A World Beneath the Sands: The Golden Age of Egyptology
A thrilling history of the West’s scramble for the riches of ancient Egypt by the foremost Egyptologist of our time.

From the decipherment of hieroglyphics in 1822 to the discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb by Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon a hundred years later, the uncovering of Egypt’s ancient past took place in an atmosphere of grand adventure and international rivalry.

In A World Beneath the Sands, acclaimed Egyptologist Toby Wilkinson chronicles the ruthless race between the British, French, Germans, and Americans to lay claim to its mysteries and treasures. He tells riveting stories of the men and women whose obsession with Egypt’s ancient civilization helped to enrich and transform our understanding of the Nile Valley and its people, and left a lasting impression on Egypt, too. Travelers and treasure-hunters, ethnographers and archaeologists: whatever their motives, whatever their methods, a century of adventure and scholarship revealed a lost world, buried for centuries beneath the sands.

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A World Beneath the Sands: The Golden Age of Egyptology
A thrilling history of the West’s scramble for the riches of ancient Egypt by the foremost Egyptologist of our time.

From the decipherment of hieroglyphics in 1822 to the discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb by Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon a hundred years later, the uncovering of Egypt’s ancient past took place in an atmosphere of grand adventure and international rivalry.

In A World Beneath the Sands, acclaimed Egyptologist Toby Wilkinson chronicles the ruthless race between the British, French, Germans, and Americans to lay claim to its mysteries and treasures. He tells riveting stories of the men and women whose obsession with Egypt’s ancient civilization helped to enrich and transform our understanding of the Nile Valley and its people, and left a lasting impression on Egypt, too. Travelers and treasure-hunters, ethnographers and archaeologists: whatever their motives, whatever their methods, a century of adventure and scholarship revealed a lost world, buried for centuries beneath the sands.

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A World Beneath the Sands: The Golden Age of Egyptology

A World Beneath the Sands: The Golden Age of Egyptology

by Toby Wilkinson
A World Beneath the Sands: The Golden Age of Egyptology

A World Beneath the Sands: The Golden Age of Egyptology

by Toby Wilkinson

Paperback

$18.95 
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Overview

A thrilling history of the West’s scramble for the riches of ancient Egypt by the foremost Egyptologist of our time.

From the decipherment of hieroglyphics in 1822 to the discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb by Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon a hundred years later, the uncovering of Egypt’s ancient past took place in an atmosphere of grand adventure and international rivalry.

In A World Beneath the Sands, acclaimed Egyptologist Toby Wilkinson chronicles the ruthless race between the British, French, Germans, and Americans to lay claim to its mysteries and treasures. He tells riveting stories of the men and women whose obsession with Egypt’s ancient civilization helped to enrich and transform our understanding of the Nile Valley and its people, and left a lasting impression on Egypt, too. Travelers and treasure-hunters, ethnographers and archaeologists: whatever their motives, whatever their methods, a century of adventure and scholarship revealed a lost world, buried for centuries beneath the sands.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780393882407
Publisher: Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date: 02/08/2022
Pages: 544
Product dimensions: 5.40(w) x 8.10(h) x 1.50(d)

About the Author

Toby Wilkinson is an Egyptologist and the prizewinning author of fifteen books on the history and culture of the Nile Valley, ancient and modern. Lauded by the Daily Telegraph as “the foremost Egyptologist of his time,” his works include The Rise and Fall of Ancient Egypt, which won the Hessell-Tiltman Prize. He studied Egyptology at the University of Cambridge and is currently a fellow of Clare College, Cambridge, a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, and a fellow of the Royal Historical Society. He lives in England.

Table of Contents

Timeline xii

Introduction 1

Prologue Travellers in an antique land 5

1 Description and decipherment 45

2 In the footsteps of Napoleon 77

3 Englishmen abroad 105

4 The Prussian project 143

5 French foundations 173

6 A thousand miles up the Nile 209

7 A permanent occupation 243

8 Scholars and scoundrels 281

9 Egypt and America 315

10 Imperial ambitions 353

11 Wonderful things 383

Epilogue The future of the past 419

Acknowledgements 431

Notes 433

Bibliography 465

Index 479

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