This Monday, enjoy a luxurious armchair cruise down the Nile with Hilary Wilson! All welcome – free for MAES members – guests £5 via Eventbrite here:

10 November: Hilary Wilson     

Egypt and How to See It 1911-1912

The pocket guide Egypt and How to See It 1911-1912 was written by the British artist Augustus Osborne Lamplough for the Egyptian State Railways. Unlike modern tourist guides, it has no photographic illustrations. Instead, Lamplough used his own somewhat impressionistic watercolours mostly of Nile views, and his few paintings of ancient remains give little information of interest to the Egyptologist. However, his descriptions of sites are, in themselves, historical records of the appearance and condition of Egyptian monuments in the years leading up to WW1. Remarking on their significance and purpose, speculating on their age and their builders’ motives, he provides a view of the state of Egyptology, and his commentary is indicative of contemporary Western attitudes towards the Egyptian people, both ancient and modern. Tourists escaping the European winter may not have been aware that some very well-known Egyptologists were working on some important sites in the 1911-12 season. This talk takes a snapshot view of Egypt as Lamplough’s readers would have experienced it and explores the exciting Egyptological developments and discoveries of the time.

A former Maths teacher, Open University Associate Lecturer and tutor of Adult Continuing Education classes, Hilary Wilson gained her MA in Egyptology from the University of Manchester in 2022. She has written several books on Egyptian topics, and has contributed articles to every issue of Ancient Egypt Magazine for more than twenty years. Currently she is working on developing the subject of this talk into a book, for the popular rather than the academic market.