Egypt
New Statesman (Harry Mount)
A nice piece looking at the impact of foreign cultures on British architecture. As well as India and China it features a section on Egyptian influences:
See the above page for the full story.
- Cinematic Necropolis - Egypt In Ne London
Yan, Tan, Tethera (Anna Garnett) Nice write-up of a talk around some of London's Egyptianized buildings, with some good pics. Yesterday I attended a walk organised by the Petrie Museum entitled 'Cinematic Necropolis', intended to explore...
- Ancient Road Uncovered In Luxor
drhawass.com Press Release, with photos Mr. Farouk Hosny, Minister of Culture, announces that the expedition of the Supreme Council of Antiquities at the Avenue of the Sphinxes found today twelve new sphinx statues from the reign of Nectanebo I (380-362...
- Luxor's Holiday Temples Of Boom
Times Online (Karen Robinson) Apart from the opening paragraphs about the redevelopment of Luxor this article is about property development and is essentially off-topic, but my friend Jane Akshar gets a mention so I had to include it :-) If you want...
- More Re Avenue Of Sphinxes, Luxor
Earth Times With a good b&w photograph of what the avenue of sphinxes looked before building started to buiilt around it. An ancient sphinx-lined avenue that once connected two of Egypt's grandest temples will open to the public this month -...
- More Re Luxor's Avenue Of Sphinxes
drhawass.com (Zahi Hawass) The SCA currently has many restoration projects underway. One of the most important is the Avenue of Sphinxes in Luxor. This is an avenue that stretches between Karnak and Luxor Temples and is lined with sphinxes, although most...
Egypt
The past is a foreign country
New Statesman (Harry Mount)
A nice piece looking at the impact of foreign cultures on British architecture. As well as India and China it features a section on Egyptian influences:
The peculiarly British openness to new fashions meshed happily with the colonial hunger for new possessions. Thus, Egyptian motifs became popular after Nelson won the Battle of the Nile against Napoleon's navy in 1798.
More than ten years later, in Maria Edgeworth's novel The Absentee (1812), Egyptian themes were still all the rage. An early professional interior decorator, Mr Soho, advises Lady Clonbrony, who is married to a dreary Irish peer, to deck out her ballroom in the prevailing fashion. "If your la'ship prefers it, you can have the Egyptian hieroglyphic paper," he says, "with the ibis border to match! The only objection is, one sees it everywhere - quite antediluvian - gone to the hotels even."
The Egyptian style lasted long into the 19th century, accounting for one of Britain's strangest terraces. On Richmond Avenue in Islington, north London, the handsome villas are guarded by a quirky set of sphinxes and obelisks. The sphinxes stare across the road at Tony Blair's old home in Richmond Crescent - the one that Cherie Blair is so cross at having sold for £615,000 in 1997. (Even after the recent fall in house prices, it is still worth £1.8m.) So great was Nelson's fame that these lovely little sphinxes and obelisks were inscribed with the word "Nile" in 1841, 43 years after the battle, by Joseph Kay, surveyor for Islington's Thornhill Estate.
See the above page for the full story.
- Cinematic Necropolis - Egypt In Ne London
Yan, Tan, Tethera (Anna Garnett) Nice write-up of a talk around some of London's Egyptianized buildings, with some good pics. Yesterday I attended a walk organised by the Petrie Museum entitled 'Cinematic Necropolis', intended to explore...
- Ancient Road Uncovered In Luxor
drhawass.com Press Release, with photos Mr. Farouk Hosny, Minister of Culture, announces that the expedition of the Supreme Council of Antiquities at the Avenue of the Sphinxes found today twelve new sphinx statues from the reign of Nectanebo I (380-362...
- Luxor's Holiday Temples Of Boom
Times Online (Karen Robinson) Apart from the opening paragraphs about the redevelopment of Luxor this article is about property development and is essentially off-topic, but my friend Jane Akshar gets a mention so I had to include it :-) If you want...
- More Re Avenue Of Sphinxes, Luxor
Earth Times With a good b&w photograph of what the avenue of sphinxes looked before building started to buiilt around it. An ancient sphinx-lined avenue that once connected two of Egypt's grandest temples will open to the public this month -...
- More Re Luxor's Avenue Of Sphinxes
drhawass.com (Zahi Hawass) The SCA currently has many restoration projects underway. One of the most important is the Avenue of Sphinxes in Luxor. This is an avenue that stretches between Karnak and Luxor Temples and is lined with sphinxes, although most...