Egypt is a BBC television docudrama serial portraying events in the history of Egyptology from the 18th through early 20th centuries. It originally aired on Sunday nights at 9 pm on BBC1 in 2005. The first two episodes explored the work of Howard Carter and his archaeological quest in Egypt in the early part of the twentieth century. The next two episodes focused on the eccentric explorer "The Great Belzoni" played here by Matthew Kelly. The final two episodes dramatise the discovery and deciphering of the Rosetta Stone by Jean-François Champollion (Elliot Cowan). The music was recorded by the Warsaw Radio Orchestra and is featured on the CD Timeless Histories by Chappell music, produced by Clare Isaacs. Production The series was a major new docudrama series produced by the BBC for the Autumn 2005 schedule. In order to create a sense of "seeing the treasures of Ancient Egypt for the first time", Dolling and Bradshaw felt it essential to film at the actual archaeological sites referenced in the series. Filming at such invaluable and popular sites created new challenges for the film makers. The co-production between BBC and The Learning Channel was initially budgeted at around £6.5m but problems filming on location in Egypt, including the weather and illness, meant the producers required another £2million. Post production costs involved in recreating Ancient Egypt meant that the final costs could have resulted in a £5million overspend but the BBC denied this. Several multi-media productions were commissioned to tie-in with the series including interactive drama BBC Egypt Interactive, award-winning online-game Death in Sakkara: An Egyptian Adventure, and an interactive exhibition at BBC Birmingham. A companion series Egyptian Journeys with Dan Cruickshank, in which architectural historian Cruickshank travels the country to explore some of the intriguing stories that have emerged from ancient Egypt, was broadcast concurrently on BBC Two. Reception Reviews Sam Wollaston writing about episode one in The Guardian said that he "was expecting to hate this show," fearing it would be "narration interspersed with lame reconstruction," but he was pleased to discover it was, in fact, "a proper drama, with a very decent script and real actors." "And it's a great story, too," he states, although he did not enjoy the re-enactments of the life of Tutankhamun, which he described as "olive-skinned actors with non-speaking parts and an awful lot of eye-liner, wandering around in a semi-darkness lit by flickering candles,"