The "Third Pyramid" Finally Open! MENKAURE Exploration 2024 | Giza, Egypt

hello everyone today we're going back to the most famous Egyptian necropolis which is famous for its two great pyramids kufus and CFR but today we'll focus on the third pyramid I'm going to take you to the Pyramid of man each time I visited Egypt it was closed but it finally opened to the public but as you know filming in Giza isn't easy but still I'll take my camera with me and let's see what happens mana's so-called third pyramid is in fact only the sixth largest in Egypt it gave way not only to its neighbors but also to the pyramids in dhur including the so-called Black Pyramid of Aman mhad III from the 18th century BC I'll show you rare footage and present lesser known facts not only will I tell you about the pyramid itself self its complex and discoveries but we'll also go inside let's [Music] go the oldest mention of the pyramid comes from the Greek historian from the 5th Century BC Herodotus who wrote in his work histories and this King also left a pyramid though considerably smaller than his father's each side of it is 20 ft shorter than three plethora it's also quadrangular and half built of Ethiopian [Music] Stone another Greek historian theodoros culus wrote in the 1st Century BC although it was inferior in size to its predecessors it surpassed them in skill and luxury of stone the north side of the pyramid was inscribed that it was built by merinos unlike the Great Pyramid of kufu the Pyramid of Mana wasn't accessible to ancient Travelers as in the Pyramid of cfre the entrance was much closer to the ground stripped of its facing covered with debris and sand blown by the Desert Wind the entrance was rediscovered only in the 19th century this characteristic Hall on the Northern wall of the pyramid was made in 1835 by the Italian explorer Giovani Batista cavia of course by the use of gunpowder he started looking for the entrance to the pyramid in this place due to to a large gap that had previously existed there the crack was probably a Remnant after the famous beloni who had previously been the first to get inide cfra pyramid and who abandoned his search while working on the Manco pyramid due to lack of funds the discovery of the entrance was finally made by the British general and politician Howard Vice in 1837 [Music] years of destruction of the pyramid were fit for nothing as Vice discovered the entrance 13 ft below this terrible Hall interestingly Vice had no plans to make any discoveries he'd come to Egypt as a tourist just 2 years earlier the discovery of the entrance certainly saved the pyramid because Vice like Bon and cavia before him had been using gunpowder to create a long tunnel inside the pyramid to get his way into the peral [Music] chamber the entrance passage leads to the first chamber carved in the Rock the so-called panel chamber contains decorative niches on the walls it measures three by 3.5 [Music] M at its South End we see a granite framed doorway leading to a smaller Port CIS chamber with huge vertical blocks of granite that once blocked the corridor to subsequent Chambers the robbers simply avoided these obstacles by carving out a Corridor surrounding the port CIS [Music] chamber we are now in a high Corridor leading to the largest chamber in the pyramid the upper chamber it measures approximately 14 by 4 M it was here in 1837 that Vice found a broken wooden anthropomorphic coffin with the name manira of course there were no anthropomorphic coffins in the Old Kingdom the one found was placed inside the pyramid 2,000 years after mana's death probably during the 26th s Dynasty as we know in the late period the legendary rulers of the Old Kingdom were particularly revered perhaps it was a symbolic reburial of the Pharaoh whose remains had previously been destroyed by tomb [Music] robbers interestingly human remains initially attributed to Mana were found in the upper chamber the bones were examined using the radiocarbon method they come from late Antiquity and probably belonged to a tomb robber who never left the pyramid so it also became his [Music] tomb we are now 15 M below the pyramid's ground level and finally reach the lower chamber built entirely of precisely fitted blocks of granite the chamber is 6.5 M long and 2.5 M wide it was in this chamber that Vice found a beautifully decorated granet or buled sarcophagus without a lid which for unknown reasons was in the upper [Music] [Music] chamber [Music] he found no hieroglyphs on the empty sarcophagus only Arabic graphity written in chalk we know what the sarcophagus looked like thanks to detailed drawings by the discoverers as the sarcophagus was lost on the way to England it went under with the ship beatric somewhere in the western part of the Mediterranean Sea where it's still waiting to be [Music] discovered as you can see the stone slabs were removed from the floor by treasure Hunters originally the chamber was like one large casket made of red granite the burial chamber is quite small uh but the pyramid itself is also small compared to its neighbors the burial chamber is like a compact Granite box protecting a circum in times when copper tools were used these enormous Granite blocks uh were impossible to break through by robbers moreover all the pyramids were guarded [Music] constantly [Music] on our way back to the upper chamber we come across the entrance to the so-called Niche chamber a Mysterious Room that may have served as a food storage for the deceased Pharaoh as you can see the chamber is closed to visitors [Music] man means Eternal as the soul of Rah this is the name of the fifth or sixth pharaoh of the fourth Dynasty he was probably the son of cafre and Queen H nepti the first like his father Mano married his own sister Kara nepti II he reigned from 18 to 22 years there's no certainty because the famous turine King list is damaged exactly in the place with this [Music] [Music] information in fact apart from his names buildings and appearance he left behind many sculpted images we know little about manira o it's high time to get some fresh air on the Western Wall around the entrance to the pyramid there's a marked contrast between a fragment of the carefully dressed surface of the graned casing and the remaining raw blocks the entire cover would probably have been smothered out if and Kira had lived longer also the unfinished pyramid Temple we'll see in a moment indicates that the Pharaoh didn't live long enough to complete his burial complex today five to eight lower rows of granite outer blocks remain in place originally there were 16 to 18 rows traveler accounts from the early modern period confirm that still in the 16th century most most of the Granite facing was on the walls of the [Music] pyramid the greatest merits in destroying the pyramids were made by the 12th century Sultan of Egypt Al aizman son of the famous Saladin in his times The Red Pyramid as it was called in the Middle Ages and other pyramids were considered anti- Delian structures monuments of idolators that cast a Sinister shadow on the capital of the iubit sultanate Cairo the attempt to dismantle the Great Pyramid ended in Failure so the sultan took on the smallest of the pyramids and achieved partial success within 8 months he managed to remove some of the blocks on the Northern wall of the pyramid big changes await the Mana pyramid in the near future Egypt's gift to the world in the 21st century or project of the century this is what the Secretary General of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities Dr Mustafa waziri called the initiative which starts this year the project of Egyptian and Japanese archaeologists involves restoring the pyramid to its original state reinstalling hundreds of granite blocks that once formed its outer casing the Reconstruction involves using only the original blocks currently scattered around the pyramid as well as those buried around its base however this isn't an EAS task some of the stones originally belonged to the pyramid Temple or were part of the ramp used in its [Music] construction the project is to last 3 years and during the extraction of buried blocks archaeologists hope to make many new discoveries so this was perhaps the last chance to freely film the smallest of the three pyramids as you know in Egypt there's a strict ban on filming sites excavated by archaeologists perhaps during my next visit the pyramid will be [Music] unrecognizable built of limestone it originally reached 125 cubits in height which equals 2 65.5 M it's currently 61 M high and its base is 102 by 104 m ancient sources say although much smaller the pyramid was the most beautiful besides its lower part covered with a precious covering of red Aswan granite a typical facing made of Tura Limestone was placed about 34s of the way up the pyramid the turak query located approximately 30 km east of Giza provided the finest and whest Limestone used for facing the walls of the pyramids and the richest mastabas of the Old Kingdom them what distinguishes the Mana pyramid is the pyramid Temple directly adjacent to its eastern wall it was designed for the offering service of the King after his death mana's pyramid Temple was discovered by Howard Vice while he was still searching for the entrance to the pyramid however he didn't decide to excavate the site the temple was substantially buried by sand and debris until 1906 when American archaeologists led by George Ryner began to clean it of course the temple was never completely buried today you only need to look at these massive walls to realize which Limestone blocks have been exposed to Desert Winds for thousands of years the lowest parts are the best preserved where even today traces of tools used by the ancient Egyptians are [Music] visible some of the limestone blocks are huge especially those forming the skeleton of the temple weighing even over a 100 tons the largest block weighs about 220 tons the blocks of local Limestone still so impressive to us today were covered with fine Limestone or [Music] Granite Mana probably managed to complete the Limestone walls of the temple and began to cover them with granite however the finishing of the temple is attributed to his successor and probably son shepas sheps esav who reigned at the turn of the 26th and 25th centuries BC used much weaker materials such as mad brick to complete the temple so we have many contrasts here gigantic precisely human blocks adjoin a brick wall covered with white Blaster interestingly it was Shep sesa who broke with the family tradition of Royal burials in Giza this probably the last ruler of the fourth Dynasty built his tomb in southern Sakura and it wasn't a pyramid but a large Stone mastaba today called in Egypt Maat Lon which simply means the pharaoh's mastaba I tried very hard to show it to you but access to it is still prohibited maybe next [Music] time we don't know what motivated shapes to move to Sakara was it about the closeness of the pyramids of sneu in dhur the founder of the fourth Dynasty who was also the greatest pyramid Builder if so why did shepas build a maaba for himself what's certain is that sheps esa's successors followed in his footsteps by building their pyramids also in Sakara which again became the most important necropolis of Memphis in the times of the fifth and six dynasties the western part of the temple adjacent to the pyramid wall is the best preserved you can wander around its Chambers it gives the impression of a small Labyrinth this part of a temple was covered by sand and debris for thousands of years and SE very good condition [Music] one of the corridors catches my attention the black granite lining has survived in very good condition the Precision with which the blocks were fitted together over 4 and a half thousand years ago is [Music] astonishing [Music] undressed front edges are the characteristic feature for some alternative researchers this is evidence of unknown today ancient techniques of softening or melting Granite most likely however this was a way to protect delicate edges during construction only were they smoothered when the walls were finished it's also another example of postponing conr construction Works perhaps due to Mona's [Music] death as you can see the there is a Causeway stretching far to the east it leads to the now non-existent manra Valley [Music] Temple the satellite pyramids are classified as g3a g3b and g3c these are probably the burial places of the royal wives of manira the westernmost pyramid g3c is definitely in the worst condition a participant in Napoleon's expedition to Egypt engineer and scientist Jean Marie Joseph Cel initiated the dismantling of the pyramid in the hope of discovering an intact tomb in side fortunately he gave up after removing the upper part sadly prompted by the reach interior of the kufu pyramid ancient researchers looked for hidden corridors and Chambers in the course of the pyramids not knowing that the Great Pyramid is an exception in Giza and all other pyramids have burial Chambers below the level of the [Music] base the g3c and g3b pyramids are built of large blocks in a stepped form and according to some researchers they are today only the thre level cores of the former classic [Music] pyramids each of the pyramids had its own small temple built of mudbricks their Discoverer George Ryner wrote Every tomb private or Royal contained an offering place on the Valley site that's toward the inhabited fields in tombs on the East Bank of the river the offering place was on the west side of the Tomb while on the Western Bank as at Giza it was on the east side in the little mud and Rubble Graves of poor men in the north of the plateau the offering place was only a small niche in the eastern wall I must admit that this is one of my favorite places in Giza there are simply no tourists on the southern site of the manira complex just these three impressive structures and the [Music] desert Manco reigned during the era of the Great Pyramids the Golden Age of the fourth Dynasty and must have been the most powerful men of his time so popular that Herodotus praised his rule 2,000 years [Music] later then the king of Egypt according to the priests was marinus son of kops he wasn't happy with his father's Deeds he opened the temples and freed the tra trouble warn people letting them go to work in their fields and offer sacrifices he was the most righteous judge of all the kings for which he is especially praised by the Egyptians among all the kings who ever ruled over them also a forementioned diodoros cus wrote about menoa he is sad to have hated the cruelty of his predecessors and sought to leave in peace doing good deeds to his people and doing many other things that would have made the Common People favor him to the world however manira is most famous for his magnificent tomb which complement the landscape of the royal necropolis of Memphis which during the fourth dynasty was Giza with the Great Pyramids of his father and grandfather thank you for watching if you enjoyed this video please subscribe to my channel like my video and leave a comment below special thanks to all my patrons thank you very much you are the best if you want to help me continue this please join my patreon community link below the description or support me by sending super thanks here I'd like to give a shout out to my patrons thank you so much without you it wouldn't be possible and if you're new here I recommend you to watch my videos from Egypt Turkey Greece Italy and Malta and don't forget to subscribe to my channel to be up to dat with new [Music] episodes and see you on another ancient [Music] side a

Channel: Ancient Sites Girl

Views: 107,213

Keywords: pyramids of egypt, ancient egypt, egypt, great pyramid, giza plateau, valley of the kings, valley of the kings egypt, valley of the kings tour, history channel, ancient egypt documentary, egypt documentary, the Valley of the Kings, the greatest egyptian tomb, pharaohs, Zahi Hawass, egyptology, egyptologist, ancientsites, ancient history, lost treasures of egypt, full documentary, history documentary, Giza, sphinx, great pyramids of egypt, nat geo, history for granite

Id: oFXskcmd4IQ

Length: 26min 22sec (1582 seconds)

Published: Sat Mar 02 2024