The only people thriving in post-revolution Egypt — tomb raiders

 Cairo

Hook nose, blue chin, Arab headdress: the tomb robber resembled a villain from a Tintin comic. His friend was packing a big pistol and behind them it was sunset over the pyramids at Dahshur, south of Cairo. Looting’s been rife in Egypt since antiquity — but there has been an alarming acceleration since the 2011 revolution, and Hook Nose and Big Pistol are in up to their respective necks. I met them as they were about to set off for a night’s work: excavating holes in tombs right up to the foot of the famous Black Pyramid outside Cairo, built around 2,000 bc by a Pharaoh called Amenemhat III. Hook Nose was cock-a-hoop about his profession. ‘The police let me do whatever I want,’ he said. ‘They take their share, so I’m not worried about being arrested… All eat from the same hand. It’s a circle.’ Found anything good recently? ‘Yes! Three wooden sarcophagi with gilded linen wrappings. The mummies had necklaces and beads on their chests and a collection of scarabs and amulets.’ Hook Nose was delighted. It’s not just Cairo — this is going on all over Egypt. Under the cover of political turmoil, a new wave of tomb raiders are using high-tech equipment to detect tombs and other sites beneath the sands, which they then excavate using heavy machinery. They sell the finds to private collectors abroad, in London or Dubai. At the Sphinx and the pyramids at Giza, built around 4,500 years ago, the Sound and Light show still blares out to rows of empty chairs: ‘You have come tonight to the most celebrated and fabulous place in the world. Here on the plateau of Giza stands for ever the mightiest of human achievements…’ But within a kilometre of the Sphinx, I found the desert honeycombed with deep, freshly dug shafts.