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Al-Ahram Weekly 19 - 25 August 1999 Issue No. 443 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 19 - 25 August 1999 Issue No. 443
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Travellers in Egypt
Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Features Profile Travel Living Sports Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters The first true
By Jill Kamil
scholarly travellerPen and pad in hand, early artists and writers have been inspired to roam the Nile valley and make diverse records of the land and its monuments. They include Herman Melville, who visited Egypt before he began his classic book Moby Dick, John Frederick Lewis, who remained for 10 years and filled canvas after canvas with street scenes, Gustave Flaubert, who had a penchant for bawdy entertainment with colourful gypsy dancers, Edward Lane, who wrote an Arabic lexicon and his definitive work The Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians and David Roberts, whose drawings are famous. Robert Hay hired a bevy of artists and made three journeys up the Nile and Henri Prisse d' Avennes, who came to work on hydraulic projects, ended up producing a portfolio of over 300 drawings of Islamic art and architecture.
The difference between these travellers and Richard Pococke is that the former are all 19th century travellers. Richard Pococke came to Egypt in 1735. He arrived well before Napoleon's expedition in 1798 which resulted, eventually, in the publication of Description de L'Egypt, a colossal work on the splendours of Egypt.
Pococke was unquestionably the first true scholarly traveller. Before his arrival no precise maps of the country existed. His are the first and they provided a guideline for future scholars by identifying the position of sites such as ancient Thebes (Luxor), the Valley of the Kings and the monasteries of Saints Paul and Antony in the Eastern Desert.
Born in Southampton in 1704 Pococke studied religion at Oxford but must have harboured a strong desire for travel because soon after his graduation he set his sights on the east. He visited Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Mesopotamia (now Iraq), Cyprus, Thrace, Crete and Greece. His first destination was the Nile valley and when he published his Description of the East and Some Other Countries, the first volume was devoted to Egypt.
His descriptions of the archaeological sites were systematic and largely accurate. They were accompanied by drawings, plans and maps. He was particularly interested in the natural features of the land, noting the flora and fauna. He observed the customs and habits of the local population in modern cities.
The volume was adorned with drawings of pharaonic statues and coffins, plans of tombs and monasteries, paintings of the environment, and, particularly interesting, the different kinds of clothing worn by contemporary society in different walks of life. He drew a commander of guards, a female dancer, a veiled woman on a donkey, a Muslim holy man and a Coptic priest.
He came to some wrong conclusions about the pharaonic monuments but this was inevitable. After all, he was a pioneer. He believed that the pyramids of Giza, for example, were constructed by placing blocks of limestone over a natural base. Perhaps he drew this conclusion from his observations of the Sphinx which was indeed constructed in this manner. He thought the temple at Dendera, which impressed him greatly, was dedicated to the goddess Isis. In fact, it was built in honour of Hathor, the cow-goddess. Unaware of the art and architectural tradition of pharaonic Egypt, he found the Hathor-columns so finely made that he assumed 'they must have been executed by one of the best Greek sculptors'. He obviously disapproved of the noseless Sphinx, so he took the liberty of adding one into his drawing of the venerable lion with the head of a pharaoh.
Pococke visited Saqqara where he drew a plan of the galleries of the sacred Apis bulls, visited Dahshur and described the 'bent' and 'red'
pyramids of Sneferu. He went to the mortuary temple of Amenhotep III at Hawara to see for himself the 'labyrinth' described in such glowing terms by classical writers.
He was a tireless traveller. He walked long distances in the Fayoum area and sometimes used a donkey to get him there faster, but seldom did what the bulk of the people appeared to do - sit in the shade of the palm trees and relax. In Luxor, oblivious to the sun, he spent days on end making splendid drawings of the Colossus of Memnon from different angles, many of the tombs in the Valley of the Kings and some of the tombs of the noblemen.
Of Aswan, where he went to see the granite quarries, he commented that the city itself was "a poor small town, with a sort of fortress, or rather barracks for janizaries (Turkish royal guard)".
Naturally Pococke made a collection of antiquities - no early traveller ever failed to do so. These included a wooden anthropoid coffin containing a mummy from Saqqara and a 'block' statue (which he believed to be the goddess Isis). He made accurate drawings of them, complete with hieroglyphic inscriptions.
The intrepid clergyman travelled to Upper Egypt by boat armed with the indispensable letter of introduction from Sheikh Osman Bey, a senior official, to the different authorities at sites he would pass through. He made adequate provision for himself, his servant and a dragoman (the name given to guides at the service of European travellers) and took with him 'appropriate gifts'. These included tobacco, rice and soap. He was so overwhelmed by the hospitality of the sheikh of Qus (Qift) that he wrote that apart from the above supplies he presented him with a pair of "red shoes!"
Pococke drew a map of Cairo, its various quarters and main monuments. He observed that the population was a "great mixture of people including Egyptians, Coptic Christians, Nubians, the people of 'barbary' (the Sudan), Greeks, Armenians, Jews as well as French, English and Italians."
He went to great lengths describing Coptic monasteries and paid some attention to Islamic monuments. He was particularly impressed with the mosque of Sultan Hassan which, he observed, was built with great skill and, "a certain grandeur and magnificence that strikes in a very surprising manner."
He went to Alexandria, Abukir, Rosetta and Damietta. The stamina of the English clergyman was remarkable. He was among the first travellers to give the world an overall picture of the monuments he described.
When the Reverend Richard Pococke eventually had his fill of travel he took up an appointment as a bishop.
