Victorian Egyptomania

The desecration of Egyptian culture

The Victorian Era was subject to many strange practices. From their regular intake of arsenic to taking family photos with dead relatives’ corpses. Gross right? Though, amongst their most detrimental and strange obsessions was that of the Egyptomania period. Desecrating Egypt’s culture was only the beginning, soon they would be able to do this from the comfort of their own homes.

Eroupe’s fascination with Egypt began with Napoleon Boniparte’s invasion of Egypt.

On July 1st, 1798, Napoleon Bonaparte and his French regime invaded Egypt. After nearly completely wiping out the Mamluk rulers, Napoleon and his army were free to collect ancient artifacts, essential to the history of Egypt. Finders keepers?

Amongst the artifacts found, was the infamous Rosetta stone. The Rosetta stone harbored the key essential for decoding Egyptian Hieroglyphics. A language that had been dead for nearly 2,000 years. Once returned to Europe, a spark of interest was ignited throughout the nation; a light that would burn for quite some time.

Things are about to get weird…

Once Victorians caught wind of some of the fascination, it wasn’t long before people began traveling to Egypt to get in on some of the action. This would often lead to Mummy’s being extracted from their designated place of resting and shipped back to Europe. The result? Mummy unraveling parties. The Victorian’s fascination with mummies was not for scholarly interest, one would say it was more of intrigue for the macabre and consumptive power.

It was widely believed that Mummy carcass’s carried bitumen, a substance the medical community believed contained healing properties. This of course was eventually forgotten, as a growing belief in the mummy its self being the healer, emerged. Superstitious and enamored, people were eating pieces of mummies in accordance with what they believed it cured. I don't know about you, but ill stick with the science.

Bizarre medical practices were not the only thing we relied on mummies for. “Brown mummy paint” was also extracted from the corpses. If anything, this was definitive proof of the interest for the macabre. What artist wouldn’t want to brag about their undead paint supply?

Time to wrap it up…

Eventually, the Victorian’s obsession with Egypt began to fade. Having been a fascination of theirs for decades, people were getting bored. You've seen one mummy, you've seen them all. After macabre medical practices exhibited nothing but failure time and time again, it was time to wrap the mummy back up. Of course, this begs the question…Was it worth desicration?

My name is Cordell Blundon and I am in my second year of the professional writing program at Algonquin College. I love beer, writing, and old movies.