Incredible Find! Uncovering an Ancient Egyptian Tomb | Expedition Unknown

Foreign.
Look at this, exploring near the surface of a newly discovered burial shaft. We may have just found a coffin that’s thousands of years old. I think this is in the foreign.
And here’s the back here.
Yes, Josh, see? It’s sealed.
Yes, it is.
Yes, it means the human remains. It’s well preserved.
Small… is it? You think it’s a baby coffin?
Yes, the measurements could be for a baby coffin.
Later period than the burial shaft here.
Someone added this, you think?
Yeah, considering this coffin is pushed up against the outside of the rich Old Kingdom burial shaft and beer offering, this was likely added after the mysterious collapse of the Old Kingdom.
This child’s family would have wanted to have an afterlife for their offspring though, so if they couldn’t build a tomb, they’d use the edge of someone else’s.

Do you want to take this all the way down?
Yes.
Okay, be careful.

[Music]
The desert winds begin kicking up, so the workers start to move their operation into a nearby tent. The rest of us, though, find good reasons to stay outside.
Look, they’re just… I think it’s—oh my God, it’s gold!
Yes, part of a necklace.
Yes, inlaid with something.
Interesting.

[Music]
Sometimes… something here…
Okay, hold on…
Got it, move.
Yes, ready.
It’s yours, you got it?
Yes.
Okay, good, good.
Look at the lines on it!
Yes, see that?
Yes, wow!

I tried to keep it in the tent because it’s… this wind… it’s not good for it.
Unbelievable. Look at these painted lines on the side. It’s absolutely beautiful.
Yes, this is both from the New Kingdom.
So, this vase, hundreds of years newer than the burial shaft, was probably meant to accompany the child’s coffin into the afterlife.

Something else, must get…
Is it woven?
Yeah, a basket.
Wow, incredible. Something this delicate, handmade.
You can just see the craftsmanship of it.
I think this is a base and this is a lid.
Yes, should we get it inside?
Yes, let’s get it inside, out of the wind.

As you can hear, the wind is just howling now, so it’s a bit of a race to remove these objects and get them out of the wind and into the tent.
The team brings in straps and a stretcher to quickly and carefully raise the coffin and carry it to the safety of the tent.

The third strap… yes.
Up, up, up, up.
Down.
Good, good.

[Music]
Mesh… you can be a one-on-one… huh?
Dollars…

[Music]
Come on. It’s a bizarre feeling to be pallbearer for a child who died thousands of years earlier.
Now, he is in a safe place.
All right, out of the wind.
A safe facility to examine the coffin. We don masks to protect against inhaling ancient spores or dust.

Up, up.
Oh, my word.
Careful.
Oh, so here we have an individual. Looks like a really bad state of preservation.
Yeah, moisture… the moisture.
Yes, water got in here, it looks like.
Look at the signs on the wall of the coffin.
Yes, yes, it’s laying on its side.

Also, in some cases like this, we try to have some of a small amulet. It’s a…
Oh, what is that?
It’s something…

[Music]
Ring… an earring, an earring.
Yes, should be another one.
What kind of…?
Uh, ivory, usually.
Ivory, ivory.

So now we think we have a girl.
We have a girl here. The earrings suggest that the mummy is that of a young girl.
If I were superstitious, I’d say the wind raging outside suggests she’s feeling restless.
I mean, right as we open this, it’s like a storm is kicking up.
Yes, should I be worried?
No, no, none of them might… I’ve seen this movie before. I know how this ends.

Fortunately, the tent seems to be holding.

[Music]
Look at this necklace.
Oh, these are beads.
Yes, yes, is that whole necklace right there?
Yes, you can see all these individual beads here. Are these discs?
All of this is a necklace that goes all the way around.
So here we have a big part of this necklace and you have these beautiful…
Finance… this kind of shiny ceramic.
The beads are made from ceramic and quartz and then glazed. Even now, millennia later, the color shines like it was made yesterday.

Carefully gather the loose beads so the archaeologists can conserve and perhaps one day reconstruct the necklace.
This is all linen, right?
Yes, so she… she would have been mummified?
Yes, yes. So the condition here is really poor, but this is a mummy.
You can see this brown material. This is linen here, and she would have been completely wrapped in this.

So what do you think we can say about this girl?
From Ivory… and she had a fancy necklace? That daycare?
With this girl, for sure. This is definitely someone who was loved and buried with care.
This is really humbling, you know? Here we have a girl, a young girl who lived and died and was buried in this cemetery during the New Kingdom, which is still over 3,000 years ago.
This is an archaeological specimen, but it’s also a person.
Yes, she had a name, she had a family, she has a story.
And also, they think the first life… a very short life. Yeah, so they tried to have the eternal life after this, right?
The earrings and the necklace, and probably she was beautifully mummified, and she would have looked proper for her next… her next life.
Yes.

Now we will put the lid on, Jacob.
Yes, let her rest.

[Music]
With the wind dying, there’s news at the large burial shaft we’ve been excavating that we hope will help us understand the fall of the Old Kingdom.
We had previously found the top of the upper chamber, and now, a short time later, the workers have widened the opening.
So, we’re taking out another couple feet of sand and then we’re going to explore the inside of this upper vault.

Oh, another vessel.
Resilience, we’ve got another ceramic vessel here that might have fallen out or might have been placed there. I don’t know.
It’s very nice. Careful, very nice.
Beautiful, look at that.
Complete vessel, yes.

So, this upper vault sits above the main burial chamber below. You know, anything could be up here—offerings, anything could be tucked into this upper chamber, or nothing at all.

Foreign.
Do you think this is undisturbed?
Yes, it’s undisturbed for sure.
Sure, okay.

The main burial should be in a vault just below us, but first, we have to continue exploring the upper chamber.

Phone here in the corner…
Uh, linen… linen… bye-bye.

So some linen here as well.
This is… mummy wrap right here in the corner, in the very corner just outside of this upper vault. Why would that bone…
It’s just a tool.

We work furiously to move further down through the sand, hoping to find the burial that we assume must be very near.

So we’ve got a layer of mud brick here and some limestone pieces… bones there… long bone…
Oh…
Opening, we got a vault.

Oh no!
Oh my God, look at this!
It’s all decorated!
Oh my word, it’s all painted.
Holy…
It’s a tomb!

[Music]