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New Article: A Victorian Gentleman in the Pharaoh’s Court: Christian Egyptosophy and Victorian Egyptology in the Romances of H. Rider Haggard

Funeral and entrance into the netherworld from the papyrus of Ani, Book of the Dead of Ani, Thebes, about 1275 BC, October 4, 2012 | © Courtesy of Frans Vandewalle.
Funeral and entrance into the netherworld from the papyrus of Ani, Book of the Dead of Ani, Thebes, about 1275 BC, October 4, 2012 | © Courtesy of Frans Vandewalle.

Simon Magus

Published Online: 2017-12-29 | DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/culture-2017-0045.

Abstract

The following article analyses the ways in which the developing field of Egyptology found its way into Victorian culture, more especially via the romances of H. Rider Haggard. It considers the process of acculturation in terms of the Christianizing tendency of a biblical archaeology which was looking for evidence of biblical narratives in opposition to Higher Criticism of the Bible. It focusses on the specific influence of the Egyptologist and Assyriologist E. A. Wallis Budge’s ideas on Haggard’s fiction and also examines how the prominence of excavations at Amarna produced a Victorianization of the household of the pharaoh Akhenaten in the phenomenon of “Amarnamania.”

Keywords : Atenism; Original Monotheism; Osiride Christology; Egyptosophy; Amarnamania; Egyptian Romance.


Featured Image Credits:  Funeral and entrance into the netherworld from the papyrus of Ani, Book of the Dead of Ani, Thebes, about 1275 BC, October 4, 2012 |  © Courtesy of  Frans Vandewalle.


OpenEdition suggests that you cite this post as follows:
Pablo Markin (January 22, 2018). New Article: A Victorian Gentleman in the Pharaoh’s Court: Christian Egyptosophy and Victorian Egyptology in the Romances of H. Rider Haggard. Open Culture. Retrieved November 17, 2025 from https://doi.org/10.58079/shp8


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