20x04 - Decoding Hieroglyphics

[bunniefuu]

♪♪

♪♪

-Egypt, land of countless
ancient treasures

found inside its pyramids
and temples.

The walls of these monuments
are covered

with mysterious inscriptions

left by ancient Egyptians --
hieroglyphics.

-Hieroglyphs
are perhaps a writing

that has been used
for the longest time

in the history of the world.

Because they were used
for well over 3,000 years.

-200 years ago, French scholar
Jean-François Champollion

deciphered the inscriptions,
giving meaning to the signs

that had been unreadable
for more than a millennium.

And with his work,

an entire civilization
buried in the desert sand

was brought back to life.

Today, new research
is focused on the people

who wrote these hieroglyphs --

a literate elite
employed by the pharaohs.

They were priests, scribes,
painters, engravers,

and builders of tombs.

In the south of Egypt,

scientists are studying a palace
filled with hieroglyphics,

the only tomb built for
a non-royal in the necropolis

and the largest in all of Egypt.

-How was this man able to build
this incredible monument?

-Egyptologists have battled
the stifling heat

to reach the darkest depths
of the tomb

and unlock the secrets
of the ancient inscriptions.

♪♪

♪♪

-"Secrets of the Dead"
was made possible in part

by contributions to your PBS
station from viewers like you.

Thank you.

♪♪

-Along the Nile, 400 miles

from the ancient political
capital of Memphis --

Cairo, today --
lies Thebes, modern-day Luxor.

Here, on the west bank,

pharaohs constructed
sumptuous tombs.

The vast necropolis includes
at least a dozen

ancient funerary temples
and burial sites

belonging to royalty,
including Queen Hatshepsut.

Surprisingly,
Egyptologists have found

that the largest tomb
at the site --

and in the country --
wasn't built for a pharaoh,

despite its immense size.

Archeologists
have named it "TT33,"

for "Theban tomb 33,"

and they hope
to make new discoveries

by translating
the monument's hieroglyphics.

♪♪

Professor Claude Traunecker

has been studying TT33 for the
past 17 years, under the aegis

of the French Institute of
Oriental Archaeology in Cairo.

He is joined by Silvia Einaudi
and Isabelle Régen,

two Egyptologists
and renowned epigraphists,

whose job it is to copy,
translate,

and interpret the texts.

On this trip,
they have only four weeks

to exhume the latest treasures

and safeguard the thousands of
texts carved into the walls...

[ Conversing
in native language ]

♪♪

...of a tomb
well-known to the adventurers

who risked their lives
exploring it.

-[ Speaking French ]

-Lots of people visited it
as the region's great curiosity,

with its legend of being
a cursed and dangerous tomb.

There were very large
colonies of bats here.

And when people came in,
the bats would fly out,

causing accidents.

People only had candlelight,

so a number of them fell down
the shaft of Room XII

when the wind from the bats'
wings blew out their candles.

-But who did this imposing
and mysterious tomb belong to?

-Pa-di-imen-ipet.

Padiamenope.

-Padiamenope.

-[ Speaking French ]

-In the first two passageways,

there's always an image
of Padiamenope,

looking towards the entrance
to the tomb

as if he were greeting visitors.

-His name and image
appear all over the walls.

There can be no doubt --
this is his final resting place.

For almost a century,

exploration of the tomb
stopped at Room III

because archaeologists
built a wall

at the entrance to Room IV
to shut in the bats.

-[ Speaking French ]

-There's a nice little article
by Maspero that says,

"We walled in Padiamenope's tomb
because of the bats.

I hope that when it's reopened,

we'll finally find out
who Padiamenope was."

And I made use of this text
to have the tomb opened again.

-In December 2005,

after Traunecker
obtained authorization

to break down the wall
and access the rest of the tomb,

he entered a space that had
been closed for a century.

The decomposed bodies
of millions of bats

had saturated the air with
ammonia, making it unbreathable.

The floor and walls
were badly degraded,

but when the professor
looked more closely,

he realized he'd discovered
a priceless treasure.

-[ Speaking French ]

-It was a revelation!

Especially this word of greeting
that I discovered.

I remember, when I saw it,
I had tears in my eyes.

An appeal to the living.

"O, you who are on earth,

those who are born..."

This marks the future --
"Er-mes-tu."

"...and those who will be born."

It's quite incredible!

And it interestingly
goes on to address

"Those who come to stroll."

Coming to the necropolis
for a stroll -- not bad!

"Those who come to have fun
looking at ancient tombs."

This dates from
the 7th century BCE,

so there had already been 2,000
years of tombs before then!

"Or those who come looking
for spells."

That's us.
That's us.

When I read that, I must admit,
I was moved to tears.

"Those looking for spells."

And he goes on.

"May they observe
what is in this tomb."

And then there's a blessing --

"They will receive the blessing
of the god Amun

if they respect this tomb."

And finally, he asks us
to "repair whatever is damaged."

It's a very daring,
direct message.

♪♪

-The carvings on the walls
of Padiamenope's tomb

ask future visitors
to keep it in good condition.

Einaudi and Régen
have spent 10 years

investigating the tomb,
studying the walls,

and wandering the maze
of corridors

that leads
to the burial chamber.

Ultimately, their goal
is to find answers

to the many questions

that still surround
the figure of Padiamenope

and create a clearer picture

of who this scribe
and priest was.

They have already established

that the architectural style
of the tomb

places its construction
at around 700 BCE.

To learn more, they must capture
3-D images of the entire site,

360 degrees around.

-[ Speaking French ]

-We're about to start
the photogrammetry phase,

where we'll align the images
and a cloud of dots.

The images will be aligned
by the photogrammetry software.

It involves the recognition
of counterpart pixels

between each image.

Then we go on to the second
phase, which is meshing.

Here, the software picks up
the millions of dots

and joins them all together
with little triangles.

And that gives the volume
to the model.

♪♪

So we're really moving
from 2-D to 3-D.

Once we've composed the model,
we go on to the last step --

compositing.

-[ Speaking French ]

-We'll decide on
the camera movement

and then the lighting
and lighting moods...

...and finally the rendering
of the tomb itself.

Here, the camera
is on the outside,

and it allows us to see the
exterior volumes of the tomb,

with all its architecture
and depth.

In the other scenario,
we're on a virtual visit,

with the camera inside the tomb.

Here we're in Room I, as it is
today, in a degraded state.

These two camera features
are quite complementary

because they'll allow us
to work out

how we're going to work
in the tomb.

♪♪

-For the first time, the vast
maze within TT33 is visible --

22 rooms, countless corridors,
and linked galleries...

...all spread
across three levels

buried more than 65 feet
beneath the desert sands.

28,000 square feet
of decorated walls,

every single one of them
covered in hieroglyphs.

The archaeologists face
an immense challenge --

decoding the carvings
that have been ravaged by time,

earthquakes, looters,
and the environment.

But translating the inscriptions
on the walls

will shed new light
on the tomb's enigmatic owner.

With a resting place
larger and grander

than that of the pharaohs,

Padiamenope was clearly
an important member

of Egyptian society.

What kind of power did he wield?

-[ Speaking French ]

-Here we see his main title --

"Rehrireb" and "Rehritep,"

which mean "lector-priest"
and "chief,

or "lector-priest"
and "master of ceremonies".

Padiamenope
must have been someone

who knew ancient Egypt's
religious history very well,

along with the religious texts.

-[ Speaking French ]

-He was the intermediary
between, let's say,

those who worked in the library,
who devised the rites,

who thought,
who catalogued the papyri,

before going out
before the crowd

to conduct religious ceremonies.

You could say he was the link
between religious theory

and religious practice.

And with what aim?

To appease the Egyptian people.

Because the Egyptians
were so fearful.

You didn't build things
like this

without having a fear of death!

-A statue of Padiamenope
in the Cairo Museum

portrays him as a scribe,

someone who belonged
to the literate elite

that held significant power
over the rest of the population,

which couldn't read or write.

The Louvre Museum in Paris
is home to the "Seated Scribe,"

a statue of a seated man
holding a papyrus scroll

as a guardian of sacred
knowledge, like all scribes.

-Egypt was governed
by a literate elite,

which we call "scribes,"
because they knew how to write.

This ability to write
distinguished them from others.

The scribe's main job
was to keep the accounts

and write letters,
basically administrative tasks.

The more cultured among them
wrote literature --

because there was
an Egyptian literature

in the modern sense
of the term --

while others ran libraries.

♪♪

Basically, hieroglyphs read
from right to left.

To understand which way
to read them,

you simply take
a pictorial hieroglyph --

for example, a quail chick.

It's looking to the left,

which means you read
from left to right

and downwards in a column.

In another inscription,
it could be the opposite.

For example, around a door
or a niche, there might be,

on the left-hand side
of the door,

signs that show right to left,
or vice versa.

It's monumental writing
which goes very well

with architecture.

-It is a complex and
sophisticated writing system.

The oldest examples
of hieroglyphics

date to around 3200 BCE,

and, based on
archaeological evidence,

the pictorial carvings were used
for nearly 3,500 years.

Use of these symbols
slowly faded

as the Roman Empire
took control of ancient Egypt.

When the Romans officially
adopted Christianity

at the end of the 4th century,

the use of hieroglyphics
died out.

In the year 380, the emperor
Theodosius issued a decree

effectively prohibiting
all pagan worship.

Hieroglyphics were central
to the Egyptians' religion,

and once the religion
was banned,

the need for a literate elite
quickly ended,

leaving the 3,000-year-old
writing system

to be buried in the sand
for the next 1,400 years.

But in 1798,

General Napoleon Bonaparte
landed in Egypt.

He and his troops were there to
protect French trade interests,

but they were accompanied

by a contingent of scientists
and scholars

sent to study the history
and geography of the country.

And in 1799, in the small
northern town of Rosetta,

a soldier made
a crucial discovery

that would unlock
the mysterious inscriptions

found on ancient walls
and objects.

Lieutenant
Pierre François Xavier Bouchard

found a stele dating
from the 2nd century BCE,

carved with a decree
from King Ptolemy V.

The text was written
in three different scripts,

hieroglyphic,
Egyptian demotic --

a simplified cursive version
of hieroglyphs --

and ancient Greek.

-Before we could
read hieroglyphs,

looking at these monuments
was a mystery,

and that's why there's
so much esoterica

that this has generated,

with people thinking
that these are all symbols,

that they don't
have sound values,

so you could look
at these monuments

and not really
understand things,

until Champollion came
and unlocked this key,

this mystery.

You can see this cartouche,
which is this oval thing,

which held the name of the king,
and here you can see

"Pe-to-we-le-miis," Ptolemy.

So this is the name of Ptolemy,

and, of course, this is
one of the crucial names

that we have in Egyptology
not because of his importance,

but because his name
was on the Rosetta stone

and this was the first name
to be deciphered.

♪♪

-Two decades later, linguist
Jean-François Champollion

began a new project --
deciphering hieroglyphics.

♪♪

As a scholar of ancient Greek,

he was able to read
the name Ptolemy --

"Ptolmaios" in Greek --
on the Rosetta stone.

He then identified
the corresponding cartouche

with the name
written in hieroglyphics.

That allowed him to write
the seven letters --

P-T-O-L-M-Y-S --

opposite the seven hieroglyphs.

He was able to read
the cartouche of Queen Cleopatra

by isolating the three symbols
for L-O-P,

already identified
in the Ptolemy cartouche.

And then he matched
the missing letters

with the six
unidentified hieroglyphs

by comparing them to an obelisk
inscribed with the queen's name

in both hieroglyphics
and ancient Greek.

♪♪

The cartouches contained
the phonetic transcriptions

of Greek names,

but what could he do
with the names of the pharaohs

that ruled before
Greek colonization?

And that's where Champollion's
genius came into play.

♪♪

The young scholar
was a language enthusiast.

At just 13, he studied Hebrew,
Arabic, Syriac, and Aramaic.

As an adult, he began to wonder
if learning Coptic --

a late form
of ancient Egyptian --

would help him understand
the hieroglyphics.

♪♪

-[ Speaking French ]

-At the beginning of our era,

the Egyptians abandoned
the hieroglyphic system

and transcribed their language
using the Greek alphabet.

That's what we call Coptic.

Coptic language and writing
would then endure

in the liturgical texts
of Coptic Orthodox Christians.

In the 19th century, Champollion
could read and write Coptic,

and he relied on this continuity

between the language transcribed
by hieroglyphs and Coptic texts

to unlock the secret
of hieroglyphs.

-With his understanding
of Coptic,

Champollion was able
to translate a new cartouche,

in which he could identify
the letter "S."

And the first hieroglyph
of the name seemed to be a sun,

which in Coptic
is pronounced "Ra."

He was just missing
the hieroglyph in the middle.

He thought the name
might be Rameses,

one of the greatest pharaohs,
whose memory lived on

despite the disappearance
of hieroglyphics.

Champollion immediately turned
to another cartouche,

which began with an image
of an ibis,

symbolizing the god Thoth.

If his theory about Rameses
was correct,

the second symbol
was perhaps an "M."

And the last sign he knew --
the "S."

So "Thot-m-s"?

Thutmose, another famous pharaoh
mentioned in Greek texts.

Champollion had done it.

He had cracked
the hieroglyphic code.

And he understood
that the writing

was both figurative
and phonetic.

It would now be possible to
study ancient Egyptian society

at a much deeper level.

♪♪

[ Indistinct conversations ]

200 years later,

the heirs of Champollion's
discoveries continue his work.

-And just before,
you have the two points.

-The extensive inscriptions on
the walls of Padiamenope's tomb

are now considered
primary funerary texts,

collections of incantations

to help the deceased
in the afterlife.

Padiamenope left behind
much more than a tomb.

He created a library
of hieroglyphic texts,

unique in Egypt.

The texts reveal
the civilization myths

of ancient Egypt,

describing how the society
viewed the world.

They believed Ra, the sun god,

fought off evil creatures

who wanted to keep him
a prisoner of the night.

During this expedition,
Isabelle Régen is determined

to decipher the rest
of the sacred text.

-[ Speaking French ]

-Here is the first hour
of the Book of Amduat.

The sun has just set.

It's gone into
the depths of the earth.

In his night-boat, with Iuf --

the nocturnal form of the sun
with his ram's head.

And before him,
kneeling in adoration,

is Padiamenope, whose title
and name are indicated here.

The sun god's night-boat
has an entire crew

to help him safely
reach the hour

when he'll rise
at the end of the night.

-It seems that,
on the walls of his tomb,

Padiamenope inserted himself
into the story of Ra,

placing himself
in the deity's boat.

-[ Speaking French ]

-As the hours go by,
there are various events.

Padiamenope
is actively involved,

hauling the sun god's boat,
harpooning Apophis,

the serpent that tries to stop
the boat from progressing.

He's very actively involved
in the journey

and even performs
a ritual dance for the sun god.

-According to the text,
if during the night

Padiamenope is unable to bring
the sun god's boat home safely,

the sun will not rise,
and the world will end.

And so, every morning,
when the sun reappears,

all living beings bow down
before the sun god

to celebrate his victory,
that of life over death.

-[ Speaking French ]

-Padiamenope's version
is very original.

Into the sacred text, he inserts
his own name and title.

So there's the presence
of the man of letters

but also the desire
to promote himself.

-According to a tradition
dating back to the Old Kingdom,

it's the pharaoh who is
typically seen in the boat,

kneeling before Ra.

So why has Padiamenope
taken the pharaoh's place?

Pride?

Or devotion?

Isabelle Régen's work
provides the answer.

He replaces the pharaoh
as defender of Ra

to ensure that, after his death,

he will rise every day
with the sun --

a way of guaranteeing eternal
life in the Land of the Dead.

But having the protection
of the sun god wasn't enough.

He also wanted to earn the favor
of Osiris, the god of the dead.

-[ Speaking French ]

-We're in Room IX of the tomb,

which has two walls dedicated

to the famous
"Weighing of the Heart."

-Here, too, Padiamenope
plays a key role

in one of
the most important parts

of the Egyptian
Book of the Dead.

Anubis, who guides dead souls
in the afterlife,

puts a feather
on one side of a scale

and then places the deceased's
heart on the other.

For the deceased to continue on
into the afterlife,

their heart must be
as light as the feather --

proof that they have committed
no evil deeds.

Thoth, the god of wisdom
and writing,

notes the result of the weighing
on his tablet.

If the scale does not balance,
indicating the soul is impure,

Ammit, the devourer of the dead,
lies in wait to eat the heart.

And when that happened,

the deceased could not continue
living in the afterlife.

The whole scene takes place
before Osiris,

who oversees
this divine tribunal.

He will decide whether
the deceased is pure

or if he dies forever.

Why does Padiamenope show
such devotion to Osiris?

Was he trying to win
the god's favor?

♪♪

Egyptologists have a theory
about why Padiamenope's name

appears on the walls of his tomb
dozens of times.

Ancient Egyptians
believed hieroglyphics

possessed an important property.

They helped ensure eternal life.

As long as visitors to the tomb
read his name,

Padiamenope would be assured
of his place in the afterlife.

-For the ancient Egyptians, the
word was incredibly powerful.

Words are magical.

If you write something down,
it has power,

and once you say it,
it gives it even more power.

It ritualizes the whole thing,

and so it's the same way
than in any magic,

even today,
no matter where you are.

If you give someone a name,
they have power over you.

So words have power,

and one of the creation myths
of the ancient Egyptians

was the god would think

and then he would speak
and it would come into being.

-For Egyptians,
the act of preservation,

be it in writing a text
or embalming a body,

was a critical practice

to ensure their place
in the afterlife.

♪♪

-[ Speaking French ]

-To dig and decorate a tomb
of such a size

must have taken a good
20 years, if not more.

And, certainly,
in terrible conditions.

We know there were several crews

working on the tombs
at the same time.

When the excavators were working
in the deepest sections,

scribes and craftsmen
had already begun

decorating the first rooms,
which were finished.

-Who were these builders
and craftsmen

who dug and decorated the tombs?

The knowledge and training

that made Padiamenope's tomb
so dazzling

can be traced back
eight centuries

to a unique archaeological site
not far from TT33.

♪♪

It's a village where the men
who worked on royal tombs lived

and learned how to create
the intricate, inscribed texts.

-Here we are at Deir el-Medina,

which is one of the most
important places in Egypt.

It's the workmen's village,
and these are the people

who decorated
the tombs of the kings

and the Valley of the Queens,

and here, this is
in the west bank of Thebes,

where the Valley of the Queens,

which they also decorated,
is there.

The Valley of the Kings
is just over there,

and also the nobles' tombs

and the temples
are very close by.

You can see different degrees
of specialization,

and that's, of course,
because people

were always learning the craft.

So the fathers would be teaching
their children

but probably also
the priest would help

in terms of the reading
and the writing,

but you can see
with the ostracon

where people are clumsily
writing out their hieroglyphs

like their baby ABCs,

and then they get
very confident.

-The village was built
at the time of Thutmose I,

more than 3,500 years ago.

The workmen would leave
the village

at the beginning of each week
to dig,

construct, and decorate
the tombs of the pharaohs.

At the end of the New Kingdom,
the site was abandoned

and became buried in the sand,

and the objects left behind
by the inhabitants

were discovered on digs
in the early 20th century.

♪♪

-As part of a mission
led by the Institute,

Cédric Larcher oversees
and coordinates researchers

from around the world
who gather at the site

for two months every year.

Their aim is to study
the remains found in the village

to better understand the work
of these unsung craftsmen.

-[ Speaking French ]

-This is our place of work,
our laboratory

where the mission's researchers
work on objects

found directly on the ground.

Gersande is analyzing
the different types of wood

found on the site.

Zachary and Ahmed
are scanning our database

to find out what this object was
used for, what's written on it,

and to establish the context of
where it was found on the site.

♪♪

This is an ostracon.

These ostraca have been found
in large quantities

at Deir el-Medina.

They're fragments of limestone
or potsherds,

which were used
as writing tablets

by the inhabitants there.

The ostraca give us
a lot of information

about everyday local life,
as they mention events

or consist of lists of workers
and their families.

But some of them were used
to practice writing,

which shows that people
undertook apprenticeships

in writing
here at Deir el-Medina.

They copied out classic texts
again and again

until not only did
they know them by heart,

but they could also write
all the signs.

We imagine that the apprentice
had models

and he had to keep
carving the same sign

until he could reproduce the
volume expected by the teacher.

-For the letters to each other,
you would use hieratic,

which is basically hieroglyphs
but a more relaxed form,

so it is the same way
that hieroglyphs

are like capital letters,
very formal,

and hieratic
is joined-up cursive writing.

-99% of ancient Egypt's
population was illiterate,

but that was not the case
for the community of craftsmen

living at Deir el-Medina.

And the men were organized

so that the work was spread
evenly across the tombs.

-[ Speaking French ]

-Among the important ostraca
found on the site

is one now kept
at the British Museum,

which contains information
about the organization of work

at the royal tombs.

Here, written in hieratic,
are the names of the workers,

with a list of the days
they were present or absent.

Scribes kept daily registers.

They'd take a roll call to see
who was there and who wasn't.

We have some of the excuses
presented by the absent --

"So-and-so absent for
a family funeral" and so on.

And along with the lists
of workers

are the names
of the chief builders

who oversaw their work
at the tombs.

-The workflow in the tomb
included a variety of tasks,

following a meticulously
planned schedule.

First, the excavators dug

into a limestone vein
in the mountain,

which had been carefully
located beforehand.

It was grueling work.

The men only had wooden mallets
and bronze chisels

to excavate the rock.

Steel tools didn't exist
in the ancient Egypt

of 3,500 years ago.

Others then removed the rubble
from inside the tomb.

Next came the polishers, who
smoothed the floors and walls.

Draftsmen would then trace grids
on the walls.

These served as the framework
for the outline scribes,

who used red ink to sketch
figurative scenes and texts,

which would be inscribed later.

♪♪

Next came the engravers,

who carved the stone with wooden
mallets and fine copper chisels,

following the previously
sketched guide.

And the final step --

painters colored the carved
scenes and hieroglyphs.

♪♪

-[ Speaking French ]

-We've found a large
number of paintbrushes

of varying shapes and sizes,
depending on their use.

Some brushes were used
for applying stucco

or painting the first layer
on the walls to be decorated.

Finer brushes were used to paint
the figures or hieroglyphs.

-Elizabeth Bettles wants
to find the name of each artist

whose work appears in another
tomb in the Theban necropolis.

With tireless determination,
this British paleography expert

works to identify the painter
of a tomb from the 20th dynasty.

♪♪

-Everybody's handwriting
is different.

Everybody's handwriting
is unique.

Today as it is known that
that is the case,

and it would have been exactly
the same over 3,000 years ago,

as this was.

All of this learning
about the man

who created these hieroglyphs,
who painted them,

I've got to get to know him.

So I've got to try
and find his handwriting style

through the shape,
through -- of the sign,

through how he created the sign,
how he spelled things.

And at the moment,

I am concentrating on
doing individual hieroglyphs

to find out what their shape is.

My long-term goal is to create

a kind of
an interactive database

to be able to show people
who we can name,

who we know who they married,

what their
children's names were.

So we can learn so much about
the people who were literate,

who could write.

-You can recognize now
the hands of the painters

because they each has
a special technique,

which is marvelous,
because, again,

you start to connect
the finished work of art

with the individual.

♪♪

-Although the last artists
left Deir el-Medina

800 years before
Padiamenope's tomb was built,

their skills and traditions
began there,

to be handed down
from generation to generation.

♪♪

The mission goes on.

The Egyptologists have decided
to reconstruct,

like a vast jigsaw puzzle,

the magnificent decoration
of the tomb's walls,

which time has broken
into thousands of pieces.

♪♪

For help, they have called on
archaeologist Simone Nannucci.

This morning, while digging
in the tomb's first rooms,

he discovered more information
about Padiamenope.

♪♪

-[ Speaking native language ]

-While digging, we found
thousands of fragments

from the walls, pillars,
and ceiling.

The aim of our research
is to place them

in their original position.

-This part probably came

from this, the southern wall
of the room,

where we can see Padiamenope's
mummy before his tomb,

and here, part of his title,
"Rehrireb" or "Rehritep" --

lector-priest.

-Look at the detail
in the ears and nostrils!

-The stele.
-I hadn't noticed that.

So it's a representation
of the tomb we're in right now!

-Right.

In its ideal state.

-Padiamenope must be very happy
in the afterlife!

We never stop
mentioning his name!

This is so moving.

-The carved walls of temples
and tombs

aren't the only sources
available to archeologists

documenting the history
of this civilization.

5,000 years ago,

ancient Egyptians also created
a material akin to paper

from the stalk of a plant

that grows along
the banks of the Nile --

papyrus.

In the 19th century,
ancient Egyptian papyri

became collectors' items.

Bernardino Drovetti, France's
consul in Cairo at the time,

made a business of selling texts
that were several millennia old.

The king of Piedmont
paid him a fortune

to put together a collection.

The king was able to open
the Museo Egizio in 1824

that included statues,
objects, and papyri.

What did the man
who made it possible

think about
the new museum in Italy?

-When the Drovetti collection
was acquired,

they hope to bring the man

who had found the key
to ancient Egypt to Turin.

So Champollion
accepts their invitation.

He is not at all happy
about the fact

that France has not
acquired the collection,

but Turin has.

And so he's credited
with that famous saying that,

"The road to Memphis and Thebes
goes through Turin."

-But once he arrived in Turin,

Champollion had
a change of heart.

He spent the next eight months
at the museum

studying papyri
that he described

as being "beyond words."

He made extraordinary
discoveries

while restoring
the papyri fragments

brought back from Egypt
by Drovetti.

Today, the scientists at the
Museo Egizio are busy restoring

and piecing together papyri,
continuing Champollion's work.

While at the museum,
he used its collection

to create a foundational work
in Egyptology --

the Turin King List,
as it's sometimes called --

which helped establish
the chronology

of Pharaonic dynasties.

-Chronology is one of the
primary concerns of Champollion

when he arrives in Turin.

Champollion is confronted
with a rich collection

such as he has
never seen before.

Among the fragmentary papyrus

that Champollion
was confronted with

was one that was a list
of royal names --

the Turin Canon
or the Papyrus of Kings,

a list of kings starting
from the time of the gods

and all the way
into historical times

and until, presumably,
the time of Ramses II,

under whom this list
was compiled.

It is one of the fundamental
historical documents

of Egyptology.

-Champollion threw himself into
his work with the Turin papyri.

But he hoped to return to Egypt,

sail up the Nile
deep into Nubia,

and continue
studying hieroglyphics

carved directly on monuments.

♪♪

♪♪

It took him two years,
but he was able to organize

an expedition
of 14 scholars and scientists

who would travel for 18 months,

analyzing the main sites
of antiquity

that were seen during
the Bonaparte mission.

It was an immense task.

♪♪

-[ Speaking French ]

-Champollion is the father
of Egyptology

not just because
he deciphered hieroglyphs,

but also because
of his contribution

to every field
that constitutes the science --

his work on Egyptian religion,

his work on
the Turin Royal Canon

and the lists of the pharaohs,
and so on.

-Champollion's
chronology of pharaohs

stopped at Rameses II,
from the 19th dynasty.

But the empire lasted
another 700 years.

Later scholars would
complete the timeline

through the Roman period.

Claude Traunecker
used the Turin King List

to date TT33 to roughly
the 7th century BCE.

But in order to understand
Padiamenope better,

he must now determine
which pharaoh the scribe served.

-[ Speaking French ]

-How come a man
of such importance

never speaks of his king
in his tomb?

From time to time, he says,
"I was an important man.

The king of my day
counted a lot on me,"

but he never names him.

-Which pharaoh relied
on Padiamenope so heavily?

The tomb next to his,
that of Mentuemhat,

governor of Upper Egypt
and mayor of Thebes

in the 7th century BCE,

provides Traunecker
with the answer.

-[ Speaking French ]

-Genuine power was held for
about 10 years by Mentuemhat,

the man who built
the great pylon,

which you can see behind me.

How does Padiamenope
fit in here?

I think they were
just about contemporaries,

or there's perhaps
10 years between them,

because there are
the same features found

in Mentuemhat's tomb
as that of Padiamenope.

So I believe that Padiamenope

was the religious adviser
to King Taharqa.

-Taharqa.

The Louvre contains
several depictions

of the most famous king
of the 25th dynasty --

black pharaohs
from the Kingdom of Kush.

♪♪

-The Nubian dynasty
was already impregnated

with Egyptian culture
when it was established

because they came from Sudan,
Upper Nubia,

which had been colonized
by Egypt

and had gone through
a long acculturation process.

So the Nubian elite
was well-adapted

to the customs
and religion of the Egyptians.

They were more royalist
than the king, so to speak,

because they advocated
a return to original purity.

♪♪

Padiamenope participated in
this antiquity revival movement,

which was very fashionable
at the time.

He illustrated inside his tomb,

with texts on the pyramids
and on sarcophagi,

which hadn't been in use
for almost 2,000 years,

to show how erudite
he was to visitors,

because part of his tomb

was meant to attract
intellectual tourists.

And Padiamenope was
a secretary to the king --

at a certain time, at least.

-As a secretary, Padiamenope
would have led sacred ceremonies

in the pharaoh's absence.

This strange ramp
descending to the Nile is proof.

It was constructed
during Taharqa's reign,

under the supervision
of Padiamenope.

A text in Padiamenope's tomb

helped Traunecker
make the connection.

-[ Speaking French ]

-"I constructed
a mooring space,"

which means a quayside.

This tells us he was in charge
of construction work in Karnak,

but as lector-priest,

he was also in charge
of the ceremonies in Karnak.

He calls himself
"he who conducted celebrations

and ceremonies
in the Temple of Karnak."

So he was a very,
very important figure

in terms of local worship.

-As part of what they called

the Beautiful Festival
of the Valley,

the people of Thebes
gathered together every year

for a huge processional.

As a remembrance of the dead,
priests would launch a statue

or portrait of Amun-Ra
into the Nile

on a ceremonial boat
known as a barque.

The barque would then tour
the necropolises at the site.

Padiamenope chose
to build his own tomb

in a place where the procession
would stop each year.

To get a sense of what
the festival was like,

this wall at the Temple of Luxor
commemorates a similar event.

-Padiamenope was very key
to this whole connection

and this control system
that the Nubian pharaohs had.

So Taharqa depended
on Padiamenope to, in fact,

guide him, almost, through
the idea of Egypt's religion

and the texts.

♪♪

-As Egyptologists have noted,

many of the chapels
inside the Karnak complex

are dedicated to the god Osiris

and date from the period
of the Nubian pharaohs.

It is difficult to know whether
Padiamenope had any influence

on the revival
of Osiris worship.

But for Salima Ikram,
it's undeniable

that the architecture
of the chapels

was a source of inspiration
for Padiamenope.

Life in ancient Egypt
revolved around

ensuring a place
in the afterlife.

Perhaps Padiamenope hoped that
dedicating his tomb to Osiris

would help him after death.

A closer look at
the architecture of his tomb

offers some insight
into his thinking.

It was structured
as several distinct sections.

The first was undoubtedly
open to all visitors.

But the second section
was reserved

solely for pilgrims
worshiping Osiris.

-[ Speaking French ]

-Imagine that we are not
regular tomb tourists,

but pilgrims come to worship
at the altar of Osiris.

We turn right.

To access here,
you need a special key.

I even wonder whether
there was an entrance fee.

-It's possible
Padiamenope built a tomb

that would generate revenue
to help pay for its upkeep.

-Once through this door,
we reach the cenotaph room.

What's a cenotaph?
A pretend tomb.

It looks like a tomb, with all
the decoration of the time,

but there's no body inside.

So what did the pilgrims do
once they were here?

They walked around,
singing canticles.

I think they would sing
the texts inscribed

at the tops of the walls.

-The cenotaph served
as a pilgrimage destination

for worshipers of Osiris.

And Traunecker is still studying
the tomb's third section,

which he describes
as being private.

To access the third section,

one must descend
the infamous shaft in Room XII

that terrified visitors

and earned the tomb
the legend of being cursed.

From there, it's down
a passageway to Room XIX.

-[ Speaking French ]

-Here's the famous scene
"Awakening Osiris,"

which must have covered
the entire wall.

The central part features
the god Osiris.

Before him is his son Horus,

who is holding the symbol
of life under his father's nose.

The hieroglyphs say,
"Waking up."

-A second shaft descends even
further into a strange room

which resembles a sarcophagus
from the Old Kingdom.

Technically, it's the last room
in the tomb.

Any pillagers entering here
could go no further.

It appears there was
nowhere else to go.

But Padiamenope has created
a secret burial chamber

above the room.

The ceiling had to be smashed

before Padiamenope's real
burial chamber could be entered.

And it is a revelation.

♪♪

The decoration on the walls
and ceiling of the chamber

rival those
of the Sistine Chapel.

And Egyptologists have worked
to restore them

nearly to their original state.

♪♪

-[ Speaking French ]

-Padiamenope clearly wanted
to conceal the entrance

to this last room,
where he was probably buried.

But as we found no remains
of a sarcophagus,

the latest hypothesis
to be put forward

is that his mummy
was inside a wooden coffin

placed on a funerary bed,

possibly in the central part
of the room.

This hypothesis
is based on the fact

that on the east and west walls
of this chamber,

between the niches which
must have held statuettes...

...there are images
of guardian genies, deities,

who were supposed to
protect Padiamenope's body.

The same guardian genies

that featured to the left
and right of "Awakening Osiris."

So the hypothesis
is that Padiamenope

wanted to reproduce

a kind of three-dimensional
"Awakening Osiris"

in which Padiamenope,
on his funerary bed

and surrounded
by guardian genies,

takes the place of Osiris.

-The portrait of the mysterious
Padiamenope has become clearer.

Associating himself
with the Judge of the Dead

and receiving his blessing
and good grace

was undoubtedly
the best guarantee

of living eternally
in the afterlife.

Exploration of his tomb

has revealed
an extraordinary figure --

a priest, a scribe,
and a scholar

who played a crucial role
at the pharaoh's court.

Despite the 2,500 years
that separate them,

Padiamenope and Champollion

shared the same fascination
with hieroglyphics.

In hindsight, one seems
to have placed himself

in the footsteps of the other.

-[ Speaking French ]

-Both of them wanted to pass on
something they possessed.

Padiamenope wanted to pass on
his knowledge of history,

a much older history
of his civilization.

And Champollion
wanted to discover

and then pass on
to his contemporaries

all of those wonderful things
he had discovered.

-Shortly after returning
from his voyage to Egypt,

Champollion fell ill.

He died in Paris
on March 4, 1832, at age 41.

Despite his early passing,

he left behind
a vast body of work.

-[ Speaking French ]

-By cracking the code
of hieroglyphs,

Champollion opened
the great door

to what would become Egyptology,

which is still developing today

and destined to know
even greater developments.

-Today's Egyptologists continue
the work Champollion started

with his discoveries.

The priority on their next trip

will be to conserve the tomb
and restore its treasure

in order to reveal more
of Padiamenope's secrets,

deepening our understanding

of this ancient civilization
and its hieroglyphics.