Secrets of the sands

"Amid a sea of sand, in a part of Egypt so parched that decades pass between rainstorms, a green island may contain the whole of human history. It is called Dakhleh, the "everlasting oasis", and it holds a rich trove of archaeological clues... Over the course of a thirty-year dig, [an international team of archeologists] has discovered a perfect Old Kingdom town, with buildings ranging from palaces to common bakeries; the oldest monumental architecture in Egypt, even older than the pyramids; an archive of 10,000 papyri; huge caches of mummies, some still covered in ancient foil; an entire Roman city... 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." -- Dust jacket flap.