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 ancient rubs up against the modern just as dramatically as when Flaubert wrote Egypt is a wonderful place for contrasts
- splendid things gleam in the dust. Anthony Sattin has tracked down extraordinary examples of ancient survivals in the hurly-burly of modern Egypt."