(overlapping chatter)
NARRATOR: In Egypt's ancient sandstone quarries,
archeologists search for traces of mighty Pharaohs.
WORKERS: Yeah!
NARRATOR: The Holy Grail is hieroglyphs that shed light
on the mysterious kings who built the pyramids.
We've got hieroglyphs.
JOHN: Oh!
MARIA: Oh, this is wonderful.
JOHN: Look at that!
NARRATOR: The pyramids of Giza,
ancient Egypt's most iconic monuments.
Egyptian civilization spanned nearly 3,000 years.
But their great age of pyramid-building
lasted just over four centuries.
Some 20 huge pyramids date from this time,
concentrated on the desert plateaus of the Nile's west bank,
each built to house the body of a mighty pharaoh.
Now, archeologists across Egypt are trying to unlock
the secrets of who these mysterious kings were,
how they persuaded the people of Egypt to build their giant monuments,
and how they influenced pharaohs for thousands of years after they died.
Thirty years ago, American Egyptologist, Steve Harvey,
excavated the very last pyramid built by an Egyptian king.
He has spent a career exploring these royal monuments.
Today he's come to the most famous one of all,
to investigate the legendary pharaoh
who built it 4,500 years ago.
STEPHEN: The Great Pyramid of Khufu here at Giza
is the culmination of hundreds of years of trial and error in pyramid building,
but it's not only the perfect shape,
it's the largest ever built, and it's never surpassed.
NARRATOR: The Great Pyramid was a fortress
designed to protect the pharaoh's tomb.
Twenty-four feet off center, the entrance would have been tricky to find.
At the top of a 130 foot passage,
a pulley system of ropes dropped three enormous granite slabs,
sealing off the entrance to the burial chamber.
Next, three giant blocks slid down the shaft,
closing off a grand staircase.
This pyramid was a masterpiece of engineering.
Capped with a layer of flawless white limestone,
it was an unmistakable symbol of the pharaoh's supreme authority.
The Great Pyramid was one of the first true pyramids ever built.
None of the Pyramid Age Kings that followed Khufu would match it.
The incredible scale of his tomb
suggests Khufu wielded remarkable power,
but very little is known about the king himself.
Steve has been granted special access
to explore the restricted areas inside the pyramid,
to hunt for any clues to the life,
and death, of this mysterious pharaoh.
STEPHEN: I'm gonna have to stop for a minute, guys.
Really is getting dark, hard to see anything.
It's not meant for coming and going, that's for sure.
NARRATOR: Steve heads to the king's burial chamber
at the very heart of the pyramid
where mourners laid the Pharaoh's body for his eternal rest,
tightly secured behind giant rock barriers.
The chamber is almost entirely bare.
STEPHEN: Even though this space was protected by blocking,
it was completely robbed out,
and when archeologists came to the sarcophagus,
they found nothing inside.
NARRATOR: For Steve, evidence of the king himself
survives in the only thing that does remain,
the chamber walls.
STEPHEN: What really excites me is that you can see
this incredible granite that's been smoothed to a very high degree
and this one block is something like 100 tons
brought all the way from Aswan.
This is an exotic stone, it's not the natural limestone,
so really, we have this amazing box within this huge mountain of limestone.
NARRATOR: Ancient quarrymen cut the precious granite in Upper Egypt,
then floated it 600 miles down the Nile.
Khufu spared no expense to ensure his resurrection to the afterlife,
not as a mortal, but as a God.
Steve heads deeper into the pyramid,
in search of a closed-off second chamber
which legend has it, Khufu built this to hold his soul.
On the other side of the necropolis,
Archeologist John Ward has come to Giza
to explore the monuments of Khufu's dynasty.
He's spent a decade unearthing the stonework of New Kingdom pharaohs,
who lived 1,000 years after the Pyramid Age ended.
JOHN: Watch your toes, guys! Watch your toes!
NARRATOR: His discoveries include an 11 foot tall Sphinx statue,
a representation of a God with the body of a lion,
an animal revered by Egyptians as a symbol of strength.
It echoes the famous giant sculpture guarding the Giza Pyramids.
John wants to know what was so special about these kings
that pharaohs 1,000 years later still mimicked their statues.
These iconic monuments are just shouting, screaming at us,
power, dominance, control.
I feel like this, I feel so insignificant.
Together these pyramids and the Sphinx
and the temples create a landscape of power.
NARRATOR: The huge sculpture protects the necropolis,
a giant symbol of supremacy,
believed by many to have the face of Khufu's son, Khafre,
owner of Giza's second largest Pyramid.
Despite many visits here, John has never been up close.
Today, he's been granted special access to explore its enclosure.
JOHN: It's absolutely inspiring I mean it's just, jaw dropping.
I've waited 50 years to be here
and now I'm here, it's just, wow.
NARRATOR: Sixty-six feet high, the Sphinx gazes east,
toward the rising sun.
JOHN: I know what it's like to work with the living rock
and how to carve it.
This would have been a monumental challenge.
They only had copper chisels, wooden mallets,
it would have been a harsh environment,
this dust would have been everywhere
and yet the workmen, the craftsmen, the masons,
they were all willing participants loyal to Pharaoh.
NARRATOR: It would have taken thousands of people,
decades to construct the epic monuments of Giza,
but there's no evidence the pharaohs enslaved people to build them.
They didn't draw their power over the people from force.
John believes what stood these kings apart was that they inspired devotion.
JOHN: The sheer volume of stone that has gone into building this
and each individual block,
represents the loyalty that they had for Pharaoh.
NARRATOR: The huge monuments of Giza represent the peak
of the Pyramid Age.
So why was nothing built on this scale again?
At the height of Khufu's reign,
reliable seasonal rains fed the crops that ensured Egypt's prosperity.
For three months every year,
the Nile flooded and inundated the farmland,
so farmers couldn't work the fields.
The farmers were free to help build the king's enormous tomb.
They believed he kept the Gods content and the country fed.
But soon after Khufu completed his pyramid,
Egypt began to suffer drought.
As crop yields crashed, so did the taxes
coming into the state's treasuries and despite the free labor,
the Giza monuments almost bankrupted Egypt.
The people's loyalty began to falter.
The kings' tombs that followed got smaller
while Khufu's Great Pyramid remained,
dominating the Nile's west bank.
The sheer power that he held.
It's absolutely unbelievable.
NARRATOR: It was a power his struggling successors
were desperate to replicate.
At Abu Ghurab, Italian archeologist Massimiliano Nuzzolo
wants to know how the kings of the Pyramid Age
held on to power as their wealth and status declined.
He's spent his entire career trying to understand
a very different monumental structure,
an enigma whose mysteries captured his imagination
in his very first student course in Egyptology.
This enormous scatter of ancient rubble was once a Sun Temple,
dedicated to the most powerful God of the Pyramid Age.
NUZZOLO: Each king wanted a pyramid for achieving his resurrection.
But this was not enough for the fifth dynasty kings.
They wanted something more.
The king built this place to turn himself into a God.
The sun God.
NARRATOR: The pharaoh, Nyuserra,
didn't just want to become divine in death.
He built this temple because he wanted to be worshiped
as a God while he was still alive.
Rising from the desert was an enormous obelisk,
the centerpiece of the temple.
It was not a traditional stone needle but shaped more like a pyramid.
Monumental walls enclosed it, creating a courtyard,
where people could come to worship the sun.
The temple aligned perfectly on an east-west axis
with the path of the sun.
So on the Summer Solstice every year,
the sun rose through the entrance,
traveled directly over the obelisk,
and set at the western end.
This alignment is identical to that of the pyramids.
Records suggest that six of the pharaohs who followed Khufu
decided to build a Sun Temples as well as their pyramid
to underline their divine status to the people of Egypt.
But almost all of these temples are lost.
We know that there were six sun temples
and we actually, so far, have discovered only two.
NARRATOR: Max hopes excavating this sun temple will shed light
on these kings' power, and perhaps help him crack
one of the biggest mysteries in Egyptology,
and find the other missing sun temples.
The problem is Max is not the first
to decode this structure's secrets.
Early Egyptologists excavated here more than 100 years ago
and left a mess of archeological confusion in their wake.
Well, this find is amazing because it's a cover of matches
left by the archeologists during their work.
NARRATOR: Along with their discarded matchboxes,
early 20th century excavators left 4,500 year old pottery
scattered across the site.
As you can see here this area of the temple is full of pot shards.
But unfortunately, this material is completely useless for us
because it's out of a secure context.
It cannot tell us anything about the life of the temple.
NARRATOR: If Max can find undisturbed artifacts,
they might reveal clues the first archeologists missed.
Even the smallest of finds could be crucial in the hunt
for the lost Sun Temples of the Pyramid Age.
NARRATOR: The team is excavating an area of the Sun Temple
earlier archeologists never touched.
The missing Sun Temples could hold the secrets
of how the later Pyramid Kings who followed Khufu held onto power.
Their location remains one of Egyptology's greatest mysteries.
Untouched pottery here in Abu Ghurab could help solve it.
Mohamed Osman is a senior archeologist here.
We think that we found a jar, a beer jar.
NARRATOR: Wheat beer was a major source of nutrition for ancient Egyptians,
but they used the same ceramic containers in religious rituals.
If you put it like this, this one.
Yeah, it fits.
NARRATOR: This could be an offering made in worship of a Pharaoh
or an ancient builder's discarded lunch!
Even after 4,500 years,
the answer could lie in its contents.
So it seems that it's not an actual beer jar
there was no actual beer inside.
It was filled with mud to be used in rituals.
NARRATOR: For Ancient Egyptians,
mud was a symbolic replacement for food,
which they would offer to the Gods.
The jar is buried not far from a curious row of stone basins.
Max and Mohamed believe they were all part of an elaborate ritual,
presided over by the pharaoh.
Priests filled the stone basins with water,
which flowed out across the temple's limestone floor,
along 28 shallow grooves.
The sacred liquid washed over jars placed in the channels,
purifying the offerings within.
The priests brought the symbolic offerings to the altar
and left them to be consecrated by the sun God's heat and light.
They then climbed through a passage in the obelisk,
to emerge on the platform,
facing east to bless the rising sun.
The purification basins have survived 4,500 years intact,
but the floor of Nyuserra's Sun Temple has disintegrated.
Mohamed and the team explore underneath its fragmented remains.
Just inches down, they find a mysterious layer.
What we have here is the foundation of the stone pavement of the stone temple.
And beneath that, there is an older structure that used to be here.
We still don't know when exactly but it was built out of mud bricks.
NARRATOR: Mohamed has found mud bricks in several places
beneath the Sun Temple floor.
It suggests a large building existed here
before Nyuserra's Sun Temple was built.
If they find evidence that the earlier mudbrick structure was sacred,
it could even be a missing Sun Temple of another king of the Pyramid Age.
At Abusir on a desolate plateau
within sight of Max's dig,
are the pyramids of the pharaohs who built the Sun Temples.
Little more than a century after Khufu had built his Great Pyramid,
the Egyptian state was weakened by drought.
The later pharaohs' treasuries were emptied by the cost
of the previous kings' giant tombs.
We have in front of us a history of more than 2,000 years
and most of the secrets of this vast stretch of land
remain, uh, still unlocked.
NARRATOR: Czech archeologist, Miroslav Barta,
has spent three decades stripping back the sand
from this necropolis.
Twenty years ago, he pioneered the study of pyramids as viewed from space.
Today, he's firmly on the ground in search of the secrets
that explain how the later kings of the Pyramid Age
clung to power as their wealth and status drained away.
On this spot in 2018,
he discovered the tomb of a legendary wiseman, Ka-Irsu.
Ka-Irsu was a powerful royal court official
and close advisor to one of the later Pyramid Kings.
As "Overseer of Royal Works," he designed the king's pyramid,
and the temples that brought the pharaoh closer to the Gods.
But he was also the head of the "House of Life,"
a philosopher bringing the king's message to the people of Egypt.
His writings preached the importance of complete loyalty to the pharaoh,
a message that was still being repeated a 1,000 years later.
Miroslav is digging in the very heart of the cemetery,
in search of more elite tombs.
He wants to know how much the later Pyramid Kings relied
on powerful officials, like Ka-Irsu,
to improve their public relations and promote loyalty.
Test pits have revealed a tomb
right next to the pyramid of Neferikara, one of the later Pyramid Kings.
It could be exactly what he's looking for.
Only very important persons
most of them coming from the Royal family
could be, or had the privilege, to be buried here.
NARRATOR: After three weeks of digging,
the team uncovers the exterior structure.
But a crucial clue is missing, the walls are bare.
Without inscriptions, Miroslav can't identify the tomb owner.
If he's to uncover the secrets of the Pyramid Kings' power,
Miroslav will have to dig deeper,
and find the burial chamber.
Archeologist John Ward
has returned to the ancient quarry of Gebel El-Silsila,
to join the Director of the Swedish Archeological Mission,
his wife, Maria Nilsson.
Last season, they excavated an incredible monument,
a Sphinx similar in form to the Great Sphinx at Giza.
This year, Maria and John want to investigate the connection
between the kings who built the mighty monuments at Giza
and the pharaohs who carved out Sphinxes 1,000 years later.
MARIA: Are you ready for some more fun, Carter?
NARRATOR: They believe the site still hides stone monuments
that could reveal the Great Pyramid Kings' impact on Egyptian history.
A large pile of rock not far from last season's statue,
is exactly the right size to hide another Sphinx.
Today, they're going to try and dig it up,
but they're making a slow start.
JOHN: It's now coming up ten to eight, and I've got absolutely no men here.
(shouting)
NARRATOR: Maria and John have just under five hours digging time
to move hundreds of wheelbarrows full of stone.
JOHN: My hypothesis is that we've got another sphinx underneath.
NARRATOR: But the team cannot afford to rush,
as they dig out the mountain of loose rock.
JOHN: It's unstable spoil, and if that came down on you,
then you're just-- you're just buried.
NARRATOR: With time already against them,
the operation is a fine balance between reward and risk.
JOHN: Be careful, boys, be careful.
NARRATOR: At Abusir, in between the pyramids
Miroslav's team has reached the bottom of the burial shaft.
The chamber below could contain the body
of a high-ranking member of a pharaoh's court.
Two years ago, he discovered the tomb of a wiseman called Ka-Irsu,
an official whose job was to promote loyalty
to the king among the people of Egypt.
But was Ka-Irsu a one of, or did all the later kings of the Pyramid Age
have a dedicated official to help them cling to power?
(in native language) Where are the lights, Osama?
(in English) So here we are.
NARRATOR: It's clear that ancient robbers have ransacked
the tomb of treasures.
But though the tomb's been looted,
it may still contain evidence of how the Pyramid Kings
held their power over Egypt, even as their wealth declined.
The state of the sarcophagus confirms Miroslav's fears,
the robbers did a thorough job.
They just set up fire
on the corner of the lid
then splashed it with water
so that the limestone started to break into pieces.
Lifted the lid, grabbed the mummy,
pulled it out and searched it for small valuables.
That's how he ended up his journey.
Sad story.
NARRATOR: The mummy may be destroyed,
but Miroslav's team has alerted him to some faint red markings
on the back of the sarcophagus.
It's a crucial clue.
It could be the one piece of information he needs
to identify the owner.
So here it is.
The only clue as to his identity and social standing here.
NARRATOR: Was he, like Ka-Irsu, an official propping up
a weakened Pyramid King?
The script is too degraded to read with the naked eye,
but to an Egyptologist, the general message is clear.
Here we have the name
and we have the principal title.
NARRATOR: A title means the man was important.
He had a role in the Pharaoh's court, but what?
Miroslav can't brush the dust off the inscription
in case the paint flakes away.
Instead, he takes high-resolution photographs
of every character.
We will use special filters, software filters.
Um, we do...
general shots
and then we do details.
NARRATOR: Miroslav must now process the images and determine
if enough detail survives to read the script.
The signs are promising.
We are good, we are happy.
We can have no doubts about the social standing of the guy.
NARRATOR: This man was honored with a burial amongst the pharaohs.
So, could he have played a role in consolidating
the ailing Pyramid Kings' power?
To find out, Miroslav must decipher exactly what his titles were.
NARRATOR: In Abu Ghurab Max and Mohamed's investigation
has thrown up surprising evidence beneath Nyuserra's Sun Temple.
The mud brick structure below its foundations,
could help them find the lost sun temples
built by the later Pyramid Kings.
It's a delicate task, just identifying the 4,500 year old bricks,
relies on technique honed through years of experience.
MOHAMED: Finding mud bricks is not an easy thing.
As it is actually buried in the same material, the mud.
So the archaeologist has to listen to the sound of the metal
because they really can recognize it only by listening to the trowel.
So, uh, it's an amazing thing, it's an amazing skill.
NARRATOR: They've uncovered bricks all over the site.
It suggests this older mud structure is far larger than expected.
At the edge of the site, the team foreman,
Reis Khaled, makes a discovery.
NUZZOLO: We are cleaning this area where we found
a base of a column which is pretty unexpected
because it was never found before
in previous excavation.
NARRATOR: It's a huge breakthrough,
a column could be evidence that the mudbrick structure
had a grand entrance made of stone.
It's a really white, high quality of white limestone
that means of course that the building was quite impressive.
NARRATOR: The column base goes down more than two feet,
suggesting it must have supported a huge entrance arch.
I'm really excited because we knew that there was something
below the stone temple of Nyuserra
but we don't know now if it is just another building phase of the same temple
or if it is a new building.
Actually the fact that there is such a huge monumental entrance
would point to a new building.
So why not another sun temple, one of the missing four sun temples?
NARRATOR: If there is a lost Sun Temple underneath
Nyuserra's Sun Temple, it would be a career-defining discovery
for both Max and Mohamed.
This makes me feel excited and also confused.
Uh, and a little bit frustrated because, um,
what I would like to do now is actually to dismantle the stone floor of Nyuserra
and go down to the next level
where I can find the rest of the architecture.
NARRATOR: To prove the huge mudbrick structure
is one of the legendary lost Sun Temples of the later Pyramid Kings,
they still need more evidence.
On the Giza plateau Egyptologist Steve Harvey
is trying to reach a mysterious second chamber
in the heart of Pharaoh Khufu's Great Pyramid.
STEPHEN: Oh, it's difficult.
NARRATOR: He's hunting for clues to the mysterious
king's life, and death.
But deep in the Pyramid, the tunnels get tighter
and more treacherous.
STEPHEN: What happened there?
(in native language) There's no light at all!
STEPHEN: (in English) I guess the power went out.
NARRATOR: In an ancient tunnel riddled with pits,
the lack of light is a real threat.
STEPHEN: The echo and the dark certainly really reinforce
the fact you're in a hidden tomb.
NARRATOR: At the bottom of a tunnel
little more than three feet square, Steve finds the second chamber.
It's extraordinary.
Just huge ceiling with this vault.
You almost feel the weight of millions of tons of stones above you.
NARRATOR: Like Khufu's burial chamber,
archeologists found this room entirely bare.
It was designed with a niche
believed to hold the giant statue that housed Khufu's soul.
Even this stood empty.
But when archeologists explored the finely polished walls,
they found small, secret passages that led out from the chamber.
STEPHEN: These are really interesting features,
kind of mysterious features.
They go all the way to the exterior of the pyramid and head up towards the sky,
so what's most likely is that they have
some kind of symbolic connection to the night sky and to the stars.
NARRATOR: Ancient Egyptians were dedicated astronomers,
who religiously charted the movements of the night sky.
Priests particularly revered two bright stars,
ever-present in the north,
whose permanence they associated with eternal life.
Khufu aligned his pyramid directly with these stars,
believing that's where the Gods resided.
He may have built the shafts to allow his soul to rise
to the heavens to join the ever-present stars and become a God.
What still confounds archeologists,
is the Pharaoh's final mystery.
He didn't leave a single inscription to celebrate his life.
They haven't decorated with images,
they haven't put hieroglyphs on the wall and that's a choice
and a decision they made.
And we have to think about why.
NARRATOR: The greatest Pyramid King left no lasting clue to his life,
except his giant monument.
His plan was to put life behind him and become a God in death.
The weaker Pyramid Kings who followed him wanted more.
They needed the power of the Gods in life.
NARRATOR: At Abu Ghurab, Max and Mohamed are uncovering a vast mudbrick
structure beneath the foundations of the Pharaoh Nyuserra's Sun Temple.
It might be small steps going up.
NARRATOR: If it is one of the four legendary missing Sun Temples,
it could help Max explain how the struggling Pyramid Kings
held on to power as their status began to fade.
But he needs evidence that the building was sacred.
In the northeast corner of the mudbrick structure,
workers unearth an astonishing find.
This is a huge accumulation of beer jars
which we found on the wall.
On the main enclosure wall
of the previous mud brick building.
Completely preserved.
NARRATOR: They delicately brush the pottery to free the jars
from the surrounding earth.
It's heavy
and intact
and full of mud.
NARRATOR: Ancient priests used jars full of mud as ritual offerings,
so these could be proof this structure was a sacred temple.
You think they were all deposited?
I think they were deposited and also very, like, carefully laid.
The deposit might reflect some respect
to the older building that used to be here.
NARRATOR: Even single ritual offerings in the foundations
of such old buildings are incredibly rare.
This is a huge cache.
Every time we remove a full jar, we find another one.
NARRATOR: For Max, they're crucial.
They show the mudbrick building was a religious site.
MOHAMED: Very exciting moment, very exciting moment.
I'm pretty sure that what we're excavating here
is a previous sun temple
on which Nyuserra built his own new sun temple.
NARRATOR: By building on top of a previous king's temple,
Nyuserra was making his Sun Temple all the more sacred.
Max's decade-long search has finally born fruit.
You have to imagine that a few years ago when we arrived here for the first time
all this area was completely covered, nothing was visible.
I have now many proofs that what we are excavating here
is one of the lost sun temples.
NARRATOR: It's a huge discovery and unlocks a new chapter
in the story of the kings of the Pyramid Age.
The Pharaohs who followed Khufu were weak shadows of the man
who built the Great Pyramid.
But whichever king built this newly discovered Sun Temple,
did something Khufu did not, he ensured he was worshiped
as the offspring of the sun God while he was still alive.
His Pyramid may not have rivaled Khufu's,
but with his Sun Temple, he claimed the power of a living God.
In the quarry at Gebel El-Silsila
Maria and John are searching for a new Sphinx
to match the statue they unearthed last season.
They're trying to understand the link
between the legendary Pyramid Kings of Giza,
and the pharaohs who ruled 1,000 years after.
JOHN: As a symbol of power, the Sphinx is everything.
And when I look at the sphinx, I can put myself
into-- into the sandals of the craftsman chiseling this one away.
And he did it for the love of Pharaoh.
NARRATOR: John's team strips away the top of a rockpile
beneath a quarried pillar of stone.
JOHN: We're gonna clear this area, level off,
we'll keep on cutting into the sand because there's a lot of sand here.
NARRATOR: The mound of spoil has a core of ancient sand.
For John, it suggests the pile could hide another find,
perhaps a sphinx.
JOHN: What happens is when sand is blown in as you can see now
the wind is blowing,
coming from the north and when it hits something,
of course, it starts to build up and build up and build up,
and that's what we've got here.
NARRATOR: Just moments after exposing the sand beneath the spoil,
the team hits something solid.
- (speaking in native language) - MAN: Yeah!
(speaking in native language)
JOHN: It's always the sand.
Wherever there's a sand build-up.
You always guarantee there's something there.
NARRATOR: The team delicately works around the chunk of stone.
It could be a Sphinx, or a precious part of another monument.
JOHN: One has to be patient, that's archeology at the end of the day,
we don't rush things, it's not a race,
there's no reward for coming first.
MARIA: Isn't there?
We race to learn!
Knowledge is the key.
NARRATOR: In the field lab, near the necropolis of Abusir...
Miroslav's computer software has sharpened the script
from the high official's tomb.
The inscriptions should tell him the tomb owner's name and titles.
If he played the same role as the wiseman Ka-Irsu,
it could prove he was not unique,
and that other kings of the Pyramid Age also depended
on their officials to maintain the people's loyalty.
It's actually, um, a great result because we have
two very important titles of the owner
and we have his full name so we can congratulate ourselves.
We were extremely lucky, we have it.
We have the full story.
NARRATOR: In Ancient Egypt, having a title meant power,
and sometimes, access to the pharaoh.
The inscription opens with a very strange title.
The one with wonderful arm.
We understand what it says
but we have no idea, simply, what it meant.
Followed by another very important ranking title in this case.
Semer Wah'ty, "the only friend" or the "sole friend of the king."
And then the name, the personal name of the tomb owner which reads as Ka-Ires.
Ka-Ires.
NARRATOR: For Miroslav, it's a highly significant combination.
Not only was the tomb owner a close confidant of the Pyramid King,
but his name is similar in form to the legendary wiseman,
Ka-Irsu, whose teachings of loyalty to the pharaoh lasted 1,000 years.
Miroslav believes the owner of the new tomb must be a direct descendant.
If so, Ka-Ires may have had the same role in the royal court,
spreading word of the pharaoh's power.
It's a very rare opportunity to really get in touch
with somebody who was venerated for centuries, you know.
Now we can say that we've got at least
two generations of this famous sage.
So this is quite a feat.
NARRATOR: The pharaohs who followed Khufu may not have had his wealth,
but they masterminded ways to bolster their fragile power.
They used officials to promote loyalty,
and they cast themselves as living Gods.
So what legacy did they leave to the Pharaohs 1,000 years later?
At Gebel El-Silsila...
Just a few feet from an unfinished sphinx statue,
Maria and John's search for more buried monuments
has turned up a stone, embedded in windblown sand.
They hope it will reveal clues to the legacy of the Pyramid Kings.
JOHN: It's nicely in the sand so the sand is always a nice indication.
NARRATOR: The flat edges and sharp corners suggest it's not another sphinx.
But it could be something even better.
MARIA: We got hieroglyphs.
JOHN: Oh!
NARRATOR: An inscribed stone could reveal
more about the pharaoh who carved the sphinx out of this quarry.
MARIA: Oh this is wonderful.
JOHN: Look at that.
NARRATOR: Decorated with engravings,
the block appears to be a missing piece of a monument
John and Maria have been trying to piece together for nearly a decade,
a shrine to the, New Kingdom pharaoh who owned this quarry,
Amenhotep III.
JOHN: This really is beautiful.
We've worked with this monument for years and when you find a piece like this,
it just... it makes your heart go.
MARIA: This is the crowning detail,
it makes it all worth it, the-- the sweat, the-- the tears, the-- the hassle.
NARRATOR: As the crew begins the clean-up
after five solid hours of digging in the sun,
Maria and John begin to analyze their discovery.
MARIA: Well, I have to say that with or without sphinx,
this has made my day.
It says the "great God, and then you've got the son of Ra".
It is a real statement
- that Amenhotep III was the living God. - Hmm.
NARRATOR: The shrine stood above Amenhotep's quarry,
proclaiming him offspring of the Sun God,
exactly as the later Pyramid Kings had done
to rescue their status as supreme rulers.
MARIA: By claiming to be the great God, and the son of Ra,
the sun disk, Amenhotep III is following a tradition
all the way back from the great pyramid builders.
I love it.
JOHN: It's a major part of the jigsaw.
It's history. Wonderful.
NARRATOR: By carving sphinxes and inscribing monuments
with statements of divine power,
Amenhotep III connected himself
to his predecessors who claimed to be Gods on earth,
The Pyramid Kings.
Every season, archeologists draw these
ancient pharaohs further out from the shadows of history.
Mysterious figures,
whose power rested not on force, but devotion.
Their officials promoted loyalty through teachings
that echoed down through the ages.
And their temples helped cast them as divine descendants
of the life-giving God of the sun, but they couldn't hold on forever.
Five hundred years after they built the first pyramids,
Pyramid Age civilization collapsed.
When Egypt rose again,
the Pyramid Kings' extraordinary monuments remained,
their ideas survived,
and their legacy inspired pharaohs a 1,000 years later.