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Egyptologists

100.

Who is the most famous Egyptologist?

There are many Egyptologists well known to the broader public, as
well as brilliant scholars whose fame extends only to the scholarly
community, all of whom have worked on various aspects of ancient
Egyptian culture over the last 200 years (see M. Bierbrier, Who Was
Who in Egyptology). It would be a difficult task to single out just one of
them. Even so, probably the most famous Egyptologist in the world
today is a fictitious one (!), namely Daniel Jackson, one of the lead
characters in the film Stargate (1994), the television series Stargate—
SG1 (1997–2007), and the film sequels Stargate—The Ark of Truth and
Stargate—Continuum. The series combines parascientific and esoteric
theories about Egypt with science fiction scenarios. At the beginning
of the first film, Jackson is depicted as an outcast from academic
Egyptology because he is convinced that ancient Egyptian culture had
an extraterrestrial origin. Fictional Egyptologists—Evelyn Carnahan
and Allen Chamberlain—figure prominently in two other films, The
Mummy (1999) and The Mummy Returns (2001). As in the earlier
version of The Mummy (1932), these films exploit the popular
superstition that there is a “curse of the pharaohs,” which is also the
springboard for Philipp Vandenberg’s like-named bestseller of 1975.
Ancient Egypt is also the theme or background of an immense
number of works of fiction, from children’s books through juvenile
fiction to novels for adults. Many of these novels have also lent
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prominence to fictional Egyptologists. In the recent bestselling trilogy
of juvenile fiction, “The Kane Chronicles” by American author Rick
Riordan (The Red Pyramid, The Throne of Fire, The Serpent’s Shadow ,
published 2010–12), Carter and Sadie Kane—children of the famous
Egyptologist and Egyptian magician Julius Kane, and descendants of
Egyptian kings—find themselves face to face with Egyptian gods who
have come alive again in the modern world. Another example is
Arthur Phillip’s novel The Egyptologist (2004). It features the fictitious
Egyptologist Ralph M. Trilipush, marginalized in his discipline, in his
desperate quest for the tomb of King Atum-Hadu and for recognition,
all the while competing with (the real) Howard Carter’s discovery of
the tomb of Tutankhamun. Evidently, life is not easy for an
Egyptologist—but perhaps you will nevertheless read the next
question.

101.

Are there too many Egyptologists?

Compared with the number of university programs devoted to the
study of classical antiquity (ancient Greece and Rome), those
dedicated to Egyptology are quite few, indeed. Let me give you two
examples, one each from Europe and North America. While the
German-speaking countries have about 1,000 permanent positions
dedicated to Greek and Roman culture in universities, museums, and
the countries’ provincial departments for the preservation of
historical and archaeological heritage, there are at most 100
Egyptological positions spread among universities, museums, the
academies of arts and sciences, and the German, Swiss, and Austrian
Archaeological Institutes. The reasons for this discrepancy are many,
and they are rooted in the importance of classical antiquity for the
ideal humanistic education, the presence of Latin (and sometimes
Greek) as a subject in schools, and the Roman history of Germany and
the Alpine provinces. The contemporary aversion to a Eurocentric
academic perspective and insight into the importance of Near Eastern
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cultures for the emergence of western culture has yet to trigger a
diversion of resources from Classics to Near Eastern Studies, which
itself comprises a whole series of individual fields. The same situation
exists in North America, where around 200 programs in classical
studies stand in contrast to about one-tenth that number that focus
on the ancient Near East. The latter comprise not only ancient Egypt,
but all the Near Eastern civilizations, and sometimes include modern
cultures and languages as well.

And yet, the task confronting these few Egyptologists is a huge one.
Many of the remains of the ancient culture are in danger of falling
victim to modern development and to environmental change, and the
requirements of some of the most important excavation sites—for
instance, the huge necropolis of Saqqara and the vast area of the
residence city Pi-Ramesses—exceed the available funds and
personnel (see Questions 13 and 56). Moreover, in museum
storerooms, hundreds of thousands of objects and texts have yet to
be published and made accessible for scholarship. Many of these
items in storage will no doubt compel us to modify our understanding
of various facets of Egyptian history and culture, or even result in the
rewriting of whole chapters—and this analysis will also require
specialists. And, finally, there is the crucial need to disseminate this
knowledge to society at large. It is especially interesting to note how
different the support for scholarship can be from one country to
another. In 1968, the noted French Egyptologist Serge Sauneron, who
was influenced by France’s centralized research policy and its focus on
Paris, called for a concentration of Egyptology in five centers
worldwide, rather than “diluting” the resources of the discipline
among a hundred scattered, isolated, and poorly equipped
institutions. Only a little earlier, in 1967, the German Egyptologist
Wolfgang Helck had made precisely the opposite suggestion: since
Egyptology supplies “building blocks for an understanding of the
development and essence of the ancient Egyptians and their view of
the world,” there should be “at every university … an Egyptologist who,
with his scholarly influence, will stimulate research issues in other
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disciplines and supply answers to questions coming from those areas
of study.” It remains to be seen if (and to what degree) higher
education and the wider society in the twenty-first century will provide
support to Egyptology commensurate with a civilization that spanned
several millennia of human history, and whose impact on the modern
world is still being revealed.

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