A World Beneath the Sands, page 34
Borchardt had been granted the Amarna concession on the basis that any finds would be divided between the Egyptian Museum and the excavator – or, rather, his private sponsors in Berlin. Now, he contrived to have both the bust of Nefertiti and a painted limestone altarpiece awarded to Berlin. (The Egyptian authorities later alleged dishonesty, but it could just as well have been down to official laxness: the division of finds often took place on the spot, and the local inspectors at Amarna may not have realized the historic importance or cultural significance of a couple of dusty old limestone pieces with little apparent intrinsic value.) The bust of Nefertiti was sent to Berlin where it was displayed, triumphantly, in the villa of the financier James Simon, the principal supporter of Borchardt’s excavations. Simon in due course gave it to the Royal Museum on permanent loan, where it formed the centrepiece of the newly expanded Egyptian collection. (The bust was gifted to the Prussian state in 1920.) A quarter of a century earlier, Erman had outbid the British Museum to acquire the Amarna tablets. Now, Berlin had acquired the great prize of Nefertiti’s bust. The site at Amarna was transformed in German public consciousness from a remote, archaeological backwater to a source of national pride.12
Pride, however, comes before a fall and for Borchardt, Erman and the whole of the German Egyptological establishment, nemesis followed hubris with startling rapidity. Intent on European domination, the German government had started to build up its armed forces; archaeology in far-off Egypt suddenly seemed a very low priority for state resources. When Borchardt’s funds ran out in 1913, the excavations at Amarna came to an abrupt halt. Erman’s grip on the Berlin Museum also began to falter, and in 1914 he was forced to relinquish his directorship in favour of his pupil Heinrich Schäfer. His consolation prize, wrung as a concession from the state authorities, was the creation of the ‘Egyptological Seminar’ which gave Erman, along with other staff and students of Berlin University, continued access to the museum and its Egyptian collections. But in August that year, the European geopolitics that the German government had been so intent on shaping to its own advantage exploded, plunging the entire continent into a long and bloody war – a conflict from which German Egyptology would emerge weakened, with German archaeologists frozen out of Egypt for a generation.
The imperial rivalry that culminated, with such devastating consequences, on the Western front and the fields of Flanders, had also been felt in the Nile Valley, in the years leading up to the outbreak of the First World War. Archaeologists from Britain, France, Germany, Austria, Italy and America had all – consciously or unconsciously, actively or unwittingly – been pursuing national agendas.13 Anglo-French competition in Egypt dated back to the time of Napoleon. Germany saw its entry onto the Egyptological scene in similarly imperialist terms. The relatively tardy unification of Italy, together with the distraction of its colonial priorities elsewhere in Africa (Libya and Abyssinia), meant that Italian archaeologists were latecomers to the Nile Valley. The leading Italian Egyptologist of the early twentieth century, Ernesto Schiaparelli, who had studied under Maspero in Paris, first visited Egypt in 1903 and began his excavations in Thebes shortly afterwards. He was rewarded with two spectacular discoveries: the incomparably beautiful tomb of Nefertari in the Valley of the Queens, uncovered in 1904, and the intact tomb of Kha at Deir el-Medina two years later. The former may have hit the headlines, but it was the latter, with its extraordinary collection of grave goods, that was the real archaeological prize. Alongside furniture, intricate basketry and bolts of fine linen, Kha’s tomb contained loaves of bread, joints of meat, and bowls of fruit. According to Arthur Weigall, then inspector of antiquities for Upper Egypt: ‘Everything looked new and undecayed.’14 Just as remarkable was Schiaparelli’s agreement with the Antiquities Service which allowed him to take the entire tomb contents back to Turin.15 It was Maspero at his most generous; within a few years, the ceding of whole collections would be ended for good.
Not far away from Deir el-Medina, in another part of western Thebes, Anglo-German archaeological rivalry was reaching fever pitch. The underlying cause was not so much conflicting imperial interests (although those no doubt added spice) as different approaches to scholarship.16 British Egyptology had a long and distinguished tradition of attracting the gentleman amateur: men like Young and Wilkinson carried out their research to indulge a personal interest, not to advance scientific understanding – although they accomplished both. Even Budge followed a rather dilettantish path, publishing a raft of popularizing books – which earned him a great deal of money – rather than scholarly tomes. By contrast, Lepsius and Erman had taken a purist approach: scholarship for its own sake, unsullied by any thought of trying to win popular acclaim. The heirs of Wilkinson regarded the Germans as dry, stuffy and unimaginative; Erman’s pupils thought the British insufficiently academic. The difference was epitomized by two rival missions working side by side during the season of 1904–5 at the mortuary temple of Hatshepsut at Deir el-Bahri. The German dig was led by Sethe, while Naville directed the British excavations for the EEF. Despite close proximity in the field, the two men were not on speaking terms, and Sethe refused to be in the same room as Naville.17 The feud was awkward in the close-knit community of European excavators; but, as Petrie’s biographer would later explain, ‘archaeology is not a science but a vendetta’.18
It was Maspero’s unenviable task, as director of the Antiquities Service, to mediate between such bitter rivalries. He described his job as ‘a constant struggle to maintain a balance between the various interests, keeping the English happy while not upsetting the French or the Egyptians’.19 On the whole, he succeeded remarkably well, managing to keep all parties happy – even when the Americans entered the fray. His approach was, above all, pragmatic. Recognizing the impossibility of putting a complete stop to the antiquities trade, he regulated it rather than trying to ban it outright, drawing up a list of authorized dealers, location by location. While happy to outsource the expensive business of excavation to foreign missions, Maspero nonetheless took pains to visit sites the length and breadth of the Nile Valley. He would spend about three months a year away from Cairo, aboard his official steamer, inspecting excavations, checking on the progress of Antiquities Service projects, meeting and entertaining his fellow Egyptologists. Friends called him ‘pharaoh’ – it was a double-edged compliment.
The reward for Maspero’s tireless diplomacy came in 1909 with a trio of significant events. First, there was the visit by Empress Eugénie, her first to Egypt since she had opened the Suez Canal four decades earlier. On her way from central Cairo to the pyramids she passed along the avenue which she had ceremonially planted on her earlier visit; it now comprised mature trees. (On arrival at Giza, she found that the royal hunting lodge where she had stayed in sumptuous luxury back in 1869 had since been converted into the Mena House Hotel to accommodate an ever-increasing number of tourists.) Second, there was the International Congress of Archaeology, which Maspero succeeded in bringing to Cairo. Concerned at the steady rise of the English language at the expense of French among the Egyptian population, he planned the congress as a triumphant display of ‘francophonie militante’ – assertive francophony. Of the 906 delegates who attended, the largest group by far (160) was from France, and the French language was given prominence in the congress proceedings. Last, but by no means least, in 1909 Maspero was made a Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George – an honour reserved for eminent diplomats – by Edward VII, in recognition of his services to Egyptian archaeology but also, one suspects, to the entente cordiale.
Bolstered by such plaudits, and confident of his own position, Maspero decided to take the radical step of authorizing excavations privately financed by wealthy Egyptians. For the first time in over a century of excavation, citizens of the Nile Valley were allowed to sponsor digs in their own land. Not surprisingly, the decision met with howls of disapproval from Western interests, but Maspero stuck to his guns, appointing his Egyptian colleague, Ahmed Kamal, to direct such excavations. It was as if he saw the future coming, and was determined that his Service would be prepared.
That future, however, was being determined by the forces of imperial rivalry and colonial conflict. In 1911, Italy went to war with the Ottoman Empire over the fate of Tripolitania. Italy’s invasion of Egypt’s North African neighbour scuppered Schiaparelli’s plans for an Italian archaeological institute in Cairo, and set back Italian scientific activity in the Nile Valley for nearly half a century. A wider Balkan conflict erupted in 1912, sowing the seeds that would lead, two years later, to the assassination in Sarajevo of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and the declaration of a Europe-wide war. Sensing, perhaps, that the old order and his own time in Cairo were coming to an end, Maspero’s final objective was to pass a new antiquities law.
Following Cromer’s retirement in 1907, control of British interests in Egypt had passed to a new consul-general, Sir Eldon Gorst. He was better disposed towards ordinary Egyptians than his precedessor, and introduced reforms designed to improve the lot of the native population. (In 1908 he authorized the creation of the first university for Egyptians.) But British public sentiment was in no mood for such concessions, and Gorst was harshly judged. When he died of cancer in July 1911, the government replaced him with Lord Kitchener, veteran of the Sudan campaign and a confirmed imperialist, a man who could be counted on to take a more robust approach with Egyptian nationalists. To Maspero’s surprise and great good fortune, Kitchener turned out – unlike his two predecessors – to be keenly interested in Egyptian antiquities. Maspero lost no time in pleading his case: ‘I saw Kitchener on Saturday morning . . . He wants to pass an antiquities law that applies to natives – my 1902 project, which was at first accepted by Lord Cromer but then refused by him at Brugsch’s instigation.’20
The law was eventually passed, with Kitchener’s support, in 1912. But the British consul-general had not finished with the subject of antiquities. Indeed, he harboured visions of grandeur. Once again, Maspero recorded the discussion in his diary: ‘Cairo, 27 October 1913: I saw Kitchener and he kept me an hour and a half, during which we spoke about just two subjects, his project to bring to Cairo the two colossi of Mit Rahina, and provincial museums . . . It is an idée fixe: he wants the two [colossi] to be set up in front of the main station.’21
A colossus of Ramesses II was eventually erected in front of Cairo’s main railway station, giving its name to what would become one of the busiest locations in the capital: Ramses Square.
During the first half of 1914, the world of Egyptology was preoccupied with largely parochial concerns: Erman’s forced retirement from the Berlin Museum, and the question of who would succeed him; rivalry between French and German interests over appointments to the Egyptian Museum, following Emile Brugsch’s departure; the discovery at Lahun by Petrie’s pupil Guy Brunton of the jewellery of a twelfth-dynasty princess; and the impending publication, by the EEF, of the inaugural edition of the first English-language periodical in Egyptology, the Journal of Egyptian Archaeology (JEA). (True to form, when Petrie learned of the EEF’s plans, which did not include a position for him as editor, he launched his own journal, Ancient Egypt, in direct competition. Its first issue came out a month before the first JEA.) The most momentous event of all, however, for Egyptologists was the retirement, in July 1914, of Maspero. At the age of sixty-eight, having accomplished so much, he had decided it was time to hand over the reins of the Museum and Antiquities Service to a younger man. Erman voiced the concerns of the entire discipline when he expressed the hope that Maspero’s successors would demonstrate the same generosity of spirit. (It was not to be.) On 24 July 1914, on returning to Paris, Maspero was elected permanent secretary of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres – the position held, a century before, by Champollion’s friend and mentor, Bon-Joseph Dacier. One week later Maspero’s sons were mobilized. On 3 August, war was declared.
Cut off from his beloved Egypt and weighed down with the concerns of wartime, Maspero’s health began to fade. On 30 June 1916, during a session of the académie, he was about to rise to speak when a pain forced him to remain seated. It was his heart. He died later that day, mourned by archaeologists of all nationalities, and was laid to rest in the cemetery of Montparnasse. No one, with the possible exception of Mariette, had done more to advance the cause of Egypt’s ancient heritage.
In the years leading up to the outbreak of the First World War, the speed of change in Egypt had accelerated, and the country had undergone profound transformation, both economically and socially. The population nearly doubled from 6.8 million at the time of the British invasion to over 12 million a generation later. (By contrast, Egypt’s population under Ottoman rule had more than halved, from 7 million in Roman times to just 2.5 million at the time of Napoleon’s expedition.22) In tandem with this rapid increase in people, crime also rose steadily. Cromer blamed it on foreigners (from which he excluded British expatriates), asserting that ‘all that was least creditable to European civilization was attracted to Egypt, on whose carcase swarms of needy adventurers preyed at will’.23 It seems never to have occurred to him that the root cause might have been the desperation of Egypt’s hard-pressed citizens, for whom the country’s rapid industrialization had brought nothing but misery. Under British rule, literacy rates continued to be dire – just 8.5 per cent for men and 0.3 per cent for women by 1910 – and Cromer actively discouraged tertiary education, fearing that the growth of an Egyptian intellectual class might undermine British rule. The French, for their part, could never understand Britain’s lack of interest in Egypt’s cultural and intellectual development, regarding it as symptomatic of a general philistinism.24
Certainly, the British authorities, and Cromer in particular, were always more interested in economic matters, in restoring and maintaining financial stability and productive capacity. By the end of the nineteenth century, Egypt had one of the most extensive railway networks in the world per head of population. The railway was the largest employer in the country, and the number of passengers using the service increased from less than 5 million in 1890 to almost 30 million in 1906. Alongside the railways, the road and telegraph networks were expanded; ports were developed to handle burgeoning volumes of trade; police stations were built throughout the country to maintain order. But the greatest changes by far were felt in the sphere of agriculture. British rule saw changes in patterns of land ownership, an expansion of irrigation, and a commensurate – and unprecedented – increase in agricultural production.25 Most of this increase was down to a single crop, cotton. Egypt’s most important cash crop from the time of Muhammad Ali onwards, cotton came to dominate the economy under British rule: it accounted for 92 per cent of Egyptian exports by value on the eve of the First World War.26 It has been said that ‘no other place in the world in the nineteenth century was transformed on a greater scale to serve the production of a single industry’.27 The downside of the expansion of cotton production was that, by 1913, Egypt – famed as the breadbasket of the Roman Empire – had become dependent on imported grain to feed its population. It fell to Kitchener to take drastic action in preparation for wartime, sharply reducing the acreage devoted to cotton to make way for wheat, and establishing Egypt’s first Ministry of Agriculture to monitor food production.
Aside from agriculture, however, the British administration took a decidedly laissez-faire approach to other sectors of the economy. It was the French who dominated the sugar industry and controlled the Suez Canal. They also ran most of the best schools in the country. All Cairo’s main hotels (Shepheard’s, the Gezira Palace and the Savoy) were under European management, and the area around Shepheard’s was a European enclave. Expatriate life in Cairo, as in other cities of the British Empire, revolved around clubs. The Gezira Sporting Club had been founded immediately after the British invasion of 1882, on land ‘gifted’ by the khedive. Modelled on the Hurlingham Club in London, it was frequented by British administrators, Cairo’s other foreign residents, and a few members of the Egyptian ruling class. Even more exclusive was the Turf Club, which was reserved exclusively for the British. In the early 1920s, Lord Edward Cecil, at that time the only Englishman permitted to attend the Egyptian Council of Ministers, visited the Turf Club two or three times a day between business meetings. While the men lunched and dined at their club, their wives maintained their own social calendar. Lady Cromer took different groups of British ladies for a fortnightly audience with the khedive. According to one expatriate Englishwoman: ‘For many years the Khedive’s ball was the culminating event in the winter festivities in Cairo, and was as brilliant a function as oriental splendour and cosmopolitan fashion in combination could compass.’28
Throughout the period of colonial rule, the British simply never understood the Egyptians. They lived separate lives, in different worlds. Cromer, though he effectively ran Egypt for a quarter of a century, never learned Arabic. Many Europeans – figures like Lucie Duff Gordon were exceptional – thought the Egyptians indolent and in need of moral reform. Cromer detested Islam, regarding it as ‘a complete failure’, and liked to describe colonial administration as a process of ‘continual tutoring’.29 He believed the Egyptians incapable of self-government. His deputy from 1894 to 1902, Rennell Rodd, was even more contemptuous, writing that: ‘the Oriental mind did not appeal to him, and that in so far as he understood it he regarded it as an obstacle to be overcome rather than a factor to be studied with sympathetic attention’.30 There were plenty of British expatriates who swallowed their own propaganda, genuinely believing that: ‘The poor fellaheen, who had suffered deception for more centuries than they could count, realized that they had at last found justice and hugged it to themselves as a precious discovery.’31
