6. Hamilton's Egypt
Compiled during his time in Egypt in 1801 and 1802, William Hamilton’s Aegyptica is the first volume in his Remarks on Several Parts of Turkey. Illustrations were provided by Charles Hayes of the Royal Engineers, who died from a fever at Rosetta in 1803.
Like earlier travel narratives, the work reflects the contemporary political climate in Egypt, a time of ongoing turmoil as Britain and France competed for control. It also gives a description of Egypt’s extant antiquities. But Hamilton is also a product of the earlier travel narratives which established the study of Classical antiquities and their accurate recording through illustrations. Thus, Hamilton not only skillfully connects the Egyptian, Greek and Roman remains he observed in Egypt with the works of classical authors, but also recognises the need to report accurately on these remains in text and in images, as a subject in their own right.
For this reason, he was uniquely placed to recognise a number of important artefacts and sites in Egypt. In Alexandria, he correctly identified the so-called Pillar of Pompey as a memorial to Diocletian, based on his reading of its Greek inscription. But perhaps most famously, Hamilton recognised and secured the export of an important inscribed stone at the Turkish fort of Rashid. This stone was none other than the famous Rosetta Stone, the Greek portion of which was transcribed and translated for the first time in the appendix to this volume. The work also includes records of numerous other Greek and Latin inscriptions seen by Hamilton during his extensive travels in Egypt early in the 19th century.