NARRATOR: Thomas and Jennifer are investigating
one of Tutankhamun's secrets.
Excavating under a ruined fortress for evidence
he got his gold from the inhospitable Eastern desert.
Did his miners shelter here?
The team has just found something.
Stone blocks that offer a tantalizing
glimpse of a settlement from Tutankhamun's time.
So these are architectural blocks.
They carry some hieroglyphic inscription very faintly
visible here, which would indicate that they were carved
and set up in some sort of building which dates
to the reign of Tutankhamun.
It's exciting, because that gives us
a sort of a ballpark for the time when
this site was busy and active and important
during the 18th dynasty.
NARRATOR: Jennifer's team must now move the precious blocks
offsite for further analysis.
As they dig deeper into the layers below the fortress,
they uncover more clues that this site was
in use in Tutankhamun's time.
JENNIFER GATES-FOSTER: It is beautiful.
This is a really distinctive, very different from any
of the Ptolemaic material, the Greek style pottery
that we find in most of the rooms of the Fort
that is really common.
This kind of pottery, which belongs to the New Kingdom,
is not wheel made.
It's handmade, and you can tell that
by looking at the interior of the pot, which
has a surface which is very irregular
and that it's been smoothed with a smooth stone most likely.
NARRATOR: It's not just one or two pieces
of Tutankhamun-era pottery.
Jennifer's team is revealing that the layers
of Earth beneath the fortress are packed full of it.
JENNIFER GATES-FOSTER: We have New
Kingdom material under the floors of
rooms 20, 19, 26, 18, and 17.
But to have the Fort now documented on top of deposits
that indicates some kind of occupation in the New Kingdom
and that's really exciting.
NARRATOR: The discovery is proof the site
may have been used in Tutankhamun's time
by his gold workers.
But the team have found another remarkable clue
concealed in the fortress.
Cutting into the bedrock 60 feet below the surface is a well.
It's a vital source of water that
explains why the safe haven and Tutankhamun's gold workers
were here.
THOMAS FAUCHER: The well was built the time of Tutankhamun
by the evidence we have now.
It was, I guess, more precious than even than gold for people
that they can have water to go inside the desert.
NARRATOR: The evidence here and at other sites
reveals how Tutankhamun got his gold
from the remote Eastern desert.
Miners had to trek vast distances
from the Nile Valley across the hot, dry desert
to reach the gold mines.
Ancient engineers dug wells along the route
for precious drinking water.
Each well was a day's walk from the last,
creating a network of vital rest stops.
This allowed them to survive the brutal journey
across the desert to mine gold in the East
and bring it back to their Pharaoh.
Thomas and Jennifer have revealed
one of Tutankhamun's secrets.
Sites like this were a critical part of the infrastructure that
allowed him to amass the gold for one of the most
elaborate burials in history.
JENNIFER GATES-FOSTER: The gold in Tut's masks,
all that gold in his tomb, that's
coming from the Eastern desert.
So sites like this that looked really modest
are actually the mechanism that allowed
New Kingdom gold to be mined.