For more than a millennium, Ancient
Egypt was a lost world. All but forgotten. The remains of this
civilisation built on the banks of the Nile lay buried beneath the
desert sand. To this day, many have yet to
come to light. But archaeologists continue to
uncover more of the Egypt of the Pharaohs, revealing a little more of
its incredible history every day. Thanks to the latest scientific
technology, in physics, genetics and computer imaging, some riddles from
the past are now being solved. One of the biggest mysteries of
Ancient Egypt is the fate of Queen Nefertiti, whose name means
"the beautiful woman has come". She was Pharaoh Akhenaten's
principal wife, and — some say — mother of one of the most famous
pharaohs: Tutankhamun. Her mummy has never conclusively been found, so
the search for her has become a Holy Grail for Egyptologists and feeds
the most contradictory theories. The moment we found out that this
mummy was actually Nefertiti was a big moment in
our research. All the samples they studied
still contained DNA, which I find surprising. It was a very royal city, so it's
certain Nefertiti lived here. The proportions of her face are perfect. She’s probably
the perfect woman. A team of experts follow the traces
of Nefertiti to understand how and where she died, and why this Egyptian
queen has become so legendary. Antonio Fischetti, a doctor of physics
and science reporter, will conduct research in Europe, while Egyptologist
Claudine Le Tourneur d'Ison and science writer Giles Harpoutian
will travel across Egypt in search of Nefertiti. To find out what became of Nefertiti's
mummy, we must first reconstruct the timeline of a history
spanning over 3,500 years. The history of Ancient Egypt. Claudine and Giles meet Egyptologist
Vassil Dobrev who gives us an overview of this
incredible civilisation. 4000 to 5000 years ago, when the
pyramids were built is what we call the Old Kingdom. It was the
great time, when they made the pyramids of Khufu and Khafre the
ones we all know. Around 3,500 years ago, during the Middle Kingdom,
they made pyramids with brick and covered with stone. Then,
around 2500 - 3000 years ago, was the New Kingdom Alexander the Great came in 332
BCE and after his rule, for three centuries, there was Ptolemy,
Cleopatra, Arsinoë, these Greek and Macedonian pharaohs. Nefertiti lived around 1300 BCE.
Claudine and Giles will jump some 3300 years into the past,
to Egypt’s New Kingdom, to try to shed light on her fate. We know that Nefertiti was born in
Luxor, known in antiquity as Thebes. Back then it was the
Egyptian capital. So it’s in this legendary city on the
Nile that Claudine and Giles begin their research into the mystery
of the beautiful Nefertiti. Where was she buried? Why does the
location of her tomb remain unknown? Was her mummy possibly moved? These are the questions the experts
will try to answer. This city in the heart of Egypt, famous for its temple,
whose entrance was once flanked by two obelisks. One still remains. The other now stands on the Place
de la Concorde in Paris. Thebes was one of the biggest
pharaonic capitals. And where we find the first traces of the future
Egyptian queen: Nefertiti. The legend of Nefertiti really
began on December sixth, 1912. On that day, in Amarna in Middle Egypt, the bust of Queen
Nefertiti was discovered. German archaeologist Ludwig Borchardt headed
the excavation of the city that had lain buried for 33 centuries. In the ruins of a sculptor's workshop,
he discovered the magnificent and surprisingly well-preserved bust of
Queen Nefertiti. Now one the world's most famous artifacts, it is displayed
at the Neues Museum in Berlin. The proportions of her face are
perfect. She has a bit of masculinity, especially in the chin, giving her a
slightly androgynous look. And we know this androgynous look is more
seductive than absolute femininity. Whether these traits are really
true to those of the real Nefertiti or not, over a million visitors
rush to the Neues Museum every year to admire her likeness. The bust is
now the emblematic representation of the queen around the world. The experts now know what Nefertiti
looked like. But to help them in their search for her mummy, they need
to learn more about her history. It is vital to reconstruct
her life story and the places where she
lived to unravel the mystery of her final resting place. Nefertiti was born in Thebes, into the
high nobility that ruled Egypt for centuries. Pharaohs weren't just
political leaders, but also the head of a religion with multiple
gods represented in various ways. In modern day Luxor, the famous Karnak
Temples still bear witness to the Egyptians’ reverence to these gods.
Here the experts meet Dimitri Laboury, an Egyptologist who specialises
in Nefertiti’s era. Karnak is a gigantic site of around 50
hectares. It's absolutely gigantic, a paradise for archaeologists, found in
the area of modern-day Luxor. It's a sacred space that goes way beyond the
site of Karnak with sanctuaries in Luxor, Deir el-Bahari and Medinet
Habu. The whole site was sacred for the Ancient Egyptians since the
founding of the city the Greeks named Thebes -- or
Waset in Egyptian — and dates from the
second millennium BCE. It's a very royal city. The king
came here often -- as did his Queen, Nefertiti, whom he married in
the fourth year of his rule. We’re coming to the most sacrosanct
part of the Karnak Temple, the sanctuary, where every pharaoh was
initiated into their role as pharaoh and communication with the god Amun.
Every pharaoh since Thutmose III set foot here. They all walked here,
including Akhenaten It was in Luxor where Nefertiti met
future Pharaoh Akhenaten, whom she later married. The couple worshipped
in the Karnak Temple, but so far, their mummies haven’t been found here.
Nor is there any indication as to where Nefertiti's tomb might be. So, the experts head
to the site of the palace Nefertiti
occupied near Luxor, to search for clues that might
lead them to the Queen’s mummy. The Egyptian leaders sought calm and
serenity, far from the chaos of the Karnak Temple Complex. For years,
archaeologists searched deserts and fields for Nefertiti's residence. And,
finally, they think they’ve found it: West of Luxor, in Malkata Hello, Professor Lacovara.
Nice to meet you! Peter Lacovara is leading
an excavation on the site. Was it a huge palace? It was huge. It’s bigger than
Buckingham Palace; it’s bigger than the White House. It
covers an area — all the enclosures — it’s
about 150 by 100 meters. So, a huge area. Very often we
have the kings kind of founding these palaces outside, near the royal city, near the capital — say, Thebes
— but nearby, like Versailles. We know a lot about the decoration
of the palace because it seems it collapsed, perhaps during a rainstorm.
And so, much of the painting on the ceiling and the floor got preserved
-- not so much on the walls. But we know it was very decorative. One of the reasons that we’re trying
so hard to protect and preserve Malkata is that it’s the
last of these royal cities that’s sort
of in its original landscape. If you go to other royal
cities like Amarna or Deir el-Ballas, they’re being encroached by the
modern town. So, fortunately, Malkata is a little bit off
in the desert, so you can get an idea of how
it originally appeared. Peter Lacovara's excavation gives us
a pretty good idea what Nefertiti's palace and its
environment looked like. Meanwhile, Antonio is in northern
France to learn about the palace’s interior, notably its wealth of
decorative elements. This engineer and Egyptophile has
made a 3D model of it. How exactly did you make a
3D version of this palace? We used archaeological sources
and documentation we were given. Excavation manager Peter Lacovara
provided us with the plans he reconstructed. From that and some
small decorative elements, we were able to model the
whole building in 3D. First, we made an aerial view of
the whole thing, then we set about reconstructing the hall of columns
that leads to the throne room. We constructed this colonnade from
elements found on site. The overall blueprint of the room as well as the
limestone bases of the columns. However, the rest of the columns
were wooden, so now, it's a complete reconstruction. The wood on the trunk
of the columns was painted red. The tops, or capitals, had plant
motifs and were brightly coloured. Can you imagine Nefertiti
living in this palace? Absolutely. Nefertiti likely
lived here in her youth. So if we can assume that Nefertiti was
indeed born in Thebes, might she also have died there? Could her mummy still be there? Where
should we start looking? In the fourth year of his rule,
Nefertiti's husband Akhenaten turned his land upside down. The king
revolutionised Egypt’s traditional religion, imposing veneration of just
one god: Aten, the god of the sun Would you say that this is
the birthplace of Atenism? Absolutely, we're here in a temple
that was redecorated by Ramses II, around a century after Akhenaten, but
in all likelihood, it's here where Atenism, or the first ideas that led
to Atenism, began. It was here that Akhenaten built a temple dedicated
to his new protective deity, the sun god who would only become the god
Aten once we're on the other side of that door, outside the temple complex. Egyptians’ polytheistic religion — in
which they worshipped many deities — was replaced by a
monotheistic one: Atenism. In a collapsed Karnak temple,
archaeologists discovered wall fragments dedicated to Aten. These
sculpted stones reveal the rising adoration of the sun god.
They also demonstrate Egypt's prosperity during Nefertiti’s time. A wealth derived from living near
the Nile and its fertile shores. While excavating the fortifications
around the Karnak temple complex, archaeologists discovered the
foundations of a ruined and hitherto unknown temple. It didn't
even appear on official maps. Claudine and Giles learn that much
evidence linked to Akhenaten and Nefertiti, including fragments of
monumental statues, were found here. Though nothing is left on site today.
They must dig deep into the history of these temples to find out more about
Nefertiti, the queen at the heart of a cultural and religious
upheaval in Egypt. Back to Europe. The Archéovision lab
is based in Bordeaux, France. Here, archaeologists and graphic designers
combine their skills to create 3D models of famous lost temples. This
helps us understand Nefertiti's living environment at
the time and the previously unknown rituals
dictated by the new religion. In the 1920s, archaeologists working
to the east of Karnak were lucky to find a few rare vestiges of the
temples dedicated by Akhenaten What did they find? The bases of
pillars with lower sections of walls. And, above all, stunning idols in the
image of Akhenaten. They showed his emaciated face, prominent stomach and
large thighs and legs -- something that shocked everybody. And they
knew it was Akhenaten. That gave us the first indications
that the king had indeed built to the
east and that this sector had the first
temples dedicated to Aten. Bit by bit, we began to better
understand the temples built to the east, because we started discovering
the walls. Often even in the unearthed decoration, we have
Egyptian images of the temples as they were at the time.
So it's precious. The new religion introduced by
Akhenaten and Nefertiti produced unprecedented Egyptian art. For the
first time, these works presented realistic images of the
pharaohs, now considered to be part of the sun god’s family. When you look at representations of
the Nefertiti-Akhenaten couple, you are surprised to see the degree of
intimacy throughout, these natural gestures that you don't find
anywhere else in Egyptian art. It's true that this
is one of the rare periods where you can
see a couple touching or hugging one another. We even
have Nefertiti stealing a kiss from Akhenaten as she puts a necklace on
him. And it's astonishing. What we're seeing is the appearance of what I
would call a new liturgy. The cult was no longer about gods, but the king.
The life of the king became a permanent ritual: his movements
when he got up or when he ate. It was similar in Versailles with the Sun
King, where -- as was etiquette — every moment of the king's
life was ritualised. This cult of personality
is doubtless at the heart of the Nefertiti legend.
The queen embodied the word of the king, who gave her a powerful
position in the kingdom. But while she had
great influence in this new society, our
experts can't find a trace of what could be her tomb at
Karnak. So which event in Nefertiti's life could provide them
with a promising clue? Surely the one that turned her
fate upside down? Her husband, Akhenaten, decided to create a new
capital for Egypt, fully dedicated to the religion of the sun god.
They had to erect a palace which would be
the seat of his residence. The king decided to build a city
totally dedicated to Aten. A city where he would be at the centre. The
untouched site of Amarna was chosen for the job. It's one of the first
times in Ancient Egypt that sacred constructions were built
on virgin territory. Going up the Nile, to the heart of the
country, Akhenaten chose a vast plain next to the desert. The Pharaoh was in
the fifth year of his reign and wanted to make his mark by building a new
Egypt. It's here, in Amarna, that the vestiges of his new capital would be
rediscovered thousands of years later, buried in the desert sand. Amarna is exciting and original
because it was a new city. All the restoration work we can do on the
city helps us to understand the architecture. The vestiges of
the floor plans that remain, give us accurate ideas about
the measurements. So we know more or less the dimensions
to work with on the ground. Thanks to their precision, modern
technologies are very important as they allow us to
recreate the past in ever greater detail.
This could give our experts new leads in the search for
Nefertiti's tomb and her mummy. Akhenaten and Nefertiti moved into a
vast residence in Amarna. It was here that Akhenaten’s son, the future
king Tutankhamun, was born. The scenes on these remains portray
the reverence for the royals. But the reality is more complex. Clay tablets
from the time reveal that Egypt’s international relations
were complicated. Perhaps Nefertiti and Akhenaten didn't reign as easily as
they'd hoped in Amarna. To better understand their downfall,
Antonio is in Paris to meet François Tonic, a journalist
specialising in Egyptology. The royal couple of Akhenaten and
Nefertiti lived in their own world. They didn't tread on unsacred ground.
When they travelled, it was certainly in chariots. They only set foot on the
floors of palaces or temples. To say they were loved by the
people isn’t certain. Why and how was Amarna destroyed? And who erased all the
references to the god Aten? It’s believed that the successors of
Tutankhamun — in particular, Seti I and Ramses II — systematically
destroyed all the temples. They, more or less, systematically chiselled away the images of Aten Akhenaten
his queen and his children. Why didn't Akhenaten’s
successors stay in Amarna? It’s thought the failure of the
Akhenaten project led to the city’s downfall and the move from Amarna
back to Luxor. This happened very soon after the death of the king and
his successor, and the city wasted away which is how almost all the
temples were destroyed so quickly. The city was made of bricks, and
crude bricks at that. With the wind and rain, all traces of
life and the city vanished. But dignitaries of the Akhenaten
regime still believed in the future of Amarna, as can be seen in the tombs
they made. These marked a change in Egyptian funerary architecture. Egyptians had for a long time made
tombs in the pyramids, and now they built them into the rock. How
were these new tombs dug? We have a change of religion that was
reflected in funerary customs and the way kings were entombed. We've gone from the pyramid, which
is a sun-based concept to a more underground one. With notions of the
afterlife and subterranean worlds. And the royal tombs of the New
Kingdom, which are in the Valley of the Kings, mirror these new rites and
writings. The walls were engraved with these new sacred books in which
we have the deceased passing into the underworld and all the dangers
they must overcome to live again when the sun is reborn. To find Nefertiti's grave, the experts
now know they need to look for a tomb dug into the rock. And, in fact,
at the end of the 19th century, archaeologists found
in the cliffs of a plunging valley east
of Amarna, several openings leading to tombs. One of
these was identified as having temporarily housed Akhenaten's corpse. At Amarna, Egyptologist Marc Gabolde
spent several years mapping the royal necropolis. He suspects that certain
tombs could have housed other members of Akhenaten's family.
So could Nefertiti's mummy be hidden here? I wanted to try to shed light on the
mystery of where the Egyptians had planned to bury Nefertiti in
this Necropolis. And my current conclusion is that when Nefertiti
died, her place in the royal tomb had not been finished
and they had probably had to bury her a
bit quicker. Nefertiti died a few months
before her husband and was probably buried in the royal tomb.
But where exactly in the royal tomb is hard to say. Marc Gabolde's theory is that
Akhenaten and Nefertiti were buried together in the cliffs of Amarna.
But after the fall of the city,
his son -- the new pharaoh Tutankhamun —
had their mummies moved and interred in the Valley of the Kings. So are Nefertiti’s remains to be
found in the Valley of the Kings, along with those
of her husband? Claudine and Giles decide to pursue
this hypothesis and return to Luxor. At the famous Winter Palace, they
enter the hotel which has welcomed generations of explorers. They all flocked to
the former Egyptian capital in the hopes of
making great discoveries. From the start of the 19th century,
eminent Egyptologists rushed to Luxor to excavate the famous Valley of the
Kings. Old film footage shows the frenetic hunt for buried treasure.
Expeditions to the Valley of the Kings multiplied, and there was a real
rush to unearth the mummies. Egypt became a major destination
for researchers, and many nations financed extremely costly
excavation campaigns. Egyptologists from all over the world
worked in a race against time, to exhume the tombs and objects that
would bring new light to history. We all talk about the Valley of
the Kings. What is it exactly? The Valley of the Kings
is a wadi at least that's what we call it, a wadi. It's a dry valley that
can flood in heavy rain. This wadi, the
Valley of the Kings, is a very isolated valley in the
mountains of Luxor. And it's where the kings would order
their tombs to be dug. Between the Nile
Valley and the desert, hidden in a small
mountain range, lies a labyrinth of rocks and tunnels. Here
more than 60 tombs have been found. They once held the bodies of the
pharaohs and some of their wives. All these tombs have two letters,
K and V, followed by a number. What does that mean? KV means ‘King Valley’ and the
number gives us the order of discovery of these tombs. When we talk
about ‘KV 62’, it's the 62nd tomb discovered in the Valley of the Kings. In 1907, Egyptologist Edward Russell
Ayrton found tomb KV 55. There, he found human remains and objects
proven to come from Amarna. Undoubtedly pillaged several times, this tomb held a sarcophagus with
the name of a king: Akhenaten. This discovery was extraordinary. The
theory that the Pharaoh Akhenaten had been moved from Amarna to the
Valley of the Kings was correct. But there was still no trace
of his wife, Nefertiti. Another tomb also caught the experts’
attention. It’s famous as it belongs Akhenaten's son,
Tutankhamun, who died very young — between
the ages of 17 and 19. We’re here at the heart of
the Valley of the Kings, entering Tutankhamun's tomb. Thanks to the dogged persistence
of Howard Carter, this tomb was discovered in 1922. The British
archaeologist had a hunch that the young Tutankhamun had his own
tomb in the Valley of the Kings. The search for this tomb was an
adventure in itself. Carter had always wanted to dig in the Valley of the
Kings. He didn't have a contract, but he got one. He found a sponsor.
He had many excavations over many years that weren't too fruitful, but
he had an intuition. His intuition was that the now famous King
Tutankhamun -- who nobody knew anything about before the discovery
of his tomb -- had a tomb at the centre of the valley, because some
clues and some tombs that linked to this king were discovered. Thanks to
persistence, persuasion, and of course excavation, in November 1922, they
stumbled on a first step in the sand. And that step led to Tutankhamun's
tomb, the famous KV 62. After years of fruitless searching,
Carter was about to give up when he made a sensational discovery.
Under a heap of rocks, he found a door
which opened onto a long corridor. We're here in the heart of
Tutankhamun's tomb. We're in the antechamber, and here is the room
with the sarcophagus. It's the first undamaged tomb found in the Valley
of the Kings, with many other items. This tomb was originally not intended
for a king as it's much smaller, so we imagine Tutankhamun died quite
young, around 17. He was buried quite quickly, so they used a
tomb that wasn't at all royal. Our experts continue their search for
Nefertiti's tomb and mummy. If she isn't in her husband Akhenaten's
tomb, nor in a still hidden room in Tutankhamun's tomb, might she be in
her own tomb, somewhere else in the Valley of the Kings? In the late 19th century, a French
Egyptologist discovered a tomb — now designated as KV 35 -- that reignited
debate about Nefertiti’s fate. Frenchman Victor Loret, who was
excavating in the Valley of the Kings in 1898/1899, discovered successively
the tombs of Thutmose III, and then Amenhotep II in KV 35. In Amenhotep
II's burial chamber, four annexes were found, two of which were bricked
up. By removing this wall, he discovered a number of mummies. He
noticed very quickly that they were royal mummies. Some of these
mummies have been identified. Notably, there was Thutmose IV
-- Akhenaten's grandfather — and Amenhotep III. Some mummies haven’t
been identified. For example: an ‘Elder Lady’ with long hair; the
‘Younger Lady’, in KV 35, who had quite a disfigured face; and a young
prince. And recently, it’s been suggested that the Younger
Lady is Nefertiti. British Egyptologist Fletcher was
responsible for this spectacular, yet unexpected development in the
Nefertiti mystery. According to her research, the Younger
Lady is Nefertiti. A series of tests was
carried out on this over 3000-year-old corpse. Has
the queen finally been found? The Younger Lady's mummy is in bad
condition, with visible damage dating from antiquity, damage from pillaging.
Her chest was likely smashed to steal amulets found within the body. Some
have suggested that the mummy was mutilated on purpose because it was Nefertiti's. However, we
have no proof of that. The Younger Lady mummy continues to
fuel Egyptologists' imaginations. It’s now carefully preserved in
Cairo's Egyptian Museum. After gathering so much information in
Egypt and Europe, Claudine and Giles travel to Cairo to continue their
search at the Egyptian Museum. There they have an appointment
with Egyptologist Vassil Dobrev. Nefertiti had surely been
mummified following a ritual reserved for royals. They want to
find out more about this tradition We're in the Mummies Room at
Cairo’s Egyptian Museum. I don't know if it's fascinating or
frightening. It makes an impression. Why did Egyptians mummify their
kings, their royal families? In Ancient Egypt, they didn't say
people died. They said their breath left them. So to allow the breath to
come back later, so the pharaoh, in this case Ramses could live again,
their bodies had to be mummified. Therefore, the breath
could return to the body. He will
revive, but of course there are formulas, there are many
things to do beforehand. Magic oils and all of that. He'll
come back to life, so he needs a body.
In our religion, we say your soul leaves your body.
They don't. They ascend into heaven with their bodies to join their
father, Ra, the creator. So here we have Ramses
the Great, according to what is written,
as these mummies were not found in tombs, but in a hiding
place. These mummies, and a whole series of others were in hiding
places. They were hidden. Taken out of their tombs.
Then the priests of the time established it was Ramses:
Ramses the Great. To discover a mummy’s history, we need
to uncover its secrets. One of the most useful tools for
this is genetic analysis. In Bolzano, at the
foot of the Italian Alps, is a laboratory
that’s transformed the world of Egyptology. Geneticist Albert Zink, Director of
the Institute for Mummy Studies, has analysed numerous mummies in Egypt,
including the famous Younger Lady. So, is she Nefertiti? What
did the DNA reveal? Here, for the mummy of the Younger
Lady, we were able to obtain samples. We could use a very small biopsy
needle to obtain samples from the long bones -- especially here, from
this area of the upper arm, but also the same from the leg bones.
We were able to obtain different,
small bone samples, because we intended not to damage
the mummy too much. But we could get good quality bone samples from
inside of the bones. And late in the analysis, in the lab,
it turned out that there was still DNA still
preserved in the samples. The moment we found out that this
mummy was actually the mother of King Tutankhamun was a big moment
in our research. Because it took us many months to set up everything, to
do this analysis, to overcome the inhibition problem. And then, finally,
we got these very important results. The identity of the Younger Lady is
in no doubt for Albert Zink. He’s convinced: she’s the mother
of Tutankhamun. Nefertiti. If Professor Zink's analysis is
correct, the mission is complete. However, Antonio wants another
scientific opinion. So he’s heading to the paleogenetic laboratory at
the Musée de l'Homme, in Paris. How can genetics help
archaeologists and Egyptologists? Genetics is the study of DNA. We’re
very lucky as DNA is a molecule that endures over the centuries. The
problem is it does degrade. No molecule is eternal and it degrades
over time. The older a person or sample, the harder
it is to find DNA. And there are environmental
factors, too. In the case of Egyptian mummies, like
the Younger Lady, which date from several thousand years ago,
is the DNA still useable It's an extremely hot climate. Not the
ideal conditions for DNA preservation. So if DNA is there,
it’s surely cut into minute fragments and
hard to analyse. But Albert Zink says
the Younger Lady was analysed under the
best possible conditions. The mummy of the Younger Lady was
displaced from her original tomb and the mummy was manipulated since
antiquity by many different people. On one hand, the embalmers who
prepared the mummy; on the other hand, grave robbers who get in
contact with the mummy. And finally, also the scientists and archaeologists
who have studied the mummy since it was found. So there was a lot of
contact from people that left their DNA traces on the mummy.
And we had to make sure that we
don’t analyze the contamination, the surface part of
the mummy, but we went inside the mummy. We took biopsy needles, small
needles, to get a sample from inside of the bones, to avoid having
to analyze the surface of the mummy. And in addition, we took several
samples of the mummy, from different parts of the mummy body, in order to
compare the results and make sure that, in the end, we have
the authentic, ancient DNA of the Younger Lady and
not any modern contamination. What we could show is, based on the
genetic fingerprinting, that the Younger Lady is the mother of King
Tutankhamun. And we could also identify, with the same
method, that Akhenaten is the father of Tutankhamun. After weeks of research and thousands
of kilometres of travel through Egypt and Europe, Claudine, Giles and
Antonio have followed all the known traces and clues about Nefertiti. And
they might even have found her: The Younger Lady mummy could be Nefertiti. Still, some Egyptologists
propose other theories and continue
to look for the remains of the legendary Queen. Over
3000 years after her death, the beautiful Egyptian still fascinates
specialists and the public alike. Nefertiti is one of the most
emblematic figures of ancient Egypt. A great and powerful Egypt replete with
architectural wonders, the cult of pharaohs, a new religion
and amazing artworks.
The beautiful one has come!
That bust Is incredible.