Cities of the Underworld: Egyptian Tomb of Lost Mummies (S3, E11) | Full Episode | History

the secrets of cairo are as  vast as its ancient underground   from the oldest pyramid in the world you can  see how fragile all of this rock really is dry   as a bone ready to come down to the most  important discovery since king tut's tomb   this cemetery contained ten thousand months ten  thousand months if you follow in the footsteps   of pharaohs and warlords you gotta stay right  on the wall or we're going down in there too   stick to the wall stick to the wall  you may never leave the underground i'm don wildman i'm in cairo egypt a city flooded  with ancient secrets this sprawling capital   is home to the great pyramids the sphinx and  countless remains of early egyptian civilization   but the artifacts and monuments so familiar  to millions of cairo residents and tourists   hardly scratch the surface because beneath  the teeming streets of old cairo beneath the   desert sands are the 5 000 year old mysteries  of god-like pharaohs and the battle scars   of invading empires and bloody holy wars  today cairo sprawls across the river nile   a teeming 21st century capital but in the  desert west of the river lie the cities of   the dead giza and saqqara the ancient burial  sites of the pharaohs for thousands of years   the kings of egypt built magnificent palaces to  house their souls for all eternity the pyramids no monuments in the world are more recognizable  than the great pyramids of giza the only remaining   of the seven wonders of the ancient world these  massive tombs still tower over modern cairo   but not far away the very first  pyramid ever built a full century   before these giza is equally impressive  underground it's called the step pyramid i'm meeting with archaeologist ashraf el-makhrabi  who will take me into the world's oldest pyramid   it was built for king zoser the second  pharaoh of ancient egypt's third dynasty   it was a newly united nation seeking  to show off its wealth and power   look at this baby man yeah that is incredible  we are in front the first and oldest pyramid   exactly how old it's about 2700 bc okay so that's  well over 4 000 years old that's right 4 700   years old now i'm looking at a structure  that looks like a staircase yes yes   because the fellows were believing you know  after that that's the soul won a client upstairs   but this was the first time that anyone had ever  thought of doing this that's right that's why   we believe em hotep was a genius architect  imhotep was the king's minister a doctor priest   and the architect of the step pyramid he began  constructing a traditional burial tomb known as   a mastaba a space dug out from underground  rock and then covered by a low rectangular   mud brick building this had been the preferred  structure for burying kings and pharaohs for ages   but a traditional monument wasn't good enough for  imhotep he wanted to ensure his king would get to   heaven so he began to build a stairway to the sky  hoping to create something that would last forever   instead of using mud brick he used stone creating  ramps made of sand he moved the massive stones   eventually piling up to six layers or steps  until it reached nearly 200 feet he then   covered it in gleaming white limestone long  since worn away and stolen it took 20 years   and 20 000 workers to build the step pyramid but  the real engineering triumph is hidden from view   while the famous pyramids at giza have no more  than three chambers and a handful of tunnels   the step pyramid built 100 years earlier has  three and a half miles of tunnels and chambers   90 feet below the surface it's not open  to the public but we have special access   think about this we're going underneath a 5 000  year old pyramid the oldest of them all everything   from the pyramids of giza through all the great  monuments of the ages even the washington monument   owes itself to this structure but what you see  up here is nothing compared to what's below oh this is cool this is a sort of beyond cool so  you can see the atmosphere we are now underneath   the parameter we are inside the heart of the  permit a main passageway let us down into a   labyrinth of smaller tunnels chambers galleries  and shafts and it's all designed around a central   shaft that leads down to a 50 square foot burial  chamber the most important room in the structure   there's a lot of active archaeology going  on here obviously a very valuable site   so we have to respect it and not get lost and  not die that would ruin everything death was the   engine driving this amazing feat of engineering  and construction if you want to understand   everything you have to study egyptian mythology  because everything has come from mathology sure   yeah this hawaii developed the birmingham heart  the students to live forever but during believing   you know the afterlife it's eternity the egyptians  of kingzozer's time believed in a physical   existence after death all of this was a support  system providing comfort and protection from   the greatest threats to their eternal rest grave  robbers you're saying that he actually intended   these different labyrinths to these different  tunnels to be a labyrinth that could fool someone   that's right to for the robbers you want to keep  his mom away and also he's believing if you want   to be resurrected to after life you have to suffer  you have to go through many tunnels you know   you have to go from this and this and this and  you have to get closed and you have to suffer a   lot and after this you will be resurrected again  we knew we were finally near the main burial shaft   when we reached zozer's treasure chamber it was  a room that once held piles of gold and precious   gems zozo believed these treasures would accompany  him in the afterlife the glittering walls would   have been elaborately decorated with rows of  blue tile and limestone here this remains of the   filament here oh there it is a small part of it  so it was a little yes that would have been pretty   much what the entire place was encased in yes  was blue if you come in here with a with a torch   you're suddenly in a blue sky that's right and  some blocks from the scene you can see the star   here all right what will be in the sky stars  yeah exactly after an hour of walking through   narrow tunnels and down steep crumbling shafts  we had reached the center of the step pyramid   90 feet below the surface where we found the  last traces of the man who inspired this monument   so we are entering now the very  chamber of our pharaoh zozo this is all still his grave under here yes  he's a sarcophagus is he still in there no   we didn't find his mommy elaborate security  systems and miles of tunnels didn't work   eventually over thousands of years determined  grave robbers found the king's treasures   including the most essential item the body itself  all that remains is a shattered sarcophagus   believed to be the vessel for the soul after death  the body was carefully preserved as a mummy locked   inside a series of coffins and enclosed in a huge  stone case lowering the 40-ton granite sarcophagus   through the 90-foot overhead shaft took another  stroke of genius from imhotep the architect   he had his workers fill the shaft with sand and  placed the sarcophagus on top of the pile then he   released the sand into additional side shafts the  central shaft slowly emptied out and once all the   sand had been completely removed zozo sarcophagus  was left standing in the burial chamber   deep beneath the floor of the steppe pyramid  look down here this piece of granite right here   is actually the lid of the sarcophagus of social  sacrifice and over here is the sarcophagus this   giant piece of granite which i guess if you keep  excavating you'd find the opening of it that's   the point of all of this effort above us this  entire pyramid is built for that guy for that box all right 30 more feet down this  way the queen's burial chamber   unlike the pyramids at giza inside the world's  first pyramid king zoser's 11 wives and many   daughters were all buried with him they too have  disappeared the victims of grave robbers look   this huge i mean tons of rock here which has  been carved out this was actually the burial   chamber ceiling right here it collapsed down  and this above my head is the the burial shaft   so this goes up 120 feet and that's how they got  the sarcophagus down here into this space here   you can see how fragile all of this rock really  is dry as a bone ready to come down after nearly 4   700 years the world's oldest pyramid is crumbling  but engineering a stairway that reached the sky   and a labyrinth that snakes deep beneath the earth  without bulldozers cranes or modern machinery   was an achievement that launched an age of  monument building and changed the world forever   when you think about it how much of history  really dates back to this very structure   not only the giza pyramids down the road here  but any building of size throughout the ages   the greek temples the medieval castles right  into our own age of skyscrapers everything   comes back to this when this brilliant architect  decided to build a building that went for the sky   but really what's up there above ground  doesn't compare to what's down here below the step pyramid ushered in a new age of monument  building in the world thanks to a popular king a   booming economy and trade egypt was in a golden  age and so were its pyramids but the good times   wouldn't last three centuries later drought and  corruption brought ancient egypt into a kind of   dark ages the pyramids were looted the kingdom was  divided and pharaohs no longer had the power and   influence to build great palaces in their city of  the dead but the journey into the afterlife still   meant the world to them so without the stairways  to heaven the pharaohs needed something else to   help guide them safely into the next life so they  adopted religious text literally magical spells   inscribed in a sacred cove after king zoser  built the world's first pyramid in saqqara   the sacred tombs of the pharaohs littered the  desert west of the nile but when their royal   tombs were looted and the kingdom began to crumble  the pharaohs needed to find another way to pass   through to the afterlife a mysterious code that  remains the oldest religious text in the world i'm rejoining archaeologist ashraf el-makhabi to  go down into the heart of the pyramid of king titi   a pharaoh who ruled more than 300 years after  king zosar to get a rare look at ancient egypt's   instruction manual for entering heaven it's  important it looked like as a bile of salt   from outside exactly so this mound of sand is  actually the pyramid yes when king zoser built   the first pyramid around 2700 bc he could afford  thousands of laborers and tons of stone but by the   time the pharaoh tt began to build his tomb war  and famine had drained the pharaoh's resources so they cut corners simple underground chambers  were dug then concealed by a massive pile of   rubble and covered with a limestone facade as  the centuries passed the facade was destroyed   and the pile underneath  crumbled into a shapeless mound   so let's see done yes we are heading now to  see the entrance of the pyramid watch your head that's a real squeeze yes so you can see the  tunnel it's not big yeah for big guys like us okay first chamber huh yes i can really see the  difference already in a different cut i mean   it's much cleaner much cleaner yeah much more of a  grand entrance we were 700 yards from zozer's step   pyramid down beneath the desert sands slowly  making our way to king titi's burial chamber   where the world's first religious  text was written in stone and this straight tunnel was the only way in  after the king was buried three huge granite   blocks were used to seal the passageway  creating a primitive security system   it was state of the art for the time but the  pharaoh's greatest protection wasn't stone blocks   it was these mystical spells never meant for  our eyes hidden beneath the desert for millennia   wow so we're in the center of the pyramid exactly  the center department look at this this whole wall   and i guess i would have gone around the corner  here it's everywhere everything is hieroglyphics   yes oh my goodness this is incredible this  antechamber the second of three holds more than   400 hieroglyphic spells known as the pyramid texts  the earliest religious transcripts in the world   and the first to be carved into pyramid walls they  are all mystical instructions meant to be read by   the pharaoh after his death please tell me what  all this means in general actually this is like   a magical response to hold with the soul to help  the king and after life magical spells to help the   soul to be resurrected again because the pharisees  are believing the soul will go away yes and we're   living between the northern stars and they still  have to come back again to recognize the body   so there is many you know bad gods will stop the  soul to come back again it's like a fight or a   conflict between good god and the bad gods right  so this magical expose will help the soul to come   back again the pharaohs lost their power they had  seen the tombs of earlier dynasties robbed of the   royal treasures that were supposed to guarantee  access to the afterlife so they turned to these   written spells instead of luxurious treasure  as their new theft proof tickets to paradise   for instance if you have a look here you can  see his name tati this is a hard bread hot bread   and the feather's eye and the name was written  in a circle why because the circle means endless   continuous so if you got your name in a circle  you will live forever you will be resurrected in   afterlife all the spells dedicated to tethy the  out of the pyramid here originally these cryptic   symbols the world's earliest collection of prayers  were painted in vivid colors but over 2000 years   trace amounts of humidity in the desert air ate  away at the paint so if you use your imagination   a very colorful wall yes very colorful star across  the side this is a brilliantly uh panoramic place   the ideas in the pyramid texts evolved over  hundreds of years into a remarkable document   an eerily detailed road map to the afterlife known  as the book of the dead it was written on papyrus   an early form of paper and placed in the coffin  to help guide the deceased on their last journey   including a final step that is still familiar  to millions today everybody's believing you will   stand in front of gods and he swear i'm honest  guy i didn't do anything bad to my neighbors   i never bloated the river nile water i never look  to my neighbor wife it's a great instructions   okay at the end they are waving his heart and  if he's a good guy he'll go to paradise if he's   a bad guy you have to get punished so the same  idea of sin existed here in the egyptian times   as it does later in christian and all other  i believe the religion just won three and we   have many branches islam christianity jews so it  was the main three so we're looking at the roots   right here here we are in the roots king td's body  was stolen long ago but his instructions to heaven   remain in perfect condition these ancient carvings  are the oldest known form of religious writing   the greek myths the bible the quran all began  here you're really looking at the history of   writing here as well yes the earliest form  of human writing yes to understand the real   difference between the step pyramid and this man's  pyramid the teddy pyramid you really have to look   at the wall i mean all these magical spells the  priorities have changed at different time entirely   this is not big bold engineering like the step  pyramid this is a more mythological statement   i mean the times had changed you had a pharaoh  who was looking for a different way to help   himself into the afterlife and it's all right  here the magical spells that he would use for nearly 2 500 years the pharaohs ruled over  egypt uncontested then starting in about 600 bc   new empires began to emerge on the scene first the  persians then the greeks then the most powerful   of them all the romans miles of fertile farmland  made egypt the hot property fiercely fought over   changing hands a number of times now the only way  a conquering army could make their new property   safe was by building an impenetrable  fortress and in the second century a.d   the roman emperor trajan did just that erecting  a massive one right on the banks of the nile   now over the centuries the nile river  has changed its course dramatically   and cairo has grown up around it pushing the great  roman fortress deeper and deeper under the streets   modern cairo is one of the most important cities  of the arab world but it wasn't always so for   about 2000 years it was a humble trading city  until the romans placed a strategic garrison there   called the babylon fortress it was made  to guard grain shipments along the niles   in the oldest part of cairo the ancient heart of  its christian community coptic cairo it's called a   meeting ahmed abdullahi has rare access to take me  down into the ruins of the ancient roman fortress today the last remnants of the pagan fortress  are hidden under one of the oldest christian   churches in cairo ironically the religion that  rome tried to stamp out went on to build right   on top of the crumbling ruin and has preserved  this relic of the empire's glory days in egypt   but two thousand years ago this was a roman  stronghold and we would have been in the middle   of the super highway the romans were guarding  the river nile so where was the nile river   here when there was a roman fortress  here yes and then it moved somewhere   away that way yes to the west gotcha  all right so we're walking in water here   the course of the nile has changed over  the last 2000 years but one of its main   sources still begins deep in the ethiopian  highlands and flows north to the mediterranean   it was the major artery of transportation and the  main source of water annual flooding deposited   rich silt on the vast egyptian plains with this  massive natural irrigation system and year-round   warm weather egypt became the bread basket  of the roman empire when the romans re-dug   an ancient canal to the red sea this spot became  the nexus point to control all of egypt all right   so this is i'm looking at rome right here yes  the church above is called the hanging church   because it was originally built using two enormous  towers of the babylon fortress as a foundation   the rest of the 60-acre ancient stronghold  is now buried by the modern neighborhood   man it's just gigantic when you see it up close  isn't it what is this this is uh oh i can see   the figures here this is uh some stones have been  taken from the earlier building from the pyramids   nice really so i'm seeing all these figures that  look like hieroglyphic using the ancient pyramids   as a convenient quarry roman builders pillaged  limestone blocks then laid brick on top of it   interesting that's cool whole cross section i mean  this is ancient to us this was ancient to them   this is the way in here yes  so nobody gets in this place   this is the entrance into the  roman fortress ruins down below now you can hear the bats squeak into the bats  up there wow there's a lot of bats up there oh look at this space incredible this is  the original little roman architecture   we're standing in yes as an occupying force in  hostile territory the romans needed a fortress   that was a self-contained city the sprawling  complex spread out over 60 acres the outer walls   were 40 feet high and almost 10 feet thick the  towers of the main gate were 100 feet in diameter   the iron or water gate led out to the port and  the only access was through one of these two huge   fortified portals so we are standing here at this  the massive gate this was the watergate entrance   to the fortress yes yes so i'm looking out there  in ancient times and that's a canal this is water   right out here and these are all the same the old  features this whole all the same brickwork this is   the original stonework yes and i see a major  uh slot up there for gate to come down yes   yes yes so it's like an old medieval castle  the fort boasts its own ox-powered grain mill   and industrial-scale bread oven all to support  an occupation that lasted nearly six centuries   so this would have been used for military purposes  this this would have been a bastion of a defensive   tower yes this is what's called the arrow slides  arrow slides yeah it is shooting your arrows   okay the fortress and its fighting force were put  to the ultimate test in 640 a.d when an arab army   invaded egypt more than 5 000 horsemen descended  on this fort and a bloody six-month siege began   they knew if they could get this fortress they  would kill rome and also notice this fortress   was considered one of the trunk fortress and all  roman nations in that day i have never seen a   bigger roman fortress in any of the roman plays  i've seen including rome the roman defenses held   until arab spies discovered a weak point one of  the massive wooden doors was set on fire the arab   forces swept in and roman rule of egypt was over  in the 7th century the muslim armies invade and   take the place over and from that moment on cairo  becomes what we know it today as a major capital   of the arabic world the arab army camp outside the  walls of the fortress became the new center of the   city and the roman fortress was turned over  to christians and jews once persecuted by the   romans these religious minorities were taxed but  tolerated by the arab rulers over the centuries   they built and rebuilt eventually burying the  enormous fortress of their former oppressors   if you can understand this church you can  understand so much of cairo roman fortress down   below 2nd century a.d 4th 5th century christian  church on top of it totally symbolic because the   romans had persecuted the christians for centuries  and then they get to build a church right on top this is the nile river it's been the source of  all life in egypt from ancient times to modern   it is the reason there was a civilization here in  the first place but when the great arab conqueror   saladin came here and erected his citadel towering  high above the city and far from the river   he ordered the water be brought to him by  digging a massive well 250 feet into the earth in the second century a.d the romans built  their fortress on the banks of the nile   one thousand years later the powerful sultan  saladin the man who retook jerusalem from   the crusaders erected his stronghold two  miles to the east and 250 feet above it   i met with ahmed abdul raziq an expert on the 800  year old arab fortress ahmed yes hello hello nice   to meet you sam you too today the citadel is  a sprawling 60-acre compound housing mosques   museums and battlements but in 1176 this was the  linchpin of saladin's defensive fortification   against his greatest enemies christian crusaders  so the this fortress actually stands as a guardian   between the attackers there and cairo to between  the crusaders and the capital behind it right   now what it changed so much in warfare that  they had to build a fortress way up here   i think because the women had to change it the  weapons okay exactly because they had catapults   and things like that exactly in the 12th century  the advent of powerful weapons like the catapult   crossbow and ram caused fortresses to become  bigger stronger and basically impenetrable   a siege could last for months if not years as  the invaders tried to outlast the armies within   so saladin's citadel had to be a vault nothing  in nothing out the citadel had an above-ground   aqueduct but it could be easily diverted  or poisoned by enemies outside the gates   to ensure a safe and unlimited  water supply during a lengthy siege   saladin's men dug down 300 feet to  reach the nile river water table oh so if you're fighting siege warfare desperate  for water you got to go deep down and find it the shaft has been off limits to the public  for decades because of the inherent danger of   descending a centuries-old open well here we are  okay so things get dark from now on huh yes ooh   they certainly do so nobody gets down here do they  i mean this is not the best you and me okay good no wonder the well was built in two parts we  had reached the bottom of the first section the   guts of the operation this is the bottom oh man  awesome look how deep we are it's about 50 meters   50 so we're only about 150 feet here  so we're not even all the way down   no no not yet okay i still have another 40 meters  so the water is even deeper deeper than that deep   beneath the modern citadel above the first square  shaft plunges 150 feet into the limestone bedrock   a staircase carved out of the rock wraps around  the shaft a floor separates the upper shaft from   the lower shaft which descends another 130  feet down to the water table come on right   here i'm showing you something okay over here  oh yeah look at that is this original this is a   regular water wheel that is so cool this is the  actual works of saladin's water system oxen who   lived their entire lives underground turned the  water wheel which engaged a pulley system of jars   up to the midpoint from the bottom once the water  got to the midpoint it was dumped into the cistern   where another pulley system of jars dipped in for  the final leg up to the thirsty residents above   boy this shaft just goes another how deep another  40 meters 120 feet all the way down i can see   water down there can i drop this i just got to  get a sense of how deep this thing really is nice four kilometers 40 meters down with this  water supply saladin's army could hold off a   crusader siege for months saladin a  brilliant tactician who had retaken   jerusalem from the crusaders knew the citadel  was the key to holding cairo and all of egypt   but he never lived to see it completed he didn't  live right here because before finishing the whole   building he died in 1193. so after saladin every  ruler in egypt every ruler here in cairo lives   in the citadel for how long from the 12th century  until 19th century wow so six seven hundred years   this citadel was the main focus of royal life  in egypt and through those centuries wells like   this supplied the citadel even when the pulleys  broke down a backup system consisted of donkeys   making the journey down and back up the shaft it's  a dangerous trek for man and beast alike ahmed has   just stepped ahead here just to figure out if the  staircase is actually stable enough for us to go   down into this we're walking down into the stairs  that spiral around the deeper shaft that runs   120 feet down further but it's very dangerous  you okay not sure all right here goes nothing   no but you have to be very careful okay three  really careful okay not kidding around careful yikes if you slip you're going to go  right down right into the shaft so   hang on tight stick to the wall stay to the wall   watch out your steps okay it's right there right  yep yep yep stick to the wall stick to the wall look at that that's the water right down  there i am staying close to the wall this is really cool i mean really  good of him to bring us down here   because we really wanted to see it but  he's nervous because it's really really dangerous okay i'm right i'm all  right all right that was good   so wait this is water here hold on this  looks like solid ground but it's really water we're at rock bottom so to speak i  mean this is 280 feet below the citadel   okay we're down at the level of the nile river  i mean that's what was that's what it took to   create this enormous fortress on top of such a  high hill there are a number of these shafts all   around the citadel this is the last one remaining  and you're seeing something from the middle ages   here in its pure state it's remarkable but if  this place had been seen under siege had the   crusaders come and attacked saladin and his armies  would have been fine up here for a good long time   because they had the essential thing  they needed to survive water right there for as long as humans have wandered this desolate  part of the world they've considered death to be a   beginning rather than an end it's why the pharaohs  were so carefully mummified why they built the   great pyramids all of it to ensure safe passage to  the afterlife but no one was certain what happened   to this tradition after the golden age of the  pharaohs until not so long ago a donkey's hoof   broke through the ground into an ancient tomb  cramped with perfectly preserved mummies but   these weren't pharaohs they were commoners  this recent discovery is considered the most   significant in egypt since king tut's tomb and  it's buried right beneath these desert sands   200 miles southwest of cairo the bahamia oasis  has been a crucial stop on the trade route between   egypt libya and the sudan for thousands of  years slave traders camel caravans and even   world leaders pass through here but today we're  going to visit some residents who never left i'm meeting with dr zahi hawas he's the secretary  general of the supreme council of antiquities   basically if it's ancient and egyptian this  guy's the man dr ross hello my honor how are you   nice to meet you too now we are at the site of  the tombs here yes yes in the oasis the bahria   oasis when alexander the great came from memphis  he crossed the desert from siwa to memphis and he   stopped here and he built the only temple that  he built in egypt is this temple then this side   became very unique because the steps of alexander  the great yes stopped in this place according to   dr hawas alexander stopped here on his way from a  desert oracle who would proclaim his divinity but   in 1996 a donkey's hoof crashed into a lost tomb  and archaeologists quickly realized they had hit   the jackpot how many mummies do you predict are  down there all right this cemetery contains 10 000   mamas ten thousand months gold why they're buried  here because to be near alexander they're great   they wanted to have the blessing they wanted to be  near the great man exactly the tombs of the golden   mummies are off limits to all visitors but we've  been granted extremely rare access to view them this is the way in mummy's down here so all right oh the mummies are they're right  here yeah this is just like a a family uh tomb   okay about 41 mommies i found her incredible  and uh beside the mummies we found necklaces   bracelets pottery some of these mummies date back  to 300 bc bridging the gap between the golden age   of the pharaohs and greco-roman egypt dr hawas is  still piecing together the clues to how they lived   and how they died you can see that this mummy  is for a lady her son is buried above her okay   and you can see she had a crown yes her face  discovered was gold then maybe they were died   in an accident or anything together i took only 15  mummies from here and i put them under the x-ray   i found out the average age of death among the  15 mummies were 30 to 35 only and they were very   healthy but why they don't really like this and i  found out that the will in the oasis the water has   iron and the iron affected the bones of the people  and that's why they die quickly so the the water   of the oasis actually is this actually gold that  i'm looking at here this is gold the whole face   was covered with gold i just want to clean it off  but i can't touch it this is gold leaf underneath   creating this entire death mask the process of  mummification the expense of it is an indication   that these people were doing very well in life  this was a rich community that could afford   a very meticulous process yes because of the  production of mine only the sales of wine here was   very important because everyone loved this barrier  like you know the napa valley wine everyone loved   it and this was the napa valley of ancient asia  the pyramids preserved and exalted pharaohs but   here we can see the life stories of ordinary wine  merchants and their families you can understand   the relationship between families a lady was  buried here catching the hand of her husband   other lady was completely makeup maybe she  was a bride she died before she get married   so you can tell the whole story of the person  i was able to write the story of the people who   lived at the oasis from just looking at every  mummy and i felt that mummies were like alive   looking at them we can know sure uh the history of  everyone when you first saw this mummy did it look   in this same condition you know it wasn't a better  condition we know all these tombs were completely   filled with sand then it took us uh days of days  of excavating and uh you know to discover a tomb   like this was mum it's also it's dangerous  sure because when you open a tomb like this   you need the uh to leave the tomb for two days  until the fresh air will get in and the bad air   will go out ancient mummies are petri dishes for  deadly molds that can cause bleeding in the lungs   and the ammonia and formaldehyde used in the  mummification process can be trapped in sarcophagi   for centuries and released when the long sealed  tombs are opened and you never shave when i'm   excavating because if you shave this mamas make  germs that you can't see if you enter the tomb   right away the germans can kill you even 3 000  years old 2000 years old yes and that's why people   call it the curse of the fears and but really if  you are a careful archaeologist you will never   have this kind of things dr hawas and his  team have uncovered and opened 15 tombs here   we're going down there all right they are  lock boxes containing proof that the ancient   funerary traditions of the pharaohs were still  practiced in roman egypt they called this mummy   mona lisa of the oasis how beautiful how  is it that this was preserved the face was   preserved so well and the rest isn't they did  care about the face a lot because the face is   very important the soul will never recognize  the deceased without the face the idea was   that the the soul leaves the body after death  when the body is then interred down here   the death mask is here for the soul to  recognize its own vessel comes back to this body   reoccupies it takes the treasures the money in the  hands everything and therefore has the equipment   the wherewithal to to enter back or enter on  into the afterlife so this person is long gone   what's fascinating to me is that they're almost  like a mortuary business yeah it is it is you know   this in ancient egypt death made egypt this built  egypt right because for them to do the quest of   immortality they have their temples and tombs and  pyramids and mummification and gold and all this   kind of sure and they knew these people knew  that the pharaohs had a method of immortality   they wanted the same faith it's so moving to  see this i mean these are the real people here   and if you stand in silence i mean it has such  a profound feeling to be among all these people   who have been here for thousands literally  thousands of years and they're still here for thousands of years pharaohs conquerors and  commoners have all searched for eternal life   and they found a certain immortality  here in cairo's underworld you

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Rating: 4.747149 out of 5

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Id: N59bsCmev1I

Length: 43min 49sec (2629 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 02 2020