Lost Treasures of Egypt (2019) s04e01 Episode Script

1
(suspenseful music)
Every year, this is what I wait for.
NARRATOR:
Hidden 23 feet underground,
the tomb of an ancient Egyptian noble from
the era following Tutankhamun's death.
OLA:
Oh. What's that?
NARRATOR: The chambers look
undisturbed for thousands of years.
What are we going to find here?
NARRATOR: Buried inside, an
archaeologists dream discovery.
OLA:
Oh, my God. Wow.
I think I found something.
It's amazing. Ooh.
(grand music)
NARRATOR:
The Valley of the Kings,
the final resting place of some
of Egypt's greatest pharaohs.
Here, in November 1922, British
archaeologist Howard Carter
discovered the tomb of
the boy king Tutankhamun.
His discovery was a global sensation
and the biggest archaeological
find of the century.
Tutankhamun became Pharaoh in 1333 BCE.
He died in mysterious
circumstances, aged just 19.
His tomb and its stunning golden treasures
offer a window into how the
pharaoh lived, ruled and died.
Today, our experts across Egypt
investigate Tutankhamun
to unlock the secrets of his reign.
WORKERS:
(untranslated)
They search for evidence the boy
king may have been murdered,
of who may have had a motive to kill him,
and look for clues in the
Egypt he left behind.
Near the city of Luxor,
in the Valley of the Kings,
Egyptologist Aliaa Ismail investigates a
mystery surrounding Tutankhamun's death.
Did Tutankhamun die of natural causes?
Or was his death a murder?
NARRATOR: For six years,
Aliaa has led an Egyptian team
which has scrutinized every
inch of Tutankhamun's tomb.
The team is digitally scanning
and mapping the valley's tombs
to recreate them in high definition;
an aid for researchers and restorers.
Now she is returning to the
Boy King's burial chamber,
hunting for clues to his death.
ALIAA:
It's amazing to be here by myself
and so close to the
walls and the paintings.
NARRATOR: Aliaa searches
the tomb for anything unusual
that could reveal suspicious circumstances
around Tutankhamun's burial.
She soon spots a clue on the walls.
ALIAA: Looking at the tomb,
I could tell that this was a rushed job
and that is because of these black
marks that you see all over the wall,
which were developed when the paint
was painted directly on the wet plaster.
NARRATOR: The black marks are
spots of ancient microbial growth.
They're evidence that the
tombs paint was still drying
when the chamber was quickly
sealed after the king's burial.
ALIAA:
The reason that everything was hurried
was that Tutankhamun died
very young and unexpectedly.
NARRATOR: Tutankhamun died around 1324
BCE after only a decade on the throne.
He was buried in a tomb in the Valley
of the Kings that was so small,
it could barely contain all his
lavish gold and grave goods.
He had no son and his stillborn
twin daughters were buried
in small coffins alongside
him in the tomb.
His royal bloodline ended, leaving
his widow, Queen Ankhesenamun,
in need of a new husband,
and Egypt in need of a king.
Aliaa wants to examine Tutankhamun's mummy
to find out if there is any evidence to
explain why he died so unexpectedly.
Today, it remains on display in his tomb
inside a special climate-controlled case.
This mummy is thousands of years old.
NARRATOR: At first sight,
the mummy contains few clues
to the cause of the young Pharaoh's death.
His mummy overall is
not in a very good condition.
It's really hard to tell
how he would have died.
But then I found that early archaeologists
have done some X-ray scans.
NARRATOR: In 1968, British anatomist,
Professor Ronald Harrison,
conducted an X-ray
examination of the mummy.
Inside Tutankhamun's skull,
Harrison discovered loose bones.
It appears his skull was fractured.
Perhaps a sign that the young pharaoh
was bludgeoned on the head.
Part of his sternum and ribs were missing.
And unlike most mummies,
his heart had been removed.
Later scans revealed a fracture
at the base of his left femur.
The cause of the broken leg is unknown.
But the scans suggest it's possible that
Tutankhamun died as a result of foul play.
Harrison's X-rays caused
a global sensation.
ALIAA: This is what led people to think
that Tutankhamun was murdered.
NARRATOR: Tutankhamun's death
had become a murder inquiry,
Ancient Egypt's greatest murder mystery.
To find out if Tutankhamun was murdered,
Aliaa wants to investigate the people
closest to the doomed pharaoh.
ALIAA: I want to find out who
would have benefited the most
from Tutankhamun's murder.
NARRATOR:
In Saqqara, 20 miles south of Cairo,
archaeologist Ola El Aguizy and her team
are excavating an ancient necropolis.
It contains the tombs of the Egyptians
who seized control of the country
after Tutankhamun's reign ended
with no heir on the throne.
Tutankhamun, who died very early,
it was very dangerous for the country.
NARRATOR: Ola has been an
archaeologist for five decades
and has been digging at
this site since 2005.
OLA: Working in Saqqara and
discovering and working on these tombs
is very, very exciting for me. I like
it because I feel I'm alive here.
I feel that I am in the
heart of archaeology.
NARRATOR: Ola's interest in Egyptology
began with her love of ancient languages.
She can decipher and
translate hieroglyphs fluently.
I am now a full professor
of ancient Egyptian language.
NARRATOR: Last season, Ola
uncovered the upper parts of a tomb
belonging to a man called Ptah Mwia.
Oh, I can see hieroglyphic decks here.
The name of the deceased, Ptah Mwia.
NARRATOR: This season, Ola
and her team hope to find
Ptah Mwia's intact burial chamber.
Intact chambers are incredibly rare
and may contain stunning grave goods,
including a coffin or a mummy.
Hopefully, yes. Maybe the
coffin on the lower level.
NARRATOR:
Ancient Egyptians were buried
with things they thought
they needed in the afterlife.
Any artifacts that remain
would hold clues to Ptah Mwia
and reveal more about those who
ruled Egypt after Tutankhamun
and may have benefited from his death.
Ola's team has located the
top of the shaft filled with sand
at the center of the courtyard
in Ptah Mwia's tomb.
Its position suggests the shaft
will lead to his burial chamber.
We have begun to dig the shaft, which is
always in the middle of the pillared hall.
NARRATOR: The shaft is likely
to be more than 20 feet deep.
It could take the team a
week to remove all the sand.
Site director Tarek Tawfik
oversees the operation.
TAREK:
They just are now making a chain of men.
getting the sand up
and then into the carts.
Ah, yes.
TAREK:
And being taken to the hill over there.
- OLA: Okay.
- TAREK: So this goes much quicker now.
NARRATOR: The team quickly
dig out the top layers of sand,
but now seven feet down,
they are too deep to pass the
heavy bucket to the surface by hand.
Now they're putting the
winch that they were using
to lower the buckets for the sand. They
will not be able to go down without it.
(indistinct chatter)
NARRATOR:
The giant hand-operated rope winch
should help the workers lift full buckets
of sand and speed up the excavation.
It might look primitive,
but it's very effective and quick.
NARRATOR: But it's not long
before they hit a problem.
We are finding the block in the shaft.
NARRATOR: Workers discover large
pieces of limestone blocking their way.
We have to remove
these huge blocks from inside.
NARRATOR:
The shaft is now almost ten feet deep.
They need to work out a way to
remove the heavy limestone blocks
if they are to reach the bottom and find
out if there's a burial chamber below.
(foreign language dialogue)
In the cliffs near the
southern city of Aswan.
Italian archaeologist Patrizia Piacentini
is investigating a vast necropolis.
PATRIZIA: I am here because
I want to know something
about the history of the past
and to know the people.
It's the beautiful part of our work,
really, to not only to study the pharaohs,
but also the normal people and the child.
NARRATOR: This season, her
efforts are focused on a tomb
filled with the bodies of
young adults and children.
Tutankhamun died a young man and
Patrizia wants to know if the bodies here
can offer clues to why Egyptians, from
pharaoh to farmer, died so young.
PATRIZIA:
We have still a lot to do here.
We are just, I'd say, at the beginning
of a great adventure, I hope.
(moody music)
NARRATOR: Patrizia found the rock-cut
tomb buried beneath the sand
during an earlier season.
(clang)
It has burial recesses
carved into the walls.
Patrizia's team uncovered
dozens of mummies inside,
and she's convinced there
are more to be found.
My friends are still here.
NARRATOR: Human remains and objects
that they catalogued last season
still line the floor.
Ah, yes. Still good.
Still, all the bones are still here.
NARRATOR: They've already
made one key discovery.
PATRIZIA: We found wood,
and at some point,
some hieroglyphic inscription came out,
and we discovered that the name
of the first owner of the tomb.
The name is Pah-meh-ich, Pah-meh-ich,
and he was the chief of the army of Aswan.
NARRATOR: Pamehich was a
standout figure in his lifetime,
but he was just the first of many who
used this tomb over the centuries.
We found more than 40 mummies.
NARRATOR: But Patrizia's most shocking
find was several mummified children.
PATRIZIA: We had a very incredible
discovery because just here,
there is the child in between
the father and the mother.
And then this recess is full. There are,
I think, five mummies of children.
These are my children, my
wonderful, poor babies.
But this is the very
strange thing of this tomb,
because we have so many children here.
NARRATOR: Patrizia wants to know
if the bodies here can offer clues
to why ancient Egyptians like
Tutankhamun died so young.
There is one uncleared
recess left to investigate.
PATRIZIA:
This is the last part.
We didn't touch this because
it was too late last season.
NARRATOR:
Patrizia must remove the mummies
from the recess to
analyze the remains properly.
PATRIZIA (calls):
(untranslated)
NARRATOR: But this is too delicate
a job for Patrizia to do on her own.
PATRIZIA:
The workers. Thanks!
NARRATOR:
The remains are thousands of years old.
Patrizia's team must carefully
remove them, one by one.
- PATRIZIA: (untranslated) Slowly slowly…
- WORKER: (untranslated)
NARRATOR:
It's a painstaking process.
Each mummy is incredibly
fragile and could easily break.
(tense music)
- PATRIZIA: Very careful.
- WORKERS: (untranslated)
PATRIZIA:
Very, very careful, it's fragile.
(grand music)
NARRATOR: At Luxor Temple
on the Nile's East Bank.
Aliaa is investigating
Tutankhamun's death.
After more than 3000 years,
direct proof of who might have
murdered the Boy King no longer exists.
Instead, Aliaa wants to scrutinize
those closest to Tutankhamun
to work out how they may
have benefited from his death,
and therefore had motive to
murder the young pharaoh.
ALIAA: Wow. Here we have
the statue of Tutankhamun
hiding away behind the column.
I can tell it is him because
of the soft skin, round face.
And all this is like features of youth.
And he's presented in here with
his queen and wife, Ankhesenamun.
NARRATOR: Ankhesenamun
wasn't just Tutankhamun's wife.
She was also either his
sister or his half-sister.
It was common for Egyptian
royals to marry their siblings.
They believed it would maintain
their family's sacred bloodline
and seemed unconcerned by the
health problems inbreeding causes.
We see it in a lot of representations
that they were quite close together.
NARRATOR: Ankhesenamun
would have had ample means
and opportunity to murder Tutankhamun.
But Aliaa wants to know if the
Queen had the motive to kill him.
In an ancient tablet likely
written by Ankhesenamun,
Aliaa has found evidence of the impact
Tutankhamun's death had
on the young queen.
ALIAA: This clay tablet, it
was written in cuneiform,
and that was used by the Hittites.
NARRATOR: The Hittites and Egyptians
were fierce rivals at this time.
ALIAA: In the letter here, it says
that Queen Ankhesenamun
wanted to ask King Suppiluliuma
the First to send her one of his sons
for her to marry because her husband died.
NARRATOR: The plea hints that
after Tutankhamun's death,
Ankhesenamun was worried about
who she might be forced to marry
and that her new husband, crowned
pharaoh by their marriage,
would not have royal blood .
ALIAA: She could not bear
the thought of marrying
somebody who was not of royal descent,
and therefore she asked
for help externally.
NARRATOR: Marrying a non-royal seems
an unlikely prospect for a queen.
Purity of the royal bloodline
was vital to ancient Egyptians.
Her sending this letter shows
to us that she was scared.
NARRATOR: Suppiluliuma, the
Hittite King, and enemy of Egypt,
was suspicious of this
unconventional marriage request
and summoned his counsel for advice.
After verifying the letter was
genuine, he sent one of his sons,
Prince Zannanza, to marry
the Egyptian Queen.
But the prince died before he reached
Egypt, and his young bride to be.
(dramatic music)
So Ankhesenamun was left
with two potential husbands:
Tutankhamun's chief adviser, Ay, or
the head of his military, Horemheb.
The marriage would hand
either of them the throne.
Reaching out to Egypt's
enemy was an act of desperation.
It suggests to Aliaa that Ankhesenamun did
not benefit from the death of her husband
and that she did not have a
motive to kill Tutankhamun.
There's no way that Ankhesenamun
would have killed Tutankhamun
because his death was a
devastating disaster in her life.
NARRATOR: Now, Aliaa wants
to continue her investigation to uncover
if there's any evidence that either Ay
or Horemheb murdered Tutankhamun.
At the Saqqara Necropolis,
Ola's team is trying to remove large
limestone blocks from a deep shaft.
Ola wants to find out
if the shaft will lead
to the burial chamber of
a man called Ptah Mwia,
who lived in the era following
Tutankhamun's death.
OLA: It's a block, a very big block.
It might be still part of
the lining of the shaft.
NARRATOR: Ola hopes that the burial
chamber could reveal more about Ptah Mwia.
TAREK: We would have hoped to be
down further two meters at least by now.
NARRATOR:
The first block comes out easily,
but the next is larger and heavier.
It will put the wooden winch to the test.
WORKERS:
(untranslated)
NARRATOR: It takes the strength
of six men to lift the block.
OLA: It has no inscriptions, it's
part of the lining of the shaft.
So it's a big, dead fish. (laughs)
WORKERS:
(untranslated)
WORKER:
Opa!
(man exhales)
NARRATOR: The team find no more blocks,
so they can now make faster progress.
Finally they reach the
bottom of the shaft.
I'm excited to see
what's going to be found.
NARRATOR:
To see what lies at the bottom,
workers must carefully lower
Ola down in a large metal bucket.
OLA:
It's an adventure (laughs)
WORKER:
(untranslated)
NARRATOR: But the team must take
care. The shaft is now 23 feet deep.
WORKERS:
(untranslated)
NARRATOR:
A fall here could be fatal.
WORKERS:
(untranslated)
NARRATOR: At Luxor Temple, Aliaa
investigates Tutankhamun's death.
She wants to find out if the two most
powerful men under Tutankhamun;
his trusted advisor Ay,
or his military general, Horemheb,
had motive enough to kill the Boy King.
Aliaa searches a part of the
temple built by Tutankhamun.
Carved into a wall, she
spots an intriguing clue.
ALIAA: Here we can see
an image of Tutankhamun,
and he's burning incense for the gods.
He's doing this for the
Opet Festival ceremony.
NARRATOR: During the Opet
Festival, statues of ancient gods
were paraded from Karnak to
the temple here at Luxor.
ALIAA: What is very surprising
are these two of cartouches,
because they are the
cartouches of Horemheb.
Why is Tutankhamen standing next
to the cartouche of Horemheb?
NARRATOR: The image of Tutankhamen
appears elsewhere across the walls,
but his official name, written in an
oval box or cartouche, is missing.
This is where Tutankhamun's birth
name and throne name would have been.
So probably these cartouches were usurped.
Horemheb chiseled them out
and put his own name,
and that way he was erasing
Tutankhamun altogether.
This name here in this temple,
this is eternity for a pharaoh.
And when the pharaoh's name is erased, you
are taking away this eternity from him.
And to take that away from Tutankhamun,
Horemheb has done him a great wrong.
NARRATOR: The altered images
suggest that Horemheb
tried to wipe Tutankhamun's
name from history.
Horemheb wanted to erase Tutankhamun.
NARRATOR: Next, Aliaa plans
to investigate Horemheb's tomb,
to find out more about this
suspicious military general
and uncover whether he had motive
to murder the young pharaoh.
In Aswan, Patrizia and her
team are removing mummies
from a recess at the back of the tomb.
PATRIZIA:
I was waiting for this moment,
because we left these two mummies in their
place and we want to see what's behind.
NARRATOR: This tomb was filled with
the mummified remains of children.
PATRIZIA:
Slowly, slowly.
NARRATOR: Patrizia's work
could offer clues to why ancient Egyptians
like Tutankhamun often died so young.
- PATRIZIA: Be careful.
- WORKERS: (untranslated)
NARRATOR:
To Patrizia's trained eye,
even a mummy in this condition
can contain useful information.
PATRIZIA: Oh my God.
Okay. So, aye aye aye.
Some of them were perfect.
and some, unfortunately, I'd say probably
bad kind of mummification in later times,
and this has ended up like
this. (groans) Let's go on.
NARRATOR: They begin to remove
the second mummy from the recess.
PATRIZIA:
We must be very careful.
- WORKER: (untranslated)
- PATRIZIA: (untranslated)
NARRATOR:
This mummy is in better condition.
PATRIZIA: The bandages are very well
preserved. The body not, but…Ok, let's go.
NARRATOR:
The recess now looks clear.
PATRIZIA: So we just clean
a little bit, very carefully,
and then I will come up to have
a look if there is something left.
NARRATOR: Patrizia wants to check
that they haven't missed anything.
PATRIZIA: So… It's ok.
Wait a minute, I have to go in.
I try to go in. (grunts)
Oh my God. (grunts). Ok.
NARRATOR:
It's yet another child mummy.
PATRIZIA:
Three years old, perhaps.
So in this tomb we found a lot of
children. I didn't expect it here.
I think in total we thought there were six
children, but now I think there are more.
NARRATOR: Patrizia plans to examine all
the remains collected from the tomb.
PATRIZIA: We will discover if it's a girl
or a boy, examining him very carefully,
and then we will know more.
Adults is hard but
children is really touching.
NARRATOR: In Saqqara, Ola
descends a narrow shaft
to search for Ptah Mwia's burial chamber.
WORKER:
Oh!
She hopes an intact grave and
grave goods might reveal more
about him and those in power
after Tutankhamun's death.
OLA:
Oh. What's that?
NARRATOR: The shaft leads to a
chamber with several connected rooms.
OLA:
It's quite big.
This is probably for the offerings.
NARRATOR: The rooms have been looted.
The tomb raiders have left only scraps.
OLA:
There is some pottery here.
This is something part of the tomb,
part of the architecture of the tomb,
because it has a shape
here and rounded from here.
Part of a column, maybe.
NARRATOR:
As Ola investigates,
she realizes the room
needs work to make it safe.
OLA: Enough. Enough here,
because it's dangerous.
You see here, clearly you see this? I just
put my hand here and it's going. See?
- CAMERAMAN: Ah, yeah.
- WORKER: (untranslated)
I'll go out.
NARRATOR: Chunks of ceiling
lying across the chamber's floor
are a worrying sign it could collapse.
OLA: All this has fallen from the
ceiling and from the rock all around.
Of course, it is dangerous.
If we don't do anything to support
these walls, they might fall anytime.
NARRATOR: But near the exit, Ola spots
what could be another shaft in the floor.
OLA: If we remove this sand,
we might find the staircase
that leads to where we
find the burial itself.
But of course, it will need
some time to remove all that.
NARRATOR: Another shaft could
lead to a lower level in the tomb.
It's a promising sign the tomb raiders
may have missed the burial chamber.
OLA:
The lower shaft that's still full of sand,
we don't know how deep it will
go because it is quite wide.
Till now, there are no clues
until we remove this sand.
A lot of work still to be done.
NARRATOR: In the Valley
of the Kings near Luxor,
Aliaa heads to the tomb of Tutankhamun's
military general, Horemheb.
She wants to find out if he had a strong
motive to murder the young pharaoh.
I'm really excited to be here;
I've never been here before.
NARRATOR:
The tomb is remarkably well-preserved.
Intricately decorated scenes cover
the walls from floor to ceiling.
ALIAA:
It is so beautiful to be here.
The colors are vivid and the
carving is strong. You can see it.
I think this is one of the most
beautiful scenes I've ever seen.
This was not a normal
individuals tomb, it's huge.
NARRATOR: At the center of the burial
chamber lies Horemheb's sarcophagus.
His name and titles are
inscribed on its sides.
Here you can see his royal name.
It says Heb-er-ru-ra setib-en-ra.
NARRATOR: The huge stone
sarcophagus inscribed with royal titles
reveals that Horemheb ruled as a
pharaoh after Tutankhamun's death.
He clearly had something to gain
from the boy king's demise.
ALIAA: Horemheb had the means and
the opportunity to kill Tutankhamun
if he wanted, because he had
the command of the military
and he could have easily directed
anybody to do the job for him.
Horemheb is definitely a suspect.
NARRATOR:
Horemheb was a soldier of humble origin.
He worked his way up the ranks
to become head of the military.
When Tutankhamun died, Horemheb
was leading Egypt's army in the north.
But one of his soldiers at the royal court
could have easily
assassinated the boy king.
Following Tutankhamun's death, it
was the Pharaoh's top advisor, Ay,
who seized the chance to be crowned King.
He may even have married the
widowed Queen Ankhesenamun.
Ay is a suspect, too.
He ruled as pharaoh for four years before
he died and was replaced by Horemheb.
Last season, Aliaa investigated
the tomb of Ay and revealed
that he was probably responsible
for Tutankhamun's rushed burial.
ALIAA: Ay buried Tutankhamun
in the smaller tomb
so he could have the
bigger tomb for himself.
NARRATOR: Ay's actions are
also highly suspicious.
ALIAA:
If Tutankhamun was murdered,
right now there are two prime
suspects, Ay and Horemheb.
NARRATOR: Both Ay and Horemheb had
powerful motives to murder Tutankhamun.
But there's another possible killer.
Now Aliaa, wants to re-examine
the young Pharaoh's injuries
in greater forensic detail.
NARRATOR:
At the Necropolis at Saqqara,
Ola's team has secured the
tomb's unstable ceiling
and cleared the sand from the
mysterious staircase in the floor.
It is exciting and that's why
I come back every year.
NARRATOR:
Ola hopes the staircase might lead
to the intact burial chamber
of a man called Ptah Mwia.
OLA: If we find his burial chamber, it
would also lead us to what person he is.
NARRATOR: The workers prepare the bucket
for Ola to descend into the tomb again,
and investigate what lies
at the bottom of the stairs.
Every year, this is what I wait for.
NARRATOR: If there's a chamber
containing Ptah Mwia's burial treasures,
it would be a monumental discovery.
WORKERS:
(untranslated)
Oh. What are we going
to find here? Oh, my God.
Look, look!
It's amazing. Ooh, this, it looks
like a sarcophagus, you see here.
NARRATOR: Ola spots the
faint outline of a giant sarcophagus
buried beneath the sand.
OLA: I just want to remove
all the sand over it.
It is a nose, it is a head.
And ah, it has also the beard.
NARRATOR: The sarcophagus confirms
this is the tomb's burial chamber.
It is a hugely significant
find for Ola and her team.
OLA: The scenes are very nicely
carved. The face is so nice; the smile.
He seems to have been a nice guy. (laughs)
NARRATOR: Ola notices that
a piece of the lid has broken off.
The damage indicates the sarcophagus was
broken into by the ancient tomb robbers.
But the hole gives her an opportunity
to peek inside to see what's left.
OLA: It's empty. It's only
some rubble, some bones.
NARRATOR:
Although the sarcophagus is empty,
it's almost complete and
Ola can reassemble it.
OLA: The part that is missing,
we're going to put it back
where it's supposed to be, and
when we empty all the sand around,
we will be able to understand the texts
written on top on the surface of the lid.
NARRATOR: Now, Ola needs
to find inscriptions and a name
to confirm this is
Ptah Mwia's sarcophagus.
OLA:
Ah, it's a big one, you see.
All the texts on the… Ipu, the god Anubis.
Now let's see the name,
because all these are gods,
these are the four sons of Horus.
Ah yes, here you have the same title, it
is Ptah Mwia, it is the owner of the tomb.
NARRATOR: Finding a complete sarcophagus
in its original tomb is incredibly rare.
It's the most important discovery for us.
It's the first time we
find the sarcophagus
of the owner as it is complete like this.
NARRATOR: Studying the
carvings and inscriptions
reveals more about Ptah Mwia's life.
OLA: The texts are very
important and very clear.
It tells me that he is
a very important person.
Here you have the beginning of
his title, 'Overseer of the Cattle.'
NARRATOR: The inscriptions show Ptah
Mwia was born into a military family
and educated as a scribe, around
50 years after Tutankhamun's death.
He started his career
overseeing the cattle
and other resources of the King's temples.
He rose to become chief treasurer
to the reigning pharaoh,
managing the wealth of the state.
When he died, he was buried
in a lavish tomb in Saqqara,
alongside members of the
ruling military elite
who controlled Egypt after
Tutankhamun's death.
Ptah Mwia and his grand
burial provide an insight
into a tumultuous period
of Egyptian history.
OLA: Tutankhamun, of course when he died
very early and very surprisingly suddenly,
they did not have anyone to rule,
and the country was
in a very troubled condition.
It was very important that the person who
had to take things into his hands
would be a military guy,
which is Horemheb.
NARRATOR: Less than five years
after Tutankhamun's death,
a new breed of military pharaoh took over.
Men like Horemheb, not of royal
blood, who relied on officials
like Ptah Mwia to support
their position as pharaoh.
Ola's team now have a lot
of work ahead of them.
They need to remove the rest of the sand
and carefully study the
remarkable sarcophagus
to uncover the full story
of Ptah Mwia's life.
This is the great discovery of the
season. The greatest of the season.
NARRATOR:
In Aswan,
Patrizia is investigating a tomb filled
with the mummified remains of children,
to find out why Egyptians
like Tutankhamun died young.
Her team moves the mummies
recovered from the recess
outside into the daylight
for closer examination.
She believes the three
bodies might be a family.
So let's see my family outside. Okay.
So because of the height,
it's of course, a man.
This is the woman, let's say the mother.
And of course, this is the child.
To discover, who were these
people and this family,
I mean, I think it would be just great.
NARRATOR: At the team's dig tent.
Patrizia's colleague, Carmelo Messina,
is analysing the rest of the tomb's
remains to identify how the people died.
CARMELO: From looking at bones, we
can obtain a lot of information like age,
sex, the ethnicity, possible
disorder, possible disease
and possible, maybe cause of death.
These are all bones of a child.
You see how small the bones
are, this is, for example, a tibia.
PATRIZIA: (exhales) Oh, okay,
Carmelo, so what's new here?
NARRATOR: Carmelo spots a
clue to a probable cause of death.
CARMELO: I found some interesting things.
For example, look at this vertebra.
It's completely deranged.
Inside we have these holes.
I think it's more like to be infected
disease, it may be even tuberculosis.
And in a late stage of tuberculosis,
so probably this could be even
a person with a systemic severe disease.
NARRATOR:
Tuberculosis is a bacterial infection
that can affect all areas of the body.
Left untreated, it can kill.
In ancient Egypt,
over one in three children did not
survive beyond the age of five.
Many died from infectious diseases.
Malaria was spread by mosquitoes
in areas close to the Nile.
And tuberculosis thrived in the
cramped housing of the poor.
With no recourse to modern
medicine, such as vaccinations,
even the children of kings died young.
But the ancient Egyptians
believed death could be overcome
and that mummification could help
their lost children rejoin them
in the afterlife.
PATRIZIA:
This to me is very interesting because
we are discovering many children inside.
In the past, children were found,
of course, inside tombs.
But here it is a kind of concentration.
So this is one thing that we will study.
NARRATOR:
It's still unclear whether illness,
famine, or some other
tragedy is the reason
so many child mummies
were found in this tomb.
But the remains discovered here prove
that disease was rife in ancient Egypt.
Analysis of Tutankhamun's mummy
could reveal if disease
played a role in his death, too.
Four miles from Luxor at
the Valley of the Kings,
inside the world famous
tomb of Tutankhamun,
Aliaa investigates the
latest scientific study
that sheds light on the mystery
of how the Boy King died.
I found the CT scan and it allows
us to see the bones in greater detail.
And there's DNA testing that
was done to help understand
if Tutankhamen had any infections.
NARRATOR: Computerized Tomography
Scanning produces detailed images
of internal organs,
blood vessels and bones.
The CT scan of Tutankhamun revealed that
he was not a healthy King to begin with.
Ancestral inbreeding led to a weak
immune system and a club foot.
Scientific examination of the fracture
in his femur suggests a bad leg injury
became seriously infected
just before he died.
DNA analysis, coupled with mosquito
bites on his neck and cheek,
indicate that he also suffered
from persistent malaria.
Most experts now believe that
Tutankhamun's weakened natural defenses
couldn't cope and the infection
in his neck likely led to his death.
ALIAA: Early archaeologists thought
that Tutankhamun was murdered,
and that is because of the
fracture at the back of his head.
The scans further show the
dents, it's very evident.
NARRATOR: But the latest scans suggest
that the damage to Tutankhamun's skull
was likely caused when the
embalmers removed his brain
during the mummification process.
The studies help clarify the decades-old
debate around Tutankhamun's death.
ALIAA:
Ay and Horemheb had the motive,
means, and opportunity
to kill Tutankhamen.
However, archaeologists nowadays think
that Tutankhamen died of natural causes.
NARRATOR: Despite a wealth
of resources at his disposal,
Tutankhamun's death shows
that no one in ancient Egypt,
not even a pharaoh, was safe from
the brutal ravages of disease.
Tutankhamun died young and left
no heir. But he lives on for eternity.
Not because of a
resurrection in the afterlife,
but thanks to his remarkable
discovery 100 years ago.
His tomb and its
beguiling golden treasures
remain one of the most captivating
archaeological discoveries ever made,
offering a unique insight into one
of history's greatest civilizations.