EGYPTIAN
often gross mis-match between ‘skeletal ages’ and recorded ages of well-identified individuals of the eighteenth-nineteenth centuries in the crypt of Spitalfields Church in London). Also, King Ramesses-Siptah is confidently stated to be identical with Prince Ramesses-Siptah, son of the apparently Canaanite Queen Shoteraya, with fundamental consequences for explaining King Siptah’s exclusion from listings of kings. This is, however, by no means certain, with much to be said for the prince being a son of Ramesses II and nothing to do with the later king of the name. King Siptah’s deformed foot is, as usual, attributed to poliomyelitis, without considering that such a deformity is much more commonly a result of cerebral palsy caused by birth trauma. On the other hand, Dr Callendar provides an excellent overview of the themes and most key monuments relevant to the construction of the career of Tawosret and the other key figures of the period. Some of Tawosret’s major monuments are then discussed in a chapter by Catherine Roehrig that, while fine as a stand-alone piece, illustrates some of the problems of a ‘package’ history book. First, it includes an introductory section that effectively repeats the thrust of the two preceding chapters and, second, it overlaps significantly with both Dr Callender’s chapter and the succeeding one in its coverage of a number of monuments and objects. One cannot help but wonder whether tighter editorial briefing or liaison between the contributors could not have been managed to produce more of a unified account, rather than what is in fact a selection of stand-alone essays. Hartwig Altenmüller’s chapter summarises what is known of Tawosret’s tomb, KV14 in the Valley of the Kings. This includes a detailed discussion of the complex history of both the construction and decoration of the tomb, successively as that of a queen, a regent, a female king, and finally the usurped restingplace of a king (Sethnakhte). The final chapter provides us with Richard Wilkinson’s summary of work to date on Tawosret’s memorial temple at Western Thebes. Long regarded, since Petrie’s work in 1896 (which has since proved to have been perfunctory in the extreme), as never having progressed beyond mere foundations, it has now been shown to have moved significantly towards completion. One wonders, however, given that the foundation blocks are dated to Tawosret’s 8th (and probably final) year and that no temple of Sethnakhte is known, whether much of the construction might actually have been carried out during Sethnakhte’s reign (as Dr Wilkinson appears at one point to hint). While no definite trace of his name survives, that of Tawosret is known only from foundation deposits, and any trace of this putative Sethnakhte phase would have been lost in the utter destruction of the walls and ceilings of the temple. Although this book has its flaws, it is nevertheless gratifying to see an individual such as Tawosret meriting a book-length treatment. Reign-specific studies are something that continue to be needed in Egyptian history and this is a useful addition to a still-scarce, albeit growing, corpus. AIDAN DODSON
ARCHAEOLOGY
Jeffrey Abt, American Egyptologist: The Life of James Henry Breasted and the Creation of His Oriental Institute. University of Chicago Press, 2011 (ISBN 978 0 2260 0110 4). Price $45. American Egyptologist is an appropriate title for a book about the individual who was at the very foundation of American Egyptology and who did more than any other person to construct its edifice. According to Who Was Who in Egyptology, James H. Breasted was ‘the real founder of Egyptology in the New World’. Breasted’s only American peer, and to some extent his rival, was George A Reisner; and Reisner, though the pre-eminent American archaeologist of his generation, never exerted the powerful influence across the entire field of Egyptology that Breasted wielded. One cannot understand the development of Egyptology in the United States, and indeed in the world, without understanding Breasted. Breasted’s life also makes for a very good American success story. From fairly modest beginnings he rose from drugstore clerk to one of the most famous scholars in the United States, a true celebrity, one whose reputation sometimes loomed larger than life. It is a staple of Egyptological legend how William Rainey Harper, the new president of the University of Chicago, grasped the young man by his lapels and said, ‘Breasted, if you will go to Germany and get the best possible scientific equipment, no matter if it takes you five years, I will give you the professorship of Egyptian in the new University of Chicago!’ As Jeffrey Abt points out, Harper was actually a bit more restrained than that, but the end result of Abt’s meticulous scholarship and lucid presentation - even while exposing some of the myths and exploring the flaws as well as the virtues of a complex, driven man - is to enhance rather than diminish Breasted’s stature. Breasted did indeed go to Berlin, where he studied under the great Adolf Erman and became lifelong friends with such future Egyptological luminaries as Kurt Sethe. Besides the superb training he received in Germany, and the éclat of a prestigious degree, Breasted’s years at Berlin provided the confidence that he could hold his own 43
with the best in the world. Following his graduation, a wedding trip to Egypt became another defining moment by stimulating his incipient inclination for epigraphy. He devoted every available moment to inscriptions. One night in the hypostyle hall at Karnak, he wrote, ‘I copied by moonlight. The silver light streamed down through the broken roof of the vast colonnaded hall, splashing with bright patches the dusky outlines of the enormous columns . . .’ Even in those enchanting moments, however, he noticed that some of the transcriptions he had previously used were inaccurate, and he was appalled to see how much was being destroyed. As Abt observes, this ‘impressed on him the value of accurately recording such sources before they were permanently lost to vandalism or natural erosion’. When he assumed his professorial duties at the University of Chicago, Breasted pondered the possibilities the inscriptions offered as texts for historical work. After his experiences in Germany, one would have reasonably expected him to devote his career to philology, to the study of the ancient language, and to become a sort of American Kurt Sethe. Instead, Breasted took a highly original turn and became a foremost historian of ancient Egypt. His masterpiece in that regard was A History of Egypt from Earliest Times to the Persian Conquest, first published in 1905 and often reprinted. Though designed to appeal to a wide readership, Breasted’s History of Egypt maintained the highest scholarly standards. Finding that available secondary works were filled with errors, he resolved to take ‘nothing second hand from any middleman’ and to ‘write a history based on the original monuments’. He also intended to write ‘a readable narrative of good literary form’. The result was a great success. It continued to be read seriously for decades and can still be perused with pleasure and benefit. As an exercise in general pharaonic history, it remains unequalled. Not that Breasted neglected philology. His Ancient Records of Egypt, published in five volumes in 1906-07, has been accurately assessed as representing ‘the pinnacle of Egyptological achievement and the highest standard of philological research’. More than a century after its publication, Ancient Records is still consulted. Nor did Breasted’s philological skills decline over time, as was demonstrated in 1930 with publication of The Edwin Smith Surgical Papyrus, a masterly treatment of a document dating from c.1600 BC, but almost certainly based on a text from the Old Kingdom, perhaps a thousand years earlier. It was an exceedingly formidable undertaking that kept Breasted busy for a decade, culminating in an achievement that, according to Abt, ‘reflects not only the breadth of his knowledge in ancient Egyptian language and history but his awareness of the study’s potential meaning for a world of scholarship outside Egyptology as well’. An incomplete bibliography of Breasted’s publications runs to nearly 100 entries, many of which had great impact that was not limited to specialist scholars. Breasted was a relentless academic