Egyptomania
Encyclopedia
Egyptomania was the renewed interest of Europeans in ancient Egypt
during the nineteenth century as a result of Napoleon
's Egyptian Campaign (1798–1801) and, in particular, as a result of the extensive scientific study of ancient Egyptian remains and culture
inspired by this campaign. In addition to its aesthetic impact on literature, art and architecture, it also played a role in the discussion about race, gender
and national identity
. Egyptomania is of particular importance to American
culture because of the way in which the example of ancient Egypt served to create a sense of independent nation
hood during the nineteenth century. However, Egypt has had a significant impact on the cultural imagination of all Western Cultures.
seems to have affected every field of American culture. Some of the most important areas of culture influenced by Egyptomania are literature, architecture, art, film, politics and religion. There were two important waves of Egyptomania in the nineteenth century, especially in arts and design, which were both caused by publications about Egypt that became very popular: Dominique Vivant, Baron de Denon
, Voyage dans la Basse et la Haute Egypt (1802), and the Institute of Egypt's Description de l'Egypte (1809)
. Because of these publications, people became more and more interested in Egyptian culture and everything related to it. Ancient Egyptian images and representations were integrated into a wide variety of cultural sectors. They influenced the fine arts not just in the US but throughout the western world. Examples of this are the pyramid of glass and steel in front of the Louvre
or Verdi
's famous Aida
.
But Egyptian images and symbols also served for more trivial purposes, such as dessert services, furniture, decoration, commercial kitsch
or even advertising
. There were parties and public events that had Egypt as a motto, where people wore special costumes. In general, people were fascinated by everything that had the label Egypt attached to it. And even today, this kind of fascination for Egypt and all things Egyptian still exists. Many different exhibitions about Egyptian culture in museums all over the world demonstrate people's continued interest in it.
Fascinated by Egyptian culture, American literature, visual art and architecture absorbed what was becoming general knowledge about ancient Egyptian culture, making use of this knowledge in the contemporary debate about national identity, race, and slavery. Certain characteristic elements of Egyptian culture became particularly symbolically charged. The mummy
, for example, represented the fascination of the Americans with the living dead, reanimation, revenge and anxiety about race. This fascination went so far that 'unwrapping-a- mummy-parties' were organised, thus pushing the hysteria of the Americans with Egyptian myths further and further. The figure of Cleopatra, hieroglyphic writing and deciphering, and the pyramid as maze and tomb are other examples of how ancient Egypt has been productive in the West, and specifically in the United States since the nineteenth century. Well-known literary works that make use of these symbolic references to Egypt include "Some Words With a Mummy" by E. A. Poe
, "Lost In A Pyramid Or The Mummy’s curse" by Louisa May Alcott
or The Marble Faun
by Nathaniel Hawthorne
. The impact of ancient Egyptian culture in architecture is called the Egyptian Revival, an important expression of neoclassicism
in the United States. Well-known Egyptian images, forms and symbols were integrated in the contemporary style. This influence can best be seen in the architecture of cemeteries and prisons.
Other examples of this influence are the Gold Pyramid House in Illinois or the famous Obelisk
(Washington Monument
) in Washington DC. Movies such as The Mummy
(1999) (itself a remake of a 1932 Boris Karloff film
) and its sequels demonstrate that ancient Egypt and the discovery of its secrets is still a powerful point of reference for contemporary western cultures. Important scholarly texts about this phenomenon in American culture include Scott Trafton’s Egypt Land (2004) and M. J. Schueller’s U.S. Orientalism (1998).
It is important to point out that this impact of ancient Egyptian culture and its characteristic features is a result of cultural projection, and its re-creations and interpretations of Egypt say more about the anxieties and desires of Western cultures engaged in a colonialism that benefited them economically and symbolically than about the ancient culture itself. As such, Egyptomania is an integral part of a process of cultural appropriation that Edward Said
has called "Orientalism
" (in his seminal study under the same title
).
In the early nineteenth century natural science based on Empiricism
was still in its infancy. Though a lot of ground breaking discoveries were made, many ideas that were debated seriously by the intellectual community at that time may appear humorous at best, spurious and opportunistic at worst to observers from our time. This is true also with regard to Egyptology: the great interest in Egypt and its history spawned enormous efforts that produced indispensable knowledge as for instance the deciphering of hieroglyphics by Jean-François Champollion
in 1824. Yet much of the work in and on Egypt was not performed by full time scholars but by rich enthusiasts whose training and expertise did not quite match their interest. Major amounts of knowledge have been destroyed by poorly documented excavations and poorly performed dissections. The popularity of Egyptology in educated circles led to strange phenomena, as for instance when amateur Egyptologists would organize "Mummy Parties", social gatherings with a pseudo scientific outlook, which consisted mainly of "unwrapping" a mummy purchased for the purpose by the host.
Another rather strange chapter of nineteenth century science that is relevant with regard to Egyptomania is Craniology, the study of the human cranium that claimed to be able to determine an individual's intelligence and even character. Egyptian mummies served as an abundant source for the object of study: skulls. Craniology was especially important with regard of the question, whether Egyptians
were black or white, a debate lead in light of the justification of slavery (see below). The key figure for this period seems to be Samuel George Morton
who founded the American School of Ethnology. He put forward the theory of Polygenesis claiming that there is not one but several human races who are in a hierarchical order with whites at the top and blacks at the bottom end of the scale. Although science today disapproves of Morton's findings it still revalidated his professional status, because Morton's American School was to a large degree responsible for the development of the current professional status of the sciences and the renunciation of puritan ideas of monogenesis and the Christian, clerical worldview which was common at the time.
, Egypt is not easily placed within Africa or Asia, or within the East or the West. Therefore, it seems as if Egypt is "everybody’s past". The figure of Egypt has been an important point of reference in the development of national identity in the western World, though these processes of identity formation
are complex and involve many factors. Racial identity is central to these processes, particularly in the United States, where the emerging sense of a distinct national identity and the increasing conflict over slavery were inseparably linked in the first half of the 19th century. Paschal Beverly Randolph
crystallized the way in which Egypt served as a model for the new nation when he said, "For America, read Africa; for the United States, Egypt" (1863). Among the large variety of ethnic groups that formed the population of the United States the common denominator was being non-black, being able to define oneself utilizing a binaristic Other. Historically, the attempt to scientifically establish a racial hierarchy as undertaken by the American School of Ethnology evoked an understanding of whiteness as the natural American national identity. The racial identity of Egyptian pharaohs was used especially by 19th century scientists such as Samuel George Morton
and his contemporaries to confirm the contemporary American racial hierarchy. This hierarchy served proponents of slavery to justify the inhuman treatment of slaves and the denial of civil rights for any but white Americans. Types of Mankind (1854), the culmination of American School racial thinking, contains a major chapter on the racial characteristics of the ancient Egyptians, starting a controversy that still rages today. Historians have put forward three main hypotheses which clearly contradict each other . Scientists, historians and anatomists argue whether the Egyptians were white, black or hybrid (mixture of both). The argument draws on aspects such as wall paintings or the physique of mummies.
Going back to ancient Greek and Roman descriptions of Egyptians, Afrocentrist thinkers in the nineteenth century insisted that the Egyptians were black Africans, making it possible to provide an ancient and noble lineage that countered the degrading images proliferated by racist science and pro-slavery polemic. Prominent contributors to this debate include David Walker
, James McCune Smith
, Frederick Douglass
and W. E. B. Du Bois. Identifying with the enslaved Hebrews, African Americans had long used the biblical Exodus narrative to encode their right and desire for freedom, as the well-known spiritual "Go down, Moses
" still testifies. David Walker's Appeal
(1829) places this biblical story of liberation in tension with the assertion that the Pharaoh
s were black as well. The prominent black abolitionists James McCune Smith
and Frederick Douglass
countered white ethnography directly, as for example in Douglass' "Claims of the Negro Ethnologically Considered" (1854), drawing from findings of earlier European ethnologists such as James Prichard
. At the turn of the 20th century, W. E. B. Du Bois shaped the concept of race and identity in yet another way by writing about the "double consciousness
" of Africans in the "Diaspora
", meaning the descendants of the slaves in the U.S. This concept led to the twentieth century Black nationalist movements
.
Egypt in the Western imagination
Egypt has loomed large in the Western imagination in the Greek and Hebrew traditions. Egypt was already ancient to outsiders, and the idea of Egypt, as a figment of the Western imagination, has continued to be at least as influential in the history of ideas as the actual historical Egypt itself...
during the nineteenth century as a result of Napoleon
Napoleon I of France
Napoleon Bonaparte was a French military and political leader during the latter stages of the French Revolution.As Napoleon I, he was Emperor of the French from 1804 to 1815...
's Egyptian Campaign (1798–1801) and, in particular, as a result of the extensive scientific study of ancient Egyptian remains and culture
Ancient Egypt
Ancient Egypt was an ancient civilization of Northeastern Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in what is now the modern country of Egypt. Egyptian civilization coalesced around 3150 BC with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh...
inspired by this campaign. In addition to its aesthetic impact on literature, art and architecture, it also played a role in the discussion about race, gender
Gender
Gender is a range of characteristics used to distinguish between males and females, particularly in the cases of men and women and the masculine and feminine attributes assigned to them. Depending on the context, the discriminating characteristics vary from sex to social role to gender identity...
and national identity
National identity
National identity is the person's identity and sense of belonging to one state or to one nation, a feeling one shares with a group of people, regardless of one's citizenship status....
. Egyptomania is of particular importance to American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
culture because of the way in which the example of ancient Egypt served to create a sense of independent nation
Nation
A nation may refer to a community of people who share a common language, culture, ethnicity, descent, and/or history. In this definition, a nation has no physical borders. However, it can also refer to people who share a common territory and government irrespective of their ethnic make-up...
hood during the nineteenth century. However, Egypt has had a significant impact on the cultural imagination of all Western Cultures.
Culture
Since the early nineteenth century, the fascination with ancient EgyptAncient Egypt
Ancient Egypt was an ancient civilization of Northeastern Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in what is now the modern country of Egypt. Egyptian civilization coalesced around 3150 BC with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh...
seems to have affected every field of American culture. Some of the most important areas of culture influenced by Egyptomania are literature, architecture, art, film, politics and religion. There were two important waves of Egyptomania in the nineteenth century, especially in arts and design, which were both caused by publications about Egypt that became very popular: Dominique Vivant, Baron de Denon
Dominique Vivant
Dominique Vivant, Baron de Denon was a French artist, writer, diplomat, author, and archaeologist. He was appointed first director of the Louvre Museum by Napoleon after the Egyptian campaign of 1798-1801.-Biography:...
, Voyage dans la Basse et la Haute Egypt (1802), and the Institute of Egypt's Description de l'Egypte (1809)
Description de l'Egypte (1809)
The Description de l'Égypte was a series of publications, appearing first in 1809 and continuing until the final volume appeared in 1829, which offered a comprehensive scientific description of ancient and modern Egypt as well as its natural history...
. Because of these publications, people became more and more interested in Egyptian culture and everything related to it. Ancient Egyptian images and representations were integrated into a wide variety of cultural sectors. They influenced the fine arts not just in the US but throughout the western world. Examples of this are the pyramid of glass and steel in front of the Louvre
Louvre
The Musée du Louvre – in English, the Louvre Museum or simply the Louvre – is one of the world's largest museums, the most visited art museum in the world and a historic monument. A central landmark of Paris, it is located on the Right Bank of the Seine in the 1st arrondissement...
or Verdi
Giuseppe Verdi
Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi was an Italian Romantic composer, mainly of opera. He was one of the most influential composers of the 19th century...
's famous Aida
Aida
Aida sometimes spelled Aïda, is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Antonio Ghislanzoni, based on a scenario written by French Egyptologist Auguste Mariette...
.
Kitsch
Kitsch is a form of art that is considered an inferior, tasteless copy of an extant style of art or a worthless imitation of art of recognized value. The concept is associated with the deliberate use of elements that may be thought of as cultural icons while making cheap mass-produced objects that...
or even advertising
Advertising
Advertising is a form of communication used to persuade an audience to take some action with respect to products, ideas, or services. Most commonly, the desired result is to drive consumer behavior with respect to a commercial offering, although political and ideological advertising is also common...
. There were parties and public events that had Egypt as a motto, where people wore special costumes. In general, people were fascinated by everything that had the label Egypt attached to it. And even today, this kind of fascination for Egypt and all things Egyptian still exists. Many different exhibitions about Egyptian culture in museums all over the world demonstrate people's continued interest in it.
Fascinated by Egyptian culture, American literature, visual art and architecture absorbed what was becoming general knowledge about ancient Egyptian culture, making use of this knowledge in the contemporary debate about national identity, race, and slavery. Certain characteristic elements of Egyptian culture became particularly symbolically charged. The mummy
Mummy
A mummy is a body, human or animal, whose skin and organs have been preserved by either intentional or incidental exposure to chemicals, extreme coldness , very low humidity, or lack of air when bodies are submerged in bogs, so that the recovered body will not decay further if kept in cool and dry...
, for example, represented the fascination of the Americans with the living dead, reanimation, revenge and anxiety about race. This fascination went so far that 'unwrapping-a- mummy-parties' were organised, thus pushing the hysteria of the Americans with Egyptian myths further and further. The figure of Cleopatra, hieroglyphic writing and deciphering, and the pyramid as maze and tomb are other examples of how ancient Egypt has been productive in the West, and specifically in the United States since the nineteenth century. Well-known literary works that make use of these symbolic references to Egypt include "Some Words With a Mummy" by E. A. Poe
Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe was an American author, poet, editor and literary critic, considered part of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor of the detective...
, "Lost In A Pyramid Or The Mummy’s curse" by Louisa May Alcott
Louisa May Alcott
Louisa May Alcott was an American novelist. She is best known for the novel Little Women and its sequels Little Men and Jo's Boys. Little Women was set in the Alcott family home, Orchard House in Concord, Massachusetts, and published in 1868...
or The Marble Faun
The Marble Faun
The Marble Faun: Or, The Romance of Monte Beni, also known as Transformation, was the last of the four major romances by Nathaniel Hawthorne, and was published in 1860. The Marble Faun, written on the eve of the American Civil War, is set in a fantastical Italy...
by Nathaniel Hawthorne
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Nathaniel Hawthorne was an American novelist and short story writer.Nathaniel Hawthorne was born in 1804 in the city of Salem, Massachusetts to Nathaniel Hathorne and the former Elizabeth Clarke Manning. His ancestors include John Hathorne, a judge during the Salem Witch Trials...
. The impact of ancient Egyptian culture in architecture is called the Egyptian Revival, an important expression of neoclassicism
Neoclassical architecture
Neoclassical architecture was an architectural style produced by the neoclassical movement that began in the mid-18th century, manifested both in its details as a reaction against the Rococo style of naturalistic ornament, and in its architectural formulas as an outgrowth of some classicizing...
in the United States. Well-known Egyptian images, forms and symbols were integrated in the contemporary style. This influence can best be seen in the architecture of cemeteries and prisons.
Other examples of this influence are the Gold Pyramid House in Illinois or the famous Obelisk
Obelisk
An obelisk is a tall, four-sided, narrow tapering monument which ends in a pyramid-like shape at the top, and is said to resemble a petrified ray of the sun-disk. A pair of obelisks usually stood in front of a pylon...
(Washington Monument
Washington Monument
The Washington Monument is an obelisk near the west end of the National Mall in Washington, D.C., built to commemorate the first U.S. president, General George Washington...
) in Washington DC. Movies such as The Mummy
The Mummy (1999 film)
The Mummy is a 1999 American adventure film written and directed by Stephen Sommers and starring Brendan Fraser, Rachel Weisz, John Hannah and Kevin J. O'Connor, with Arnold Vosloo in the title role as the reanimated mummy. The film features substantial dialogue in ancient Egyptian language, spoken...
(1999) (itself a remake of a 1932 Boris Karloff film
The Mummy (1932 film)
The Mummy is a 1932 horror film from Universal Studios directed by Karl Freund and starring Boris Karloff as a revived ancient Egyptian priest. The movie also features Zita Johann, David Manners and Edward Van Sloan...
) and its sequels demonstrate that ancient Egypt and the discovery of its secrets is still a powerful point of reference for contemporary western cultures. Important scholarly texts about this phenomenon in American culture include Scott Trafton’s Egypt Land (2004) and M. J. Schueller’s U.S. Orientalism (1998).
It is important to point out that this impact of ancient Egyptian culture and its characteristic features is a result of cultural projection, and its re-creations and interpretations of Egypt say more about the anxieties and desires of Western cultures engaged in a colonialism that benefited them economically and symbolically than about the ancient culture itself. As such, Egyptomania is an integral part of a process of cultural appropriation that Edward Said
Edward Said
Edward Wadie Saïd was a Palestinian-American literary theorist and advocate for Palestinian rights. He was University Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University and a founding figure in postcolonialism...
has called "Orientalism
Orientalism
Orientalism is a term used for the imitation or depiction of aspects of Eastern cultures in the West by writers, designers and artists, as well as having other meanings...
" (in his seminal study under the same title
Orientalism (book)
Orientalism is a book published in 1978 by Edward Said that has been highly influential and controversial in postcolonial studies and other fields. In the book, Said effectively redefined the term "Orientalism" to mean a constellation of false assumptions underlying Western attitudes toward the...
).
Science
Empiricism
Empiricism is a theory of knowledge that asserts that knowledge comes only or primarily via sensory experience. One of several views of epistemology, the study of human knowledge, along with rationalism, idealism and historicism, empiricism emphasizes the role of experience and evidence,...
was still in its infancy. Though a lot of ground breaking discoveries were made, many ideas that were debated seriously by the intellectual community at that time may appear humorous at best, spurious and opportunistic at worst to observers from our time. This is true also with regard to Egyptology: the great interest in Egypt and its history spawned enormous efforts that produced indispensable knowledge as for instance the deciphering of hieroglyphics by Jean-François Champollion
Jean-François Champollion
Jean-François Champollion was a French classical scholar, philologist and orientalist, decipherer of the Egyptian hieroglyphs....
in 1824. Yet much of the work in and on Egypt was not performed by full time scholars but by rich enthusiasts whose training and expertise did not quite match their interest. Major amounts of knowledge have been destroyed by poorly documented excavations and poorly performed dissections. The popularity of Egyptology in educated circles led to strange phenomena, as for instance when amateur Egyptologists would organize "Mummy Parties", social gatherings with a pseudo scientific outlook, which consisted mainly of "unwrapping" a mummy purchased for the purpose by the host.
Another rather strange chapter of nineteenth century science that is relevant with regard to Egyptomania is Craniology, the study of the human cranium that claimed to be able to determine an individual's intelligence and even character. Egyptian mummies served as an abundant source for the object of study: skulls. Craniology was especially important with regard of the question, whether Egyptians
Egyptians
Egyptians are nation an ethnic group made up of Mediterranean North Africans, the indigenous people of Egypt.Egyptian identity is closely tied to geography. The population of Egypt is concentrated in the lower Nile Valley, the small strip of cultivable land stretching from the First Cataract to...
were black or white, a debate lead in light of the justification of slavery (see below). The key figure for this period seems to be Samuel George Morton
Samuel George Morton
Samuel George Morton was an American physician and natural scientist. Morton, reared a Quaker but became Episcopalian in midlife, was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1820. After earning an advanced degree from Edinburgh University in...
who founded the American School of Ethnology. He put forward the theory of Polygenesis claiming that there is not one but several human races who are in a hierarchical order with whites at the top and blacks at the bottom end of the scale. Although science today disapproves of Morton's findings it still revalidated his professional status, because Morton's American School was to a large degree responsible for the development of the current professional status of the sciences and the renunciation of puritan ideas of monogenesis and the Christian, clerical worldview which was common at the time.
Race and national identity
Egypt occupies a special location in-between historical and geographic regions: According to Richard WhiteRichard White (historian)
Richard White is an American historian, a past President of the Organization of American Historians, and the author of influential books on the American West, Native American history, and environmental history...
, Egypt is not easily placed within Africa or Asia, or within the East or the West. Therefore, it seems as if Egypt is "everybody’s past". The figure of Egypt has been an important point of reference in the development of national identity in the western World, though these processes of identity formation
Identity formation
Identity formation is the development of the distinct personality of an individual regarded as a persisting entity in a particular stage of life in which individual characteristics are possessed and by which a person is recognised or known . This process defines individuals to others and themselves...
are complex and involve many factors. Racial identity is central to these processes, particularly in the United States, where the emerging sense of a distinct national identity and the increasing conflict over slavery were inseparably linked in the first half of the 19th century. Paschal Beverly Randolph
Paschal Beverly Randolph
Randolph also edited the Leader and the Messenger of Light between 1852 to 1861 and wrote for the Journal of Progress and Spiritual Telegraph .2 as anonymous.3 under the pseudonym "Count de St. Leon".- References :...
crystallized the way in which Egypt served as a model for the new nation when he said, "For America, read Africa; for the United States, Egypt" (1863). Among the large variety of ethnic groups that formed the population of the United States the common denominator was being non-black, being able to define oneself utilizing a binaristic Other. Historically, the attempt to scientifically establish a racial hierarchy as undertaken by the American School of Ethnology evoked an understanding of whiteness as the natural American national identity. The racial identity of Egyptian pharaohs was used especially by 19th century scientists such as Samuel George Morton
Samuel George Morton
Samuel George Morton was an American physician and natural scientist. Morton, reared a Quaker but became Episcopalian in midlife, was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1820. After earning an advanced degree from Edinburgh University in...
and his contemporaries to confirm the contemporary American racial hierarchy. This hierarchy served proponents of slavery to justify the inhuman treatment of slaves and the denial of civil rights for any but white Americans. Types of Mankind (1854), the culmination of American School racial thinking, contains a major chapter on the racial characteristics of the ancient Egyptians, starting a controversy that still rages today. Historians have put forward three main hypotheses which clearly contradict each other . Scientists, historians and anatomists argue whether the Egyptians were white, black or hybrid (mixture of both). The argument draws on aspects such as wall paintings or the physique of mummies.
Going back to ancient Greek and Roman descriptions of Egyptians, Afrocentrist thinkers in the nineteenth century insisted that the Egyptians were black Africans, making it possible to provide an ancient and noble lineage that countered the degrading images proliferated by racist science and pro-slavery polemic. Prominent contributors to this debate include David Walker
David Walker (abolitionist)
David Walker was an outspoken African American activist who demanded the immediate end of slavery in the new nation...
, James McCune Smith
James McCune Smith
James McCune Smith was an American physician, apothecary, abolitionist, and author. He is the first African-American to earn a medical degree, and the first to run a pharmacy in the United States. Smith wrote forcefully in refutation of the common misconceptions about race, intelligence, medicine,...
, Frederick Douglass
Frederick Douglass
Frederick Douglass was an American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman. After escaping from slavery, he became a leader of the abolitionist movement, gaining note for his dazzling oratory and incisive antislavery writing...
and W. E. B. Du Bois. Identifying with the enslaved Hebrews, African Americans had long used the biblical Exodus narrative to encode their right and desire for freedom, as the well-known spiritual "Go down, Moses
Go Down Moses
"Go Down Moses" is an American Negro spiritual. It describes events in the Old Testament of the Bible, specifically Exodus 7:16: "And the Lord spoke unto Moses, go unto Pharaoh, and say unto him, thus saith the Lord, Let my people go, that they may serve me", in which God commands Moses to demand...
" still testifies. David Walker's Appeal
David Walker (abolitionist)
David Walker was an outspoken African American activist who demanded the immediate end of slavery in the new nation...
(1829) places this biblical story of liberation in tension with the assertion that the Pharaoh
Pharaoh
Pharaoh is a title used in many modern discussions of the ancient Egyptian rulers of all periods. The title originates in the term "pr-aa" which means "great house" and describes the royal palace...
s were black as well. The prominent black abolitionists James McCune Smith
James McCune Smith
James McCune Smith was an American physician, apothecary, abolitionist, and author. He is the first African-American to earn a medical degree, and the first to run a pharmacy in the United States. Smith wrote forcefully in refutation of the common misconceptions about race, intelligence, medicine,...
and Frederick Douglass
Frederick Douglass
Frederick Douglass was an American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman. After escaping from slavery, he became a leader of the abolitionist movement, gaining note for his dazzling oratory and incisive antislavery writing...
countered white ethnography directly, as for example in Douglass' "Claims of the Negro Ethnologically Considered" (1854), drawing from findings of earlier European ethnologists such as James Prichard
James Cowles Prichard
James Cowles Prichard MD FRS was an English physician and ethnologist. His influential Researches into the physical history of mankind touched upon the subject of evolution...
. At the turn of the 20th century, W. E. B. Du Bois shaped the concept of race and identity in yet another way by writing about the "double consciousness
Double consciousness
Double consciousness, in its contemporary sense, is a term coined by W. E. B. Du Bois. The term is used to describe an individual whose identity is divided into several facets...
" of Africans in the "Diaspora
Diaspora
A diaspora is "the movement, migration, or scattering of people away from an established or ancestral homeland" or "people dispersed by whatever cause to more than one location", or "people settled far from their ancestral homelands".The word has come to refer to historical mass-dispersions of...
", meaning the descendants of the slaves in the U.S. This concept led to the twentieth century Black nationalist movements
Black nationalism
Black nationalism advocates a racial definition of indigenous national identity, as opposed to multiculturalism. There are different indigenous nationalist philosophies but the principles of all African nationalist ideologies are unity, and self-determination or independence from European society...
.
External links
- egyptomania.org, a website devoted to covering all aspects of "Egyptomania" from both a scholarly and a popular perspective. Includes Bibliographies.
- American Egyptomania, a scholarly website maintained at George Mason University, under the guidance of Scott Trafton, the author of Egypt Land (2004). Focuses on expressions of Egyptomania in the United States starting in the early nineteenth century and includes excerpts from original documents.