Unknown: The Lost Pyramid

This isn't about Egypt and her historical mysteries. It's about her extremely egotistical head of antiquities Dr Zahi Hawass. He's absolutely insufferable. I understand having pride in your nations history however his way of going about it is more about him and his love for himself than the good of Egyptian archaeology. He is the extreme opposite of early archaeology, the era of foreign excavators. He hogs everything for himself and refuses to work with others. He needs to find a middle ground and stop making it the Hawass show. Egypt deserves better than him. The world deserves better. Besides Hawaas and the obviously staged aspects of the show it does let you glimpse into the beauty that is and was Egypt. For that it gets 4 stars.

اچھی فلم!

اچھی فلم!

اچھی فلم!

اچھی فلم!

I absolutely love anything to do with ancient Egypt. Anytime a new documentary comes out I'm on it like a fly on $hit. So as soon as this came out I settled down for an hour and a half of informative archaeology. That is not what I got. Now, I will preface this review with the fact I'm not a great fan of Hawass. His ego and inability to work with international archaeology teams is pretty well known. But he is an expert, so I didn't go into this expecting to get particularly annoyed at all. So it starts off okay, he's looking for a lost pyramid and his colleague/student is doing a dig in another location. All good. Now I wont go into the whole synopsis of this film, I'll just convey what I took away from it. This lost pyramid, is supposed to belong to a Pharoah called Huni. Perhaps we will learn a bit about him or that time period? Maybe we will learn how this period fits into global civilisations? I hope we get a bit of context as to why his pyramid is missing?! No, you get nothing. Because this search for a pyramid has absolutely nothing to do with the find, and everything to do with Hawass. As far as this documentary is concerned, this is more about having Egyptians make a 'great' find under his tutelage than anything else. And there is nothing wrong with having pride in your nations history and wanting to make your own discoveries, of course. But you don't shrug other experts off because they happened to come from overseas. So there is a fair amount of time spent on the 'evil' foreigner that arranged digs and 'stole' all these artifacts. He seems to conveniently forget that the 'evil' foreigners were the ones funding these incredibly expensive digs, and the terms with the Egyptian government at the time was that any spoils would be shared between them as reimbursement. But lets just ignore that, shall we? So, he ends up with 2, rather extraordinary finds, unrelated to the main dig. Pin that in your mind. His colleague has a far more interesting dig, unearthing a tomb with amazing artifacts - one unlike any other. Now pin that also. Now, you would be correct in assuming these amazing artifacts, their discovery, their conservation, their meaning and significance, would take up the main bulk of this documentary right? Nope. You get a couple of scenes of onsite, and lab, conservation, and that is it. Literally, you barely see anything. I was wondering if we would actually see anything at all! You do get a small glimpse at the end, in the form of the previous 'Egyptians made a find' motif. Some of the discoveries you only see when they pull them out of the sand, and never again! I came away from this feeling like it was a big missed opportunity. That somewhere, down the line, it stopped being a documentary about a missing pyramid and tombs, and morphed into a ego driven vanity project...and that's a shame. Because the finds were truly fascinating. I would have much rather had learned about the finds then listen to Hawass and his protégé wax lyrical about how amazing they are.

Have a lot of evidence and well ordered information and it explains the methodology of discovering a new monuments and how they deal with it from opening the tomb and during they get it out and how they restore it again, they also make a real buildup for the time of the monuments and what is the procedures to translate and understand the pharaonic texts to know more about this great civilization. The explorers in the movie sounded really experienced and seemed very familiar with the work, very knowledgeable and passionate about their work It also didn't ignore to show us how beautiful is egypt and how nice is the Egyptian people.

Many interesting facts are told by real archaeologists. This is the concept of the documentary. It takes you to learn about the secrets of ancient Egypt thousands of years ago. This information I did not know before. Dr. Zahi Hawass is really amazing. I benefited a lot from him, as he is a scientific encyclopedia. I thank Netflix for its cooperation with him, and I think it is a step to correct the effects of the documentaries it produces. And thanks to all the real work team who contributed to producing this creative and exciting work that takes you to ancient history with its secrets and stories.

This is a fascinating journey of a proud Egyptian,Zahi Hawass searching for the missing Lost Pyramid. The documentary sheds light on the perseverance of Egyptians to treat these sacred sites with respect from the excavators, to the sketch artists, to the Egyptian curators who unravel ancient papyrus . I enjoyed witnessing the comraderies of singing workers in the desert sun, the careful brush strokes of discovering ancient sculptures. The enthusiasm of discoveries and the greater purpose the crew. This documentary tells the story of meticulous reverence of precious stones, sculptures, jewels and mummies found in search of a greater treasure - learn more about the past. The camera takes you into the tomb, shows the cracking of the mortar around the sealed sarcophagus, shows the brushes pushing away dirt, the dusty air in the shaft of the pyramid and explains the difference between a good mummy and a well preserved mummy. It admits that even some discoveries of objects still puzzle archeologists. There is a clear theme of the importance of Egyptians workers, Egyptian archeologists and Egyptologists for Egypt. While the story of King Tutankhamun are infamous, but it is clear that it was a British financier and British archeologist. This documentary sheds light on the importance of Egyptians discovering their own history. It is a powerful story of deep respect and inspiration on the value of history. It demonstrates the power of live-long friendships, perseverance, cooperation and hard work in difficult conditions to unravel the history of an ancient civilization. A positive story of hope of human spirit that transcends generations. When Zahi Hawass,states that he is most proud of training Egyptian archaeologists to carry on the work, it resonated the power of the human spirit.

Great start for well documented information. We need more of these specially with informed scientists in it. It is a documentary. If you like documentaries and facts, that's what you are looking for. If you are looking for fake dramas, then look somewhere else. I like how informative the presenter and the authenticity they try to add in every scene. However, we need more CGI and animations in future documentaries to reflect what the scientists are explianing. Finally, a good attempt for Netflix to add such an informative documentary in their library. At least this is what i am looking for with the monthly subscription.