The ‘Essence’ of Egypt
The fourth chapter restores hieroglyphs to their historical and cultural context in post-Revolutionary Egypt, exploring how interpretations of the Pharaonic past and its hieroglyphs intervened in Egypt’s twentieth century struggles for cultural and national identity. The first novels by Naguib Mahfouz and Tawfiq al-Hakim, from the 1920s and 30s, draw on the ‘Pharaonicist’ movement of the period, co-opting the European Orientalist discourses with which Egypt was defined in order to forge their own definitions of the racial and cultural ‘essence’ of Egypt. Yet these national concerns remain linked with an interest in the ontology of media forms; the chapter concludes by focusing on Shadi Abd al-Salam’s film al-Mummia, from 1969, which looks back to early twentieth century Pharaonicism and connects its attempt to reclaim the past with film’s ability to record and preserve Egyptian hieroglyphs and artifacts.