Ancient Egypt - A Very Short Introduction

In the temple of the goddess Isis on the island of Philae, a few miles to
the south of the city of Aswan, one wall bears a brief hieroglyphic
inscription. Its significance is not in its content or meaning but purely
its date – it was written on 24 August ad 394, and as far as we know it
was the last time that the hieroglyphic script was used. The language of
ancient Egypt survived considerably longer (Philae temple also contains
the last graffiti in the more cursive ‘demotic’ script, dating to 2
December ad 452), and in a sense it still exists in fossilized form in the
liturgical texts of the modern Coptic church. Nevertheless, it was
around the end of the 4th century ad that the knowledge and use of
hieroglyphs effectively vanished, and until the decipherment of
hieroglyphs by Jean-François Champollion in 1822, the written world of
the Egyptians was unknown, and scholars were almost entirely reliant
on the accounts left by Greek and Roman authors, or the sections of the
Bible story in which Egypt features. Classical and biblical images of
Egypt therefore dominated the emerging subject of Egyptology until
almost the end of the 19th century.
More than 180 years after Champollion’s breakthrough, the study of
ancient Egypt has influenced and permeated a vast number of
contemporary issues, from linguistics and ‘Afrocentrism’, to religious
cults and bizarre theories involving extraterrestrials. This book
combines discussion of the archaeological and historical study of
ancient Egypt with appraisal of the impact of Egypt – and its many
icons – on past and present Western society and thought. It is intended
both to give the reader a sense of some of the crucial issues that
dominate the modern study of ancient Egypt, and also to attempt to
discuss some of the reasons why the culture of the Egyptians is still so
appealing and fascinating to us.