Changes

Jump to: navigation, search

What Are the Origins of Egyptology

10 bytes added, 05:53, 13 September 2021
m
[[File: Rosetta_Stone_London.jpg|300px250px|thumbnail|left|The Rosetta Stone in the British Museum, London]]
__NOTOC__
Today, Egyptology – the study of ancient Egyptian history, culture, and language – is a worldwide discipline studied and taught at major universities on nearly every continent. It has evolved from a more esoteric study known only to elites in a handful of schools and museums in Europe to something much more global that is accessible to a wider range of people, which has come to influence many aspects of modern society. The very definition of Egyptology and what makes one an Egyptologist has also changed over the last 200 years because it involves a variety of sub-disciplines that include but are not limited to some of the following: archaeology, art history, history/chronology, and philology. Essentially, Egyptology is a modern study that can trace its roots to the Enlightenment of the eighteenth century.
====Early Interest in Ancient Egypt====
[[File: Pyramids.jpg|300px|thumbnail|left|250px|“Pyramids of Gerzah” Lithograph by David Roberts, 1838-9]]
Although the ancient Egyptians wrote about their own history, the first true critical analysis of ancient Egyptian history was conducted by the early Greek and Roman historians and geographers. The fifth -century Greek historian, Herodotus, is perhaps best known for the in-depth treatment he gave to pharaonic history in Book II of <i>The Histories</i>, which influenced others, such as Diodorus and Strabo, to follow with their own observations of the Nile Valley. The accuracy of the classical accounts of ancient Egyptian history could vary widely. The further back in time the accounts went, the more likely that the chronologies were garbled and facts were simply wrong. The reason for these problems is directly related to the fact that even the most educated Greeks and Romans never took the time to learn the ancient Egyptian language so they were often forced to rely on the Egyptian priests for translations and explanations of texts. The priests were only human, which meant that some parts of Egyptian history were sacrificed for others they believed more important. <ref> Krebsbach, Jared. “Herodotus, Diodorus, and Manetho: An Examination of the Influence of Egyptian Historiography on the Classical Historians.” <i>New England Classical Journal.</i> 41 (2014) pgs. 98-99</ref> The classical historians were able to more critically examine events closer to their own period, though, because many of those events were already written about in Greek.
The curiosity that Europeans felt toward ancient Egypt during the Middle Ages began to evolve into a genuine desire to view pharaonic culture more objectively during the Renaissance. While Renaissance artists were influence by Greek models to create some of the finest pieces of work in the history of Western Civilization, some scholars began looking at ancient Egypt from beyond the perspective of the Bible. By the fifteenth century, most educated Europeans knew that pyramids were used as tombs, not granaries as they had previously believed. <ref> Curran, Brian A. “The Renaissance Afterlife of Ancient Egypt (1400-1650).” In <i>The Wisdom of Ancient Egypt: Changing Visions through the Ages.</i> Edited by Peter Ucko and Timothy Champion. (London: University of London Press, 2003), p. 103</ref> The interest in ancient Egypt began to permeate throughout some of Europe’s oldest universities, but the key to understanding all aspects of pharaonic culture were still unknown – the language. Some Renaissance scholars were able to correctly surmise that the enigmatic hieroglyphic script contained both phonetic and idiomatic elements, but it may as well have been a script from another planet because its decipherment still remained far out of reach. <ref> Curran, p. 108</ref>
 
<dh-ad/>
====The Enlightenment and Ancient Egypt====

Navigation menu