A World Beneath the Sands

<p><b>'It is a story full of drama, with the Nile, the pyramids and the Valley of the Kings as backdrop. That <i>A World Beneath the Sands</i> is also a subtle and stimulating study of the paradoxes of 19th-century colonialism is a bonus indeed.' – Tom Holland, <i>Guardian</i></b><br><br>What could be more exciting, more exotic or more intrepid than digging in the sands of Egypt in the hope of discovering golden treasures from the age of the pharaohs? <br><br>Our fascination with ancient Egypt goes back to the ancient Greeks. But the heyday of Egyptology was undoubtedly the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This golden age of scholarship and adventure is neatly book-ended by two epoch-making events: Champollion's decipherment of hieroglyphics in 1822 and the discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb by Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon a hundred years later.<br><br>In <i>A World Ben