Professor Bettany Hughes takes viewers on a journey of discovery as she investigates 10 of the greatest and most intriguing Egyptian mummies - and the secrets that lie beneath the bandages. Having remained in their tombs for thousands of years, wrapped, embalmed and buried with treasure, each mummy tells the story of the criminals, priests, children and pharaohs of Ancient Egypt.
The Scorpion King: The King before Pharaohs. Learn more about the king who likely united ancient Egypt, organized the world’s earliest phonetic writing system, and inspired the creation of the pyramids. Mace heads, a stone mounted on a wooden shaft, were an early weapon of war. They were used like a club to strike enemies on the head. The scorpion mace head was too large to have been used as a weapon, and was clearly reserved for ceremonial purposes. Archaeologists believe they have found the tomb of the Scorpion King at the ancient burial site of Abydos. He was buried with 700 wine jars, several of which had come from as far away as ancient Palestine. The Scorpion King may have presided over the birth of phonetic writing earlier than any other civilization in the world—200 years before the first pharaohs.
A study of the ruined Egyptian pyramid of the 4th dynasty pharaoh Djedefre, including evidence from a ten-year excavation which supports new theories about his reign and the pyramid's importance.
Major Briggs, one stiff upper-lipped Brit, receives a hand-to-head treatment in a North African bar. Impressed, he recruits the most skilled American specialists to help him blow up Rommel's most treasured ammo depot. Perilous desert journey awaits them, especially given an inevitable rendezvous with one immoral priest, a German nurse right beside him.
Under Pharaoh Amemphis III's reign, the most powerful in the kingdom, as vizier Burkis and a fanatic and xenophobic priest, will try to overthrow the Pharaoh. They will even murder the crown prince, Aker. But his twin brother will find a way to foil those fanatical plans.
A shy office worker becomes a hero when a fortune teller calls him another Napoleon.
A captured architect designs an ingenious plan to ensure the impregnability of the tomb of a self-absorbed Pharaoh, obsessed with the security of his next life.
In eighteenth-dynasty Egypt, Sinuhe, a poor orphan, becomes a brilliant physician and with his friend Horemheb is appointed to the service of the new Pharoah. Sinuhe's personal triumphs and tragedies are played against the larger canvas of the turbulent events of the 18th dynasty. As Sinuhe is drawn into court intrigues he learns the answers to the questions he has sought since his birth.
Dashing legionnaire Rick O'Connell stumbles upon the hidden ruins of Hamunaptra while in the midst of a battle to claim the area in 1920s Egypt. It has been over three thousand years since former High Priest Imhotep suffered a fate worse than death as a punishment for a forbidden love—along with a curse that guarantees eternal doom upon the world if he is ever awoken.