National Geographic: Egypt - Quest for Eternity Page #4

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the royal tombs were systematically

plundered

As a last resort, priests collected

the surviving royal mummies

and hid them

In 1871, a grave robber

found Ramses II

where he had lain undisturbed

for 3,000 years

Reclaimed by the Egyptian Government

the mummy of Ramses now reposes

in the cairo museum

far from the Valley of the kings

This is the West Valley

It's part of the ancient necropolis

of Thebes

about nine square miles of some of

the most important

archaeological monuments anywhere

in the world

The Valley of the Queens, Valley

of the kings

Tutankhamun's tomb, they're all here

But in spite of several centuries of

interest in this area

there still does not exist a detailed

archaeological map of

what it contains

That's the purpose of the Berkeley

Theban Mapping Project

to make as detailed

an archaeological map

as modern technology will permit

It's an important project

It's going to make it possible

for us to study the history of

the necropolis

But even more important

it's going to help us to preserve

it and protect it

surveying techniques are used to

measure topographical features

...1.303

Thank you.

At headquarters in a village below

the necropolis

the team reviews its findings

It's okay

can you see "Q2" there above the

temple at Deir el Medina?

Aerial photographs are utilized

to plan tomb mapping

for the next day in the Valley

of the Queens

Right above the temple...

Yeah, right there...

Okay, that's the point we'll occupy

tomorrow morning

When surface measurements are combined

with plans of the tombs

they will create new and revolutionary

three-dimensional maps

These will make it easier to find

correlations

between the geography and the location

of the known tombs

and perhaps enable scientists to

find tombs still undiscovered

Let's drop everything here, Dave

and then we can send it on down

Why don't you and Jenny go on down

We'll start passing stuff to you

Dave, why don't you choose what we

have to take down

and we'll leave the rest up here

I get the lantern, not you

Let's finish that rear chamber today

if we can, Dave

I think we can. It looks like a

steep set of stairs

Yeah. Watch your step

It isn't really.

I got it

Okay.

Standard surveying techniques are used to

obtain the dimensions of each chamber

Every archaeological detail will

be drawn and recorded

I think that's about it, cathy

Did you get those problems in

the back chamber?

It was customary to place the tombs

of royal children

in the Valley of the Queens

This is the tomb of a young prince

son of Ramses III.

Here, the pharaoh himself offers

incense to the gods

on the boy's behalf

In these touching scenes

the pharaoh leads his nine-year-old son

into the presence of the divinities

of the underworld

carrying the feather of truth,

the boy obediently follows his father.

It is believed the ancient sculptors

and painters lit the interiors of

tombs and temples

with polished metal reflectors

used as mirrors.

And these scenes were filmed under

the same conditions.

This is the tomb of Nefertari

Though Ramses had at least

four royal wives

she remained his favorite

Due to humidity caused by increased

irrigation in nearby farmland

the exquisite murals of her tomb

are flaking off

Unless scientists can halt

the deterioration

these may be the last moments of

what was imagined

as the endless ages in which Nefertari

would live on these walls

This was the woman with

who Ramses believed he would go

through eternity...

to whom these words were written

"The princess, rich in grace

Lady of affection, sweet with love

mistress of the Two Lands

songstress of the beautiful countenance

Greatest in the harem of the lord

of the palace

All that you say, will be done

for you

Everything beautiful according

to your wish

All your words bring contentment

to the face

Wherefore men love to hear your voice."

These tributes speak to us of love

and hope

a people and a civilization

that soared brilliantly

and then was eclipsed

Here at the temple of Isis,

built on an island in the Nile

the religion of ancient Egypt had

its last stronghold

After 332 B.c., the Greek Ptolemies

would reign

as the last dynasty of pharaohs

Embracing the Egyptian religion

they built this temple dedicated

to the worship of Isis

divine symbol of motherhood

her husband Osiris,

and their son Horus

There stories are told and retold

on the temple walls

But the story of another holy family

was to sweep over Egypt

The carvings, now considered pagan

were chiseled away

christianity became

the state religion

and in the sixth century

this temple became a christian church

The meaning of the hieroglyphs

would be forgotten

the ancient rites forbidden

For 12 centuries

the story of Egypt's

ancient civilization

would be lost

In 640, Islam and the teachings

of Mohammed

swept over the country

A succession of foreigners was

to rule until 1952

when revolution restored

full independence to Egypt

after 2,000 years

cairo is the African continent's

largest city

Vexed by 20th-century problems

of explosive growth

pollution, economic and political

difficulties

cairo, like Egypt itself

survives through the resilience

humor and vigor of its people

Facing an expanding population

and an emerging nation's need

for energy

the Aswan High Dam was built

in the 1960s

With 17 times the material contained

in the Great Pyramid

the dam is a monument to

the new nationalism

and what some would call the

Behind the dam, Nubia was flooded

much of this ancient land disappeared

beneath the rising waters

of the Nile

And at Abu simbel

a magnificent temple hewn

from a sandstone monolith

the newly-forming lake licked

at the feet of these colossal

images of Ramses II

A concerned world realized

that the temple would soon

be engulfed

How could it

and the temple of Nefertari

which flanked it, be saved?

At the 11th hour with funding

from Egypt

the United states, and UNEscO

an international team swung

into action

racing the rising Nile

slab by slab

in cuts no more than a quarter

of an inch thick

the temple was dismantled

The work continued night and day

as workmen cut 190 feet down

through the cliffs

coded for storage

the sections made a giant

jigsaw puzzle

Moved up 200 feet beyond the

reach of the Nile

the temple was reassembled

The precision of watchmakers was

applied to the colossi

reconstructed to an accuracy of

a tenth of an inch

Ramses' temple was designed by

ancient priest-astronomers

so that

the sun would penetrate deep

within to bless a figure of the

pharaoh on the jubilee

that celebrated 30 years of

his reign

In our time, engineers have

resituated the temple

so that the sun still streams

in on the pharaoh

on each anniversary of that day

Gilding the statue of the king

seated among the gods

the sun god Re bathes the figures

in sacred light

Why have people come here since the

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