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Camel get out.

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00:00:05,000 --> 00:00:06,000
Woo!

3
00:00:06,000 --> 00:00:11,000
This is brilliant.

4
00:00:11,000 --> 00:00:14,000
This is obviously an iconic image.

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00:00:14,000 --> 00:00:20,000
Taking a camel ride by the pyramids, surely
it encapsulates the spirit of Egypt.

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00:00:20,000 --> 00:00:24,000
But such an image is completely misleading.

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Because there weren't any camels here when
the pyramids were built four and a half...

8
00:00:30,000 --> 00:00:32,000
And that's the thing.

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00:00:32,000 --> 00:00:40,000
Ancient Egypt is instantly recognisable, but
all too often completely misunderstood.

10
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So I'm going to try and change that.

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Good luck!

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00:00:46,000 --> 00:00:48,000
Thank you very much.

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00:00:49,000 --> 00:00:54,000
The Great Pyramid of Giza, final resting
place of King Khufu.

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00:00:54,000 --> 00:00:59,000
Over 140 metres from bottom to top.

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00:00:59,000 --> 00:01:05,000
No wonder it still pulls in the crowds, and
the occasional Egyptologist.

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It's well here.

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It's well here.

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It's hard to really get it into words, but we
are now entering into the depths of this...

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It's well here.

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00:01:27,000 --> 00:01:31,000
It's a very busy iconic monument though.

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It's well here.

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And as we set foot on this journey upwards,
it's a brilliant metaphor for the way that...

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So come with me and I'll show you something
really brilliant.

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Because the pyramids are really only the tip
of the iceberg.

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Oh, oh, flipping out.

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So all this was a big city.

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Overwhelming all this.

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That is absolutely superb.

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In this series, I'm going to explore the
story of what I consider to be the world's...

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00:02:19,000 --> 00:02:28,000
More than 4,000 years of history that has
shaped our world and left unmistakable mar...

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I'll be looking into every nook and cranny.

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From little known tombs.

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It's staggering. I've never, ever been into a
tomb quite like this before.

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To the hidden corners of vast monuments.

35
00:02:43,000 --> 00:02:45,000
It's like being on top of the world, isn't
it?

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No, we are in the top of Karnak.

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So it's really no surprise that weird and
wonderful theories about ancient Egypt cro...

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But what I find so amazing is that this most
intriguing civilization was actually creat...

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00:03:08,000 --> 00:03:11,000
And that's the story I want to tell.

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A story full of secret treasures.

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00:03:16,000 --> 00:03:18,000
Dark deeds.

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00:03:19,000 --> 00:03:22,000
And sometimes controversial theories.

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00:03:22,000 --> 00:03:26,000
This mask was originally made for someone
else.

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And for the first time, I'll be piecing it
all together.

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From the earliest Egyptians to the last of
the pharaohs.

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Wow, look at that, look at that!

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Oh, that is so beautiful!

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Welcome to my story of ancient Egypt.

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The big question is, how did ancient Egypt
begin?

50
00:03:52,000 --> 00:03:56,000
Where did the first Egyptians and their
extraordinary culture come from?

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00:04:00,000 --> 00:04:03,000
Ancient Egypt was a place of great culture.

52
00:04:03,000 --> 00:04:06,000
Ancient Egypt was a place of great culture.

53
00:04:06,000 --> 00:04:09,000
Ancient Egypt was a place of great culture.

54
00:04:09,000 --> 00:04:12,000
Ancient Egypt was a place of great culture.

55
00:04:12,000 --> 00:04:15,000
Where did their extraordinary culture come
from?

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00:04:18,000 --> 00:04:25,000
This immortal civilization was thousands of
years in the making, so to pull it all...

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But bear with me as it's utterly fascinating.

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00:04:29,000 --> 00:04:35,000
But we won't begin with massive monuments,
but with some enigmatic clues you could...

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This is Kirtah, around 100 kilometres south
of Luxor.

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Unless you're an archaeologist, you almost
certainly won't find anything.

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Because there aren't any great temples or
royal tombs to admire.

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But high in the cliffs, you can see real
signs of ancient life here.

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Thousands of years before the pyramids.

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And this is where our story begins.

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Welcome to Kirtah.

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Welcome to Kirtah.

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And this is where our story begins.

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Welcome to Kirtah, Joanne.

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Thank you so much for letting me come here.
It's incredibly exciting.

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It's the first time you're here, I suppose.

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00:05:31,000 --> 00:05:37,000
Nothing escapes the sharp eye of Dr Dirk
Heuger, and he's got something very specia...

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00:05:37,000 --> 00:05:41,000
Not many people have been here before you
because it's a quite recent discovery.

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These carvings in the rock reveal an amazing
story about the beginnings of Egyptian life.

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It's a 19,000 year old picture gallery.

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Complete with its own hippo.

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Back line, very short tail, hind legs.

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Back line, very short tail, hind legs.

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Belly line, front legs.

79
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And the mouth is shown.

80
00:06:15,000 --> 00:06:18,000
Hippo is smiling, but then again a hippo is
always smiling.

81
00:06:20,000 --> 00:06:24,000
But another type of animal is by far the most
common here.

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That's cattle.

83
00:06:27,000 --> 00:06:29,000
Ah, it's not just cattle.

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It's the mighty aurochs, the wild boffet,
wild cattle.

85
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And the extremely powerful images that seem
to be in movement.

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They are the charging down to orders, aren't
they?

87
00:06:43,000 --> 00:06:47,000
These wild aurochs were ancestors of the
domestic cow.

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00:06:47,000 --> 00:06:52,000
And nearly 20,000 years ago, beef was the
main thing on the menu.

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About maybe 50% of their diet was composed of
aurochs.

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00:07:02,000 --> 00:07:06,000
So they were experts and masters in
representing this animal.

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00:07:11,000 --> 00:07:14,000
It's always high on the cliff, very prominent
positions

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00:07:14,000 --> 00:07:19,000
that give an excellent panorama over what
must have been in the Paleolithic,

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00:07:19,000 --> 00:07:21,000
the hunting grounds of the people.

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It's easy to picture these early hunters here
as they tracked their prey.

95
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But the landscape would have looked very
different from today,

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because back then this was savannah
grassland, a green and fertile region.

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Do we have any idea why these creatures were
engraved on these rocks here?

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We can guess, Joanne, but we don't know.

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Maybe they wanted to influence the hunting.

100
00:08:01,000 --> 00:08:04,000
Maybe this is some sort of hunting magic.

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00:08:12,000 --> 00:08:17,000
It really is magical to sit here and imagine
Egypt's earliest nomadic people

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00:08:17,000 --> 00:08:21,000
passing right through this spot and
portraying on these very rocks

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00:08:21,000 --> 00:08:24,000
the animals that they saw all around them.

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Human figures and boats joined the animals as
the carvings became stranger and stranger.

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But these carvings are also the earliest
glimpse of the amazing things to come.

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These are the first signs of what makes
ancient Egypt, well, ancient Egypt.

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As for its ancient landscape, this evolved
under dramatic circumstances.

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10,000 years ago, gravity tilted the entire
earth off its axis by about half a degree,

109
00:09:07,000 --> 00:09:11,000
and this had a profound effect on climate.

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And as the world began to change, Egypt would
never be the same again.

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Now, these early people were nomads, they
were nomads.

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00:09:21,000 --> 00:09:26,000
Now, these early people were nomads,
seasonally mobile pastoralists

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who moved around following the summer rains.

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And these rains really were the vital
life-bringing force

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which created the greenery on which wild
animals depended.

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But, of course, with climate change, these
rains began to dry up.

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Okay, you can cut the rain.

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The diminishing rainfall forced both animals
and people towards large lakes

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which formed during the rainy season.

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00:10:01,000 --> 00:10:06,000
One such area is Nabta Playa, 100 kilometres
southwest of Asswan.

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00:10:06,000 --> 00:10:11,000
And here, these nomadic hunters began to
settle into communities.

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But still reliant on the annual summer rains,

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they needed to predict exactly when these
would return.

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00:10:18,000 --> 00:10:21,000
They needed to predict exactly when these
would return.

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And so they turned to the night sky.

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Welcome to the beginning of time.

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Quite literally, because this is Egypt's
oldest calendar.

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At around 7,000 years old, this stone circle
from Nabta Playa

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is the earliest evidence of how Egyptian
weather forecasters became astronomers.

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They aligned its central stones to the
circumpolar stars,

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visible in the night sky all year round.

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When the sun appeared directly overhead, the
stones cast no shadow.

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When the sun appeared directly overhead, the
stones cast no shadow.

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00:11:00,000 --> 00:11:03,000
The midsummer rains were approaching.

135
00:11:04,000 --> 00:11:08,000
This meant that the animals would drink, the
plants would grow

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00:11:08,000 --> 00:11:11,000
and the world would survive for another year.

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00:11:11,000 --> 00:11:14,000
So in many ways, this circle represents the
solution

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to the very real problem of survival.

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00:11:18,000 --> 00:11:21,000
But the Egyptians would take this a step
further.

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I think the really great thing about these
mini-monumental markers

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is that this is the earliest example we have

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00:11:29,000 --> 00:11:33,000
of the way in which the Egyptians are
aligning their monuments

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00:11:33,000 --> 00:11:36,000
to various things, to the sky, to the
cardinal points.

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And from now on, every tool that we have

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00:11:39,000 --> 00:11:41,000
is the most important piece.

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00:11:41,000 --> 00:11:45,000
And from now on, every tomb, every temple,
every monument

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00:11:45,000 --> 00:11:49,000
will be aligned to the heavens, to the very
gods themselves.

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00:11:54,000 --> 00:11:57,000
If the stars and the rain were this closely
linked,

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00:11:58,000 --> 00:12:01,000
then this world and the next must be one and
the same.

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00:12:04,000 --> 00:12:08,000
Now this has been described as Egypt's
earliest sculpted stone monument

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00:12:08,000 --> 00:12:11,000
and dates from around 5000 BC.

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00:12:12,000 --> 00:12:16,000
This chunk of sandstone was quarried over a
mile away

153
00:12:16,000 --> 00:12:19,000
from where it was eventually discovered.

154
00:12:19,000 --> 00:12:23,000
This certainly suggests a kind of sense of
community

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00:12:23,000 --> 00:12:27,000
where people were already working together to
achieve a desired aim.

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00:12:27,000 --> 00:12:31,000
In this case, the stone was hauled into place

157
00:12:31,000 --> 00:12:36,000
and then there are clear signs that it's been
sculpted into a specific shape.

158
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Now you might have to go with me on this,

159
00:12:39,000 --> 00:12:43,000
but some believe that this is in fact a cow

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with its large hindquarters

161
00:12:48,000 --> 00:12:50,000
and this sculpted head.

162
00:12:52,000 --> 00:12:55,000
Now the cow was a vital part of everyday life
for these people.

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00:12:55,000 --> 00:12:58,000
It was a source of meat, of milk and of
blood.

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00:12:58,000 --> 00:13:01,000
Key sources of protein, they needed to keep
them healthy.

165
00:13:01,000 --> 00:13:04,000
And yet so important was the cow,

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00:13:04,000 --> 00:13:07,000
they chose to take it through into the
afterlife with them

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00:13:07,000 --> 00:13:10,000
to sustain them on a spiritual level.

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00:13:10,000 --> 00:13:15,000
And this is the very beginnings of the great
cow goddess Hathor.

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00:13:19,000 --> 00:13:23,000
Hathor may have started off as a source of
milk and meat,

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00:13:23,000 --> 00:13:28,000
but eventually she would be loved and
idolised by millions of Egyptians

171
00:13:28,000 --> 00:13:33,000
since she represented love, joy, beauty and
motherhood.

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00:13:36,000 --> 00:13:39,000
And although her image develops from a
life-like animal

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00:13:39,000 --> 00:13:42,000
to a female face with cow's ears,

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this may be Hathor's very earliest
incarnation.

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Yet Hathor is only one of a multitude of gods
and goddesses.

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00:13:54,000 --> 00:13:57,000
The Egyptians just couldn't get enough of
them.

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00:13:57,000 --> 00:14:01,000
Over the centuries emerged hundreds, if not
thousands of deities,

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00:14:01,000 --> 00:14:05,000
each with a specific purpose and appearance.

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00:14:06,000 --> 00:14:10,000
Some came in human form, some had animal
heads.

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00:14:12,000 --> 00:14:16,000
They could be male, female, even androgynous.

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00:14:18,000 --> 00:14:21,000
It seems that there were few aspects of life

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00:14:21,000 --> 00:14:24,000
that didn't have their own gods.

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00:14:27,000 --> 00:14:29,000
We know that in the very earliest times,

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their gods resembled familiar things, the
world around them,

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00:14:33,000 --> 00:14:36,000
elements of nature and certainly animals.

186
00:14:36,000 --> 00:14:40,000
And over time, the animals, their forms,
their shapes,

187
00:14:40,000 --> 00:14:45,000
their characteristics were distilled down
into this sort of divine figure.

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00:14:45,000 --> 00:14:48,000
Each one worshipped for a different quality.

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00:14:48,000 --> 00:14:53,000
In the case of the ram, they were worshipped
for their procreative powers.

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00:14:53,000 --> 00:14:58,000
In the case of the cow, for their nurturing,
motherly instincts.

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00:14:58,000 --> 00:15:01,000
And of course you've got rather different
creatures,

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00:15:01,000 --> 00:15:06,000
the dangerous creatures, the ones that lived
on the edges of the Egyptian world,

193
00:15:06,000 --> 00:15:09,000
the lions, the crocodiles, the jackals.

194
00:15:12,000 --> 00:15:16,000
But it wasn't just about finding the
appropriate divinity.

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00:15:16,000 --> 00:15:19,000
It was about gaining power over them.

196
00:15:19,000 --> 00:15:23,000
The goddess Sekhmet was a ferocious lioness

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00:15:23,000 --> 00:15:26,000
and the bringer of death to humans.

198
00:15:27,000 --> 00:15:30,000
So the Egyptians transformed her into a deity

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00:15:30,000 --> 00:15:33,000
as a way of controlling her destructive
powers.

200
00:15:33,000 --> 00:15:38,000
By worshipping Sekhmet, it was believed that
she could be placated

201
00:15:38,000 --> 00:15:41,000
and transformed into a more benign deity.

202
00:15:41,000 --> 00:15:45,000
On so many levels, the Egyptians were trying
to tap into nature

203
00:15:45,000 --> 00:15:49,000
to affect the way that nature then in turn
affected them.

204
00:15:53,000 --> 00:15:59,000
In many ways, Egypt's unique religion was the
glue that held society together,

205
00:15:59,000 --> 00:16:05,000
uniting the population and underpinning
almost every aspect of life.

206
00:16:05,000 --> 00:16:09,000
It's everywhere, in tombs, in churches, in
churches,

207
00:16:09,000 --> 00:16:13,000
it's everywhere, in tombs, in temples, in
everyday life.

208
00:16:14,000 --> 00:16:19,000
And yet there is another, even more
fundamental element

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00:16:19,000 --> 00:16:24,000
without which ancient Egypt would never have
existed at all.

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00:16:24,000 --> 00:16:29,000
Later Greek historians famously observed that
Egypt was the gift of the Nile.

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00:16:29,000 --> 00:16:31,000
And how right they were.

212
00:16:31,000 --> 00:16:36,000
Because as the climate continued to change,
the desert lakes eventually dried up,

213
00:16:36,000 --> 00:16:40,000
leaving the Egyptians with just one source of
water.

214
00:16:43,000 --> 00:16:47,000
The Nile was a place where the earth was a
place of peace.

215
00:16:47,000 --> 00:16:50,000
It was a place where the earth was a place of
peace.

216
00:16:50,000 --> 00:16:53,000
And so they had one source of water.

217
00:17:07,000 --> 00:17:10,000
This is an incredibly special place.

218
00:17:10,000 --> 00:17:16,000
Located in modern Sudan, it nonetheless forms
the very source of Egypt.

219
00:17:16,000 --> 00:17:20,000
The two great rivers meet, the White Nile and
the Blue Nile,

220
00:17:20,000 --> 00:17:24,000
which combine here to form the world's
longest river,

221
00:17:24,000 --> 00:17:28,000
flowing from the heart of Africa and out into
the Mediterranean Sea.

222
00:17:32,000 --> 00:17:38,000
For much of the year, the wide, lazy White
Nile is the main source of water,

223
00:17:38,000 --> 00:17:44,000
until annual rainfall in the Ethiopian
highlands swells the fast-flowing Blue Nile.

224
00:17:44,000 --> 00:17:49,000
Today, the modern Aswan dams hold back these
floodwaters.

225
00:17:49,000 --> 00:17:54,000
But until the 20th century, huge volumes of
water and fertile silt

226
00:17:54,000 --> 00:17:58,000
surged downriver to flood the entire Nile
Valley,

227
00:18:00,000 --> 00:18:04,000
bringing life and fertility to the desert
that is Egypt.

228
00:18:14,000 --> 00:18:18,000
This annual Nile flood was the single most
important event

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00:18:18,000 --> 00:18:20,000
in the lives of every ancient Egyptian,

230
00:18:20,000 --> 00:18:24,000
for its life-giving waters brought the
nutrients and minerals,

231
00:18:24,000 --> 00:18:27,000
which enriched the soil all along its banks,

232
00:18:27,000 --> 00:18:31,000
and this allowed agriculture to flourish.

233
00:18:33,000 --> 00:18:37,000
Egypt is blessed with some of the most
fertile land in the world,

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00:18:38,000 --> 00:18:42,000
where farmers can grow everything from sweet
corn and garlic,

235
00:18:42,000 --> 00:18:45,000
to bananas, sugar cane and cotton.

236
00:18:51,000 --> 00:18:55,000
Badawi, it's quite intensive farming, isn't
it?

237
00:18:55,000 --> 00:18:58,000
The land gives the people a lot, doesn't it?

238
00:18:58,000 --> 00:19:01,000
Yes, but we need to give the land also rest.

239
00:19:01,000 --> 00:19:05,000
We grow one time and we leave it for one
month,

240
00:19:05,000 --> 00:19:09,000
then after we use the land again to grow
again.

241
00:19:09,000 --> 00:19:12,000
That's amazing that it only needs one month
rest time

242
00:19:12,000 --> 00:19:14,000
and then it can be planted again.

243
00:19:14,000 --> 00:19:17,000
Yes, sometimes 15 days, sometimes one month.

244
00:19:17,000 --> 00:19:20,000
But it really does emphasise that this land
of Egypt

245
00:19:20,000 --> 00:19:24,000
has always been so rich and so giving to the
people,

246
00:19:24,000 --> 00:19:27,000
it's always given the people everything they
need.

247
00:19:33,000 --> 00:19:37,000
And it's the Nile that turned this desert
land into a paradise.

248
00:19:39,000 --> 00:19:41,000
Music

249
00:19:45,000 --> 00:19:49,000
And 7,000 years ago, the people who could no
longer survive

250
00:19:49,000 --> 00:19:53,000
in an increasingly desert landscape were
forced to migrate towards it

251
00:19:53,000 --> 00:19:56,000
as their only source of water.

252
00:19:56,000 --> 00:20:00,000
So ancient Egypt took shape as these people
came together

253
00:20:00,000 --> 00:20:03,000
along the banks of the Nile.

254
00:20:04,000 --> 00:20:08,000
In the north, settlements clustered around
the delta and the Fayoum.

255
00:20:10,000 --> 00:20:13,000
And in the south, around the Kenabend.

256
00:20:15,000 --> 00:20:19,000
This was the beginning of Egypt's so-called
two lands,

257
00:20:19,000 --> 00:20:23,000
Upper and Lower Egypt, which developed into
two distinct cultures.

258
00:20:29,000 --> 00:20:33,000
But what they both had in common was the
astonishing fertility

259
00:20:33,000 --> 00:20:37,000
replenished every year by the miracle of the
Nile.

260
00:20:40,000 --> 00:20:44,000
El-Kab, located to the south of the Kenabend,

261
00:20:44,000 --> 00:20:48,000
is one of Upper Egypt's earliest settlements.

262
00:20:50,000 --> 00:20:53,000
And while it may lack the wow factor of the
pyramids,

263
00:20:53,000 --> 00:20:58,000
it's actually far more revealing to see
traces of this amazing evolution.

264
00:21:00,000 --> 00:21:03,000
Because here we can see how a nomadic
lifestyle

265
00:21:03,000 --> 00:21:07,000
was soon replaced by a settled social
structure.

266
00:21:09,000 --> 00:21:13,000
And although it was a slow and gradual
process,

267
00:21:13,000 --> 00:21:18,000
archaeologist Elizabeth Hart can identify
each stage of this transformation.

268
00:21:20,000 --> 00:21:22,000
That's a good place.

269
00:21:22,000 --> 00:21:25,000
Wow, you do work in an enclosed space.

270
00:21:25,000 --> 00:21:27,000
But it's much cooler down here.

271
00:21:27,000 --> 00:21:29,000
It's lovely, actually.

272
00:21:30,000 --> 00:21:34,000
So down at this level, we have sterile soil
where nobody lived.

273
00:21:34,000 --> 00:21:37,000
And then starting around 4200 BC,

274
00:21:37,000 --> 00:21:40,000
are layers of silt from the Nile flood,

275
00:21:40,000 --> 00:21:43,000
followed by wind accumulated sand.

276
00:21:43,000 --> 00:21:46,000
And then another layer of silt, and then more
sand.

277
00:21:46,000 --> 00:21:48,000
And here you can see it really well.

278
00:21:48,000 --> 00:21:52,000
A thin silt layer from the Nile coming up and
flooding, and then the sand.

279
00:21:52,000 --> 00:21:55,000
And over here, we have a hearth feature.

280
00:21:55,000 --> 00:21:59,000
So this tells us that humans were actually
living on these

281
00:21:59,000 --> 00:22:02,000
and coming into the Nile Valley and then
moving back out.

282
00:22:02,000 --> 00:22:06,000
And we also found lots of potsherds and stone
tools in these layers.

283
00:22:06,000 --> 00:22:10,000
It might be a small space, but you've got
people's real lives unfolding within it,...

284
00:22:10,000 --> 00:22:12,000
And we have thousands of years of it here.

285
00:22:12,000 --> 00:22:15,000
When we started, people were just moving into
the Nile Valley.

286
00:22:15,000 --> 00:22:17,000
They were just starting to farm.

287
00:22:17,000 --> 00:22:21,000
And by the end here, we have pharaohs and a
whole united Egypt.

288
00:22:21,000 --> 00:22:27,000
It's really impressive when you think about
all the change that happened over this chu...

289
00:22:30,000 --> 00:22:34,000
Although we are still centuries away from the
Grand Varonic Monument,

290
00:22:34,000 --> 00:22:38,000
you can still find traces of the lives these
ancient people lived,

291
00:22:38,000 --> 00:22:40,000
if you look hard enough.

292
00:22:40,000 --> 00:22:45,000
For very little has survived, except for tons
of pottery.

293
00:22:47,000 --> 00:22:49,000
Yeah, this one is, yeah.

294
00:22:49,000 --> 00:22:50,000
So it's 5,000 years old.

295
00:22:50,000 --> 00:22:51,000
So it's 5,000 years old.

296
00:22:51,000 --> 00:22:53,000
Yes, they're also tactile, these things,
aren't they?

297
00:22:55,000 --> 00:23:01,000
These pots help us to identify when this
early society began to produce a food...

298
00:23:02,000 --> 00:23:09,000
A pivotal transition, which required robust
pottery for the storage of large-scale foo...

299
00:23:12,000 --> 00:23:16,000
These bread moulds, from slightly later, are
one of the most common finds.

300
00:23:17,000 --> 00:23:24,000
So you heat the mould, then the dog gets into
it, and by the heat of the mould, the brea...

301
00:23:24,000 --> 00:23:25,000
Brilliant.

302
00:23:25,000 --> 00:23:28,000
But this comes in massive amounts.

303
00:23:28,000 --> 00:23:30,000
These are the beer jars.

304
00:23:30,000 --> 00:23:33,000
Ah, bread and beer, the Egyptian staples.

305
00:23:33,000 --> 00:23:35,000
Oh, nice, nice, beer jar.

306
00:23:35,000 --> 00:23:40,000
This is the nuts and bolts of how Egyptian
chronology all came together in the early...

307
00:23:40,000 --> 00:23:41,000
Yes, yes.

308
00:23:41,000 --> 00:23:45,000
The pottery is especially fundamental to
understand how people were living.

309
00:23:53,000 --> 00:23:57,000
Yet in Egypt, living was only half the story.

310
00:23:58,000 --> 00:24:03,000
Because what really sets the ancient
Egyptians apart is their view of death.

311
00:24:09,000 --> 00:24:13,000
To them, death wasn't the end of life, but a
new beginning.

312
00:24:15,000 --> 00:24:20,000
A transformation from the world of the living
into an everlasting afterlife.

313
00:24:21,000 --> 00:24:27,000
And such a belief would shape Egypt's most
mysterious practice and my favourite subject.

314
00:24:36,000 --> 00:24:41,000
Although the origins of this enigmatic
tradition are only now becoming clearer,

315
00:24:41,000 --> 00:24:46,000
the burial of their dead had a strong
significance from the very earliest times.

316
00:24:50,000 --> 00:24:54,000
This is a typical burial from around 3400 BC.

317
00:24:56,000 --> 00:25:02,000
The body is curled into the fetal position
and here placed within a reconstructed pit...

318
00:25:02,000 --> 00:25:06,000
surrounded by the belongings he might have
had in his earthly life,

319
00:25:06,000 --> 00:25:11,000
like pottery, jewellery and a palette for
preparing cosmetics.

320
00:25:13,000 --> 00:25:18,000
Everything that was important to him in life
accompanied him into death,

321
00:25:18,000 --> 00:25:22,000
and I think that's quite significant because
it shows that already,

322
00:25:22,000 --> 00:25:27,000
five and a half thousand years ago, the
Egyptians wanted to take it all with them.

323
00:25:27,000 --> 00:25:31,000
They clearly believed that something happened
beyond death.

324
00:25:31,000 --> 00:25:37,000
Death was simply a transition into another
state of existence when you continued to...

325
00:25:37,000 --> 00:25:42,000
and it was assumed you would need everything
you'd needed in your life on earth.

326
00:25:43,000 --> 00:25:47,000
His body was naturally mummified in the hot
desert sand,

327
00:25:47,000 --> 00:25:51,000
but its placement here may not have been
accidental.

328
00:25:52,000 --> 00:26:00,000
Because even when dead, the body had to be
preserved in order to house the soul for...

329
00:26:01,000 --> 00:26:04,000
A skeleton simply wasn't good enough.

330
00:26:04,000 --> 00:26:08,000
Skeletons, bones, they are very, very
anonymous,

331
00:26:08,000 --> 00:26:13,000
and yet when the soft tissue, the skin, the
hair is all present, we are ourselves,

332
00:26:13,000 --> 00:26:17,000
and that's exactly what this individual
represents.

333
00:26:18,000 --> 00:26:22,000
Being face-to-face with one of the very
earliest Egyptians

334
00:26:22,000 --> 00:26:26,000
gives us insight into the development of
their ideas about the afterlife.

335
00:26:27,000 --> 00:26:34,000
It started off as a practical thing, burying
the dead in a relatively small space bundl...

336
00:26:34,000 --> 00:26:40,000
and then it developed these layers of kind of
like the symbolism, the fetal position,

337
00:26:40,000 --> 00:26:43,000
this idea in rebirth into the next world.

338
00:26:43,000 --> 00:26:49,000
It's almost like the seed from which the
Egyptian funerary belief system evolved.

339
00:26:49,000 --> 00:26:56,000
This is the very beginning of a process which
would be repeated a millionfold throughout...

340
00:26:56,000 --> 00:27:02,000
It's this combination of the esoteric,
underpinned by the practical,

341
00:27:02,000 --> 00:27:05,000
which really does sum up the Egyptians in a
nutshell.

342
00:27:05,000 --> 00:27:10,000
From the very beginning, the Egyptians were
masters of making sense of their world,

343
00:27:10,000 --> 00:27:14,000
no matter how complex and mystifying it might
seem to us.

344
00:27:18,000 --> 00:27:24,000
And this same ability to bring order is also
found in the way they structured their ear...

345
00:27:24,000 --> 00:27:29,000
adopting levels of bureaucracy that border on
the obsessive.

346
00:27:30,000 --> 00:27:34,000
In the ancient Egyptian culture, the word
order was used to describe the world.

347
00:27:34,000 --> 00:27:40,000
In the ancient city of Abidos, the site of
Egypt's first royal burial ground,

348
00:27:40,000 --> 00:27:46,000
archaeologists found the origins of a system
that we still have to put up with today.

349
00:27:48,000 --> 00:27:58,000
It's most fitting that this city of death was
the find spot of the earliest means of...

350
00:27:59,000 --> 00:28:09,000
The evidence comes from small bone and ivory
labels like these, which have been dated t...

351
00:28:11,000 --> 00:28:15,000
The originals are probably the size of a
postage stamp,

352
00:28:15,000 --> 00:28:22,000
and you can see that each one is engraved
with images of animals, of birds, of plant...

353
00:28:22,000 --> 00:28:27,000
And each one is pierced for suspension to a
chest or pottery vessel.

354
00:28:27,000 --> 00:28:30,000
Which would have contained oil, linen, grain.

355
00:28:30,000 --> 00:28:37,000
And it's thought that these symbols represent
the regions that produced these commoditie...

356
00:28:38,000 --> 00:28:48,000
Thought to have been sent as tax payments,
these tiny labels show how these early peo...

357
00:28:49,000 --> 00:28:53,000
Some experts even believe these symbols can
be vocalised.

358
00:28:53,000 --> 00:28:59,000
By turning the simple drawings into sounds
makes this the world's earliest known...

359
00:29:07,000 --> 00:29:16,000
Now isn't it interesting that the world's
earliest writing wasn't developed to expre...

360
00:29:16,000 --> 00:29:20,000
It was simply a means of calculating taxes.

361
00:29:23,000 --> 00:29:32,000
These symbols soon became a sophisticated
writing system of elegant signs we call...

362
00:29:34,000 --> 00:29:44,000
And these signs represented every aspect of
the Egyptian world, which were only...

363
00:29:44,000 --> 00:29:51,000
And a common language was needed as goods
were transported between the two lands of...

364
00:29:51,000 --> 00:29:56,000
The people of Lower Egypt had also developed
trade links with the rest of the ancient...

365
00:29:56,000 --> 00:30:06,000
But as more warlike regions began to emerge
in Upper Egypt, it soon became clear that ...

366
00:30:06,000 --> 00:30:11,000
And in many ways the only thing they really
had in common was this great river.

367
00:30:18,000 --> 00:30:26,000
The inevitable clash between these cultures
is recorded on what many consider to be...

368
00:30:27,000 --> 00:30:35,000
Taking the form of a giant ceremonial
cosmetic palette, this is an exact copy of...

369
00:30:35,000 --> 00:30:44,000
And however idealised and embellished, it
depicts the pivotal moment when the southe...

370
00:30:44,000 --> 00:30:52,000
A special moment in the history of the Nama,
the Nile, was the time when the Nama was...

371
00:30:52,000 --> 00:30:55,000
When the southern king Nama defeated his
northern enemy.

372
00:30:55,000 --> 00:31:08,000
A split second after this mace comes down
onto this northern enemy's head and he's...

373
00:31:08,000 --> 00:31:16,000
And what this means is that the whole of the
country is now united under one man's rule.

374
00:31:16,000 --> 00:31:27,000
He is setting himself up quite literally as
the god king, as the one central figure at...

375
00:31:27,000 --> 00:31:35,000
And from him everything else flows. Egypt is
now the world's first nation state.

376
00:31:35,000 --> 00:31:39,000
What made ancient Egypt, ancient Egypt is all
here.

377
00:31:39,000 --> 00:31:47,000
The art forms, the forms of religion and even
the world's first writing hieroglyphic...

378
00:31:47,000 --> 00:31:55,000
This is the name of Nama. The catfish? Naa.
And the chisel? Muu. Naa. Muu.

379
00:31:55,000 --> 00:32:08,000
As the first king of Egypt, Nama is protected
by the cow goddess Hathor, stands beside...

380
00:32:08,000 --> 00:32:13,000
He has the tie on false beard to emphasise
his virility.

381
00:32:13,000 --> 00:32:19,000
And this is matched of course by the tie on
bull's tail. It's a wonderful feature.

382
00:32:19,000 --> 00:32:27,000
This idea you could just tie a little tail
onto the back of the belt and then take in...

383
00:32:27,000 --> 00:32:33,000
This palette is Egypt's earliest historical
document.

384
00:32:33,000 --> 00:32:41,000
It's the blueprint of how every future
pharaoh will be portrayed in the company o...

385
00:32:41,000 --> 00:32:46,000
Yet perhaps most significant is Nama's
smiting pose.

386
00:32:46,000 --> 00:32:53,000
This powerful image with the mace held high
will be endlessly repeated throughout the...

387
00:32:53,000 --> 00:32:57,000
This is a horrible way to die, to have your
brains bludgeoned out.

388
00:32:57,000 --> 00:33:03,000
And yet even this, the Egyptian artist can
show in an almost ballet like pose.

389
00:33:03,000 --> 00:33:08,000
It's been sanitised, it's been elevated to a
piece of art.

390
00:33:08,000 --> 00:33:13,000
And yet, the Egyptian artist can show in an
almost ballet like pose.

391
00:33:13,000 --> 00:33:20,000
For the next 3000 years, every one of Egypt's
subsequent rulers would try and link...

392
00:33:20,000 --> 00:33:25,000
Even the Egyptian artist can show in an
almost ballet like pose.

393
00:33:25,000 --> 00:33:30,000
It's been sanitised, it's been elevated to a
piece of art.

394
00:33:30,000 --> 00:33:33,000
And yet the message still gets through.

395
00:33:34,000 --> 00:33:43,000
For the next 3000 years, every one of Egypt's
subsequent rulers would try and link...

396
00:33:43,000 --> 00:33:53,000
To rule legitimately and successfully, they
had to be absorbed into the complexities o...

397
00:33:53,000 --> 00:33:59,000
So their names were recorded on a series of
king lists, a kind of royal family tree.

398
00:33:59,000 --> 00:34:05,000
And the best preserved of these is here, in
the temple of Seti I at Abydos.

399
00:34:05,000 --> 00:34:15,000
It lists himself and 75 of his royal
predecessors going right back to the very...

400
00:34:15,000 --> 00:34:22,000
And the other important detail about this is
that it's essentially emphasising that roy...

401
00:34:22,000 --> 00:34:32,000
because Seti has his own young son, Ramses,
the crown prince, actually reading out the...

402
00:34:32,000 --> 00:34:44,000
So it's as if Seti is saying to the gods,
look, I'm now pharaoh and this is my son...

403
00:34:44,000 --> 00:34:50,000
In all, Egypt had over 300 pharaohs organised
into 30 dynasties.

404
00:34:53,000 --> 00:34:58,000
But in the case of Egypt's earliest kings,
being merely mortal was not enough.

405
00:34:58,000 --> 00:35:05,000
They needed to prove their divinity by
exercising absolute control over their...

406
00:35:15,000 --> 00:35:21,000
And the evidence for this was found in the
desolate desert surrounding the ancient ci...

407
00:35:22,000 --> 00:35:34,000
This was Egypt's first royal burial ground,
the original version of the Valley of the...

408
00:35:34,000 --> 00:35:40,000
Now, being here, you get a real sense of the
importance of this place for the ancient...

409
00:35:40,000 --> 00:35:48,000
For as the wind funnels down this valley and
swirls around the sand, if you listen very...

410
00:36:05,000 --> 00:36:09,000
A whispering once thought to be the voices of
the very dead themselves.

411
00:36:17,000 --> 00:36:24,000
And here, Egypt's earliest kings were laid to
rest within huge subterranean burial...

412
00:36:24,000 --> 00:36:31,000
Like this, the location of the final resting
place of Egypt's third pharaoh, King Jer.

413
00:36:31,000 --> 00:36:35,000
One of the largest and most complex tombs of
the first dynasty.

414
00:36:35,000 --> 00:36:43,000
And although it's been recovered in sand, it
clearly demonstrates the power that Jer st...

415
00:36:44,000 --> 00:36:46,000
Even in death.

416
00:36:47,000 --> 00:36:51,000
Jer himself was buried here in the central
chamber.

417
00:36:51,000 --> 00:36:56,000
But all around, the 318 subsidiary graves of
his courtiers.

418
00:36:56,000 --> 00:37:01,000
Not only that, a little way beyond, many
others were also buried.

419
00:37:01,000 --> 00:37:08,000
In total, 587 individuals accompanied this
man into the next world.

420
00:37:08,000 --> 00:37:13,000
Which is incredible enough, but there is
evidence of a more sinister twist.

421
00:37:13,000 --> 00:37:22,000
The fact that this tomb was all sealed over
at the same time, suggests these people ma...

422
00:37:22,000 --> 00:37:26,000
Perhaps even ritual stabbing, as portrayed in
art of the time.

423
00:37:26,000 --> 00:37:32,000
And certainly, that power over life and death
would give any king a godlike status.

424
00:37:32,000 --> 00:37:39,000
Now later kings seem to have realised that
killing all their courtiers in one go was ...

425
00:37:39,000 --> 00:37:44,000
After all, who would be around to make the
next king his cup of tea?

426
00:37:46,000 --> 00:37:53,000
Although this cruel and short-sighted
practice of killing all their courtiers in...

427
00:37:53,000 --> 00:37:57,000
After all, who would be around to make the
next king his cup of tea?

428
00:37:58,000 --> 00:38:10,000
Although this cruel and short-sighted
practice of ritual killing soon died out, ...

429
00:38:10,000 --> 00:38:16,000
An essential step along the route towards
building the pyramids and, indeed, Egypt...

430
00:38:16,000 --> 00:38:19,000
Yet the Egyptian people were not slaves.

431
00:38:19,000 --> 00:38:28,000
By this time, Egypt was a land of plenty,
where all could enjoy its bounty, both in...

432
00:38:35,000 --> 00:38:39,000
This is the later tomb of an official called
Iruqatar.

433
00:38:40,000 --> 00:38:44,000
This is the later tomb of an official called
Iruqatar.

434
00:38:44,000 --> 00:38:55,000
And here he is, greeting us. He's coming to
the door of his own tomb, emerging from th...

435
00:38:55,000 --> 00:39:01,000
Even details down to his little sort of
pencil moustache. Looks a little bit like...

436
00:39:01,000 --> 00:39:08,000
The scenes in his colourful tomb depict a
refined life that's a world away from Egyp...

437
00:39:12,000 --> 00:39:20,000
We have Iruqatar seated in front of a table
of food offerings. There's fruit, vegetabl...

438
00:39:20,000 --> 00:39:25,000
The bearers are coming forward with offerings
to sustain his soul.

439
00:39:25,000 --> 00:39:30,000
Iruqatar was the royal butcher, an important
member of court.

440
00:39:30,000 --> 00:39:38,000
And with royal courtiers no longer sacrificed
for burial with their king, they could now...

441
00:39:38,000 --> 00:39:46,000
There are a couple of scenes up here of the
household servants making the beds of...

442
00:39:46,000 --> 00:39:54,000
They're stretching out the linen sheets.
They're bringing even a little fly whisk a...

443
00:39:54,000 --> 00:40:00,000
So even in the afterlife, Iruqatar will be
comfortable.

444
00:40:03,000 --> 00:40:07,000
Iruqatar's tomb is in Saqqara, a sprawling
city.

445
00:40:07,000 --> 00:40:15,000
Yet Saqqara wasn't just the burial site of
courtiers, but of kings and the site of a...

446
00:40:19,000 --> 00:40:27,000
And whereas previously, the royal courtiers
were the most important, the royal courtie...

447
00:40:27,000 --> 00:40:31,000
And the royal courtiers were the most
important.

448
00:40:31,000 --> 00:40:34,000
The royal courtiers were the most important.

449
00:40:34,000 --> 00:40:37,000
And the royal courtiers were the most
important.

450
00:40:37,000 --> 00:40:40,000
And the royal courtiers were the most
important.

451
00:40:40,000 --> 00:40:43,000
And the royal courtiers were the most
important.

452
00:40:43,000 --> 00:40:46,000
And the royal courtiers were the most
important.

453
00:40:46,000 --> 00:40:49,000
And the royal courtiers were the most
important.

454
00:40:49,000 --> 00:40:52,000
And the royal courtiers were the most
important.

455
00:40:52,000 --> 00:40:55,000
And the royal courtiers were the most
important.

456
00:40:55,000 --> 00:40:58,000
And the royal courtiers were the most
important.

457
00:40:59,000 --> 00:41:03,000
From the mudbrick, wood and reeds, which
rarely survive.

458
00:41:05,000 --> 00:41:13,000
But in the third dynasty, the great
innovator, King Joza, built his legacy in...

459
00:41:15,000 --> 00:41:19,000
For he built in stone, which could
potentially last forever.

460
00:41:21,000 --> 00:41:25,000
Joza built this huge stone wall to surround
his tomb complex.

461
00:41:25,000 --> 00:41:30,000
Although his architects and workmen still
drew their inspiration from the natural...

462
00:41:31,000 --> 00:41:36,000
You can see that the masons are just trying
to get their head around how to actually w...

463
00:41:36,000 --> 00:41:38,000
What forms to put it in.

464
00:41:38,000 --> 00:41:41,000
So we have Egypt's first hyper-style hall of
columns, sure.

465
00:41:41,000 --> 00:41:50,000
But it's taking the form of reeds bound
together to make the kind of columns that...

466
00:41:50,000 --> 00:41:52,000
But this of course is a house for death.

467
00:41:52,000 --> 00:41:57,000
This is a palace of eternity and must be
built in something as solid as stone.

468
00:42:07,000 --> 00:42:11,000
At the rear of his complex is an intriguing
stone shrine.

469
00:42:11,000 --> 00:42:15,000
Where I can come face to face with King Joza
himself.

470
00:42:21,000 --> 00:42:25,000
The shrine looks like it's suffering a severe
case of subsidence.

471
00:42:25,000 --> 00:42:30,000
And yet the Egyptians purposefully built it
on this very definite tilt.

472
00:42:34,000 --> 00:42:39,000
It has these two holes here where modern
tourists can see Joza.

473
00:42:41,000 --> 00:42:42,000
But Joza can see them.

474
00:42:42,000 --> 00:42:44,000
He can actually see beyond them.

475
00:42:44,000 --> 00:42:46,000
Because this faces true north.

476
00:42:46,000 --> 00:42:51,000
It faces the northern stars which the
Egyptians call the imperishable ones.

477
00:42:51,000 --> 00:42:56,000
And so at death, Joza's soul could rise up
and merge with these stars.

478
00:42:56,000 --> 00:43:00,000
So he too would be imperishable and he too
would never die.

479
00:43:05,000 --> 00:43:11,000
In order to ensure that his soul could live
on, Joza's body needed somewhere safe to...

480
00:43:11,000 --> 00:43:14,000
Within a tomb truly fit for a king.

481
00:43:16,000 --> 00:43:20,000
Most burials were topped by a simple single
story building.

482
00:43:20,000 --> 00:43:23,000
Called him a starber, meaning bench.

483
00:43:23,000 --> 00:43:26,000
But Joza did something radical.

484
00:43:27,000 --> 00:43:31,000
Joza really wanted to impress with his
funerary monument.

485
00:43:31,000 --> 00:43:34,000
So another step was built on top.

486
00:43:35,000 --> 00:43:38,000
And I think Joza must have quite liked the
effect that this gave.

487
00:43:38,000 --> 00:43:41,000
And so, built a third step.

488
00:43:42,000 --> 00:43:43,000
A fourth step.

489
00:43:44,000 --> 00:43:45,000
A fifth step.

490
00:43:46,000 --> 00:43:48,000
Sixth step.

491
00:43:48,000 --> 00:43:54,000
When they stood back and looked, they
realised they'd built Egypt's first pyramid.

492
00:43:54,000 --> 00:43:56,000
Pretty impressive.

493
00:44:00,000 --> 00:44:06,000
The step pyramid stands over 60 metres tall
and still dominates the Saqqara landscape.

494
00:44:06,000 --> 00:44:10,000
At the time, it was the largest building on
earth.

495
00:44:10,000 --> 00:44:15,000
Reinforcing Joza's status as a living god in
the grandest of ways.

496
00:44:17,000 --> 00:44:21,000
It certainly secured his place in Egyptian
history.

497
00:44:21,000 --> 00:44:26,000
With ancient visitors flocking here to marvel
at his achievements.

498
00:44:26,000 --> 00:44:29,000
Now Joza had created a true landmark.

499
00:44:29,000 --> 00:44:32,000
But it also created Egypt's first tourist
attraction.

500
00:44:32,000 --> 00:44:36,000
If you come with me, I'll show you the
evidence.

501
00:44:37,000 --> 00:44:41,000
Because in here we have what many tourists
still leave today.

502
00:44:41,000 --> 00:44:44,000
Appreciative graffiti.

503
00:44:44,000 --> 00:44:50,000
And this is the original handwriting of a
couple of ancient visitors from around 130...

504
00:44:50,000 --> 00:44:53,000
who were so impressed by what they saw.

505
00:44:53,000 --> 00:44:57,000
They described Joza's pyramid as if heaven
were in it.

506
00:44:57,000 --> 00:45:01,000
And they credit Joza with being the inventor
of stone.

507
00:45:15,000 --> 00:45:18,000
But why did Joza build this?

508
00:45:18,000 --> 00:45:22,000
Was it just an ego trip or an exercise in
personal vanity?

509
00:45:22,000 --> 00:45:26,000
Or was it designed to show the world just how
far Egypt had come?

510
00:45:26,000 --> 00:45:30,000
Because in only a few centuries, these
disparate people had come together

511
00:45:30,000 --> 00:45:34,000
to create the world's first nation state.

512
00:45:34,000 --> 00:45:38,000
Egypt was now an unstoppable powerhouse.

513
00:45:38,000 --> 00:45:43,000
A nation unified both politically and
culturally under a single ruler

514
00:45:43,000 --> 00:45:46,000
whose authority was limitless.

515
00:45:46,000 --> 00:45:50,000
Yet it wasn't just the king who could achieve
immortality.

516
00:45:50,000 --> 00:45:55,000
For the man who designed and built Joza's
pyramid was destined to become even more...

517
00:45:55,000 --> 00:45:58,000
than the pharaohs of Egypt.

518
00:45:58,000 --> 00:46:01,000
But the king was also the king of Egypt.

519
00:46:01,000 --> 00:46:06,000
He was destined to become even more famous
than the pharaoh he had served.

520
00:46:12,000 --> 00:46:16,000
This statue base once held a full-sized
figure of King Joza.

521
00:46:16,000 --> 00:46:21,000
But carved into its base is also the name of
his architect.

522
00:46:21,000 --> 00:46:25,000
And here we can see it with this reed, the
owl,

523
00:46:25,000 --> 00:46:29,000
and then the little mat with the little bread
loaf on,

524
00:46:29,000 --> 00:46:32,000
which reads Imhotep.

525
00:46:33,000 --> 00:46:36,000
And here he is, the man himself.

526
00:46:38,000 --> 00:46:41,000
Although most likely a commoner by birth,

527
00:46:41,000 --> 00:46:46,000
Imhotep rose through the ranks to become one
of Egypt's most powerful officials.

528
00:46:46,000 --> 00:46:50,000
He was made the royal chancellor, the prime
minister.

529
00:46:50,000 --> 00:46:53,000
He was even made high priest of the sun god.

530
00:46:53,000 --> 00:46:56,000
He was the ultimate local boy made good,

531
00:46:56,000 --> 00:47:00,000
with a reputation as an academic, as a great
healer.

532
00:47:00,000 --> 00:47:03,000
And he was famous the length and breadth of
Egypt.

533
00:47:03,000 --> 00:47:06,000
He was ultimately worshipped as a god.

534
00:47:07,000 --> 00:47:11,000
Imhotep represents the ultimate in social
mobility,

535
00:47:11,000 --> 00:47:15,000
a kind which was certainly possible within
Egypt's unique society.

536
00:47:15,000 --> 00:47:19,000
This was a society in which ideas were often
taken to extremes.

537
00:47:19,000 --> 00:47:25,000
With one and a half million people united by
an absolute belief in the power of their...

538
00:47:25,000 --> 00:47:28,000
and in the certainty of the afterlife,

539
00:47:28,000 --> 00:47:32,000
Egypt enters its most ambitious era so far.

540
00:47:35,000 --> 00:47:37,000
The pyramid age.

541
00:47:38,000 --> 00:47:42,000
Over 130 pyramids would be built across
Egypt,

542
00:47:42,000 --> 00:47:46,000
and they represent the zenith in royal tomb
building.

543
00:47:46,000 --> 00:47:50,000
Huge state-sponsored civil engineering
projects

544
00:47:50,000 --> 00:47:55,000
that used vast resources of materials,
manpower, and time.

545
00:47:56,000 --> 00:47:59,000
The pyramids were built in Egypt,

546
00:47:59,000 --> 00:48:02,000
and they represent the zenith in the
pyramids.

547
00:48:02,000 --> 00:48:06,000
The largest of all, the great pyramid of King
Khufu,

548
00:48:06,000 --> 00:48:09,000
which took over 20 years to build.

549
00:48:15,000 --> 00:48:18,000
And in order to build something so ambitious,

550
00:48:18,000 --> 00:48:23,000
an entire city was created, specifically in
the middle of the pyramid.

551
00:48:23,000 --> 00:48:26,000
The pyramid was built in Egypt,

552
00:48:26,000 --> 00:48:30,000
and it was the largest of all the pyramids in
the world.

553
00:48:30,000 --> 00:48:34,000
A city was created specifically to house the
construction workers,

554
00:48:34,000 --> 00:48:37,000
just beyond this monumental wall.

555
00:48:37,000 --> 00:48:40,000
It's known as the Wall of the Crow,

556
00:48:40,000 --> 00:48:43,000
and it separated the silent, sacred space of
the dead

557
00:48:43,000 --> 00:48:47,000
from the busy, bustling city of the pyramid
builders.

558
00:49:00,000 --> 00:49:04,000
This five-hectare site once housed workshops,
bakeries,

559
00:49:04,000 --> 00:49:08,000
a tool-making facility, and a fish processing
area.

560
00:49:08,000 --> 00:49:12,000
For this was an integrated, self-sufficient
community

561
00:49:12,000 --> 00:49:17,000
of over 8,000 people who even had their own
medical care.

562
00:49:25,000 --> 00:49:29,000
Anthropological archaeologist Dr Richard
Redding

563
00:49:29,000 --> 00:49:33,000
has been excavating the site since 1991.

564
00:49:33,000 --> 00:49:36,000
Where we are now, this is kind of a big
workshop,

565
00:49:36,000 --> 00:49:39,000
a big industrial park where there's lots of
activity going on.

566
00:49:39,000 --> 00:49:43,000
Out here, they were probably using granite
statues, maybe granite columns.

567
00:49:43,000 --> 00:49:47,000
We find tools out here for polishing the
granite.

568
00:49:47,000 --> 00:49:50,000
We find tools out here for chipping at the
granite.

569
00:49:50,000 --> 00:49:52,000
It's very well planned.

570
00:49:52,000 --> 00:49:55,000
We have three streets. We have North Street,
Main Street we're on,

571
00:49:55,000 --> 00:49:57,000
and we have South Street down there.

572
00:49:57,000 --> 00:50:00,000
So we're walking down Main Street? You're
walking down Main Street.

573
00:50:01,000 --> 00:50:06,000
The pyramid workers lived cheek by jowl in
two-storey barracks.

574
00:50:07,000 --> 00:50:10,000
You would have walked in, you would have been
in a very quiet,

575
00:50:10,000 --> 00:50:13,000
dark, long, narrower room.

576
00:50:13,000 --> 00:50:16,000
This is where they would have slept.

577
00:50:16,000 --> 00:50:20,000
There would have been a higher bed for the
overseer at each end,

578
00:50:20,000 --> 00:50:25,000
and then everybody would have laid down
probably with their head

579
00:50:25,000 --> 00:50:28,000
in this direction or the other direction,
exactly like this.

580
00:50:28,000 --> 00:50:31,000
You would be lying here like this, and this
would be your nighttime position.

581
00:50:31,000 --> 00:50:34,000
Very comfortable. Can I try out the
overseer's bed?

582
00:50:34,000 --> 00:50:36,000
Sure, you can try out the overseer's bed.

583
00:50:36,000 --> 00:50:39,000
Delusions of grandeur. Is it this one or that
one?

584
00:50:39,000 --> 00:50:41,000
That's the wall, right where you are.

585
00:50:41,000 --> 00:50:44,000
Oh, so this is all right. If I sat down here?

586
00:50:44,000 --> 00:50:47,000
The overseer's bed is actually buried under a
few centimeters of sand,

587
00:50:47,000 --> 00:50:50,000
and the floor here is probably under about a
half meter of sand.

588
00:50:50,000 --> 00:50:53,000
Oh, this is nice. I can keep my eye on you
now.

589
00:50:53,000 --> 00:50:55,000
That's right. You can see me.

590
00:50:55,000 --> 00:50:59,000
If I got up in the night and I tried to sneak
out to go someplace, you would see me.

591
00:50:59,000 --> 00:51:02,000
Everything the workers needed was here on
site.

592
00:51:02,000 --> 00:51:07,000
The team have recovered data that shows that
workers consumed 74 cattle

593
00:51:07,000 --> 00:51:11,000
and 257 sheep and goats each week.

594
00:51:11,000 --> 00:51:14,000
This Kerala area could hold a week's supply
of cattle

595
00:51:14,000 --> 00:51:17,000
before more were shipped in from Egypt's
grasslands.

596
00:51:17,000 --> 00:51:20,000
You could have almost just in time delivery
coming down,

597
00:51:20,000 --> 00:51:25,000
or another small herd coming down from Komal
Hissin or the delta coming down and in.

598
00:51:25,000 --> 00:51:27,000
It's a really well-oiled machine.

599
00:51:27,000 --> 00:51:31,000
You can see now how efficient the Egyptians
were at obtaining their food,

600
00:51:31,000 --> 00:51:35,000
bringing it to the right place at the right
time for the right people.

601
00:51:35,000 --> 00:51:37,000
It's brilliant. It's absolutely brilliant.

602
00:51:37,000 --> 00:51:39,000
It wasn't just simply the food, it was
everything.

603
00:51:39,000 --> 00:51:41,000
There was the copper to make tools.

604
00:51:41,000 --> 00:51:45,000
There was the stone being brought in here
from Aswan and other areas.

605
00:51:45,000 --> 00:51:47,000
So a lot of things were coming into here.

606
00:51:47,000 --> 00:51:51,000
These were government workers. They got
everything from the government.

607
00:51:54,000 --> 00:51:58,000
In many ways, this settlement is Egypt in
microcosm,

608
00:51:58,000 --> 00:52:04,000
a highly ordered social structure with job
specialisation and mass cooperation.

609
00:52:05,000 --> 00:52:09,000
It's hard to believe that in a relatively
short period of time,

610
00:52:09,000 --> 00:52:11,000
Egypt had been transformed.

611
00:52:12,000 --> 00:52:16,000
From simple subsistence into a united state,

612
00:52:16,000 --> 00:52:19,000
which could provide for everyone who worked
on its behalf.

613
00:52:24,000 --> 00:52:28,000
What we're seeing here is the final building
block in Egyptian culture,

614
00:52:28,000 --> 00:52:31,000
but not just for the pyramid age.

615
00:52:31,000 --> 00:52:35,000
For once this infrastructure was in place, it
would never change.

616
00:52:35,000 --> 00:52:39,000
So whether they're building a pyramid or
setting up a colossal statue,

617
00:52:39,000 --> 00:52:44,000
the level of organisation and cooperation
would remain the same.

618
00:52:44,000 --> 00:52:47,000
But this was the foundation stone of Egypt.

619
00:52:53,000 --> 00:52:59,000
The pyramids are eternal testament to just
how powerful Egypt had now become.

620
00:52:59,000 --> 00:53:02,000
And in many ways, they are Egypt at this
time,

621
00:53:02,000 --> 00:53:06,000
dominating everything around them on a
gigantic scale.

622
00:53:10,000 --> 00:53:15,000
And towering above the Giza landscape is the
Great Pyramid.

623
00:53:23,000 --> 00:53:29,000
It took around 20,000 people to set in place
the 2.3 million blocks of limestone.

624
00:53:29,000 --> 00:53:34,000
It remained the tallest structure anywhere in
the world for 3,800 years

625
00:53:34,000 --> 00:53:38,000
until the building of Lincoln Cathedral Spire
in 1300 AD.

626
00:53:38,000 --> 00:53:43,000
It's a phenomenal achievement for any
civilisation at any time.

627
00:53:44,000 --> 00:53:51,000
But for me, its exterior can't compare to the
sense of wonder once you venture inside.

628
00:53:54,000 --> 00:54:01,000
The roof of the Grand Gallery passageway is
built of multiple layers of enormous...

629
00:54:01,000 --> 00:54:04,000
rising over 8 metres high.

630
00:54:04,000 --> 00:54:09,000
Massive, massive blocks of masonry built on a
godlike scale.

631
00:54:09,000 --> 00:54:12,000
That's surely what Khufu wanted.

632
00:54:14,000 --> 00:54:21,000
I sincerely hope Khufu's eternal resting
place was rather less congested than it is...

633
00:54:21,000 --> 00:54:27,000
But it still gives a real atmosphere of the
busyness that must have been here on a dai...

634
00:54:32,000 --> 00:54:38,000
These guys were hauling massive, massive
blocks hundreds of feet up literally into ...

635
00:54:38,000 --> 00:54:40,000
These guys were magicians.

636
00:54:44,000 --> 00:54:48,000
Just look how brilliantly these courses have
been laid.

637
00:54:48,000 --> 00:54:50,000
These are perfect.

638
00:54:50,000 --> 00:54:53,000
And if I had any modern architect to be able
to replicate this

639
00:54:53,000 --> 00:54:57,000
using the tools that the ancients had at
their disposal.

640
00:55:01,000 --> 00:55:02,000
Wow.

641
00:55:02,000 --> 00:55:04,000
Here we are at the zenith.

642
00:55:04,000 --> 00:55:06,000
We're at the heart of the pyramid now.

643
00:55:06,000 --> 00:55:08,000
Khufu's burial chamber.

644
00:55:08,000 --> 00:55:10,000
And we've hit it at exactly the right moment.

645
00:55:10,000 --> 00:55:13,000
Because the pyramid is closed for lunch.

646
00:55:13,000 --> 00:55:16,000
So we've got the whole place to ourselves.

647
00:55:16,000 --> 00:55:21,000
And you really get a sense of the sanctity of
this divine mausoleum.

648
00:55:32,000 --> 00:55:37,000
The walls and roof of the burial chamber are
lined entirely in granite.

649
00:55:37,000 --> 00:55:42,000
And it was within here that the body of the
great King Khufu was sealed

650
00:55:42,000 --> 00:55:46,000
ready for his final journey into the
afterlife.

651
00:55:49,000 --> 00:55:53,000
We're at the heart of the pyramid in terms of
its architecture.

652
00:55:53,000 --> 00:55:57,000
But we're literally in the heart of ancient
Egypt.

653
00:55:57,000 --> 00:56:00,000
I feel like I should be speaking in a whisper

654
00:56:00,000 --> 00:56:03,000
because the acoustics are so extraordinary.

655
00:56:03,000 --> 00:56:09,000
It's a sterile, plain, stark room.

656
00:56:09,000 --> 00:56:12,000
It's pretty much like a bank vault.

657
00:56:12,000 --> 00:56:15,000
And when you think about it, that's exactly
what it is.

658
00:56:15,000 --> 00:56:19,000
Because it once contained Egypt's greatest
treasure,

659
00:56:19,000 --> 00:56:24,000
the mummified body of the God King, which
contained the soul.

660
00:56:24,000 --> 00:56:28,000
Not only of Khufu, but of all the generations
of pharaohs

661
00:56:28,000 --> 00:56:31,000
stretching way back to King Nama.

662
00:56:35,000 --> 00:56:38,000
Forget the jewels, forget the gold.

663
00:56:38,000 --> 00:56:41,000
Egypt's real treasure was in here.

664
00:56:41,000 --> 00:56:44,000
And it's the first time I've ever been in
here

665
00:56:44,000 --> 00:56:47,000
without crowds and crowds of other people.

666
00:56:47,000 --> 00:56:52,000
And speaking now, the sound of the voice
reverberating around

667
00:56:52,000 --> 00:56:56,000
immediately takes you back 4,500 years to the
day of the funeral

668
00:56:56,000 --> 00:57:00,000
to the sacred words the priests would have
chanted

669
00:57:00,000 --> 00:57:04,000
to revive the soul of the God King.

670
00:57:04,000 --> 00:57:08,000
It's miraculous. It's a wonderful,
spectacular place

671
00:57:08,000 --> 00:57:13,000
that affects every sense, visually, audibly.

672
00:57:13,000 --> 00:57:18,000
In every sense, it's beyond words, really.

673
00:57:18,000 --> 00:57:21,000
I think I'd probably better stop talking now.

674
00:57:30,000 --> 00:57:34,000
So now all the elements that made a ancient
Egypt were in place.

675
00:57:34,000 --> 00:57:37,000
A well-fed, highly organised population

676
00:57:37,000 --> 00:57:40,000
that unswervingly followed their God King,

677
00:57:40,000 --> 00:57:45,000
and all of whom shared his fervent belief in
an afterlife.

678
00:57:45,000 --> 00:57:48,000
Life in Egypt was good.

679
00:57:55,000 --> 00:57:58,000
Now, of course, none of this could last.

680
00:57:58,000 --> 00:58:03,000
Economic disaster and famine plunged Egypt
into chaos.

681
00:58:03,000 --> 00:58:06,000
This is ancient Egypt beginning to suffer.

682
00:58:06,000 --> 00:58:09,000
With the pharaoh's power melting away,

683
00:58:09,000 --> 00:58:13,000
local warlords ransacked its most sacred
place.

684
00:58:13,000 --> 00:58:16,000
Egypt's dark age was coming.

685
00:58:16,000 --> 00:58:20,000
Make no mistake, this is the home of the
dead.