Mummies: Secrets of the Pharaohs Page #4

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so the royal tombs were raided.

But in the eighteen hundreds, tourists would pay

more for antique souvenirs, then it would for gold.

Master thieves trusted Egypt's rare rainstorms,

to reveal hidden tombs.

When water quickly disapears into the ground,

it could be emptying in to a tomb below.

Ahmed and Mohammed Rassoul were experts

in this dangerous profession.

And now they've made a discovery,

that would change history.

People of all sords, locals and

foreigners, rich and poor alike,

were trading in goods from mummies tombs.

Like other codebreakers, Charles Wilbour knew,

no pharaoh's mummy had ever been found,

but at some unusual artifacts had recently

appeared for sale in Egypt.

These objects bore the names of kings.

The Rassouls could not read the hieroglyphs

on what they found, but Wilbour could.

What he was being shown, was

freshly stripped from a mummy.

And the cartouche the oval in circling the name,

meant that these were the wrappings of a king.

He asked the brothers, to take him to the tomb.

The gleaming new house told him, that

brothers were coming to some money recently.

There were only two ways to earn a living here.

Farming and tomb robbing. And sudden wealth didn't

come from farming.

It was a beautiful tomb.

But not Royal.

Wilbour had to leave Egypt soon.

He pressed the brothers,

to tell him the tombs' true location.

They were the suspects already.

And police judgement would be rough,

if they didnt cooperate.

In desperation he offered "bakshish",

a bribe for the truth.

Wilbour went to investigate

the valley of the kings himself.

In early Egypt pharaohs built

their tombs in pyramids.

But the gold in the pyramids was a magnet for thieves

who plunder them soon after they were built.

So the pharaohs moved their tombs hundreds of

miles south down the Nil to this hidden valley.

Eventually this tomb was robbed.

Inscriptions at the entrances told Wilbour,

which tombs have been brief

holding places for the royal mummies.

But the trail went cold.

And why has relics from different

kings and queens spending centuries,

appeared on the market suddenly at the same time?

All he knew for certain, was that

what he bought on the market,

had wrapped the mummy of the pharaoh

for three thousand years.

Until now.

Wilbour wanted to save a pharaoh's tomb.

He tried to persuade the brothers,

to tell him where it was. One last time.

Wilbour had to leave. And Egypt's

heritage lay in the balance.

The brothers had left him no option.

Emil Brugsch was a top antiquary's

official at the time.

And another codebreaker.

This was the pharaoh's tomb.

But it was unlike any tomb ever seen before.

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