archaeological treasures on the planet.

WOMAN: Oh, that's a fabulous one.

NARRATOR: Beneath this desert landscape lie the secrets of this ancient civilization.

JOHN: Wow, can you see why the Pharaoh's chose this place?

NARRATOR: Now for a full season of excavations, our cameras have been given

unprecedented access to follow teams on the frontline of archaeology.

MAN: I'm driving so fast because I'm so excited!

WOMAN: It's an entrance, we can see an entrance!

NARRATOR: Revealing buried secrets.

MAN: I have just been told that they have found something.

Oh my gosh!

JOHN: A sphinx!

NARRATOR: And making discoveries that could rewrite ancient history.

This time, new secrets of the boy king, Tutankhamun.

Alia uses pioneering technology to reveal startling new evidence about his tomb,

and why it remained hidden for 3,000 years.

ALIAA: A lot of robberies were going on, how was it not found?

NARRATOR: Eissa's team discovers a long-lost cache of King Tutankhamun's treasures.

NARRATOR: And Alejandro discovers extraordinary burial treasures in a

4,000 year-old tomb.

ALEJANDRO: Congratulations!

NARRATOR: The Valley of the Kings, 3,500 years ago,

the Great Pharaohs stopped building pyramids as their tombs.

They chose these secluded cliffs to become their cemetery.

Today, archaeologists come from all over the world to unlock the mysteries still

hidden in this City of the Dead.

It's the first day in the Valley for Cairo born Egyptologist

Aliaa Ismail and her team.

ALIAA: There's a real buzz in this place.

People are coming from all over the world, coming to the Valley, it's amazing.

I'm so proud to have such ancestry.

It's one of the most famous necropolises in the world and I think what

is special is that it comes out of nowhere.

NARRATOR: Over 300 miles south of Cairo, in the heart of Egypt,

lie the limestone cliffs of the Valley of the Kings.

After 200 years of excavation,

archaeologists have located sixty-five tombs hidden among the rocks.

But only one has ever been found with its treasure still inside,

it belonged to the Pharaoh, Tutankhamun.

ALIAA: This here is number 62, Tutankhamun.

One of those great finds of the century.

NARRATOR: British explorer Howard Carter discovered Tutankhamun's

tomb in 1922.

One of his teams spotted steps leading down through the sand.

They led to the tomb entrance, buried beneath feet of rubble and debris.

What Carter found inside inspired archaeologists for generations to come.

Deep inside the mountains,

amid a maze of tunnels that bore deep through the rock,

Carter reached the tomb of Tutankhamun hidden right in the center of the Valley.

Inside, he found treasures unlike anything ever seen before.

Over 5,000 priceless artifacts including golden statues.

In the burial chamber the Pharaoh's mummy, wearing a golden death mask,

was placed inside a coffin made of more than 200 pounds of solid gold.

This intact tomb made Tutankhamun the most famous of the Pharaohs.

Now Aliaa is investing this golden Pharaoh's life.

ALIAA: Wow.

NARRATOR: And why his tomb remained hidden for so long.

Aliaa's team has been scanning and documenting the tomb for the last ten years,

and they've made a remarkable discovery.

ALIAA: The idea here is to understand what's going on when you look at

the data void of color.

NARRATOR: The scans strip away the paint on the walls to reveal unusual markings.

ALIAA: This was the main scene, and here is the 3D of the North Wall.

So, as you can see here, the silhouette of an image and this would have

been done while they were painting.

NARRATOR: The images show the indented outline of the face hidden below.

It's caused by the tip of the paintbrush if you start painting when

the plaster is still wet.

ALIAA: This is why the brushes would have made a very light impression and

this allows us to understand it was rushed.

NARRATOR: But why would the tomb builders rush such an important job?

The pictures on the wall reveal another set of clues.

Despite becoming the most famous Pharaoh of Ancient Egypt,

Tutankhamun did not have a lengthy reign.

He was only a nine-year-old boy when he became King,

and relied on trusted advisors to help rule his vast empire.

As Tutankhamun grew older,

he was known to portray himself as a warrior king,

riding into battle on a chariot.

But the boy King suffered from multiple illnesses, including Malaria.

He was only nineteen-years-old when he unexpectantly died.

(speaking in Arabic).

NARRATOR: Aliaa thinks the marks her scans reveal in the plaster are evidence

of a hurried burial due to Tutankhamun's sudden death.

ALIAA: The decorated part of the tomb is very small, it's only the burial chamber.

The rest of the tomb is not decorated.

If they had more time, all of this was going to be decorated.

NARRATOR: While the tomb's construction may have been rushed, its treasures were

everything a Pharaoh could desire to take him into the afterlife.

So why did this tomb lay hidden below a layer of rock for thousands of years when

all the other tombs in the Valley were looted?

To solve this mystery, Aliaa will turn to new technology as she moves her

investigation out into the Valley.

300 miles north, in Giza,

in the shadow of the pyramids, the biggest treasure haul in history

is getting a new home, a one-billion-dollar museum and research center.

When completed, the Grand Egyptian Museum will reunite all of Tutankhamun's treasures

in one place, for the first time in 100 years.

TAREK: Having all of the pieces from the tomb of Tutankhamun together

in one place, this will be a fantastic chance to find new facts,

new hidden things about Tutankhamun.

NARRATOR: After Carter removed the treasures from Tut's tomb,

they ended up in museums around Egypt.

Now, for the first time, scientists and Egyptologists will use modern

technology to analyze each object.

TAREK: Some details reappear and give us new information about these antiquities.

NARRATOR: But some of Tut's greatest treasures are yet to arrive.

300 miles south in the Luxor Museum, Eissa Zidan is preparing 122 of these

priceless artifacts for the move to Giza.

NARRATOR: Eissa's packing list includes one of Tut's famous chariots,

intricate model boats and

a unique head of the cow Goddess, Hathor, elaborately gilded with gold.

(speaking in Arabic).

NARRATOR: After just four hours, Eissa's packing suddenly comes to a halt.

One of his teams has discovered something completely unexpected

in the storeroom.

It's an antique box that Howard Carter used to pack and transport Tutankhamun's

treasures out of the tomb.

NARRATOR: The box has been missing, presumed lost, for decades,

and no one knows what treasures it may hold.

120 miles south of the Valley of the Kings, near Aswan,

a Spanish Research Team from Jaen University

is hoping to follow in Carter's footsteps and make new

discoveries that could rewrite history.

(speaking in Arabic).

Professor Alejandro Jimenez-Serrano heads the largest foreign team

working in Egypt.

Today is the first day of the dig season.

ALEJANDRO: Sorry for the mess.

We are sharing the room, three researchers of the team.

This is my, my bed, supposedly the best one.

(laughs).

Sorry.

(coughs).

It's amazing to get up and the first thing that you see apart from the ugly face

of your roommates is the Qubbet el-Hawa, the hill.

NARRATOR: Qubbet el-Hawa is one of the largest ancient burial sites in Egypt.

So far, 100 tombs have been discovered here.

They belong to the nobles who governed Egypt hundreds of years before

the Pharaoh's buried in the Valley of the Kings.

(speaking in Arabic).

Alejandro's mission is to hunt for more unopened tombs and reveal more

about these early Egyptians.

ALEJANDRO: It's difficult to explain how I feel.

Not only nervous, it's exciting, it's a mix of feelings.

It's an honor to...

to come every year.

Now here comes the most difficult part of the day,

to climb the hill.

NARRATOR: This is the team's tenth year digging here.

WOMAN: It's so nice to be here again.

(laughs).

NARRATOR: There's a reason why everyone is excited to be back.

Last year, Alejandro found the entranced to a sealed tomb,

but his permit expired before he could explore inside.

ALEJANDRO: Today is 40 degrees, and working underneath the sun,

today's gonna be tough.

NARRATOR: To protect against modern day tomb-robbers,

they put a steel security door to block the entrance

of the vertical shaft that leads to the sealed burial chamber.

ALEJANDRO: Well it has been one-year waiting, one-year imagining the possibilities.

I'm very excited.

NARRATOR: In Luxor, Eissa's team packs Tutankhamun's treasures for the move

to the Grand Egyptian Museum in Giza.

But in the storeroom,

Eissa is ready to open Carter's long-lost box to discover

what's inside.

NARRATOR: The team gathers around to see if the box really does contain priceless

treasures from Tutankhamun's tomb.

MOHAMMAD: Ah.

(laughter)

MAN: Fantastic. MOHAMMAD: It's amazing.

NARRATOR: These delicate wooden pieces are ancient boat parts.

NARRATOR: Storeroom records suggest they could be missing from a model boat

Howard Carter found in Tutankhamun's tomb.

NARRATOR: According to ancient Egyptian belief,

boats played a key role after death.

So, placing model boats into tombs was a vital part of any burial.

The vessels also came complete with crew because it was believed the replicas

would come to life and help with fishing and transport in the underworld.

The Pharaohs used a special vessel to sail across the sky for eternity.

Ordinary people also thought they could reach the afterlife by boat,

rowing on the Nile and into the next world.

MOHAMMAD: You can see here the date of the newspaper,

it's Sunday 5th of November, 1933.

NARRATOR: To discover where these pieces came from,

Mohammad inspects Carter's original inventory.

NARRATOR: Records show that the box was sent to Luxor in 1973

but had gone missing, presumed lost or stolen.

NARRATOR: Eissa thinks the rest of the boat is safe in the new Cairo lab,

so they may finally be able to reunite it.

To transport the treasures to Giza,

Eissa's team must traverse 400 miles of barren desert roads

and crowded city streets before they reach the safety of the new museum.

It will take two trucks to transport all 122 of the artifacts to Giza.

EISSA: This a very, very big moment for the collection,

this is the final trip of Tutankhamun.

NARRATOR: But with such priceless relics on board,

there's concern the convoy could be a target for a hijacking.

EISSA: We have a good police and good army.

They will follow us during moving from Luxor until arrive to Cairo.

NARRATOR: With security in place, it's time to roll.

They now face a grueling twelve-hour journey through the desert to

reach Giza before nightfall.

Ever since Carter's discovery of Tutankhamun's priceless golden treasures,

archaeologists have continued to try and figure out where and how the

ancient Egyptians found vast quantities of gold.

Fifty-miles south of the Valley of the Kings,

on the edge of the Eastern Desert,

French gold expert Thomas Faucher and archaeologist John Ward are

on the hunt for the origins of Tutankhamun's gold.

THOMAS: So, I'm going to...

JOHN: What are you waiting for, a traffic signal?

NARRATOR: The Eastern Desert covers 85,000 square-miles of remote barren wilderness.

Some of the rock here contains tiny grains of gold locked inside.

Thomas has studied ancient gold mining techniques for seven years.

Now he wants to see if he can find any evidence of it.

But this part of the desert is a risky place to be.

THOMAS: The thing is we need to leave before dark because it's not safe if we are

staying there because we can lose our way, we can have an accident and

it's also at the sunset that all the snakes are going out.

JOHN: Snakes?

THOMAS: Yeah, vipers.

JOHN: No one told me about...

THOMAS: There are horrid vipers, yeah.

NARRATOR: The first stop, an ancient well.

It could provide clues to the location of mining communities during

the time of Tutankhamun.

THOMAS: This is the well just right in front of us here.

JOHN: It's dry.

My God, that's a long way down.

NARRATOR: The well might be dry today, but it was so important to

the ancient Egyptians, they built a temple to honor it.

JOHN: It's beautiful isn't it?

They actually applied a plaster gyp ceiling and then applied the paint.

Amazing.

NARRATOR: The text engraved on these walls reveals clues about the

gold miners and where they were heading.

Ancient engineers built a network of wells and rest stops stretching all the way

across the desert, each a day's walk from the last,

enabling travelers and miners

to safely cross and explore the barren desert.

The temple carvings indicate these wells led toward the mines.

Thomas hopes he will be able to find some evidence of the people

behind Tutankhamun's goldmining operations.

THOMAS: Now it's time to go deeper East...