A vivid account of the men and women who revealed the treasures of Ancient Egypt to the world, from the first decipherment of hieroglyphics to the opening of the tomb of Tutankhamun.
Professor Toby Wilkinson is an internationally acclaimed Egyptologist, and the prize-winning author of twelve books which have been translated into twelve languages. His books include The Rise and Fall of Ancient Egypt, The Nile and A World Beneath the Sands. He is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and the Royal Historical Society, and a member of the international editorial board of the Journal of Egyptian History. He is the Vice-Chancellor of the Fiji National University and a Bye-Fellow of Clare College, Cambridge.
It would be hard to overstate the excellence of Wilkinson's
storytelling – and I was surprisingly distraught to think that
there can never be a sequel.
*Spectator*
The definitive account of the golden age of Egyptology
*Waterstone’s Best Books of the Year*
It is a story full of drama, with the Nile, the pyramids and the
Valley of the Kings as backdrop. That A World Beneath the Sands is
also a subtle and stimulating study of the paradoxes of
19th-century colonialism is a bonus indeed.
*Guardian*
Fascinating . . . A World Beneath the Sands is more than a saga of
foreigners in the desert – it also follows Egypt on its rocky path
to the 20th century.
*Economist*
The story that strings these wonderful characters together is the
steady professionalisation of Egyptology — the shift, as Wilkinson
puts it, from 'scoundrels to scholars'.
*Sunday Times*
A gripping tale . . . excellent
*Financial Times*
The debate over the decolonization of Egyptology and the
repatriation of artefacts has only just started. Wilkinson's
elegantly written book provides a sound background and a useful
biography that will allow readers to understand and participate in
that debate.
*BBC History Magazine*
A fascinating story.
*TLS*
Riveting . . . Wilkinson is a consummate historian . . . He has
mastered the facts with painstaking research and allowed them to
speak for themselves. Rarely do the facts speak this clearly.
*New York Times*
Dramatic, detailed and eccentric-packed . . . as Toby Wilkinson
shows, the discovery of lost monuments, grave goods and mummified
corpses also stimulated the emergence of their true inheritors, the
modern Egyptian nation.
*Wall Street Journal*
Vividly detailed
*New Yorker*
A superbly readable, magnificently entertaining, profoundly
thoughtful and scholarly history of the bizarre and determined
characters who burrowed into Egypt in comparatively recent history
- and who all too often made away with their finds. You will want
to read chunks of it aloud to anyone who happens to be around.
*Tablet 'Books of the Year'*
Wilkinson marshals a wealth of detail into a cohesive and
entertaining narrative . . . an essential portrait
*Publishers Weekly*
Few can bring us ancient Egypt with such dynamism as Toby
Wilkinson. In A World Beneath the Sands, he has excelled himself in
bringing to life the intriguing and swashbuckling story of Egypt’s
discovery. He shows us how much what we seek from the past has
always told us about ourselves.
*Professor Michael Scott, author of Ancient Worlds: An Epic
History of East and West and presenter of the BBC documentary
series Ancient Invisible Cities: Cairo, Athens, Istanbul*
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