5. Tomb of Seti

The Valley of the Kings contains 63 tombs. One of the largest is the tomb of Pharaoh Seti I. It provides a wealth of information about ancient Egyptian attitudes to the afterlife, and is one of the most extraordinary tombs in the Kings' Valley. Sealed from the public, Dr Hawass is the only person in the world with the power to order that it be opened - and the secrets of this amazing tomb are a revelation.

4. The lost temple of Akhmim

Egypt is unique among any civilisation in the world in that the whole country has buried temples and tombs under the ground. There are theories which suggest that the ancient Egyptians built many more great monuments than previously thought. The Lost Temple of Akhmim provides dramatic evidence to support this claim. Hidden beneath a developed city, its awe-inspiring secrets are still being discovered to this day.

3. The temple of Abu Simbel

One of the most significant temples of ancient Egypt is also one of the largest. Fronted by four statues of Ramesses the Great, the temple is Abu Simbel, and is a key to solving the dilemma faced by every pharaoh: how to reign as both a god and a man? Artwork on the walls tells the story of how close the great pharaoh Ramesses II came to failing in this mission. 

2. The royal mummy cache

The penultimate discovery of the top 10 continues the story of the great pharaohs in the years after they died. It is a turbulent tale involving organised crime, robbery, murder and state-sanctioned terrorism, and reveals the mystery of the missing royal mummies. Much of what we know of ancient Egypt comes from opening the tombs of the ancient pharaohs - but this also created a mystery. Time and time again, the tombs were discovered empty. Why were the pharaohs’ mummies missing?

1. The field of the golden mummies

Even in its final decline, the ancient Egyptian culture created something which, when discovered thousands of years later, would still inspire awe - a field of mummies, still untouched. Bones and skulls litter the valley floor. The skeletons belong to buried corpses. Many have been dug up by wild animals, a sign of what secrets lie beneath the sand. The discovery of so many untouched mummies is a priceless gift to modern science; an entire population of people, generation after generation, in one place.