British Egyptology in the Nineteenth Century

Throughout the professionalization of Egyptology in the nineteenth century, there were several debates that raged: the purpose of the pyramids, and who built them; the meaning of hieroglyphs; the styling of statues and artwork on tomb and temple walls; and the history of ancient Egypt, especially in its relation to Christendom. As hieroglyphs became readable through decipherment, and scholars gained more accurate understandings of the written record, they established testable theories about Egypt’s ancient social, political, and economic past. This volume presents sources within these debates and demonstrates how ideas about the past changed with the understanding and uncovering of more evidence. Of course, most of this investigation was being done in Britain, in the metropolitan center, and so the sources bear the mark of inexperience in the outside field site, scholars’ ignorance about the peoples they study, and the colonial hierarchy present at the time.