0:00:07 > 0:00:12The Sphinx guards the only surviving wonder of the ancient world,
0:00:12 > 0:00:16the mighty pyramids at Giza.
0:00:18 > 0:00:23They were built for the pharaohs of the Egyptian Old Kingdom,
0:00:23 > 0:00:27a civilisation that lasted for almost 1,000 years
0:00:27 > 0:00:29before mysteriously collapsing.
0:00:29 > 0:00:37Archaeologists are now discovering that the sudden end was one of most unimaginable horror.
0:00:40 > 0:00:48We had a pile of three skeletons in this position - an old man, over an old woman, over a child.
0:00:49 > 0:00:52All of them in contorted attitudes.
0:00:52 > 0:00:58The woman like this, the man with hands up, and the child was too disintegrated to say.
0:01:09 > 0:01:135,000 years ago, long before the time of Tutankhamen,
0:01:13 > 0:01:16before Ramses,
0:01:16 > 0:01:18before Queen Nefertiti,
0:01:18 > 0:01:23the first great civilisation was established in Egypt.
0:01:35 > 0:01:40The Egyptian Old Kingdom's lasting legacy is the Sphinx
0:01:40 > 0:01:42and the great pyramids at Giza.
0:01:54 > 0:01:59The pyramids are royal tombs for the Old Kingdom's pharaohs,
0:01:59 > 0:02:03protecting their mummified bodies for eternity.
0:02:14 > 0:02:19The pharaohs united Egypt and the Old Kingdom flourished.
0:02:20 > 0:02:25They developed a unique style of art, architecture and literature.
0:02:29 > 0:02:34It was a civilisation that was remarkably stable and resilient.
0:02:34 > 0:02:41The daily life of the average Egyptian remained unchanged for nearly 1,000 years.
0:02:47 > 0:02:53But then, 4,200 years ago, the Old Kingdom suddenly collapsed.
0:02:59 > 0:03:04The pharaoh's power crumbled. Central government failed.
0:03:09 > 0:03:14Egypt was plunged into a dark age which lasted for over 100 years.
0:03:15 > 0:03:21It's an episode in history which has mystified Egyptologists.
0:03:34 > 0:03:41For the last 30 years, Egyptian archaeologist Fekri Hassan has been looking for his own explanation
0:03:41 > 0:03:45of why Egypt turned from stability to chaos.
0:03:45 > 0:03:47I felt compelled
0:03:47 > 0:03:52to find out why did it happen when it did?
0:03:52 > 0:03:59Especially when Egypt was doing so well. We had the pyramids, temples, statues,
0:03:59 > 0:04:03major achievements in arts, literature and everything else.
0:04:03 > 0:04:06Why did it end at that time?
0:04:06 > 0:04:08So, I had to pursue that question.
0:04:08 > 0:04:16I had to find out for myself the reasons for the sudden, unprecedented collapse of the Old Kingdom.
0:04:25 > 0:04:29Fekri Hassan has always challenged orthodoxy.
0:04:29 > 0:04:36The conventional wisdom is that the Old Kingdom fell apart after the death of a pharaoh
0:04:36 > 0:04:41and the battle for succession caused a major political conflict.
0:04:49 > 0:04:53For Fekri, this just didn't ring true.
0:04:56 > 0:05:00The first seed of doubt was planted in 1971
0:05:00 > 0:05:07when Fekri found evidence of something far more devastating than political unrest.
0:05:19 > 0:05:25This little-known tomb in southern Egypt has an astonishing story to tell.
0:05:34 > 0:05:40The tomb belongs not to a pharaoh, but to a local governor called Ankhtifi,
0:05:40 > 0:05:45who lived just after the collapse of the Old Kingdom.
0:05:46 > 0:05:50For me, personally, it's an incredible find.
0:05:52 > 0:05:58This is a remarkable tomb. This is one of the most outstanding tombs in all of Egypt.
0:06:03 > 0:06:08It's in Ankhtifi's writings that Fekri found the vital clue.
0:06:08 > 0:06:15The hieroglyphs tell of horrendous famines and the sufferings of ordinary people.
0:06:16 > 0:06:23It is rarely that we have a voice from the past that gives us a poignant account
0:06:23 > 0:06:30of what had happened, of the horrors, the famines, that happened 4,000 years ago.
0:06:35 > 0:06:42And to have them reported in such a concise and clear fashion is unprecedented.
0:06:43 > 0:06:48The entire country has become like a starved grasshopper.
0:06:50 > 0:06:54I managed it that no-one died of hunger.
0:06:54 > 0:07:01One small section is particularly moving as it tells of the despair and atrocities during the famines
0:07:01 > 0:07:04which were ravaging the south of Egypt.
0:07:04 > 0:07:12All of Upper Egypt was dying of hunger to such a degree that they had come to eating their children.
0:07:18 > 0:07:24For Fekri, the writing on the wall was far too powerful to be ignored.
0:07:27 > 0:07:35But taking Ankhtifi's hieroglyphs literally brought him into conflict with most Egyptologists.
0:07:39 > 0:07:44When Ankhtifi talks about people dying out of starvation,
0:07:44 > 0:07:46I would take it with a pinch of salt.
0:07:46 > 0:07:53This is typical Egyptian rhetoric which amounts to exaggeration.
0:07:53 > 0:07:59There is no way that the statements made here are exaggerations.
0:07:59 > 0:08:03It is definitely a description of actual events.
0:08:03 > 0:08:10The text that we have here is not a folk tale, not a mythological statement. It's an actual account.
0:08:10 > 0:08:16It's an evidence that we can read and interpret like anything else.
0:08:16 > 0:08:20Like any observation, it's subject to analysis and examination.
0:08:20 > 0:08:26That text can be analysed and examined and I find it credible.
0:08:32 > 0:08:37Fekri felt compelled to prove that these writings were true,
0:08:37 > 0:08:41that Egypt had suffered devastating famines.
0:08:41 > 0:08:48But for years he was thwarted by the lack of any hard evidence of the suffering.
0:09:03 > 0:09:07Then, in 1996, archaeological evidence emerged for the first time.
0:09:29 > 0:09:36A new discovery in the far north revealed the scale of suffering at the end of the Old Kingdom.
0:09:36 > 0:09:41Archaeologists were excavating in the Nile delta,
0:09:41 > 0:09:46far removed from the glamorous tombs and pyramids of the rest of Egypt.
0:09:48 > 0:09:55The site is described as, "A place that only dedicated archaeologists can get excited about."
0:09:59 > 0:10:03Donald Redford is constantly excited at what he finds here.
0:10:04 > 0:10:09When we began to excavate, I was surprised, and still am,
0:10:09 > 0:10:16to find just under the surface poor burials under reed matting, some so tightly packed,
0:10:16 > 0:10:20that you almost literally tripped over them.
0:10:25 > 0:10:29They found a staggering number of bodies, nearly 9,000.
0:10:29 > 0:10:34And something else was unusual about these burials.
0:10:35 > 0:10:39Wherever we set pick in soil was a burial,
0:10:39 > 0:10:44supine, on the back, or on the side, under a reed mat,
0:10:44 > 0:10:47with very few grave goods, if any.
0:10:47 > 0:10:55And so we must conclude in all cases, that these were the very poor, and they all dated to the same period.
0:10:56 > 0:11:02Donald and his team were amazed at the sheer quantity of poor people buried here.
0:11:02 > 0:11:11They'd found a community reduced to extreme poverty. The date coincided with the end of the Old Kingdom.
0:11:11 > 0:11:16I have not actually run into this kind of thing before.
0:11:18 > 0:11:23I think what we see here parallels what is happening elsewhere in Egypt.
0:11:23 > 0:11:25Everything is breaking down.
0:11:25 > 0:11:32It's not just in one category of human activity, but everywhere - society, art, religion, economy.
0:11:32 > 0:11:40It's all breaking down. I think here for the first time we have evidence of it in dirt archaeology.
0:11:41 > 0:11:49Confirmation of that final and rather sudden destruction of the Egyptian civilisation of the Old Kingdom.
0:12:00 > 0:12:07Donald's discovery suggested that the descriptions in Ankhtifi's tomb of widespread famine must be true.
0:12:23 > 0:12:29Fekri realised that whatever had caused devastation on such a large scale
0:12:29 > 0:12:31must have been an apocalyptic event.
0:12:34 > 0:12:42My hunch from the beginning was that it has to do with the environment, in which the Egyptians lived
0:12:42 > 0:12:46and on which they depended for their livelihood.
0:12:46 > 0:12:53That would have contributed to this sudden event because I could not see any evidence
0:12:53 > 0:13:01in the archaeological record that would lead me to think that it would just suddenly break down like this.
0:13:07 > 0:13:12Of all the forces in the natural environment of Egypt, one dominates.
0:13:12 > 0:13:15The River Nile.
0:13:21 > 0:13:28The ancient Greek author Herodotus described the Nile as "a gift from the gods,"
0:13:28 > 0:13:32a belief that most modern Egyptians cling to passionately.
0:13:32 > 0:13:38The relationship with the Nile, I think, is a love relationship.
0:13:38 > 0:13:44I'm not the only one. I think all the Egyptians have a love affair with the Nile.
0:13:44 > 0:13:52The Egyptian civilisation is about the Nile - loving the Nile. It runs in the blood, it's part of you.
0:13:52 > 0:13:55You grow up with it. It's in you.
0:14:01 > 0:14:08I've just been thinking that if you commit yourself for a lifelong relationship like this,
0:14:08 > 0:14:11it has to be passion.
0:14:14 > 0:14:18Without the Nile, Egypt would not exist
0:14:18 > 0:14:21because it relied on annual floods for survival.
0:14:21 > 0:14:28Every year, rains in the south would bring floodwaters to the Nile valley,
0:14:28 > 0:14:32inundating the area with rich, fertile mud.
0:14:34 > 0:14:38Once the water had subsided, planting could begin.
0:14:46 > 0:14:53For Fekri, the fascination with the life and death powers of the Nile floods goes back a long time.
0:14:55 > 0:15:02One of the major turning points in my life was when I came here with my mother when I was six years old.
0:15:02 > 0:15:09I'd never seen a flood before. There was water all over the place on the banks of the Nile.
0:15:09 > 0:15:12I was terrified...amazed by it.
0:15:12 > 0:15:20I think, from that point on, I began to think that the Nile may not be that gentle river
0:15:20 > 0:15:27that has always flowed in a steady manner nurturing Egyptian civilisation.
0:15:27 > 0:15:34That there may be another side to the river, a dark side, a dangerous side.
0:15:34 > 0:15:38So dangerous that Fekri believed the Nile was implicated
0:15:38 > 0:15:42in the catastrophe that destroyed the Old Kingdom.
0:15:42 > 0:15:49To many Egyptian historians, the very suggestion was tantamount to heresy.
0:15:49 > 0:15:55I've been reading history from the very early beginnings of man in Egypt
0:15:55 > 0:15:57and I can see a pattern
0:15:57 > 0:16:01that's gone on for thousands of years.
0:16:01 > 0:16:04The regular thing is that the Nile comes.
0:16:04 > 0:16:09We know that the Nile is good, we know that the Nile is always faithful
0:16:09 > 0:16:13and we know that the Nile will come next year.
0:16:13 > 0:16:16I believe in that as I believe in God.
0:16:23 > 0:16:25Faced with such burning conviction,
0:16:25 > 0:16:32Fekri knew that he had to find some proof that the Nile was not always Egypt's faithful ally.
0:16:37 > 0:16:39He decided to look back in time
0:16:39 > 0:16:44to the 7th century AD when the Arabs conquered Egypt.
0:16:45 > 0:16:52Every year, they measured the level of the Nile floods in Cairo on this column.
0:16:52 > 0:16:57The meticulous records they kept for over 1,000 years were a revelation.
0:16:57 > 0:17:02When I began to look at the Nile record, I was under the impression
0:17:02 > 0:17:10that the Nile was a normal river with not that much change in the amount of water it brings every year.
0:17:10 > 0:17:17But I found that there are variations from year to year, from decade to decade, from century to century,
0:17:17 > 0:17:25and later found from millennium to millennium. That shattered my ideas that were based on a myth,
0:17:25 > 0:17:30that assumed that the Nile is a steady river. It flows every year.
0:17:30 > 0:17:35All people have to do is sow a few grains and everything is wonderful.
0:17:35 > 0:17:38That is not true at all.
0:17:38 > 0:17:44When I found that one out of every five floods was a bad flood, I was shocked.
0:17:46 > 0:17:51And so I think that discovery changed my views totally
0:17:51 > 0:17:58about not only the Nile, but about how Egyptian civilisation was developed and how it collapsed.
0:18:04 > 0:18:11Alarmingly, Fekri had also discovered that only a small drop in the Nile flood
0:18:11 > 0:18:14could have disastrous ramifications,
0:18:14 > 0:18:19a lesson not lost on one of Europe's greatest military strategists.
0:18:19 > 0:18:25In 1791 and 1792, the Nile flood was only a metre or two below average,
0:18:25 > 0:18:29but people starved, there were riots,
0:18:29 > 0:18:33and the political consequences were calamitous.
0:18:33 > 0:18:40Hearing that the country was so debilitated, Napoleon seized the initiative and conquered Egypt.
0:18:46 > 0:18:53Fekri now realised that any failure of the Nile could have far-reaching consequences.
0:18:53 > 0:18:56But he was puzzled.
0:18:56 > 0:19:03He'd found records of low floods for two-three years, but the dark age had lasted for up to 200 years.
0:19:03 > 0:19:08It seemed impossible for the Nile to fail for such a long period.
0:19:08 > 0:19:12Maybe there was something far bigger involved.
0:19:34 > 0:19:41Fekri decided to look at the other natural feature that lies at the heart of Egyptian life, the desert.
0:19:50 > 0:19:54Fekri has come with his wife, botanist Hala Barakat,
0:19:54 > 0:19:58to the far south of Egypt to search for clues.
0:20:04 > 0:20:08Today, this remote land is an inhospitable desert,
0:20:08 > 0:20:13but thousands of years ago, people lived here.
0:20:13 > 0:20:19Hala is scouring the desert for traces of these ancient people.
0:20:22 > 0:20:28She's looking for small piles of stones, telltale signs of their campsites.
0:20:32 > 0:20:40At night, they gathered wood for a fire. Fragments of charred embers still survive under the stones.
0:20:40 > 0:20:45Hidden in these tiny bits of charcoal is vital evidence.
0:20:49 > 0:20:54Back in the lab, Hala identifies the different firewoods.
0:20:56 > 0:21:03She finds traces of the acacia tree which is no longer found in this desert.
0:21:03 > 0:21:08We're looking at charcoal of the acacia tree.
0:21:08 > 0:21:13It's very distinctive by the presence of the big vessels.
0:21:13 > 0:21:15When we find the charcoal of acacia,
0:21:15 > 0:21:20it means that, when it was growing, there was underground water.
0:21:21 > 0:21:27You only find them in depressions or in oases where water accumulates.
0:21:27 > 0:21:30They need water to grow.
0:21:31 > 0:21:38Hala painstakingly collected and dated thousands of pieces of charcoal from all over the desert.
0:21:38 > 0:21:41The result was quite startling.
0:21:45 > 0:21:49About 7,000 years ago, there were trees growing here.
0:21:49 > 0:21:57Not exactly a forest, but a dry savannah with grass growing between the trees after the rainy season.
0:21:57 > 0:22:01It was a place where people could live.
0:22:07 > 0:22:14Over time, vast swathes of North Africa dried up and became a desert.
0:22:27 > 0:22:31Poets wrote of the devastation caused by sand.
0:22:40 > 0:22:44Indeed the desert is throughout the land.
0:22:44 > 0:22:51The desert claims the land. The land is injured. Towns are ravaged.
0:22:52 > 0:22:57The sun is failed. None can live where the dust storm fails it.
0:22:57 > 0:23:02We do not know what will happen throughout the land.
0:23:03 > 0:23:07Could the change from grass to desert
0:23:07 > 0:23:12be the cause of the sudden breakdown of the Old Kingdom 4,200 years ago?
0:23:13 > 0:23:17Unfortunately for Fekri, the dates didn't fit.
0:23:18 > 0:23:23I personally do not think that the gradual desiccation of North Africa
0:23:23 > 0:23:28was the main cause for the collapse of the Old Kingdom.
0:23:29 > 0:23:36The deserts we know today, by 4,500 years ago, were fully established by that time.
0:23:36 > 0:23:43The change had abrupt events in it, but it was in general a gradual trend,
0:23:43 > 0:23:45lasting for several millennia.
0:23:45 > 0:23:52So the slow desert encroachment was completed well before the collapse of the Old Kingdom.
0:23:52 > 0:23:55This had not caused its demise.
0:23:55 > 0:24:02Fekri had to look for another culprit which would strike more swiftly.
0:24:02 > 0:24:05There HAS to be another cause
0:24:05 > 0:24:09to explain the sudden and dramatic event
0:24:09 > 0:24:13that coincided with the end of the Old Kingdom.
0:24:24 > 0:24:27Then came a breakthrough.
0:24:27 > 0:24:31A new discovery in the hills of neighbouring Israel.
0:24:44 > 0:24:50In these caves, Mira Bar-Matthews has found a unique record of past climates.
0:24:50 > 0:24:55All the water here comes from rainfall.
0:24:57 > 0:25:03As the rain filters down through the rock, it dissolves the limestone,
0:25:03 > 0:25:05forming stalactites and stalagmites.
0:25:05 > 0:25:10As these gradually build up over the years,
0:25:10 > 0:25:12they trap ancient rainwater.
0:25:15 > 0:25:22Mira has discovered a way of calculating rainfall thousands of years ago
0:25:22 > 0:25:26by taking tiny samples of the stalactites.
0:25:28 > 0:25:35The ancient rain contains two different types of oxygen, a light one and a heavier one.
0:25:35 > 0:25:43If there is more of the light type, it was a very wet period. More of the heavy one means it was dry.
0:25:45 > 0:25:52Analysing the samples in a mass spectrometer gives the ratio of light and heavy oxygen.
0:25:57 > 0:26:03Mira had been analysing stalactites stretching back over thousands of years
0:26:03 > 0:26:07when she got to one sample 4,200 years old.
0:26:10 > 0:26:17As soon as she saw the results, she knew something unusual had happened.
0:26:17 > 0:26:22The striking finding was that there is a very important change
0:26:22 > 0:26:30in the amount of rainfall that was in this area.
0:26:32 > 0:26:37Mira had found a staggering 20% drop in rainfall.
0:26:37 > 0:26:42This suggested a sudden and significant climate change.
0:26:44 > 0:26:47This drop is dramatic.
0:26:48 > 0:26:53This event is the largest event over the last 5,000 years.
0:27:01 > 0:27:08Even though Egypt and Israel have different weather systems, this finding was very exciting.
0:27:10 > 0:27:15Rapid climate change was the culprit Fekri had been searching for.
0:27:17 > 0:27:24He believed it was the prime suspect in the catastrophe that destroyed the Old Kingdom,
0:27:24 > 0:27:31the reason why this powerful civilisation disintegrated at the height of its glory.
0:27:44 > 0:27:50I firmly believe that in addition to gradual changes on a millennial scale,
0:27:50 > 0:27:55climatic change can also happen very, very rapidly, suddenly and swiftly
0:27:55 > 0:27:59with dramatic consequences for people.
0:28:13 > 0:28:17Because abrupt climatic events happen very rapidly,
0:28:17 > 0:28:22within a few decades they can influence the livelihood of people,
0:28:22 > 0:28:25causing famines and droughts.
0:28:25 > 0:28:30They are of a magnitude and rapidity that people cannot deal with them
0:28:30 > 0:28:35in the way they would deal with a protracted, long-term change.
0:28:53 > 0:28:55Fekri now needed to know
0:28:55 > 0:29:02if the sudden climate change discovered in the Israeli cave was not a localised event,
0:29:02 > 0:29:07but part of a larger weather pattern that would have affected Egypt, too.
0:29:07 > 0:29:12The evidence to back him up came out of the blue...
0:29:12 > 0:29:14from the glaciers of Iceland.
0:29:38 > 0:29:45Geologist Gerard Bond is also searching for clues about ancient climates.
0:29:45 > 0:29:48He does it by looking at icebergs.
0:29:48 > 0:29:54The particular ones he's interested in are streaked with black ash.
0:29:59 > 0:30:01Can you make out the black?
0:30:01 > 0:30:08These are particles of volcanic material from the volcanoes here in Iceland.
0:30:08 > 0:30:12Some of it is scraped up as the ice moves over the rock.
0:30:12 > 0:30:17Some pours down the mountainsides that the glaciers are moving through
0:30:17 > 0:30:22and some is dumped on the ice by volcanic eruptions.
0:30:26 > 0:30:33Gerard follows the journey the icebergs take after they leave Iceland
0:30:33 > 0:30:38and drift south in the North Atlantic.
0:30:38 > 0:30:45When the icebergs reach warmer waters, they melt and specks of ash fall to the bottom of the ocean.
0:30:45 > 0:30:47And that's where they stay,
0:30:47 > 0:30:52embedded in the deep sea mud which gradually builds up over time.
0:31:01 > 0:31:09Gerard and his team have collected mud from the world's oceans with deposits from the last 10,000 years.
0:31:09 > 0:31:16As Gerard searched the mud from the North Atlantic, looking for traces of volcanic ash,
0:31:16 > 0:31:18he was surprised.
0:31:23 > 0:31:27He was finding ash in some very strange places.
0:31:27 > 0:31:34Some were so far south, it showed that the icebergs had travelled a very long way before melting.
0:31:34 > 0:31:39This could only happen in periods of extreme cold.
0:31:56 > 0:32:03And what was more intriguing, there was a pattern to these mini ice ages.
0:32:03 > 0:32:09What we found to our surprise was that not only were there suggestions
0:32:09 > 0:32:12that the climate was not stable,
0:32:12 > 0:32:17but every 1,500 years was a distinct cold period,
0:32:17 > 0:32:20lasting a couple of hundred years, perhaps.
0:32:21 > 0:32:28But what did a 1,500-year weather cycle have to do with famine in Egypt?
0:32:30 > 0:32:34One of these cycles had an age of 4,200 years.
0:32:34 > 0:32:42That means that the weather was cool enough at that time for icebergs to have got as far south as off Ireland.
0:32:44 > 0:32:51And it occurred at about the same time as the event that you're interested in in Egypt.
0:32:53 > 0:32:58So a mini ice age creating freezing conditions across Europe
0:32:58 > 0:33:03happened when Egypt was suffering from extreme famines.
0:33:05 > 0:33:10This could easily have stayed as a mere coincidence.
0:33:15 > 0:33:20But Gerard's work alerted fellow geologist Peter deMenocal.
0:33:22 > 0:33:27When he searched the climate records for the rest of the world,
0:33:27 > 0:33:34looking at everything from pollen to sand, he found an even more dramatic change.
0:33:34 > 0:33:39It was very exciting, something that we were not expecting.
0:33:39 > 0:33:44We were using techniques that were meant to find small climate signals
0:33:44 > 0:33:47in deep sea sediments.
0:33:47 > 0:33:53When we found a whopping huge signal, we were shocked. We didn't expect that.
0:33:53 > 0:34:00It's as if you're going after a mouse and you catch a lion. It's a very dramatic event.
0:34:06 > 0:34:14Not only was this change sudden, but the ancient climate data revealed just how far-reaching it was.
0:34:19 > 0:34:24It seems that everywhere we look, we find this event.
0:34:24 > 0:34:29We see it in the Mediterranean and then we see evidence off of Africa,
0:34:29 > 0:34:35we see it in many locations throughout the North Atlantic.
0:34:35 > 0:34:42We also see evidence for it in Greenland. We see it in the continental United States.
0:34:42 > 0:34:49Most recently, there's been evidence now that we actually see it in the Indonesian region.
0:34:49 > 0:34:55That is a very important result. It shows that it's truly a global event.
0:35:06 > 0:35:13What we see is that the climate change event occurs at the same time as the collapse of the Old Kingdom.
0:35:13 > 0:35:18It's an event that in terms of the change in climate was profound,
0:35:18 > 0:35:24not only in how large the event was, but also in how widespread it was.
0:35:26 > 0:35:30Scientists were at last confirming everything Fekri believed.
0:35:30 > 0:35:38Severe climate change was causing widespread human misery 4,200 years ago.
0:35:48 > 0:35:56As colder and drier conditions swept the globe, harvests failed and people starved.
0:36:01 > 0:36:06They were victims of a weather cycle out of their control.
0:36:12 > 0:36:19It really is a very sobering thought to imagine what it must have been like to have been these people
0:36:19 > 0:36:27and to have been struggling with climate as they were at the time and ultimately to have succumbed to it.
0:36:38 > 0:36:43And nowhere was this human suffering more acute than in Egypt.
0:36:56 > 0:37:01- Everybody has clustered here. - There's no way out.
0:37:01 > 0:37:08Donald Redford and his team had already discovered that this ruined city was poverty-stricken
0:37:08 > 0:37:10at the end of the Old Kingdom.
0:37:13 > 0:37:17But in 1999, he made a macabre new find,
0:37:17 > 0:37:22which showed in chilling detail the extent of the chaos
0:37:22 > 0:37:27that Fekri believes the sudden climate change had triggered.
0:37:28 > 0:37:32He found a group of skeletons lying underneath a temple wall.
0:37:39 > 0:37:43I found that the destruction is everywhere.
0:37:43 > 0:37:48Moreover, it's associated with what I would consider a massacre.
0:37:48 > 0:37:55That puts it right out of the... realm of accidental occurrence.
0:38:00 > 0:38:05Over the years, Donald has uncovered thousands of skeletons.
0:38:05 > 0:38:12But he was extremely distressed when he found this particular collection of bodies.
0:38:15 > 0:38:20There were 18 of them. In fact, their position was rather dramatic.
0:38:20 > 0:38:27We had a pile of three skeletons in this position. An old man, over an old woman, over a child,
0:38:27 > 0:38:33all in contorted attitudes, the woman like this, the man with hands up.
0:38:33 > 0:38:38On top of the wall were two adult males, one sprawled over the wall,
0:38:38 > 0:38:42with part of the wall having fallen on his back.
0:38:45 > 0:38:52At this point, there were two males with a pig in the middle, of all things.
0:38:52 > 0:38:59And in front of the temple, right on the axis, was a fallen teenager, with a rat clutched in his hand.
0:39:02 > 0:39:09Sprawled like that, as though he had been in the act of running and he tripped and that was the end for him.
0:39:09 > 0:39:13He lacked a head, as though someone had decapitated him.
0:39:17 > 0:39:25Donald will never know exactly what happened, but he believes the 18 people who died had been murdered.
0:39:25 > 0:39:31But most significantly, in a culture where the dead were always treated with respect,
0:39:31 > 0:39:34these bodies had not been buried.
0:39:34 > 0:39:42It was a very grisly scene. The interesting thing is that no-one ever came back to retrieve the bodies.
0:39:42 > 0:39:47After an accidental conflagration with people dying by accident,
0:39:47 > 0:39:54their relatives would have retrieved the bodies for burial. No-one was around to get them.
0:39:54 > 0:39:59No-one was here and cared to get them. There is a real caesura.
0:39:59 > 0:40:07It's almost as though, with their deaths and the destruction of the temple, the place was abandoned.
0:40:37 > 0:40:42From stalactites in Israel to icebergs in Iceland,
0:40:42 > 0:40:49Fekri had compelling evidence that this traumatic human crisis was linked to a global climate change.
0:40:49 > 0:40:53But one piece of the puzzle was still missing.
0:40:53 > 0:41:00Would he be able to find any scientific proof of climate disaster in Egypt itself?
0:41:00 > 0:41:07He still needed to know if the country's lifeblood, the Nile, had failed for decade after decade.
0:41:12 > 0:41:17The crucial evidence was to come from this lake.
0:41:17 > 0:41:20It's an unusual place.
0:41:20 > 0:41:26During the Old Kingdom, it was linked directly to the Nile by a tributary.
0:41:26 > 0:41:31During the Nile floods every year, the lake would get much bigger.
0:41:36 > 0:41:42If Fekri can discover the size of the lake at the end of the Old Kingdom,
0:41:42 > 0:41:45he'll know if the floods failed.
0:41:55 > 0:42:00He decided to search the mud at the bottom of the lake for answers.
0:42:09 > 0:42:12And what he found was intriguing.
0:42:13 > 0:42:18Actually, it's more what he didn't find that fascinated him.
0:42:23 > 0:42:28They looked everywhere for sediments dating back to the Old Kingdom.
0:42:28 > 0:42:35They looked in the middle of the lake and at the sides. It was a real mystery.
0:42:35 > 0:42:42The huge surprise is that we can't find the Old Kingdom sediments at the bottom of the lake,
0:42:42 > 0:42:44where they should be.
0:42:44 > 0:42:48They couldn't find any mud dating back that far.
0:42:48 > 0:42:53It was as if the lake didn't exist during the Old Kingdom.
0:42:53 > 0:42:59But Fekri knows from the ancient records that there was a lake here.
0:43:01 > 0:43:09He was quite bewildered, then one day it dawned on him why they were failing to find anything.
0:43:10 > 0:43:13There's only one explanation.
0:43:13 > 0:43:20The lake must have dried up completely, then the sediments have been blown away by storms.
0:43:21 > 0:43:27So the Old Kingdom sediments are gone. They are vanished.
0:43:40 > 0:43:46The fact that such a huge lake could vanish so dramatically was extraordinary.
0:43:46 > 0:43:51The Nile must have been so low it had stopped feeding the lake.
0:43:51 > 0:43:58What's remarkable is that this was the only time in its whole history that the lake completely dried up.
0:43:58 > 0:44:03And it happened precisely at the end of the Old Kingdom.
0:44:05 > 0:44:09Here, at last, was Fekri's clinching evidence.
0:44:09 > 0:44:15A catastrophic global climate change caused a series of low Nile floods year after year,
0:44:15 > 0:44:18turning the land to dust.
0:44:23 > 0:44:30This was the explanation for the severe famines affecting the whole of Egypt.
0:44:32 > 0:44:34Sandstorms smothered the land.
0:44:34 > 0:44:41In one of the mightiest civilisations ever known, people were starving to death.
0:44:56 > 0:45:03And it was these scenes that were described so vividly on the walls of Ankhtifi's tomb.
0:45:17 > 0:45:24Although Fekri's quest is over, one poignant section still puzzles him.
0:45:24 > 0:45:29"All of Upper Egypt was dying of hunger to such a degree
0:45:29 > 0:45:33"that everyone had come to eating their children."
0:45:33 > 0:45:36It's an astonishing description.
0:45:36 > 0:45:41Were people so desperate that they resorted to cannibalism?
0:45:41 > 0:45:46I was startled when I saw Ankhtifi's account
0:45:46 > 0:45:53of people eating children in ancient Egypt because this is something we just don't think about.
0:45:53 > 0:46:00We cannot imagine such events, such horrendous events, as happened in ancient Egypt.
0:46:00 > 0:46:03But I was not surprised
0:46:03 > 0:46:07because I knew that this has happened later in time
0:46:07 > 0:46:12and that we do have a first-hand eye-witness account
0:46:12 > 0:46:16of a famine, associated with a drought,
0:46:16 > 0:46:20a low Nile, that lasted for a couple of years,
0:46:20 > 0:46:28and have led to atrocious activities by people, including eating children, among other things.
0:46:36 > 0:46:43The first-hand account came from a book written by a doctor from Baghdad
0:46:43 > 0:46:47who'd witnessed a famine in Cairo in 1200 AD.
0:46:47 > 0:46:54In his vivid description was a haunting echo of the tragedy that befell the Old Kingdom.
0:46:58 > 0:47:02He said that the poor were so pressed by hunger
0:47:02 > 0:47:07that they ate corpses, carrion, dogs and filth...
0:47:08 > 0:47:13..and that they even went beyond that to eat children.
0:47:13 > 0:47:20And so, at times, you can come upon people with roasted and cooked children.
0:47:22 > 0:47:26A frank, straightforward account with no sentimentality,
0:47:26 > 0:47:35but it reveals the...horrendous... level...of depredation that happened at that time.
0:47:39 > 0:47:44If this could happen in a famine that only lasted a couple of years,
0:47:44 > 0:47:50the horrors of one spanning several decades are truly unimaginable.
0:47:55 > 0:48:00The collapse of the Egyptian Old Kingdom was a hideous end
0:48:00 > 0:48:04to one of the world's great civilisations.
0:48:16 > 0:48:19In the next Ancient Apocalypse,
0:48:19 > 0:48:253,500 years ago, the greatest power Europe had ever seen collapsed.
0:48:27 > 0:48:31What was it that brought the Minoan civilisation
0:48:31 > 0:48:33to this terrible end?
0:48:38 > 0:48:41Subtitles by Dorothy Moore BBC Scotland 2001
0:48:41 > 0:48:44E-mail us at subtitling@bbc.co.uk