THE QUEST FOR ANCIENT EGYPT is a graphic account of the men who sought to unravel the secrets of mankind's first great civilisation. Since Europeans first sought the origins of Ancient Egypt, two centuries ago, they have encountered danger, scientific genius, callous exploitation and spiritual triumph. This is the tale of an ancient, and haunting, riddle. It is a detective story that began over six thousand years ago, and whose solution is still being unravelled.
Only two centuries ago, the outside world knew practically nothing about Egypt's rich history. Tales of monolithic ruins, mummies and their rich treasures occasionally reached Europe and fuelled wild stories. Then as artefacts of breathtaking beauty and inestimable value began to slowly filter out, the excitement grew to a frenzy. By the end of the eighteenth century Egypt was ripe for the picking, and the race was on.
Central to our tale are the lives of ten daring men who brought the buried world of ancient Egypt back into the light, and back to life. But this is no dusty academic tale. As our drama unfolds we will cross paths with an incomparable cast of characters that include an empire building dictator, a wildlife artist, one of Europe's greatest linguistic code breakers and an ex-circus strong man. These four form only part of the army of adventurers and scholars who have helped us understand one of earth's first great civilisations.
In PART ONE - Adventurers and Thieves - we meet Baron Vivant Denon, a 50 year old former courtier, and failed pornographer, who travelled to Egypt with Napoleon's invading army in order to give Europe it's first glimpse of the monuments of this lost civilisation. Shortly there after we encounter the child prodigy Jean-Francois Champollion, who dedicated his entire life to unlocking the enigmatic picture writing known as hieroglyphs. Next, we meet Gambatista Belzoni, former dancer and circus strongman who became a master at disassembling Egyptian monuments and smuggling them into European museums and private collections. Finally, we follow the exploits of Karl Lepsius, a German university student who became the first person to make a systematic study of the hundreds of monuments, temples and tombs that dot the sandy wasteland of Egypt.
In PART TWO - From Plunder to Preservation - the world of Egyptology begins to take on a more recognisable face as men like Auguste Mariette and Gaston Maspero struggle to establish laws to prohibit the wholesale removal of Egypt's ancient monuments. But even Auguste Mariette was as much treasure hunter as scholar. When he discovered the only surviving tomb of a 5,000 year old sacred bull, he unhesitatingly blew it open with gunpowder to find out if it contained treasure. |
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Maspero, on the other hand, was genuinely dedicated to protecting Egyptian monuments; not only from greedy European explorers, but from corrupt Egyptian government officials and local grave robbers as well. Finally, we encounter 19 year old William Petrie who went to Egypt simply to measure the great pyramids at Giza but stayed to establish the use of photography as an integral part of the archaeological process. Petrie began dating the age of monuments by using the pottery shards they contained, and went on to be granted the first professorship of Egyptology in Britain.
The THIRD and final episode - The Triumph of Science - begins with the familiar, if unlikely, story of Lord Carnarvon and Howard Carter. How an aristocratic playboy managed to team up with a self-taught Egyptologist who had been fired from the Egyptian Department of Antiquities for insulting a tourist, is the stuff of legend. After more than five years of digging in a valley that had been declared by experts as 'hopelessly dug-out', Carter and Carnarvon miraculously discovered the greatest tomb find of all time - the treasure of Tutankhamun. Next, we meet George Reisner, the first truly noteworthy American scholar to enter the field of Egyptology. Initially dismissed by Europeans and Egyptians alike as no more than a 'cowboy', Reisner soldiered on to become one of the most respected Egyptologists of his own time. Near the end of his life he sternly refused to leave his dig-site simply because Nazi Germany had invaded Egypt.
We then meet Pierre Montet, who spent more than thirty-two years in Egypt attempting to prove the Biblical legend of Hebrew captivity. His discovery of numerous royal tombs brought him much acclaim, and made him a celebrity, but he never found evidence of the Exodus - possibly because he had spent his entire life digging at the wrong site. The series ends with a look at Egyptology's most recent successes featuring the work of Dr Zahi Hawass and Dr Mohammed el Saghir. The work of these two leading Egyptian archaeologists continues to push back the boundaries of our knowledge of one of mankind's earliest great civilisations.
Sir Issac Newton once said: "If I have seen further than others, it is only by standing on the shoulders of giants." The pioneers of Egyptology were each giants in their own right. Without their tireless efforts, today's Egyptologists would be hard pressed to know where
to begin THE QUEST FOR ANCIENT EGYPT. |
