Antiquity Imagined

Antiquity Imagined: The remarkable legacy of Egypt and the Near East

Outsiders have long attributed to the Middle East, and especially to ancient Egypt, meanings that go way beyond the rational and observable.

The region has been seen as the source of civilization, religion, the sciences and the arts; but also of mystical knowledge and outlandish theories, whether about the Lost City of Atlantis or visits by alien beings.

In his exploration of how its past has been creatively interpreted by later ages, Robin Derricourt surveys the various claims that have been made for Egypt – particularly the idea that it harbours an esoteric wisdom vital to the world’s survival. He looks at ‘alternative’ interpretations of the pyramids, from maps of space and time to landing markers for UFOs; at images of the Egyptian mummy and at the popular mythology of the ‘pharaoh’s curse’; and at imperialist ideas of racial superiority that credited Egypt with spreading innovations and inventions as far as the Americas, Australia and China. Including arcane ideas about the Lost Ten Tribes of biblical Israel, the author enlarges his focus to include the Levant.

His book is the first to show in depth how ancient Egypt and the surrounding lands have so continuously and seductively tantalised the Western imagination.

I.B Tauris; 2015; ISBN: 9781784532758

Reviews

Ambitious in scope, Antiquity Imagined provides readers with a broad survey of some of the ways in which ancient Egypt has been configured outside the realms of scholarly investigation … Designed for a wide audience, this book seeks to sketch out some of the prevailing frameworks for making sense of the vast legacy of ‘mysterious’ Egypt … The value of Antiquity Imagined lies in the way it brings together such a vast array of imaginative ‘reworkings’ of ancient Egypt in a single volume. … With this account, readers are able to get a sense of how varied, complex and intense the engagement with ancient Egypt has been over the centuries. Another positive attribute of the work is the balanced way in which the author treats his succession of case studies. Professor Stephanie Moser, Antiquity

In this scholarly account, Robin Derricourt analyses the ways in which the civilisations of Egypt and the Near East have been creatively interpreted to support latter-day interests. He ponders the paradox that, as greater knowledge of ancient Egypt grew, so too did the stimulus to create alternative interpretations. … This is a well argued, well written book; the narrative of the Holy Land chapter is particularly notable for its scholastic elegance and insights. In the end, the moral is that in the popular imagination a strongly believed alternative easily takes precedence over measurable fact. It may strain credulity, but the largest mystery in the study of ancient Egypt is why people have continued to create fanciful pasts for a period and place that has been so well documented. – History Today

Modern reception of the ancient world is a thriving field of cultural study, and Derricourt (Univ. of New South Wales, Australia) has written a wonderful addition to the genre. Rare is the book that combines superb scholarship with accessible prose; Derricourt delivers both. His credentials in archaeology and history and his editorial expertise shine in this sometimes quirky, always compelling story … Choice (American Library Association)

No age or place has attracted so many errors, weird ideas and illusions as the ancient Eastern Mediterranean, because no book has exerted such influence as the Bible. Antiquity Imagined is a history of bad history: the faulty theories, discarded narrative and superannuated chronologies that have attached themselves to Ancient Egypt and the Holy Land. Robin Derricourt does not spend his spare time mapping crop circles, or searching for lost civilisations beneath the Antarctic ice. He is a scholar, a professor of archaeology at the University of New South Wales, and the author of respected tomes on sub-Saharan Africa. Here, he performs two vital services. The first is wading into the Augean stable of ‘alternative history’ – ‘alternative’ in the way that fantasy is the alternative to fact – and cleaning up the mess, by putting the false starts and wrong turns into historical order. The second is to force us to acknowledge the implications of playing fast and loose with the ‘imagined past’. … In Antiquity Imagined, Derricourt expertly excavates the rubbish of bad history and restores the fragments to pristine falsity – a remarkable labour, and a fascinating story. – Minerva

This book gives a greater flavour of its (many and varied) subjects in overview than many specialist studies accomplish in detail. Derricourt sets out to examine the means by which “hoped-for” ancient worlds are created in popular media (such as non-fiction, fiction and film) – and scholarship … The book covers an impressive sweep of often well-trodden ground but manages to uncover some less well- known nuggets and bring the whole discussion meaningfully together … Studies of the “reception” of the ancient world are in vogue at the moment, and this chronology of “imaginings” of Antiquity is an important study in its own right. – Ancient Egypt Magazine.

Knowledge is the ultimate addiction. What we cannot find in the directly observable world, we invent. With patience and erudition Robin Derricourt explores a prominent field of alternative knowledge, ‘the remarkable legacy of Egypt and the ancient Near East’, where theories proliferate which mainstream researchers either reject or ignore. Pyramid theorists, Egypt as part of a pan-African black civilisation, the search for the ten lost tribes of Israel: the author’s range is remarkable. His book is both fascinating and entertaining. It is also worrying, for as science and scholarship advance so too does the amount of delusional knowledge increase. This is a study above all about the fragility of truth, and how democratic interest can at times be its most serious enemy. Barry Kemp, Professor Emeritus of Egyptology, University of Cambridge

Wonderfully wide-ranging in space and time, Robin Derricourt’s Antiquity Imagined authoritatively shows how ancient history has been created and recreated by successive generations to fit their own – or their desired – image of what such history signifies. It is an engaging and bewitching journey through a fascinating landscape of imagined pasts. Graeme Barker, Disney Professor of Archaeology Emeritus, University of Cambridge