The Practice and Politics of Archaeology

in Egypt
LYNN MESKELLa
Department of Anthropology, Columbia University, New York,
New York 10027, USA

ABSTRACT: Archaeologists working in Egypt have rarely considered the lo-

cal/global ramifications and responsibilities of their field practices: many
continue to operate under what might be termed the residual effects of co-
lonialism. Taking an explicitly postcolonial stance I argue that there is
much more at stake than the intellectual enterprise. This paper outlines
the ways in which scholars could undertake a more engaged archaeology
and how we might more closely be involved with the people and pasts of
modern Egypt. The connected tensions of tourism and terrorism are fore-
grounded, demonstrating that heritage issues are salient to both spheres.
Finally, I explore the nation’s relationship to its pharaonic past over the
past few centuries and include some contemporary articulations and rep-
resentations.

KEYWORDS: Egyptian archaeology; Colonialist views of Egypt; Orien-

talism; Tourism; Postcolonial theory; Terrorism; Heritage industry

In the eighteenth century, a new breed of traveller

began to flock into Cairo, Europeans with
scholarly and antiquarian interests, for whom
Masr was merely the picturesque but largely
incidental location of an older, and far more
important landscape… Over the same period that
Egypt was gaining a new strategic importance
within the disposition of empires, she was also
gradually evolving into a new continent of riches
for the Western scholarly and artistic imagination.
—AMITAV GHOSH, IN AN ANTIQUE LAND

This paper attempts to combine several diverse strands of argumentation sur-

rounding the political context of archaeology in Egypt. First, I endeavor to
situate Western intervention in Egypt from a postcolonial position. This puts
in the foreground the colonial practices of taxonomizing and controlling both

aAddress for correspondence: Department of Anthropology, Columbia University, 1200

Amsterdam Avenue, New York, New York 10027. Voice: 212-854-7465; fax: 212-854-7347.
LMM64@columbia.edu

146
MESKELL: ARCHAEOLOGY IN EGYPT 147

present and past through scientific discourses such as cartography, geogra-

phy, and archaeology. The discussion oscillates between narratives of the co-
lonial past and accounts of current field practices. I also suggest a number of
disciplinary options which might remedy the situation in terms of the ethics
and responsibilities for foreign field projects. Linked to this point is my sug-
gestion that archaeologists should be more mindful of local communities and
the modern context of their work. By extension, those that tour Egypt have
been largely disinterested in the local sphere and its contemporary ramifica-
tions. I assert that the two situations are interwoven. Clearly, people choose
to tour “ancient Egypt” rather than its modern, living counterpart, and their
desires for an untainted living museum have real effects at both national and
local levels. Tied to tourism and foreign interaction is the increase in terror-
ism over the last decade. Here I suggest that touring “ancient Egypt” and the
constitution of the “heritage industry” in Egypt are factors indelibly inter-
twined with these acts of violence. As a rule, archaeologists working in Egypt
have been reluctant to comment or be drawn into political discussion. Lastly,
I argue against the traditional idea that modern Egypt has little connection to
its pharaonic history. Drawing on architecture, monuments, artistic traditions,
textbooks, and national symbolism, I suggest there has been a fluid relation-
ship with the pharaonic past over the last 100 years. If this connectivity is
erased or undermined, we risk privileging the ancient past and ignoring
Egypt’s more recent heritage. By divorcing Egypt’s history from its people
we might make our work as archaeologists (or visitors) less problematic and
entangled, but we also commit symbolic violence and reinvigorate the rem-
nants of a colonial regime.

EGYPT IN POSTCOLONIAL PERSPECTIVE

Taking a radical stance, I argue here that archaeological practice in Egypt

is indelibly entangled in the types of hegemonic practices that once charac-
terized colonialism in the Middle East and that now contribute to the tensions
of postcoloniality. My own background brings this into sharp relief. I was ini-
tially trained in Australia, in a political climate where indigenous people had
a clear voice in the archaeological endeavor and where white practitioners
themselves were constantly under scrutiny. After further training in England
I undertook fieldwork in Egypt and saw a very different suite of practices and
a general lack of engagement at the local level, a situation that still typifies
the discipline of Egyptian archaeology. By default, archaeologists working in
Egypt generally assume that their priorities for research should be placed in
the foreground and that the considerations of local people are secondary. Of-
ten the latter have been considered a hindrance to archaeology’s project: a
sentiment sometimes reinforced by certain sectors of the Egyptian govern-
ment. Archaeology is closely linked to tourism, which offers substantial eco-
148 ANNALS NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES

nomic gains for a developing country. The economic gains tend to remain
largely in the hands of Western companies operating within the new global
arena, rendering suspect the notion that ordinary Egyptians benefit from
large-scale tourist expenditures, despite the deployment of governmental im-
peratives to facilitate tourism. It similarly results in the ascendancy of foreign
desires for commodification and leisure over local concerns and standards of
living. The case study of the relocation of the community at Gurna is the most
salient instance of this imbalance of power (see Mitchell 2000). Yet these is-
sues are seldom discussed within the discipline because of a lack of political
engagement or an unwillingness to challenge government policy. Archaeolo-
gists, too, have a stake—albeit a purely academic one—in directing attention
towards monuments rather than people. The tangential matters of agricultural
encroachment, site management, and protection are points raised by more
concerned archaeologists, but it is the ancient material remains that are priv-
ileged over living communities. Scholars are reticent to discuss the interrelat-
ed domains of tourism, the heritage industry, and multi-layered nationalist
objectives within Egypt. How did we arrive at this point? Clearly the long his-
tory of foreign intervention in Egypt has made the country an archaeologist’s
paradise, a territory all our own, steeped in a history of Western looting and
excavation. As such, archaeology was already enmeshed in colonialist ideol-
ogies, and therefore it has proven easier for practitioners to continue their op-
erations in the time-honored ways. Colonial constructs are not simply
situated in a past. As I argue, this substrate of residual colonial practice is be-
ing worked against in the present: it is both nostalgically re-worked and in-
ventively adapted.
Many archaeologists might seem unaware or, worse, unconcerned with the
ethical dilemmas underscored here. Ameliorating our predicament will entail
sacrifices and changes for foreign fieldworkers that threaten to disrupt a long
and fruitful tradition of practices. Bringing about change will mean a substan-
tial revisioning of the archaeological project, and the ways in which individ-
uals operate in the field. Large archaeological expeditions will have to divert
funds and energy into contributing something at the local level, other than
paying village workmen and buying supplies. Along with these initiatives
comes the dissemination of archaeological findings and the inclusion of
smaller voices—allowing for the impact of heteroglossia on an atheoretical
and authoritarian field like Egyptian archaeology. Archaeologists will have to
consider the place of local museums, heritage centers, and educational facil-
ities. This process would take place at the local level, where foreign institu-
tions contribute to the initial construction of museums and local authorities
administer and benefit from their operation. People can learn to appreciate
the inherent values of the past without necessarily having to identify with
them in any personalized way, thus countering the arguments about Islamici-
zation made by archaeologists. Local people, school groups, visitors, and
MESKELL: ARCHAEOLOGY IN EGYPT 149

tourists would all be involved. Andreas Huyssen coined the term “musealiza-
tion” to describe the current obsession with the heritage industry and the cul-
ture of the museum. In the latter half of this century there has been a
proliferation of museums and heritage sites around the globe. In an ironic
turn Huyssen quips that we might be running out of the past due to our avid
consumption of history. We have a long way to go in Egypt since there is a
dearth of museums and heritage sites to celebrate the longue durée of its
multi-stranded histories. Here I suggest we have to engage in dialogue with
those concerned with developments in social geography and heritage studies
to fully understand the processes of tourism, cultural exploitation, and sym-
bolic violence that surround the promotion of an archaeological past. Priori-
tizing the past in the present has serious and often violent consequences for
those who happen to dwell among the ancients.
At the heart of these programmatic statements is the fundamental question
I keep returning to: how did we inherit such a situation? Younger archaeolo-
gists are inculcated with the belief that Egyptians today are divorced from
pharaonic civilization and that this occurred through the process of Islamici-
zation. These severed ties with antiquity underscore all narratives about a
contemporary lack of interest in the past and result in an unwillingness to en-
gage in the dialogue. It is the argument that excuses us from the conversation
altogether and yet it is usually unsubstantiated or left unchecked. At the end
of this paper I argue against the persistent idea that the Egyptians themselves
are not interested in their past—that this is something reserved for Western
interpreters. As part of this assertion I mean to imply that we, as Western ar-
chaeologists, have been remiss in our responsibilities to the people of Egypt,
that we have not conveyed our findings nor instigated education and outreach
programs nor have we aided in the construction of local museums. In a sense
the colonialist modes of operation have had residual effects upon the practice
of archaeology in Egypt. Only in a postcolonial climate can we begin to see
this as yet another appropriation of the past—the past as a resource and a
source of knowledge—which excludes the site of production itself.
It is crucial to recenter the colonial entanglements that marked the start of
a professionalized Egyptian archaeology (see also Reid 1985). Colonialism
entails the establishment and maintenance of domination over a separate
group of people, who are viewed as subordinate, and over their territories,
which are presumed to be available for exploitation (Jacobs 1996:16). As
Nick Dirks has argued (1992:6):
colonialism provided a theatre for the Enlightenment project, that grand labo-
ratory that linked discovery and reason—colonial expansion both necessitated
and facilitated the active exercise of the scientific imagination. It was through
discovery—the siting, surveying, mapping, naming, and ultimately possessing
—of new regions that science itself could open new territories of conquest: car-
tography, geography, botany and anthropology were all colonial enterprises.
150 ANNALS NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES

We should see archaeology as deeply embedded within those discourses as

well. This situation is clearly expressed in 19th century British imperialism,
in which territorial expansion ensured that raw materials and resources would
be controlled. The monumentality of the past is yet another example of a cul-
tural resource to be appropriated. This form of intellectual colonialism sought
to extricate Egypt from its past glories and future potentials in service of the
ruling empire. Egypt and its riches are still seen as a global resource and thus
as a responsibility that involves heritage managers, conservators, planners,
funding bodies, and international organizations. Today archaeologists occupy
different positions—that of facilitator and manager—this time in the service
of Egypt as a modern nation. Some might claim that we also facilitate our ac-
ademic ventures simultaneously, so as not to cast this as an entirely altruistic
endeavor! Foundational to colonial imperatives was the notion that subject
cultures require management and regimes to articulate, map and control re-
sources, specifically their monumental past.
Following these sentiments, individuals and organizations still assert that
the Egyptians themselves are incapable of managing these resources: they are
to be effectively administered and controlled by the West. Despite the fact
that the ultimate decision-making resides with the Egyptian Antiquities Ser-
vice, they rely heavily on international archaeological investment for both
fieldwork and preservation. A compelling example of this reliance on inter-
national agencies is the effort of UNESCO and German engineers to relocate
Abu Simbel after construction of the Aswan High Dam. UNESCO’s funding
of the Nubia Museum in Aswan is another high-profile initiative that has be-
come embroiled in controversy over questions of ethnicity, citizenship, and
transnational culture (Smith 1999). Yet this is not to advocate that we relin-
quish our efforts to conserve the materiality of the past or that studying and
preserving a global world heritage is a wholly negative endeavor: rather that
we recognize the lingering elements of a colonial scheme in our thinking. In
many respects our desire to know, label, and excavate is not so different from
the sentiment expressed by Balfour addressing the British House of Com-
mons on the necessity of Britain’s occupying Egypt:
We know the civilisation of Egypt better than we know the civilisation of any
other country. We know it further back; we know it more intimately; we know
more about it. It goes far beyond the petty span of the history of our race, which
is lost in the prehistoric period at a time when the Egyptian civilisation had al-
ready passed its prime.

The European heritage could not rival pharaonic time-depth and complexity
and thus it became necessary to appropriate and co-opt Egyptian heritage into
a Western construction of origins. This we all know and are familiar with
since Said’s magnum opus (1979) and its resultant critique (Bhabha 1994, Ja-
cobs 1996). But if Said’s influence has been pervasive, so also is the concern
to move beyond his general critique, both in the sense of breaking down the
monolith of colonialism, and in engaging more directly than our Orientalist
MESKELL: ARCHAEOLOGY IN EGYPT 151

forebears with the realities of an Orient that resists reification in Western dis-
cursive or political formations. We search both for voices outside as well as
those raised against the Orientalist establishment. There is the fear that if we
accord totalizing power to such entities as the West, or the Orientalists, we
will fail to understand and recognize the spaces of resistance while unwitting-
ly aligning ourselves against those spaces. This is the fear voiced by Dirks
(1992:10) and one that finds support with most postcolonial scholars.
I am not suggesting that the study of Egypt has resisted theorization. Tim-
othy Mitchell’s work on the representation of Egypt through the World’s Fair
is a prime example (1988), as is Hassan’s account (1998) of memory and
identity. Yet despite these incursions our most frequent engagement has been
with the discourse of so-called Egyptomania and our interest in the represen-
tation of Egypt and the Orient more generally (e.g., Curl 1994, Humbert et al.
1994, Shohat and Stam 1994, Lant 1997). Scholars of cultural reception and
those interested in the politics of representation have spent decades docu-
menting the ways in which Europe conceived of and constructed specific vi-
sions of Egypt. It was a particularly exoticized and eroticized gaze,
constructing Egypt as infantilized, playful, yet voluptuous, and commodified
(Meskell 1998). It is a fascinating topic and the source of numerous volumes
and exhibitions. Interestingly, we, as scholars, have always been concerned
with the European encoding of a pharaonic past, rather than looking to the
source itself, again removing Egypt from its spatio-temporal setting and
again interpolating it into Western Enlightenment regimes of power, invented
origins, and cultural evolution. Such an argument has been developed for the
Middle East more generally by Bahrani (1998).

SYMBOLIC VIOLENCE, TOURISM, AND TERRORISM

Amongst archaeologists it has long been said that the Egyptian people, be-
cause of the impact of Islam, hold no special relationship with antiquity and
that they are largely disinterested in knowing their past, much less preserving
it. However true this may seem, such generalizations make it easier for West-
erners to continue their current practices in Egypt, for us to taxonomize and
interpret, and to conduct our field strategies in our current quasi-colonial
manner without any attempts at reflexiveness. To date, the only substantive
analysis of archaeology, heritage and tourism has been conducted at Gurna
(FIG. 1). Tim Mitchell is a political scientist, not an archaeologist, although
his insights are vital for all of us. In a recent paper he explores the complex
machinations between the Egyptian government and one local community
(Mitchell 2000), a situation that involved the forced relocation of the Gur-
nawis, the promoters of the tourist trade, and the development of an open-air
museum. Mitchell’s study focuses upon the reactions of the local people of
Gurna in their desperate attempts to reclaim their homes and their only source
152 ANNALS NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES

FIGURE 1. Gurna Village, 1995.

MESKELL: ARCHAEOLOGY IN EGYPT 153

of income, which is generated from tourism. This struggle involved diverse

local groups resisting top-down global pressures for a museum in aid of a
shared world heritage. Working in the Valley of the Nobles for several field
seasons, I understand the threats of destruction, the escalating pressures of
tourism, and the fractious relationships between archaeologists, tourists and
Gurnawis. It was far from an easily resolvable situation as later events dem-
onstrated: we are being asked to privilege one group over the other, the dead
over the living as it were, and this has uncomfortable repercussions.
In 1996 the people of Gurna, threatened with the eviction and demolition
of their homes, wrote a petition stating that
[we] have become threatened in our homes, we have become agonized with
fear, while our houses are demolished above our heads and we are driven from
our homeland. The pretext for all this is that we damage and do harm to tourism
and that we threaten the safety of the monuments. We do not understand who
has fabricated these rumours. We come from the monuments and by the monu-
ments we exist. Our livelihood is from tourism (quoted in Mitchell 2000).

Many archaeologists have seen other sides to this argument, such as the long-
term destruction of the tombs and the threats of looting. But we have to recog-
nize our place as interlopers in a foreign country and that our life experiences
are contrary to those invoked in the petition. We again must question why dead
Egyptians are more important than living ones. Whether we like it or not, ar-
chaeologists are complicit in various forms of real and symbolic violence at
Gurna and elsewhere: our work provides the raw material for a burgeoning
tourist industry and is conducted under the auspices of the Supreme Council
of Antiquities. We, too, work under guidelines set out by the national govern-
ment and are similarly scrutinized by the local government inspectorate.
As Mitchell documents, there have been more than 50 years of attempted
relocation at Gurna. More recently the authorities have deployed bulldozers,
armed police officials, tourism investors, and U.S. and World Bank consult-
ants: quite clearly the heritage industry has made use of violence in achieving
its goals. In one attempt at relocation four people were killed and at least 25
were wounded. In 1998 the head of the Luxor City Council was quoted in Al-
Ahram as saying that the shanty town of Old Gurna (FIG. 2) would have to be
depopulated because “you can’t afford to have this heritage wasted because
of informal houses being built in an uncivilized manner” (quoted in Mitchell
2000). Yet Gurna is not an isolated instance: the Egyptian government was
also trying to move families away from the pyramid at Meidum, the temples
in Esna and Edfu, and from around the Great Pyramids in Giza. Officials suc-
ceeded in removing from Gurna some 1,300 families who lived in traditional
mud-brick houses directly on top of the Tombs of the Nobles and these 400
tombs constitute a major tourist attraction. Many of the Gurnawis are now
housed in newly built concrete buildings at a nearby village, New Tarif, set
up largely by Egypt’s Armed Forces. While some may see this as steps toward
154 ANNALS NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES

FIGURE 2. Sennefer coffee shop, Gurna, 1995.

MESKELL: ARCHAEOLOGY IN EGYPT 155

modernization, the concrete constructions at New Tarif are less suited to the
Egyptian climate and could be perceived as alienating in this specific context.
It is clear that violence has been enacted here on all levels, both real and sym-
bolic, against the Gurnawis, ironically in the name of their own national her-
itage. The global remains privileged territory.
Lila Abu-Lughod lucidly encapsulates the issue, differentiating the various
local and national spheres enmeshed in the tension over Gurna’s past and fu-
ture. One difficulty lies in separating out patriotic concerns for the preserva-
tion of Egyptian heritage, stemming from pressures of tourist revenues at
both state and private levels, from considerations for the community (Abu-
Lughod 1998:162). Acknowledging the importance of Egypt’s archaeologi-
cal treasures, she also reflects on the plight of ordinary people whose needs
cannot be brushed away, as simply as the archaeologist might do to reveal the
glories of the past. The metaphor of brushing away is pre-figured in all such
interventions. As Abu-Lughod clearly argues in the case of the Gurna reloca-
tion, while many at the higher governmental levels and élite classes are so-
cially concerned and even sympathetic, they remain tied to their particular
values and priorities, which are, in turn, structured by a specific vision of na-
tional modernity. Even our vision of the local is complex and multi-faceted,
projecting a myriad of views and experiences surrounding a single site. As
Jane Jacobs (1996:35) has eloquently argued :
It is precisely in the local that it is possible to see how the past, including im-
perial and pre-imperial pasts, inheres in place. This is not an archaic residue,
but an active and influential occupation. A pertinent example of this is given by
the places that are designated as heritage, such as historic buildings or other
cultural sites. These are inherited artefacts but they gain an active influence in
the present by way of the various popular meanings and official sanctions as-
cribed to them. The making of heritage is a political process. Certain places
may be incorporated into sanctioned views of the national heritage while others
may be seen as a threat to the national imaginary and are suppressed or obliter-
ated. … It is not simply that heritage places symbolise certain values and be-
liefs, but that the very transformation of these places into heritage is a process
whereby identity is defined, debated, and contested and where social orders are
challenged or reproduced (Karp 1992:5). Heritage is not in any simple sense the
reproduction and imposition of dominant values. It is a dynamic process of cre-
ation in which a multiplicity of pasts jostle for the present purpose of being
sanctified as heritage.
In an explicitly political move, Suzanne Mubarak, the wife of the Egyptian
president, said that the people of Luxor are “the priority in this project. If
some villages have to be removed in order to save our heritage, that does not
mean we don’t care for individuals. On the contrary we are giving them a bet-
ter alternative with complete services.”1 The Egyptian government has been
talking about vacating Gurna since the time of president Gamal Abdel Nass-
er. The secretary-general of the Supreme Council for Antiquities, Ali Hassan,
reported to the media that some 250 houses had been demolished in Gurna as
156 ANNALS NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES

part of the authorities’ campaign to create an off-limits zone on the West

Bank of Luxor. The total cost of the infrastructure for the creation of the new
village was E£103.8 million. Official figures say there were 7,388 people liv-
ing in Gurna, estimated to reach 15,000 by the year 2020. There are suppos-
edly 1,776 houses in New Tarif built on an area of 261 acres. Understandably,
the villagers have been deeply suspicious of the government’s intentions. Past
attempts to relocate people, specifically in model communities with “vernac-
ular” architecture—most notably that of Hassan Fathi—have failed. Since
January 1996, houses in Old Gurna have been regularly demolished, which
Ali Hassan says has led to the discovery of new tombs of pharaonic nobles.
The government’s plan has been described as “reinventing Thebes”—using
the ancient Greek name for the area of modern day Luxor. The intent was the
creation of a large “living” museum, replacing the traditional or “dead” mu-
seums: open-air museums replace those under cover, sound replaces hushed
silence, and visitors are not separated from the exhibits by glass.
Gurna was a major tourist center until an attack on November 17, 1997 by
Muslim extremists took the lives of 58 foreigners and four Egyptians. This
attack on the West Bank of Luxor severely damaged Egypt’s lucrative tour-
ism industry, which earned the country $3 billion a year. Over the last decade
tourism has waxed and waned with the incidents of terrorism. A glance at the
figures from Egypt’s Tourist Authority show a significant drop of 12.8%,
equating to a decline of 56.8% in numbers of tourist nights spent in Egypt.
While a few Egyptologists reported the news of the attack on various web-
sites, the topic did not fuel further discussion. It was considered an extreme
instance in an escalating series of militant attacks on tourists over the past few
years. This silence is part of a wider malaise in Egyptology as a discipline.
Egyptologists have convinced themselves that they have little to do with the
lived experience of people like the Gurnawis and remain outside the process-
es at work, processes that they are deeply implicated in by the nature of their
work, and the very subject matter of archaeology.
Another nodal point in political, religious, economic, social and spatial
terms is the 1997 massacre by Islamic militants at the Temple of Hatshepsut
(FIG. 3). This violent episode at one of the most iconic monuments of the
pharaonic past—enacted primarily against tourists—somehow eluded Egyp-
tologists or was deemed outside their intellectual territory. The Temple of
Hatshepsut is often cited as a supremely “modernist” architectural feat, in a
teleological construction that ensures its translatability to a contemporary au-
dience. The locale of the temple is a potent one: surrounded by a bay of cliffs,
the temple is set in against the natural rock: a perfect cipher for the nature:cul-
ture divide. The temple is also a concrete statement of the fundamental hu-
man desire to achieve eternity. Chris Rojek (1993:195) argues that “temples
built in the names of the rulers of Ancient Egypt at Luxor” are salient exam-
ples of this desire, as are the Taj Mahal and the Lincoln Memorial. In each a
megalomaniac quality can be discerned along with their grandeur and beauty.
 MESKELL: ARCHAEOLOGY IN EGYPT

FIGURE 3. Temple of Hatshepsut, West Bank, 1996.

157
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The visual spectacle of the temple’s space has long been recognized and in-
deed is similarly celebrated as a performative space: the opera Aida is often
performed there. Thus ancient and modern Egypt become seamlessly en-
meshed. Foremost, it is a tourist site, closely situated near other famed sites
such as the Valley of the Kings, the Valley of the Queens, the Valley of the
Nobles, the Colossi of Memnon, and so on. It is a major stopping point on the
touring track of visitors travelling to Luxor. Reports from the Egyptian au-
thorities suggested that the attack was primarily aimed at the police and se-
curity forces. However, this strategem was generally assumed to be a
government ploy to allay fears and to minimize damage to the tourist industry
at large. The targets of the attack were predominantly tourists. There had
been similar attacks in the past, such as the terrorist assault in Cairo in Sep-
tember of 1997, where three gunmen specifically ambushed a tourist bus in
front of the Cairo Museum, killing at least nine tourists and wounding another
19. Three gunmen opened fire and tossed explosives at buses parked outside
the Egyptian Museum in Tahrir Square.2 This famous location, home to the
treasures of Tutankhamun and thousands of other archaeological masterpiec-
es, is a key tourist site for almost every visitor to Egypt. Tour groups congre-
gate there en masse in ostentatious tour buses which only serve to flag their
foreign presence. Many other local buses regularly stopped in Tahrir Square
carrying Cairenes around the city, yet they were spared. Clearly tourists were
the prime target, ensuring complete global coverage for the militant cause and
maximum damage to the national economy and world-wide profile.
For the people of Egypt, the economic benefits from tourism are often less
than anticipated. It is well documented that the majority of tourist investment
in the developing world has in fact been undertaken by large-scale companies
in North America or Western Europe. This is by no means a charitable ven-
ture since the bulk of such tourist expenditure is retained by the transnational
companies involved; only 22–25% of the retail price remains in the host
country (Urry 1990:64–65). At the same time, we have to ask whether many
developing countries have much alternative to tourism as a development
strategy. While there are serious economic and social costs, such as the sym-
bolic violence to the displaced persons at Gurna, it is very difficult in the ab-
sence of alternatives to see that developing countries have much choice but to
promote their attractiveness as objects of the tourist gaze, particularly for vis-
itors from North America, Western Europe and Japan. According to Urry
(1990:132), the sovereignty of the consumer and trends in popular taste are
colluding to transform the museum’s social role. As in the planned open-air
museum at Gurna, the overwhelming mass of the population, such as the peo-
ple of the entire West Bank, will inevitably be excluded. While heritage pol-
itics generally concerns the local, the specificities of place, it is by no means
a process removed from broader spatialities. Sanctioned heritage is taken up
into national imaginings, as Jacobs suggests (1996:36). As we have seen with
Gurna, local sites are heavily connected to global processes of commodifica-
tion. The politics of identity is undeniably also a politics of place. But as Ja-
MESKELL: ARCHAEOLOGY IN EGYPT 159

cobs argues, this is not the “proper place” of bounded, pre-given essences, but
rather an unbounded geography of difference and contest.

EGYPT IN HYPERREALITY

Other forms of symbolic violence are enacted in Egypt, again in the service
of tourism, and I would suggest that tourists’ willingness to take part is key
in these struggles. In recent decades the large hotels, primarily 5-star tourist
hotels, have created spaces in which tourists are presented with an Egyptian
experience, but prevented from any real encounters with the country or its
people. Through hyperreal constructions of themed restaurants or complete
Egyptian villages one can attain a specific sense of the culture without any
immediate contact (Baudrillard 1993). I would suggest that constructing a
“village” inside a palatial hotel is more extreme than the more familiar
themed restaurant or bar, although an extension of the same principle. Quite
insidiously, foreigners can “experience” Egypt without coming into contact
with its realities, thus allowing hotel chains to further monopolize additional
foreign currency. Tourists are spared the sort of encounters and negotiations
that once characterized visiting communities like Gurna: people begging,
children trying to sell dolls, people offering services etc. This kind of bar-
gaining and begging was perceived to be an uncomfortable experience for
many tourists (Abu-Lughod 1998:162, Mitchell 2000). Through the simulac-
ra proffered by the hotels, the tourist can avoid the unpleasant reminders of
economic inequality and and he or she can simply enjoy the commodification
of an exotic culture. Where this differs from the theme parks and heritage
sites in Europe, though, is that most Egyptian examples seek to reproduce
poorer, rural or balady villages, whichmany city dwellers in Egypt would
also shun (FIG. 4). Hotels are presenting a vision of an authentic Egypt that is
inherently Orientalized: it is poor, crudely constructed, rural, and indelibly
reminiscent of ancient times (Mitchell 1990). It implies that life is essentially
unchanged through the millennia, encapsulating the past, but not requiring
the client to leave the confines of luxury. No human costs or consciences are
factored into these constructions. Employees working in such hotels have
been trained, educated in various languages, and basically instructed in the
types of behaviors and roles they are expected to adopt (Rojek 1993, 2000).
In this the Egyptian example is like many others around the globe: employees
are compelled to adopt specific personae. By juxtaposing the luxury and op-
ulence of a Western hotel complex with the modest, even “quaint” renderings
of village life, certain propositions are made about civilization and hierarchy.
Apart from the obvious racist overtones that pervade such hyperreal villages,
Egypt is misrepresented by a static, continuous, and endlessly same village.
Mock village sites are essentially populated by co-opted actors dressed in
 160

FIGURE 4. Reconstruction of balady village, Pioneer Hotel, Kharga Oasis.

ANNALS NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES
MESKELL: ARCHAEOLOGY IN EGYPT 161

costume, serving food, pouring beer (with all its anti-Muslim associations),
making craft goods and generally functioning as entertainment. Such perfor-
mances are also about a commodified gaze of inequality, about those who
serve and those who are there to be entertained. This certainly opens up an-
other space for colonial fantasies of the Orient to be played out, now through
the agency of the leisure industry.
One has to question why many tourists might feel happier in visiting such
constructed spaces rather than in actually encountering Egypt. Is this simply
a response to the perceived threat to tourists’ safety that terrorists impose? Or
are such practices part of the problem in the first instance? Perhaps for many
ordinary Egyptians, foreigners are perceived not as individuals but as anony-
mous, indistinguishable groups who come en masse to visit the splendors of
an Egypt past and who are fundamentally uninterested in meeting or making
connections with living people: in fact they want to be spared such encounters
at all costs. Would those same people feel the same sentiments travelling in
Italy, Britain, or Australia, and would this ultimately prevent them from meet-
ing the locals? Surely part of any authentic experience (and I use this term
advisedly) of another’s homeland is to engage with its native population.
With the increase of globalization in the pursuit of foreign products and ex-
periences and more adventure-oriented, culturally charged tours, it would
seem contradictory to negate such interactions. To reconcile such a contradic-
tion I can only advert to the persistent residual impact of Orientalism and rac-
ism which marks certain groups as undesirable, and troublesome, and not
possessing any cultural cachet. However, those who construct their identities
as travellers rather than tourists will probably recognize the “value” of meet-
ing local people in terms of authenticity, cultural exchange and perhaps even
resistance to expected norms. I have often witnessed young travellers in
Egypt who explicitly “go native” in an attempt to distance themselves from
the older, more bourgeois tourists so that they may experience Egypt first
hand by befriending a local, visiting a family home or becoming involved on
a more intimate level. Much of this is short-lived: trains, planes and feluccas
ensure that these experiences are transitory. And it must be said that even
these putatively authentic social relations frequently operate within the dis-
course of colonial desire.

CONFRONTING EGYPT

Archaeologists, like anthropologists, must accept that they work within

living communities, even if they study their long dead ancestors. There are
exceptions to the rule, such as archaeologist Diana Craig Patch, who has or-
ganized field programs under the auspices of the Supreme Council of Antiq-
uities and the American Research Center in Egypt with funding provided by
USAID to train Egyptian inspectors in current field methodologies (Craig
162 ANNALS NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES

Patch, forthcoming). A team from Southampton working at Quseir, led by

Stephanie Moser and David Peacock, has begun work on community out-
reach and museum programs. These are relatively new initiatives and ones
that provide compelling examples of what archaeologists can and should be
doing in Egypt. In most instances, archaeologists tend to fly in, do their field-
work, pay their local workmen, and leave. We publish our results in scholarly
journals, go to conferences, and sometimes encourage an Egyptian student to
attend our academic institution. We do not usually involve ourselves in out-
reach programs in Egypt, involve local people in our interpretations, or pub-
licize our results locally (in plain English or Arabic). Moreover, we do not
recognize the importance of building museums or training Egyptian people
in conservation or heritage management: nor do we expect to learn from the
Egyptians and their unique experience. We then complain that they are igno-
rant, uneducated, and uninterested in Egyptian heritage. This common asser-
tion, made by many people within the discipline, makes conducting research
in Egypt and work in general less arduous and complicated. It excuses us
from the dialogue.
In 1998 and 1999 I co-directed a survey project in the Saqqara area and
subsequently learned more about interrelationships between archaeologists
and the local community than I did about settlement patterns in pharaonic
times. As I had expected, these agricultural workers did not want us travers-
ing their fields: they were frightened and often confrontational about archae-
ologists’ and the Antiquities Service’s taking away their land. And they often
constructed elaborate narratives to explain that the topsoil came from Mem-
phis, for instance, and so finding objects there only pointed to sites further
east from Saqqara, conveniently away from their fields. We cannot blame
them. Waving a piece of paper signed by a government official is perhaps the
best way to alienate a group of farmers, and archaeology has subsequently
achieved a poor reputation in this area. This situation might be remedied if
archaeologists were to make some efforts towards involving people at a com-
munity level, discussing plans and findings, publicizing results in a meaning-
ful manner, and creating education and museum facilities.
In my few days away from Saqqara that year, after a particularly confron-
tational episode with one farmer, I decided to look more closely at the Egyp-
tian urban landscape for some fragments of memorialization to the pharaonic
past. This was not especially hard to find: examples are found in simple do-
mestic decoration, public transport, civic monuments (FIG. 5), aeroplanes,
and in logos of concrete companies, insurance brokers etc. Antiquity is con-
stantly invoked in representations and celebrations of Egypt. Specifically in
the 1920s and 1930s a neo-pharaonic style of architecture blossomed, gener-
ally attributed to ‘Uthman Muharram (Volait 1988:45). This movement uti-
lized the pyramid and pharaonic temple edifices in public buildings around
Cairo. The period also witnessed the nationalistic paintings of Mahmud Sa’id
and the sculptures of Mahmud Mukhtar such as those that adorn the mauso-
 MESKELL: ARCHAEOLOGY IN EGYPT

FIGURE 5. Civic building in the Delta, 1999.

163
164 ANNALS NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES

leum for Sa’d Zaghul, directly inspired by pharaonic style and motifs. Be-
tween 1930 and 1952 other overtures were made to the pharaonic past;
Naguib Mafouz set his first three novels in ancient Egypt, the nationalistic
use of Tutankhamun’s tomb, the creation of the Museum of the Egyptian
Civilisation, and the rewriting of the Egyptian past in school textbooks (Cou-
dougnan 1988, Reid 1997). As Hassan recounts (1998:204), schools are the
dissemination centers for knowledge of the pharaonic past, whereas Islamic
heritage is integral to growing up at home. Many scholars have documented
the movement known as pharaonicism (e.g., Marlowe 1965, Gershoni and
Jankowski 1986, Goldschmidt Jr. 1988, Reid 1997) and its direct invocation
of pharaonic ancestry in both cultural and biological spheres (Meskell, forth-
coming). One has only to consult recent accounts of Egypt’s modern history
to find examples from a variety of spheres that document the complex rela-
tionships between pharaonic Egypt and its modern Arab counterpart.
The pharaonically inspired building program continued in later decades,
yet perhaps on a more informal level. Thus we can document more recent ca-
sual and vernacular constructions away from government-orchestrated pro-
grams. In desert locations outside Cairo I found remarkable buildings
celebrating pharaonic style, mostly warehouses and industrial buildings
(FIG. 6). One example clearly incorporated both pharaonic and Islamic ico-
nographies, patterns one might assume to be mutually exclusive and contra-
dictory. Additionally, there are numerous statues and monuments around
Cairo itself, such as the huge mural dedicated to the Egyptian armed forces
in the suburb of Heliopolis (FIG. 7). This monument is on the main route to
the airport and thus visible to every tourist travelling into Cairo. It is also at
the heart of the Egyptian military complex, headquarters and officer’s clubs,
and near Mubarak’s residential palace, a prime area for national symbols and
iconic resonances linking past and present. This massive mural documents
the glory of an ancient empire and traces it through from pharaonic images of
battle (pharaohs, chariots, archers) to modern images of warfare. The ancient
representation of the Eye of Horus is juxtaposed with the symbol of nuclear
energy. Ancient hieroglyphs and modern Arabic script sit side by side. With
the ancient representation of the Nile as its uniting theme, the prowess of the
Egyptian military is taken through from the Bronze Age to the modern era re-
plete with rocket launchers, tanks, and planes. Pharaonic imagery is thus
foregrounded in this potent locale, which includes nearby free-standing an-
cient monuments of obelisks and royal statues. The mural is also near the
main headquarters of the national airline Egyptair, which employs the image
of the pharaonic falcon deity, Horus. This image is emblazoned everywhere
in this part of Cairo, in statuary, on billboards, and now in neon. Each plane
in Egyptair’s fleet is also named after an ancient Egyptian deity. A cynic
might declare this propagandistic, a way of manipulating the glories of the
past, but I would counter that this use of symbols and signs reinforces a con-
nectivity with the past, allowing the Egyptians the intellect and sophistication
 MESKELL: ARCHAEOLOGY IN EGYPT

FIGURE 6. Warehouse in the western desert, near Cairo, 1999.

165
 166

FIGURE 7. Mural celebrating Egyptian military history, Heliopolis, Cairo, 2000.

ANNALS NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES
MESKELL: ARCHAEOLOGY IN EGYPT 167

to deploy the past on the basis of national pride, much as the Greeks or Turks
might (Hamilakis 1996, Hamalakis and Yalouri 1996, papers in Meskell
1998). In an interesting parallel, the modern Greek people are often portrayed
as inherently different and separated from their past, just as modern Egyp-
tians are, but through different processes, such as ethnic mixing and
enculturation.
Clearly there is no single, monolithic ideological relationship between the
modern Egyptian state, the people of Egypt, and their pharaonic past. Some
sectors of the community undoubtedly feel proud and connected to their an-
cient heritage; government and tourist-related industries will seek to stress
links to antiquity; others may recognize the importance and treasures of the
past, but might not feel any specific lineage; while still others may simply en-
joy picnicking amongst the ruins on holidays along with hundreds of their fel-
low countrymen. Pharaonicism may have declined since the 1930s, but there
have been other engagements between modern and ancient Egypt, at both na-
tional and popular levels and through different social spheres. Recently, Lila
Abu-Lughod has documented the ways in which relations with the pharaonic
past, archaeology, and archaeologists have been encoded in popular culture,
namely the ever-popular television soap operas (1998). In her work on the TV
series Dream of the Southerner, she shows how an educated local teacher, a
self-taught Egyptologist, struggles with a tomb-robber over the rightful place
of antiquities in Egypt. In the serial, the local Egyptian archaeologist is por-
trayed heroically, as someone who recognizes the national importance of an-
cient treasures. The tomb-robber on the other hand, works with foreign
collectors and one of his cronies actually sets an Islamist group against the
Egyptologist. This scenario reinforces the government-sanctioned view
through an extremely popular medium of representation. The popularity and
long-standing appeal of such themes suggests a concerted message that is of
interest to various groups. This impels us to rewrite our old narratives about
the lack of connectivity between past and present and to recognize the colo-
nialist substrate that inheres in such assertions. The colonialist endeavor was
activated by numerous desires and needs; it took hold in a variety of forms;
and colonialist formations survive and are reactivated today in a multitude of
ways (Jacobs 1996:17).
Most of us either visit Egypt or practice Egyptian archaeology as if we still
inhabited an ancient landscape, ignoring the living people and their tradi-
tions. There are exceptions, but they remain somewhat unique in the wider
sphere of practice in Egypt. Archaeologists must become more politicized,
certainly more “theorized” about the activities and their implications and
more active in their negotiations in a fuller global setting—and that includes
the local level. Only when this level of involvement is achieved can we truly
enter discussions about responsibility and ethics and make our proper contri-
bution to the social sciences and, more importantly, to the people of Egypt.
168 ANNALS NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

A version of this paper was presented for the presidential panel on politics
at the Archaeological Institute of America meetings in December 1999. It
represents preliminary work in an ongoing project. The current version owes
much to subsequent discussions with a number of colleagues: Lila Abu-
Lughod, Zainab Bahrani, Emma Blake, James Conlon, Ian Hodder, Elizabeth
Smith and Tim Mitchell. Their support and encouragement in this new en-
deavour are greatly appreciated.

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NOTES

1. Quoted from Emad Mekay in the Middle East Times (http://metimes.com/

issue30/eg/4luxor.htm).
2. From CNN interactive news (http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/9709/18/egypt.
attack.730/index.html)