All are welcome to join us for our Christmas party lecture
7.30 pm Monday 16th December
Come and join us live online for a little bit of festive fun and Egyptological silliness alongside our free Christmas lecture with Hilary Wilson.
If you arrive wearing an Egyptian themed head-dress then we will add your name into our prize draw for a chance to win a free Kemet course for 2025! The room will open at 7, and the lecture will start at 7.30.
So sign up today (via the instructions below) grab a minced pie (or two) and settle back to enjoy!
It is easy to forget that, in the not-so-distant past, travel to Egypt was only for the wealthy, many of whom had no interest in the country’s history, and the study of Egyptology was a very new academic discipline. By the Edwardian era, Egypt had become a preferred winter resort for Western tourists. The pocket guide-book ‘Egypt and How to See It’, written and illustrated by British watercolourist Augustus Osborne Lamplough, was first issued in October 1907, providing a wealth of tourist information about hotels, transport and leisure facilities, as well as suggestions for excursions to historic sites, although Lamplough insisted that his book should not be considered ‘an infallible…reference to archaeologists’.
The guide was revised and updated for each of the next four years at least. It is illustrated with Lamplough’s own atmospheric and somewhat impressionistic watercolours, mostly Nile views, and his few paintings of ancient remains give very little information of interest to the Egyptologist. However, his descriptions of sites are, in themselves, historical records of the appearance and condition of Egyptian monuments in the years leading up to WW1. In remarking on their significance and purpose, speculating on their age and the motives of their builders, he also provides insight into the state of Egyptology at that time, and his commentary is indicative of contemporary Western attitudes towards the Egyptian people, both ancient and modern.
For my talk, based on the 1911-12 edition, I have selected a few of the monuments described by Lamplough to give a snapshot of Egyptology at the beginning of the 20th Century. By looking at the results of some of the archaeological work carried out in the years before the book’s publication, I shall compare what Lamplough described for his readers with what tourists can see today.
Hilary Wilson is a retired teacher of Mathematics who, for many years, also taught Adult Education classes in Egyptology for the University of Southampton and undergraduate courses in Archaeology and the History of Maths for the Open University. As Setkemet,‘The Egyptian Lady’, she presented Egyptian workshops for primary school children, encouraging the Egyptologists of the future. She has published four books on Egyptian topics for the popular market and has contributed articles to every edition of Ancient Egypt Magazine since 2004. Founder Chair of the Southampton Ancient Egypt Society, Hilary has presented talks to various AE societies, both in person and in the Zoomiverse. She gained her MA in Egyptology from the University of Manchester in 2022 – better late than never!
How to register for the party...
PLEASE READ THIS NOTICE: This is a free lecture, but you need to register to join us. Simply add this product to your basket and go through the checkout process as normal. If you haven’t joined us before, this is where you will be asked to create a username and password so that you can login. The link to the party will be emailed to you automatically as soon as your register. Look out for this email and SAVE it somewhere safe. There is no classroom associated with the party which means that it WILL NOT appear under your other courses. The party is a live only event, it will not be recorded. The room will open at 7pm and the lecture will start at 7.30.