William de Rumpel

The Brits who've been sitting there since the time of Lord Cromer dominating Egypt have become very unpopular and they withdraw.

How does it manifest?

You don't have the speaker of the Egyptian parliament dressing up in an ancient Egyptian gown or anything?

Campbell, just tell me a little bit more about the politics of this.

Because 1920s is almost the high point of pan-Arabism.

You've got a lot of talk about Syria.

Palestine is under the British mandate.

There's a lot of frustration over the Balfour Declaration and so on.

And Al-Ahram is publishing articles from Cairo attacking all this.

Do you have the Egyptians very much...

taking on their Arab identity and opposing it from an Arab point of view?

Or are they saying we're the descendants of the Egyptians and our mulids still contain many of the same, these religious festivals contain many of the echoes of pharaonic festivals?

How does it play out?

I can see Campbell coming over all sceptical again now.

But it's also significant for the moment that all this stuff stays in Egypt.

For the previous two centuries, most of the good stuff is being shipped out.

You go to Italy and there's this enormous Egyptian museum in Turin associated with the early Italian royal family.

The British Museum is obviously notoriously chock-a-block with Egyptian goodies.

Now, Tutankhamen, which is the best stuff of all,

stays in Egypt.