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NARRATOR: It is the most sensational archaeological discovery ever made. The first time anyone laid eyes on the incredible treasures of a pharaoh. The tomb of Tutankhamun, containing over a ton of gold and jewelry. For nearly a century images of this amazing event were confined to ghostly black and white, but now, for the first time, with cutting edge colorization we can bring these scenes back to life and witness this event just as it was, in color. The characters in an extraordinary story of endeavor, the recovery of over 5,000 precious objects and the lavish but tragic life of a pharaoh who died young.
The Valley of the Kings. Over 3,000 years ago this was the burial place of the pharaohs. When the Valley is rediscovered in modern times, adventurers unearth dozens of magnificent tombs. But they're all empty of their royal treasures, stolen long ago. In the early 1900s the Valley of the Kings is declared exhausted, with nothing more to find. But one man refuses to believe this. His name is Howard Carter.
The secrets of how this English archaeologist found Tutankhamun's tomb are held here, in Oxford, England in the vaults of the University's Griffith Institute. Since Carter's death the university has held his personal papers. Carter kept detailed records and this incredible collection includes his diaries, maps, plans of the tomb and hundreds of photographs.
To bring Carter's quest to find King Tut back to life, we're using the latest cutting edge colorization techniques. Paris based art director, Samuel François-Steininger and his international team is famous worldwide for transforming historical black and white film and photographs into color and with unparalleled accuracy. SAMUEL: I truly believe that to understand history, the people and the evidence of the past should be real to us. Our ambition always with black and white photos or film is to put back the colors, to make historical characters feel real and to make events feel like they happened yesterday.
NARRATOR: Even colorizing this simple photograph of the young Howard Carter takes days of research into contemporary fashions and colors. It reveals Howard Carter as a teenager, relaxing before leaving on his first journey to Egypt. In 1891 Howard Carter, still just 17, lands his dream job as an artist copying the painted reliefs in Egyptian temples and tombs.
This is one of his early works. Carter copied this falcon representing the god Horus from a doorway in the mortuary temple of the female pharaoh Hatshepsut. CAT: It's certainly one of our favorites. It's just such a beautiful amazing painting. You can see there's pinholes where he just basically pinned a piece of paper to a board and sat in front of the wall and drew this freehand. As far as we know it's pretty accurate. NARRATOR: Just as Carter makes his way in Egypt in the late 19th century a new medium is created.
Film. This footage from the 1890s of camels carrying animal feed is amongst the earliest film ever recorded in Egypt. Colorizing still photographs is already challenging, but Sam's team faces an even tougher task, to do the same to film. SAMUEL: With film in particular you face a number of difficulties. Footage is often damaged, dirty, scratched. The original frame rate can be different from film today, all these issues we need to fix before we can even start adding the color.
NARRATOR: The original film is cleaned and converted into digital files. Then sharpened up, film grain and damage removed from each shot. The color of the clothes and buildings is researched. Then each object is carefully colored and the colors animated to follow the objects. The texture of the temple wall,
the light on people's clothing and their faces, gradually the Egypt of Howard Carter's time comes to life. Carter is entranced with Egypt's ancient history and soon becomes an archaeologist. Within ten years he's one of the most successful archaeologists working in Egypt. Then in 1909 Carter meets a man who will transform his life
and sets him on course for the most famous archaeological discovery of all time. This is Highclere Castle, location of the TV series Downton Abbey. In the early 1900s it is home to the 5th Earl of Carnarvon. Like Carter, Carnarvon is an Egypt obsessive. He is wealthy enough to pay for his own excavations, but he needs an expert who knows where to look and how to excavate, so he hires Howard Carter.
COUNTESS: He was not an easy man, Howard Carter, but he discovered in Lord Carnarvon a man who was equally passionate about Egyptian works of art, about the country, about the wildlife, the experience of being in Egypt. So they found they had a lot in common and they were both very dedicated. NARRATOR: They both dream of finding something which had never been seen before, an intact tomb of a pharaoh and Carter knows exactly where he wants to look. The Valley of the Kings. By 1912 the Valley is declared exhausted. But Carter has good reason for thinking otherwise. From his research into lists of the Egyptian kings, recorded for example on temple walls,
Carter knows that not all of the Pharaoh's tombs have been found. One of the missing tombs is Tutankhamun's. AIDAN: One of the things that Carter was conscious of is that nobody had ever done anything systematically. All the digging had been here, there, back over there and the case he put to Carnarvon was that the project he wanted to do was to clear everything down to bedrock, everything which had not been cleared down to bedrock would be. So that at the end of everything if they didn't find anything they knew there was nothing to be found. NARRATOR: There is something else that gives Carter confidence, objects known to be used in a royal burial are unearthed in the valley.
Some bear the name of Tutankhamun. Carter is convinced that his tomb does lie somewhere in the Valley. NARRATOR: In 1914, Carnarvon decides to back Carter's hunch to excavate in the Valley of the Kings. AIDAN: The timing was extremely bad because just the moment when they got permission to work in the Valley the First World War started. NARRATOR: Troops arrive in Egypt from across the British Empire, preparing to fight. Most archeology in the country is suspended.
It's another three years before at last Carter and Carnarvon can begin the search for Tutankhamun. Carter decides that in order to have any chance of finding the tomb that everyone else has missed, they'll need a rigorous approach. CAT: So this is Carter's map of the Valley of the Kings that he drew in 1917, so he's drawn a section of the Valley and then he's divided it up into grid squares. And the idea was that they dug down to bedrock in every square so that they could be sure that they weren't missing anything. NARRATOR: Each sector is around 100 ft wide. Carter's plan is to remove all the stones and debris one section at a time.
It is a massive task. But by 1917 a large and experienced Egyptian workforce is available. HEBA: Each one of them knows exactly what they are meant to do. There are some who receive, some who would take the sand in the baskets, move away, others who would move the rocks away. We would usually see the boys taking the sand away and it's usually the men digging.
NARRATOR: Carnarvon employs hundreds of men and children. They remove thousands of tons of earth and stones. But by 1922, after five exhausting seasons, they have found virtually nothing. And following a devastating war, even Lord Carnarvon's finances are tight. COUNTESS: Income tax in England in 1914 was 6%, in 1918 it was 60%. There was no revenues really from agriculture.
In June 1922 Lord Carnarvon was reviewing his overdraft and he had said to Howard Carter, "I can't continue to finance these concessions in Egypt." NARRATOR: It could spell disaster for Carter's excavations. With just two sectors left to explore he begs for one more chance. COUNTESS: I wonder what Howard Carter said to Lord Carnarvon. I mean, I think he really did love Egypt, he loved spending the winters out there and I think it was probably quite easy to persuade him to have one more final season.
NARRATOR: Carter begins his final season of searching, on November 1st, 1922. Clearing the last two sectors of the grid will be a delicate job. His team must dig around a popular tourist attraction, the Tomb of Ramesses VI, and excavate and clear the remains of ancient huts left by the builders of Ramesses tomb.
But after just a few days one of Carter's team makes an amazing discovery. The story goes that it is a young boy called Hussein Abdel-Rassoul. His job is to supply the team with water, carried in round bottomed clay pots. He digs a hole in which to stand his water pot, but hits a hard flat surface. Hussein reports his discovery immediately.
As the team starts carefully removing rocks, they reveal a flight of steps descending deep into the bedrock. At the bottom of the steps is blocked entranceway. Carter is convinced he's finally found what he's been looking for. NARRATOR: Howard Carter is sure that he's discovered a tomb in Egypt's Valley of the Kings. He immediately sends a message to his financial backer, Lord Carnarvon in England.
COUNTESS: And Lord Carnarvon opened it and it was a telegram from Howard Carter saying, "At last, have made wonderful discovery in Valley. A magnificent tomb with seals intact, recovered same for your arrival. Congratulations." I mean, I'm not sure he knew exactly what it would lead to and they'd had so many false starts. NARRATOR: Carnarvon arrives with his daughter, Lady Evelyn, to see what Carter has found.
Carter takes a quick photograph and we can now see it on color for the first time in a century. AIDAN: What we've got here is what Carter saw when he got down to the bottom of this cleared stairway. This is a sealed wall, a wall which has been covered over with mud and then impressions have been made in it with oval seals, each of which contains an inscription and one of the things in that inscription was another oval called a cartouche, which is what an Egyptian king's name was written in.
NARRATOR: From the hieroglyphs in the cartouche, Carter reads the name of Tutankhamun. AIDAN: That confirmed a long-standing hunch, because one of the things he'd been saying to Carnarvon, "We know there must be another tomb which hasn't been found and of the options Tutankhamun seems to be the hottest one." He was able to stand in front of this wall and he could know he was right. NARRATOR: Carter's research had convinced him that the tomb was in the Valley of the Kings. But there's something he wasn't expecting.
The left side of the doorway looks like it's been broken and sealed up again. It's evidence the Tom has been entered before. In ancient times, tomb robbers probably broke in and the door was patched up afterward by the priests. Carter's team nervously breaks the door down. All they find is a passageway packed with more rubble. AIDAN: As they worked in through the rubble-filled corridor, it was clear that the robbers had certainly penetrated quite deep into the tomb. The question was exactly how far they'd gone and what damage they'd done at the other end. NARRATOR: On November 26th, they finally reach a second doorway.
Carter takes an iron rod and makes a small hole. "With trembling hands I inserted the candle and peered in. At first I could see nothing, the hot air escaping from the chamber, causing the candle to flicker. Presently details of the room emerged slowly from the mist, strange animals, statues and gold. Everywhere the glint of gold.
I was struck dumb with amazement and when Lord Carnarvon inquired anxiously, "Can you see anything?" it was all I could do to get out the words, "Yes, it is wonderful." No-one in modern times has seen inside an intact Pharaoh's tomb. The incredible experience is captured in fantastic detail with black and white photographs. Now with colorization we can see this extraordinary discovery just as Carter would have seen it.
On the left are four dismantled chariots, the most beautiful is covered in gold and inlaid with brightly colored glass and stone. It was likely driven by the king in formal processions. Through the pile of chariot parts, colorization reveals a wooden painted bust of Tutankhamun peeking through. On the wall in front of them, three gold covered ritual beds.
One is in the form of the mother goddess Taweret, with the head of a hippopotamus. Taweret protects the sleeper, the dead king, and assists in his re-birth in the next world. Another bears the head of a cow, the goddess Mehet-Weret. Many of the objects are connected to the king's death. Underneath the bed there's a pile of oddly shaped wooden boxes. They contain offerings of meat and poultry to sustain the king on his journey through the afterlife. There are unguent vessels, exquisitely carved from Egyptian alabaster.
Other objects were surely used by Tutankhamun during his life. Such as this child's chair in ebony, ivory and gold. To the right, a pair of life size wooden statutes, likenesses of Tutankhamun with golden headdresses. The black color of their skin is a symbol of fertility after the black soil of the Nile. At their feet, an intricately painted chest depicts battle scenes and Tutankhamun in the form of a Sphinx, trampling his enemies underfoot. Everywhere there are signs of the robbery, a knocked over chair, damage to the chariots. Luckily for Carter though, with the room still packed with treasures it seems the thieves were disturbed before they had a chance to finish their heist.
COUNTESS: It was extraordinary, all of them to look through and see what they saw, these extraordinary strange animals, the gold glinting everywhere and the sense that somebody had last stepped inside there 3,000 years earlier. AIDAN: Suddenly finding something which you never dreamt would be possible to find must have just blown his mind. NARRATOR: Carter now has to work out how to approach a massive and puzzling task. AIDAN: He'd found something really spectacular, but what was it? Because this isn't what you'd expect to find at this point in a royal tomb.
You'd normally expected a further corridor, more chambers and things. The objects here was designed for a tomb far larger. So initially he was wondering is this some kind of dumping ground for objects? NARRATOR: The find is already incredible, but if it's really a tomb there should be a mummy somewhere. Close inspection of the wall behind the wooden statutes reveals a discolored area made from mud plaster, it's stamped with more seals. It could be the entrance to the burial chamber of Tutankhamun.
NARRATOR: It's like nothing the world has ever seen, a few precious moments were caught on film of treasures emerging from Tutankhamun's tomb after 3,000 years. Now, for the first time we can transform these back into color. The child's chair, made of ebony, inlaid with ivory and gold appears under armed escort. Carter assembles a crack team to help him with conservation.
Among them archaeologist Arthur Mace and chemist, Alfred Lucas, here stabilizing the surface of a golden chariot. The change in atmosphere from the tomb to the desert air makes some objects crack, needing to be stabilized with paraffin wax. Here they clean one of the gold and black painted wooden statues of Tutankhamun, delicately removing dirt with an air puffer. Then the objects are carefully packed and loaded onto railway trucks. It takes 50 men to push the trucks by hand. The first leg on the long journey to Cairo.
HEBA: The journey would take nearly two days to arrive to the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. But what was interesting is how the journey of all the crates for the objects was followed by I would say a procession on the sides. Any of the Egyptians would see like the barge in the Nile, there were ladies who were mourning the death of the king as if he had a second funeral. NARRATOR: Carter's amazing discovery goes global.
JOHN: The discovery of the tomb comes at the perfect moment. The world has been involved in a massive global conflict and then hot on the heels of that conflict, we have a global pandemic which kills more than 50 million people. And then suddenly there is good news from the ancient world. It's exciting, it's engaging, it's thrilling and everyone can get on board with it. NARRATOR: Lord Carnarvon, Carter's backer, is besieged by reporters, hungry for details. COUNTESS: How do you deal with it?
You simply cannot manage, you know, with the press from America, from England, from South Africa, from Australia, from Japan. So he ended up choosing The Times. NARRATOR: Carnarvon quickly agrees an exclusive deal with The London Times. AIDAN: Which meant that all the rest of the press, and particularly the local press, felt they were being hard done by, they were being short changed. NARRATOR: As excitement about the tomb spreads across the world, Egypt becomes a major tourist destination for rich Westerners.
Many take home movies which we can now bring back to life with color. After a pleasant trip across the Mediterranean, they'd spend a few days in Cairo to take in the sights. They might even climb right to the top of the Pyramid of Khufu.
Then sail up the Nile to Luxor to visit the temples and other sites, such as the towering Colossi of Memnon. The climax is the bumpy ride to the Valley of the Kings. They join the crowds waiting around the newly-discovered tomb of Tutankhamun. If they're lucky they may see ancient treasures emerge from the tomb, perhaps even catch a glimpse of Howard Carter himself. It takes two months to clear the first room of some 700 objects.
Now Carter can investigate what lies behind the sealed wall. On February 16th, 1923, in front of assembled dignitaries, Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon knock it down. As the dust clears they see a dazzling screen of gold and blue, part of a shrine in a room with vividly painted walls. Now there's no doubt.
It is exactly what they dreamed of, the king's burial chamber. Carter makes his way around the shrine and discovers a gilded doorway but it is already open. Could the tomb robbers have removed the king's body after all? He tentatively looks inside. There is a second door, but its clay seal imprinted with the name of Tutankhamun is still in place. Carter himself describes what happens next in an early recording for the BBC.
NARRATOR: Breaking the seal reveals yet another shrine and another. In total there are four shrines, each within the next. NARRATOR: And leading off the burial chamber, Carter discovers another room. Guarding it is the jackal deity, Anubis, a god of mummification and the afterlife. Amongst the treasures that Anubis guards are boats for transport in the afterlife. And a row of beautifully decorated boxes.
Inside one they discover an exquisite bejeweled pendant necklace. To thank him for helping find the tomb, Carter allows one of his Egyptian team to try it on. HEBA: So, you've got here Hussein Abdel-Rasoul, the famous water boy of the discovery of King Tutankhamun tomb, wearing the pictorial pendant of the king himself and the pendant is quite heavy. This can explain the way his face looks a bit strained and he looks a bit tense, so maybe because of the heavy weight of the pendant.
NARRATOR: And we can now see that moment in color for the first time in a century. Revealing scarab beetles made of blue lapis lazuli, adorned by solar discs in gold and deep red carnelian. Every new discovery amazes the watching world. But before Carter can reach Tutankhamun's mummy tragedy strikes. NARRATOR: In April 1923, less than two months after the triumph of breaking into the burial chamber of Tutankhamun, Lord Carnarvon dies suddenly.
AIDAN: The death of Carnarvon was a tragedy for the whole process. He was bitten by a mosquito on the face and what he should have done was simply not shaved for a few days while it healed. COUNTESS: I think the stress and the pressure, he had no rest, that definitely compromised his health. He cut himself shaving, in a sense he was so tired and forgetful he forgot to put some iodine on it and, you know, it did in the end lead to his death. NARRATOR: The cut becomes infected, Carnarvon develops sepsis or blood poisoning and dies. For a hungry press, starved of information, this is irresistible.
JOHN: The curse almost certain comes from the exclusive deal with The Times of London, because we have journalists standing about outside the tomb with nothing to report and two of those journalists would appear to have developed this idea between them. And the curse is, "Death will come on swift wings for he who disturbs the tomb of the king." NARRATOR: The curse of Tutankhamun is totally made up, largely to sell newspapers. For years after every time one of Carter's team dies, it's blamed on the curse. For Carter, Carnarvon's death is a devastating personal blow. COUNTESS: Howard Carter, who, for a month more or less went into complete mourning, and he was not and never really had been best suited to the role of a diplomat, that was Lord Carnarvon.
Nor did he know all the Egyptians and the Ministers of State who Lord Carnarvon did know so that's where there was a little bit of difference. NARRATOR: All Carter can do is what he always does and get back to work. To reach Tutankhamun's mummy, his team first removes the entrance wall to the burial chamber, then carefully raises the gilded roof of each shrine and finally removes the surrounding gilded screens.
And now at last, Howard Carter can look inside the sarcophagus. NARRATOR: Carter now prepares for the climax of the excavation, the opening of the coffin itself. But before he can start, trouble is brewing. Ever since it was discovered, the tomb has attracted powerful elites from across the world. They want to see Carter's amazing discovery for themselves. In 1924 Egypt has a Nationalist Government. For its leaders, Tutankhamun is becoming an important
symbol of independent Egyptian power. HEBA: So, we got here one of the official visits to the site of the discovery, Tutankhamun. It also takes the shape of a massive Egyptian party, we see like the tent that is belt in it, this is a very Egyptian way. You would have it either for a funeral or for a wedding. NARRATOR: The famously moody Carter finds these constant visits and interference unbearable.
There is an argument with the authorities, Carter and his team walk out. Work on the tomb is suspended. It takes a year of diplomacy before Carter and his team are eventually invited back to finish their work and finally they hope come face-to-face with Tutankhamun. NARRATOR: At last in October 1925, after three years of excavating Tutankhamun's tomb, Howard Carter and his team begin to open the king's coffin.
Lifting its lid exposes another shroud. When Carter carefully peels that back, he discovers a second gilt coffin, even more magnificent. It has to be hoisted out of the first, revealing decorations of iridescent blue, green and red glass inlay.
And inside that, a third coffin. But this one is covered with a thick black perfumed resinous material. With hammering, chemical solvents and heat, Carter's team gradually cleans it. What this reveals is incredible. While the two outer coffins were crafted from wood and covered in gold, this one is made of solid gold. Winged goddesses protect the king,
who holds the crook and flail, symbols of royal power. It takes eight men to lift its lid to reveal the most incredible sight of all. Tutankhamun's mummy is covered in jewels and crowned with an exquisite mask of solid gold, glass and precious stones. AIDAN: And colorization really brings out something. There is this amazing helmet mask of solid gold, inlaid with glass.
There's this great scarab on its breast, there are gold hands, there are inlaid strips with magical formulae all over the whole thing. Nobody had ever seen this before. A pharaoh laid exactly as he had been by the priests 3,500 years ago. NARRATOR: The image of the gold mask shoots around the world, but nowhere is its impact greater than in Egypt itself. HEBA: This was a very highly emotional moment in Egypt. The discovery was used as re-assertion of the Egyptian identity and a proof of us being the descendants of the ancient Egyptians, which means that we're not supposed to be ruled by any foreigners.
This mean that Tutankhamun had to stay in Egypt and it were for the Egyptians. NARRATOR: As Carter struggles to remove the mask from the mummy, its beard becomes detached, revealing boyish looks and here we have an explanation of why his tomb is so small. This is not the tomb of an old ruler, the remains are of a teenage boy. Later research suggests he died age 19. There hadn't been time to finish an official tomb, so the jumbled objects and small tomb are explained.
It was quickly assembled for the untimely death of a young man. A century later the power of Tutankhamun is as strong as ever. It's thanks to these exquisite, personal and lavish treasures of his tomb, but also to Howard Carter who stopped at nothing in his quest to make this unique discovery. Captioned by SubTitlePro LLC
