Tutankhamun's True Burial Chamber | Lost Treasures of Egypt

It's always exciting. Sometimes there's even between the workmen a bit of a competition: who will find first? While conservators move the painted walls to the storerooms for safekeeping, T spots something in the sand. We have a pillar, and I can see already there is a jet pillar decorated on it. It's an important find. This pillar confirms the nature of ancient Egyptian religious beliefs in the years after the Amarna Revolution and Tutankhamun's death.

This is exciting! The disease is appearing now, as he would have been carrying the jet pillar. The Jed symbol represents the god Osiris, who arose from the dead to live again as king of the afterlife. Ancient Egyptians painted the symbol on the bottom of coffins and wrapped the mummy with Jed amulets to summon Osiris and rejuvenate the soul of the deceased. They also carved Jed symbols onto the pillars in their tombs to follow Osiris to the afterlife.

In the time of Akhenaten, they told them that there is no afterlife, but there was a reaction—an extreme worshiping of Osiris. The team has found inscriptions to Osiris and the gods, whose worship Tutankhamun's father had forbidden. It's more evidence Tutankhamun had abandoned his father's Revolution; he had restored belief in the afterlife and the power of all Egypt's gods. The religious Revolution demanding the worship of a single sun god was over.

This was a feat that deserved a magnificent burial and a majestic tomb. So why didn't Tutankhamun's mummy get the tomb it deserved? In the Valley of the Kings, Aaliyah is investigating this mystery. Why did I banish Tutankhamun to such a small and poorly decorated tomb?

Ayah examines I's tomb to look for clues. That's a baboon wall—both thought and I opted for the same scene—almost like the same person chose what goes in each tomb. The uncanny similarities between the two chambers suggest a common hand was at work on both. But only I's tomb was fit for a pharaoh. It's very similar to the tomb of Tutankhamun: the style, the artwork, the sarcophagus, but it's so much bigger.

The artistic style of the two tombs suggests that I may have been responsible for decorating both. Investigators now suspect that when Tutankhamun died unexpectedly young, the lavish tomb he ordered for himself was not finished. I seized the moment; he ordered Tutankhamun be buried in a smaller tomb. It was quickly decorated and sealed before the paint had a chance to dry.

With Tutankhamun gone and before any challenges could oppose him, I crowned myself pharaoh and decreed that when I died, I would take Tutankhamun's tomb. I buried Tutankhamun in the smaller tomb so he could have the bigger tomb for myself. This is the tomb that was intended for Tutankhamun—the tomb of I. I banished Tutankhamun to an unworthy tomb to secure my place as pharaoh.

Later pharaohs erased Tutankhamun from history, smearing his name as the son of a heretic. But 100 years ago, when his tomb was discovered, Tutankhamun was reborn—a superstar. Now experts use the clues to piece together his true legacy as a boy king dealing with the aftermath of his father's religious Revolution.