Antiquity Imagined: The Remarkable Legacy of Egypt and the Ancient Near East

301 Pages·2015·28.74 MB·English

by  Robin Derricourt

Robin Derricourt is an archaeologist, historian, writer
and publisher. Currently Honorary Associate Professor of
History at the University of New South Wales, he holds a
PhD in archaeology from Cambridge University, where he
studied Egyptology and archaeology before working as a
university lecturer and in heritage management. Formerly
an editorial director for Cambridge University Press, he
was until 2010 the Director of the University of New South
Wales Press. He is a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries
of London. His previous books include Inventing Africa:
History, Archaeology and Ideas (2011).
9781784532758.indd 1 04/06/2015 10:49
‘Wonderfully wide-ranging in space and time, Robin Derricourt’s Antiquity
Imagined authoritatively shows how ancient history has been created and recreated
by successive generations to fit their own – or their desired – image of what such
history signifies. It is an engaging and bewitching journey through a fascinating
landscape of imagined pasts.’
Graeme Barker, CBE, FBA, Disney Professor Emeritus of Archaeology,
University of Cambridge and Professorial Fellow, St John’s College, Cambridge
‘Knowledge is the ultimate addiction. What we cannot find in the directly
observable world, we invent. With patience and erudition Robin Derricourt
explores a prominent field of alternative knowledge, “the remarkable legacy of
Egypt and the ancient Near East”, where theories proliferate which mainstream
researchers either reject or ignore. Pyramid theorists, Egypt as part of a pan-African
black civilisation, the search for the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel: the author’s range
is remarkable. His book is both fascinating and entertaining. It is also worrying,
for as science and scholarship advance so too does the amount of delusional
knowledge increase. This is a study above all about the fragility of truth, and how
democratic interest can at times be its most serious enemy.’
Barry Kemp, CBE, FBA, Professor Emeritus of Egyptology, University of
Cambridge
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Antiquity
Imagined
The Remarkable Legacy of Egypt and the
Ancient Near East
Robin Derricourt
First published in 2015 by
I.B. Tauris & Co. Ltd
London • New York
www.ibtauris.com
Copyright © 2015 Robin Derricourt
The right of Robin Derricourt to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by the
author in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or any part thereof, may not
be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by
any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written
permission of the publisher.
Every attempt has been made to gain permission for the use of the images in this book. Any
omissions will be rectified in future editions.
References to websites were correct at the time of writing.
ISBN: 978 1 78453 275 8
eISBN: 978 0 85773 759 5
A full CIP record for this book is available from the British Library
A full CIP record is available from the Library of Congress
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: available
Typeset in Minion Pro 8/11pt by Fakenham Prepress Solutions, Fakenham, Norfolk NR21 8NN
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To Marguerite, Frances, Tim, Evie and Rufus
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Byzantium
Mt Ararat
Tarsus Göbekli
Antioch
Nineveh
R
O
ronte R Ti
s gri
s
MegiTdydreo Damascus R Euphrates Baghdad
Samaria R Jordan
Alexandria Babylon
Jericho
Jerusalem
Tanis Masada
Sakkara
Cairo Ur
Giza
Memphis
Amarna
Egypt and the Near East
R.
Nil
e
Thebes (Luxor) 0 300 km
0 300 miles
Aswan
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CONTENTS
List of illustrations viii
A note on terminology xi
Introduction 1
1. Mystical roles for ancient Egypt 14
2. Pyramidologies and pyramid mysteries 42
3. Mummies and their changing reputation 72
4. Egyptocentrism: Illusions of global influence 104
5. The blight of ‘race’ 130
6. Race reversed: The Afrocentric challenge 149
7. Creating narratives of ‘the Holy Land’ 171
8. Conflicted pasts of Israel: Politics, religion, identity 191
9. Lost tribes 211
10. Distant links: Apostolic travellers 220
11. Changing images: History and prehistory in Egypt and the ancient
Near East 251
References for quotations 259
Sources and Further Reading 268
Index 281
vii
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LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Map: Egypt and the Near East vi
Fig. 1.1 Mystical Egypt: a tour advertisement from the USA, 2012. 15
Fig. 1.2 H ermes Trismegistus – seventeenth-century image. (Source: Daniel
Stolz von Stolzenberg, Viridarium Chymicum, Frankfurt, 1624) 20
Fig. 1.3 C ount Alessandro di Cagliostro (1743–95), mystic, Freemason,
traveller and fraudster. (Source: Francis Bartolozzi, Comte de Cagliostro,
engraving, 1786) 23
Fig. 1.4 E gypt in a set design for Mozart’s The Magic Flute, by Karl Friedrich
Schinkel, Opernhaus Berlin, 1817. 25
Fig. 1.5 H . Spencer Lewis (1883–1939), founder of the Ancient Mystical Order
of the Rosae Crucis. (Source: Rosicrucian Digest, 2, 2011, p. 50) 29
Fig. 1.6 Th e revival of ancient Egyptian religion: a modern Kemetic shrine of
Thoth. (Source: Tedmek, Wikimedia Commons, 2007) 33
Fig. 2.1 Th e pyramids as the granaries of the biblical Joseph: thirteenth-century
mosaic from San Marco Basilica, Venice. (Source: O. Demus, The
Mosaics of San Marco in Venice, vol. 2, pl. 291) 43
Fig. 2.2 Th e title page of Pyramidographia, by the English astronomer John
Greaves, 1646. 56
Fig. 2.3 Th e Great Pyramid as the geographical centre of the world, according
to Charles Piazzi Smyth, 1877. (Source: Charles Piazzi Smyth,
Our Inheritance in the Great Pyramid, 1877, pl. 20) 61
Fig. 2.4 Th e Great Pyramid as a chronological chart. (Source: Adam Rutherford,
The Chronological Markers of the Great Pyramid, 1957) 65
Fig. 2.5 Pyramidology by Adam Rutherford, published by his Institute of
Pyramidology, 1957–72. 66
viii
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LisT of iLLusTRATioNs
Fig. 2.6 The nineteenth-century image: Pyramids of Geezeh, by David
Roberts, 1838. 69
Fig. 3.1 ‘ Graeco-Egyptian Mummy. Unrolled April 6th 1833.’ The frontispiece
from Thomas Pettigrew’s A History of Egyptian Mummies, 1834. 74
Fig. 3.2 P ublic unwrapping of a mummy: an advertisement for an 1864 event in
New York. 82
Fig. 3.3 Th e mummy comes alive: 1892 illustration from Arthur Conan Doyle’s
‘Lot No. 249’. (Source: A. Conan Doyle, ‘Lot No. 249’, Harper’s Magazine,
September 1892) 88
Fig. 3.4 Movie poster for The Mummy’s Curse, starring Lon Chaney, 1945. 98
Fig. 4.1 Th e title page of Isaac Newton’s The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms
Amended, 1728. 109
Fig. 4.2 Th e worldwide diffusion of culture from Egypt according to Elliot
Smith, 1929. (Source: G. Elliot Smith, The Migrations of Culture, 2nd
edn, 1929) 112
Fig. 4.3 ‘ Mummy’ from Torres Strait, Macleay Museum, Sydney, considered
by Elliot Smith to be evidence for Egyptian influence in the Pacific.
(Source: G. Pretty, Man, 4, 1969) 118
Fig. 5.1 H uman races according to Ernst Haeckel, 1868. (Source: E. Haeckel,
Naturliche Schopfungeschichte, 1868, p. 576) 132
Fig. 5.2 Arthur de Gobineau (1816–82), the ‘founder of scientific racism’. 137
Fig. 6.1 F reedom’s Journal, launched 1827 and considered the first African
American newspaper in the United States. 152
Fig. 6.2 C heikh Anta Diop, honoured at a 2006 conference in his native Senegal.
(Source: Pambakuza News) 158
Fig. 6.3 P oster advertising a 2009 talk by Molefi Kete Asante, a leading figure in
US Afrocentrism. 165
Fig. 7.1 J erusalem at the time of the destruction by the Babylonians: a
fifteenth-century conception. (Source: Destruccio Iherosolime,
Nuremburg Chronicle, 1493) 173
Fig. 7.2 The Battle of Jericho, Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld, 1853. 182
Fig. 7.3 I mage of the Jewish people in captivity: Eugene Delacroix, La Captivité à
Babylone, Palais Bourbon, Paris, 1838. 185
ix
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