Contacts

Ancient Egypt Magazine

Issue Four - November / December 2000

Editor's Column

The latest craze is knocking television while, presumably, watching it avidly.  David Aaronovitch was a recent comment­ator on the decline of TV in the Independent on Sunday, quoting an experienced executive to prove that we really were in the terminal stages of the dumbing down process. As it was in the beginning, so it is now, and ever shall be - there was the subject of ancient Egypt, right in the line of fire.  

"Karl Sabbagh said he was throwing in the towel," wrote Aaronovitch. "'It's clear,' said Sabbagh, 'that the market for serious well-produced documentaries has dried up. Unless producers are prepared to feed the appetite of commissioning editors for yet more programmes on mummies, extremes of weather, violent crimes, sex organs or crank theories about ancient Egypt, they might as well shut up shop.'"

I'm about to start writing it now: the first sex-crime murder mystery series involving an ancient Egyptian meteorologist who looks for evidence of aliens around the pyramids in his (or her) spare time.  (I thought of some suitable titles but they were just not clean enough to print here.) I might as well get in there first - it's obviously just a question of time.

History is constantly plundered. The past is just an enormous dressing up box into which each new generation dips, to come out with ever more bizarre combinations. I don't think that there's anything new in this.  What is the past, and what is truth?

Some would argue that as we learn more about the cosmos, and ourselves, we are in a better condition to interpret history. The example that springs to mind as I write now is the theory given, fairly recently, that Homer's description of the sea as "wine-dark" indicated - if I remember this correctly, another problem of history - that the ancient Greeks of this period saw colours differently to ourselves. To them, the colour of the sea and wine were indistinguishable. Perhaps Homer was colour blind. Who was Homer, anyway? An individual, a collective, a woman, a pseudonym? All those theories have been put forward at one time or another.

It could be argued that Shakespeare "plundered" Egyptian history for his story of Antony and Cleopatra.  Now, we discuss the merits or otherwise, of choosing a black actor to play a medieval King of England, or a woman to play Hamlet. These are characters in a play. It must be possible for a good actor to play any role, surely, otherwise he or she is not a good actor!

At the end of the 20th century – or the start of the 21st century, however we care to look at it - issues of individual and national identification are still to the fore. How do we identify ourselves? With what group do we associate? Is nationalism inevitably bad? How is an identifiable culture to be maintained without assuming superiority over another?

I would suggest that the way to take pride in one's origins without assuming superiority is to share them with others: to take an inclusive, welcoming view that is so proud of local and regional traditions that it wants to extend them. In other words, the good, old-fashioned hospitality that so many cultures hold up as an example. I've been lucky enough to sample this in numerous places, some of them extremely unlikely.  And yes, Egypt is a very willing, if sometimes bemused, host to our occasionally fanciful interpretations of its history. I suppose that's all part of sharing.

As the party season in the west approaches there'll be more than one person who nostalgically digs out the galibeyah bought on the last trip to Egypt to don it for a fancy dress party. There'll be a few Cleopatras and Tutankhamuns boogying away at AGM's and New Year celebrations. All over the world people will sing "For auld lang syne" as the bells chime out the midnight hour - the work of local hero Rabbie Burns from the part of the world in which I live. And let's remember some more of his fine words: wherever he may come from, whatever his origins, whatever his beliefs and thoughts and ideas - "A man's a man for a' that!

 Miriam  A Bibby

Return to Home 

e- mail to: [email protected]

with questions or comments about Ancient Egypt Magazine.

or for sales, subscriptions, back numbers and advertising