DiffusedReflection t1_iqu3ffz wrote on October 3, 2022 at 2:25 AM

"One shudders to think how these objects might have fared had their discovery occurred two or even just one century prior to Carter’s 1922 field season."

While this makes for good sensationalism, the Donati and Drovetti collections acquired between 1750 and 1820 formed the basis for the largest collection of Egyptian artefacts outside Cairo (Museo Egizio in Turin, established in 1824). Archaeology and Egyptology wasn't new-- although it was rough, it was rough when Carter and Reisner were doing it, too. And stratigraphy was in use well before Reisner.

This might be clarified in the book, but I dislike how he misrepresents things in the article just to heighten the drama.

Bentresh t1_iqudyf6 wrote on October 3, 2022 at 3:55 AM

No, he's right on the money. There are very noticeable differences in how archaeology was done between the early 1800s and the early 1900s. Early explorers like Ferlini made an absolute mess of sites in Egypt and Sudan, as did archaeologists like Amelineau. The work of later scholars like Petrie and Winlock is still dissatisfactory by modern standards, but it was a huge improvement.

The Turin collection is all well and good, but archaeology is not antiquarianism – collecting objects is not the end goal. The collection was acquired with a considerable amount of destruction and is no little source of frustration to Egyptologists today. Take the Turin king list, for example, which was found intact but thanks to Drovetti's carelessness is now a jumble of tattered fragments that Egyptologists have been trying to reconstruct for decades.

Jason Thompson's trilogy on the history of Egyptology is well worth a read, as I don't think most people realize how far Egyptology has come in a relatively short amount of time.