LOST MANUSCRIPT OF FREDERIC CAILLIAUD

Nothing short of heroic in their daring and discoveries, Frédéric Cailliaud's personal narratives of travels far up the Nile and of the arts and crafts of the Ancient Egyptians, Nubians and Ethiopians are exquisitely illustrated with art on par with those in Description de L'Egypte. The travel accounts, drawings and collections he created were an important contribution to the birth of the new scientific discipline of Egyptology in the first half of the 19th century. But one of Cailliaud's major works on the arts and crafts of Ancient Egypt was never published. Here for the first time here, his exquisite colour plates are presented alongside a translation of his original French text with explanatory material to put the work in context. Arriving in Egypt in 1815, Cailliaud embarked upon a series of explorations that included the rediscovery of the Roman emerald mines at Mount Zabora and the ancient routes to the Red Sea, and expeditions in the Eastern and Western Deserts and the land we know today as Ethiopia. He made copious notes on the flora and fauna, people and antiquities he saw, and took a collection of over 2,000 objects back to France (of course today this would be the subject of great controversy). His beautifully rendered watercolours of scenes on Ancient Egyptian tombs and temples (viewed before Champollion's deciphering of Egyptian hieroglyphs), show animated scenes of ancient daily life like spinning and weavers, sculptors, a boat with rowers, a funerary barque, constructing a temple, statuettes and amulets and painted ceilings in glorious colour, royal chairs and benches and figures painted on a mummy case. He draws parallels to the 19th century activities he observed around him in a work which appeals to historians, art historians and Egyptologists of all levels. With 33 maps and tomb plans and 66 of Cailliaud's Plates. Colour. 288 pages published by the American University in Cairo Press, 28.7 x 20.8cm.
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