NARRATOR: Egypt, the richest
source of archaeological
treasures on the planet. SALIMA: Oh, that's
a fabulous one! NARRATOR: Beneath this
desert landscape... lie the secrets of this
ancient civilization. JOHN: Wow, you can see why
the pharaohs chose this place. NARRATOR: Now, for a full
season of excavations our cameras have
unprecedented access to follow teams on the
frontline of archaeology... ASHRAF: I'm driving so fast
because I'm so excited! KATHLEEN: It's an entrance,
we can see an entrance. NARRATOR: Revealing
buried secrets... ANTONIO: I have just
been told that they
have found something. DON: Oh my god. NARRATOR: And making
discoveries that could
rewrite ancient history. This time, new secrets
about one of Egypt's
greatest rulers... WORKERS: Hey-ah-ho! NARRATOR: The pharaoh
queen, Hatshepsut. Doctor Szafranski discovers
buried treasure at her
magnificent temple... NARRATOR: The Darnells uncover
how she formed a mysterious double identity
to seize power... COLLEEN: 'For my beloved
daughter', not son. NARRATOR: And John and
Maria unearth a rare
and intriguing statue. JOHN: Hold, hold, hold,
hold, hold, hold, hold. Do you realize what you've
just pulled out of the sand? NARRATOR: Luxor, Egypt... a landscape strewn with ancient
ruins and magnificent temples built for the great
pharaohs of Egypt. Cut into the surrounding
mountains lies the finest
temple of them all. Its owner was a
revolutionary, a rare female pharaoh, called Hatshepsut. Now archaeologists are
searching for clues to
reveal more about this enigmatic pharaoh queen. Leading the hunt
is Polish archaeologist
Dr. Zbigniew Szafranski. NARRATOR: The landscape
is dominated by Hatshepsut's
immense temple, constructed to commemorate
her reign as a pharaoh. Ancient builders carved
the site directly into
the towering rocky cliffs. They built it in three
separate levels, each one a terrace
connected by ramps
over 100 feet long. At the top, 26 statues of
the god of the underworld,
Osiris, stand as guardians. This masterpiece of ancient
architecture is the key to the secrets of the
pharaoh queen Hatshepsut. DR SZAFRANSKI: It is an
exceptional building. The temple is unique in
the history of Egyptian
architecture and in the history of the
world architecture. NARRATOR: Dr. Szafranski
and his team have been
excavating and restoring Hatshepsut's temple for
the past 19 seasons. DR SZAFRANSKI: Hi, hi, hi! NARRATOR: They are
on a mission to piece back
together the temple ruins. 120 years ago, legendary British
Egyptologist Howard Carter was part of the team that
excavated this site. Much of the temple was
buried and badly damaged, and little was known
about its owner. Today, Dr. Szafranski
continues working to restore
and rebuild the temple, to reveal the secrets of the
pharaoh queen Hatshepsut. NARRATOR: Hatshepsut was
only the second woman
to ever become a pharaoh, and the first for
nearly 300 years. The fearless queen oversaw
military campaigns to
Egypt's southern borders, and claimed to have visited
the battlefield herself. She built a fleet of
ships to sail the Red Sea and re-established an
international trade network, bringing back exotic
goods and riches. Under Hatshepsut,
Egypt prospered and she
built giant monuments across the country to show
that she was in control. Hatshepsut's temple was
just one of around ten
megastructures she built during her 22 year reign. Across the Nile she erected
vast swathes of a giant temple
complex called Karnak, and a 98 foot obelisk,
the largest standing
in Egypt today. But the extraordinary
life of this radical woman
still poses many mysteries. Now, archaeologists are
on the hunt for new clues. 80 miles south of her temple
in Gebel, El-Silsila, lies
one of Hatshepsut's quarries. Here, on the banks
of the Nile... JOHN: What do you want, mate? NARRATOR: John Ward and Maria
Nilsson from Lund University are getting ready to
excavate at the quarry. JOHN: These lovely eggs. MARIA: Do you want some bread? NARRATOR: They want
to investigate how
Hatshepsut used the quarry during her reign. In dig season, they live
on this boat with their
baby son Jonathan, daughter Freya,
and dog Carter. MARIA: What are you
going to do today, Freya? MARIA: Yeah? JOHN: When you're a little
bit older you can come
over and help Daddy, yeah? MARIA: Archaeology
and Egypt itself has been
with me since I was a kid. I knew from the beginning. That I'm here now is
no surprise to family
and friends back home. The very day that I
gave birth to Jonathan we were going through what
we actually needed on site. JOHN: We never stop,
it never stops for us. MARIA: No.
JOHN: Even on Christmas Day. Guys, come on!
We're ready? NARRATOR: John and Maria have
spent the last ten seasons
investigating this site, used by Hatshepsut. JOHN: Hatshepsut was
responsible for removing
hundreds of thousands of tons of sandstone
from this quarry alone, let alone the other quarries
across the whole landscape. NARRATOR: With evidence
of over 10,000 years of human activity across
15 square miles, it's one of the largest
archaeological sites in Egypt. Here, the couple is excavating
an abandoned statue. They want to know if it
belonged to Hatshepsut. MARIA: Good morning Sphinx-y. NARRATOR: An unfinished,
ram-headed sphinx. JOHN: It's a unique find. MARIA: It is. NARRATOR: The sphinx
is a mythical beast
modeled on a lion, but with the head of a human. Others were carved with
the head of a ram, and
are known as criosphinxes. They act as guardians,
protecting the entrances to pyramids, temples,
and sacred sites. It's thought that Hatshepsut
started the greatest display of sphinxes known
to ancient Egypt, an avenue of sphinxes,
enhanced over the centuries, stretching nearly two miles between the great temples
of Luxor and Karnak. MARIA: It's absolutely
amazing, it's one of those
dreams to, to work with this kind of monumental statue. JOHN: Let's go there. NARRATOR: John and Maria
need to dig out the
buried sphinx to confirm where this statue
was meant to go. They set to work to see
what lies beneath the sand. JOHN: Guys! (clapping). NARRATOR: 120 miles
from Luxor, in Aswan,
lies Qubbet el-Hawa. This site is a densely
occupied necropolis of
around 100 ancient tombs. Some have never been
opened and hold secrets
to how the necropolis was being used during
Hatshepsut's time. MARTINA: It's amazing. NARRATOR: Archaeologist
Martina Bardonová is part
of a Spanish team preparing to open up one of the
unexplored tombs. MARTINA: When I was
about 15 I read about
archaeology in Egypt, then I completely fall in love. NARRATOR: Martina wants
to excavate inside a new,
unopened tomb, but before she can get to it she
needs to clear a pathway
through the sand outside. MARTINA: Everything
is covered. I'm thinking about which
was to take off the sand. The basic problem here. NARRATOR: Strong desert
winds have blown sand in
front of the tomb entrance. (speaking native language). NARRATOR: But after just
an hour clearing a path, the team makes a discovery
that could put a halt to everything. MARTINA: Aah! NARRATOR: A member of
Martina's team has found parts
of a body hidden in the sand. NARRATOR: These human
remains appear to be ancient. MARTINA: It's, basically
it's so fragile when, when
you touch it or when you, when even the sand around
moves it's just falling apart. We can put wet toilet
paper because otherwise
the bones crack. WOMAN: Yeah. NARRATOR: Martina needs
to find out why this body
is outside the tomb, and find any clues that
will help her to put a
date on the burial. As she clears away the sand,
the bones reveal something
even more unusual. MARTINA: It looks like a
child, it might be a child. NARRATOR: In the quarry
at Gebel el-Silsila, John and Maria are excavating what could be one of
Hatshepsut's sphinxes. JOHN: Come and get
your apples and pears
now, come and get them! This is my
archaeological
field box, it's a little bit heavy,
but this is the prototype. A new version will come
next season I hope,
which will be lighter. At the moment we've just got a
nice stony layer on top which
goes for the first two to three centimeters, then
beneath that if I stick my
little magical tool inside and then withdraw it,
it's full of that, which to the untrained
eye is just black powder, actually that's iron filings
from the chisels of the
quarrymen of these quarries. The sand still today contains
a memory of all that work that took place here
thousands of years ago. NARRATOR: The sand even
holds clues about what
the workers had for lunch. JOHN: Fish bones. Someone could've had a
nice meal down by the
belly of the sphinx. NARRATOR: As work continues,
the team unearths something remarkable from
under the sphinx. JOHN: Hold, hold, hold,
hold, hold, hold, hold! No, no, no, no, no! Stand there, stand there. Hahahahaha! Do you realize what
he's just pulled out? A small sphinx! Oh wow! That is absolutely beautiful. A small criosphinx. There's the two
haunches, there's the
head, there's the head, there's the body,
here's the body. What a discovery, I mean
it's fantastic, it really is. KHALED: Wow. JOHN: Isn't she beautiful? NARRATOR: Large sphinx statues
are seen throughout Egypt, but a miniature on this
scale is one of a kind... JOHN: Meet the child. NARRATOR: And must
be recorded by the dig
inspector, Khaled Shawky. Khaled is supervising the
dig to report any finds back
to the Egyptian government. KHALED: This is amazing. This is very wonderful. JOHN: Personally, I
think it's a model. Was it the son or the child,
possibly, or the apprentice,
copying the master, the master's making
the real thing. KHALED: This is a copy,
yes, I think so. JOHN: And he's making a copy.
You've got the horn here. KHALED: I see that, yes. JOHN: For that, but
this side is broken off.
KHALED: Yeah. JOHN: He's gone in there
and he's gone whack! KHALED: I see that. JOHN: And the whole, boom! And that's probably
why it was discarded. NARRATOR: John
thinks the miniature was
carved out for practice. JOHN: Fantastic.
KHALED: Brilliant, well done. NARRATOR: It's an
astonishing find. JOHN: Find me
another one, guys. NARRATOR: At Hatshepsut's
temple, Dr. Szafranski is investigating the paintings
she left on the walls. The imagery holds clues to
Hatshepsut's life, and reveals
a family power struggle with her nephew, who was also her
stepson, Thutmose the Third. DR SZAFRANSKI: Here we see
Hatshepsut and behind her we have a figure
of Thutmose III. We have two kings. NARRATOR: Images etched
into these walls reveal
the story of Hatshepsut's extraordinary rise to power. She was the first-born
of a royal family, but tradition dictated that only
men could become the pharaoh. So power was granted
to her infant stepson. But after seven years
of acting as his aid, Hatshepsut made an
unprecedented move for power; she overtook her stepson, and proclaimed that she
was now the king of Egypt. DR SZAFRANSKI: We see on
the walls of this temple
there are two kings, but Hatshepsut is
always number one. NARRATOR: Hatshepsut's power
play was revolutionary. Now, Dr. Szafranski is
searching for new evidence to piece together
her mysterious life. In the ruins next to
Hatshepsut's temple, the team has discovered a
ring of ancient mud bricks. DR SZAFRANSKI: We're on
the top of something, now we'll go deeper
and see what is inside. NARRATOR: They think artifacts
could be buried here, but after a day of digging,
progress comes to a halt. A one-ton block of sandstone
is precariously balanced
on top of the mud bricks. If the block falls,
it could destroy any
treasures buried beneath. NARRATOR: Dr. Szafranski's
team has no heavy-lifting
equipment on site, so they have to improvise. WORKERS: Hey-ah-ho! NARRATOR: If they
can't move the block
they won't be able to find out what's
hidden beneath. WORKERS: Hey-ah-ho! (speaking native language). NARRATOR: 50 miles
from Hatshepsut's
temple, in El Kab, Yale University
professor John Darnell and his wife, Egyptologist
Dr. Colleen Darnell, are beginning their season. They're using digital
technology to record
ancient rock inscriptions to figure out how
hieroglyphic writing began. DARNELL: I want to be
absolutely certain that we
have beak as it should be, and that we have this here
crest as it should be. COLLEEN: Hm-mm. NARRATOR: The pair has spent
over 20 years exploring the
deserts and temples of Egypt, to interpret these
ancient carvings. During dig season,
they analyze their
findings for publication here at their home. COLLEEN: This is about
as spectacular of an
expedition house, a dig house, as you can
have anywhere in the world. The view of the Nile, the
mud brick architecture, it's really a dream come true. These are about 90 years
old, linen, it's pretty
remarkable that it survived so it's fun to play
archaeology with
clothing as well. I have a 1920s
jodhpur and suit set, and a fun pair of
19-teens knickers. NARRATOR: Today, the couple
is heading across the Nile, to investigate a mysterious
set of inscriptions. DARNELL: There's just no
duplicate for looking at
the inscriptions themselves on the actual monuments
within these great
architectural settings. NARRATOR: Their destination
is Karnak Temple. Its beautiful chapels
and decorated courtyards
cover a massive site. Here many great pharaohs,
including Hatshepsut,
left their mark. But there's a mystery:
despite being female, Hatshepsut is often
depicted as a man. COLLEEN: So here we see
Hatshepsut and Thutmose III and they're wearing identical
crowns, broad collars, starched kilts, so if you were
to approach this wall without being able to read the
hieroglyphs you wouldn't
be able to tell who is who. NARRATOR: Throughout the
site, Hatshepsut continually represents herself
with male features. COLLEEN: She's wearing
a male kilt, and even
the pharaonic beard. NARRATOR: But hidden in
the hieroglyphic text, Colleen finds evidence
of her real gender. COLLEEN: Here we have
the female indication of her gender within the text. 'For my beloved
daughter', not son. DARNELL: They know that this
is a woman in the role for
which most of the iconography and most of the
terms are masculine. So the Egyptians
are aware of this and,
and they work with it. NARRATOR: Evidence on
a temple wall reveals Hatshepsut wasn't
hiding her femininity, she was proving
she was a pharaoh. A fake beard was a way
to show a connection
with the god Osiris. Even male pharaohs wore
an artificial beard. But other items she wore
were also reserved for men, like the famous headdress,
the nemes, and the kilt. But she transformed herself
with these symbols of power to strengthen her image
across the kingdom. Hatshepsut dressed not as
a man, but as a pharaoh. Hatshepsut blurred her gender
to be considered equal, but how equal was society
for women in ancient Egypt? Near Hatshepsut's temple,
in a tomb site called
Dra' Abu el-Naga... SUZANNE: Take one side out
of the corridor with the
human remains on the edge. NARRATOR: Archaeologist
Suzanne Onstine, and her
team from the University of Memphis, are investigating
the roles of women in
ancient Egyptian society. SUZANNE: One of the
things that I really
focused on in my career was what were women doing,
what were women's lives like. Every time I come to work here
I feel really excited because
there's no better feeling or job satisfaction really. NARRATOR: It's Suzanne's tenth
season excavating this tomb,
but it's still packed with the body parts of men, women,
and mummified children. Torn apart by ancient looters,
the team must piece the
human remains back together. SUZANNE: This is
skull fragments. Not everybody feels comfortable
working with the dead, but this is my job in
terms of bringing light to ancient Egypt and bringing
light to individuals. WOMAN: No that one's spines.
It's a pelvis. SUZANNE: Right now we're
organizing the human remains,
we have hundreds, thousands and thousands of bones,
and so keeping track of
them is a bit complicated. I think, Jesus,
penises or packets? JESUS: This is...
SUZANNE: Probably penis. JESUS: Hmm.
SUZANNE: Yeah? JESUS: This is probably penis,
this is probably packet. SUZANNE: Packet, okay.
Too big to be penis. JESUS: Yeah. SUZANNE: There's a lot of
shrinkage in the afterlife. We found several of these
mummified pieces, some of
them are packets of the, the organs that were
placed back inside,
occasionally one is a penis that has been
detached from a body. Even King Tut lost his
penis, it actually had just
sort of fallen down into the sarcophagus nearby,
but somebody noticed
it was gone one day and there was a big situation
looking for King Tut's penis. NARRATOR: Handling these
intimate body parts is
not for the fainthearted, but combing through the
pieces, Suzanne makes
a dramatic discovery. SUZANNE: She was probably
about 20 years old and
I'm inclined to think nearly 100% that she died
as a result of childbirth. NARRATOR: At the
necropolis in Aswan, Martina is unearthing the
remains of a buried child
outside the tomb entrance. MARTINA: You can see
quite well he's very
tiny and very fragile. If I compare it with my
four years old niece, so
she's like that, that big. It's emotional because you
know it's, it's a child. NARRATOR: Child mortality
was high in ancient Egypt, but it's rare to find
them buried and preserved
at this necropolis. MARTINA: Whenever you find
some it's, it's something. NARRATOR: The team must
move the bones of the child
to get access to the tomb. But as they clear the area,
they find something else staring up from
beneath the sand. MARTINA: Aah!
Oh my god. NARRATOR: Martina's team
has just uncovered an ancient
face mask made of cartonnage. NARRATOR: The mask covers
the head of an adult mummy
buried outside the tomb, but the team must strengthen
it with resin before they
can attempt to move it. This precious cartonnage
mask was meant to help ensure
a successful afterlife. NARRATOR: The cartonnage
should help the team reveal
who these bodies are, and when they date from. But strong winds are
on the way, and the
team must work fast. NARRATOR: 120 miles north... SUZANNE: And just
hold it for a minute. NARRATOR: American
archaeologist Suzanne Onstine
is piecing together the remains of women and children. SUZANNE: This child right
here is really very touching. His face is still preserved. NARRATOR: She's
searching for clues to
their roles in society, around the time of Hatshepsut. She's found dramatic
evidence of one individual's
life, and death. SUZANNE: The vagina
is the hole here,
still very distended, so we know that within
24 hours of giving birth
and passing a child that she died, because
otherwise the vagina would've shrank
back to its original
anatomical position. So to find real evidence for
something that is sort of
commonly spoken about, that childbirth is a
really dangerous time
for women in antiquity, really kind of unique in
a very dramatic fashion. NARRATOR: The mortal dangers
of childbirth are clear, but Suzanne believes
women still held
positions of power. SUZANNE: Just looking at
the, the paintings we
have evidence for them participating in all
levels of society. The scenes throughout
really emphasize their
sort of equal stature. NARRATOR: But the female
pharaoh Hatshepsut wanted
to be more than just equal. In the ancient quarry at
Silsila, while John continues
to dig out the sphinx, Maria is investigating the site
for evidence of Hatshepsut's
mass building campaign. Inside a temple at the quarry,
the carved relief scenes on
the walls have been changed. MARIA: The reliefs that we
see on the walls now are
not the original scenes. If we start to look closer,
in fact what we can see here are the tell-tale
signs underneath of an original scene
that is no longer here. We can see a ship
transporting an obelisk. NARRATOR: The ghost
images hidden in the wall
reveal how Hatshepsut may have been shipping
obelisks from Silsila. Hatshepsut was famous
for her supersized 320 ton obelisk cut from
granite further south, but lifting it upright
would stretch the limits
of ancient engineering. Builders dragged the obelisk
up a ramp, and then carefully
dug away the earth beneath, until the base hit the
foundations in the rock. Finally, an army of builders
used ropes to pull this
monumental obelisk upright. MARIA: It's putting it all
together, I, it's, it's,
making a full circle. We have the beautiful golden
sandstone, we've got the, the workers actually
during the time of
Hatshepsut. I personally love working with
queens and female pharaohs
so for me it's wonderful. NARRATOR: Hatshepsut
may have been shipping
obelisks from Silsila, but what was driving her to
build these colossal monuments? At the Karnak Temple,
John and Colleen Darnell
think the answer lies on Hatshepsut's
giant obelisk itself. COLLEEN: It's majesty
of this noble God... DARNELL: Who has made
for her father... COLLEEN: She addresses future
generations and literally
tells us that people who shall come generation
after generation will
know why she did this. She's doing this
for deep purposes of
religious devotion. But on the flipside when you
look up at the obelisk some
of the largest hieroglyphs are the name of Hatshepsut
herself, so this is a giant
statement of propaganda, I mean there's, there's
no missing the fact that
this is a projection on a monumental scale
of pharaonic power. NARRATOR: Hatshepsut built
these monuments to immortalize
her name, not as a woman, but as one of the greatest
pharaohs of Egypt. Beside Hatshepsut's temple,
Dr. Szafranski and the
team need to move a one-ton sandstone block so
they can excavate underneath. WORKERS: Hey-ah-ho! NATALIE: Mabruk! Mabruk, I think
we're almost there. WORKERS: Hey-ah-ho! NARRATOR: With the
block finally moved, they can begin to dig
through the sand layers. NARRATOR: Underneath
the temple ruins, the
team has unearthed ancient fragments of pottery. MARIUSZ: I think we have
the first complete pot. NATALIE: Look at that. MARIUSZ: Yeah, the whole pot. NATALIE: Wonderful huh?
Isn't that nice? MARIUSZ: We are very excited
and happy because nobody maybe except ancient Egyptian
were seeing this before. NARRATOR: These small clues
could help Dr. Szafranski
unravel the mysterious events after Hatshepsut's death. When she died around the
age of 50, her stepson,
King Thutmose the Third, finally regained his power. And higher up the cliff,
Dr. Szafranski sees
evidence of his temple. DR SZAFRANSKI: It was not
possible to build a bigger
temple than the temple of Hatshepsut, but it was higher. NARRATOR: Hatshepsut's
immense temple took up the
prime spot in the mountain of the Valley of the Kings. So Thutmose the Third built
his temple right next to it,
but in an elevated position. Ancient builders
constructed huge columns on
top of a raised platform. Dr. Szafranski's team has
figured out what this temple
would've looked like and discovered its upper
terrace was 11 feet
higher than Hatshepsut's, a political powerplay
by Thutmose to finally
overshadow his stepmother. DR SZAFRANSKI: It
was better visible, point
number one in the Valley. He wanted this effect. NARRATOR: Thutmose had tried
to upstage Hatshepsut, but
in a twist of fate, ancient earthquakes and
landslides have left his
temple badly damaged. It may never look as
it once did, but Dr.
Szafranski and his team are working to restore
what remains. DR SZAFRANSKI: Today we have
restored temple of Hatshepsut
but after let's say five, ten years we'll have
restored temple of
Thutmose III as well. It's only a matter of time. NARRATOR: In Aswan,
Martina and the team are finishing their
excavations outside the tomb. MARTINA: Tired? (speaking native language). WORKER: No, no, no.
No, no, not tired. NARRATOR: They've managed
to move the bones and
delicate cartonnage into the onsite lab. From studying the decorative
style, Martina believes
these burials dated to a few hundred years before
the time of Hatshepsut, in a period called
the Middle Kingdom. MARTINA: We know that it's
a Middle Kingdom date, the cartonnage was
really well done, it was high quality work,
and we know that they were let's say higher
status persons. NARRATOR: Martina thinks
the child and adult burials
are a family connection to whoever owned the tomb,
but her team must continue to unearth the secrets of
who or what is hidden inside. MARTINA: It's going to
be amazing to see finally
how it looks like. NARRATOR: After a grueling
few days, the team heads
back to the dig house. NARRATOR: In the
quarry at Silsila... JOHN: Ahmed!
AHMED: Yes? NARRATOR: John Ward is still
excavating what could be the remains of one of
Hatshepsut's sphinxes. JOHN: What I've got is
basically a dressed
piece of sandstone, and I can feel a nice
right angle corner here. What I'm hoping actually that
is, is the top part of the
head here, which is missing. One, two, three. Hold, hold, hold, hold. WORKERS: Hold, hold.
Hold! Up! JOHN: And turn him over. Turn him over. Shuay, shuay, shuay. The head of the sphinx. So now we have
a complete sphinx as
far as I'm concerned. Both Maria and I do not
consider this a job, this is
life, Silsila is our life, these guys are our family,
and it's mankind's history. All started here. NARRATOR: After a long,
hot dig, John can finally
show Maria the enormity of what they've unearthed. MARIA: Oh wow. NARRATOR: The abandoned
sphinx statue is
nearly ten feet high. MARIA: Wow!
This is just silly. Why on earth is it still here? NARRATOR: It's the largest
they've seen at the quarry. MARIA: As far as I know there's
no records whatsoever of any unfinished sphinx
that is intact like this. NARRATOR: It's in such good
condition, it's a mystery why this giant statue
was abandoned. It's possible a small
fracture in the stone could
have stopped the work. But John and Maria still
want to find out where this
sphinx was destined to go. JOHN: So we need to now look
at all the sphinxes, the
Sphinx Avenue of Hatshepsut, Karnak's, find out where
we have one of this size. You're looking at over five
ton there, if not more. It really is. MARIA: Wow. NARRATOR: At the magnificent
Karnak Temple, Hatshepsut
began construction of the Avenue of the Sphinxes. Some statues have been
moved, damaged, or
have even disappeared, but hundreds still remain
across the temple site. JOHN: How do you
want to tackle this? NARRATOR: John and Maria
Ward have come to Karnak
to try and find a match for the sphinx they've
discovered back at the quarry. JOHN: Our tail goes
further along the back
paw, then sweeps round. These don't look big
enough at the front. NARRATOR: As well as matching
the style, the couple
is looking for black specks, called "inclusions," within
the sandstone itself. MARIA: If we can find those
black inclusions, the little
black dots, then we know that it's from, most probably
from the same quarry. JOHN: From the
same quarry, hmm. MARIA: And from
the same period. JOHN: I'm not seeing any. MARIA: These so far do
not show any such marks. No, I think we need to
explore a little bit further. NARRATOR: There's no sign of a
matching sphinx on the avenue
outside the temple walls, but hidden inside the temple
they find another style. JOHN: They, they are
different, Maria,
they are different. That haunch... MARIA: Yeah. JOHN: Look at the belly cut. MARIA: I would agree. JOHN: And look, look at
the front, see the, the
girth of the neck... MARIA: I would agree. JOHN: Coming down and
that would, the paws... MARIA: And, and you've
got the black inclusions. JOHN: Black inclusions.
Wow! There we have it! NARRATOR: Although damaged,
the couple is certain these
sphinxes came from Silsila. JOHN: At Silsila they haven't
been finished, they're, they're still in
their raw state. They would've been
transported to here. NARRATOR: The evidence
suggests John and Maria's
sphinx would've made a remarkable journey, carved
out at the quarry... shipped 100 miles down
the Nile and placed
at Karnak Temple. JOHN: I'm feeling very proud,
I feel like a proud father. These are our children,
this is from Silsila. Everything, bit by bit
by bit, has culminated
in this one moment. Bang. The sphinx. NARRATOR: By Hatshepsut's
temple, Dr. Szafranski and the team continue
their excavation. NATALIE: Look at
that treasure, it's
filled with content. DR SZAFRANSKI: And the pot
looks like New Kingdom. NARRATOR: They have unearthed
ancient pottery, and
food buried in the ground. These were gifts to the
gods, offerings made when
the temple was first built. MARIUSZ: It's a very important
piece in this puzzle. NARRATOR: Bit by bit, each of
these small finds is helping to unearth the secrets
of this magnificent site. Dr. Szafranski has dedicated
his life to revealing the
legacy of Hatshepsut, the incredible pharaoh queen. NARRATOR: Hatshepsut was
a leader, a politician,
and a revolutionary the likes of which the
world had never seen. Against all odds, Hatshepsut
rose to become a pharaoh, and through her
magnificent temple, she is remembered once again.
