Toby Wilkinson is an Egyptologist and the author of 12 books, which have been translated into 12 languages. He studied Egyptology at the University of Cambridge, graduating with First Class Honours and winning the university’s Thomas Mulvey Prize. After completing his doctorate at Christ’s College, Cambridge, he held research and teaching fellowships at the universities of Cambridge and Durham. He has excavated at the Egyptian sites of Buto and Memphis, and has lectured worldwide on ancient Egypt and Egyptology. Wilkinson’s books include The Rise and Fall of Ancient Egypt, which won the Hessell-Tiltman Prize, Lives of the Ancient Egyptians, The Nile, and Writings from Ancient Egypt. His most recent is A World Beneath the Sands: adventurers and archaeologists in the golden age of Egyptology.
Your latest book, A World Beneath the Sands, explores Egyptology over a century, from 1822 to 1922. Why did you choose to focus on this period?
As an Egyptologist, I’ve been interested not only in the civilisation of ancient Egypt, but how it was uncovered, for a very long time. It possibly hasn’t escaped your notice that we’re heading for two very big anniversaries: 1822 was the decipherment of the hieroglyphics, which opened up the rediscovery of ancient Egypt and allowed the ancient Egyptians to be engaged with in their own voices; and then, 100 years later, we have the discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb in 1922, which really put ancient Egypt on the map in terms of global public consciousness and projected Egypt into the forefront of people’s imaginations, where it’s never left. The coincidence of these two anniversaries in 2022 seemed like a great opportunity to revisit that critical century between those two discoveries and breakthroughs, and try to tell the story, not just how the West rediscovered ancient Egypt, but how at the same time Egypt discovered itself. Because woven alongside the archaeology and the antiquarianism was a growing sense by the Egyptians of their own history and therefore of their own future. The story of Egyptology in the 19th century is also the story of national awakening in Egypt.
Quite understandably, the discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb coming just a few months after Egyptian independence in February 1922 made a lot of Egyptians think: ‘This is a great moment from our past; it shows that we were a great civilisation. This is the future we want for ourselves, not as a subject nation to the British and the Ottomans or any other foreign power, but as a proudly independent nation forging its own destiny.’
