In the autumn of 1986 I was wandering through the British Museum when I stopped to look at a painting that had been taken from the wall of an Egyptian tomb in 1823. It depicted a lavish banquet in heaven in honour of the scribe Nebamun. Entertaining the guests was an orchestra and two young dancing women. I had seen this painting many times before yet for some reason on this occasion I noticed something that led to the discovery of a mimed dance, the oldest dance in the world. I wrote a paper on my discovery and submitted it to an appropriate journal, but heard nothing. Thinking perhaps it needed improvement I re-wrote the paper and submitted it again, but still no response. In all I re-wrote that paper eight times before I finally realised no one was ever going to publish it because I had no academic qualifications. So I re-wrote the paper as a book and sent it to a renown university publisher who accepted it for publication. Then, one evening I was speaking to the editor over the phone when he asked me, “What are you in this field?” To which I replied, “I’m not in this field. I sell tickets on the London Underground.” There was a pause and then he said, “I’m sorry. I can’t publish.”

Thirty-five years have now past since I made that discovery and I am afraid the dance is going to die with me.

I have written everything I know about this dance, how it was discovered and how it should be performed. Just click here.