
a favorite wife or did she
actually wield power?
This is the queen.
Nefertari is incredibly beautiful,
but I think there's more
to the story than that.
This is a clay tablet
found in modern day Turkey.
NARRATOR: It's a letter
written in ancient Akkadian.
It shows the queen of the
Hittites writing to Nefertari
before the two empires
completed the world's first
recorded peace treaty.
COLLEEN: This means that
she was really involved in
diplomacy between the
two greatest empires of
the ancient world.
NARRATOR: It shows that
Nefertari was an influential figure.
She helped broker a treaty
that kept peace between the
great empires for 40 years.
Ramses acknowledged his
queen's importance on the
walls of her temple.
COLLEEN (off-screen): This
is Ramses smiting an enemy.
It's a brutal, but this is
how ancient Egyptian kings
express their power.
What's unusual is that
Queen Nefertari is behind him.
NARRATOR: Kings rarely
shared the glory of military
victories with their queens.
It suggests Nefertari
played a significant role
in Ramses' reign.
COLLEEN: It's possible
that this is propaganda,
but it's also likely that this
shows Queen Nefertari had real
political power.
NARRATOR: The evidence
suggests Nefertari and Ramses
formed a royal power couple,
each vital to the success of the other.
COLLEEN:
Ancient Egyptian queens,
whether they were married to a pharaoh
or ruled as pharaoh in their own right,
they truly wielded authority.
NARRATOR: While
Hatshepsut ruled as a king,
Nefertari exercised a
different sort of power.
From behind the throne, her
astute diplomacy and political
influence helped change the
course of Egypt's history.
At Saqqara, time is running
out for Mohamed to discover
the secrets of
Queen Setibhor's burial chamber.
His team has finally cleared a path.
Now Mohamed can get through
to see the chamber for himself.
But they face a new danger from above.
The roof of the burial chamber
has completely collapsed,
and the crumbling,
overhanging walls could follow
at any moment.
MOHAMED: This is the area
which we need to support.
NARRATOR: If the walls
are only propped up by the
loose rubble underfoot,
the slightest move could bring
them crashing down in an instant.
But if they can find
solid stone foundations beneath the wall,
they can be more
confident that the overhang
won't collapse as they dig.
MOHAMED: We have here
parts of the large stones,
and he's looking for the
continuation of the stones.
NARRATOR: They search for the
massive stone slabs that once
supported the structure above.
Until they find them, their
only protection is to patch
the walls with mortar.
NARRATOR: Outside
Setibhor's pyramid,
Czech archaeologist
Hana Vymazalova helps Mohamed
investigate the mysterious ruins.
If she can discover what they were,
it might reveal the source
of Setibhor's power and
how she ruled as queen.
She finds an important clue.
HANA: Yep
So, we have here the typical
pattern of the ceilings,
like a night sky with stars.
NARRATOR: The stars
would have originally been
painted yellow on a dark blue background.
They help Hana identify the structure.
HANA: This is a roofing block,
which came from the portico of the queen.
NARRATOR: It's part
of a huge portico,
a ceremonial entrance to
what must have been a temple.
HANA: This was the portico,
and here is an entrance into
the temple which was just
opposite to the stairs and if
you measure the width of this entrance,
it actually fits very nicely.
NARRATOR: Hana's discovery
proves this mysterious
building was Queen
Setibhor's funerary temple.
Where priests and
worshippers spoke her name,
and according to Egyptian belief,
ensured her soul lived for eternity.
HANA: It is very exciting
to see it all coming together.
It's a puzzle, 3-D!
NARRATOR: It's a
significant find,
and its size is more
evidence that Setibhor was
a powerful woman.
MOHAMED: The funerary temple
is the biggest funerary temple
built for a queen in the Old Kingdom.
NARRATOR: What more can
these ruins reveal about Setibhor and
the queens of the Old Kingdom?
Could she have paved
the way for powerful New Kingdom queens
like Hatshepsut and Nefertari?
At Deir El-Bahari, Patryk
wants to know why Hatshepsut
chose this location for her temple,
and how she ruled in a
world dominated by men.
He hopes that the thousands
of finds from a tomb
beneath it might yield clues.
One new discovery
intrigues Patryk and his colleague Ania.
PATRYK: It's amazing, a double
bottle showing two females
with a female breast in the upper part.
ANIA: And that's interesting,
this has female features also.
PATRYK: And it also
came from the tomb?
ANIA: Yes, yes.
NARRATOR: The pieces
look like religious charms.
PATRYK: This cow head with
a cobra and a solar disc
between the horns,
which is unfortunately gone.
Amulets showing the head
of a woman with cow ears.
NARRATOR: Patryk has a hunch
that he's seen these features before.
He heads up to a shrine that
Hatshepsut built in her temple.
It could reveal why the
pharaoh queen built here.
PATRYK: On pillars we
can see a female head
with cow ears on both sides.
NARRATOR: Hatshepsut dedicated
this shrine to the cow goddess Hathor.
It's directly above the tomb.
The matching finds
confirm a theory Patryk has,
that the tomb was used by a
religious cult that worshiped Hathor.
Hathor was the mother of the gods
and their representatives here on earth,
the pharaohs.
Ancient Egyptians worshipped
Hathor in the form of a cow or
as a woman with cow horns,
holding the sun disc.
She was the powerful goddess
of motherhood and fertility
who breathed new life
into dead souls and guided
them to the hereafter.
In some myths, Hathor gave
birth to the sun each day,
bringing life and banishing the darkness.
She was particularly revered by pharaohs.
By feeding them her divine milk,
Hathor bestowed on them the power to rule.
PATRYK: It's really
exciting because the items which we found
in the tomb, now we know that
they were connected for sure
with the cow goddess Hathor.
NARRATOR: The tomb was
built long before Hatshepsut.
But the Hathor
amulets discovered in it date to her era.
They're powerful proof that
the old tomb was used in the
cult worship of Hathor
in Hatshepsut's time.
PATRYK: It's telling us
about a very intensive story
of the cult of the cow goddess.
NARRATOR: Patryk believes
this is why Hatshepsut
built her temple here.
This entire valley had ancient
links with the Hathor cult.
And the sheer quantity of
discoveries in the tomb prove
the cult was very active
during Hatshepsut's reign.
PATRYK: The cow goddess was
worshipped in Deir El-Bahari
at least since the Middle Kingdom.
But Hatshepsut decided to build
not only her temple at Deir El-Bahari
but also to construct a special
shrine for the cow goddess.
NARRATOR: Hatshepsut was
one of the few queens ever
to become pharaoh.
She used masculine images
all over her temple to
project her power.
But Patryk's new evidence
shows that she projected
feminine powers too,
promoting Hathor here,
ahead of all the other gods.
Hathor, the powerful
goddess of femininity,
motherhood and women,
helped Hatshepsut become the
mother of her nation.
At Saqqara, in Setibhor's burial chamber,
Mohamed's team is searching
for solid limestone
foundations beneath the overhanging walls,
so they can be sure they are safe.
He hopes the chamber will
hold clues to how Setibhor
ruled as a queen.
Was she a ruling pharaoh like Hatshepsut,
or a powerful wife like Nefertari?
Finally, a worker sees
a smooth limestone face.
Mohamed confirms it's the
stone he's been looking for.
MOHAMED: It's good news because
it's supporting all of the area here.
NARRATOR: Solid
stone foundations underpin the overhang,
so digging can safely resume.
NARRATOR: It's the last day of
excavation inside the pyramid.
Hana joins Mohamed in the burial chamber.
But will they have time to
excavate all this rubble and
find any traces of Setibhor?
They've discovered she built
the largest pyramid and
funerary temple of any
queen of the Old Kingdom.
She was a great Old Kingdom Queen
But how did she rule?
Was she pharaoh herself, or
part of a royal power couple?
Mohamed hopes that he might find
answers in the burial chamber itself.
MOHAMED: It seems
everything was smashed.
This very small, tiny,
small pieces of limestone,
it means that stone robbers
came here and smashed everything.
NARRATOR: Stone robbers
plundered valuable
white limestone from most
of Egypt's ancient tombs,
just as tomb robbers took their treasures.
But Mohamed still sees a
treasure trove of clues.
MOHAMED: Yes,
we have more surprises.
NARRATOR: The exposed
limestone reveals an
important new discovery.
MOHAMED: The serdab.
It's very nice.
The queen built for
the first time, a serdab.
It's a storeroom to the
east of her burial chamber.
NARRATOR: A serdab was a
chamber usually reserved for
a statue of the pharaoh.
Later queens had serdabs,
but Mohamed has discovered
Setibhor was the first queen to build one.
Why was Setibhor able
to claim this, and other,
privileges of kings?
All the clues show
that Mohamed and Hana have
discovered one of the
most illustrious queens
of Ancient Egypt.
Setibhor was wife of Djedkare,
one of the great pharaohs
of the Old Kingdom.
She was powerful enough to
build the largest pyramid and
temple complex of any Old Kingdom queen.
The size and design
of her mortuary temple,
looks less like a queen's
and more like a king's.
Could this mean that
Djedkare's mysterious queen
may have ruled, as king?
Hieroglyphics expert, Hana,
thinks that the answer might
be hiding on a column they
discovered by her pyramid.
It's inscribed with her name, Setibhor.
The last part of it,
"Hor" stands for Horus,
the falcon god.
HANA (off-screen): The name of Horus
is written with the individual letters,
not with the sign of the falcon,
because if it's written
as a falcon then that would
be the king's name.
NARRATOR: The Horus'
inscription reveals the true
extent of Setibhor's power.
HANA: They are features which
scream I'm the important queen,
but at the same time,
they are features which show
that she is not
a royal person, she's not the ruler,
she's not the king.
NARRATOR: Setibhor
was not a pharaoh queen,
the supreme ruler of Egypt.
She didn't have the power of Hatshepsut.
But the evidence uncovered
here suggests she was a
powerful royal from a
powerful royal dynasty,
and perhaps reigned more like
Nefertari, 1,000 years later.
HANA: Everything that
we are uncovering here.
They all seem to indicate
that she might have been
related to the kings.
So maybe she was the link
between those kings and
Djedkare himself.
Maybe that's why she was so
important because she was the
one who helped him to the throne of Egypt,
and she was the power behind the throne.
NARRATOR: Their discoveries
reveal that Queen Setibhor was
one of the most powerful
and influential figures
of Ancient Egypt.
And in a society that
venerated its ancestors,
perhaps even a role model for
the great queens that followed her.
Finally, the team's
excavated enough rubble for
Mohamed to see the dimensions
of Setibhor's burial chamber.
MOHAMED: Maybe this is a line
of the height of the room.
The ceiling reached up until
this line all the way we have
the line in the room.
All the way here.
NARRATOR: The discovery of
the ceiling line means there
is still ten feet of
rubble to clear to reveal
the entire tomb and time is running out.
Today is the last day on
his permit for the site.
MOHAMED: I'm not sure we
will reach the floor today,
actually, I'm not sure
even if we will have a floor.
NARRATOR: But Mohamed
has achieved his goal,
he's found Setibhor's burial chamber and
will return to excavate it fully.
MOHAMED: I hope in the coming
season we will come again,
and we will continue
and will finish the work.
NARRATOR: Mohamed and Hana
have rediscovered a long-lost
queen that towered over Egypt,
900-years before Hatshepsut.
A queen ahead of her time,
inspiring queens for centuries to come.
Like Hatshepsut,
who projected masculine power
but drew on the feminine goddess Hathor
And Nefertari,
who wielded her formidable
power alongside one of the
greatest kings of all time.
Perhaps Setibhor was
the trailblazer for both.
Now she can be restored
to her rightful place
alongside them and be
recognized amongst the
greatest queens of Ancient Egypt.