NARRATOR: Abusir,
an ancient necropolis in the heart of Egypt,
where a dynasty of mysterious pharaohs,
the Sun Kings, turn Egyptian society on its head
and reimagine its iconic mega structures.
CéDRIC: This was the place where creation started.
This is the place where the world was born.
NARRATOR: Strange structures
stand alongside the pyramids here.
Now a team of experts has special
access to investigate this little known burial site.
We are on top of the Sun Temple of Niuserre,
and from here, we touch the sky and the sun.
NARRATOR: Who are the Sun Kings?
And why do they create these new structures
not seen in Egypt before?
This place is absolutely massive.
NARRATOR: And what can Abusir reveal about
the radical changes sweeping ancient Egypt
at the time of their construction?
To solve the mysteries of this extraordinary necropolis,
we blow Abusir apart.
We explore astonishing tombs,
investigate forgotten rituals,
decode ancient inscriptions,
and digitally reconstruct this lost wonder in its prime
to reveal the rise of the Sun Kings.
Abusir,
10 miles south of Cairo,
a mysterious necropolis between Giza and Saqqara.
It is one of ancient Egypt's great royal sites,
but one that is currently closed to the public.
Archaeologists only begin excavations at
this extraordinary cemetery in the 1900s.
Now, our cameras have been granted rare access
to follow teams as they investigate this site.
Much remains here to be uncovered.
The Abusir necropolis covers more than 400 acres.
Four millennia ago,
the ancient Egyptians build three huge pyramids here,
along with a host of smaller pyramids
and tombs scattered around them.
Each is a tomb designed to
help the deceased journey into the afterlife.
In the north sit two mysterious
mega structures unlike anything else in Egypt.
These unique complexes feature enormous obelisks that
soar over 180 feet into the sky.
What are these mysterious monuments, and who builds them?
Max Nuzzolo has excavated here for most of his career.
This is really an impressive, huge site.
NARRATOR: He investigates the remains of
one of these mysterious structures.
You can see the rectangular-like shape
with a big enclosure wall,
paved area, and the kind of pyramid, which, in fact, was
probably not a pyramid,
but the trunk of pyramid with a huge obelisk on top.
NARRATOR: In the center of the enclosure,
an unusual feature stands out.
And something even more interesting, before the obelisk,
which is the altar.
These are all features that look like temple.
NARRATOR: Max wants to know who builds this strange temple.
An impressive block of decorated stone
catches his eye.
This is a very interesting element of the site.
It's a door frame composed of two door jambs.
As you can see here, they are shaped to host a door.
NARRATOR: Strange inscriptions are carved into the doorframe.
What is very interesting here is that one of these two
door jambs has a hieroglyphic inscription
with the name of King Niuserre.
NARRATOR: Niuserre rules ancient Egypt
in the 25th century BCE,
81 years after Pharaoh Khufu is entombed in Egypt's
famous great pyramid of Giza.
Max wants to know why Niuserre
builds this curious temple.
He examines the pharaoh's cartouche, an oval
box that contains his name, for clues.
This cartouche is associated with a specific element,
which is called Golden Horus name.
The Golden Horus is
one of the Sun God Ra's titles.
Niuse adopts the divine title
and becomes Niuserre.
Niuserre wanted to be presented as the direct son
of the Sun God Ra.
The ancient Egyptians believe the falcon-headed Ra
is the supreme divinity.
He creates every aspect of the living world.
From his own tears,
he creates humans.
Ra is one with the sun.
He crosses the heavens in the day and descends into
the underworld at night to rise again in the morning.
Ra also directs the three seasons
of the Egyptian calendar.
He makes the Nile flood every year
and is the energy that grows the crops.
Ra is all powerful.
Niuserre claims to be his incarnation on earth,
allowing him to rule with absolute power.
Niuserre is a self-declared Sun King,
ruling with the power of Ra behind him.
Max believes Niuserre's association with
the all-powerful Sun God
could be the key to why he builds
this pioneering monument.
He searches for evidence among the ruins
and finds hieroglyphic clues.
In this hieroglyphic inscription,
we have the original name of the monument, described as
Shesep-ib-re --
that means something like "the place of
the joy of Ra," the Sun God.
NARRATOR: The inscription is proof that this mysterious
ruin is the sun temple of Niuserre.
MAX: So here, we really find a confirmation that this is
a sun temple,
the center of the sun culture during the Sun King time.
Niuserre builds his sun temple in 2400 BCE.
He constructs a four-pillar portico
and an entrance sheathed in gleaming white limestone.
Beyond it, a 400-foot causeway ascends
to an impressive terrace.
Here, an imposing gateway leads into a vast enclosure,
dominated by a 65-foot truncated pyramid
and cased in lavish red granite.
Sitting on top is a monumental 118-foot-tall
obelisk made of solid white limestone.
What is the purpose of this strange temple?
Max investigates a key feature of the temple to find out.
This is an altar composed of four huge alabaster slabs.
NARRATOR: He thinks the choice of this rare
and precious stone and the altar's shape
are both significant.
Alabaster is the main symbol of purity, the symbol of
the Sun God, and these slabs are done in a peculiar shape,
with this rounded edge and elongated side,
which is a so-called hetep sign --
means offer -- offer to whom?
Offer to the Sun God, who is
represented in the center with this impressive and huge disk.
NARRATOR: This alabaster altar at the heart of the temple
is where priests make offerings to Ra, the Sun God.
Max believes the temple marks a turning point in
ancient Egypt, the rise of the Sun Kings.
MAX: Here, we really see the apex of
the solar cult for the first time.
Here, we see the manifestation of the direct association
of the cult of the sun with the king.
Here we have, really, the center of the Sun King era.
NARRATOR: The Sun Kings put themselves at
the center of the cult and transform ancient Egypt.
We are actually on top of the obelisk of the sun temple
of Niuserre, and from here,
we really touch the sky and the sun.
For ancient Egyptians, afterlife was at the core
of their religious system and of their beliefs.
But here in the sun temple,
what is in the center of attention is everyday life, is
everyday cult of the sun, and the king connected to the sun.
NARRATOR: The pharaohs of previous dynasties are revered
as supreme leaders during their rule
and become gods in the afterlife.
But with the sun cult of Ra,
the pharaohs are now worshiped as gods in their lifetime.
What can a buried tomb reveal about this radical 5th dynasty?
And can a mysterious mummy help
identify more of these powerful god kings?
NARRATOR: Abusir -- a mysterious necropolis where
a pharaoh elevates himself to god status
and transforms ancient Egyptian civilization.
Cédric Gobeil wants to find out if these tombs
are connected to the cult
and if this entire necropolis is filled with Sun Kings.
He explores a vast stone structure
hidden in the sand here.
From above, he can see the interior layout
of a burial chamber,
along with the remains of a makeshift roof.
Very strangely, the top was capped
by pebbles, stone, and sand,
and the outside of the structure was cased with limestones.
NARRATOR: This is a mastaba, a single-story tomb.
They are built by the ancient Egyptians
throughout their civilization.
When archaeologists excavate here,
they make a remarkable discovery.
20 feet below ground,
deep inside the tomb,
they unearth pieces of a red granite sarcophagus,
fragments of four travertine canopic jars,
and pieces of a mummy, including a complete left hand.
Hidden with these finds, buried in the heart of
the tomb, is a limestone block painted with
a mysterious black inscription.
Can these markings reveal the identity
of the pharaoh who is entombed here?
Cédric examines the evidence
discovered in the original excavation.
CéDRIC: The first one, really striking,
is a mummified hand,
and anthropological analysis have shown that this is
the left hand of a male individual
that died between the age 20, 23 years old.
NARRATOR: This is likely the hand of
the tomb's original occupant.
The excavators unearth a clue to his identity.
CéDRIC: In another picture, I see hieroglyphs.
It's painted with black ink.
It clearly shows the name of
a king, because we see the cartouche.
There's the design Ra, nefer, and F,
so three signs.
This is the name of the king, Neferefre.
So this is it.
We are in the mastaba of Neferefre.
This royal name, Neferefre,
features the same distinctive ending as Niuserre.
This pharaoh makes the same statement of
his divine link to Ra, the Sun God,
and asserts his claim that he is also a living god.
This quarry mark is proof that the pharaoh buried
here is also part of the pioneering Sun Cult.
Neferefre is a pharaoh of the 5th Dynasty.
He rules for just two years
and dies prematurely at the age of 23.
Cédric suspects this whole necropolis could be filled
with the rulers of this mysterious Sun Cult.
He hunts for more evidence in
the ruins of a once grand mortuary temple.
Oh, wow! There it is.
You see, this block actually is
giving me the name of another king.
So we clearly see the cartouche inside,
which you have then the hieroglyph signs,
giving the name of Sa-hu-re.
So the king, Sahure.
NARRATOR: Sahure is now the third king
identified here, alongside Neferefre and his mastaba
and Niuserre with his sun temple.
Cédric investigates the connection between
these pharaohs.
He examines a huge inscription known as the King List,
discovered inside the temple of Abydos in southern Egypt.
Created by Pharaoh Seti I, it lists
the succession of kings throughout ancient Egypt.
It gives us the names of the king in chronological order,
and what I can see when I zoom in
is two names that catch my attention.
So Neferefre in a cartouche,
and in another cartouche, we see Sahure.
The list reveals a close connection.
There's only one king between those two.
So the impression I have is that they --
they could be part of the same family,
knowing that kings would succeed from father to son.
The king list enables Cédric to trace the line of Sahure.
It reveals that Neferefre and Niuserre follow in
succession and are likely to be his grandsons, two brothers.
They are all in one same family.
Therefore, the Abusir site, the necropolis,
could be a necropolis of a royal family.
NARRATOR: Sahure is the second ruler of Egypt's 5th Dynasty.
He is father to Neferirkare
and grandfather to Neferefre and Niuserre.
All Sun Kings,
they are buried beside one another in
Abusir, along with their wives and Children.
Abusir is the Sun King's family cemetery.
These radical pharaohs declare a new era for Egypt
with their Sun Cult at its heart.
They elevate themselves to a higher status
in life than any pharaoh before them.
Their people worship them as Sun Gods
during their reign.
Their Sun Cult thrives for more than a century.
And the Sun Kings rule
over their people with divine authority.
Can discoveries beneath the sand reveal macabre new
rituals in the name of their Sun Cult,
and can evidence of an uprising expose why these
pharaohs go to such extreme lengths in pursuit of power?
NARRATOR: At Abusir, Max Nuzzolo
investigates the mysterious pyramids
and mortuary temples
of the 5th Dynasty Sun Kings.
What we can see here is the remains of
the hypostyle hall of the pyramid complex
of King Neferefre.
Neferefre, a fourth generation Sun King, builds
this structure at the foot of his pyramid.
It is built largely from mud brick
and has eroded over the millennia.
But the remains reveal
it is once an extraordinary feat of engineering.
In its prime,
this is a grand, columned hall,
the first of its kind discovered in ancient Egypt.
Twenty beautifully crafted wooden columns are set on solid
limestone bases and are painted in striking color.
In the main hall stands a life-size
statue of the pharaoh, seated on a golden throne.
Many more adorn the hall, made from wood
and polished limestone.
But beneath them are small wooden statuettes of
Egypt's enemies,
Nubians and Libyans, kneeling with their hands tied.
What can this sacred space reveal about
how the Sun Kings run their cult?
The hypostyle hall is at
the heart of Neferefre's mortuary temple.
A mortuary temple in ancient Egypt is a highly sacred space.
It is a place to worship the reign of the pharaoh,
as well as to celebrate his journey into the afterlife.
The mortuary temple of a king in the 5th Dynasty
was a kind of the resurrection machine,
made through several steps.
First of all, specific rituals to be
carried out in individual part of the complex.
Secondly, with a huge decoration showing the king as
the legitimate son of the Sun God
accomplishing all these tasks on Earth.
NARRATOR: The 5th Dynasty Sun Kings
make their pyramids smaller
than the massive mega structures
of the earlier pharaohs.
But they build their mortuary temples much bigger.
They fill them with powerful iconography of
conquered enemies,
so they are remembered as successful rulers.
Max visits a remote corner of
this vast pyramid complex to investigate further.
When we look at this site, the first impression is void,
emptiness, but, in fact, this is
only appearance, because here, below our feet,
once there was the Sanctuary of the Knife,
a very important monument
connected to the mortuary complex of King Neferefre.
NARRATOR: When archaeologists excavate the site,
they unearth the ruins of a mud brick building
over 65 feet long,
the Sanctuary of the Knife.
Near the entrance of one chamber,
they find sharp flint knives scattered in the sand.
In a neighboring chamber, they discover fragments of
a jar.
Close analysis reveals traces of beef fat inside.
In a final room, they unearth cattle horns
and part of an animal skull.
Are these macabre discoveries
evidence of extravagant rituals
invented by the Sun Kings?
This was a slaughterhouse, a big
area for slaughtering and production of meat.
NARRATOR: The size of the slaughterhouse
discovered here suggests it's used
for large-scale events, where huge numbers
of animals are sacrificed.
Extravagant rituals like these allow the Sun Kings
to demonstrate their divine status and political power.
This was, in the end, an important means to create
a social consensus and a political stability among
the people supporting the king.
NARRATOR: The Sun Kings live as self-proclaimed
divine rulers, descended from the Sun God,
and keep their memory alive through ritual
sacrifices, offerings,
and worship with sprawling temple complexes bigger
than any before them.
Why do they introduce this radical new era of
pharaoh adulation?
Can an extraordinary buried tomb reveal
a threat to their power?
NARRATOR: Abusir, a necropolis spanning
more than 400 acres, packed with pyramids
and temples that honor the 5th Dynasty Sun Kings.
But in the heart of the royal cemetery,
one revolutionary structure reveals an existential threat
to their rule.
This is an exquisitely built tomb.
The entrance features a monumental portico held
by two 20-foot-tall, lotus-shaped columns.
This gateway leads to a large-scale
pillared courtyard, with 20 decorated limestone columns.
And deep underground lies a burial chamber
with two enormous red granite sarcophagi,
protected by a gabled ceiling of
monolithic limestone blocks.
Who is this extensive tomb built for?
And how do they threaten the Sun Kings?
Kimberley Watt is on a mission to find out.
She has been granted special access to explore this tomb.
This place is absolutely massive.
NARRATOR: The tomb is grand and imposing.
It includes royal architectural features
and extensive reliefs.
KIMBERLEY: This courtyard is filled with around 20 pillars,
and all of them are covered with the same figure.
It's a relief of a man.
NARRATOR: Kimberley spots an inscription above the relief.
It spells out his name in hieroglyphs.
His name up there is Ptahshepses.
Ptahshepses lives in the reign of the Pharaoh Niuserre,
the sixth Sun King.
This is at a scale that we normally see for royal people,
However, we don't know any royal by the name of
Ptahshepses -- this individual is not
a royal person, because he has a staff here,
which you can see in his left hand.
It's a sign that he's an official.
So this huge complex of nearly 40 rooms
belonged to an official that must have
been so high up in the administration, that he was
able to organize for himself
a tomb to this scale.
NARRATOR: It's a lavish tomb.
Ptahshepses clearly accumulates vast wealth in
his service of the Sun Kings.
He's represented on all the walls,
and actually, the courtyards, they go into this direction.
NARRATOR: Kimberley follows the direction indicated by
the reliefs and heads to the heart of the tomb.
KIMBERLEY: This is the burial chamber of Ptahshepses.
We see the huge sarcophagus in red granite.
Just next to it, there's a smaller one.
NARRATOR: The smaller sarcophagus
is an intriguing discovery.
Kimberley heads deeper into the tomb to
hunt for clues to Ptahshepses' companion.
They could reveal more about this unique
official and how he becomes so powerful.
Here, we see him again in the entrance hall of
the funerary chapel,
and, as you can see, the colors are extremely
well preserved.
We can see here that he is seated, and we may
have found the identity of the person
who has a second sarcophagus.
NARRATOR: Kimberley decodes the hieroglyphs to decipher
their identity.
This is his wife, Khamerernebty,
and she is not just his wife, she is also,
and we can see it here in the inscription,
in the second column here,
she is a princess.
She is a daughter of a king.
NARRATOR: It's an incredible revelation.
It's one of the first times in the history
of ancient Egypt that a princess marries a commoner.
Kimberley wants to find out how Ptahshepses rises to
this remarkable position and what it means
for the Sun Kings.
She hunts for further hieroglyphic clues.
So here, we find Ptahshepses.
You can see his name just here, and then we have a very
interesting title -- he is a iry nfr .
Iry nfr means that he is the keeper of the hairdress,
so the wig of the king, and that gives him
very close proximity to the king.
NARRATOR: Kimberley uncovers a series of hieroglyphs
that reveal Ptahshepses's final status.
Two of the titles that we see here are very important.
He's a judge, and he's a vizier,
so the highest official in the entire government in Egypt.
NARRATOR: Ptahshepses starts his career as
the Pharaoh Niuserre's hairdresser and manicurist.
The role gives him special access to the pharaoh
and smoothes the path to ever-higher offices
of the royal court.
He rises through the ranks to become
overseer of all royal construction projects in Egypt,
including those in Abusir.
Finally, Ptahshepses becomes vizier to the king,
the equivalent to a modern-day prime minister.
He only answers to the pharaoh himself.
Ptahshepses becomes so influential in the royal
court that Niuserre has him marry his daughter,
Khamerernebty,
to guarantee his allegiance and loyalty.
The rise of Ptahshepses reveals a power shift taking
place where even a god king finds himself compromised.
When all the kings built their pyramids and their temple,
every time, they use the resource of the country.
The resource were overstretched.
What happened after this overstretching resource of
the kings, they relied
on the loyalty of their officials, and that's how
we see it in Ptahshepses's tomb, that he
made sure that this very high official actually was loyal to
him by marrying his daughter to him.
NARRATOR: The 5th Dynasty pharaohs suffer
the consequences of centuries of excess.
In Egypt's 1st and 2nd Dynasties, the pharaohs build
simple single-story mastabas,
but by the 3rd Dynasty, the pharaohs start to build
elaborate step pyramids.
By the 4th Dynasty, the construction of
the giant pyramids at Giza nearly bankrupts the state.
So the Abusir pyramids are much smaller.
To combat their waning authority,
the 5th Dynasty pharaohs claim they are Sun Kings,
and they secure the loyalty of
powerful officials like Ptahshepses
through royal marriage.
Their Sun Cult revolution is a desperate
attempt to cling on to their rule.
Do these god kings manage to hold onto their power,
or is the Sun Cult destined to fall?
NARRATOR: Abusir, a royal necropolis and power base
to a family of self-appointed god kings.
Their rule relies on an elite class of royal courtiers.
Max Nuzzolo investigates how the sun finally
sets on the rule of the Sun Kings.
He heads two miles south of Abusir
to Saqqara to examine the tomb of Ty,
one of the most spectacular tombs from the 5th Dynasty.
Ty is a powerful official.
He rises to high priest under the rule of
the Pharaoh Niuserre, the 6th Sun King.
MAX: The outstanding quality of the decoration
and architecture of his tomb demonstrated Ty
was really a very powerful man,
even competing somehow with the king, because he had inside
elements of royal architecture.
The tomb of Ty is as lavish as that of Ptahshepses.
It is evidence of yet another
radical shift in ancient Egyptian society.
Max ventures deeper into the very heart of the tomb.
He examines the walls for reference to the Sun God Ra,
but can't see any.
MAX: We are now in the inner chamber,
inner offering chamber of the tomb of Ty.
Here on the first door,
we have the entire career of the life of Ty.
On the top of the first door, on the [indistinct],
we have the very, very first mention
known so far of the god Osiris.
NARRATOR: Osiris is a new and powerful god
in Egyptian belief.
Ancient Egyptian mythology describes Osiris
as a king who brings
the Egyptian people new laws and teaches them about
agriculture and civilization.
His brother, Seth, grows jealous of his power.
He cruelly murders and dismembers
Osiris and scatters his body across Egypt.
The wife of Osiris, Isis,
sews the pieces of his body back together.
She wraps them in linen and uses
a powerful spell to bring him back to life.
Osiris is unable to stay in the world of the living.
He travels to the underworld to become king of
the afterlife.
In a way, we can say that this is
the beginning of the end of the Sun Kings.
NARRATOR: The promotion of Osiris over Ra in Ty's tomb
marks the end of the 5th Dynasty Sun Cult
and heralds a revolution in ancient Egypt.
Ty is not just worshiping a new god.
He plans to join Osiris in the afterlife.
In this moment in the middle of the 5th Dynasty,
one private individual is able to take over royal prerogatives
and the cult of a very important
god like the god Osiris, to whom
you want to be assimilated in the afterlife,
exactly as kings wanted to do.
Resurrection -- once the gift of Ra
and the preserve of royalty -- is now for commoners, too.
Ty and Ptahshepses can now rise in life and in death.
The pharaohs, the Sun Kings, are losing their unique
authority and their grip on the levers of power.
Saqqara has more to reveal about the end of the Sun Kings.
Max ventures inside the pyramid of
the last pharaoh of the 5th Dynasty, Unas.
Unas is buried here in Saqqara, not in
the family necropolis in Abusir.
Clues here could reveal
the Sun King's ultimate fall from power.
Oh, wow.
This is astonishing, incredibly amazing.
The room looks like a small one, but it's full of
funerary offering formula.
Every single space of this room is packed with inscription,
because this is about funerary formulas for the afterlife.
In the end, the purpose of all of
this was to allow the resurrection of the king.
Here, you can see the name of the king
and Osiris, to whom the king wants to be assimilated.
NARRATOR: It's evidence Unas puts his faith in Osiris, too.
What we have here on this wall
is the final assimilation of King Unas.
You see here the cartouche and the god Osiris.
So Unas has now become the god Osiris.
NARRATOR: Unas now embraces Osiris,
the god of the afterlife.
He never builds a sun temple.
The 5th Dynasty Sun Cult is over,
and with it, the era of the Sun Kings.
This is definitely the turning point of Egyptian history
and the end of the solar time and the Sun King's era.
Now the dominant god is Osiris,
and the king wanted to be assimilated to Osiris.
This is evidently the beginning of
a new phase of Egyptian history.
NARRATOR: Unas dies without a male heir,
and the 5th dynasty ends,
now only remembered through its family necropolis.
Egypt's great dynasties come and go over the millennia,
but the pyramids they build remain.
They are ancient engineering wonders.
Cédric believes the ruins at Abusir hold one final mystery
that could unlock secrets of all the pyramids in Egypt.
Why is the necropolis built here, in this exact location?
Can an aerial investigation shine new light
on Egypt's underlying obsession with the sun?
Abusir -- this ancient necropolis charts
the rise and fall of Egypt's Sun Kings.
Cédric Gobeil believes one final
mystery remains to be solved here,
more than 4,000 years after this site is abandoned.
He's on a mission to investigate why the pharaohs of
the 5th Dynasty build their eternal homes
in this exact location.
He thinks Abusir could be linked to
the wider landscape of Egypt's most famous pyramids.
CéDRIC: The site of Abusir covers many acres.
Walking through the pyramids doesn't give us that many clue
and understanding
of why this site has been built here, right between Giza
and Saqqara.
NARRATOR: Abusir sits between Giza,
home of the great pyramids, and Saqqara, where the first
step pyramids are built.
All three sites are on the Nile's west bank,
where the sun sets.
The ancient Egyptians believe this is
where the dead can enter the underworld
as the sun goes down.
Cédric hunts for more clues about
the precise position of each pyramid.
I'm looking at a satellite image of the Cairo area, and we
can see clearly the pyramids of Giza and the pyramids of
Abusir, and when we look at the pyramids of Giza,
we know that they are facing in a particular direction,
and the pyramids of Abusir
are also facing in that same direction.
NARRATOR: The aerial evidence reveals that the northeast
corners of the pyramids
at Giza and Abusir all aligned in one
particular direction.
So when you take these two lines,
you see that they are converging
in one particular spot.
NARRATOR: Cédric heads 17 miles northeast to examine
what lies at the point
on the map where all the sight lines of the pyramids converge.
He hopes to find ancient clues here that could reveal
why the Sun Kings align their tombs to this point.
This is remarkable, absolutely.
A huge obelisk,
standing there since millennia.
Wow.
All the pyramid sides are pointing to that very spot.
NARRATOR: The pyramids at Abusir and Giza
are all orientated to face this obelisk.
Cédric scours the ruins around its base
for clues to this iconic monument's purpose.
Sitting right in front of the obelisk, we have here
the depiction of the god Ra himself,
easily recognizable with his falcon head carrying
the sun disk above his head.
NARRATOR: The evidence suggests this location has
special meaning for the Sun Kings and the Sun God Ra.
Looking at the inscriptions, it was built roughly around
1950 BC -- clearly, this is an ancient place,
and the name of this place is Heliopolis,
the City of the Sun.
NARRATOR: Heliopolis, the Sun City,
is the birthplace of the world.
It's one of Egypt's oldest cities,
the old capital of lower Egypt.
It's also ancient Egypt's great religious center,
and this granite colossus at its heart
is the oldest surviving obelisk in the world.
CéDRIC: The sun was born here,
and an obelisk is the perfect symbol of this sun.
Like when you're a child, you draw a sun right?
You have a circle with all the rays around.
Well actually, the obelisk is just a petrified ray
of sunlight -- this is what it symbolizes.
Clearly, there was a temple of the sun right here.
So Ra, the god Ra,
one of the most important of ancient Egypt, he was worshiped
here, and this place must have been unique to the ancient
Egyptians, because in their mind,
this was the place where creation started.
This is the place where the world was born.
NARRATOR: The Sun Kings of the 5th Dynasty
hold Heliopolis in especially high regard.
What links these kings to this place is actually this
is the place where the sun was being reborn every day.
So these kings were also being reborn like the sun forever.
NARRATOR: Abusir -- an enigmatic necropolis
filled with pyramids,
elaborate mortuary temples, and sun temples.
An ancient site that sees the rise of the Sun Kings,
where the pharaohs rule as gods with the cult of Ra,
until its collapse and fall to
the cult of Osiris, god of the underworld.
A site of amazing discoveries and home to a dynasty of
kings who promote themselves
with extravagant events and costly rituals,
at the expense of the state.
A site where an emerging class of elite officials attain high
status and compete with the pharaohs for wealth,
power, and a place in eternity and transform
ancient Egypt forever.