Napoleon attacked Egyptian pyramids with cannons only in fiction – 11/24/2023 – Science

As Ridley Scott’s film “Napoleon” opens around the world, scenes from the film’s trailers are making an impact. This was especially true with a sensational depiction of French troops led by actor Joaquin Phoenix, as the French emperor, firing cannons at the pyramids of Giza.

“I don’t know if he did it,” Scott told The Times of London. “But it was a quick way of saying he conquered Egypt.”

There is no evidence that French invaders fired artillery at the pyramids, or that Napoleon’s troops fired at the nose of the Sphinx, another popular apocryphal piece (evidence suggests that the nose was carved centuries before Napoleon’s time).

“From what we know, Napoleon held the Sphinx and pyramids in high esteem and used them as a means of encouraging his troops to greater glory,” said Salima Ikram, a professor of Egyptology at the American University in Cairo. “He definitely didn’t shoot them.”

While creative license is expected in Hollywood biopics, Scott’s cinematic choices have sparked memes, discussion and lighthearted banter, including jokes about Napoleon fighting mummies.

Some historians have criticized Scott, but many hope “Napoleon” will generate interest in the events that inspired the film. And although Napoleon didn’t literally throw projectiles at the pyramids, his invasion of Egypt had a profound effect on Egypt’s cultural heritage and the way the world understands it today.

“Ultimately, the campaign is a defeat — the French lose and are expelled,” said Alexander Mikaberidze, a professor at Louisiana State University in Shreveport who specializes in Napoleonic history. But Napoleon’s invasion also resulted in a complex scientific and cultural legacy, he added: “the beginning of Egyptology, the beginning of this fascination with Egypt and the desire to explore Egyptian history and culture.”

The French campaign in Egypt from 1798 to 1801 was driven by Napoleon’s colonial ambitions and desire to thwart British influence. But, in addition to gathering an army of around 50,000 men, Napoleon took the unusual decision of inviting more than 160 scholars — in areas such as botany, geology, humanities and others — to accompany the invasion.

Scholars have documented Egypt’s cultural and natural landscapes. They then compiled their knowledge into a seminal 1809 publication that contained detailed entries on the Giza pyramid complex. This is one reason historians know that Napoleon visited the pyramids, as shown in Scott’s film, although it is unlikely that he considered the structures to be military targets.

“There was a real interest on the part of scholars and, I think by extension, a real interest on Napoleon’s part in being able to understand these things that Europeans hadn’t really had unrestricted access to since the classical period,” said Andrew Bednarski, a visiting scholar at the American University in Cairo, specializing in Egyptology and 19th century history.

In their effort to document Egypt’s vast archaeological heritage, French scholars have seized many important artifacts, including the Rosetta Stone, a rock inscribed in three languages ​​that proved instrumental in deciphering ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics. The stone and many other spoils ended up in British hands after French rule in Egypt collapsed in 1801. By that time, Napoleon had returned to France.

After the failed campaign, news of Egypt’s cultural wonders spread across Europe and fueled a new wave of global Egyptomania. This insatiable thirst for Egyptian antiquities resulted in centuries of exploration, excavation, and exploitation of the region’s vast material culture. Since Napoleon’s invasion, countless artifacts have been removed from Egypt by miners and traders, many through clandestine and criminal channels.

As a result, many of Egypt’s greatest treasures, including the Rosetta Stone and the statue of Nefertiti, are in museums and private collections far from home. Egypt’s antiquities community has been working for years to repatriate as many artifacts as possible, with some success, while developing new strategies to protect its cultural legacy within the nation’s borders.

“There are more site management plans, an increase in museums and an increase in media coverage of antiquities, which aim to not only attract tourists but also foster national pride and educate the general Egyptian public about the importance of their heritage,” Ikram said.

Egypt has also faced a resurgence of looting in recent years as a result of domestic unrest. The Antiquities Coalition, a US-based non-profit organization, estimated that after the 2011 revolution, around $3 billion worth of relics were illegally smuggled out of Egypt. The Egypt Institute, a research center established by Napoleon in Cairo during his invasion, was burned down in 2011 during the Arab Spring unrest. Erosive forces such as pollution and the effects of climate change, including extreme weather, pose another threat to Egypt’s monuments and artifacts.

Napoleon’s unsuccessful campaign sparked the modern demand for Egyptian antiquities, which still persists today. Scott’s vision of Napoleon firing cannons at the pyramids of Giza is just a continuation of this impulse to appropriate Egyptian symbols and market them to a new audience. Many experts criticized the film’s inaccuracies, prompting an expletive-filled response from Scott. But some see in “Napoleon” an opportunity to revisit the polarizing French emperor’s lasting effects on the world.

“Anything that can get people interested in the history of Egyptology, the effects of colonialism around the world, the Enlightenment — any of those things — I think is only positive,” Bednarski said.