Wonderful Things: A History of Egyptology, Volume 1: From Antiquity to 1881

by Jason Thompson

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781617976360
Publisher:	American University in Cairo Press, The
Publication date:	03/01/2015
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	376
File size:	810 KB

About the Author

Jason Thompson is currently a visiting associate professor at Bates College. He is the editor of Edward William Lane's Description of Egypt (AUC Press, 2000) and An Account of the Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians (AUC Press, 2003), and the author of Sir Gardiner Wilkinson and His Circle, A History of Egypt: From Earliest Times to the Present (AUC Press, 2008), and Edward William Lane, 1801-1876 (AUC Press, 2010).

Table of Contents

Introduction 1. Historical Outline 2. Egyptology in Antiquity 3. A Medieval Hiatus 4. Ancient Egypt in the Renaissance and Early Modern Imagination 5. Ancient Egypt in the Age of the Enlightenment 6. The Discovery of Ancient Egypt 7. The Decipherment of the Hieroglyphs 8. Lifting the Veil 9. Egypt Itself 10. Hiatus 11. Consolidation 12. Preservation and Depredation 13. Taking Possession of Egypt for the Cause of Science 14. Mariette's Monopoly 15. Ancient Egypt in Nineteenth-Century Art, Photography, and Literature 16. The Golden Age 17. The Post-Maspero Antiquities Service 18. The Seven Hathors 19. New Horizons 20. Greco-Roman Egypt 21. Loret's Interlude 22. The Return of Maspero 23. Return of Maspero (cont.) 24. The Berlin School 25. Egyptology Comes to America 26. The United States Enters the Field 27. Attention Turns South 28. The Twilight of the Golden Age