A World Beneath the Sands

Between 1822, when hieroglyphics were first deciphered, and 1922, when Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon found Tutankhamun's tomb, Europeans and Americans dug their way into ancient Egypt. This is a history of that century, and of the competition that drove it.

Toby Wilkinson, an Egyptologist, follows the contest between the British, French, Germans and Americans to claim Egypt's treasures and mysteries. Rivalry between nations runs through the account, along with a sense of adventure.

The cast is wide: travelers and treasure-hunters, ethnographers and archaeologists, men and women alike. Their motives and methods differ, but each is bound by an obsession with the ancient civilization of the Nile Valley.

Wilkinson traces how their work deepened modern understanding of Egypt's past and its people, and how it left its own mark on Egypt. Readers get narrative history built around individual figures, aimed at anyone curious how a buried civilization came back to light.