Welcome to the pyramid and tomb of the King Nastasen.
What's in the third chamber?
Theoretically, it should be the king.
[Josh] It's completely flooded.
So we decided to dive it. You interested?
Huh.
This is, like, the most dangerous diving that you could do.
I am nervous. That's not true. I'm scared.
Sounds more accurate.
Any words of wisdom for a first-timer here?
Don't let go of the line. Don't freak out.
Yep. Don't panic.
Let's go dive a tomb.
[Josh] And the silt just follows you in.
Moving forward.
Okay. I'm letting go.
I am not feeling that block this time.
[over radio] I lost the line, and I don't know where I am here in chamber two.
All right. Josh, can you repeat that you're off the line?
[Josh] I lost the line in chamber two.
It should be in front of me, but I can't feel it.
Josh is off the line. Repeat.
[Josh] I can't get my bearings.
Guys, I need some help here.
Okay. Just don't panic. Reach around, and see if you can find the line.
He doesn't have any kind of tactile reference,
so he has no idea where he is in the tomb.
[Josh] I can't see a [bleep] thing.
Josh, is there any chance you can chamber into... Surface into chamber two?
[Josh] If I could find that block at the front of chamber two,
I could surface there, but I am in outer space right now.
[Pearce Paul] Josh, listen to me.
Stay calm, and stay focused.
Look around to that center block.
If you can feel the two temperatures in the water,
that center block should be your next best guess to get on that line.
[Josh] I got it. I got the cave line.
Outstanding. Great news.
[Pearce Paul] You good? You doing all right?
[Josh] I'm good, man.
-That was intense, but I'm good. -[Pearce Paul] Excellent.
[Josh] Further into the darkness, deeper into the tomb.
Let's see what's in here.
My name is Josh Gates.
Hello!
Explorer...
Here goes nothing.
...adventurer...
Whoo!
Oh, that's a long way down.
...and a guy who ends up in some very strange situations.
I'm alive for now!
With a degree in archaeology and a passion for the unexplained,
I travel to the ends of the Earth,
investigating the greatest legends in history.
Ready to rock and roll.
This is Expedition Unknown.
Okay. So, good news is I haven't drowned, and I am back on the line.
To say that I'm relieved is a grotesque understatement.
In fact, my life is flashing before my eyes,
particularly the last few days.
I came to Sudan to investigate the mysteries of the great kingdom of Kush,
the southern neighbors of ancient Egypt.
Once, Egypt was able to conquer and occupy this gold-rich region,
but after 500 years, they withdrew.
And then something extraordinary happened.
The Kushites rose to become Africa's superpower.
This was the largest city on the continent.
-Yes, of course. -Wow.
The Kushites invade Egypt, ruling over the 25th dynasty as pharaohs,
and presiding over a renaissance of Egyptian culture,
religion, an architecture.
But what made the Kushites powerful enough to take control?
And what happened to the Kush kings who ruled Egypt?
A century of archaeology has yet to find the remains of a Kush king
in his own tomb.
To help locate one for the first time,
I've come to the necropolis of Nuri,
where 80 pyramids lie buried in the sand.
This is just a mind-blowing collection of ancient structures.
The first tomb built here was that of the greatest hero of the Kush, Taharqa,
and the last belonged to the king, Nastasen.
It is Nastasen's tomb that has drawn the attention of archaeologist,
Pearce Paul Creasman.
Along with his team, we are exploring the interior,
in the hopes of finding the king's mummy.
If we're able to recover any mummified remains of Nastasen,
his DNA could advance our knowledge of the Kush by leaps and bounds,
and it has not been easy.
The instant you go inside, you stir up thousands of years of dust and sediment.
You're literally in the dark. Like, blindfolded dark down there.
The tomb, flooded by water from the Nile,
consists of a staircase, leading through a reinforced passageway
into three pitch-black chambers:
a large first chamber with a guideline,
a collapsed second chamber with a small air pocket,
and then what we hope is the burial chamber of the king.
[over radio] Okay. Let's get back to work.
-Let's do this. -[Pearce Paul] That's what I like to hear.
All right. I'm back in the third chamber.
-Ready? -[Josh] Yep.
[Pearce Paul] And working away.
[Josh] We've discovered that a large slab in chamber three
appears to be the lid of Nastasen's sarcophagus,
cracked open by falling rock from above.
To recover any material inside,
we'll therefore need to work quickly
so we don't end up entombed here, as well.
Ben, are you currently under the slab?
Where are you?
[Pearce Paul] Yeah, so, there's that diagonal crack in the slab.
I cleared off some of the clay,
and I'm working down one of the edges.
[Josh] All right. I'm parked at the doorway to chamber three.
[Pearce Paul] All right. I'm bringing a bucket up.
[Josh] There's no visibility,
so we work together by forming a blind bucket brigade.
Pearce Paul scoops material from under the lid that could contain artefacts
and hands it off to me in the doorway.
I'm waiting for it. You can see my light.
I have the bucket, and I'm handing you one here.
[Pearce Paul] Got it. Good exchange.
[Josh] I pass over the collapsed ceiling in this room
and clutch around for a set of waiting hands in the doorway to chamber one.
Okay. I've just handed the bucket off.
-I think Ryan has joined the relay here. -[Pearce Paul] Excellent.
[Josh] Ryan uses the guide wire
and ferries the bucket through the large first chamber.
Finally, Justin will bring it to the surface, to the topside team.
Today, that just happens to be John T. Godfrey,
the US ambassador to Sudan,
who traveled to the dig for an official site visit.
Now he's volunteering to haul the heavy buckets to the sifting tent,
bringing new meaning to the term 'public servant.'
Together, we work efficiently and carefully.
[Pearce Paul] I have to be really careful where I'm working right now.
I don't want these larger rocks
-that I can't pick up to fall. -[Josh over radio] Right.
[in voiceover] Along with the rocks,
I start to imagine what else we might be disturbing in here.
Pearce Paul, what are your feelings on the movie, The Mummy?
-[Pearce Paul] I love a good Brendan Fraser. -[Josh laughs]
That's not... That's not possible, though, right? That's not gonna happen here?
[Pearce Paul] Mmm. Never say never.
[Josh] The full buckets go up and out,
the empty ones back in and down,
passed from man to man in total darkness.
I have the bucket.
Heading back trough chamber two.
[Pearce Paul] I think we should make this an Olympic event.
-[Josh laughs] -[Pearce Paul] That exchange was beautiful.
[Josh] The perfect hand-off.
[in voiceover] We keep it up for more than two hours,
when I learned that not all of the buckets we were filling are equal.
[Pearce Paul] I got some interesting things going on here.
[Josh] What you got?
[Pearce Paul] I don't know yet. Let me...
I'm gonna fill this bucket a little more.
There's something in here. It's gonna take me a minute to work around it,
-so we can't just pull it. -[Josh] Copy that.
[Pearce Paul] I gotta get the layers off of it.
All right. I got something of interest here. Smooth around the edges.
[Josh] Does it feel like natural rock?
[Pearce Paul] No, it does not feel natural.
I think we need to get out and take a look at it.
[Josh] The item, whatever it is,
is placed inside a hard container
Pearce Paul has clipped to his belt.
Then, we carefully ferry it out into the light.
Josh and Pearce are coming out!
[Pearce Paul] So, we're digging around, pulled some buckets out.
Look what we got.
-Oh, amazing. -[bleep] yes!
-It's a shabti. -[Pearce Paul] So, this is Nastasen's shabti.
[John] That is great.
Just found that from down there?
We just got it down out of the burial chamber.
[Josh] A shabti is a figurine that would be buried with a royal
to attend to them in the afterlife.
And this wasn't a metaphor.
This doll was supposed to physically spring to life to serve Nastasen in eternity.
And this that we see on here, this black, this is paint?
[Pearce Paul] This is paint that is put on it
probably during the firing process.
-You can see the circle going around here. -Yeah.
[Pearce Paul] This is almost certainly the edge
of the cartouche to keep the name.
-So we have Kushite hieroglyphs on here? -Yes.
A cartouche is an oval-shape surrounding hieroglyphics,
typically displaying the name of an important individual.
It binds the information.
So we can see the name of Nastasen.
[Josh] This is unbelievable.
Even though these are meant to be servants to wait on him in the afterlife,
the representation, the face; is it meant to be him?
[Pearce Paul] Yeah. This is intended to be him.
You need to have representations of your image
in order to ensure you live in perpetuity.
[Josh] As a magical object, the shabti is covered with spells,
intended to keep the king's name alive, granting him immortality.
All I can say is so far, so good.
I mean, the idea that this has been waiting for, you know, nearly 2,500 years.
-How about that? -That's fantastic. What a find.
[Josh] This is a precious discovery.
This figure now serves his king once more, not by waiting on him
but by preserving his memory.
It's an honor to have helped bring him to the surface.
And, Ambassador, for you to give this to me as a gift,
that's so kind of you. You didn't need to do that.
This is Pearce Paul and his team--
Hold on a sec. I thought I had the state department behind me.
-[laughter] -I thought I had them.
The team needs to catalog this remarkable find,
and we've reached our daily time limit in the tomb,
which is carefully controlled to prevent fatigue.
Soon, we'll mount one last push inside
in search of King Nastasen himself.
In the meantime, the shabti we found raises some important questions.
These objects, which are so iconically Egyptian,
are also being used in tombs here in Kush,
along with pyramids, mummies, and more.
Why?
And even more mysterious, what made this kingdom powerful enough
to conquer Egypt?
I am up before the sun and rolling out to meet an archaeologist
named Geoff Emberling.
Now, Geoff has asked me to meet him at a site known as Jebel Barkal.
I have coordinates, but there's a lot of sand out here,
so hopefully we can find him.
All right. I'm guessing this is my guy here.
At the base of the holy mountain known as Jebel Barkal,
I meet archaeologist Geoff Emberling.
-Geoff? -Good morning.
-Welcome to Jebel Barkal. -Thank you.
I normally don't like to meet strangers out in the desert in the middle of the night,
-but for you, I'm making an exception. -[laughs]
Okay. So, this big feature here is Jebel Barkal. So what does that mean?
For the ancient Egyptians, the ancient Kushites, this is the pure mountain.
The holy mountain.
-[Josh] The holy mountain. -Yeah.
Okay, and so why? Why is it holy?
To understand that, you're gonna have to walk up to the top,
and I'll take you there.
-We're going up? -We're going up.
That is how tall?
It's over 300 feet high.
And it looks real steep. Is there a path up there?
-There is. There is. -Sort of?
We're gonna go find it.
Oh, boy. Okay. Come on. Let's get our morning steps in, huh?
We race the sun to the top of Jebel Barkal,
but with the ground slipping away under our feet as we walk,
I put my money on the sun.
It's like walking up a sand dune
if the sand dune was filled with razorblade-sharp rocks.
That's a long way down.
Tough. This is tough.
-[Geoff] It's not nothing, climbing up here, is it? -No, it's not.
And there's kind of no one path to the top. It's just...
-[Geoff] Yeah. -...choose your own adventure.
Oh, look at that!
[Geoff] There it is.
[Josh] Greeting the dawn.
Oh, that is something. What a view!
But it's not just a nice view.
From the top of Jebel Barkal,
I'll finally glimpse the source of the Kush's power.
Beautiful.
[Josh] That is the most spectacular thing.
Water, green, desert.
-Just life right there. -[Geoff] Yeah.
[Josh] It's really not hard to see why somebody would find this place holy.
[Geoff] Absolutely.
This picture is exactly how life has been in the Nile for thousands of years.
That's awesome.
I've climbed to the top of Jebel Barkal,
the holiest mountain in the ancient kingdom of Kush
to learn how the Kushites were able to conquer their one-time conquerors
to the north, the Egyptians.
[Geoff] The thing you need to really see is this pinnacle down here.
Let's go take a look.
This pinnacle of rock is what makes Jebel Barkal a holy place.
[Josh] Unbelievable. Look at this!
So why does this pinnacle make this a holy place?
Just because it's such a unique feature?
-No, it's much more than that. -Okay.
Gonna back you up just a little bit.
-Okay. -Okay.
-So, the Kushites were here first. -[Josh] Yep.
[Geoff] And they had this idea that gods lived in the rock.
[Josh] So already, they saw this as a sacred place.
That's right. But of course, the Egyptians were their neighbors.
They conquered Kush.
-Right. -And in understanding why this is a sacred place,
you have to go to the Egyptians.
[Josh] When the Egyptians first conquered Kush and came into these lands,
they were astonished at the sight of the rock formation
at Jebel Barkal.
So for the Egyptians, this became a holy place
because of this pinnacle of rock.
They are the ones who really recognized this as a very specific symbol.
-Okay. -A symbol of a uraeus.
-A uraeus is a goddess in the form of a cobra... -[Josh] Mmm-hmm.
...coiled on your head, spitting fire and poison at the eyes of your enemies.
-Protecting you. -Yes, exactly.
This is something that people would maybe most recognize
from Tut's death mask, for instance, right?
This was a big-deal symbol to the ancient Egyptians.
Absolutely, and so for them, it was the combination of the uraeus
with the rest of the Jebel, which was like a crown.
-It became almost a hieroglyph in nature... -[Josh] Right.
[Geoff] ...for kingship.
-[Josh] Absolutely beautiful. -Yeah.
[Josh] The Egyptians saw one of their holiest symbols
emerging from the natural landscape.
They called this land Napata and immediately built a temple here
to their most important deity, the creator god, Amun.
So, when they came here, the Kushites had been worshipping, we think,
a ram-headed god.
And when the Egyptians came down, their god was Amun.
[Josh] Amun is, like, the main Egyptian deity, yes?
[Geoff] He's the god of the Egyptian empire.
And so the form of Amun that appeared here in Jebel Barkal
was a ram-headed Amun.
It was sort of a mixture of the two,
-the Egyptian and the Kushite gods. -[Josh] Right.
[Geoff] This became the birthplace of Amun.
This is kind of wild because it means that ancient Egypt-
they're putting their whole origin in this other area,
where there's this other kingdom, this other civilization.
They're saying, "We came from here."
Egypt wouldn't be what it was without Kush,
and Kush wouldn't be what it was without Egypt. There's no question.
[Josh] During their occupation by Egypt,
the Kushites latched on to their conqueror's religion and traditions
and then surpassed their teachers, even after they left.
The Kush became more Egyptian than the Egyptians.
So, what happens?
Well, the people that they introduced the worship of Amun to,
the Kushites, completely take this on as their god and their story.
And they're not giving up on that myth at all. It gets stronger and stronger.
-Absolutely. -Right.
And in fact, it gets stronger and stronger here
when the cult of Amun was weaker and weaker in Egypt.
[Josh] When the Kush see that Egyptian faith is in decline,
they seize their chance.
There's this mystery, right? About how do these kings of Kush
get so successful that they push up into ancient Egypt
and rule this 25th dynasty in Egypt?
-Yeah. -These Kush kings.
And I always sort of thought of them as, "Oh, they're outsiders,
they're invaders," but in fact,
they're coming from one of the most sacred parts
of the ancient Egyptian world in a way.
They're coming from this genesis place.
So to the ancient Egyptians, they must have looked at these guys and said,
"They're from some place incredibly holy."
That's right. That's right.
And that's how they positioned themselves, too.
-Right. -Very much as the restorers of proper worship of the gods.
In fact, it was the priests of Amun in Egypt
-who invited them in. -Mmm.
-So they are completely intertwined. -Right.
At the base of the mountain is evidence of the merged Kushite Egyptian faith,
which means to see it, we're climbing back down Jebel Barkal.
But while Geoff is comfortable going the long way around, I find a shortcut.
Okay. Well, here goes nothing.
[laughs and exclaims]
This is definitely faster! [laughs]
[exclaims]
Ah!
Too fast! Too fast!
[grunts]
[grunts and splutters]
Well, I'm down.
[pants and spits]
I dust myself off and limp around the mountain
to reconnect with Geoff at a majestic ruin first built by the Egyptians.
Oh, my word.
Are we in a temple?
[Geoff] Yeah. This is the temple of Amun of Napata,
built right here at the base of Jebel Barkal.
-So, we have our holy mountain right here behind us. -Yeah.
[Josh] And now a temple to commemorate Amun,
-to commemorate the god of the mountain. -[Geoff] That's right.
So, when the Kushites began to gather their power,
and when they conquered Egypt, they tripled the size of this temple.
-Tripled it? -Tripled it.
Okay. So they saw this as a supremely important place.
-Yeah, they did. Yeah. -Yeah.
And so at its maximum, how big was this place?
[Geoff] It's 150 yards long.
So it's like a football field and a half.
-[Josh whispers] Wow. -[Geoff] Yeah.
[Josh] Today, time and the elements have reclaimed
much of the structure, but a few thousand years ago,
these columns would have soared 50 feet high.
[Geoff] The columns were wrapped in copper.
The bases were wrapped in gold.
Oh, so this was blinged out?
This was completely blinged out,
and the whole thing around the sides was covered with reliefs...
-Wow. -...that depicted the Kushite conquest of Egypt.
And what would have happened in this temple?
[Geoff] Kings would have been crowned here.
They would have had huge processions of all the court,
all the palace, priests dressed in their fancy leopard-skin garments.
-[Josh] This is the Westminster Abbey of Kush. -[Geoff] That's right.
[Josh] And to think kings and queens and high priests
-stood, like, right here. -Right here.
-Yeah, it would have been quite a spectacle. -Yeah.
The temple shows that the Kushites merged their religion
with that of the Egyptians in a monumental way.
But it must have taken more than that
for the Kushites to actually conquer their northern neighbors.
Just outside the temple, a colleague of Geoff's is overseeing an active dig,
and they've just found something very telling.
[all exclaim]
What is that?
That's a point of something.
This is an arrowhead.
-[Josh] It's an arrowhead? -Yeah.
[Josh] Whoa!
That is incredible.
Coming up...
-[Pearce Paul] Ready to do this, Josh? -I'm ready. Let's do it.
Can you feel the bottom of it?
[Pearce Paul] Not coming out till I get this.
Oh, what is that?
Wait, what is this?
You can see the notch in the back of it there, and it's clearly an arrowhead.
-[Sami] An arrowhead with a quartz. -[Josh] A quartz arrowhead.
At the kingdom of Kush's holiest mountain,
I've learned how this place was written
into ancient Egypt's creation story.
The Kushites used this religious connection
to get a foothold within Egypt.
And now this arrowhead offers a clue
on how they may have conquered them.
-This would not be for hunting, right? -No, no, no.
It's ceremonial.
-[Josh] It's ceremonial? -Yeah.
This is a classic symbol of Kushite kingship.
-Of kingship? -Yeah.
In the very earliest tombs, just as the Kushite dynasty was coming to power,
the burials all had these arrowheads in them.
-And that's-- -In the royal burials?
In the royal burials, and all made from this same-colored stone.
Sort of reddish-orange.
So the earliest Egyptian term for this region
was Ta-Seti- land of the bow.
-[Josh] They had a reputation for archery. -[Geoff] They did.
So this is part of the secret of Kushite success in warfare.
Kushite mercenaries are being hired in Egypt, and they're all archers.
-All of them. -[Josh] Wait a minute.
The Egyptians are hiring Kushites?
[Sami] Yes, they were such excellent archers.
That's why the Egyptians used them as an army.
Incredible. And there are depictions of this or writings of this?
Both.
-So, we have the name of Kush being Ta-Seti. -Yeah.
We have Kushite kings are sometimes represented with thumb rings
that they used to pull back very powerful bows.
[Josh] The Kush were so proficient with a bow and arrow,
Arabians of the time called them eye-smighters,
meaning they could unfailingly hit the eyes of their targets.
In some ways, this one object feels like it kind of unlocks
the secrets of the success of this civilization.
They could be dangerous.
But this is also filled with beauty, sophistication,
-craftsmanship. That's Kush. -Yeah.
It's got everything. "Don't mess with the Kushites."
"Don't mess with the Kushites ever."
So, here at Jebel Barkal, I've seen two of the keys to the Kushites' power-
their spiritual authority and military might.
The result of this mastery was a century of Kushites ruling
as the pharaohs of Egypt's 25th dynasty.
And after that, centuries more of Kush kings dominating this region.
As we know, a Kush king has never before been found in his own tomb,
but that may be about to change,
as I received word that back at Nuri,
Pearce Paul is ready to resume diving
at the flooded pyramid of King Nastasen.
During the drive however, I get a walkie call from the back of my convoy
that might make me a little late.
[man speaking over radio]
Copy that. Okay. Pulling over.
Well, that's pretty much the number one thing
you don't wanna have happen in the desert.
A flat tire on a remote desert rode in Sudan is a nightmare scenario.
And, as I learned from my cameraman, Danny, this is no ordinary flat tire.
What'd you do, Danny? What'd you do?
Oh, boy. [laughs] No.
[Danny] It's, like, the ultimate flat tire.
So, what happened?
I was just sitting there getting Arabic lessons from the driver,
and the tire exploded.
You know, we're fortunate. We pulled over to the [speaking other language]
-And-- -Sand?
-Yeah, on the sand. -Yeah.
Just make sure to stay out of the [speaking other language] .
-Okay. -That's a road.
Oh, boy.
But all [speaking other language] ,
or joking, aside, this is a real problem.
Okay. Well, it looks terrible.
Rubber is literally wrapped around the rim.
Ah, that's gonna be fun. Okay.
The local team has raised the truck enough to remove the tire.
But the bolts don't want to budge.
Those do not wanna come off.
Come on.
[grunts] There we go.
Now we're talking.
Finally, we make progress, only to discover new problems.
The good news is we've loosened the flat tire.
The bad news is they cannot loosen the spare, so it's like the old saying goes:
"You win some, you lose some," and then you die in the desert.
We think we've got things handled
when a military truck full of heavily-armed men pulls up next to us.
Okay. Time to see what a camera and a smile gets me.
-Hello. How are you? -Hello.
-[speaking in own language] -[Josh] What's going on?
Can we borrow your truck?
-[speaking other language] -[Josh laughs]
Okay. Thank you.
See you later.
Turns out they're just curious about what's going on
and not really anxious to help.
We could all fit in the back!
They leave, and we eventually free the spare tire,
so we get back on the road to Nuri,
where I hurry to reconnect with Pearce Paul,
who's been preparing for our final dive into Nastasen's tomb.
Pearce Paul, you in there?
[Pearce Paul] Oh, yeah, Josh, you back?
-Hey. -Good to see you.
Good to see you, man.
-Welcome back. -Thank you.
-You ready to get to this? -You guys ready to dive?
[Pearce Paul] The guys are all kitted up and ready.
You know, we got a lot to move out from underneath this slab now, so...
-Yeah. -...time's a-burning.
Yeah. Let's see what's under there.
-Yeah. -Let's do it.
All right.
We suit up so quickly I don't even have time to get nervous
before diving one more time into the entrance of the tomb.
[Pearce Paul] You ready to do this, Josh?
[Josh] I'm ready. Let's do it.
[Pearce Paul] Let's get after it.
[Pearce Paul] You ready to do this, Josh?
[Josh] I'm ready. Let's do it.
[Pearce Paul] Let's get after it.
[Josh] All right. I am headed into the shute.
Dive team. This is topside. No copy.
[Josh over radio] This is Josh. I read you loud and clear, topside.
[Pearce Paul] Confirmed. I hear you. I got a little bit of visibility in here today.
It's not great, but it's better than usual.
Oh, that's surprising. Make the most of it.
All right, gents. Good luck. Stay safe.
[Josh] All right. I'm through the shute, it looks like.
I'm sweeping up to find the cave line.
I have it in my hand.
I am making my way through chamber one.
[Pearce Paul] I can see your light. You're coming in the right direction.
[Josh] Okay. Great.
Moving forward.
[Pearce Paul] Go another body length,
and then you can come up and surface.
[Josh] Okay. Hold on. And I'm coming in, and I'm coming up.
[Pearce Paul] Surface.
[Josh] Okay. So, we're ready to head back into the burial chamber.
What's the plan?
[Pearce Paul] It's all about the king's burial today, Josh.
We're gonna really get in there and see what's inside.
[Josh] Our first dive in the tomb revealed that the slab here
is really a sarcophagus lid.
But the lid was also cracked open as a result of a partial ceiling collapse.
This terrifying development has given us the unprecedented opportunity
to look inside Nastasen's sarcophagus.
[Pearce Paul] The whole container's full of silt
just like the rest of the room, from the collapses earlier.
So our goal today is to move enough of it to get down to the bottom
and see what's in there.
[Josh] Right. Because if Nastasen is still in there,
it's likely he's at the bottom.
[Pearce Paul] He very well could be.
So let's get the guys ready and start moving a lot of silt topside.
Try not to touch and bump into the walls as much as possible.
This thing has collapsed in the past.
-And so we don't want to encourage another one. -[Josh] Okay.
[Pearce Paul] I'm going in.
[Josh] I'm right behind you.
[Pearce Paul] I can see the edge of the third chamber.
It's a bit cooler in the third chamber today.
[Josh in voiceover] The cracked stone lid is a reminder
that this room is incredibly unsafe to be in.
But Pearce Paul doesn't slow down for a second.
He dives right in, literally.
[Pearce Paul] I now have my head, neck, and shoulders
entirely underneath this slab.
[Josh] Unbelievable.
[Pearce Paul] All right. All right. That's gonna give me some purchase.
Give me a place. Work under here.
[Josh in voiceover] Pearce Paul wastes no time and starts filling buckets
with silt from inside the sarcophagus.
Dive team, all divers are in the water.
[Pearce Paul over radio] Confirmed.
[Josh in voiceover] The rest of us have taken up our familiar positions
in the second and first chambers to restart the bucket brigade.
And can you feel the bottom of it?
[Pearce Paul] Maybe. It's tough. I'm not...
It's tough to feel the difference
between the floor and broken rock.
Nastasen does not give up his secrets easy.
All right. Take that bucket.
[Josh] You got it Taking it all the way out.
Pearce Paul passes another bucket to me, which I hand down the line.
Okay. Bucket is headed your way, Justin.
Over the next couple of hours we work relentlessly,
filling buckets and mesh bags again and again.
[Pearce Paul] I'm gonna move on from this bucket.
[Josh] All right. I got both Justin and Fred outside.
[Pearce Paul] Well, they need to come back because we got another bucket.
[Josh] What did you get through there, Pearce Paul?
[Pearce Paul] I'm working on a layer that falls right nicely off.
I just need to do it methodically.
[Josh] Copy that.
Gentlemen, we have 22 minutes left. 2-2 minutes left.
[Pearce Paul over radio] I understand. Check the gas.
I'm not coming out till I get this.
[Josh] I have another bucket here, as well, if you need it.
[Josh in voiceover] The gas is running low
in the generator that is supplying our air,
but Pearce Paul is determined to dig his way to the bottom of this sarcophagus.
[Pearce Paul] I got a bucket coming out now.
So I'm hopeful that this will have some artefacts in it of interest to us.
Affirmative. We have two minutes left. Two minutes left.
[Josh] I'm headed back out through chamber one.
[in voiceover] We return to the surface with the last set of buckets
before our air runs out.
It's time to see if we hauled anything out of there other than sand.
All right. So, this is pretty much the deepest area underneath this lid.
-Mmm-hmm. -So let's see what's in it.
There's, like, gold right there.
Look at that right there.
So, here we've got something.
This looks like the sandstone, so what the heck is this rock...
Right.
[Pearce Paul] ...doing inside underneath the slab?
[Josh] The more that comes out of here,
the more you start to feel, like, offerings, ceremonial, burial...
-I mean, it just all starts to fit together. -Yeah.
[Josh] And our mesh bag. What do we go there?
[Pearce Paul] Oh, my God. We got something here.
-More gold leaf? -No.
-Oh, what is that? -[laughs] Yes!
Wait, what is this?
[Josh] America may run on Dunkin', but Sudan runs on this.
[both speaking other language]
-How are you? -I'm fine, and you?
I'm good.
-Coffee, yeah? -Yeah. It's coffee.
-One, please. -One coffee.
[Josh] This is one of my favorite things about this country.
They make a roadside cup of joe that not only tastes smooth and delicious
but could also be used to power an orbital rocket.
-Basically take... -[metal clanging]
They take these beans, they grind them down right here,
add a little ginger, pour the whole thing into water
and just boil it into a delicious caffeinated sludge.
Sugar is good?
-Sugar is very good. -[man] Sugar is very good.
Okay.
Then filter, and serve.
[both speaking other language]
Oh, so good.
-So good. -So good.
Sorry, Starbucks. You got nothing on this.
Oh! Five more cups.
[Pearce Paul] Oh, my God. We got something here.
More gold leaf?
-Oh! What is that? -[laughs] Yeah.
Wait, what is this?
That is not gold leaf.
-It's, like, thimble-shaped. -Yeah.
What is this?
[Pearce Paul] I think I know exactly what this is.
This would have been one of the finger or toe caps
of the king that they put on him when they buried him.
Wait, this is a finger or toe cap that was on the king?
Yeah. It's pretty great.
This is insane.
This item may look small, but make no mistake.
This appears to be a monumental find.
We may have our first confirmation that the king has not left the building.
This has to have been on him, right?
There's no question. There's no other way this gets in there.
It's a major clue.
[Josh] These gold caps, also called stalls,
were used only in royal burials
to protect the king's extremities in death.
The feet of King Tut had them when his sarcophagus was opened.
And apparently, King Nastasen was sporting a set, as well.
That is a true smoking gun.
It is a true smoking gun, and even better, look at it.
-Is there something in it? -There's something in it.
-Could there be bone in there? -There should be bone in there.
So, we need to get this up, we need to clean it up,
and then we need to see if we can't just pry this open a little bit
and see if there's not some bone in there.
So the king is here.
-The king is in the tomb. -Dude.
-This is incredible. -It's pretty great.
Shall we go over to the tent?
-Let's go. -Okay.
One mystery is definitely solved.
Nastasen is in this tomb.
Now the only question is is it possible that we have a piece of him?
We get changed in record time
and race to the sifting tent to find out.
[Pearce Paul] Look what we found in the mesh bag.
-Wow, that's wonderful. -Wow.
So, finger cap? Toe cap?
-Something like that. Look. -Yeah, that's...
I think so. Look at that. It looks like it's still in there.
[Josh] It's possible, right?
It looks like you can see, like, the edge of the cuticle of the fingernail.
-Like... -[man] That is amazing.
-[Josh] Right? It really does. -[Pearce Paul laughs]
It does almost seem like you can see the edge of the nail.
Like, the actual cuticle.
Okay. Here we go.
So that bone may be in there.
[Pearce Paul] We got a good chance.
There's something in here that's heavier than this gold.
That's amazing.
Stephanie, you wanna hand me the... All right.
Can I have some water?
Oh, my word.
[all exclaim]
-It's bone! -[woman] It's bone.
[laughter]
[Josh] That's the tip of a toe.
-Absolutely. -[Josh] That's the tip of a toe for sure.
No question. This is a human bone that came out of this cap,
which was designed to go on the king when he was buried.
-And nobody else. -And nobody else.
This is Nastasen himself.
There's the king.
Part of him.
[laughter]
Gonna burst into tears here.
This is unbelievable.
If you think tears are an overreaction, think again.
These are the first remains of a king of Kush
confirmed to be found in his own tomb ever.
This is a moment for the history books.
We rarely get those, "Eureka", "Aha!" moments.
-Archaeology's a much slower process. -Yeah.
But this tells us with absolute certainty Nastasen was here.
He's buried there.
And this can give us a lot of potential future data.
Yeah, and if DNA could be found in there,
it could start to build a family tree of sorts,
at least learn more genetically about where this person came from.
And about the environment in which they lived, and all kinds of things.
Can we get some gloves to take a better look at this?
[Josh] I see it there.
I'm not often speechless.
What can you say?
What will happen to this bone now?
So, first thing we're gonna do is put it right back in water.
Yep.
-Keep it preserved in the state that it's in. -Right. Yes.
We'll photograph it. We'll measure it.
We'll make sure it's taken care of and contained in this shape.
Then we'll consult with the government
and the antiquities authorities
and make sure that we all have a plan we agree on on how to learn more from it.
And one would assume, considering everything that's coming out of this tomb,
there may be more of him there.
-I think it's a safe bet. -Yeah?
Yeah.
Wow.
-It's a big deal. -It's a big deal.
It's a really big deal.
A truly remarkable moment, with a truly remarkable group of archaeologists.
Incredible. I mean, a king of Kush.
What more do you want?
-Well, mission accomplished. -Nailed it.
-Oh, that was good. That was good. -[laughs]
[Josh] As I prepare to leave Sudan,
I look back and gaze once more upon the kingdom of Kush
and its pyramids, temples, tombs, and treasures.
For far too long, these magnificent accomplishments
have been overshadowed by those of Egypt.
A grave injustice to history and to the people who conjured miracles
like Kerma, Meroe, and Nuri.
And maybe it's the thrill of groundbreaking discovery.
Oh, what is that?
Maybe it's the adrenaline rush of real danger.
Or maybe it's just the joy of learning how a civilization
was able to overpower Egypt by beating them at their own game.
But I've learned that the Kush should take a back seat to nobody.
And thanks to the hard work of the dedicated archaeologists here,
a tangible and historic human connection to the kings of Kush
has been revealed.
[all exclaim]
[Josh] It's bone!
Since our expedition, Sudan's political future
has become more uncertain than ever.
It's a tragedy for the millions of Sudanese people
who, in my estimation, are some of the most proud and hospitable on Earth.
But it's also a shame because it means that archaeologists
and tourists won't have the opportunity to work and visit here
and discover more secrets of one of the greatest civilizations in history.