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So began Amelia Edwards’ first and only trip up the Nile on the rented dahabeah Philae in 1874, a journey that would create not only an Egyptologist of her, but also would be a catalyst to bring about the creation of Egyptology as a university-taught subject and the professionalisation of the discipline in the UK. 2 The archaeologists and travellers from the previous chapters needed to go up the Nile for their work, and many did so for pleasure as well. The situation was
Tea on the terrace takes readers on a journey up and down the Nile with archaeologists and Egyptologists. Travellers such as Americans Theodore Davis, Emma Andrews, and James Breasted, as well as Britons Wallace Budge, Maggie Benson, and Howard Carter arrived in Alexandria, moved on to Cairo, travelled up the Nile by boat and train, and visited Luxor. Throughout the journey, readers spend some time with them at their hotels and on their boats. We listen in on their conversations, watch their activities, and begin to understand that much archaeological work was not done at the field site or in the university museum, as many historians have argued. Instead, understanding the politics of conversation in the social studies of science, the book shows that hotels in Egypt on the way to and from home institutions and excavation sites were liminal, but powerful and central, spaces which became foundations for establishing careers, building and strengthening scientific networks, and generating and experimenting with new ideas. These are familiar stories to readers, but Tea on the terrace presents them in a new framework to show Egyptologists’ activities in a seemingly familiar but unknown space. A mix of archaeological tourism and the history of Egyptology, the book is based on original archival research, using letters, diaries, biographies, and travel guides as well as secondary sources.
their excavation seasons, Egyptologists would convene once again in Cairo to divest themselves of their crews, split artefacts with the museum, make final arrangements for their shipments going back, and make more plans for the following season. As we have seen, some of them stayed in Cairo as long as they could to avoid the English summer. Harold Jones and Howard Carter frequently stayed as long as they were able and the money and work held out. As Andrews, Davis, Wilbour, and Sayce unpacked their dahabeahs and their crews worked to get them ready for the next year
When approaching Luxor on the river, by steamer or dahabeah, guidebooks informed travellers that Karnak Temple would appear, slowly revealed by the trees: ‘first the great obelisk, and the pylons … half-concealed by palm-trees’. 1 Once the boats were even with Karnak, travellers would be able to see on the West Bank ‘first the Colossi of Memnon and afterwards the Ramesseum’. 2 Many travellers were full of anticipation coming into the city. They
preparing for the season, some archaeologists went out to the desert areas near Cairo, and throughout Lower Egypt. But many went south to Luxor, heading up the river by steamboat, dahabeah, or train, and sometimes stopping at various points along the way. The third chapter follows these river travellers and centralises their activities on these semi-private boats as scientific institutions in Egyptology. The boats served as labs, classrooms, offices, storerooms, and homes. Some archaeologists, like Wilbour, Andrews, Davis, Archibald Sayce, and James Breasted, travelled to
respectively. Joining together in what is now Sudan, the Nile flows north and makes its way through Eastern Egypt. For ancient Egyptians the river separated the East, the land of the rising Sun and new life every day, from the West, the land of the setting, dying sun, death and the vast, dry desert. All visitors to Egypt today recognise the importance of the river to survival in Egypt. Most visitors in the period covered here would have spent considerable time on or near the Nile, in a felucca, ferry, dahabeah, or steamer, in order to go from one side of the river to the
transporting on her upward journeys on the Nile comforts for the use of patients in hospitals on the line of communications, and on her downward journeys by conveying, and by towing dahabeahs also conveying, invalids, for whom every comfort was provided on board’. 9 J. S. Young was again seconded from the government for the purpose of liaising with the military and was appointed the