A World Beneath the Sands, page 49
Disraeli’s views of ref1
early days in Egypt ref1
Eastern Desert quarries ref1
extent of explorations ref1
Gebel Barkal, temple of ref1
Gell, meeting ref1
Gell’s influence ref1
Giza monuments, dating ref1
Grand Tour ref1
honours ref1
hosting other travellers at Cairo home ref1
influence on architecture in Britain ref1
legacy to Egyptology ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4
living in Cairo ref1
Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians ref1
marriage ref1
Modern Egypt and Thebes ref1, ref2
Muhammad Ali, audience with ref1
other interests ref1
Prussian expedition to Egypt ref1
publishing book ref1
publishing travel memoirs ref1
relationships in Egypt ref1, ref2
returning to Egypt ref1, ref2
Suez Canal ref1, ref2
Thebes, study of ref1
Topography of Thebes field guide ref1
tourism, views on ref1, ref2
Turkish persona ref1, ref2
Tutankhamun, contemporary references to ref1
Wilson, Erasmus ref1, ref2, ref3
Wilson, John ref1
Winlock, Herbert ref1
Winslow, William ref1
wisdom, East as source of ref1
women in ancient Egypt ref1
women in contemporary Egypt
Egyptian women ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4
European women ref1, ref2; see also Duff Gordon, Lucie; Edwards, Amelia
Nubian women ref1
Wörterbuch project, Berlin ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5
Wyse, Thomas ref1
Young Memnon colossus Plate 3, ref1, ref2, ref3
Young, Thomas
Account of Some Recent Discoveries in Hieroglyphical Literature and Egyptian Antiquities, An ref1
background ref1
Champollion, writing about ref1, ref2, ref3
Champollion’s presentation of Lettre ref1
death ref1
demotic script, study of ref1, ref2
‘Egypt’ article ref1, ref2
Egyptian Society of London, founding ref1
election to Institut National ref1
Encyclopaedia Britannica articles ref1, ref2
hieroglyphics, study of ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5
legacy to Egyptology ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4
memorial plaque in Westminster Abbey ref1
non-Egyptian studies ref1
Rudiments of an Egyptian Dictionary in the Ancient Enchorial Character ref1
scientific insights and breakthroughs ref1
Silvestre de Sacy’s letter to ref1
turning away from hieroglyphics ref1
writing anonymously ref1
Yuya, tomb of ref1, ref2, ref3
Zaghloul, Pasha ref1, ref2
Zaïde (Mozart) ref1
Zawiyet el-Aryan, Egypt ref1
Zeitschrift für Ägyptische Sprache und Altertumskunde journal ref1
Zoan/San el-Hagar, Egypt ref1
Zodiac of Dendera ref1, ref2, ref3
Zoëga, Georg ref1
1. Napoleon Bonaparte, whose expedition to Egypt in 1798 laid the foundations for the birth of Egyptology.
2. Giovanni Battista Belzoni, travelling salesman, circus strongman and amateur archaeologist.
3. A stone bust of pharaoh Ramesses II, nicknamed the ‘Young Memnon’, which Belzoni succeeded in removing in 1816 and acquiring for the British Museum.
4. Jean-François Champollion, decipherer of hieroglyphics and founding father of Egyptology.
5. The temple of the goddess Hathor at Dendera; the zodiac from the ceiling of one of the roof chapels was removed in 1821 and taken to the Louvre.
6. A watercolour by David Roberts of the great temple at Abu Simbel, showing its appearance in the first half of the nineteenth century.
7. A wall decoration from one of the Tombs of the Nobles at Thebes; copying and recording such scenes was one of John Gardner Wilkinson’s major contributions to Egyptology.
8. Muhammad Ali, the Albanian mercenary who founded a dynasty and presided over the modernization of Egypt.
9. A statue of a seated scribe discovered by Auguste Mariette while he was searching for the Serapeum at Saqqara.
10. A relief of the queen of Punt, from the temple of Hatshepsut at Thebes, one of many monuments excavated by the Antiquities Service in the 1860s under Mariette’s direction.
11. The tomb of Mariette in the garden of the Egyptian Museum, Cairo.
12. Amelia Edwards, Victorian novelist, traveller, founder of the Egypt Exploration Society, and indefatigable champion of Egypt’s ancient heritage.
13. A painted mummy mask from Hawara; dug from the sand by Flinders Petrie, this and other portrait masks shed new light on Egyptian culture during the Ptolemaic and Roman periods.
14. The Hypostyle Hall in the temple of Amun-Ra at Karnak; its partial collapse in 1899 brought home the need for better protection of Egypt’s monuments.
15. The Egyptian Museum, Cairo; designed by a Frenchman, its facade bears the names of the great European Egyptologists of the nineteenth century.
16. The great temple at Abu Simbel: for many travellers, the ultimate destination and the highlight of a Nile cruise.
17. A triad of King Menkaura flanked by two goddesses; one of the masterpieces of ancient Egyptian sculpture discovered by George Reisner at Giza.
18. Hie portable furniture (bed, chair and canopy) of gilded wood made for Queen Hetepheres in the fourth dynasty and unearthed by Reisner some 4,400 years later.
19. The gilded mask of Tjuyu from the Valley of the Kings; discovered in 1905 by Theodore Davis, it formed part of the greatest treasure found in Egypt to that date.
20. Evelyn Baring, Lord Cromer, de facto ruler of Egypt for a quarter of a century until his retirement in 1907.
21. The mortuary temple of Hatshepsut at Deir el-Bahri, western Thebes, one of the sites where Howard Carter cut his teeth as a young archaeologist.
22. The painted limestone bust of Nefertiti, icon of ancient art, discovered in 1912 by Ludwig Borchardt in the ruins of the abandoned capital city of Amarna.
23. The golden mask of Tutankhamun; thanks to Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon, a once-obscure boy-king has become the most famous of all Egyptian pharaohs.
A
WORLD
BENEATH
THE SANDS
Professor Toby Wilkinson is an internationally acclaimed Egyptologist, and the prize-winning author of twelve books which have been translated into twelve languages. His books include The Rise and Fall of Ancient Egypt, The Nile and A World Beneath the Sands. He is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and the Royal Historical Society, and a member of the international editorial board of the Journal of Egyptian History. He is the Vice-Chancellor of the Fiji National University and a Bye-Fellow of Clare College, Cambridge.
‘A World Beneath the Sands is more than a saga of foreigners in the desert – it also follows Egypt on its rocky path to the 20th century.’
The Economist
‘The story that strings these wonderful characters together is the steady professionalisation of Egyptology – the shift, as Wilkinson puts it, from “scoundrels to scholars”.’
James McConnachie, Sunday Times
‘A superbly readable, magnificently entertaining, profoundly thoughtful and scholarly history of the bizarre and determined characters who burrowed into Egypt in comparatively recent history – and who all too often made away with their finds. You will want to read chunks of it aloud to anyone who happens to be around.’
Sue Gaisford, Tablet ‘Books of the Year’
‘The definitive account of the golden age of Egyptology.’
Waterstones Best Books of 2020: History
‘The debate over the decolonization of Egyptology and the repatriation of artefacts has only just started. Wilkinson’s elegantly written book provides a sound background and a useful biography that will allow readers to understand and participate in that debate.’
Joyce Tyldesley, BBC History Magazine
‘Few can bring us ancient Egypt with such dynamism as Toby Wilkinson. In A World Beneath the Sands, he has excelled himself in bringing to life the intriguing and swashbuckling story of Egypt’s discovery. He shows us how much what we seek from the past has always told us about ourselves.’
Professor Michael Scott, author of
Ancient Worlds: An Epic History of East and West
Also by Toby Wilkinson
Aristocrats and Archaeologists (with Julian Platt)
Writings from Ancient Egypt
The Nile
The Rise and Fall of Ancient Egypt
Lives of the Ancient Egyptians
The Egyptian World (editor)
The Thames & Hudson Dictionary of Ancient Egypt
Genesis of the Pharaohs
Royal Annals of Ancient Egypt
Early Dynastic Egypt
First published 2020 by Picador
This electronic edition first published 2020 by Picador
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ISBN 978-1-5098-5871-2
Copyright © Toby Wilkinson 2020
Cover Images © The Stapleton Collection/Bridgeman Images
The right of Toby Wilkinson to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
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Toby Wilkinson, A World Beneath the Sands
