NARRATOR: The mysteries
of ancient Egypt,
and its hidden secrets. MATTHEW: These tombs
represent the technology
of resurrection. STEVEN: They created
monuments that make
the mind boggle. NARRATOR: Some of their
greatest achievements, lost beneath the sand and
water of the Nile valley... until now. Imagine if we
could empty oceans, or drain the desert, and
reveal the secrets beneath. Now we can. Using the latest
imaging technology
to pierce sea and sand and turn accurate
data into 3D images. Can scientists
solve the mystery of
Alexandria's Lighthouse and recreate one of the
ancient wonders of the World? Why did a Pharaoh build
15 mega-forts when none of
them saw a major battle? LAUREL: This is a forgotten
age in Egyptian history because we have lost
access to these monuments. NARRATOR: And what does
a fleet of boats, buried
six miles from the Nile, reveal about Egypt's original
'Valley of the Kings'? ♪ ♪ NARRATOR: Ancient Egypt... One of the greatest
civilizations on Earth. It lasts for 3,000 years. Its people develop a
remarkable written language
using pictures and symbols. They worship strange gods. And they build two
of the seven wonders
of the ancient world. The first, the great
pyramids of Giza. -The ancients determined
the seven wonders because
they met certain criteria. It is the ingenuity of the
design, but it had to be built on a super colossal,
over the top scale. NARRATOR: The Egyptians'
second ancient wonder is the
lighthouse of Alexandria. Known as the Pharos, it
is built on a grand scale
like the other wonders: The Hanging Gardens of Babylon
and the Colossus of Rhodes. Of the seven wonders, only
the pyramids now survive. But as the waters of the
Nile Delta drain away, can
the architectural marvel of the Pharos be brought
back to life from the seas
around Alexandria Harbor? And recreated accurately
for the first time a sight
that once dazzled the world. -The Pharos ranked as one
of the seven wonders of the
ancient world because it was something that had
never been seen before. Some people say um the
beacon could be seen
30 miles out to sea. NARRATOR: Alexandria's
lighthouse is a technological
and architectural masterpiece. Built in the third century
BC, it's the crowning
glory of a new capital city, founded by the conqueror
of Ancient Egypt:
Alexander the Great. -Alexandria was the
be-all and end-all. Um you might think of the
Champs Elysee in Paris or
Times Square in New York. Alexandria was all of
those things and more. Um it was the most
beautiful city that the
world had ever seen. NARRATOR: Egypt's new rulers
want the Pharos to send
a big and simple message. EMAD: They wanted to show
how powerful is the city. So you'd need a sign, a
big huge banner that says
welcome to Alexandria. The Pharos was created
mainly as a landmark. NARRATOR: But once
Egypt's power has faded, Alexandria's famous lighthouse
falls into disrepair. The land beneath it slowly
subsides into the sea,
and in the 14th century it finally collapses after
it's struck by an earthquake. The Pharos is thought
to be lost here, beneath
23 feet of water, at the entrance of
Alexandria harbor. Now a French team of
archaeologists is trying to rediscover its
true magnificence. Using the latest undersea
imaging technology, they're
scouring the seabed for clues. Their aim is to
digitally rebuild this lost
Ancient Wonder of the World, for the first time. Leading the investigation is
architect and archaeologist
Isabelle Hairy. She's been searching
for the truth about
Alexandria's lighthouse for more than 20 years. ISABELLE: It's always very
rewarding to work on one of the seven wonders of
the ancient world. I'd be lying if
I said otherwise. NARRATOR: Isabelle's team is
working in one of the largest underwater archaeological
sites in the world. They investigate some
mysterious granite blocks. These remarkable remains
are clearly man-made. Could they be from the
missing ancient wonder? Isabelle's task is to
unlock the true dimensions
and design of the Pharos. But her job is made harder by
the wildly conflicting accounts of what it actually looked lik. -We came across
these quite extraordinary
images of the lighthouse. NARRATOR: Different
impressions from past
travelers and artists shroud the true appearance of
the lighthouse in mystery. -It's depicted here as
the Tower of Babylon. Here a very classical
building with floors
one above the other, with doors opening
into mysterious rooms. NARRATOR: Over time,
ideas about the Pharos
grew even more fantastic. -One of the authors was
speaking about the Pharos
being so tall and so extensively high, if a stone
was thrown from the top of the
lighthouse it would reach land in 2 days or 3 days. It's not true but it is saying
something about how those
people saw the lighthouse. NARRATOR: Where
does the truth lie? Will the underwater granite
blocks provide answers? To find out, Isabelle's
team uses a technique called
photogrammetry capturing thousands of detailed images
across the enormous site. -This is closer view
here on the map. This is block 1003. -Do you think we can
go further, we can
go more on the North? NARRATOR: After
28 weeks of diving and
with 50,000 photographs, Isabelle has the data she
needs to finally unlock
the secrets of the Pharos. Combining this unique
data with cutting edge
computer graphics means that for the first time,
the waters around Alexandria
harbor can be drained away. As the Mediterranean
begins to empty, surprising
shapes come into view. Nearly 3,000 granite
blocks scattered across
three acres of the seabed. These are not natural rock
formations, but clearly
the work of human hands. Statue bases,
chunks of pillars. All from a building of
monumental proportions. The drowned ruins of a
genuine ancient wonder,
The Pharos lighthouse. Brought back into
the light of day for the
first time in 600 years. Already Isabelle's work has
delivered one revelation. Some of the blocks from
the drained landscape are a crucial clue to the
shape of the Pharos. -Draining the site has enabled
us to see the lighthouse. We've even found blocks
that might have formed
the corner stones, but no blocks found underwater
indicated the walls sloped. The walls were straight. NARRATOR: This is the
first physical proof of
the lighthouse's design. A huge advance on all
previous knowledge. But piecing together the
rest of the underwater jigsaw
remains an enormous challenge. -What we have here is a puzzle, basically it's a
3000 pieces puzzle that you have to try
to fit things together. Will it fit or
will it not fit? NARRATOR: And what's
more, some crucial parts
of the puzzle are missing, taken to museums by
previous excavations. But one important piece
lies nearby, abandoned
on the quayside. -This was probably the
greatest discovery,
found on the site. NARRATOR: But what is it? -So, here we have a side
part of a door frame. We know because this is
the place where the door
would have been fixed. NARRATOR: This groove is
carefully carved as the
frame for a gigantic door. And incredibly, Isabelle can
match the frame's distinctive shape to other stones
lying underwater. They must all be pieces
from the same doorway. -By joining this huge fragment
almost 12 meters long together
with all the other fragments, we can reconstruct a door. It's one of the most
important pieces of the site. NARRATOR: Now, for the
first time, it's possible to recreate the
door to the Pharos. The entrance to a Wonder
of the Ancient World. -So now we are able to
connect it with the lintels. The upright, ah perfect. That's great. NARRATOR: The drained site
reveals the lost fragments
of the giant doorframe. Using the scanned images
of the seabed, its huge
blocks come into view. Computer graphic technology
reverses the centuries. The pieces of the doorframe
fit together perfectly. And within the granite
frame a vast wooden
door was once fastened. All of it reaching
41 feet high and weighing
more than 200 tons! The Pharos entrance
is restored in the
place where it fell. A monumental piece of
architecture dwarfing
anyone who enters. For the first time, a part
of Alexandria's lighthouse
is accurately reconstructed. But what does the rest
of the Pharos look like? And does it truly deserve
its title as a wonder
of the Ancient world? NARRATOR: Archaeologist
Isabelle Hairy continues to
search for the truth about the Pharos lighthouse. Historical reports
are conflicting. But most agree on
one thing, that the Pharos
has three distinct levels, each shaped differently. Isabelle heads to the
place where the lighthouse
is thought to have stood. Now the site of another
grand building, Qaitbay Fort. Built in 1477, just 42 years
after the ruins of the Pharos
are last reported visible. Inside, an intriguing clue. Isabelle believes that its
mosque is a small-scale
replica of the Pharos. ISABELLE: You really get
the impression of being in the
ancient lighthouse even though the scale isn't the same,
but there's this sense
of space, still present, which we can feel
all around us. NARRATOR: The main
tower is square. Above, it's topped by
an octagonal and then
a circular section. Isabelle's theory is that the
Mosque's architects intended
this to be a tribute to Alexandria's most
famous building. So is the Pharos
shaped like this? To solve this mystery,
Isabelle needs to compare
her 3D data with historical reports and discover the
true scale of the Pharos. Some dimensions were recorded
by Medieval travelers. In 1166, Al-Balawi from Spain
penned a precise description
of the lighthouse, reporting it to be
300 cubits high. Over a century later, Moroccan
scholar Ibn Battuta recorded the thickness of the
Pharos walls as 10 spans. The problem is these
units are lost to history. Until now. The breakthrough
comes from the Pharos'
reconstructed door frame. Its outside edge reveals
the exact thickness of the
lighthouse's exterior wall. The dimension also
recorded by Ibn Battuta,
centuries earlier. His 10 'spans' is equal
to six feet ten inches. -It's a discovery that's
incredibly rewarding. We are now able to decipher
the texts of Ibn Battuta,
and the texts of Al-Balawi. NARRATOR: It's a
huge leap forward. Converting medieval units into
accurate modern measurement unlocks the true scale of the
Pharos for the first time. Combining all the
underwater evidence with
Al-Balawi's descriptions solves a centuries old puzzle. Revealing three
towers that match the
design of the mosque, making it possible to
reconstruct a lost ancient
wonder in exact detail. Statues from Alexandria's
museums return
to their original homes. Believed to be clad in
limestone, the Pharos reaches
almost 330 feet into the sky. The size of a 32 story
building, it's one of the tallest structures
in the Ancient World. And all of it is thought
to be crowned by a wonder
of ancient technology, fires and iron mirrors
reflecting the light and the glory of Egypt
to the world beyond. -It could have looked like
the first skyscrapers built in Chicago at the end
of the 19th century. It's really a
fabulous structure. STEVEN: The ancients determined
the seven wonders because they
met certain criterias, and so the Pharos satisfies all
of those ancient criteria
of innovative design, that was actually built,
that was actually towering. NARRATOR: Most importantly the
Pharos marks the gateway to Ancient Egypt and the
mighty river Nile. More than 4,000
miles long, the Nile is the
longest river in the world. JON: The Nile was absolutely
central to Ancient Egypt. It was the seasonal flood
that brought this rich, black
mineral mud and deposited it on the fields and
made it fertile. It was actually that
that drove Ancient
Egyptian civilization. Without the Nile it
wouldn't have happened. NARRATOR: Six and a half
thousand years ago farmers
make these riverbanks their home, and a
civilization is born. Six miles west of the Nile,
draining, not water, but sand, reveals an ancient mystery
known as the Abydos boats. -It was completely unexpected
to find a phantom flotilla
in the middle of nowhere. NARRATOR: Why is there
a fleet of boats beneath the
sands of the Egyptian desert? Egyptologist Matthew Adams
has excavated Abydos'
mysterious boats for 30 years. MATTHEW: One would never know
by looking at this flat patch
of desert that underneath the sand is one of the most
remarkable discoveries ever
made in Egyptian archaeology. NARRATOR: The boats he
excavated have been reburied
in the sand to help preserve them for the future. Before then, they'd been lying
undisturbed for 5000 years. -Was this the result of some
great flood of the river that they sailed here and
were left stranded? It's a very strange
setting for a group
of boats like this. -You would think perhaps it
was a dried up quay or it was perhaps an area where
the Nile once ran. NARRATOR: Throughout
its history the Nile
has shifted course. But it never ran here. Abydos lies on
a desert plateau out
of the river's reach. So if the Nile didn't bring
these boats here, what did? To find out, Matthew's team
surveys the location of the boats and the
surrounding terrain. Accurate satellite
mapping can reveal the
extraordinary world beneath. Combining this data with the
latest computer imaging allows
the Egyptian desert to be drained of sand,
grain by grain to solve an
ancient mystery. The desert begins to
reveal its secrets. Not one boat, Not two, but 14. The surviving fragments
of timber reveal
they are 60 feet long. All carefully lined
up in parallel. It's the oldest buried
fleet ever discovered. But who does it belong to? Reconstructing the boats
immediately reveals a clue. These are not simple
dugout canoes nor are they
boats made from reeds. They're substantial
rowing vessels, with space
for up to 30 oarsmen. More revealing still is
the way they're made from
carefully crafted wooden planks all stitched
together with rope. -These are they earliest
plank boats that
we have in this area, as status symbols
they're important. NARRATOR: 5,000 years
ago, this is cutting
edge nautical technology. -It's almost like taking a
sports car today and burying
it in the desert somewhere. NARRATOR: And in Ancient Egypt
only one person can afford
such an immense investment. -Only the king could expend
resources at this level
and was in a position to dispose of a fleet a
royal fleet in this way. NARRATOR: The 14 boats
belong to a Pharaoh. But what are they doing
abandoned in the desert? ♪ ♪ NARRATOR: To unravel the
mystery of the Abydos Boats
Egyptologist Matthew Adams hunts for clues
above the sand. Next to the buried fleet
stands a huge mud brick ruin. Here Matthew finds evidence of
an ancient belief system that could help explain
this desert secret. MATTHEW: These massive
walls created a kind
of religious space, where one of Egypt's
first kings was worshipped. NARRATOR: Excavations here
uncover ancient pots that
once contained food and beer. -Ceremonies took place in
here, focused on this king
as a kind of divine figure. Somehow these boats are part
of this religious expression and they're connected to the
activities of these early kings. NARRATOR: This enclosure
is built for the Ancient
Egyptians to worship their pharaoh as a god, as
long ago as 2700 BC, 200 years before
the great pyramids. And more than a thousand
before Tutankhamun. But what is the connection
between this early worship of a Pharaoh and
the mystery fleet? A closer examination
of the drained boats
reveals the answer. Surrounding each one is a
curious mud-brick casing. The brick walls follow
the curve of the boats, completely covering
them from stern to bow. Returning them to their
original state reveals more. Built on the desert surface
each brick 'case' completely
encloses a single boat. And all are covered in a
layer of white plaster. Creating 14 boat graves. -When the boats were newly put
in place, you wouldn't have
seen the boats themselves, the wooden boat hulls,
you would've seen these
brick grave structures. NARRATOR: The boat tombs are
designed to be highly visible. JON: This plaster would have
caught the light of the sun
when they were first built. -Seen from a distance
they would have been
glowing in the desert. NARRATOR: And all
to honor a Pharaoh. -Like the offerings
that were delivered for his
benefit inside the monument, bread and beer and wine,
the boats must represent
a kind of offering to him. NARRATOR: What beliefs
inspire the Ancient Egyptians
to create all of this, and to place it so
far away from the Nile,
where they actually live? Just a mile away,
there's another clue. This strange subterranean
architecture is built around
the same time the boats are left in the desert. It's the last resting
place of one of Egypt's
earliest Pharaohs. -This is the spot where the
king ended his life in this
world and made the transition from here to the other
world, where he would
have his eternal life. NARRATOR: The tomb is
designed to ensure the dead
Pharaoh passes into another realm known as the
afterlife provided with all
the essential possessions he needs: food, drink,
even his servants, ritually killed to serve their
master beyond the grave. -These are the chambers
in which the courtiers and
retainers who were sacrificed to accompany the king into
the next world were buried. And the, whole assemblage, the
king in his burial chamber,
his funerary enclosure and the boats that were buried next
to it, the whole assemblage
is being translated from this world to the next to be
available to him there. NARRATOR: Just like the dead
courtiers, the Royal fleet is there to serve the
Pharaoh in the afterlife. So he can navigate
the celestial Nile
for all eternity. The Abydos boats mark the
beginning of a belief in the
afterlife that eventually creates the pyramids and
the Valley of the Kings. And more signs of that
connection still lie
hidden beneath the sand. So Matthew's team
carries out what's called
a 'magnetometry' survey. It detects variations in
the soil's magnetic field to
reveal structures underground, not seen for
thousands of years. ALEX: We walk over
it every day, but what we
don't see is all of this. NARRATOR: The data reveal
the origin of Egypt's
obsession with the afterlife. -All of these darks lines
that we can see here, these are all walls
from buried structures. Big ones, small ones. We can identify these
as tombs, which makes this a gigantic vast desert cemetery. NARRATOR: It's an
astonishing discovery. Draining the sand from the
rest of the plateau exposes Ancient Egypt's oldest
Royal burial ground. A landscape designed for
one purpose: Resurrection. Combining data from the
surveys and excavations with
computer generated imagery reveals the Pharaoh's
tomb from below. But now, drained
of sand, another nine huge
underground complexes appear. At least ten royal tombs
fill the valley floor. Built more than
a thousand years before
the Valley of the Kings, this is Ancient Egypt's
original city of the dead. And nearby, more
ritual enclosures where
Pharaohs are worshipped and the tombs of
the royal boats. It's the landscape at Abydos
that reveals the ultimate
reason why all these structures are built
so far from the Nile. It all sits at the
entrance of a narrow gorge. The gateway to the afterlife. -I think it's very likely that
the Ancient Egyptians viewed
this canyon as the road that led to the land of the dead. The sun set in the west, the
west was where the dead were,
that was the other world and this canyon leads directly
in that direction. NARRATOR: The people who
build this sacred site believe
that everything placed here is destined to join the
Pharaoh in the afterlife. -Abydos is vital because it's
the first area where we see
Pharaohs being deposited into graves and treated in
this specialized way with
gifts for the afterlife and that carries
on for millennia. NARRATOR: The tradition that
began with the Abydos boats
can be seen 200 years later at the pyramid tomb
of King Khufu. His mummified body accompanied
by a ceremonial boat. Around 1,200 years later
the boy King, Tutankhamun is
entombed with 35 model boats. Ensuring that in the afterlife
each Pharaoh can navigate the
all-important Nile. The Ancient Egyptians
are master builders. Their spectacular tombs and
temples populate more than
900 miles of the Nile Valley. But draining the waters
behind the Aswan dam reveals
something very different. One of the largest
state building projects
after the pyramids, a series of 15 massive forts. LAUREL: When we think about
ancient Egypt we think of
a peaceful society we think about temples and tombs
and we don't think
about the military. NARRATOR: And the forts
that the Egyptian military
build here are immense, as technologically advanced as
the castles of Medieval Europe that weren't built for
another 3000 years. And yet there is little
evidence that any
of them saw a battle. Can draining the Nile
reveal the true purpose
of the mystery forts? NARRATOR: For more than
50 years Ancient Egypt's forts are lost beneath the
waters of Lake Nasser... their exact purpose, a
mystery to archaeologists. Viewing them on the
lakebed is impossible. Sediment makes the waters
impenetrable to cameras. And diving here can be fatal. But there is one clue. Archaeologist Laurel Bestock
is travelling to its remote
location, deep in Sudan, near the Southern
end of Lake Nasser. Fort Uronarti, one of the
last surviving strongpoints from Ancient Egypt's
southern frontier. Laurel is fascinated by these
forgotten forts and has been excavating Uronarti
for six years. -I had thought that I
would never be able to see,
let alone study personally, such a place. That I could potentially
come here was a really a
personally profound and a career changing discovery. NARRATOR: Laurel is searching
for evidence to help her
reveal the secrets of the forts that lie beneath
the waters of Lake Nasser. Fort Uronarti itself is built
around 1850BC, during an era
known as the Middle Kingdom. It stands 200 miles south of
Ancient Egyptian territory in
what was once no man's land. -This represents
the edge of the known
world to the Egyptians. Egypt is behind me
up the Nile, that's
the familiar world, the world where the Egyptians
felt at home, they knew
how to behave in this place. It's a culture and a
landscape together. Out there is the rest
of ancient Africa, and
that's very much a, a place that the Egyptians
conceive of as terrifying,
it's where they view the people and even the
landscape itself as a
threat to their order. NARRATOR: Beyond Egypt
lies the land of Nubia... and the kingdom
of the Kushites. Their fearsome warriors
raid Egypt from the south. So the Pharaohs need to
secure their territory. Clues to how they do it
can be found at Uronarti. -Uronarti is really
built for defense. It's hard to imagine a space
that would be more difficult
to attack and you come up this steep hill and you're
met with this massive
fortified gateway. We're standing in
between the remains of
what was two towers, even thicker than the
walls of Uronarti itself. You can see how massive
the brickwork is here. It's even reinforced you can
see there are, are the remains
of beams coming through the walls that would
have acted like rebar in
reinforced concrete here. NARRATOR: Fort Uronarti
is a powerful deterrent
to the hostile Kushites. But it's barely a fraction
of the military might Ancient Egypt is about
to unleash on its enemy. Most of that military machine
now lies beneath Lake Nasser, one of the largest
reservoirs in the world. The forts are lost forever
when Egypt builds the Aswan
High Dam in the 1960s, to produce hydroelectric
power and control irrigation. The rising waters
threaten some of Egypt's
greatest monuments. So one of the world's
largest archaeological
salvage operations begins, involving 15 countries
and more than $72 million. Monuments that can't be moved
are excavated and recorded including Ancient Egypt's
lost fortresses. Today, one of
the most complete sets of
archaeological reports from that time is kept at the
Egypt Exploration Society. CEDRIC: First of all you see
how huge these forts were. NARRATOR: And reveals
some tantalizing clues. CHRIS: And yet, since this
was taken all of this is gone? -Completely flooded,
yes unfortunately. -Incredible -So this is why we're all so
thankful to the mission that has excavated and
recorded all these forts. NARRATOR: Today investigators
are analyzing the evidence to discover why the Egyptians
need as many as 15 forts. Using this data and the latest
computer graphic technology it's possible to drain the
waters from Lake Nasser. 44 trillion gallons of water
are unleashed into the Nile slowly revealing a world
that's 4000 years old. Travelling south
beyond Ancient Egypt,
Fort Iken appears. Then Fort Askut. Furthest south two more,
Fort Kumma and Semna. Altogether a
total of 15 forts. Spanning 200 miles, it's
the longest fortified
frontier in the world, along this strategically
important stretch of the Nile. STEVEN: Because the Nile
river was the principal
thoroughfare up, the forts were
arranged north to south, stopping any invasion from
the south into the north. NARRATOR: The wall of forts
transforms the Nile into a formidable barrier
against the Kushites. But why do the
Ancient Egyptians need to dominate territory so
far beyond their heartlands? A clue comes from
a fort inscription. It reveals that much of
the frontier is created to satisfy one Pharaoh's
military ambition. PHARAOH: I have made
my boundary further
south than my fathers. NARRATOR: And how he
boasts about crushing
the Kushite enemy. PHARAOH: They are not
people one respects. They are wretches. I have captured
their women, gone to their
wells, killed their cattle, cut down their grain,
set fire to it. -They definitely claimed this
territory for their own by building these fortresses and
said 'this is Egypt's now'. JON: These forts are
representing a sort of consolidation of
power of the Pharaoh. NARRATOR: But why does
Ancient Egypt need so many forts constructed on
such a massive scale? Could they have been built to
protect something even more valuable than a
Pharaoh's power? NARRATOR: When Egypt's Aswan
Dam is built in the 1960s
the largest fort to disappear beneath Lake Nasser
is Fort Buhen. Hidden inside it is evidence
of Ancient Egypt's military
secrets. Draining the water from
Lake Nasser, reveals
traces of Fort Buhen, not seen for more
than 50 years. By combining the
archaeological data with
3D computer graphics Fort Buhen
is reconstructed. Revealing the nerve center
of Ancient Egypt's frontier
for the first time. And it's colossal! Buhen's vast footprint
covers an area 20 times
larger than Fort Uronarti. Its perimeter wall,
almost a mile circuit. The 36 foot high walls
dominate the riverfront. This is Fort Buhen in
all its original glory. And everything about it
is designed to intimidate. LAUREL: It really
shows the state power. It puts it outside so
it's not just a symbol
to the Egyptians, it's a symbol to other people. JON: These forts were
clearly about military power. They were about domination. -One of the purposes of this
monument is to be imposing. NARRATOR: The monumental
scale of Buhen is designed to
terrify the Kushite enemy and proudly display military
architecture so advanced, that it makes any
raid on it, futile. STEVEN: What's unbelievable
is if I told you, that all of
the features that you find in mediaeval European forts
were already in place in these mud brick forts
2000 to 1800 BC in Egypt, you would say
no, you're wrong. NARRATOR: 3,000 years
before the famous castles
of Europe are built, Fort Buhen has a dry moat,
a fortified gateway, defensive battlements and
sophisticated arrow loops with a firing
arc of 180 degrees. -Basically, everything
that you come to love about
a mediaeval fort is already there in the Middle
Kingdom forts in Egypt. NARRATOR: It seems the
intimidating power of the
forts achieves its aim. Archaeological investigations
here uncover almost
no evidence of fighting. Is this lack of violence,
a clue that the Nile
frontier has another, entirely different purpose? Evidence lies deep
inside Fort Buhen. Archaeologists believe that
within the citadel lies a
complex of enormous silos for storing precious grain. -The size of those granaries
means that they could hold way
more food than is necessary for the number of people who
would have lived at Buhen and
that's an important clue for us in terms of the economic
activity that's going on. NARRATOR: Egypt is
trading grain for gold. The forts not only
dominate Ancient Egypt's
southern neighbors, they also guard the
trade routes from the
gold mines of Nubia. To the Egyptians,
gold is all important. And Nubia is the main source. The Pharaohs and their
wealthiest subjects wear gold
and cover their coffins with it as the ultimate
symbol of power. -The building of the
fortresses was an attempt to
impose a trading monopoly on gold coming up from the south
and to make sure that this is all happening through
the Egyptian state. NARRATOR: No one can pass
through this 200-mile stretch
of territory undetected. Filled with soldiers,
the forts form an effective
surveillance system designed to trap thieves,
smugglers and raiders. By ensuring all trade
happens inside the forts Egypt secures the best
of the deals for itself. These are the Fort Knoxes of
the Ancient Egyptian world, trading gold and
defending it from attack. Inside both Fort Uronarti and
Fort Buhen there are clues to
the scale of that operation. -This space was a barracks
house, and this is a pattern we see repeated
throughout the fortress. NARRATOR: Buhen reveals
many similar barracks, divided
into larger communal areas and smaller rooms that
archaeologists identify
as sleeping quarters. -We can calculate how many
people might have been able to sleep in the fortress
at any given time. From the space that's here
it's a fairly decent space but
if you think of soldiers lying close next to one another this
could pack ten people in this
room with no problem and if you think I'm relatively tall
for an ancient Egyptian but if
I lie here with my companions next to me you can
get 10 of us in this
room with no problem. NARRATOR: Scaling up, it's
estimated that Uronarti
could house 400 soldiers. And Buhen thousands more. -So you're looking
at a multi-functional,
multi-purpose facility that was vibrant and alive and
was like a little city
contained within itself. NARRATOR: At full capacity the
whole fortress system could be
packed with 10,000 soldiers, scribes and officials. Operating such an advanced
frontier in far-flung
lands is the pinnacle of Ancient Egypt's
military achievement. An organizational feat on
a scale that's similar to the building of
the great pyramids. -You can see how this
architecture enables this
activity and really this bustling city on the
edge of the Nile here at
the edge of the world. NARRATOR: Ancient Egypt's
forts protect its unique
civilization from invasion and enable it to control
the gold trade. Bringing glorification
to its Pharaohs for
the centuries to come. By the 1st Century BC the
Ancient Egyptians are no more. But the mysteries they leave
behind beneath the Nile Valley
are a permanent reminder of their extraordinary culture. The legacy of
Ancient Egypt lives on. Its architectural treasures,
remarkable beliefs, formidable state power, and its golden voyages
between the worlds of
the living and the dead. Captioned by Cotter
Captioning Services.
