Egyptomania refers to a period of renewed interest in ancient Egypt sparked by Napoleon’s Egyptian Campaign (1798-1801), which included many scientists and scholars and led to the documentation of ancient monuments in Egypt.
In 1822 Jean-François Champollion deciphered Egypt’s ancient hieroglyphs with the Rosetta Stone, which was found in July 1799 being used as building material in the construction of a French fort in the Nile Delta.
It was the first Ancient Egyptian bilingual text recovered in modern times and helped accelerate interest in the study of egyptology. The fascination with ancient Egypt was especially manifested through literature, architecture, and art.
During the Gilded Age a second wave of Egyptomania occurred, especially after the rediscovery of the tomb of Pharaoh Tutankhamun (King Tut) in 1922 by excavators led by Howard Carter.
The second wave coincided with the acquisition of Egyptian mummified remains by many institutions across America, including the Albany Institute of History and Art.
In 1909, two mummies, one dating from the 21st Dynasty and the other from the Ptolemaic Period, were purchased from the Egyptian Museum in Cairo by Albany businessman Samuel Brown for the Albany Institute. They have been on continuous exhibition since. You can learn more about them here.
The Massachusetts Historical Society’s Object of History podcast “Egyptomania & the Art of Egyptian Revival,” investigates the phenomenon of Egptomania, which the society describes as a “fascination with the style of Egypt, but also the people, and the landscape, and antiquity.”
Lea Stephenson, a PhD candidate in art history at the University of Delaware, examines Egyptomania’s second wave during the Gilded Age through two collections by Americans who documented their travels to Egypt in various media.
Stephenson also discusses these American travelers and their relationship with the landscape.
For a full list of New York Almanack podcast announcements click HERE.
Illustration: Watercolor of Karnak Temple, 1875, by Helen Bigelow Merriman, detail (Massachusetts Historical Society).
