An eminent archaeologist whose fields of expertise range from Egypt to Polynesia, with languages and scripts reckoned with along the way, Professor Donald P. Ryan does all of his travels from a very nearby-base—Tacoma, where he teaches at Pacific Lutheran University. He is here this evening to discuss the far-away and long-ago from his nearby perspective, as covers ground explored in his scintillating new book, Beneath the Sands of Egypt: Adventures of an Unconventional Archaeologist (William Morrow). "This book should do for Egyptology what Donald Johanson and Maitland Eddy's Lucy (1981) did for paleontology ... This wonderful adventure story should be must reading for anyone aspiring to become an archaeologist, but even those of us who harbor no such dreams will be aching to get a little dirt under our fingernails." - Booklist.