Views of Ancient Egypt Since Napoleon Bonaparte: Imperialism, Colonialism and Modern Appropriations

by David Jeffreys (Editor)

This book addresses some of the main themes of the study of Egypt during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In a combination of case studies and discursive chapters, the status of Egypt as an important example of traditional Asian scholarship, and as an ancient model of imperialism itself, is examined. Contributions range from studies of nineteenth century antiquarianism, and the collecting of Egyptian antiquities as an extension of the territorial ambitions and rivalries of the European powers, to explorations of how Egypt is understood and interpreted in contemporary societies. Views of Ancient Egypt also considers the way in which Ancient Egypt has been adopted by less privileged members of some societies as a cultural icon of past greatness.

240 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 2003

Reviews

[DAJ · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book discusses a wide variety of ways people have perceived ancient Egypt since Napoleon's expedition to Egypt opened up the country for Europeans to study directly. It's part of the Encounters with Ancient Egypt series, which discusses ancient Egypt's interactions with and effects on other cultures all the way down to the present. Chronologically speaking, it follows The Wisdom of Egypt, which treats perceptions of ancient Egypt in Europe and the Islamic world during the 1400-year period when nobody could read Egyptian texts. Whereas another book in the series, Consuming Ancient Egypt, focuses on pop culture, primarily in the 20th century, Views of Ancient Egypt is slanted toward the scholarly study of ancient Egypt in both the 19th and 20th centuries, with nationalism and colonialism as important themes. Overall, though, it feels rather unfocused, as though its scope included any view of Egypt since Napoleon that is not clearly pop culture.

Jeffreys' introduction may be the best chapter. It describes the development of Egyptology in the wake of Napoleon's expedition and examines some of the reasons why Egyptology became insular and out of touch compared with other academic disciplines. Jeffreys also briefly discusses the general interest in ancient Egypt in various regions of the world. That's a welcome change from other descriptions of Egyptomania, which rarely touch on anything outside western Europe and North America. The next two chapters talk about how Egyptian monuments, particularly obelisks, have been carted off or imitated as symbols of imperial power, from the Roman Empire to 19th-century Paris, London, and New York. The next several chapters cover an odd hodgepodge of fairly narrow subjects, such as Sir William Gell's contribution to the founding of Egyptology (he corresponded between people like Thomas Young, Jean-François Champollion, and John Gardner Wilkinson and kept them up to date on each other's work); Spain's tepid interest in Egypt in the late 19th century; the way Egyptomania influenced 19th-century studies of Mesoamerican societies; and "hyperdiffusionism", the notion that civilization originated in Egypt and spread from there across the entire world, which proved strangely popular in the 1920s. The last two chapters discuss how colonial Europeans, Afrocentrists, and modern Egyptians have all characterized Egypt to suit their nationalistic and ethnocentric beliefs. These two are interesting, but they feel like they should be longer and more in-depth.

Like a lot of today's academic writing, many of the book's chapters talk at length about how ideological biases skew scholarship, mostly in the past but also in the present. Because the topics of so many chapters are narrow, though, it doesn't illuminate that theme as well as it could, and I found several of them duller than I've come to expect from this series. The book is still probably worth getting for anyone who wants to thoroughly understand Western culture's centuries-long tradition of Egyptomania.