Lost Treasures of Egypt - S05E04 - The Legend of Cleopatra
Transcript
00:00In one of Egypt's most sacred burial grounds.
00:10Oh my God, something is here.
00:14Archaeologists discover a doorway to a tomb buried beneath the sand.
00:19I think this is a corner of the entrance, so we're going to have to remove this gravel.
00:27They are hunting for evidence of Egypt's last queen, Cleopatra.
00:33Oh my God, there's something inside.
00:37In ancient Egypt, one name has passed into legend, immortalized in plays, books, and Hollywood film.
00:54Cleopatra.
00:57But the real Cleopatra is an enigma, and even during her own lifetime, she was shrouded in myth.
01:06Today, archaeologists across Egypt are searching through the rare clues left behind in temples and tombs
01:15to discover the reach of Cleopatra's power and reveal how much of her legend was propaganda,
01:23created by her political rivals in a quest to uncover the real queen behind the myth.
01:35In the Saqqara necropolis, Japanese archaeologist Nozomu Kawai
01:42is investigating a mysterious tomb that dates to the time of Cleopatra.
01:47Saqqara is one of the biggest necropolises in Egypt,
01:52but no one has ever excavated on this eastern escarpment of the North Saqqara Plateau.
02:00So we are one of the first explorers to investigate this area.
02:08In 2019, he made an intriguing discovery.
02:13The entrance to a many-chambered underground tomb, or catacomb.
02:19One brave team member crawled into the narrow space and glimpsed mummies and a statue of a goddess.
02:27But the dangerous cracks in the walls of the tomb forced Nozomu to abandon his excavation.
02:35Four years later, Nozomu is back to finish the job,
02:39and he's hoping to find evidence of Cleopatra's mythology within her own lifetime
02:45at this ancient and sacred burial site.
02:48We haven't been able to excavate here for almost four years due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
02:56So we are very pleased to be back.
02:59But getting inside the tomb won't be easy.
03:04On the eastern edge of the necropolis,
03:08a vaulted mud-brick corridor with stairs leads down into the rock itself.
03:14Inside, a tunnel plunges into the cliff, the front half filled with wind-blown sand.
03:21Further back, at least three burial chambers branch off it.
03:26Nozomu hopes they contain clues to who was buried here.
03:30But after 2,000 years, the rock is dangerously weakened.
03:35The slightest disturbance could bring the roof crashing down,
03:40trapping its secrets inside forever.
03:48Nozomu has enlisted the help of Spanish architect Ignacio Forcadell
03:53to strengthen the tomb without damaging the delicate remains inside.
03:59It is probably the most dangerous place I have worked so far.
04:04You really feel that those stones can fall at any moment.
04:09Ignacio constructs a multi-layered web of metal beams in sections.
04:16This should hold the fragile ceiling up,
04:19but they need to be careful where they place the supports.
04:23Where we're supposed to put the legs, there's human remains, there's archaeological stuff,
04:28so we cannot do it as free as we would want.
04:35You go first, I follow you.
04:40The team carefully welds the sections together.
04:45At the back of the tomb, there have been some serious rock falls.
04:49It's not for the faint-hearted.
04:52This tomb probably is around 1,500 kilograms or something like that,
04:57so at any moment they can fall down.
05:02Finally, they install adjustable legs that can extend and move
05:08as the team clear the sand from inside.
05:12OK, now it's in place. Now it's working.
05:18It has taken two long months, but finally the tomb is safe.
05:25At the very back of the chamber,
05:28Cleopatra's subjects lie undisturbed since Nozomu's discovery in 2019.
05:35He calls in mummy expert Salima Ikram to make sense of the jumble of remains.
05:43This is amazing.
05:48At the Dendera temple complex,
05:52Egyptologist Meredith Brand is in search of the beginning of the Cleopatra legend.
05:59She's looking for one of the only images of the famous queen from before she came to power.
06:06She starts at the imposing temple of Hathor.
06:10It's absolutely stunning. I think this is the most beautiful temple in all of Egypt.
06:15It's just remarkable.
06:19It was built by Cleopatra's father, Ptolemy Auletis.
06:25This temple represents the moment in time power passes to Cleopatra.
06:29This is where her legend begins.
06:33Unlike many pharaohs, there are very few surviving images from Cleopatra's lifetime.
06:40But Meredith is looking for one hidden in a concealed chamber in the heart of the temple.
06:46There's this secret chamber and no one has access to this.
06:50It's so rare to get inside. I've never been in.
07:00Oh, wow.
07:04Every inch of the narrow secret chamber is covered in hieroglyphs and pictures.
07:10I bet people haven't been in here for years.
07:13And it smells. It smells like bats, like bat droppings.
07:18It's quite pungent.
07:23And what's this here? Okay.
07:26This is the figure of a woman.
07:30And above that are hieroglyphs that say the ruler of two lands.
07:38The image bears no name, but there's good reason to think this might be Cleopatra.
07:45We know that Cleopatra's father built this temple, and he built it around 54 BC.
07:51And at that time, there were only two royal women alive.
07:56So this could very well be an image of Cleopatra from the time of her father, Ptolemy Auletis.
08:03This is Cleopatra yet to be Cleopatra. This is her beginnings.
08:11Cleopatra VII became queen of Egypt at the age of 18 and ruled alongside her ten-year-old brother.
08:21After a brief reign, Cleopatra was ousted and forced to flee to Syria.
08:28But she formed an alliance with the Roman general Julius Caesar.
08:33And together, they crushed her brother's army.
08:37Reinstated on the throne, Cleopatra ruled over Egypt for another 17 years
08:43and became the legendary queen we know today.
08:47This image was probably commissioned by Cleopatra's father when she was young.
08:53Temple imagery was an important way for pharaohs and their families
08:57to project their power and connect with the gods.
09:01If this is Cleopatra, she already has an affinity, a connection to the goddess Isis.
09:06There's the crown of Isis.
09:09The religious symbolism of this image is that it's a symbol of the goddess Isis.
09:15The religious symbolism associated with the teenage Cleopatra
09:19would continue to be an important part of her identity in later life.
09:25So much has been written about Cleopatra, covering her legendary beauty,
09:29her ruthless politics, and even her drinking habits.
09:33I want to find out if any of these are true. I want to find out the woman behind the myth.
09:39In Aswan, at the nobles' necropolis of Aga Khan,
09:46Abdelmonem Said is hunting for undiscovered tombs from the time of Cleopatra.
09:53Abdelmonem started his career here 30 years ago,
09:56but his love of Egyptology is as strong as ever.
10:01You can't imagine. You open something that has already been closed so long ago.
10:06It's fantastic. It's a very nice feeling, especially if you love your job.
10:13He's found a promising new tomb that he hopes he can date to Cleopatra's reign.
10:19Aswan is 500 miles from Cleopatra's capital in Alexandria.
10:25So if the tomb does date from her era,
10:28Abdelmonem hopes it can provide clues as to how Cleopatra kept control of her vast lands.
10:36The first clue to the tomb's date is that it is hewn out of the rock with no built features.
10:43This was common for Cleopatra's era here in Aswan,
10:47when space was at a premium after a population boom.
10:51During this period, they had needed so many tombs in one time.
10:57That's why they were in a hurry to dig inside the mountain itself directly.
11:03Abdelmonem and his team have to clear the entrance of sand and debris before they can enter the tomb.
11:10In the 100-degree heat, it's punishing work.
11:18Finally, he can get a good look inside.
11:22I can see crypts. It's really a big one.
11:32In the temple complex at Dendera,
11:35Meredith Brand is investigating one of the most persistent legends about Cleopatra,
11:41her striking appearance.
11:44One of the mysteries of Cleopatra is her beauty.
11:47Certainly to Hollywood, she was a gorgeous woman, one of the most exquisite that ever lived.
11:53But what did Cleopatra really look like?
11:57Her body has never been found.
12:00There are detailed descriptions of her, but they come from Egypt's biggest political rival, Rome.
12:08One Roman historian described her on the day she first met Julius Caesar.
12:13I have an account from the Roman poet Lucan, and he describes her beauty in a very specific way.
12:19And in her baleful beauty, Cleopatra was lavishly painted.
12:24Lucan describes Cleopatra as excessively made up, completely painted.
12:29For the Romans, wearing this much makeup was deeply uncivilized.
12:34Women were supposed to be demure and restrained.
12:39They had a message they wanted to say about Cleopatra, and they wanted to let everybody know
12:43that the way she presented herself, the way she conducted business,
12:46the way she conducted politics, was unacceptable for a woman.
12:51In ancient Rome, women were banned from holding political office.
12:56They wanted to discredit the very idea of a female ruler,
13:00and justify why they had to conquer Egypt for themselves.
13:05But was there a kernel of truth in the Roman propaganda of Cleopatra as a dangerous painted beauty?
13:13A nearby inscription holds an important clue.
13:18Oh, this is a great scene.
13:20It shows a bunch of offering bearers in a line carrying offerings to the gods.
13:24And this one here, he's carrying these little balls in a bowl,
13:29and above it is the hieroglyph indicating that this is eye paint.
13:33It was so important that the ancient Egyptians inscribed eye paint offerings on the walls of the temple.
13:40It was this vital.
13:41In Egypt, eye makeup was a symbol that connected its people directly to a founding myth of their religion,
13:49the legend of the Eye of Horus.
13:54In an epic battle for the fate of Egypt, Seth, god of chaos, ripped out the Eye of Horus, god of the sky.
14:02But the divine mediator, Thoth, stepped in and magically restored Horus' damaged eye.
14:13The Eye of Horus was one of the most important symbols in Egyptian culture.
14:18Wearing it was believed to offer protection and healing.
14:22Cleopatra's dark painted eyes symbolized the Eye of Horus,
14:27bestowing the gods' protection and connecting her to their power.
14:34So this Eye of Horus is something Cleopatra would have looked at and would have understood
14:39that eye makeup was the way that you make yourself like Horus.
14:42It's the way you make yourself divine.
14:44This was the standard for ancient Egyptian beauty for the humans and for the gods.
14:49Cleopatra, like many pharaohs before her, presented as heavily made up,
14:54to her Egyptian subjects.
14:56But in Cleopatra's case, the propaganda served a second purpose,
15:01because she wasn't actually Egyptian.
15:04She came from a long line of Greek Macedonian rulers.
15:09Greek and Roman women did not dress like ancient Egyptian women.
15:12They didn't wear the complete full face of makeup.
15:15So to Romans, to see Cleopatra, a Greek Macedonian woman,
15:19dressed in full ancient Egyptian style, with the eye paint, would have been quite shocking.
15:25Cleopatra's physical appearance was central to her queenly power over Egypt.
15:31She wore makeup to reinforce her position as an Egyptian pharaoh,
15:35even as she faced Roman disapproval.
15:40We look at Cleopatra and we ask the question, was she beautiful?
15:44We look at Cleopatra and we ask the question, was she beautiful?
15:48Instead, the question should be,
15:50how did she use all of the gifts she had to rule Egypt as best she could?
16:00In Saqqara, mummy expert Salima is trying to make sense
16:05of the dozens of coffins and skeletons in the catacomb.
16:10This catacomb is fabulous.
16:13She starts at the rear, an area that the sand drifts from outside haven't reached.
16:19She wants to understand more about the people this tomb was originally built for.
16:25You've got this Greek façade and you've got the name of the deceased over here,
16:29and there's some Greek text up above which was very, very eroded.
16:34In the time of Cleopatra, you get this cocktail of ancient Egyptian and Greek traditions.
16:41Each original burial in this catacomb was sealed into a side chamber
16:46and then marked with the name of the deceased in Greek.
16:49Cleopatra installed elite nobles in positions of power across Egypt.
16:55This could be one of their tombs.
16:57But it's not just the original family that were laid to rest here.
17:01There's a nice, quite big chamber which has got a large coffin in it.
17:06What's interesting is they shoved in the coffin, the deceased is in there,
17:11and then later on, after it had been sealed up, they opened it and they put in another body.
17:17You've got the really super important person below,
17:20and someone who is of lesser importance is on top of this lovely coffin.
17:24There's someone under you.
17:27There are two mummies. There's one mummy like this with a head here,
17:30and the other one with a head here.
17:32So it was quite a crowded coffin.
17:36This catacomb was crammed full of bodies.
17:41By the time of Cleopatra's reign,
17:43Egypt's most prestigious burial plots were regularly reused.
17:48By the time of Cleopatra's reign,
17:50Egypt's most prestigious burial plots were regularly reused.
17:55And the fact that this tomb was so popular
17:58indicates the people who built it had some influence or power.
18:03If you think that the person who's buried is important and powerful,
18:07then maybe their magic, their protection, both in this world and the next,
18:12would be something that could be extended to both you and your family.
18:18While Selima is looking at the mummies,
18:21Nozomu starts an investigation into an anomaly by the tomb's entrance.
18:27Here we have bedrock and white plaster,
18:33and stones completely different from the bedrock.
18:38He hopes the layer of plaster is covering an entrance
18:41to an undisturbed burial chamber.
18:45I have worked in Egypt more than 30 years.
18:48This is the first time for me to encounter such an unsealed burial chamber.
18:54I'm really excited to explore this.
19:00In Aswan, Abdelmonim is inspecting a tomb
19:04that he hopes dates to the time of Cleopatra.
19:08It has many niches, which means also it was a family tomb,
19:12not just a tomb for one person.
19:15He decides it's safe for the team to start work inside.
19:20I thought that it was a tomb for one person,
19:22but something unusual that we found.
19:25The tomb is full of windblown sand and debris,
19:29and they have to clear it all.
19:31We should be careful with every centimetre of sand we remove.
19:36Anything, a small bead, a small ostrich can show us the history of the tomb.
19:42Look at the design of the pottery,
19:45with nice lines at the edge, which has the Greek design.
19:50Those lines here at the top.
19:53The pottery sherd bears a typically Greek design.
19:57Because Cleopatra came from a long line of Greek pharaohs,
20:01it's compelling evidence that the tomb dates to her dynasty.
20:05So every time we have more than one tomb,
20:08maybe I can say now 100% that was a Greek tomb.
20:14But the team needs more evidence to connect the tomb to Cleopatra.
20:19Wow.
20:22I think it can be a part of a column of the crypt itself.
20:29As we can see, the tomb is full of sand.
20:32It can be a part of a column of the crypt itself.
20:37As we can see, that is not just the stone itself.
20:40No, they started to smooth this face of the stone.
20:43They started to add a little bit of the plaster on it.
20:47Ancient Egyptian tomb builders used plaster as a base for inscriptions.
20:52He couldn't inscribe on the granite directly.
20:54It was so difficult.
20:55So they had to cover the tomb by plaster made of mud brick
20:59and a little bit of sand to be easy for inscriptions.
21:04There should be hieroglyphic inscriptions between the two lines.
21:08But unfortunately, because it hadn't been finished,
21:11so they didn't start the inscription of hieroglyphics between the two lines after they prepared.
21:17There are no inscriptions on the plaster,
21:19a sign the tomb owner died before the structure was finished.
21:24It's a setback for the team.
21:27They continue digging, hoping for more clues.
21:33Good, very good.
21:35Wow.
21:41In Saqqara, archaeologist Nozomu Kawai is working on the sealed entrance inside a catacomb
21:48dating from the time of Cleopatra.
21:52On one hand, I'm nervous.
21:54On the other hand, I'm very excited to see what is behind.
22:02He's hoping the entrance leads to an undisturbed part of the catacomb.
22:07But there's a problem.
22:09I thought we're going to investigate inside,
22:12but we found several cracks in the bedrock.
22:15It will be risky.
22:18If Nozomu breaks the seal, he could collapse an entire section of the crumbling catacomb.
22:25It's a setback.
22:27But then he spots a small hole in the plaster.
22:31He decides to feed an endoscope camera into the void behind.
22:38Just follow the wall.
22:40Maybe up?
22:41Maybe up?
22:49Oh, yeah, yeah.
22:51Oh, my God.
22:53Oh, yeah, yeah, from the ceiling.
22:55So there is a burial, yeah, behind this wall.
23:01It's amazing, isn't it?
23:03Yeah, but it's not mummified.
23:05Yeah, you can see the bone.
23:07They found an undisturbed burial.
23:11And we have a seal, the slab as a sealing wall.
23:17We have the depiction of a woman here.
23:20So if it does represent the owner of the tomb,
23:24the person who is buried inside should be a woman.
23:28I think this catacomb was originally made for the family burial.
23:35For now, Nezomu can go no further.
23:40But he wants to find out if this family,
23:43buried in one of the most sacred sites in Egypt,
23:46embraced the ideas and mythology of Cleopatra.
23:51So he brings in the rest of the team to excavate the debris
23:55that has built up in the catacomb's central tunnel.
23:59They check every inch of the sand they remove for precious artefacts.
24:05It looks like a part of the coffin.
24:13We just found a complete pottery.
24:17I think we're going to find more artefacts.
24:21In Aswan, Abdelmonem Said is looking for definitive proof
24:26that the tomb he has discovered dates to the time of Cleopatra.
24:31He inspects a promising find from beneath the sands of the tomb floor.
24:37A part of the column.
24:43We can see this nice decoration on it.
24:46A distinct decorative pattern runs across the sandstone.
24:51We have the same column in Camombo, in the first Ahibo-style hall.
24:56The temple of Camombo lies only 30 miles north of Aswan.
25:00It was built during the Ptolemaic era,
25:03including in the reign of Cleopatra VII.
25:07Exactly the reign of the king Ptolemy XII,
25:10the father of the Byzantine Empire.
25:12Exactly the reign of the king Ptolemy XII,
25:15the father of the famous queen Cleopatra VII.
25:18Finding the same style of column in the tomb here
25:21could mean it dates to the same time.
25:24It can show us that during the construction of this tomb
25:28maybe Cleopatra VII was alive or during her period.
25:32Every time, every new item, new stuff inside the tomb,
25:36it makes us very close to Cleopatra VII.
25:39With Abdulmanem more sure of the tomb's date,
25:43now he is on the hunt for clues
25:45to how much influence Cleopatra had here in the south.
25:52The team has shifted hundreds of buckets of sand.
25:55They are nearing the level of the tomb's original floor.
25:59I can see something like a panel or a part of a panel
26:03made of sandstone, the same kind of the stone of the tomb itself.
26:10I think it's a part of an offering table.
26:14Abdulmanem carries on digging
26:16to see if there's any more beneath the sand.
26:20Wow!
26:22It's a second piece of offering table.
26:25We can see two loaves of bread with the pot of water.
26:31Offering tables were very common
26:33in ancient Egyptian funerary culture.
26:36Families used them to leave gifts of food and drink for the dead.
26:40But the table in this tomb
26:42is different to the typically Egyptian ones.
26:45That was a Greek design, Greek style.
26:49Cleopatra excelled at promoting a hybrid Greek-Egyptian culture.
26:56Abdulmanem's finds suggest that her subjects
27:00even embraced these hybrid ideas here in Aswan 500 years ago.
27:06She was 400 miles from her capital,
27:09and her influence stretched from Alexandria in the north
27:13to the southern reaches of ancient Egypt.
27:16She had a very strong personality.
27:18She could keep the country under control.
27:21She was very close to the mythology,
27:24and of course she was very close to the Egyptians themselves.
27:29In Saqqara, Nizomu and his team
27:33excavate the sand from the tomb's entrance,
27:36and they've made some astonishing discoveries.
27:39They are analysing the artefacts in their pop-up conservation tent.
27:44The star find is a set of five small statues.
27:48We found the terracotta figurines from the catacomb.
27:52Three of them are Isis Aphrodite,
27:56and this one belongs to Isis Aphrodite,
27:59but it's not a figure, it's a crown.
28:03The goddess Isis Aphrodite was a hybrid Greek-Egyptian deity,
28:08promoted and embraced by Cleopatra herself.
28:12Cleopatra considered herself as a reincarnation of Isis.
28:17It's really interesting to find many Isis figurines from our site.
28:24A fusion of the Egyptian mother goddess
28:27and the Greek goddess of beauty,
28:30Isis Aphrodite was the deity of love, fertility and rebirth.
28:36Cleopatra would dress like her at public events
28:39to elevate herself from queen to immortal goddess.
28:44During Cleopatra's reign, temples to Isis sprang up across Egypt,
28:50cementing her importance and, by association, Cleopatra's own power.
28:57Isis had such a profound influence on Cleopatra
29:01that some say she took her own life in a temple dedicated to the goddess.
29:09Egyptian sculpture is usually very stylized,
29:12but the statues from Nezomu's tomb are different.
29:16So if you look at the appearance,
29:19they don't really show the ancient Egyptian traditional artistic style.
29:24Instead, you have more like Greek-Roman facial features
29:29with, like this one, the blonde hair.
29:33The statues suggest that Cleopatra's subjects buried at Saqqara
29:38embraced this melting pot of cultures
29:41and aligned themselves with the legend she promoted.
29:48Following the success of the excavation inside the catacomb,
29:52Nezomu begins a new investigation just outside the entrance,
29:56looking for more clues.
30:11In Luxor, Meredith is exploring the mega-temple complex at Karnak.
30:18She is here to investigate one of the most disparaging Roman myths
30:22attached to Cleopatra,
30:24that she led an extravagant party lifestyle.
30:28Horace writes that Cleopatra's mind is crazed with Mariotic wine,
30:32and another writes that her tongue is submerged by incessant wine.
30:36This emphasis on Cleopatra and her drinking habits
30:39would have hit hard for a Roman audience,
30:41because to Romans, women weren't supposed to drink,
30:44and certainly they weren't supposed to be drunk in public.
30:48To find out more about the role of alcohol in ancient Egypt,
30:52Meredith investigates a lesser-known part of the Karnak complex,
30:57the Temple of Mut.
31:00On the shores of a sacred crescent-shaped lake in Karnak,
31:04the precinct of Mut covered an area the size of over 15 football fields.
31:09Pillared porches around 65 feet long
31:13led to the towering pylon entrances.
31:16Within was an enclosed inner sanctum
31:19and two wide-open courtyards,
31:22lined with hundreds of dark granite statues
31:25of the lion-headed goddess Sekhmet.
31:28This temple was a major ritual center for over a thousand years,
31:33but it was once the focus for a religious celebration
31:37that seemed far from holy.
31:44It says here that this is from the porch,
31:49the weh-in-teh, the porch of drunkenness.
31:53This column would have been placed in an area of the Mut temple
31:58for the celebration of the festival of drunkenness.
32:03The festival of drunkenness
32:05celebrated a famous Egyptian myth about the near-destruction of mankind.
32:12The myth tells of Sekhmet, goddess of chaos and war,
32:16who went on a killing spree after mankind conspired against her father,
32:21the sun god Ra.
32:23Ra took pity on man and flooded the land with beer,
32:27dyed red to look like blood.
32:29Sekhmet drank it all and passed out.
32:33So ancient Egyptians celebrated their triumph over death
32:37at Sekhmet's temple at Karnak,
32:40recreating her stupor in a festival of drunkenness.
32:45At the temple's porch of drunkenness,
32:48revelers drank until they were sick or passed out,
32:52only to be woken by sacred drums to complete the ritual experience.
33:00This festival would have been lively.
33:02There would have been musicians, dancers, singers,
33:04people chanting the sacred songs of the goddess.
33:07They wanted to get so drunk that they would see the goddess,
33:11and that takes quite a lot of alcohol.
33:15The porch of drunkenness at this temple is ancient,
33:19predating Cleopatra's reign by over a thousand years.
33:23But she may have continued the tradition of sacred drinking
33:27and associating herself with a powerful goddess of war and healing
33:31had obvious appeal.
33:34Cleopatra knew that part of being a king
33:36meant to be the intermediary between the gods and the people,
33:39so it's really likely that Cleopatra would have been part of a festival
33:43of drunkenness at a temple in Egypt.
33:46Although the Romans viewed Cleopatra's drinking as excessive and vulgar,
33:51maintaining a lively religious tradition
33:54would have boosted her popularity in Egypt
33:57and promoted her reign as a time of pleasure and prosperity.
34:02This would have been so exciting to be a part of.
34:04Not only could you completely party,
34:07but you could also form an important spiritual connection,
34:10and that would have been probably very appealing for a lot of people.
34:17In Saqqara, Nizomu's team inspects a mysterious discovery
34:22right next to the entrance of the catacomb.
34:27Wow.
34:37Wow.
34:38This is a mud brick wall.
34:40The wall could be part of a previously undiscovered structure.
34:44We're going to extend to see what kind of structure it will be.
34:49Oh.
34:55Ah.
34:57Aha.
34:59So this remains the chisel, you know, cutting.
35:04So like digging a tomb.
35:10If this structure is another tomb, it would be a major discovery.
35:20I think this is a corner of the entrance or something, you know, opening.
35:27So we're going to have to remove this gravel.
35:31Yeah.
35:34The team makes quick work of the loose rubble and sand.
35:50Oh, my God.
35:53There's something inside.
35:55I'm going to bring the camera, microscope.
36:01Nizomu uses his endoscope to get a better look.
36:06Yeah.
36:09I can clearly see the wooden carving and skeleton.
36:14It's a small, rock-cut tomb with at least one complete burial.
36:21The race is now on to recover any precious artifacts inside.
36:30At the Dendera temple complex,
36:33Meredith is investigating one of the most malicious stories ever told about Cleopatra,
36:39that she was a master manipulator.
36:43Meredith wants to find out more about where this idea came from.
36:48One of the few images of Cleopatra from the height of her reign
36:52is carved into the wall of the temple.
36:55Cleopatra was smart in how she depicted herself.
36:59So here in Dendera, she's showing herself as an Egyptian goddess,
37:02as an Egyptian queen, as an Egyptian ruler.
37:05But that's not the only way she showed herself.
37:07A coin, minted during her reign, shows a very different side to Cleopatra.
37:13Here she's shown completely Greco-Roman.
37:16She has a melon hairstyle with a diadem.
37:19She has a very Roman nose.
37:21And she's almost seen as a bit masculine.
37:25There's a good reason why Cleopatra manipulated her image like this.
37:30She didn't just need to persuade her own Egyptian subjects that she was their true queen.
37:35She also needed to face down the threat of invasion
37:38from the ancient world's biggest superpower, Rome.
37:44These coins would have been distributed around Egypt.
37:47They would have shown Cleopatra's other side,
37:51her ability to speak Greek, her ability to speak Latin,
37:54her ability to connect with the Greco-Roman world.
37:59At first, Cleopatra kept Rome close by forming an alliance with Julius Caesar.
38:07But when Caesar was assassinated in 44 BCE,
38:11Cleopatra needed another way to protect her homeland.
38:16Three men now ruled the Roman Empire,
38:19one of whom was General Marc Antony.
38:22When Caesar died, everything changed.
38:25Cleopatra needed to impress a new Roman ruler, General Marc Antony.
38:29There are lots of stories about how Cleopatra seduced Marc Antony.
38:33But one is particularly revealing.
38:38Marc Antony had a reputation for throwing lavish banquets.
38:42Cleopatra wagered that she could outdo him.
38:47For her first course, she served a large but everyday meal.
38:52Marc Antony scoffed at its cheapness.
38:55He was certain he had won the bet.
38:58But then Cleopatra set down a goblet of vinegar
39:02and dropped her enormous pearl earring into it,
39:05worth many millions of dollars in today's money.
39:08The pearl dissolved in the vinegar,
39:11making it the most expensive cocktail in the world.
39:14With it, Cleopatra won and sent the general an important message.
39:19She's showing Marc Antony that all of this grandeur
39:22is something that she has and she controls.
39:26If he wants political power, he needs Cleopatra,
39:29not the other way around.
39:32Cleopatra formed a lasting alliance with Marc Antony
39:35that kept Rome at bay.
39:38And while some legends say she manipulated him
39:41into a dangerous love affair,
39:43it's more likely she was a shrewd political operator
39:46who offered him a mutually beneficial union.
39:50Cleopatra was a master of politics.
39:53She was a master of culture and image.
39:56She could do something that no other ruler could.
39:59She could pull on different cultures, different costumes
40:02to say so many things and express ideas.
40:05And she did that really effectively.
40:09In Saqqara, Nozomu is carefully inspecting
40:13the newly discovered rock-cut tomb with Salima.
40:17I'm looking forward to seeing inside.
40:20They are looking for clues to date the burial.
40:25Oh, Nozomu, you didn't say that it had grave goods.
40:28Yeah.
40:30That's so amazing.
40:32And so the termites have eaten away the entire coffin.
40:36Yeah, so we can understand the shape of the coffin
40:40by the nest of the termites.
40:42Yes.
40:44Unfortunately.
40:46The outline of the termite nest suggests that the coffin
40:49was small and square, with the occupant crouched inside.
40:53This crouched burial is a far older funerary ritual
40:57than those of the nearby catacomb.
41:00But they need more evidence to date the tomb for sure.
41:04It's a stone vessel, not pottery.
41:06No, it's definitely a stone vessel,
41:08but it looks like those beautiful limestone platters.
41:10Yeah, dateable to the second dynasty,
41:12so approximately 4,700 years ago.
41:16Very nicely polished.
41:18The platter is alabaster and dates the burial
41:22to the very beginning of the age of the pharaohs,
41:253,000 years before Cleopatra.
41:30It's one of the oldest surviving tombs
41:32ever discovered in Saqqara,
41:34and it could shed light on why the catacomb is next door.
41:39The people at the time of Cleopatra built this catacomb,
41:43it's really interesting that people kept using
41:46the same part of the necropolis as this early dynastic burial,
41:50just next to the Greek Roman catacomb.
41:56Cleopatra disguised her Greek origins
41:59behind a very Egyptian mask,
42:02and the wealthy occupants of this large catacomb
42:05could have been following her lead
42:08by building their final resting place
42:11beside their most ancient Egyptian ancestors.
42:15This is totally unexpected.
42:18I'm really happy to find this unique burial during this season.
42:25Today, archaeologists across Egypt
42:29are uncovering new revelations
42:32about its last enigmatic queen, Cleopatra.
42:36They are revealing that her power
42:39stretched to the farthest reaches of her kingdom,
42:42and that her subjects embraced the mythology she created.
42:47In return, she used her wealth, power,
42:51and keen political mind to protect her people,
42:55leaving behind a legend that has endured for over 2,000 years.