Sir Gardner Wilkinson and His Circle
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.25 (699 Votes) |
| Asin | : | 0292776438 |
| Format Type | : | paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 326 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 0000-00-00 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
One of these travelers was a twenty-four-year-old Englishman, John Gardner Wilkinson. The result is a compelling portrait of a Victorian "gentleman-scholar" and his cultural milieu.. With the rise of professional Egyptology in the middle and later nineteenth century, Sir Gardner Wilkinson came to be viewed as an amateur and his popularity diminished. He shows Wilkinson in his circle of friends--among them Edward William Lane, Robert Hay and Frederick Catherwood. And he traces how Wilkinson continued to use his Egyptian material in the decades following his return to England. He follows Wilkinson during his initial sojourn in Egypt (1821-1833) as Wilkinson immersed himself in a contemporary Egyptian lifestyle and in study of its ancient past. In this first full-scale biography of Wilkinson (1797-1875), Jason Thompson skillfully portrays both the man and his era. Drawing upon recently opened sources, Thompson returns Wilkinson to his rightful place within centuries of Egyptian scholarship and assesses both the vision and the limitations of his work. Following in the footsteps of Napoleon's army, Europeans invaded Egypt in the early ninetecnth century to gaze in wonder at the massive, inscrutable remains of its ancient civilizations. His copious observations of ancient and modern Egyptian plac
His place in Egyptological history With the death of Champollion and Young, Gardner Wilkinson was for a while probably the world's foremost expert on the emerging study of hieroglyphics. He spent several years in Egypt and even built a house using a tomb in the Theban hillside at Gurna.This well written, eminently researched book is a fascinating read. It sheds
"Thompson's fine biography of Gardner Wilkinson has a dual value - bringing attention to the largely forgotten life and accomplishments of a pioneer in Egyptian studies and casting vivid light on the aims and practices of early nineteenth century scholars, as they moved from antiquarianism to archaeology." Bulletin of the History of Archaeology