page_title: Ancient Egypt in the Western imagination
section_title: 20th century
hierarchical_section_title: Ancient Egypt in the Western imagination / 20th century
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Büste der Nofretete im Neuen Museum, Berlin English: Bust of queen Nefertiti in the Neues Museum, Berlin Español: Busto de la reina Nefertiti en el Neues Museum, Berlin
context_page_description: Egypt has had a legendary image in the Western world through the Greek and Hebrew traditions. Egypt was already ancient to outsiders, and the idea of Egypt has continued to be at least as influential in the history of ideas as the actual historical Egypt itself. All Egyptian culture was transmitted to Roman and post-Roman European culture through the lens of Hellenistic conceptions of it, until the decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphics by Jean-François Champollion in the 1820s rendered Egyptian texts legible, finally enabling an understanding of Egypt as the Egyptians themselves understood it.
  After Late Antiquity, the Old Testament image of Egypt as the land of enslavement for the Hebrews predominated, and "Pharaoh" became a synonym for despotism and oppression in the 19th century. However, Enlightenment thinking and colonialist explorations in the late 18th century renewed interest in ancient Egypt as both a model for, and an exotic alternative to, Western culture, particularly as a Romantic source for classicizing architecture.
context_section_description: In 1912, the discovery of an exquisite painted limestone bust of Nefertiti, unearthed from its sculptor's workshop near the royal city of Amarna, added the first new celebrity of Egypt. The bust, now in Berlin's Egyptian Museum, became so famous through the medium of photography that it became the most familiar, most copied work of ancient Egyptian sculpture; Nefertiti's strong-featured profile was a notable influence on new ideals of feminine beauty in the 20th century.
  The 1922 discovery of the undamaged tomb of Pharaoh Tutankhamun introduced a new celebrity to join Nefertiti — "King Tut".  The tomb's spectacular treasures influenced Art-Deco design vocabulary.  Also, for many years there persisted rumors, probably tabloid-inspired, of a "curse"; the rumors focused on the alleged premature deaths of some of those who had first entered the tomb. A recent study of journals and death records, however, indicates no statistical difference between the ages at death of those who had entered the tomb and of expedition members who had not; indeed, most of the individuals lived past age 70. The idea of a "mummy's curse" inspired films such as The Mummy, starring Boris Karloff, which popularized the idea of ancient Egyptian mummies reanimating as monsters. Another literary occurrence at that time of Egypt is Agatha Christie's 1936 mystery novel Death on the Nile.
  Hollywood's depiction of ancient Egypt is a major contributor to the fantasy Egypt of modern culture. The cinematic spectacle of Egypt climaxed in sequences of Cecil B. deMille's The Ten Commandments (1956) and in Jeanne Crain's Nefertiti in the 1961 Italian Cinecittà production of Queen of the Nile, and collapsed with the failure of Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor in Cleopatra (1963).
  In 1978, Tutankhamun was commemorated in the whimsical song, "King Tut", by  American comedian Steve Martin, and in 1986 the poses in some Egyptian mural art were evoked in the song "Walk Like an Egyptian" by The Bangles.
  The Metropolitan Museum of Art resurrected the Temple of Dendur within its own quarters in 1978. In 1989, the Louvre raised its own glass pyramid, and in 1993 Las Vegas's Luxor Hotel opened with its replica tomb of Tutankhamun.
  A best-selling series of novels by French author and Egyptologist Christian Jacq was inspired by the life of Pharaoh Ramses II ("the Great").
caption: Nefertiti. Bust in Egyptian Museum, Berlin.
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