Documental. Dentro de las pirmides - La pirmide de Keops
La gran Pirámide de Giza, es la más grande de las tres pirámides de Giza, ubicada en una meseta rocosa en la orilla oeste del río Nilo en el norte de Egipto. Fue construida por Khufu (Keops), el segundo rey de la cuarta dinastía de Egipto (c. 2543–c. 2436 a.e.c.), y se completó a principios del siglo XXV a.e.c. Las pirámides de Giza a menudo se consideran colectivamente una de las Siete Maravillas del Mundo, y son las últimas de las maravillas que aún siguen en pie.
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00:00Kheops, the Egyptian jewel, the only of the seven wonders of the ancient world that is still standing.
00:10The most famous pyramid, the largest, the tallest, but also the most mysterious.
00:16Its exact meaning when missing texts is not clear, so it is an enigma.
00:22They had always had to postpone this achievement.
00:26It's not just a massive pile of rocks, it has enormous interior spaces.
00:33To try to reveal the last secrets of Kheops, built more than 4,500 years ago, you have to travel to its insides.
00:41The true function of the great gallery remains a mystery to us.
00:47Thanks to the fact that they have made an exception,
00:50we have been able to delve into the remains of the great pyramid forbidden to the public
00:55and discover traces left by the builders.
01:00We observe the name of a royal team that mentions King Kheops.
01:06For the first time, we are going to examine even the most remote corner of the internal structure of the monument and the king's chamber.
01:14This roof has huge cracks.
01:20With the aim of shedding light on its construction,
01:23our scientists have obtained an authorization to enter the most emblematic pyramids of ancient Egypt
01:29with a last-generation laser scanner.
01:32It's a little narrow.
01:35Let's see if we can get through here.
01:38With this method, we can obtain a digital copy of the interior of the construction with millimetric precision.
01:44With a few clicks, we can take measures that would be very difficult to achieve on the ground.
01:49These new tools will provide our experts with new clues in this scientific investigation that began 200 years ago.
02:37He is a French Egyptologist with an extraordinary career behind him.
02:42Fascinated by the Egypt of the pharaohs from a young age,
02:45he left aside his profession as an engineer to dedicate himself to his passion, the pyramids.
02:514,500 years after its construction, a fundamental question remains.
02:57How did the Egyptians manage to erect the largest pyramid in the world?
03:02Thanks to Frank Monnier, we are going to try to reveal the last secrets of the Pyramid of Cheops.
03:12In this copy, I have drawn a section view of the Pyramid of Cheops,
03:16both of the pyramid itself and of all the funeral chambers, all in the same plane.
03:21What would be very interesting to scan from this pyramid
03:24are the discharge chambers located just above the king's chamber.
03:28A laser scanner would provide us with an unpublished shot.
03:37Located on the Giza plateau, a few kilometers south of Cairo in a straight line,
03:43the Pyramid of Cheops is inseparable from its two little sisters,
03:48the one of its son Kefren, in the center,
03:52and the smallest, that of his grandson, Miserinos.
03:58A strange animal of a monumental size, with the body of a lion and the face of a human,
04:03seems to watch over the three wonders of Egypt.
04:11The Sphinx.
04:17Mark Lehner, an American archaeologist of international renown,
04:21first arrived at the Giza plateau in the 1970s.
04:26Since then, he has not left,
04:28and tries to decipher the impenetrable mysteries of these pyramids.
04:36I think the Giza plateau represents a before and after for all of humanity,
04:41because Egypt was one of the great civilizations in the world.
04:47However, this postcard only picks up the tip of the iceberg.
04:51We are going to scan the entrails of Cheops to try to explore its depths.
05:01Even more enigmatic, the interior of the Great Pyramid holds many secrets.
05:07Most people don't know that just above this chamber,
05:11there is another chamber with a floor of the same dimensions,
05:15but only about three feet high.
05:19And then there's another, and another, and another.
05:21There's a stack of chambers.
05:25Access to these chambers, located above the King's Chamber, is strictly prohibited.
05:31For more than ten years, no one has been able to record in this area of the pyramid.
05:37But because of our mission,
05:39the Egyptian authorities have granted us an exceptional authorization.
05:48To do this, we have called a French expert
05:51who puts innovative technology at the service of archaeological research.
05:55Alban Brice Pampou.
05:59The mission is dangerous.
06:01Our expert will have to climb eight meters to scan the highest part of the pyramid.
06:08The ventilation is very inefficient.
06:11The oxygen is exhausted.
06:14It's a little narrow.
06:19We can't get through.
06:22It's impossible.
06:25It's up there.
06:29Let's see if we can get through.
06:43We're going to have a hard time getting through.
06:46We're going to have a hard time scanning.
06:49And, above all, photogrammetry.
06:52Because there's no room and the camera is full of shards.
06:54But the scanner will work.
06:59It's one of the smallest lidar scanners in the world.
07:02Thanks to its laser beams,
07:04this new technology takes hundreds of thousands of measurements per second
07:07to model the space it's in.
07:12Alban Brice Pampou will be able to determine the dimensions
07:15with millimetric precision
07:18and virtually recreate, for the first time in history,
07:21the intersections of the Great Pyramid.
07:26It's not easy at all.
07:28It's full of rubble.
07:31The ceiling is very low.
07:33And look at the cracks.
07:35It sank.
07:36On one of the sides.
07:38And it broke.
07:41You have to be confident to get under it.
07:45The Great Pyramid
07:55For our mission, we've also called on Aurore Chiabatty.
08:02This French Egyptologist, who lives in Cairo,
08:05will be entering these discharge chambers for the first time.
08:08For her, it's a dream come true.
08:12Very good.
08:14Ready.
08:16We're ready.
08:20We've reached Davison's chamber,
08:22discovered in 1765.
08:31Very few experts have had the opportunity
08:34to access this unique site.
08:36Aurore Chiabatty has meticulously planned this mission
08:39to guide us through the intersections of the Great Pyramid.
08:42The passage through these chambers
08:45is obstructed by granite beams.
08:49Here, the ceiling height ranges between 80 cm and 1 m.
09:03We're in the main chamber of the building,
09:07where the king's remains will be laid.
09:11The king's chamber is undoubtedly an architectural feat.
09:15It's ceiled with huge granite beams
09:18that weigh between 40 and 80 tonnes.
09:21But it's not just one roof.
09:23A series of five roofs were placed on top of it,
09:26imitating a kind of accordion.
09:31There's one, two, three, four,
09:33and the fifth one is crowned by huge blocks of limestone
09:36in two waters.
09:42If we add the mass of the beams
09:44that were stacked on top of the king's chamber,
09:47the discharge chambers,
09:49we get thousands of tonnes of granite.
09:51More than 4,000 years after its construction,
09:54everyone asks the same question,
09:56a question that experts have not answered.
09:59What were these discharge chambers for?
10:01There are currently several theories about it.
10:03There are supporters of symbolism,
10:05that is, they believe that we are in front of a structure
10:08that was built as a response to a symbolic principle,
10:11which, by the way, is quite mysterious.
10:14Others bet on something more materialistic, in quotes.
10:17In other words, they consider that the presence of these discharge chambers
10:21is due to a structural need,
10:23because the king's chamber had to be protected.
10:27The question is, why?
10:29Why did they take so much trouble?
10:34They decided to raise the vault to two waters
10:36to prevent it from deflecting the loads
10:38to the great gallery, located right next door.
10:41Basically, a vault two waters lower
10:43would have deflected the loads
10:45and, without a doubt,
10:46would have caused the collapse of the great gallery next door.
10:51Maybe they went too far with engineering.
10:53They didn't have to have done all that,
10:55but it's clear that they were afraid
10:57that it would be dangerous to build such a high chamber
11:00in the body of the pyramid,
11:02intended to protect the king's remains for all eternity,
11:05and that it could collapse and destroy the king's body.
11:13After years studying the discharge chambers
11:15of the Pyramid of Cheops with a plane,
11:18Fran Monier has stayed in Cairo with Aurore Ciabatti.
11:22After several weeks,
11:24the hundreds of millions of data
11:26collected by the LIDAR
11:28have allowed us to recreate the interior of the pyramid in 3D.
11:32Using the photogrammetry technique with the LIDAR,
11:35we can take a virtual tour as if we were there.
11:40The general photogrammetry that Alban carried out is ready.
11:44You can see very well the tunnels
11:46through which we passed to access the discharge chambers,
11:49in addition to the eight meters of ascent
11:51to reach the first tunnel.
11:53Then, when we went up the chimneys,
11:55we could see that they were much more chaotic.
11:59By the explosives of Colonel Weiss.
12:08In the 19th century,
12:10two British explorers, Howard Weiss and John Perrin,
12:14were the first to penetrate these discharge chambers.
12:18We see the five chambers,
12:20all baptized with names of influential personalities
12:23of Weiss's time.
12:27Aurore Ciabatti wanted to take us to the last discharge chamber,
12:31the highest in the pyramid,
12:33practically inaccessible.
12:43It is better not to have vertigo.
12:49It is an absolute pass.
12:54The peculiar thing about this room is that it tells two stories.
12:59The story of the workers who built the pyramid
13:02and the story of the visitors
13:05who entered these open spaces from 1837 to the 1920s.
13:14These modern graffitis that invade the chamber
13:17are covering marks from the builders.
13:20What do they tell us?
13:23These graffitis were made by the visitors
13:26with the smoke from their torches.
13:28They used it to write their name and date,
13:31or even their identity,
13:33their status or their origin.
13:45Among these graffitis we find
13:47the members of Weiss's expedition,
13:50people who were invited by the colonel,
13:53and also a large number of names of soldiers.
13:59There is a soldier who leaves evidence
14:02that he came from Sydney in 1915,
14:05and then we come across other more anecdotal graffitis,
14:09such as the testimony of Sister Martin,
14:13who claims to be the first woman
14:16to access these discharge chambers.
14:20Later, Egypt decides to finish
14:22the visits to the discharge chambers
14:25to protect its walls.
14:27And it is precisely in another of these chambers
14:30where Aurore Chiabatty will discover something exceptional,
14:33traces left by the builders of Cheops.
14:36Look at this mark at the end of the granite beam.
14:40This triangle-shaped annotation pointing down
14:44and the hieroglyphics in which it is read
14:47means four, that is, four elbows,
14:50provides a very precise measurement.
14:53The Egyptians had their own language
14:56and their own measurement system called elbow.
15:00The Egyptian measurement system
15:02had nothing to do with the metro,
15:04which is a much later invention.
15:06Its system was based mainly on the elbow.
15:08There was no exact value of an elbow for the whole country.
15:11Each region had its own reference measurement.
15:15The elbow used as a reference
15:17to build the masterpiece of Cheops is unique.
15:20It is the real elbow.
15:23It is only visible in this discharge chamber.
15:26It is incredible that thanks to the scanning
15:29that Alvan is doing right now,
15:32we are going to be able to compare the precise measurements
15:36that photogrammetry makes easy for us
15:39and that we are going to be able to compare
15:42what photogrammetry makes easy for us
15:45with the measurements they indicated during the work
15:48and in this way to be able to calculate
15:51with precision the exact value of the real elbow
15:54used in the construction of the pyramid.
15:57This real elbow was the master key
16:00that allowed the architects to design the monument
16:06and that enabled the builders to erect this pyramid
16:09that is close to perfection.
16:18The pyramid of Cheops is extraordinary.
16:21With Cheops we go back almost to the beginning
16:24of the tradition of the pyramids,
16:27and yet it is the largest, the most imposing,
16:30the best built and one of the best preserved.
16:33Until very recently it was the largest monument
16:36ever built by man.
16:41The first time I saw it I thought it was a natural mountain,
16:44but then your brain tells you that it is not,
16:47that it is made by man.
16:55To carry out these colossal works,
16:58the Egyptians had to be very bold.
17:01They loved challenges.
17:04The bigger they were,
17:07the more they strived to overcome them.
17:15No machines, no electricity,
17:18no extraordinary elevation systems.
17:21We are faced with incredible architecture,
17:24with mind-blowing precision.
17:34When Cheops inherited the throne,
17:37they already had a century of experience in building pyramids,
17:40but they had always had to postpone this great achievement.
17:43It was a kind of race towards immensity,
17:46and with Cheops they reached the goal of that race.
17:49It is an incredible and very precise monument,
17:52but its exact meaning, when the texts are missing,
17:55is not clear, so it is an enigma.
17:58An enigma.
18:01This majestic statue before us still holds many secrets,
18:04but if there is something even more enigmatic
18:07than the building, it is its creator,
18:10King Cheops.
18:15Who is this man who decided to challenge eternity,
18:18sending to build the largest tomb in the history of mankind?
18:24It seems ironic that we know so little about the builder
18:27of what is possibly the largest monument in ancient Egypt.
18:30The only statue we know
18:33that bears his name is this big.
18:36They probably did not do it during the reign of the pharaoh,
18:39but it is interesting that we do not know
18:42anything else about the life of Cheops.
18:46Seven centimeters is the height of the only statue
18:49of King Cheops that has come to us.
18:54There is very little known about Cheops
18:57as far as original sources are concerned.
19:00We know that his father was Snefru,
19:03the first king of the fourth dynasty,
19:06and that two of his sons, Jerefra and Gefren,
19:09succeeded him as kings.
19:17According to Greek historians,
19:20he was neither a good person nor a great king.
19:23Popular stories presented him as a kind of tyrant.
19:26The stories told by the traveler Herodotus
19:29spoke of a king who closed temples
19:32and forced people to work to build his pyramid.
19:43Cheops had to be a powerful and wealthy ruler
19:46with a well-organized administration
19:49because he has the largest pyramid in history.
19:54He must have been a kind of megalomaniac
19:57to build something like this.
20:07This is not Frank Monnier's first visit to the plateau.
20:15Our Egyptologist wants to shed light
20:18on the number of blocks that make up the masterpiece.
20:25We don't know exactly how many blocks there are
20:28because they are all different.
20:31Having a different volume,
20:34we can't make an exact estimate.
20:37There are usually two and a half million blocks,
20:40a fascinating number.
20:43I don't think we're very far off.
20:47With its almost perfect square base,
20:50230 meters wide and 138 meters high,
20:53Cheops is currently the pyramid of the superlatives.
20:56Look how well you can see the masonry blocks
20:59at the base of the pyramid.
21:02They are huge.
21:05There are many cubic meters.
21:08I wouldn't be able to make an exact estimate,
21:11but I'd say between 5 and 10 tons.
21:15Each block is unique.
21:18The density of each one
21:21is equivalent to the weight of between 3 and 6 cars.
21:24They were placed there
21:27at a time when the Egyptians didn't even have a wheel.
21:33These blocks reveal the secret of their origin
21:36to those who know how to observe them carefully.
21:45In this block, we find interesting details.
21:48It tells us where the limestone rock from the block comes from
21:51thanks to the fossils that make it up,
21:54all these shells and sea urchins.
21:57In fact, it's called nummulitic limestone,
22:00and we find this limestone rock with fossils all over the plateau.
22:07Giza, the kings of ancient Egypt,
22:10didn't choose this place by chance.
22:13It's an ideal limestone plateau
22:16to build what would become the emblem of Egypt.
22:20This means that the blocks didn't come from far away.
22:23They didn't have to cross the river.
22:26They didn't have to be dragged for miles.
22:29They may have come from around this area
22:32or maybe a little further,
22:35but at most a few hundred meters.
22:44For the first time in his career,
22:47American Egyptologist Stephen Harvey
22:50is lucky enough to enjoy only this Egyptian mastodon,
22:53usually full of tourists.
22:58It's extraordinary to be alone
23:01in front of one of the wonders of the ancient world,
23:04the Pyramid of Cheops.
23:07Surprisingly, the building that stands before us
23:10and that everyone thinks of when we talk about pyramids
23:13is not at all representative of what the Egyptians built.
23:19If we think back to the time of Cheops,
23:22we wouldn't be standing in front of a pyramid with this aspect.
23:25It would have been a perfect pyramid.
23:28It would have been finely caved in.
23:31It would have been well-lined.
23:34It would have been meticulously covered with white limestone,
23:37a coating that they would have polished
23:40until they obtained a bright white.
23:43There would be no visible entrance,
23:46because, of course, they kept them all secret.
23:52Most of the pyramids were made of limestone
23:55and were covered by a thin layer of white limestone,
23:58of which there is now no trace.
24:01The top of the pyramid was covered in gold.
24:06Today, Cheops has lost its original coating,
24:09allowing us to learn more about it.
24:14In the 9th, 10th, 11th and 12th centuries AD,
24:17the Egyptians, the Arabs of that time,
24:20decided to take advantage of the coating of the pyramid
24:23to build the houses, the buildings and the palaces of the capital.
24:31This operation brought to light
24:34what covered the entrance of the pyramid,
24:37the vault located 17 meters high.
24:50This original entrance
24:53had a two-water vault
24:56formed by giant stones
24:59with inclined legs to deflect the weight of the pyramid.
25:06Today, this two-water vault has practically disappeared
25:09as it was disarmed by the canteros of the Middle Ages,
25:12but there are still some blocks left.
25:15These surviving blocks weigh between 5 and 7 tons each.
25:20But why did the Egyptians build a vault like this?
25:24Nobody knows.
25:27Fran Monnier is the first Egyptologist
25:30to give a plausible explanation.
25:33There are several possible explanations.
25:36The first is structural.
25:39A vault must structurally protect a space,
25:42a corridor, from the loads that fall on it.
25:49Then we have the symbolic explanation.
25:52This vault could symbolize, for example,
25:55a two-leaf door,
25:58a double door that opens to go up to heaven, to the beyond.
26:03A celestial vault.
26:06This explanation is based on the reason for being a pyramid.
26:09The pharaoh goes up to heaven
26:12and becomes a star for eternity.
26:20For several centuries,
26:23it has attracted visitors from all over the world.
26:26Today, the entrance to the building is lower.
26:29This access dates from the time
26:32when Baghdad was the capital of the Abbasid Caliphate.
26:35According to legend,
26:38it is possible that the Caliph Al-Mamun,
26:41in the 9th century AD,
26:44pierced into the pyramid,
26:47and one of the openings that we see today
26:50is the entrance to the pyramid.
26:53This is the entrance to the pyramid.
27:00We have asked this specialist to analyze our 3D plane.
27:05What I'm looking at here
27:08is a plane of the interior of the Pyramid of Cheops.
27:11It's a good section view
27:14that shows the descending corridors
27:18and you really see on the plane
27:21how big it is,
27:24and what kind of height they achieved.
27:27The funeral chambers of the Pyramid of Cheops
27:30are very peculiar.
27:33There is no other distribution like in any other pyramid.
27:36But why?
27:39Basically, because there are chambers
27:42that are below the ground level,
27:45it is a project without precedents or equivalents.
27:51From the outside,
27:54the structure of the Pyramid of Cheops seems simple.
27:57However, it contrasts with the interior,
28:00which is of a strange complexity.
28:03Mark Lehner will guide us through this gigantic labyrinth.
28:06In the Pyramid of Cheops,
28:09there are several entrances,
28:12one of them leads to a chamber
28:15on the bed of rock underground that is not finished.
28:21It seems that they abandoned this chamber in the middle of construction.
28:24What happened to King Cheops's head?
28:27I'm not convinced, I don't like it.
28:30We'd better go up the pyramid.
28:33So then the idea is to build the ascending corridor
28:37and the horizontal corridor to the Queen's chamber.
28:40The Queen's chamber is almost finished.
28:48There was a little bit of polish left on the floor.
28:51It is quite probable
28:54that the so-called Queen's chamber
28:57never housed the remains of a queen.
29:00Basically, this is the name
29:03so that when the Westerners visited the monument,
29:06they could tell them the story
29:09that they buried the queen there,
29:12but they made it up completely.
29:15And then the idea is that King Cheops arrives and says,
29:18you know what I'm telling you? I don't like it either.
29:21Let's go up more.
29:24This interior layout is disconcerting.
29:27Three funerary chambers to bury the same person.
29:30How can we know all this?
29:33By the modifications of the plans.
29:36This explanation fits.
29:39According to experts,
29:42the construction of the seventh wonder of the ancient world
29:45would have lasted between 20 and 25 years,
29:48during the period in which Cheops reigned in Upper and Lower Egypt.
29:53In the first year of his reign, plans had already been designed.
29:56Then, at a given moment,
29:59they decided to build X funerary chambers.
30:02But the years go by, and inevitably their wishes change,
30:05as in any architectural project.
30:17To access the funerary chamber of King Cheops,
30:20you have to go up a lot.
30:23The room is located 40 meters above the ground.
30:30Here we are in the heart of the pyramid.
30:33This is the king's chamber.
30:36This is the reason to be of the Great Pyramid.
30:44All is built so that the king
30:47can live eternally in the beyond
30:50while his mummy is kept safe in this chamber.
30:54And in this sarcophagus is where they placed Cheops' mummy.
31:00To this day, no one knows what happened to Cheops' mummy.
31:05They probably looted his grave before the Middle Ages,
31:08perhaps even in antiquity.
31:11What impresses me most is its simplicity.
31:14It is not like the monuments of the New Empire,
31:17full of hieroglyphics.
31:20The pharaohs who succeeded him,
31:23such as Pepi II and Tutankhamun,
31:26chose a rich decoration for their inner tombs.
31:29Cheops' chamber contrasts with its sobriety.
31:32It's just granite.
31:37Granite.
31:40This red stone with black touches and bright reflections
31:43is one of the peculiarities of the Great Pyramid.
31:47The Egyptians used granite
31:50for the interior constructions of some parts of the pyramid,
31:53and in particular of the funeral chamber.
31:57So it was brought from hundreds of kilometers south to Giza,
32:00which is an incredible achievement.
32:05The granite blocks were brought from Aswan,
32:08so they had to be extracted there
32:11under very adverse circumstances,
32:14and they had to be brought down river when they had grown
32:17so that it would be easier and faster to bring them down.
32:23Unlike limestone,
32:26granite has an essential quality.
32:29As it is a very hard stone,
32:32supposedly it also protects the body of the king from looters.
32:35Therefore, many passages leading to the funeral chamber,
32:38in addition to the traces,
32:41are made of granite.
32:46Once again, the work carried out by the Egyptians
32:49is approaching perfection.
32:53Some of these granite blocks
32:56are put together with only a millimeter between them,
32:59some with even less.
33:04The king's chamber, due to its height and composition,
33:07is an unprecedented challenge.
33:10With Cheops, they face the greatest complication so far.
33:13The Egyptians of that time had no experience yet,
33:16that is, they did not know what they were facing.
33:20The Egyptians took risks,
33:23and today we know it,
33:26they faced the worst.
33:32As if it were a crime scene,
33:35Mark Lenner gives us an autopsy of the king's chamber.
33:38This roof has huge cracks,
33:44especially up there in the southeast corner.
33:49There's evidence that these cracks
33:52occurred during the construction.
33:59It happened after they roofed the chamber, obviously.
34:03Imagine all the workers that were inside and outside,
34:06the scandal and the fuss that had to arise.
34:14Tens, hundreds of tons of granite beams
34:17had cracked and were going to break.
34:20It had to be very impressive.
34:24Thanks to the mission, Frank Monnier
34:27can analyze the situation 4,500 years later.
34:30It is simply extraordinary.
34:33With this we will be able to describe what happened.
34:39There are cracks everywhere,
34:42and thanks to a scanner we will be able to discover more
34:45about this monument.
34:48And give a precise explanation of the presence of cracks
34:51in the king's chamber.
34:54The pyramid is almost finished.
34:57We can think that there has been a collapse in the king's chamber.
35:02Let's put ourselves in the shoes of the workers
35:05and the technicians who have to inspect the monument
35:08after the incident.
35:11They have to have a lot of cold blood,
35:14because before they tell the pharaoh,
35:17if they have to tell him or the vizier,
35:20they need to make sure what is going on
35:23and what damage could be caused.
35:27Let's see, if I measure this ...
35:32It says 6, 7 meters.
35:35It gave me about 6 or 7 meters.
35:38In other words, they dug a tunnel
35:416 or 7 meters long.
35:44You have to keep in mind that when they started
35:47to dig the tunnel, they were very overwhelmed
35:50because they needed to know what had happened
35:53and what damage could be caused.
35:56And excavate at high speed
35:59to be able to assess the damage
36:02and determine what was going to happen next.
36:05When we discovered the first discharge chamber
36:08above the king's chamber intact,
36:11we can imagine the relief that the Kheops workers felt.
36:14Another enigma they left on the walls of the king's chamber
36:17had not been resolved until our mission.
36:21The evidence that they put cedar spikes
36:24are these large black spots
36:27distributed by most of the roof beams.
36:33Why do these black spots appear?
36:37Two theories have been formulated
36:40and until our mission, the debate had not been settled.
36:45The first is that the spots appeared
36:48as a result of the drag of these granite beams
36:51to transport them.
36:54In other words, that they carried the beams on a sled,
36:57perhaps on wedges, for several weeks or even months,
37:00from Aswan to Giza.
37:03And that they suffered a kind of friction
37:06that caused the resin of the transport wood
37:09to stain the beams.
37:16The second possible explanation
37:19is that the beams were reinforced with powerful wooden spikes
37:22just after the fractures of the beams were noticed
37:25and, therefore, after the accident
37:28that occurred in the king's chamber.
37:33To solve this dilemma and know the origin of the marks on the ceiling,
37:36there is a simple method.
37:40If all the beams of the discharge chambers have these spots,
37:43then it will be evident that the cause of their appearance
37:46was the transport.
37:49On the other hand, if the spots are only in the king's chamber,
37:52we can show that they are characteristics of this chamber
37:55and that they are the result of a subsequent intervention.
38:06The answer is above the king's chamber,
38:09where we have returned to perfect the scans.
38:17With us, the Egyptologist Aurore Chiabatty
38:20and Alban Brispampu, an expert in digital archaeology,
38:23who are going to do everything possible
38:26to confirm or deny the theory of Franc Monier.
38:37Think that this mission with the scanner
38:40will allow, for the first time in the 21st century,
38:43to solve a matter of utmost importance.
38:47Thanks to teamwork, our experts have been able to shed light
38:50on a part of the history of the pyramid.
38:54It can be seen perfectly that no beam of this chamber presents spots.
38:58This image, along with others taken during the mission,
39:01shows us in the most precise way possible
39:04that there is not a single spot in the discharge chambers.
39:08In conclusion, the spots are the remains of some reinforcements
39:11that were installed in the king's chamber after the accident.
39:19Our mission in these discharge chambers
39:22will allow us to reveal other construction techniques.
39:29And it is thanks to the research of Aurore Chiabatty
39:32that we go through each and every chamber
39:35where we will discover clues about the construction of this masterpiece.
39:39It is a shame that the beams are covered with rubble,
39:42limestone and sand,
39:45because they prevent us from seeing the possible construction lines
39:48that would be drawn on them.
39:55You have to go up to the penultimate chamber
39:58to find this new clue.
40:09I am really lucky
40:12to have been able to enter
40:15Lady Arbuthnot's chamber.
40:18It is a very emotional moment.
40:29What we have in front of us is very interesting.
40:32There are different measurements,
40:35and marks, construction lines.
40:38The show is on, new marks from the builders.
40:42There is the median construction line,
40:45an indication that allows you to align the elements during construction.
40:53You can see the construction lines
40:56painted on the granite beams.
41:01Thanks to this unprecedented photogrammetric view,
41:04our two French Egyptologists can clearly observe
41:07for the first time the skill of a work
41:10completed 45 centuries ago.
41:13We observe in the center of the beam
41:16the famous vertical line that perfectly coincides
41:19with the alignment of the top of the vault.
41:22It is on all the floors.
41:25So, in principle, they had to draw this line
41:28after they put the beam.
41:32So that all the floors were at the same level
41:35and that there was no difference.
41:39The main difficulty was to finally get a structure
41:42that remained perfectly vertical,
41:45so that there could be no difference from one chamber to another.
41:48And these lines drawn on the beams
41:51are lines that are drawn in the middle of a discharge chamber
41:54to be able to position the upper discharge chamber
41:57following the same lines.
42:00And now they all overlap perfectly.
42:09Thanks to these discharge chambers,
42:12thanks to their wisdom,
42:15the Egyptologist has been able to make an even more extraordinary discovery
42:18that the king's builders left there.
42:21Look, here it is. It's fantastic.
42:24We are on the west side of the chamber
42:27and we already come across the name of Cheops
42:30written right here.
42:39We also observe the name of a royal team
42:42that mentions King Cheops himself by his name.
42:48The inscription is upside down.
42:51They didn't make it to be able to read it,
42:54but it was useful at one point.
42:57And that's why it's written upside down.
43:00For the experts, these marks are of great importance.
43:04What I was interested in was to be able to observe
43:07these workers' marks.
43:12The marks are functional, not ornamental.
43:15They are not hieroglyphic, drawn or carved
43:18with embroidery on the stone.
43:21They are marks left with a brush, with red ink,
43:24and in a hurry, which had the function
43:27of indicating which team was working on which block.
43:31The mysteries hidden in these discharge chambers
43:34were deciphered for the first time in the 19th century.
43:37The explorer John Perrin
43:40left evidence of his findings in a book.
43:46It is a very old work,
43:49but unfortunately it is in poor condition.
43:52It is called The Pyramids of Giza
43:55and is one of the first publications,
43:58along with those of Colonel Weiss,
44:01that mention his expedition and provide information
44:04about the discovery of the discharge chambers.
44:07Here is an example of the first thing they found,
44:10which are marks of the workers
44:13who participated in the construction of these discharge chambers.
44:16Here is the name of the workers' team
44:19that mentions the name of King Cheops.
44:22Almost two centuries after the first explorers,
44:25Aurore Ciabatti finds these same marks,
44:28prudently preserved.
44:31It is incredible to be watching live
44:34the marks that some workers left here
44:374,500 years ago or even more.
44:40Here we have the cartridge of King Cheops himself,
44:43which describes the workers' team
44:46who worked here and who left the name of his team
44:49eight times on this wall.
44:55These discharge chambers are also witnesses
44:58of essential information to understand the organization of the work.
45:03Among these marks we find the names
45:06of the workers' teams who participated
45:09in the construction of this monument.
45:12At least three different teams are distinguished.
45:15The team of the Purified of Cheops,
45:18another team called the Friends,
45:21the Companions of Cheops,
45:24and then a team with a somewhat more complex name,
45:27of the Escoltas, called the White Crown of Cheops,
45:30is powerful.
45:33These names of the teams give us the impression
45:36that a kind of competition was disputed during the construction,
45:39which actually makes sense if we think about it.
45:42By having to break records,
45:45they needed everyone to be 100% motivated,
45:48even 300% to be able to have a monument ready
45:51by the end of the reign.
45:54Each team was entrusted with a mission.
45:57One team was in charge of the north wall,
46:00another team was in charge of the south wall,
46:03and another was dedicated to the construction
46:06of the Campbell Chamber.
46:09These testimonies of anonymous workers
46:12who have survived for centuries until they reach us
46:15also tell a collective human adventure.
46:18It is possible that the workers and technicians
46:21realized while working on the construction
46:24that this monument was also, in a way, for them.
46:27It was like bringing their grain of sand,
46:30leaving a part of them engraved.
46:33In this way, they would also access eternity
46:36together with their pharaoh.
46:42The artisans who worked on the construction
46:45of the King's Tomb had to be ingenious
46:48to make a key room for this masterpiece,
46:51the antechamber leading to the sarcophagus.
46:57They had to protect the pharaoh's body
47:00because the Egyptians believed that the mummy was a magnet,
47:04like a kind of anchor of the spirit
47:07that preserved the king's vital force.
47:11All Egyptian civilization is based on a belief,
47:14life after death.
47:18Everybody was united to the pharaoh.
47:21Members of the court, the plebiscite,
47:24and all the people of Egypt
47:27were united to the world after death.
47:30But if they desecrated the king's mummy,
47:33the connection between this world and that world was broken.
47:39Therefore, the most important thing
47:42was to protect the king's remains.
47:45The Egyptians had to abuse their ingenuity
47:48to accomplish this task.
47:51It is like a gigantic machine.
47:54It is a giant lock
47:57that closed the king's chamber door.
48:01It was the first line of defense against the robbers.
48:09Above, there is a ledge with semicircular cuts
48:12to accommodate huge logs of wood.
48:17On this wall, we have semicircular channels for the ropes.
48:21And here, they carved bars into the granite wall.
48:27They formed slabs for large granite slabs
48:33that would slide down.
48:38They were controlled by the ropes
48:41wrapped around the giant logs.
48:46This tracking system was not the only defense.
48:49Another space of unprecedented dimensions
48:52in the history of ancient Egypt also played a role.
48:58When you are inside the Grand Gallery,
49:01you feel that you are in a space
49:04almost like a large cathedral.
49:07It is huge.
49:10I have always believed that one of the greatest achievements
49:13of the Egyptian architects
49:16was the stone.
49:19It is absolutely extraordinary.
49:22With its 40 meters long and almost 9 meters high,
49:25it is the largest architectural space
49:28built until the Middle Ages.
49:31We are at the bottom of the Grand Gallery.
49:34It is one of the wonders of the ancient world.
49:37It is a corridor with more than 8 meters high,
49:40tilted 26 degrees,
49:43and they brought each strand of stone
49:46a few centimeters inwards,
49:49progressively, until they reached the top.
49:53What is the function of this Grand Gallery?
49:56Again, even the greatest experts cannot decide.
50:00One continues to wonder why the Grand Gallery
50:03may have been a parking lot for the blockage blocks.
50:07This space would have served as a warehouse
50:10while waiting for the last phase,
50:13the one that will complete the pyramid.
50:16After they had lowered the tracks of the antechamber,
50:19blocking the access to the king's chamber,
50:22we believe that the workers descended
50:25to the bottom of the Grand Gallery,
50:28they released the brakes of the trunks,
50:31and boom, boom, boom, boom,
50:34the blocking blocks slid to the ascending corridor.
50:37There is only one question left.
50:40How did the workers get out of the Grand Gallery
50:43after the absolute closure?
50:46Once those stones were put in, no one could get out.
50:49Of course, there are legends
50:52that tell that the workers died of hunger inside.
50:55But in fact, they came up with a way
50:58to escape to one of the lower chambers.
51:01By doing this, they enabled the workers,
51:04perhaps once the pharaoh was buried,
51:07to leave through the entrance.
51:10This space, with its extraordinary vault,
51:13could have also had a symbolic function.
51:16The true function of the Grand Gallery
51:19remains a mystery to us.
51:22I think it reflects what the Egyptians felt
51:25and thought about the union of the king
51:28as a divine being with the sky itself.
51:34One thing is certain.
51:37With his funeral procession,
51:40they moved the king through this majestic gallery
51:43to the place where he would rest for all eternity.
51:49Cheops undertakes his long journey to the beyond,
51:52leaving in the world of the living
51:55an incomparable legacy.
52:04© transcript Emily Beynon