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  • NARRATOR: Egypt, the richest source of

  • archaeological treasures on the planet.

  • WOMAN: Oh, that's a fabulous one.

  • NARRATOR: Beneath this desert landscape lie the secrets of this ancient civilization.

  • JOHN: Wow, can you see why the Pharaoh's chose this place?

  • NARRATOR: Now for a full season of excavations, our cameras have been given

  • unprecedented access to follow teams on the frontline of archaeology.

  • MAN: I'm driving so fast because I'm so excited!

  • WOMAN: It's an entrance, we can see an entrance!

  • NARRATOR: Revealing buried secrets.

  • MAN: I have just been told that they have found something.

  • Oh my gosh!

  • JOHN: A sphinx!

  • NARRATOR: And making discoveries that could rewrite ancient history.

  • This time, new secrets of the boy king, Tutankhamun.

  • Alia uses pioneering technology to reveal startling new evidence about his tomb,

  • and why it remained hidden for 3,000 years.

  • ALIAA: A lot of robberies were going on, how was it not found?

  • NARRATOR: Eissa's team discovers a long-lost cache of King Tutankhamun's treasures.

  • NARRATOR: And Alejandro discovers extraordinary burial treasures in a

  • 4,000 year-old tomb.

  • ALEJANDRO: Congratulations!

  • NARRATOR: The Valley of the Kings, 3,500 years ago,

  • the Great Pharaohs stopped building pyramids as their tombs.

  • They chose these secluded cliffs to become their cemetery.

  • Today, archaeologists come from all over the world to unlock the mysteries still

  • hidden in this City of the Dead.

  • It's the first day in the Valley for Cairo born Egyptologist

  • Aliaa Ismail and her team.

  • ALIAA: There's a real buzz in this place.

  • People are coming from all over the world, coming to the Valley, it's amazing.

  • I'm so proud to have such ancestry.

  • It's one of the most famous necropolises in the world and I think what

  • is special is that it comes out of nowhere.

  • NARRATOR: Over 300 miles south of Cairo, in the heart of Egypt,

  • lie the limestone cliffs of the Valley of the Kings.

  • After 200 years of excavation,

  • archaeologists have located sixty-five tombs hidden among the rocks.

  • But only one has ever been found with its treasure still inside,

  • it belonged to the Pharaoh, Tutankhamun.

  • ALIAA: This here is number 62, Tutankhamun.

  • One of those great finds of the century.

  • NARRATOR: British explorer Howard Carter discovered Tutankhamun's

  • tomb in 1922.

  • One of his teams spotted steps leading down through the sand.

  • They led to the tomb entrance, buried beneath feet of rubble and debris.

  • What Carter found inside inspired archaeologists for generations to come.

  • Deep inside the mountains,

  • amid a maze of tunnels that bore deep through the rock,

  • Carter reached the tomb of Tutankhamun hidden right in the center of the Valley.

  • Inside, he found treasures unlike anything ever seen before.

  • Over 5,000 priceless artifacts including golden statues.

  • In the burial chamber the Pharaoh's mummy, wearing a golden death mask,

  • was placed inside a coffin made of more than 200 pounds of solid gold.

  • This intact tomb made Tutankhamun the most famous of the Pharaohs.

  • Now Aliaa is investing this golden Pharaoh's life.

  • ALIAA: Wow.

  • NARRATOR: And why his tomb remained hidden for so long.

  • Aliaa's team has been scanning and documenting the tomb for the last ten years,

  • and they've made a remarkable discovery.

  • ALIAA: The idea here is to understand what's going on when you look at

  • the data void of color.

  • NARRATOR: The scans strip away the paint on the walls to reveal unusual markings.

  • ALIAA: This was the main scene, and here is the 3D of the North Wall.

  • So, as you can see here, the silhouette of an image and this would have

  • been done while they were painting.

  • NARRATOR: The images show the indented outline of the face hidden below.

  • It's caused by the tip of the paintbrush if you start painting when

  • the plaster is still wet.

  • ALIAA: This is why the brushes would have made a very light impression and

  • this allows us to understand it was rushed.

  • NARRATOR: But why would the tomb builders rush such an important job?

  • The pictures on the wall reveal another set of clues.

  • Despite becoming the most famous Pharaoh of Ancient Egypt,

  • Tutankhamun did not have a lengthy reign.

  • He was only a nine-year-old boy when he became King,

  • and relied on trusted advisors to help rule his vast empire.

  • As Tutankhamun grew older,

  • he was known to portray himself as a warrior king,

  • riding into battle on a chariot.

  • But the boy King suffered from multiple illnesses, including Malaria.

  • He was only nineteen-years-old when he unexpectantly died.

  • (speaking in Arabic).

  • NARRATOR: Aliaa thinks the marks her scans reveal in the plaster are evidence

  • of a hurried burial due to Tutankhamun's sudden death.

  • ALIAA: The decorated part of the tomb is very small, it's only the burial chamber.

  • The rest of the tomb is not decorated.

  • If they had more time, all of this was going to be decorated.

  • NARRATOR: While the tomb's construction may have been rushed, its treasures were

  • everything a Pharaoh could desire to take him into the afterlife.

  • So why did this tomb lay hidden below a layer of rock for thousands of years when

  • all the other tombs in the Valley were looted?

  • To solve this mystery, Aliaa will turn to new technology as she moves her

  • investigation out into the Valley.

  • 300 miles north, in Giza,

  • in the shadow of the pyramids, the biggest treasure haul in history

  • is getting a new home, a one-billion-dollar museum and research center.

  • When completed, the Grand Egyptian Museum will reunite all of Tutankhamun's treasures

  • in one place, for the first time in 100 years.

  • TAREK: Having all of the pieces from the tomb of Tutankhamun together

  • in one place, this will be a fantastic chance to find new facts,

  • new hidden things about Tutankhamun.

  • NARRATOR: After Carter removed the treasures from Tut's tomb,

  • they ended up in museums around Egypt.

  • Now, for the first time, scientists and Egyptologists will use modern

  • technology to analyze each object.

  • TAREK: Some details reappear and give us new information about these antiquities.

  • NARRATOR: But some of Tut's greatest treasures are yet to arrive.

  • 300 miles south in the Luxor Museum, Eissa Zidan is preparing 122 of these

  • priceless artifacts for the move to Giza.

  • NARRATOR: Eissa's packing list includes one of Tut's famous chariots,

  • intricate model boats and

  • a unique head of the cow Goddess, Hathor, elaborately gilded with gold.

  • (speaking in Arabic).

  • NARRATOR: After just four hours, Eissa's packing suddenly comes to a halt.

  • One of his teams has discovered something completely unexpected

  • in the storeroom.

  • It's an antique box that Howard Carter used to pack and transport Tutankhamun's

  • treasures out of the tomb.

  • NARRATOR: The box has been missing, presumed lost, for decades,

  • and no one knows what treasures it may hold.

  • 120 miles south of the Valley of the Kings, near Aswan,

  • a Spanish Research Team from Jaen University

  • is hoping to follow in Carter's footsteps and make new

  • discoveries that could rewrite history.

  • (speaking in Arabic).

  • Professor Alejandro Jimenez-Serrano heads the largest foreign team

  • working in Egypt.

  • Today is the first day of the dig season.

  • ALEJANDRO: Sorry for the mess.

  • We are sharing the room, three researchers of the team.

  • This is my, my bed, supposedly the best one.

  • (laughs).

  • Sorry.

  • (coughs).

  • It's amazing to get up and the first thing that you see apart from the ugly face

  • of your roommates is the Qubbet el-Hawa, the hill.

  • NARRATOR: Qubbet el-Hawa is one of the largest ancient burial sites in Egypt.

  • So far, 100 tombs have been discovered here.

  • They belong to the nobles who governed Egypt hundreds of years before

  • the Pharaoh's buried in the Valley of the Kings.

  • (speaking in Arabic).

  • Alejandro's mission is to hunt for more unopened tombs and reveal more

  • about these early Egyptians.

  • ALEJANDRO: It's difficult to explain how I feel.

  • Not only nervous, it's exciting, it's a mix of feelings.

  • It's an honor to...

  • to come every year.

  • Now here comes the most difficult part of the day,

  • to climb the hill.

  • NARRATOR: This is the team's tenth year digging here.

  • WOMAN: It's so nice to be here again.

  • (laughs).

  • NARRATOR: There's a reason why everyone is excited to be back.

  • Last year, Alejandro found the entranced to a sealed tomb,

  • but his permit expired before he could explore inside.

  • ALEJANDRO: Today is 40 degrees, and working underneath the sun,

  • today's gonna be tough.

  • NARRATOR: To protect against modern day tomb-robbers,

  • they put a steel security door to block the entrance

  • of the vertical shaft that leads to the sealed burial chamber.

  • ALEJANDRO: Well it has been one-year waiting, one-year imagining the possibilities.

  • I'm very excited.

  • NARRATOR: In Luxor, Eissa's team packs Tutankhamun's treasures for the move

  • to the Grand Egyptian Museum in Giza.

  • But in the storeroom,

  • Eissa is ready to open Carter's long-lost box to discover

  • what's inside.

  • NARRATOR: The team gathers around to see if the box really does contain priceless

  • treasures from Tutankhamun's tomb.

  • MOHAMMAD: Ah.

  • (laughter)

  • MAN: Fantastic. MOHAMMAD: It's amazing.

  • NARRATOR: These delicate wooden pieces are ancient boat parts.

  • NARRATOR: Storeroom records suggest they could be missing from a model boat

  • Howard Carter found in Tutankhamun's tomb.

  • NARRATOR: According to ancient Egyptian belief,

  • boats played a key role after death.

  • So, placing model boats into tombs was a vital part of any burial.

  • The vessels also came complete with crew because it was believed the replicas

  • would come to life and help with fishing and transport in the underworld.

  • The Pharaohs used a special vessel to sail across the sky for eternity.

  • Ordinary people also thought they could reach the afterlife by boat,

  • rowing on the Nile and into the next world.

  • MOHAMMAD: You can see here the date of the newspaper,

  • it's Sunday 5th of November, 1933.

  • NARRATOR: To discover where these pieces came from,

  • Mohammad inspects Carter's original inventory.

  • NARRATOR: Records show that the box was sent to Luxor in 1973

  • but had gone missing, presumed lost or stolen.

  • NARRATOR: Eissa thinks the rest of the boat is safe in the new Cairo lab,

  • so they may finally be able to reunite it.

  • To transport the treasures to Giza,

  • Eissa's team must traverse 400 miles of barren desert roads

  • and crowded city streets before they reach the safety of the new museum.

  • It will take two trucks to transport all 122 of the artifacts to Giza.

  • EISSA: This a very, very big moment for the collection,

  • this is the final trip of Tutankhamun.

  • NARRATOR: But with such priceless relics on board,

  • there's concern the convoy could be a target for a hijacking.

  • EISSA: We have a good police and good army.

  • They will follow us during moving from Luxor until arrive to Cairo.

  • NARRATOR: With security in place, it's time to roll.

  • They now face a grueling twelve-hour journey through the desert to

  • reach Giza before nightfall.

  • Ever since Carter's discovery of Tutankhamun's priceless golden treasures,

  • archaeologists have continued to try and figure out where and how the

  • ancient Egyptians found vast quantities of gold.

  • Fifty-miles south of the Valley of the Kings,

  • on the edge of the Eastern Desert,

  • French gold expert Thomas Faucher and archaeologist John Ward are

  • on the hunt for the origins of Tutankhamun's gold.

  • THOMAS: So, I'm going to...

  • JOHN: What are you waiting for, a traffic signal?

  • NARRATOR: The Eastern Desert covers 85,000 square-miles of remote barren wilderness.

  • Some of the rock here contains tiny grains of gold locked inside.

  • Thomas has studied ancient gold mining techniques for seven years.

  • Now he wants to see if he can find any evidence of it.

  • But this part of the desert is a risky place to be.

  • THOMAS: The thing is we need to leave before dark because it's not safe if we are

  • staying there because we can lose our way, we can have an accident and

  • it's also at the sunset that all the snakes are going out.

  • JOHN: Snakes?

  • THOMAS: Yeah, vipers.

  • JOHN: No one told me about...

  • THOMAS: There are horrid vipers, yeah.

  • NARRATOR: The first stop, an ancient well.

  • It could provide clues to the location of mining communities during

  • the time of Tutankhamun.

  • THOMAS: This is the well just right in front of us here.

  • JOHN: It's dry.

  • My God, that's a long way down.

  • NARRATOR: The well might be dry today, but it was so important to

  • the ancient Egyptians, they built a temple to honor it.

  • JOHN: It's beautiful isn't it?

  • They actually applied a plaster gyp ceiling and then applied the paint.

  • Amazing.

  • NARRATOR: The text engraved on these walls reveals clues about the

  • gold miners and where they were heading.

  • Ancient engineers built a network of wells and rest stops stretching all the way

  • across the desert, each a day's walk from the last,

  • enabling travelers and miners

  • to safely cross and explore the barren desert.

  • The temple carvings indicate these wells led toward the mines.

  • Thomas hopes he will be able to find some evidence of the people

  • behind Tutankhamun's goldmining operations.

  • THOMAS: Now it's time to go deeper East...

  • NARRATOR: Like an ancient treasure map, they must follow the trail of

  • wells further into the desert.

  • In Aswan, at the ancient burial site of Qubbet el-Hawa,

  • Alejandro is about to open a 4,000-year-old tomb.

  • They're on the hunt for whatever burial treasure may be inside.

  • ALEJANDRO: I don't know who is more nervous, me or my team.

  • I want to go now!

  • (laughs).

  • NARRATOR: After a year of waiting, Alejandro can finally enter the tomb.

  • ALEJANDRO: It's amazing.

  • NARRATOR: It contains a 4,000-year-old coffin.

  • Workers have inserted a box covered in acid-free paper inside the coffin to

  • stop it from collapsing while they examine the tomb.

  • (sighs).

  • ALEJANDRO: There, we have been very lucky.

  • It's impossible to explain the feelings that I'm having.

  • The burial consisted in two coffins, the outer coffin and the inner coffin.

  • NARRATOR: Among the debris of the outer coffin,

  • Alejandro spots something extraordinary.

  • ALEJANDRO: It is full of wooden models, but unfortunately, the outer

  • coffin fall over them.

  • NARRATOR: The chamber is full of model boats,

  • similar to the one in Tutankhamun's tomb.

  • ALEJANDRO: To find this funerary boat in a tomb is rare today.

  • NARRATOR: But there's not just one, there are four, complete with crew.

  • ALEJANDRO: You want to laugh, you want to shout, you want to cry.

  • NARRATOR: This is the first time in seventy-years a set of boats like

  • this has been found.

  • This discovery gives Alejandro an extremely rare opportunity to study

  • such important burial goods.

  • But first he has to extract them from the tomb safely.

  • Alejandro calls in his team of conservation specialists,

  • Sara and Theresa.

  • NARRATOR: Termites have attacked the wooden boats.

  • Sara sprays on a liquid adhesive to hold them together.

  • ALEJANDRO: So, we will see if they are capable to make a miracle.

  • NARRATOR: They prepare a foam-lined cradle to support the boat for the move

  • to the team's restoration lab, but the wooden hull is stuck to the tomb floor.

  • It'll require surgical precision using scalpels to free it.

  • ALEJANDRO: From the tomb to the restoration lab we are talking

  • about perhaps 40-meters.

  • But today's very windy which is very, very aggressive.

  • NARRATOR: The ancient boats are extremely fragile.

  • ALEJANDRO: Get ready.

  • NARRATOR: With a drop in the wind, the team sees the chance to remove the first boat.

  • ♪ ♪

  • ALEJANDRO: Perfect. That was exciting.

  • One of the best moments in my career.

  • WOMAN: We have 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 8 person.

  • ALEJANDRO: We take many weeks to clean it and fix the pieces that were

  • broken some centuries ago.

  • NARRATOR: While the team gets to work on the boat,

  • Alejandro can finally open the coffin to see who and what is inside.

  • In the middle of the desert,

  • the convoy carrying Tutankhamun's priceless

  • treasures is two hours into its journey when Eissa spots a problem.

  • NARRATOR: A thermal blanket protecting Tut's golden chariot is coming loose.

  • If it flies off, it could cause a crash.

  • NARRATOR: The unscheduled stop in the desert makes this convoy,

  • carrying the world's most priceless treasures, a potential target for hijackers.

  • (speaking in Arabic).

  • NARRATOR: Eissa and his team are unable to secure the loose thermal covering

  • protecting Tut's chariot.

  • NARRATOR: Removing the cover,

  • they risk the scorching desert heat potentially damaging

  • the priceless treasure.

  • EISSA: Everything is okay.

  • NARRATOR: Now, Eissa needs to get the convoy moving.

  • HASSAN: We hope to arrive to Cairo safely.

  • NARRATOR: In the Valley, Egyptologist Aliaa Ismail is on a mission to

  • discover how Tutankhamun's tomb and treasures remained hidden for 3,000 years.

  • ALIAA: A lot of robberies were going on in ancient times and modern times.

  • But it seems that this particular tomb was not found.

  • How was it not found?

  • NARRATOR: The ancient engineers of Tutankhamun's tomb had a plan.

  • Inside the mountain, they went to great lengths to conceal the tomb.

  • The Pharaoh's burial chamber is located 26 feet underground,

  • and is defended from the inside out.

  • Engineers constructed a wall to block off the burial chamber.

  • They filled the corridor leading to the King with tons of rubble,

  • before sealing a final doorway and covering Tutankhamun's tomb with

  • a vast amount of boulders under earth standard tomb protection of the day.

  • But when Carter discovered this tomb, it had more material on top than

  • any other in the Valley.

  • This may explain how it remained undiscovered for over 3,000 years.

  • But how did this extra rock and debris get here?

  • Aliaa joins German Geologist Martin Ziegler to investigate.

  • MARTIN: If you want to understand the evolution of the Valley of the Kings, you

  • need to also understand the evolution of the rock.

  • NARRATOR: Martin thinks there could be clues in the rocks at the

  • entrance to a nearby tomb.

  • MARTIN: Just at the entrance of it, a slab is just hanging above,

  • a rock basically could fall out of the cliff.

  • NARRATOR: Egypt is hit with dozens of earthquakes each year.

  • So, Martin's installed a seismometer to measure any vibrations that

  • could trigger rock falls.

  • MARTIN: With this one we calculate it to be...

  • weigh about 600 to 700 kilometers from the Valley of the Kings.

  • ALIAA: What if an earthquake would...

  • were to happen like much closer to the Valley of the Kings, how would it affect it?

  • MARTIN: A very big earthquake could destabilize some rock portions.

  • So, when you look in the...

  • in the history of recorded earthquakes, the historic timescales, let's say the

  • thousands of years, we have some records of earthquakes of that type of magnitude.

  • NARRATOR: So, could rock falls caused by earthquakes 3,000 years ago account

  • for the extra tons of rock that covered the entrance to Tutankhamun's tomb?

  • MARTIN: From the geological past and the historic point of view, they could have rock

  • falls or rock slides that are triggered by earthquakes covering tombs.

  • NARRATOR: But there are no cliffs directly above Tutankhamun's tomb, so it

  • wouldn't have been hit by a direct rockfall.

  • How did so much extra material travel down the valley and completely cover

  • the entrance to the tomb?

  • To solve this mystery Aliaa and Martin must take to the air.

  • Deep in the Eastern Desert, Thomas and John are looking for evidence of the miners who

  • produced the gold for Tutankhamun's treasures.

  • They're trying to find a route of ancient wells that the goldminers would

  • have followed as they travelled to the mines.

  • JOHN: It's like looking for a needle in a haystack.

  • But I'm losing a few kidneys.

  • (laughs).

  • NARRATOR: Seventy miles from the last ancient well,

  • Thomas and John head into the unknown.

  • With their G-P-S broken down, they now risk getting completely lost.

  • JOHN: This piece of technology is defunct!

  • It is not working.

  • Look here, it's literally on the right side.

  • So, we are now at the back end.

  • So, we need to turn around.

  • NARRATOR: But after two days of searching, John thinks they may have

  • finally found something.

  • JOHN: What's that over there?

  • At the base of that mountain there?

  • So, we found it!

  • THOMAS: Okay, so it looks that we've found a very interesting place here.

  • It's a settlement.

  • NARRATOR: It may look like scattered stones and debris, but to Thomas' expert eye,

  • he can see the outline of ancient buildings.

  • THOMAS: We have the huts where the people were living and where they were working.

  • Yeah, we definitely have here the evidence...

  • JOHN: Oh Thomas... THOMAS: Here...

  • I mean people have been working here and we see, yeah,

  • there are even more over there.

  • NARRATOR: As they get closer,

  • John spots the tools the ancient miners would have used to extract

  • gold from the rocks.

  • JOHN: Oh.

  • THOMAS: Yeah, that's the grinding stone.

  • JOHN: That's a pounder.

  • THOMAS: Yeah, that's a pounder. Yeah, exactly.

  • JOHN: That's what they would break...

  • THOMAS: Yeah they would... JOHN: The quartz with. THOMAS: Yeah.

  • NARRATOR: It's the remains of an ancient goldmining camp.

  • JOHN: I mean how many people are we talking, 20, 30?

  • THOMAS: Yeah maybe there were like families living here.

  • NARRATOR: Thomas has studied ancient mining techniques for years.

  • But seeing this evidence first-hand brings home the hardships the miners endured.

  • THOMAS: You start from a piece of quartz like this and you want to make

  • product out of it.

  • So, you need to crush it.

  • And you have to imagine how much pain it takes just

  • to break a single piece of quartz,

  • doing that like all day long, in the sun, pounding and pounding and

  • grinding and grinding and doing that for years.

  • NARRATOR: Evidence here paints a picture of the life of desert miners.

  • They cut shafts stretching up to thirty-two feet deep into the stone in search of

  • precious seams of quartz rock that contained gold.

  • Crushing the quartz was a massive undertaking.

  • Mining experts have calculated that a team of twenty people would take

  • a week to process enough stone to make just a spoonful of gold.

  • THOMAS: That's heavy.

  • JOHN: Seriously.

  • NARRATOR: Sadly, there is very little evidence left of these ancient mines, but these

  • settlements provide new insight into the communities that lived such hard lives

  • processing the gold.

  • THOMAS: We have all the material they were using for sure, that they were

  • working here to extract and process the gold to send it to the Valley of the Kings.

  • JOHN: We've found it. THOMAS: We've found it.

  • NARRATOR: In Aswan, Alejandro's team prepares to remove the coffin from the

  • tomb they've opened.

  • Inscriptions reveal it belongs to a man called Shemai.

  • ALEJANDRO: They have just struck the lid of the coffin of Shemai.

  • Rebecca, you are the first person that is looking at Shemai's face in 4000 years.

  • (speaking in Arabic).

  • Congratulations!

  • (laughs).

  • NARRATOR: The inner coffin is intact, but extremely fragile.

  • Alejandro's team has reinforced it to try and protect the mummy inside.

  • ALEJANDRO: It's difficult to express the feelings that I have now.

  • It's a special moment because I'm studying this family, and it's almost my second family.

  • NARRATOR: In the restoration lab, the intricate beauty

  • of the model boats is starting to appear.

  • Termites have eaten much of the wood, but their excrement

  • has actually helped hold parts of the boats together for thousands of years.

  • ALEJANDRO: We have some parts that are still in a very good state of conservation.

  • This head of the man, it is covered with excrement of the termites,

  • but the wood is still visible.

  • NARRATOR: Alejandro has spotted a figure distinct from the other carvings.

  • ALEJANDRO: We can see in the middle of the boat a yellow face which belongs to a mummy,

  • which would represent Shemai.

  • NARRATOR: This exceptional discovery will help archaeologists understand

  • the evolution of burial practices in ancient Egypt.

  • ALEJANDRO: I was dreaming always to discover something like this,

  • and it's a dream that came true.

  • NARRATOR: Alejandro's next task is to bring Shemai's mummy above ground

  • for the first time in 4,000 years.

  • NARRATOR: In the Valley of the Kings,

  • Aliaa and Martin look for clues to explain why

  • Tutankhamun's tomb remained hidden for so long.

  • They've got special permission from the Government to use a drone to get a unique

  • perspective on the position of Tutankhamun's tomb.

  • MARTIN: There we go.

  • MAN: If we look down we should be over the Tutankhamun entrance right now.

  • MARTIN: Now we can see the cliffs in the back, and we can see the central position of

  • the tomb.

  • And above we can see debris.

  • NARRATOR: Loose rock and debris cover the cliffs behind Tut's tomb.

  • But the drone also reveals these flood channels, carved into the rock by heavy rains

  • over thousands of years and they could be the vital missing clue.

  • MARTIN: We think that if we have flash flooding, that material can flow down in

  • these kinds of channels.

  • NARRATOR: Throughout history the Valley has been hit by earthquakes,

  • and occasional flash floods.

  • The flood waters push rubble downhill toward the tombs.

  • Tutankhamun's tomb lies in the spot where the channels of water converge,

  • and dump tons of rock.

  • This, combined with stone chippings from a tomb built above, buried the entrance

  • deeper and kept it hidden for over 3,000 years.

  • ALIAA: It's very exciting for me as an Egyptologist to see Tutankhamun's tomb

  • from up here and see how it fits within the valley.

  • It is the prime location, it is the one that was most protected.

  • He got the most sheltered tomb of all.

  • NARRATOR: Tutankhamun was a boy King who played a minor role in Egypt's history,

  • but because his tomb remained hidden for thousands of years,

  • his treasure was kept safe from robbers and

  • made him the legend we know today.

  • In Aswan, the team is bringing the mummy of ancient Egyptian Shemai

  • to the surface for the first time in 4,000 years.

  • This is the culmination of ten years of field work for Alejandro,

  • and an incredible opportunity to learn more about Shemai.

  • ALEJANDRO: Oh 125, it's quite short.

  • My daughter is more of less like this and she's eight years old.

  • I expected that at least he would be around 20-years-old or something.

  • It has been a surprise.

  • I never expected that he could be just a boy.

  • On his coffin it was written that he was the person in charge of

  • the administration of the store.

  • Controlling the store, you control the people because you decide who is going

  • to receive food or not.

  • NARRATOR: This new evidence reveals Shemai held a powerful position in

  • Egyptian Society at a very young age.

  • He may not have been a Pharaoh, but like the boy King Tutankhamun,

  • his status afforded him a tomb and burial goods to ensure a safe passage into the afterlif.

  • It's taken twelve hours, but finally Eissa and his convoy of

  • Tutankhamun's treasures arrive in the city.

  • It's very, very, very exciting.

  • We wait for this moment.

  • NARRATOR: Tarek Tawfik the Museum Director,

  • is anxious to get everything safely inside.

  • TAREK: The first cradles have to be taken out, in order for the Tutankhamun

  • pieces to start emerging.

  • EISSA: Now I can say I'm very, very happy.

  • Mission is complete, yes.

  • TAREK: It will be like unpacking Christmas presents.

  • When we get out these pieces and find out more details about how they complement the

  • whole story of King Tutankhamun.

  • NARRATOR: Eissa's team can finally unpack the priceless treasures.

  • Scientists and Egyptologists can now begin to study and

  • analyze each item in their new high-tech lab.

  • Top of the list are the newly discovered boat pieces.

  • MOHAMMAD: We'll check now in our database which of them maybe related to any

  • of the boats in the storeroom.

  • NARRATOR: For almost 100 years, the boat that was buried alongside Tutankhamun

  • to help him travel into the afterlife has been missing its mast.

  • (speaking in Arabic).

  • HASSAN: Exactly!

  • MOHAMMAD: It's very beautiful.

  • It's amazing that after all these years, we still have new discoveries and new secrets

  • for this golden King, Tutankhamun.

  • NARRATOR: 100 years after its discovery,

  • Tutankhamun's stunning treasure is still

  • surprising the world.

  • And the Valley of the Kings

  • shows why it remains the greatest place on Earth to

  • hunt for the secrets of Egypt's famous Pharaohs.

  • Captioned by Cotter Captioning Services.

NARRATOR: Egypt, the richest source of

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