Signs and Wonders upon Pharaoh: A History of American Egyptology

One hundred and fifty years ago, Americans could not match the scholars of France, Germany, and Great Britain in the study of ancient Egypt. Americans were concerned with their own future in their own land, were engrossed in the struggle between the North and the South, and had only a slight curiosity about Egypt as a land which figured, rather unpleasantly, in the Bible.

In the years between 1894 and 1914, the pursuit of Egyptology shifted from the pleasant and leisurely avocation of the wealthy amateur to the serious and dedicated vocation of the professional. Two Americans, James Henry Breasted and George A. Reisner, won international recognition and occupied the first two chairs of Egyptology established in this country. A similar change was taking place in parallel archeological fields, but the concern of this book is limited to the study of ancient Egypt.