Secrets of the Saqqara Tomb

What you need to understand about this documentary is that the tale is much bigger than what has been told. There is alot here you still need to know and ask about.1 belies more information by time will be revealed on this & by time this discovery will be more clear - it is still a great documentary that I would totally recommend to watch. Enjoy it!!

People who are giving this bad reviews apparently have never watched very many Egyptian archeology programs on tv. First about the gloves everyone keeps griping about. It's 95° and they can't keep gloves on tut while entire time because then their hands would sweat and could bust open and cause even more issues. Plus I saw SEVERAL scenes where gloves were being used. Then there is the opening of coffins out on the open. The head of Egyptian antiquities himself even stated that sometimes those coffins were empty and they checked then to make sure that a mummy was inside. Apparently no-one watched the special with Josh Gates and Zahi Hawass when they opened a coffin while it was still in the tomb. Pretty standard for most Egyptian archeology shows that I watched. Letting the bones out in the crypt was another complaint. They were covered in dirt to begin with and in poor condition. Laying them out isn't going to hurt them any more than they already have. My only gripeis about the way they were handling the mummified animals.

However...

Some people complained about the lack of a narrator made the documentary d disjointed and confusing and didn't fill in extra information. I felt this was actually very refreshing. Never before did I ever get to hear the individual workers talk about their work, discuss their family doing this work for at least four generations, how many of them depended on this work every digging season, or show them teaching their children the work too. It was nice to get their point of views on what they were doing and hearing what it meant to them personally to be there. Seeing their everyday mundane conversations and joking with each other as they worked was wonderful to witness. I honestly don't get how they thought anything was "staged". They probably only filmed when things were found or cleaned up enough for the audience to see what was there. Seeing things as they were found was awesome. You have to remember that what we got to see was probably trimmed down from hundreds or even thousands of hours of filming. We were shown what an archeological dig in Egypt was really all about without the annoyance of a narrator who was never there nor bogged down by wasted minutes of people documenting the finds. It was up close and personal from the actual workers point of view which was beautiful and awesome.

This is a great documentary that shows not only the progressive uncovering of an astounding discovery but also some of the lives of people who are working on it. These are not foreigners going there with a big budget. These are egyptian folk who have been working on the site for generations and who have something to tell. Beautifully documented and portrayed, and impressive camera work on such dark and dusty conditions.

.....just finished watching a highly anticipated Netflix documentary related to the 2019 archaeological excavations in the Saqqara necropolis. Saqqara is renowned as the site of the step pyramid and is surrounded by a virtual city of the dead dedicated to human and animal burials. The depth of digging and conservation to be done will take at least another two centuries to get anywhere near knowing the sheer scale of the buried sites.

This documentary is perhaps the most arousing cinematic communication of the true grit and wonderment of archaeology since John Romer's Ancient lives. The music was subtle and complimented the scenes beautifully. The reverence of the Egyptian archaeologists for their heritage was palpable however I saw a little rough handling here and there that could have been avoided. Time was a luxury the huge state funded team did not have.

A certain unique animal mummy could have had the dignity of a plastic crate large enough to hold him. They cut that scene the moment it was plonked into an ill fitting crate. I guess I'm just dreaming of what I would do in that situation as handling my own mummified cat on the rare times she is moved is something of special significance to me.

Watch this documentary and be patient. It takes time to excavate and the extra time this doco takes to tell the story lets the story lap at your feet like a tide of intrigue until you are totally immersed in an ancient world.

Some parts about the discovery of the tomb and the artefacts inside were absolutely fascinating!

However I feel that for the run time, it doesn't ever actually explain or tell you all that much... There's nothing about the history of the area, what they are doing at the site, nothing to create context.

However some genuine archaeological firsts are made and that's very interesting, as is just physically being able to see "live" new discoveries being made / unearthed.

I enjoyed it because I love ancient history, but if you're new to it, you'll find this pretty boring!