Writing Egyptomania

Abstract

In 1822 the Western world experienced a revolution in literature and archaeology when the Rosetta Stone was successfully translated, and a craze coined Egyptomania took over the Western world. American literature—ranging from newspaper articles, travel narratives, short fiction, and books concerning ethnology and race science—became inundated with discussion of the material culture of ancient Egypt. As authors interacted with the material culture, they began to question who the ancient Egyptians were and how they managed to create such monuments. Many American authors struggled to comprehend how such ancient people were so advanced in methods of art and engineering, thus thwarting the current nineteenth-century ideals of progress. Especially among white Americans, there was anxiety that the ancient Egyptians were not European, leading to an overall fear of Oriental superiority. My aim here is not to explore the effects of Egyptomania in general on American culture, but rather to analyze how specific artifacts, monuments, and mummies were received and adapted by nineteenth-century authors.