Subscribe now for full access and no adverts
By the beginning of the 20th century, Egypt had become a preferred winter resort for Western tourists, largely due to the entrepreneurship of Thomas Cook and his family. In 1910, one of a series of railway posters was captioned ‘Spend this winter in Egypt where a perfect climate is to be obtained’, and was illustrated with atmospheric Nile views by British watercolourist Augustus Osborne Lamplough. Under the supervision of Egyptian State Railways, Lamplough also wrote and illustrated a tourist guide entitled Egypt & How to See It. This book – available in English, German, and French editions – was revised for each winter season from 1907/8 until the outbreak of World War I. It is described as an aid to visitors, helping them to ‘economise time, money, and fatigue to the greatest advantage’ by giving up-to-date information on transport, accommodation, sightseeing, and prices. In our modern age of air travel, package holidays, and internet booking, it is easy to underestimate the complexities of arranging a tour of Egypt in the past. This useful book contained advice on everything from suitable clothing to official warnings about the social evils of baksheesh (tipping), information that enabled would-be tourists to plan and cost their itineraries.
Sites worth visiting
Without any claim to be ‘an infallible… reference to archaeologists’, Lamplough’s descriptions of sites worth visiting are historical records of the state of Egyptian monuments in Edwardian times. For example, Aswan is labelled ‘a winter resort rather than an archaeological centre’, while the Pyramids at Giza, ‘stripped of their brilliant white smooth casing…, appear barbarous, rude, rugged, almost meaningless, shapes of forgotten power’.
He notes that Upper Egypt, from Luxor to Aswan, ‘is Ptolemaic throughout’, calling the architecture of the great temples – Edfu, Esna, Kom Ombo – ‘far more elaborate and far less spontaneous’, with greater use of colour and ‘columns of every type of capital in one temple’.
Of Luxor Temple he says, ‘Siege and sack, fire and earthquake have shaken the pillars and overthrown the statues. …An irregular mass of earth-heaps and mud huts remains in front of and around [the entrance].’ He also remarks that ‘the vandalism of new religions, intolerant in their growth, has defaced the reliefs and mutilated the images’ and ‘if some day the Arab huts within its precincts could be removed, it might regain its original aspect’.
Access to sites
The Egyptian Antiquities Service controlled ticketed access to archaeological sites. A pass for the whole of Egypt, with a separate ticket ‘to ascend or enter’ the Giza Pyramids, cost 130 piastres (1 Egyptian pound = 100 piastres), the equivalent of £190 today. The Service also had ultimate authority over who dug where, but the book would have gone to press before that season’s concessions had been allocated. In 1911-1912, Flinders Petrie was working at Matariya (ancient Heliopolis), where Lamplough suggested an afternoon excursion to an ostrich farm. Lord Carnarvon and Howard Carter were exploring the Asasif, and Harry Burton was working for Theodore Davis in the Valley of the Kings. Lamplough describes how ancient tomb robberies had caused priests in antiquity to remove bodies from desecrated tombs to a hiding place ‘discovered in recent years’, a reference to the Deir el-Bahri Cache (found in 1881). He speculates that the kings’ mummies might be returned to their tombs when ‘there are sufficient funds… to fence in and protect the Necropolis against every kind of theft… [but] at present the Museum is by far the safest refuge for them.’
Tours
Lamplough’s outline for a three-week tour of Egypt sets aside one whole day for ‘exploring Cairo – Museums, Mosques, &c.’ His personal choice of significant objects to be viewed at the Egyptian Museum in Tahrir Square (which opened in 1902) includes the seated figure of Khafra, the Sixth Dynasty inscription recording the missions of Weni, and the Hathor-cow statue, ‘found recently (1907) at Deir el-Bahri’. He recommends the displays of furniture, jewellery, and pottery, and describes the room containing the royal mummies as ‘the largest and most interesting collection in the world.’
For those tourists who had only one day to spend in Luxor, Lamplough’s itinerary is exhausting, particularly considering the proposed mode of transport. After a civilised 8.30am start, tourists crossed the river to take the 45-minute donkey ride from the ferry landing to Sety I’s Qurna temple. The next stop was the Valley of the Kings where, of the 40 tombs then known, he suggests viewing KV11 (Ramesses III), KV17 (Sety I), and KV35 (Amenhotep II), before crossing the hill to Deir el-Bahri. Returning to the Nile by way of the Ramesseum and the Colossi of Memnon, visitors took the ferry back to Luxor for lunch, leaving the afternoon to see Karnak and Luxor Temples. Proposed two- or three-day schedules for stays in Luxor crammed in even more sights, advising visitors to ‘select a satisfactory donkey and keep to it throughout’. The costs of donkey-hire at 40 piastres per day (£57 modern equivalent), and other arrangements, such as luncheon at the purpose-built Rest House, could be added to customers’ hotel bills. In fact, canny travellers could let Messrs Cook and Sons arrange everything by taking an all-inclusive two- or three-week Nile cruise, from Cairo to Luxor and Aswan, and back. The cost of this would be in addition to steamer fares to and from Egypt, journeys which took up to two weeks each way, making the duration of a typical tour about two months.
Total cost
Lamplough provides much useful information on prices, for food and drink, taxi and train fares, hire of dragomans (guides/interpreters), and tipping. Advising on souvenir purchase, he discusses the ethics of buying looted artefacts and the flooding of the market with fakes, and advises discretion in dealing with the persistent antiquities’ sellers who ‘haunt’ the Rest House. Picture postcards, many based on orientalist artworks such as those Lamplough himself produced, provided modest mementos of a momentous trip. This book enabled tourists to estimate their overall expenditure in advance, and, on the fold-out map in my copy, a previous owner has written what is, presumably, just such a calculation. It is not clear whether the total, £359 13s 9d, equating to about £51,500 at today’s values, applies to one or more travellers, but, at a time when the average annual UK income was less than £100, this was not a holiday that every citizen could afford.
All images: Augustus Lamplough from Egypt & How to See It, unless otherwise stated
