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Egyptology as the science, which seeks to describe and understand the civilisation of Pharaonic Egypt has a very long tradition. Already in the middle of the first millennium BCE Greek travellers and philosophers visited Egypt and gathered information on its inhabitants' history, state structure and belief system. This tradition of historiographers continued well into the Roman imperial period. Already the classical authors were fascinated by the length of Egyptian history and by the depth of its priests' reflexion on the gods, on death and the afterlife. Their observations and descriptions remained the principal source on Ancient Egypt well into modern times. During the first centuries AD, the Pharaonic civilisation gradually vanished, and only a rather vague souvenir subsisted in the Western world. Over a thousand years later, and mainly through the observation of Egyptian monuments in Rome during Renaissance, ancient Egypt gained again some attention. The great travel age began: travellers from different European nations brought back their impressions about Egypt, about the Oriental culture and also about ancient monuments they saw. The actual breakthrough came with Napoleon's expedition, a military enterprise to which he joined the first scientific mission. Interest in ancient Egypt grew not only among scientists, but also among the European bourgeoisie. A real competition began to crack the code of Egyptian script, the Hieroglyphs. The Rosetta Stone, a stela found by French soldiers but seized by English troops and brought to London, finally offered the clew for the decipherment of Hieroglyphs to the French researcher Champollion: Egyptology was borne. The new science was quickly established at several European universities. Progress went very fast, the classical authors were not any more the only source to the ancient Egyptian culture, the decipherment of the Hieroglyphs allowed direct access to the original documentation, to the countless inscriptions on monuments and papyri. An intense search for original sources started: archaeological investigations were launched, museums opened. Egyptology as a scientific discipline soon became diversified, some scholars specialising in the study of script and language, others working primarily as historians or as archaeologists. Towards the end of the 19th century, methodological standards were established in the field of archaeology and dictionaries were created to facilitate the reading of ancient texts. The endeavour to enlarge knowledge of as many aspects of the ancient Egyptian civilisation characterises the research of the first half of the 20th century: All periods of the almost 4000 years long history were explored, surveys and archaeological documentation of all areas of Egypt and ancient Nubia (partly in current Sudan) were undertaken, improvements of grammatical comprehension of all stages of the ancient Egyptian language achieved. Research also began to study the ancient Egyptian society and its religion, customs and technologies. Modern technology entered the field of Egyptology as for investigations on ancient mummies, for the relocation of entire temples or for the conservation of ancient monuments and objects. For more than a century, Egyptology as a scientific discipline was mainly restricted to Western countries (France, Germany, England, USA). By the mid of the 20th century, however, the interest for the ancient Egyptian civilisation spread all over the world. Not only did Egyptian archaeologists and scientists take an active part in the study and protection of the monuments, the discipline was integrated to university programs all over the world. Chinese, South American and African universities form students and produce competent researchers in Egyptology. This opening of the scientific egyptological community also expands the views on ancient Egypt and the interpretative possibilities. Different contemporary cultures look at ancient Egypt in different but complementary ways. The present study by Haili Wang traces in much detail the manifold evolution of Egyptology: from ancient Greek observations to the contemporary discipline of Human Science, it shows the various approaches to a past civilisation which still has the power not only to fascinate, but also to instruct modern observers. It details the various steps of progress in research, the expansion of questions addressed to the ancient civilisation and of methods developed to make the ancient sources reveal more and more information. The present book is not only a history of Egyptology, it is also a history of the modern world. It shows the evolution of the discipline from being largely European in the 19th century to becoming global in the 21st century. In many areas of the world and particularly in China, Egyptology is a matter of interest to a wider public and a scientific discipline studied at universities. The contribution made by Chinese research to the better understanding of ancient Egypt is significant. Modern technologies increasingly help transgressing linguistic and geographic boundaries and facilitate the constitution of a global scientific community engaged in a process of sharing results and insight. The archaeological and intellectual vestiges of ancient Egypt are nowadays to be considered as Cultural World Heritage, a heritage to be shared and protected by all of us. This book of Haili Wang offers an excellent introduction into the discipline of Egyptology itself, into the evolution of scientific progress and into Chinese Egyptology as part of today’s globalised science, which can still benefit from the intellectual and material achievements of ancient Egypt. Susanne Bickel University of Basel, Switzerland July 11, 2009 (责任编辑：admin) |