At the Edge of Diplomacy: Middle Eastern Archaeology and Britain’s Imperial Project, an Introduction

In December 1880, the French Egyptologist Gaston Maspero (1846-1916) wrote a letter to British novelist Amelia B. Edwards, herself a budding Egyptologist, lamenting the veil of political brinkmanship that often overshadowed archaeological missions: It is likely that I will encounter difficulties, which will have nothing to do with science.You know how strong rivalries between nations are in Egypt: I will undoubtedly arouse the suspicions of the Italians, Germans, and English, and people will seek to find deep political intentions behind my mission.You know I am nothing more than a man of learning … I imagine that once they have clearly established our sole purpose is to search for hieroglyphics, the diplomats will cease to allow us to work in peace. 1 As much as Maspero objected, the search for antiquities in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was fundamental to modern national, and imperial selffashioning.2 This was the era when archaeology was being formalised as an established