Lost Treasures of Egypt (2019) s04e02 Episode Script

1
(dramatic music)
NARRATOR: In a 4000 year old tomb
Definitely it's something very strange.
We have the mortar sealing the tiles,
and then, here the sound
is different.
NARRATOR: Archaeologists search
for a grand burial chamber.
If we have here something below, wow!
That would be a fantastic moment.
NARRATOR: And treasures fit for one of the
most powerful men in Ancient Egypt,
who lived and died
on the banks of the River Nile.
This could be the most important
find of my career.
(dramatic music continues)
(dramatic music)
NARRATOR: The Nile. The longest river in
the world.
It cuts through the Egyptian desert,
running south to north,
through Africa, up to the Mediterranean.
Its waters sustain life wherever it flows.
Along its banks, Ancient Egyptians
built remarkable temples,
tombs and monuments.
NARRATOR: Today, archaeologists search
for the secrets of the Nile,
how it powered every aspect of life
and death in Ancient Egypt,
and transformed it
into one of the greatest civilizations
of the ancient world.
(dramatic music continues)
NARRATOR: In Aswan
Spanish archaeologist
Alejandro Jiménez-Serrano
is on his way
to the tombs of Qubbet el-Hawa,
cut high in the cliffs
above the west bank of the Nile.
The tombs Alejandro is excavating there,
were used by nobles
who ruled from a fortified city
on Elephantine Island
in the middle of the river.
(dramatic music)
ALEJANDRO: The west bank was the
necropolis, the city of the dead.
Although in this area, the population
was mainly settled on an island,
it continued having the same meaning:
the east is for the life,
the west was for the dead.
(dramatic music continues)
NARRATOR: Five seasons ago, Alejandro
and his team uncovered a lavish tomb here,
dating back to 1800 BCE,
in between the golden age of the pyramids
and the time of Tutankhamun.
It is a magnificent tomb with marvelous
decoration, reliefs and paintings.
NARRATOR: Alejandro identified the tomb's
owner,
Sarenput, and discovered
the key details about his life.
(dramatic music)
NARRATOR: Sarenput was appointed
governor of Elephantine
by the pharaoh Senusret the First.
(dramatic music throughout)
NARRATOR: He commanded the Egyptian army
against Nubia, its enemy in the south.
NARRATOR: From the island of Elephantine,
he controlled trade on the Nile,
importing great wealth for the pharaoh,
including gold, ebony and ivory.
NARRATOR: Sarenput was all powerful in the
South, second only to the pharaoh,
he was the ruler of the Southern Nile.
ALEJANDRO: I've been working
with Sarenput and other members
of his family during the last 20 years.
In reality, I know his family,
better perhaps than mine.
NARRATOR: Sarenput's tomb is missing
one key feature, a burial chamber.
This season, Alejandro wants
to try and track it down
and perhaps find the body
of the man himself.
(suspenseful music)
ALEJANDRO: We are going to continue the
excavation of the shaft
of Sarenput, perhaps
his burial chamber is still intact.
NARRATOR: The tomb is made up of a network
of at least nine shafts,
stretching 50 feet below ground.
(suspenseful music continues)
NARRATOR: Alejandro's team has made
a promising discovery
at the bottom of a 30 foot deep shaft.
ALEJANDRO: Bilal has just begun the
excavation of what we consider,
by now, the antechamber.
He's excavating in that side
because if there is a burial chamber,
we should find in this part.
NARRATOR: He believes that this
antechamber
could lead him to the entrance
of Sarenput's burial chamber.
Alejandro's team has to carefully sift
through the sand
and debris, looking for clues.
They collect any fragments of pottery
and human remains for further examination.
(suspenseful music)
NARRATOR: The heat and dust is taking its
toll.
ALEJANDRO: You can see the working
conditions here are very hot.
We call, joking, the sauna to this place
because there is a lot of humidity,
and we do not have fresh air.
- Nice sauna.
- ALEJANDRO: Yeah.
ALEJANDRO: We are going to try to breathe
a bit.
NARRATOR: The team works in
one and a half hour shifts,
winching the spoil to the surface,
bucket by bucket.
NARRATOR: It's painstaking work, but
finding Sarenput here
would be a dream come true for Alejandro.
And the fact Sarenput had such
a deep shaft here is a promising sign.
So much effort has to have a reason,
and the reason might be
an intact burial chamber.
(dramatic music)
NARRATOR: At the island of Philae,
American Egyptologist,
Colleen Darnell is travelling the Nile.
She wants to unlock its secrets,
starting with why the Ancient Egyptians
so venerated its annual flood.
Her first stop is Philae Temple, one of
the most sacred sites in Ancient Egypt.
This was the border between
Egypt and Nubia,
where the Nile in Egypt really began.
This is such a beautiful area of the Nile,
particularly when we get close
to the temple, if you like.
COLLEEN: You get a sense of what it would
have looked like in antiquity.
NARRATOR: The temple, known as the Pearl
of Egypt,
was built up over hundreds of years with
each ruler making their own additions.
It's dedicated to ancient Egypt's
most revered gods and goddesses.
NARRATOR: In its prime, this island on the
Nile was hallowed ground.
On the southern side,
a courtyard lined with columns,
led to an imposing gate carved with huge
reliefs of Egyptian kings and gods.
NARRATOR: Beyond it, a small chapel
honoring the birth of the god Horus.
And the gate to the temple of his mother,
the goddess Isis.
Amongst Egyptian shrines, a temple
built by the Romans centuries later.
Egyptian pharaohs and Roman emperors alike
were drawn here
to build monuments by the Nile.
NARRATOR: Vintage clothing fan Colleen
is an expert in hieroglyphs
and has spent her career decoding them
to discover the secrets of life
in ancient Egypt.
NARRATOR: She wants to explore
the temple here to find out
why this Nile island
was so important to the ancients.
NARRATOR: She searches for clues to help
piece together the puzzle.
COLLEEN: It's really so exciting to see
this inscription because it's unique.
It lays out on a single wall
the foundational myth of the Nile flood.
NARRATOR: Every year, the Nile broke its
banks
and flooded the land nearby,
fertilizing it with rich river mud.
NARRATOR: The ancient Egyptians conceived
the story
to explain how this
annual flood was created.
COLLEEN: What we have is a serpent
that forms the shape of a cavern.
That cavern is the burial of Osiris
on an island very close to Philae.
NARRATOR: Ancient Egyptians believed the
Nile flood
was created from the death
of their god Osiris,
husband of Isis, father of Horus.
COLLEEN: On this other side,
we see the boulders of the first cataract
of the island
where the body of Osiris is buried.
COLLEEN: There is a crocodile, in fact,
a falcon-headed crocodile
that represents the god Horus, Osiris's
son, and he is carrying on his back,
the mummy of his father, Osiris.
NARRATOR: Egyptians believed Osiris,
god of regeneration and the underworld,
was responsible for the yearly flood
cycle of the Nile.
NARRATOR: In their myth, his brother Seth,
the god of chaos,
murdered Osiris in a fight for the throne.
NARRATOR: Seth dismembered Osiris and
scattered his body parts across Egypt.
NARRATOR: The bodily fluids seeping from
Osiris caused the Nile River to flood,
giving the Nile its divine power
to make plants grow.
NARRATOR: The Nile flood was worshipped
by ancient Egyptians.
And Philae was where
they believed the river began.
COLLEEN: This is a really special area
because
the Egyptians could assign this
as the origin of the floodwaters.
COLLEEN: Symbolically and in
their religious beliefs,
this was the source of the Nile.
NARRATOR: The Nile had great mythological
importance for the ancient Egyptians.
Now, Colleen wants to unlock more
of the secrets of the great river
and how it helped create
Egyptian civilization.
(dramatic music)
NARRATOR: In Deir el-Bahari,
Polish archaeologist Patryk Chudzik
is at a revered site
on the west bank of the Nile.
PATRYK: On the horizon, we can see the
Nile River.
The center of this city
was Deir el-Bahari,
with the Temple of Hatshepsut behind.
And the temples at Deir el-Bahari were
surrounded by dozens of rock cut tombs
of the high officials.
NARRATOR: Patryk has been excavating the
tombs
in this important section of the Nile
for five years.
His love for archaeology started
when he was just eight years old.
He promised himself that one day
he would become an archaeologist.
PATRYK: It is wonderful when you're
unearthing something
which was forgotten for thousands of years
NARRATOR: He made one of the most
unusual discoveries
of his career
on the hillside below the tombs.
Several crocodile skulls.
PATRYK: This is the first such
a discovery in Egypt.
NARRATOR: Crocodiles are sometimes found
in ancient Egyptian tombs,
but finding disembodied
skulls in this way is unique.
PATRYK: It seems to be one of the
most interesting objects
which I ever found here
in my archaeology career,
working here in the Theban necropolis.
NARRATOR: This season, he wants to try
and find out who brought
the mystery crocodile skulls here and why.
And what it reveals about
ancient Egyptians attitudes towards
the deadly creatures who thrived
in their sacred river Nile.
PATRYK: We have here nine individuals
of this river creature.
We have fragments of teeth.
We have fragments of jaws.
But what is interesting,
we have only crocodile skulls.
We don't have any other
fragments of their bodies.
NARRATOR: Patryk and his team face
an unusual challenge.
Early archaeologists first discovered
and excavated these tombs 100 years ago.
They took the treasures,
but piled the rest of the contents
onto huge spoil heaps
on the hillside below.
Patryk thinks that the skulls
came from one of the tombs,
but he needs to find out which one
and who it belonged to.
NARRATOR: He and his team must
painstakingly work
their way through all the spoil.
PATRYK: Every day, we are finding such
wonderful, decorated pieces.
This is a very rich area.
PATRYK: One of the hardest parts of the
work here
is to recognize what is the
natural fragment of rock
and what is the fragment of
something magnificent
made by the people who
worked here 4,000 years ago.
NARRATOR: The discovery of an engraving
or inscription
could reveal the name of a tomb owner
and tell Patryk which tomb
the crocodile skulls originally came from.
NARRATOR: But the combination of steep
slope
and loose rubble makes
work here hazardous.
PATRYK: When they move too much
from that lower part,
then every single moment,
it can fall down.
NARRATOR: In Cairo, in the Egyptian
Museum,
Egyptian Conservator
Eid Mertah is investigating
an enigmatic statue of Osiris.
NARRATOR: Eid is a specialist in ancient
metals who has been restoring
some of Egypt's finest treasures for
the last ten years.
He wants to find out when
the statue was made
and what role these statues
played in the worship
of the powerful god associated
with the Nile floods.
NARRATOR: The museum has dozens
of Osiris statues on display,
but hundreds more like this one,
are held in storage.
EID: They have been stored in the basement
ever since the museum opened
more than 100 years ago
and we do not have any more
information about them.
NARRATOR: Most are unlabeled, and any
clues to their origins
have long since disappeared.
NARRATOR: Eid and French archaeologist
Simon Connor,
have been working through
the statues in the museum's stores.
SIMON: It's not unusual to find them
in this condition.
In fact, most of them
that we find in the basement
directly came from excavation.
Clearly, we still have the soil
from the digging,
so we are probably the first ones
to see them for 120 years.
(suspenseful music)
NARRATOR: To date the statues,
they have to restore them
and examine their distinct features
in their former glory.
EID: Oh, wow!
EID: We still have some remains
of gold at the surface.
EID: It appears here, and also we have
some traces here, between the arms.
NARRATOR: Some of the statues like this
one are bronze, gilded in gold.
NARRATOR: Many are heavily corroded,
having spent millennia buried in damp
soil and sand.
The problem here is we have
two types of corrosion.
The active corrosion in some parts,
and this is the dangerous one,
and we should start with it,
and the other corrosion is stable.
SIMON: So you think you can find again
the features of the god underneath?
EID: I think so, it will be under
the crust of corrosion here.
If we try to take this corrosion out step
by step and slowly under the microscope,
maybe we will be able to see
the features again of the face.
NARRATOR: Eid has his work cut out.
One slip could damage
the precious statue forever.
(dramatic music)
NARRATOR: In Aswan, Alejandro is looking
for the burial chamber of Sarenput,
who ruled over the Southern Nile and
the land surrounding it 4000 years ago.
It could help him unlock the secret
of the Nile's role in the lives
and deaths of ancient Egyptians.
NARRATOR: After weeks of hard work,
the team has successfully
cleared several tons of debris
from the antechamber.
NARRATOR: They've revealed a very unusual
floor.
ALEJANDRO: It's the first time that we
find a pavement in all the necropolis.
Definitely is something very strange.
NARRATOR: Paving slabs like these aren't
found in any nearby tombs.
Alejandro thinks they could be a clue
to where Sarenput was buried.
ALEJANDRO: It is very exciting
because as you can see,
we have the mortar sealing the tiles
and then, here the sound,
ALEJANDRO: it's different.
NARRATOR: The sound suggests
an open chamber beneath,
perhaps an entrance to the burial
chamber itself.
ALEJANDRO: So, if we have here something
below,
we will have an intact chamber. So wow.
(suspenseful music)
NARRATOR: Before Alejandro can begin
to remove the paving stones,
he needs to agree on a plan with the team.
ALEJANDRO: The first thing that we can do
is
to remove some stones
just to test what we have below.
NARRATOR: The team needs to be careful.
I should begin lifting this stone.
We check what we have underneath.
NARRATOR: If there is a burial chamber
underneath,
removing the wrong paving
stone could collapse
the structure below,
destroying priceless artefacts.
The main idea would be to remove
the stones that are on
the edges of the chamber
and hopefully find something, so
NARRATOR: The following morning,
the team head back down the shaft
to put their plan into action.
ALEJANDRO: Move all of the sand outside.
MAN: Okay.
What we are going to do
is to begin the lifting
of these stones in order.
- That one.
- This one? Okay.
(suspenseful music)
NARRATOR: Colleen leaves the island of
Philae and heads up the Nile.
She is on her way to Elephantine Island.
COLLEEN: This is Elephantine Island
in the middle of the Nile River.
COLLEEN: This island has been inhabited
for thousands and thousands of years.
NARRATOR: She's travelled just five miles
north from the temple of Philae.
COLLEEN: This is the gateway
between Egypt and Nubia.
And here, more than almost
any other place in Egypt,
we can see the drama of the Nile.
(suspenseful music)
NARRATOR: Colleen wants to investigate
how ancient Egyptians used
the power of the Nile.
She believes a mysterious
structure carved into
the riverbank here may hold the answers.
COLLEEN: This is an ancient staircase that
leads all the way down to the Nile River.
(suspenseful music throughout)
COLLEEN: So every few steps
there are these strange markings
as we go down the staircase.
NARRATOR: Colleen notices an intriguing
feature.
COLLEEN: One thing that I can see here
is that they're all very consistent.
These markings are to measure
the height of the Nile flood,
and we can see the river,
here the water would come up
and then each individual
measurement they could take.
NARRATOR: This monument is a Nilometer,
and it was crucial to understanding
the patterns of the river.
COLLEEN: This Nilometer, this measuring
device,
and others on the island of Elephantine
would have been the first place
where the flood was measured every year.
COLLEEN: This was one of the
most significant events
that happened in ancient Egypt every year.
NARRATOR: The Nile couldn't be tamed.
But ancient Egyptians developed
a sophisticated irrigation system
of dikes and channels
to harness its immense power.
(dramatic music)
NARRATOR: During the yearly summer flood,
they siphoned water into enormous basins.
Here, it sat for about a month,
soaking into the earth
and leaving behind rich deposits.
NARRATOR: Crops thrived in this fertile
soil, leading to bountiful harvests.
This life giving cycle
sustained the Egyptians
and allowed their grand
civilization to flourish.
COLLEEN: The Nile flood began in late July
or early August of our calendar.
For the ancient Egyptians, that was
the new year, when the flood began.
COLLEEN: As the flood waters started to
rise,
they continued to do that through October.
Then would be the planting
season and finally harvest.
NARRATOR: The Nilometer meant the
Egyptians
could forecast the size
of the harvest, food supply,
and the amount
the pharaoh could raise in tax.
COLLEEN: This Nilometer is monumental,
and it shows us how important it was
to measure the Nile flood
here at Elephantine.
If you knew the height of the waters here,
you could essentially predict
where it would be
in the rest of the Nile Valley.
NARRATOR: The ingenious invention of the
Nilometer meant the ancient Egyptians
could fully harness the power of the Nile.
COLLEEN: What made the Nile so special
was that it had
a predictable annual flood.
That was the magic,
that was the secret to the Nile
that enabled ancient Egypt to flourish
for thousands of years.
NARRATOR: Colleen's mission to unlock the
secrets
of the great river doesn't stop here.
Next, she wants to explore
how Egyptians used the Nile
to help them build their mighty monuments,
the hallmarks of their civilization.
NARRATOR: On the west bank of the Nile,
at Deir el-Bahari,
Patryk is trying to solve the mystery
of the nine crocodile skulls
found in a spoil heap
below a series of tombs
next to the temple of Hatshepsut.
NARRATOR: He is looking for clues
that might lead him to the tomb
the crocodile skulls likely came from.
But his team faces a problem.
PATRYK: The loose rubble, in every second
can fall down, like this moment.
NARRATOR: Patryk thinks the crocodile
skulls were once in the tombs above.
He wants to find out who might
have left them in a tomb and why.
And what that reveals about
how the ancient Egyptians perceived
the dangerous animals
that shared their sacred river.
NARRATOR: As the team carefully works
through the dust and debris,
Patryk notices something.
PATRYK: Can you pick that up, please?
(suspenseful music throughout)
PATRYK: It's really amazing.
Another fragment,
the same as we found before.
Another crocodile jaw.
This is a really big surprise.
NARRATOR: This crocodile jaw looks smaller
than those he's already found.
It must have come
from a different crocodile
and suggests that more than nine crocodile
skulls were placed in the tomb.
This is really incredible.
NARRATOR: Patryk also uncovers evidence to
confirm
this heap of rubble
and the skulls, do come from a tomb.
Yes.
PATRYK: This is a piece of sarcophagus,
a lower part of a wall.
That's amazing.
PATRYK: I didn't expect it to be here.
Brilliant. Something new
to reconstruct it.
That's great.
NARRATOR: Now, to work out
why the crocodile skulls are here,
they need to identify the tomb
they came from and its owner.
PATRYK: Oh, gosh.
There is much more.
PATRYK: This is also a piece of something.
NARRATOR: In Aswan, Alejandro's team
are searching for the entrance
to the burial chamber of Sarenput.
(Dramatic music)
An intact chamber could
contain a treasure trove
of information about ancient life
and death on the Nile.
(dramatic music continues)
ALEJANDRO: It is bedrock. It is the
bedrock.
NARRATOR: The first stone slab they lift
sits on a bed of sand with only bedrock
underneath.
ALEJANDRO: Okay, let's try this one.
- This one?
- Yes.
(suspenseful music)
ALEJANDRO: We have more sand here.
ALEJANDRO: There is no ramp. There is
nothing.
NARRATOR: Alejandro has left the most
promising stone until the very end.
ALEJANDRO: This tile has a different
sound from the others.
ALEJANDRO: Might be something behind this.
ALEJANDRO: We will see if the last chance
is here.
(dramatic music throughout)
ALEJANDRO: We have the bedrock again,
we have the bedrock.
So this is archaeology.
You never find what
you're expecting to find.
ALEJANDRO: We have just removed four
tiles, and it is always the same.
We have sand, and immediately
after we have the bedrock.
ALEJANDRO: I feel quite frustrated
because it seems clear now that
we are not going to have
the burial chamber.
NARRATOR: But Alejandro has been
rewarded with something else.
ALEJANDRO: We are taking samples of sand.
The sand from the Nile is more
of a pale color compared
to the one of the desert sand.
NARRATOR: Alejandro believes that the sand
beneath the slabs
was specifically brought from the banks
of the Nile to this chamber.
ALEJANDRO: Probably this special sand was
chosen because it was coming from the
Nile.
ALEJANDRO: The Nile means the life for
Egypt.
So basically it was easily related
to the sacred world
and can be used in the funerary spaces.
ALEJANDRO: So anything that could help the
deceased to gain the afterlife was used.
NARRATOR: In the minds of the ancient
Egyptians,
the Nile would help them
reach their ultimate destination.
Most of the people of this region
were living in the East
bank or on the island.
So when someone died, they have
to make not only a physical trip,
but also a symbolic trip over the Nile
to take the deceased to the West bank,
to the land of the dead.
ALEJANDRO: The Nile connects these two
worlds, the worlds of the living,
the Nile is alive,
and with the world of the dead.
NARRATOR: The Nile was as important to
Sarenput in death, as it was in life.
Alejandro will continue the search
for his burial chamber.
He is convinced it's somewhere
overlooking this all powerful river.
NARRATOR: In Cairo at the Egyptian Museum,
Eid is removing centuries of dirt
and corrosion from a statue of Osiris,
the powerful god associated
with the Nile floods.
He's hoping to uncover distinct facial
features that will help him find out
when the statue was made.
NARRATOR: A date will shed light on
how long Osiris statues
were important objects of worship.
EID: The most difficult part is to take
the crust layer
from above the gilded layer
because the gilded layer
is really thin and so fragile.
NARRATOR: Eid uses an ultrasonic pen.
It generates high energy sound waves to
blast through tough layers of corrosion.
It's the best tool for the task,
but he must work carefully not
to damage the statue itself.
EID: The work, it should be done step by
step and slowly, under the microscope.
NARRATOR: Eid's work on this statue
alone will take months.
EID: You know when you see the result
of the restoration at the end
and the result of your effort,
this is really an amazing feeling.
(tense music throughout)
NARRATOR: Eid can only properly analyze a
statue
when it's completely clean of dirt
and other corrosion like this one.
Clues to this stunning statue's
origin lie in the metal itself.
Now, I'm going to analyze the
composition alloy of the statue.
I want to know exactly
what it's made from.
NARRATOR: Bronze is an alloy,
a mixture of different metals.
Eid will compare the bronze
in this statue to a database of statues
whose dates they do know.
(tense music continues)
NARRATOR: He has a high tech scanner that
will tell him the exact alloy composition
without damaging the statue.
EID: These are the two beams of
the laser inside the device
and to make the analysis, it should be
both of them at the same point.
So I need to move the statue a little bit.
EID: And now, we can run it
to make the analysis.
NARRATOR: The scanner blasts the bronze
surface with X-rays
and records the energy
released by the atoms.
NARRATOR: The metallic fingerprint could
help Eid and Simon match the statue
with one whose date is known and solve
the mystery of the statue's age.
NARRATOR: On the west bank of the Nile,
at Deir el-Bahari,
Patryk inspects pieces of sarcophagus
he's found in the hillside spoil.
They originally came from one
of the tombs high above.
PATRYK: Among hundreds of tons
of this rock debris,
we are finding magnificent
fragments of block decoration.
It's telling us that
this is a very rich area
and the owner of the bomb from which it
came was a very prominent person.
NARRATOR: He's hoping fragments of
sarcophagus will reveal the identity
of its owner and lead him to
the exact tomb that the skulls came from.
NARRATOR: Finally, a large section of
sarcophagus gives him the hieroglyphic
clue he's been searching for.
The characters here at the end of the text
are telling us about
the name of the owner.
H-T-I-I.
It means Khety.
PATRYK: This came from the Tomb of Khety,
which is located above.
This is really amazing to find something
with precise information
about the tomb's owner.
NARRATOR: Khety was an important high
official in the royal court.
He lived about 700 years
before Tutankhamun
and served a pharaoh called
Mentuhotep the Second.
PATRYK: We found the crocodile bones
in the same context as the sarcophagus,
so it means they were
stored together originally.
NARRATOR: It's the final proof the
crocodile skulls did come from Khety's
tomb in the cliffs above the spoil heap
where Patryk was searching.
Now he can investigate why Khety
would have wanted them there,
and he knows precisely where to look.
NARRATOR: Khety's tomb was first excavated
by American archaeologist
Herbert Winlock, 100 years ago.
Winlock and his team must have removed
the crocodile skulls
and left them in the spoil heaps below
while searching for
more valuable treasure.
PATRYK: This is the burial chamber of
Khety.
This is his sarcophagus,
where his body would be.
And it's also the place where originally
the crocodile remains were stored.
NARRATOR: Tombs containing whole crocodile
mummies are rare enough,
but a tomb with just
crocodile skulls is unique.
PATRYK: Putting the Nile crocodile
heads next to Khety's body
could be connected with his belief that
he can take his form in the underworld.
PATRYK: We think that Khety believed that
his soul will transform his head
into the crocodile's head
and in this way, will take his power
to fight with the enemies
in the underworld.
NARRATOR: Patryk's theory is that Khety
believed he needed the crocodile heads
in his tomb for his journey
to the afterlife.
NARRATOR: At death, his spirit would
navigate through the underworld
and the crocodile heads would give it
the strength of this fearsome reptile.
NARRATOR: With this enhanced power, Khety
believed he could overcome enemies
and demons facing him along the way,
so that he could travel safely
to the Field of Reeds,
to live on in eternity.
PATRYK: The Nile crocodile was, and is
still,
one of the most dangerous animals
in the Nile River,
and of course, that was quite obvious
for the ancient Egyptians,
who knew about his power.
NARRATOR: The ancient Egyptians both
feared and venerated the crocodile.
They considered it a living symbol of the
Nile's fertility.
PATRYK: This is a unique discovery.
I think that this is a dream of
every archaeologist,
to find something completely new,
which is telling us and
helping us to reconstruct the past.
NARRATOR: In Cairo, Eid and Simon have
finished scanning the statue of Osiris,
the powerful god associated
with the Nile floods.
They are hoping the exact composition
of its bronze alloy might
be a clue to its date.
EID: From the result here I found
the composition alloy of the statue.
It's made from copper 80%,
2.3% tin, and 18% lead.
NARRATOR: Simon and Eid search a global
database to find any other Osiris statues
with the same distinct alloy composition.
NARRATOR: They find a match with a statue
known to date from the 21st dynasty.
NARRATOR: It's evidence that their statue
dates to around a thousand BCE,
between the reigns of
Tutankhamun and Cleopatra,
1500 years after Osiris first appeared
in Egyptian mythology.
NARRATOR: To confirm this date, Simon and
Eid will cross-check their findings
using a very different technique:
studying Osiris's face.
NARRATOR: In ancient Egyptian art,
statues of gods
were modeled on the reigning pharaoh.
So a statue's face contains
clues to when it was made.
You can really use
the official representation
of a king as a good dating criterion.
SIMON: The king, the private individuals,
and the gods, all have the same face.
NARRATOR: And the face of this statue
is also characteristic
of depictions of gods and pharaohs during
the 21st dynasty.
SIMON: It's quite convincing.
SIMON: So both these criteria,
style and metal composition,
confirm it's likely to be around the 21st
or the 22nd dynasty,
so around 900 or 1,000 BCE.
NARRATOR: Eid and Simon have solved the
mystery of when this statue was made.
They have shown that Osiris had a firm
and continued hold on ancient Egypt,
1500 years after he first
appeared in Egyptian myth.
NARRATOR: Their analysis of the remaining
statues in the museum
could reveal more about how Osiris,
the god of death and the renewal of life,
and the god associated with the
annual Nile flood,
was worshipped in ancient Egypt.
(dramatic music)
NARRATOR: Near Aswan,
Colleen's investigation of how
the Nile powered ancient Egyptian
civilization brings her to a mysterious,
colossal structure carved
into the riverbank.
COLLEEN: I've seen a lot of monuments in
Egypt,
but this is one of the most impressive.
I mean, the pyramids are huge, but as
a single block of stone, this beats all.
NARRATOR: In all her years exploring
Egypt,
Colleen has never properly examined
this strange structure.
COLLEEN: This is the first time
I've ever been this close.
It's huge. I can't even
see the top from here.
NARRATOR: Up close, Colleen can trace
its outline and understand what it is.
COLLEEN: This would have been the biggest
Obelisk ever attempted.
NARRATOR: This colossal obelisk has
been partially cut
from the granite bedrock
and left unfinished.
These monuments were carved as a pyramid
shaped pillar.
Pharaohs would erect obelisks adorned
with inscriptions,
glorifying their name and their rule
to stamp their authority across Egypt.
NARRATOR: This obelisk would have
stood 140 feet high,
nearly 40 feet taller than any other.
COLLEEN: What's most astounding
to me is that it's a monolith.
We're talking about a single,
uninterrupted piece of stone
from the tippy top
all the way to the bottom.
NARRATOR: It was commissioned by the
female pharaoh, Hatshepsut,
who ruled 150 years before Tutankhamun,
and was intended for a massive temple
in Karnak 150 miles downriver.
COLLEEN: This is absolutely extraordinary.
There is nothing else like this.
NARRATOR: Obelisks were vital for the
pharaohs,
but they needed the Nile to get them
to their pyramids and temples.
COLLEEN: Egypt was incredibly lucky to
have this sort of stone wealth,
but without the Nile River,
they couldn't have taken it very far.
NARRATOR: The river was a conduit
between south and north,
acting as an ancient highway.
(dramatic music)
NARRATOR: Egyptians relied on the
Nile for transportation,
using prevailing winds to sail south and
the current to help them row north.
NARRATOR: To carry light loads, Egyptians
used small boats of papyrus reeds.
For heavier loads,
they used strong wooden ships.
NARRATOR: During the annual flooding of
the Nile,
they moved around 8000 tons of granite
from the quarries in the south
to the pyramids they were
building hundreds of miles north.
They even designed huge cargo ships
to transport giant 160 ton obelisks
from Aswan to their temples further north.
COLLEEN: All of ancient Egypt's monuments
from obelisks and temples,
to the pyramids themselves, would not have
been possible without the Nile River.
COLLEEN: Think about how different
ancient Egypt would look
if they couldn't have used the river
to transport these massive monuments.
NARRATOR: Colleen investigates why
Hatshepsut's colossal obelisk,
the greatest ever commissioned,
was left abandoned.
She spots a clue left
right under her nose.
COLLEEN: This is really neat.
This is one of the pounding stones.
This diorite pounder is actually one of
the stones they used
to carve this obelisk.
NARRATOR: This stone was used to pound the
rock into its obelisk shape.
COLLEEN: These depressions show us the
process that they used
to carve bit by bit by bit.
It was manpower and just chipping away
piece by piece
that this giant obelisk was carved.
NARRATOR: Colleen spots a problem
caused by the carving.
COLLEEN: Here are some very large cracks
that developed in the obelisk.
NARRATOR: This was a problem
that could not be fixed.
The obelisk would have split
into pieces as soon as it was moved.
COLLEEN: These large cracks is why this
massive project was abandoned.
NARRATOR: The pharaoh's project
proved too ambitious.
Hatshepsut's colossal obelisk
was doomed to stay stuck in the bedrock.
It never made the journey downriver,
to adorn Karnak, Egypt's greatest temple.
NARRATOR: The ancient Egyptians relied
on the mighty River Nile
for every aspect of their lives.
It allowed them to build the pyramids,
temples and monuments
that came to define them.
It fertilized their crops
and enabled their cities
to flourish in the dry desert landscape.
NARRATOR: In ancient Egypt,
the Nile was life itself.
Its annual flood, worshipped as a god.
COLLEEN: It's impossible to think of Egypt
without thinking of the Nile.
We know that civilization started here
because of the Nile River that enabled
ancient Egypt to flourish
for thousands of years.