Egyptomania: Two Centuries of the World Copying Egypt

There is a specific look that means "ancient and mysterious" in Western visual shorthand — lotus columns, winged discs, sphinxes flanking a doorway, a stepped silhouette. It has been in continuous circulation for two thousand years, and it comes back roughly whenever Egypt is in the news. The revivals are worth knowing about because they shape what visitors expect before they arrive.

Rome Got There First

The Romans did not imitate Egypt so much as take it. After the annexation, obelisks were shipped to Rome and re-erected; the cult of Isis spread through the empire; Egyptian motifs entered Roman decoration. Rome still holds more standing ancient obelisks than Egypt does, which is a fact worth sitting with.

Napoleon Turns It Into a Discipline

The 1798 French expedition brought scholars as well as soldiers, and the multi-volume Description de l'Égypte that followed put accurate images of Egyptian monuments in front of European readers for the first time. Furniture, architecture and interiors absorbed it almost immediately. Champollion's decipherment in 1822 turned fascination into a field.

1869: The Canal

The opening of the Suez Canal made Egypt a fixture of European attention and travel. Verdi's Aida was commissioned in connection with the new Cairo opera house and premiered there in 1871 — an Italian opera about ancient Egypt, staged in modern Egypt, for an audience arriving on the new steamship routes. Organised tourism to Egypt dates from roughly this moment.

1922: The Tomb

Howard Carter opened Tutankhamun's tomb into a world with mass-circulation newspapers and photography, and the result was the largest of all the revivals. Within a few years the motifs were in fashion, jewellery, packaging, and above all architecture — the Egyptian strand of Art Deco runs through cinemas, department stores and apartment buildings across Europe and America, and many of them are still standing.

And Since

• The Treasures of Tutankhamun touring exhibitions of the 1960s and 70s drew enormous crowds and set off a second, smaller wave
• The 1990s brought Egypt back through film and television, with a distinctly supernatural slant that has proved hard to dislodge
• Las Vegas built a black glass pyramid with a beam from its apex, which is either the low point or the logical conclusion
• Museum openings and major exhibitions continue to produce reliable spikes of interest

Why It Matters When You Visit

Most visitors arrive carrying two centuries of accumulated imagery — curses, secret chambers, a general atmosphere of the occult. Almost none of it comes from Egypt. It comes from Rome, from Paris, from Hollywood. The actual sites are stranger and more concrete than the borrowed version: administrative, bureaucratic, obsessed with agriculture and record-keeping. Letting go of the revival is what lets the real thing land.

Egypt is the only ancient culture the modern world keeps redecorating with. That is a compliment of a sort, and it is also why so many first-time visitors are quietly surprised by what is actually there.