A.S.H. Smyth

The scholars who solved the riddles in the sands

Toby Wilkinson celebrates the golden age of Egyptology, from the decyphering of hieroglyphics to the discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb

Engraving based on the work of the Italian Egyptologist Ippolito Rosellini who accompanied Champollion on his excavations. Bridgeman Images 
issue 24 October 2020
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  • A World Beneath the Sands: Adventures and Archaeologists in the Golden Age of Egyptology

    Toby Wilkinson

    Picador, pp. 512, £25

In 1835 the first two Egyptian antiquities were registered in the British Museum: a pair of red granite lions from Nubia. Each bore the name of Tutankhamun — not that anyone had ever heard of him.

All serious understanding of the millennia-spanning Nilotic civilisation had disappeared before the last hieroglyph was carved in 394 AD.

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