Sans titre

brooklynmuseum:

2014 is the 80^th anniversary of the establishment of the Wilbour Library of Egyptology at the Brooklyn Museum. We are celebrating the Wilbour Library throughout the year by looking at works in its collection. Let’s start with the very first guidebook on Egypt written by a European, Tableau de l’Egypte, de la Nubie et des lieux circonvoisins … by J. J. Rifaud (Paris: Treuttel et Wurtz, 1830), which was part of Charles Edwin Wilbour’s personal library.

Jean Jacques Rifaud was a French sculptor and excavator who travelled to Egypt in 1814 working under the direction of Napoleon’s Consul in Egypt, Bernardino Drovetti. After excavating several areas in Egypt, he returned to Europe in 1826 armed with antiquities, drawings and notes with the intent of publishing his findings. Common for his time, his work was unscientific and hastily done but his publications remain important today as they were created by someone who actually was in Egypt and not produced by an “imaginative” arm-chair traveler. Today the Wilbour Library holds a well-worn copy of Tableau that we suspect Wilbour to have had on his houseboat as he travelled the Nile through Egypt.

Posted by Deirdre Lawrence

afp-photo:

GEORGIA, Tbilisi : People dressed as Santa Claus perform near a New Year tree in front of the parliament building in Tbilisi, late on December 25, 2013. Orthodox Christians in Georgia celebrate Christmas on January 7. AFP PHOTO /VANO SHLAMOV