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History of Materials: Predatory Exploitation on the Nile and the Idea of Protecting Cultural Goods

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Philology and the Appropriation of the World

Part of the book series: Socio-Historical Studies of the Social and Human Sciences ((SHSSHS))

Abstract

This chapter is about Egyptomania as a cultural and political phenomenon. In the 1820s, the excavations and openings of tomb chambers became a considerable international enterprise: looking at the lists of the first collections sold to Turin, Paris, London, or Berlin gives an impression of the huge profit made in these undertakings. They took place for the sake of quick money, but also in the name of science, which often enough caused the loss of precisely the knowledge it wished to conserve for humanity—due to the destruction of the sites, lack of records, and inappropriate transport. Jean-François Champollion’s attitude to the problem was ambivalent, as it changed throughout his life. During his voyage to the Nile in 1828/1829, he became aware of the enormous damage that had already been caused by the systematic removal of monuments. From then on, the conservation of cultural goods for universal knowledge became more important for him than their representation in the metropolis; he positioned himself on the side of the objects and hence also against the practice and hegemonic claim of the centre. In a letter to Mehmet Ali Pasha from 1829 Champollion requested that excavations should be subject to regulations and looting forbidden.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    These details are taken from the homepage of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

  2. 2.

    I thank Benoît Lurson (FU Berlin), who identified the figure for me as emperor Augustus, the ruler who also founded the temple.

  3. 3.

    For an account of Drovetti’s life, see the solid and exceedingly detailed biography by Ridley (1998), from whom I take all these details about Drovetti’s career. See also Dawson and Uphill (1995: 129f.).

  4. 4.

    On the life and government of Mehmet Ali Pasha, see al-Sayyid Marsot (1984) and Kenneth M. Cuno (1992).

  5. 5.

    See Ridley (1998: 252).

  6. 6.

    On these misunderstandings and the relationship between Drovetti and Champollion as hampered by political circumstances, see Ridley (1998: 152, 154, and 157f.).

  7. 7.

    On the French politics of acquisition, see Ridley (1998: 251–254).

  8. 8.

    See Ridley (1998: 258f.).

  9. 9.

    See Ridley (1998: 256).

  10. 10.

    The two publications are Lettre à M. Dacier and Précis du système hiéroglyphique (Champollion 1824a, [1822] 1963).

  11. 11.

    See Ridley (1998: 259f.). Champollion immediately sent a description of Drovetti’s collection from Turin to the Journal Asiatique (Champollion 1824b).

  12. 12.

    See Ridley (1998: 257–258).

  13. 13.

    For a discussion of the history and objects of these collections, see Ridley (1998: 248–282).

  14. 14.

    See Wildung (2002: 17).

  15. 15.

    See Wildung (2002: 17).

  16. 16.

    See Wildung (2002: 20).

  17. 17.

    See Wildung (2002: 26). After 1855, however, Passalacqua had to share the directorship with the famous Richard Lepsius, who was more knowledgeable in the field.

  18. 18.

    The information on Belzoni’s biography comes from Dawson and Uphill (1995: 40f.).

  19. 19.

    Belzoni (London 1820–1821).

  20. 20.

    As a result of Belzoni’s interventions, Henry Salt was to make hardly any money from the head of Ramses for the British Museum (see Ridley 1998: 261).

  21. 21.

    For the incredible endeavour of shipping the monumental head to London and the consequences this had for Egyptology and Egyptomania, see the detailed analysis in Colla (2008: 24–71).

  22. 22.

    See Ridley (1998: 63–64).

  23. 23.

    The collections are obviously not only from Egypt. In the Journal Asiatique, the Journal des Savans, and other important journals, there are numerous reports and references about collections of maps, manuscripts, and objects from a wide range of countries and latitudes. See, for instance, the Rapport sur les notes et matériaux recueillis par M. Cailliaud, pendant son dernier voyage en Éthiopie, par une Commission composé de MM. le comte Chabrol, Quatremère de Quincy, Letronne et Abel-Rémusat, membres de l’Institut et désignés par S. Exc. le Ministre secrétaire d’état de l’Intérieur (Abel-Rémusat 1823), the Rapport de la Commission nommée pour examiner les dessins et les matériaux recueillis par M. Rifaud en Égypte et dans les contrées voisines (Reinaud 1829), or the Rapport fait au Conseil, dans la séance du 2 juillet 1832, sur les collections de manuscripts et de dessins rapportées de l’Inde par M. Duclet, administrateur de Carical, membre de la Société asiatique (Eryiès and Burnouf 1832).

  24. 24.

    On the more recent, very politicised, debate, see Messling (2009).

  25. 25.

    Cailliaud ([1821] 1862: 82).

  26. 26.

    See Ridley (1998: 257).

  27. 27.

    See Ridley (1998: 252).

  28. 28.

    As does, for example, Daniel Meyerson: ‘The rapacious foreign consuls—Drovetti foremost among them!—with their corrupt agents, feverish with greed, scavenge among the ruins—oblivious to death by plague or massacre in the lawless countryside, obsessed with gain as they gather their great collections: sphinxes and gods and demons’; Meyerson (2004: 246–247).

  29. 29.

    See Dawson and Uphill (1995: 41).

  30. 30.

    Wildung (2002: 17).

  31. 31.

    This is the perspective of Lesley and Roy Adkins (2000: 238 f.). For Rifaud and d’Estourmel, see Wiet (1950: 22–24).

  32. 32.

    Wiet (1950: 21–39).

  33. 33.

    Colla (2008: 18–19).

  34. 34.

    See Wiet (1950: 7f.; additional page between pages 24 and 25, unusual binding).

  35. 35.

    See Laurens (1997) for an exhaustive analysis of the political and cultural dimensions of Napoleon’s expedition.

  36. 36.

    For a detailed description of the creation of the gigantic Description de l’Égypte, see Grinevald (2008).

  37. 37.

    The report on the restitution of African cultural property written by Felwine Sarr and Bénédicte Savoy (2018) and delivered to French president Emmanuel Macron combines both aspects, the legal-political with the cultural-theoretical, and has set new standards in the debate about restitution.

  38. 38.

    On this multi-layered historical event and its perception by the Germanophone contemporaries, see the standard works by Savoy (2003, 2010).

  39. 39.

    This was recently pointed out by Bénédicte Savoy, using the example of the ‘German-French case’ of Nefertiti (Savoy 2011).

  40. 40.

    See for this problem Appiah (2006, chapter 8; 2009).

  41. 41.

    James Cuno does this emphatically (2009a: ixf., b:28ff.); and Neil MacGregor, then director of the British Museum, declared this to be the political rationale of his institution (see MacGregor 2011).

  42. 42.

    MacGregor (2009: 54).

  43. 43.

    Savoy (2021).

  44. 44.

    A prime example is the grand research project of Alexander von Humboldt, whose journey to South America was also motivated by a desire for scientific knowledge, driven by the Enlightenment. This becomes manifest in the countless plants, animals, stones, and other objects he shipped to Europe, but which produced an anthropological, cultural, and political epistemology that was different to that of colonial seizure, as it aimed at a world civilisation where diversity was interrelated (on this point, see Ette 2009). Perhaps more crucially, von Humboldt was to remain unhappy throughout his life that, for anthropological reasons, he had allowed skeletons to be taken from indigenous burial sites against the explicit wishes of the indigenous population. To him, this desecration of human dignity appeared to be a stigma left by his own claims to Enlightenment (Ette 2002). Another good example is the French sinologist Jean-Pierre Abel-Rémusat, who in his ‘Discours sur le génie et les mœurs des peuples orientaux’ lucidly criticised the essentialising, possessive epistemology of European science (see Messling 2010, 2011).

  45. 45.

    See Champollion’s letter to Dubois from 27 December 1829 (Champollion 1909: 454–458).

  46. 46.

    Champollion (1909: 154–155).

  47. 47.

    This fascinating polemic is published in Champollion (1909: 154–157). In the context of the debate about the zodiac of Dendera, as well as in the following years, the Revue encyclopédique would become a site of remarkable criticism of the transport of cultural goods from Egypt, particularly in connection with the erection of the Luxor obelisk on the Parisian Place de la Concorde in 1836 (see Lançon 2007: 53–61).

  48. 48.

    On this point, see the quote at the beginning of this book.

  49. 49.

    Champollion (1909: 308–328 and 336–342).

  50. 50.

    Champollion (1909: 168f.).

  51. 51.

    Champollion (1909: 104 and 115).

  52. 52.

    For instance, in letters to his brother (Champollion 1909: 217 and 249).

  53. 53.

    To his brother Champollion (1909: 387).

  54. 54.

    Ibid.

  55. 55.

    Also in a letter to his brother (Champollion 1909: 169).

  56. 56.

    On this point, see Gady (2007: 768–769).

  57. 57.

    Elliott Colla (2008: 96–99) has shown how the historical account of ancient Egypt that Champollion presented to Mehmet Ali, which precedes his ‘Note’, unmistakably fashioned the picture of the reign of Ramesses II into a call for the country’s development.

  58. 58.

    ‘Extrait d’une notice de Nestor L’Hôte sur la condition du fellah égyptien’, in Champollion’s Egyptian diaries; Champollion (1909: 426–427).

  59. 59.

    Champollion (1909: 465).

  60. 60.

    See especially Hartleben (1906: 368ff.) and Gady (2007). I was unable to find any evidence for this in the BnF, particularly the dossier of documents NAF 23142 ‘Papiers et correspondance de Jean-François Champollion le jeune (1813–1831)’; but neither in the series NAF 20303–20,390 ‘Papiers de J.-F. Champollion le jeune’, or in the ‘Dossier Champollion’ (Archives modernes 5374).

  61. 61.

    See Gady (2007: 769–770).

  62. 62.

    See Gady (2007: 771)

  63. 63.

    See Wiet (1950: 24).

  64. 64.

    Mehmet Ali Pasha (1835: 478–481). The passage continues: ‘Having taken these facts into consideration, the government has deemed it appropriate to forbid the export abroad of the objects of antiquity which are found in the ancient buildings of Egypt, and which are of such great value, and to designate in the capital itself a place intended to serve as a depository for the objects found or to be found as a result of excavations. It considered it appropriate to exhibit them for the travellers who visit the country, to defend against the destruction of the ancient buildings which are in Upper Egypt, and to take care of their maintenance with all possible care. … The governors (mudir) upon whom it is incumbent were firmly enjoined to send to the said sheikh [Refaa] all the objects of antiquity which would be found in the monuments of Upper Egypt, to oppose their demolition and, if necessary, to delegate people in charge of watching over their integrity. The agents in question have been ordered to inform those subject to this decree. … To better ensure the accomplishment of these provisions, his excellence Boghos Bey was instructed to inform the agents of the European governments, so that they make them known to their fellow citizens.’

  65. 65.

    On the debate regarding the ‘founding’ of a museum around these objects, see Gady (2007: 772–775).

  66. 66.

    See Wiet (1950: 31–38).

  67. 67.

    See Wiet (1950: 25, footnote).

  68. 68.

    For the concept of histoire croisée, see Werner and Zimmermann (2006).

  69. 69.

    See Colla (2003).

  70. 70.

    Colla (2008: 96–171).

  71. 71.

    For the opinion on this matter of writers and publishers such as Pétrus Borel, Joseph Michaud, Lucien Davesiès de Pontès, Joseph d’Estourmel, or Théophile Gautier, see Lançon (2007: 55–61).

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Messling, M. (2023). History of Materials: Predatory Exploitation on the Nile and the Idea of Protecting Cultural Goods. In: Philology and the Appropriation of the World . Socio-Historical Studies of the Social and Human Sciences. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-12894-3_6

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