Egyptology - Discovering Ancient Egypt
Anyway, modern Egyptology is a mix between archeology and sociology. It's basically the act of putting puzzle pieces together to form a more complete picture of an entire civilization. Puzzle pieces include art, economy, politics, geography, theology, etc... Egyptology is a very popular field in which you can obtain university degrees. Sadly though, the work of an Egyptologist is kind of limited nowadays - with excavation reserved for the renowned experts in the field. Teaching is a popular option though.
The History of the Study of Ancient Egyptian History...OK sorry, what I wanted to say is: "The History of Egyptology".Basically the first Egyptologists are, funnily enough, the ancient Egyptians themselves. Since the history is a very long one, Egyptians of the later periods studied and restored monuments from the earlier periods. In fact, tours of ancient Egyptian monuments were popular among ancient Egyptians, Greeks and Romans! Greek and Roman empires are ancient in their own right. The Greeks and Romans began recording their accounts of what Egypt was like in those days, but still since so much had already gone by before these records much of the past was lost. Some of the most famous accounts were given by Herodotus. Herodotus is a very famous Greek historian from the 5th century BC. Also in the 3rd century BC, the Egyptian priest Manetho was the first to devise the dynastic dating system, which records information on most of the Pharaohs and royal families. The use of the Ancient Egyptian Language and writing began dwindling down until it finally became obsolete. This is when the history became a mystery. For a long time (about 2,000 years) people had a hard time deciphering ancient Egyptian history. Without understanding the language and the symbols, early Egyptologists could only take educated guesses at what it all meant. However, some very important discoveries were still made: Some Muslim historians in the 9th century discovered the relation between hieroglyphics and the Coptic language which was derived from the Egyptian language. Coptic Egyptians are the Christian Egyptians by the way, and until today they use the ancient Egyptian language in their churches (mixed with Arabic). They use Greek letters for the Egyptian words. There were many European explorers who made significant discoveries. One such was finding phonetic elements in hieroglyphics. The Jesuit priest and scientist Athanasius Kircher discovered this by relating the hieroglyphics with the Coptic language (and its Greek letters).
The Founding of Modern Egyptology
Finally, when Napoleon's army discovered the Rosetta Stone, all the guess work stopped. The Rosetta Stone is a carved text passage in two ancient Egyptian scripts (hieroglyphic and demotic) and Greek. Relating the Greek translation to the ancient Egyptian scripts became the key to unlocking the mystery of Ancient Egypt. This beautiful artifact has been residing in the British Museum since 1802. Egypt's most famous egyptologist and secretary general of the Supreme councel of Antiquities Dr. Zahi Hawass has requested that she be returned to her home country, Egypt.
After its discover, Jean-Francois Champollion came to the rescue and published the first ever dictionary of hieroglyphics in 1826. And that's when Egyptology took a turn and became more and more factual.
We can however say that it will always be a work in progress, which means that there will always be more to learn... ...I like that very much!
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