Scope: We will learn how Napoleon’s Egyptian campaign of 1798-1801 began modern Egyptology. We will discuss the reasons Napoleon went to Egypt and the main events of the campaign but will focus on the corps of 150 scientists that he brought with the army. We will see how Egypt had been studied before Napoleon’s expedition and contrast this with the scientific observations and reports that his savants produced. We discuss in detail the monumental publication Description de l'Egypte and how it set the standard for all future Egyptological publications. We conclude with the discovery of the Rosetta stone.
Outline
I. Napoleon Bonaparte had several reasons to go to Egypt.
A. Napoleon didn’t want to invade England, as the French government wanted, so he invaded Egypt instead.
B. He hoped to cut off England’s land route to India.
C. He was following in the footsteps of Alexander the Great, a personal hero.
D. Napoleon was also a scholar—a member of the French Institute in mathematics.
II. What was known about Egypt?
A. Hieroglyphs were a dead language, so Egyptian history was unknown.
B. There was no systematic study or collection of objects, merely cabinets of curiosities and missionaries’ reports.
C. Richard Pococke and Frederik Norden, sea captains, were early visitors to Egypt but untrained as observers.
III. Bonaparte assembled an all-star team of 150 scientists and artists for his campaign. His destination was a secret.
A. Dominique-Vivant Denon (1747-1825) was an artist who became first director of the Louvre.
B. Claude Louis Berthollet (1748-1822) was Napoleon’s chemist.
C. Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire (1772-1844) was a brilliant young zoologist who went on to accomplish much.
D. Nicolas Conte had the ability to manufacture anything: “All the arts in his hands and all the sciences in his head.”
E. Redoute, Dolomieu, Fourier, Monge, and others were exceptional men who rounded out an extraordinary team.
F. Students and engineers, printers and printing presses all came along for the adventure.
IV. In spite of all the intellectual baggage, there was a war to fight.
A. The Mamelukes, once bought as slaves, had become a warrior caste that tyrannized Egypt. Bonaparte promised to liberate the Egyptians, going so far as to issue proclamations that were the first printed documents in Arabic.
B. At the Battle of the Pyramids, East met the modern West for the first time. The Mameluke cavalry charged the French army, massed together in squares. The French won the battle decisively.
C. The Battle of the Nile was Napoleon’s first setback.
1. British admiral Horatio Nelson’s impatience led to victory for the English.
2. The French were anchored near the shore, their guns aimed seaward. Nelson daringly cut between ships and shore and attacked the French from the rear.
3. The French ship L’Orient, the largest in the world, suddenly exploded, a sound heard twenty miles away.
4. Felicia Hemans’s famous first line, “The boy stood on the burning deck” (Admiral Casabianca’s son), is about the Battle of the Nile.
5. Many scientific instruments were lost when the ships went down, a blow to the expedition.
6. Even worse, the French were cut off from supplies coming from the European mainland.
D. Plague began to take its toll on the French during the siege of Acre, a fort on the Mediterranean.
E. Napoleon suddenly deserted his troops and returned to France, declaring himself the “conqueror” of Egypt.
V. The campaign gave birth to modern Egyptology.
A. Scientists published the Description de l'Egypte, ten volumes full of drawings and illustrations. The Egyptian fad in furnishings and fashion was soon all the rage in Europe.
B. Napoleon instructed his men to copy the hieroglyphs exactly. This would turn out to be one of the most lasting accomplishments of the campaign.
C. Collections of antiquities and natural history were systematically framed.
VI. The Rosetta stone was the key to deciphering the hieroglyphs.
A. England, the victor, agreed by treaty that the French could retain all the discoveries of the campaign—except the antiquities.
B. The most important of these was the Rosetta stone. Scholars immediately knew it was crucial—the inscription appeared in both Greek and Egyptian. Although the French tried to retain it, today the Rosetta stone is in the British Museum instead of the Louvre because of this treaty.
Essential Reading:
J. Christopher Herold, Bonaparte in Egypt.
Supplementary Reading:
Bob Brier, The Glory of Ancient Egypt.
Questions to Consider:
1. Why did Bonaparte go to Egypt?
2. What were the contributions to Egyptology that came out of the Egyptian campaign?