In the reading ‘Egypt in the Memory of the World’, author Fekri A. Hassan discusses the effect that the outside world has had on modern Egyptian culture, and how interpretations of Egyptian culture by outsiders has affected the worldview of their culture and history. The article explores how various aspects of their culture, such as religion, material artifacts, and historical interactions have influenced the modern culture of Egypt and its people.
Hassan begins with the classical discovery of Egypt, and explains how most of the information and views on ancient Egypt came not from Egyptians, but from intellectuals from other societies who took an interest in Egypt’s culture. The Greeks were the first to explore the history of Egypt, including the Greek intellectual Herodotus, who wrote vivid accounts of their history and shared them in a series of Histories. Soon after, religion became a factor in the understanding of Egyptian culture.
References of Egypt in the Bible brought pilgrimages of people from various areas, hoping to experience the religious being of Egypt for themselves. Christianity had a strong effect on the understanding of ancient Egyptian religion, and created a variety of issues and religious conflicts between the world and Egyptian culture. Over time, people became obsessed with the mysticism of Egypt and curiosity arose surrounding the beauty and myth behind material artifacts. Soon, people were less concerned with the actual history of Egypt as they were with collecting relics and treasures from the land.
The issue then arises that the history of Egypt that most people learn about is strongly influenced by the European interpretation of their culture, and is not necessarily accurate nor meaningful in pertenance to their actual history and modern culture. Modern media even tends to often degrade Egypt and the study of their culture, often making it out to feel more like a topic of entertainment than an actual, existing culture. Tourism has taken its toll on the culture of Egypt as well, with people fixating on the excitement and mysticism of it instead of appreciating their culture and understanding the history.
The reading was an interesting, and important, take on the modern understanding of Egyptian culture and the objectification of an entire ancient culture as a source of entertainment for modern visitors. In my opinion, while Mariette and Petrie took huge steps in correcting the issues that arose with the fascination of Egypt, the world is only halfway there in understanding the culture of Egypt, both ancient and modern, and respecting the history it holds. The massive interest in Egypt by the world has allowed tourism to consume their modern culture. We have managed to take an entire country and turn it into a museum that the entire world feels the need to interfere with, instead of respecting their existence as a modern society and understanding their history as a personal experience for modern Egyptians.
I think you make a very important point about tourism. It lead me to think, “at what point are we exploiting a culture, instead of honoring it?” Although the fascination with Egypt has lead to important discoveries like the translation of hieroglyphs and the preservation of many cultural artifacts, it has lead to a very skewed perception of Egyptian history and modern Egypt. I know that when I think of Egypt my perception is shaped very much my how Egypt is represented in western popular culture, which is very rarely a representation of modern Egypt or a realistic representation of the people that lived there during ancient times. And although this gets people interested and may drive a successful tourism industry, I feel that it’s unfair because we aren’t looking at the whole picture. We aren’t looking at the people who live in Egypt today and what their struggles may be when we bring in our western biases. For example, we still have museums like the British museum who believe that they are protecting Egypt’s culture by having certain artifacts in their museum rather than giving them back to Egypt. I think your last line is very powerful and a statement that I completely agree with. Egypt is a place where people live. Real people whose families live there and have lived their for a long time. These portrayal of Egypt and the biases western civilization brings to Egypt can do more harm than good when we don’t remember that these are real people and their culture is important to them. I think that tourism is a great thing and can help an economy thrive, but sometimes I think it can go too far and come at the expense of the people.