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The Culture of Ancient Egypt Paperback – Illustrated, August 15, 1956
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- Print length352 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherUniversity of Chicago Press
- Publication dateAugust 15, 1956
- Dimensions8.1 x 5.32 x 0.75 inches
- ISBN-100226901521
- ISBN-13978-0226901527
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- Publisher : University of Chicago Press (August 15, 1956)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 352 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0226901521
- ISBN-13 : 978-0226901527
- Item Weight : 1.06 pounds
- Dimensions : 8.1 x 5.32 x 0.75 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #3,677,813 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #553 in General Egypt Travel Guides
- #1,385 in Slavery & Emancipation History
- #1,668 in Egyptian History (Books)
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This title change was perhaps just as well -- by the 1960s "The Burden of Egypt" was being listed in some textbooks on Middle Eastern history among books about British rule in Egypt, presumably by people who didn't think to look beyond the card catalogue, and certainly didn't catch the biblical allusion.
One could indulge in interesting reflections on the generational differences in Biblical literacy involved in the title change. More pertinent is the fact that the "Oriental Institute Essays" (the others being Henri Frankfort's "Kingship and the Gods," and the collaborative "Intellectual Adventure of Ancient Man" -- also published, shortened, as "Before Philosophy," with the sections by Wilson, Frankfort, and Thorkild Jacobsen) were exercises in very high-level popularization, with enough substance to interest specialists.
Wilson had a busy career as an Egyptologist, and as director of the Oriental Institute during the difficult years of the Great Depression. He definitely belonged on the language side of Egyptology, rather than the archeological; his associates have reported that his favorite self-description was "a grammarian." (Most of his fieldwork seems to have been in connection with the early years of the Oriental Institute's Epigraphic Survey, still in progress.) He was also (as the second title indicates) more interested in understanding the underlying concepts of Egypt civilization, as against expounding a detailed political history. (The latter, as he often observed in his later writings about Egyptology, produced unfortunate disputes, often based on incomplete data; see his "Signs & Wonders Upon Pharaoh: A History of American Egyptology," 1964, and "Thousands of Years: An Archaeologist's Search for Ancient Egypt," Scribners Scientific Memoirs, 1972.) His version of cultural history, however, was alert to the roles of wealth and power.
"Burden" / "Culture" is based squarely on his own detailed knowledge of Egyptian writings, and illuminated by well-chosen examples of Egyptian art. Since he was dealing with some demonstrable constants of Egyptian intellectual life, from the Pyramid Texts to Hellenistic times, most of the book probably needs corrections mostly in fine detail (if at all), and, where later textual information warrants it, in his translations. The only obviously obsolete passages are some of his comments on the geology of Egypt, and the hydrology of the Nile, and his whole discussion of the fascinating Amarna episode (Akhenaten, Nefertiti,and Tutankhamun), which seems to undergo wholesale revision every five or ten years. (Wilson himself revised his opinion on some points.) Absolute dates for less controversial episodes and reigns are also subject to correction (the Oriental Institute has published a long series of studies of Egyptian chronology and Egyptian calendar systems).
I can't claim any Egyptological credentials for this view -- it is just a conclusion reached after comparing Wilson's account with works by qualified Egyptologists published in the last thirty or so years.
Besides new copies of the paperback edition, and a hardcover incarnation under the same title, Kessinger reprints, and various used copies of both "Burden" and Culture" from dealers, available through Amazon or elsewhere, the University of Chicago's Oriental Institute has issued free pdf versions of both titles, available as "Miscellaneous Publications" on their website. These are a little awkward to use -- nothing is interactive about them, and the digital page numbers are not "logical" (i.e., they don't correspond to the page-numbering of the print edition). Still, the price is always right, and the book is not so long or so complex in layout that reading the pdf becomes another type of burden.
[On the day this review was posted, the Oriental Institute put up another large set of "Miscellaneous Publications" (their category) in pdf, including "The Intellectual Adventure of Ancient Man: An Essay on Speculative Thought in the Ancient Near," by H. and Helene A. Frankfort, John A. Wilson, Thorkild Jacobsen, and William A. Irwin. Originally published in 1948, it represents much of the conceptual background in which Wilson was working. Penguin Books issued a shortened version (without Irwin's "Old Testament" material) under the title "Before Philosophy," which for decades was the form in which it was best known. The pdf is the full version, with revised select bibliographies from from the paperback edition of 1977. It goes well with "Kingship and the Gods" and "The Burden of Egypt," ]
Some readers will be interested in seeing more of the the ancient texts Wilson quotes, and perhaps wonder if he had been picking and choosing convenient examples to fit his theories. In fact, Wilson had, for a couple of decades, been translating key Egyptian texts for his own use, and only quoted from some of them in "Burden" and "Intellectual Adventure." A fuller set appeared in James B. Pritchard's "Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament" (1950, revised 1955; expanded edition 1969), most commonly referred to for decades as ANET.
Wilson's total contributions amount to a fair-sized anthology on their own. Unfortunately they were not well-represented in the the paperback selection of "The Ancient Near East: An Anthology of Texts and Pictures," (1958; later re-leased as "Volume 1") or in "The Ancient Near East, Volume 2: A New Anthology of Texts and Pictures" (1976). Indeed, the latter intentionally only included material added in 1969. The pictures, which included some interesting Egyptian material, came from "The Ancient Near East in Pictures Relating to the Old Testament" also edited by Pritchard (1954; with supplement, 1969)
All of these are officially out of print, but in 2010 Princeton University Press issued a complete, but re-ordered edition, of the material in the two paperbacks, re-edited by Daniel E. Fleming, as "The Ancient Near East: An Anthology of Texts and Pictures". This is available and the paperback edition is at a reasonable price, figuring in the current (January 2013) Amazon discount. It is still unrivaled for expansive coverage, although the contents are anywhere between fifty and thirty years old; in Wilson's case, as noted, sometimes older still. There are also many unfortunate cuts in the included material from the 1958 volume. So I can't give it an unqualified recommendation.
Wilson's translations were frequently cited for decades, and are still informative, and strictly from that point of view a library copy of ANET is worth consulting. However, the Egyptian texts are exceeded in coverage by Miriam Lichtheim's three-volume "Ancient Egyptian Literature," which is itself somewhat aging (1973-1980; re-issued 2006, including a Kindle edition). Less comprehensive, but also less dated, is W.K. Simpson et al., "Literature of Ancient Egypt" (third edition 2003), which has received a number of reviews (including one of mine), several of which are interesting and informative. It, too, extensively overlaps with Wilson.