(gentle music) - [Mahmoud] Today, the Valley of the Kings is one of the most visited touristic sites in the world.
But 3,500 years ago, the ambience was really quite different, it was incredibly quiet.
This silence was only disturbed by events like the funeral of Tutankhamun.
And 100 years ago, Howard Carter's excavations also happened here in complete silence, and these two events is where our journey lies.
- [Yasmin] Being in the Valley of the Kings now when it's so empty, feels so spiritual.
(door clanking) - [Mahmoud] I think it's best if we switch on some of the lights.
- Yeah.
I've never entered the tomb of Tutankhamun in the dark.
- Me neither, but this, where we're standing right here, this is where the little boy found the steps in the rock.
And he went and told Howard Carter, "Come check this out, I found something."
After weeks of work, he reaches the final seal of the tomb, and he would've drilled a hole in the wall here just to take a peek and see what's inside.
He let in a candle from the hole, and Lord Carnarvon asked him, "What can you see?"
- And he said, "Wonderful things."
- [Mahmoud] And they truly were.
- [Yasmin] King Tutankhamun was a king who ruled Egypt from 1332 to 1323 B.C.
- It's the 18th dynasty, which is the climax of the New Kingdom, King Tut lies right in the middle of it.
And here, the room of gold, the room where all the magic was.
Ah, look at the funerary texts.
Oh, it's beautiful.
The moment you walk in here, you're being bombarded with clues that something was not okay with this burial.
Already here, these wings are reworked.
They were trying to hide something.
- There are so many theories about who was actually ruling, who were his allies, who were his enemies?
Why did he die so young?
- And let's not also forget that King Tut was born into a very tumultuous time in ancient Egyptian history.
Was he murdered?
Did he die in an accident?
So many unanswered questions.
- My quest for the 100th anniversary is to explore all the different theories about his life and death and reveal more about him as a king and as a person.
(powerful music) (gentle music) (car horns honking) I'm Dr. Yasmin El Shazly, I'm an Egyptologist.
I studied Egyptology as an undergraduate at the American University in Cairo and then I went to the United States to do my master's and PhD at Johns Hopkins University.
(gas burner clicking) - I'm Mahmoud Rashad.
I'm a filmmaker and an independent Egyptologist.
I was born and raised here in Cairo, and then I went to college in New York.
And I think being into Egyptology helped me a lot to retain my identity in a way.
I want to be the link between the academics and the public when it comes to ancient Egypt.
- [Yasmin] For me, as an Egyptian, I feel it is extremely important to contribute to the study of this great civilization because Egyptians have not been very well represented in the field.
(gentle music) We're going to Rashad's place.
I'm going to pick him up and go to the Egyptian Museum.
(gentle music) (car horns honking) Non-Egyptians who have never been to Egypt before, one of their first comments when they go to the pyramids is that they never thought there would be buildings around close to the pyramids and people living nearby.
- Most think it is only Pharaonic dynastic, but there is so much more history than that.
There's the Coptic era, the Islamic era, and even our contemporary history is very rich.
(Mahmoud speaking foreign language) (Yasmin speaking foreign language) - [Yasmin] It's such an old museum, you feel like you're breathing in history.
(Mahmoud speaking in foreign language) - [Mahmoud] It's different, a different experience.
- [Yasmin] Definitely.
(gentle music) (car horns honking) (gentle music) My favorite museum in the world.
- [Mahmoud] Right?
(Mahmoud speaking foreign language) (Yasmin speaking foreign language) - But today we have Tut's exhibition all to ourselves with Dr. Waziri.
- Yes.
- I can't wait.
- I can't wait either.
- I can't wait to take pictures, right?
- Yes.
(gentle music) - We are here as special access to visit the museum.
You will visit and enjoy all the masterpieces of the "boy king", Tutankhamun while nobody is disturbing you.
Dr. Mostafa Waziri, I'm the head of antiquities all over Egypt, the Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities.
We are alone.
- In the room.
- In the room.
- With him.
- [Yasmin] Incredible.
- [Mostafa] With the most famous pieces all over the world.
Look at the masterpiece.
- [Yasmin] It's incredible.
And I never tire of looking at it.
- [Mahmoud] It never gets old.
- [Yasmin] It never does.
- [Mahmoud] I never gets old.
(gentle music) - If you did ask any foreigner, "What do you know about Egypt?"
He would say only two words, pyramids, and of course, Tutankhamun.
- There has always been an immense amount of interest in ancient Egypt globally.
But I think finding this tomb, and in particularly, this mask, sparked a new era in Egyptomania and Egyptology worldwide.
- [Yasmin] Yes, why is it Tutankhamun that sparks this?
- [Mahmoud] Yeah, what is the significance?
- [Yasmin] There were other significant discoveries- - [Mahmoud] Yes.
- Listen to this.
64 tombs in the Valley of the Kings.
What is the only tomb which was discovered almost intact?
- [Yasmin] Tutankhamun.
- Tutankhamun.
- [Yasmin] Yes.
- With those 5,398 pieces, and most of them are gold.
- So Dr. Waziri, do we owe Howard Carter everything that we have of King Tut today?
- To be honest, for the good luck of Howard Carter.
This is the right answer of your question.
(gentle music) Howard Carter, who's spent almost seven years searching to find the tomb of Tutankhamun, but he did not.
In an unexpected way, he start looking at this even stone and it was the first step of 16 steps.
Even the discovery, it was pure coincidence and lucky.
Thank God that we have all those beautiful pieces of Tutankhamun and we have them in our hand.
(Mahmoud speaking foreign language) (Yasmin speaking foreign language) - Dr. Mostafa, so what do you personally think about Tutankhamun as a king?
Was he the one making all the decisions?
Was he a strong king?
- Was he perfect?
He was not.
Was he a guy who used to give decisions, orders?
I don't think.
But he was king, of course he was a king.
(ethereal music) Tutankhamun, he was not important king because it's short period.
He was, yeah, a little boy.
He did not do any kind of achievements, he was just a child.
But did the people believe in him, of course they believed in him.
- Thank you.
- I'll see you very soon.
- See you very soon.
- Okay.
Bye-bye, enjoy it.
- Bye.
(ethereal music) (camera shutter clicking) That was an incredible experience.
- It was brilliant, and I took so many good pictures I can't wait to send them to you.
- Yes, I can't wait to see them.
- I want to start King Tut's story, but we cannot start his story without looking into his background, without meeting his family first.
- Tutankhamun's period was very important in ancient Egyptian history because his father was Akhenaten who was a very controversial figure in Egyptian history.
He revolutionized ancient Egyptian religion and art.
But Tutankhamun's mother is a big question.
Until recently, most scholars believed that it was Kiya, one of Akhenaten's wives.
Lately scholars have been arguing that it was very possibly Nefertiti.
- [Mahmoud] I love this statue.
- [Yasmin] Yes, it's a gorgeous statue.
- And I love how Amenhotep III, after generations of kings not highlighting their queens, he comes and puts his queen right next to him.
Akhenaten is the son of Amenhotep III.
Amenhotep III is, arguably, the best and most successful pharaoh that ever ruled Egypt.
(somber music) - Egypt was polytheistic and so there were several gods with their own temples and their own priests, but the chief god, the state god, was Amun-Re and his temples were the wealthiest in all the land.
The priests had a lot of power, especially the priests of Amun, and for a long time they sort of worked together with the king, but we do know various points in Egyptian history the priests got too strong and the kings became weaker.
And so this was a moment of redressing the balance.
- I know that we have very little records on this.
I think the priesthood was starting to become too powerful during Amenhotep III's reign.
- Yes, that's what many Egyptologists believe, and that the priesthood of Amun was becoming increasingly powerful and that this is what led to the change of the religion.
The Aten was becoming increasingly important under Amenhotep III, but Akhenaten took it to an extreme and the Aten was elevated from a minor god to the supreme god under Akhenaten.
- As Akhenaten followed what his father did, there was a political reason for that.
That was to take power away from the priests of Amun who had been given entirely too much.
So what Akhenaten did was, in a way, just take this to a logical conclusion.
- [Mahmoud] And then during Akhenaten's reign he moves the capital to Amarna.
- He moved the capital to Amarna, which is a city that was never the capital of Egypt before.
It's in Middle Egypt, which is an odd place to have a capital.
- And Amarna is where King Tut was born.
- Probably, given that most Egyptologists believe that Akhenaten was the father of Tutankhamun, then he would've probably been born in Amarna.
The history is like a big puzzle.
- It is.
- We keep finding pieces.
- It is.
- And we try to fill the gaps.
- It is, it is.
I think Amarna should be our next stop.
I've never been there.
- I love Amarna, it's- - Have you been there before?
- I've been there before, it's amazing.
But before then I would like to go and see Dr. Fayza Haikal, my mentor.
- I'd love to see her.
- Yeah, she's amazing.
- Let's go.
- Let's go.
(car horns honking) We are now leaving the Egyptian Museum and meeting Dr. Fayza Haikal in the Geographic Association of Egypt.
Doctor, have you ever been here before?
I've never been.
- [Fayza] No, I don't recall.
Yeah, I mean, maybe long time ago, but, I don't recall.
- I've never been here before, but it's beautiful.
- Yeah, it's absolutely gorgeous.
- I love how- Because in films usually we only speak about Pharaonic Egypt, but there's so much more to Egypt than the Dynastic Age.
- [Yasmin] Definitely.
- [Mahmoud] And this place is part of that.
- My name is Fayza Haikal, I am a Professor Emerita in Egyptology at the American University in Cairo.
- It's been 100 years since Howard Carter found Tut's tomb and we both felt like the whole world focuses more on Tut's treasures and the mask and the gold and we really don't know anything about him.
What can you advise us before we go on this journey?
- Well, you know the whole period, the whole Amarna period, is attracting people more than anything else in Egyptology.
- [Mahmoud] Yeah.
- His own story is the result of the fact that he belongs to this period because it is the period of Akhenaten.
Akhenaten is supposed to be the first monotheist in the world.
And he said something that nobody said, he said, "There is no god but this god."
- Dr. Fayza, so if you were to describe Tutankhamun as a king, how would you describe him?
- Being young and king, we are assuming that everybody was deciding for him, et cetera.
However, I think that in antiquity most people died young, so as a young person you had more authority than today.
All I can tell you is that he is more important to us than to ancient Egypt.
He is more important to modern Egypt because of his tomb, that was found in intact, and because it attracts tourists and it attracts money.
So he's not that important as a matter of fact, except that he belongs to this family, which has been considered so important.
- It's always lovely to spend time with you Dr. Haikal (gentle music) We are now leaving Dr. Fayza Haikal and Rashad and I are heading to Tell el-Amarna.
Because Tut was so young when he lost his family and took the throne, he is guided by two elders, Ay and Horemheb, and potentially his mother, who some experts think was Nefertiti.
The question is, did any of them have Tutankhamun's best interest in mind or were their eyes on becoming king themselves?
(gentle music) One thing is for sure, the boy king would soon be at the center of the political and religious battle that started when Akhenaten moved the capital to Amarna.
(birds chirping) So here we are in Tell el-Amarna.
- [Mahmoud] Finally.
- Where Akhenaten established his new capital.
Akhet-Aten, the horizon of the Aten.
He got rid of all the other gods, especially Amun.
- [Mahmoud] Do you think he moved himself here or he was escaping from the pressure of the priesthood of Karnak?
- It is very possible that he was escaping from the pressure because I'm sure the priesthood of Amun was not very happy with his decision and his new revolution.
- Most kings understood that if you control the priests, you control the country because the priests control the people and religion controls people, the temples control the people.
I've read a lot about Akhenaten and I find him a very interesting person, but I sometimes struggle with believing that he did all of that out of faith.
I don't think it was purely faith, I think there was a lot of politics in it.
But I'm so curious to see what was the Aten Cult built on and we have an almost complete version of the "Hymn to the Aten" in Ay's tomb, so let's go check it out.
(gentle music) - Akhenaten's ideology is something that has engendered a great deal of debate.
Was he a religious extremist or was this political?
There must have been some degree of belief in his mind, a strong belief in either the Aten, or himself as a living manifestation of the Aten, that made him go so far in his religious ideas.
- This is Ay's tomb.
- [Yasmin] Yes.
- [Mahmoud] The one that he never used.
- [Yasmin] Yes.
- But we're gonna go see the one at the Valley of the Kings.
- Yes, it's going to be interesting.
- Was mostly why the reason why I wanted us to come here right after the temple, was because of this.
- The "Hymn to the Aten".
- The "Hymn to the Aten".
And this is what Akhenaten based his entire religion on, its this text.
- The text reads, "Unique god, there is none beside him.
You mold the entire earth to your wish.
You and you alone place every man in his place."
It tells us what he thought of the Aten, what kind of god he was, that he was the only god and that he created everything.
- [Mahmoud] But then down here we have, this is Ay himself.
- [Yasmin] Yes, Ay and his wife.
- [Mahmoud] So this is Ay before he becomes king, way before he becomes king.
- [Yasmin] But he was a very important man.
- Ay was a very strong character, who has been there since the time of Amenhotep III.
Ay, who was a military man, but also a priest and the tutor of Tutankhamun.
- But it seems like there was a very intimate relationship between him and Tut.
And that is likely because Ay is the father of Nefertiti.
Given that information, this means that Ay was like a grandfather for King Tut.
But the reason why I love this tomb is because it has the only un-vandalized scene of Akhenaten and- Ah, there it is.
- [Yasmin] Yes, it's a gorgeous scene.
- Akhenaten and Nefertiti giving out gold to distinguished citizens, and Ay would've been here.
- [Yasmin] And this is something he wanted people to see, he was proud of this.
- [Mahmoud] Of course Ay wanted- - [Yasmin] Yes, of course.
- People to see that the king was honoring him- - And I'm sure Akhenaten wouldn't have minded either.
- Well, Akhenaten wanted people to see that his dream was working, his utopia was working, his experiment was working and everything was fine.
- Yeah.
And probably wasn't.
You can't change people's beliefs- - [Mahmoud] And faith overnight.
- [Yasmin] Overnight.
- Overnight, you really cannot.
Let's go check these other tombs out.
A fundamental point in ancient Egyptian religion, the religion of the Aten lacked, it doesn't tell people what's gonna happen when they die.
Things become amiss and Amarna itself becomes amiss.
It seems that the battle for succession has begun even before Tutankhamun was born.
(somber music) - I've never been here before.
- Me neither.
- The royal tomb.
- [Yasmin] It was supposed to be the burial place of Akhenaten.
- [Mahmoud] And his family.
- [Yasmin] And his family.
(footsteps thudding) - But in here we have what could be the very first depiction Tutankhamun.
- Yeah, there's a very hot debate about that.
- Right.
But I've never seen it in person so I really want to go see.
Ah look.
- Yes.
We have some good remains of carvings.
- Well very few.
- [Yasmin] Yeah.
- But this is the temple we were just at, this is the great Aten temple.
- [Yasmin] Yes, open to the sky for the worship of the sun disc.
And you can see the Aten there, spreading its rays.
- [Mahmoud] And it's rising from within the Akhet, which is the name if the city.
- [Yasmin] Yeah, the horizon.
- [Mahmoud] Yeah, it's brilliant.
(gentle music) - Aten became the sole god, the only god in Egypt.
And he was the power behind the sun, and this is why for the first time we see the rays of the sun and the hands of Aten came only to Akhenaten.
That was the biggest mistake.
He did not leave the relation to be directly between the people and Aten (gentle music) - And now this is why we came down here.
This particular scene.
- Very important scene.
- Yeah.
This is the funeral of Meketaten, the second daughter of Akhenaten and Nefertiti.
And Meketaten would be the first victim of that plague.
So we're not exactly sure what happened to Tut's family, however, all the evidence is pointing towards some sort of a plague that broke out.
A lot of the sisters of King Tutankhamun die suddenly, followed by Akhenaten.
This is our relief in question.
- [Yasmin] Yes.
There's a woman carrying a baby.
- [Mahmoud] And he's being fanned, so he's a royal child.
- [Yasmin] Exactly, but the problem is that there are different interpretations and some people interpret this scene to be that she died in childbirth, during childbirth, and that this is her baby.
- And some people say that this is actually her spirit being reborn into the afterlife, but I don't really buy that.
I have a strange feeling this is Tut.
- [Yasmin] I can't say, I can't say.
- More mysteries and riddles around Tut.
- Exactly.
(gentle music) I've been to Amarna several times before, but this time is extra special because of Tutankhamun's 100th anniversary and the story we are trying to tell about Tutankhamun.
- I'm very happy that I got to come to Amarna for the first time with Dr. Yasmin, and it's a very important first stop to our story with Tut.
This is where his story began and I will follow him now to Luxor.
Tutankhamun suddenly becomes king at the age of eight or nine when his father dies, and the world's first monotheistic religious experiment in the world ends.
The power struggle for the future of Egypt began with the young Tutankhamun at the center of it all.
(gentle music) I have arrived in Luxor to meet Dr. Hourig Sourouzian.
She's been digging at the temple of King Tut's grandfather, Amenhotep III, for the past 24 years.
(gentle music) (workers speaking foreign language) (Hourig speaking foreign language) - Okay, bravo, shukran.
I am Hourig Sourouzian, Egyptologist, art historian, Director of the Colossi of Memnon and Amenhotep III Temple Conservation Project.
We are in the temple of Amenhotep III, a king who reigned in the first half of the 14th century.
The reign is the peak of the highest point of the Egyptian civilization.
It was the greatest expansion from Syria to Sudan and relative, a peaceful period.
So according to that, the temple was absolutely the largest and the most richly equipped.
- After Akhenaten died, Tutankhamun, he was around nine years old when he ascended the throne, and what he did is he went back to the old religion of Amun.
We do not really know exactly who gave the orders to reestablish the cult of Amun and get rid of the cult of Aten, but Tutankhamun was pretty young at the time, so it is most likely that other powers behind the throne made this decision.
- [Mahmoud] For less than three years they keep him in Amarna, but they change his name from Tutankhaten to Tutankhamun.
So he goes from the living image of the Aten, to the living image of Amun.
- Because Akhenaten had the idea to worship the only god in his only aspect, you have been worshiping certain gods and among them a major god, Amun-Re, suddenly someone comes and tells you, "Forget all this, you will worship only one god and you will not worship to him directly."
- Through me.
- So this is a great schism, it's a great revolution.
He must have been extremely courageous to do this.
(gentle music) Now you will have a surprise.
For us, it's already great surprise, until now I have held my breath.
And also for your information, it's the first time it has been- - [Mahmoud] We're the first people to see it?
- And it was never on television, so it's a premier for you.
- Wow.
My God, it's a sphinx.
- [Hourig] Look at the beauty of this thing.
- [Mahmoud] It's amazing.
- Yeah, (speaking foreign language), yeah.
- It's amazing.
Is the rest of his body still?
- Yes, all in pieces.
Imagine all these pieces are in framework.
- And you're gonna put it together?
- [Hourig] Yeah, of course.
- Wow, this is brilliant, but how does this relate to our story of King Tutankhamun?
- Well, you are making an investigation.
- We are.
- On him, on his life, on his career.
There was one piece of the chest which was inscribed.
- [Mahmoud] Do you have this block?
- [Hourig] Yes, I will ask them to bring it, one moment.
Look, it's not cleaned yet.
- [Mahmoud] I can read here, "Amen".
- Yeah.
So, "Amen-Ra", "Meri", beloved of Amun-Re.
- [Mahmoud] Yeah.
But how do we know that this is restored?
(Hourig chuckling) - You look, it is... this is the original surface, this is the original surface.
Wait, I will show you.
- It's much lower, wow.
- You see?
- Yes.
- [Hourig] And guess what, on Amun-Re, Amun was- - [Mahmoud] Erased.
- [Hourig] Erased and restored.
- [Mahmoud] During Akhenaten's reign.
- [Hourig] During Akhenaten's reign.
- [Mahmoud] And restored- - [Hourig] And restored- - [Mahmoud] Tutankhamun's reign.
- [Hourig] I imagine right at the beginning of Tutankhamun's reign, they immediately wrote it again.
- They restored it.
So in this very block we have evidence from the reign of Amenhotep III, Akhenaten, and Tutankhamun.
- And Tutankhamun.
- All three of them just in that.
- Exactly.
- That's brilliant.
- It's nice, no?
- Brilliant.
(slow dramatic music) Tutankhamun now is being advised by two men, Horemheb and Ay.
Horemheb is the army general.
Ay, he has no exact title.
We know that Ay and Horemheb were trying to link Tutankhamun with his grandfather, not his father.
His father was not to be mentioned again.
Everything he built was dismantled, his statues broken, smashed into pieces and buried into the ground.
Tutankhamun's father's religious revolution was very controversial and not received well by the public.
After his death, when Tut ascended the throne, he returned to the old religion, but why he did that is a hot topic of debate amongst scholars.
Some say it was for political reasons to appease the priests of Amun, who were very powerful in ancient Egypt.
- I am here in Saqqara to check out the excavations of an Egyptian mission that has discovered the tombs of important New Kingdom high officials, similar to some of the key figures during the reign of Tutankhamun.
- So here is the site that we have the burial shaft.
- Ah.
- And again, it's going 40 meters deep.
- My God, it is deep.
(workers speaking foreign language) Have you gone down here?
- I've gone down here.
- Oh my God.
Is it easy to go down there?
Oh my god, it doesn't look easy.
Impressive work.
- My name is Tarek Tawfik, Egyptologist and the Deputy Director of the excavations of the Cairo University at Saqqara.
So we're excavating the tomb of Ptahemwia.
- [Yasmin] The royal scribe, I can see.
- 'Cause being a scribe was power.
- [Yasmin] Yes.
- And that he has knowledge.
But now, how do we relate this with your quest of Tutankhamun?
- Yes, how?
- I have something for you.
Here, we can see Ptahemwia, he is sitting at the offering table for high officials of that time and we will see at the tomb of Horemheb, who was a general of Tutankhamun, in the same manner as high official, but there we will see an important addition.
So let's go.
- Great.
- We're here in the tomb of Horemheb.
And actually his career was evolving, so was his tomb.
- [Yasmin] Yeah, the more powerful he became, the larger the tomb- - [Tarek] The tomb became.
- [Yasmin] Yeah.
- So here we have Horemheb sitting as high official.
If you look very carefully here, you will see that later the Uraeus- - [Yasmin] Yes, was added.
- [Tarek] The cobra was added to his forehead when he became Pharaoh.
- And you can see the difference in the carving, here it's very deep and then the Uraeus is very shallow unlike the rest of the carving in the tomb.
- Exactly, they wanted to show that this high official, at some point, became Pharaoh.
- [Yasmin] Became Pharaoh.
Yes.
- [Tarek] So these were two different phases in the life of Horemheb.
- [Yasmin] Yeah.
- And you know, his career actually started already under Amenhotep III, then it continued in the time of Akhenaten.
Horemheb was the general-in-chief at the time of Tutankhamun.
He plays a big role in regaining Egypt's control over its borders.
- [Yasmin] Questions remain about the battle for succession with both of Tut's advisors.
Horemheb worked his way up through the ranks of the military and wasn't part of the royal family.
After Tut's untimely death, Ay quickly took the throne while Horemheb was off fighting the Hittites.
Horemheb became Pharaoh when Ay died three years later, and would rule for up to 30 years.
- So it was not before the time of Tutankhamun that Horemheb really excelled as military general.
And we can see this in the most magnificent way around here.
His task became to reestablish Egypt's control over its borders and with each of these military victories, his popularity in the country must have risen.
- [Yasmin] Of course, he was a hero.
- But now, let me show you something that is really special in this tomb and that provides us with some controversy concerning Horemheb.
Here we have his titles and there is one very special title, which is the title "rpat".
- [Yasmin] Uh-huh.
- [Tarek] And you know- - [Yasmin] Yes, Hereditary Prince.
- [Tarek] Exactly.
Which means that he was more or less the deputy of Tutankhamun.
- Who would've given him this position, was it Tutankhamun?
Or did he give it to himself?
Or did Ay play a role in this?
- Tutankhamun was, at the time, still a child.
- [Yasmin] Yeah.
- The question would be what did he think about it once he became a teenager?
- Good point, good question.
- This, I think, will be one of the mysteries that will still keep us for a long time, but this is the magic part.
(somber music) - Some people cast Ay as an evil genius and Horemheb as sort of more bluff and brave.
Whilst others think that Ay was being weak and manipulated and Horemheb was the brains behind the operation to ultimately gain control and power and kingship.
- My conversation with Tarek today confirms that there was a lot going on behind the scenes and that figures like Horemheb and Ay played very important roles in these power struggles.
This, to me, raises even more questions.
(somber music) - When the legendary Dr. Hawass calls you, come meet him down in Saqqara, I immediately flew back from Luxor to here to meet him.
We're gonna go into the tomb of Maia today, the royal wet-nurse of King Tutankhamun.
There are so many questions that are gonna be answered inside this tomb.
- Zahi Hawass, Egyptologist.
King Tut, he had magic and that magic entered in the hearts of people everywhere.
- Dr. Zahi, this is the necropolis of Saqqara, why would King Tut choose this place for the burial of his wet-nurse Maia?
- His mother died maybe when he was eight or seven years old.
His wet-nurse lived with him here, and inside is a unique scene that we never see connected with any king before.
- But before we go in, you do believe his mother is the mummy of KV35?
- Not I believe, it's for sure.
- It's for sure.
- It's for sure.
Our CT scan of the tomb of the two mummies that we found inside KV35, then our DNA proved that the Elder Lady is actually Queen Tiye.
Beside her, we found out that Younger Lady, that many people thought it was Nefertiti, no.
- Let's head to the tomb.
- Okay.
- After you.
(intriguing music) - We found out through our Egyptian Mummy Project an important discovery.
We found out through DNA that Akhenaten was the father of Tutankhamun, and the son of Amenhotep III and Queen Tiye.
And we found out that the mummy, the Younger Lady, was the mother of Tutankhamun, but she had no name.
We know now for sure that Tutankhamun's mother was not Nefertiti at all.
- The issue of DNA when it comes to ancient mummies is very controversial because a lot of scientists do not believe that we have enough reliable information to say conclusively who these people were.
The DNA is very deteriorated, it's very contaminated, and it's very ancient, it's very old.
There are several potential options for who Tutankhamun's mother could have been, but what's for sure is that Maia played a huge role in his life as a mother figure, and was one of his closest allies.
- Look what the scene is showing.
First of all, it's showing a king because you have Nebkheperure, this is his throne name, and he has his royal symbols.
The cobra is on the forehead and he's giving her the sign ankh, to live for the eternal life.
As a boy, you know, he could be loving her more than he loves his toys.
This is the lady that she nourished him, she raised him and therefore the love is seen and you can see the face exactly facing the mouth of Maia, seated in her lap, that is something incredible.
I really believe this is the most romantic scene of the golden boy.
(gentle emotional music) - Dr. Zahi, I hear a lot of passion in your voice when you speak about Tut, what does Tut mean to you as a person?
- You know, I want to tell you, I never in my life thought that I will be involved with this king at all.
I thought that it's very important to scan the mummy.
It was my purpose to do more about this two big kings.
- Dr. Zahi had very interesting insights on Tut's story, he doesn't think Nefertiti was the mother.
By visiting Maia's tomb, I was amongst the family of King Tut and I met everyone that I needed to meet from his childhood.
I'm a bit jealous that I missed the excavations with Dr. Tarek and Yasmin, but being with Dr. Zahi alone was definitely worth it.
I'm later on gonna ahead to visit Dr. Sahar Saleem to check out the CT scans of Tut.
(ethereal music) (car horns honking) I'm here at Qasr El Eyni Hospital based on Dr. Zahi Hawass's recommendation, to come meet Dr. Sahar Saleem, the leader of radiology on the Scanning the Mummy Project.
I'm sure she has a lot of answers to so many questions I have on King Tut.
- I've been working in Egyptian Mummy Project with the Dr. Zahi for more than 16 years now.
- Wow.
- We studied ten of the royal mummies.
- Well, today I can't wait to see what you have for us about King Tut.
- I have CT scan images that I wanna show you that will help you to understand more about King Tut.
My name is Sahar Saleem, I'm Professor of Radiology, Faculty of Medicine Cairo University.
I'm the leading radiologist of the Egyptian Mummy Project.
- King Tut's mummification, his skin looks charred, it looks dry, it looks cracked all over his face.
Is that because of a bad mummification?
- So I can just tell you that Tutankhamun had a unique mummification, in a good way.
- [Mahmoud] Okay.
- And not in a bad way.
Let me take you to a tour in Tut's face.
The ancient embalmers, they placed material under the skin in the same places that modern plastic surgeons would do.
- Botox.
- Yeah, it is in the nasolabia, which is the area between the nose and the mouth.
Okay, he he had it.
- [Mahmoud] Yeah, yeah.
- [Sahar] The cheeks, he had them.
- [Mahmoud] Filled in.
- And moreover, he had them here in the temporal.
- What you're saying now is fascinating, it really is, but it's confusing me a little bit 'cause throughout my research I was always under the impression that Tut's mummification and burial were rushed.
They wanted to get rid of him quickly so that Ay becomes king and we end the story of Amarna and his family.
- This is the difference between telling a story and looking at signs.
- The CT scans did tell us a lot about his mummification, but I'm still curious about what it told you about his life.
- Definitely.
At the time of his death, his bones were still growing.
His knees, the bones at his knees, they had just closed.
So I can tell you that his age was 18 or 19 years at most.
There is something wrong here.
There is a sort of a fracture.
- [Mahmoud] Yeah.
- This fracture is on the lower thigh, left side, the inner side.
- [Mahmoud] It's quite deep.
- There is no growing bones or evidence of healing.
Tutankhamun had a a club foot.
This condition would have affected pain to Tut if he tried to put weight on his foot, especially on the left foot.
This during standing and also during walking.
- [Mahmoud] I know that you're about to take the CT scans to reconstruct King Tut's face.
- The reconstruction of the face of King Tut we'll do it in a very scientific way.
In this process I'm teaming up with my team in Canada.
- I can't wait to see it.
- The CT scan enabled us to know a lot of information about the body and how the ancient Egyptians actually lived their life, we can even rewrite history by knowing how the kings died.
(exciting music) Hello Andrew, I have an interesting project for you.
For the 100 year anniversary of King Tutankhamun, we want bring him back to life with a facial reconstruction based on the CT scan of the mummy, which I did.
- My name is Andrew Nelson, I'm a Professor and Department Chair here in the Department of Anthropology, the University of Western Ontario.
My job is to create a model, a three dimensional model, of the skull from the CT scan and there is the 3D view of the skull that I've just reconstructed.
So I've gotta do a lot of work in order to perfect that skull.
Creating a face of somebody from the past is a way of making them more human, but also to bring to bear new technology, new techniques and new ways of thinking about Tut and his life and who he was as a person.
So this is the 3D model that actually gets sent then to Toronto to the 3D printer.
So we're here to make a 3D print of King Tut, which will be a very exciting thing to actually see the model in three dimensions.
Hey Ryan, how's it going?
This is the model here?
- Yeah.
- So Ryan, you figure we're ready to pull it out?
- Yep.
- Excellent, excellent.
The actual model of the skull is actually down inside all this powder here.
Ryan will clear out all of that powder and then he'll actually go in like an archeologist and he'll excavate the skull of King Tut.
There's the back of the jaw, there's the cheekbone coming out.
See the eye?
Lift this up for you.
There we go.
He's gonna do fine work to get rid of all the loose powder off of the model to actually show us then the skull of King Tut.
The powder has a consistency that's not unlike bone when it's finished, but it also holds detail very nicely and so we'll be able to see little details like the squiggles and sutures that are important.
Very nice.
Here we have the skull of a Pharaoh.
Until next time, King Tut.
(both chuckling) (gentle piano music) (music continues) - We're heading to Luxor Temple now.
We call it today a temple, but it wasn't really a temple, it was more of a festival hall, a ceremonial hall.
This is where the Royal Ka was celebrated.
- Yes, it's like the essence of kingship being passed from one king to the other.
- And I can just imagine little Tut, at the age of nine, going through these rituals of kingship.
- [Yasmin] Yeah, it would've probably been a little scary.
- [Mahmoud] For him probably, yes.
- [Yasmin] As a child.
- [Mahmoud] Probably.
I love coming to Luxor Temple.
- [Yasmin] Me too, it's amazing.
- [Mahmoud] It is.
- [Yasmin] Incredible.
Until recently, many Egyptologists believed Kiya was the mother of Tutankhamun, but there's a very important scholar who believes otherwise.
- I'm Aidan Dodson, honorary professor of Egyptology at the University of Bristol.
- Dr. Dodson, we know that there was around, well a few years, between Tutankhamun taking the throne and the return to orthodox.
So what happened in between these two time periods?
- My view, during those first couple of years, first three years or so, of Tutankhaten's reign, he was ruling along with his mother Nefertiti, now under the name of King Neferneferuaten.
- [Mahmoud] That's so interesting.
- And I think that would work quite nicely, I think.
The widow of Akhenaten doesn't want to completely dump everything which her husband had done, but she is bright enough to recognize that it's not sustainable to carry down that route.
And she's probably thinking of her own safety, that of her son and everything else, to try and, say, square the circle almost.
That, that didn't succeed is suggested by the state of the body of which, I believe, to be that of Nefertiti, Neferneferuaten, who died violently.
Whether her death was accidental or whether it was at the hands of those opposed to her attempt at reconciliation with Amun, or those who didn't really think she was moving fast enough, we have no idea.
But once she was out of the way a new set of regents were appointed, led by Horemheb, and then you've got alongside Horemheb, Ay, probably perhaps Tutankhamun's maternal grandfather.
Of course the relationships of the family during this period are horrendous.
- [Mahmoud] Complicated.
- [Aidan] Yeah, and every Egyptologist comes with a different view, but certainly my view is Tutankhamun's mother was Nefertiti and I think that Nefertiti's father was Ay.
- I want to say, many Egyptologists could talk about theories, but I am giving you facts based on the CT scan and the DNA that we did.
You know, I want to tell you one important thing, and our evidence that published everywhere proving that Younger Lady was the mother Tutankhamun, and she was not Nefertiti.
Nefertiti had daughters.
I really believe from the minute he was born, she could be his enemy.
- The DNA tests that have been done in 2008 on Tutankhamun's mummy was an attempt to link him to other members of his family.
The problem with that is that the other mummies, we have no idea who they are.
So there are many problems with these DNA tests in my opinion, and I believe the results are inconclusive.
- There is no absolutely definitive statement as to who Tutankhamun's mother is, but one can, I think, look at likelihoods and I think the more probable of the two known wives of Akhenaten to be his mother is Nefertiti.
- [Yasmin] Makes sense.
- And from what I read in one of your books is that you think that KV35 Younger Lady is Nefertiti.
- I think if the genetic work is correct.
- [Mahmoud] Yeah.
- And that says this person is the mother of Tutankhamun, therefore it follows that it must be Nefertiti.
(gentle music) - [Mahmoud] Dr. Aidan Dodson believes that the KV35 Younger Lady mummy is his mother and is also Nefertiti.
Now, I'm not sure about that she's Nefertiti part.
- A lot of the relationships are based on, you know, someone's DNA.
- [Mahmoud] Yes.
- [Yasmin] That some people have arguments against.
- [Mahmoud] Yeah.
- [Yasmin] And then using that DNA evidence to come up with another relationship.
- [Mahmoud] Yes, exactly.
- [Yasmin] Based on that evidence, so.
- [Mahmoud] Exactly.
- [Yasmin] When Tutankhamun took over the throne, he faced the backlash and the enemies of his father's religious revolution and potentially had only a handful of allies.
- [Mahmoud] Do we know who this tomb was quarried for?
- [Yasmin] As far as I know, no.
- [Mahmoud] No.
Exactly.
- [Yasmin] It's very difficult to know where the truth is.
- And this is the problem with Tut's family, there are so many questions we can only guess, but this is also what makes Tut's family super interesting, that we have all these open-ended questions and we have to keep searching and searching.
(ethereal music) (exciting music) - We're pulling together Tutankhamun's family tree and the tumultuous period in which he lived.
We're getting an idea of who his allies were and who his potential enemies were.
I wonder if he was making his own decisions or not.
- I think we've explored a huge part of Tut's life that I personally wasn't that aware of.
But throughout this journey so far, it seems very likely the more he grew up, the more he wanted to be involved and this is such a fresh perspective on Tut that I personally didn't have before.
Now unfortunately, as we all know, his life ends abruptly.
- What were the reasons behind his untimely demise?
Was there a plot to get rid of him?
Some scholars believe he died of a disease, some believe there was an accident and he died of complications from that accident.
Some believe there was a plot behind the scenes to get rid of Tutankhamun.
- [Mahmoud] And I wonder if this happened by foul play.
Was it an accident?
Or just another chapter in a series of unfortunate events that followed him since his birth?
We will try to answer these questions next.
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