royalty, the caste system, general manners and customs, sacred architecture and sculpture, agriculture, and commerce. In a letter he wrote to his friend Harriet Martineau, Lane stated that he felt the need to put a lot of effort into staying away from Ancient Egypt; he added that in the previous eight years he could not read a book on the subject as it fascinated him so much that it drew his attention away from his work. Lane spent 32 days at the Giza pyramid complex, drawing, making sketches, and taking notes for his work. At the complex Lane noted that he saw labourers pulling down some of the stone from the Great Sphinx of Giza to use it for modern buildings. He stayed at the Valley of the Kings for 15 days, sleeping in the tomb of Ramses X, and left detailed accounts of each tomb, concluding that there may be further hidden tombs within the Valley. 160 illustrations accompanied Lane's accounts. Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians Since Lane had trouble publishing his Description of Egypt, at the suggestion of John Murray he expanded a chapter of the original project into a separate book. The result was his Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians (1836), published by the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. The work was partly modelled on Alexander Russell's The Natural History of Aleppo (1756). Lane visited Egypt again in 1833 in order to collect materials to expand and revise the work, after the Society had accepted the publication. The book became a bestseller (still in print), and Lane earned his reputation in the field of Orientalism. Lane left detailed accounts of everyday life in Egypt in the 19th century, which would prove useful to later researchers. Arthur John Arberry visited Egypt a century after Lane and said that it was like visiting another planet - none of the things Lane had written about were present. Lane was conscious that his research was handicapped by the fact that gender segregation prevented him from getting a close-up view of Egyptian women - an aspect of Egyptian life that was of particular interest to his readers. He was forced to rely on information passed on by Egyptian men, as he explains:Many husbands of the middle classes, and some of the higher orders, freely talk of the affairs of the ḥareem with one who professes to