"Lost Treasures of Egypt" (2019–2020): Season 1, Episode 5 - Warrior Pharaoh Queen - full transcript

NARRATOR: Egypt, the richest source
of archaeological treasures on the planet.

SALIMA: Oh, that's
a fabulous one!

NARRATOR: Beneath this
desert landscape...

lie the secrets of this
ancient civilization.

JOHN: Wow, you can see why
the pharaohs chose this place.

NARRATOR: Now, for a full
season of excavations

our cameras have
unprecedented access

to follow teams on the
frontline of archaeology...

ASHRAF: I'm driving so fast
because I'm so excited!

KATHLEEN: It's an entrance,
we can see an entrance.

NARRATOR: Revealing
buried secrets...



ANTONIO: I have just been told
that they have found something.

DON: Oh my god.

NARRATOR: And making discoveries
that could rewrite ancient history.

This time, new secrets about
one of Egypt's greatest rulers...

WORKERS: Hey-ah-ho!

NARRATOR: The pharaoh
queen, Hatshepsut.

Doctor Szafranski discovers buried
treasure at her magnificent temple...

NARRATOR: The Darnells uncover
how she formed a mysterious

double identity
to seize power...

COLLEEN: 'For my beloved
daughter', not son.

NARRATOR: And John and Maria
unearth a rare and intriguing statue.

JOHN: Hold, hold, hold,
hold, hold, hold, hold.

Do you realize what you've
just pulled out of the sand?

NARRATOR: Luxor, Egypt...



a landscape strewn with ancient
ruins and magnificent temples

built for the great
pharaohs of Egypt.

Cut into the surrounding mountains
lies the finest temple of them all.

Its owner was a revolutionary,

a rare female pharaoh,

called Hatshepsut.

Now archaeologists are searching
for clues to reveal more about this

enigmatic pharaoh queen.

Leading the hunt is Polish
archaeologist Dr. Zbigniew Szafranski.

NARRATOR: The landscape is
dominated by Hatshepsut's immense temple,

constructed to commemorate
her reign as a pharaoh.

Ancient builders carved the site
directly into the towering rocky cliffs.

They built it in three
separate levels,

each one a terrace connected
by ramps over 100 feet long.

At the top, 26 statues of the god of the
underworld, Osiris, stand as guardians.

This masterpiece of ancient
architecture is the key

to the secrets of the
pharaoh queen Hatshepsut.

DR SZAFRANSKI: It is an
exceptional building.

The temple is unique in the history
of Egyptian architecture and in the

history of the
world architecture.

NARRATOR: Dr. Szafranski and his
team have been excavating and restoring

Hatshepsut's temple for
the past 19 seasons.

DR SZAFRANSKI: Hi, hi, hi!

NARRATOR: They are on a mission
to piece back together the temple ruins.

120 years ago,

legendary British
Egyptologist Howard Carter

was part of the team that
excavated this site.

Much of the temple was
buried and badly damaged,

and little was known
about its owner.

Today, Dr. Szafranski continues
working to restore and rebuild the temple,

to reveal the secrets of the
pharaoh queen Hatshepsut.

NARRATOR: Hatshepsut was only the
second woman to ever become a pharaoh,

and the first for
nearly 300 years.

The fearless queen oversaw military
campaigns to Egypt's southern borders,

and claimed to have visited
the battlefield herself.

She built a fleet of
ships to sail the Red Sea

and re-established an
international trade network,

bringing back exotic
goods and riches.

Under Hatshepsut, Egypt prospered
and she built giant monuments

across the country to show
that she was in control.

Hatshepsut's temple was just one of
around ten megastructures she built

during her 22 year reign.

Across the Nile she erected vast swathes
of a giant temple complex called Karnak,

and a 98 foot obelisk, the
largest standing in Egypt today.

But the extraordinary life of this radical
woman still poses many mysteries.

Now, archaeologists are
on the hunt for new clues.

80 miles south of her temple in Gebel,
El-Silsila, lies one of Hatshepsut's quarries.

Here, on the banks
of the Nile...

JOHN: What do you want, mate?

NARRATOR: John Ward and Maria
Nilsson from Lund University

are getting ready to
excavate at the quarry.

JOHN: These lovely eggs.

MARIA: Do you want some bread?

NARRATOR: They want to
investigate how Hatshepsut used the

quarry during her reign.

In dig season, they live on this
boat with their baby son Jonathan,

daughter Freya, and dog Carter.

MARIA: What are you
going to do today, Freya?

MARIA: Yeah?

JOHN: When you're a little bit older
you can come over and help Daddy, yeah?

MARIA: Archaeology and Egypt itself
has been with me since I was a kid.

I knew from the beginning.

That I'm here now is no surprise
to family and friends back home.

The very day that I
gave birth to Jonathan

we were going through what
we actually needed on site.

JOHN: We never stop,
it never stops for us.

MARIA: No.
JOHN: Even on Christmas Day.

Guys, come on!
We're ready?

NARRATOR: John and Maria have spent the
last ten seasons investigating this site,

used by Hatshepsut.

JOHN: Hatshepsut was responsible
for removing hundreds of thousands of

tons of sandstone
from this quarry alone,

let alone the other quarries
across the whole landscape.

NARRATOR: With evidence
of over 10,000 years of

human activity across
15 square miles,

it's one of the largest
archaeological sites in Egypt.

Here, the couple is excavating
an abandoned statue.

They want to know if it
belonged to Hatshepsut.

MARIA: Good morning Sphinx-y.

NARRATOR: An unfinished,
ram-headed sphinx.

JOHN: It's a unique find.

MARIA: It is.

NARRATOR: The sphinx is a
mythical beast modeled on a lion,

but with the head of a human.

Others were carved with the head of
a ram, and are known as criosphinxes.

They act as guardians,
protecting the entrances to

pyramids, temples,
and sacred sites.

It's thought that Hatshepsut
started the greatest display

of sphinxes known
to ancient Egypt,

an avenue of sphinxes,
enhanced over the centuries,

stretching nearly two miles

between the great temples
of Luxor and Karnak.

MARIA: It's absolutely amazing, it's
one of those dreams to, to work with this

kind of monumental statue.

JOHN: Let's go there.

NARRATOR: John and Maria need
to dig out the buried sphinx to confirm

where this statue
was meant to go.

They set to work to see
what lies beneath the sand.

JOHN: Guys!

[clapping].

NARRATOR: 120 miles from
Luxor, in Aswan, lies Qubbet el-Hawa.

This site is a densely occupied
necropolis of around 100 ancient tombs.

Some have never been opened
and hold secrets to how the necropolis

was being used during
Hatshepsut's time.

MARTINA: It's amazing.

NARRATOR: Archaeologist Martina Bardonová
is part of a Spanish team preparing

to open up one of the
unexplored tombs.

MARTINA: When I was about 15
I read about archaeology in Egypt,

then I completely fall in love.

NARRATOR: Martina wants to excavate
inside a new, unopened tomb, but before

she can get to it she needs to clear
a pathway through the sand outside.

MARTINA: Everything
is covered.

I'm thinking about which
was to take off the sand.

The basic problem here.

NARRATOR: Strong desert winds have
blown sand in front of the tomb entrance.

[speaking native language].

NARRATOR: But after just
an hour clearing a path,

the team makes a discovery
that could put a halt

to everything.

MARTINA: Aah!

NARRATOR: One of Martina's team has
found parts of a body hidden in the sand.

NARRATOR: These human
remains appear to be ancient.

MARTINA: It's, basically it's so fragile
when, when you touch it or when you,

when even the sand around
moves it's just falling apart.

We can put wet toilet paper
because otherwise the bones crack.

WOMAN: Yeah.

NARRATOR: Martina needs to find
out why this body is outside the tomb,

and find any clues that will help
her to put a date on the burial.

As she clears away the sand, the bones
reveal something even more unusual.

MARTINA: It looks like
achild, it might be a child.

NARRATOR: In the quarry
at Gebel el-Silsila,

John and Maria are excavating

what could be one of
Hatshepsut's sphinxes.

JOHN: Come and get your apples
and pears now, come and get them!

This is my
archaeological field box,

it's a little bit heavy,
but this is the prototype.

A new version will come next
season I hope, which will be lighter.

At the moment we've just got a nice stony
layer on top which goes for the first two to

three centimeters, then beneath that
if I stick my little magical tool inside

and then withdraw it,
it's full of that,

which to the untrained
eye is just black powder,

actually that's iron filings from the
chisels of the quarrymen of these quarries.

The sand still today contains
a memory of all that work

that took place here
thousands of years ago.

NARRATOR: The sand even holds
clues about what the workers had for lunch.

JOHN: Fish bones.

Someone could've had a nice
meal down by the belly of the sphinx.

NARRATOR: As work continues,
the team unearths something

remarkable from
under the sphinx.

JOHN: Hold, hold, hold,
hold, hold, hold, hold!

No, no, no, no, no!

Stand there, stand there.

Hahahahaha!

Do you realize what
he's just pulled out?

A small sphinx!

Oh wow!

That is absolutely beautiful.

A small criosphinx.

There's the two haunches,
there's the head, there's the head,

there's the body,
here's the body.

What a discovery, I mean
it's fantastic, it really is.

KHALED: Wow.

JOHN: Isn't she beautiful?

NARRATOR: Large sphinx statues
are seen throughout Egypt,

but a miniature on this
scale is one of a kind...

JOHN: Meet the child.

NARRATOR: And must be recorded
by the dig inspector, Khaled Shawky.

Khaled is supervising the dig to report
any finds back to the Egyptian government.

KHALED: This is amazing.

This is very wonderful.

JOHN: Personally, I
think it's a model.

Was it the son or the child, possibly,
or the apprentice, copying the master,

the master's making
the real thing.

KHALED: This is a copy,
yes, I think so.

JOHN: And he's making a copy.
You've got the horn here.

KHALED: I see that, yes.

JOHN: For that, but this side
is broken off. KHALED: Yeah.

JOHN: He's gone in there
and he's gone whack!

KHALED: I see that.

JOHN: And the whole, boom!

And that's probably
why it was discarded.

NARRATOR: John thinks the
miniature was carved out for practice.

JOHN: Fantastic.
KHALED: Brilliant, well done.

NARRATOR: It's an
astonishing find.

JOHN: Find me
another one, guys.

NARRATOR: At Hatshepsut's
temple, Dr. Szafranski is

investigating the paintings
she left on the walls.

The imagery holds clues to Hatshepsut's life,
and reveals a family power struggle with

her nephew, who was also her
stepson, Thutmose the Third.

DR SZAFRANSKI: Here we
seeHatshepsut and behind her

we have a figure
of Thutmose III.

We have two kings.

NARRATOR: Images etched into these
walls reveal the story of Hatshepsut's

extraordinary rise to power.

She was the first-born
of a royal family,

but tradition dictated that ony
men could become the pharaoh.

So power was granted
to her infant stepson.

But after seven years
of acting as his aid,

Hatshepsut made an
unprecedented move for power;

she overtook her stepson,

and proclaimed that she
was now the king of Egypt.

DR SZAFRANSKI: We see on the
walls of this temple there are two kings,

but Hatshepsut is
always number one.

NARRATOR: Hatshepsut's power
play was revolutionary.

Now, Dr. Szafranski is
searching for new evidence

to piece together
her mysterious life.

In the ruins next to
Hatshepsut's temple,

the team has discovered a
ring of ancient mud bricks.

DR SZAFRANSKI: We're on
the top of something,

now we'll go deeper
and see what is inside.

NARRATOR: They think artifacts
could be buried here,

but after a day of digging,
progress comes to a halt.

A one-ton block of sandstone is precariously
balanced on top of the mud bricks.

If the block falls, it could destroy
any treasures buried beneath.

NARRATOR: Dr. Szafranski's team
have no heavy-lifting equipment on site,

so they have to improvise.

WORKERS: Hey-ah-ho!

NARRATOR: If they can't
move the block they won't be able

to find out what's
hidden beneath.

WORKERS: Hey-ah-ho!

[speaking native language].

NARRATOR: 50 miles from
Hatshepsut's temple, in El Kab,

Yale University
professor John Darnell

and his wife, Egyptologist
Dr. Colleen Darnell,

are beginning their season.

They're using digital technology
to record ancient rock inscriptions

to figure out how
hieroglyphic writing began.

DARNELL: I want to be absolutely
certain that we have beak as it should be,

and that we have this here
crest as it should be.

COLLEEN: Hm-mm.

NARRATOR: The pair has spent over 20 years
exploring the deserts and temples of Egypt,

to interpret these
ancient carvings.

During dig season, they analyze
their findings for publication

here at their home.

COLLEEN: This is about as
spectacular of an expedition house,

a dig house, as you can
have anywhere in the world.

The view of the Nile, the
mud brick architecture,

it's really a dream come true.

These are about 90 years old, linen,
it's pretty remarkable that it survived

so it's fun to play archaeology
with clothing as well.

I have a 1920s
jodhpur and suit set,

and a fun pair of
19-teens knickers.

NARRATOR: Today, the couple
is heading across the Nile,

to investigate a mysterious
set of inscriptions.

DARNELL: There's just no duplicate
for looking at the inscriptions themselves

on the actual monuments within
these great architectural settings.

NARRATOR: Their destination
is Karnak Temple.

Its beautiful chapels and decorated
courtyards cover a massive site.

Here many great pharaohs,
including Hatshepsut, left their mark.

But there's a mystery:
despite being female,

Hatshepsut is often
depicted as a man.

COLLEEN: So here we
seeHatshepsut and Thutmose III

and they're wearing identical
crowns, broad collars,

starched kilts, so if you were
to approach this wall without

being able to read the hieroglyphs
you wouldn't be able to tell who is who.

NARRATOR: Throughout the
site, Hatshepsut continually

represents herself
with male features.

COLLEEN: She's wearing a male
kilt, and even the pharaonic beard.

NARRATOR: But hidden in
the hieroglyphic text,

Colleen finds evidence
of her real gender.

COLLEEN: Here we have
the female indication

of her gender within the text.

'For my beloved
daughter', not son.

DARNELL: They know that this is a woman in
the role for which most of the iconography

and most of the
terms are masculine.

So the Egyptians are aware of
this and, and they work with it.

NARRATOR: Evidence on
a temple wall reveals

Hatshepsut wasn't
hiding her femininity,

she was proving
she was a pharaoh.

A fake beard was a way to show
a connection with the god Osiris.

Even male pharaohs wore
an artificial beard.

But other items she wore
were also reserved for men,

like the famous headdress,
the nemes, and the kilt.

But she transformed herself
with these symbols of power

to strengthen her image
across the kingdom.

Hatshepsut dressed not as
a man, but as a pharaoh.

Hatshepsut blurred her gender
to be considered equal,

but how equal was society
for women in ancient Egypt?

Near Hatshepsut's temple, in a
tomb site called Dra' Abu el-Naga...

SUZANNE: Take one side out of the corridor
with the human remains on the edge.

NARRATOR: Archaeologist Suzanne Onstine,
and her team from the University of

Memphis, are investigating the roles
of women in ancient Egyptian society.

SUZANNE: One of the things
that I really focused on in my career

was what were women doing,
what were women's lives like.

Every time I come to work here I feel really
excited because there's no better feeling or

job satisfaction really.

NARRATOR: It's Suzanne's tenth season excavating
this tomb, but it's still packed with the

body parts of men, women,
and mummified children.

Torn apart by ancient looters, the team
must piece the human remains back together.

SUZANNE: This is
skull fragments.

Not everybody feels
comfortableworking with the dead,

but this is my job in
terms of bringing light to

ancient Egypt and bringing
light to individuals.

WOMAN: No that one's spines.
It's a pelvis.

SUZANNE: Right now we're organizing the
human remains, we have hundreds, thousands

and thousands of bones, and so
keeping track of them is a bit complicated.

I think, Jesus,
penises or packets?

JESUS: This is...
SUZANNE: Probably penis.

JESUS: Hmm.
SUZANNE: Yeah?

JESUS: This is probably penis,
this is probably packet.

SUZANNE: Packet, okay.
Too big to be penis.

JESUS: Yeah.

SUZANNE: There's a lot of
shrinkage in the afterlife.

We found several of these mummified
pieces, some of them are packets of the,

the organs that were placed
back inside, occasionally one is a

penis that has been
detached from a body.

Even King Tut lost his penis, it actually
had just sort of fallen down into the

sarcophagus nearby, but
somebody noticed it was gone one day

and there was a big situation
looking for King Tut's penis.

NARRATOR: Handling these intimate
body parts is not for the fainthearted,

but combing through the pieces,
Suzanne makes a dramatic discovery.

SUZANNE: She was probably about
20 years old and I'm inclined to think

nearly 100% that she died
as a result of childbirth.

NARRATOR: At the
necropolis in Aswan,

Martina is unearthing the remains of a
buried child outside the tomb entrance.

MARTINA: You can see quite
well he's very tiny and very fragile.

If I compare it with my four years
old niece, so she's like that, that big.

It's emotional because you
know it's, it's a child.

NARRATOR: Child mortality
was high in ancient Egypt,

but it's rare to find them buried
and preserved at this necropolis.

MARTINA: Whenever you find
some it's, it's something.

NARRATOR: The team must move the bones
of the child to get access to the tomb.

But as they clear the area,
they find something else

staring up from
beneath the sand.

MARTINA: Aah!
Oh my god.

NARRATOR: Martina's team have just uncovered
an ancient face mask made of cartonnage.

NARRATOR: The mask covers the head
of an adult mummy buried outside the tomb,

but the team must strengthen it with
resin before they can attempt to move it.

This precious cartonnage mask was meant
to help ensure a successful afterlife.

NARRATOR: The cartonnage should
help the team reveal who these bodies are,

and when they date from.

But strong winds are on the
way, and the team must work fast.

NARRATOR: 120 miles north...

SUZANNE: And just
hold it for a minute.

NARRATOR: American archaeologist
Suzanne Onstine is piecing together the

remains of women and children.

SUZANNE: This child right
here is really very touching.

His face is still preserved.

NARRATOR: She's searching
for clues to their roles in society,

around the time of Hatshepsut.

She's found dramatic evidence
of one individual's life, and death.

SUZANNE: The vagina is the
hole here, still very distended,

so we know that within 24 hours
of giving birth and passing a child

that she died, because
otherwise the vagina

would've shrank back to its
original anatomical position.

So to find real evidence for something
that is sort of commonly spoken about,

that childbirth is a really dangerous
time for women in antiquity,

really kind of unique in
a very dramatic fashion.

NARRATOR: The mortal dangers
of childbirth are clear,

but Suzanne believes women
still held positions of power.

SUZANNE: Just looking at the, the
paintings we have evidence for them

participating in all
levels of society.

The scenes throughout really
emphasize their sort of equal stature.

NARRATOR: But the female pharaoh Hatshepsut
wanted to be more than just equal.

In the ancient quarry at Silsila, while
John continues to dig out the sphinx,

Maria is investigating the site for evidence
of Hatshepsut's mass building campaign.

Inside a temple at the quarry, the carved
relief scenes on the walls have been changed.

MARIA: The reliefs that we see on
the walls now are not the original scenes.

If we start to look closer,
in fact what we can see here

are the tell-tale
signs underneath

of an original scene
that is no longer here.

We can see a ship
transporting an obelisk.

NARRATOR: The ghost images
hidden in the wall reveal how Hatshepsut

may have been shipping
obelisks from Silsila.

Hatshepsut was famous
for her supersized

320 ton obelisk cut from
granite further south,

but lifting it upright would stretch
the limits of ancient engineering.

Builders dragged the obelisk up a ramp, and
then carefully dug away the earth beneath,

until the base hit the
foundations in the rock.

Finally, an army of builders used ropes
to pull this monumental obelisk upright.

MARIA: It's putting it all together,
I, it's, it's, making a full circle.

We have the beautiful golden
sandstone, we've got the,

the workers actually during
the time of Hatshepsut.

I personally love working with queens and
female pharaohs so for me it's wonderful.

NARRATOR: Hatshepsut may have
been shipping obelisks from Silsila,

but what was driving her to
build these colossal monuments?

At the Karnak Temple, John and
Colleen Darnell think the answer

lies on Hatshepsut's
giant obelisk itself.

COLLEEN: It's majesty
of this noble God...

DARNELL: Who has made
for her father...

COLLEEN: She addresses futuregenerations
and literally tells us that people

who shall come generation after
generation will know why she did this.

She's doing this for deep
purposes of religious devotion.

But on the flipside when youlook up at the
obelisk someof the largest hieroglyphs are

the name of Hatshepsut herself, so
this is a giant statement of propaganda,

I mean there's, there's no missing
the fact that this is a projection

on a monumental scale
of pharaonic power.

NARRATOR: Hatshepsut built these monuments
to immortalize her name, not as a woman,

but as one of the greatest
pharaohs of Egypt.

Beside Hatshepsut's temple,
Dr. Szafranski and the team need to move a

one-ton sandstone block so
they can excavate underneath.

WORKERS: Hey-ah-ho!

NATALIE: Mabruk!

Mabruk, I think
we're almost there.

WORKERS: Hey-ah-ho!

NARRATOR: With the
block finally moved,

they can begin to dig
through the sand layers.

NARRATOR: Underneath the
temple ruins, the team have unearthed

ancient fragments of pottery.

MARIUSZ: I think we have
the first complete pot.

NATALIE: Look at that.

MARIUSZ: Yeah, the whole pot.

NATALIE: Wonderful huh?
Isn't that nice?

MARIUSZ: We are very excited
and happy because nobody maybe

except ancient Egyptian
were seeing this before.

NARRATOR: These small clues could help
Dr. Szafranski unravel the mysterious events

after Hatshepsut's death.

When she died around the age of 50,
her stepson, King Thutmose the Third,

finally regained his power.

And higher up the cliff, Dr. Szafranski
sees evidence of his temple.

DR SZAFRANSKI: It was not possible
to build a bigger temple than the temple of

Hatshepsut, but it was higher.

NARRATOR: Hatshepsut's immense temple
took up the prime spot in the mountain

of the Valley of the Kings.

So Thutmose the Third built his temple right
next to it, but in an elevated position.

Ancient builders constructed huge
columns on top of a raised platform.

Dr. Szafranski's team has figured out
what this temple would've looked like and

discovered its upper terrace was
11 feet higher than Hatshepsut's,

a political powerplay by Thutmose
to finally overshadow his stepmother.

DR SZAFRANSKI: It was better
visible, point number one in the Valley.

He wanted this effect.

NARRATOR: Thutmose had tried to
upstage Hatshepsut, but in a twist of fate,

ancient earthquakes and landslides
have left his temple badly damaged.

It may never look as it once did,
but Dr. Szafranski and his team

are working to restore
what remains.

DR SZAFRANSKI: Today we have restored temple
of Hatshepsut but after let's say five, ten

years we'll have restored
temple of Thutmose III as well.

It's only a matter of time.

NARRATOR: In Aswan,
Martina and the team

are finishing their
excavations outside the tomb.

MARTINA: Tired?

[speaking native language].

WORKER: No, no, no.
No, no, not tired.

NARRATOR: They've managed to
move the bones and delicate cartonnage

into the onsite lab.

From studying the decorative style,
Martina believes these burials dated to

a few hundred years before
the time of Hatshepsut,

in a period called
the Middle Kingdom.

MARTINA: We know that it's
a Middle Kingdom date,

the cartonnage was
really well done,

it was high quality work,
and we know that they were

let's say higher status persons.

NARRATOR: Martina thinks the child
and adult burials are a family connection

to whoever owned the tomb,
but her team must continue

to unearth the secrets of
who or what is hidden inside.

MARTINA: It's going to be amazing
to see finally how it looks like.

NARRATOR: After a grueling few days,
the team heads back to the dig house.

NARRATOR: In the
quarry at Silsila...

JOHN: Ahmed!
AHMED: Yes?

NARRATOR: John Ward is still
excavating what could be the

remains of one of
Hatshepsut's sphinxes.

JOHN: What I've got is basically
a dressed piece of sandstone,

and I can feel a nice
right angle corner here.

What I'm hoping actually that is, is the
top part of the head here, which is missing.

One, two, three.

Hold, hold, hold, hold.

WORKERS: Hold, hold.
Hold! Up!

JOHN: And turn him over.

Turn him over.

Shuay, shuay, shuay.

The head of the sphinx.

So now we have a complete
sphinx as far as I'm concerned.

Both Maria and I do not consider this
a job, this is life, Silsila is our life,

these guys are our family,
and it's mankind's history.

All started here.

NARRATOR: After a long, hot dig,
John can finally show Maria the enormity

of what they've unearthed.

MARIA: Oh wow.

NARRATOR: The abandoned
sphinx statue is nearly ten foot high.

MARIA: Wow!
This is just silly.

Why on earth is it still here?

NARRATOR: It's the largest
they've seen at the quarry.

MARIA: As far as I know
there'sno records whatsoever of

any unfinished sphinx
that is intact like this.

NARRATOR: It's in such
good condition, it's a mystery

why this giant statue
was abandoned.

It's possible a small fracture in the
stone could have stopped the work.

But John and Maria still want to find
out where this sphinx was destined to go.

JOHN: So we need to now look at all the
sphinxes, the Sphinx Avenue of Hatshepsut,

Karnak's, find out where
we have one of this size.

You're looking at over five
ton there, if not more.

It really is.

MARIA: Wow.

NARRATOR: At the magnificent Karnak Temple,
Hatshepsut began construction of the

Avenue of the Sphinxes.

Some statues have been moved,
damaged, or have even disappeared,

but hundreds still remain
across the temple site.

JOHN: How do you
want to tackle this?

NARRATOR: John and Maria Ward
have come to Karnak to try and find a match

for the sphinx they've
discovered back at the quarry.

JOHN: Our tail goes further along
the back paw, then sweeps round.

These don't look big
enough at the front.

NARRATOR: As well as matching the style,
the couple is looking for black specks,

called "inclusions," within
the sandstone itself.

MARIA: If we can find those black inclusions,
the little black dots, then we know that

it's from, most probably
from the same quarry.

JOHN: From the
same quarry, hmm.

MARIA: And from
the same period.

JOHN: I'm not seeing any.

MARIA: These so far do
not show any such marks.

No, I think we need to
explore a little bit further.

NARRATOR: There's no sign of a matching
sphinx on the avenue outside the temple walls,

but hidden inside the temple
they find another style.

JOHN: They, they are
different, Maria, they are different.

That haunch...

MARIA: Yeah.

JOHN: Look at the belly cut.

MARIA: I would agree.

JOHN: And look, look at the
front, see the, the girth of the neck...

MARIA: I would agree.

JOHN: Coming down and
that would, the paws...

MARIA: And, and you've
got the black inclusions.

JOHN: Black inclusions.
Wow! There we have it!

NARRATOR: Although damaged, the couple is
certain these sphinxes came from Silsila.

JOHN: At Silsila they haven't
been finished, they're,

they're still in
their raw state.

They would've been
transported to here.

NARRATOR: The evidence suggests
John and Maria's sphinx would've made a

remarkable journey, carved
out at the quarry...

shipped 100 miles down the
Nile and placed at Karnak Temple.

JOHN: I'm feeling very proud,
I feel like a proud father.

These are our children,
this is from Silsila.

Everything, bit by bit by bit, has
culminated in this one moment.

Bang. The sphinx.

NARRATOR: By Hatshepsut's
temple, Dr. Szafranski and

the team continue
their excavation.

NATALIE: Look at that
treasure, it's filled with content.

DR SZAFRANSKI: And the pot
looks like New Kingdom.

NARRATOR: They have unearthed ancient
pottery, and food buried in the ground.

These were gifts to the gods, offerings
made when the temple was first built.

MARIUSZ: It's a very important
piece in this puzzle.

NARRATOR: Bit by bit, each of
these small finds is helping

to unearth the secrets
of this magnificent site.

Dr. Szafranski has dedicated his life
to revealing the legacy of Hatshepsut,

the incredible pharaoh queen.

NARRATOR: Hatshepsut was a
leader, a politician, and a revolutionary

the likes of which the
world had never seen.

Against all odds, Hatshepsut
rose to become a pharaoh,

and through her
magnificent temple,

she is remembered once again.