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SUMMARY:Bringing ancient grains to life: Tutankhamen\, Egyptomania and mod
 ernist enchantment in interwar Britain - Allegra Fryxell (Faculty of Histo
 ry)
DTSTART:20150126T130000Z
DTEND:20150126T141500Z
UID:TALK57285@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Margaret Carlyle
DESCRIPTION:This paper examines the phenomena of 'Egyptomania' in interwar
  Britain and its broader cultural significance. Drawing upon contemporary 
 news releases\, photographic reproductions of Egyptian artefacts\, tomb re
 plicas\, museum records\, material culture\, and enchanted stories like th
 e 'Curse of the Mummy'\, I argue that 1920s Egyptomania – which coalesce
 d around the discovery of Tutankhamen's tomb in 1922 – does not merely m
 anifest in an art deco fascination with the Orient\, but produced an alter
 nate 'enchanted' reality wherein Britons could experience an elision or co
 llapse of time\, softening the boundaries between past and present. The co
 ntested nature of Tut's discovery meant that his artefacts could not leave
  Egypt\, prompting the creation of a 'virtual archive' and artefactual rep
 roduction that re-interpreted Egyptian remains on modern(ist) British term
 s. I suggest that a feeling or belief in such a permeable temporality was 
 central to the proliferation and contemporary understanding of images\, ob
 jects and ideas related to ancient Egypt during this period.
LOCATION:Seminar Room 1\, Department of History and Philosophy of Science
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