'Description de l'Égypte': The book that tried to capture a civilisation

Standing more than a metre tall and filled with spectacular illustrations, 'Description de l'Égypte' is one of the most ambitious books ever produced. In the history of print, the book is as monumental as many of the structures of ancient Egypt it records. Published in Paris between 1809 and 1822, this work attempted something unprecedented: to record Egypt's landscapes, ancient monuments, wildlife, culture and people in detail.

The copy in our collections is a fine example. For many years, these volumes were among the largest books in the Library's collections, and they remain some of the most visually impressive. Yet the context around them stretches far beyond publishing. Their origins lie in war, scientific discovery, cultural fascination, and the beginnings of modern Egyptology.

Our volumes were originally acquired by the Library of the Faculty of Advocates in 1831 and later came to the National Library of Scotland as part of the transfer of the Faculty's non-legal collections. Their story, however, begins more than thirty years earlier, with Napoleon Bonaparte's invasion of Egypt.

Napoleon's Egyptian campaign

The French Revolution triggered a series of conflicts that brought France into competition with many of Europe's leading powers, including Britain. At the end of the eighteenth century, Britain's prosperity depended heavily on trade routes linking Europe with India. Napoleon believed that establishing French control in Egypt could threaten those routes and weaken British influence in the region.

The plan also appealed to his personal ambitions. Napoleon greatly admired Alexander the Great, the Macedonian ruler who conquered Egypt in 332 BCE, and saw the campaign as an opportunity to emulate one of history's most celebrated military leaders.

In May 1798, a French expedition sailed for Egypt. French forces captured Alexandria and established a presence in Cairo, but the wider campaign soon ran into difficulties. British naval victories in the Mediterranean cut off communication with France, while disease, environmental conditions and resistance to French rule created mounting problems for the occupying forces.

From a military perspective, the campaign ultimately failed. Napoleon left Egypt in 1799 and returned to France, leaving much of his army behind. Yet the French occupation would have a far greater cultural and scholarly impact than its military achievements ever did.

Scholars, scientists and the 'study' of Egypt

One unusual feature of the expedition was the large number of civilians who travelled alongside the army. These included engineers, artists, architects, naturalists and scholars, many of whom became members of the newly established Institut de l'Égypte.

Some contributed directly to French administration and governance in occupied Egypt. Others focused on research and documentation. Known as savants (the French word for learned scholars) they travelled widely, recording what they saw through written observations, maps and drawings.

Led by the artist, writer and diplomat Dominique Vivant Denon (1747 to 1825), they studied ancient monuments, local customs, plants, animals, geography and architecture. Their work created one of the most detailed records of Egypt ever assembled up to that point.

The achievements of these scholars cannot be separated from the circumstances in which they took place. Their research was carried out during a military occupation and formed part of a wider European imperial project. Today, historians often consider the expedition as both a landmark in scholarship and an example of how scientific research and colonial ambitions could become intertwined.

Among the most significant discoveries associated with the expedition was the Rosetta Stone, found in 1799. The stone bears the same text written in different scripts, providing the key that later enabled scholars to decipher ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs.

These discoveries helped lay the foundations of modern Egyptology. Just as importantly, they generated a large archive of notes, measurements and illustrations. Those records would eventually become the basis of one of the largest publishing projects ever undertaken.

From expedition to publication

Unsure of what would become of the expedition’s research, Denon decided to go ahead with publication of his own journal and drawings, collected as he journeyed through Egypt with the French army. Published in 1802, 'Voyage dans la basse et la haute Égypte pendant les campagnes du général Bonaparte' brought Egyptian monuments and landscapes to a wide European audience and proved hugely popular.

That same year, Napoleon ordered a much larger project: the publication of all the research gathered by members of the Institut de l'Égypte. The task of collating the vast material gathered in Egypt was assigned to Jean-Baptiste Joseph Fourier (1768 to 1830), a French scientist. The resulting work became 'Description de l'Égypte' and featured a preface by Fourier.

As with many large publications produced at this time, it was issued as and when the various parts were ready. The publication brought together detailed text volumes and enormous illustrated plates which allowed the images to be reproduced with amazing accuracy. Producing these illustrations was a vast undertaking and around 400 engravers worked for two decades creating the copper plates used to print them.

The finished publication attempted to document almost everything the French researchers had encountered. Temples, obelisks, statues, inscriptions, landscapes, plants and animals were all carefully catalogued and illustrated. At the time, it was the largest printed work ever produced.

The 'Description' preserved an extraordinary record of Egypt. It also transformed the way many people outside the country imagined it.

Egyptomania and lasting influence

Both Denon's earlier publication and the much larger 'Description' introduced European and American audiences to images of Egypt on an unprecedented scale. The effect was immediate and long-lasting.

The publication encouraged serious scholarly research into Egypt's history, language and archaeology. At the same time, it helped spark a broader fascination with Egyptian culture that became known as "Egyptomania".

This enthusiasm reflected genuine intellectual curiosity, but it also sometimes presented Egypt through a romanticised or exoticised lens. Many nineteenth-century Europeans viewed Egyptian culture as something to be admired, collected and reinterpreted, often without fully engaging with the perspectives of Egyptians themselves.

Egyptian-inspired designs appeared throughout Western architecture, decorative arts and literature. In Scotland, traces of this influence can still be found. William Henry Playfair incorporated sphinxes into the design of the Royal Scottish Academy building, while Egyptian motifs can also be seen in Alan Stevenson's lighthouse at Ardnamurchan.

Interest in Egypt reached a level that would not be matched until the discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb by Howard Carter in 1922. As European fascination with Egypt grew, libraries and collectors increasingly sought books connected to the subject. The Faculty of Advocates was no exception.

Egyptology in the Advocates Library

Although Sir John Clerk of Penicuik once observed that the Faculty were "no great lovers of antiquities of any kind, and far less Egyptian", the Library had shown an interest in the subject long before acquiring the 'Description'.

In the eighteenth century, it purchased works by the antiquary Alexander Gordon, one of Scotland's earliest writers on Egyptian artefacts. He published 'An essay towards explaining the hieroglyphical figures' in 1737 to which the Library was a subscriber. In 1748, the Faculty even acquired mummified remains, the only complete example in Scotland. It was something of a status symbol, but not one that fared well in the damp conditions of Edinburgh. While such remains were often treated as curiosities by collectors in the past, they are now understood and cared for as the remains of a person.

By the early nineteenth century, the Library had spent almost 150 years building collections relating to art, architecture and archaeology. The acquisition of 'Description de l'Égypte' in 1831 represented a major addition to those holdings. Financial difficulties meant it would also be one of the last great purchases of that era.

The scale of the books created practical challenges. The plate volumes were simply too large for ordinary shelving, and a special case had to be constructed to house them. An entry in the curators' minutes from 15 June 1831 records the decision to purchase what was described as "the great national work on Egypt", offered by a bookseller for 120 guineas.

The Library's copy

That copy, now part of the National Library of Scotland's collection, remains a remarkable survival. It consists of nine volumes of text together with ten elephant folios and three double-elephant folios (this is a publishing term referring to exceptionally large page sizes). Among its highlights are fourteen hand-coloured bird illustrations in the Natural History section.

More than two centuries after the research began, the 'Description de l'Égypte' remains both a spectacular object and a complex historical document. It is a product of scientific ambition, artistic skill and imperial expansion. Its pages helped establish the study of ancient Egypt while also shaping European ideas about the country for generations.

Today, these extraordinary volumes can still be consulted in the Library's Special Collections Reading Room under the shelfmark Egypte.