I spent three years of my childhood in Egypt and simply loved it. I re-visited about ten years ago and felt as if I had come back home. It is one of the most fascinating countries in the world and everyone who goes there falls under its spell. I went on a journey down the Nile and visited all the big temples on the tourist trail. Normally when you see the popular tourist sites they can be disappointing or overcrowded, but this was not the case in Egypt. There is such a sense of mystery and history about them all that it does not matter how crowded or busy they are, it is possible to ignore all around you because you are in such a magnificent place. To be in the Valley of the Kings in the early morning before the heat of the day and to go down into the tombs in the stillness and dim light is quite stunning and moving at the same time. On this visit I took a flight up to Abu Simbel to see the sunrise there impossible to express my feelings - as the sun came up it flooded the front of the temple turning it the most beautiful rose, then gold and then the beam of the sun strikes into the temple and hits the face of Ramases in the middle inner rooms. It is the most overwhelming experience.
Now we have satellite imagery to help uncover hidden temples, tombs and pyramids totally undreamed of and unknown lurking beneath the sands of Egypt. The BBC have shown a documentary about this tonight and it is absolutely mind blowing, no other way of describing it. An American archaeologist, Dr Sarah Parcak may have uncovered hundreds of hitherto undreamed of buildings awaiting discovery, enough to keep archaeologists digging and excavating for the next century - Indiana Jones eat your heart out.
Totally fascinating but, once more, the BBC falls into the usual cliche ridden way of producing such a documentary. Endless shots of Dr Parcak and her two BBC cohorts wandering around the desert, looking into the sunset as a gentle zephyr drifts their hair across their faces, chats with another archaeologist take place as they squat on the sand, and lots of fill in shots of boats on the Nile, birds scudding across the sky and every time we are told they are going to visit another part of Egypt, more shots of Range Rovers setting off and kicking up dust as they go. I am probably being very unfair apostrophising only the BBC for this dreadful style as other channels do it too - I suspect that these documentaries are commissioned for a particular channel and this is the current method of production. Loads of computer imagery of course which is absolutely fascinating and enables us to see just how these cities would have looked, but far too much of it. We also had the usual presenter staring at the camera and asking portentious questions to which there are no answers.
In short, this documentary which was an hour and a half long, was padded and padded and tried to build up an artificial sense of tension. Nowadays, when information and results are so easily obtainable and instant gratification is the name of the game, it is rather hard to make the possibility of an ancient city being found, but only after digging for some twenty or more years, exciting. Archeology = Indiana Jones most of the time and unearthing gold and silver and jewels whereas the reality is digging amongst piles of sand and coming up with bits of pottery. When I was at school I had thought of becoming an archaeologist, a dream which was never realised and this was why I found this programme so fascinating. I know I am being hyper critical in its presentation which I found acutely annoying, but its content was marvellous.
The best part was when the Egyptian Minister of Antiquities took one of the presenters, Dallas Campbell, up a vertigo, claustrophobia inducing climb up the inside of one of the pyramids to its very tip where they sat in a small, dark chamber and looked at the mark on the walls of the builders who had worked here all those thousands of years ago. For once BBC speak failed and Dallas just sat totally overwhelmed.
Wonderful stuff and I already feel the need for a return trip. There is something about this country that lays its hand upon you and once caught it never lets you go.
