Somewhere in my skimpy World History background, I learned about the Stone, but no details of Napoleon’s venture into Egypt. Scarcely out of the French Revolution and anxious to outdo England in empire-building, Napoleon assembled a military force of 50,000 and a corps of 151 artists and scientists for an expedition to a mysterious, unknown location. It was not until the fleet of ships sailed from a stopover at Malta that the destination was made known. For mainly political/religious reasons, Egypt was an unknown to Europeans of that time.
Much is made of Napoleon’s invasion of Russia, but here is another debacle of gigantic proportion. And while the misfortunes of the military are appalling, Mirage focuses on the experiences of the scholars. In spite of the loss of equipment, the shock of the climate, inadequate military protection on excursions, and the ravages of plague and other diseases, this group managed to locate and document the Sphinx—buried to its chin in sand, the pyramids, the temples at Karnak and Thebes, and so many other ruins now synonymous with Egypt. These men were not archeologists, for it was largely from their work that archeology as a science came into existence. They were outstanding chemists, physicists, mathematicians, naturalists, artists, etc. who worked independently and cooperatively to extend the horizons of knowledge. They collected untold thousands of specimens and artifacts. Those who made it back to France compiled a 23-volume encyclopedia of things Egyptian. The fruit of their work inspired the mania for Egyptian décor and dress so popular for so long.
Unfortunately, Napoleon’s campaign not only accumulated vast new knowledge about Egypt and the Middle East, it also set the stage for the “rape of the Nile” as thousand of artifacts, not just the Rosetta Stone, were removed to France and England and ended up in European museums and in private collections (check status at GPL).
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