A Thousand Miles Up the Nile

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They loved the things of this life, and would fain have carried their pursuits and pleasures with them into the land beyond the grave. So they decorated the walls of their tombs with pictures of the way in which their lives were spent, and hoped perhaps that the mummy, dreaming away its long term of solitary waiting, might take comfort in those shadowy reminiscences. The kings, on the contrary, covered every foot of their last palaces with scenes from the life to come. The wanderings of the soul after its separation from the body, the terrors and dangers that beset it during its journey through Hades, the demons it must fight, the accusers to whom it must answer, the transformations it must undergo, afforded subjects for endless illustration. Of the fishing and fowling and feasting and junketing that we saw the other day in those terraces behind the Ramesseum, we discover no trace in the tombs of Bab-el-Molûk. In place of singing and lute-playing, we find here prayers and invocations; for the pleasant Nile-boat, and the water-parties, and the chase of the gazelle and the ibex, we now have the bark of Charon, and the basin of purgatorial fire, and the strife with the infernal deities. The contrast is sharp and strange. It is as if an Epicurean aristocracy had been ruled by a line of Puritan kings. The tombs of the subjects are Anacreontics. The tombs of their sovereigns are penitential psalms. The inner walls of this great courtyard, and the outer face of the north-east wall, are covered with sculptures outlined, so to say, in intaglio, and relieved in the hollow, so that the forms, though rounded, remain level with the general surface. In these tableaux the old world lives again. Rameses III, his sons and nobles, his armies, his foes, play once more the brief drama of life and death. Great battles are fought; great victories are won; the slain are counted; the captured drag their chains behind the victor's chariot; the king triumphs, is The book has two great strengths. The first is that it describes, often in detail, the archaeological remains as they were in 1873-74; many have been subsequently damaged, destroyed, or relocated (e.g. Philae and Abu Simbel in 1968 because of the Aswan Dam). While written descriptions can become tedious, most of Edwards' are quite vivid. Even when she fails (on the hall of Seti I at Karnak), she is eloquent: A Thousand Miles Up the Nile London: George Routledge and Sons Ltd, 1877 (1st edition) and 1890 (2nd edition, ISBN 0-9819284-2-0) [35]

Amelia Edwards enjoyed travel, spending much time in France and Italy. While in Italy, she would travel with her friend Lucy Renshaw. She is simply referred to as “L” in Edwards’ diaries. 3 This is unusual, yet bold for women during the 19th century when women traveling alone, even if in a pair, was not always socially acceptable. Yet, Amelia and Lucy did not let this stop them. The two women went on a pioneering journey of the Dolomites, a mountain range in northeastern Italy. According to her book on their journey, Amelia and Lucy set out in June 1872. 4 They traveled via train to Venice. From Venice, they left civilization behind, and headed towards the Dolomites. The Dolomite ranges contained almost no roads, scarce and simple accommodations with little comforts. 5 But Amelia, along with Lucy, were determined, no matter what obstacles or challenges they may have encountered. She wanted to write a detailed book that included all aspects of the area, good and bad, especially those off the beaten path. Her artistic skills came in handy in creating maps along the way. are always conspicuous on the walls. The judgment-scene, and the well-known typical picture of the four races of mankind, are continually reproduced. Some tombs, 35 however, vary both in plan and decoration. That ofwillingly have added a double pipe or a cocoa-nut fiddle 1 to the strength of the band, but none of our This is the most important of my books, and the one by which I most hope to be remembered – if I may hope to be remembered at all!

Stephanie Boonstra discusses the EES’ archive project that saw the rehousing and preservation of over 5000 glass-plate negatives from some of the Society’s earliest excavations in Egypt. Herbert, Kari (2016). Explorers' Sketchbooks. London: Thames and Hudson. p.100. ISBN 978-0500252192. And there, writing those charming letters that delight the world Lady Duff Gordon lingered through the last few winters of her life. The rooms in which she lived first, and the balcony in which she took such pleasure, were no longer accessible, owing to the ruinous state of one of the staircases; but we saw the rooms she last inhabited. Her couch, her rug, her folding chair were there still. The walls were furnished with a few cheap prints and a pair of tin sconces. All was very bare and comfortless. I am almost ashamed to remember now that we took our luncheon in the shade of that solemn vestibule, and rested and made merry, before going down into the great gloomy sepulchre whose staircases and corridors plunged away into the darkness below, as if they led straight to the land of Amenti.

Early life [ edit ] Bust of Amelia Edwards, Petrie Museum, University College, London Titian's Birthplace, drawn by Amelia Edwards in her book Untrodden Peaks and Unfrequented Valleys. A depiction of a location in Caprile. [3] The party consisted of the Happy Couple, the Director of the Luxor Telegraph Office, L., the Writer, Ahmed, and our host. The author was a bit different for her time, so her take on traveling in Egypt is fascinating. At times she is forward-thinking and other times buys into the thinking of her class at the time. I laughed out loud at a passage where she embraces the then-recent deciphering of hieroglyphics. She compares people who still think they can't be translated to people who think the earth is flat. Go with science is her thought. Brilliant. Would love to know what she would make of modern-day flat-earthers. Much harder to get past was her whole assertion that the British take things for their museums for study and preservation, that the French take things for their museums only for glory, and Arabs just steal things for profit. There's an idea that hasn't aged well. and Rosellini lived and worked together, during part of their long sojourn at Thebes. Rosellini tells how they used to sit up at night, dividing the fruits of the day's labour; To advance the Fund's work, Edwards largely abandoned other writing in favour of Egyptology. She contributed to the 9th edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica, [21] to the American supplement of that and to the Standard Dictionary. In addition, Edwards took on an strenuous lecture tour in the United States in 1889–1890. The lectures later appeared as Pharaohs, Fellahs and Explorers. [22] Death and legacy [ edit ] Upper part, figure of an official of Amenhotep III, from a double statue. From Bubastis (Tell-Basta), Egypt. From the Amelia Edwards Collection. The Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology, London.

a b Benjamin F. Fisher IV (1985). "Amelia B. Edwards". In Bleiler, E. F. (ed.). Supernatural Fiction Writers. New York: Scribner's. pp.255–260. ISBN 0-684-17808-7. Una lectura extensa cargada de descripciones exhaustivas, que puede llegar a resultar pesado, e ilustraciones hechas por la propia autora. Rees, Joan (1995). Women on the Nile: Writings of Harriet Martineau, Florence Nightingale and Amelia Edwards. Rubicon Press. An oratory on so grand a scale would imply an elaborate ceremonial. A dead and deified king would doubtless have his train of priests, his daily liturgies, processions, and sacrifices. All this again implies additional accommodation, and accounts, I venture to think, for any number of extra halls and chambers. Such sculptures as yet remain on the walls of these ruined apartments are, in fact, wholly funereal and sacrificial in character. It is also to be remembered that we have here a journey. He is welcomed by the Gods, ushered into the presence of Osiris, and received into the Abode of the Blest. 29

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Bringing together archives at the EES as well as original artwork by Amelia kept at the Griffith Institute and Somerville College, both University of Oxford, and the Peggy Joy Egyptology Library, this is the first colour version of A Thousand Miles Up the Nile ever produced. After more than 140 years, readers are now able to truly experience Amelia’s famous journey. A new introduction by Dr Carl Graves (EES) and Dr Anna Garnett (UCL) provides context and commentary on Amelia’s original narrative and her legacy for Egyptology today – the essential companion to the book. Striking off by and by towards the left, we make for a point where the mountains recede and run low, and a wedge-like "spit" of sandy desert encroaches upon the plain. On the verge of this spit stands a clump of sycamores and palms. A row of old yellow columns supporting a sculptured architrave gleams through the boughs; a little village nestles close by; and on the desert slope beyond, in the midst of a desolate Arab burial-ground, we see a tiny mosque with one small cupola dazzling white in the sunshine. This is Gournah. There is a spring here, and some girls are drawing water from the well near the Temple. Our donkeys slake their thirst from the cattle-trough — a broken sarcophagus that may once have held the mummy of a king. A creaking sakkieh is at work yonder, turned by a couple of red cows with mild Hathor-like faces.

Edwards' travels in Egypt had made her aware of the increasing threat directed towards the ancient monuments by tourism and modern development. Determined to stem these threats by the force of public awareness and scientific endeavour, Edwards became a tireless public advocate for the research and preservation of the ancient monuments and, in 1882, co-founded the Egypt Exploration Fund (now the Egypt Exploration Society) with Reginald Stuart Poole, curator of the Department of Coins and Medals at the British Museum. Edwards was to serve as joint Honorary Secretary of the Fund until her death some 14 years later. This is a book that I have encountered in quotations and excerpts over the years and always intended to read; now I have. Edwards was an influential figure in nineteenth-century British Egyptology and A Thousand Miles Up the Nile is probably the best known British travel book on Egypt. She wrote less than fifty years after Champollion, a decade before Gordon died at Khartoum; she was acquainted with most of the Egyptologists of her time and was a friend of Flinders Petrie.Edwards' short story "Was It an Illusion?" (1881), about a Schools Inspector who has an unsettling encounter on his visit to the north of England, features in Audible's 2017 Ghostly Tales anthology, narrated by Simon Callow.