Our Rare Books, Our SMC: An Exhibit of Items Held at Saint Mary's College

Travels in Upper and Lower Egypt (1803)

Travels in Upper and Lower Egypt is a translated edition of the journal Frenchman Vivant Denon composed, recording his travels with French troops during the French occupation of Egypt in the Napoleonic Wars. This edition was published in two volumes by T. Gillet in London, England, in 1803. In historical context, the journal would have been written around the time French troops discovered the Rosetta Stone, but before France lost the Napoleonic Wars to Great Britain. At the end of the Napoleonic Wars in the early 1810s, Britain claimed the Rosetta Stone, among other things, but the French eventually claim the first translation of Egyptian hieroglyphs when Jean-François Champollion’s zeal for languages led to the first accepted alphabetic translation. While Denon was in Egypt before the hieroglyphs were translated, he created a number of engravings, particularly of landscapes, ancient architecture, and art.

The journal includes a number of Denon’s engraved plates, along with other images, such as depictions of hieroglyphics and other ancient art, many of which are on large pull-out panels. Particularly notable are the two maps: a “Map of Lower Egypt” in the first volume, and “A Map of Upper Egypt” in the second volume. (n.b. Upper and Lower Egypt are named for the way the Nile flows, i.e. from south to north, spilling out into the Mediterranean Sea. Upper Egypt, therefore, is in the south, upstream, while Lower Egypt is north, downstream.) On the map is given the route Denon traveled with the French army, beginning in the north, Lower Egypt, by Alexandria, Rosetta, and Cairo. Denon and the Troops traveled south as far as Aswan in Upper Egypt before returning north to the Mediterranean.

Particularly notable are the place names given on the maps. Most easily seen on “A Map of Upper Egypt,” a number of the major places are identified with multiple names, one Greek and another Egyptian. This site highlights some of these name changes, along with images of some of Denon’s engravings: StoryMapJS focusing on locations in Upper Egypt.

These maps are a unique record of Egypt’s history of colonialism. At the end of Ancient Egypt’s history, Alexander the Great conquered the kingdom before continuing east to the Indus River Valley. Alexander’s untimely death, however, left a huge empire and a power vacuum. The Greek empire was divided, with Ptolemy taking charge of Egypt. The same Ptolemaic dynasty was responsible for the Rosetta Stone, Cleopatra VII, and the Greek place names given on the maps. Most noticeably on “A Map of Upper Egypt,” many of the places are first named with the Greek name instead of the Egyptian. As maps from the West, the preference for the Greek, the Western identities of these Egyptian places are subtly but definitely preferred. Aside from the place names, the maps bear the routes of yet another occupying force in Egypt, separated from the Ptolemies by centuries. After the brief French occupation, Egypt was a British colony for another hundred years.

This journal is a snapshot of Egypt passed between colonizing powers along with the earliest days of Egyptology. The French and English discoveries of the following century made Ancient Egypt mysterious, exotic, and even trendy. The field of Egyptology eventually grew beyond treasure hunting and grave robbing for the decoration of rich Englishmen’s homes, although Ancient Egyptian history continues to fascinate the Western world, at times in a reductive manner.

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