Egypt in London, A Cultural History 1821-1924

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Egypt in London explores the impact the re-discovery of Ancient Egypt on Victorian and Edwardian London. The starting point is the 1821 exhibition organised by Belzoni in Piccadilly, which recreated a tomb from the Valley of the Kings. The end point is the recreation of the tomb of Tutankhamen, with faked artefacts, for the British Empire Exhibition at Wembley in 1924. In between these dates, the impact of Egypt on English thought and on its literature, theatre, entertainment and architecture was immense. This book will track five elements of that influence. The key research question is why British attitudes shift from treating Ancient Egyptian remains as sublime or places to express the sentiments of 'sic transit gloria mundi' ('so pass the glories of the world') towards an attitude of dread. What dominates after 1880 are stories of cursed artefacts and vengeful Arabs. This is explored in five areas.First, I consider 'Egyptianised London', exotic spaces constructed in London. This began with the Egyptian Hall in Piccadilly but extended to the recreation of Cairo bazaars in early department stores. Dioramas of Egyptian landscapes were popular in the 1820s and 1830s, anticipating the sets in theatrical extravaganzas throughout the century. The Egyptian Court designed for the Crystal Palace was constructed around a recreation of a temple. Such structures were common in world fair sites. The erection of 'Cleopatra's Needle' on the bank of the Thames (1878) brought authenticity, and the engineering task of moving the obelisk marked shifting imperial power. The appeal of Egypt created hybrid spaces within the fabric of London.Second, I explore the darkening attitude to Egypt through rumours of curses attached to mummies in London museums. This is often associated with the death of Carnarvon, six weeks after opening the tomb of Tutankhamen. The rumours of subsequent deaths are the subject of many popular fictions and histories. My research has followed two earlier stories of curses, including the 'Unlucky Mummy' that was gifted to the British Museum in 1889 by Douglas Murray, considered to bring misfortune on those who saw it. No one has fully researched this story, yet it is a key indicator of changing attitudes to Egypt. I also examine the curse story attached to Walter Ingram.Third, I examine how literature of the period also changed from an early use of Egypt as a romantic other-world (Gautier and Flaubert) or as a lever against modern depravity (Mary Loudon or Edgar Allen Poe). The turning point is in the late Victorian period, when Egypt is associated with the Gothic. Vengeful mummy stories appear surprisingly late in the century and often focus on London. These stories appear in the 1880s and 1890s, although the narrative structure of curses related to colonial artefacts is set in train by Lord Byron's attack on the plunder of the Parthenon Marbles. Fourth, Egypt was to antiquarians and Orientalists a place of esoteric wisdom. The Hermetic tradition suggested that the bearer of this knowledge, Hermes Trismegistus, was an Egyptian priest. There was a great revival of 'Egyptian Magic' in Victorian London. Various groups of occultists set up temples, study groups and magic circles to pursue this lost wisdom, which I explore in detail. The final context will be how the study of superstition, given scientific status by the Victorian discipline of anthropology, focused on North Africa as a particular area of primitive belief. By examing the anthropology of the 'evil eye' that emerged in the 1890s, my study concludes by investigating how this superstition was a means for articulating the growing suspicion between coloniser and colonised. London, awash with 'haunted' artefacts and mummies with blazing eyes, demonstrates how the metropolis of modernity figures its colonial debts through supernatural tales and chilling rumours.