By Amara Thornton

Egyptomania: Our Three Thousand Year Obsession with the Land of the Pharaohs (2013) chronicles some of the ancient Egypt-inspired kit and advertising that emerged in the Victorian period.  Cigarette tins and cigar boxes, jewellery and domestic accoutrements are among the examples presented.  It’s still going today - as evident in this packet of “Cleopatra” cigarettes.

On that note, it’s amazing what you can find in old newspapers.  The Hawaiian Electric Company’s advertising in The Hawaiian Star in December 1903 drew on archaeology to enhance the appeal of their product.  Proclaiming that “Electric Lights now disturb the ghosts of the pharaohs in the Royal Tombs in the Valley of the Kings”, they decreed that electricity (which they would happily provide to customers) was the very latest in civilised living.  What was good enough to banish the phantoms of the pharaohs haunting the Royal Tombs in Thebes was certainly good enough for the people of Honolulu. 

References/Further Reading
Brier, B. 2013. Egyptomania: Our Three Thousand Year Obsession with the Land of the Pharaohs. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Hawaiian Star 24 Dec 1903. Advertisement: Electricity is King.

By Amara Thornton

London – a thriving financial, political and cultural powerhouse.  Oxford Street – a shopping paradise, nearly always packed.  Lately, I’ve been exploring the movement of learned societies around the West End.  My first post was about Egyptian Hall, on Piccadilly, where Flinders Petrie held his 1888 exhibition of antiquities from Hawara, Egypt.  Petrie also displayed objects in the Royal Archaeological Institute’s rooms in Oxford Mansions, a block of flats (now demolished) just off of Oxford Street. 

Oxford Mansions had been built on the site of an 18th century market square, named for the Earl of Oxford.  From the market’s central building vegetables, meat and fish were sold.  The market closed in the 1870s, its building was torn down and the red brick Mansions built in its place. (A brief history of the Oxford Market and an image of the market building can be found here.)

The Royal Archaeological Institute (RAI) moved to Oxford Mansions in the early 1880s from No 16 New Burlington Street, where it appears from Kelly’s 1882 Street Directory that they shared the premises with the tailors H. Güterbock & Son.  The RAI had enough room at New Burlington Street to hold public events - in 1880 the society hosted an “Exhibition of Helmets and Mail” featuring specimens ranging from ancient Greek to a foldable cap of steel bars worn by a French judge in the sixteenth century.  The RAI later recorded that the exhibition met with “remarkable interest and success”, attracting 1200 visitors over the twelve days it was open.

At Oxford Mansions, the RAI hosted several of Petrie’s exhibitions in the 1880s and early 1890s. The objects on display changed from season to season depending on where Petrie had been excavating, so visitors were able to see recently excavated artefacts from the Delta (Lower Egypt) at Tanis (San) and Naukratis; from Lahun in the Fayoum and from further up the Nile at Amarna, displayed just a stone's throw from the shops of Oxford Street.

The RAI moved to No. 20 Hanover Square, off of Regent Street, in 1894.  Kelly’s 1895 Street Directory shows that No. 20 was a hive of intellectual activity – no less that 11 learned societies or specialist clubs had rooms there, including the Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society, the Japan Society, the Royal Society of Literature, the Library Association and the British Gynaecological Society.  There were other societies and clubs dotted around Hanover Square too - the Palestine Exploration Fund was a few doors down at No 24, and the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain at No 3.  

It’s clear from the street directories and other books on London’s past that the city and its institutions were always shifting, always in motion.  The history of London’s learned societies can tell us a lot about changing priorities as well as a changing landscape, particularly for those that are still dependent on subscription and membership for their continued success today.  Public lectures and exhibitions remain a widely used strategy to engage current members and attract new audiences – but for how long? 

References/Futher Reading
Kelly & Co. Ltd. 1882. Post Office London Directory  (Part 1: Official and Street Directories). London: Kelly & Co. Ltd.

Kelly & Co. Ltd. 1895. Post Office London Directory for 1895 (Part 2: Street Directory). London: Kelly & Co. Ltd.

Loftie, W. J. 1883.  A History of London. Vol II. London: Edward Stanford.

RAI [Royal Archaeological Institute]. 1880. Report of the Council 1879-1880. Archaeological Journal 37: 432-434.

UCL [University College London]. 2002.  The Archaeological Record: Flinders Petrie in Egypt. Digital Egypt in Universities. 

Wheatley, H. B. & Cunningham, P. 1891 [2011]. London Past and Present: Its History, Associations and Traditions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.