Crocodile on the Sandbank

Amelia Peabody is left a wealthy orphan after the death of her studious father, who has left her everything in his will because she is the only one of his children who shared his interests, namely history and archaeology. The inheritance enables her to travel abroad in order to follow her enthusiasm for antiquities.

Amelia, a determined and unorthodox English woman, supports women's suffrage. She believes she will never marry, as she believes she is unattractive and she will neither submit to a man nor rule one. In Rome she meets the destitute Evelyn Forbes, whose titled family have cast her off after she eloped with, then was abandoned by, an Italian art teacher. Amelia takes Evelyn under her wing and employs her as a companion. They travel together to Egypt, where they encounter the Emerson brothers, Radcliffe and Walter, archaeologist and philologist respectively, and where Amelia falls in love with pyramids.

Amelia and Evelyn decide to travel up the Nile, stopping at various sites along the way. When they reach Amarna, they discover the Emersons excavating the city which for a while was the capital of Egypt under the mysterious Akhenaten.

Amelia and Radcliffe Emerson loathe one another on sight, but after he is taken ill and she helps to keep his excavation going, they grudgingly begin to respect one another. Evelyn is attracted to Walter, but is convinced she will never marry because of her soiled reputation.

Evelyn's cousin Lucas shows up at the remote site with a story about her grandfather's death, his (Lucas') inheritance, and a proposal of marriage. Amidst the romantic entanglements and attempts to continue the excavation, Emerson and Amelia must also deal with the nocturnal visitations of a mummy that walks moaning through the desert.

Once the mystery is solved, Amelia plans to stay in Egypt and conduct her own archaeological expeditions, with Emerson at her side, as her advisor and as her husband.

The tone of the novel is humorous to the point of parody and pokes fun at many of the period's mores and stereotypes, as well as the sensationalist novels popular in the period of the setting of the novel.

Kirkus Reviews said that Peters used the “period setting” to advantage in this novel. The heroine is intrepid, yet “Here and there you might almost suspect that Miss Peters is twitting the category — in any case it's still loweroglyphics for those who barely read — anything better.” Loweroglyphics is clearly a pun on hieroglyphics, the writing system of ancient Egypt, which is the period studied by these 19th century Egyptologists. The review’s humor hints at the humor in the novel.[4]

A review in the Sydney Morning Herald noted the style of the writing as a commentary on the archaeology, disturbing burial sites: the collision course of Amelia and archeologist Emerson “provided laughs as well as the threat of death and danger that seems to partner disturbing the Pharaohs in their ancient resting places.”[1]

Elizabeth Peters' background in Egyptology lends authenticity to the settings and the history presented in the novel, particularly the method of travel by boat ("dahabeeyah") down the Nile that was popular at the time, as well as the customs of the various cultures.

The title of the book comes from an ancient Egyptian text:

(Ancient Egyptian love poem, from the front matter of the paperback edition.)