The end of the eighteenth century was a period of political turmoil and intellectual longing. But the Egyptian undertaking that General Napoleon Bonaparte orchestrated led to an accumulation of knowledge of Egypt during the French Revolutionary Wars, which sought to satisfy the European perspective. Known today as the Napoleonic Egyptian Scientific Expedition, its main production was Description de l’Egypte, France’s official endorsed corpus of Egyptian knowledge, which was known as the first large scale systematic study of Egyptian culture to this time[1]. It was instrumental in framing the way in which the European powers perceived of ancient and modern life in Egypt.
Up to this point in the record, Egypt had experienced a tumultuous political history. By the end of the eighteenth century and with the fall of the Ottoman Empire, Egypt had fallen completely to the power of the new Mamluk house of Murad Bey and Ibrahim Bey, which caused much civil unrest throughout the nation[2]. Simultaneously in France, a young Napoleon Bonaparte rose quickly through the ranks of the French army to the post of General, all while viewing the dramatic political changes occurring in Egypt. This shift in power provided the French with not only a strategical opportunity to invade Egypt, but a moral excuse as well[3]. This opportunity, though, became a two-fold expedition for Napoleon. Pressed forward by his own inquisitiveness, as well as the curiosity of the rest of Europe, the march on Egypt became both a military and intellectual campaign.
Over the three years that Napoleon and his men spent in Egypt (1798-1801)[4], it became clear that the intellectual endeavors of the expedition were vital to its military operations. Time revealed France’s desire to colonize Egypt as a way to weaken England without directly attacking them[5]. Napoleon and his army needed to know the best way to invade Egypt, and he used the information on Egyptian land that was collected by his campaign. After a series of victories came a decisive loss to the British armies, backed by Ottoman forces, which would ultimately and significantly affect the outcome of both his military and intellectual operations. The defeat at the Battle of Canopus led to the signing of the Treaty of Alexandria in September 1801, effectively ending Napoleon’s military endeavors in Egypt[6] and forcing him back to France.
In terms of his intellectual campaign, also ending in 1801, Napoleon famously recruited approximately one hundred, sixty-seven learned French individuals, later known as “savants,” to accompany him and collect information on Egyptian culture. This body of persons became known as his Commission des Sciences et Arts d’Egypte, and it is their research that later became Description de l’Egypte[7]. These men followed Napoleon and his army as they traveled throughout Egypt, “from the Arabian Desert to the Sinai and below the First Cataract of the Nile”[8] mapping the political landscape, as well as collecting knowledge in the areas of “geography, topography, agriculture, hydrography, commerce”[9], language, arts, architecture, and others.
Following the Treaty of Alexandria, the savants returned to France with the information they accumulated, composed of large quantities of unpublished notes, drawings, and artifacts, including most everything they collected with the exception of the Rosetta Stone, which was taken to England under condition of the treaty[10]. These notes were intended to become a single comprehensive published amalgamation of what the French discovered in Egypt, forming Description de l’Égypte ou recueil des observations et des Recherches qui ont été faites en Egypte, pendant l’expédition de l’armé française, publié par les orders de H.M. l’Empereur Napoléon, but known globally as Description de l’Égypte. The collection included the textual data retrieved from the savants, as well as countless plated illustrations. The sheer amount of information to be included, though, forced publishers to adopt a chaotic modus operandi, releasing a print each time enough pages were filled with text and plates on a particular subject. This process drew out the publication of Description’s first (Imperial) edition to twenty years[11].
The many folios of Description were “divided into three major categories: Egypt’s antiquities, Egypt as a modern state, and Egypt’s natural history”[12]. European curiosity regarding these areas of study helped to make the collection’s first edition an immediate success amongst the countries’ elite populations. Description as a collection helped to establish Egypt well within the European mindset and in academic circles[13]. The success of this element of the Napoleonic Egyptian Scientific Expedition seemingly made up for the political reception to the mission’s failed military campaign. The knowledge gained through this published collection far outweighed France’s military failure, and placed favor in the hand of the French as a powerful global cultural benefactor[14].
The main assumption underpinning Napoleon and the savants’ creation of Description de l’Egypte was ultimately correct. The lead members of the Commission des Sciences et Arts d’Egypte operated under the assumption that a large amount of interest about Egyptian life already existed throughout European communities. This was based on the perception of Egyptian culture as a mystery to eighteenth century Europeans, as interpreted through the mysterious nature of mummies, hieroglyphs, and the ancient monuments seen throughout the land[15].
Despite Description’s success amongst its viewers, compiling all of the knowledge accumulated by the Commission des Sciences et Arts d’Egypte into a singular text was not an effective manner by which to disseminate this knowledge to the European citizenry for two main reasons: tenability and accessibility.
The group of savants that composed the Commission, while peppered with notable scholars, was mainly comprised of skilled French students, many of whom that had not yet graduated[16]. Further diminishing the credibility of Description, time became a difficult factor with which to contend. This collection of knowledge was published prior to Jean-François Champollion’s decoding of the hieroglyph alphabet, and the subsequent publication of his Grammaire egyptienne. This timing rendered much of the interpretations of the un-deciphered information within Description obsolete[17].
Accessibility of the text was also a significant issue in the diffusion of Egyptian culture throughout Europe. Due to its notably large physical size and high cost, Description de l’Egypte was really only made available to the elite populations of the prominent European powers of the time[18].
Due to the severe lack of constancy and accessibility to the varied citizenry across Europe, Description de l’Egypte was not an economical or efficient vehicle through which to promulgate the knowledge of the Egyptian culture that was collected by the savants to the variant populations of Europe. Despite the incredible amount of information accumulated during the Napoleonic Egyptian Scientific Expedition, placing it into the form of a large, costly tome did not allow for the majority of the European populace of the early nineteenth century to engage with knowledge of Egyptian culture past and present.
References
Byrd, Melanie. “The Napoleonic Institute of Egypt” Ph.D. in History., Florida State University, 1992.
Kappel, Dana. “Soldiers and Savants: an Enlightened Despot Discovers Egypt” Master of Arts in History., Seton Hall University, 2013.
Peters, Erin A. “The Napoleon Egyptian Scientific Expedition and the Nineteenth-Century Survey Museum” Master of Arts in Museum Professions., Seton Hall University, 2009.
[1] Erin A. Peters, “The Napoleonic Egyptian Scientific Expedition and the Nineteenth-Century Survey Museum” (MA thesis, Seton Hall University, 2009), 1.
[2] Ibid, 3-4.
[3] Ibid, 4.
[4] Byrd, Melanie. “The Napoleonic Institute of Egypt” (PhD diss., Florida State University, 1992), 1.
[5] Kappel, Dana. “Soldiers and Savants: an Enlightened Despot Discovers Egypt” (MA thesis, Seton Hall University, 2013), 4.
[6] Peters, “The Napoleonic Egyptian Scientific Expedition,” 28.
[7] Kappel, “Soldiers and Savants,” 9.
[8] Ibid, 17.
[9] Byrd, “The Napoleonic Institute of Egypt,” 39.
[10] Peters, “The Napoleonic Egyptian Scientific Expedition,” 23.
[11] Ibid, 25.
[12] Ibid.
[13] Ibid, 25-26.
[14] Ibid, 16.
[15] Ibid, 2.
[16] Ibid, 18.
[17] Kappel, “Soldiers and Savants,” 17.
[18] Ibid.
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