| The Search for Ancient Egypt | |
| Border: | yes |
| Author: | Jean Vercoutter |
| Title Orig: | À la recherche de l'Égypte oubliée |
| Orig Lang Code: | fr |
| Translator: | Ruth Sharman |
| Illustrator: | Dominique Thibault, for French: pré-générique only, et al. |
| Cover Artist: | David Roberts Louis Haghe |
| Country: | France |
| Language: | French |
| Release Number: | in collection |
| Subject: | Egyptian archaeology, history of Egyptology |
| Genre: | Nonfiction monograph |
| Pub Date: | 21 November 1986 23 January 1998 1 February 2007 |
| English Pub Date: | 1992 |
| Media Type: | Print (paperback), e-book for iPad |
| Awards: | Literary prize of the Fondation de France |
| Isbn: | 978-2-0705-3028-1 |
| Isbn Note: | (first edition) |
| Oclc: | 25719895 |
| Congress: | DT60 .V3613 1992 |
| Followed By: | French: Vie et mort des baleines |
The Search for Ancient Egypt (fr|'''À la recherche de l'Égypte oubliée'''|translation=In Search of Forgotten Egypt) is a 1986 illustrated monograph on the history of the rediscovery of ancient Egypt and of Egyptology. Written by the French Egyptologist Jean Vercoutter, and published by Éditions Gallimard as the first volume in their pocket collection "Découvertes" (known as "New Horizons" in the United Kingdom, and "Abrams Discoveries" in the United States). The book was awarded a literary prize by the Fondation de France in 1987.[1]
In the century AD, the Christian Emperor Theodosius I decreed the closure of all the pagan temples in the Empire. Unexpected consequence: the hieroglyphic writing, still alive until then, abruptly stopped being understood. The Pharaonic Egypt fell into oblivion. The expedition of Bonaparte in 1798 and the magnificent French: [[Description de l'Égypte]] aroused in Europe a craze for the monuments and the art of this ancient civilisation. The decipherment of hieroglyphs by Jean-François Champollion in 1822 marks the birth of Egyptology.
As part of the French: Archéologie series, Jean Vercoutter recounts in the book the history of the rediscovery of pharaonic Egypt, from the Graeco-Roman period to the century; and the whole history of Egyptology, its birth and growth, with all the important figures in this discipline;[2] as well as the study of archaeological sites, artefacts and documents discovered in Egypt in the and centuries.
According to the tradition of "Découvertes", which is based on an abundant pictorial documentation and a way of bringing together visual documents and texts, enhanced by printing on coated paper, as commented in L'Express, "genuine monographs, published like art books".[3] The book is almost like a "graphic novel", replete with colour plates.
The Search for Ancient Egypt was one of the bestsellers in France,[4] and is one of the five bestsellers in the "Découvertes" collection, together with .[5] As of 2001, it has sold more than five hundred thousand copies worldwide.[6] The book has been translated into Brazilian Portuguese, Czech, Danish, Dutch (Belgium & the Netherlands), English (UK & US), German, Italian, Japanese, Lebanese Arabic, Lithuanian, Norwegian, Polish, Romanian, Russian, Slovak, Slovenian, South Korean, Spanish (Spain & Hispanic America), Swedish, Turkish, traditional (Taiwan) and simplified Chinese (China), and reprinted several times. The reissued edition underwent a decrease in page length, from 224 pages in 1986 down to 160 pages in 2007. An electronic edition for iPad came out in 2012,[7] including a French: version enrichie.[8]
Unlike the body text in colour, the second part of the book—the "Documents" (French: Témoignages et documents,)—is printed in black and white, functioning as an anthology of excerpts divided into 19 parts (16 in English edition), taken from texts by Jean Tulard on Napoléon's expedition in Egypt, Chateaubriand (), Flaubert (French: Voyage en Orient), Maxime Du Camp (French: Souvenirs littéraires), Fromentin (French: Voyage en Égypte), Mark Twain (The Innocents Abroad), Pierre Loti (French: La Mort de Philæ), Mariette (French: Le Sérapéum de Memphis).
Besides these big names, there are texts by modern Egyptologists such as Claude Traunecker, Vercoutter himself on the rescue of Abu Simbel temples and Jean-Claude Golvin (about the restoration works at Karnak), among others. The rest recount the transport of Egyptian obelisks to Europe, the inauguration of the Suez Canal, the mummy of Ramesses II under attack by fungi, the renewed attempts to discover the secret of the Great Pyramid, the main works of art of the Egyptian collection at Louvre Museum, etc. The document French: Les mystères des pyramides also includes references to comic books where Egypt is the theme (Asterix, Tintin and Blake and Mortimer).
The book closes with a complete chronology of Ancient Egyptian history (from 6000 BC to 639 AD), further reading, list of illustrations and an index.
| First French edition | English edition | |
|---|---|---|
| 1, La campagne d'Égypte | 1, The Egyptian Campaign | |
| 2, La Description de l'Égypte | 2, The Description of Egypt | |
| 3, Le style « retour d'Égypte » | 3, The Egyptian Revival Style | |
| 4, Le long voyage des obélisques | 4, The Obelisk's Long Journey | |
| 5, L'inauguration du Canal de Suez | 5, The Inauguration of the Suez Canal | |
| 6, Le voyage en Orient | ||
| 6, The Father of Modern Egyptology (about Flinders Petrie; English edition exclusive,) | ||
| 7, Des Américains à l'assaut des pyramides | 7, The American Assault on the Pyramids | |
| 8, Un officier de marine à Philæ | ||
| 8, The Greatest Excavator of his Day (about George Andrew Reisner; English edition exclusive,) | ||
| 9, Le Sérapéum de Memphis | 9, The Serapeum at Memphis | |
| 10, La résurrection de Karnak | 10, The Resurrection of Karnak | |
| 11, La renaissance de Philæ | 11, The Rebirth of Philae | |
| 12, Le sauvetage d'Abou Simbel | 12, The Rescue of Abu Simbel | |
| 13, Histoires de pillages... | 13, Stories of Pillaging | |
| 14, L'Égyptologie aujourd'hui | 14, Egyptology Today | |
| 15, La journée d'un archéologue | ||
| 16, La nouvelle vie de Ramsès II | 15, A New Lease on Life for Ramses II | |
| 17, Les mystères des pyramides | ||
| 18, Sur la piste de Chéops | 16, In Search of Cheops | |
| 19, L'Égypte au musée du Louvre | ||
| Les grandes divisions chronologiques de l'histoire de l'Égypte | Chronology | |
| Further Reading | ||
| Table des illustrations | List of Illustrations | |
| Index | Index | |
| Remerciements/Crédits photographiques | Acknowledgments/Photograph Credits | |
| Table des matières | Contents |
On Babelio, the book has an average of 3.58/5 based on 25 ratings.[10] Goodreads reported, based on 124 ratings, an average of 3.81 out of 5,[11] indicating "generally positive opinions".
In his book review for the academic journal Portuguese: Cadmo of the Oriental Institute of the University of Lisbon, the Portuguese Egyptologist praised the selection of illustrations for the book: "A well-designed book, with excellent text and a wealth of beautiful illustrations [...] This beautiful volume is valued by the excellent selection of images that lavishly accompanies the text, some of the illustrations belong to classic works from the early days of Egyptology, such as the Description de l'Égypte, Lepsius's Denkmäler aus Ägypten und Äthiopien, David Roberts's Egypt and Nubia, among others." De Araújo also notes the erroneous spelling for the divine name by using Khourou instead of French: Khonsou (in English: Khonsu) when mentioning the temple of this lunar deity at Karnak ; the name of the pharaoh of the 12 dynasty—Amenemhat I—is wrongly written Amenhemat ; the name of Horus Kaa—last king of the First Dynasty—reduced to Ka, due to failure of revision; and a reference to Seti I in a caption while the pharaoh represented in the illustration is Ramesses II (corrected in English edition); as well as the inexplicable absence of the famous English Egyptologist Flinders Petrie, who introduced new methods of prospecting and registering the findings in archaeological research; and his contemporaries Adolf Erman and George Andrew Reisner also being omitted.
In the academic journal Portuguese: História: Questões & Debates of the Federal University of Paraná, Johnni Langer wrote in his review article Portuguese: Os mistérios do Egito antigo: "The recently released Portuguese: Em busca do Egito esquecido (Brazilian edition of The Search for Ancient Egypt) is a fact to celebrate. Both for the prodigious knowledge of the author Jean Vercoutter and for the graphic quality of the book. [...] Much more than the textual content, the greatest importance of the book in question is its graphic structure, a true delight of extremely important works for historians interested in deepening the imagery of archaeology. It is through the images that we can see the real strength, the real symbolic potential of Egypt for Europeans. No civilisation has succeeded in bringing together so many sensations, such differences in visual perceptions and the symbolic content of material culture. [...] One of the only weaknesses of the book is that it included few images of the Scottish painter David Roberts, the most important painter of archaeological themes of the 19 century. [...] In any case, Vercoutter's book also contains material that is not widely distributed, such as the marvellous watercolours by Nestor L'Hôte, who accompanied Champollion on his trip to Egypt. The little-known Philæ (1845), currently in the Louvre Museum, is doubly important: it gives us the impression of representing the expedition camp, in addition to representing in strong and vibrant tones the original colours of the famous ."[12]
The Russian Egyptologist Victor Solkin wrote in his review: "The book is laconic, replete with interesting facts and wonderful illustrations, sometimes very rare images. [...] In general, we have before us a miniature guide to the history of Egyptian archaeology, which will present the whole panorama of the cultural interaction between the country of the pyramids and Europe to the reader who is not familiar with Egypt."[13]