World Beneath the Sands

A World Beneath the Sands: The Golden Age of Egyptology- Toby Wilkinson

W.W. Norton & Co.

Release Date: October 20, 2020

Rating: 📚📚📚📚📚

Synopsis: From the decipherment of hieroglyphics in 1822 to the discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb by Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon a hundred years later, the uncovering of Egypt’s ancient past took place in an atmosphere of grand adventure and international rivalry.

In A World Beneath the Sands, acclaimed Egyptologist Toby Wilkinson chronicles the ruthless race between the British, French, Germans, and Americans to lay claim to its mysteries and treasures. He tells riveting stories of the men and women whose obsession with Egypt’s ancient civilization helped to enrich and transform our understanding of the Nile Valley and its people, and left a lasting impression on Egypt, too. Travelers and treasure-hunters, ethnographers and archaeologists: whatever their motives, whatever their methods, a century of adventure and scholarship revealed a lost world, buried for centuries beneath the sands.

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In A World Beneath the Sands Toby Wilkinson explores the beginnings of Egyptology.  Starting with Napoleon's Egyptian campaign- which produced no successes for the French army, but widespread fascination with Egypt from the cultural point of view, and finding the famous Rosetta Stone- and stretching on for more than 100 years to Howard Carter's discovery of King Tut's tomb in the Valley of the Kings, Wilkinson offers readers a meticulously well-researched account of European fascination with Egypt's cultural past.  From Champollion to Carter, Mariette to Petrie, A World Beneath the Sands explores the methods, discoveries, and motives of the early European archaeologists.  Many came to make great discoveries and become famous, others for the thrill of knowledge, and a disturbing number came as little more than glorified treasure hunters.  A few, like Petrie, worked hard to establish methods that would record each discovery as it was found.  Many more, especially early on, were more than happy to chisel out the pieces they wanted from walls or tombs or literally dynamite out their 'prizes'. The dark history of European museum collections like those found in the Louvre and the British Museum is brought into the light here.  

It is easy to read A World Beneath the Sands as a series of adventures and dramas, ruthless battles between (primarily) the French and English for control of, and preeminence in, the cultural knowledge of ancient Egypt. From amateur adventurers to dedicated philologists seeking to unravel the mysteries of Egypt's hieroglyphics, scientific approaches to archaeology are late to the scene and there are plenty of cringe-worthy stories of removing artifacts, obelisks, and temple pieces. Culture clashes, imperialist agendas and debates on who can best care for a culture's history are all brought up, and I thought Wilkinson did a good job of presenting the facts without pressing his own opinion.  At the same time, the facts presented rather speak for themselves.  

A World Beneath the Sands does an excellent job of telling the story of Europe's discovery of and fascination with Egypt.  It is a readable, comprehensive, and accessible account of over 100 years of discovery that never shies away from the harsher results of Europe's imperialistic approach to Egypt's ancient past. 

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review