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Egyptology.Pdf oi.uchicago.edu JAN 1 0 1992 RESEARCH ARCHIVES -DIRECTOR'S LIBRARY THE ORIENTAL INSTITUTE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO EGYPTOLOGY AT THE ORIENTAL INSTITUTE OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO Internet publication of this work was made possible with the generous support of Misty and Lewis Gruber Oriental Institute, University of Chicago Printed by University of Chicago Printing Department, 1983 On the cover: Painted Decoration at Medinet Habu Cleaned by the Epigraphic Survey oi.uchicago.edu ,At work in anlent Thebes. I dorm - . oi.uchicago.edu The Oriental Institute and the World of the Pharaohs n the desert west of the Nile, an Egyptologist scrutinizes the traces of an inscription on a temple wall: comparing an artist's drawing with the wall itself, he will occa- sionally add a line to the drawing or take one away. Earlier the wall was photographed in fine detail, but since a camera cannot discriminate between the effects of weathering and the signs carved by an ancient craftsman, an artist working di- rectly on an enlargement of the photograph made a drawing that allows the carvings to be distin- guished from accidental marks. When the drawing was completed, the photograph was bleached out, leaving a facsimile of what survives of the original craftsman's work. Now the Egyptologist is checking for any trace of ancient carving that the artist might have missed, or any clues that might have escaped the camera s eye. The Egyptologist, the photog- rapher and the artist are members work in Egypt concentrates pri- Artist comparing drawing with of a team of specialists working on marily on the documentation of the the original scene. the Oriental Institute's Epigraphic Pharaonic monuments in the Luxor Survey, an expedition which is at- area, but the boundaries in both tempting to preserve the fast- time and space are flexible. Thus, crumbling records of ancient teams from the Institute partici- Egypt's civilization. pated during the 1960s in the ar- The Oriental Institute's field- chaeological salvage in Nubia, oi.uchicago.edu W~i-:-: 98; "i" :~d AMembers of the Epigraphic before that land was flooded folt- office at the Oriental Institute in Survey team discusing a frag- lowing the completion of the High Chicago, researchers are hard at ment of relief at Luxor Temple. Dam at Aswan in 1969. A more re- work applying the modern tech- cent field project involves the ex- niques of dictionary-making to an cavation of a Red Sea port that ancient form of Egyptian writing linked the Nile Valley with the known as Demotic. Based on their larger world in Roman and medi- own studies and on the publica- eval Islamic times. tions of scholars around the world, the staff of the Demotic I)ictionary A ll Egyptologists at the Univer- is compiling every known usage of sity of Chicago (do fieldwork each word. When completed, the in Egypt at some time in their ca- Demotic Dictionary will be an in- reers, but much of the work of re- valuable tool for deciphering many constructing the past is carried on as yet unstudied records of the far from the original site. In one Egyptian past. But for now that oi.uchicago.edu dictionary in the making exists only on 125,000 file cards that have been collected since the project was be- gun in 1976. In another dusty office is an ar- chaeologist, studying artifacts re- , covered from Nubia. He has found among the clay-colored and black- ened pots and other objects a re- storable incense burner with an incised scene showing what may be the earliest known representation of a Pharaoh. Moreover, the in- cense burner comes from an area not generally suspected of having such an early and advanced civilization. Discovering evidence of a lost Pharaoh or an unknown kingdom is not typical of an Egyptologist's daily work, whether (lone in the Nile Valley or in Chicago; but when the pieces fall into place or some anomaly is resolved, the skill and ingenuity invested in the painstak- ingly slow and tedious work are re- warded with valuable results. At work compiling the Demotic Dictionar. r Studying artifacts recovered *Sam from Nubia. oi.uchicago.edu A tourists~ view of a scholar at work in King Tutankhamns Co~lo nnade at L uxor Temple. oi.uchicago.edu The Endangered Record us closer to the ancient Egyptians he ancient Egypt that the Ori- ental Institute is working to themselves-a people whose preserve and interpret is paradox- knowledge of anatomy and practi- ically both familiar and largely un- cal medicine was renowned in an- known to the average American, for tiquity, who developed the 24-hour it exists in three distinct aspects, the day and the 365-day year; and who, Egypt of myth, the Egypt of the over 4,500 years ago, built with tourist, and the Egypt of the primitive tools one of the seven scholar. wonders of the ancient world, the The Egypt of myth is a com- pyramids of the Pharaohs. pound of romance, legend, and the For all the differences between fear that burial rites commonly in- fact and fancy, all three views of spire. Much of it is fanciful: who Egypt share one thing in common: has not heard tales of King Tut's fascination with the splendor of her curse or the claims for a mysterious monuments. The golden treasures power inherent in the pyramid from King Tut's tomb, which shape? 'I'he only truth in the Egypt Americans crowded to see in the of myth is its testimony to the endur- 1977 traveling exhibit cospon- ing fascination of this ancient world sored in Chicago by the Oriental that devoted so much of its energy Institute and the Field Museum, to the pursuit of eternal life. provided only a glimpse, however The tourist's Egypt also has its breath-taking, of the elegance and share of romance: colossal statues, sophistication of that ancient golden treasures, enormous tem- culture. ple ruins silhouetted against cloud- less skies, tombs with vivid scenes W hen the monuments were of gods and royalty as well as the young, grave robbers plun- daily life of ordinary people. Awe dered their contents, but the build- comes easily to the tourist viewing ings themselves remained intact. the pyramids, the great sphinx, and Respect for the old religion en- the temple complexes. sured that the tombs and temples The scholar's Egypt is less ro- survived to tell the story written on mantic but more wonderful. It is a their walls. But with the eclipse of treasure house for recovering his- pagan civilization, the monuments toric truth. Research has brought lost their significance, and ne- oi.uchicago.edu glect-sometimes even hostility- millennia of wind and sun. Bus- became agents of their destruction. loads of tourists who come to ad- Families built homes in the ruins, mire these wonders thoughtlessly burying them in damp organic de- touch the reliefs and painted sur- bris and blackening the sacred im- faces. Day after day tour guides tap ages with smoke from cooking fires. the walls in places to make a point, Natural erosion weathered the and modern vandals scratch their stones, blunting the sharp edges of initials in the stone. Decorated stone their carvings, and the dust and dirt and painted plaster quietly disap- of centuries dulled the paintings. pear only to turn up again for illicit Sometimes the ruins were used as sale on the international art market. an easy source of building material, For more than a century archae- but those that did survive were ologists have been aware of the in- often vandalized by their inhabit- sidious and all-pervasive danger to ants, who sought to neutralize the the monuments from salts. Evap- power of the ancient figures on the oration of moisture attracted by salt walls that towered above them. in the rock causes the dissolved salts These are the damages the mon- to migrate to the surface of the uments have suffered in the past. stone, where they crystallize in de- The present danger to the mon- posits that first obscure the reliefs, A smoke-blackened wall. uments is greater than exposure to then cause the carved surfaces to oi.uchicago.edu blister and flake off, leaving behind alarmingly. Although the water ta- Fragile wall surface at Luxor at best fragile traces of the original ble no longer fluctuates as dra- Temple damaged by salts. decoration. matically as it once did, continual This process was unwittingly ac- irrigation has created a high water celerated in the last century by ex- table throughout the year. Exten- cavation which exposed the sive use of chemical fertilizers has weakened, salt-impregnated stone also increased the salinity of the soil, of many major monuments to at- and the large lake behind the dam tack. Since the completion of the has resulted in a rising level of hu- Aswan High Dam, the annual in- midity and rainfall, a combination undation, which regularly washed that may spell the doom of the much of the salt from the soil, has monuments on the banks of the stopped, and salt concentrations in Nile. the Nile Valley are increasing oi.uchicago.edu Preparing faIcsimile drawing for publication, oi.uchicago.edu Salvaging the Past: 1II The Epigraphic Survey At the turn of this century, enormous body of ancient records James Henry Breasted, a still surviving in Egypt." young archaeologist and Oriental scholar, made his first journey to T hus was born the idea of the Egypt and was alarmed at "the dis- Epigraphic Survey. This proj- tressing amount of damage suf- ect continues to be the single most fered by the monuments since the important work of the Universitv early recording expeditions had of Chicago's Egyptology program.
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