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Szafa Ksiazka Wstep:Layout 1.Qxd Szafa ksiazka wstep:Layout 1 2007-09-19 10:46 Page 41 Zbigniew E. Szafrański OUR MILESTONES Szafa ksiazka wstep:Layout 1 2007-09-19 10:46 Page 42 Szafa ksiazka wstep:Layout 1 2007-09-19 10:46 Page 43 Our Milestones Speaking of Polish archaeology in Kochanowski (1530-1584) an exotic place Egypt, one needs to go back to the first situated at the antipodes of the world; days of excavations at Edfu. The 1936/1937 other poets like Wespazjan Kochowski and season is the first milestone on the Polish Sebastian F. Klonowic expressed similar sen- road to the scientific status that the Polish timents. The famous diary of Prince Centre enjoys in Egypt today. It was the Mikołaj Krzysztof Radziwiłł (1549-1616) is visionary approach of Kazimierz Michałowski a typical example of travel literature of the (1901-1981) and his personal efforts that period. It should be noted, however, that his led to the establishment of a Franco-Polish “Hierosolymitana peregrinatio...” (published Mission which arrived in the town of Horus in Brunsbergae in 1601) was an European in December 1937 and started excavations bestseller (sic!) of the 17th century. The on 7 January 1937 (cf. J. Lipińska, Kazimierz sixth edition of the Peregrinations, printed in Michałowski, in this volume). Latin, appeared in Antwerp in 1614; earlier It is to the Centre’s founder, Professor it had already been published in German and Michałowski, that we owe foremost our Polish, and the Russian edition came out in friendship with the land on the Nile and 1787. Altogether 20 times within two with our Egyptian colleagues, the dozens hundred years! Radziwiłł’s descriptions of of years of warm intimacy with all our Egypt are still quoted in the literature of the associates without whom Egypt would not topic today, just as is the report of another have become a second home for so many Polish traveler, Count Jan Potocki (1761- of us, a home to which we return with the 1815), included in his “Voyage en Turquie greatest joy. et en Égypte, fait en l'année 1784” (Warsaw Fascination with ancient civilizations 1788). Undoubtedly one of the best books of the Near East came to Poland much later about Egypt, “Travels in the Ancient World” than to other countries in Western Europe (Warsaw 1842), was written by a young and it never reached the same peak of in- traveler called Władysław Bey Wężyk (1816- tensity as in France, England, Prussia and 1848). In 1861 and 1862, Count Michał Italy. Even so, the land on the Nile was Tyszkiewicz (1828-1897), a collector of world present in Polish culture starting with the renown, was the first Polish amateur ar- 12th century. Egypt and its “seven-sleeved chaeologist to dig in Karnak and in West Nile” was for the Renaissance poet Jan Thebes (presumably close to Deir el-Bahari) 43 Szafa ksiazka wstep:Layout 1 2007-09-19 10:46 Page 44 Zbignew E. Szafrański and Esna; he published a description of his curiosities”, with Egyptian mummies being accomplishments in French in Paris. During displayed to the public next to turtle shells the same period (1861-1871), Prince Ignacy and other exotic items. Żagiell (1826-1891), court medic to Prince From the beginning Michałowski Halim (1831-1894), youngest son of the great strived for international cooperation, pri- Mohamed Ali, resided in Egypt. Jan marily with the Institut français d’archéolo- Ciągliński (1858-1913) painted numerous gie orientale (IFAO) in Cairo, the Service pictures of Egypt of the end of the 19th des Antiquités de l’Égypte (SAE) and foreign and beginning of the 20th century. archaeological institutes. Bonds of friend- A tragic illness cut short the brilliant ship were formed in many cases. During career of the first Polish Egyptologist Tadeusz the war, lieutenant Michałowski impris- Samuel Smoleński (1884-1909), then a citi- oned in a POW camp in Woldenberg re- zen of the Austro-Hungarian Empire (a free ceived a packet of dates. How touched he state of Poland did not exist at the time). was when he saw that the packet had been A hundred years ago this student of Gaston sent to him by his rais from Edfu (!). Maspero carried out excavations at the sites As a result of the war Polish researchers of Sharuna and El-Gamhud (1907-08) in had to wait another twenty years before Middle Egypt. they could return to the land on the Nile. Thirty years later Kazimierz Michałowski Michałowski was invited to lecture at the (1901-1981), already a professor of the Uni- University of Alexandria (1957) and he knew versity of Warsaw, came to Edfu, first as an he wanted to dig in this famous town. First, associate of Bernard Bruyère, then as an in- however, he started excavations in Tell Atrib dependent director of the Franco-Polish Mis- (1957) on the outskirts of Benha, right at sion in the 1937/38 and 1938/39 seasons the base of the Nile Delta. Immediately he (cf. J. Aksamit, in this volume). Michałowski launched a broad cooperation with the had set his goals on laying the foundations Egyptian Antiquities Service. With his for the field of Polish Egyptology and associates he carried out an extensive ar- Mediterranean archaeology. He introduced chaeological prospection of sites in Upper this branch of Polish science to the world Nubia (1958) and in the Delta (1959). This arena. His discoveries at Edfu contributed initial reconnaissance was organized in re- to an awakening of interest not merely in sponse to an appeal (1955) by Prof. Selim ancient Egypt, but more broadly in Near Hassan of the Service for the protection and Eastern civilizations as a whole. Perhaps it scientific documentation of monuments of was then that the Professor formulated this Egyptian architecture and art in Nubia. often quoted conviction: ...in the judgment Michałowski’s survey report covered 17 sites of not only the scholarly world, but also the from Philae to Abu Simbel, extending over broadest public opinion of a civilized society, a stretch 600 km long. A long time earlier, the current level of culture in any country in 1821, this route was traveled by Orien- is measured by whether it runs its own ex- talist Józef Sękowski (1800-1858) who left cavations in Egypt. After all, until the middle a colorful description. The survey report, and of the 19th century objects from ancient especially Michałowski’s letter containing Egypt tended to be shown in “chambers of a proposal for the protection of specific 44 Szafa ksiazka wstep:Layout 1 2007-09-19 10:46 Page 45 Our Milestones features, was addressed to the General Di- Centre’s first secretary. There were three rector of the Service; it proved inestimable in other employees: architect Leszek Dąbrowski, pushing through UNESCO’s decision (end of accountant M. Strachota and administra- 1958) to announce an international action tion clerk Władysław Kubiak. One other for the salvage of monuments in Nubia. member of that first household should be The Joint Polish-Arabic Anthropo- remembered here: Mohamed Said Saleh logical Expedition started work at about (1931-2003), more than just a cook, indeed, this time (1958-1962). The expedition carried a friend. Starting out as a helper to his father, out the first ever investigations of morpho- Saad, the Centre’s first cook, for almost logical structure and certain physiological forty years Mohamed filled the house with features of the Egyptian population inhabit- his warm attention and care. ing the Western Desert and the oases of Kazimierz Michałowski served as Siwa, Bahariya and Fayum, carried out the Centre’s Director until his death in 1981. jointly by the Polish Academy of Sciences The institute rented a villa in the Heliopolis and the National Research Centre in Cairo. district of Cairo where it is today and only One of the scholars behind the idea for this the name of the street has changed from project and the co-publisher of a four-volume Baron Empain to Nazih Khalifa. Recently, publication was eminent anthropologist the Centre was able to purchase another Tadeusz Dzierżykray-Rogalski (1918-1998), villa in the vicinity thanks to funds pro- a member of the Centre’s expeditions, work- vided by the Foundation for Polish Science. ing on numerous sites in Egypt ever since the The establishment of the Centre in early 1960s. Cairo had the full support of the Egyptian Michałowski had extensive plans. Ministry of Culture and the Antiquities Foremost among these was setting up an Service (SAE). Relations with Prof. Anwar institute in Egypt, no easy matter when Shoukry, later President of the SAE, were more than just meritorious considerations particularly cordial. The Polish Ambassador played a role. His efforts in this direction in Egypt, Aleksander Krajewski, was also were greeted with applause when he pre- extremely helpful and effective in calling sented his ideas at the Senate of the Uni- into being the Centre as a research institu- versity of Warsaw, which in a meeting on tion of the University of Warsaw with a seat 19 January 1959 called into being the Polish abroad, in Egypt. Its main task was to co- Centre of Mediterranean Archaeology with ordinate the activities of Polish missions quarters in Egypt. In August the Centre re- working in the Mediterranean. Until the ceived authorization from the government 1980s it had no quarters in Warsaw, even of the then United Arab Republic. This was though Professor Michałowski managed it the second milestone on the road. from Poland, through the Polish Academy In that early period the annual of Sciences, the University of Warsaw, the budget was determined at about 8000- National Museum in Warsaw, all of these 9000 Egyptian pounds (which translated being institutions in which he held direc- into about 16,000-18,000 dollars).
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