A Web Site devoted to the people

Who Travelled
the Unknown

“I will now turn to Egypt, because this country possesses many marvellous things and monuments which surpass all description and comparison with those of any other place…”
(Herodotus, Histories, II, 37.)

“I met a Traveller from an antique land…”
(P.B. Shelley, 'Ozymandias', 1818)

Egypt has been a destination for travellers since time immemorial.
Physical evidence of this is inscribed on the timeless stones of Giza and the Valley of the Kings. From as far back as 1200 BC, right through to the last century, travellers wrote their names on the monuments in Egypt they reached after many adventures and difficulties. The graffiti they left marks their passage.

These pages are dedicated to them, the most disparate of travellers into the unknown.

The reasons why people travelled to Egypt are a function of their historical period: exploration, learning, cartography, military purposes, commerce and evangelisation.
In time the relationship between travellers and Egyptians changed from respect to abuse. And in time Egypt changed too.

There are various areas in this website. The main department is devoted to travellers, their lives and their experiences. No less interesting is the department containing extracts from their fascinating travel accounts. Also available are detailed discussions, images of the period and useful information about locating old and new volumes on and by travellers. Plus news about exhibitions and events, links to other web resources and your feedback. So don’t hesitate to share your work, opinions and queries with us.

This site examines an approach to travel which changes over time. The first visitors had the fortune of coming into direct contact with the Egyptian civilisation, without it being mediated by documents from the past, resulting in a very different experience from that of all the travellers who followed. Massive documents like the pyramids, or fragile ones like the papyrus scrolls, the survivors of a civilisation which time has covered with an increasingly close-woven veil of oblivion and mystery.

The evocative power of mystery has always fed the curiosity of travellers, who often ended up associating accurate observations with clamorous mistakes, and serious studies (economic, historical, geographical, ethnographical) with romantic and imaginative diversions.

They came to know about Egypt directly from Mediterranean merchants and navigators, Greeks and Phoenicians. One of these men of learning, midway through the V century AC, was Herodotus from Halicarnassus, who provides us with some useful information on how the pyramids were built, as well as fallacious assertions about the multitude of slaves employed in their construction, a belief which continues to have credence today.

The travellers who visited Egypt after him were the great conquerors: Alessandro Magno first, followed by the Roman emperors. However, the end of political independence didn’t cause the Egyptian culture to loose its identity.

The first episode of “Egypt-mania” was a product of the Roman culture. Artists and architects saw it as a source of inspiration, while the Roman emperors brought obelisks and other… souvenirs back to the capital! The cult of the goddess Iside was adopted.

The Egyptian language, culture and religion also survived the tragic fire which destroyed the library of Alessandria in 47 BC. But with the edict of Costantine, which proclaimed Christianity as the official religion of the empire, in 313 AC the ancient Egyptian culture disappeared into oblivion. This was followed by a long period under Muslim influence, followed by the crusaders, who travelled through Egypt on their way to the Holy Land

Paradoxically, the way to the Holy Land through Egypt was not opened up after the Crusades. With commercial aplomb, the Muslim sultans offered resistance, often in order to increase the taxes they levied on pilgrims passing through.

For centuries, apart from the occasional sporadic pilgrim or merchant, Egypt remained in oblivion. The mythical status attributed to its culture, with the pyramids becoming “Granaries of Joseph” and the mummies – in powder form – portentous medicines, was gradually overlaid with antiquarian, archaeological and ethnographic interest. Until the XVIII century, when interest blossomed again, to explode definitively into a fully fledged re-discovery after the Napoleonic campaign (1798-1801) and the subsequent drafting of La Description de l’Egypte, a summary of the observations made by the academics who travelled in the entourage of the armed forces.

Through their diplomats (consuls), leading nations encouraged the search for antiquities and in this way the great collections and European museums were born.

Archaeologists became adventurers and vice versa in a romantic atmosphere which affected Belzoni as much as Flaubert. Artists like David Roberts (to name just one) travelled with the explorers in search of new inspiration. But also writers like Chateaubriand, Savary or, as we mentioned, Flaubert.

Many people, and not just writers, wrote travel diaries, providing us with a window through which we can see the Egypt of the period through the eyes of a disparate collection of (re)discoverers. While the diaries vary in terms of how factual or creative they are, as well as in terms of their literary prowess, most are both entertaining and fascinating. Some, like Roberts’ collection of drawings, are visual diaries.

This period, from the late XVIII century to the early XX century can be considered the core period for “travel to Egypt” and the main focus of our attention, when journeys were often journeys of the soul.

The discovery of the Rosetta stone, which enabled Champollion (1822) to decipher the hieroglyphics, provided the groundwork for a more scientific approach to the newly established subject of Egyptology.

By the end of the XIX century most of Egypt’s treasures had been discovered and the romantic spirits who visited the country afterwards reveal a distinct form of proto-tourism, visiting the same attractions as tourists today (difficulties and time required apart).

But now it’s time for our own journey.
A journey through journeys, to discover both the traveller and the destination.

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