“Fascinating! I spent a summer in Egypt in 1984 on a Fulbright Scholarship and I went to many of the same places she went. Many of them had changed in the 100 years since she went and published the first edition of this book (I managed to get my hands on a used library book, that was a second edition from a used booksellers), but still, reading it 25 years later and looking back at my photos and my journals from that trip and a two week one I took in January of 1984, it brought back some amazing memories. I'm sure there is a paperback reprint version of this book, although I don't know if they would have the copies of her artwork in it that my copy did, which really makes this book amazing to me.
I have a thing for reading Victorian and Edwardian era women's travels books, but I didn't know this one existed until I read the book "A Corkscrew is Most Useful" which is a book about Victorian era travelers going to the areas that were considered part of the British Empire and he wrote a chapter on Amelia Edwards and this book.
One must remember the time this was written and the overall superiority that British travelers felt over people of other races, which shows up in her writing (although not as much as in some other writers of the time, especially the male authors) on occasion. At the same time, this woman was sincerely interested in Egyptology and had done much reading before she went, then updated her notes in the second edition to note new findings and correct some comments she had made that were later found to not be factual. Her descriptions of the temples and such can seem overly detailed, but one must realize that there are no photographs in the book, and that this was a time when those travelers who were also truly interested in the study of the ancient cultures they were exploring were always trying to gather more information to share with others in that field.
Finally, when she returned home, soon afterwards she helped form a society that funded properly controlled (especially for the time) scientific digs (so much of what had been found up until that time and even beyond was from ransacked and destroyed graves and temples, and proper scientific method was rarely used) in Egypt. The most famous Egyptologist who benefitted from the funds raised by this society initially was W. Flinders Petrie, who every person interested in Egyptology will recognize the name, even if much of his findings have been updated and many theories found not to be tenable.
All in alll a wonderful read and I was duly impressed by Amelia Edwards' accomplishments after the book was written, especially in a time when women's opinions were not taken that seriously on the subject.”
Owlie wrote this review Wednesday, December 30, 2009.
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