FAVE RAVE - Ancient Egypt by Train

I can watch anything with Professor Alice Roberts in. She is simply one of the best TV presenters of historical and archeological programmes. Here she is following in the path of Amelia Edwards, who founded the Egypt Exploration Society. Supporting the pioneering work of Flinders Petrie in the development of modern archeological excavation methods. Alice follows her account of an early visit to Egypt, that inspired her life's work to discover and preserve that countries past.

Egypt is a place I visited in the late 1980's, fulfilling a long held lifetimes ambition.  So a lot of what is featured in these four episodes is not unfamiliar to me. But much of it is also new, as she frequently ventures off the beaten path of Ancient Egyptian tourism sites. This is also the first documentary I've seen that uses the Egyptian train system to get around, as it follows the Nile in parallel down to Aswan. Often a freewheeling backpackers way to see the country.

Her researchers have sourced plenty of female Egyptologists from Egypt itself, and experts from the locale and sites they are visiting. Rather than taking the lazy route and going for the usual sources for information, such as Salima Ikram, who is excellent, but she is becoming a bit ubiquitous. But best of all there was not even a peak of Zahi Hawass, the disgraced former head of Egyptian Antiquities. This corrupt self publicist too often thrusts his unpleasant personality into far too many programmes. So these four episodes get big thumbs up from me, on that basis alone. Ancient Egypt by Train manages to find fresh things to say and fresh ways of presenting, what is very familiar subject matter.