The Society for the Study of Ancient Egypt

Egyptology is a young science, less than 200 years old. It brings together strands from:

Archaeology (being the physical exploration and investigation of artefacts)

History (social, political and economic study)

Science (such as the investigation of mummies to ascertain their cause of death or diseases prevalent at that time)

Philology (study of ancient languages)

Art (although there has been considerable debate as to whether the Ancient Egyptians had any concept of 'art' as such).

Egyptology first came into prominence with the search to decipher the mysterious hieroglyphs during the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The rediscovery of the Rosetta Stone by French soldiers in 1798 proved to be the key in unlocking this language which had lain dormant for almost 2000 years.

Then what followed was the wholesale and wanton looting of the ancient monuments in order to fill the great museums of Europe; aided and abetted by the Ottomans, nominal rulers of Egypt at this time.

Excavations were carried out to unearth objects solely for gain and display. Little (if any) attention was given to their provenance (where they were found), or to less intrinsically precious items found in the vicinity; often these would have been more important archaeologically.

A much more structured and scientific approach was adopted by Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie (1853-1942) who became the first Professor of Egyptology in the UK (at University College London) and his many later disciples. Petrie developed the method of Sequence Dating used by archaeologists to this day.

One of Petrie's most devoted sponsors was the author Amelia Edwards (seen left). Edwards was so shocked by the despoiling of the Egyptian monuments that she helped found the Egypt Exploration Fund (later Society), to this day the most eminent Egyptological Society. This late Victorian period saw the first 'package holidays' to Egypt; Mr Thomas Cook himself escorting tourists in 1869, the year the Suez Canal opened. Many visitors were enticed by the Splendours of Egypt as described by Amelia Edwards in her best-selling "A Thousand Miles Up The Nile ", in which she sailed in a dahibiyah (yacht) named Philae .

November 1922 is one of the most important dates in Egyptology.

Howard Carter (1874-1939) and his sponsor the 5th Earl of Carnarvon (both seen above) rediscovered the tomb of the boy-king Tutankhamun. The finding of this intact Royal tomb in the Valley of the Kings near Luxor catapulted Egypt (Ancient and Modern) onto news headlines all around the world.

It is ironic that Carter's painstaking recording of his excavations should have coincided with a major switch in Egyptological policy. Legal wranglings over the division of finds led to foreign teams being refused permission to excavate and their exclusion from Egypt for many years.

The Egyptians themselves were encouraged to study the subject and to take their rightful place upon the international stage. Thus the Egyptian people can be said to have truly regained possession of their own ancient heritage.

International co-operation was revived with the Nubian temple rescue projects in the 1960's and 70's, urged by the desperate need to record, collect and preserve as much information as possible before all was lost under the waters of Lake Nasser forever.