Egyptology today
Egyptology At The Dawn Of The Twenty-First Century, Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press, 2003.
AUC Press should be congratulated on the appearance of three fat volumes of the proceedings of the Eighth International Congress of Egyptologists which was held at the Mena House, Cairo, in spring 2000. Three years to squeeze out scholarly papers from the participants is not at all bad, although, fortunately for space, not all of the 400 papers read were finally submitted for publication. Even so, these volumes include 213 articles as well as the invited lectures and responses of the plenary sessions held at the beginning of each day. Accounts of the latest finds and theories from some of the world's leading Egyptologists are included here.
As always, this congress had a theme, or in this case, two; the state of Egyptology at the end of the millennium, and the preservation and protection of the material remains of Ancient Egypt with special focus on the Nile Delta. The first theme was covered by a series of invited papers and lively debates on different topics; archaeology, history, language and literature, site protection and conservation, religion, art and museology. The top experts in each field were invited to read their papers before a chosen panel of scholars, and the responses following each of the main papers are interesting, although never as controversial and heated as Zahi Hawass (who organised these debates) had hoped. These 'millennium debates' are arranged according to topic at the beginning of the volumes, followed by other papers on the same subjects; Volume One is devoted to archaeology, Volume Two to history, religion and art, Volume Three to language, conservation and museology.
Within each volume, the papers are arranged alphabetically by author, a system that has eliminated the need to categorise each one (a difficult task when the subject matter may overlap two or three categories), but would have worked better if the overall groupings had been followed. As it is, in the archaeology volume, the first article after the millennium debate is on papyrology. In the same volume there are two papers on language, two on conservation, two on religious texts and one on art, all of which should have been in the other volumes.
Then there are three important archaeology papers in Volume Two (History and Religion). Studies on mummies and anthropological topics are scattered through all the volumes -- a shame as, without an index, they will only be found by direct references or a hard search, as I discovered, trying to find an article without knowing the author's name. This arrangement, combined with the specialist content of many of the papers and the wide range of subjects, will direct these volumes to libraries, rather than private bookshelves. Another minor complaint is that throughout all the volumes is a scatter of typos and misprints, unimportant but irritating, such as ACRE instead of ARCE on p.5 of Volume One, Iverse instead of Iversen on p.430 of Volume Three, and many more.
As one would expect from a conference, the standard varies from the most erudite research of seasoned scholars to the tentative offerings of recent post- graduates. Many of the papers give excellent and readable summaries of current work, e.g. S. Ikram, The Animal Mummy Project at the Egyptian Museum; S. Yoshimura et. al., Waseda University Excavations in Egypt; G. Vörös, The Ancient Nest of Horus above Thebes to name a few. The response to the call for papers on Delta sites produced a number of papers about the important early sites of Kafr Hassan Dawood, Tell Ibrahim Awad and Tell Al-Farkha as well as the better-known New Kingdom sites of Tell Al-Daba'a and Qantir (not all of which are published here). For those interested in desert archaeology, there were articles by Kuper and LinstŠdter about their work in the Western Desert (in Volume Two). Other papers contain the results of detailed research and are aimed exclusively at learned colleagues; they are definitely not for the uninformed or faint-hearted.
The millennium debates were designed to report on the state of current research at the time of the congress and its direction in the future. They are among the most important and provocative papers and it will be interesting to look at them again in 10 years' time to see if the prognostics for the different topics were correct. Like the other papers, they vary in style and content, but will be an invaluable reference in the future of what was happening in Egyptology at the turn of the millennium.
Two of the most pressing issues covered in the debates are related: "Archaeology" by David O'Connor (Volume One), and "Site Management and Conservation" by Zahi Hawass (Volume Three). Archaeology uncovers monuments; site management protects them. Or so it is supposed to be, but there are many conflicting factors involved.
O'Connor looked at the last 40 years of archaeology to assess its achievements. The usual call for less or no excavation until conservation has caught up was again rebuffed; there are hardly any ancient sites in Egypt which are not threatened in some way -- by the rising water table, agricultural schemes in the desert, unrestricted housing and industry, infra-structure development, over-exposure to unregulated tourism, looting or just plain neglect. The answer is not less excavation, but clearer identification, documentation and protection of ancient sites, and as one of the respondents, K MyÏliwiec, was bold enough to say, excavations of a professional, responsible standard. The outdated 'Indiana Jones' approach, looking for spectacular and newsworthy discoveries, should not exist today, but it certainly does, and it leaves in its wake a trail of exposed, undocumented and unpublished sites up and down the country. Part of the blame for this may be pointed at the sponsors who expect their money's worth in new discoveries, but it is up to archaeologists to re-educate them to appreciate modern approaches to excavation where less can definitely be more in terms of information rather than objects.
O'Connor's overview, unfortunately, did not cover the methods of archaeology, or he might have noted that, with the exception of a handful of exemplary excavations, techniques have not come very far in 40 years, in fact, in some cases, they have not progressed since Mariette's days in the middle of the 19th century. This can only affect results; as archaeological techniques are being fine-tuned, far more detailed information is available; for example, seasonal changes in diet, fluctuating trade connections, manufacturing techniques and sources of raw materials, diseases... the list is endless. Only a team of specialists working together can produce such results. It should be unthinkable nowadays for anyone -- Egyptian or foreigner -- to touch an archaeological site without the minimum cast of surveyor/architect, ceramicist, registrar and photographer as well as a trained archaeologist for each area, all of whom should be on stage for the duration of the excavation. Extras like paleobotanists, soil specialists, physical anthropologists and other specialists should be waiting in the wings. To call in an architect to plan an already 'excavated' area with an exposed and confused maze of structures of different dates means that most of the results are already irretrievably lost. The same is true of the pottery; if it is not recorded in context and examined by an expert as it comes out of the ground, its potential as one of the most important criteria for dating, function, trade, stratigraphic relationships etc, is gone. The knock-on effect of this is that the excavation records, when they exist at all, will be rudimentary; the finer observations of stratigraphical relationships are not possible, and we are left with some isolated objects and yet more ruins. Such sites are rarely published because there is little to say about them.
The only paper in these volumes that I have come across which tackles in detail the question of excavation standards is that on the rescue archaeology in Old Cairo by Peter Sheehan (Volume One). Here he points out that the basic minimum record for any archaeological feature must be sufficient to date it by the record of its stratigraphical position and situation in relation to other features on the site -- a task which can only be achieved satisfactorily as soon as the feature is defined and during its removal. According to the Museum of London (MOLAS) system, the basic minimum recording system for every feature or context needs a separate written description, plans, section, and elevations, a collection of environmental samples and finds, and a photographic record. The careful observation that this requires will also aid the interpretation of how the feature was formed and its function, two other essential requirements of any excavation. To this end, Sheehan has developed bilingual context recording sheets in collaboration with the Fustat Inspectorate, and aims to produce an Arabic version of the MOLAS archaeological recording manual, suitable for work on urban sites.
The necessity for accurate recording to provide the raw material for good publications is one aspect of appreciating and respecting world heritage sites. The other is defending the sites from the tidal waves of hostile forces. Hawass, in his millennium lecture, suggests a frightening scenario if measures are not taken fast to protect monuments: "major portions of our ancient sites will be lost in 100 years, and, for some specific sites, even less than that." He lists some of the most destructive forces working on ancient sites, with unregulated mass tourism as one of the most threatening. Among his examples is Abu Simbel where up to 3000 tourists arrive at the same time each day, making it impossible for them even to see the temple and its reliefs clearly, let alone appreciate it, and abusing the temple through touching or knocking the walls and creating a humid atmosphere. One of the respondents, C. Leblanc, also laments that most tourists rush through the monuments as they would a weekend visit to Disneyland, hardly connecting to "one of the most beautiful civilizations in the world."
After listing the other major threats, most being of human origin and originating in fast population growth, Hawass describes the master plan for site management at the Giza Plateau, now, after almost a decade, entering its final stage. At the end of his paper, he calls for similar programmes for every major site. Training the necessary personnel is urgent, as is the education of the public, both the locals and the visitors, and perhaps even more urgently, the decision-makers at the top. Another respondent, W. Mayer, points out that for any long- term preservation to work, all the local government agencies should cooperate and archaeological and conservation practices should be integrated with planning and development programmes. Such a cooperation might have saved the World Heritage site of Abu Mena on the north coast where surrounding land reclamation schemes have caused the water table to rise so much in the last year that further excavation and preservation is impossible. And it might add serious archaeological monitoring components to the huge infrastructure projects that are being carried out in archaeological sensitive areas such as Alexandria, Fayoum, Minya, Edfu, Esna....
The race for academic or public acclaim for new discoveries often ignores the reality that an archaeological site, already ruined, is physically further damaged by excavation and is often more vulnerable, particularly to wind erosion and looting.
Slowly but surely the official regulations are obliging excavators to cost in some sort of consolidation or conservation work. This has highlighted the need for a common restoration policy and a close definition of acceptable strategies and materials (see J. Dawson in Volume Three).
Visually unspectacular and well-recorded sites could be protected by simply backfilling as Mayer recommended. Where sites are threatened by tourism, accurate recording by surveys and excavations is the first step to ensuring that their construction and function are fully understood, that they can be consolidated using appropriate materials and that any future damage can be accurately monitored. Such protective measures, especially for mud brick ruins, are being applied at the Ramesseum (C. Leblanc et al., Documentation, recherches et restauration au Ramesseum in Volume Three).
All the respondents called for a "conservation master-plan that specifies priorities, allocates resources, trains personnel, and maintains a database of changing needs and conditions" as one correspondent, Kent Weeks, put it. This must be combined with a long-range plan for archaeological site management based on a centralised register of all ancient sites with survey and conservation details and the possibility of monitoring their condition. It was disappointing that so few of the conservation papers read at the congress were submitted -- only 26 out of about 40 -- and that some of them contributed so little, like the one on weed control at ancient sites, which came to the unsurprising conclusion (without assessing the environmental aspects) that herbicides were the most efficient method! An example of a valuable report is that of the problem of groundwater at Hieraconpolis (D.P. Gold et al., Development of a Strategy for Ground Water Control to Preserve the Temple-Town of Hieraconpolis in Volume Three). Through a series of borings, a detailed study was made of the subsurface strata and aquifers on this site, and several possible ways of dealing with the high water table are presented.
Successful conservation work should be as invisible as possible, in contrast to restoration which usually means rebuilding, and, at its worst, can conceal or alter the original materials and structure, as has happened in Old Cairo (see Al Ahram, 14-20 August p.28, 'Reconstructing the past'). Without some impressive and showy results, it is often difficult to get funding, and this may explain why conservation of in situ structures is not very high on archaeological agendas. The economic necessity to increase tourism is sometimes used to justify reconstruction/restoration/rebuilding on the basis that the need for easy access and immediate recognition outweighs the historic significance of the monuments. But take away the direct links with the past, and we are left with yet another theme park. In the same way, crude or inappropriate protection measures, including modern structures such as ticket offices or obtrusive concrete walls, can spoil the natural beauty and ambiance of these sites as well as damaging their historic integrity.
The fate of museum collections is also similarly threatened by the public's desire for entertainment rather than education. Both art (E. R. Russmann, Art, Volume Two) and museology (R. Schulz, Museology, Egyptology and Marketing Interests: A Contradiction? Volume Three) paint a rather sad picture of the current state of these disciplines, based mainly on the changing function of museums and the objects they display as they "scramble to promote themselves as popular entertainment" and opportunities for study and research are curtailed or explicitly forbidden. M. Raven in his response saw the challenges from changes in museum administration as less of a serious threat as that of the growing superficiality of present-day culture. This was reiterated by C. Zeigler (Marketing and Museums of Egyptology: the Louvre Museum Example misplaced at the end of Volume Three instead of within the millennium debate), who felt that marketing expectations cannot be the main criterion of management, surmising that probably "the majority of visitors, if asked, would prefer to have our 20 museum masterpieces in one room." The public's wish for spoon- fed 'culture', therefore, has to be tempered by scientific and educational responsibilities, as well as financial considerations. The current craze of Egyptomania, a curse or a blessing depending on how viewed, shows no sign of slackening and guarantees interest in anything from Egypt. Optimists believe that this interest can be directed and channeled into more scientific areas but the public's desire for instant gratification and its two-minute attention span present a challenge.
But with art, Russmann ends on an optimistic note; that the study of the cultural interpretations of Egyptian art is still rudimentary and presents an exciting opportunity for the next decade, a view shared by respondent S. J. Seidlmayer, who points out that our visual experience, grounded as it is in Western art, "does not provide us with a valid guideline for looking at Egyptian art, in the same way that the acoustic experience with Western music clearly leaves us ill-prepared to appreciate the subtleties of Arab taqâsim music". In other words, until we have a deeper awareness of the ancient cultural values and meanings, we cannot begin to appreciate the expression of this culture.
Ancient Egyptian religion (H. Te Velde in Volume Two) and Egyptian literature (J. Baines in Volume Three) are facing a similar need for a deeper understanding of the ancient culture, as is our understanding of Ancient Egyptian history as the contemporary accounts which flesh out the archaeological record must be assessed for their historical accuracy (D. B. Redford in Volume Two). The study of Ancient Egyptian language is also moving into new areas (A. Loprieno in Volume Three), from grammatical and syntactic analyses to comparative linguistics with Semitic and Afroasiatic groups.
The enormous range of subjects covered and the difference in the quality of individual papers makes it difficult to give an overall assessment of these volumes but they contain so much new information that they will be a useful addition to any Egyptological library. In my opinion, it is the wider-ranging overviews and the summaries of current research that are the most valuable contributions and all but the most particular of specialists will find much of interest and value.
Reviewed by
Angela Milward Jones
