Lost Treasures of Egypt - S05E05 - Secrets of the Megatombs
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00:00Deep inside a rock-cut tomb in Egypt's far south, an archaeologist is searching for a
00:11missing mummy.
00:12The surface is full of stones, pottery, human remains.
00:21He's hoping to unlock the secrets of a mostly forgotten age of vast megatombs.
00:28We have bandages.
00:29Okay.
00:30Christina, are you there?
00:45The pyramids of Giza and the Valley of the Kings, icons of ancient Egypt constructed
00:531,000 years apart.
00:57In between, ancient Egyptians built other spectacular but lesser-known tombs.
01:03Today, across Egypt, archaeologists are exploring these tombs to find out more about this mysterious
01:11period of Egyptian history called the Middle Kingdom.
01:16How its mighty pharaohs reunited a war-torn country, transforming Egypt and leading it
01:22into a new golden age.
01:25They're also learning why these achievements and incredible tombs have now been mostly
01:30forgotten.
01:38Near Luxor, Spanish archaeologist Miriam Seiko Alvarez has started her unconventional
01:48morning commute.
01:50I love driving in the desert, and I always wanted to do this since I was young.
02:04Miriam is excavating a newly discovered Middle Kingdom tomb.
02:10It's part of a sprawling necropolis with a mix of rich and poor burials.
02:17She's hoping it will tell her more about Egyptian society during this lesser-known
02:22period.
02:23Probably what we see at the end of this corridor is the burial chamber of the tomb.
02:30I would like to discover who was the man buried here.
02:35What was his position?
02:39To do that, Miriam's team must remove several tons of debris from the steep, narrow corridor
02:45with a dangerously unstable ceiling.
02:56Now a group of very special workers, they will be cleaning this very carefully, and
03:02we will go down little by little to reach the burial chamber.
03:09Half a mile further north, at Deir el-Bahari, Egyptologist and vintage fashion collector
03:21Colleen Garnell is on a mission to explore the megatombs of the Middle Kingdom's pharaohs.
03:30She wants to learn more about their rise to power and why they have been forgotten.
03:36She begins at the tomb of the very first king of the Middle Kingdom, a pharaoh called Montu
03:42Hotep II.
03:44First looking at this structure, it's quite ruined, but it's 4,000 years old, and when
03:50it was new, it would have been quite magnificent.
03:56Colleen is exploring exactly what sort of structure Montu Hotep built for his tomb.
04:02These columns and the overall layout of the architecture indicate that this is a temple.
04:11Tucked up against the sheer cliffs of Deir el-Bahari, Montu Hotep built a vast terraced
04:18temple.
04:19Inside, over 200 pillars filled the immense hypostyle halls.
04:28The question is, where is the king buried?
04:34In the center of the temple, a trench descends to a tunnel.
04:44This corridor is cut out of the bedrock in this rough vault shape, and it keeps going.
04:55The amount of work that went into this is quite stunning, and I love seeing traces of
05:02the original chisel marks right here.
05:05This is a marvel of engineering.
05:11Wow.
05:19Absolutely unbelievable to be this far down into the mountain.
05:36This is magnificent.
05:37The most costly stones that you can use in ancient Egyptian building.
05:43This is red granite that would have come from Aswan, that they've hauled all the way down
05:47this corridor.
05:49This is the entrance.
05:50This is the entrance to the burial chamber itself.
05:58The burial chamber is 500 feet deep inside the heart of the mountain.
06:03This is astonishing.
06:04They went so far as to create that perfect architectural form of a shrine, and these
06:13holes here would have been for the doors that sealed in the coffin of the king.
06:23And to think each of these pieces, and they're immersive, had to have been brought all the
06:28way down this same corridor that I was just descending.
06:33No Egyptian pharaoh before had ever been buried in a tomb like this.
06:39This is a complete departure from tomb architecture in the Old Kingdom.
06:43This is not a pyramid.
06:45He's signaling that something different has started.
06:51During the age of the great pyramid-building pharaohs, a single king ruled over all of
06:57Egypt from the northern capital of Memphis.
07:01But when the last of these pharaohs died, the kingdom fractured, and rival rulers from
07:08the north and south vied for power.
07:12For decades, war raged between the two factions, until Montuhotep II, the ruler of southern
07:19Egypt, ultimately prevailed.
07:22He reunited Egypt, moving the country's capital to Thebes in the south, and ushered
07:28in a new era now known as the Middle Kingdom.
07:37Egypt's unusual burial is a nod to his southern heritage, where terraced tombs cut
07:43into the desert were popular.
07:47Montuhotep adapts an architectural form of his local ancestors, but builds it on a monumental
07:53scale, adding this massive shaft, making this a tomb fit for a king who has just unified
08:01upper and lower Egypt.
08:05Montuhotep had led Egypt out of a disastrous period of chaos and civil war, but the country
08:10was still scarred by decades of fierce rivalries and warring factions.
08:16Next, Colleen wants to explore how Montuhotep's successors faced these challenges in their
08:23bid to restore Egypt to its former glory.
08:32In Aswan, Spanish archaeologist Alejandro Jimenez Serrano is back for a new season of
08:44excavations of the site of Koubet el Hawa.
08:48I used to tell my youngest daughter that I'm cleaning the desert as a joke, and basically
08:55she used to tell me, Daddy, good luck cleaning the desert.
09:00Serrano and his team are investigating the tomb of a high-ranking Middle Kingdom official.
09:05He's hoping to find out more about how the Middle Kingdom pharaohs governed their war-torn
09:10country.
09:11Sariput I was the governor of the Egyptian border with the south, so he was a key figure
09:19in the Egyptian state.
09:24After the reunification under First Middle Kingdom King Montuhotep II, Egypt started
09:31to expand, invading Nubia in the south.
09:35Sariput was charged with exploiting this new land for precious resources and exotic goods.
09:46He governed Elephantine Island, a vital strategic outpost on this new frontier.
09:57Alejandro has spent the last five years trying to locate the tomb's main burial chamber
10:03and mummy.
10:04It's become a bit of an obsession.
10:08Last season, his team uncovered a monumental shaft and chamber hidden below the innermost
10:14chapel of the tomb.
10:15We thought that he was going to be buried there, and we were going to find at least
10:19the remains of his burial.
10:21Inshallah.
10:22It is bedrock.
10:23It is the bedrock.
10:35Now Alejandro is back with a new theory.
10:39We think that he was buried there, but then removed some years after, relocated in another
10:46part of the tomb.
10:48And the team have just discovered a promising spot in another corner of the chapel.
10:56This is a trench that is in the same part of where we were working last year, and we
11:01believe that this might be the last place where Sariput I was buried.
11:07So we are now excavating this, trying to find if we have a chamber, a shaft.
11:24Several hours later, the workers have removed enough sand for Alejandro to take a first
11:29look.
11:31Well, this is a very exciting moment, because we do not know what we have behind this sand.
11:39Let's go.
11:46It seems...
11:51It's big.
11:53Huh.
11:57In Abydos, Colleen is investigating the tomb of a pharaoh who lived 150 years after the
12:05Middle Kingdom was founded, to explore how he restored a war-torn Egypt to its former glory.
12:15Absolutely incredible.
12:22Built by a pharaoh called Senwosret III, it is one of the most innovative tombs in
12:28the history of ancient Egypt.
12:31This is entirely carved out of the bedrock.
12:36Here we have a massive shaft.
12:39It gives you really an idea of how far below the surface I am here.
12:53Colleen investigates a series of small chambers and tunnels.
12:58Wow.
13:01Giant granite blocking stones.
13:05260 feet in, pieces of granite nearly six feet tall block the path deeper into the tomb.
13:14This is a way of symbolically sealing the royal tomb from any outside influences.
13:20It's a good indication that we're on the way to the burial chamber.
13:26Colleen explores a roughly cut second tunnel that may have been dug by tomb robbers.
13:32It allows her to bypass the sealed corridor.
13:36Wow, this is the burial chamber, and look at that sarcophagus at this totally tilted
13:43angle, and it's massive.
13:46The amount of work that it would have taken to get this, this far deep into the tomb.
13:55Solid pieces of stone, these are monolithic.
14:00But the tomb doesn't seem to end at the burial chamber.
14:06The sarcophagus is here, but the corridors continue for quite some distance.
14:12Deeper into the tomb.
14:16When the king died, workers hid his sarcophagus.
14:23In a chamber 130 feet underground.
14:28They then sealed the tomb with bricks from floor to ceiling.
14:33And blocked the steep passage with over 300 tons of highly prized red granite.
14:40But strangely, the tunnels continue beyond the burial chamber for another 250 feet.
14:47They trace a wide sweeping curve bending back on itself.
14:52At nearly 600 feet long, it's a triumph of engineering unique in the history of ancient Egypt.
15:02The complexity of the corridors, particularly the snaking passageway beyond the burial chamber,
15:08is directly based on how the Egyptians imagined the architecture of the underworld itself.
15:15This entire tomb is a model of the underworld.
15:19It's hard in the modern world to conceptualize how much effort it would have taken to construct this tomb.
15:26Just the man hours.
15:28The scale of this colossal tomb shows that Senwosret was both incredibly powerful and able to command huge resources.
15:36Records suggest he was a military genius who consolidated his own power across the country and massively expanded Egypt's borders.
15:46He didn't just restore his country's former glory, he turned Egypt into a regional superpower.
15:54Senwosret III is one of the most powerful kings of his era.
15:58He rules over a time of prosperity, strength in foreign policy, a highly organized administration.
16:03His reign really is a golden age in Egyptian history.
16:08But the Middle Kingdom pharaohs weren't done yet.
16:12Next, Colleen wants to explore an even more ambitious tomb that contains clues to why these great kings have been mostly forgotten.
16:22In Aswan, at the necropolis of Qubet el-Hawa…
16:31Six meters and a half.
16:33Phew!
16:35Ha!
16:37Huge!
16:39It is huge!
16:41Alejandro is searching a previously undiscovered chamber for the remains of Sarenput, a high-ranking Middle Kingdom official.
16:51The monumentality of this new space, this room, means that someone very important was buried in this area.
17:00Sarenput's burial could provide new evidence on how the pharaohs governed Egypt during the Middle Kingdom.
17:07We need to open more to see what is inside.
17:13Yes!
17:21Alejandro brings in his workers to remove the rest of the debris blocking the entrance to the chamber.
17:28Basically, the material that we are excavating now is sand.
17:33Basically, the material that we are excavating now is sand.
17:37We mainly pottery.
17:41They thoroughly check every shovel of sand they remove.
17:45Even the smallest of finds could hold valuable clues.
17:55Aha! Ole, mabrouk!
18:02Near Luxor, Miriam's team is trying to reach the burial chamber of a Middle Kingdom tomb.
18:15Workers are making steady progress removing rubble from the dangerous sloping shaft.
18:22Meanwhile, Miriam joins anthropologist Victoria Peña-Romo to examine an intriguing new find from a chamber near the entrance of the tomb.
18:32They want to determine whether it's the skeleton of the tomb owner.
18:37This is a man more than 50 years old with a lot of disease and with a lot of damage in the bone.
18:46He has break the arm. So someone who work really and carry things, a worker.
18:54It's unclear how this man's skeleton ended up here, but their analysis suggests it's unlikely he's the true owner of such a large tomb.
19:08The team needs to get to the burial chamber.
19:12But back inside, the excavation has come to a sudden halt.
19:24We found a big block. So we need to remove this big block to have easy access to the burial chamber.
19:34The team is working in a very tight underground space.
19:38They can't finish clearing the corridor without removing the boulder.
19:43They will tie this rope around the rock and they are going to make like a chain to pull up the big block.
19:52Be careful.
20:03The boulder weighs over 550 pounds. It's tough work moving such a heavy object in the cramped and steep corridor.
20:12And yet this stone is only a fraction of the weight of the sarcophagi and granite blocks moved by the workers in ancient times.
20:21It's a very complicated action.
20:34Halfway up, the team hits a major obstacle, an original wall built out of one of the Middle Kingdom's most used materials, mud brick.
20:45In Aswan, at the site of Qubet el Hawa, Alejandro is inspecting a small object they found just outside the newly discovered chamber.
20:56We have just found an amulet made of faience. Probably it was part of a necklace. And it seems that it has an inscription.
21:06He is not sure what it is.
21:08It was part of a necklace. And it seems that it has an inscription.
21:13He is hoping to find any evidence that the Middle Kingdom official, Saranput, was buried inside.
21:21Mary Amun, beloved of the god Amun.
21:29I need to see under the sun.
21:32Have you seen her?
21:34I want to see more carefully.
21:36It's Horemheb, Mary Amun. Horemheb, beloved of Amun.
21:42The amulet dates from the time of pharaoh Horemheb, who reigned more than 300 years after Saranput.
21:50It would have been a gift from the pharaoh to someone of high rank, who then took it with them to their grave.
21:57It shows how important it is for the team to sieve every single spade of sand.
22:02It is special. You know, Cupidalhau is not a royal necropolis.
22:08A find like this, from a much later period, could be a sign the chamber was reused after Saranput, meaning his remains may now be lost.
22:20Alejandro has to get inside to know for sure.
22:24While the workers clear the remaining sand from the doorway, Alejandro joins the rest of his team outside.
22:32They've set up a second excavation area just in front of the main tomb entrance.
22:37We've noticed that here we have some rubble.
22:41What we are seeing here is the material, the rubbish produced by the construction of the tomb was deposited here.
22:48Alejandro is hoping this 4,000-year-old construction spoil will help them learn more about how Saranput's tomb was built.
22:57It's something that we have no information before. How was the construction and the decoration process of the funerary complex?
23:08Workers sift through the sand, hunting for clues.
23:12Although we are in winter, this is 30 degrees. It's hard.
23:23Something.
23:28My brook!
23:30My brook!
23:36Near Luxor, Miriam's team is working out how to safely remove the large stone from their Middle Kingdom tomb.
23:49The mudbrick wall blocking their way is a symbolic barrier that separated the deceased from the world of the living.
23:56Much like the granite blocking stones in the huge underground tomb of Senwosret.
24:19Moving large stones in these narrow tunnels is difficult and dangerous work.
24:24Just as it was for the original tomb builders.
24:28One slip could result in a serious injury.
24:34It's always very stressful work when they move big stuff.
24:54To the top!
24:55To the top!
24:56To the top!
24:58To the lamp!
24:59To the wood!
25:00To the wood!
25:01To the wood!
25:04Well done!
25:06Very good job!
25:08To the top!
25:09Well done!
25:18The rock is out.
25:20Now we have the way free to go inside the burial chamber.
25:24We will see now what we have.
25:28This moment, it is always the most important and most amazing moment.
25:33Moment.
25:38We have bodies.
25:46In Dashur, Kaleen has come to a pyramid field 20 miles south of Giza.
25:54She wants to explore one of the Middle Kingdom's most ambitious megatombs, the Black Pyramid.
26:00It was built by a pharaoh called Amenemhat III, the son of Senwosret,
26:06who built the 600-foot long underground tomb in Abydos.
26:13This is a truly amazing place.
26:15And although it doesn't look like too much today,
26:18this was once a massive pyramid, just like we see out in the distance.
26:25Today, only the core of the pyramid remains.
26:28Standing in a pile of its own rubble.
26:31But it once rose 250 feet above the valley floor.
26:38When first built, the Black Pyramid was just over half the height of the Great Pyramid at Giza.
26:45It was finished in a smooth outer casing of white limestone.
26:50Underneath it, a mysterious maze of tunnels crisscrossing through the ground.
26:55Lined with huge stone blocks and totaling around 900 feet in length.
27:01They led to numerous storerooms and the burial chambers intended for Amenemhat's queens and the king himself.
27:12The Black Pyramid was designed to be one of the most elaborate tombs in Egyptian history.
27:18Colleen wants to explore why Amenemhat departed so radically from the rock-cut tombs of the Middle Kingdom's founders.
27:27She looks for clues in the network of tunnels beneath the pyramid.
27:32Wow. This system of underground passageways is unbelievable.
27:39It's like a maze down here.
27:41The only other pyramid with similar underground architecture is the first pyramid ever constructed in Egypt.
27:49The Step Pyramid of Djoser at Saqqara, constructed nearly a thousand years earlier.
27:55Djoser was revered as one of Egypt's most powerful pharaohs.
28:00His pyramid, built around 2,000 BC, was the largest pyramid in the world.
28:06Djoser was revered as one of Egypt's most powerful pharaohs.
28:10His pyramid, built around 2,650 BCE, sat on top of three and a half miles of tunnels hollowing out the ground below.
28:20No other pharaoh attempted to mimic Djoser's design until Amenemhat.
28:27This pharaoh was really trying to show himself in relation to Egypt's first pyramid builder.
28:37This was a hugely ambitious move, but also a strategic one.
28:42The young king had inherited a vast and prosperous kingdom from his warrior-king father.
28:48With no need to mount further military campaigns, Amenemhat needed a different way of projecting his power.
28:56Linking himself to Djoser and the pyramid kings of old was a way to do that.
29:02Amenemhat III's ambitions with this monument was to draw a connection between his reign and the golden age of the pyramid.
29:13Next, Colleen wants to investigate whether Amenemhat's ambitious design paid off,
29:19and he was able to match the achievements of the great pyramid kings of old.
29:23Near Luxor, Miriam is finally entering the burial chamber of the Middle Kingdom tomb.
29:53As with most wealthy tombs in ancient Egypt, the burial chamber has been looted.
30:11Miriam searches for any trace of the person who was buried here.
30:23Wood was scarce in ancient Egypt, so a wooden coffin could be a clue that the owner of the tomb was wealthy.
30:31Miriam hunts for any human remains.
30:35We have a human skull.
30:41This skull could be the owner of the tomb.
30:45Miriam scours the ground around the skull for any clues to what sort of man this was.
30:55I see remains of wood.
30:58I see remains of wood.
31:01We have a fragment of a cane belonging to the owner of the tomb.
31:06Miriam thinks this could be a section of a ceremonial staff because of its distinctive shape and diameter,
31:13similar to staffs found in tombs across Egypt.
31:16Only a small section survives in this tomb, but they were often made from expensive, imported wood.
31:23They were only used by the highest echelons of Egyptian society.
31:29The wooden coffin, cane, and sheer scale of the tomb now paint a picture of the sort of person who was buried here.
31:38It's a very special tomb. We can guess that the tomb belonged to someone from the high society.
31:45This lavish burial is evidence that the success of the Middle Kingdom pharaohs trickled down through Egyptian society
31:53and led to the flourishing of a new class of wealthy elites.
31:57This is interesting. For us, every discovery adds new information about this important period of the Middle Kingdom.
32:16In Aswan…
32:20It's difficult to say, but it seems a working tool.
32:25Alejandro is studying the strange stone that's come out of the construction spoil outside Saranput's tomb.
32:33This is a stone that they used to polish the surface of the rock to smooth the facade of the tomb.
32:42It's amazing.
32:46The team searches for more artifacts deeper in the spoil.
33:00It seems that it's a test from the sculptor, probably trying to test the stone before making the final reliefs of the main door of the funerary complex.
33:12It's very interesting because it shows us the process of construction of the tomb.
33:18These finds suggest that Saranput's tomb was constructed by highly skilled artisans.
33:25This fits in with ancient texts from the same period.
33:30We know from the texts that Saranput received a group of royal artisans to build his tomb.
33:37According to the story, Saranput supplied the pharaoh's army on its way to conquer Lower Nubia.
33:44The king sent his own artisans to help construct Saranput's tomb as a reward.
33:50It was a huge honor.
33:52So here what we have is made by the hands of a royal sculptor.
34:00Back inside the tomb…
34:02Back inside the tomb…
34:09The team have cleared the entrance to the new chamber.
34:14Alejandro can finally go inside.
34:18In Aswan, at the site of Qobet al-Hawa, Alejandro is entering the new chamber inside Saranput's tomb.
34:28He wants to see whether it contains Saranput's missing body.
34:33Well, the surface is full of stones and rocks.
34:40Human remains, pottery.
34:47We have bandages.
34:50Okay.
34:54Alejandro hunts for any clues that will help him date the remains.
35:00The portrait of Saranput.
35:02The portrait of Saranput.
35:04The portrait of Saranput.
35:06The portrait of Saranput.
35:08The portrait of Saranput.
35:10The portrait of Saranput.
35:14Just like the scarab found outside the chamber, the pottery inside dates to the new kingdom.
35:22This confirms that the chamber was reused centuries after Saranput died.
35:28And his remains are nowhere to be found.
35:30It's a real pity.
35:37OK.
35:43It's a unique experience to get into an area where nobody has been since thousands of years.
35:53But I found no trace of Soren Puth I.
35:57But a mystery remains. Was Soren Puth ever buried inside this chamber?
36:03Or was it built for someone else?
36:06Now we have to explain which was the purpose of this chamber.
36:17While his team starts processing the material left inside,
36:23Alejandro looks for clues in the faded inscriptions throughout the tomb.
36:29In the corridor leading towards the chamber.
36:37By chance I passed by here and I noticed that here there was the remains of an inscription
36:43that actually is the name of one of the sons of Soren Puth I.
36:48So we know who these figures were and they were the sons of Soren Puth.
36:57It's a vital clue that Alejandro has never seen before.
37:01He now thinks Soren Puth himself never used the chamber. It was built for his sons.
37:08It has some logic that they were buried in the innermost part of Soren Puth I tomb in a very privileged place.
37:18The family wanted to be united in the afterlife.
37:23The best option was to bury them in the same funerary complex.
37:28Alejandro may not have found Soren Puth's missing mummy,
37:32but he has uncovered a new piece in the puzzle of this spectacular megatomb.
37:40When Soren Puth built his tomb, the pharaoh gave him his elite team of builders and the finest royal artisans.
37:50They built him a monumental funerary complex with extra chambers for his family.
37:58Ancient texts say it was fitted with an exquisite coffin, a gift from the pharaoh himself,
38:05and precious grave goods, including furniture from the royal household.
38:11The grandeur of Soren Puth's tomb is a testament to the way the Middle Kingdom pharaohs governed their country.
38:21The monumentality of his tomb is telling us a lot of information about it.
38:27The royal administration here, the prizes that the king gave to the local elite.
38:35During the Middle Kingdom, the pharaohs developed a sophisticated system of government.
38:41They appointed trusted governors like Soren Puth to rule key territories
38:47and kept them loyal by rewarding them with splendid megatombs.
38:52For me, the Middle Kingdom is not only a golden age of the Egyptian history.
38:58It is the period in which Egypt gets its maturity.
39:13In Dachau, at the Black Pyramid,
39:18Colleen is exploring whether Pharaoh Amenemhat's ambitious construction project paid off
39:24and if he was able to match the achievements of the mighty pyramid kings of old.
39:29The care that they took in the construction, even in this long corridor.
39:36And yet, cracks emerged.
39:41She hunts for clues in the network of tunnels below the pyramid.
39:45These are modern repairs to shore up the construction.
39:49But you can see the ancient beams here.
39:52Those would have been added almost 4,000 years ago
39:55because there was already subsidence in the pyramid structure.
39:59And what that would have meant is that there was instability.
40:04Unlike the pyramids at Giza, Amenemhat built on the clay of the Nile floodplain,
40:10just 33 feet above sea level.
40:13Here, groundwater could seep upwards and soften the earth beneath.
40:18As the pyramid took shape, its tremendous weight pushed down on its network of underground tunnels.
40:27Cracks appeared in the ceilings, and workers had to shore up the walls with wood and mud brick.
40:35Amenemhat had tried to build himself a megatomb like the kings of old, but he failed.
40:42He abandoned his ambitious project, and the pyramid began to crumble.
40:47One unfortunate result of the instability in this pyramid
40:50was that the king was never buried here, only his queen.
40:54The Black Pyramid took many years and huge resources to build,
40:59but ended up being a very costly failure.
41:02And Colleen thinks the mistakes made on this pyramid
41:05hold a clue to why so many of the Middle Kingdom pharaohs have also been forgotten.
41:11These are mud bricks. This is mud mixed with straw.
41:15That is what this pyramid was constructed of at its core.
41:19What is in the thousands behind me?
41:24Only the exterior casing blocks were made of limestone,
41:28which is a completely different situation from the Giza pyramids,
41:32where the entire pyramid is made of stone.
41:36Mud brick was a popular building material during the Middle Kingdom
41:40because it was easy to manufacture, cheap, and light.
41:44But it has a fatal flaw.
41:46Mud brick simply does not survive the same way as a solid stone pyramid.
41:56Colleen thinks this is a key reason the Middle Kingdom pharaohs have been forgotten.
42:02They either built their vast megatombs underground, where they remained hidden,
42:07or constructed mud brick tombs that simply weathered away.
42:12Kings of the Middle Kingdom built incredible monuments,
42:15but many of them were not constructed in the same way as either monuments before or after.
42:21So, so many of the traces of this remarkable period are lost to history.
42:29Today, archaeologists continue to unlock the secrets of the megatombs of the Middle Kingdom,
42:36how Egyptian civilization prospered, giving rise to a sophisticated new elite,
42:42how its pharaohs appointed powerful local governors to run the country
42:47and kept them loyal with lavish rewards,
42:51and why, despite building some of the most spectacular monuments in Egyptian history,
42:56they have now mostly been forgotten.