Denkmaeler aus Aegypten und Aethiopien

Denkmaeler aus Aegypten und Aethiopien: 
nach den Zeichnungen der von seiner Majestät dem Koenige von Preussen Friedrich Wilhelm IV nach diesen Ländern gesendeten und in den Jahren 1842-1845 ausgeführten wissenschaftlichen Expedition
Herausgegeben und erläutert von C. R. Lepsius
Berlin: Nicolaische Buchhandlung, 1849-1856
Smithsonian Libraries

In 1842 Emperor Friederich Wilhelm IV of Prussia commissioned Carl Lepsius to lead a scientific expedition to Egypt and Nubia to record monuments and to bring back to Prussia treasures he might discover.  This set of monumental volumes is one of the outcomes of the emperor’s enterprise.  For three years the expedition visited sites along the Nile, both known and previously unknown.  In addition to exploring Giza, Abusir, Saqqara, and Dahshur, the Lepsius team traveled to Nubia (then called Äthiopia) where they conducted the earliest scientific investigations.

Lepsius also visited Khartoum and ascended the Blue Nile past Sennar, not only to document antiquities but also to make a study of regional languages. On the way back, the expedition visited Thebes, Qurna, and Karnak.

Fit for An Emperor

The expedition brought back three types of material: first, more than 1,300 sketches and drawings, representing Nile Valley landscapes, architectural renderings of tombs and temples, and copies of hieroglyphs, inscriptions, murals, and bas-reliefs; then, mechanical reproductions consisting of tracings, plaster casts of various objects, and some 6,000 squeezes of inscriptions in several languages;[1] and finally, original artifacts.

Following his return to Prussia in 1846, Lepsius set about preparing and editing the publication of this monumental work, Denkmäler aus Ägypten und Äthiopien.  Given that the expedition was under the imprimatur of the emperor, the publication had to be of the highest quality.  It was imperative that the illustrations made during the expedition be published to further the goal of public education about these remarkable civilizations.  From the more than 2,000 large original sheets, around 900, or around half, would be published.

[Abth. III, Band 7, Bl. 16]

Lepsius assembled a talented team to record the expedition visually.  The architect Georg Gustav Erbkam produced topographical drawings and the site plans for temples and tombs that set the standard for historical architecture.  The painter Ernst Weidenbach made painstakingly accurate drawings to scale of monuments and hieroglyphics, and his brother Max Weidenbach, an artist and lithographer whom Lepsius had trained specially for his assignment, reproduced the hieroglyphics on stone plates.  H. Reubke printed most of the plates with great care at his lithographic institute; the landscapes in the first section were transferred by the talented H. Loeillot, and the difficult color printing of these scenes was entrusted to H. Mercer.  Lithography was chosen over copper plates because lithography could give excellent results and was perfectly suitable for a work consisting mostly of simple outline drawings.  Moreover, it cost significantly less.

Lepsius stressed accuracy in the representation of hieroglyphs, edifices and bas reliefs.  The optical device known as the camera lucida, which was invented in 1807, allowed drawings to be made with precision.  It consists of a mounted glass that let the artist see the subject to be drawn and the drawing surface simultaneously.  Architect Erbkam and artists-brothers Weidenbach used this device.  Some of the objects were drawn in lead or India ink;

others, including landscapes and copies of friezes, were in color.

The Egyptian illustrations were all reprinted using a special tinted plate against a white background.  This process not only offered the viewer a more complete and pleasing impression of the object, but also, by using color that is close to nature, indicated the type of rock the monument was made of.  Limestone was shown by a yellowish color, sandstone with more of a gray color, and granite with a reddish tone.  If the original colors of a painted illustration were preserved well enough to be reproduced in the on-site drawing, they were reproduced as accurately as possible in the color printing.

The question arose of how to arrange this mass of new material for publication - by geography, subject matter, or chronology?  Lepsius thought it more important to follow a historical sequence because that was, after all, the goal of the expedition.  All epochs were to be represented, though some sites reflected more than one epoch.  The decision was made to divide material into six sections.  Sections containing too many plates for one physical volume were divided among several.

• Section I, geography, topography, landscapes, from north to south, which coincided with historical chronology.
• Section II, Old Kingdom.
• Section III, New Kingdom up to the second Persian conquest.
• Section IV, era of Greek and Roman dominance.
• Section V, Nubia (Äthiopia).
• Section VI, inscriptions other than hieroglyphics (Hieratic, Demotic, Coptic, Ethiopian, Sinaitic, other Semitic, Greek, and Roman).

The Atlas Folio

Denkmäler marks a critical period in the production of books and represents state-of-the art printing technology of the period.  The new printing capabilities overcame the limits which manual techniques placed on paper size and printing.  Paper could be made in larger sheets.  The use of the roller press invented in the mid-nineteenth century and the method of transfer printing made possible printing on larger sheets of paper, thus allowing for the creation of large-size or folio books.[2]  Although such large books are difficult to handle, Lepsius decided that the large format of the plates could not be avoided because of the size of the illustrations, which were not available in smaller sizes or could not be broken up.

Lepsius’s work remains a fundamental resource for ancient Egyptian and Nubian studies in elucidating chronology and history and showing the earliest depictions of some ruins.  It documented many sites that have since been destroyed or reburied, providing plans, topographical maps, and drawings of tomb and temple walls that are of a high degree of accuracy and reliability.[3]

About the Egyptologist

Carl Richard Lepsius (1810-1884) was one of the founding fathers of Egyptology. Before his trip to Egypt, he studied hieroglyphs and examined the collections of Egyptian antiquities in Italy, England, and the Netherlands.  He also published Lettre à M. le professeur H. Rosellini . . . sur l'alphabet hiéroglyphique in 1837, in which he expanded Jean-François Champollion’s work on hieroglyphs.

Bibliography

Cornell University, Digital Scholarship and Preservation Services.  “Epigraphic Squeezes, Part 1,” by J. M. Iaacchei. http://blogs.cornell.edu/dsps/2013/12/19/epigraphic-squeezes-part-i/

Freier, Elke, Franziska Naether, and Siegfried Wagner, editors.  Von Naumburg bis zum Blauen Nil: die Lepsius-Expedition nach Ägypten und Nubien.  Naumburg, Germany: Stadtmuseum Naumburg, 2012.

Lepsius-Projekt Sachsen-Anhalt.  “Denkmäler aus Ägypten und Äthiopien” by Carl Richard Lepsius.   http://edoc3.bibliothek.uni-halle.de/lepsius/    This website includes the complete folio set.