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Wonderful Things: A History of Egyptology: 1: From Antiquity to 1881
The discovery of ancient Egypt and the development of Egyptology are momentous events in intellectual and cultural history. The history of Egyptology is the story of the people, famous and obscure, who constructed the picture of ancient Egypt that we have today, recovered the Egyptian past while inventing it anew, and made a lost civilization comprehensible to generations of enchanted readers and viewers thousands of years later. This, the first of a three-volume survey of the history of Egyptology, follows the fascination with ancient Egypt from antiquity until 1881, tracing the recovery of ancient Egypt and its impact on the human imagination in a saga filled with intriguing mysteries, great discoveries, and scholarly creativity. Wonderful Things affirms that the history of ancient Egypt has proved continually fascinating, but it also demonstrates that the history of Egyptology is no less so. Only by understanding how Egyptology has developed can we truly understand the Egyptian past.
376 pages, Kindle Edition
First published March 1, 2015
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100 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
June 14, 2019
Dense, but readable. A great starting point for further research.
December 22, 2023
Some books that are primarily about ancient Egypt, like Temples, Tombs & Hieroglyphs, describe in passing how Egyptologists established what we today know about that civilization. There are books about individual discoveries (Ancient Egypt: The Great Discoveries) or how Egyptology evolved from irresponsible antiquities-hunting into an archaeological discipline (The Rape of the Nile) or about Egyptologists themselves (Who Was Who in Egyptology). Until recently there was no comprehensive history of Egyptology that covered its entire range: both field archaeology and armchair analysis, from ancient times to the present. Thompson sets out to change that.
Thompson is not an Egyptologist but a historian of the British Empire and the Middle East. For a non-expert, he does remarkably well; I've noticed only a few minor errors when he discusses ancient Egypt. On the main topic, Egyptology itself, his distance from the subject allows him to assess major figures in Egyptology without viewing them the way Egyptologists usually have. For instance, a man named François Salvolini is remembered only for plagiarizing Jean-François Champollion's work in the years after Champollion's death, but Thompson argues convincingly that the accusation is false. Salvolini did have some of Champollion's notes in his possession, but Thompson shows that Salvolini's accuser, Champollion's brother Jacques Joseph, resented anyone else who tried to access his brother's notes. That possessive attitude may have been Jacques Joseph's sole reason for the accusation, and it certainly hindered the progress of Egyptology at a critical point in its history.
Thompson's coverage of the intellectual side of Egyptology isn't as thorough as it could be, but it's more extensive than anything else out there. Thompson generally describes how each culture—the Islamic world, medieval Europe, and early modern Europe—perceived ancient Egypt. He does an especially good job of analyzing the decipherment of hieroglyphs and who contributed what to the process—not just the crucial figures like Champollion and Thomas Young, but the authors who contributed bits and pieces during the 17th and 18th centuries and the handful of scholars who completed the process in the mid-19th century. Few people realize that no one was able to translate a full-length Egyptian text until about the 1850s, twenty years after Champollion died.
The archaeological side of the story is more familiar territory, at least to those who have read The Rape of the Nile. The atrociously casual looting and destruction of artifacts and monuments ran simultaneously with atrociously casual and destructive archaeology. Auguste Mariette, the founder of Egypt's Antiquities Service who dominated the archaeological field for thirty years, tried to slow the destruction somewhat but was himself much more prolific than careful.
Thompson makes a special effort to cover the less well known figures in Egyptology: collectors, copyists, travelogue writers, excavators and analysts who showed promise but whose careers were cut short. This last category of people was so numerous that an air of frustration hangs over large parts of the book. There were too many lost opportunities in Egyptology—and because so much went undone early on, the work of non-scholars like the copyists and travelogue writers proved unexpectedly important in preserving pieces of what was lost.
The book ends around 1880, with Mariette's dying days, just before a series of political upheavals that reshaped Egypt and Egyptology. That story serves as the opening of Volume 2.
Thompson is not an Egyptologist but a historian of the British Empire and the Middle East. For a non-expert, he does remarkably well; I've noticed only a few minor errors when he discusses ancient Egypt. On the main topic, Egyptology itself, his distance from the subject allows him to assess major figures in Egyptology without viewing them the way Egyptologists usually have. For instance, a man named François Salvolini is remembered only for plagiarizing Jean-François Champollion's work in the years after Champollion's death, but Thompson argues convincingly that the accusation is false. Salvolini did have some of Champollion's notes in his possession, but Thompson shows that Salvolini's accuser, Champollion's brother Jacques Joseph, resented anyone else who tried to access his brother's notes. That possessive attitude may have been Jacques Joseph's sole reason for the accusation, and it certainly hindered the progress of Egyptology at a critical point in its history.
Thompson's coverage of the intellectual side of Egyptology isn't as thorough as it could be, but it's more extensive than anything else out there. Thompson generally describes how each culture—the Islamic world, medieval Europe, and early modern Europe—perceived ancient Egypt. He does an especially good job of analyzing the decipherment of hieroglyphs and who contributed what to the process—not just the crucial figures like Champollion and Thomas Young, but the authors who contributed bits and pieces during the 17th and 18th centuries and the handful of scholars who completed the process in the mid-19th century. Few people realize that no one was able to translate a full-length Egyptian text until about the 1850s, twenty years after Champollion died.
The archaeological side of the story is more familiar territory, at least to those who have read The Rape of the Nile. The atrociously casual looting and destruction of artifacts and monuments ran simultaneously with atrociously casual and destructive archaeology. Auguste Mariette, the founder of Egypt's Antiquities Service who dominated the archaeological field for thirty years, tried to slow the destruction somewhat but was himself much more prolific than careful.
Thompson makes a special effort to cover the less well known figures in Egyptology: collectors, copyists, travelogue writers, excavators and analysts who showed promise but whose careers were cut short. This last category of people was so numerous that an air of frustration hangs over large parts of the book. There were too many lost opportunities in Egyptology—and because so much went undone early on, the work of non-scholars like the copyists and travelogue writers proved unexpectedly important in preserving pieces of what was lost.
The book ends around 1880, with Mariette's dying days, just before a series of political upheavals that reshaped Egypt and Egyptology. That story serves as the opening of Volume 2.
July 26, 2020
Very useful comprenhesible overview of the history of Egyptology. Written in very readable light style for general public as well as for students of Egyptology and Egyptologists.
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January 27, 2016Learning so much about history itself reading this book! I had no idea that the E. Merck company distributed Mummia (powered mummy jerky) for sale as medicine up to 1908 in the US!? ... and on an expedition, Carsten Niebuhr (1733-1815) was sent out to search for mermaids in the Red Sea (as apparently mermaids were still being searched for in the mid-1700's). He didn't find mermaids, but he suggested a way to translate hieroglyphics using Coptic that would've actually worked had scholars taken his advice. He WAS the only one in his group to return to Copenhagen from the expedition alive in 1767... perhaps they discovered Sirens??? LOL
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews