Dr. Bambu's gaze crossed the yellow sand that stung the eyes in the sunlight, and landed on the remains of the ancient city under the sunlight. Under the ravages of thousands of years, the ancient city, which may have represented the peak of human civilization in the past, had been reduced to a pile of earth slightly above the ground, unrecognizable mounds in the east and the west, defiantly covering a minuscule area of four miles or so in the sea of sand in the southwestern part of Egypt.