Examining the Hidden Coffins of Ancient Egypt I SLICE HISTORY | FULL DOCUMENTARY

It's February 2021, and the mission led by the Egyptologist Zahi Hawass began 17 weeks ago. Not far from Cairo, in the necropolis of Saqqara, his team of archaeologists and scientists hopes to find tombs hidden in the depths of the site. At the foot of the pyramid of the pharaoh Titi, there lie dozens of coffins and several thousand-year-old mummies dating from the New Kingdom to the late period, just waiting to be discovered. King Titi, about whom we know very little, attracted the ancient Egyptians for a long time. One of the areas of most intensive use in the New Kingdom at Saqqara is around the pyramid of King Titi, and King Titi lived and ruled in the sixth dynasty, so in the third millennium BCE, and he was someone who acted like a magnet. So the site is incredibly rich. Since October 2020, these digs have produced no fewer than 52 burial shafts, and a large number of coffins and treasures already revealed to the world's media. But is it possible that we haven't discovered everything yet? Because many of the pyramids on this site attracted far more ancient Egyptians than anywhere else. The ancient Egyptians believed in the power and the spiritual power of places, so especially if a pharaoh had built his pyramid there, it immediately would attract others to build near him because they would get his blessings, his baraka. The team of archaeologists has only two more months before the digs conclude to find what's left to discover in the necropolis. In a shaft excavated three weeks ago, at the foot of the mysterious pyramid of Titi, the laborers found a cavity with a ceiling supported by the remains of wooden struts. After a few rubble slides, the structure needed consolidating, because Dr Zahi Hawassi's intuition tells him this shaft has some wonderful surprises in store. He therefore decides to focus all of the mission's efforts on it, and dispatches 50 men to clear the shaft as quickly as possible. The laborers have been working seven hours daily, hoisting up an average of six tons of rubble a day, the equivalent of five motor cars. The shaft is finally cleared and the archaeologists discover something very different to what they've found before. With a simple pulley and a reed basket, Zahi Hawass is lowered 15 meters down to the new treasure. It's an exceptional discovery for the mission. This is really incredible. This is the first time that in our excavation, we discover a sarcophagus in a shaft. A massive 40-ton limestone sarcophagus. It's the first time it has seen daylight for more than 3,000 years. But who could be inside? To Egyptologists, sarcophagi are in stone and coffins in wood. And until today, no stone tombs have been discovered on this mission. Sarcophagi are actually quite rare, because only the most important people in the kingdom could afford such a tomb. This one dates from the New Kingdom. It's the beginning of an investigation some 15 meters below ground. This is a beautiful moment in the life of an archaeologist. It's to wait for the moment to open something sealed for 3,000 years ago. And finally, you see what's inside. The team notices that the lid of the sarcophagus is slightly open. The stone slab seems to have been pushed about 50 centimeters to one side. Was Zahi Hawass beaten to it by another explorer? Or even worse, by grave robbers? As the laborers continue to dig and clear the area around the sarcophagus, Zahi's fears worsen. I hope that the mummy is still there in a good condition to understand this person, because this person should be very important and very rich. He has every right to hope, because grave robbers weren't interested in mummies, but by the gold and the amulets placed inside sarcophagi and coffins. It's a difficult job for the laborers. The lid is extremely heavy. They need to shift more than 12 tons of stone by hand. Do what the robbers did. Try pushing it in the same direction. I think we might need a jack to raise it. Finally a solution is found, but extra gear will need to be fetched and lowered down the shaft. This is the only way that we are going to raise the lid. It's easier for us than we are pushing it to the other side. Then we'll try to raise the lid, then we can excavate what's underneath. But that's a big operation also, it's not easy. In the end, a very simple method is used. The lid is lifted with a jack. Strips of wood are positioned to protect the tomb. At 15 meters down, tension reaches a peak. It takes an incredible amount of energy to create a space large enough for the archaeologists to work in, while trying to solve the mysteries of this sarcophagus. But a few minutes later, the lid is finally raised. And it's a disappointment for the team. The mummy has gone. But the robbers did leave a few clues. I'm collecting the bones of the person who was buried here since 3,000 years. Oh, big part of the coffin. You can close your eyes and go back 3,000 years ago. The mummy was also broken to pieces. They did steal everything inside the sarcophagus. The Egyptologist can't conceal his disappointment. It's the biggest discovery the mission has made so far. But it's looking very difficult to identify the occupant of the sarcophagus from the little the robbers left behind. How the thieves entered inside the shaft and they were open to go down like this and damage the coffin and the mummy. How was this 40-ton sarcophagus pillaged, considering the time it took us with modern equipment just to raise the lid? The team must now work with visible clues. And indeed, Zahi has noted something which may have attracted the robbers. The sarcophagus was cut from prestigious stone, limestone from Tora, several kilometers away. The stone from this quarry was used by the pharaohs of the old kingdom to construct their pyramids, notably those at Giza. How can he cut from Tora? And Tora is like maybe 25 miles from here. A huge sarcophagus, 40 tons weight. This could be a powerful man, a rich man, maybe a priest, maybe a vizier, a high official in the government who really can do that in the time of the new kingdom. What's astonishing is the coffins found in nearby tombs were left intact. So why was this sarcophagus pillaged? Without doubt because it was the most prestigious tomb on the entire site. Maybe that of a vizier, one of the highest officials of the Egyptian state, or even that of a priest. Tombs of the wealthiest ancient Egyptians, like at Luxor, were filled with gold and burial furniture, which were extremely valuable. Treasures that whetted the appetites of poorer populations. Everything found in the tombs, all the gold and the precious objects piled up, represented an incredibly valuable resource. So for poor people, grave robbing was a way of surviving. Most researchers agree that tombs were generally violated soon after burial, and the identity of the robbers comes as a surprise. There was a very high risk that those who had constructed and decorated the tomb would come back to pillage it later. So it was possibly the labourers who built the tomb who robbed our sarcophagus. The team will continue to scour the sarcophagus, looking for any inscriptions that indicate its owner. But Zahi Hawass is already quite certain that it was someone of great importance to have had himself buried at the foot of the pyramid of a king, the pharaoh Teti. Teti I was one of the most enigmatic rulers of the old kingdom. He reigned more than 4,000 years ago and was the founder of the 6th dynasty. We know very little about him, and moreover, today his pyramid resembles a pile of rubble. He was a minor pharaoh, and yet he attracted people here until the fall of ancient Egypt. Planning your burial site close to the tombs of the kings of the early dynasties allowed you to show off, to show others that you had a special entitlement to rest in the sacred place in Egypt. To be buried in the proximity of a great pharaoh from the past suggests continuity, it suggests stability, and you would always want to be proximate to that kind of power. All of the deceased close to Teti were buried with the rudimentary means available at the time. So the archaeologists also want to find out how such incredibly heavy sarcophagi were lowered into shafts so deep. Today Dr Esam, head of digs at Saqqara, is faced with an enigma. While the majority of finds so far are fairly light wooden coffins, the sarcophagus discovered by the team weighs 40 tons. At almost four meters long, the sarcophagus is gigantic. Dr Esam is intent on going back down the shaft to try to solve the mystery. A labourer immediately shows him something he has just spotted. Dr Moser was here this morning. The hole is open. The rock fell here. That means there's nothing under the sarcophagus. Today when I came, I found that the sarcophagus was not put on the ground. We have a gap beneath the sarcophagus, so it's not clear for us to understand it. The cavity, identified by Esam, raises a number of questions. What was this cavity for? Perhaps it's a clue to understanding how the Egyptians were able to install such huge tombs. This is a big question for us. How did they succeed to get this huge coffin here in this burial chamber? Esam puts forward a hypothesis. Did they cut two burial tracts and open both of them from the bottom and filled one of them with sand and put this sarcophagus above the sand and they withdrew the sand from the hole that they made between the two shafts and then the sarcophagus can get down slowly, slowly and safe. Using this ingenious system, similar to that of communicating vessels, it might have been possible for the ancient Egyptians to lower this 40-tonne sarcophagus to a depth of 15 metres. The team of archaeologists has only six weeks before the mission ends. The labourers keep digging in search of some last secrets of the Saqqara necropolis. While hunting for new tombs, the scientists will discover some totally unexpected remains, around 4,000 years old. Those of a queen of the pharaoh Teti, whose tomb had curiously already been excavated. To better understand the story, we must turn the clock back 10 years. Next to today's excavation site are the remains of a pyramid discovered by Zahi Hawass. I never thought in my life that I would discover a pyramid like this. The story of this pyramid, no one really can imagine. In 2010, under a mound of sand, the Egyptologist discovered this five metre long, 25 metre tall pyramid. Inside, there is still the magnificent sarcophagus he found. Covered by its six tonne lid. I will never forget when I came with my team and we began to open the lid. Inside the sarcophagus, there were a few human remains and some gold, but nothing to positively identify the occupant. So who could the owner of the sarcophagus be? Zahi deduced it was In the life of Teti, there was only three ladies. He put the first, Khuit, and his mother, Seshat. Then I thought that this pyramid could belong to Seshat. But today, our mission will reveal another possibility. Dr Afaf is an archaeologist and an expert in osteology. She's the only one on site who can make bones tell us their story. The Queen's case was closed, but this mission has allowed Dr Afaf to examine, once again, the analyses of all the bone fragments found on the site, including those of the Queen's sarcophagus. And that's when she discovered a completely different story. She came to me two days ago with this publication. She said she studied the bones of the Queen. I said, Afaf, what did you find? She said, I found out that the Queen, her age, from 17 years old to 25 years old, means that she could not be the mother of the King. And this could say that there is another unknown Queen of Teti that we will discover in the future. The pyramid discovered in 2010 cannot be that of the Queen's mother. Then whose is it? This new information is so spectacular that it's rewriting history. The bones tell us that the pyramid was for one of the Teti's wives, not for his mother, because the bones tell us that she was a young adult female between 18 to 25 years old. And the researcher knows a little more about the cause of death. From the few bone fragments brought to her by Dr Zahi, she has worked painstakingly to reach some mysterious conclusions. She has something, a string for a Queen, in the frontal. She has necrosis, which comes from a hit or a fall, and it leaves the traces in the frontal. 4,000 years after the passing of the pharaoh's wife, osteological analysis raises questions about the cause, perhaps brutal, of the Queen's death. Fresh from this new revelation, Zahi Hawass wants to intensify work at the temple close to the Queen's pyramid. Other clues might still be hidden inside. The 50-strong team of labourers works without interruption. A few days later, Zahi Hawass is summoned early in the morning. An important piece of the puzzle regarding the mysterious Queen has been discovered by the labourers. That is a big discovery, to discover the obelisk that once stood next to the pyramid of the Queen. The obelisk is very small, and it's this exactly, all of it, the capstone, it was cased with gold, to be shining with the sun god, the sun god Ra. To discover that obelisk, it's amazing. The Egyptologist hypothesises that this obelisk, found at the foot of the Queen's pyramid, belonged to her and could be a key to solving the mystery. He notices another intriguing clue, some barely legible inscriptions on one of the faces of the Queen. The team doesn't know it yet, but it contains the solution to an enigma that has baffled Egyptologists for years. The inscriptions are not clear now, but we are going to draw it beautifully and we'll know exactly to solve the mystery. But while waiting for the hieroglyphics expert to arrive to decipher the inscription on the recently discovered obelisk, the archaeologists continue working in the cleared shafts. They think they have discovered some coffins that still contain their mummies. But these coffins hold an even bigger secret, well hidden for nearly three millennia. Issim Shehab wants to take us down the 12-metre deep shaft discovered a few months ago, several treasures from which were revealed to the world in January 2021. It's also close to the Pyramid of Teti and has a number of remarkable burial chambers. The labourers have cleared everything and unearthed pieces that will tell us even more about the burial rites of the ancient Egyptians. In this tight space, all around us lie dozens of coffins. All of them are wooden and anthropoid, meaning they bear the likeness of the deceased. We found a wall looked up this burial chamber. We found a huge number of anthropoid coffins. This is a great moment for any archaeologist when he hits something since it was buried for thousands of years. The team decides to open one of the coffins in the burial chamber. Its volume is different than the others and intrigues the Egyptologists. This coffin is for a lady, not a man. Because of the way that we have the hair, the sign and the beautiful decoration, Isis is protecting the deceased and also Anubis, the god of the cemetery, is actually guarding the shaft for this lady. We think that this could be a new kingdom. What do you think, Assam? Yes, it is for sure a new kingdom. Then Assam, let us go now and try to open the coffin. Oh, God! It is extraordinary. For the first time, the team comes face to face with a nested coffin. One inside the other, like Russian dolls, both coffins are well conserved. So the archaeologists have a very good chance of finding a perfectly preserved mummy inside. God! You see, now we have Anubis supervising the mummification and we have on this side Nephthys and Isis. Isis and Nephthys always had to be supervising the mummification. Actually, this is very rare to find a coffin like this. This lady could be incredibly rich to afford to have a lid above the coffin that she can protect the real coffin. The coffin represented the vessel that took the deceased to the underworld, protecting the mummy on its long journey to eternal life. Only members of the elite could afford a nested coffin. Naturally, it gave the mummy more protection. It also provided more space for images of protective deities. Borsiris, Isis, Horus. The more gods surrounded the mummy, the more protected the deceased was when confronting obstacles in the afterlife. The famous pharaoh Tutankhamen, for example, had three nested coffins. The team is finally ready to open the coffin. Okay, let's open this one. Okay. It's really beautiful. The coffin is fragile. They'll need to be very careful. Careful, careful. Now, another moment. Okay. It's like the mummies that we see in the movies. It is beautifully mummified. Good mummification. The mummy is impressive and very well conserved, almost intact. Having been shut away for three millennia, we have just freed it from its double coffin. Why, like all the other mummies found on this mission, is this one black? We know very well that the bandages used to mummify the dead in ancient Egypt were white. When the organic materials that used for the mummification itself are mixed with each other, it converted to be black. And I believe that this is due to the black resin, which used as a part of the mummification. So the bandages absorbed the resin used for embalming and turned black over time. This magnificent mummy will be sent to a museum in Cairo, along with the other extraordinary pieces discovered on this mission. A few days later, we are given privileged access to the antiquities storehouse. A genuine vault to protect its priceless contents. It allows the team to store and study the coffins raised from the shafts in total security, and to take the next step for every Egyptologist to discover the mummies they contain. Zahi Hawass has kept one of them to one side for deeper analysis, because he thinks it will tell us more about the magic spells of the ancient Egyptians. With the greatest caution, it's taken out to be deciphered. The coffin will be analysed by Dr Maisa Kassem, the only team member with a perfect command of hieroglyphs. Maisa, did you read the name of the baby? What is the name? What is it? Yes, here, Keres is in her. Something on the lid immediately intrigues her. She believes this could be another nested coffin. To make sure, the team decides to open it. This is really beautiful. Dr Maisa's intuitions were right. Once again, the scientists discover another nested coffin. I think this is one of the most beautiful coffins that found. Zahi has a good eye too. This is indeed the most beautiful of the 50 or so coffins found so far. The team places the inner coffin on trestles. The decoration seems to suggest the late period, 600 years before the Common Era. Like most of the coffins discovered on this mission, this one belongs to a woman. All of the details are painstakingly carved. They aim to protect the deceased. We have anubis, it's protecting the symmetry or the place or the shaft that this lady is buried. The deep green of the face is unfaded. It evokes everlasting life after death. This really can show that this lady is more rich, but there is no name of a husband. It's also, again, the father and the mother recorded on the coffin. This discovery tells a tragic story, that of a woman who died young and was given an opulent burial by her father. Undoubtedly a prominent figure from the late period. Zahi Hawass is impressed by the coffin's superb state of conservation. But for the time being, it can't be opened. Osama, the site's curator, will try to find a way to separate the two parts without damaging them. We began to open the lid. We found out it's completely sealed and therefore we cannot afford to have any damage in the coffin. The two parts of the coffin are sealed with plaster, made extra strong by the addition of gypsum. The coffin will need to be stabilised, made stronger, before it can be opened. Meanwhile, the magic spells carved on the outside will all be documented. The team will be very lucky to find an intact mummy inside this coffin because sometimes there remains nothing but bone fragments, like in the massive sarcophagus we discovered. These remains are nonetheless valuable for unlocking the secrets of the deceased, like at a crime scene. Inside the tent, far from prying eyes, Dr Afaf finishes analysing the bone fragments which Esam brought to her from the sarcophagus of the prominent figure of the New Kingdom. Like a forensics pathologist, she will see what the fragments have to tell her. Measurements, comparisons, she carries out a thorough examination of all the clues she has found in these human remains. What is the identity of the wealthy occupant of this sarcophagus? The Egyptologists want to know more. Afaf, good morning. Any news about the bones? Yes. What's the story? As you can see, doctor, it's not a complete skeleton but we still can have some results from it. All of his joints also support all of this idea which is he's so healthy so he was not doing any heavy work or heavy duty. But if he was healthy, what is the age of death? At least I have some teeth and it's not worn at all so he was young, not that old. But if he was healthy and died when he was young, how come? For example, this left tibia, he has a healed fracture in here. If you look to this callus or bone bumpy, this healed fracture leads to an infection and it covers most of all his long bones. All of this reaction and he was suffering from this infection when he died. 3,000 years after his death, we now know that this young man, opulently buried in a 40-tonne sarcophagus, the mission's centrepiece, died of an infection. A few weeks after our shoot, Dr Afaf informed us that the young man was also afflicted with a hereditary disease. Over the past few days, the digs around the queen's temple have intensified and it's a handful of hieroglyphs on an obelisk that will shake up history. For several millennia, this engraved stone has held the solution to the identity of an unknown queen. Bone analysis revealed that it isn't Teti's mother as Zahi Hawass had believed, but one of his wives. Dr Hawass had noticed a barely legible cartouche on the obelisk, so he has called in an illustrator to help him decipher the inscriptions on the monolith. Today, when taking samples from the ruins, it's no longer possible to use tracing paper like before. These days, sampling is done digitally. Aya carefully takes photos of the obelisk from all angles. This helps us to decipher when the engravings are unclear. The photos and the drawings produced by the program make the hieroglyphics easier to read. The photos are digitized. Aya takes her time to study them, then presents the results to Zahi Hawass. Hello, Dr Zahi. Okay, I need first to see the text not in the obelisk, the other one. Then you have here the text called Er Baat, okay? Yes. Means princess. Queen Neet's cartouche appears on this small obelisk, along with a text which will give precise indications on this mysterious woman. This is very important information. The title of Queen Neet is Saqt Gip. Means the daughter of the god Gip, the god of earth. This title was given only to non-royal queens. These hieroglyphs tell of a queen who was not of royal lineage. It's a fascinating story, one of love between a king and a commoner. Maybe this lady was a maid in the palace. Maybe she was a dancer in the palace. Maybe she was the daughter of someone who was not important. Maybe Teti was walking and he saw her and he married her. He was in love with her. But he gave her this title, the daughter of Gip, to give her the royalty. Whether she was a dancer or a maid in his harem, Teti made her a queen. And she had the right to the largest pyramid, next to that of the founder of the Sixth Dynasty. Beneath the sun of Saqqara, the archaeologists are writing a new page in the history of ancient Egypt. They have just confirmed that it was possible for a pharaoh to marry a woman of the people. Every Egyptologist has to write one page about what we discovered. No one really can believe that Teti will have another queen. Every discovery made on this mission, coffins, amulets, pottery, brings another clue to understanding a major ritual of the ancient Egyptians, the deceased's passing into the afterlife. In ancient Egyptian belief, after mummification, the deceased had to pass before a tribunal before entering eternal life. This was the final step on the long journey to the beyond. The deceased, presented by Anubis, was subjected to judgment by 42 gods, presided over by Osiris. Facing them, the deceased had to declare his innocence. You are faced with the different gods who say, did you lie? And you have to say, no. Did you steal? Did you cheat? Did you give to the widow? Did you care for the orphan? All of these things, you have to go through this examination by the gods. Then his heart, the seat of his soul, was placed on the scales. The deceased was led before Osiris. Between them were the scales. On one side was the feather of Marte, representing truth and justice. And on the other, the heart of the deceased would be placed. The heart was then weighed. If it was heavier than the feather, it was filled with wrongdoing. If your heart is heavier than the feather of truth, then Amet, the gobbler, a monster, will consume you and you will be no more. But if the heart was lighter or of equal weight to the feather, the deceased was welcomed by Osiris and passed into paradise for eternity. It's the last days of the mission. The digs keep going in the hope of discovering some final treasures buried in the sand. And the team's efforts have paid off. The mummy they're about to reveal to us is exceptional. Osama, the site's curator, has finally managed to stabilise the beautiful inner coffin with the green face, which was sealed with gypsum plaster. But nobody has seen what's inside yet. Zahi Hawass has decided to open it before our cameras, an exclusive. The team must work fast. The coffin can't stay long in the sun, as the daylight could damage it. This could be the best mummified mummy of a lady that we found. It looks like the linen wrapping is wonderful, well done. She was prepared beautifully to go safely to the afterlife. It's a spectacular specimen. But these days, Egyptologists no longer disembalm mummies. They're respectfully left inside their linen bindings so as not to damage them. Considering its perfect embalmed state, Dr Hawass decides to leave this magnificent mummy in its coffin to protect it forever. In ancient Egyptian belief, the deceased having passed before the tribunal of Osiris and undergone the weighing of the heart, finally enters paradise. He then lives happily for eternity in the fields of reeds, where he can finally rest alongside the gods. The Egyptians even created a map of paradise for the deceased, of the famous Aru, the field of reeds or offerings, where the deceased will eternally receive offerings, have access to water and food, a perpetual profusion. This was the ultimate goal for the ancient Egyptians and explains why they prepared for death so meticulously. As the labourers begin to clear away all the equipment they have used for the past six months, those still digging at the foot of the queen's temple make a final, unexpected discovery. An earthenware anthropoid coffin. The foreman and Dr Esam are urgently summoned. One last extraordinary coffin has just been unearthed. Little by little, the face painted on the coffin is revealed. It's a stunning discovery. Unlike all the coffins we have found so far, this one wasn't buried deep down in a chamber, but directly in the sand. She's maybe an important lady because this is a very expensive type of pottery. She had a beautiful face. It's beautifully modelled. And the wig and her hands are like that. This is unique. We did not see this in any mummy that we found until now. And this to show how the sand of Egypt hides lots of secrets. And this could be the last secret of the season. This final discovery once again raises questions for the team. Dr Afaf arrives for an inspection. She wants to know more about this very different coffin. She studies every detail. She and Dr Esam try to understand the unusual location of the coffin. Why was this New Kingdom woman buried here in the sand of Saqqara? You can see the cooler around the chest of the coffin and also the crossed arms on the chest, which for sure dates back to the New Kingdom. For sure, yeah. And actually for selecting this area to make the burial here, it means that she would care about the queen meet the owner of the pyramid because she was very interested in making a cut in the debris that sealed the funeral temple. And then they put the coffin here. And after that, they filled it and sealed it by very fine sand. And this is the reason why did we find it in this good condition? Because of the sand. The sand protected the coffin. This woman wanted to be buried close to the queen, King Teti's third wife recently discovered by Dr Zahi Hawass. The team works hard to consolidate the coffin. It's covered with sand again to protect it from the sunlight. Dr Afaf is eager to open it and discover the mummy. But time is short and the coffin is unfit for transport, despite its consolidation. The mission must come to an end and the earthenware coffin is in too poor a condition to be moved. So the team decides to leave it where it is, buried in the sand, close to Queen Neet. I really wanted to respect this woman. I do not want to disturb her. And this is why I decided to cover the coffin that we found again with sand. She can still be buried beside the Queen Neet. The site at the foot of the Pyramid of Teti is surely still brimming with remains to be discovered, but it's the end of the digging season. The team must vacate the site. In all, during the six-month dig, 290 coffins were discovered, some of which have drawn interest from the media across the globe. 57 burial shafts were found, five of which were excavated by the archaeologists. Hundreds of discoveries, which show the importance of life after death for the ancient Egyptians. If I close my eyes now and I go back 3,000 years ago, I could imagine the workshops, the mummification, the burial, sealing the shaft. That can show the belief of the afterlife. The digs unearthed a 40-ton stone sarcophagus, certainly belonging to an important figure of the New Kingdom. The numerous coffins of women found testified to the high rate of mortality during childbirth in ancient Egypt. But the highlight of the mission was rewriting a page of Egyptology history with the discovery of a new queen, the third wife of the first pharaoh of the Sixth Dynasty, Teti I. A true story of love between the sovereign and a simple woman, whom he made Queen Neet. Zahi Hawass knows that another season of digs is awaiting him next year.