Book Review: The Life and Legacy of an Egyptologist
Al Ahram Weekly
An important development in cultural history during recent years has been the recognition of the long exclusion of Egyptians from their nation’s ancient past. For most of the two centuries or so that Egyptology has been a recognized field, ancient Egypt has been considered the intellectual property of the West. University syllabi presented ancient Egypt as one of the foundations of Western civilization, but one with little pertinence to the subsequent history of Egypt or the Middle East. Western collectors plundered the material riches of the ancient land for decades following Napoleon's epochal Egyptian expedition in 1798-1801, filling the galleries of European museums and adorning the shelves and walls of foreign homes, and doing so without compunction.
Even the study of ancient Egypt was denied to Egyptians. A school to teach Egyptology to promising Egyptian students was opened in Bulaq in 1869, but it was closed five years later by Auguste Mariette, the director of the French-dominated Antiquities Service. Mariette's successor, Gaston Maspero denied excavation permits to Egyptians because, he asserted, they were motivated only by the desire to find treasure, not by "scientific passion". Lord Cromer put it more crudely around the turn of the century when he stated that Egyptians were not "civilized enough" to look after their antiquities. The situation had not improved much by 1923 when Ahmad Kamal, the first Egyptian to be a fully qualified as both an Egyptologist and an archaeologist, proposed comprehensive training for Egyptian Egyptologists. Pierre Lacau, then director-general of the Antiquities Service, countered that few Egyptians had shown interest in their ancient past. "Ah, M. Lacau," Kamal responded, "in the sixty-five years you French have directed the Service, what opportunities have you given us?" As a result of Ahmad Kamal's efforts, the newly independent Egyptian government took steps to establish a school of Egyptology. Labib Habachi was one of its first students.
When native Egyptian Egyptology finally took lasting root in Egypt, its practitioners did not receive the same level of encouragement and support as their Western counterparts, nor were they accorded international recognition. The first edition of the biographical guide to Egyptologists, Who Was Who in Egyptology, did not even have an entry for Ahmad Kamal when it was published in 1951. That omission was partially addressed in the subsequent editions of that indispensable reference work in 1972 and 1995, but much remained to be done, as Donald M. Reid demonstrated in his ground-breaking 2002 book, Whose Pharaohs?, a wide-ranging study of institutional archaeology in Egypt from Napoleon's expedition to the beginning of the First World War.
Reid's work provided the first comprehensive overview of the development of Egyptian Egyptology. The logical next step was case studies of individual Egyptian scholars. That step has now been taken by Jill Kamil with her Labib Habachi: The Life and Legacy of an Egyptologist. Drawing on intense documentary research, wide reading, extensive interviews, and a long personal acquaintance with her subject, Kamil presents the story of the person who "was unquestionably Egypt's most productive and internationally recognized Egyptologist of the twentieth century". And what a story it is, originating with youthful ambition, continuing to battles lost and won against daunting adversity, and moving on to final success.
See the above page for the full story. I am looking forward to getting hold of a copy of Jill Kamil's book.
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