It was a bewildering combination. Aboard the boat, we sailed upriver cocooned in a slice of Edwardian England, a splendid well-ordered make-believe world that protected us from the heat and the dust and the unsettling questions of Egypt. We chatted about home, about other travels, about quails and London. We enjoyed fine lunches, we took afternoon tea, we played cards on the sun deck, admiring the picturesque panorama of the riverbanks. We gathered for drinks before dinner.

But mornings ashore were another matter, another world. Out there, beyond the chaotic Egyptian towns, where the horse buggies rattled through dusty streets, beneath a merciless sun, in the ancient temples and tombs, lay profound questions of life and death, of meaning and belief. At Abydos we gazed at images of gods in the inner sanctums of the temple. In the tombs of the Valley of the Kings, we watched souls being weighed against a feather and kings confidently embarking on their journey into the afterlife. Among the great halls of Karnak we were confronted by the most fundamental of questions — are the gods listening, or is the universe indifferent to us?    

I had no idea. And neither did the ancient Egyptians. They were just guessing. But such wonderful guessing. Who knows if Osiris actually did anything for them beyond the tomb but this side of things the beautiful reliefs, the staggering temples, the elaborate rituals, the bizarre gods are fascinating and life-enhancing and strangely beautiful. It is as if Tolkien and JK Rowling had been asked to get together to invent a religion, and then commissioned Piranesi to come up with the temple designs.