Dimensions
130 x 197 x 19mm
In a ruined temple along the Nile, Anthony Sattin sees a woman praying to the gods of ancient Egypt to bless her with a child. Later that day, a policeman stops his taxi to ask to borrow a mobile phone to call his mother. The juxtaposition of the ancient and the modern is as vivid today as when Flaubert wrote "Egypt is a wonderful place for contrasts - splendid things gleam in the dust".
From the Romans to the 20th-century Europeans, for the Jews to Christians and Muslims, all have left their mark but none have eclipsed the surviving customs from ancient Egypt. From fertility rituals and funerary rites, local saints to magicians, Anthony Sattin has tracked down extraordinary examples of ancient survivals in the hurly-burly of modern Egypt.
