Unearthed (2016–…): Season 2, Episode 9 - Mystery of Egypt's Mega Temple - full transcript

The ancient
mega temple of Karnak,

the earthly mansion
of the Egyptian gods

and the exclusive playground
of Egypt's ruling elite.

The feat of engineering here
is just astronomical.

You can see the size of it.

But just how far back

does the history
of this place stretch?

And what bizarre rituals
went on behind its closed doors?

They would sing and dance
for the gods

because the gods
were easily bored.

Today, new technologies



and forensic detective work

are revealing what life was like

inside the ancient world's
largest religious complex.

To unearth Karnak's secrets,

we'll explore this mega-temple
stone by stone.

We'll look inside
its 30-foot-thick walls

and decode
its 60-foot high columns

to lift the veil on life inside

one of the ancient world's
most secretive wonders.

Captions paid for by
Discovery Communications

The Sacred Egyptian Site
of Karnak.

Generation after generation
of pharaohs

built temples here
in honor of their own rule.

The result is a sprawling city
of religious structures



from different eras
packed together like sardines.

Karnak sites at the heart
of the Egyptian empire,

300 miles south
of the great pyramids.

This vast collection
of religious buildings

was also a seat of power
for Egypt's mighty pharaohs,

like today's Vatican
and white house rolled into one.

What really went on
behind these hallowed walls?

Today, as engineers rebuild
the shattered remains

of Karnak piece by piece,

this extraordinary site is

finally revealing
its hidden secrets.

It's a mammoth task.

The parts of the complex
archaeologists have restored

revealed the spectacle
that greeted elite guests

more than 3,000 years ago.

The elite allowed
to enter Karnak were greeted

by the massive hypostyle hall.

Here, foreign dignitaries
were received,

and mighty pharaohs
rested under the shaded columns.

Behind it,
the festival hall obelisks

marked an exclusive gateway.

Only priests and pharaohs
could pass through

to the inner temples.

At the heart of this
secret inner sanctum

laid the most ancient
known temple.

But experts suspect that this
site was venerated for so long,

that even older temples
may lie hidden in the ruins.

Antoine Garric is
the current lead

on a massive
restoration project,

rebuilding Karnak
to its former glory.

He knows that ancient structures
unseen for thousands of years

could lie hidden inside
this field of blocks.

But to resurrect them, he first
has to find the right pieces.

While hunting out the blocks

for his latest
reconstruction project,

Antoine has learned
something astonishing

about the Egyptian builders.

They were thieves.

Examining the scenes of
these architectural crimes

reveals some
incredible surprises.

Perhaps the greatest
was discovered inside the ruins

of one of Karnak's
enormous walls.

Within the fabric
of a half-destroyed wall,

archaeologists found the remains
of hundreds of stolen blocks.

They're the pieces
to a near-complete temple

called the White Chapel,

the crowning glory
of Senusret the first,

a former pharaoh.

He covered the chapel
in inscriptions,

depicting his jubilee festival.

It once held the king's
mighty double throne

and honored the sun god.

This holy shrine was
callously destroyed

to build the legacy
of a future pharaoh.

Nine similar towering walls
were built on the Karnak site.

The pharaohs that built
each one covered them

with ancient scripts,

boasting of their divine status
like a giant billboard.

Today, Antoine and his team are
reconstructing one of the walls.

They believe it was
carved in honor

of the boy-king Tutankhamun
more than 3,000 years ago.

By completing this
30-foot-high jigsaw puzzle,

Antoine hopes to reveal
the forgotten history

of king Tut's reign scrubbed out
by the rulers who followed him.

The complexity of the task
is enormous,

but Antoine has
technology on his side.

Antoine uses special software
to see where his photos fit

into the wall reconstruction.

Once he's sure where
the virtual block goes,

Antoine can haul
the real thing into place.

Antoine is confident
this is the next piece

in king Tut's monster puzzle.

Today's restorers are lucky
to have modern machines to lift

the two-ton blocks into place.

Three and a half
thousand years ago,

the Egyptians had to use
much more primitive tools.

Instead of cranes,
the ancient Egyptians

made bricks
from the mud of the Nile

and stacked them
into a gentle sloping ramp.

They added wooden tracks

and pulled the massive
stone blocks up on sleds.

They used water
to lubricate the path.

The Egyptians built the ramp
higher and higher to add more

and more layers to the wall

until it toward over 100 feet.

Once the wall was complete,
the ramp was destroyed.

A huge wooden door
and colorful flags

were added as the final touches.

By rebuilding the ruins of
Karnak's forgotten structures,

experts have uncovered evidence
of the strange rituals

and practices
of the ancient pharaohs.

But to truly understand
what went on at Karnak,

scientists have to look
elsewhere for clues.

These grisly human remains
were once important people

in the working life
of the temple.

Can new technology reveal
who they were and what they did?

Karnak, the largest religious complex

in ancient Egypt

with a mountain of ruins
to prove it.

Historians believed
this walled structure

was a thriving miniature city

filled with homes
and workplaces.

But who was the elite's
religious society

that lived here,
and what did they do?

To find this hidden city,

you have to travel
deep inside Karnak,

far beyond the obelisks

and into the sacred labyrinth
of antechambers reserved

for the king
and his spiritual entourage.

Inside these secret rooms,
priests and their religious

aides would host ceremonies
and daily rituals.

But at the end
of the working day,

they would all retire
to the hidden village beyond,

a walled complex of hundred
of mud houses,

space for thousands of people
to live and work,

a secret society to support
the temple's colossal power.

Campbell Price suspects the
Egyptians who worked at Karnak

may have been every bit
as extraordinary

as the temple itself.

And today, with the help of
his colleague Lidija McKnight,

he has an opportunity to put
his suspicions to the test.

We have 20 human mummies,
several of whom come

from the site of Thebes,

and it's very likely
that those people,

including this lady here,
worked at the temple of Karnak.

100 years ago,

explorers unearthed
these human remains

very close to Karnak in what was
the ancient city of Thebes.

Campbell believes
the resin-coated mummy

is that of a temple worker
called "Parenbast."

He hopes to unravel the secrets
of her daily life

by studying her remains

and any artifacts hidden
inside her wrappings.

Price: So this is the lid
of the coffin of Parenbast.

She was discovered
in a sealed tomb,

and down here,
we can see some hieroglyphs,

which are a prayer to the gods

to ensure that Parenbast would
have a successful afterlife.

So, is there any evidence
on the coffin which tells us

what her role was
at the temple?

Price: Right at the bottom,
you can see her title,

and that's it
[speaks foreign language],

which means a singer,
temple singer of Amun.

and this tells us for sure
that she worked in Karnak.

Campbell thinks Parenbast's role

as a temple singer
would've been very different

to that of a church singer today.

We think she was part of
a small number of wealthy women

who would go into
the inner parts of the temple

where the god's statue was kept,

and they would sing and dance,
perhaps, for the gods,

because the ancient Egyptian
gods were often easily bored,

so they needed
to be entertained.

Parenbast would've sung songs

to the statue of Amun-Ra
every day

to keep the sun god happy,

but at key times
in the calendar,

her job became
even more important.

Parenbast would've spent
all year looking forward

to the festival of Opet.

When the Nile flooded,
the pharaoh called

the whole town to Karnak
to worship the gods.

Inside the temple,
the priests dressed

the statue of the god Amun-Ra

while Parenbast
and her colleagues

sang his praises.

The statue was carried
out of the temple.

Music filled the air,

and the crowd showered
the statue in offerings.

The parade continued
for many days.

Finally, the statue was returned
to the temple with the hope

that the floods would come again
the following year.

Campbell wants to know how old
the mummies were when they died.

This could reveal clues
to their social class.

Lidija shows him C.T. scans
of a similar mummy

she's been working on.

It suggests women like
Parenbast were able to reach

a surprisingly old age.

So, in her spine here, you can
see these little bony spurs.

They're a common indicator
of osteoarthritis

just by sheer wear and tear
on the skeleton

as people get older,
which indicate

that she was probably
middle-aged,

somewhere between 50 and 60.

An ordinary woman
in ancient Egypt

would expect to live to 30.

For the Karnak workers
to live twice as long,

they must've lived
a life of pure opulence,

cut off from the grim reality

of life outside
the high temple walls.

Campbell believes further clues
to the social status

of the temple singers could lie
hidden inside their wrappings.

Scans of Parenbast's remains
show strange shapes.

Could they be valuable amulets,

a sure sign of
a high status burial?

We can see there on
the C.T. scan are two shapes.

Campbell wants to know
what the shapes are,

but the wrappings are
too delicate to disturb.

Instead, he asks a colleague
to isolate the strange shapes

from the C.T. scans.

Then he uses sophisticated
software to create

a perfect facsimile
of the objects in 3-D.

This model reveals details
unseen for almost 3,000 years.

Price: But as you can see,

it's got a very distinctive
hieroglyph on it.

It's the eye
of the god Horus.

And we know
in Egyptian mythology,

the eye of Horus
was believed to be

a strong symbol
of protection.

By having this symbol
on your mummified body,

it protected
the deceased.

The discovery
of the amulets

and the fact
that she was mummified suggests

that Parenbast was
a highly valued member

of the elite Karnak society.

She would've lived a life
of luxury and adulation,

just like rock stars today,

a life unimaginable to those
outside the walls of the temple.

Karnak's enormous halls
and labyrinth of chambers

created an exclusive workplace

unlike anything the world
had seen before.

But how and why did this temple
reach such an epic scale?

Could evidence unearthed at this
ancient quarry offer clues?

The mighty temple
complex at Karnak

wasn't just designed
with humans in mind.

The Egyptians hoped to create
earthly mansions for the gods,

places the immortals
would be happy to relax in

when they visited the earth.

But how can you create a house
worthy of a passing deity?

Karnak's biggest temple needed
an equally large roof

to protect the gods
from the beating mid-day sun.

Enormous beams were needed
to span the vast distances

between the columns

and support hundreds
of solid stone cross struts.

In the central aisle,
even larger blocks

were used to bridge the gap.

These beams were the key
to creating a monumental feat

of ancient engineering

that plunged the massive hall
into darkness

fit for a resting god.

But the royal builders faced
an immense challenge.

The local limestone,

similar to the rock used
to build the pyramids,

would snap under its own weight

when balanced
between the columns.

The ancient Egyptians needed
a much stronger material

to build this vast roof.

But where to find it?

archaeologist
Maria Nilsson believes

the answer lies 100 miles south
along the river Nile

at a remote quarry
called Silsila,

famed for its super
tough sandstone.

She's uncovered ancient graffiti
here that seems to reference

a massive ancient
quarrying operation

around the time
Karnak was built.

We got these figures.
They are the masons.

So, they're actually
chiseling out the block

that comes from the mountain.

Further down, they're
controlled by the overseer

who's standing here
with a whip,

making sure that the work is
being done properly.

Maria suspects the discovery
of sandstone in this quarry

was a turning point
for the ancient Egyptians.

For the first time,
they were able to build

bigger, taller, wider-roofed
structures worthy of the gods

they were so eager to please.

Nilsson: We believe that,
during the new kingdom,

Silsila was considered
so important,

and we have pharaohs who come,

and they write their names,
commemorating the events.

The pharaohs couldn't get enough
of this new, stronger material.

It allowed them to build

ever more elaborate-roofed
structures.

Nilsson: The deeper they got
into the mountain,

the stronger the blocks
would've been,

and that's what
they were all after.

But how did the Egyptian masons

get these massive blocks
out of the mountain

and 100 miles back to Karnak?

Maria's research partner,
John Ward,

thinks the chance
discovery of this cracked,

abandoned beam
offers vital clues.

Here we are in the mother
of all quarries at Silsila,

and we're confronted
by this huge lintel,

which would've been
a roof lintel

or some kind of architrave,

but it's load-bearing.

You can see the size of it.

John investigates the rock face
behind this forgotten giant.

He looks for clues
to how the Egyptians

worked their prized new stone.

Down in here, you would've had
the ancient Egyptian quarryman

chip-chip-chipping away
with his mallet and his chisel.

And as we can see on the wall,

we've got the chisel marks
still in situ,

one stroke going down,

stop, another stroke
going down,

stop and then another
stroke going down, stop.

The ancient Egyptians
used bronze tools

to carve out
the sides of each block.

Then they hammered metal wedges
underneath the huge lintels

to pry the stones free.

John suspects the quarry workers
then moved the beams by hand

to riverboats bound for Karnak.

The feat of engineering here is
just astronomical to think

that this huge lintel was lifted

by man onto a sledge,

taken down the man-made ramp

to the awaiting barges
on the Nile.

John and his team
are digging for evidence

that the Egyptians constructed
an extensive road network

to help the quarrymen
pull the huge roof beams

out of the quarry.

We're actually defining
the road, as you can see,

coming all the way up
to where we're standing now,

and this allowed
the quarry blocks

to be taken down to the Nile

and the awaiting rafts
to Karnak temple.

Once the giant beams
arrived at Karnak,

the construction team
faced an even greater challenge.

They needed to raise the beams
70 feet into the air.

First, the Egyptians built
the columns layer by layer,

placing rough blocks
in a checkerboard pattern

across the hall.

Then they filled
the entire area with dirt

and then dragged
another layer of blocks

into place for 20 layers.

When all the blocks
were positioned,

the mammoth roof beams
were carefully placed on top

of the solid mass of soil
70 feet high.

Finally, the dirt was removed,
and the pillars

were carved smooth
to create the largest

covered space
in ancient Egypt.

Sandstone blocks allowed
one pharaoh to construct

a hall big enough
to be worthy of the gods,

but who was it?

Who took the adulation
for building

the incredible hypostyle hall?

Surprisingly, for a site covered
in the names of pharaohs,

the architect of the hypostyle
hall is hotly debated.

Is new technology about
to reveal an incredible story

of stolen identity?

Karnak,

the religious
and political powerhouse

of the ancient Egyptian empire.

Many pharaohs
built temples here,

marking the stone
with their name

to proclaim their power.

But not all these boastful marks
are quite what they seem.

Egyptologist Erika Feleg
has spent 7 years

studying the enormous
hypostyle hall.

She's looking for clues
to the architect

of the largest temple on site.

I love a detective story.

I love figuring out
what happened to this column

before it ended up
looking like it does today.

Incredibly,
her seemingly simple task

of identifying
who built this massive temple

has uncovered
a remarkable story

of high politics
and royal vanity.

The hypostyle hall is
a gallery of ancient artwork.

All 134 columns were once
adorned with inscriptions

from top to bottom.

Every inch of stone
told a story in vivid color.

The markings boast of
the god-like status of one man,

a pharaoh whose symbol adorns
the columns at every angle.

Plastered all along
the main avenue

is the mark
of Ramses the second.

Ramses the second is
nicknamed "the builder."

This powerful pharaoh reportedly
constructed more major buildings

and statues in Egypt
than any other king.

But although his mark covers
the hypostyle hall,

Erika suspects that Ramses
could be taking credit

for the work
of one of his predecessors.

Today, she uses new technology
to record the carvings

and search for clues.

This is a task that previous
generations of archaeologists

were unable to pull off.

Feleg: The columns have never
been recorded in detail,

and that's mostly because
of their enormous size.

Traditional
methods would involve

using transparent plastic sheets

to trace over the figures.

Because of the heat,
the light, and the gravity,

all that plastic sheeting
would have sagged,

so we would've
had distortions.

Instead of tracing the images,

Erika uses photography
and special software

to reveal the smallest details
hidden inside the carvings.

She directs photographer
Owen Murray to take the images.

Murray: I am photographing
these columns,

trying to get as high-definition

and high-fidelity
an image as possible.

The major challenges that
we're facing with these columns

are height
and consistency of light.

The marks Erika hopes
to see are so faint,

they can only be photographed

in very precise
shaded lighting.

This gives Owen only a small
window to work each day.

We're dealing with the position
of the sun

as it moves
throughout the day

and trying to keep consistent
with the quality of photograph,

and that has been one
of the bigger challenges.

Up until this point,

we've haven't really
been able to do that.

Owen takes hundreds
of photos of the shaded column

with an overhead light.

This technique helps him
to capture every detail

of the carved stone surface.

Erika then uses
advanced 3-D modeling

to stitch Owen?s photographs
together.

She then unrolls the curves
into a single flat image.

Now she can carefully
analyze the stone surface,

hunting for the remains
of old inscriptions scrubbed out

and recarved with
the name of Ramses.

There are times when
we'll take a photo,

and it's only after two weeks
once we've processed it

or play with their lighting
that we realize,

"oh, we actually
captured something

that looks like
a recarved inscription."

If you look closely,
you can see traces

of what used to be the outlines

of some of the hieroglyphs

that were part of that
initial decoration.

Erika believes
these faint scratches,

hidden beneath
the main inscription,

are the scrubbed-out remains
of another pharaoh's mark.

Once Erika identifies
the overwritten text,

she checks it out in real life.

She uses mirrors
to manipulate the daylight

to help the faint
carved lines stand out.

Feleg: So, the two large ovals
you can see

contain the names
of Ramses the second,

and behind them,
you can still see

the outline traces
of Seti the first.

At key points in the hall,
especially along the grandest

and most visible
central walkway,

Ramses? name overrides
that of his own father,

pharaoh Seti the first.

And you can still the faint
traces towards the left side

of the Ramses the second.

Ramses was desperate to replace
his father's name with his own,

but the old pharaoh
had made his son's deception

almost impossible to pull off.

Ramses? father was
an art connoisseur.

his carvings were elaborate
with deep outlines

and raised figures.

So, when Seti died
and Ramses took the throne,

the new pharaoh
faced an uphill task

to erase the memory
of his predecessor.

Ramses erected scaffolding
around the pillars.

He chopped
the raised images off,

but he still couldn't get rid
of the deep outlines.

In his haste,
he scraped his name

on top in simple
sunk-relief carvings.

Finally, he used a thin layer
of plaster to conceal

the faint traces
of his father,

which the weathering of time
has only now revealed.

Ramses proclaimed his power

by claiming the hypostyle
hall for his own.

But surprisingly,
this towering structure

isn't the tallest monument
on site.

That prize goes
to the nearby obelisks.

How were these colossal
single carvings made?

And how did the Egyptians
get them here?

Karnak's giant obelisks

are one of the greatest marvels
of the ancient world.

These massive,
single pieces of rock

have puzzled archaeologists
for years.

That's because they're carved

from one of the hardest rocks
on earth, granite.

How did the ancient Egyptians
work this toughest of materials

with only primitive tools?

Although only two still
stand today, at its prime,

Karnak boasted
13 colossal obelisks.

Six dominated the center of
the temple at the festival hall.

The tallest towered
100 feet high,

and all were made
from super-tough granite

to stop them from snapping.

The tips were painted
with glimmering gold

to reflect the sun's rays.

Engravings boast
they were carved

in just seven months, but how?

Adel Kelany has spent his career

unearthing the secrets
of Egyptian stone masons.

He's convinced that
the metal chisels

used to build limestone pyramids

and sandstone temples
would've had little effect

on the tough granite used
to build the obelisks.

Today, he examines
a half-extracted obelisk,

most likely abandoned
by the Egyptians

when the massive block split.

Adel first examines
the surface of the stone

for tell-tale marks,

but the dents he finds
are hard to interpret.

Next, he looks in the dirt
under the stone

and uncovers
something surprising.

The surprise discovery
of charcoal suggests

that fire may have
played some part

in the extraction
of the giant blocks.

To test the theory, Adel lights
a series of fires

on top of a nearby outcrop.

He wants to see if heating
and then quenching the hard rock

makes it easier to work.

The team keeps a close eye
on the temperature

while checking
for any signs of weakness.

[ speaking foreign language ]

The team quenches
the fire with water.

wow.

To test if the fire has made
the hard rock easier to work,

Adel instructs one team
to pound the heated rock.

For comparison,
he gets another to pound

on the untreated surface.

Both hammer for 9 minutes.

Then Adel examines the results.

The heat-treated hole
is nearly 2 inches deep,

seemingly 10 times quicker
to work through

than the untreated rock,

a stunning result.

It's early days, but Adel
believes fire was the key

to building Karnak's
granite obelisks.

But how did they transport these
450-ton monoliths to Karnak?

Historians believe
the Egyptians dug canals

deep into the landscape

so water from the Nile
would flow towards the quarries.

The obelisk was suspended
over the water.

Then a boat was weighed down
with tons of stone

so that when it was emptied,

it would pick up the obelisk

and carry it down
the Nile to Karnak.

At Karnak, hundreds
of construction workers

then gradually dug away
the earth with great precision

to tilt the giant
stone upright.

Lastly, they slotted the base
of the obelisk into a groove

and attached ropes to haul it
into its final position.

The colossal journey of this
450-ton block was complete.

The great pharaohs ruled over
an empire of 2 million people

beneath the shadow of their
massive granite needles.

The Egyptians continued
to build temples on this site

for a further 1,200 years,

but now archaeologists
are unearthing evidence

that the work here
came to an abrupt end.

The surprising catalyst
was the emergence

of a powerful new religion,

one that was set to change
the destiny of our planet.

The mighty
temple complex at Karnak

was one of the busiest
construction sites

in the ancient world.

For 2,000 years, generation
after generation of pharaohs

built ever more complex
structures at the temple.

Yet 1,700 years ago,

the construction
stopped suddenly,

and Karnak fell to ruin.

Why?

archaeologist Benjamin Durand
is unearthing evidence

that the fall was triggered
by the rise of a new religion

that was set
to change the world.

The hieroglyphs reveal

how the rule of Karnak changed

over its final years,

and the last name on the list
seems strangely foreign.

Tiberius wasn't an Egyptian.

He was the leader
of the mighty Roman empire.

Karnak had been seized
by a foreign power.

Benjamin unearths evidence
that Karnak's new overlords

brought the temples
crashing down

because just 300 years
after they arrived,

the Romans made
a momentous cultural change.

1,600 years ago,
the Roman empire

turned its back on paganism

and converted to a new faith,
Christianity.

Roman leaders ordered
the immediate closure

of all non-Christian
sites across Egypt,

including the biggest
of them all, Karnak.

Benjamin?s work is slowly
revealing what happened next.

He suspects that he's uncovered
the entrance to a family home.

Benjamin is convinced
this whole area

was once filled with houses.

The Romans transformed Karnak's
deserted temples

into a bustling
Christian community.

Karnak's downfall was
the final nail in the coffin

for the ancient
Egyptian civilization.

No more pharaohs were buried
in the Valley of the Kings.

The sphinx was lost
to the sands of the desert,

and the great pyramids
were swamped by the city.

The religion that built these
iconic monuments was no more.

Without it, the art,
temples, and politics

that had defined
this civilization

for 3,000 years
had no reason to continue,

and the world would
never be the same again.

Archaeologists continue
piecing together

the bizarre inner workings
of life at Karnak,

Egypt's most mysterious
religious complex.

Its walls bear the mark
of 30 pharaohs,

its myriad buildings a testament

to their individual
quests for power.

What amazing secrets
could still lie buried

under the towering columns
and giant walls

of the largest religious complex
in the ancient world?