The culture ofancient Egypt has fascinated outsiders from its own day well into the modern day, long after that culture was subsumed first byGreco-Roman, then Christian, then Muslim currents. And while the concept of the "Western world" owes its origin to Christian writers ofearly medieval Europe andAsia Minor,[1] those same writers were keen to imagine themselves as part of—or heirs to—a cultural continuum that began withclassical antiquity and evolved to include theBiblical history of the Jews.
In Western cultures' collective imaginings, the idea of "ancient Egypt" has developed and changed over millennia no less than those cultures themselves changed. From classical andlate antiquity through theMiddle Ages, theRenaissance, theEnlightenment, and into themodern era, this imagined "Egypt" has served as a powerful symbol, variously representing profound antiquity,esoteric wisdom, evil, theexotic, or timeless grandeur.[2]
An essential factor in ancient Egypt's enduring mystery and remoteness was that scribes no longer studied to acquire literacy inEgyptian hieroglyphs, resulting in the script being totally inscrutable from roughly the 5th century CEuntil their decipherment in the early 19th century, during which Egypt's own recorded history was rendered inaccessible. The continuing engagement of nations and societies that constitute "the West" with Egypt has shaped theirart,literature, architecture,philosophy, and popular culture. This influence in turn reflects those societies' contemporary intellectual currents,[3] colonial ambitions, and religious and spiritual ideas in addition to—or instead of—an understanding grounded in historical fact.[2]
To a Greek observer of the ancientclassical age (c. 510 – 323 BCE), Egypt was already "ancient" and mysterious.
Herodotus, in hisHistories, Book II, gives a detailed if selectively coloured and imaginative description of ancient Egypt. He praises peasants' preservation of history through oral tradition, and Egyptians' piety. He lists the many animals to which Egypt is home, including the mythicalphoenix andwinged serpent, and gives inaccurate descriptions of thehippopotamus andhorned viper. While Herodotus was quite critical about the stories he heard from the priests (II,123).
TheHellenistic period (roughly 323 BCE to 31 BCE) fundamentally reshaped the "Western" (Greek) intellectual engagement with ancient Egypt. FollowingAlexander the Great's conquest and the subsequent establishment of thePtolemaic dynasty in Egypt, Greeks were no longer mere visitors but became the ruling elite. This unprecedented proximity and political dominance led to a complex interplay of admiration, adaptation, and intellectual appropriation. Greek scholars,philosophers, and administrators inAlexandria and other Greek cities in Egypt found themselves directly confronting a civilization far older than their own. This encounter inspired in the Greeks a conception of Egypt as an ancient and enduring source of religious wisdom and exotic spectacle, even as Greek culture maintained its own distinct identity and asserted its new political supremacy.
TheJewish perception of Egypt in classical antiquity was shaped by the Jews' uniquehistorical andtheological narratives, and was very different from the predominantly admiring or pragmatic views of the Greeks and Romans. For Jews, Egypt was defined by the foundational story of theExodus: a land ofslavery, oppression, and locus of divine liberation. However, as large and influential Jewish communities emerged in Egypt itself, particularly in Alexandria, a more complex and sometimes contradictory set of views developed, balancing the ancient memory of bondage with the realities ofdiasporic life and intellectual engagement with theGentiles.
Egypt is mentioned 611 times in theBible, betweenGenesis 12:10 andRevelation 11:8.[4] The first Greek translation ofHebrew scriptures, theSeptuagint, was commissioned inAlexandria in the 3rd century CE.
Among the Romans, an Egypt that had been drawn into their economic and political sphere was still a source of wonders:Ex Africa semper aliquid novi;[5][page needed][a] the exotic fauna of theNile is embodied in the famous"Nilotic" mosaic from Praeneste, and Romanized iconographies were developed for the "Alexandrian Triad":Isis, who developed a widespread Roman following;Harpocrates, "god of silence";[6] and the Ptolemaicsyncretic deitySerapis.[7]
The Roman perception of ancient Egypt was deeply influenced by that of Rome's Hellenistic precursors, but evolved significantly with Rome's increasing political and economic dominance. From the lateRepublic's (c. 509 – 27 BCE) strategic engagement with the Ptolemies to theEmpire's direct annexation and administration ofRoman Egypt in 30 BCE as an essentialimperial province, Roman intellectuals and the broader populace viewed Egypt through a multifaceted lens. It was simultaneously the indispensable granary of the empire, a land of ancient and often bewildering wisdom, and an inexhaustible source of exotic spectacle that both fascinated and occasionally repulsed Roman sensibilities.
TheDesert Fathers wereearly Christianhermits andascetics who lived primarily in theWadi El Natrun, then known asSkete, inRoman Egypt, beginning around thethird century.
TheLater Roman Empire (284—642) saw the rise ofChristianity from a persecuted sect to thestate religion; as conceptualized by thinkers in later centuries, events would establish both the pagan Greco-Roman world and themonotheistic Hebrews as ancestors of the "Western world".[8][page needed][b]
Between 285 CE and 380 CE, the Roman Empire saw major political and religious transformations, beginning with EmperorDiocletian's strategic division of imperial rule into eastern and western halves in 285 CE.Constantine the Great founded the new imperial capitalConstantinople in 330 CE, further solidifying the empire's dual structure, and re-orienting its power center to the east.
Egypt was part of the eastern provinces and, after the fragmentation of the western empire, remained under the control of Constantinople; it was a vital source of grain and revenue, closely tied to the administrative and economic structures of the capitol.
Amidst these political changes,Christianity continued its spread, finding converts in the elite as well as the masses, and among the populations who lived on the fringes or outside of the empire, notably in the tribes ofGermanic peoples. The pivotal moment arrived in 313 CE when Emperors Constantine andLicinius issued a decree granting widespread religious toleration, effectively ending state-sponsored persecution. In 380 CE, EmperorTheodosius I formally established Nicene Christianity as thestate religion of the Roman Empire.
The establishment of Christianity as the state religion of the Roman Empire would also mean that Christians began to adopt Jewish views of Egypt as a land of particular evil, as well their own intolerance towards all things pagan in general.
Egypt—especially Alexandria—was a major center of bothearly Christianity and the early established Christian church, as well home to a substantial population of largelyHellenized Jews.
Egyptian Christians of the late Roman Empire abhorred the religion and culture of ancient Egypt. While general Christian opposition to paganism targeted Greco-Roman deities and temples (and people; see, for example,Hypatia andSerapeum of Alexandria), Egyptian Christianity developed a distinct antagonism toward those native Egyptian religious practices still active in some regions and to the totality of its pre-Christian culture and history.
Temples to gods likeIsis,Horus, andThoth were denounced as demonic, and Christian writers often portrayed Pharaonic religion as not only false but particularly deceptive,occult in nature, or simplyevil and demonic.Egyptian hieroglyphs and iconography of theancient Egyptian religion were associated withwitchcraft andidolatry.Anti-paganism policies of the early Byzantine Empire caused thedefacement, repurposing, or destruction of artwork, monuments, and temples. ThePhilae temple complex—among others—was eventually closed by imperial order in the late 4th and early 5th centuries.
Still, some aspects of ancient Egyptian culture were absorbed or reinterpreted. Saints' cults, monastic desert traditions, and architectural elements echoed earlier Egyptian forms, though now fully recontextualized within Christian meaning. The result was a sharp rhetorical rejection of ancient Egyptian religion, even as certain local patterns of devotion and symbolism subtly persisted.
The period of European history from approximately 500 to 1400–1500 CE is traditionally called the "Middle Ages." The term "Middle Ages" was first used by 15th-century scholars to describe the time between their own era and the fall of the Western Roman Empire. Historians often divide the Middle Ages into periods—typically early and late, or early, central (or high), and late.[9]
The transitional periods ofLate Antiquity and theEarly Middle Ages (through c. 1000 CE) saw the total collapse of theWestern Roman Empire in 476, a widening cultural and religious gulf between the Greek-speaking east and theVulgar Latin—thenGermanic andRomance-speaking—peoples of the Western Europe. In the continuing empire in the east—known by modern readers as theByzantine Empire—Arab conquests of itsLevantine provinces were a precursor to theArab conquest of Egypt in 646 CE.
The Byzantine Empire—directly impacted by its loss of Egypt—was home to Greek andCoptic-speaking chroniclers such asJohn of Nikiû (fl. 680 – 690), who wrote a record of the events with local detail.
Direct and detailed analysis of the conquest of Egypt itself would remain largely the domain of Eastern Christian and later Muslim historians. The peoples of the new states in the former western empire had a much more limited and indirect understanding of the event.
During theHigh Middle Ages (c. 1000 – c. 1300 CE), the Latin West's view of Egypt, as expressed in manuscripts by its clergy, was a complex blend of ancient biblical narratives, a veneration of its monastic heritage, and a nascent, often hostile, awareness of its contemporary reality as a powerful Muslim realm. Direct contact was still limited, making symbolic and historical interpretations paramount.
Inmedieval Europe, Egypt was depicted primarily in the illustration and interpretation of the biblical accounts. These illustrations were often quite fanciful, as the iconography and style of ancientEgyptian art,architecture andcostume were largely unknown in the West (illustration, right). Dramatic settings of theFinding of Moses, thePlagues of Egypt, theParting of the Red Sea and the story ofJoseph in Egypt, and from the New Testament theFlight into Egypt often figured in medievalilluminated manuscripts. Biblicalhermeneutics were primarily theological in nature, and had little to do with historical investigations. Throughout the Middle Ages "Mummia", made—if genuine, by poundingexhumed mummified bodies—was a standard product ofapothecary shops.[10]
Renaissance, by the influence ofHermeticism andPlatonism, saw the origin of a European scholar trend that has been calledEgyptosophy, the belief that ancient Egypt was the source of all esoteric, magical, and spiritual wisdom, a concept distinct from modern academicEgyptology. GermanJesuit scholarAthanasius Kircher (1602-1680) gave an allegorical "decipherment" of hieroglyphs through which Egypt was thought of as a source of ancientmystic oroccult wisdom. In alchemist circles, the prestige of "Egyptians" rose. A few scholars, however, remained skeptical:[11] in the 16th century,Isaac Casaubon determined that theCorpus Hermeticum of the greatHermes Trismegistus was actually a Greek work of about the 4th century CE (even though Casaubon's work was also criticized by Ralph Cudworth).
Early in the 18th century,Jean Terrasson had writtenLife of Sethos, a work of fiction, which launched the notion of Egyptian mysteries. In an atmosphere of antiquarian interest, a sense arose that ancient knowledge was somehow embodied in Egyptian monuments and lore. Egyptian imagery pervaded the EuropeanFreemasonry of the time and its imagery, such as the eye on thepyramid. Contemporaneously, theGreat Seal of the United States (1782), which appears on theUnited States one-dollar bill also features this imagery. There are Egyptian references inMozart's Masonic-themed[citation needed]Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute, 1791), and his earlier unfinished "Thamos".[citation needed]
The revival of curiosity about the Antique world, seen through written documents, spurred the publication of a collection of Greek texts that had been assembled in Late Antiquity, which were published as the corpus of works ofHermes Trismegistus. But the broken ruins that sometimes appeared in paintings of the episode of theRest on the Flight into Egypt were always of Roman character.
With historicism came the first fictions set in the Egypt of the imagination.Shakespeare'sAntony and Cleopatra had been set partly in Alexandria, but its protagonists were noble and universal, and Shakespeare had not been concerned to evoke local color.
The rationale for what is known as "Egyptomania" rests on a similar concept: Westerners looked to ancient Egyptian motifs because ancient Egypt itself was intrinsically so alluring. The Egyptians used to consider their religion and their government somewhat eternal; they were supported in this thought by the enduring aspect of great public monuments which lasted forever and which appeared to resist the effects of time. Their legislators had judged that this moral impression would contribute to the stability of their empire.[c]
The culture ofRomanticism embraced every exotic locale, and its rise in the popular imagination coincided withNapoleon'sfailed Egyptian campaign and the start of modernEgyptology, beginning very much as a competitive enterprise between Britain and France. A modern "Battle of the Nile" could hardly fail to stir renewed curiosity about Egypt beyond the figure ofCleopatra. At about the same moment, thetarot was brought to Europe's attention by the FrenchmanAntoine Court de Gebelin as a purported key to theoccult knowledge of Egypt. All this gave rise to "Egyptomania" andoccult tarot.
This legendary Egypt has been difficult, but not impossible to reconcile with the 1824decryption of hieroglyphs byJean-François Champollion. Inscriptions that a century earlier had been thought to hold occult wisdom, proved to be nothing more than royal names and titles, funerary formulae, boastful accounts of military campaigns, even though there remains an obscure part that might agree with the mystic vision. The explosion of new knowledge about actual Egyptian religion, wisdom and philosophy has been widely interpreted as exposing the mythical image of Egypt as an illusion that had been created by the Greek and Western imaginations.
In art, the development ofOrientalism and the increased possibility of travel produced a large number of depictions, of varying degrees of accuracy. By the late 19th-century, exotic and carefully studied or researched decor was often dominant in depictions of both landscape and human figures, whether ancient or modern.[12][page needed]
One of the most enduring literary treatments of ancient Egypt to come out of the 19th-century Romantic movement isPercy Bysshe Shelley's "Ozymandias" (1818).
Egyptian Revival architecture extended the repertory of classical design explored by theNeoclassical movement and widened the decorative vocabulary that could be drawn upon.
The well-known Egyptianveneration of the dead andbeliefs about the afterlife inspiredHighgate Cemetery in London (1839); its themed features included a 'GothicCatacomb' as well as an 'Egyptian Avenue'.[13]
In 1842, the American Joseph Smith publishedThe Book of Abraham, a foundational text of his new Latter-Day Saint movement. Smith claimed it was a translation of ancient Egyptianpapyri acquired from a traveling exhibition of Egyptian mummies that he attended in 1835. Smith also claimed that theBook of Mormon is translated from ahieratic-like script that he called "Reformed Egyptian".
In music, ancient Egypt was the setting for the Italian composerGiuseppe Verdi's (1813–1901)operaAida, commissioned by theKhedive (sultan) ofOttoman Egypt for premiere inCairo in 1871.
TheRite of Memphis-Misraïm is a masonic rite created in Naples in September 1881 that is commonly known as "Egyptian Freemasonry" due to its extensive use of hermetic philosophy and Ancient Egyptian symbolism in its degree system and rituals. It was influential in notable Western esoteric circles at the turn of the century and a case of the survival ofEgyptosophist narrative.
The 1895historical novelPharaoh, byPolish authorBolesław Prus, portrayed the demise of Egypt'sNew Kingdom.
In 1912 the discovery of a well-preserved painted limestonebust of Nefertiti, unearthed from its sculptor's workshop near the royal city ofAmarna, sparked new interest in ancient Egypt. The bust, now inBerlin's Egyptian Museum, became well known throughout the world through photographs. Nefertiti's strong-featured profile had a notable influence onfeminine beauty ideals of the 20th century.[14]
Britisharchitectural historianJames Stevens Curl (b. 1937) published work on the Egyptian motifs of Highgate cemetery.
TheMetropolitan Museum of Art resurrected theTemple of Dendur within its own quarters in 1978. In 1989,the Louvre raisedits own glass pyramid.
The 1922 discovery of the undamaged tomb of PharaohTutankhamun revived public interest in ancient Egypt; the treasures of "King Tut" influenced popularfashion and design, particularlyArt Deco.[15] The discovery also led to sensational claims, promoted by thetabloid press, of a 'curse' that killed the discoverers. These claims were dismissed byHoward Carter.[16]
Agatha Christie's 1924 short story "The Adventure of the Egyptian Tomb" from her collectionPoirot Investigates features mysterious deaths that occur during an archaeological excavation.[17] A popular "curse of themummy"myth developed out the tabloid reporting on Tutankhamun's excavators, which in turn inspired the 1932horror filmThe Mummy withBoris Karloff. Cinema, and later television (see below), has proven to be one of the most powerful and enduring forms of imagining and re-imagining ancient Egypt since the medium's invention.
In 1993Las Vegas'sLuxor Hotel opened with its replica tomb of Tutankhamun.
In 1978, AmericancomedianSteve Martin recorded thenovelty song "King Tut". A 1986hit song andmusic video by American rock bandThe Bangles called "Walk Like an Egyptian" evoked poses from themuralart of ancient Egypt.
Hollywood's depictions ofancient Egypt are major contributors to the fantasy Egypt of contemporarypopular culture. Karloff's memorable performance as "the Mummy" in his 1932 established thecinematic trope ofancient Egyptian mummies reanimating asundead monsters. The 1944 American horror filmThe Mummy's Curse was one of many that made use of this enduringundeadantagonist.
Cleopatra was a successful 1934 Americanepic film directed byCecil B. deMille with starletClaudette Colbert in the title role. DeMille's epicThe Ten Commandments was ablockbuster of 1956;Jeanne Crain asNefertiti inQueen of the Nile (1961) followed, then theRichard Burton andElizabeth Taylor vehicleCleopatra (1963). And in 1966, the 1895 novelPharaoh was adapted into a Polish feature film.[18]
The popular science-fiction/actionfranchiseStargate, in whichEgyptian gods are actually malevolentaliens, premiered as afilm in 1994. A best-selling series of novels by French author and EgyptologistChristian Jacq, inspired by the life of PharaohRamses II ("the Great"), had its first release in 1995. A remake of the 1932 Boris Karloff film, also calledThe Mummy, was released in 1999 and led toits own media franchise.
HBO's miniseriesRome features several episodes set inGreco-Roman Egypt. A faithful but anachronisticstage set of a court of Pharaonic Egypt (as opposed to the historically correct Hellenistic period) was built in Rome'sCinecittà studios. The series depicts intrigues betweenCleopatra,Ptolemy XIII,Julius Caesar, andMark Antony.
La Reine Soleil, a 2007 animated film by Philippe Leclerc set in the tumultuous18th Dynasty (c. 1550 – 1292 BCE), portraysAkhenaten, Tutankhaten (laterTutankhamun), Akhesa (laterAnkhesenamun),Nefertiti, andHoremheb in a complex struggle pitting the priests ofAmun against Akhenaten's strictmonotheistic innovations.
A second remake of theThe Mummy was released in2017. Fantastical representations of Egypt continue to feature inmusic videos and other products of Western popular culture of the 21st century.[19]
