From Aswan to Cairo: Projections of an Egyptology Downstream of Time

This text discusses how Egypt has organised itself to produce an Egyptology made by native archaeologists, seeking to escape the caricature that television programmes have helped to propagate. It shows how, since the relocation of the giant temples from the banks of the Nile in the early 2000s, a new Egyptology carried out by Egyptian archaeologists and financed by a Ministry of Antiquities keen to regain command of a science tutored for more than two centuries by European academia, has changed the way ancient Egypt is studied. Oscillating between great visibility and controversial polemics, the text shows the quest by Egyptian archaeologists to strengthen indigenous archaeology, without underestimating international cooperation, seeking to overcome the reputation of being a scenographic laboratory and producer of false histories. However, an exoteric pseudo-Egyptology has acted to popularise its communication through a rather controversial bias.