Niebuhr in Egypt

A riveting account of one of Europe’s earliest scientific explorations of Egypt, as conducted by Carsten Niebuhr in 1761-62, showing how his attention to detail and freedom from scriptural bias helped lay the foundations of Egyptology.

When Roger H. Guichard Jr. discovered a French translation of the works of Carsten Niebuhr, sole survivor of the 1761-1767 Royal Danish Expedition to the Yemen, he was astounded. ‘They were not just another dry account of one man’s travels, but represented the record of a serious intellectual enterprise involving Enlightenment science, sacred philology, the Bible as history, ‘Orientalism’, Egyptology, and discovery’. Having translated them from French to English, and then cross-referenced his translations with the original German texts, ‘Niebuhr in Egypt’ is not, as one might expect, simply a presentation of his translation. Instead Guichard offers his readers an account of the expedition’s year in Egypt, with lengthy excursions into the several subplots- Enlightenment science, the Bible as history, and Egyptology – that he found so engaging in the original works. This is not a scholarly work but would appeal to anyone with an interest in any of the areas mentioned or simply to anyone interested in this country’s past and present.

• By (author) Roger H Guichard

"The book gives an accessible insight into the condition of Egypt in the 1760's, still nominally part of the Ottoman Empire, and before the arrival of Napoleon in 1798 and the opening up of the country in the nineteenth century. The author is careful to explain the findings of the team in a variety of fields including biblical and classical studies, history, geography and science."Michael Tunnicliffe, Ancient Egypt, vol 15, No. 3, issue 87, Dec 2014/Jan 2015" Guichard highlights Castern Niebuhr's observations and achievements, valuable in themselves and as stepping stones upon which subsequent scholars and travelers were to tread, while offering those interested in the exploration of the middle east an episode heretofore not emphasized."Caroline Williams, in "The Association for the Study of Travel in Egypt and the Near East Bulletin", issue 62, winter 2014-15"Roger H. Guichard Jr.'s book adopts a novel perspective, examining in greater detail than previous authors the year during which the expedition was delayed in Cairo. It is thus a study in the history of ideas, touching on issues relevant to the relationship of philology and other areas of inquiry in early-modern Europe. Guichard's book is in large part paraphrase of Niebuhr's Reiseschreibung along with well-informed elaboration on subject after subject broached by Niebuhr, punctuated with citations. Guichard makes a strong case not only for the importance of Niebuhr and his unique perspective for our knowlwdge of pre-napoleonic Cairo, but also for the man's unassuming competence and admirable accomplishment in realizing the potential of an expedition that, at least in the eyes of its sponsors in Copenhagen, "was bound to fail" (294)".Robert Lamberton, in "Bryn Mawr Classical Review", 2015"Guichard aims at a contextualization of Niebuhr's text, drawing on a variety of sources, including Egyptologists such as Wallis Budge and Flinders Petrie. Pivotal to Guichard is Egypt's role in the Biblical narrative - a context which was also to be found in the expedition's scientific questionnaire, as it was formulated by the German professor Johann David Michaelis in Gottingen [...] With Niebuhr in Egypt, Guichard offers an insight to the 'Egyptian leg' of the expedition's itinerary. It draws a picture of Egypt in the 1760s seen through the traveler's eye, and Niebuhr is known to be an interesting case of both solid reasoning and rare open-mindedness." -- Anne Haslund Hansen, Chronique d'Egypte XC, 2015
—