Book Description

Amid a sea of sand, in a part of Egypt so parched that decades pass between rain-storms, a green island may contain the whole of human history. It is called Dakhleh, the "ever-lasting oasis," and it holds a rich trove of archaeological clues. In Secrets of the Sands, acclaimed science writer and journalist Harry Thurston follows an international team of archaeologists as they unlock secrets of nearly half a million years -- secrets that may overturn commonly held notions about where, and with whom, lies the cradle of Egyptian civilization. Over the course of a thirty-year dig, the team has discovered a perfect Old Kingdom town, with buildings ranging from palaces to common bakeries; the oldest monumental architecture in Egypt, older even than the earliest of the pyramids; an archive of 10,000 papyri; huge caches of mummies, some still covered in ancient gold foil; an entire Roman city -- a desert Pompeii swallowed up by shifting sands; and the world's two oldest books, their pages of thin wood still bound together with age-old string. Perhaps most impressive of all is that these discoveries occurred in a single, magical place where it is possible to trace human habitation back more than 400,000 years ... before the advent of modern Homo sapiens.