Secrets of the Saqqara Tomb

Secrets of the Saqqara Tomb (2020) is a documentary you can watch online on iFILM. Beneath the sands of Egypt's Saqqara necropolis, archaeologists break the seal on a tomb that has stayed shut for roughly 4,400 years.

Director James Tovell stays with the local excavation crew through every stage — shafts, corridors, statues and sarcophagi untouched for nearly five millennia. The team reads the inscriptions, recovers the name of the priest Wahtye, and works out who he was and why he was buried this way. Egyptologist Salima Ikram helps make sense of the find, Egypt's biggest in fifty years.

It's a rare documentary about the moment of discovery itself, dust and arguments at the dig included, rather than polished museum cases. Made for anyone who loves ancient Egypt without the Hollywood mummies. Stream Secrets of the Saqqara Tomb (2020) online on iFILM.