Lost Treasures of Egypt

Every year, this is what I wait for.

Hidden 23 feet underground,

the tomb of an ancient Egyptian noble from the era following Tutankhamun's death.

Oh. What's that?

The chambers look undisturbed for thousands of years.

What are we going to find here?

Buried inside, an archaeologists dream discovery.

Oh, my God. Wow.

I think I found something. It's amazing. Ooh.

The Valley of the Kings,

the final resting place of some of Egypt's greatest pharaohs.

Here, in November 1922, British archaeologist Howard Carter

discovered the tomb of the boy king Tutankhamun.

His discovery was a global sensation

and the biggest archaeological find of the century.

Tutankhamun became Pharaoh in 1333 BCE.

He died in mysterious circumstances, aged just 19.

His tomb and its stunning golden treasures

offer a window into how the pharaoh lived, ruled and died.

Today, our experts across Egypt investigate Tutankhamun

to unlock the secrets of his reign.

They search for evidence the boy king may have been murdered,

of who may have had a motive to kill him,

and look for clues in the Egypt he left behind.

Near the city of Luxor, in the Valley of the Kings,

Egyptologist Aliaa Ismail investigates a mystery surrounding Tutankhamun's death.

Did Tutankhamun die of natural causes? Or was his death a murder?

For six years, Aliaa has led an Egyptian team

which has scrutinized every inch of Tutankhamun's tomb.

The team is digitally scanning and mapping the valley's tombs

to recreate them in high definition; an aid for researchers and restorers.

Now she is returning to the Boy King's burial chamber,

hunting for clues to his death.

It's amazing to be here by myself

and so close to the walls and the paintings.

Aliaa searches the tomb for anything unusual

that could reveal suspicious circumstances around Tutankhamun's burial.

She soon spots a clue on the walls.

Looking at the tomb, I could tell that this was a rushed job

and that is because of these black marks that you see all over the wall,

which were developed when the paint was painted directly on the wet plaster.

The black marks are spots of ancient microbial growth.

They're evidence that the tombs paint was still drying

when the chamber was quickly sealed after the king's burial.

The reason that everything was hurried

was that Tutankhamun died very young and unexpectedly.

Tutankhamun died around 1324 BCE after only a decade on the throne.

He was buried in a tomb in the Valley of the Kings that was so small,

it could barely contain all his lavish gold and grave goods.

He had no son and his stillborn twin daughters were buried

in small coffins alongside him in the tomb.

His royal bloodline ended, leaving his widow, Queen Ankhesenamun,

in need of a new husband, and Egypt in need of a king.

Aliaa wants to examine Tutankhamun's mummy

to find out if there is any evidence to explain why he died so unexpectedly.

Today, it remains on display in his tomb inside a special climate-controlled case.

This mummy is thousands of years old.

At first sight, the mummy contains few clues

to the cause of the young Pharaoh's death.

His mummy overall is not in a very good condition.

It's really hard to tell how he would have died.

But then I found that early archaeologists have done some X-ray scans.

In 1968, British anatomist, Professor Ronald Harrison,

conducted an X-ray examination of the mummy.

Inside Tutankhamun's skull, Harrison discovered loose bones.

It appears his skull was fractured.

Perhaps a sign that the young pharaoh was bludgeoned on the head.

Part of his sternum and ribs were missing.

And unlike most mummies, his heart had been removed.

Later scans revealed a fracture at the base of his left femur.

The cause of the broken leg is unknown.

But the scans suggest it's possible that Tutankhamun died as a result of foul play.

Harrison's X-rays caused a global sensation.

This is what led people to think that Tutankhamun was murdered.

Tutankhamun's death had become a murder inquiry,

Ancient Egypt's greatest murder mystery.

To find out if Tutankhamun was murdered,

Aliaa wants to investigate the people closest to the doomed pharaoh.

I want to find out who would have benefited the most

from Tutankhamun's murder.

In Saqqara, 20 miles south of Cairo,

archaeologist Ola El Aguizy and her team are excavating an ancient necropolis.

It contains the tombs of the Egyptians who seized control of the country

after Tutankhamun's reign ended with no heir on the throne.

Tutankhamun, who died very early, it was very dangerous for the country.

Ola has been an archaeologist for five decades

and has been digging at this site since 2005.

Working in Saqqara and discovering and working on these tombs

is very, very exciting for me. I like it because I feel I'm alive here.

I feel that I am in the heart of archaeology.

Ola's interest in Egyptology began with her love of ancient languages.

She can decipher and translate hieroglyphs fluently.

I am now a full professor of ancient Egyptian language.

Last season, Ola uncovered the upper parts of a tomb

belonging to a man called Ptah Mwia.

Oh, I can see hieroglyphic decks here. The name of the deceased, Ptah Mwia.

This season, Ola and her team hope to find

Ptah Mwia's intact burial chamber.

Intact chambers are incredibly rare

and may contain stunning grave goods, including a coffin or a mummy.

Hopefully, yes. Maybe the coffin on the lower level.

Ancient Egyptians were buried

with things they thought they needed in the afterlife.

Any artifacts that remain would hold clues to Ptah Mwia

and reveal more about those who ruled Egypt after Tutankhamun

and may have benefited from his death.

Ola's team has located the top of the shaft filled with sand

at the center of the courtyard in Ptah Mwia's tomb.

Its position suggests the shaft will lead to his burial chamber.

We have begun to dig the shaft, which is always in the middle of the pillared hall.

The shaft is likely to be more than 20 feet deep.

It could take the team a week to remove all the sand.

Site director Tarek Tawfik oversees the operation.

They just are now making a chain of men.

getting the sand up and then into the carts.

Ah, yes.

And being taken to the hill over there.

Okay. So this goes much quicker now.

The team quickly dig out the top layers of sand,

but now seven feet down,

they are too deep to pass the heavy bucket to the surface by hand.

Now they're putting the winch that they were using

to lower the buckets for the sand. They will not be able to go down without it.

The giant hand-operated rope winch

should help the workers lift full buckets of sand and speed up the excavation.

It might look primitive, but it's very effective and quick.

But it's not long before they hit a problem.

We are finding the block in the shaft.

Workers discover large pieces of limestone blocking their way.

We have to remove these huge blocks from inside.

The shaft is now almost ten feet deep.

They need to work out a way to remove the heavy limestone blocks

if they are to reach the bottom and find out if there's a burial chamber below.

In the cliffs near the southern city of Aswan.

Italian archaeologist Patrizia Piacentini is investigating a vast necropolis.

I am here because I want to know something

about the history of the past and to know the people.

It's the beautiful part of our work, really, to not only to study the pharaohs,

but also the normal people and the child.

This season, her efforts are focused on a tomb

filled with the bodies of young adults and children.

Tutankhamun died a young man and Patrizia wants to know if the bodies here

can offer clues to why Egyptians, from pharaoh to farmer, died so young.

We have still a lot to do here.

We are just, I'd say, at the beginning of a great adventure, I hope.

Patrizia found the rock-cut tomb buried beneath the sand

during an earlier season.

It has burial recesses carved into the walls.

Patrizia's team uncovered dozens of mummies inside,

and she's convinced there are more to be found.

My friends are still here.

Human remains and objects that they catalogued last season

still line the floor.

Ah, yes. Still good. Still, all the bones are still here.

They've already made one key discovery.

We found wood, and at some point,

some hieroglyphic inscription came out,

and we discovered that the name of the first owner of the tomb.

The name is Pah-meh-ich, Pah-meh-ich, and he was the chief of the army of Aswan.

Pamehich was a standout figure in his lifetime,

but he was just the first of many who used this tomb over the centuries.

We found more than 40 mummies.

But Patrizia's most shocking find was several mummified children.

We had a very incredible discovery because just here,

there is the child in between the father and the mother.

And then this recess is full. There are, I think, five mummies of children.

These are my children, my wonderful, poor babies.

But this is the very strange thing of this tomb,

because we have so many children here.

Patrizia wants to know if the bodies here can offer clues

to why ancient Egyptians like Tutankhamun died so young.

There is one uncleared recess left to investigate.

This is the last part.

We didn't touch this because it was too late last season.

Patrizia must remove the mummies

from the recess to analyze the remains properly.

PATRIZIA (calls):

But this is too delicate a job for Patrizia to do on her own.

The workers. Thanks!

The remains are thousands of years old.

Patrizia's team must carefully remove them, one by one.

(untranslated) Slowly slowly… (untranslated)

It's a painstaking process.

Each mummy is incredibly fragile and could easily break.

Very careful. (untranslated)

Very, very careful, it's fragile.

At Luxor Temple on the Nile's East Bank.

Aliaa is investigating Tutankhamun's death.

After more than 3000 years,

direct proof of who might have murdered the Boy King no longer exists.

Instead, Aliaa wants to scrutinize those closest to Tutankhamun

to work out how they may have benefited from his death,

and therefore had motive to murder the young pharaoh.

Wow. Here we have the statue of Tutankhamun

hiding away behind the column.

I can tell it is him because of the soft skin, round face.

And all this is like features of youth.

And he's presented in here with his queen and wife, Ankhesenamun.

Ankhesenamun wasn't just Tutankhamun's wife.

She was also either his sister or his half-sister.