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00:03Tutankhamen, one of the most renowned pharaohs in the world, and one of the most incredible
00:09treasures of ancient Egypt. For 3,000 years, he lay buried near the Nile in the famous
00:15Valley of the Kings. You can't help but be fascinated by Tutankhamen. He's like a character
00:24from a novel. It exceeds our wildest imaginations. A hundred years ago, his tomb was miraculously
00:31found intact, revealing a pharaonic treasure of immeasurable beauty. But the pharaoh hidden
00:37within this amazing tomb is the most mysterious in ancient Egyptian history. This discovery
00:42was just the beginning of a great journey of investigation. This is going to change history.
00:48For decades, myths formed around this legendary pharaoh. Archaeologists from all over the
00:54world have sought explanations for all these unanswered questions. Was Tutankhamen a cursed
01:00king, a great conqueror? Did he steal his fabulous treasure? When you look closely at the inside
01:07of these cartouches, you can really tell that things have been erased. Never before had the
01:11discovery of a pharaoh led to so many mysteries. But we have examined each of the clues he left
01:16behind one by one, 33 centuries after his death. The mummification aims to preserve the body,
01:23but in a very hot environment, this is quite difficult to do. It's now possible to retrace his
01:29life from his incestuous birth to his death, which remains unexplained to this day. This is due to
01:36embalming fluid seeping into the crack. We've brought together the best experts from all over the world
01:43to review each of the theories, even the most improbable. Did a curse really cause the death of the first
01:50archaeologists? There were inscriptions, don't come in this tomb or something bad will happen to you.
01:58Together, our specialists will shed new light on the obscure past of King Tutankhamen,
02:03the most studied pharaoh in the history of archaeology.
02:40It all began 3,300 years ago in a vast ancient necropolis
02:46called the Valley of the Kings.
02:50It's located on the west bank of the Nile in the heart of Egypt,
02:55opposite the city of Luxor.
02:57It's here that the rulers of the greatest dynasties
03:00of the new kingdom rest.
03:04Ramses, Amenhotep, Hatshepsut.
03:08These names all sound familiar to our ears.
03:11These kings and queens were buried in magnificent tombs
03:15and mortuary temples of gigantic proportions,
03:18carved out of limestone.
03:20And it's in one of these tombs at the end of a long corridor
03:24in a small narrow room
03:26that the mummy of one of the most famous pharaohs in Egyptian history
03:31rested for thousands of years.
03:34King Tutankhamun.
03:38But the tomb we're now in
03:40is not that of the legendary pharaoh.
03:45It's a perfect copy,
03:47an identical reproduction of the king's eternal resting place.
03:54This is a very precise copy of the tomb of Tutankhamun.
03:58We have actually reproduced it at a scale one to one.
04:01So if there is a spot here, if there is a crack,
04:05even this part with the dust,
04:07this is not dust that you can remove.
04:09This is dust that is there.
04:11It's printed.
04:12The result is incredibly accurate.
04:15But why reproduce the tomb of Tutankhamun
04:18a few metres from its original burial place?
04:21The reason in and of itself symbolises the incredible aura
04:25of this mysterious pharaoh.
04:29Why we build a facsimile is important
04:31because you are calling for tourism awareness.
04:35Because now you don't want like a hundred people
04:38entering the tomb at the same time.
04:40One guard is not going to be able to control everybody
04:42not to touch the walls
04:43or not to scratch it with their bag or so on.
04:48In the facsimile, people can actually interact with the tomb.
04:53I can actually touch it.
04:54I can never do that in the original tomb.
04:57So this kind of privilege,
04:59it allows you to get even closer to your heritage
05:03than you would in a normal stance.
05:06The copy exists to protect the real tomb of Tutankhamun,
05:11which is now deteriorating at an alarming rate,
05:14faster than any other in the valley.
05:17But why do so many people visit it?
05:20What makes the pharaoh Tutankhamun
05:22so fascinating in the eyes of the world?
05:24To understand this,
05:26we have to go back in time to exactly 100 years ago,
05:30when the door to the KV62 tomb
05:33was opened for the very first time.
05:39It's the beginning of the 20th century.
05:42Archaeologists have been working in the Valley of the Kings for decades.
05:46Among them is one man who is about to change the course of history.
05:51His name is Howard Carter.
05:53Howard Carter was an English archaeologist
05:56and what he wanted,
05:58just as every other archaeologist working in the area wanted,
06:01was to make a spectacular discovery of his own.
06:05Howard Carter was convinced
06:07that there was still a significant pharaonic tomb waiting to be revealed,
06:11somewhere in the soil of the Valley of the Kings.
06:14In 1907, another archaeologist unearthed a small mysterious cache called KV54.
06:22Inside there were embalming materials, such as strips and cloths.
06:27Carter examined each element carefully.
06:29The face of a small unknown statuette and a gold ring caught his eye.
06:35On it, he deciphered a name, written in hieroglyphics.
06:40The name of the pharaoh Tutankhamen.
06:44For Carter, there was no longer any doubt.
06:48This meant at least one thing was certain.
06:51Tutankhamen had been buried in the Valley of the Kings.
06:54And until now, his tomb had not been found or identified.
06:58So Carter decided to go on a quest to find a missing tomb.
07:05One doesn't excavate to find objects, but to prove a hypothesis, to confirm it.
07:13Howard Carter's hypothesis was that the tomb of Akhenaten's successor, Tutankhamen,
07:18was somewhere in the Valley of the Kings.
07:20What's astonishing is that almost nothing was known at the time
07:24about the mysterious King Tutankhamen.
07:27He was the 11th ruler of the 18th dynasty and reigned for about 10 years.
07:32It's believed that he was perhaps a child,
07:35and that he was simply forgotten by history.
07:37Or was he deliberately left out of the history of the pharaohs?
07:41His reign is an enigma as far as ancient Egyptian history is concerned.
07:47Discovering his tomb would bring vital answers
07:49to the questions posed by the archaeologists.
07:52Howard Carter wanted to find the trail leading to this lost king at all costs.
07:56For years, he worked relentlessly on multiple excavations.
08:01He had the support of Lord Carnarvon, a rich English investor,
08:04who funded the archaeologists' research.
08:07But he was not the first to excavate the grounds of the Valley of the Kings.
08:11About 30 tombs had already been discovered
08:14in the decades preceding Carter's excavations.
08:17By November 1922, in fact, Carter had been working in the area
08:21for a number of years without really any great success.
08:25There were people who believed that the valley was exhausted.
08:30There was not going to be anything more to find.
08:34Five years went by, and Carter still hadn't found anything.
08:39In 1922, there was no money left, and the archaeologists knew it.
08:44This dig season would be his last.
08:47And then, on that famous autumn morning, his luck would finally turn.
08:54On the morning of the 4th of November, Carter arrived at the hushed site
08:58and was told that the beginning of a step had been found carved into the rock.
09:04Howard Carter held his breath.
09:07He unearthed a second step, then 16 in total,
09:12which basically made up a long staircase, which descended four metres underground.
09:17It led to a closed door held shut by a rope and a clay seal, untouched.
09:23Just like the tomb, perhaps.
09:26That would be remarkable.
09:28It was extremely unusual to find a tomb of any kind that was intact to any extent.
09:36Usually, when tombs are discovered, pharaonic tombs are discovered,
09:40they've usually been robbed in antiquity,
09:43either reasonably near the time of the pharaoh's burial
09:46or perhaps in the later Greco-Roman period.
09:50What he did was quite surprising for that time.
09:52He closed everything up and sent a telegram to Lord Carnarvon saying,
09:57wonderful discovery, tomb, seal intact, awaiting your arrival.
10:05For several weeks, Carter awaited the arrival of his benefactor
10:09to proceed with the excavations.
10:12When Lord Carnarvon finally arrived,
10:15together they cleared the whole path
10:17and began to break through a second door.
10:20They didn't know it yet,
10:21but this door was in fact the last obstacle
10:24that separated them from the greatest discovery
10:27in the history of the Valley of the Kings.
10:29When that blocking was removed,
10:31Howard Carter and his team were able to look through
10:33to see what there was on the other side
10:36and that is the moment at which Carter was able to see
10:39the beginnings of a tomb that was crammed full of objects
10:43and that is when he is asked, you know, can you see anything?
10:46And he says, yes, wonderful things.
10:49Carter went from room to room and from one surprise to the next,
10:54finding an antechamber and an annex filled with various objects
10:58piled on top of each other, sculptures and jewels.
11:02Then this huge chapel that occupied the entire burial chamber
11:06and finally a tiny room filled to the ceiling with gold.
11:13When he looked a little closer at what was in front of him,
11:15he realised that the royal name of Tutankhamen
11:18was pretty much everywhere.
11:21What Howard Carter discovered on that day in November 1922
11:26was in fact a fabulous treasure,
11:28the complete funeral treasure of the king.
11:32I think that it's fair to say that even Howard Carter
11:36could not have expected to find what he did.
11:40For Howard Carter, this was the achievement of a lifetime.
11:44It was the fulfilment of a dream.
11:46To see such a tomb and the treasures inside,
11:49just, it exceeds our wildest imaginations.
11:55The press, who had rushed to Cairo,
11:58announced the news of the most amazing archaeological discovery
12:02of all time.
12:03From being an unknown ruler,
12:05Tutankhamen became an international star.
12:09But a few months later,
12:11the story took a completely different turn.
12:15Relatively early on in the process,
12:18some rather strange events occurred.
12:23On the 5th of April 1923,
12:26a few months after the tomb was discovered,
12:28Lord Carnarvon died.
12:32Some considered it to be the curse of Tutankhamen.
12:39And there are various strange stories
12:41that attach to the moment of his death.
12:43It's said that Carnarvon's dog died
12:46at apparently the exact same moment.
12:48All the lights went out in Cairo at that moment.
12:52That's all it took for the press of the time to go overboard
12:55and start basing their stories on ancient Egyptian myths.
12:58In the Arab tradition,
13:00there's always the curse of the pharaohs,
13:02Lana del Pharaon.
13:03In some cases in Egyptian tombs,
13:05there were inscriptions,
13:06don't come in this tomb,
13:08don't violate this tomb,
13:09you know, or something bad will happen to you.
13:11So then journalists started to notice these unexplained deaths.
13:17A few weeks after Carnarvon's death,
13:19financier George Jay Gould succumbed to pneumonia
13:23shortly after visiting the tomb.
13:25Hysteria, strokes, pulmonary disease, suicides.
13:30For ten years, the suspicious deaths of people
13:33that had visited the tomb kept piling up.
13:36The father of one of the deceased explorers, Lord Westbury,
13:39threw himself out of the window.
13:42Journalists at the time said that his hearse
13:44had run over a child on the way to the cemetery.
13:46In their eyes, the cursed pharaoh had struck again.
13:50In the decades that followed,
13:52up to 27 people closely or distantly associated
13:55with the discovery were declared victims of the curse.
13:59Some researchers entered the fray trying to find
14:02a scientific explanation for the mysterious deaths.
14:06From the first moment the tomb was opened,
14:08Howard Carter had noticed
14:10that the artwork was dotted with black spots.
14:13There were so many that they had disfigured the paintings.
14:16The archaeologists could perhaps have succumbed
14:19to asphyxiating pneumonia caused by an allergenic mould.
14:23If you close a room for 3,000 years
14:26and you have a mummy inside this room,
14:29the mummy will make germs that you cannot see.
14:32Archaeologists in the past, they were in a hurry.
14:34They enter inside the tomb and they die.
14:37But what I do today as an archaeologist,
14:39I open the tomb for a couple of hours
14:44until the bad air will go out and the fresh air will go in.
14:49Microbiologists have recently analysed the black stains
14:52on the paintings in the burial chamber.
14:54They came to the conclusion that fungus had grown
14:57in the still humid air when the tomb was closed.
15:00But it's impossible for the parasite to have survived
15:03in a hermetically sealed place for 3,300 years.
15:07The myth doesn't hold up against scientific analysis.
15:11And the age at which the victims died equates, in fact,
15:14to the average life expectancy at the time, which was 52.
15:17Howard Carter himself died at 64,
15:2117 years after the tomb was opened.
15:23So I think that this is a little bit of a story.
15:27It certainly sold newspapers,
15:29and even now people are obsessed by the curse of Tutankhamun.
15:35So Howard Carter may have warded off the curse.
15:39Since his death, no archaeologist that has visited the tomb
15:43has ever been associated with the curse again.
15:46It remains a good story,
15:48as befits the worldwide reputation of the pharaoh Tutankhamun.
15:57A century has passed since the discovery.
16:00But even today, Egyptologists continue to visit the tomb
16:05to discover new secrets.
16:10Jean-Guillaume Olette Peltier is a young French cryptologist
16:15specialising in ancient scriptures.
16:18He's come to analyse the murals of Tutankhamun's tomb.
16:25The scenography and all the iconography we see here
16:28can be read just like a comic strip,
16:31moving from the death rituals and the embalming of the king
16:34to his arrival before the god of the dead, Osiris, in the underworld.
16:42The north wall displays three scenes that read from right to left.
16:47First, Tutankhamun, in white, receives the funeral rites.
16:51Then he stands before the goddess Nut,
16:54who welcomes him into the realm of the dead.
16:57Last of all, Tutankhamun, wearing a pharaonic headdress,
17:00arrives in front of Osiris,
17:03who holds his hands out to take the king in his arms
17:05and accompany him to his eternal rest.
17:10When we analyse these scenes, we find hidden texts,
17:15which we call cryptograms.
17:17Cryptography is a system of writing that's more or less hidden
17:20and that we are gradually discovering thanks to new elements
17:24that help our understanding and reading.
17:26In the case of Tutankhamun, it's fascinating because inside his tomb
17:30we found riddles concealed within the writing,
17:32which reveal one, the power of the king, and two, his divinity.
17:38Jean Guillaume has just discovered a new cryptogram,
17:41hidden in the heart of the pharaoh's tomb.
17:45What's really interesting here is this unusual cryptogram,
17:48this game of cryptic iconography that characterises pharaonic Egypt.
17:52In this image, you can see the scarab god Kepri
17:55pushing the sun on a boat crossing over to the underworld.
17:59When we compare this with the cartouches of Tutankhamun,
18:01we realise that there is a similarity.
18:04And all of the iconography here, in fact, represents a complete cryptogram
18:07hiding the name Tutankhamun, showing the rebirth of the sun
18:11and so echoing the rebirth of the king.
18:16These mysterious drawings that embellish the tomb
18:19have a double meaning and hide the pharaoh's name.
18:23In ancient Egypt, this name was written in the form of a double cartouche.
18:28The first name, Tutankhamun, on the left,
18:31and the coronation name, Neb Kepurore, on the right.
18:35The latter is the most frequently used
18:38and is represented by a scarab beetle,
18:41drawings of which are found everywhere in the tomb.
18:44So we know that the cryptograms in the chamber
18:46were painted for King Tutankhamun,
18:49who was buried here 3,300 years ago.
18:53The study of the tomb immediately raised questions
18:56in the minds of the archaeologists.
18:58The first puzzle they wrestled with
19:00was that the tomb seemed too small for a pharaoh.
19:05What's interesting is that compared to the other tombs
19:07in the Valley of the Kings,
19:08it's really quite small, unlike all the others.
19:10And that's really very particular, very surprising.
19:13That's what makes it stand out.
19:16Tutankhamun's tomb is simple.
19:18After a short sloping corridor,
19:21only three small rooms surround the burial chamber,
19:24which was dug slightly deeper.
19:26The tomb is only 100 square metres in total.
19:30Yet the neighbouring tombs are impressive.
19:33The tombs of Seti I and Ramses II
19:37are huge burial complexes.
19:40The children of Ramses hold the record
19:42for the largest tomb in the entire Valley of the Kings,
19:46covering more than 1,200 square metres.
19:51To have a big tomb that was very sort of well embellished,
19:55that had lots of chambers and pathways
19:57and sort of labyrinthine designs,
20:00was all a reflection of the pharaoh's status,
20:03his power and his link with the gods.
20:08Tutankhamun's tomb appears to be too small
20:11and too simple to have been built for a pharaoh.
20:15How can we explain such an anomaly?
20:19People have hypothesised that, in fact,
20:22he was going to have a different tomb,
20:23but because he died suddenly,
20:26they did not have time to complete the other tomb
20:28and therefore he was put into something
20:30that was already made or had been already started.
20:37It's hard to believe that the tomb we have in front of us,
20:40although painted for the king,
20:42was not built for Tutankhamun.
20:45A pharaonic tomb must have been planned in advance
20:48for the passage of the king to the afterlife,
20:51but where can it be?
20:54To find this out,
20:55we must retrace our steps
20:57and go to the other side of the mountain,
21:00in a nearby canyon called the Valley of the Monkeys.
21:04This is where King Ai was buried in tomb KV-23.
21:10This nobleman was Tutankhamun's mentor
21:13and succeeded him after his death.
21:18But Ai's tomb, built deep into the rock,
21:21has the same style as the royal tombs of the time.
21:28Ai's tomb is really striking.
21:29It's much larger than Tutankhamun's.
21:31This corridor that leads to the sepulchral chamber
21:34isn't found in Tutankhamun's tomb.
21:36The dimensions, the height, the width.
21:39There's no doubt that Ai's tomb was built for a pharaoh.
21:43But what is surprising is that experts think
21:46that both Tutankhamun's tomb and this one
21:49were built at the same time
21:51because of the style and painting techniques used.
21:54They are identical.
21:57Both sets of artwork would appear to be
21:59the work of the same painter.
22:01We can see this Amanian influence again,
22:03especially with the characters depicted here.
22:05The slightly protruding belly,
22:07certain slightly curvy shapes
22:09that we also find in Tutankhamun's tomb.
22:13It's the same wall, the same style
22:14and the same passage of the funeral book.
22:16And so Ai's tomb is an almost perfect replica
22:19of Tutankhamun's.
22:20And this can show that the same artist
22:23who made the tomb of Ai
22:25is the same artist
22:26who made the tomb of Tutankhamun.
22:28What this can tell us
22:29that the tomb of Tutankhamun
22:32was originally for Ai
22:34and the one in the west valley
22:36was for Tutankhamun.
22:39So it's possible that the two tombs
22:41were switched over when Tutankhamun died
22:44and that Ai took the larger one for himself.
22:48To this day, there's no conclusive evidence
22:51that can verify this theory
22:52with absolute certainty.
22:54But it's the one that the majority
22:56of researchers hold.
22:58Ai's tomb was found empty
23:00like many others in the valley
23:01and its paintings were destroyed
23:03during ancient Egyptian times.
23:11The fact that Tutankhamun's tomb
23:13survived for 3,000 years is a miracle.
23:16And it is, to this day,
23:19the only pharaoh's tomb discovered intact.
23:23The question, of course,
23:24is why wasn't Tutankhamun's grave robbed
23:27if everybody else's was?
23:29We can speculate as to why this was the case,
23:32but the most likely situation
23:34is that it was probably well enough hidden.
23:36To date, two explanations seem plausible.
23:40First, a terrible storm may have occurred
23:43shortly after the death of the king.
23:45The rain on the dry desert ground
23:47would have become a torrent,
23:49carrying sand and rocks in its path.
23:51The debris covered the entrance to the tomb.
23:54Once the sun came out again,
23:56the mud dried and became as hard as cement.
23:58A few decades later,
24:01Ramses VI died.
24:03His tomb was built just above that of Tutankhamun.
24:06The labourers working on this site
24:08may have ended up covering the entrance
24:10to the earlier tomb.
24:11And this meant the tomb was, it seems,
24:14genuinely completely lost to the authorities,
24:17who knew where all the other tombs were,
24:19but somehow this one became lost
24:21and trapped underneath, effectively,
24:24several metres' worth of concrete.
24:27So it's pure coincidence
24:29that Howard Carter discovered
24:31the only intact royal tomb
24:33in the history of the Valley of the Kings
24:37and unearthed its magnificent treasure.
24:45The discovery of the tomb
24:47was just the start of the work
24:49to be done by the archaeologists of the time.
24:52Each of the 5,398 objects
24:56that make up the treasure of the tomb
24:58now had to be categorised.
25:00It was a gargantuan task.
25:05As soon as artefacts are discovered,
25:07we record them.
25:10This means that we first record
25:12their relative position
25:14in an archaeological context.
25:16and then we proceed with the description
25:19of each object.
25:21We do this even before we remove them
25:24to continue the analysis
25:25because, obviously,
25:27we don't see everything the first time,
25:29and especially when they're in
25:30amongst other objects.
25:33It took ten years to make an inventory
25:36of these incredible treasures.
25:39This detailed work enabled certain objects
25:42to be preserved in their original state.
25:47Most of the treasures are today found
25:49in the Cairo Museum,
25:50where the public can come and admire them
25:523,000 years after the death of the pharaoh.
26:02It's here that we find the most famous objects
26:05in the collection,
26:06like the statue which guarded the king's tomb,
26:11as well as the jackal representing the god Anubis.
26:16He was there to protect the entrance
26:18to the treasure room full of gold and precious stones,
26:21which were to accompany Tutankhamen into the afterlife.
26:26The objects in pharaoh's tombs at this point range,
26:30you know, really across the spectrum.
26:32You have precious gems, lapis lazuli,
26:35silver and gold,
26:36precious, valuable sets of material culture.
26:42The discovery of a tomb with all its treasures intact
26:46confirms the theory that the pharaohs
26:48were rich beyond belief.
26:55If a king owned treasures like these
26:58after such a short reign,
26:59what would it have been like for kings as powerful
27:02as Ramses II or Amenhotep III?
27:13Carter had been cataloguing the treasure for three years,
27:16but he still hadn't got to the centrepiece of the tomb,
27:19the king's mummy.
27:21He hadn't yet laid eyes on what was quite clearly
27:23the outstanding artefact of the excavations.
27:26It was hidden within the safe confines
27:28of seven coffins made of wooden gold.
27:31This was to be the hardest part for the archaeologists.
27:34It was a very complex operation.
27:36First, they had to dismantle a large wooden shrine
27:39covered in gold leaf.
27:41It occupied most of the available space within the chamber.
27:44A further three shrines were dismantled,
27:47revealing a sarcophagus of quartzite
27:49which still remains in the tomb to this day.
27:52Inside, there were three more coffins
27:54bearing the image of the king.
27:55The last one was the highlight of the three.
27:58It was a hundred kilos of solid gold,
28:01three millimetres thick.
28:03It was also the most personal of all the coffins.
28:05The ancient Egyptian artisans had engraved the surface
28:09with the image of the king's face inlaid with precious stones.
28:13The rest of the decoration consisted of the symbol
28:16of the scarab beetle carved in bas-relief
28:18all around the gold coffin.
28:21Archaeologists had never uncovered such a quantity of gold
28:24and precious metals in an Egyptian tomb,
28:26but the most magnificent piece was yet to come.
28:30It was in 1925 that Carter at last opened the final coffin
28:34containing the mummy of the king.
28:39The light from his torch fell upon the most beautiful treasure
28:42ever found in Egypt.
28:45The spectacular gold mask.
28:48It's the most iconic emblem of the monarch
28:50and its picture made headlines around the world.
28:53Tutankhamen's mask is, of course, an iconic image.
28:56It is something that attracts people.
29:00It's a masterpiece of the art of ancient Egyptian goldsmiths.
29:03It's made up of two layers of solid gold
29:06and it weighs more than ten kilos.
29:08It's so important that it's been classified a work of national heritage
29:12and it isn't allowed to leave Egypt.
29:15When you are really in front of the mask,
29:18it is an extraordinary experience
29:19because you really do feel that someone is looking out at you.
29:24But something strange caught the eye of the specialists.
29:30The gold mask didn't appear to have been fashioned
29:34in the likeness of the pharaoh.
29:37So what's interesting is that we have the cartouche
29:39containing the name of the king Tutankhamen,
29:41which clearly shows that it was meant for Tutankhamen.
29:45But when you analyse the features sculpted on it,
29:47you realise that they are very feminine features,
29:51notably the lips and the eyes,
29:55which leads us to believe that this object
29:57was not in fact originally destined for him.
30:02Was the mask made for someone else?
30:05Maybe the answer lies in these miniature sarcophagi.
30:12Here we have the canopic jars which contain the viscera of the king Tutankhamen.
30:17In terms of the gold work, they are absolutely identical to the rest of the treasure of Tutankhamen.
30:23So we know that all of Tutankhamen's treasure was made for one person and one person only.
30:27But what's interesting here are the king's cartouches.
30:31And when you look closely at the inside of these cartouches,
30:33you can really tell that things have been erased and re-engraved.
30:37And so we know that this treasure was appropriated by Tutankhamen.
30:42So, who could Tutankhamen have stolen this treasure from?
30:49All the pieces that have a specifically funeral function.
30:52Well, with many of those, you can see that underneath the name Tutankhamen
30:56is the name of a predecessor who was in fact a female pharaoh.
31:03This female pharaoh was called Meritatin, which is the name of the eldest daughter of Akhenaten and Nefertiti.
31:11Queen Meritatin reigned following the death of her father Akhenaten before Tutankhamen came to the throne.
31:19It was a surprise to the archaeologists who knew very little about this lost pharaoh queen.
31:24The existence of this sovereign has now been established beyond doubt,
31:29despite the fact that she had an extremely short, elusive reign,
31:33lasting maybe two to three years, which almost ended up being forgotten by history.
31:38The fact that there's so little evidence of this individual suggests that they perhaps didn't reign for very long,
31:43perhaps also that there was a deliberate attempt to forget them.
31:48In any case, she wasn't buried in the beautifully furnished tomb that she had made,
31:53as that was completely appropriated by Tutankhamen.
31:58We'll never know if it was Tutankhamen himself who decided to appropriate Meritatin's funeral furnishings.
32:06In the tomb, the gold mask with his name on it was the only thing now standing between Howard Carter
32:12and his encounter with the mummy.
32:18Howard Carter, when he opened the burial chamber,
32:22and he found that the golden mask stuck on the chest of the mummy,
32:26and he took the golden mask out, and he damaged the mummy to 18 pieces.
32:33The only good piece on the mummy is actually the face.
32:42So there was an equal amount of surprise and disappointment.
32:45They realised that the mummy was in a very bad state.
32:48The corpse looked as if it had been burned. The skin was cracked.
32:52There is a huge amount of this resinous mixture that covers him quite thickly.
32:58This gives him a black, gooey look.
33:00To the extent that the mummy was more or less glued into the innermost coffin.
33:07Tutankhamen's mummy hadn't been as well prepared as other mummies from the 18th dynasty.
33:13But we know that by 1300 BCE, the embalming process had been mastered to perfection.
33:20The highly ritualised process took 66 days,
33:23and ensured the safe passage of the dead from our world into the afterlife.
33:28Mummification aims to preserve the body,
33:30but in a very hot environment, this is quite difficult to do with moist organs, let's say.
33:39The embalmers first removed all the principal organs.
33:43There was a cut made on your left side,
33:45and your stomach, intestine, lungs and liver were removed and embalmed separately.
33:52The body was then rinsed and washed using palm wine
33:56before being covered with a plant-based balm.
33:59And the whole body was buried deep in natron,
34:03which would pull out all the fat and the water,
34:06so you would be defatted and dehydrated.
34:08Then oils and unguents would be put on the body with care.
34:12The mixture formed a protective resin covering the dried-out skin.
34:17Then the body was wrapped in hundreds of metres of fine linen strips.
34:22Ultimately, you were completely wound up like a cocoon,
34:26and this is when you were really being transformed from a living human being
34:30into a deified, mummified body.
34:34When the process was carried out perfectly, it allowed the body to be preserved,
34:39its remains almost intact 3,000 years later.
34:43At the beginning of the 20th century,
34:46the delicate linen bandages were carefully removed
34:49so that scientists could study the bodies.
34:51But when Carter gently brushed Tutankhamen's mummy with his hand,
34:55the material crumbled to a fine dust,
34:58revealing cracked skin that looked as if it had been burnt.
35:01So what happened?
35:03It's possible that the mummy was embalmed using too much oil,
35:07and then wrapped and placed in the tomb before it had time to dry.
35:11When these oils come into contact with air,
35:14they can set off a chemical reaction which gives off heat.
35:17If that reaction occurs in a situation where the heat is trapped,
35:21in other words, by mummy bandages,
35:23then the temperature just goes up and up and up,
35:25and eventually to the point where the tissue can burn.
35:29It seems as though the mummy was put in the tomb,
35:32perhaps in a rush, before it was really ready.
35:35Despite the appearance of burns,
35:37the doctors at the time carried out an initial autopsy,
35:40which gave the researchers new clues
35:42as to what could have caused the king's death.
35:46Some of the bones showed incomplete growth,
35:48which indicated that they were dealing with the remains of an adolescent.
35:53This showed that the pharaoh Tutankhamen died young.
35:58So, the next mystery was the cause of death.
36:05Several hypotheses were put forward
36:07regarding the early demise of Tutankhamen.
36:10There are many theories as to why Tutankhamen died so young.
36:14The question of Tutankhamen's death
36:16has really puzzled Egyptologists for a huge number of years.
36:21The possible causes of death are either an accident,
36:24an illness or a murder.
36:27There aren't any other reasons for dying aged 19,
36:30so take your pick.
36:32In the 1960s, a group of scientists
36:34were the first to x-ray the mummy.
36:37The radiographs showed that Tutankhamen's body
36:40was in a very bad state,
36:42which gave rise to some far-fetched theories.
36:45People have suggested that he was kicked by a horse,
36:48that he fell from a chariot,
36:51that he was attacked by a hippopotamus.
36:56A small fragment of bone,
36:58which had become detached from the skull,
37:00caught the attention of the researchers.
37:03The radiographs of Tutankhamen's head
37:05had shown this blow to the head
37:08and a bit of bone that had been moved,
37:11and they thought that this is because he was attacked.
37:14Was this head injury in fact the fatal blow?
37:18Was Tutankhamen in fact assassinated?
37:25A definitive answer only became possible 30 years later.
37:29In the space of a few decades,
37:31technology had made great strides
37:34and scientists were able to go much further
37:36in their analysis of the mummy.
37:39X-ray is not really enough.
37:40It doesn't give you any information.
37:42But with CT scan, it gives you 1,000 photographs,
37:46and that's why I decided to scan the mummy.
37:49In 2005, Egyptologist Zahi Hawass carried out a scan of the mummy
37:56using a CT scanner.
37:58This method is used by archaeologists all over the world.
38:02The National Institute of Archaeological Research
38:05uses a CT scanner to examine all sorts of objects found during digs.
38:10Computed tomography, or CT scanning,
38:13is a medical imaging technique
38:14which pretty much everyone's heard of,
38:16in which the patient passes through the scanner
38:18and it allows doctors to see inside a body,
38:21and it's used in the same way in archaeology.
38:24In the case of a mummy,
38:26what the CT scan can do is provide information
38:29about what's inside without having to access it
38:32manually or physically.
38:34So it's potentially much less likely to damage the object
38:37that is being studied.
38:40This technology allowed us to get a complete overview
38:44of the king's body in a series of 2,000 images.
38:48We asked some experts in this technique to analyze the historic scan.
38:53The skull had remained a mystery for 40 years,
38:57and now we finally have access to a complete overview of it.
39:02The sagittal section is very interesting,
39:04as we can see all the details of the bones of the face and the jaw.
39:09Here we can also see a slight prognathism of the jaw.
39:13That's to say that the teeth stick out slightly.
39:15These images are very interesting,
39:17as they allow us to determine the age at which the subject died.
39:23The detailed observation of the scans confirmed
39:26that the king had died young at the age of 18 or 19.
39:31But how did he die?
39:35The new images of the skull showed no signs of fracture
39:39or brutal trauma.
39:41The small fragment of bone that had shown up on the first X-rays
39:45had in fact shifted after death,
39:47perhaps during the embalming process.
39:50The verdict was that Tutankhamen did not receive a blow to the head.
39:55I found out that actually he was not murdered.
40:01And that was really very important.
40:04Could this kind of change history?
40:06But what was the cause of death?
40:09Could the multiple fractures be explained by an accident?
40:14It's difficult to be completely sure,
40:16as the remains have been handled many times
40:18over the last hundred years.
40:21There are parts missing, as you can see,
40:23like the right collarbone.
40:25The left kneecap is also missing.
40:28And there are dislocations visible on the left arm.
40:31And also on the right elbow there are fractures,
40:34which have certainly been caused by the fact
40:36that it was handled so many times.
40:42Here it's interesting because you can see different transverse fractures
40:45in the femurs and tibias.
40:48We can't say exactly when these fractures took place,
40:50but we can surmise that as there is no sign of healing,
40:54they must be due to the handling of the mummy.
40:59However, this fracture is very interesting
41:01because it's caught the eye of many different scientists.
41:04Can we have a more detailed view?
41:07Yes, I've got a more detailed picture.
41:10There you go.
41:12Ah, yes.
41:13All of this white part is much denser
41:16due to the embalming fluid seeping into the crack,
41:19which tells the specialist that this fracture
41:22happened a short time prior to him being embalmed.
41:27This small fracture, only detectable via the medical imaging process,
41:32is crucial in unlocking the mystery.
41:35The injury might have become infected
41:37and had perhaps hastened the death of the king,
41:40taking his entourage by surprise.
41:44In spite of all this new technology,
41:47it's difficult to answer all the questions
41:49that the skeleton and this mummy raise.
41:56After decades of analysis,
41:58it's quite likely that Tutankhamen's death
42:00will remain a mystery that we simply can't solve.
42:07We'll probably never know the initial causes of death.
42:11Maybe in the future, when we can do tests on the soft tissue,
42:14we will be able to establish how he died.
42:17But at present, I think it is a little bit of a mystery
42:20and it's always nice to still have something to research.
42:24It's difficult to know what kind of accident
42:26could have struck down the pharaoh.
42:29All these questions have given rise to myths surrounding the king.
42:34Many people imagine that dying young like that,
42:37he must have been a frail young man with a weak constitution.
42:47To save the tomb from the ravages of time and tourism,
42:51the foundation Factum Arte carried out a complete digital documentation
42:55of the funeral chamber.
42:57The team developed a high-precision 3D laser scanner.
43:01It's placed a few centimetres from the wall
43:03and it's capable of documenting the most minute irregularity in the surface.
43:09There is a red line that is a laser that pops projects on the wall.
43:14And what happens is that the two cameras, they are not documenting the wall
43:19but rather documenting the movement of this laser line on the wall.
43:24And you can see that here.
43:26This white line here, it's taking the exact shape of the surface it's moving on.
43:31For this scanner, it takes one hour to scan an area of 48 by 46.8 centimetres.
43:36So for one metre squared, you're looking at six hours.
43:43The scan of Tutankhamen's tomb takes several weeks,
43:47even though it's one of the smaller tombs.
43:49The larger ones would require several years of work.
43:53The results are amazing.
43:55Combining this technology with a high-definition photo of the paintings
43:59gives us a digital copy of the contours of the tomb.
44:03Where this is the colour and this is the 3D.
44:06And then you can put them together in here.
44:10And you have the colour and the 3D.
44:16Understanding how high this resolution is,
44:18is basically the difference that the human eye cannot make.
44:30Through the Sieben Necropolis Preservation Initiative,
44:33we plan to scan all the tombs on the Sieben Necropolis.
44:37Of course, that's crazy because there's more than a thousand tombs out there.
44:42But it's our dream and we're starting now with the most important tombs.
44:47And the goal is to train more people.
44:49So the more people we can train, the more this dream can actually become a reality.
44:57It's the most precise project ever undertaken.
45:00A copy such as this can be stored digitally and preserved for centuries.
45:05But for a tomb as well known as that of Tutankhamen,
45:08the team has gone one step further.
45:11They are recreating an exact replica of the tomb
45:15that will be available for the public to visit.
45:18In Madrid, at the Factum Arte HQ,
45:21the contours are reproduced using a laser cutter
45:24on 3.6 metre high polyurethane panels,
45:28the same height as the original tomb.
45:31At the same time, the paintings are printed onto an adhesive surface
45:35specially created for the replica,
45:38an acrylic mixture that's slightly elastic
45:40so that it can mould to the contours of the plaster without cracking.
45:44The different printed sheets are perfectly lined up,
45:48then sealed using a vacuum process which sticks it to the surface.
45:53This four-ton creation was then installed
45:56at the entrance to the Valley of the Kings,
45:59near to Howard Carter's house.
46:02Today, the Egyptian government limits the number of visitors
46:05to the original tomb to 200 people a day.
46:09The replica is an alternative solution for tourists
46:12and perhaps a better way of protecting the King's tomb.
46:21Surprisingly, the high-precision replica
46:23has become a new source of study for the specialists.
46:27It's quite possible that 100 years after it was discovered,
46:31the tomb still has secrets to reveal.
46:37The scans that we have done have helped scholars do some research.
46:43And one of those scholars was Nichols-Reeds.
46:45He has noticed that in the Sreezy scans,
46:47that this area goes down a little bit.
46:50He thought, because there were some inclinations in this area,
46:54that it would be a door.
46:58He had the theory that there might be another part
47:02that exists behind this specific wall.
47:06In 2015, this new theory created a sensation amongst the specialists.
47:12And so began the veritable Egyptology media storm,
47:16when different radar scans produced contradictory results.
47:21The first test suggested that there could be not one but two chambers,
47:26two cavities hidden between the paintings in the funeral chamber.
47:30The first to the north,
47:32but also a second which was two metres high by ten metres deep.
47:38Could this be the tomb of the legendary Nefertiti?
47:43It had never been found,
47:44and it is today the most searched-for tomb in the Valley of the Kings.
47:50But the analyses were incomplete,
47:52and many specialists were sceptical.
47:56In 2017, a new team of international engineers
48:00sought to settle the debate once and for all.
48:03They started a new study which went further than any other to date,
48:07combining three different scanning techniques.
48:11When we first got there, we started by scanning the soil,
48:16not focusing on a single tomb,
48:18but trying to understand what's still in the ground.
48:21Is there anything left?
48:24The result of this test operation provided an image
48:28of the terrain of the Valley of Kings,
48:30which was more precise than ever seen before.
48:33One thing was sure.
48:34If a hidden chamber existed at all,
48:36then this was the team to find it.
48:39We actually saw some anomalies on the side of the tomb.
48:47You see actually colours going from blue to red.
48:50Blue is a humid material, material with infiltration of water.
48:55While green is normal rock, red,
48:58it may indicate presence of voids or structures.
49:01You see this is actually the position,
49:04the real position of Tutankhamun's tomb,
49:06and that appears as a red anomaly inside a green background.
49:12The scanners picked up two anomalies,
49:15two potentially empty spaces just a few metres from Tutankhamun's burial chamber.
49:21Was it possible that they were undiscovered tombs?
49:25Difficult to say for certain.
49:28You can clearly see from our work
49:30that there are signs of former excavations everywhere.
49:33You can imagine how many people in 3,000 years
49:36may have gone there to try to dig here and there looking for treasures.
49:40So it makes things even more complicated.
49:45The engineers cross-checked their data for several months,
49:49but there was no doubt about the verdict.
49:51According to their analyses,
49:53there was no direct communication between the two anomalies
49:56and Tutankhamun's tomb.
50:01So there was no possible doubt.
50:04The secret chambers that Nicholas Reeves had imagined didn't exist.
50:11With all the amount of data that we collected
50:14and all the careful analysis that we did,
50:17we don't really see the possibility that, you know,
50:20you could justify the presence of any other chamber there.
50:25The fans of this theory were left disappointed.
50:28They thought that they were part of the next big discovery
50:31in the Valley of the Kings,
50:33exactly a century after that of Howard Carter.
50:39Today, we're entering a new golden age of technology.
50:44In the years to come,
50:46new, even more precise DNA testing
50:49and new scans will be carried out.
50:51They may well cast doubt on all the theories
50:54that the specialists have come up with until now.
50:57New technology will allow us to see new things.
51:01The question then is just whether, you know,
51:03we'll have suddenly all the answers
51:05or whether, as seems more likely,
51:08we'll just have more questions.
51:09Each new revelation has kept alive the fascination
51:13the whole world has had for the Pharaoh Tutankhamun
51:16for over a century.
51:19Tutankhamun is still the most important discovery
51:22ever happened in history,
51:25not only in Egypt, but all over the world.
51:28You can't help but be fascinated by Tutankhamun.
51:31He's like a character from a novel.
51:34Archaeologists are now starting to dig once more
51:37in the Valley of the Kings.
51:38They hope to bring to light another lost tomb
51:41which will match the as-yet-unparalleled splendour
51:44and extraordinary richness
51:46of the tomb of the Pharaoh Tutankhamun.
51:49You never know when the sand of Egypt
51:52might hide of secrets,
51:54and maybe soon another intact tomb
51:57will be discovered.
51:59.