Egypt from Above (2020–…): Season 1, Episode 2 - Engineering the Future - full transcript
Egypt...
A land where magnificent ancient
monuments live side-by-side
with a dynamic, modern society.
This spectacular aerial journey
with unprecedented access to
the nation's incredible sights
will show how archaeologists
are rediscovering ancient treasures
and how the engineers
building new
mega-projects are
transforming the nation.
From a billion-dollar plan
to construct the
world's biggest ever museum...
to a brand-new capital city
rising from the desert sands,
our incredible bird's
eye view reveals
how this nation is embracing
its past
to forge its future.
Egypt.
Covering almost
400,000 square miles,
it's home to the world's
largest Arab population.
97% of Egypt is desert.
This forces 95% of its
inhabitants to live on a narrow,
fertile strip of land irrigated
by the mighty River Nile.
With Egypt's population
predicted to grow 30%
to almost 130 million by
the year 2030,
the country's transport infrastructure,
housing and energy resources
will be stretched to
breaking point.
The city under the
greatest pressure to evolve
is Egypt's capital, Cairo.
Home to 10 million people,
this is one of the most
congested cities on Earth.
Over 25 million car journeys are
made every day in the capital
causing rush hour gridlock
and pushing pollution to
dangerous levels.
Cairo's chaotic footprint
makes wholesale urban renewal
too complex and disruptive.
So planners have devised
a radical solution
to fix the city's problems.
One that breaks free
from the constraints
of Egypt's challenging geography.
Their bold plan is to
relieve the pressure
on Cairo by building a new
city in the desert,
30 miles to the east.
An aerial view reveals
the vast scale
of Africa's
largest building site.
Costing an
estimated $300 billion,
once finished, the as
yet unnamed "New Capital"
will have enough homes
for 6.5 million people.
Transport infrastructure is at
the heart of the city's design.
Two new metro lines and
hundreds of miles of highways
will ease congestion.
A 25-mile-long subterranean pipeline
will supply the
city with water diverted
from the Nile.
The city will cover
270 square miles,
30% larger than
modern-day Cairo.
The New Capital will serve as
Egypt's administrative center.
And the Egyptian government
has invested $30 billion
into the project to
move its 36 Ministries here.
Some of that money will
subsidize the relocation
of government workers from Cairo.
But critics worry the
New Capital's homes
will be unaffordable
for most Egyptians.
It's 8:00 am.
The night shift is heading home.
But engineer Ahmed Refaat's
day is just beginning.
When I started working here,
it was just a pile of sand.
Ahmed is helping to
build the city's centerpiece,
Egypt's new parliament building.
This is where the nation's
596 representatives will sit.
Ahmed is one of 1,000 men on
site working around the clock
to keep construction on schedule.
Today he and his team
must use eleven cranes
to maneuver thousands of tons
of materials into place.
To reach the building's
ambitious opening deadline,
each crane driver must
complete a lift in
just 15 minutes.
I worry that
something will happen
that will put us behind schedule.
Lift up the load to
zone 2 on the 7th floor.
Do it straight
away please, Mohamed.
The team needs to erect two tons
of steel scaffolding on top
of the building's
115-foot high roof.
The scaffolding must be in
place in time
for a concrete pour later
this afternoon.
With the delivery made,
Ahmed loses no time
preparing for the next lift
to keep the
massive build on track.
I think about how
the New Capital will look
20 or 30 years from now
and telling my children about
my part in building the city.
This won't be the first time
Egypt's capital has moved.
Before Cairo's 1,000-year
incumbency,
many cities had been home to
Egypt's rulers.
The most powerful of the
country's ancient capitals
was undoubtedly Thebes.
The ruins of this
4,000-year-old city
lie beneath modern-day Luxor,
400 miles to the south of Cairo.
At its heart stands Karnak,
the largest temple complex the
ancient Egyptians ever built.
It's only from above
that the scale
of this majestic site becomes clear.
Added to by 30 pharaohs,
it stretches across an area
larger than 140 soccer pitches.
At its center soar the
134 massive sandstone columns
of the Hypostyle Hall.
For French archaeologist
Benjamin Durand,
working here is a
boyhood dream come true.
I visit Karnak
when I was a child,
and I really
had this first impression
of being in a place
where you can
really touch ancient history.
And what is amazing is
that of course
I had no idea I would work here.
Benjamin wants
to discover what happened
at Karnak after the Pharaohs
rule came to an end.
Karnak is the longest project,
architectural project, in Egypt.
It lasts for about 2,000 years.
We have here a concentration of
almost all the history of Egypt.
Egypt's last pharaoh, Cleopatra,
was deposed by the Roman
Emperor Octavian in 30 BCE.
This marked the beginning
of more than 600 years
of Roman rule.
When Rome converted to Christianity
in the fourth century CE,
the religion of ancient
Egypt quickly fell from favor.
Did this shift end Karnak's
role as a sacred site?
Were its buildings abandoned
for hundreds or
even thousands of years?
Or were they used for worship
even when the era of
the Pharaohs
their gods was over?
Karnak is one of the largest
ancient temples in the world.
Archaeologist Benjamin
Durand wants to find out
how it was used after the
fall of Egypt's pharaohs.
He's digging deposits
from the 4th Century CE,
when Egypt was under Roman rule.
His team has now made an
extraordinary discovery.
One that supports the theory
that a part of the temple
became a place
of Christian worship.
One of the most
important objects
we found in this excavation
is a jar stand
dating from the 4th century,
so after Christ.
It was like in a
movie, you know.
We were just brushing
the surface of the floor,
and we first appear the
Christian cross in,
uh, on the... on the floor.
Benjamin's discovery shows
that after pharaohs fell,
Karnak became a center
for another faith and god.
New finds are filling in
previously unknown portions
of Karnak's long history
and hint the temple has many
more secrets to reveal.
In fact very,
very little is known
of what is beneath
the Temple of Karnak.
There is still hundreds
of years of work
for archaeologists in Karnak
to know precisely
what was happening here.
Many of Karnak's
treasures are displayed here
at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.
This is home to the largest number
of Ancient Egyptian
artifacts on the planet,
more than 120,000.
Unfortunately, this old museum
is today too small
to display the entire collection
and lacks the technology to
conserve it in ideal conditions.
So Egypt's Ministry of
Antiquities is building a huge,
new showcase for these
priceless treasures
equipped with state-of-the-art
conservation techniques.
One and a half miles from
the famous Giza plateau,
a museum like no
other is taking shape.
Only from the air does the scale
of this 5.2 million square foot
project become clear.
Construction of the mammoth
$1-billion
enterprise began in 2002.
When it finally opens,
the Grand Egyptian Museum
will house state of the art
climate-controlled galleries
to display the country's
greatest ancient artifacts.
Engineer Shady Ahmed's team
face a formidable challenge.
They must erect the giant
triangular grid
that will form the museum's
colossal facade.
The Grand Egyptian Museum
is one of the most complex
projects in the world.
Looking at the site from high up
reveals the inspiration behind
the structure's shape.
We're just over
a mile from the Pyramids,
so we're trying to do
something great here,
as great as the Pyramids.
The museum's design
echoes the form
of Egypt's most famous ancient monuments.
From the triangular panes
in each glass façade
to the building's
triangular footprint.
The museum is full of triangles
to remind you of the Pyramids.
Wherever you go, you will
see ancient Egypt in a new way.
The finished
museum will exhibit treasures
from 7,000 years
of Egyptian history.
Its conservation
center is already open.
Experts here are
working to preserve
these unique artifacts for
future generations
to study and enjoy.
That is genuinely a great thing
and something the
whole world can appreciate.
While workers race to complete
a 21st century
engineering marvel,
nearby, archaeologists are investigating
one of Ancient
Egypt's most iconic monuments.
They're close to unlocking
the last secrets
of the mysterious Great Sphinx
on the Giza Plateau.
The ancient statue is
240 feet long
and more than 65 feet tall.
Looking at it from
the air reveals
it's not built from stone blocks,
it's cut out from
the plateau's bedrock.
The ancient Egyptians
depicted most of their gods
with the body of a human and
the head of an animal.
The beast defined the
god's characteristics.
Sekhmet had a lion's head to emphasize
his role as god of war.
For the first time in
ancient Egypt,
the Sphinx
flipped this convention.
The head of a pharaoh was
placed on the body of a lion,
so a living ruler became a God.
Archaeologist Mark Lehner
believes the logic
behind this switch was clear
to the ruler
who ordered
the Sphinx's construction.
When you put the
human head on the lion body,
it represents human intelligence
in control
of a very powerful force.
For centuries,
mystery has surrounded
which pharaoh had the
Sphinx carved in his image.
Now, Mark believes
he has an answer.
The identity of the pharaoh
who built the
Sphinx is fiercely debated.
Now, by comparing
the Sphinx's face
to statues of Egypt's rulers,
Mark Lehner believes he
can answer the riddle.
The sphinx face
does bear a resemblance
in terms of the spacing of
the eyes and the eyebrows
and the nose and the lips,
although the nose is missing,
to statues of Khafre.
Khafre ruled Egypt
four and a
half thousand years ago.
He built the second largest
pyramid of the Giza complex,
and Mark thinks the
archaeological evidence
suggests this pharaoh ordered
the Sphinx's construction too.
What does speak very powerfully
that Khafre built the Sphinx is
the sequence of quarrying
and construction that tells you
that the Sphinx
was one of the last things
that Khafre was doing as part
of his Great Pyramid Complex.
Today the Sphinx and
the Giza Pyramids
are Egypt's number one tourist destination.
On the country's stunning
Red Sea coast,
21st-century
engineers are transforming
the landscape to create a
brand-new tourist hotspot.
30 years ago, El Gouna was
an empty stretch
of desert coastline.
Now it is the site of one of
the country's
most ambitious building
programs...
A luxury resort offering
year-round sunshine
is rising from the desert.
Over the past decades,
the town has attracted
rich Egyptians seeking
a Riviera lifestyle.
The project involves
completely re-modeling
the coastline by creating
manmade inlets,
lakes and islands that
will eventually
accommodate 25,000 residents.
George Elia is the developer
charged with making
this remarkable
transformation happen.
El Gouna currently spreads
over almost 14 square miles.
It's constantly under
construction and development.
George's team is
building 108 villas
across 3 newly constructed
artificial islands.
It's just one of twelve developments
currently being
built at El Gouna.
Powerful pumps suck up
thousands of cubic feet
of wet sand from the bottom
of a new lake.
The pumps deposit this
sand on the shoreline
where excavators use it to
reshape the landscape.
Some critics believe El Gouna is
a huge financial gamble
given Egypt's recent
political turmoil.
Tourist numbers collapsed
after the 2011 revolution.
They are now slowly recovering,
but further unrest could see
them dwindle once again.
The uncertainty piles
the pressure on George
to deliver the villas
on time and on budget.
If we don't
deliver or we are late,
it's a big problem.
The company loses
a lot of revenue.
For today at least,
pumping sand from
this lagoon is on schedule
and remodeling this section
of coast
should be finished before
the deadline.
Soon, Egyptians will
move into this new quarter
of the ever-expanding town
of El Gouna.
Coastal development projects
face criticism
because of the damage they can
cause to fragile ecosystems.
The Red Sea is home to
world-renowned sea life.
And groups of environmentalists
and volunteers are pioneering
initiatives to protect
its fragile coral reef.
One of the Red Sea's most
spectacular marine environments
lies off the coast of the Sinai Peninsula.
Seen from above,
the arid mountainous
interior is clearly barren.
But where these slopes
drop into the deep blue sea,
they meet one of the planet's
most extraordinary ecosystems.
Coral reefs cover less
than 1% of the ocean floor,
but they support
over 25% of marine life.
The Red Sea's warm
and especially salty waters
are home to over
300 species of coral
and 1,200 species of fish.
Dahab is a very precious place,
and there are things here
that don't exist anywhere
else in the world.
20 years ago,
local boy Khaled Hamed
was fascinated by the divers
he saw swimming in the water.
I learned to dive after someone
lost their fins in the current.
I jumped in and swam to
retrieve them
and so they told me, "You have
to be a diver."
Khaled trained in
Dahab as a dive instructor,
and since those early days in
the 1990s,
the town's population
has boomed to 15,000.
Now the plastic waste
visitors leave behind
threatens to destroy the
fragile marine environment
they've come here to see.
So, Khaled and his fellow divers
have made it their mission
to save the reef.
On Egypt's Red Sea coast,
dive instructor
Khaled Hamed is leading
a campaign to save coral reefs.
60 feet from the shore,
his team finds one of
the greatest threats
facing this environment.
Plastic.
It wraps around coral polyps,
starving them of oxygen,
so they suffocate and die.
And once the coral has gone,
the entire ecosystem it
supports will collapse.
After just one hour
in the water,
the divers have filled their
bags and head back to shore.
They've pulled three garbage
bags full of plastic away
from just a tiny section
of Dahab's reef.
Khaled hopes the
team's work will eradicate
a little of the estimated
12.7 million tons of plastic
adrift in the world's oceans
and protect Egypt's reefs for
future generations.
I am really happy.
It is a good thing when we
remove the plastic from the sea.
We do this with love.
This is our environment,
we must look after it.
Away from the
fragile coastal ecosystems,
researchers are uncovering
the secrets of another,
far more ancient,
marine environment.
Surprisingly, it is situated
more than 100 miles from
the nearest coastline
in a stretch of desert named
Wadi Al-Hitan.
Seen from above, the area
looks like an alien world.
Giant, smoothed rocks blasted
by storms
over hundreds of
millennia rise from the sands.
40 million years ago,
this desert was at the bottom of
the now vanished Tethys Sea.
When 20th century explorers
dug here,
they uncovered
not ancient temples,
but the remains of
giant sea creatures.
Paleontologist Mohamed Sameh
has been excavating this site
since the year 2000.
This place is full of secrets
and every day it reveals another.
The layers are like an open book
that we can
read to learn its history.
Mohamed brushes away dust
from the fossilized skeleton of
a 60-foot long prehistoric animal
that swam the ocean millions of
years ago.
It's an indescribable
feeling to study a creature
that's 40 million years old
and has been discovered
after all that time.
The hundreds
of skeletons like this
give the site its name.
In Arabic, Wadi al-Hitan
means Valley of the Whales.
This is the skeleton
of a Basilosaurus,
one of the earliest
whales to live on Earth.
After decades of research,
Mohamed can put flesh onto
the creature's bones
to reveal it had a
muscular body and large,
powerful jaws that allowed it to
hunt like a killer whale.
These fossils form the
most important collection
of whale bones on Earth.
They offer a unique insight
into how modern
marine mammals evolved from
their prehistoric ancestors.
We tell all our visitors,
"When you come to the
Valley of the Whales,
close your eyes and listen
to the sound of the ocean."
It's a marine
world in the desert.
For millennia,
Egypt's deserts constrained
the country's urban
and economic development.
Now, 21st century technology is
turning these wastelands
into prime energy-producing
real estate.
Just inland from
the Red Sea Coast,
the hot desert air creates
strong winds that the Egyptians
are harnessing for power.
Here, wind speeds regularly
top 70 miles per hour.
It's the perfect place to build
the largest wind farm in
the Middle East.
An aerial view reveals the
scale of the epic project.
It covers an area
of 40 square miles.
290 giant turbines,
fitted with 128-foot long blades
combine to generate
580 megawatts of electricity,
enough energy to power
almost half a million homes.
This windy desert is
the ideal environment
for generating renewable energy,
but it also delivers a daily
blast of sand to the turbines.
That's bad news for Emad Hamdy,
a maintenance engineer
at the site.
Today, he's on an
emergency call out.
The wind farm's control
center has received an alert.
A turbine's wind
meter is broken.
It can't run until
the meter is fixed.
Turbine 55 has
a wind gauge failure.
Clear damage,
send me confirmation when
the job's done.
The meter is at the
top of the 196-foot turbine.
Emad must now scale
this goliath to fix it.
Engineer Emad Hamdy
stands atop a 196-foot turbine
in Egypt's largest wind farm.
He must repair its
broken wind meter.
70-mile-per-hour gusts make
this one of the best spots
for a wind farm in North Africa.
On the few occasions
the wind does drop,
the pressure is on to complete
repairs as quickly as possible.
After 30 minutes
watching his every step,
Emad's work is finished and
he retreats to the safety
of the turbine's interior.
With the wind meter fixed,
the 7-ton, 128 foot long
blades start to spin...
and feed electricity straight
into the Egyptian power grid.
Here in Egypt, the ancient
and modern live side by side.
As the country moves forward
and lifestyles, jobs
and industries change,
many communities are
determined to not lose sight
of their culture and history.
Located deep in
the Western desert,
just 30 miles from
the Libyan border,
people in Siwa have
been the producing dates
for thousands of years.
From above, a burst of green
spreads across the arid desert.
350 miles from the River Nile,
more than 700,000 date palm
trees blanket the oasis.
This is one of the
most fertile areas of Egypt
outside the Nile valley.
Mohamed Admy picks
dates using a technique
unchanged for generations.
I harvest dates by
spreading a sheet
on the ground around
the palm tree.
Then I climb up, tie myself
to the tree and start to pick.
We throw the dates
on the ground.
Then we sort out the good ones
from the ones that
are infested with bugs.
After 8 hours harvesting,
it's time for
Mohamed to sell his dates.
This is where the ancient
crop meets the 21st century.
Unlike his ancestors,
Mohamed doesn't rely
on an uncertain price
at the local market.
He takes his dates to the
town center factories instead.
When the quality
is good, the dates end up
being exported abroad and
sold for a good price.
Then when the next
season comes around
and someone
asks for my dates again,
I can demand a higher price.
This system means Mohamed
can now
rely on a predictable income.
Before, date farmers
had to wait for their payments
because the merchant
had to sell the harvest
before he could pay us.
Today, I deliver my
harvest to the factory
and get paid on the spot.
The industry may be changing,
but the local traditions remain strong.
As evening falls, Mohamed joins
his fellow farmers
in a ceremony of song and dance.
They remain as proud of their
history and heritage as ever.
From Siwa to magnificent
ancient monuments,
the past constantly colors
the lives of modern Egyptians.
In 1977, archaeologists
deciphered hieroglyphics
that described an epic
contest in the desert.
An ancient pharaoh put
his soldiers to the test
by challenging them to
a 62-mile race
around Egypt's first pyramids.
Inspired by the tale,
modern Egyptians resurrected
the event that starts
outside the city of Faiyum.
It's 4:00am and a group
of athletes are warming up,
ready to bring the
legacy of the pharaohs
into the 21st century.
All runners, please.
47-year-old Mahmoud Dehis
is an ultra-marathon runner.
He has won this race
a record 10 times.
- Three...
- Two...
- Two...
- One...
- One.
- Go!
Go!
Can he win it again today?
The Grand Pharaonic
Race is a 62-mile ultra-marathon
through Egypt's western desert.
It's an ancient event reinvented
for the 21st century.
The athletes race
through history:
past five of the first pyramids
built by the Ancient Egyptians.
Mahmoud Dehis not only
wants to win today,
he wants to once again
beat the 8-hour time
of the ancient runners
recorded on hieroglyphics.
When I think about our ancestors
who ran the same route,
I start hearing the
rhythm of their footsteps.
18 miles into the race,
the runners pass the
4,600-year-old Meidum Pyramid.
This is the ancient Egyptians'
second attempt
at such a monument,
built around 50 years
before the Great Pyramid of Giza.
From up above, the
miles still left to run
stretch away to the horizon.
The non-stop ultra-marathon,
through often
sweltering temperatures,
plays havoc with
both body and mind.
Very often runners,
myself included,
feel despair and fatigue.
40 miles into the race
and Mahmoud has left
the other competitors behind.
He'll complete its
grueling final stages alone.
The effort to break away from
the pack
takes a toll on Mahmoud's legs.
A support medic
massages his aching muscles
to help Mahmoud push on through
the heat of the midday sun.
Cheering crowds
boost Mahmoud's morale.
He thanks them by throwing
candy to excited children.
Now he's ready to
face the final 6 miles,
a daunting uphill climb past
the Stepped Pyramid of Dioser,
the first ever built in Egypt.
Pushing through the pain,
Mahmoud chases down
the finish line
with the other competitors
still out of sight.
Shattered but triumphant,
Mahmoud finishes in first place.
It feels great.
I feel like everyone is
happy when I win.
It's a really great joy.
His time of seven
hours forty-two minutes
is just 12 minutes
behind his personal best.
Again, the 47-year-old
beats the 8-hour time
recorded by the ancients.
Everyone should
appreciate persistence,
determination,
and overcoming challenges.
You need this spirit
no matter your age.
This hardcore
endurance event proves
that even in the 21st century,
the spirit of the pharaohs
has not been forgotten.
Flying over Egypt, our birds'
eye view reveals a nation
moving forward while embracing
its unique history.
Engineering mega-projects in
the desert are powering
the country to a bright future.
A state-of-the-art museum
will showcase
priceless ancient treasures
for the whole world to
understand and enjoy.
This is a land where
the achievements
of the past are still inspiring
the Egyptians of today.
Captioned by National Captioning Institute
A land where magnificent ancient
monuments live side-by-side
with a dynamic, modern society.
This spectacular aerial journey
with unprecedented access to
the nation's incredible sights
will show how archaeologists
are rediscovering ancient treasures
and how the engineers
building new
mega-projects are
transforming the nation.
From a billion-dollar plan
to construct the
world's biggest ever museum...
to a brand-new capital city
rising from the desert sands,
our incredible bird's
eye view reveals
how this nation is embracing
its past
to forge its future.
Egypt.
Covering almost
400,000 square miles,
it's home to the world's
largest Arab population.
97% of Egypt is desert.
This forces 95% of its
inhabitants to live on a narrow,
fertile strip of land irrigated
by the mighty River Nile.
With Egypt's population
predicted to grow 30%
to almost 130 million by
the year 2030,
the country's transport infrastructure,
housing and energy resources
will be stretched to
breaking point.
The city under the
greatest pressure to evolve
is Egypt's capital, Cairo.
Home to 10 million people,
this is one of the most
congested cities on Earth.
Over 25 million car journeys are
made every day in the capital
causing rush hour gridlock
and pushing pollution to
dangerous levels.
Cairo's chaotic footprint
makes wholesale urban renewal
too complex and disruptive.
So planners have devised
a radical solution
to fix the city's problems.
One that breaks free
from the constraints
of Egypt's challenging geography.
Their bold plan is to
relieve the pressure
on Cairo by building a new
city in the desert,
30 miles to the east.
An aerial view reveals
the vast scale
of Africa's
largest building site.
Costing an
estimated $300 billion,
once finished, the as
yet unnamed "New Capital"
will have enough homes
for 6.5 million people.
Transport infrastructure is at
the heart of the city's design.
Two new metro lines and
hundreds of miles of highways
will ease congestion.
A 25-mile-long subterranean pipeline
will supply the
city with water diverted
from the Nile.
The city will cover
270 square miles,
30% larger than
modern-day Cairo.
The New Capital will serve as
Egypt's administrative center.
And the Egyptian government
has invested $30 billion
into the project to
move its 36 Ministries here.
Some of that money will
subsidize the relocation
of government workers from Cairo.
But critics worry the
New Capital's homes
will be unaffordable
for most Egyptians.
It's 8:00 am.
The night shift is heading home.
But engineer Ahmed Refaat's
day is just beginning.
When I started working here,
it was just a pile of sand.
Ahmed is helping to
build the city's centerpiece,
Egypt's new parliament building.
This is where the nation's
596 representatives will sit.
Ahmed is one of 1,000 men on
site working around the clock
to keep construction on schedule.
Today he and his team
must use eleven cranes
to maneuver thousands of tons
of materials into place.
To reach the building's
ambitious opening deadline,
each crane driver must
complete a lift in
just 15 minutes.
I worry that
something will happen
that will put us behind schedule.
Lift up the load to
zone 2 on the 7th floor.
Do it straight
away please, Mohamed.
The team needs to erect two tons
of steel scaffolding on top
of the building's
115-foot high roof.
The scaffolding must be in
place in time
for a concrete pour later
this afternoon.
With the delivery made,
Ahmed loses no time
preparing for the next lift
to keep the
massive build on track.
I think about how
the New Capital will look
20 or 30 years from now
and telling my children about
my part in building the city.
This won't be the first time
Egypt's capital has moved.
Before Cairo's 1,000-year
incumbency,
many cities had been home to
Egypt's rulers.
The most powerful of the
country's ancient capitals
was undoubtedly Thebes.
The ruins of this
4,000-year-old city
lie beneath modern-day Luxor,
400 miles to the south of Cairo.
At its heart stands Karnak,
the largest temple complex the
ancient Egyptians ever built.
It's only from above
that the scale
of this majestic site becomes clear.
Added to by 30 pharaohs,
it stretches across an area
larger than 140 soccer pitches.
At its center soar the
134 massive sandstone columns
of the Hypostyle Hall.
For French archaeologist
Benjamin Durand,
working here is a
boyhood dream come true.
I visit Karnak
when I was a child,
and I really
had this first impression
of being in a place
where you can
really touch ancient history.
And what is amazing is
that of course
I had no idea I would work here.
Benjamin wants
to discover what happened
at Karnak after the Pharaohs
rule came to an end.
Karnak is the longest project,
architectural project, in Egypt.
It lasts for about 2,000 years.
We have here a concentration of
almost all the history of Egypt.
Egypt's last pharaoh, Cleopatra,
was deposed by the Roman
Emperor Octavian in 30 BCE.
This marked the beginning
of more than 600 years
of Roman rule.
When Rome converted to Christianity
in the fourth century CE,
the religion of ancient
Egypt quickly fell from favor.
Did this shift end Karnak's
role as a sacred site?
Were its buildings abandoned
for hundreds or
even thousands of years?
Or were they used for worship
even when the era of
the Pharaohs
their gods was over?
Karnak is one of the largest
ancient temples in the world.
Archaeologist Benjamin
Durand wants to find out
how it was used after the
fall of Egypt's pharaohs.
He's digging deposits
from the 4th Century CE,
when Egypt was under Roman rule.
His team has now made an
extraordinary discovery.
One that supports the theory
that a part of the temple
became a place
of Christian worship.
One of the most
important objects
we found in this excavation
is a jar stand
dating from the 4th century,
so after Christ.
It was like in a
movie, you know.
We were just brushing
the surface of the floor,
and we first appear the
Christian cross in,
uh, on the... on the floor.
Benjamin's discovery shows
that after pharaohs fell,
Karnak became a center
for another faith and god.
New finds are filling in
previously unknown portions
of Karnak's long history
and hint the temple has many
more secrets to reveal.
In fact very,
very little is known
of what is beneath
the Temple of Karnak.
There is still hundreds
of years of work
for archaeologists in Karnak
to know precisely
what was happening here.
Many of Karnak's
treasures are displayed here
at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.
This is home to the largest number
of Ancient Egyptian
artifacts on the planet,
more than 120,000.
Unfortunately, this old museum
is today too small
to display the entire collection
and lacks the technology to
conserve it in ideal conditions.
So Egypt's Ministry of
Antiquities is building a huge,
new showcase for these
priceless treasures
equipped with state-of-the-art
conservation techniques.
One and a half miles from
the famous Giza plateau,
a museum like no
other is taking shape.
Only from the air does the scale
of this 5.2 million square foot
project become clear.
Construction of the mammoth
$1-billion
enterprise began in 2002.
When it finally opens,
the Grand Egyptian Museum
will house state of the art
climate-controlled galleries
to display the country's
greatest ancient artifacts.
Engineer Shady Ahmed's team
face a formidable challenge.
They must erect the giant
triangular grid
that will form the museum's
colossal facade.
The Grand Egyptian Museum
is one of the most complex
projects in the world.
Looking at the site from high up
reveals the inspiration behind
the structure's shape.
We're just over
a mile from the Pyramids,
so we're trying to do
something great here,
as great as the Pyramids.
The museum's design
echoes the form
of Egypt's most famous ancient monuments.
From the triangular panes
in each glass façade
to the building's
triangular footprint.
The museum is full of triangles
to remind you of the Pyramids.
Wherever you go, you will
see ancient Egypt in a new way.
The finished
museum will exhibit treasures
from 7,000 years
of Egyptian history.
Its conservation
center is already open.
Experts here are
working to preserve
these unique artifacts for
future generations
to study and enjoy.
That is genuinely a great thing
and something the
whole world can appreciate.
While workers race to complete
a 21st century
engineering marvel,
nearby, archaeologists are investigating
one of Ancient
Egypt's most iconic monuments.
They're close to unlocking
the last secrets
of the mysterious Great Sphinx
on the Giza Plateau.
The ancient statue is
240 feet long
and more than 65 feet tall.
Looking at it from
the air reveals
it's not built from stone blocks,
it's cut out from
the plateau's bedrock.
The ancient Egyptians
depicted most of their gods
with the body of a human and
the head of an animal.
The beast defined the
god's characteristics.
Sekhmet had a lion's head to emphasize
his role as god of war.
For the first time in
ancient Egypt,
the Sphinx
flipped this convention.
The head of a pharaoh was
placed on the body of a lion,
so a living ruler became a God.
Archaeologist Mark Lehner
believes the logic
behind this switch was clear
to the ruler
who ordered
the Sphinx's construction.
When you put the
human head on the lion body,
it represents human intelligence
in control
of a very powerful force.
For centuries,
mystery has surrounded
which pharaoh had the
Sphinx carved in his image.
Now, Mark believes
he has an answer.
The identity of the pharaoh
who built the
Sphinx is fiercely debated.
Now, by comparing
the Sphinx's face
to statues of Egypt's rulers,
Mark Lehner believes he
can answer the riddle.
The sphinx face
does bear a resemblance
in terms of the spacing of
the eyes and the eyebrows
and the nose and the lips,
although the nose is missing,
to statues of Khafre.
Khafre ruled Egypt
four and a
half thousand years ago.
He built the second largest
pyramid of the Giza complex,
and Mark thinks the
archaeological evidence
suggests this pharaoh ordered
the Sphinx's construction too.
What does speak very powerfully
that Khafre built the Sphinx is
the sequence of quarrying
and construction that tells you
that the Sphinx
was one of the last things
that Khafre was doing as part
of his Great Pyramid Complex.
Today the Sphinx and
the Giza Pyramids
are Egypt's number one tourist destination.
On the country's stunning
Red Sea coast,
21st-century
engineers are transforming
the landscape to create a
brand-new tourist hotspot.
30 years ago, El Gouna was
an empty stretch
of desert coastline.
Now it is the site of one of
the country's
most ambitious building
programs...
A luxury resort offering
year-round sunshine
is rising from the desert.
Over the past decades,
the town has attracted
rich Egyptians seeking
a Riviera lifestyle.
The project involves
completely re-modeling
the coastline by creating
manmade inlets,
lakes and islands that
will eventually
accommodate 25,000 residents.
George Elia is the developer
charged with making
this remarkable
transformation happen.
El Gouna currently spreads
over almost 14 square miles.
It's constantly under
construction and development.
George's team is
building 108 villas
across 3 newly constructed
artificial islands.
It's just one of twelve developments
currently being
built at El Gouna.
Powerful pumps suck up
thousands of cubic feet
of wet sand from the bottom
of a new lake.
The pumps deposit this
sand on the shoreline
where excavators use it to
reshape the landscape.
Some critics believe El Gouna is
a huge financial gamble
given Egypt's recent
political turmoil.
Tourist numbers collapsed
after the 2011 revolution.
They are now slowly recovering,
but further unrest could see
them dwindle once again.
The uncertainty piles
the pressure on George
to deliver the villas
on time and on budget.
If we don't
deliver or we are late,
it's a big problem.
The company loses
a lot of revenue.
For today at least,
pumping sand from
this lagoon is on schedule
and remodeling this section
of coast
should be finished before
the deadline.
Soon, Egyptians will
move into this new quarter
of the ever-expanding town
of El Gouna.
Coastal development projects
face criticism
because of the damage they can
cause to fragile ecosystems.
The Red Sea is home to
world-renowned sea life.
And groups of environmentalists
and volunteers are pioneering
initiatives to protect
its fragile coral reef.
One of the Red Sea's most
spectacular marine environments
lies off the coast of the Sinai Peninsula.
Seen from above,
the arid mountainous
interior is clearly barren.
But where these slopes
drop into the deep blue sea,
they meet one of the planet's
most extraordinary ecosystems.
Coral reefs cover less
than 1% of the ocean floor,
but they support
over 25% of marine life.
The Red Sea's warm
and especially salty waters
are home to over
300 species of coral
and 1,200 species of fish.
Dahab is a very precious place,
and there are things here
that don't exist anywhere
else in the world.
20 years ago,
local boy Khaled Hamed
was fascinated by the divers
he saw swimming in the water.
I learned to dive after someone
lost their fins in the current.
I jumped in and swam to
retrieve them
and so they told me, "You have
to be a diver."
Khaled trained in
Dahab as a dive instructor,
and since those early days in
the 1990s,
the town's population
has boomed to 15,000.
Now the plastic waste
visitors leave behind
threatens to destroy the
fragile marine environment
they've come here to see.
So, Khaled and his fellow divers
have made it their mission
to save the reef.
On Egypt's Red Sea coast,
dive instructor
Khaled Hamed is leading
a campaign to save coral reefs.
60 feet from the shore,
his team finds one of
the greatest threats
facing this environment.
Plastic.
It wraps around coral polyps,
starving them of oxygen,
so they suffocate and die.
And once the coral has gone,
the entire ecosystem it
supports will collapse.
After just one hour
in the water,
the divers have filled their
bags and head back to shore.
They've pulled three garbage
bags full of plastic away
from just a tiny section
of Dahab's reef.
Khaled hopes the
team's work will eradicate
a little of the estimated
12.7 million tons of plastic
adrift in the world's oceans
and protect Egypt's reefs for
future generations.
I am really happy.
It is a good thing when we
remove the plastic from the sea.
We do this with love.
This is our environment,
we must look after it.
Away from the
fragile coastal ecosystems,
researchers are uncovering
the secrets of another,
far more ancient,
marine environment.
Surprisingly, it is situated
more than 100 miles from
the nearest coastline
in a stretch of desert named
Wadi Al-Hitan.
Seen from above, the area
looks like an alien world.
Giant, smoothed rocks blasted
by storms
over hundreds of
millennia rise from the sands.
40 million years ago,
this desert was at the bottom of
the now vanished Tethys Sea.
When 20th century explorers
dug here,
they uncovered
not ancient temples,
but the remains of
giant sea creatures.
Paleontologist Mohamed Sameh
has been excavating this site
since the year 2000.
This place is full of secrets
and every day it reveals another.
The layers are like an open book
that we can
read to learn its history.
Mohamed brushes away dust
from the fossilized skeleton of
a 60-foot long prehistoric animal
that swam the ocean millions of
years ago.
It's an indescribable
feeling to study a creature
that's 40 million years old
and has been discovered
after all that time.
The hundreds
of skeletons like this
give the site its name.
In Arabic, Wadi al-Hitan
means Valley of the Whales.
This is the skeleton
of a Basilosaurus,
one of the earliest
whales to live on Earth.
After decades of research,
Mohamed can put flesh onto
the creature's bones
to reveal it had a
muscular body and large,
powerful jaws that allowed it to
hunt like a killer whale.
These fossils form the
most important collection
of whale bones on Earth.
They offer a unique insight
into how modern
marine mammals evolved from
their prehistoric ancestors.
We tell all our visitors,
"When you come to the
Valley of the Whales,
close your eyes and listen
to the sound of the ocean."
It's a marine
world in the desert.
For millennia,
Egypt's deserts constrained
the country's urban
and economic development.
Now, 21st century technology is
turning these wastelands
into prime energy-producing
real estate.
Just inland from
the Red Sea Coast,
the hot desert air creates
strong winds that the Egyptians
are harnessing for power.
Here, wind speeds regularly
top 70 miles per hour.
It's the perfect place to build
the largest wind farm in
the Middle East.
An aerial view reveals the
scale of the epic project.
It covers an area
of 40 square miles.
290 giant turbines,
fitted with 128-foot long blades
combine to generate
580 megawatts of electricity,
enough energy to power
almost half a million homes.
This windy desert is
the ideal environment
for generating renewable energy,
but it also delivers a daily
blast of sand to the turbines.
That's bad news for Emad Hamdy,
a maintenance engineer
at the site.
Today, he's on an
emergency call out.
The wind farm's control
center has received an alert.
A turbine's wind
meter is broken.
It can't run until
the meter is fixed.
Turbine 55 has
a wind gauge failure.
Clear damage,
send me confirmation when
the job's done.
The meter is at the
top of the 196-foot turbine.
Emad must now scale
this goliath to fix it.
Engineer Emad Hamdy
stands atop a 196-foot turbine
in Egypt's largest wind farm.
He must repair its
broken wind meter.
70-mile-per-hour gusts make
this one of the best spots
for a wind farm in North Africa.
On the few occasions
the wind does drop,
the pressure is on to complete
repairs as quickly as possible.
After 30 minutes
watching his every step,
Emad's work is finished and
he retreats to the safety
of the turbine's interior.
With the wind meter fixed,
the 7-ton, 128 foot long
blades start to spin...
and feed electricity straight
into the Egyptian power grid.
Here in Egypt, the ancient
and modern live side by side.
As the country moves forward
and lifestyles, jobs
and industries change,
many communities are
determined to not lose sight
of their culture and history.
Located deep in
the Western desert,
just 30 miles from
the Libyan border,
people in Siwa have
been the producing dates
for thousands of years.
From above, a burst of green
spreads across the arid desert.
350 miles from the River Nile,
more than 700,000 date palm
trees blanket the oasis.
This is one of the
most fertile areas of Egypt
outside the Nile valley.
Mohamed Admy picks
dates using a technique
unchanged for generations.
I harvest dates by
spreading a sheet
on the ground around
the palm tree.
Then I climb up, tie myself
to the tree and start to pick.
We throw the dates
on the ground.
Then we sort out the good ones
from the ones that
are infested with bugs.
After 8 hours harvesting,
it's time for
Mohamed to sell his dates.
This is where the ancient
crop meets the 21st century.
Unlike his ancestors,
Mohamed doesn't rely
on an uncertain price
at the local market.
He takes his dates to the
town center factories instead.
When the quality
is good, the dates end up
being exported abroad and
sold for a good price.
Then when the next
season comes around
and someone
asks for my dates again,
I can demand a higher price.
This system means Mohamed
can now
rely on a predictable income.
Before, date farmers
had to wait for their payments
because the merchant
had to sell the harvest
before he could pay us.
Today, I deliver my
harvest to the factory
and get paid on the spot.
The industry may be changing,
but the local traditions remain strong.
As evening falls, Mohamed joins
his fellow farmers
in a ceremony of song and dance.
They remain as proud of their
history and heritage as ever.
From Siwa to magnificent
ancient monuments,
the past constantly colors
the lives of modern Egyptians.
In 1977, archaeologists
deciphered hieroglyphics
that described an epic
contest in the desert.
An ancient pharaoh put
his soldiers to the test
by challenging them to
a 62-mile race
around Egypt's first pyramids.
Inspired by the tale,
modern Egyptians resurrected
the event that starts
outside the city of Faiyum.
It's 4:00am and a group
of athletes are warming up,
ready to bring the
legacy of the pharaohs
into the 21st century.
All runners, please.
47-year-old Mahmoud Dehis
is an ultra-marathon runner.
He has won this race
a record 10 times.
- Three...
- Two...
- Two...
- One...
- One.
- Go!
Go!
Can he win it again today?
The Grand Pharaonic
Race is a 62-mile ultra-marathon
through Egypt's western desert.
It's an ancient event reinvented
for the 21st century.
The athletes race
through history:
past five of the first pyramids
built by the Ancient Egyptians.
Mahmoud Dehis not only
wants to win today,
he wants to once again
beat the 8-hour time
of the ancient runners
recorded on hieroglyphics.
When I think about our ancestors
who ran the same route,
I start hearing the
rhythm of their footsteps.
18 miles into the race,
the runners pass the
4,600-year-old Meidum Pyramid.
This is the ancient Egyptians'
second attempt
at such a monument,
built around 50 years
before the Great Pyramid of Giza.
From up above, the
miles still left to run
stretch away to the horizon.
The non-stop ultra-marathon,
through often
sweltering temperatures,
plays havoc with
both body and mind.
Very often runners,
myself included,
feel despair and fatigue.
40 miles into the race
and Mahmoud has left
the other competitors behind.
He'll complete its
grueling final stages alone.
The effort to break away from
the pack
takes a toll on Mahmoud's legs.
A support medic
massages his aching muscles
to help Mahmoud push on through
the heat of the midday sun.
Cheering crowds
boost Mahmoud's morale.
He thanks them by throwing
candy to excited children.
Now he's ready to
face the final 6 miles,
a daunting uphill climb past
the Stepped Pyramid of Dioser,
the first ever built in Egypt.
Pushing through the pain,
Mahmoud chases down
the finish line
with the other competitors
still out of sight.
Shattered but triumphant,
Mahmoud finishes in first place.
It feels great.
I feel like everyone is
happy when I win.
It's a really great joy.
His time of seven
hours forty-two minutes
is just 12 minutes
behind his personal best.
Again, the 47-year-old
beats the 8-hour time
recorded by the ancients.
Everyone should
appreciate persistence,
determination,
and overcoming challenges.
You need this spirit
no matter your age.
This hardcore
endurance event proves
that even in the 21st century,
the spirit of the pharaohs
has not been forgotten.
Flying over Egypt, our birds'
eye view reveals a nation
moving forward while embracing
its unique history.
Engineering mega-projects in
the desert are powering
the country to a bright future.
A state-of-the-art museum
will showcase
priceless ancient treasures
for the whole world to
understand and enjoy.
This is a land where
the achievements
of the past are still inspiring
the Egyptians of today.
Captioned by National Captioning Institute