The Napoleonic Invasion of Egypt
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On July 1, 1798, Napoleon landed in
Egypt with 400 ships and 54,000 men
and proceeded to invade the country, as
he had recently invaded Italy. But this
Egyptian invasion was to be different.
For, in addition to soldiers and sailors,
Napoleon brought along 150 savants —
scientists, engineers and scholars whose
responsibility was to capture, not Egyptian
soil, but Egyptian culture and
history. And while the military invasion was
an ultimate failure, the scholarly one was
successful beyond anyone’s expectations.
Meticulous topographical surveys were
made, native animals and plants were studied,
minerals were collected and classified, local
trades and industry were scrutinized. Most
famously, ancient Egypt was discovered — the
temples and tombs of Luxor, Philae, Dendera,
and the Valley of the Kings. Each of these
sites was measured, mapped, and drawn,
recording in meticulous detail a pharaonic
Egypt never before glimpsed by the outside
world.
But how was the outside world to see
what the scientists had discovered?
Fortunately, the savants decided, before they
had been in Egypt for even six months, that
their discoveries had to be published, and
they collected and sketched with that aim in
mind. After their return to France in 1801,
they continued to organize materials, and
finally, in 1809, the first
volumes of the Description de l'Égypte were published.
Over the years, concluding
in 1828, a total of 23
volumes would appear.
Three of these were the
largest books that had ever
been printed, standing over
43 inches tall. The total set
contained 837 engravings,
many of them of
unprecedented size, which
captured Egyptian culture
from every possible vantage
point.
The most impressive were surely the volumes of antiquities, spilling
over with obelisks, colossi, temples, sphinxes,
and all manner of artifacts. But the volumes
on natural history were also impressive, with
their crocodiles, asps, lotuses, and palms.
Never before had a single country inspired
such a monumental encyclopedia of such
depth and splendor.