First Look Inside An Undiscovered Tomb | Opening Egypt's Tombs | Channel 5 #AncientHistory

archaeologist dr. Martin Bohm ass has been digging in southern Egypt for nearly 30 years more than anyone he knows that beneath the sand and rubble here there are still many tombs to find this is your first day Martin starting a new three-week dig season and he's brought his biggest team ever including archaeology students trainee lecturers a leading pottery expert and 22 all-important diggers you've got hundreds of tons of sand and a great arc round here how on earth did you decide where you wanted to put your energy for the next few weeks our focus for our excavation period this time is just the heel in front of us you know the big mound of rubble high up this slope are some of the biggest tombs in southern Egypt many were found over a century ago with the help of a young Howard Carter long before he found fame discovering Tutankhamun but there are large parts of this site that have never been touched so here's the River Nile here which is down we're currently standing here looking up the hill which from the Nile looks like a massive sand dune falling into the Nile so all these been discovered oh yes so these are all tombs that have already been excavated and where's your salt on this map so this is the area we are going to work on Martin's team will now be working a six-day week to try and prove that there are undiscovered tombs here that's your first money what look at that this is a woman well that's the upper part of a mummy only because the pelvis is just around your back this remarkable find a headless mummy simply appeared this morning as the wind blew just enough sand away to reveal it do you think this would originally have been in a stone tomb yes but perhaps the dogs pulled it out there anything that we can say about this mummified body so what we're looking at here is just a torso the legs are missing it's lying on its tummy you see the arm here this is his arm exactly yes this seems to be the elbow just here yes leading up to the shoulder shoulder injuries and he must have been burned as well because it's rather black here but look at the mummy bindings there's such a good quality look at the quality of the linen here that's really nicely done indeed such a wonderful quality it's just great stuff must have been a very rich person I love yes it's quite snake-like right and although it's it's hard it's not solid you feel as though you can yeah well it's hollow inside why's that because they took out the internal organs which were preserved separately according to Egyptian custom how old do you think it is well I believe it's Roman mummy I didn't know there were such things as Roman mummies well they adopted you know the Romans had a very strong presence he anus one so this mummy is about 2,000 years old it is and the tombs we're looking for about four and a half thousand years old so there's more time between our tombs and this mummy than there is between this mummy and ass that's correct yes my first mummy discovery is proof of how much waits to be discovered here just beneath the surface elsewhere around the dig the fines are less grisly but more likely to point to new tombs the sandy slopes of martin's dig site are littered with ancient bricks made out of mud that is not rock is it it's clearly man-made but at the end of day one the most definite find so far the one two three levels and perhaps a fourth levels is what's running straight up the hill [Laughter] well can you see how here this is all loose and well that's what this whole area was like at the beginning of the day but now since we've done all the work can you see how hard that is impacted all of this is a man-made surface and what we think it is it's the pavement of a causeway that once went from here what's right away up to there and at this city of the Dead previous causeway discoveries have led the way to big tombs the governors of elephantine picked the very best spots for their tombs and built grand cause ways to access them from the river but at the top of his newly discovered causeway Martin hasn't found a tomb but a mysterious stone wall what we have here now is perhaps the end of the course web so we want to find out more by digging deeper with the trowel the end of the causeway should point the way to a large tomb but excavating anything this old on such a steep slope is a dangerous operation cannot go to thoughts so the whole thing doesn't crumble [Music] the whole thing's movie i really suggest you get out of the path of that sound coming out from the before me one of the giant blocks holding up the wall has shifted a good six inches the rest of the wall hasn't budged yet but there's a real risk it could collapse we cannot go any further the tombs must be behind the retention wall we have to think very carefully whether next year or so we will remove the wall in order to follow the causeway but not this year otherwise we risk the lives of our workmen the hunt for tombs is rarely straightforward and here in particular risks and dangers but luckily Martin and the team have already found at least one new to so a few days later I'm returning to the lower part of the causeway to check on progress this has come on fantastically hasn't it yeah you can really see that it is a proper road there yes exactly three metres wide and 92 meters long and of course where there are causeways there are tombs how's that panned out well just look behind you hey it looks very different right come on sir isn't it yes it is that's great so what's this bit here well we believe this is the offering niche sorry offering me she's not a phrase I've ever heard well a tomb in ancient Egypt needs to have two things in order to be operational a burial chamber and a place where the living can donate offerings to the deceased and that's that thing here exactly have you got any idea yet how old this tomb is oh we were so lucky Tony the offering nisha was just talking about we found an intact pot that people left there for the deceased untouched perfect exactly the pot aids to 2,000 430 BC we can dated rather precisely so that Israel about four and a half thousand years old it's also the oldest tomb that we have found so far it's almost a little bit older than the pyramids in Giza so it's a pyramid age just the beginning of it really so what happens here now at the big money end well actually we're looking for someone who is going to volunteer to go down that shaft and look into the burial chamber so this is the same kind of age as the Pyramid of Giza it is indeed and I'm going yes if you want to [Music] there is something rather eerie about going into a 4,000 year old - that's - this may be the last time you'll ever see me take care be sure that you only do what you're really comfortable sure sure yeah well the first thing that I can see is that the ground itself at the bottom of the slope appears to be hard rock and the actual - is hacked out of that so it's not mud brick or anything hold on to my left there's a nice little recess oh that's good news that's what we would expect a space like this would have stored pots plates and food offerings to help our owner reach the afterlife is there anything left there no were you hoping it would be full of something it might be the case that someone's being in there but it doesn't mean that there went any further all right well I'll go on a bit now can you tell me whether you're facing a corner right now I am and does it go left or right that's important for me to know what so doesn't go right it's curving round to the left but there's a load of sound here yeah it there's definitely a tunnel to the left but it's it's completely blocked off perhaps the sand comes from of the hole that emerged today morning well I'm no sound expert but some of it does seem quite fresh a customer I can't really go any further than this well then don't you know you have to be safe most yeah because it's indeed connected with the hole then even more sad wouldn't come down on you yeah but you see the left-turn would have led us to the burial chamber so the burial chambers there but we just can't get at it right now yes I'm afraid so hey in the sand I've got a bone just above it there's some pottery oh good and just below it there is not only some pottery but got a bead yay I've got two beads oh that's great Tony I come to join you okay just hang on ah oh it's a nicely cooler down here it is all right here that's the bone yeah I'll show you the bone there we go that's seems to be the end of her pelvis yeah and what about the beads here I promise okay look at that little eggs oh yeah two round finance beads well as files mean fan said a certain type of course I'd made Julie placed with cover that turns blue the colour Egyptian blue comes from that and you reckon it would have in a necklace yes absolutely yes there must have been a necklace what do you say expensive and what a privilege it is to hold something so personal to our tombs owner well this clearly hasn't got all the shiny pillars and statues associated with the tomb of a governor but it there's a lot of work here isn't there well you know was probably the second man in line he had access to a fantastic bonus I had engineer's excavating out of this Standing Rock this may not be the grandest tomb of the City of the Dead but it might be one of the oldest it could mark the moment almost four and a half thousand years ago when this important burial ground was established on Egypt's southern border given what we found here what might you expect to find when you eventually do manage to shift all that sand well you probably have two meters of work here and then we might face a barrel chamber that includes a sarcophagus a wooden sarcophagus hopefully or perhaps two sarcophagi we still have to solve the question of whether these beads belong to a man or a woman or a man and a woman being buried here I always see but unfortunately that work will have to wait until Martin's next picking season Thanks beautiful well great find thanks for all their we now know where the tomb chamber is we got our lovely fine to be continued hopefully see you next year see you here see you mate bye Tony thanks for coming you

Channel: Channel 5

Views: 851,168

Rating: 4.8008318 out of 5

Keywords: Channel 5, My5, official channel 5, Watch UK TV Online, Watch Channel 5, Channel 5 TV, C5, 5 TV, my5UK, channel five, channel 5 uk, channelfive, cfive, myfive, official channel five, full episode, Rich Kids Go Skint, Lip Sync Battle UK, ancient egypt, history documentary, ancient egypt documentary, king tut, full documentary, history channel, ancient tombs, egyptian tombs, egyptian tombs opened, egyptian tomb discovery, egyptian tombs documentary, egyptian tombs discovered

Id: EEuolHKg3Qo

Length: 15min 0sec (900 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 16 2020