Tipos de fistula arteriovenosa

Graduate School “Global and Area Studies” at the University of Leipzig; Leibniz Institute for Regional Geography (IfL), Leipzig

[email protected]

Abstract

Egyptian workers have taken part in almost every modern archaeological project in Egypt. Nevertheless, historians of Egyptology have only recently shown sincere interest in them. This paper aims to explain why it has taken so long, and why the Egyptian workers do deserve scholarly investigation. In my analysis, research has been hampered by a lack of sources on workers, but also, and more importantly, because traditional Egyptological thought separates modern from ancient Egypt and therefore ignores the former. To modern Egyptology, constituted in Europe, Egyptians, generally identified as Arab and Muslim, are not a research topic and their language is not to be learnt, because they are, unlike Westerners, “unworthy” successors of the ancient Egyptians. They are perceived as destroying the Egyptian antiquities and failing to take proper, scientific care of them. Archaeological workers are modern Egyptians as well, so Egyptology equally excludes them. However, the discipline should care about them. First, because workers -through their skills or the lack thereof, through their presence or absence- must have a tangible impact on what is found, and how it is found, in excavations. Second, Egyptian workers may help bridge the gap that continues to separate most archaeological projects in Egypt from neighbouring local communities. Where such a gap exists, residents may not treat the archaeological site in a way archaeologists would like to see it treated, and archaeologists may forfeit crucial local knowledge. I illustrate my reflections with findings from my ongoing research into workers of German-led excavations in Egypt between 1898 and 1914. Moreover, I find commonalities between workers of modern

Egyptian archaeology and workers and craftspeople of ancient Egypt, which again calls into question Egyptology’s segregation of the two eras.

Keywords: Egypt; History of Archaeology; Archaeological Workers; History from Below; Reflexive Archaeology.

Introduction

Close to 300 Egyptians worked in the average excavation led by Germans in Egypt between 1898 and 1914, the heyday of German archaeology in the land of the Nile. Similar numbers applied to other nations’ projects. Nowadays, excavations -even if they could pay for as many people as that- will employ much fewer, since most archaeological sites no longer need to be freed from massive rubble, silt or sand, but require sophisticated recording. This, in turn, increases the importance of skilled Egyptian workers such as those from Qift in Upper Egypt, who continue to be part of numerous operations, and are (briefly) acknowledged for it in the prefaces of archaeological field reports.

The Qiftis already worked with the Germans of a century ago. Nevertheless, his- tories of archaeology in Egypt have almost entirely limited their attention to Western archaeologists and the finds “they” made. This paper aims to explain the silence about local workers, questions its justification, and argues that Egyptology would benefit from taking its workers into due account. I will draw illustrations from my ongo- ing research into Egyptian workers in excavations between 1898 and 1914, headed by German archaeologists Ludwig Borchardt (1863-1938), Georg Steindorff (1861- 1951), Otto Rubensohn (1867-1964), or Friedrich Zucker (1881-1973) (Georg in press b). I presented an outline of this paper at the conference on Egyptian crafts- people of the Middle Bronze Age (2000-1500 BC). Therefore, I try to advance the understanding of workers of modern Egyptian archaeology also by comparing them to workers and craftspeople of ancient Egypt.

Why, and how rightfully, does Egyptology disregard archaeological workers?

Difficult source situation

A major obstacle to exploring the realm of archaeological workers lies in a lack of sources. Such workers are little inclined to write things down about their work and life. Around 1900, most of them could not have done so anyway, as 93 percent of Egyptians were illiterate (1908) (Toledano 1998, 279). Even today, there are illiterate workers. Workers who write are exceptions that confirm the rule (Quirke 2010, 17, 81; Georg 2015, 203-204). With present-day workers, at least interviews can be con- ducted, which practising archaeologists have recently started to do (El Dorry 2009; Beck 2012; 2016; Rowland 2014; Sonbol 2014). By contrast, for historical workers, one must largely make do with documents that the usually foreign leaders of archaeo- logical projects have produced on their employees. Those are, most importantly, diaries of excavations, which only in recent years have been read with systematic regard to

51

georg

Egyptian workers (Quirke 2010; Doyon 2015; Georg 2015; in press b; Raue 2016). However, research shows that surprisingly much can be gleaned from diaries as well as excavation payrolls and photographs; and from songs that workers sang at work and that archaeologists have recorded (Clément 2010).

Egyptology’s exclusion of modern Egypt as a research subject

Those sources, or the possibility for interviews, existed before the 21st _century. Nevertheless, apart from a few peculiar exceptions (Legrain 1902; Petrie 1904, ch. 3; Chubb 1954), Egyptologists did not refer to archaeological workers outside conven- tional acknowledgments, or anecdotes surrounding 19th_{-century treasure hunters prior} to professional archaeology.

Taken literally, “Egyptology” should be concerned with Egypt’s every aspect and era – otherwise it should not bear a name as unspecific as “the science on Egypt”. In practice, though, Egyptology limits itself to Egypt’s “ancient” past. This past may have started with the emergence of pharaohs and written records at the end of the 4th _millen- nium BC, and ended in the 4th _{century BC, when Egypt was conquered by the Greeks;} or in the 4th _{century AD, when “ancient” Egyptian culture and its hieroglyphs faded} (Schneider 2010, 42-44). Whatever dates they subscribe to, Egyptologists agree that they do not cover Egypt after its conquest by the Arabs and Islam in the 7th _century.

An exception is the studies on Copts, the Egyptian Christians. Albeit straddling Egyptology and other fields, Coptology is a historical and institutional cousin of Egyptology (Krause 1978, 1-4). Since Christianity spread to Egypt during the first cen- turies AD, Coptic civilisation set in early enough to belong to Egypt’s antiquity. At the same time, it has lasted beyond antiquity, up to our days. Consequently, Coptologists deal with the Egypt of (late) antiquity, the Middle Ages, and (at least theoretically) the present (ibid., 6).

Yet here again, Muslim Egypt, which would include the majority of archaeological workers, is left out – although Muslims have ruled and shaped the land of the Nile for the last one and a half millennia, and have created a great civilisation. Egyptologists would by no means deny that the latter deserves to be researched; however, they leave that task to “Oriental” or “Middle Eastern studies”. These are concerned with, among other regions, the Arabo-Islamic lands as they evolved since the birth of Islam in the 7th _century AD.

At least at Western universities, Egyptology and Middle Eastern studies each usually runs its own, separate institute, and just as the former does not care about Islamic Egypt, Middle East scholars sidestep that region’s pre-Islamic history. That is why Edward Said in his book Orientalism (2003) -denouncing the derogatory dis- tortions of the “Orient” in the works of Western “Orientalists”- scarcely mentioned ancient Egypt, or ancient Mesopotamia: Orientalists had had little to say about the ancient world.

In one regard, the described separation is, to be sure, practically required: “ancient” Egypt alone encompasses thousands of years of changeful history to be studied. As a re- sult, by the early 20th _{century, so much knowledge on ancient Egypt had been accrued} that Egyptologists were compelled to specialise within their discipline, in smaller and smaller subfields. It would simply be impossible for one person to, for example, master

both the philology and the archaeology of ancient Egypt or, later, within philology, master even all stages of the Egyptian language.

It follows that mastering both the ancient and modern eras of Egypt is absolutely out of the question today, and may have been so from the beginnings of Egyptology as a modern science in the 1790s. On the other hand, Egyptian universities distinguish less between studies on ancient and studies on modern Egypt. Rather, they house a department for Egypt’s entire history, and one for its entire archaeology. Consequently, students of either programme learn about both the ancient and Islamic eras.1 _This being so, the Western, time-based subdivision of Egypt as a subject must have deeper than merely practical reasons.

Egyptologists’ lack of Arabic skills

While ancient and modern Egypt are usually kept apart, in one regard they cannot be: when it comes to studying the reception of ancient Egypt by post-ancient Egyptians. Thematically, this question could be tackled by both Egyptologists and Orientalists. In practice, it is only done by the latter (e.g. Gershoni and Jankowski 1986, ch. 8; Wood 1998; Reid 2002; Colla 2007; Cooperson 2010), unless it is Egyptian Egyptologists (e.g. Hassan 1998; El Daly 2005).

Why such one-sidedness? “Few of the original Arabic sources on ancient Egypt are available in English, and even fewer are well translated” (Cooperson 2010, 1127) – and in fact, non-Egyptian Egyptologists seldom know Arabic well enough to use it for any research. They do not learn it in Western Egyptology courses; and even after decades of fieldwork in Egypt, and regular cooperation with local archaeologists, an- tiquities inspectors and workers, foreign archaeologists struggle with a language barrier. Admittedly, Egyptian authorities do not press for a change.

The Turkish and Greek antiquities administrations demand from a foreigner seek- ing to do work in their country basic knowledge of their national language (Raue 2014). Egypt does not, also owing to its specific past: until as late as 1952, the French controlled the Egyptian Antiquities Service. Moreover, Egyptology as it exists today, also in Egyptian institutions, was launched by the scholars who, in 1798, marched into Egypt along with Napoleon’s troops. Since then, it has been continued mainly by other Frenchmen as well as Britons, Italians, Germans, and U.S. Americans. As a result, still today, Egyptological publications and conference talks -including those by Egyptians- are, if they wish to be noticed, not in Arabic, but in English, French, or German (Wynn 2007, 65-66, 231-232; Hansen 2008).

Be that as it may, Western explorers have from early on observed traits and cus- toms of the ancient Egyptians that the modern ones share (Jomard 1821a, 161-171; Blackman 1927, ch. 18). Also the German archaeologists from before 1914 found, in ancient sites, room interiors or jewellery that reminded them of what they knew from Egypt’s modern inhabitants (Rubensohn 1901-1902, 101-102; Steindorff et al. 1914, 523). Today, such “survivals” of the ancient in modern Egypt are beyond dispute, but few Egyptologists who are not Egyptian do investigate them (like Haikal [Egyptian]

1 Cf. for example the current curricula for history and archaeology at the Faculty of Arts of Tanta

University, available at: http://dbportal.tanta.edu.eg/courses_uv/HTMLUvs.htm (accessed 13th

53

georg

2003, xi-xii; Vymazalová [Czech] et al. 2011) – because it requires advanced Arabic skills, particularly when it comes to similarities between the Arabic language and an- cient Egyptian (Youssef 2003; El Daly 2005, 6, 64).

Foreigners thus deprive themselves of those insights into their ancient subject that “survival studies” -also known as “ethnoarchaeology”- might provide them with (in- sights such as in Moustafa Noh 2003). On the other hand, all Egyptologists cope, during their studies, with several stages of the Egyptian language, which belongs to the same – Afroasiatic – language family as Arabic. Why is the latter shunned by Egyptologists?

Modern Egyptians as “unworthy” successors of the ancient ones

Again, we return to the beginnings of modern archaeology in Egypt. Napoleon’s schol- ars had set out to unveil the ruins of ancient Egypt partly because they regarded it as the grandmother of human civilisation – that is, of themselves. Meanwhile, Egypt was seen as having, after antiquity, “plunged into barbarism”, and lost “its institutions, its independence, its light, and even the memory of its original greatness” (Fourier 1821, i-ii, v-ix; similarly Jomard 1821a, 167).

That is to say, the modern, Arabic-speaking Egyptians were a wretched shadow of Egypt’s ancient splendour, whereas the French, or other Europeans, were its wor- thy successors (González-Ruibal 2010, 40-41). As for German Egyptology, one of its founders, Heinrich Brugsch (1827-1894), visited Egypt in 1853/54 and reported that once, in Thebes, he was admiring temples until locals asking for “baksheesh” reminded him of the “disgusting” present of the ancient place (1855, 116).

In the eyes of early-20th_{-century German archaeologists, modern Egyptians were} “dirty” (Borchardt et al. 1907-1908, 353; Steindorff et al. 1913-1914, 130) – particu- larly when compared to their country’s past: at Tell el-Amarna, having discovered an ancient bathroom, the Germans commented on a workman, “Filthy Abd el-Halim digging up the pretty bathroom of one of his ancestors! How a nation can degenerate” (Borchardt et al. 1906-1907, 50-51). Actually, in antiquity, Egyptian houses were not necessarily clean – that was Western romanticism (Raue 2014).

All the more so, until at least 1914, German and other Western archaeologists referred to contemporary natives of Egypt as “Arabs” rather than “Egyptians”. The scholars reserved the latter term to the ancient people, whereas the modern, Arab- speaking inhabitants were reduced to intruders, destroyers, and troublemakers. By gen- eralising negative judgments on Egyptian individuals as easily as above -from “filthy” Abd el-Halim to his entire “nation”- the Germans revealed themselves as Orientalists in the Saidian sense (Said 2003, 86; Georg 2015, 202-203).

Today, humanities are supposed to show more respect towards foreign cultures. Still, Egyptology’s mental traditions keep its scholars from integrating modern Egyptians, for instance archaeological workers, into their research horizon.

Modern Egyptians as “destroyers” of antiquities

On a more practical level, particularly the Egyptians living close to, and often working in, excavation sites are not only neglected, but also despised by Egyptology because they may not protect the ruins – and, at worst, destroy them. Accordingly, eminent archaeologist Kent R. Weeks, in his encyclopaedia entry on the history of archaeology

in Egypt, alludes to modern local inhabitants only via the keywords “pollution, agri- culture, growing population, theft, and other insidious forces” threatening ancient sites (2001, 109; as noted by Doyon 2015, 141).

Again, already Napoleon’s scholars complained that the “Arabs” plundered antiqui- ties, extracting stones to build with, matter for fertilising (sebakh), and artefacts to sell to visitors. Even local dignitaries tore down ancient monuments, expecting to find gold in them (e.g. Jomard 1821a, 25; 1821b, 300, 305, 363, 370, 391). A hundred years lat- er, Egypt’s French-led antiquities administration found its mission obstructed by brutal sebakh collectors (sebakhin), by locals robbing tombs for the illegal antiquities trade, or by residents wrongfully claiming ancient sites as their private property (Maspero 1912, XXIX-XXX, 32-33, 36-37, 165-168, 173-174, 205-207). In that context, German archaeologist Ludwig Borchardt remarked that “it is certainly difficult to now suddenly teach respect for the antiquities, declared state property, to people for whom since the ancestral fathers’ times, each antiquity has been a res nullius” (1913, 4).

It is true that such locally driven violations of Egypt’s heritage happen, and cause ap- palling harm. On the other hand, Western critics admitted that many treasures were sto- len to satisfy Europe’s demand (Jomard 1821a, 25; Maspero 1912, 201-202, 318). Since the Renaissance, that “Egyptomaniac” continent had been thirsting for ancient Egyptian curiosities (Brier 2013, 32ff.); to marvel at their beauty, study their mysteries, or simply use their contents – as in the case of mummies and their bitumen – as a medical drug.

Even worse, think of the “researchers” from various European countries whom we credit with having launched, early in the 19th _{century, the discipline of Egyptology.} They amassed antiquities from across Egypt – in order to outperform each other in fill- ing European museums. It was a race so fierce and greedy that one of those men, Italian Giovanni Battista Belzoni (1778-1823), worried about the “ideas” that this might have led the “Arabs” to form of Europe’s “civilization” (1820, 368). Alternatively, take Frenchman Auguste Mariette (1821-1881), who in 1858 initiated the governmental Antiquities Service of Egypt to protect the ancient remains. In his own excavations, he opened monuments with dynamite (Fagan 2004, 185-186).

By comparison, local Egyptians have more of a moral right to put “their” ruins to use – if they do so to relieve their economic hardship. “Subsistence digging” is a delicate and controversial topic (Hollowell 2006). At least, there can be no doubt that “archaeology” is a luxury that not everyone can afford, especially not on the poor Egyptian countryside, where most of the ancient sites are located. Ancient stones have proven to be solid, so locals recycle them to construct their buildings. Ancient pieces of art are sought-after commodities, so locals extract and sell them for cash that helps them and their families survive.

Agriculture in Egypt, which mostly is a desert, can benefit from fertilisers that supplement the natural ones provided by the Nile (Mosséri 1921, 77). So locals look for sebakh: pulverised bricks that the ancient Egyptians formed out of fertile mud, from the Nile as well. Objecting to such local behaviours is questionable unless one can offer people alternative sources of income. Also and especially archaeologists should make sure that the “welfare” of objects and the dead does not impair the welfare of the living (Hollowell 2006, 90).

55

georg

Modern Egyptians’ “failure” at Egyptology

The very idea of archaeology, as conceived in the West, has long been perceived in Egypt with widespread uneasiness. For social reasons, to start with: education in Egypt was, until well into the 20th _{century, restricted to a small elite. On the primary level,} this resulted perhaps from the country’s sluggish industrial and urban development (on that sluggishness: Toledano 1998, 254, 273). Additionally, the British colonial administrators, here supported by local elites, restricted access to higher education by means of tuition fees, in order not to let lower classes become too self-reliant (Russell 2001, 51). As a consequence, the bulk of the population, the peasants (fellahin) -who likewise formed the bulk of the workforce in archaeological sites (Georg 2015, 198- 199)- did not even learn to read and write, and were disdained for their “ignorance” even by their Egyptian betters (Brown 1991). Under such circumstances, how would the peasants have comprehended the Egyptological meaning of “old” and “paint- ed stones”, as locals originally referred to the ancient remains (Belzoni 1820, 403; Hartleben 1906, 203, 237; Lepsius 1852, 133)?

Westerners without education would have had similar difficulties – or those with education yet rather different passions: none other than Winston Churchill criticised the first Dam at Aswan, whose construction began in 1899, for being kept low enough to save the ancient temple on the island of Philae from drowning in the impounded floods of the Nile. “The State must struggle and the people starve”, he railed, “in order that professors may exult” – those “profitless chippers of stone” (1899, 19).

Second, since their Christianisation and then Islamisation during the 1st _millen- nium AD, at least some Egyptians have regarded the ancient past of their country as pagan and therefore forbidden (Wood 1998, 186-189; Reid 2002, 288). Thus, when Egyptian chronicler Abd el-Rahman el-Jabarti (c. 1753-1825) described the activi- ties of European antiquities collectors in the 1810s, he referred to a pharaoh’s bust as “idol”, sanam in Arabic (Colla 2007, 73-74; cf. Brugsch 1855, 89, 114).

Throughout the Middle Ages, Egyptian scholars studied various aspects of ancient Egyptian remains (El Daly 2005). However, anti-pagan suspicion and other, yet-to-be fathomed hurdles (Trigger 1989, 44) made it impossible for those efforts to develop, as European research did, into a systematic, cumulative, institutionalised Egyptological science (Colla 2008, 136-137). Thus, in the early 20th _{century, even patriotic Egyptians} reproached their fellow countrymen for a lack of interest in their distant past (Gershoni and Jankowski 1986, 306, no. 1). Again, in the early 21st _{century, even critical Egyptian}