A Thousand Miles up the Nile

by Amelia Ann Blanford Edwards

Overview

Amelia Edwards (1831–1892) was an English novelist, journalist and travel writer. In the winter of 1873–1874 she and her companion visited Egypt, travelling up the Nile from Cairo to Abu Simbel and back. Edwards became fascinated with ancient Egypt as a result of this visit, founding the Egypt Exploration Fund in 1882 and devoting the rest of her life to Egyptology and the protection of Egypt's ancient monuments. This volume, first published in 1876, contains Edwards' engaging description of her life-changing visit to Egypt. She vividly describes ancient sites and monuments which have since been damaged or destroyed, and provides sharp observations and descriptions of contemporary Egyptian society and culture. Her animated and witty stories of her experiences, combined with over sixty illustrations created during her journey, ensured the immense popularity of this volume, which remains a charming and fascinating description of nineteenth-century Egypt.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781108020909
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	09/16/2010
Series:	Cambridge Library Collection - Egyptology
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	802
Product dimensions:	6.60(w) x 9.60(h) x 1.80(d)

Read an Excerpt

CHAPTER II. CAIRO AND THE MECCA PILGRIMAGE. 1 HE mosque of Sultan Hassan, confessedly the most beautiful in Cairo, is also perhaps the most beautiful in the Moslem world. It was built at just that happy moment when Arabian art in Egypt, having ceased merely to appropriate or imitate, had at length evolved an original architectural style out of the heterogeneous elements of Roman and early Christian edifices. The mosques of a few centuries earlier (as, for instance, that of Tulfln, which marks the first departure from the old Byzantine model) consisted of little more than a courtyard with colonnades leading to a hall supported on a forest of pillars. A little more than a century later, and the national style had already experienced the beginnings of that prolonged eclipse which finally resulted in the bastard Neo-Byzantine Renaissance represented by the mosque of Mehemet Ali. But the mosque of Sultan Hassan, built ninety-seven years before the taking of Constantinople, may justly be regarded as the highest point reached by Saracenic art in Egypt after it had used up the Greek and Roman material of Memphis, and before its newborn originality became modified by influences from beyond the Bosphorus. Its pre-eminence is due neither to the greatness of its dimensions nor to the splendour of its materials. It is neither so large as the great mosque at Damascus, nor so rich in costly marbles as Saint Sophia in Constantinople ; but in design, proportion, and a certain lofty grace impossible to describe, it surpasses these, and every other mosque, whether original or adapted, with which the writer is acquainted. The whole structure is purely national. Every line and curve in it, and everyinch of detail, is in the best style of the best period of the Arabian school. And above all, ...

Table of Contents

Preface; 1. Cairo and the Great Pyramid; 2. Cairo and the Mecca pilgrimage; 3. Cairo to Bedreshayn; 4. Sakkarah and Memphis; 5. Bedreshayn to Minieh; 6. Minieh to Siout; 7. Siout to Denderah; 8. Thebes and Karnak; 9. Thebes to Assouan; 10. Assouan and Elephantine; 11. The Cataract and the desert; 12. Philae; 13. Philae to Korosko; 14. Korosko to Aboo Simbel; 15. Rameses the Great; 16. Aboo Simbel; 17. The Second Cataract; 18. Discoveries at Aboo Simbel; 19. Back through Nubia; 20. Silsilis and Edfoo; 21. Thebes; 22. Abydus and Cairo; Appendix.