Ancient Invisible Cities (2018): Season 1, Episode 1 - Cairo - full transcript

DR MICHAEL SCOTT: The world's ancient
cities still contain many surprises

and treasures
hidden from view for centuries.

Now, with the latest scanning technology,
I'm going to reveal the secrets

of three of the most
fascinating cities on Earth.

Athens - the birthplace of democracy.

Istanbul - the crossroads
between Europe and Asia.

And, in this programme,
the gateway to ancient Egypt...

...Cairo.

Today, Cairo is home to over
20 million people - that's over double

the population of Greater London -
and as the capital of modern Egypt,

it's a city that fills the horizon,
its streets noisy,



frenetic with hustle and bustle.

But so much of Cairo's past
is invisible...

...buried deep within its giant pyramids,
mysterious towers and ancient fortresses.

45 metres deep, up to the sky.

These monuments today
are surrounded by the city of Cairo,

but don't be fooled -

these pyramids were here long before Cairo
was a twinkle in Egypt's eye.

I'll be working with our 3-D scan team
to discover how precisely

the pyramids were built
thousands of years ago...

...and investigate the riddle
of the Sphinx -

is it the face of a real pharaoh?

But the history of Cairo
isn't all ancient Egyptians.

I'm also going in search of a Roman
fortress hidden under the modern city...

Wow!



...exploring deep below
the Arabic citadel...

...where no tourist ventures.

You can hardly actually
get a look over the edge.

It's still quite a way down.

Just get down. Oh!

And I'll be using virtual reality
to reveal the ancient world

in a whole new way.

Welcome to invisible Cairo.

The life-giving Nile - a spine
running through the whole of Egypt

and right through the centre
of the city of Cairo.

This is the longest river in the world

and the Egyptians used to say that
its source was in the stars,

but it's actually in the African Great
Lakes, about 4,000 miles to the south.

It truly is a spectacle of Mother Nature.

Over millennia,
the Nile has flooded every year

and transformed arid desert
into fertile fields.

5,000 years ago,

the ancient Egyptians built their
capital city, Memphis, on the Nile,

at a point where the river splits up
into the many channels of the Nile Delta.

Today, Cairo is also sited
close to this strategic position.

(HORN TOOTS)

Throughout its history, this region
has been ruled by many empires...

...but one iconic shape,
built by its very first civilisation,

defines the Cairo skyline.

The Great Pyramid is the last remaining
wonder of the ancient world.

We're so used to seeing
images of the pyramids

that they can become all too familiar,
right?

We can almost discount them
before we see them, and yet,

when you approach the Great Pyramid,

you realise once again
just how incredible this building is.

It shuts out the sky, it's a...

It's a man-made mountain
standing right in front of you.

This place was no city or settlement,

this place was the burial ground
of kings and queens of ancient Egypt,

and this was the biggest of them all.

The Great Pyramid of Giza was built
over 4,500 years ago,

around 2560 BC.

20,000 workers constructed it,

but it was the last resting place
for just one man,

a pharaoh called Khufu.

Our scanning project to peel back the
layers of history in Cairo begins here.

The scan team is going to create
a 3-D computer model

to help reveal the secrets of its design.

They're led by Will Trossell.

Will, hard at work already.

- Good to see you.
- Afraid I am!

So, in the face
of the greatest challenge yet,

are you guys going to be able to cope?

Well, it is a challenge and a half.

I think the temperature
is pretty killer out here

and it has all sorts of problems
with our machinery and with us.

The ultimate challenge
against the ultimate building -

what's the goal, what's your primary goal?

The scans are incredibly accurate,
they're millimetre-perfect,

and we'll be able to put
all of our scans together

to reveal the accuracy and the precision
at which they put together the pyramid.

Through our 3-D scans,
we'll discover how exact

the ancient Egyptians could be
using stone hammers and copper chisels.

Will is also keen to scan
inside the pyramid.

And then we can take our scanner
slowly through all those chambers

and through all those passages
and connect them together,

so we'll be able to tell you
exactly where you are inside,

compared to where we are outside here.

Fantastic.

- Well, good luck to you.
- Thank you.

It's going to be a great,
fun challenge ahead.

- Thank you.
- I'll see you inside.

We'll see you in there.

It's certainly a challenge.

At 137 metres tall

and made out of 2.3 million stone blocks,

the Great Pyramid is still
the heaviest building in the world.

I'm going in
through the robbers' entrance,

a tunnel dug by looters, probably just a
few centuries after the pyramid was built.

Beyond this, in the centre of the pyramid,

is a spectacular ceremonial space
called the Grand Gallery.

Egyptian archaeologist Zahi Hawass
is my guide.

Very nice to see you.

Tell me about the extraordinary stonework
around us today.

Yeah, that's really the Grand Gallery,
which is a most fascinating structure

inside the Great Pyramid of Khufu.

If you look at how it was built,
you find there is nine huge blocks,

all of this, and fine limestone.

The pyramid was a national project
of the whole nation.

- It's a work of magic, isn't it?
- It is.

The nine-metre-tall walls
of the Grand Gallery lean inwards

to accentuate their height.

It's built to impress and leads up
to the tomb of the King.

ZAHI: Now I take you
to the burial chamber.

MICHAEL: What an extraordinary experience.

The burial chamber is high up
in the very heart of the pyramid.

This is where Pharaoh Khufu
was finally laid to rest.

This really feels like a place
we weren't supposed to find, Zahi.

(ZAHI LAUGHS)

- Wow!
- Magic. Isn't it?

The stonework is beautiful!

Everything here built of granite.

This tomb is now almost empty,

any treasures that were here
stolen by graverobbers.

The mummified body is also gone,
but one object remains.

And this, I presume, is... the sarcophagus?

Yeah.

What would the ceremony have been like
when they sealed him in?

You know, when the King died,
they mummified the King,

and after that they dig, they bring
the King to the north entrance

and they bury the King.

And that took, ceremony, for 70 days.

70 days?!

From the death of the King until they put
him inside the sarcophagus here.

They brought the King here
so that he would be...

...he would have a home for the afterlife?

The King would live in this palace,

and therefore, the King became God

and he lives in his palace
for immortality.

Zahi tells me there's another chamber
deep below the pyramid.

It's closed to the public,

but we've been granted special permission
to explore it.

I've come about 50 metres now, down this
tunnel, heading diagonally downwards...

It's getting very hot, very airless,
very dusty.

(GROANS) Oh!

I'm heading down
to the subterranean chamber.

Nobody's quite sure what it was used for.

(WHISPERS) Well, where are we here?

(GROANS) Oh!

Coming down and down and down,
it feels like into,

almost a journey to the centre
of the Earth down here,

and I'm trying not to think about the 2.3
million blocks that are above my head.

But this place is... I mean, this is the
solid bedrock here that's been carved out.

It's much rougher, much...

...less obvious
what this place was intended to be

than the King's tomb up above.

What were they thinking?

What were they planning?

Oh...

Some Egyptologists believe it was built
to be the burial chamber,

but dropped in favour of the King's tomb.

Others think it might have been a decoy
to fool graverobbers.

The first scans
of the Great Pyramid are in

and I'm hoping they'll shed some light on
the mystery and make sense of its layout.

Yeah, these are really quite incredible.

(WHISPERS) Wow.

So we've taken all of the scans
that we've done

and stitched them all together,

- both inside and outside the pyramid.
- (WHISPERS) Wow.

WILL: We can start to sort of dive into
some of those secrets

that the scans are really
opening up for us.

MICHAEL: It feels like
this is all empty space,

but, I mean, this is actually solid rock

we're viewing from at the moment.

The tunnels and the chambers,

those are the empty spaces
you can actually walk through.

WILL: Yeah.

So where did we come in?
Can we go to...?

WILL: Yeah.

So, here, you can see the robbers' tunnel
and compare that to the actual structure

of the designed,
intended descending passageway,

down to that subterranean room.

And the difference there between them
is remarkable.

One's like a gnarled piece of ginger

and the other one looked like, you know,
this precision-crafted tube

that goes right down
into the core of the pyramid.

Phenomenal.

WILL: And we can also see how deep
that subterranean chamber is

relative to the others,
which are much higher up in the pyramid.

MICHAEL: Cos, of course, we went deep in
under the ground level, didn't we?

WILL: Absolutely, yeah.

OK, it sort of felt almost endless
descending that passage.

Can we go into the chamber
where we were?

Yeah, and it has a very curious, er,
shape and form.

It's even clearer now
just how rough the subterranean chamber is

compared to the King's tomb above.

So, as we come up the Grand Gallery,
we come towards

the entrance to the King's chamber.

And then this beautiful,

incredibly clean,
incredibly powerful room,

the King's chamber here.

And what an amazing piece of architecture
inside the pyramid.

The scans should show us
where the chambers and tunnels lie

in relation to one another.

So we're looking right down from the top,

right down at the pinnacle of the pyramid.

WILL: Mm, and you can see
how they all kind of align.

You know, it's quite incredible
how accurately those shafts and chambers

go straight into the heart of the pyramid.

It makes me inclined to think that there's
nothing accidental or mistaken

about this building.

Whatever that subterranean chamber
was for, it had a purpose from the get-go.

Everything's been planned to perfection.

Will has created a red band at a specific
height around the base of the pyramid

to measure how level it is.

The band shows that all four corners sit
within just ten centimetres of each other,

despite being hundreds of metres apart.

The pyramid is almost exactly level.

There was a real master plan here.

Everything was thought through
and considered,

and probably approved
by the Pharaoh himself.

MICHAEL: So it's really only now with
this... with this 21st-century technology

that we're able to applaud them as much
as they deserve for their brilliance!

- (WILL LAUGHS)
- All that, 4,500 years ago!

Oh, it's absolutely remarkable.

Now that the skill of the ancient Egyptian
engineers has been confirmed,

we're going to apply
our scanning technology to a new mystery.

It involves the most famous
and enigmatic sculpture in the world.

It's only when you get up this close
and personal to the Sphinx

that you realise its tremendous size -

towering over 20 metres above my head,
carved out of the solid rock.

It's the recumbent body of a lion
with the head of a man

and when this sculpture was carved
at the time of the Pyramids, here at Giza,

it was the largest man-made sculpture
anywhere for hundreds of years to come.

But whose face is it?

The Sphinx sits at the foot
of a ceremonial road

leading up to the second, middle pyramid
of Giza, close to the Great Pyramid.

This was built for the pharaoh Khafre.

And he was the son of Khufu,
buried next door.

The Sphinx was traditionally believed
to represent Khafre -

a brazen act of self-promotion.

But in 2003, some researchers argued
Khafre had instead built it

to honour his father, Khufu.

We will scan the face of the Sphinx

and compare it with sculptures
of Khafre and Khufu...

...in an attempt to answer
the age-old riddle...

...who is the Sphinx?

(HORNS BEEP)

The famous pyramids of Giza
have their origins elsewhere.

To understand what inspired
their architects,

we need to head 20 kilometres south.

We're travelling across the vast
sprawling city of modern Cairo,

but we're actually making
a very ancient journey

from the burial ground,
the necropolis at Giza,

back to the centre of power,
the city of Memphis.

The pharaohs of the old kingdom
ruled from Memphis.

It had a population of about
30,000 people.

It might not sound like many,
but 4,500 years ago,

Memphis was one of the biggest cities
in the world.

It was a cosmopolitan trading hub
packed with palaces, temples,

workshops and emporiums,

so little of which has survived today,

but this extraordinary statue
gives us some sense

of its glory and splendour.

This is a statue
of the pharaoh Ramesses II

that once stood over ten metres tall,

one of a pair guarding the entrance
to a temple.

Made mostly of mud bricks, the city
of Memphis has crumbled away to dust.

But just three kilometres away,

the ancient Egyptians built something
that would endure...

...the stepped pyramid of Saqqara.

It was completed about
80 years before the Great Pyramid.

The earliest large-scale cut-stone
construction anywhere in the world.

I can't wait to explore inside.

- Yasmin, salaam alaikum.
- Alaikum salaam.

Egyptologist Yasmin El Shazly
knows this place well.

This is the earliest pyramid in Egypt.

It actually marks the transition

from mud-brick architecture

to large-scale stone architecture.

So this is the first pyramid
built in ancient Egypt?

Yes, and it's the Pyramid of Djoser,
King Djoser of the third dynasty,

and before they built this one,
kings were buried in mastaba tombs,

which are basically flat, uh, platforms.

And what was motivating this,
this massive step change?

Well, there are different theories.

One of them is that it was
kind of a stairway to heaven

for the soul of the King to ascend,
to unite with the northern stars,

and, uh, another theory is that he
wanted to build a huge monument

that could be seen from, uh, Memphis.

So your tomb was ever-visible
on the horizon?

Exactly.

I mean, we must be eight metres or so
below the ground here

and the... the stonework has
turned into solid bedrock.

(LAUGHING) I mean, we're literally going
under the ground!

YASMIN: It's amazing.

We've been allowed to explore
and scan this unique pyramid.

Yasmin, I have to say,

with all the scaffolding holding up
the roof above us...

Yeah.

...it feels like the pyramid's actually
under construction, not restoration!

Well, it's closed to the public
for restoration, so you're very lucky!

But be very careful.

It feels like we're in the middle

of some kind of Indiana Jones movie
now and kind of...

Yeah. These planks are not very stable.

That's an understatement,
and that is a very deep hole.

OK, right, right, right.

That's a big one!

Look at this.

Wow!

This is the shaft that leads to
the burial chamber and it's, uh,

- 28 metres deep.
- (WHISPERS) Wow!

- So this is carved out of...?
- The bedrock.

- The solid bedrock.
- Yeah.

Imagine the amount of work.

Further down, it's a labyrinth of tunnels,
corridors, shafts and chambers.

- Watch your head.
- Oh!

No, be careful!

Oh, my Lord.

Yasmin is taking me to a small
antechamber that can tell us more

about why the first pyramid was built.

Yes, come here, come.
I want to show you something.

Look at these chambers,

they were all covered
with these blue faience tiles.

Wow! So, you can see the preparation of
the wall, can't you, for all of the tiles?

- Yes.
- And there's some more here.

Yeah. Unfortunately, there are...
These are all gone.

We can see more here, here, here...

So this room would have been
bright blue, sort of shining blue,

like-like... like the open sky!

- Exactly, would've...
- Many metres above our head.

Yes. It would've been incredible.

They were designed to, uh...
mimic the King's palace,

because, to the ancient Egyptians,
the tomb was the house of eternity.

Just like all later pyramids,

this first pyramid represented a palace
for the afterlife.

And it was all for an early pharaoh,
King Djoser, back in 2650 BC.

(THEY CONVERSE)

He must have been an incredible, uh, king,

because we know that he, uh,
had successful military campaigns

and he was also
the first to build a pyramid.

Many people think of the ancient Egyptians
as people who, uh,

were in love with death,
and that's not really true.

They were in love with life and that's why

they wanted life after death
to be just like life on Earth.

I think it might be time to head up
towards the land of the living again.

Yeah, I think I'll join you.

But I'm definitely going to follow you,

cos I have absolutely no idea
how to get out of here.

Will and his team are already at work.

They plan to map out this intricate warren
of chambers and tunnels

more accurately than ever before.

And discover how its design went on
to inspire the Great Pyramid.

While they scan, I'm exploring
the Egyptian Museum in the centre of Cairo

to find out more about King Djoser.

But first, I can't resist
the most beautiful archaeological object

of ancient Egypt.

It's easy to get "pharaoh fever",
as it's known, in this museum -

an overload of Egyptology -
but then you see this...

...the death mask of Tutankhamun.

Made out of gold, 11 kilos in weight,
inlaid with precious stones,

such as lapis lazuli for the eyebrows
and the eyelids.

The face is a realistic portrayal
of the pharaoh it once sat over the top of

because his soul needed
to be able to find the body again

to reinhabit it in the afterlife.

Tutankhamun died around the age of 20,
but during his short reign,

he's said to have restored order
to a country in turmoil.

But all of this was happening
many centuries after

the building of the first pyramid.

And now what I've really come to see.

A unique object
discovered at the stepped pyramid.

The only complete sculpture we have
of that pyramid pioneer, King Djoser.

He's not as bling as Tutankhamun,
but he's over 1,000 years older

and something very special.

This is the oldest life-size statue
ever found in ancient Egypt.

It seems Djoser was a revolutionary,
not just in architecture with his pyramid,

but in art as well.

And it was coated in white plaster -

you can still see the remnants
of it here - and then painted.

You can see on his beard and the hair.

And his eyes were probably inset
with some kind of precious stone or jewel,

although now long since lost.

The Cairo Museum also contains a full wall

of those blue tiles
that we saw in Djoser's pyramid.

Here you can see the faience tiling
in all its glory from the tomb at Saqqara.

It's supposed to resemble
the rush mats

that once adorned the walls of the palace
of the pharaoh while he was alive,

and, for me, it's just another symbol
about the way in which they invested

so much more in their afterlife
than they ever did in their lives.

As well as these preparations
for his home in the afterlife,

King Djoser also seems to
have been keen to demonstrate

his ongoing right to rule.

If a pharaoh ruled for more than 30 years,
he had to perform the Heb Sed.

It was a ritual designed to prove
his athletic and his mental ability,

and power to continue.

(EXHALES)

It was a race around this enormous arena,
followed by a wrestling match.

Whoo!

And the thing about Djoser...
is that he built his pyramid

with the Heb Sed track just behind it.

He wasn't going to just do this
during his lifetime,

he was going to do it for all eternity!

(EXHALES DEEPLY)

The construction of the first pyramid
was a feat of ancient innovation.

But our scans reveal that it went through
different design stages.

The six steps of the structure
stand out clearly.

But at the bottom layer, you can make out
a join between two sections.

Tease this apart,
and you find a smaller burial tomb,

known as a mastaba tomb, hidden inside.

This was built first.

But at some point,

the mastaba was expanded
into the full six-storey stepped pyramid.

Also unlike the Great Pyramid at Giza, our
scans show that all the interior spaces

were built deep below ground level...

...including the huge central shaft
leading down to the burial chamber.

Right next to here
is the small antechamber,

with the beautiful blue tiles.

The confusing labyrinth of tunnels
under the stepped pyramid

may reflect the builders' experimentation
along the way.

We didn't scan all the tunnels -

there's an estimated
six kilometres of them,

all very different from
the more streamlined Great Pyramid.

The stepped pyramids at Saqqara
ushered in a whole new era

in monumental tomb architecture,

but within a very short space of time,
just 80 years,

this magnificent structure behind me

would look like little more than
a prototype, because the engineers

and architects of ancient Egypt had
managed to supersize the pyramids

and create the Great Pyramid at Giza,
and that's where I'm back off now.

Building the Great Pyramid
was a massive undertaking,

lasting 20 years.

Until recently, little was known
about the workers who built it.

It's long been assumed
the majority were slaves.

Then, in 1990, these tombs were found
completely buried in the sand

just next to the pyramids.

Zahi Hawass suspected they might
belong to some of the workmen

who built the pyramids.

And we come face-to-face with... with
the image of one of those workmen here.

- Yes. His name is Petety.
- Petety.

I think he was an artist, one of the
people who are decorating the tombs,

but what's really amazing about this tomb
is this curse in the inscription.

The man is saying, "I never did anything
wrong in my life," which is a big liar.

(MICHAEL LAUGHS)

And he said,
"This is why the Gods like me,"

and after that he said here,

"If anyone will touch my tomb..."

"...he will be eaten by crocodile,
the hippo and the lion."

- (WHISPERS) Wow!
- Amazing.

- The curse worked.
- It did work, yeah. It saved his tomb.

For the first time,
we have ideas and knowledge

about the workmen who built the pyramids.

It tells us that the builders
of the pyramids were not slaves,

that they were buried beside the pyramid,
and they were Egyptians.

Thanks to excavations like this,
we now know that the people

who built the pyramids were free men.

And carvings in the walls of the tombs

show how the 20,000-strong workforce
was kept going -

bakers who made the bread
and brewers of the all-important beer.

The tomb that Zahi is showing me
belonged to skilled artisan Petety.

- Petety was an artist.
- Hm.

He maybe decorated the tombs,
then he was able to make beautiful scenes.

Look at the beauty
of the profile of his wife.

Look at how Petety
drawn the face of his wife.

I have a question for you.

Do you think that she was happy

with the drawing that her husband
did of her?

Yeah. She's beautiful.

But you have to know,
she did not look like... like this.

This is what she wanted to be
in the afterlife.

But what's good about Petety,

he did not draw the scene of his wife
as small, like you see in every tomb,

she's almost...

- They are equal, aren't they?
- ...equal to him.

On either side of, and behind you
is the main chamber of the tomb.

And that is an indication
that he was in love with her.

- Hm.
- Or she was stronger than him.

- That's a lovely sign to see...
- Yes.

...in the chamber where they would be
buried together for eternity.

Exactly.

If we think about the workers
of ancient Egypt

we almost always think about
what they built, the Great Pyramid,

that great community project,

but here in their tombs,

and looking at the images carved
by Petety of him and his wife,

you start to think of them as individuals,

as people with hopes, dreams, ambitions,
pride at their own achievements,

and you start to imagine them
and their lives as they lived them.

And that image of Petety and his wife
as a marriage of equals

will be one that stays with me
for my entire life.

Earlier we scanned the Sphinx

to investigate the mystery
of which pharaoh it represents.

The two candidates were Khafre
or his father, Khufu.

Now we're returning to
the Cairo Museum to scan their sculptures.

This is Pharaoh Khafre.

It's a beautiful statue made of diorite,

which is a very hard stone
and comes from southern Egypt, in Aswan.

Despite the hardness of the stone,
the sculptor has been able to create

the exact intense musculature
of Khafre's arms.

This is a powerful ruler

with his ceremonial skirt,
his beard and his headdress.

And this is Khufu, his father,

but the sculpture is absolutely tiny.

It's just 7.5 centimetres high,

beautifully carved in ivory.

And we know it's Khufu

because his name is there

right on the front, which makes this

the only certain surviving representation

of the man who had
the Great Pyramid at Giza built for him

as his home in the afterlife.

It's striking that the man
with the biggest pyramid

has got the smallest statue of himself.

Using digital design technology,

we can compare the faces of
the two pharaohs with that of the Sphinx.

I mean, what kind of precision
are we talking?

What level are you scanning at?

As accurate as we can go, so really
trying to get in on the pores

and all that, you know...
If that detail was there...

The pharaoh will never
have been looked at

in such close detail and scrutiny before.

Absolutely, yeah. Absolutely, yeah.

This is the scan of Khafre.

The face of the Sphinx is superimposed
on top, scaled to the exact same size.

We ignore the nose,
as it's missing from the Sphinx.

The blue and red areas show points
where the faces are most different,

the green and yellows a closer match.

And this is the scan of Khufu,
the father,

with the Sphinx's face also overlaid,

accurate to 0.5 of a millimetre.

By comparing the two, we can see
there's slightly more green and yellow

on Khafre's scan,
especially along his cheeks and chin.

It's a closer match.

It's not definitive,
but our results support the view

that the Sphinx is Khafre, the son,
rather than Khufu.

This suggests Khafre built the Sphinx
not to honour his father

but to boost his own ego... for eternity.

The pharaohs ruled over the land
of the Nile for over 2,000 years.

And when the time of ancient
pharonic Egypt finally ended,

Egypt was to be subject to periods
of when it was master of its own fate

and when it was under the thumb of others.

The Persians, the Greeks,

finally the Romans, who arrived with
a military force to be reckoned with.

The Romans occupied Egypt in 31 BC.

A turning point
in the history of the country,

as it heralded the end
of an independent ancient Egypt.

It was absorbed into the Roman Empire
and quickly became her breadbasket.

Egypt was said to feed the citizens of
Rome for four months out of every year.

I think... May I?

Oh, oh... Ooh, it's still very hot.

Coming out of the oven,
you can see - wow -

you can see the steam coming out of it.

This will be taken directly
on these boards

and transported across the city by bike
and every other form of transport

so that everyone gets their bread
as fresh as possible.

Ooh! Look at that.

Mmm!

That is brilliant.

For millennia, whoever controlled
the head of the Nile Delta

could also control trade

and the supply of wheat
from the fertile lands along the Nile.

That's why Memphis was sited here.

And now the Romans
stationed themselves close by

at a place called Babylon, named
after the original city in Mesopotamia.

It was a defining moment

for the development
of the future city of Cairo.

I'm walking down a street in Old Cairo,

which follows the route of the Nile
back in ancient Roman times.

Now, today there's the metro on one side
of me and a church on the other,

but I've been told that this location
hides something very special indeed.

Archaeologist Peter Sheehan

has been studying this site
for nearly 30 years.

- Peter?
- Hello, Michael.

How are you? Good to see you.

Nice to see you too.
Welcome to Old Cairo.

Thank you, and to this fantastic
Greek Orthodox church.

The church of St George, Mari Girgis.

I saw a fantastic George and the Dragon
outside, and we've got another one.

- PETER: There he is.
- MICHAEL: There he is.

But we're here to talk about Romans.

Romans?

- Romans. If you want to come this way.
- OK. I'm following you.

Wow!

So the thing about this church
is that it's built over a Roman tower,

a window on to another world.

(LAUGHS) I mean, my Lord,
you can see there's one floor below us

and there's another floor below that.

How far down does that go?

16 metres, three storeys.
Preserved more or less completely intact.

How do we get there?

We use the stairs, of course! This way.

MICHAEL: Now, this is getting
pretty confusing.

Peter, what's...?
Help me understand where we are now.

This is the Roman tower.

So this is...? Standing here...?

All the way to the top.
That is the 16 metres

we were looking at from above.

MICHAEL: How extraordinary!

Peter is taking me
into the heart of the tower.

PETER: From here we're going to go through
into the kind of central section,

which was really, effectively,
a light well.

(MICHAEL LAUGHS)

PETER: These are the ground-floor
columns of the Roman tower.

They're still in place. They've been
chopped off, and basically

actually used as a foundation
in fact in the medieval period.

And that's where we were standing
in the church?

PETER: Right up at the top, yeah.

MICHAEL: The overwhelming impression
for me at least

is the sheer might and power
of the structure.

Yeah, not too many frills,
not too many. It's all... all solid

and kind of built to last,

and probably built by the legionaries.

After the fall of Rome,
Christians in the seventh century AD

used the abandoned tower
as the foundations for a church,

the only circular church in Egypt.

Later, in 1909, this new Orthodox church
was built on top of the old one.

While the scan team set to work,
Peter is keen to show me evidence nearby

that the Roman tower
is part of something much bigger.

MICHAEL: Now, we've got another
round structure here.

- Another round tower, Michael.
- Another round tower!

The exact... the mirror image
of the other one.

Wow.

And as we go through we see something
which you've seen before.

The light well -
with a lot more light in it!

(BOTH LAUGH)

So, I mean, these look absolutely...

This looks absolutely identical
to the one we were in before.

If you look at the plan,

it's an exact mirror image of the other
tower, set 29 metres apart. Erm...

So... So this is part
of a larger structure, a fortress?

OK, this is going... I'm finding this
really hard to visualise now!

How can we...? Have you got
something that might be of...?

- I hope this helps a little.
- Ah, a plan!

This is what we need. Right, OK, now it...

So...

- So, you show me where we are, then.
- Er...

MICHAEL: I think we're here.

PETER: You're right.
That's the south round tower.

MICHAEL: OK. And so here are the walls.
This is... This is the fortress.

PETER: So what we're looking at -

the two towers from the western side
of the fortress of Babylon.

- MICHAEL: And then this is the Nile here.
- PETER: This is the Nile.

The street where we were just walking up
was actually the line of the Nile.

The fortress enclosed a harbour,
which led off the River Nile

and guarded the entrance
to a 170-kilometre canal

that linked the Mediterranean
to the Red Sea via the Nile -

like an early version of the Suez Canal.

From 300 AD, the Babylon Fortress
dominated this region

and was the nucleus
for the eventual city of Cairo.

I want to see if the scans can
tease out the extraordinary history

of these very different buildings.

At the top is the Orthodox church,
with its ornately painted interior.

Deep in the foundations
is the Roman tower.

When you take away
the church superstructure,

you see more clearly that this circular
tower is the mirror of its sister.

The two towers are on either side
of the entrance to the harbour,

guarding the meeting place of the
River Nile and the Red Sea Canal.

Our computer reconstruction reveals
the full extent of the whole fortress.

400 metres by 200 metres -

large enough to hold
a garrison of 1,000 men.

This has been a truly remarkable story.

Hiding under this Greek church,

a Roman tower -
part of a much bigger fortress

with a harbour connected to
a massive canal.

A vital linchpin -
not just in the Roman organisation

and defence of their world, but in the
trading highways, byways and waterways

of a connected ancient world.

The Romans dominated the land
of the pharaohs for over 600 years.

But by the seventh century AD,
a new empire was rising in the east.

In 642, the Arabs conquered Egypt,

bringing many new influences
from the Middle East and beyond.

The religion of Islam was just
20 years old at the time,

yet it would define
the developing culture of this city.

These two minarets stand
at the boundary of the old city.

Memphis had crumbled away to dust.

Roman Egypt had given way to
Islamic Egypt.

Then different Arab factions fought for
control over Egypt for hundreds of years.

In the tenth century,
Arab rulers established a new capital

at the head of the Nile Delta - Cairo.

The origins, the name of the city
of Cairo are obscure

and hotly debated, but one story
is this - that the Fatimid Arab,

invaders of Egypt who founded
this city, wanted it to be

a city from which they would
go on to conquer the world.

And so they called it Al Qahirah -
the victorious, the conqueror.

And that word - Al Qahirah -
has become westernised to Cairo.

One of the greatest leaders
of Arab Egypt was Saladin -

the scourge of the Crusaders.

Shortly after he secured power
in Egypt in 1171

he built a citadel - part palace,
part fortress, part mosque -

in a commanding position
over the city of Cairo.

To find out more, I'm meeting Jehan Reda,
an expert in Arabic architecture.

- Hi, Michael. How are you?
- Very nice to see you.

Nice to see you, too.

We're in the middle
of Saladin's citadel.

Yes.

I mean, it's a monumental structure!

Definitely.

What was in his mind when he
decided to build on this scale?

Well, I think that his, er,

most urgent concern was,
er, defence, really.

They had skirmishes and battles with
the Crusaders and this was continuous

campaigns and counter campaigns,
so there was a real concern here

for defence
and protecting the city of Cairo.

And of course, from a military point
of view, this is the highest ground.

- It's this way.
- So it feels...

Jehan is going to show me
one of Cairo's secret places -

the Well of the Spiral.

This well was built to supply water
to the defenders of the citadel

when cut off from the Nile
in times of siege.

We're now going below the...

We're going all the way down
to the level of the Nile.

- Straight through...
- Straight through.

- ...the rock of the mountain?
- Yes.

The well has been closed
for quite some time now

because of accidents happening.

Oh, you can get a sense of it here,
can't you? (LAUGHS)

Yes, through the windows.

So is this a spiral staircase
going round the whole outside?

Yes. It's all around,
all around all the way down.

Do we have any sense
of who the workers were?

Well, we have an eyewitness account,

er, that saw a large number
of crusader prisoners.

- So crusader prisoners...
- That's right.

- ...captured by Saladin,
put to work on...

Put to work here.

Are we there? Ah.

Yes, we are almost there.

Wow!

Oh! (LAUGHS)

We are 45 metres down here.

We're actually standing on the roof
of the second shaft - it's below us.

I was gonna ask - there's no water here,
so we've... There's another shaft?

There's another one right below.

Directly below, but how did they get
the water up such an enormous distance?

Well, they used the mechanism that was...

that had been used in Egypt since,
oh, time immemorial.

There is one right here, actually -
right behind you.

- Let's go and see it.
- I can see why you said,

erm, bring some torches, as well -
it gets dark over here, doesn't it?

It does.

This is Saladin's waterwheel?

This is the waterwheel.
So you have this horizontal wheel,

erm, powered by the oxen that
walks around in a circle driving it

and then you can see how it fits.

- The oxen?
- Yeah.

Where do oxen fit in down here?

Well, they bought them down here
a little bit young

through the - you know the spiral
staircase we've just descended?

So where we walked.

Yes, and they'd be harnessed
and it would go round in a circle

while it actually turns
the vertical wheel you see here.

Yeah.

And this wheel would have ropes
slung over it

that go all the way down the second shaft.

- To bring the water.
- To bring the water up, in cups.

So can we get down
into the second shaft?

Yes, you can - on your own.

With the help of a climbing expert,
I'm leaving Jehan behind

to explore the lower half of the well.

So that whole well is open

and if you fell down it would go
right the way down the hole.

Yeah, OK. OK.

Well, I can see now why
Jehan did not want to join me

on this part of the tour.

You can hardly actually get a look
over the edge

cos there is absolutely nothing here
stopping me from the shaft.

Yeah, that looks a long way down
and every time I... move my feet

and send some piece
of rubble falling off

you get a nice sound of it
hitting the water several seconds later,

which tells me
it's still quite a way down.

Further down, a section
of the 800-year-old steps

has largely crumbled away.

(GRUNTS)

I've finally reached
the level of the Nile.

This water would have been
a precious resource

back in Saladin's day.

It must have been cleaner
back then, too.

You see Saladin's citadel walls
and you think "impressive",

but it's when you come down here,
deep under the ground,

that you are completely awestruck
by the engineering power

and might of that man to construct
something like this. (LAUGHS)

And at the same time,
I'm struck with a sense of...

well, awe for the individual workers -
those Crusader captives

whose job it was to hew this out
of the stone, one piece at a time.

The well appears roughly
hacked out of the rocks,

but our scans will reveal
the clever engineering behind it all.

The citadel sits high on its outcrop.

As you come down, you see just how far
the well shaft has to descend

to reach the water table - a remarkable
90 metres through solid bedrock.

Look how the two sections
of the well fit together

with the middle platform
for the waterwheel mechanism

and those ever-circling oxen.

From there, the water would be
lifted up through the top section

to come out into reservoirs like this.

The Well of the Spiral helped
ensure those in the citadel

could withstand a long siege.

For 700 years, from the time of
Saladin until the mid-19th century,

the seat of government
was the citadel of Cairo.

For the second half of this period,
Egypt was occupied

by the Ottomans and then the French,
as it would be later by the British.

In 1953, Cairo finally became the capital

of the independent republic of Egypt.

But of all the cultures
that ruled this region,

the one that continues to
feed the imagination

and inspire the modern people of Egypt

is the civilisation of
the ancient Egyptians.

And that's largely due to the
architectural jewel in Cairo's crown -

the Great Pyramid.

Now our scans allow me
to re-enter this world in a new way -

using virtual reality.

Well, it looks like you're bringing me

to some kind of magical
technical treasure trove in here.

Michael, welcome to our virtual studio.

I feel like I'm embarking on
a unique adventure.

So where are we going first?

Well, erm, we thought we'd give you
a bit of an overview of the Great Pyramid,

so let's dive in and sort of dissect
the inside of the pyramid.

I can't wait to see this.

I'm standing inside the middle
of the Great Pyramid!

Can I...? I can just... I can!

I can just put my head out
and touch the wall.

How extraordinary is this?
Poke back in.

So we can just seamlessly
wander through

the inner core of the pyramid.

You can't help, at this level,

but just want to hold
the King's Chamber in your hand.

(LAUGHS)

Michael, to be true virtual archaeologists

we should be crawling through this.

Yeah, cos we're standing
in the middle of the tunnel, aren't we?

Hang on a sec, let's get down.

Oh, God. Yes, I remember this -
here we go.

Ah. Here we are.

Back into the King's Chamber.

It's an incredible space.

Although it seems very simple,
the engineering required

to make this space inside a huge structure
is sort of incredible, really.

I feel like we've almost taken on
the spirit of the pharaoh

as we wander in and out chambers
and up and down

and through the pyramid and in and out.

We're seeing perhaps what they hoped
they would be seeing in eternity.

We went right down, didn't we,
to the subterranean chamber.

Hang on a sec.

They are absolutely aligned, aren't they?

And when you think about them doing this
4,500 years ago, that is phenomenal.

So, Michael, we've shrunk
the pyramid down

so we can have this godly-like view
of the outside and the inside.

Of the whole Giza Plateau, isn't it?
The whole... enclosure.

And you see the pyramids there.

And then you can just walk
with a lot more ease

than we did in the heat.

As we were heading across the complex,
we can head over to the Sphinx.

Ah!

Looking down on one of the wonders
of the ancient world.

And what a privilege and a wonder
to see it like this.

What really strikes me about
the city of Cairo

is the way it contains this
immense span of human history.

When the Romans came here

they were confronted by the monuments
of the ancient Egyptians

that were already older to them
than the Romans are to us today.

I've discovered how the city
at the head of the Nile Delta

evolved from Memphis,
to Babylon, to Cairo.

And how successive empires
built colossal structures

to mark and control this region -
the most important place

in the whole of Egypt for 5,000 years.

All of which makes Cairo
such a magical city.

In the Arabian Nights,
a father says to a son,

"He who has not seen Cairo
has not seen the world.

"Because Cairo is the world."