 Instead, the Egyptians were transformed by relatively small numbers of immigrants bringing in new ideas, which, when disseminated, created a wider ethnic identity".According to Bernard R. Ortiz De Montellano, Evidence for the racial composition of Egypt comes from a variety of sources which found "a remarkable degree of constancy in the population of Egypt over a period of 5,000 years".Professor Stephen Quirke, an Egyptologist at University College London, says that “There has been this very strong attempt throughout the history of Egyptology to disassociate ancient Egyptians from the modern population.” While there have been a number of influxes of people from outside Egypt, he suggested that the impact is over-stated, as thousands of soldiers had taken part in the Arab Invasion of Egypt in the 7th century, but they were still vastly outnumbered by the resident population of about six million.