Egypt's Unexplained Files (2019–…): Season 1, Episode 10 - Armageddon on the Nile - full transcript
Cataclysmic changes in ancient Egypt might have been caused by an extraordinary set of international phenomena, and the latest tech helps identify the supernatural culprit. What experts discover reveals a truth stranger than fiction.
Narrator: Pyramids, temples, tombs...
These ancient wonders
promise even greater secrets
still to be found beneath
the sands of egypt.
Now cutting-edge science
decodes the mysterious
land of the pharaohs.
With modern technology,
we are gaining an insight
into the way the ancient egyptians lived
and the manner in which they died.
Narrator: This time, the mysteries behind
the decline and fall of ancient egypt.
Did volcanic eruptions
thousands of miles from egypt
help take down the pharaohs?
Darnell: Climatic and
political instability...
That's when it's going
to cause a major change.
Narrator: Can scientists recreate
the face of a wealthy woman
who lived in ancient egypt's final years?
Carroll: We're essentially
bringing her back to life.
For the ancient egyptians,
this is life after death.
Narrator: And are the monuments
that did survive egypt's fall
now doomed to destruction?
We risk losing egypt's heritage forever.
Narrator: Ancient clues unearthed...
Long-lost evidence reexamined...
Precious artifacts brought into
the light of the 21st century...
These are "egypt's unexplained files."
For over 3,000 years,
egypt was ruled by the pharaohs.
But over the course of three centuries,
they slowly lost their grip on power
to leave egypt facing a chaotic downfall.
Open revolt in the streets and famine.
Manning: Dramatic tales of political chaos
and everything breaking down.
What might be triggering this chaos?
Narrator: Now can climate science
and clues buried in the polar ice caps
explain the terminal decline
of the ancient pharaohs?
Manning: There's so many changes,
so many shocks that a society can withstand
before it breaks.
Narrator: 305 b.C.E...
The ptolemaic dynasty
begins its rule of egypt.
The ptolemies were the
descendants of ptolemy,
who was one of the generals
of alexander the great.
Ptolemy managed to seize egypt,
and his family then ruled egypt
the next 300 years.
Narrator: Under their
rule, egypt flourished
as a cultural and economic powerhouse,
building great monuments
like the lighthouse of alexandria.
But this era was still
marked by civil unrest
caused by famine.
Suddenly, there's no food available,
or at least food is in short supply.
And if it wasn't being dealt
with to their satisfaction,
then they would want to rise up and revolt.
When the agricultural
cycle does not look great,
you can understand that
people are going to panic.
The king is someone who is supposed to
promote justice and
order and destroy chaos.
Narrator: Famine after famine
undermined attempts by the ptolemies
to govern egypt effectively.
Now egyptologists are
searching for clues to explain
why famine hit this era so often.
Their first clue is the nile.
The river's annual flood
was crucial to life in egypt.
Without the floods,
they can't grow the crops.
And if they can't grow the
crops, then they can't eat.
Narrator: Historical records reveal periods
in the ptolemaic era
when the nile floods didn't arrive.
An international team of climate scientists
search for evidence to explain why.
They uncover clues
thousands of miles from egypt
in the polar ice caps.
The scientists drill core
samples from the ice.
They reveal geological records
stretching back thousands of years.
Naunton: They found in a number
of these cores sulfur particles,
which arrived there as a
result of volcanic eruptions.
Narrator: Scientists know
that giant volcanic eruptions
can have a direct effect
on global weather patterns.
Manning: We know volcanoes
are an important forcing mechanism,
climatologists say, for
global climate for cooling.
Narrator: When volcanoes erupt,
they blast clouds of sulfur dioxide
high into the stratosphere.
It forms a layer of sulfate particles,
which reflect sunlight back into
space, lowering temperatures
and changing patterns of
rainfall around the globe.
It has to be a certain size eruption
that puts sulfates and
ash into the stratosphere,
and that circulates
globally or hemispherically.
That reduces the amount of
sun hitting the earth's surface...
...Which, in turn, affects
how the monsoon is operating.
Narrator: Now scientists ask if
volcanic eruptions could explain
the failure of the nile to
flood in ptolemaic egypt.
Researchers analyze the ice cores
in their field labs.
They detect spikes in the concentration
of sulfate particles,
which allows them to date
ancient volcanic eruptions
with astonishing precision.
For the volcanic record in the ice cores
in greenland or the antarctic,
we can understand volcanic
eruptions in a sequence
plus or minus a single year.
♪
Naunton: And what's
really interesting about this
for egyptian history
is that those eruptions
seems to have taken place
in the ptolemaic period.
Narrator: But could these
eruptions really have affected
the flooding of the nile?
Research teams at nasa
create computer
simulations to test the theory.
Manning: Scientists can
measure temperature changes,
reconstruct temperature
patterns in the world,
reconstruct rainfall patterns
in the world in some detail.
Narrator: The computer modeling reveals
the massive sulfate particles
from volcanic eruptions
in the northern hemisphere
pushes the monsoon rains
further south, away from egypt,
starving the river nile of water.
Johnston: As a direct
result of these eruptions,
there is suppressed rainfall in africa,
and particularly around
the area of ethiopia,
which would directly affect the nile.
Manning: Large eruptions
and multiple eruptions
closely spaced together
can perturb a river like the nile
for, sometimes, a decade,
possibly even longer.
Narrator: Researchers now compare the dates
of these volcanic eruptions
with the dates of famine
and social unrest in egypt.
They uncover a compelling link.
Johnston: In the 40s b.C.,
we have evidence from
the ice cores of major eruptions
happening throughout the globe.
And in egypt, we have
the roman writer pliny
recording the nile has reached
its lowest ebb ever seen.
This results in major
starvation throughout egypt
and also in major civil unrest.
Surely, this must be more
than mere coincidence.
Carroll: The two pieces of information,
the historical and the scientific,
are really working together
to build a bigger, clearer picture of this.
Narrator: The ptolemies
finally lost control of egypt
to the romans in 30 b.C.E.,
but science has now revealed
that it was not just the
romans they had to battle.
For centuries, their rule was undermined
by dramatic climate events
brought on by volcanic
activity thousands of miles away.
Darnell: Climatic instability
coming at the same time
as political instability,
that's when it's going
to cause a major change.
Johnston: We have outsiders
sitting on the throne of egypt,
and what the egyptians see is starvation.
They see the nile failing to flood.
They have genuine concerns about the people
who are running the country.
The climate change
undoubtedly destabilizes egypt.
♪
Narrator: Hidden deep in the vaults
of an australian university...
The long-forgotten head
of an unidentified mummy.
This mummified head had been in storage.
Carroll: It'd basically
been left in the vaults
for near a hundred years.
Narrator: Now can this
mummy's head reveal vital clues
to the life and death of an individual
from one of the last generations
to live under the rule of the pharaohs?
And can the very latest
3-d printing technology
reveal their true face?
Can we say anything
about who this person was?
When did they live? How did they die?
Narrator: 2016.
A long-forgotten mummified
head is discovered in a collection
at the university of melbourne.
Experts are unsure of its origins.
They turn to radiocarbon dating and analyze
a fragment of detached
bandage from the head.
This process can reveal
when this person may have lived and died.
Radiocarbon dating, it's
one of the greatest tools
for archeologists and scientists.
We can actually give a date range.
Narrator: Scientists reveal
the mummified head dates
to between 300 b.C.E. And 30 b.C.E...
The final years of egypt's last pharaohs,
the ptolemies.
Now researchers want to find
out what clues this individual
could reveal about this remarkable era.
But they're worried that
after nearly a century
locked in a vault, the head
may have deteriorated.
Because the head was wrapped,
there may be decay happening
beneath the bandages.
Naunton: There was a great concern
that its condition had worsened
and was continuing to worsen,
and something needed to be done.
Narrator: For the first time in 90 years,
the head is scientifically examined.
It's tightly bound in bandages
darkened with embalming oils,
evidence of the highest
grade of mummification
and a major clue to who this person was.
Johnston: The very fact
that this individual had been
mummified suggests that
they are part of egypt's elite.
Mummification was a time-consuming,
expensive process.
Narrator: The team
hopes the head will reveal
further clues to this person's story.
But there's a problem...
The bandages are preventing team
from studying the skull in detail,
and removing them is out of the question.
To actually unwrap the
mummy would be, you know,
a slightly undignified and disrespectful.
Naunton: After all, this is the remains
of a deceased human being.
It was very deliberately
wrapped in this way,
and they wanted, as far
as possible, to maintain that.
Narrator: Science offers a solution...
A c.T. Scan.
It allows researchers to
see right inside the head
without damaging the bandages.
They're astonished by what is revealed.
Far from having deteriorated,
the skull is in near-perfect condition.
It allows researchers to
take precise measurements
that determine the gender
and age of this ancient egyptian.
Naunton: Based on the bone
structure, the angle of the jaw,
the roundness of the eye sockets,
this was definitely the skull of a woman.
Carroll: To determine the age,
the first thing that we
would look at is the teeth.
They were able to age
that this is a young female
of 18 to early 20s.
Narrator: The researchers
name this woman meritamen.
It means "beloved of amun,"
the king of the gods in ancient egypt.
Meritamen would have
witnessed great changes
to the egyptian way of life
brought about by the ptolemies.
Naunton: They influenced egyptian culture
in numerous ways.
The greek language becomes established
as the principal administrative language.
They introduce currency, architecture,
and art takes on a new greek influence.
And this is the world in
which meritamen lived.
Narrator: Meritamen may
have been of high status,
but researchers discover
evidence in the c.T. Scans
that while she may have
enjoyed the privileges of wealth,
she also endured agonizing pain.
The scans reveal missing teeth,
vast amounts of tooth decay,
and exposed dental roots.
Johnston: For the ancient egyptians,
tooth decay frequently came
about from the amount of sand
that was to be found in processed foods.
And this sand would gradually
erode the enamel of the teeth,
exposing the roots and causing severe pain
at a time when there really was
no dental medicine to speak of.
Narrator: This is a vivid insight
into the agony meritamen endured
right up until the day she died.
But the team wants to
reveal even more detail
about this woman,
and undertake an ambitious challenge...
To reconstruct her face.
They use the precision
data from the c.T. Scans
to program a 3-d printer.
Johnston: It is a time-consuming process,
and, certainly, for this particular skull,
it took 140 hours.
Narrator: Slowly, a precise
replica of meritamen's skull
materializes inside the printer.
When it's complete, the model reveals
further tiny but crucial details,
clues hidden inside the cranium
that suggest a serious blood disorder.
Carroll: The c.T. Scanning
and with the 3-d model
showed evidence for thinning
and pitting on the skull itself.
It's looking like she was possibly anemic.
And with anemia, there's
a lack of red blood cells.
The body is essentially
struggling for oxygen.
And when that happens, the
bone marrow starts to swell.
And this has created
what appears on the skull
of the mummy's head.
Narrator: The draining effects of anemia
would have taken a heavy toll on meritamen,
robbing her of all energy.
This diagnosis shines yet more light
on the final stages of her short life.
It's almost certain that
during her final days,
this young woman would
have been confined to her bed.
She would have been unable to move about.
She would have been exhausted.
And although we don't as yet
know precisely how she died,
there are two major
contributory factors there.
Narrator: Now researchers
hope to uncover even more
by revealing exactly what she looked like.
A forensic artist attaches
3-dimensional plastic markers
at key points on the face and head.
Naunton: And these represent tissue depth,
which is based on population averages.
And this could then be used
to recreate the soft tissue,
the musculature, in clay.
And, slowly, the team
could begin to build up
a picture of the face of the individual.
Narrator: Using her specialist
knowledge of anatomy,
the forensic artist then
meticulously builds up
the layers of muscle and tissue.
Slowly, layer by layer, the face of a woman
from the time of egypt's last
pharaohs begins to emerge.
Carroll: By recreating the face,
we're essentially
bringing her back to life.
And we've given her now,
you know, a personality
which, for the ancient egyptians,
you know, this is life after death.
♪
Narrator: Finally, the true
face of meritamen is revealed.
She was a high-status young woman
who lived over 2,000 years ago,
witnessed the unique rule
of egypt's last pharaohs,
and may have succumbed
to the debilitating effects of anemia
and severe, untreated dental infection.
Through this process,
we have now recreated a young woman,
and we have shown not
just an object in a museum
but someone who once lived
and breathed in ancient egypt.
♪
Narrator: For decades,
archaeologists have looked
for a lost ancient capital
that seems to have vanished
from the face of the earth.
It was known as itjtawy.
Wendrich: This was the
capital in the middle kingdom.
It's the center of egypt at that period.
So where did it go?
How do you pinpoint a lost
city, buried beneath the sand?
Narrator: Now can egyptologists combine
the tried and tested method
of ground coring with
remote sensing technology
to finally track down
this missing metropolis?
Narrator: Itjtawy was
once a flourishing capital,
until it experienced a fatal decline
and was lost forever.
In 2015, archaeologists
initiated a new search
for this ancient city.
They began by looking for written clues.
We have textual references to itjtawy,
the middle kingdom capital of egypt
in the 12th dynasty.
Wendrich: The kings of the middle kingdom
hail from an area near to faiyum,
so we can expect an
enormous city, but it's not there.
Narrator: Itjtawy was documented
as egypt's capital for 350 years,
until around 1785 b.C.E.
But no physical evidence of
the city has ever been found.
The written records link
the city to king amenemhat,
a ruler from the middle kingdom.
His pyramid still stands at
el-lisht in the faiyum region.
The theory is that it was
built to overlook the capital
he once ruled.
Wendrich: We know approximately
where it is, but that area
is still 10x10 kilometers,
which is a big area to research.
Plus, it has been buried
probably under meters of mud.
And that's really not possible
with the traditional techniques.
Narrator: The location of
the ancient king's pyramid
is a starting point,
but investigators need a way
to narrow down the search area.
They turn to satellite imagery for help.
It allows them a wider view
of the landscape of this part
of egypt from 450 miles
above the earth's surface.
Lacovara: We have to rely
on satellite imaging now.
New techniques are helping
add to our tool kit in order to try
and find these cities when
they're lost without a trace.
Satellite archaeology enables us to find
all these disturbances and
differences in the surface.
If you see differences
that don't look natural
but that form straight
angles or lines or circles,
then you know something is up.
Narrator: Satellite imagery
must be analyzed for telltale clues.
Ancient texts record that itjtawy was built
on the banks of the nile.
But the river has shifted
its course over the years.
Now archaeologists
ask if this could explain
the ancient city's ultimate demise.
Naunton: If the nile has moved
and itjtawy was built on its banks,
is it possible that the
river might have moved
and swallowed it up over time?
Narrator: The movement of the nile
has left subtle traces
in the desert landscape.
When scientists study a
satellite image of an area
where the river once flowed,
they discover an exciting clue...
A raised expanse of ground
located close to amenemhet's
pyramid shows signs
that it was once densely inhabited.
The data from the satellite
imagery allows us to see
that there is an area
which is somewhat raised.
It seems to indicate human
interaction with the landscape
on a large scale,
which allows us to ask the question,
"could this be the site of itjtawy?"
narrator: Satellite technology
can only take the search so far.
The fundamental techniques of archaeology
must now be used to
try and solve this mystery.
You have to do what we call ground truth.
One way of doing that is by
coring, by drilling a deep hole,
and pulling out a cross
section of centuries of history
and just analyzing carefully
from every layer in that core.
Naunton: Rather than
covering a single large area
very comprehensively,
you send a kind of probe into the ground
just to look for cultural material.
Narrator: The coring team probe
5 meters beneath the surface.
The layers of the cores
reveal different periods
throughout history.
Archaeologists are searching
for any signs of human habitation.
They find key evidence dating to the period
of egypt's middle kingdom,
when itjtawy would have
been a prosperous city.
♪
The cores yielded fragments
of middle kingdom pottery.
Johnston: There are potsherds
and various other pieces
beneath the ground,
which seem to indicate this
has been an inhabited area.
Narrator: The pottery sherds date to
when itjtawy was a flourishing capital.
But as the large-scale
coring project continued,
many of the samples amazed archaeologists,
as the evidence of a jeweler's workshop
is discovered within them.
Wendrich: You don't get a
workshop with gemstones
in your average village.
So this indicates that we are hitting
a very important settlement.
Lacovara: Agate and carnelian
that had been smashed to make jewelry,
and often these kind of jeweler's workshops
are associated with the royal palace.
Narrator: This is a crucial clue.
Evidence of a luxury
industry, like a jeweler's,
suggests this was once the site
of a vibrant, wealthy ancient city.
This may then be a thriving
city and possibly itjtawy.
♪
Narrator: After decades of study,
full-scale spade and soil
excavations can now begin,
and this ancient, fallen capital
may finally be uncovered.
♪
Precious ancient sites and
artifacts are under attack
as new discoveries are
found submerged in water.
This is a major threat to
the archaeology of egypt.
Narrator: Now cutting-edge
satellite technology
is being used to try to explain
why archaeological sites
that were once dry as
dust are now soaking wet.
How might we explain
this bizarre phenomenon?
Narrator: 2017... a suburb east of cairo,
and an incredibly rare find is made...
A 206-year-old monument
of pharaoh psamtik the first.
Johnston: Excavators
discovered, quite by chance,
a colossal, 26-foot-high, quartzite statue.
Narrator: But archaeologists are dismayed
by the conditions the statue is found in.
The soil is waterlogged.
Even though the statue was found
not too far beneath the surface,
it was as though the
statue had to be pulled
out of a pool of water.
Narrator: This is not an isolated incident.
At the 2,000-year-old
kom el shoqafa catacombs of alexandria,
rising groundwater has damaged
the breathtaking stonework.
It took emergency engineering
works in 2019 to save it.
Meanwhile, at the colossal temple of luxor,
the stones are being
eroded by water damage.
We're beginning to see
signs of surface damage
on the stonework and on
the carvings and on the reliefs,
appearing as a crystallized white powder
on the stonework itself.
And in its most extreme examples,
whole areas of carving
just simply crumble to dust.
Clearly, this is putting
some of the country's
major archaeological sites at severe risk.
Scientists are trying to find out
where this water's coming from
and how they can hold it back.
Narrator: Many researchers
believe the root of this problem
can be traced back to the 1960s
and the construction of
an engineering giant...
The aswan high dam.
Naunton: This was undertaken
to provide egypt with hydroelectric power,
but also to allow the
land in the nile valley
to be farmed throughout the year.
Narrator: The dam
provided water for the crops
by flooding extensive areas.
Several of egypt's ancient monuments
had to be relocated along
with over 90,000 citizens.
But 50 years after its completion,
the problem of rising
water is getting worse.
Modern scientists are
studying the landscape
for clues to explain why.
Carroll: Scientists are using
remote-sensing g.I.S. Techniques
to look at how the land has changed
over the last few decades.
Narrator: Analysts
collect data from a camera
known as the advanced spaceborne
thermal emission and reflection unit.
This is mounted on the terra
satellite, which orbits earth.
♪
Satellite images taken over
the course of the last 30 years
allow scientists to show that
urban areas have expanded
and developed very rapidly
with the loss of agricultural land.
Narrator: The images show changes
to how the remaining
farmland is being cultivated.
Areas of desert are now
being reclaimed for farming,
which means that water
is now being introduced
into parts of the country
which were previously completely bone-dry.
Narrator: Scientists
believe that the flooding
caused by the aswan dam to help farmers
has also led to a rise in
the level of groundwater.
Now as modern farming
and irrigation intensifies,
the water level is continuing
to rise even further.
Naunton: All this agriculture
requires an awful lot of water
to sit on the land more
or less permanently,
right the way throughout the year.
And this has had a knock-on effect.
Carroll: They're basically
pumping out more water
from the nile, and this is causing
more of a runoff of water,
which in turn is then going to
affect the archaeological sites.
Egypt is turning slowly into a swampland.
Dodson: Walls which were many meters away
from any source of water
now have water directly underneath them.
Narrator: For archaeologists,
this is disastrous.
Some of the nation's most important sites
are facing imminent danger.
But even more alarming, the rising waters
may be destroying a multitude
of undiscovered artifacts right now.
Dodson: The reasons why
we have so much material from ancient egypt
is the dry conditions have meant
that organic materials have survived.
The rise in the water is
worrying simply 'cause it means
that far less is going to be preserved.
Naunton: The more vulnerable
ancient monuments are
to things like rising groundwater,
the more those things stand to be lost
before archaeologists get to them.
Narrator: Now egyptologists and scientists
are working more closely
than ever to search for
and save egypt's hidden
history before it's too late.
Carroll: It's actually
crucial that we act now
to protect these monuments.
Johnston: We need to resolve this problem
quickly and affordably.
Otherwise, we risk losing
egypt's heritage forever.
♪
Narrator: These portraits
were found alongside
carefully preserved mummies.
They're unlike any
depictions of ancient egyptians.
They show the faces from after the fall,
a new ruling class revealed
in unprecedented detail.
Carroll: You're instantly
struck by their expression.
They're so lifelike.
Narrator: Now scientists
ask if the extraordinary details
of these paintings could contain clues
to the rare health conditions
suffered by egypt's new elite.
Can the pharaoh mummy portraits
tell us even how those individuals lived
and possibly died?
♪
Narrator: 2016.
A team at chicago's northwestern university
analyze a selection of striking images.
They were discovered
south of cairo in faiyum.
Many of these portraits were found covering
the face of a mummified body.
Where earlier egyptian
artwork was highly stylized,
these images are extraordinarily lifelike.
Altaweel: It doesn't look like something
they would put on a mummy.
They literally look like just portraits,
like as if you'd put a
picture on a wall of someone.
They really wanted you to see
a more lifelike
representation of the person.
Narrator: The portraits
depict wealthy egyptians
who lived during the
first three centuries a.D.
This was a time during
which the roman empire
consolidated its rule over egypt
and mediterranean
customs influenced daily life.
This time, egypt's quite
a multicultural place.
You see greek and roman files.
The depictions of the faces, for instance,
very roman-looking realism,
greek style of decorations in
terms of the hair, the jewelry.
But then a very egyptian
idea of putting a body
in a sarcophagus and mummifying it.
The portraits represent
the cosmopolitan nature
of egyptian society at the time.
Narrator: But scientists
believe these portraits can tell us
about much more than the
changing culture of egypt
under the romans.
The faiyum portraits, incredibly,
might offer scientists an opportunity
to say something about
the health of the individuals
and the diseases that they
might have been suffering from.
Narrator: Researchers
at northwestern university
begin by analyzing each image
under different wavelengths of light.
Johnston: With modern
scientific techniques,
we're able to analyze the
faiyum mummy portraits
in the way that we might be able to analyze
a renaissance painting.
Altaweel: Using photogrammetry techniques,
we can begin to understand
the sort of processes used
to make the object, technologies,
but also the kind of materials
that would go into creating these objects.
Narrator: This process reveals
the special pigments and complex techniques
used in each portrait.
For researchers,
it's clear the artists
went to great lengths
to create the highly realistic images,
like this portrait of a young man.
Medical experts ask if the drooped features
depicted in the portrait could be evidence
of a neurological disorder.
To find out, scientists
turn to his preserved skull
and subject it to c.T. Scanning.
♪
Naunton: What appears in the portrait
to have been an anomaly
in the soft tissue on the face
is backed up by the
measurements from the skull.
The individual was suffering
from some kind of atrophy
of the soft tissue and the bone underneath.
The scientists concluded,
therefore, that in this case,
he was indeed suffering
from parry-romberg syndrome.
Carroll: The study actually revealed
significant neurological conditions,
signs of a very rare condition,
which is parry-romberg.
And what this does is it
actually causes shrinkage
to the face.
Narrator: The details
of the faiyum portraits
may reveal even more.
Scientists know that evidence
of neurological disorders
can be found not just in the skull,
but also in our eyes.
Altaweel: Medical science beginning
to just use people's
faces to recognize disease.
For instance, strokes or other
kinds of ailments that may occur
can be recognized using a
facial recognition software.
Naunton: The eyes are
often the first part of the body
to be affected by neurological diseases.
Narrator: Researchers now ask
whether the highly
detailed depictions of eyes
in the faiyum portraits
could hold further clues to other disorders
suffered by these egyptians.
We can begin to apply the same technologies
to look at these ancient portraits.
Narrator: In modern medicine,
doctors measure how light is reflected
from a patient's corneas.
If these corneal reflections
are not symmetrical,
it can be a sign of a
neurological disorder.
In the faiyum portraits,
the corneal reflections
are represented as flecks of white paint.
♪
Carroll: Now modern scientists
are actually looking at this for evidence,
possible health disorders
from a neurological point of view.
Narrator: Just like doctors
diagnosing a modern patient,
researchers measure the
position of the corneal reflections.
When they compare the results to data taken
from the actual skulls, they're astonished.
Naunton: Scientists are able
to say that the way the eyes look
does suggest that they
were accurately capturing
what are the signs of
neurological diseases.
Altaweel: Science is telling
us that these faiyum portraits
are more than just pretty pictures.
Naunton: In many cases, it seems
the artist did accurately
capture the conditions
that some of these
people were suffering from.
Narrator: The portraits
of the faiyum mummies
are not idealized, airbrushed images,
but are as close as we have to photographs
of egypt's new cosmopolitan elite.
♪
Only 28 egyptian obelisks remain standing,
each of them a towering giant.
Obelisks are the ancient
world's skyscrapers.
Godenho: From miles and miles away,
people could see these
things standing tall.
They're ancient feats of engineering.
Narrator: Now modern researchers are asking
just how the egyptians,
equipped with only basic tools,
carved these behemoths.
Fletcher: Now it's almost miraculous
how the ancient egyptians
create these amazing
structures from solid granite.
How did they do it, and
what tools were they using?
Narrator: Obelisks
could be over 100 feet tall,
each carved from a single piece of granite,
cut whole from the rock face.
For the pharaoh who
ordered this gargantuan task,
the obelisk was a
statement of divine authority.
Godenho: When you
look at the form of obelisks,
they end with this pyramid on top.
That's a symbol of the sun god.
So we're talking about the relationship
between the king and the sun god.
Altaweel: Obelisks really symbolized
the entryways of the gods,
the connection between
our world with higher powers.
Narrator: Ancient egyptians
had to cut through solid granite,
one of nature's hardest rocks,
yet only had tools made of soft metals
like copper and bronze.
How did they do it?
A vital clue can be found
at a quarry in aswan...
An enormous unfinished obelisk,
abandoned by workers 3,500 years ago.
Godenho: Looks like this
thing was almost ready
to be released from the
quarry it was carved in,
but then a crack was
exposed in the obelisk,
and so it had to be abandoned.
Bianchi: If it did not develop a crack,
it would have been the largest
standing obelisk that we know.
Narrator: The unfinished
obelisk shows signs
of what seem like strike marks.
We know ancient egyptians carved soft rock,
like limestone, using copper chisels.
But to cut granite, it would
take a harder metal like iron,
which had not yet been discovered.
Harrison: The evidence
on the aswan obelisk implies
that it was being hammered
and beaten out of the
ground using copper chisels,
but this seems slightly unusual
because copper is quite a soft metal
compared to the very hard granite.
Narrator: Other scholars
believe it's more likely
that the ancient workforce
used rocks made of
dolerite to free the obelisk.
Bianchi: Using pounders
about the size of a modern bowling ball
upon the granite
until the granite was worn away.
It's almost inconceivable
that such a simple technology
could do this, but possibly
with enough people,
you could move something
this large this way.
Narrator: But now
researchers are reevaluating
an important clue
discovered in the 19th century
by the father of
egyptology, flinders petrie.
Godenho: Petrie working at giza,
where the pyramids are, near cairo,
he found granite-drilled cores...
Lumps of granite that look
like they'd been removed
from the earth by drilling action.
Narrator: This could be a
crucial piece of evidence
in solving this mystery.
Petrie's theory was that while
the drills were made of copper,
craftsmen needed the help
of some other substance
to cut through granite.
Petrie believed that
in order for these drills
to be effective, they
needed a hard cutting edge.
So something else, not just the metal.
And so he thought something like diamond
would be suitable for that cutting action.
Altaweel: We use diamonds to drill.
Presumably, they would have used something
sort of comparable in hardness as diamond.
Narrator: 21st century researchers
may have found the answer to this mystery
in new york's metropolitan museum of art.
Naunton: There is an object
which perhaps doesn't look like much
but actually is telling us an awful lot
about how the egyptians were
able to work stones like this.
Narrator: This piece of
ancient sculpted stone
was discovered in amarna
in the late 19th century.
Contemporary researchers
are intrigued by a hole
on the back of the artifact.
A tubular cutting edge,
a tubular drill had been used on this.
And at the bottom of that drill hole,
you can see a circular area.
Naunton: There are traces of
some kind of abrasive powder
that they used to remove this section.
Narrator: This fine
powder could finally explain
how egyptians cut through
hard granite with soft copper.
The fragment is taken
immediately to the lab
to be examined.
Naunton: This powder's been
studied by electron microscopy,
and it's been shown to be made of a mixture
of various substances,
but two of those stand out.
There are green fragments which seem to be
from bronze and copper,
perhaps the remains of a drill.
And there are red angular
crystals in there as well.
Narrator: Scientists
analyze the red crystals
and identify them as corundum.
It is one of nature's hardest materials,
second only to diamond
and many times harder than granite.
Godenho: Corundum's
actually a super-hard crystal,
and that's what we seem
to have fragments of here.
But it's still used today
because it can scratch
just about any other gem.
Narrator: Today, corundum is used
to coat the cutting
surfaces of industrial drills
designed to cut through rock.
Now science has revealed
that 3,000 years ago,
ancient egyptians did
exactly the same thing
to carve their vast obelisks.
Altaweel: The obelisk
is beginning to reveal
new information to us.
Now we're learning much more.
We're learning about
the way they were made.
That's beginning now to be
peeled away by new techniques
and technologies available to us.
Narrator: It's evidence of the ingenuity
of the ancient egyptians
and of their ability to make the most
of their natural resources
to overcome seemingly insurmountable tasks.
Bianchi: The more we study ancient egypt,
the more we are aware
of just how attuned they were
of how nature works.
♪
These ancient wonders
promise even greater secrets
still to be found beneath
the sands of egypt.
Now cutting-edge science
decodes the mysterious
land of the pharaohs.
With modern technology,
we are gaining an insight
into the way the ancient egyptians lived
and the manner in which they died.
Narrator: This time, the mysteries behind
the decline and fall of ancient egypt.
Did volcanic eruptions
thousands of miles from egypt
help take down the pharaohs?
Darnell: Climatic and
political instability...
That's when it's going
to cause a major change.
Narrator: Can scientists recreate
the face of a wealthy woman
who lived in ancient egypt's final years?
Carroll: We're essentially
bringing her back to life.
For the ancient egyptians,
this is life after death.
Narrator: And are the monuments
that did survive egypt's fall
now doomed to destruction?
We risk losing egypt's heritage forever.
Narrator: Ancient clues unearthed...
Long-lost evidence reexamined...
Precious artifacts brought into
the light of the 21st century...
These are "egypt's unexplained files."
For over 3,000 years,
egypt was ruled by the pharaohs.
But over the course of three centuries,
they slowly lost their grip on power
to leave egypt facing a chaotic downfall.
Open revolt in the streets and famine.
Manning: Dramatic tales of political chaos
and everything breaking down.
What might be triggering this chaos?
Narrator: Now can climate science
and clues buried in the polar ice caps
explain the terminal decline
of the ancient pharaohs?
Manning: There's so many changes,
so many shocks that a society can withstand
before it breaks.
Narrator: 305 b.C.E...
The ptolemaic dynasty
begins its rule of egypt.
The ptolemies were the
descendants of ptolemy,
who was one of the generals
of alexander the great.
Ptolemy managed to seize egypt,
and his family then ruled egypt
the next 300 years.
Narrator: Under their
rule, egypt flourished
as a cultural and economic powerhouse,
building great monuments
like the lighthouse of alexandria.
But this era was still
marked by civil unrest
caused by famine.
Suddenly, there's no food available,
or at least food is in short supply.
And if it wasn't being dealt
with to their satisfaction,
then they would want to rise up and revolt.
When the agricultural
cycle does not look great,
you can understand that
people are going to panic.
The king is someone who is supposed to
promote justice and
order and destroy chaos.
Narrator: Famine after famine
undermined attempts by the ptolemies
to govern egypt effectively.
Now egyptologists are
searching for clues to explain
why famine hit this era so often.
Their first clue is the nile.
The river's annual flood
was crucial to life in egypt.
Without the floods,
they can't grow the crops.
And if they can't grow the
crops, then they can't eat.
Narrator: Historical records reveal periods
in the ptolemaic era
when the nile floods didn't arrive.
An international team of climate scientists
search for evidence to explain why.
They uncover clues
thousands of miles from egypt
in the polar ice caps.
The scientists drill core
samples from the ice.
They reveal geological records
stretching back thousands of years.
Naunton: They found in a number
of these cores sulfur particles,
which arrived there as a
result of volcanic eruptions.
Narrator: Scientists know
that giant volcanic eruptions
can have a direct effect
on global weather patterns.
Manning: We know volcanoes
are an important forcing mechanism,
climatologists say, for
global climate for cooling.
Narrator: When volcanoes erupt,
they blast clouds of sulfur dioxide
high into the stratosphere.
It forms a layer of sulfate particles,
which reflect sunlight back into
space, lowering temperatures
and changing patterns of
rainfall around the globe.
It has to be a certain size eruption
that puts sulfates and
ash into the stratosphere,
and that circulates
globally or hemispherically.
That reduces the amount of
sun hitting the earth's surface...
...Which, in turn, affects
how the monsoon is operating.
Narrator: Now scientists ask if
volcanic eruptions could explain
the failure of the nile to
flood in ptolemaic egypt.
Researchers analyze the ice cores
in their field labs.
They detect spikes in the concentration
of sulfate particles,
which allows them to date
ancient volcanic eruptions
with astonishing precision.
For the volcanic record in the ice cores
in greenland or the antarctic,
we can understand volcanic
eruptions in a sequence
plus or minus a single year.
♪
Naunton: And what's
really interesting about this
for egyptian history
is that those eruptions
seems to have taken place
in the ptolemaic period.
Narrator: But could these
eruptions really have affected
the flooding of the nile?
Research teams at nasa
create computer
simulations to test the theory.
Manning: Scientists can
measure temperature changes,
reconstruct temperature
patterns in the world,
reconstruct rainfall patterns
in the world in some detail.
Narrator: The computer modeling reveals
the massive sulfate particles
from volcanic eruptions
in the northern hemisphere
pushes the monsoon rains
further south, away from egypt,
starving the river nile of water.
Johnston: As a direct
result of these eruptions,
there is suppressed rainfall in africa,
and particularly around
the area of ethiopia,
which would directly affect the nile.
Manning: Large eruptions
and multiple eruptions
closely spaced together
can perturb a river like the nile
for, sometimes, a decade,
possibly even longer.
Narrator: Researchers now compare the dates
of these volcanic eruptions
with the dates of famine
and social unrest in egypt.
They uncover a compelling link.
Johnston: In the 40s b.C.,
we have evidence from
the ice cores of major eruptions
happening throughout the globe.
And in egypt, we have
the roman writer pliny
recording the nile has reached
its lowest ebb ever seen.
This results in major
starvation throughout egypt
and also in major civil unrest.
Surely, this must be more
than mere coincidence.
Carroll: The two pieces of information,
the historical and the scientific,
are really working together
to build a bigger, clearer picture of this.
Narrator: The ptolemies
finally lost control of egypt
to the romans in 30 b.C.E.,
but science has now revealed
that it was not just the
romans they had to battle.
For centuries, their rule was undermined
by dramatic climate events
brought on by volcanic
activity thousands of miles away.
Darnell: Climatic instability
coming at the same time
as political instability,
that's when it's going
to cause a major change.
Johnston: We have outsiders
sitting on the throne of egypt,
and what the egyptians see is starvation.
They see the nile failing to flood.
They have genuine concerns about the people
who are running the country.
The climate change
undoubtedly destabilizes egypt.
♪
Narrator: Hidden deep in the vaults
of an australian university...
The long-forgotten head
of an unidentified mummy.
This mummified head had been in storage.
Carroll: It'd basically
been left in the vaults
for near a hundred years.
Narrator: Now can this
mummy's head reveal vital clues
to the life and death of an individual
from one of the last generations
to live under the rule of the pharaohs?
And can the very latest
3-d printing technology
reveal their true face?
Can we say anything
about who this person was?
When did they live? How did they die?
Narrator: 2016.
A long-forgotten mummified
head is discovered in a collection
at the university of melbourne.
Experts are unsure of its origins.
They turn to radiocarbon dating and analyze
a fragment of detached
bandage from the head.
This process can reveal
when this person may have lived and died.
Radiocarbon dating, it's
one of the greatest tools
for archeologists and scientists.
We can actually give a date range.
Narrator: Scientists reveal
the mummified head dates
to between 300 b.C.E. And 30 b.C.E...
The final years of egypt's last pharaohs,
the ptolemies.
Now researchers want to find
out what clues this individual
could reveal about this remarkable era.
But they're worried that
after nearly a century
locked in a vault, the head
may have deteriorated.
Because the head was wrapped,
there may be decay happening
beneath the bandages.
Naunton: There was a great concern
that its condition had worsened
and was continuing to worsen,
and something needed to be done.
Narrator: For the first time in 90 years,
the head is scientifically examined.
It's tightly bound in bandages
darkened with embalming oils,
evidence of the highest
grade of mummification
and a major clue to who this person was.
Johnston: The very fact
that this individual had been
mummified suggests that
they are part of egypt's elite.
Mummification was a time-consuming,
expensive process.
Narrator: The team
hopes the head will reveal
further clues to this person's story.
But there's a problem...
The bandages are preventing team
from studying the skull in detail,
and removing them is out of the question.
To actually unwrap the
mummy would be, you know,
a slightly undignified and disrespectful.
Naunton: After all, this is the remains
of a deceased human being.
It was very deliberately
wrapped in this way,
and they wanted, as far
as possible, to maintain that.
Narrator: Science offers a solution...
A c.T. Scan.
It allows researchers to
see right inside the head
without damaging the bandages.
They're astonished by what is revealed.
Far from having deteriorated,
the skull is in near-perfect condition.
It allows researchers to
take precise measurements
that determine the gender
and age of this ancient egyptian.
Naunton: Based on the bone
structure, the angle of the jaw,
the roundness of the eye sockets,
this was definitely the skull of a woman.
Carroll: To determine the age,
the first thing that we
would look at is the teeth.
They were able to age
that this is a young female
of 18 to early 20s.
Narrator: The researchers
name this woman meritamen.
It means "beloved of amun,"
the king of the gods in ancient egypt.
Meritamen would have
witnessed great changes
to the egyptian way of life
brought about by the ptolemies.
Naunton: They influenced egyptian culture
in numerous ways.
The greek language becomes established
as the principal administrative language.
They introduce currency, architecture,
and art takes on a new greek influence.
And this is the world in
which meritamen lived.
Narrator: Meritamen may
have been of high status,
but researchers discover
evidence in the c.T. Scans
that while she may have
enjoyed the privileges of wealth,
she also endured agonizing pain.
The scans reveal missing teeth,
vast amounts of tooth decay,
and exposed dental roots.
Johnston: For the ancient egyptians,
tooth decay frequently came
about from the amount of sand
that was to be found in processed foods.
And this sand would gradually
erode the enamel of the teeth,
exposing the roots and causing severe pain
at a time when there really was
no dental medicine to speak of.
Narrator: This is a vivid insight
into the agony meritamen endured
right up until the day she died.
But the team wants to
reveal even more detail
about this woman,
and undertake an ambitious challenge...
To reconstruct her face.
They use the precision
data from the c.T. Scans
to program a 3-d printer.
Johnston: It is a time-consuming process,
and, certainly, for this particular skull,
it took 140 hours.
Narrator: Slowly, a precise
replica of meritamen's skull
materializes inside the printer.
When it's complete, the model reveals
further tiny but crucial details,
clues hidden inside the cranium
that suggest a serious blood disorder.
Carroll: The c.T. Scanning
and with the 3-d model
showed evidence for thinning
and pitting on the skull itself.
It's looking like she was possibly anemic.
And with anemia, there's
a lack of red blood cells.
The body is essentially
struggling for oxygen.
And when that happens, the
bone marrow starts to swell.
And this has created
what appears on the skull
of the mummy's head.
Narrator: The draining effects of anemia
would have taken a heavy toll on meritamen,
robbing her of all energy.
This diagnosis shines yet more light
on the final stages of her short life.
It's almost certain that
during her final days,
this young woman would
have been confined to her bed.
She would have been unable to move about.
She would have been exhausted.
And although we don't as yet
know precisely how she died,
there are two major
contributory factors there.
Narrator: Now researchers
hope to uncover even more
by revealing exactly what she looked like.
A forensic artist attaches
3-dimensional plastic markers
at key points on the face and head.
Naunton: And these represent tissue depth,
which is based on population averages.
And this could then be used
to recreate the soft tissue,
the musculature, in clay.
And, slowly, the team
could begin to build up
a picture of the face of the individual.
Narrator: Using her specialist
knowledge of anatomy,
the forensic artist then
meticulously builds up
the layers of muscle and tissue.
Slowly, layer by layer, the face of a woman
from the time of egypt's last
pharaohs begins to emerge.
Carroll: By recreating the face,
we're essentially
bringing her back to life.
And we've given her now,
you know, a personality
which, for the ancient egyptians,
you know, this is life after death.
♪
Narrator: Finally, the true
face of meritamen is revealed.
She was a high-status young woman
who lived over 2,000 years ago,
witnessed the unique rule
of egypt's last pharaohs,
and may have succumbed
to the debilitating effects of anemia
and severe, untreated dental infection.
Through this process,
we have now recreated a young woman,
and we have shown not
just an object in a museum
but someone who once lived
and breathed in ancient egypt.
♪
Narrator: For decades,
archaeologists have looked
for a lost ancient capital
that seems to have vanished
from the face of the earth.
It was known as itjtawy.
Wendrich: This was the
capital in the middle kingdom.
It's the center of egypt at that period.
So where did it go?
How do you pinpoint a lost
city, buried beneath the sand?
Narrator: Now can egyptologists combine
the tried and tested method
of ground coring with
remote sensing technology
to finally track down
this missing metropolis?
Narrator: Itjtawy was
once a flourishing capital,
until it experienced a fatal decline
and was lost forever.
In 2015, archaeologists
initiated a new search
for this ancient city.
They began by looking for written clues.
We have textual references to itjtawy,
the middle kingdom capital of egypt
in the 12th dynasty.
Wendrich: The kings of the middle kingdom
hail from an area near to faiyum,
so we can expect an
enormous city, but it's not there.
Narrator: Itjtawy was documented
as egypt's capital for 350 years,
until around 1785 b.C.E.
But no physical evidence of
the city has ever been found.
The written records link
the city to king amenemhat,
a ruler from the middle kingdom.
His pyramid still stands at
el-lisht in the faiyum region.
The theory is that it was
built to overlook the capital
he once ruled.
Wendrich: We know approximately
where it is, but that area
is still 10x10 kilometers,
which is a big area to research.
Plus, it has been buried
probably under meters of mud.
And that's really not possible
with the traditional techniques.
Narrator: The location of
the ancient king's pyramid
is a starting point,
but investigators need a way
to narrow down the search area.
They turn to satellite imagery for help.
It allows them a wider view
of the landscape of this part
of egypt from 450 miles
above the earth's surface.
Lacovara: We have to rely
on satellite imaging now.
New techniques are helping
add to our tool kit in order to try
and find these cities when
they're lost without a trace.
Satellite archaeology enables us to find
all these disturbances and
differences in the surface.
If you see differences
that don't look natural
but that form straight
angles or lines or circles,
then you know something is up.
Narrator: Satellite imagery
must be analyzed for telltale clues.
Ancient texts record that itjtawy was built
on the banks of the nile.
But the river has shifted
its course over the years.
Now archaeologists
ask if this could explain
the ancient city's ultimate demise.
Naunton: If the nile has moved
and itjtawy was built on its banks,
is it possible that the
river might have moved
and swallowed it up over time?
Narrator: The movement of the nile
has left subtle traces
in the desert landscape.
When scientists study a
satellite image of an area
where the river once flowed,
they discover an exciting clue...
A raised expanse of ground
located close to amenemhet's
pyramid shows signs
that it was once densely inhabited.
The data from the satellite
imagery allows us to see
that there is an area
which is somewhat raised.
It seems to indicate human
interaction with the landscape
on a large scale,
which allows us to ask the question,
"could this be the site of itjtawy?"
narrator: Satellite technology
can only take the search so far.
The fundamental techniques of archaeology
must now be used to
try and solve this mystery.
You have to do what we call ground truth.
One way of doing that is by
coring, by drilling a deep hole,
and pulling out a cross
section of centuries of history
and just analyzing carefully
from every layer in that core.
Naunton: Rather than
covering a single large area
very comprehensively,
you send a kind of probe into the ground
just to look for cultural material.
Narrator: The coring team probe
5 meters beneath the surface.
The layers of the cores
reveal different periods
throughout history.
Archaeologists are searching
for any signs of human habitation.
They find key evidence dating to the period
of egypt's middle kingdom,
when itjtawy would have
been a prosperous city.
♪
The cores yielded fragments
of middle kingdom pottery.
Johnston: There are potsherds
and various other pieces
beneath the ground,
which seem to indicate this
has been an inhabited area.
Narrator: The pottery sherds date to
when itjtawy was a flourishing capital.
But as the large-scale
coring project continued,
many of the samples amazed archaeologists,
as the evidence of a jeweler's workshop
is discovered within them.
Wendrich: You don't get a
workshop with gemstones
in your average village.
So this indicates that we are hitting
a very important settlement.
Lacovara: Agate and carnelian
that had been smashed to make jewelry,
and often these kind of jeweler's workshops
are associated with the royal palace.
Narrator: This is a crucial clue.
Evidence of a luxury
industry, like a jeweler's,
suggests this was once the site
of a vibrant, wealthy ancient city.
This may then be a thriving
city and possibly itjtawy.
♪
Narrator: After decades of study,
full-scale spade and soil
excavations can now begin,
and this ancient, fallen capital
may finally be uncovered.
♪
Precious ancient sites and
artifacts are under attack
as new discoveries are
found submerged in water.
This is a major threat to
the archaeology of egypt.
Narrator: Now cutting-edge
satellite technology
is being used to try to explain
why archaeological sites
that were once dry as
dust are now soaking wet.
How might we explain
this bizarre phenomenon?
Narrator: 2017... a suburb east of cairo,
and an incredibly rare find is made...
A 206-year-old monument
of pharaoh psamtik the first.
Johnston: Excavators
discovered, quite by chance,
a colossal, 26-foot-high, quartzite statue.
Narrator: But archaeologists are dismayed
by the conditions the statue is found in.
The soil is waterlogged.
Even though the statue was found
not too far beneath the surface,
it was as though the
statue had to be pulled
out of a pool of water.
Narrator: This is not an isolated incident.
At the 2,000-year-old
kom el shoqafa catacombs of alexandria,
rising groundwater has damaged
the breathtaking stonework.
It took emergency engineering
works in 2019 to save it.
Meanwhile, at the colossal temple of luxor,
the stones are being
eroded by water damage.
We're beginning to see
signs of surface damage
on the stonework and on
the carvings and on the reliefs,
appearing as a crystallized white powder
on the stonework itself.
And in its most extreme examples,
whole areas of carving
just simply crumble to dust.
Clearly, this is putting
some of the country's
major archaeological sites at severe risk.
Scientists are trying to find out
where this water's coming from
and how they can hold it back.
Narrator: Many researchers
believe the root of this problem
can be traced back to the 1960s
and the construction of
an engineering giant...
The aswan high dam.
Naunton: This was undertaken
to provide egypt with hydroelectric power,
but also to allow the
land in the nile valley
to be farmed throughout the year.
Narrator: The dam
provided water for the crops
by flooding extensive areas.
Several of egypt's ancient monuments
had to be relocated along
with over 90,000 citizens.
But 50 years after its completion,
the problem of rising
water is getting worse.
Modern scientists are
studying the landscape
for clues to explain why.
Carroll: Scientists are using
remote-sensing g.I.S. Techniques
to look at how the land has changed
over the last few decades.
Narrator: Analysts
collect data from a camera
known as the advanced spaceborne
thermal emission and reflection unit.
This is mounted on the terra
satellite, which orbits earth.
♪
Satellite images taken over
the course of the last 30 years
allow scientists to show that
urban areas have expanded
and developed very rapidly
with the loss of agricultural land.
Narrator: The images show changes
to how the remaining
farmland is being cultivated.
Areas of desert are now
being reclaimed for farming,
which means that water
is now being introduced
into parts of the country
which were previously completely bone-dry.
Narrator: Scientists
believe that the flooding
caused by the aswan dam to help farmers
has also led to a rise in
the level of groundwater.
Now as modern farming
and irrigation intensifies,
the water level is continuing
to rise even further.
Naunton: All this agriculture
requires an awful lot of water
to sit on the land more
or less permanently,
right the way throughout the year.
And this has had a knock-on effect.
Carroll: They're basically
pumping out more water
from the nile, and this is causing
more of a runoff of water,
which in turn is then going to
affect the archaeological sites.
Egypt is turning slowly into a swampland.
Dodson: Walls which were many meters away
from any source of water
now have water directly underneath them.
Narrator: For archaeologists,
this is disastrous.
Some of the nation's most important sites
are facing imminent danger.
But even more alarming, the rising waters
may be destroying a multitude
of undiscovered artifacts right now.
Dodson: The reasons why
we have so much material from ancient egypt
is the dry conditions have meant
that organic materials have survived.
The rise in the water is
worrying simply 'cause it means
that far less is going to be preserved.
Naunton: The more vulnerable
ancient monuments are
to things like rising groundwater,
the more those things stand to be lost
before archaeologists get to them.
Narrator: Now egyptologists and scientists
are working more closely
than ever to search for
and save egypt's hidden
history before it's too late.
Carroll: It's actually
crucial that we act now
to protect these monuments.
Johnston: We need to resolve this problem
quickly and affordably.
Otherwise, we risk losing
egypt's heritage forever.
♪
Narrator: These portraits
were found alongside
carefully preserved mummies.
They're unlike any
depictions of ancient egyptians.
They show the faces from after the fall,
a new ruling class revealed
in unprecedented detail.
Carroll: You're instantly
struck by their expression.
They're so lifelike.
Narrator: Now scientists
ask if the extraordinary details
of these paintings could contain clues
to the rare health conditions
suffered by egypt's new elite.
Can the pharaoh mummy portraits
tell us even how those individuals lived
and possibly died?
♪
Narrator: 2016.
A team at chicago's northwestern university
analyze a selection of striking images.
They were discovered
south of cairo in faiyum.
Many of these portraits were found covering
the face of a mummified body.
Where earlier egyptian
artwork was highly stylized,
these images are extraordinarily lifelike.
Altaweel: It doesn't look like something
they would put on a mummy.
They literally look like just portraits,
like as if you'd put a
picture on a wall of someone.
They really wanted you to see
a more lifelike
representation of the person.
Narrator: The portraits
depict wealthy egyptians
who lived during the
first three centuries a.D.
This was a time during
which the roman empire
consolidated its rule over egypt
and mediterranean
customs influenced daily life.
This time, egypt's quite
a multicultural place.
You see greek and roman files.
The depictions of the faces, for instance,
very roman-looking realism,
greek style of decorations in
terms of the hair, the jewelry.
But then a very egyptian
idea of putting a body
in a sarcophagus and mummifying it.
The portraits represent
the cosmopolitan nature
of egyptian society at the time.
Narrator: But scientists
believe these portraits can tell us
about much more than the
changing culture of egypt
under the romans.
The faiyum portraits, incredibly,
might offer scientists an opportunity
to say something about
the health of the individuals
and the diseases that they
might have been suffering from.
Narrator: Researchers
at northwestern university
begin by analyzing each image
under different wavelengths of light.
Johnston: With modern
scientific techniques,
we're able to analyze the
faiyum mummy portraits
in the way that we might be able to analyze
a renaissance painting.
Altaweel: Using photogrammetry techniques,
we can begin to understand
the sort of processes used
to make the object, technologies,
but also the kind of materials
that would go into creating these objects.
Narrator: This process reveals
the special pigments and complex techniques
used in each portrait.
For researchers,
it's clear the artists
went to great lengths
to create the highly realistic images,
like this portrait of a young man.
Medical experts ask if the drooped features
depicted in the portrait could be evidence
of a neurological disorder.
To find out, scientists
turn to his preserved skull
and subject it to c.T. Scanning.
♪
Naunton: What appears in the portrait
to have been an anomaly
in the soft tissue on the face
is backed up by the
measurements from the skull.
The individual was suffering
from some kind of atrophy
of the soft tissue and the bone underneath.
The scientists concluded,
therefore, that in this case,
he was indeed suffering
from parry-romberg syndrome.
Carroll: The study actually revealed
significant neurological conditions,
signs of a very rare condition,
which is parry-romberg.
And what this does is it
actually causes shrinkage
to the face.
Narrator: The details
of the faiyum portraits
may reveal even more.
Scientists know that evidence
of neurological disorders
can be found not just in the skull,
but also in our eyes.
Altaweel: Medical science beginning
to just use people's
faces to recognize disease.
For instance, strokes or other
kinds of ailments that may occur
can be recognized using a
facial recognition software.
Naunton: The eyes are
often the first part of the body
to be affected by neurological diseases.
Narrator: Researchers now ask
whether the highly
detailed depictions of eyes
in the faiyum portraits
could hold further clues to other disorders
suffered by these egyptians.
We can begin to apply the same technologies
to look at these ancient portraits.
Narrator: In modern medicine,
doctors measure how light is reflected
from a patient's corneas.
If these corneal reflections
are not symmetrical,
it can be a sign of a
neurological disorder.
In the faiyum portraits,
the corneal reflections
are represented as flecks of white paint.
♪
Carroll: Now modern scientists
are actually looking at this for evidence,
possible health disorders
from a neurological point of view.
Narrator: Just like doctors
diagnosing a modern patient,
researchers measure the
position of the corneal reflections.
When they compare the results to data taken
from the actual skulls, they're astonished.
Naunton: Scientists are able
to say that the way the eyes look
does suggest that they
were accurately capturing
what are the signs of
neurological diseases.
Altaweel: Science is telling
us that these faiyum portraits
are more than just pretty pictures.
Naunton: In many cases, it seems
the artist did accurately
capture the conditions
that some of these
people were suffering from.
Narrator: The portraits
of the faiyum mummies
are not idealized, airbrushed images,
but are as close as we have to photographs
of egypt's new cosmopolitan elite.
♪
Only 28 egyptian obelisks remain standing,
each of them a towering giant.
Obelisks are the ancient
world's skyscrapers.
Godenho: From miles and miles away,
people could see these
things standing tall.
They're ancient feats of engineering.
Narrator: Now modern researchers are asking
just how the egyptians,
equipped with only basic tools,
carved these behemoths.
Fletcher: Now it's almost miraculous
how the ancient egyptians
create these amazing
structures from solid granite.
How did they do it, and
what tools were they using?
Narrator: Obelisks
could be over 100 feet tall,
each carved from a single piece of granite,
cut whole from the rock face.
For the pharaoh who
ordered this gargantuan task,
the obelisk was a
statement of divine authority.
Godenho: When you
look at the form of obelisks,
they end with this pyramid on top.
That's a symbol of the sun god.
So we're talking about the relationship
between the king and the sun god.
Altaweel: Obelisks really symbolized
the entryways of the gods,
the connection between
our world with higher powers.
Narrator: Ancient egyptians
had to cut through solid granite,
one of nature's hardest rocks,
yet only had tools made of soft metals
like copper and bronze.
How did they do it?
A vital clue can be found
at a quarry in aswan...
An enormous unfinished obelisk,
abandoned by workers 3,500 years ago.
Godenho: Looks like this
thing was almost ready
to be released from the
quarry it was carved in,
but then a crack was
exposed in the obelisk,
and so it had to be abandoned.
Bianchi: If it did not develop a crack,
it would have been the largest
standing obelisk that we know.
Narrator: The unfinished
obelisk shows signs
of what seem like strike marks.
We know ancient egyptians carved soft rock,
like limestone, using copper chisels.
But to cut granite, it would
take a harder metal like iron,
which had not yet been discovered.
Harrison: The evidence
on the aswan obelisk implies
that it was being hammered
and beaten out of the
ground using copper chisels,
but this seems slightly unusual
because copper is quite a soft metal
compared to the very hard granite.
Narrator: Other scholars
believe it's more likely
that the ancient workforce
used rocks made of
dolerite to free the obelisk.
Bianchi: Using pounders
about the size of a modern bowling ball
upon the granite
until the granite was worn away.
It's almost inconceivable
that such a simple technology
could do this, but possibly
with enough people,
you could move something
this large this way.
Narrator: But now
researchers are reevaluating
an important clue
discovered in the 19th century
by the father of
egyptology, flinders petrie.
Godenho: Petrie working at giza,
where the pyramids are, near cairo,
he found granite-drilled cores...
Lumps of granite that look
like they'd been removed
from the earth by drilling action.
Narrator: This could be a
crucial piece of evidence
in solving this mystery.
Petrie's theory was that while
the drills were made of copper,
craftsmen needed the help
of some other substance
to cut through granite.
Petrie believed that
in order for these drills
to be effective, they
needed a hard cutting edge.
So something else, not just the metal.
And so he thought something like diamond
would be suitable for that cutting action.
Altaweel: We use diamonds to drill.
Presumably, they would have used something
sort of comparable in hardness as diamond.
Narrator: 21st century researchers
may have found the answer to this mystery
in new york's metropolitan museum of art.
Naunton: There is an object
which perhaps doesn't look like much
but actually is telling us an awful lot
about how the egyptians were
able to work stones like this.
Narrator: This piece of
ancient sculpted stone
was discovered in amarna
in the late 19th century.
Contemporary researchers
are intrigued by a hole
on the back of the artifact.
A tubular cutting edge,
a tubular drill had been used on this.
And at the bottom of that drill hole,
you can see a circular area.
Naunton: There are traces of
some kind of abrasive powder
that they used to remove this section.
Narrator: This fine
powder could finally explain
how egyptians cut through
hard granite with soft copper.
The fragment is taken
immediately to the lab
to be examined.
Naunton: This powder's been
studied by electron microscopy,
and it's been shown to be made of a mixture
of various substances,
but two of those stand out.
There are green fragments which seem to be
from bronze and copper,
perhaps the remains of a drill.
And there are red angular
crystals in there as well.
Narrator: Scientists
analyze the red crystals
and identify them as corundum.
It is one of nature's hardest materials,
second only to diamond
and many times harder than granite.
Godenho: Corundum's
actually a super-hard crystal,
and that's what we seem
to have fragments of here.
But it's still used today
because it can scratch
just about any other gem.
Narrator: Today, corundum is used
to coat the cutting
surfaces of industrial drills
designed to cut through rock.
Now science has revealed
that 3,000 years ago,
ancient egyptians did
exactly the same thing
to carve their vast obelisks.
Altaweel: The obelisk
is beginning to reveal
new information to us.
Now we're learning much more.
We're learning about
the way they were made.
That's beginning now to be
peeled away by new techniques
and technologies available to us.
Narrator: It's evidence of the ingenuity
of the ancient egyptians
and of their ability to make the most
of their natural resources
to overcome seemingly insurmountable tasks.
Bianchi: The more we study ancient egypt,
the more we are aware
of just how attuned they were
of how nature works.
♪