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Consuming Ancient Egypt
The discipline of Egyptology has been criticised for being too insular,with little awareness of the development of archaeologies elsewhere. It has remained theoretically underdeveloped. For example the role of Ancient Egypt within Africa has rarely been considered jointly by Egyptologists and Africanists. Egypt's own view of itself has been neglected; views of it in the ancient past, in more recent times and today have remained underexposed. Encounters with Ancient Egypt is a series of eight books which addresses these issues. The books interrelate, inform and illuminate one another and will appeal to a wide market including academics, students and the general public interested in Archaeology, Egyptology, Anthropology, Architecture, Design and History. Consuming Ancient Egypt examines the influence of Ancient Egypt on the everyday lives of people, of all ages, throughout the world. It looks at the Egypt which the tourist sees, Egypt in film and Egypt as the inspiration for opera. It asks why so many books are published each year on Egyptological subjects at all levels, from the austerely academic to the riotous celebrations of Egypt as a land of mystery, enchantment and fantasy. It then considers the ways in which Ancient Egypt interacts with the living world, in architecture, museum-going, the acquisition of souvenirs and reproductions, design, and the perpetual appeal of the mummy. The significance of Egypt as an adjunct to (and frequently the subject of) marketing in the consumer society is examined. It reveals much about Egypt's immemorial appeal and the psychology of those who succumb to its mag
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First published August 15, 2003
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July 14, 2023
Public fascination with ancient Egypt is the fuel that drives Egyptology. No other archaeological discipline has quite the same cachet. Yet Egyptologists must often get irritated with public treatment of the subject, which frequently misrepresents the ancient civilization. Here, the authors examine many ways the modern public has viewed and used ancient Egypt, in museums, documentaries, operas, advertising, computer games, and tourist trinkets in Egypt itself. The book is part of the Encounters with Ancient Egypt series, which discussed ancient Egypt's interactions with and effects on other cultures all the way down to the present. None of the other books in the series have quite such eccentric subject matter, but, as the authors point out, ancient Egypt's pop-culture presence is too great for academia to ignore.
I find some of these chapters surprisingly interesting. One traces the evolution of stories about reanimated mummies from 19th-century pulp fiction to the familiar 1932 film, which was built largely out of plot elements taken from the pulp stories, and its less subtle successors. Another looks at three 1950s Hollywood epics that were set in Egypt (The Egyptian, Land of the Pharaohs, and The Ten Commandments) and how their caricatures of Egypt fit with American values of the era. A chapter I find particularly interesting, because I have a strange fascination with fringe theories about ancient Egypt, discusses "alternative Egyptology", the fringe beliefs about ancient Egypt that Erik Hornung dubbed "Egyptosophy". Although this chapter's authors have very strange and dubious claims of their own, they don't let their wilder ideas bleed over into their work here. It focuses on the Orion Correlation Theory, a set of fringe claims about the Great Sphinx and pyramids of Giza that became surprisingly popular and influential in the 1990s, and traces its forerunners in alternative Egyptology over the past century.
The topic with the greatest long-term importance may be the perception of ancient Egypt by its modern descendants, which is covered here in the chapter "Egypt's Past Regenerated by Its Own People" by Fayza Haikal. At the start of the 19th century, most Egyptians had no particular interest in pre-Islamic civilizations, but ancient Egypt became an increasingly important source of national pride as Egyptians pushed for political independence.
I find some of these chapters surprisingly interesting. One traces the evolution of stories about reanimated mummies from 19th-century pulp fiction to the familiar 1932 film, which was built largely out of plot elements taken from the pulp stories, and its less subtle successors. Another looks at three 1950s Hollywood epics that were set in Egypt (The Egyptian, Land of the Pharaohs, and The Ten Commandments) and how their caricatures of Egypt fit with American values of the era. A chapter I find particularly interesting, because I have a strange fascination with fringe theories about ancient Egypt, discusses "alternative Egyptology", the fringe beliefs about ancient Egypt that Erik Hornung dubbed "Egyptosophy". Although this chapter's authors have very strange and dubious claims of their own, they don't let their wilder ideas bleed over into their work here. It focuses on the Orion Correlation Theory, a set of fringe claims about the Great Sphinx and pyramids of Giza that became surprisingly popular and influential in the 1990s, and traces its forerunners in alternative Egyptology over the past century.
The topic with the greatest long-term importance may be the perception of ancient Egypt by its modern descendants, which is covered here in the chapter "Egypt's Past Regenerated by Its Own People" by Fayza Haikal. At the start of the 19th century, most Egyptians had no particular interest in pre-Islamic civilizations, but ancient Egypt became an increasingly important source of national pride as Egyptians pushed for political independence.
Displaying 1 of 1 review