Empress of the Nile

 Empress of the Nile: The Daredevil Archaeologist Who Saved Egypt's Ancient Temples From Destruction- Lynne Olson

Random House

Release Date: February 28, 2023

Rating: 📚📚📚📚📚

Synopsis: In the 1960s, the world’s attention was focused on a nail-biting race against time: Fifty countries contributed nearly a billion dollars to save a dozen ancient Egyptian temples, built during the height of the pharaohs’ rule, from drowning in the floodwaters of the massive new Aswan High Dam. But the extensive press coverage at the time overlooked the gutsy French archaeologist who made it all happen. Without the intervention of Christiane Desroches-Noblecourt, the temples would now be at the bottom of a vast reservoir. It was an unimaginably large and complex project that required the fragile sandstone temples to be dismantled, stone by stone, and rebuilt on higher ground.

A willful real-life version of Indiana Jones, Desroches-Noblecourt refused to be cowed by anyone or anything. During World War II she joined the French Resistance and was held by the Nazis; in her fight to save the temples she challenged two of the postwar world’s most daunting leaders, Egypt’s President Nasser and France’s President de Gaulle. As she told a reporter, “You don’t get anywhere without a fight, you know.”

Yet Desroches-Noblecourt was not the only woman who played an essential role in the historic endeavor. The other was Jacqueline Kennedy, who persuaded her husband to call on Congress to help fund the rescue effort. After years of Western plunder of Egypt’s ancient monuments, Desroches-Noblecourt did the opposite. She helped preserve a crucial part of Egypt’s cultural heritage, and made sure it remained in its homeland.

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Historian Lynne Olson, best known for her fantastic books on little known aspects of World War II history,  (Last Hope Island) gives us another little known but hugely influential story in Empress of the Nile. Along the lines of Madame Fourcade's Secret War, Empress of the Nile focuses on a Frenchwoman- Christine Desroches-Noblecourt, a resistance fighter during World War II. But what I thought would be the most interesting part of her story ended up being only a small part, and by no means the most fascinating.

Christiane Desroches-Noblecourt was fascinated by Egypt from a young age and was fortunate enough to have parents who supported her in following her dreams. She became the first female archaeologist and Egyptologist in France, facing incredible hostility from the men in her field, who didn't want her on dig sites. They disliked her presence in general, her talent and intelligence, her familiarity and positive working relationship with the local Egyptian workers, and her successes. When not on a dig in Egypt she was working at the Louvre. As the Nazi threat began to loom, the Louvre packed up its treasures and shipped them to different places for protection, with Christiane helping catalog, pack, and transport the Egyptian collections. She remained in Paris during the occupation and was part of the first resistance group against the Nazis, a fascinating collection of men and women who were mostly museum workers but were able to help hide escaping POWs in their museums and get them to safety, among many other things. When Christiane was arrested, questioned, and then released by Nazi officers she knew she would be under surveillance and backed away from the group to keep her friends in the movement safe. While I thought this early part of her life would have been the most fascinating, what really captivated me was what came after the war. Christiane worked with Egyptian officials, UNESCO, and other agencies during the 1960s to save Abu Simbel, the Temple at Philae, and other priceless monuments from being lost to flooding with the building of the new Aswan High Dam. She was the visionary and the driving force behind the effort, even though she received little credit then or now. It was Desroches-Noblecourt who brought experts and professionals from around the world together to work on a project with no political motivation, just pure desire to save archaeological treasures for the good of humankind.

Lynne Olson describes the race to save Abu Simbel, the Temple of Philae, and the other endangered monuments in breathtaking details that leave the reader's heart racing, desperate to find out what will happen next and how they will succeed. What will go wrong? How will they triumph? What political disasters will get in the way? The reader feels some of what Desroches-Noblecourt must have felt as she worked nonstop to save the temples. Along the way I learned a lot about the politics of Egypt, from when France and England took over during the 1800s through the 1960s and how the world's politics affected Egyptology. And how this can be overcome when a few voices prove what really matters.  

Empress of the Nile is a fascinating story of the little known life of Christiane Desroche-Noblecourt and her life long dedication to discovering, interpreting, and preserving Egypt's past. Carefully researched and beautifully written, this is the story of a strong and dedicated woman who inspired generations of archaeologists, and should inspire future generations of people to go for their dreams, no matter how impossible they seem. Because sometimes, you can move mountains.

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

 

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