0:00 On November fourth, nineteen twenty-two, my shovel hit stone.0:05 The sound wasn’t special—we hit stone all the time—but the feeling was different, a dull thud that vibrated right up the handle into my arms.0:18 It felt… hollow.0:19 The dust here in the Valley of the Kings is a world away from the quiet, sterile control room of the moon landing we visited last week, but the feeling of touching something unknown for the first time?0:38 I think that feels the same everywhere.0:41 For years, it had been the same rhythm.0:45 The sun cooked the back of my neck.0:48 My hands were raw from the shovel.0:51 We moved dirt.0:53 That was the job.0:54 We moved dirt for the Englishman, Carter, who was looking for a ghost, a lost king no one had found for three thousand years.1:06 Most of us thought Lord Carnarvon, the man with the money, would give up soon.1:13 Another season of finding nothing.1:16 But that sound… it stopped me.1:19 Our foreman, Ahmed, came over.1:21 He knelt, his hands brushing away the sand and rubble.1:26 He didn’t say anything.1:28 He just kept brushing.1:30 Then he looked up at me, and his eyes were wide.1:35 It was a step.1:36 The first of sixteen steps leading down into the earth.1:41 The work changed then.1:43 It wasn't just moving dirt anymore.1:46 The air crackled.1:48 We worked with a new kind of energy, a frantic, careful speed.1:53 Carter arrived, his face tight with something I couldn’t name.1:59 Hope, maybe.2:00 Or fear of another failure.2:03 He sent a telegram to his Lordship in England: “At last have made wonderful discovery.” For us, the workers, we just knew we had found a door.2:16 Sealed.2:16 Intact.2:17 The real moment came twenty-two days later.2:21 November twenty-sixth.2:23 Lord Carnarvon had arrived, bringing his daughter, and the air was thick with anticipation.2:31 We, the Egyptian workers, stood back.2:35 This wasn't our moment to be close.2:38 We watched as Carter, with trembling hands, made a small hole in the upper corner of the doorway.2:47 He lit a candle and pushed it through the opening.2:51 Then… silence.2:52 A long, breathless silence.2:55 The only sound was the desert wind.2:58 We couldn’t see his face, only his back.3:02 But we could feel the stillness that fell over him.3:06 It was the stillness of a man seeing a miracle.3:11 We heard Lord Carnarvon’s impatient voice pierce the quiet.3:16 “Can you see anything?” Carter turned his head slightly.3:21 We couldn’t hear his reply from where we stood.3:26 We just saw the way his shoulders relaxed.3:29 We saw the awe settle on the faces of the others who crowded near the opening.3:37 They said later his words were, “Yes, wonderful things.” We didn’t need to hear them.3:44 We saw it.3:45 We saw history break open.3:48 They took the photographs.3:50 Harry Burton, with his big camera, captured every angle.3:55 But he mostly pointed it at the gold, and at the Englishmen.4:01 Tutankhamun became a symbol for our country, a sign of our ancient greatness.4:08 But the story they told the world wasn't ours.4:12 It was about Carter’s genius and Carnarvon’s money.4:17 We were the hands that cleared the dust.4:20 We were the backs that carried the treasures into the light.4:26 Our names, men like me and Ahmed and Gad Hassan, were written in the sand, and the next wind blew them away.4:36 We were there.4:37 We felt the sun, we hit the stone, we held our breath.4:42 But in the official story, we are ghosts.
