Egyptian language and writing
Egyptian belongs to the phylum of languages known as Afroasiatic, or variously as Lisramic, Erythraic or Hamito-Semitic. The other language groups in this phylum are Semitic (e.g. Akkadian, Hebrew, Ugaritic), Berber (Kabyle, Tuareg), Cushitic (Agaw, Bedja, Somali), Chadic (Hausa) and Omotic. The Afroasiatic languages display a prevalence for consonantalism over vocalism; the ratio between consonants and vowels is higher in the Afroasiatic languages than in other known languages.
In Afroasiatic languages, word-roots play a major role. Roots consist of from two to six consonants (three being the most common number), and words are derived from these roots through changes of various sorts. For example, the Afroasiatic languages use an n prefix to form reflexive stems, an s prefix to form causative stems, and an m prefix to form instrumental nouns. There is also a certain amount of shared vocabulary among the Afroasiatic languages, although the extent to which this is to be explained as borrowing among the languages is disputed. Two genders are distinguished: masculine, which is unmarked, and feminine, which shows a t ending. The ending w is used to indicate plurals and occurs at the end of masculine nouns and before the ending in feminine nouns (wt). Among the pronouns, the consonant k is used as the second masculine singular suffix pronoun, i as the first person singular suffix, and n as the first person plural suffix. The use of ink (Hebrew ‘UnSkt, Berber inok) as the first person independent pronoun is common in Afroasiatic languages.
There are features found in Egyptian which are paralleled in some, but not all, of the Afroasiatic languages. For example, Egyptian and Berber form an indirect genitive (i.e. "of" construction) through use of the morpheme n. Egyptian shares with the Semitic languages the possibility to form adjectives (called nisbe adjectives) from nouns or prepositions. A characteristic common to Egyptian (in its earliest stages) and African languages is the formation of passive forms through duplicating the final consonant of a root.
The Egyptian language can be divided into five main stages: (1) Old Egyptian, (2) Middle Egyptian, (3) Late Egyptian, (4) Demotic and (5) Coptic. Old Egyptian, which was the language of the Old Kingdom (3rd-6th Dynasties), can be further subdivided into archaic Egyptian, the language of the earliest hieroglyphic documents and the inscription in the tomb of Metjen, and the language of the Pyramid Texts, which shows a somewhat earlier stage of development than the language of the later Old Kingdom tomb biographies. Middle Egyptian was used during the First Intermediate Period and Middle Kingdom. Toward the end of this period one begins to observe features typical of the next stage of the language, Late Egyptian, in Middle Egyptian texts. Although Middle Egyptian was no longer used as the spoken language of Egypt after the Middle Kingdom, it continued to be used in literary, monumental and religious inscriptions and texts throughout the rest of Egyptian history, until the use of hieroglyphs died out around the end of the fourth century Ad. The latest attested hieroglyphic inscription is found on a temple at Philae and dates to AD 394. Old and Middle Egyptian are very similar to one another, and are often grouped together as Classical Egyptian or Older Egyptian.
Late Egyptian, the next phase of the language, shows considerable differences from Middle Egyptian. The verbal system of Classical Egyptian was primarily synthetic, employing inflected forms rather than auxiliaries (i.e. "I go" is a synthetic form; "I am going," using the auxiliary verb "to be," is an analytic form). In Late Egyptian we find that synthetic forms have been almost completely replaced by the use of analytic constructions. At the same time, Egyptian shifts from having been primarily a verb-subject-object language to one that is almost exclusively subject-verb-object. The resulting tense system of Late Egyptian is more defined than that of Classical Egyptian, which seems to have begun primarily as a system expressing aspectual (i.e. completed versus incomplete) and modal (indicative versus sub-junctive) oppositions! Also, Late Egyptian shows the opposition of gender, number and definiteness in nouns through the use of articles which precede the noun, while Classical Egyptian did not mark nouns as defined/undefined, and indicated gender and number through the use of suffixes.
Late Egyptian has been divided by scholars into groups based on the genre of texts available. Non-literary Late Egyptian is defined as the language of the private letters and documents from Upper Egypt dating to the 20th Dynasty, and is thought to correspond closely to the spoken language of the time. Literary Late Egyptian is evinced in such texts as the Late Egyptian Miscellanies, as well as the language found in the later Ramesside monumental inscriptions. Literary Late Egyptian exhibits certain distinctive characteristics which separate it from its non-literary counterpart. Examples of such differences include the facts that literary Late Egyptian uses prepositions more frequently, and that it continues to use certain Middle Egyptian narrative tenses not found in the non-literary language.
Demotic, the next phase of Egyptian, describes both a language and its script. Demotic documents first occur during the 26th Dynasty, beginning in 664 BC, and are attested until AD 450, the last example of demotic known being graffiti in the temple at Philae. Demotic shows a number of similarities with Late Egyptian, as well as a few differences. For example, the Late Egyptian continuative iw.fb? ^’"is no longer used in demotic; it is replaced by the use of strings of identical narrative verb forms.
The last stage of Egyptian is Coptic. By the first or second century AD, an alphabet made up of Greek and demotic characters was being used to transliterate terms in Egyptian magical and astrological texts. By the third century AD, this alphabet was standardized and consisted of the Greek alphabet augmented by six characters adapted from the demotic script which were used to represent sounds not found in Greek. The introduction of Coptic seems to coincide with the introduction of Christianity into Egypt; the impetus which gave rise to its use was the desire to provide translations of the Christian scriptures to the Egyptian converts. Coptic continued in use as a spoken language until the fifteenth century. It is still used as a liturgical language in the Egyptian Coptic Church.
The first three stages of Egyptian could be written using the hieroglyphic script. The use of hieroglyphs (Egyptian: tit) is first attested around 3000 BC. The hieroglyphic script consisted of three main types of signs. Logograms were signs used to represent a word by depicting the object itself, or through depicting a quality or property associated with it (i.e. scribe’s kit for ss, scribe). Phonograms were derived from logograms and were used to represent the sounds of the language. There were three types of phonograms: those representing a single consonant, sometimes called alphabetic signs; those representing two consonants; and those representing three consonants. (Vowels were not written in Egyptian until the introduction of Coptic.) Signs representing two or three consonants were frequently accompanied by alphabetic signs, called phonetic complements, which represented one or more of the letters in the multiliteral sign. This practice led to redundancy in hieroglyphic orthography. The third type of sign is known as a determinative. Determinatives derive their name from the fact that these signs occur at the ends of words and serve to determine, or help to clarify, the meaning of the word. Determinatives have no phonetic value. These three classes of hieroglyphs are not mutually exclusive; it is possible for a sign to function in all three.
The main principle of Egyptian writing is the rebus. Pictures of objects are used to represent not only the objects themselves, but also the consonants which make up the name of the object. For example, a word for "house" in Egyptian is pr. The hieroglyphic sign for this word is a schematic plan of a house. This sign is also used to write the word for "go out," pri. The addition of the determinative of walking legs helps to distinguish which pr is meant.
Hieroglyphic texts could be written in either columns or lines, and read from either right to left, or left to right. The signs usually faced the direction of the beginning of a text, so that signs in a text read from right to left faced right. There are examples of retrograde texts, in which the signs face the end rather than the beginning of a text. There were several different styles of hieroglyphs, the usage of which was determined primarily by the medium in which the scribe worked and the nature of the text. Elaborately carved hieroglyphs executed in minute detail were reserved for monumental inscriptions in temples and tombs. On stone stelae could be found incised, or occasionally in raised relief, hieroglyphs which lacked internal markings. A "semi-cursive" type of hieroglyphic script was first used on papyrus where it served to indicate the heading of hieratic accounts. This style of hieroglyphs, usually written in columns, was later used to record religious texts such as the Book of the Dead.
Roughly contemporaneous with the occurrence of hieroglyphs, examples of texts written in hieratic, an extremely cursive form of hieroglyphs written with ligatures, are found. The earliest datable hieratic inscription is the Horus name of King Scorpion found on jars at Tarkhan. Hieratic was written using a brush and black, or occasionally red, ink (red being used to delimit sections or as punctuation); it is found mainly on such materials as papyrus, ostraca, leather and linen. There are, however, examples of hieratic incised in stone. Hieratic was always read from right to left. Originally, hieratic was written in columns, but beginning in the 12th Dynasty this practice was abandoned in favor of horizontal lines.
There are two main styles of hieratic: an elegant script used in literary works, court decisions, school texts and final copies of administrative texts, and a more cursive script, used mainly in such texts as personal letters, dictated material, the first drafts of reports and so on. From this cursive hieratic script developed a script known as abnormal hieratic, first attested at Thebes during the 21st-22nd Dynasties. This script was used to record administrative texts such as cadasters, tax lists, accounts and personnel lists. Abnormal hieratic was used for about five hundred years, the last such text being dated to the reign of Amasis in the Saite period (26th Dynasty).
Another descendant of cursive hieratic is the demotic script, first attested in Lower Egypt during the reign of Psamtik I, around 650 BC. By the end of the Saite period, demotic had completely replaced abnormal hieratic throughout Egypt. Demotic is an even more cursive script which frequently employs ligatures and abbreviations, making it often difficult to read. It is no longer closely related to the hieroglyphic script and, unlike most hieratic, cannot be easily transcribed into hieroglyphs. Demotic was originally used to record legal and administrative texts, but from the Ptolemaic period on literary texts are also found in this script.
Egyptians, physical anthropology of
Physical anthropology is the study of the biological features of ancient and modern humans, including health, nutrition, mortality, genetics and physical variability in the past and present, and of humans’ primate relatives and fossil ancestors. These studies are all informed by modern evolutionary theory and take their place in anthropology rather than biology because they consider the biocultural context within which human evolution, adaptation and variation occur. Historically, however, physical anthropology focused on the physical variation observed among living peoples and assumed that a fixed number of definitive physical "types" lay behind this variation. These fundamental types were identified as the different "races" of humankind and were thought to be recognizable also in the fossil or skeletal record. The racial origins of the ancient Egyptians thus were assumed to be found in their skeletal remains, and were expected to help determine whether Dynastic Egyptian civilization resulted from the diffusion of ideas and materials from elsewhere, migration of people who brought with them their culture, or in situ development of the culture without reliance on external factors. Two opposing theories for the origins of the Dynastic Egyptians dominated scholarly debate for over a century: whether the ancient Egyptians were Black Africans (historically referred to as Negroid), originating biologically and culturally in Saharo-tropical Africa, or whether they originated as a "Dynastic Race" in the Mediterranean or western Asian regions (people historically categorized as White, or Caucasoid).
Contemporary physical anthropologists recognize, however, that race is not a useful biological concept when applied to humans. Although many people believe that they can distinguish "races" on the basis of skin color, more of the variation in human genetic makeup can be attributed to differences within these so-called races than between them. Furthermore, the observable and unobservable (to the eye) physical variation is so great and complex that there are no criteria that can satisfactorily segregate all individuals into one race or another. The movement in historic times of genes throughout different populations of the world and the sharing of genes through interbreeding ensures that different populations around the world are becoming more alike. Unlike the classic typological approach, which interprets variation in physical form as resulting only from the admixture of races, contemporary approaches to understanding variation also take into account genetic and physiological adaptations to local and regional environmental factors, such as the intensity of ultraviolet radiation or ambient temperature and humidity. Conceptually, biological affinity expresses a continuum of relationship that reflects genetic mixing (gene flow) from different local and regional areas in antiquity in addition to the influences of other evolutionary factors, such as natural selection and genetic drift. Modern studies of the origins of the ancient Egyptians are thus concerned not with identifying racial archetypes, but with investigating the affinities of different chronological or geographical groups, that is, who they are most closely related to in terms of biogeography. Degrees of biological affinity are thought to be expressed as patterns of similarity or difference among local populations or among skeletal samples that are believed to be representative of an ancient population. An underlying assumption is that the degree of similarity in a set of biological characteristics is proportional to the degree of genetic relatedness, but the selection of comparisons must be informed by archaeological, documentary or other data.
When attempting to explain observed physical variation among the ancient inhabitants of the Nile Valley and Delta, all evolutionary forces, as well as their interactions, must be considered. Migrations are thought generally to be explained by environmental factors such as climate change or by an imbalance between population size and the habitat’s carrying capacity. It has been suggested, for example, that extensive mid-Holocene droughts in the Sahara may have led to the movement of people into the Nile Valley. The Sahara may have isolated much of Egypt from some more southerly populations, but gene flow along the Nile would have increased population heterogeneity over time, and warfare and political alliances throughout the region undoubtedly also had an impact. Migrations as individual phenomena, involving families or other small units, also may have been important. Population movement, replacement and admixture are all probable events in Egyptian history and prehistory, but their respective likelihood varies in different settings. The physical variability within Egypt as a "state," for example, probably increased with unification as differences between northern and southern populations decreased due to immigration, trade and other contacts.
While genetic mixing as a result of migration makes populations more alike, genetic differences among populations can become amplified if they are separated by geographic or cultural barriers. For example, if a small population, such as a religious enclave or an extended royal family, has marriage rules that require marriage within the group, then there will be less mixing with other populations and a phenomenon called "genetic drift" will lead to an increased biological distance, or a weaker biological affinity, between this group and others. The significance of genetic drift for our understanding of the biological affinities of the ancient Egyptians is that it provides an alternative to migration or invasion as an explanation for genetic differences among some groups. An example can be found in a comparison of the people buried in three cemeteries at Predynastic Nagada. Recent analyses of morphological characters of the teeth and skull suggest that the individuals buried in what archaeologists have identified as a higher status cemetery are distinguishable from the individuals buried in the other cemeteries. The people buried in the higher status cemetery probably formed a distinct socioeconomic group and tended to mate within the group instead of with outsiders, a practice well documented for a variety of social caste and class systems throughout history. The amount of the difference is too small to be compatible with the alternative explanation, that a foreign people moved into the area to rule the local inhabitants.
The logical way in which to determine the genetic relatedness of past populations would be to examine genetic material itself. Until recently, however, this has not been possible and most studies of past biological affinities are based upon skeletal remains. The recovery of ancient DNA (aDNA) from archaeological bone and preserved soft tissues was demonstrated in the late 1980s, but a number of analytical difficulties have so far prevented the routine application of the technique. Although researchers are refining methods of extraction and analysis, aDNA studies are dogged by problems of contamination from human handling of material during and after excavation as well as from fungi, bacteria and other agents that invade bone when it is buried. An additional problem is that embalming practices and the use of preservatives on skeletal and mummified tissues may not only contaminate the material but may lead to damage of the DNA, making it more difficult to analyze.
The utility of a DNA analysis for examining the biological origins and relationships of the ancient Egyptians will be most widely accepted after being demonstrated on a few individuals who are thought, from archaeological or inscriptional evidence, to be related. A tomb group in which all evidence points to a family interred together, or a documented royal lineage, suggest logical tests of DNA analysis of ancient Egyptian tissues. The extraction and analysis of DNA from archaeological remains is costly and complex, however, so it is not practical at present to analyze aDNA from a large number of individuals. Therefore, since the majority of extant Egyptian mummies are individuals of royal or noble status and hence are not entirely representative of ancient Egyptian populations, skeletal collections, which are relatively large and may more accurately represent local populations, will undoubtedly continue to serve as study material.
An underlying assumption of skeletal and dental studies is that observed physical characteristics represent the combined effects of the individual’s genetic make-up and the environment, and thus characteristics that are not much influenced by the environment must be identified if one hopes to use those traits to infer genetic relationships. Many studies have relied on comparisons of measurements of size and shape to determine relationships, and, while some of the earliest metrical studies of Egyptian biological data are significantly flawed, recent investigations have employed published standards for obtaining precise and accurate measurements and have utilized historically and geographically relevant population comparisons. Alternatively, nonmetric characteristics, particularly of the teeth and the bones of the skull, are used to examine biological affinities.
There is now a sufficient body of evidence from modern studies of skeletal remains to indicate that the ancient Egyptians, especially southern Egyptians, exhibited physical characteristics that are within the range of variation for ancient and modern indigenous peoples of the Sahara and tropical Africa. The distribution of population characteristics seems to follow a clinal pattern from south to north, which may be explained by natural selection as well as gene flow between neighboring populations. In general, the inhabitants of Upper Egypt and Nubia had the greatest biological affinity to people of the Sahara and more southerly areas.
In contrast, reliable interpretations of the biological affinities of the people of Lower Egypt are currently hampered by a lack of well preserved skeletal material, largely due to agricultural and settlement encroachment on archaeological sites as well as the high water table, which interferes with excavation and preservation of archaic and earlier levels. Examinations of the biological relatedness of skeletal populations of Lower Egypt to those of other areas are needed, however, because they should determine whether the archaeological evidence for Egyptian contact with Syro-Palestine during the late Predynastic/Early Dynastic can be ascribed to trade relations or actual population movements. The archaeological and inscriptional evidence for contact suggests that gene flow between these areas was very likely. The biological affinity between peoples of Upper Egypt and the Sinai is also an important research question since archaeological evidence suggests a connection, presumably via the Red Sea. Migration into the Nile Valley from the Eastern Desert is also a subject for examination.
Any interpretations of the biological affinities of the ancient Egyptians must be placed in the context of hypotheses informed by archaeological, linguistic, geographic or other data. In such contexts, the physical anthropological evidence indicates that early Nile Valley populations can be identified as part of an African lineage, but exhibiting local variation. This variation represents the short and long term effects of evolutionary forces, such as gene flow, genetic drift and natural selection, influenced by culture and geography.
Egyptology, history of
The study of ancient Egypt can be said to have begun with the Egyptians themselves. There is ample evidence that during the three millennia history of the country they often looked back on their ancestors’ accomplishments with a mixture of awe and respect. Tuthmose IV, in response to a prophetic dream, cleared the great Sphinx at Giza of the encroaching sands. This was certainly one of the first recorded examples of excavation for the recovery of a monument, even though his motives were not those of modern archaeology. We know that Khaemwaset, one of the sons of Ramesses II, was much concerned with the identification and preservation of the ancient monuments as well. Graffiti of later periods on some monuments inform us of the veneration the Egyptians paid to the work of their ancestors which had been created in earlier times.
The ancient Greeks and Romans were interested in the history and antiquities of Egypt and their historians wrote concerning the great age of the country and the artistic and architectural accomplishments of the people. The writings of Herodotus, an East Greek historian who lived in the fifth century BC, and Diodorus Siculus, of the first century AD, give us much of the information we have for our understanding of the fascination Egypt held for the classical world. Antiquities and monuments, particularly obelisks, were avidly collected by Roman emperors and officials and were carted off wholesale to decorate circuses and other public places. Authentic Egyptian objects collected and transported to Rome were supplemented by local imitations in "Egyptian" style.
After about AD 400 the ancient Egyptian language was no longer generally understood and the only contact Europeans had with Egypt thereafter was through pilgrims, merchants and crusaders. The Greek and Roman authors remained the only available source of information on the ancient civilization of Egypt and the accounts found in them were admittedly somewhat biased descriptions of a culture their authors had found remarkable and mysterious. Since the ancient Egyptian language could no longer be read, fabulous interpretations of the hieroglyphic inscriptions abounded. Athanasius Kircher, a seventeenth-century Jesuit polymath who wrote extensively on Egypt, was able to derive a lengthy prayer from the signs which simply spelled out the name of a Roman emperor, basing his "translation" on the mistaken notion that each sign stood for a complete idea. An understanding of the principles underlying the language was not achieved for another two hundred years, but the seventeenth century saw the arrival of the first serious European scholars in Egypt.
To name only a select few of these pioneers who must serve as examples of others, the Roman Pietro della Valle traveled in the East, collecting Egyptian antiquities including mummies; John Greaves, an astronomy professor at Oxford, was one of the first to attempt a scientific measurement of the pyramids; and Jean de Thevenot, a Parisian traveler, opened a mastaba tomb at Saqqara and, like many others of his time, published an account of his travels and adventures. Egypt was a constant source of interest to Europeans which never completely failed, so it is an error to speak of a revival of interest in Egyptian history; however, the intense modern concern for the antiquities of Egypt could be said to have begun in the eighteenth century. The French were well represented by Benoit de Mallet, consul in Alexandria for Louis XIV, and Claude Sicard, Superior of the Jesuit mission in Cairo. Educated travelers such as Frederick Ludwig Norden, a Danish naval officer traveling on an official commission of exploration, and Richard Pococke, an English clergyman, were typical of many who visited Egypt independently at mid-century, recorded their observations and published them with generous illustrations of the monuments and sites. Norden and Pococke were later to be members of the Egyptian Club of London, one of the first organized groups for the study of Egyptian antiquities.
Along with Pococke and Norden, other travelers and explorers such as James Bruce and Claude-Etienne Savary helped to spur an interest in the ancient history and culture of Egypt among Europeans of their time. With all of this interest, the real birth of the specialized study of Egyptian antiquity must be dated to the Napoleonic expedition of 1798-1801. Napoleon Bonaparte invaded Egypt at the head of a French army, determined to secure the country as a colony and to obtain control of the most direct route to the Far East. Attached to the army, Napoleon established a corps of scholars, artists, engineers and scientists for the purpose of studying the "unspoiled" country in every aspect. The first accurate maps of the country and measured plans and illustrations of the ancient architecture were made. Lengthy inscriptions, at that time yet to be deciphered, were copied and the monuments were measured, drawn and engraved. The vast amount of information contained in the multi-volume Description de l’Egypte on both ancient and modern considerations helped to lay the groundwork for any further study of the country.
One of the best-known results of the Napoleonic campaign was the discovery of the so-called "Rosetta Stone." In the preparation of fortifications near the Rosetta mouth of the Nile, French soldiers found part of an inscribed slab with an inscription, preserved in three different forms of script—in ancient Greek, which was still well understood, and in two forms of ancient Egyptian, which could not be read. This "bilingual" inscription provided part of the material which made it possible for Jean-Frangois Champollion to decipher the ancient language. He based his study on the tentative work of other scholars including Silvestre de Sacy, Johan Akerblad and Thomas Young, and he further proved that the hieroglyphic signs were not simply symbols but were based in a complicated system in which they functioned phonetically as well as ideologically.
The first quarter of the nineteenth century was primarily a period of treasure hunting and collecting on a grand scale. Consular agents, adventurers and entrepreneurs, including Henry Salt, Bernardino Drovetti, Giovanni Belzoni and William Banks, searched the country for antiquities of all kinds. During this time the Egyptian collections of the British Museum in London, the Musee du Louvre in Paris and the Museo Egizio in Turin were developed. At the same time expeditions to Egypt led by Champollion, Ippolito Rosellini and Richard Lepsius began the important work of further documenting the existing monuments with publications which are still of great importance today.
Independent students and scholars such as Gardner Wilkinson and Robert Hay contributed to knowledge by copying inscriptions and decoration as well as by excavation. The work of the early explorers and pioneer Egyptologists from Belzoni to Hay often provides us with information on monuments which have become seriously damaged or no longer exist.
The archaeological situation was somewhat regularized in 1858 when Said Pasha, the Khedive of Egypt, appointed the first Conservator of Egyptian Monuments. Auguste Mariette, a French scholar, had gone to Egypt in 1854 as an agent for the Musee du Louvre to collect Coptic manuscripts. At Saqqara he recognized landmarks which indicated to him the possible location of the Serapeum, described in antiquity by Strabo. He abandoned his commission and started an excavation which continued for four years and revealed the ancient complex where the sacred Apis bulls had been buried. Mariette was largely responsible for the creation of an antiquities service, the regulation of excavation, the founding of the first national museum in which antiquities could be preserved, and for a general reduction in the wholesale destruction of the monuments. With Mariette a tradition was established in which the direction of the antiquities service in Egypt was headed by a French scholar.
The latter half of the nineteenth century was a period of great development in the science of Egyptology. Mariette’s work and foundations were carried on by his successor, Gaston Maspero, who was appointed in 1881. Maspero consolidated the Department of Antiquities, further regularized excavation and insisted on the proper publication of results. His tenure was a long and productive one in which the monuments of ancient Egypt were further protected. He was joined in the field by excavators such as Edouard Naville and William Matthew Flinders Petrie. Petrie was one of the first to recognize that archaeological knowledge had to be based on attention to the smallest detail.
The English Egypt Exploration Fund was organized in 1882 with the aim of excavating principally in the Delta, but eventually expanded its activities to include even Nubia. Naville and Petrie. two men of remarkably different interests and temperaments, were the first excavators in its long history. The rich potential for research and acquisition of Egyptian antiquities was quickly recognized and appreciated by European and American museums and universities, but excavation in Egypt at the end of the nineteenth century was mainly under the control of the Egyptian Antiquities department.
By the turn of the twentieth century, national institutes of Egyptian archaeology came into being. Among American Egyptologists, George A.Reisner was among the first to work in a scientific manner. From 1905 he conducted work throughout Egypt and Nubia with the Harvard University-Boston Museum of Fine Arts expedition. James Henry Breasted, the first American to hold an appointment as a professor of Egyptology, was instrumental in founding the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago in 1919. One of its most important objectives was the recording of inscriptions and decoration on monuments in Egypt, already recognized to be in danger of destruction from nature and man.
One of the best-known moments in the history of Egyptology was the discovery in 1922 of the tomb of the pharaoh Tutankhamen in the Valley of the Kings at Thebes. Howard Carter, English Egyptologist, and his patron, the Earl of Carnarvon, after years of seemingly fruitless search, found the nearly intact burial of a minor king of the 18th Dynasty. The treasure of burial goods preserved has provided considerable information on the arts and crafts of the king’s pivotal time in Egyptian history. By contrast, French archaeologists under the leadership of Pierre Montet discovered a group of royal tombs of the 21st and 22nd Dynasties at Tanis (San el-Hagar) in the eastern Nile Delta. Due to the world situation in the late 1930s, the finds at Tanis did not receive the worldwide attention that had been accorded to Tutankhamen.
The present state of Egyptology may be suggested by the existence of the International Association of Egyptologists, through which scholarship is exchanged, by a number of national institutes for the study and advancement of the science, and by the growing attention being paid to other disciplines through which the aims of Egyptology may be furthered in a scientific manner.
