Our passion for ancient Egypt has never wavered.
Two great anniversaries allow us to succumb to it: the bicentenary of the deciphering of hieroglyphs by Champollion and the centenary of the discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun.
To discover
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Wednesday, September 18 on France 3, the magazine "Roots and Wings", offers two great firsts: the reconstruction - thanks to sophisticated software - of the face of Ramses II at two ages of his life, 45 and 91 years old ( revealed in preview by France Info);
as well as a virtual visit to the top of the pyramid of Cheops and an invitation to the funeral of the pharaoh in the company of Carole Gaessler.
"This experience, L'Horizon de Kheops, organized at the Institut du Monde arabe in Paris will be offered from November 2 at Lyon Confluence",
specifies Caroline Varga who participated in the preparation of the two documentaries of the magazine "Desroots et wings": "Champollion and Ramses II, meeting on the Nile" and "Egyptomania, a French passion".
Joséphine de Beauharnais, influencer before her time
But where does this French passion for ancient Egypt come from?
Like any lost civilization, it has a real power of fascination.
While some are seduced by gold and riches, others feel that sense of eternity emanating from tombs, mummies and pyramids.
“A succession of great French men, passionate and learned, largely contributed to this interest in ancient Egypt.
The legends around a curse brought this part of irrationality and shivers”
, continues Caroline Varga, journalist for “DRDA” on France 3.
Read the
Figaro Hors-Série
file : Bicentenary of Napoleon, the epic, the myth, the trial
In fact, it all started during General Bonaparte's Egyptian campaign.
Behind the military expedition of the Army of the East, a troop of scholars and designers enabled the dissemination of remarkable works, including the gigantic edition in 20 volumes,
Description de l'Egypte
.
In France, Joséphine, arbiter of elegance and influencer before her time, contributes to this craze.
The Château de Malmaison, with its portraits of sheiks, its andirons with sphinx heads, its armchairs adorned with Némès - the emblematic headdress of the pharaohs - testify to this inspiration.
The Manufacture de Sèvres has kept the drawings that were used to create the Egyptian cabaret
tea service
, shown in the documentary “Egyptomania, a French passion”.
Champollion deciphers the hieroglyphs, scientists give a face to Ramses II
Even more astonishing is the life of Jean-François Champollion, a brilliant French linguist who deciphered the hieroglyphs in September 1822 thanks to tracings made on the Rosetta stone where the same text appears in ancient Greek, in demotic Egyptian and in hieroglyphs.
His very fine knowledge of Coptic, close to Demotic Egyptian and the repetition of the Ramses II cartouche give him the code for this complex figurative writing integrating ideograms, phonetic signs but also silent signs specifying the lexical field.
Champollion will say:
“I am everything to Egypt, it is everything to me”
.
Yet the Egyptologist will only set foot on the land of the pharaohs six years later.
“The first documentary, “Champollion and Ramses II, meeting on the Nile”, follows like a travel diary.
»
Caroline Varga
From Alexandria to the temple of Abu Simbel via Thebes and Karnak, the stones are an open book on a fascinating civilization and more particularly on the life of the illustrious Ramses II, pharaoh with 103 children, 200 concubines and 11 wives, including the famous Nefertiti but also Nefertari, the Great Royal Wife for whom he will have a magnificent temple built.
“The first documentary,
“
Champollion and Ramses II, meeting on the Nile
”
, follows like a travel diary.
It revealed for the first time the face of the famous pharaoh at two ages in his life, 45 and 91, thanks to the work of Caroline Wilkinson, director of the Face Lab at John Moores University in Liverpool, in collaboration with Sahar Saleem, radiologist at the Cairo Museum»
, explains Caroline Varga.
The gigantic discovery of Auguste Mariette and his work of preservation
We owe to the French Egyptologist, Auguste Mariette, one of the centerpieces of the Egyptian department of the Louvre, the Crouching Scribe and the incredible discovery of the Serapeum of Memphis, a spectacular necropolis of sacred bulls where the lightest sarcophagus already weighs 65 tons.
Less well known than Champollion, it was Mariette who initiated a real respect for ancient monuments by fighting against looting and illegal trafficking of antiquities, giving scientific excavations in Egypt their letters of nobility.
Grateful, the Viceroy granted him the title of Pasha in 1881.
Read alsoAuguste Mariette, an archaeologist serving Egypt
The Frenchman's tomb now sits opposite the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, Tahrir Square.
Mariette also collaborated on the libretto of Verdi's opera, Aïda, written in honor of the opening of the Suez Canal.
He was close to the famous French engineer, Ferdinand, Comte de Lesseps, the main promoter of the most ambitious canals, that of Suez and Panama.
"Mariette will also be in the spotlight near the
Grand Egyptian Museum
which will soon open its doors at the foot of the pyramids of Gizeh, at the very place where the Egyptologist had dreamed of it"
, continues Caroline Varga.
200,000 spectators present when the Obelisk was erected
Preferred by Champollion to the obelisks of Alexandria, one of the two obelisks of Luxor was erected on our Place de la Concorde on October 25, 1836 in front of 200,000 onlookers and 380 men on the move.
Louis-Philippe shows himself on the balcony of the Navy facing the square which saw the head of Louis XVI fall under the guillotine.
Freshly restored, the Obelisk stands 23 meters tall and perpetuates the name of Ramses II.
It took 5 years to transport the monument from Egypt.
Following this land and sea adventure, the second obelisk, also offered by Mehemet Ali, Viceroy of Egypt, remained in Luxor.
Read alsoIn Paris, the spectacular restoration of the Concorde obelisk
In 1880, the creation of the French Institute of Oriental Archaeology, which aims to study the cultures that have succeeded each other in Egypt since prehistory, confirms the essential role played by France.
In 1886, Gaston Maspero supervised the removal of sand from the sphinx of Gizeh and in the 1960s, Christiane Desroches-Noblecourt saved the monuments of Nubia and the colossal statures of the great temple of Abu-Simbel from disappearance.
Read alsoThe Grand Egyptian Museum: a pharaonic construction site
After the triumphant exhibition
Tutankhamun - The Treasure of the Pharaoh
at La Grande Halle de la Villette, Michel Eli, co-creator of the excellent talent competition for France 2's classic "Prodiges", is preparing a resounding new exhibition on
Ramses II and the gold of the pharaohs
, also to be seen at La Villette in the spring of 2023. “The 1867 and 2019 exhibitions on Tutankhamun broke all attendance records, 1.25 million visitors for the first, 1.42 for the second.
Today more and more people are taking courses in hieroglyphics.
This French passion is constantly nourishing itself,” concludes Caroline Varga.