Travels in Upper and Lower Egypt

by Vivant Denon

Overview

A book is more interesting in its subject, or more satisfactory in its execution, is seldom issued from the press. The country of which it treats, and the circumstances which it was produced, equal each other in singularity.

So writes the translator of this work, first published in English in 1802, and here republished in facsimile, complete with maps and original engravings, in two volumes.

Baron Dominique Vivant Denon (1747-1825), French illustrator and government official, accompanied Napoleon on his Egyptian campaign in 1798. His journal combines an extraordinary account of military endeavor, with a survey of the country and its people as seen through the eyes of a keen and sensitive observer. The resultant work, enhanced with numerous illustrations by the author, holds a unique place in both European and Arabic historical studies.

The author later became director general of French museums, and was the first administrator to organize collections in the Louvre. The republication of his work will be widely welcomed.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781850770985
Publisher:	Darf Publishers Ltd.
Publication date:	10/28/1986
Series:	Travels in Egypt , #1
Edition description:	Revised ed.
Pages:	346
Product dimensions:	5.51(w) x 8.66(h) x (d)

Read an Excerpt

PLATE LIX. Reprefents two the Compartments of a Zodiac, taken from the two oppofite pfct bands of the Portico of the Temple of Ten- tyra. The two large figures which embrace the whole appear to reprefent the year. The winged emblem which is before their mouth is eternity, or elfe the paffage of the fun to the .folftices; the difk at the joining of the thighs of the figure, No. 1, is the fun, whence proceeds a beam of light that falls xm the head of Ifis, which reprefents either the earth or the moon ; the fun, fituated in the figri of pancer, may perhaps Ihew the period of the erection of the. temple; the figures joined to the figns, may mean th fixed ftars, and thofe in the boats, the revolving heavenly bodies, the planets and comets. The more the importance of thefe figures ftrikes me, and the more I feel defirous .of leaving them to the learned men who hava a titlea title to them, my obfervations fhould be chiefly confined to pointing out fmall local circumftances, indicating diftant refem- b/lances, and thus encreafing the intereft attached to thefe curious fubjeds. Thefe large plat-bands are both fculptured and painted ; the characters are reprefented of their natural colour, on a blue ground, ftudded with yellow ftars : I have only copied thofe that are in relief, the others being in vaft numbers, and moft of them rendered indiftinguifhable by the ravages of time. The infcriptions are exaft: I have marked by fmall arrows the parts where the ruined ftate of the original has prevented me from diftinguifhing the figures ; many in th fecond compartment have been deftroyed by the fall of a great heap of ftones. PLATEPLATE LX. Fig. 1. Two winged Horfes, fculptured on thethird platband of the ceiling of the portico of the great Temple at Tentyra. It is the only t...