NARRATOR: Egypt, the richest source of archaeological
treasures on the planet.
MAN: Oh, wow! Look at that.
NARRATOR: Hidden beneath this desert landscape
lie the secrets of this ancient civilization.
[speaking native language]
ALEJANDRO: I have never seen something like this.
NARRATOR: Now, for a full season of excavations,
our cameras have been given unprecedented access to follow
teams on the front line of archaeology.
MYRIAM: This is the most critical moment.
[shouting]
NARRATOR: Revealing buried treasures.
-SALIMA: Oh! -AHMED: We were lucky today.
NOZOMU: Wow! Lots of mummies.
KATHLEEN: The smell is horrible!
NARRATOR: And making discoveries that could
rewrite ancient history.
JOHN: We'’ve never had the proof until now.
COLLEEN: This is where it all started.
ALEJANDRO: My goodness, I never expected this.
[applause]
NARRATOR: This time Anna goes in search of one of Egypt'’s
most enigmatic queens, Nefertiti.
ANNA: If she wasn'’t buried here, where was she buried?
[shouting]
NARRATOR: Mohamed searches for the lost wife of a noble.
MOHAMED: If we are lucky we will have her.
NARRATOR: An ancient cemetery reveals a startling find.
FATHI: No.
NARRATOR: And John and Maria uncover the secrets of
Nefertiti'’s great Empire.
MARIA: Wow, this is beautiful.
[theme music plays]
NARRATOR: Egypt, land of the mighty pharaohs,
buried in monumental tombs with dazzling treasures.
But among these great Kings and Queens,
some are missing,
including one of the most iconic of all: Nefertiti.
How did one of the most powerful women in the ancient
world vanish from history?
In the heart of Egypt lies the ancient site of Amarna.
Here, archaeologist Dr. Anna Stevens has spent nearly two
decades unearthing the secrets of a ruined city
and its captivating Queen.
ANNA: We'’ve left the riverside city of ancient Amarna behind,
and we'’re traveling through the low desert,
heading out to the cliffs that border ancient Amarna.
NARRATOR: Anna heads for the royal tomb of
Nefertiti'’s husband, pharaoh Akhenaten.
The king'’s burial chamber is badly damaged by flooding,
but it is another chamber that Anna has come to investigate.
ANNA: It'’s so prominent that you'’d have to think it belongs
to a suitably prominent member of the Amarna royal family.
NARRATOR: She searches for any sign of Nefertiti'’s whereabouts.
The walls of a royal tomb should be covered in elaborate carvings,
but here are only rough chisel marks on bare rock.
ANNA: It'’s completely unfinished;
it'’s not suitable for the burial of a queen.
NARRATOR: The tomb is half-built and abandoned.
ANNA: It hasn'’t taken a royal burial.
If she wasn'’t buried here, the question is, of course,
where was she buried?
NARRATOR: These ruins were once a vast city from which
Nefertiti and Akhenaten ruled over their great empire.
Nestling on the East bank of the Nile,
Nefertiti'’s capital city covered over 3000 acres
and was home to up to 50,000 people.
What is now barren landscape was once one of the greatest
cities in the ancient world, and from these palaces and
temples, the royal couple ruled over all of Egypt.
She doesn'’t appear to be buried here.
But does this place hold clues to the fate of the missing Queen?
Nefertiti is famous today because of this iconic bust of her.
She has one of the most well-known faces in all of ancient Egypt.
ANNA: This is about the spot that the bust was actually found.
We'’re in the house and the workshop of a sculptor
who was probably called Thutmose.
This is where the Nefertiti bust was originally created.
It'’s one version of Nefertiti'’s official portrait.
She may herself have signed off on this image.
But really we have no idea what she'’d look like in real life.
NARRATOR: Nefertiti'’s early life is also still a mystery.
Her father was probably Ay, vizier to Pharaoh Amenhotep III,
so she would have been brought up in a Royal palace.
By the age of just 15, she married Amenhotep'’s
second son, the new pharaoh Akhenaten,
and bore him six daughters.
As his queen, Nefertiti became the most powerful woman in all of Egypt.
Yet Nefertiti'’s ultimate fate remains a mystery that
occupies archaeologists all over Egypt.
200 miles south along the Nile, at Luxor,
lies the necropolis of Asasif,
a vast cemetery where Egypt'’s
rich and powerful were buried around the time of Nefertiti.
Site director Fathi Yaseen and his team are about to excavate
a hidden burial shaft.
NARRATOR: Fathi runs one of the busiest archaeological digs
in Egypt, with up to 100 workers shifting sand every day.
Sayed Mohamed is one of his most experienced archaeologists.
NARRATOR: This ancient cemetery is full of artifacts.
NARRATOR: Most of the finds are from the same era as Nefertiti.
[speaking native language]
NARRATOR: Ancient objects of ceramic and stone
are common here.
But this seems to be made of wood.
NARRATOR: A wooden face looks up from the sand.
The mystery object could be a wooden mask or statue.
They must try to free it from the ground.
FATHI: Wow!
NARRATOR: The rope seems to wrap around it.
NARRATOR: Coffin finds are rare,
particularly ones dating back to the time of Nefertiti.
But whatever it is in the ground, it is quite large.
NARRATOR: This is no ordinary burial.
Only one in 20 people could afford a coffin in ancient Egypt.
NARRATOR: The rope, made from twisted palm leaves,
is tied around the feet.
[clapping]
NARRATOR: For Sayed, the ropes can mean only one thing.
NARRATOR: If the coffin does have a mummy in it,
it could date back to Nefertiti'’s time.
100 miles south, at Gebel El Silsila...
JOHN: Everybody here?
NARRATOR: It'’s 7:00am.
Husband and wife team Maria Nilsen and John Ward set
course for the ancient sandstone pits that pharaohs
quarried for their great monuments, statues,
temples and palaces.
-MARIA: Good morning, John! -JOHN: Good morning.
It'’s early in the morning, I haven'’t had enough coffee yet.
NARRATOR: Akhenaten and Nefertiti opened several
quarries here.
JOHN: Gebel El Silsila'’s golden sandstone was revered
and required by all the pharaohs.
NARRATOR: John and Maria hope to discover important clues
about what Akhenaten and Nefertiti were building at the time.
The size of the gallery shows the scale of excavation.
JOHN: People don'’t realize the sheer magnitude.
This one pillar alone is monumentally huge and this
supports the roof above me.
NARRATOR: Before they can investigate the clues here,
they must clear the thick layer of sand.
JOHN: Jenna.
MARIA: It'’s always a good start when our workers
describe it as heaven!
[laughing]
JOHN: So, clean, clean, clean, clean, clean, clean,
clean, clean, clean, down on the floor.
Clean, clean, clean, clean, clean, onto the floor.
MARIA: It'’s gonna be dirty.
NARRATOR: As they clear the floor,
John makes a surprising discovery.
JOHN: Hey! Guess what I got?
MARIA: You'’ve got to be kidding me!
-JOHN: You ready for this? -MARIA: Yeah.
NARRATOR: Beneath the sand on the quarry floor,
John thinks he'’s found a clue to how ancient Egyptians
quarried stone here.
JOHN: What would they have used to get such straight lines?
MARIA: You haven'’t?
JOHN: Both hands. A plumb bob. Amazing!
MARIA: That'’s our first. That'’s...
JOHN: Our first plumb bob.
You just think, that'’s been laying there since Akhenaten
closed the quarry!
NARRATOR: This plumb bob is a worker'’s tool dropped over
3,000 years ago.
JOHN: That would have had the cord on,
and they would have been able to get the straight line.
This is our first one at Silsila,
and it is beautiful!
NARRATOR: Nearby, Maria wants to analyze an inscription
she'’s found carved on the rock.
Her keen eye has spotted faint traces of ancient ink.
MARIA: You'’ve got lines of text here and here.
NARRATOR: She thinks she can decode the markings to link
the quarry directly back to Akhenaten,
but here he uses a different name.
MARIA: It is the time of Amenhotep IV,
before he turned into Akhenaten.
NARRATOR: Amenhotep the fourth was his original name.
But it is more than just a change of name.
Early in his reign, he created a new identity,
transforming himself into Akhenaten.
He also imposed a change of religion upon Egypt.
For more than a millennium, the Ancient Egyptians
worshipped a pantheon of gods and goddesses.
Their ruler was Amun-Ra, whom Egypt'’s ruling priests revered
as the King of the Gods.
Pharaoh Amenhotep outlawed worship of Amun-Ra and
closed down his temples.
Across Egypt, he erased the old gods and replaced them
with a single deity: the Sun God, Aten.
The only human figures left, bathing in the Sun God'’s rays,
were Amenhotep, now transformed into Akhenaten
and his queen, Nefertiti.
On the faded inscription in the quarry,
Maria spots another detail.
MARIA: You'’ve got the Sun disc here.
NARRATOR: The Sun, the god of the new religion,
alongside Akhenaten'’s earlier name.
MARIA: Clearly an early sign of the Aten worship.
We can'’t find anything similar to this anywhere else in Egypt.
It'’s the earliest one that we have.
We haven'’t published it yet, it'’s on its way.
NARRATOR: This discovery dates the quarry to the early reign
of Akhenaten and Nefertiti, but it doesn'’t solve
the mystery of why they were quarrying so much stone.
What were they making?
400 miles north at Saqqara, husband and wife
archaeologists Mohamed Megahed and Hana Vymazalova
are back for another season of excavation.
Last year, they made an astonishing rare discovery:
a tomb dating back over 4,000 years,
in pristine condition.
MOHAMED: The day we enter the tomb,
it was unforgettable day for all of us.
NARRATOR: It belongs to a man called Khuwy,
a high official of Pharaoh Djedkhare who lived
1,000 years before Nefertiti.
Khuwy may even be a member of the royal family.
It'’s a spectacular find, but there'’s a mystery.
MOHAMED: Usually, ancient Egyptians were buried with
their wives in their tombs.
In our case, we have only Khuwy.
NARRATOR: Khuwy'’s wife should be buried with her husband,
but she isn'’t.
She is missing, just like Nefertiti,
and Mohamed wants to find her.
MOHAMED: It means we will be looking for perhaps similar tomb,
maybe much bigger tomb, the same quality of reliefs
for his wife.
NARRATOR: Her tomb should be as magnificent as Khuwy'’s itself.
MOHAMED: Why people love Egypt and love ancient Egypt?
Because it'’s full of secrets and magic.
For example, Queen Nefertiti, her tomb was never found.
NARRATOR: Family members from this time are generally buried
close together, so Khuwy'’s wife must be nearby.
MOHAMED: We still need to go a little bit deeper in the
west side to make sure that there is no other entrance for a corridor,
or we have to look around for another shaft in the mastaba.
NARRATOR: A mastaba is a massive flat-topped structure
that ancient Egyptians built over tombs.
Digging deeper, Mohamed finds a possible clue to another
entrance: the pure white rock finish of the mastaba changes
to a different kind of rock.
MOHAMED: This is the white, nice,
limestone and in the bottom it'’s completely local
limestone, exactly like the entrance of Khuwy.
NARRATOR: Local limestone surrounds the entrance to Khuwy'’s tomb.
The same stone here could mark another entrance to
his wife'’s burial chamber.
MOHAMED: So the plan for today is to clear it all, go deeper,
reach the floor.
We hope to find something, and you never know what the sands
of Egypt might hide.
NARRATOR: Could the team be on the brink of another major discovery?
NARRATOR: Mohamed found Khuwy'’s tomb last year.
It dates to a time called the Old Kingdom,
1,000 years before Nefertiti.
The tomb of Khuwy'’s missing wife could be every bit as
spectacular as her husband'’s.
MOHAMED: This is one of the most important and interesting
tomb in Old Kingdom.
NARRATOR: The scenes help Khuwy on his journey to the afterlife.
An offering wall gives instructions for 95 different
offering rituals, jars of beer, bread, meat.
MOHAMED: There is no mention for the wife because
everything underground here is for Khuwy.
NARRATOR: She is not with him on the walls,
but she is family.
Her tomb shouldn'’t be far away.
Outside, Mohamed'’s own wife, Hana,
is also helping in the search for Khuwy'’s wife.
HANA: We hope that we might find Khuwy'’s wife.
At the moment we are in the area which is directly
opposite to the entrance to the tomb.
NARRATOR: They must dig carefully,
as the sand is full of ancient fragments.
Each one could be a vital clue.
These are not just bones, it looks like a complete skeleton.
Has Hana discovered Khuwy'’s wife?
At Gebel El-Silsila John and Maria are on a mission to find
the purpose of the quarry.
The stone could reveal important clues about
Akhenaten and Nefertiti'’s building projects,
and the ambition of their reign.
MARIA: Wow! This is beautiful.
Look at the block work.
You can see perfect talatat blocks.
NARRATOR: As workers clear the area,
they reveal evidence of a building innovation that
Akhenaten and Nefertiti pioneered.
MARIA: Here we got a small block,
they divided it into two and at the end of that you'’ll have
two perfect talatat blocks.
JOHN: They'’re ready to come through here aren'’t they?
MARIA: Yeah, exactly.
NARRATOR: These small blocks, called talatat,
could be quarried quicker and built with faster.
JOHN: This is from the period of Akhenaten where everything'’s changed.
We'’ve gone from massive one ton block down to the small,
minuscule talatat, which is famous for Akhenaten.
It only weighed 60 kilograms.
You could carry it on your shoulder.
NARRATOR: John and Maria have solved the mystery of what
Akhenaten and Nefertiti quarried here.
It was talatat, key to an ambitious plan and an
important clue that they began a huge construction program,
including the building of their new capital, Amarna.
Using the newly-invented talatat blocks,
the city rose from the desert in record time.
Akhenaten built a lavish palace for himself and
Nefertiti in the center and two vast temples.
Thousands gathered here to worship the Sun God Aten as
the sun moved east to west.
Spread around the outside were hundreds of stone tables for
lavish offerings to their god.
This monumental complex gave Akhenaten and Nefertiti total
control over religion in Egypt.
But the city'’s most famous resident, Queen Nefertiti,
is missing.
Could the city itself hold clues to her fate?
At Amarna, Anna heads beyond the city limits to investigate
a cemetery for Amana'’s elite.
Tombs, richly decorated with pictures of the king and
queen, might still reveal vital evidence.
The royal couple seem to be in a land of paradise.
They ride their chariots.
They hand out gifts to their adoring crowds...
and make lavish offerings to the Sun God, the Aten.
ANNA: What'’s really lovely here is that you can see that
one of the Aten rays extends to Akhenaten,
the symbol of life, the Ankh.
So the Aten is providing the king with life.
NARRATOR: So, did the couple live out their lives in this utopia?
The idyllic scenes also bear marks of violence.
ANNA: The faces of the king and queen seem to have been
deliberately hacked out.
It'’s actually being done to obliterate their image.
NARRATOR: Nefertiti and Akhenaten'’s
great religiousrevolution has been destroyed.
NARRATOR: Anna finds more evidence that Akhenaten and
Nefertiti'’s revolution ends with a backlash against them.
ANNA: There were deliberate attempts to forget Akhenaten'’s reign.
He was essentially erased from Egyptian history.
NARRATOR: Nefertiti'’s fate during this time of trouble
is a mystery.
Akhenaten and Nefertiti ruled for 17 years.
But when the pharaoh died, the unpopular religion that he
imposed on Egypt crumbled.
People of Egypt returned to the old traditional gods that
Akhenaten had banned.
The enemies of the Aten religion set out to destroy
every memory of the king and queen.
Their revenge on Akhenaten was to attempt to rub him out of history.
But what happened to Nefertiti?
ANNA: This is still part of the tomb.
It'’s completely unfinished, presumably because the city
was abandoned.
The king had died.
Everyone had to uproot, leave the city.
Akhenaten'’s vision ultimately failed.
NARRATOR: In the heat of this crisis, where was the queen?
ANNA: One of the big questions is,
"What happened to Nefertiti?"
If she was still living after Akhenaten'’s death,
she can'’t have stayed on at Amarna very much longer.
Where did she go? What happened to Nefertiti?
NARRATOR: In Luxor, Egyptologist Chris Naunton is
also on the trail of the missing queen.
He has come to the ancient city of Thebes,
where Nefertiti was born, to the tomb of a priest.
CHRIS: This is normally closed to the public, so he'’s having
to take the seal off and then we'’ll be able to go inside.
NARRATOR: In the tomb, he wants to find clues to what
might have happened to Nefertiti following
Akhenaten'’s death.
In his final years, did the king replace her with a new queen?
Or did she remain his great royal wife,
but flee into hiding after he died?
Was Nefertiti assassinated following Akhenaten'’s death,
or did she continue as queen?
The tomb belongs to a priest called Pa-iri,
who lived in the time of Nefertiti.
CHRIS: This is Pa-iri himself, with his wife standing behind him.
It'’s really lovely, this.
NARRATOR: But something else catches Chris'’s eye:
ancient graffiti.
CHRIS: It'’s highly significant.
It begins with a year date, year three,
and then "The king of upper and lower Egypt,"
and that king is named as Ankhkheperure Neferneferuaten.
NARRATOR: So, just who was this ruler?
CHRIS: And this king is little-known, shadowy figure.
I think Ankhkheperure Neferneferuaten is
none other than Nefertiti.
NARRATOR: This would be a sensational turnaround.
Could Nefertiti have survived the death of Akhenaten,
actually to succeed him herself as Pharaoh Nefertiti?
It'’s a theory but, if Chris is correct,
the search for Nefertiti is no longer the search for a queen.
It'’s the search for a pharaoh.
At Saqqara, husband and wife archaeologists,
Mohamed and Hana, are searching for the missing wife of Khuwy.
She should be buried with her husband in his
magnificent tomb, but she isn'’t.
They believe that she must be nearby,
and Hana has found human remains.
HANA: The skeleton is very nicely preserved even though
many of the bones are fragmented.
NARRATOR: The teeth show that this is a mature adult.
HANA: You can see the upper part of the teeth is quite worn down.
The skeleton itself shows that the health of this individual
was not very good.
NARRATOR: Could this ancient skeleton be the missing wife of Khuwy?
HANA: The pit is hewn in a little bit dark sand,
and it was filled with very pure yellow sand,
which was added there into the pit together with the burial.
NARRATOR: For Hana,
all the signs are of a poor burial.
HANA: We are learning a lot about the people of the past:
the way they lived, how they suffered.
It'’s a little bit like looking into a very old album of your family.
NARRATOR: It'’s not Khuwy'’s wife,
but families are normally buried close together.
She should be buried nearby.
Just yards away, Mohamed continues the search for
another tomb entrance.
MOHAMED: We have to continue digging down into the floor
and keep looking for our lady,
Khuwy'’s wife and, if we'’re lucky, we will have her.
NARRATOR: In Luxor, at Asasif, Fathi and Sayed have found a
wooden coffin in the cemetery of the rich and powerful from
the era of Nefertiti.
They are anxious to free it from the grip of the sand.
SAYED: It'’s good.
NARRATOR: Sayed digs a little deeper to see underneath it.
NARRATOR: A complete ancient coffin is a major find.
NARRATOR: But they have a lot of work before they can get it out.
SAYED: Hey doctor, I think we found another something very important.
FATHI: Yeah? Wow!
NARRATOR: There seems to be something buried with the coffin.
NARRATOR: Sayed thinks the vase may have contained
offerings for the afterlife.
But something else catches Fathi'’s attention.
[speaking native language]
FATHI: No.
NARRATOR: This appears to be bread,
untouched for 3,500 years.
NARRATOR: The objects around the ancient coffin appear to
be offerings, carefully placed as supplies for the deceased.
NARRATOR: It offers rare, hard evidence of the lives and
beliefs of Ancient Egyptians, about death and the afterlife.
SAYED: Complete.
FATHI: Wow.
NARRATOR: The pot also comes out.
If they can date it, they can date the burial,
and begin to piece together who might be in the coffin.
NARRATOR: The 18th dynasty was when Egypt was at its very peak,
with the line of powerful pharaohs that
included Akhenaten and Nefertiti themselves.
After two hours of careful work,
they finally clear away all the debris.
NARRATOR: But the fragile ancient wood could
disintegrate now it is exposed to the elements.
Fathi doesn'’t want to risk leaving it out any longer,
so he must move it quickly.
In Saqqara, outside the magnificent tomb of Khuwy
that Mohamed found last year,
the team searches for a missing person, Khuwy'’s wife.
Her tomb should be equally spectacular.
Following clues in the limestone,
they have shifted several tons of sand searching for
another tomb entrance.
Now there are huge limestone blocks in the way.
Mohamed thinks that these came from the mastaba,
the stone structure above the tomb.
Again, it is pure white.
[shouting]
MOHAMED: White limestone are very precious,
because in ancient Egypt the quarry belonged to the king.
The king himself had to give permission to any individual,
any official, to cut stones from there.
NARRATOR: It'’s a vital clue.
Only the pharaoh'’s innermost circle would be allowed to use
such a precious rock.
With the limestone blocks out of the way,
they soon reach the bedrock and can go no further.
MOHAMED: We had no clue for the other entrance of the wife.
This can tell us she might be buried in a different mastaba,
separate mastaba, near to him.
NARRATOR: Khuwy'’s wife isn'’t here,
but Mohamed is undeterred.
He believes that she must be nearby.
MOHAMED: All the white limestone he used in his tomb,
he was mummified, the colors he used in the underground'’s
architecture of his tomb.
NARRATOR: The evidence implies that Khuwy is royal.
MOHAMED: Perhaps, also his wife was a member of the royal family.
If she'’s not buried with him in the tomb,
it means she decided to made a tomb for herself.
This can tell us so much about her status.
NARRATOR: Khuwy'’s wife must be important enough to build her
own mastaba tomb,
which should be as glorious as Khuwy'’s.
The hunt for Khuwy'’s wife just got bigger.
MOHAMED: We only found 30 or 40% of ancient Egyptian
monuments, and this might be true because the sand of Egypt
still hides so many secrets.
NARRATOR: Mohamed'’s search for the missing wife continues.
In Luxor, at Asasif.
[speaking native language]
NARRATOR: The team urgently needs to move the
newly discovered coffin to a safe store room.
But it is a dangerous moment for the priceless artifact,
as the ancient wood could disintegrate under the strain.
It'’s a big responsibility for Fathi.
NARRATOR: The fragile coffin is on the move,
but the last part of the journey is the most precarious.
It'’s a steep and narrow descent.
[applause]
[laughing]
NARRATOR: The coffin is still in one piece.
NARRATOR: With the coffin now safely in the field lab,
specialist conservator Ahmed Gad must inspect the wood for
any weakness.
NARRATOR: The coffin appears to be in good enough condition
to be opened, but there'’s another problem for Fathi.
NARRATOR: The 3,500-year-old ropes must come off,
but the ancient fibers are stiff.
If the alcohol solution doesn'’t soften them,
they may have to cut them.
-FATHI: Wow! -AHMED: Wow!
FATHI: Very good.
NARRATOR: The knot undone,
they begin the slow task of removing plaster
that sticks the fragile lid to the coffin.
Fathi gets his first glimpse inside.
NARRATOR: He can see the mummy inside,
but he can only watch on anxiously.
NARRATOR: The wedges slowly push the lid up.
The 3,500-year-old wood could disintegrate at any moment.
FATHI: Wow.
NARRATOR: Masks protect against any ancient diseases.
[speaking native language]
FATHI: OK.
NARRATOR: For the first time, they lay eyes on what'’s
clearly a human form wrapped in plain linen that was woven
30 centuries ago.
NARRATOR: The team prepares the mummy for the next stage
of research, where x-rays will reveal more of its secrets:
its age, gender, cause of death.
This rare find is full of clues and vital evidence that
will help Fathi and other archaeologists understand how
people were buried during the time of Nefertiti.
In Luxor...
the idea that Nefertiti became pharaoh
is now widely accepted,
but it radically alters the hunt for the missing queen.
Chris thinks that it can only lead to one conclusion.
He has come to the famous Valley of the Kings to investigate.
CHRIS: If Nefertiti did become pharaoh,
and if she also made the move back here to Thebes from
Amarna, then there'’s only really one place here where we
could expect her to have been buried,
and that'’s right in this place,
in the Valley of the Kings.
NARRATOR: If she lies here in the Valley of the Kings,
could other tombs hold clues to help Chris find her?
CHRIS: The tomb just goes on and on.
NARRATOR: Passages and chambers extend over 600 feet,
deep into the rock.
CHRIS: The tombs in the Valley of the Kings are all
different, but they'’re monumental,
very large grand spaces, with long corridors,
multiple chambers leading off them.
If Nefertiti had a tomb in the Valley of the Kings,
you'’ve got to think that it would have been like this one.
NARRATOR: If this tomb is a guide
to how Nefertiti'’s tomb might be,
how could it have escaped detection for all this time?
Where could Nefertiti be hiding?
In search of answers, Chris heads for the most famous tomb
in the Valley of the Kings: King Tutankhamun'’s.
He was the first pharaoh known to be buried here
after Nefertiti'’s reign.
CHRIS: This tomb is a real oddity.
When you think about how famous Tutankhamun is,
the tomb itself just somehow doesn'’t fit.
It'’s really small by comparison with the
other tombs in the Valley of the Kings.
There'’s something just not quite right here.
NARRATOR: There are many things about Tutankhamun'’s
tomb that don'’t add up.
The entrance to the tomb turns right,
when for a male pharaoh it should be a turn to the left.
Tutankhamun'’s nested coffins
have double cobras and vulture headdresses,
normally only associated with female coffins.
And the most famous icon in Egyptian archaeology,
the magnificent golden death mask of Tutankhamun,
reveals earring holes.
And, while Tut'’s name is engraved on the shoulder,
hidden beneath it are faint traces of the cartouche of
Ankhkheperure Neferneferuaten or Nefertiti.
Could Tutankhamun have been buried with Nefertiti'’s death mask
in a small side chamber of a hidden bigger tomb meant for her?
Chris continues to investigate.
CHRIS: There'’s another side chamber called the treasury.
Some of the items in here, although they apparently
depict the king, had very feminine features.
It'’s possible that, actually, some of Tutankhamun'’s objects
and maybe even this tomb were originally prepared for
someone else, maybe even Nefertiti.
NARRATOR: But why would Tutankhamun
be in Nefertiti'’s tomb?
When Akhenaten died,
his cult of the Sun God Aten wasoverthrown
and the old gods, led by Amun, were restored.
Nefertiti may have ruled then as the Pharaoh,
until Akhenaten'’s son, 9-year-old Tutankhaten,
ascended the throne and changed his name to honor
Amun, becoming Tutankhamun.
CHRIS: We know that Tutankhamun died at a very young age,
he was perhaps 18 years old,
and so perhaps he died unexpectedly and, if so,
then perhaps his tomb was prepared in a hurry.
NARRATOR: It'’s possible that Tutankhamun'’s officials
used a tomb prepared for his stepmother, Nefertiti.
CHRIS: That might help us to explain why, perhaps,
a relatively small tomb was so crammed full of such
a hotch-potch of items.
Everything had to be done far more quickly
than the authorities were expecting.
NARRATOR: And it could finally explain where
Nefertiti herself is buried.
CHRIS: Is it possible that she'’s even still here somewhere?
NARRATOR: The tomb of Tutankhamun is the greatest
archaeological discovery of all time.
Its greatest prize, its treasure.
But could there be a greater lost treasure hidden beside it?
The search for one of Egypt'’s most famous queens
could be about to end here in the Valley of the Kings.
Captioned by Cotter Captioning Services.