The recent destruction of an historic document in Cairo offers a stark
warning that Egypt's art and history is under threat
Posted by Jonathan Jones
Thursday 22 December 2011
Napoleon Bonaparte was an
extraordinary and contradictory man: a warlord who saw himself as a champion of
civilisation. One of his most ambitious attempts to prove himself a cultural as
well as military titan was to commission a team of scholars to produce the
legendary Description de l'Egypte. This was the first
thorough attempt to study the antiquities and geography of this ancient
civilisation, a vast artistic and scientific work that was published in 10 huge
folio volumes as well as supplements, and contains 3,000 illustrations, among
them pictures more than a metre wide.
A handwritten manuscript of this colossal
work has been destroyed in the fire that consumed the Institute of Egypt during
clashes in Cairo earlier this week. This is a tragedy, as a brief
account of Napoleon's daring project will reveal.
Napoleon took 167 scholars with him when he invaded
Egypt in 1798. He was there to undermine British global power by
establishing a French colonial presence. Being Napoleon, however, his
proclamations of cultural respect for Egypt
went far beyond the usual hollowness of propaganda. At the Battle of the
Pyramids, he famously told his troops: "Soldiers, from the height of these pyramids, 40 centuries
look down on you ..." It is a reminder that should ring in the
ears of both sides – revolutionaries and the army – when they are close to
Cairo's fragile treasuries of world culture.
The 167 scholars were not there as a publicity stunt. They included architects,
mathematicians – who measured buildings and statues – and civil engineers,
writers, artists and printers. Napoleon ordered them to discover the remains of
ancient Egypt, which he called the "cradle of the science and art of all
humanity".
Nelson wrecked Napoleon's military
plans in Egypt, but the scholars did produce their Description. I
have it before me, in a modern edition published by Taschen.
What a book. Meticulous engravings depict the wonders of Egyptian archaeology:
the temples of Philae, for instance, are shown in their original setting on an
island in the Nile, seen from every angle in measured architectural views.
Today the temples are on another nearby
island after Unesco moved them to save them from flooding caused by
the Aswan Dam – so the Description's precise record of their original
appearance is invaluable.
It goes on like that. The French team journeyed to all the great
archaeological sites of Egypt and made the first precise studies of them. This
book is a monument to human curiosity and reason. Out of it came a new
understanding of the legacy of one of the world's most charismatic civilisations.
Yet the French also studied the modern Egypt of their time, the natural history
of the Nile, the Islamic architecture of Cairo, even agricultural techniques
and industries.
One of four original copies of this great work in
Egypt has been lost forever. It is a warning. Whatever the political
stakes, all sides must respect Egypt's art and history. The Description of
Egypt was a record of what Egyptians have created over millennia. Those
astounding antiquities themselves, many of the greatest of which are in the Egyptian Museum on Tahrir Square, are just
as vulnerable. Please protect them.
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