Egypt

Book excerpt: Egypt is a place where, as one contemporary archaeologist has noted, 'you can't put your spade in the ground and not find something'. This great treasure house of a country has been luring the curious for centuries. Among them have been many who sought to become rich by plundering the past. But at their best the searchers were magnificent professionals, lovers of history, and great respecters of the humanity behind their finds. Much of what the world first learned about the Egyptians came from an early obsession with their tombs. Thanks to the dryness that prevails throughout most of the land, not only did these burial sites often contain bodies that had survived the ages largely intact, but with them were found an array of items that revealed much about civilization thousands of years ago.