Egyptologists are struggling to come to terms with the basic fact that writing tends to be the product of elite members of society whereas the bulk of archaeological data derives from the illiterate majority of the population. The solution lies in the successful integration of both types of evidence to produce a view of society as a whole.

A related problem in modern Egyptian archaeology is the increasing dislocation between the processes of change in the material culture and the traditional chronological system of dynasties, kingdoms, and “intermediate periods,” which may now be approaching the end of its usefulness. The dynastic conventions have become firmly embedded in the literature, but many modern scholars would now question the historic validity of a distinction between Sixth or Seventh Dynasty or between “third intermediate period” and “late period.” Excavations since the 1960s have gradually produced a rival and more archaeologically relevant chronological system based simply on changes in material culture and supported by a framework of stratigraphic analysis and radiometric dates (see, for instance, O’Connor 1974; Trigger, Kemp, O’Connor, and Lloyd 1985). Future chronologies of the pharaonic period will need to integrate political change with the socioeconomic and art-historical fluctuations observable in the archaeological record.

Wilkinson, Lepsius, and Mariette: Exploration and Conservation

The Napoleonic expedition was complemented both by the Franco-Tuscan expedition of 1828–1829 (led by Ippolito Rosellini and Champollion) and by the more piecemeal work of a growing number of European travelers in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The British Egyptologist Sir John Gardner Wilkinson, for instance, spent twelve years in Egypt and nubia between 1821 and 1833. The publication of The Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians in 1837 was to earn him his knighthood, but much of his work, including maps, plans, and drawings of sites that have now been lost or destroyed, remains unpublished. His contemporaries, including English travelers James Burton, Robert Hay, and Edward Lane, also left behind numerous sketches, notebooks, and unpublished manuscripts that have only recently begun to be researched.

The Prussian expedition of the 1840s, led by karl richard lepsius, was the next major step forward in terms of the accumulation of a basic archaeological database for Egypt (Lepsius 1849–1859). In many ways, the Napoleonic and Prussian expeditions set the pattern for Egyptology until well into the twentieth century, essentially initiating a quest for more and more information to be cataloged and assimilated into the frameworks of history and art history. From the point of view of data, Egyptian archaeology has always been something of a victim of its own success. The archaeological remains are so rich, diverse, and well-preserved that most Egyptologists have tended to be immersed in the processes of description and categorization, often at the expense of analysis and interpretation. In addition, much of the earlier work was biased by the fact that nineteenth-century archaeologists in Egypt were almost entirely concerned with the study of temples and tombs since those remains were considered most likely to yield the kinds of artistic and textual materials that most Egyptologists then regarded as the backbone of the discipline.

What is remarkable about the European expeditions to Egypt in the first half of the nineteenth century is the rapid pace with which new information was acquired, digested, and assimilated into the overall picture of the pharaonic period. In 1838, the French architect Hector Horeau published a “panorama” of Egypt that included an illustration showing the principal monuments of Egypt. The painting took the form of an imaginary view of the meandering course of the Nile River, with Alexandria and the Mediterranean coast in the foreground and the Temple of Isis on the island of Philae in the far distance. This pictorial view of Egypt, which incorporated the basic essentials of Egyptian architecture from the pyramids at Giza to the temples of eastern and western Thebes, is a good illustration of the speed with which the bare bones of Egyptology were assembled. As early as the 1830s, Gardner Wilkinson was able