Egypt in 1800

Fülszöveg

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I he Description de l'Egypte was the ! fruit of researches carried out by the 3 Commission of Arts and Science set up by Napoleon during his Egyptian campaign. The 165 members of the Commission undertook a wide variety of tasks with zest They explored the ancient monuments of Egypt, recording temples and tombs on a scale not previously attempted, describing buildings now long destroyed, and making imaginary reconstructions of the temples in their heyday, with pennants fluttering over the pylons, and priests accompanying the gods' images in solemn procession.
They mapped the narrow streets of Cairo and Alexandria, delighting in the splendid houses of the Mamelukes, and taking some of them over for their debates and the storage of their collections of monuments or flora and fauna. They investigated the machines for irrigating the land, and the processes by which essential commodities were produced. They portrayed the citizens of Cairo at their... Tovább

Fülszöveg

' ,1 (' . ,
¦'lí.-/
¦ i " • ¦
I he Description de l'Egypte was the ! fruit of researches carried out by the 3 Commission of Arts and Science set up by Napoleon during his Egyptian campaign. The 165 members of the Commission undertook a wide variety of tasks with zest They explored the ancient monuments of Egypt, recording temples and tombs on a scale not previously attempted, describing buildings now long destroyed, and making imaginary reconstructions of the temples in their heyday, with pennants fluttering over the pylons, and priests accompanying the gods' images in solemn procession.
They mapped the narrow streets of Cairo and Alexandria, delighting in the splendid houses of the Mamelukes, and taking some of them over for their debates and the storage of their collections of monuments or flora and fauna. They investigated the machines for irrigating the land, and the processes by which essential commodities were produced. They portrayed the citizens of Cairo at their different tasks, producing a fascinating range of living portraits.
The 174 plates selected for this book represent the Commission's efforts in relation to ancient Egypt, medieval Egypt and the modem Egyptians at the turn of the 18 th century. The captions have been written by experts in their fields from the British Museum, University College London, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the Victoria & Albert Museum and the Musetun of the History of Science, Oxford. The editors are Robert Anderson, who has excavated in Egypt, writing and lecturing extensively on his work, and Ibrahim Fawzy, sometime Cultural Counsellor in London for the Arab Republic of Egypt, and now on the faculty of Cairo University.
he painting reproduced on the cover is by C.L.F. Panckoucke, who was responsible for printing the second edition of the Description de l'Egypte. The artist has gathered on to his canvas as many ancient Egyptian monuments as he can. Philae, the furthest limit reached by the French army, is in the distance; the ruins of Thebes occupy much of the centre; to the left is pan of the Great Pyramid; and in the foreground is a melée of objects including a colossal head ofRamesses II, a capital with Hathor head from the temple ofDendera, a harper from the tomb ofRamesses III, and a mummy. Members of the French expedition gaze on the wonders they have seen, ana General Desaix, leader of the expedition to Upper Egypt, is behind the columns to the left. What amazed the French in particular was the scale of the monuments, the profusion of their decoration, and the many traces of brilliant colour. Panckoucke had not been with the army, except in imagination. Vissza