A World Beneath the Sands: Adventurers and Archaeologists in the Golden Age of Egyptology

In A World Beneath the Sands, Egyptologist Toby Wilkinson tells the story of the explorers, archaeologists and scholars who transformed the study of ancient Egypt during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. From the decipherment of hieroglyphs to spectacular discoveries in the Nile Valley, their work brought a lost civilisation into modern historical consciousness.

Wilkinson places these discoveries within the politics and rivalries of the age, examining the ambitions of European powers, the development of archaeology and the complex legacy of removing Egyptian antiquities to foreign collections. The result is both a history of Egyptology and an account of the people and institutions that shaped modern understanding of ancient Egypt.