Wonderful Things: A History of Egyptology: The Golden Age: 1881-1914

by Jason Thompson

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 second of a three-volume survey of the history of Egyptology, explores the years 1881-1914, a period marked by the institutionalization of Egyptology amid an ever increasing pace of discovery and the opening of vast new vistas into the Egyptian past.

Genres: History, Egyptology, Egypt, Nonfiction

384 pages, Unknown Binding

Published December 21, 2015

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Reviews

[DAJ · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Golden Age of Egyptology was the period from the beginning of the 1880s, when Egypt became a de facto British colony, to the 1910s and early 1920s, when World War One and the independence movement in its aftermath shook the colonial power structure. This was the era when Egyptology came to be a true scholarly discipline and community, rather than the obsession of a handful of scholars; when antiquities hunting gradually became somewhat systematic archaeology; and when the skeletal understanding of Egyptian history and culture established in the mid-nineteenth century was fleshed out. It was also the era when most of Egyptology's spectacular finds were made. Therefore, Thompson restricted the second volume of this series to that narrow but extremely busy timespan. By stopping before the outbreak of the war, he leaves the discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb, which could be called the last event of the Golden Age or the first of the modern era, to the much larger third volume.

Whereas the first volume was organized roughly chronologically, this one is informally divided into two parts, of which only the first is chronological. This part deals with the vivid figures who shaped Egyptology in this period and their landmark discoveries—subjects that will be familiar to readers of many popular books on Egyptology—as well as the emergence of Egyptological institutions like the Egypt Exploration Fund. Here the running theme is the division of finds: the system by which museums and wealthy collectors funded excavations in exchange for a share of the artifacts they produced. Without that system, the massive amount of work done in this period would not have been possible, but the resulting scattering of artifacts across the globe made each find's context harder to analyze and created deep resentment among Egyptians as their interest in their own heritage grew.

The second half is thematic. Most of it details the state of Egyptology in the participant nations during this period (and covers American interest in ancient Egypt before 1881, which wasn't included in the first volume), but there's also a chapter on the building of the first Aswan Dam and how it spurred study of Nubian archaeological sites. In the thematic chapters Thompson makes it painfully clear that Egyptology was an extension of Western imperialism and shaped by its prejudices. The French retained control of the Antiquities Service as a consolation prize for the British takeover of Egypt as a whole, then agonized over the growing dominance of the Berlin School in intellectual Egyptology as the rivalry between France and Germany built toward World War One. Scientific racism was present throughout Egyptology but never uglier than when Americans voiced opinions about the race of ancient Egyptians and Nubians. And Egyptians, despite being indispensable to excavations, were almost entirely shut out of the scholarly field.

This volume has more colorful characters and anecdotes than even a knowledgeable Egyptology fan like me was familiar with. Even if you've heard of Flinders Petrie's exploding cans of food, you may not know that the mummy of Ramesses I languished unidentified for decades in a Canadian curiosity shop. There are also lots of flawed characters and interpersonal conflicts, all of which Thompson examines as carefully as in the first volume (though I'm unconvinced by his attempt to rehabilitate Émile Amélineau).

Several of the significant debates and theories of the time are discussed, but others are only sparsely treated. Petrie's Dynastic Race Theory, a major example of racism in Egyptology, is mentioned only in passing. The fight over whether some form of monotheism underlay Egyptian polytheism, which was never the biggest controversy in Egyptology but peaked in significance in this period, goes undiscussed. The linguistic innovations of the Berlin School are often referred to but never described, though, in fairness, such a description would get technical very quickly. These omissions are partly remedied in the third volume, which devotes more space to intellectual discussions of language, religion, and anthropology.

My other complaint is that flaws in editing seem more visible here than in the first volume. Thompson repeats himself several times. In at least one instance he has the opposite problem: he mentions John D. Rockefeller, Jr.'s patronage of Egyptology as if he's described it already, even though he hasn't. Thompson covers an enormous amount of ground in this volume, but I can't help wondering if it has other significant holes like this one.

[Annarella · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating, a riveting read if you are interested in Egiptology. Please not it's a very dense text and not always easy to follow
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher for this arc, all opinions are mine

[Nicky · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very dense. Alas it didn't help me get a PhD position about the history of Egyptology