Part of Napoleon's expedition to Egypt in 1798, the artist Vivant Denon set out on a tour de force of pyramids and temples in the Nile Valley. We follow in Denon's tracks and experience the wonders of Ancient Egypt.

Background to Vivant Denon's scientific expedition

In 1798 Napoleon was still a young man, just 28 years old, but the volatile times of the French Revolution had already granted him more action than most people get in the course of a long life. His most recent adventure – the momentous Campaign in Italy – had brought the Austrians to their knees, crushing the First Coalition. It had also turned Napoleon into a national star and, enjoying his new prestige, he played a central role in the French government’s plans to subdue England, France’s only remaining enemy with superpower status. An invasion of the British Isles was planned but cancelled due to England’s unchallengeable supremacy at sea. Instead the old colonial dream of a French Egypt gained ground: it would more than compensate for the recent losses in the West Indies and would moreover sever England’s trade with the east, forcing her to sign a favourable peace treaty. What had at first been wishful thinking thus changed into an essential plan for French interests.

It was a remarkable project by all accounts; bold and romantic, it conjured up images of Alexander the Great’s campaigns in the mystical East. To begin with the project seemed blessed by Napoleon’s legendary good luck: Malta fell and there was no sign of the English fleet. But scarcely had the army made it safely to Egypt’s shores before Admiral Nelson decimated the French fleet and with it the army’s lifeline to France. The French were to discover that Egypt was not the dream it had been made out to be. This was not the land of the Ptolemies; it was poor and backward. The Egyptians did not think of the French as the children of the Enlightenment. Instead, they were conservative and unwelcoming. Nor did Turkey acquiesce to French infringement on her territory but rather joined forces with the English. The campaign never evolved into a heroic struggle against overpowering odds. More atrocious acts were committed in Egypt than at any other time in Bonaparte’s career. And if it wasn’t the country’s hostile climate that cut through his ranks it was the plague. Any romantic ideas of the campaign harboured today exist only thanks to the two centuries that have passed, time having distorted reality.

Napoleon set foot on Egyptian soil on 2 July 1798. The Mameluke armed forces were no match for modern French arms, and less than three weeks later on 21 July Napoleon defeated the Mamelukes outside of Cairo in the battle that has gone down in history as the Battle of the Pyramids. There was one Mameluke leader, Murad Bey, who managed to flee the battle unscathed though, and from his refuge in Upper Egypt (south of Cairo) he was to prove a great nuisance to the French occupying. So much so in fact that Napoleon was soon forced to dispatch a punitive expedition of 2,800 men under the command of General Desaix. Still to this day Desaix operations in the Nile valley stand out as textbook examples of shrewd manoeuvres and sound policies towards the local populations.

The campaign’s academic claim was not down to military actions alone though, far from it. What set Desaix's campaign apart were the deeds of one man in particular: Vivant Denon, the scientific expedition’s leading artist who joined Desaix's expedition in November in the hope that the chase would carry him to some of Egypt’s near-forgotten ancient monuments.

The name and location of the ancient sites were still known to the world and so Denon knew where to look for the monuments but when it came to more specific information, such as what the exact function of the temples was or who had built them, he was left wanting. Like every other enthusiast, his knowledge of ancient Egyptian history was restricted by the paltry availability of literature on the subject, most of which was ancient itself. The wealth of hieroglyphic inscriptions was also of little help. The ancient language had fallen into oblivion more than a thousand years earlier in the wake of the fall of the Roman Empire.

Denon's investigations are all the more amazing in light of the difficult circumstances under which they were carried out. He was always on the tail of the marching troops,in the dust of battles and arduous marches, as he undertook the perilous job of surveying temples, pyramids and tombs.

Still, the foundation of Egyptology arguably owes more to Denon than any other individual. When Denon returned to Cairo the following summer, Napoleon was so excited with his work that he commissioned a further two scientific expeditions to the Nile valley. These expeditions produced the ground-breaking work that was to form the backbone of the giant publication, the Description de L’Egypte– still a core text to Egyptologists today.

Temple of Dendera, Dendera

Two months of gruelling marches, irritating eye infections and fruitless cultural field trips were to elapse before Denon was finally to engage in some real sightseeing. By the end of January 1799 the army passed through Dendera giving Denon an opportunity to investigate the Ptolemaic Temple of Hathor.

When Denon arrived the temple’s walls and columns were still standing and the colours of the illustrations were so crisp in many places that, were it not for the temple’s long history, they could conceivably have been painted the previous day. Without the sand and debris, which in some places reached more than halfway up the outer temple walls, Denon would have been able to stroll around the temple in exactly the same way hordes of tourists do today.

Had Denon been able to read the hieroglyphic inscriptions, it would have been easy to determine the time of construction, as representations of rulers are always accompanied by a cartouche specifying their name. Thus, we know that on the temple’s south wall Cleopatra VII and her son Caesarion are shown making offerings to the gods. Inside the Outer Hypostyle Hall, Emperor Nero is shown taking part in the dedication of the temple.

Denon’s joy was in no way lessened by his lack of reference books and all-round poor understanding of ancient Egypt. His pencil worked incessantly, copying out the inscriptions, yet awed by the temple’s splendour he couldn’t stop his hand from trembling at the thought of disfiguring the sublime shapes. Even though sand and debris would have reached halfway up the walls in places, there could have been no doubt that the scenes involved kings making offerings.

Despite the debris, Denon was able to access the Sanctuary, the core of the temple. In antiquity only the most initiated, namely the king and high priests, would have been allowed in here and they would have had to pass through a door that has long since disappeared.

Denon had reached the holiest place in the temple. It dawned on him that the purpose of all the preceding rooms, even the more majestic hypostyle halls, was merely to prepare the visitor for his or her meeting with the god. He was right. Starting at the temple entrance, one is greeted by a straight path that narrows vertically as it approaches the Sanctuary. The succeeding chambers’ floors work their way upwards as they rise to meet the ever lower ceilings until finally the visitor stands at the Sanctuary’s doorway, which creates a silently foreboding entrance to protect the temple’s mysterious inner calm and treasures from prying eyes.

The manipulation of daylight intensifies the effect: as the chambers diminish in size, darkness descends. The stone masses of the Temple of Hathor, like all other temples in Egypt, were designed to weigh down on the visitor as he strode through to the temple core in sheer awe. In Denon’s day debris somewhat ruined this effect. Nevertheless, even back then it was blatantly obvious that the Sanctuary was the most sacred chamber within the temple. It was here that the image of the god was kept, a small statue no more than 3-4 feet high, in gold or silver, standing protected in a shrine made of stone.

Denon was so engulfed in the temple’s treasures that he failed to notice that the soldiers had left and as daylight faded he realised that his sole companion was General Belliard, who had stayed behind to watch over the intrepid explorer. Sunset brought a natural end to Denon’s endeavours and, in the company of Belliard, he galloped off to regain the army, the entire visit having lasted just a few short hours.

The Ramesseum and the Colossi of Memnon, Luxor

Just as Denon had digested the Temple of Hathor in Dendera, the panorama of Thebes opened up before the army. There was, once again, little time for sightseeing and Denon only had time to explore a few sights on the west bank – chief among them Rameses II’s memorial temple – before the army resumed its march.

Just as Denon and Desaix were about to draw near the Theban necropolis, javelins and rocks rained down on them, putting to an abrupt end what could have been a truly interesting excursion. The locals were not inclined to welcome these intruders. Denon would later learn that the people of the small village of Gurna inhabited these tombs.

Constantly at risk of falling behind, Denon only just managed to make a sketch of one temple before the ruins of another caught his attention. What really caught his investigative eye though was a broken colossus, its face buried in the sand and its shoulder measuring 25 feet. He could only speculate as to whom the colossus represented: was it Memnon or perhaps Ozymandias? Ozymandias is a transliteration of one of Rameses II’s first names and it was indeed Rameses II (r. 1279-1213 BC) who had built the temple.

The Ramesseum is a memorial temple. Similar to the cult temple at Dendera, it contained chambers for the gods, chambers that were accessed in much the same way with each chamber smaller than the preceding one. The temple also played an important part in the annual religious festivals, although these festivals were of a rather different nature to the ones practised in Dendera. But most importantly, and this is the main difference between the two temples, the Ramesseum was a memorial to Rameses, a family shrine celebrating his ancestors and through them his divine descent, a temple of celebration of his close ties with Amun. Not insignificantly, the memorial also provided Rameses with the perfect opportunity to parade his military exploits.

The images left for visitors such as Denon on the inside of the First Pylon of the Ramesseum show Rameses at a critical moment during one of his campaigns in Syria. Denon had no problems reading the sequence of events depicted on the walls but he did not know the details: that the hero was Rameses, the enemy the Hittites and that the scene was a portrayal of the Battle of Qadesh, which took place in Rameses’ fifth regnal year, c. 1274 BC.

The architectural structure of the pylon was new to Denon, though it was obviously some kind of a temple gateway, and a monolithic one at that. It wasn’t a construction endemic to memorial temples though as they were also found in cult temples, nor was it endemic to New Kingdom temples.

A pylon consists of two towers shaped in trapezoidal form and connected by a central doorway, which is usually aligned with the main axis of the temple. Some believe that a pylon bears allusion to a mountain ridge, others to pyramids. Either way, the pylon was for public viewing, not just for the high priests and the kings, and it was because of this that the king typically chose to portray most grandly his military exploits here in the most conspicuous part of the temple.

In the temple’s First Court Denon was witness to further evidence that the king was, if not megalomaniac, then at least terrified of drifting into oblivion. Here Denon discovered the upper part of a giant statue, estimated at 75 feet. In actual fact, it measured 57 feet when upright, and amazingly was sculpted from a single block of granite, which would have weighed over 1,000 tonnes.

Meanwhile, in the open plain, a French crowd gathered around two large statues. Even though the two statues, the Colossi of Memnon, still bear Memnon’s name engraved by the Greeks, they are in fact images of Amenhotep III (r. 1390-1352 BC), the solitary remains of a huge memorial temple.

So busy was he sketching the colossi that Denon scarcely noticed the army had left without him. Realising, he hurriedly packed his things together and scampered off to catch up with the troops. He would have liked to spend a month examining the site.

Temple of Khnum, Esna

Denon found it incredibly disappointing having to leave Thebes so soon after arrival but already the following day, on 27 January 1799, the army arrived in Esna where the magnificent Ptolemaic Temple of Khnum awaited him.

Upon arrival in Esna, the French learned that Murad Bey had left the previous evening, his tent and heavy baggage abandoned – and ablaze – to allow for a swifter journey. This was obviously a great disappointment to many. A few found grounds for optimism nonetheless: Esna was the ancient Latopolis, a Ptolemaic provincial capital, and consequently a potential treasure trove of ancient monuments.

Right in the centre of town Denon found a beautifully carved temple (or part of one) similar to the temple at Dendera. The Temple of Khnum has happily since been cleared of rubbish and debris but it is nevertheless still submerged, its base some 30 feet below street level.

In Denon’s day there was a market, still there today surrounded by the modern houses that still fringe the temple confines, and his impression cannot have been all that different from that of today’s visitor: that of an ancient, hidden gem sunken in more than 2,000 years of human residue.

Construction on the temple’s only remaining part – the Hypostyle Hall – was actually begun under the Roman Emperor Claudius in the 1st century AD. The walls are one grand display of Roman emperors. On the inside Septimus Severus, Caracalla, Marcus Aurelius and Geta are seen standing before Khnum. On the outside Titus and Trajan are shown victorious in battle, holding their enemies by the hair poised to smite them with a mace.

The image of the king, his mace and enemies, is probably one of the most durable images of royal power ever, the earliest known example of which is a representation of King Narmer made more than 3,000 years earlier. All succeeding rulers employed this symbolic image of triumph over chaos and national unity, the Ptolemies and Romans no exception; it was a royal pose Denon would see time and again.

As with the temple at Dendera, the Temple of Khnum is another example of foreign rulers incorporating Egyptian style in an effort to appease the local population. Denon wasn’t yet wholly familiar with temple design and he wondered if an extensive excavation of the site would reveal a sanctuary, the most sacred chamber of the temple. There would certainly have been a sanctuary in antiquity. Whether the sacred core of the temple lies intact buried underneath the modern city is also a question that many Egyptologists still ponder.  While some believe this to be the case, it is unlikely that we will ever know for sure, for an excavation would entail extensive demolition of civilian homes.

Elephantine Island, Aswan

As it was becoming increasingly clear that Murad Bey planned to avoid battle altogether, marching his troops beyond Aswan instead, the French left Esna in a rush. On 2 February 1799 the army came to a halt in Aswan, some 600 miles south of Cairo. The Mamelukes had escaped and as it would be foolish to continue the pursuit, Desaix made arrangements for part of his force to settle down in Aswan.

Denon made his home on Elephantine Island, a small island on the Nile, and since the island was an ancient place of worship there were several temple ruins to investigate. Under the burning sun – it was and still is hot during the day even in February – he left no stone unturned, often literally lying on the surface of the piles of debris as he unearthed roman pottery and coins. Clearly none of the locals took any interest in the archaeological remains. Denon was amazed to see that the posterior Roman, Christian and Arab constructions and artefacts had crumbled and disappeared whilst the Egyptian monuments had stood the test of time.

Elephantine Island was an ancient provincial capital as well as the centre of the Khnum cult, the god who was said to have created mankind on his potter’s wheel. On the island itself the main attraction in Denon’s day was the Temple of Satet, the greater Temple of Khnum in ruins.

In particular the representations of one king caught his attention: that of the 18 th Dynasty king Amenhotep III (r. 1390-1352 BC) who is represented in the company of his wife Tiye, both making offerings to Amun-Ra’s bark. On the right side of the bark, antelope-headed goddess Satet presents Amenhotep III to her consort the ram-headed god Khnum.

The Temple of Satet was later destroyed too (1822) but thanks to a German archaeological mission it has since been reconstructed. One still has to refer to Description de L’Egypte to get a sense of many of the images he enjoyed.