No land on earth possesses nore wonders than Egypt.
Wonders long hidden
but revealed occasionally in a glint of gold
or a curious tale.
Our story begins with a death...
the death of an unusual boy.
Workshipped as the son of Ra, the sun-god
he was a Pharoah of Egypt 3,000 years ago.
We don't know how he died
only that his death was sudden and mysterious.
His body was preserved in the manner of other pharaohs
and priests anointed his coffin
to prepare him for his final journey...
into the world of the dead.
The rituals had to be finished
before his father, the sun, descended into darkness.
So this young pharaoh was secured in his tomb
surrounded by kingly treasures
and his seal was pressed into its entrance.
From that time on, it was to be a place of peace
hidden and undisturbed throught eternity.
This young king's name was...
Tutankhamen.
For 3,000 years, King Tut and his tomb
in The Valley of the Kings
remained concealed beneath shifting sands.
Other tombs were discovered and completely pillaged
but not his.
Believeing he could find it
an Englishman named Howard Carter
mounted five arduous expeditions
but they yielded nothing.
In 1922, he returned to Egypt for a sixth attempt.
That year, he brought a beautiful canary
to brighten his spirits.
The workmen called it "The Golden Bird"
and told Carter it would bring him good luck.
But as work began
success seemed a remote prospect
and time was running out.
Carter's benefactor, Lord Carnarvon
was an English earl fascinated by Egypt
but even he was losing faith
and had threatened to cut off the money.
Yes, Carter persisted
knowing that if found intact
the tomb would be filled with amazing artifacts
that would help us peer through the shadows of time...
to glimpse a world of human splendor long lost...
to glimpse our very beginnings.
That's a great story, Grandpa, but I want to know more.
You live here, and I know you can tell me the real story.
About?
Well, my friends want me to ask about The Curse...
How anyone who entered King Tut's tomb...
...will have some terrible thing happen to them.
Yes, yes, I know.
I don't know if I believe it
but will you tell me about it?
So, the pharaohs, the tomb, the monuments
the great civilization who built them
you're not interested in
But The Mummy's Curse you find...
...exciting.
Yes, I can see that.
All right, then.
You shall hear all about it, but first
we must take a trip together.
Where will we start, then?
At the source, of course.
The source of the Nile.
It is the longest river on earth...
the greatest river in Africa
crossing nearly half the continent.
It is born of two rivers:
The White Nile, which rises near Lake Victoria
and heads north through Uganda
and the Blue Nile, which descends
from the highlands of Ethiopia.
They must in the desert of Sudan
forming the main trunk of the Nile.
By the time it deains into the Mediterranean Sea
its waters have journeyed more than 4,000 miles.
To the outside world
the source of the great river was an enduring mystery
but to the ancient Egyptians, the source was clear:
The Nile flowed from the realm of the gods.
But what has the Nile to do with mummies and curses?
Everything. There would be no mummies, no ancient Egypt...
in fact, no Egypt at all without her.
You see, Egypt without the Nile is a desert...
suitable for camels and scorpions
but not great civilizations.
It's only here, along the floodplain of the Nile
that the desert's heat is softened
and arid sand is turned to rich farmland.
Nourished and irrigated by the Nile
Egypt became the longest-lived
of all the great early civilizations.
In ancient times, so much water
raced down from the lush valleys of central Africa
that the Nile overflowed its banks in seasonal floods.
Mineral-rich silt
was carried toward the desert of Egypt from lands upstream
where wildlife flourished.
Rich land made possible a vast farming culture
and a stable civilization
able to turn from daily survival
to works of the mind.
Science, mathematics
engineering and astronomy.
They studied the heavens and the seasons...
gave us the 24-hour day and a 365-day calendar.
Egypt, an old saying goes
was the gift of the Nile.
But the Egyptians believed
there was one thing even mightier than the Nile
the sun...
the God they called Ra...
the God who created everything.
Each morning, with its rising
the run-god would be born.
Each night, in setting
he would die.
But the next morning
he would rise again, never failing.
He was eternal.
When a king died
It was believed that he became one with Ra.
His son, the new Pharaoh, became Horus, the falcon...
the living God on earth.
And so, the Egyptians accorded their rulers absolute power
which they used to build an extraordinary empire.
An empire of bulidings so enormous
and art so exquisite
we are still trying to understand
how such wonders were created...
how stones from the desert
were tirmed into timeless mounments.
Some of the oldest buildings on earth are here
preserved by the desert air
and the skill of their creators.
Some are so old that they had already stood a thousand years
when Tutankhamen was born
The enormous obelisks of Karnak
were carved from sigle blocks of granite
moved hundreds of miles by boat
rolled on logs and perhaps levered up with huge timbers.
Giant statues of Ramses The Great
carved at Abu Simbel are still some of the largest fingures
ever sculpted from solid stone.
We don't know how they did it, but we do know why...
to honer the pharaohs, both in life and after death.
Honor the pharaohs after death...
Does that have anything to do with mummies?
Yes.
Look at Tutankhamen, for example.
When the young king died
the priests sought to create a magical new body for him.
For 70 days they labored drying and preserving
the royal body with salts and ointments
then wrapping it in hundreds of feet of linen
laden with protective jewels, charms and amulets.
And finally crowning the mummy
with an exquisite golden death mask.
Tutankhamen was ready for the afterlife.
Had the boy lived and died a thousand years earlier
he would have been buried like pharaohs long before him...
in a mounment of colossal proportions...
a man-made mountain of stone called "the pyramids."
They probably saw the pyramid shape
as a mystical link between earth and sky
providing the pharaoh's soul with a stairway to the heavens.
Of the fabled Seven Wonders of the Ancient World
only the Pyramids of Giza remain
made more than 4,000 years ago.
Nearly 500 feet tall
they contain some of the largest pieces of stone
ever moved by humans...
as much as 50 tons or more.
Yet, this was accomplished without wheels or pulleys
or even hand-tools.
How in the world did they do it without odern machinery?
The Gods certainly didn't do it.
They used their minds.
Knowledge built these great, reat structures.
Highly sophisticated knowledge.
Look...
All of the Giza pyramids are built
in perfect alignment with certain stars.
That takes a knowledge of astronomy.
The pyramids' foundations
are laid out in perfect angles and dimensions
precisely correct for the height they wanted to reach.
Now, that takes knowledge of geometry and mathematics.
And finally
you must get these big stones from down here to up there
and you must make them all fit perfectly.
Now, that takes knowledge...
an incredible knowledge of engineering and organization.
Organization?
Absolutely.
You just said so yourself.
It wasn't the Gods who built these great monuments.
It was people.
Thousand and thousands of people.
Imagine begin one of these people
living in a tiny village more than 4,000 years ago.
Life would be pretty much the same day in and day out:
Farming, herding cattle, fishing in the Nile.
Then one day, you're selected
to hourney be boat down the Nile.
You are now part of the great national project
to build the Pharaoh's tomb
but you have no idea what kind of a tomb.
And then you see...
a monument to the sun... to life eternal.
How did they move such heavy stones
to such great heights?
There are many theories
but they probably pulled the blocks
up mud-slickened ramps.
Raising the ramps as the pyramid grew
measons then set the stones with such precision
a postcard couldn't fit between them.
To creat the great pyramid of Khufu, it took over 20 years
and more than two million stone blocks and some 20,000 people
and they might have been slaves
but now we think they were mostly peasant farmers
recruited to work here part of the year.
With their help
the early pharaohs built more than a hundred pyramids
80 of which survive today.
But what about the kings who came later?
You told me King Tutakhamen wasn't buried in a pyramid.
No, he wasn't.
They stopped buliding them and for good reason.
There were robbers who cared far more about heaps of gold
than an eternal journey.
The pyramids, to these thieves, were like enormous billboards
saying, "We've buried the king in here
and all this treasure with him."
At any rate, a new plan had to be devised.
That's why 500 years after the last pyramids were built
a new era of kings decided that instead of building tombs
which everyone could see
why not build tombs which no one could see?
300 miles south of The Great Pyramids
across the Nile from the modern city of Luxor
is this barren maze of valleys
in the shadow of a natural pyramid.
Here, no thief could find the royal tombs.
Here, the kings and queens of Egypt would remain immortal
or so they thought.
But greed breeds ingenuity.
Cleverly hiding their devious enterprises
robbers scoured the Valley of the Kings.
Over time, each of the Valley tombs was found, broken into
and completely plundered
except for one.
Except for the tomb of Tutankhamen.
That, at least, is what Howard Carter believed
and if he was right
it would be the greatest archaeological discovery
of modern times.
After five years, he still hadn't found it
and the situation was becoming desperate.
Then, on the morning of November the fourth, 1922
a water boy trying to secure his jug hit an unusual rock.
Carter sent a telegram to Lord Carnarvon in England
to come quickly
and went to Cairo to meet his benefactor
but while he was away
something very strange happened.
The golden bird that had brought him luck
was killed by a cobra.
Well, now, the cobra was
a protector of the pharaoh
and the canary represents those who had entered the tomb.
So the cobra ate the canary
because of The Mummy's Curse?
More likely, he ate it because he was hungry.
I like The Curse idea better.
Well, certainly the workmen believed it was the curse.
The death of the golden bird was a bad omen to them.
It meant that someone close to the project would die
within the year.
Rumors of a curse mattered little to Carter.
He hoped his dig would uncover a tomb
like this one...
the tomb of a pharaoh named Ramses VI
who ruled long after King Tut.
Carter wanted to find treasure
but if not, something just as precious...
pictures...
hieroglyphs that would reveal priceless knowledge of how
the ancients lived and what they believed.
These images are from the Egyptian Books of the Dead...
passbooks to eternity
which were buried with the mummy.
To help a dead king reach the afterlife
they supplied answers
to questions he would be asked...
spells to deflect dangers along the way.
But preparation for the afterlife began
long before death.
In grand temples once supported by these pillars...
among the largest places of worship ever built...
the living pharaohs gave offerings
as a way of communicating with the gods and the world beyond
and courting their favor.
Both immense and colorful
temples like the great structure called Madinat Habu
were the setting for magnificent rituals
that proclaimed to all not only the Pharaoh's power
and wealth, but his devotion to the gods
he would one day join on a journey through eternity.
They sure seem preoccupied with life after death.
Yes... and probably because not ancient people enjoyed life
as much as they did.
There are picture stories of invention and adventure
of board games and ball games, of dance and music
of acrobats and mechanical toys
of the affection between husbands and wives
and of family unity and love.
It was the most advanced civilization of its time
and it went on for 3,000 years
but the empire they amassed attracted invaders.
Among the stories on temple walls
are accounts of battles against outsiders
who tried to conquer the kingdom of the pharaohs.
But the invading empires became more powerful
Even more determined...
and so, gradually, inevitably
the kingdom of Egypt began to crumble.
Well, how could a place as powerful as Egypt
just clooapse?
Actually, many things happened
but mostly it was the weakening of the pharaoh's power
through civil turmoil
making Egypt vulnerable to invaders.
Little by little, much of the Pharaoh's great empire
along with its secrets, was reclaimed by the desert.
But even as the monuments of Egypt crumble
the stories are reduscovered by modern archeologists
deciphering the distant past.
Scholars and artists
are preserving the great Sphinx for all humanity
Research within the Giza Pyramids
has revealed the brilliance of ancient architects
whose sophisticated designs prevented the clooapse
of these inner chambers and passageways.
DNA analysis is helping
to identify family ties of the royal mummies
and to give us clues about how they lived...
and died.
New excavations are uncovering the support system
of settlements and facilities
for the workers who built the Giza pyramids.
These new discoveries and many more
owe themselves, at least in part
to one discovery... not quite as modern...
of the tomb of a teenage Pharaoh.
On November 26, 1922, Howard Carter reached the wall
outside the first chamber of Tutankhamen's tomb.
What can you see?
Carter, please, can you see anything?
Yes.
Wonderful things.
Wonderful things!
Grandpa: And they were wonderful things
kept hidden for over 3,000 years in four chambers
carved from solid rock.
They entered to find the only intact
king's tomb ever discovered in modern times.
And in the burial chamber...
four golden shrines.
Inside the fourth shrine, three goldren coffins...
one inside the other, and at the center
the mummy of the boy king, Tutankhmen.
This was the greatest treasure ever found in Egypt.
Well over 2,000 objects
of gold, alabaster, lapis
and precious jewels made thousands of years ago
by master craftsmen.
They gave us a personal glimpse
of the royal life in ancient Egypt
and feuled our drive to continue searching...
to continue learning.
So, through discoveries like Howard Carter's
and those of modern archeologists
the ruins of aancient Egypt mean something to us.
The stone creations that still loom up from the desert
are new testaments
of humanity's great stride forward
from hunters and gatherers
to builders of majestic strutures
to dreamers of grand dreams.
These stone wonders
are the shape of our beginnings...
towering symbols of our rise
to become thinkers, artists, poets and builders.
These great monuments keep us humble, too.
After all, they managed to survive for nearly 5,000 years.
How long has our modern civilization
been around in comparison?
Not very long.
Now, as to the matter of the curse.
Lord Carnarvon died from an infected mosquite bite
five months after King Tut's tomb was opened.
So it is true after all.
Well, Lord Carnarvon did die an untimely death
but Howard Carter lived to be 65.
And the little water boy
who was one of the first into the tomb because of his size
lived to a ripe old age, as did most of the workers.
Clearly, there was no curse of death.
But beyond all of that
a curse, you see, flies in the face of everything
the Egyptians believed in.
You mean life?
Yes... life.
Death for them wasn't an end.
It was the beginning
of a great journey through eternity
where their Gods and kings
sailed the morning ship across a lake of flames in the sky
rising in new life each day with the sun.