Ancient Egypt and Pop Culture: Hollywood, Psuedoscience Fashion and Tutmania | Middle East And North Africa

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ANCIENT EGYPT AND WESTERN CULTURE

Steve Martin as King Tut

Greeks and Romans produced sphinxes and pharaoh-like images of rulers. Egyptian obelisks are scattered all over the world. There is one in front of Haghia Sofia in Istanbul, the Place de Concorde in Paris, and St. Peter's basilica and a dozen other places in Rome.

Shakespeare, Yeats, and Mozart and all produced works inspired by the ancient Egyptians. The "Magic Flute" by Mozart and "Aida" by Verdi are both about ancient Egypt. Egyptian eyes were fixtures of René Maggritte paintings. Freud liked to collect Egyptian art and showed off his prize possessions in his desk. Over the famous couch was a print of Ramses the Great’s temple at Abu Simbel.

In the 19th century many buildings were made in the Egyptian style. In the 1920s, after King Tut’s tomb was, discovered flappers began doing mummy dances and the Egyptian-style bob, bangs and black eye make-up became a fixture of modern fashion. These days one can buy teapots decorated with hieroglyphics, mummy movie posters and sarcophagus-shaped pot holders.

Aida

Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901) is regarded as opera's greatest composer. “Aida”, generally thought to be Verdi's most popular opera, was composed in 1869 after the composer received a letter from an Egyptian pasha asking him to write an opera for the opening of the Suez Canal. Scoring the opera was a former singer who turned to writing librettos after he lost his voice. [Source: "The Creators" by Daniel Boorstin]

Aida debuted in Cairo at the opening of the Suez Canal on December 24, 1871.Aida is an Ethiopian slave who falls in love with a Egyptian soldier Rhadames. The daughter of the pharaoh also loves the soldier. The opera is set during a war between Egypt and Ethiopia (Nubia). Aida convinces Rhadames to save her. This plan is discovered and Rhadames is condemned to death. The opera ends with Aida dying in her lover's tomb.

Popularity of Ancient Egypt

Dr Joyce Tyldesley wrote: University Egyptology courses are full to bursting, and night school classes are attracting increasing numbers of people happy to spend their leisure hours studying the far distant past. This obvious interest has become self-fulfilling. Publishers and television producers are happy to invest in ancient Egypt because they know that there will be an appreciative audience for their work, and every new book, each new programme, attracts more devotees to the subject. Liverpool University,

“All ancient civilizations have contributed in some way to the development of modern society. All therefore are equally deserving of study. Why then do so many people choose to concentrate on Egypt? What does the culture of ancient Egypt offer the modern world that other cultures-those of Mesopotamia, the Indus Valley, or China-do not? |::|

“Those who have been bitten by the Egyptology bug cite a variety of reasons for their addiction-the beauty of the art, the skill of the craftsmen, the intricacies of the language, the certainties of the priests-or even a vague, indefinable feeling that the Egyptians came as close as is humanly possible to living a near-perfect life. Individually these would all be good reasons to study any ancient civilization. Combined, and tinged with the glamour bestowed by some of the world's most flamboyant archaeologists, they make an irresistible package. |::|

Our fascination with ancient Egypt is, to a large extent, a product of the vast amount of material information available. We know so much about the daily lives of the ancient Egyptians-we can read their words, meet their families, feel their clothes, taste their food and drink, enter their tombs and even touch their bodies-that it seems that we almost know them. And knowing them, maybe even loving them, we feel that we can understand the very human hopes and fears that dominated their lives.

Ancient Egypt and Modern Culture

Norman Mailer, the Freemasons, and Cecil B, De Mille all produced works inspired by the ancient Egyptians. A pyramid with an eyeball above it (the Freemason symbol) is on the back of the American dollar bill. The pyramid is also the symbol of American Online and hundreds of websites (some scholarly, some stupid) are devoted it. A glass pyramid stands in the courtyard of the Louvre museum.

“The Egyptian”, written in 1949 by Finnish writer Mika Waltari is said to be one of the best works of fiction for bringing the age of Amenhotep, Tutankhamun and Nefertiti to life in all its lusty, blood-and-guts glory.

Steve Martin danced like King Tut and the Bangles sang about walking like an Egyptian. Martin did his routine on Saturday Night Live in 1978 when a popular King Tut exhibition was touring the United States. A couple lines of it go: ““Now when I die, Now don’t think I’m a nut/ Don’t want to fancy funeral, just one like old King Tut’s!/ He coulda won a Grammy. Buried in his jammies. ”

“The Secrets of Isis” was a kids television show from the 1970s that featured the sexy actress JoAnna Cameron, playing Andrea Thomas, a mild-mannered science teacher that tapped into supernatural powers with an amulet from the goddess Isis to fight bad guys and rescue trapped students . She was able to fly after uttering the words: “O zephyr winds, which blow on high, lift me now, so I can fly!”.

Egyptian symbolism and objects have been embraced by Occultists, New Agers and “spirit guides.” The Egyptian eye was featured in the CBS logo. Jewelry is made in the shape of ankhs and cartouches (oblong enclosures containing the names of pharaohs). Las Vegas and Memphis, Tennessee, respectively, have a giant pyramid-shape casino and a giant pyramid-shape sports arena. Some have argued that the passion for Egypt kitsch over Egyptology has elevated Boris Karloff’s Mummy to the same importance as a major archaeological discovery.

Book: “Lady of the Reeds” and other books by Pauline Gedge are entertaining historical novels set in the reign of Ramses III in ancient Egypt.

Ancient Egyptians, von Däniken and Pseudoscience

Candida Moss wrote in the Daily Beast: Then there’s the “helicopter” found in the temple of the Egyptian Pharoah Seti I at Abydos. Ancient Aliens suggests that a strange looking hieroglyph is a helicopter or flying saucer but traditional archeology identifies it as a re-carved inscription in which one name had replaced another. It might look strange but this, said Anderson, is just because the paint has been chipped away. [Source: Candida Moss, Daily Beast, September 12, 2021]

The roots of many of von Däniken’s theories about Ancient Aliens are actually pop culture. The theory that aliens built the pyramids, for example, first shows up in the 1898 science fiction novel, Edison’s Conquest of Mars. In a forthcoming article, Anderson shows that von Däniken was pipped to the post by science fiction writers who had already hypothesized that ancient people would have confused aliens with gods.

To say that the theories that underpin Ancient Aliens have been rejected is to understate the case. In the foreword to a book debunking von Däniken’s claims Carl Sagan wrote: “That writing as careless as von Däniken's, whose principal thesis is that our ancestors were dummies, should be so popular is a sober commentary on the credulousness and despair of our times. I also hope for the continuing popularity of books like Chariots of the Gods? in high school and college logic courses, as object lessons in sloppy thinking.”

Ancient Egypt and Hollywood

Among the more well-known Egyptian-themed films are “Cleopatra” with Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton; “The Mummy” horror classic (and the modern high-tech verison), “The Prince of Egypt”, the Disney animated feature about Moses, The statue in “The Maltese Falcon” was image of the Egyptian falcon god Horus.

Elizabeth Taylor, thick with blue eye shadow, and Theda Bara, in her famous chain bra, played Cleopatra. Yul Brenner was a pharaoh. Hollywood Pictures uses a sphinx for its logo.

The most impressive sets from Cecil B. DeMille's “Ten Commandments” (1923), were those used for the Egyptian scenes, including a 40-meter-high, 270-meter-wide temple flanked by four 40-ton plaster images statues of Ramses II with entranceway lined by 21 giant plaster sphinxes, made with help of French artist Paul Iribe, one of the founders of the Art Deco movement.

We don't know exactly how the pharaohs went about staking their claim of divinity but the author Anne Rice in her book “Lestat the Vampire” said they were descendants of a pair of separated twin that later gave birth to vampires.

Mummy Mania

Crushed up mummies had been used in the Middle East as a remedy for a host of ills for a long time. From the 13th to the 17th century mummies were pulverized into medicine in Europe. Apothecary shops sold real and fake mummy powder as cures for a number of ills. Ground mummy was an ingredient of Macbeth's witches brew.

Napoleon’s first expedition into Egypt in 1798 piqued European curiosity in mummies and ancient Egypt in general. In the 19th century, mummies were displayed in European homes and European aristocrats, such as the Habsburgs, collected them. Mummies were so common that explorers reputedly stepped on them in tombs and tourist brought them home.

In “Innocents Abroad” Mark Twain asserted that mummies were used to power Egyptian steam locomotives, a claim most likely untrue. Mummies were exported for use in the papermaking industry. Americans made paper from mummy linen purchased for 3 cents a pound and it was said that mummies were used as firewood for steam engines even though people complained they didn't burn very well. Mummies also provided material for the pigment “Egyptian brown.”

In the 19th century, travelers to Egypt were allowed to bring mummies back to Europe they bought on the street of Cairo. Victorians held private parties dedicated where mummies were unwrapped for entertainment. Dr Joann Fletcher of the University of York wrote for BBC: “With 'mummy unwrapping parties' all the rage, otherwise sanctimonious Victorians felt no qualms desecrating pre-Christian bodies and even sent specially-printed invitation cards: 'Lord Londesborough at Home: A Mummy from Thebes to be unrolled at half-past Two'. [Source: Dr Joann Fletcher, BBC, February 17, 2011]

Tut Mania

King Tutankhamun was the last heir of a powerful family that ruled ancient Egypt for many centuries. Although his rule was unfilled his death was treated with great fanfare as he was the last of his line. It is astonishing how Tutankhamun continues do fascinate people today. More than 8 million people showed up to see his mask and artifacts from his tomb during the King Tut tour of the United States in the 1977. The comedian Steve Martin gave his career a big boost when he recorded a silly song about the pharaoh around the time of the tour.

An exhibit in the mid 2000s called “Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs” — similar to one in 1977 — cleared $10 million in each city it appeared in. The admission fee was as high as $30. More than a million people saw the exhibit in Chicago and Philadelphia and nearly a million saw it in Los Angeles. The tour took place in spite of a ban that had been imposed after a gilt statue from Tut’s tomb was broken during a tour of Germany in 1982.

Tutmania in the 1920s

Tom Mueller wrote in National Geographic: The new power of media in a world desperate for diversion after the draining horrors of World War I unleashed a modern wave of Egyptomania that made the boy king a pop-culture celebrity. There were King Tut lemons from California, King Tut cigarette cards and biscuit tins, even a board game called Tutoom in which little metal archaeologists on donkeys searched for treasures. Songs such as “Old King Tut” were Jazz Age hits danced to by flappers wearing cobra headpieces and eye of Horus kohl eyeliner. Egyptian symbols flowed into art deco. Hieroglyphs and cartouches invaded wallpaper, clothing, and furniture fabrics. Egyptian-themed movie theaters opened in some 50 U.S. cities, adorned with gods and sphinxes, papyrus columns, and faux tomb frescoes.[Source: Tom Mueller, National Geographic, November 2022]

When Lord Carnarvon returned to England, he was invited to Buckingham Palace for a personal audience with King George V and Queen Mary, so eager were the royal couple for Tut news. Carnarvon gave the London Times exclusive rights to the unfolding story in return for 5,000 pounds sterling and a percentage of future sales. The deal enraged Egyptian journalists and the international press, whose reporters had to scramble for any scrap of news.

Ann R. Williams wrote in National Geographic History: People wanted to read books and see movies about ancient Egypt, photographs of artifacts recovered from the tomb’s chambers. The jewelers Tiffany & Company, Cartier, and Van Cleef & Arpels created Egypt — themed collections that featured ancient elements such as hieroglyphs, scarabs, and sphinxes. Paris designer Paul Poiret paid homage to Tut by creating couture that highlighted colors, cuts, and patterns from ancient Egyptian works of art. Cosmetics queen Helena Rubinstein — creator of the Valaze Egyptian Mask, which promised to rejuvenate “aging, relaxed faces” — even wore one of Poiret’s Egyptian — themed frocks in a 1923 advertisement for her products. These Egyptian motifs would become an integral part of art deco, the iconic visual language of the Roaring Twenties. [Source: Ann R. Williams, National Geographic History, November 4, 2022]

1976 King Tut Exhibit

In 1976, more than 3,000 years after his death, King Tutankhamun’s second reign began as treasures from the Egyptian boy monarch’s tomb reached the U. S., touching off a “Tut-mania”. David Kamp wrote in Vanity Fair: In the U.S., Tutankhamun became King Tut, and King Tut became one of the most all-encompassing cultural phenomena of the second half of the 20th century. The exhibition broke museum attendance records, with hours-long waits and Studio 54-like queues to get in. (It was seen by eight million people, a million more than Tut had ruled as king. ) The show significantly boosted the economy of every city it passed through — no small thing in the fiscally straitened 1970s. [Source: David Kamp, Vanity Fair, March 19, 2013]

It sustained several cottage industries’ worth of collectibles, from the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s upscale line of souvenirs (which included a life-size replica of Selket, in resin coated with gold leaf, yours for $1,500) to cheap, unlicensed ladies’ T-shirts (HANDS OFF MY TUTS), and inspired a Steve Martin novelty single that made its debut in 1978 on Saturday Night Live and went platinum. Tut-mania was a bona fide late-70s thing, like disco and Halston and Roots, and with many of the same gawkers, participants, and champions: Andy Warhol, Elizabeth Taylor, Henry Kissinger, Billy Carter. When the exhibition reached its final stop, in New York City, an unnamed Metropolitan Museum executive told the Associated Press, “Seeing Tut is the status symbol right now in this city. It’s even superseded sex. ” (Again, no small thing in the 70s. )

That “Treasures of Tutankhamun” got to America was extraordinary in and of itself: the unlikely outcome of a variety of intertwined political and personal agendas, among them Richard Nixon’s desire to salvage his legacy as his presidency unraveled, the image-building campaign of a dynamic new Egyptian leader, Anwar Sadat, and the rivalry between two of America’s foremost museum directors, Thomas Hoving and J. Carter Brown. The confluence of these narratives, plus the simple fact that the objects on display were very old and very beautiful, ensured that “Treasures of Tutankhamun” would cut a swath like no museum exhibition before it ever had.

Ancient Egypt’s Lasting Impact on Fashion and Design

Meilan Solly wrote in Smithsonian magazine:In 1924, Paris jeweler Cartier debuted a makeup vanity case inspired by the door of an ancient Egyptian tomb. Adorned with mother of pearl, coral and lapis lazuli, the case’s design hearkened back to the discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb two years earlier by archaeologist Howard Carter. [Source: Meilan Solly, Smithsonian magazine, November 2023]

A 2023-2024 exhibition at the Cleveland Museum of Art argues that Egyptomania’s most lasting influence was in the field of fashion, where Egyptian-inspired styles became a byword “of sophistication and elegance,” says curator Darnell-Jamal Lisby. The show — “Egyptomania: Fashion’s Conflicted Obsession” — features examples of ancient designs and the more modern creations they inspired. A purse, created by the London-based Egyptian design house Sabry Marouf and inspired by the gold headdress of King Tut’s funerary mask, mirrors and inverts the royal regalia’s silhouette while recalling a traditional striped head cloth known as a nemes. A 13th-century B.C. tomb relief believed to depict the wife of Amenhotep, a physician who served under Ramses II, wearing a kalasiris, or long linen dress, is mirrored by a white jersey gown designed by Karl Lagerfeld for Chanel in 2019.

As Lisby notes, the relief shows that “ancient Egyptian dress became the most complex during the New Kingdom period” between the 16th and 11th centuries B.C., incorporating ornamentation like beaded gowns and sheer capelets. Contemplating the spectrum of contemporary clothing inspired by ancient Egypt is “like [looking into] a kaleidoscope,” Lisby says, as every designer interprets the civilization differently, whether the results are “uber glamorous, uber abstract or a little bit of both. ”

Image Sources: Wikimedia Commons, The Louvre, The British Museum, The Egyptian Museum in Cairo

Text Sources: UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology, escholarship.org ; Internet Ancient History Sourcebook: Egypt sourcebooks.fordham.edu ; Tour Egypt, Minnesota State University, Mankato, ethanholman.com; Mark Millmore, discoveringegypt.com discoveringegypt.com; Metropolitan Museum of Art, National Geographic, Smithsonian magazine, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Discover magazine, Times of London, Natural History magazine, Archaeology magazine, The New Yorker, BBC, Encyclopædia Britannica, Time, Newsweek, Wikipedia, Reuters, Associated Press, The Guardian, AFP, Lonely Planet Guides, “World Religions” edited by Geoffrey Parrinder (Facts on File Publications, New York); “History of Warfare” by John Keegan (Vintage Books); “History of Art” by H.W. Janson Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, N.J.), Compton’s Encyclopedia and various books and other publications.

Last updated September 2024