Amelia Roberts writes 'A Thousand Miles up the Nile' - Founder of the Egyptian Fund (society) A 19th century woman with a passion for Egypt

English novelist and travel writer Amelia Edwards arrived in Egypt in the winter of 1873, for a journey up the River Nile that would change her life, she fell so in love with Egypt and its history that she decided to study Egyptology, and Hieroglyphic writing, she learnt Arabic and studied Egyptian Literature. Emile wrote the book 'A Thousand Miles up the Nile'.  It was published in 1877 a few years after her travels in Egypt. Amelia's book was a mixture of a diary, an early tour guide and it also describes her Temple discoveries, and the Egyptian life and culture of the Victorian Period. , she also gives us a fascinating look into the lives of the Egyptians that in the 19th century lived in hovels inside the temples, Amelia noted that 'what is most striking is the abject poverty of the people who dwell among these ruins that attract so many wealthy Europeans.'

Amelia wrote about her fellow tourists : The British lord it over the natives who will do anything for ‘baksheesh’ (charity). The men on the trip are of course ‘sportsmen’, which means they shoot at anything in sight and even the author remarks on the tragedy of crocodiles being shot nearly into extinction. One stomach-churning episode details the near killing of an Egyptian child by the carelessness of one of these gunmen. When the relatives of the child assail the blundering ass, they are arrested and threatened with brutality by the police who claim that the whole village will be bastinadoed (caning of the soles of the feet) should the ‘Ingleezeh’ wish it.


On her travels Amilia created over seventy illustrations  on site in watercolours. Amelia's depiction of nineteenth-century Egypt with its fellahs, dahabiya and rural villages has been an indispensable resource for so many people interested in Egypt during the 19th Century. For the book's publication her watercolour paintings had to be copied and engraved on wood.
In the 19th Century a lot of the temples were in ruins, columns and obelisks had fallen down, the temples were half filled with sand, and Egyptians lived inside them with their donkeys chickens and cooking fires, where the black smoke ruined the beautiful colours of the temple reliefs on it's walls and ceilings, Dendera temple was a classic example, the ceiling was black with smoke dust, but it has been lovingly restored again. Amelia believed that the great Egyptian antiquities would be destroyed if proper scientific investigation were not instituted. Leaving Egypt Amelia devoted herself to publicising the need for archaeological research in Egypt by means of writing and lecturing. Her lecture tour brought her to the United States in  1889-90 and resulted in a publication Pharaohs, Fellahs and Explorers in 1891.

Amelia toured Egypt for a second time again with her friend and companion Lucy Renshaw. They hired a dahabiya (a large houseboat) and  they sailed southwards where they visited the Temples of Hathor at Dendera , the temple of Khumn at Esna,Temple of Isis at Philae, and the Temple of Ramses 11 at Abu Simbel




Dendera temple - The Goddess Hathor

'If a sound of antique chanting were to be borne along the quiet air - if a procession of white robed priests bearing aloft the veiled ark of the God, were to come sweeping round between the palms and the pylons - we would not think it strange.'

'an Egyptian Temple was not a place for public worship. It was a treasure-house, a sacristy, a royal oratory, a place of preparation, of consecration, of sacerdotal privacy. There, in costly shrines, dwelt the divine images. There they were robbed and unrobbed ; perfumed with incense ; visited and worshipped by the King. On certain great days of the calendar, as on the occasion of the festival of the new year, or the panegyrics of the local gods, these images were brought out, paraded along the corridors of the temple, carried round the roof, and borne with waving of banners, and chanting of hymns, and burning of incense, through the sacred groves of the enclosure. Probably none were admitted to these ceremonies save persons of royal or priestly birth. To the rest of the community, all that took place within those massy walls was enveloped in mystery.'

'The hall of assembly contains a calendar of festivals, and sets forth with studied precision the rites to be performed on each recurring anniversary. On the ceiling of the portico we find an astronomical zodiac ; on the walls of a small temple on the roof the whole history of the resurrection of Osiris, together with the order of prayer for the twelve hours of the night, and a calendar of the festivals of Osiris in all the principal cities of Upper and Lower Egypt.'

The Temple of the God Khumn at Esna

At the little town of Esna Amelia had problems finding the temple because the town had been surrounded by sand and the towns buildings, when she eventually found it she wrote:
'This is what we see…a Temple neither ruined nor defaced, but buried to the chin in the accumulated rubbish of a score of centuries.'  Amelia was disappointed that the majority of the temple remained unexcavated under the surrounding town.  ' What treasures of sculptured history, what pictured chambers, what buried bronzes and statues may here wait the pick of the excavator!'

The Temple of Isis at Philae

'The approach by water is quite the most beautiful. Seen from the level of a small boat, the island, with its palms, its colonnades, its pylons, seems to rise out of the river like a mirage. Piled rocks frame it in on either side, and purple mountains close up the distance. As the boat glides nearer between glistening boulders, those sculptured towers rise higher and ever higher against the sky. They show no sign of ruin or age. All looks solid, stately, perfect. One forgets for the moment that anything is changed. Amelia 'was struck by the beauty of the temple of Philae, she described it : 'perfect grace, exquisite proportion, most varied and capricious grouping, here take the place of massiveness.' On leaving Philae they sailed to Abu Simbel

The Temple of Ramses 11 at Abu Simbel

Arriving At Abu Simbel on the 21st January they moored the dahabiya for eighteen days so that they could explore and record this amazing temple. Amelia wrote about the seated statues of Ramses:  'it was wonderful to wake every morning close under the steep bank, and, without lifting one's head from the pillow, to see that row of giant faces so close against the sky. They showed unearthly enough by moonlight ; but not half so unearthly as in the grey of dawn. At that hour, the most solemn of the twenty-four, they wore a fixed and fatal look that was little less than appalling. As the sky warmed, this awful look was succeeded by a flush that mounted and deepened like the rising flush of life. For a moment they seemed to glow – to smile – to be transfigured. Then came a flash, as of thought itself. It was the first instantaneous flash of the risen sun. It lasted less than a second. It was gone almost before one could say that it was there. The next moment, mountain, river, and sky were distinct in the steady light of day ; and the colossi – mere colossi now – sat serene and stony in the open sunshine.


Amelia realized that she would need the help of the local villagers to dig the sand away from the entrance so she hired fifty local villagers, who arrived with boat paddles to dig the sand away.
Inside the temple Amelia discovered the entrance to a small square chamber. In her excitement of the initial discovery she reportedly fell to her knees beside the small opening and began digging with her bare hands while still in her skirts. Amelia decided that she would need even more help to excavate the chamber, so the 'next morning came the Sheykh in persson, with his two sons and a following of a hundred men. This was so many more than we had bargained for, that we at once foresaw a scheme to extort money'. The Sheykh however proved to be an honourable man and so 'we therefore received him with honour, invited him to luncheon, and, hoping to get the work quickly, set the men on in gangs, under the superintendence of  Reis


Hassan and the head sailor. By noon, the door was cleared down to the threshold, and the whole south and west walls were laid bare to the floor. They had found  the entrance to a small square chamber, once the sand was cleared both herself and her crew began recording the vivid paintings on the walls, in the chamber one of the crew thrust his fingers into a skull! This was such an amazing and unexpected incident, that for the moment he said nothing, but went on quietly displacing the sand and feeling his way under the surface. The next instant his hand came in contact with the edge of a clay bowl, which he carefully withdrew. It measured about four inches in diameter, was hand-moulded, and full of caked sand. He now proclaimed his discoveries, and all ran to help in the work. Soon a second and smaller skull was turned up, then another bowl, and then, just under the place from which the bowls were taken, the bones of two skeletons all detached, perfectly desiccated, and apparently complete. The remains were those of a child and a small grown person – probably a woman. The teeth were sound ; the bones wonderfully delicate and brittle. As for the little skull (which had fallen apart at the sutures), it was pure and fragile in texture as the cup of a water-lily. We laid the bones aside as we found them, examining every handful of sand, in the hope of discovering something that might throw light upon the burial. But in vain. We found not a shred of clothing, not a bead, not a coin, not the smallest vestige of anything that might help one to judge whether the interment had taken place a hundred years ago or a thousand'

At the Second Cataract, the journey southward ended, and the travellers turned for home stopping at Kom Ombo, Luxor, and finally arriving back in Cairo.

The Double Temple of Kom Ombo

This temple is unique because it's double design has courts, halls, sanctuaries, and rooms duplicated for two sets of Gods. The southern half of the temple id dedicated to the crocodile God Sobek, whilst the northern part of the temple is dedicated to the falcon God Horus

Here Amelia recorded that,  '…there remain only a few giant columns buried to within eight or ten feet of their gorgeous capitals; a superb fragment of architrave; one wave of sculptured cornice and some fallen blocks graven with the names of Ptolemies and Cleopatras.

At Abydos, she felt the temple of Seti I at Abydos to be ' one of the most beautiful of Egyptian ruins',


Karnack temple -Luxor - The Hypostyle Hall

'I stand once more among those mighty columns, which radiate into avenues from whatever point one takes them. I see them swathed in coiled shadows and broad bands of light. I see them sculpted and painted with shapes of Gods and Kings, with blazonings of royal names, with sacrificial altars, and forms of sacred beasts, and emblems of wisdom and truth. The shafts of these columns are enormous. I stand at the foot of one – or of what seems to be the foot ; for the original pavement lies buried seven feet below. Six men standing with extended arms, fingertip to fingertip, could barely span it round. It casts a shadow twelve feet in breadth – such a shadow as might be cast by a tower. The capital that juts out so high above my head looks as if it might have been placed there to support the heavens. It is carved in the semblance of a full-blown lotus, and glows with undying colours – colours that are still fresh, though laid on by hands that have been dust these three thousand years and more. It would take not six men, but a dozen to measure round the curved lip of that stupendous lily.'



Luxor Temple

'I have already said, these half-buried pylons, this solitary obelisk, those giant heads rising in ghastly resurrection before the gates of the Temple, were magnificent still. But it was as the magnificence of a splendid prologue to a poem of which only garbled fragments remain. Beyond that entrance lay a smoky, filthy, intricate labyrinth of lanes and passages. Mud hovels, mud pigeon-towers, mud yards, and a mud mosque, clustered like wasps' nests in and about the ruins. Architraves sculptured with royal titles supported the roofs of squalid cabins. Stately capitals peeped out from the midst of sheds in which buffaloes, camels, donkeys, dogs, and human beings were seen herding together in unsavoury fellowship. Cocks crew, hens, cackled, pigeons cooed, turkeys gobbled, children swarmed, women were baking and gossiping, and all the sordid routine of Arab life was going on, amid winding alleys that masked the colonnades and defaced the inscriptions of the Pharaohs. To trace the plan of this part of the building was then impossible.'


The Ramesseum and the Valley of the Kings on the West Bank

Amelia and her companions witnessed the opening of a tomb near the Ramesseum. Arriving at the Mortuary Temple of Ramses 11 'The Rammessium' Amelia was delighted to find the colossal statue as described by Diodorus as the largest in Egypt.She wrote: 'Ruined almost beyond recognition as it is, one never doubts for a moment that this statue was one of the wonders of Egyptian workmanship.  It most probably repeated in every detail the colossi of Abou Simbel; but it surpassed them as much in finish of carving as in perfection of material.'

Amelia visited the tombs of the Nobles on the hill above the Ramesseum at Qurna,  and the other west bank temples.  Finally they arrived at the Valley of the Kings where she described the tombs : 'To go down into one of these great sepulchres is to descend oneself into the Lower World, and to tread the path of the shades…The atmosphere is suffocating.  The place is ghostly and peopled with nightmares.'

The Sphinx and Pyramid of Khufu at Giza Plateau

One of Amelia’s first excursions in Egypt and on her return to Cairo was to visit the Giza plateau to see the Pyramids and Sphinx. Her first impression was of awe and wonder, and on the return visit, she climbed the Great Pyramid, atop which she marvelled at the theories that abounded about them even then. 'Recognizing how clearly the place is a great cemetery, once marvels at the ingenious theories which turn the pyramids into astronomical observatories, and abstruse standards of measurement.  They are the grandest graves in all the world – and they are nothing more.'


Amelia Edwards Founder of The Egypt Exploration Fund

 In 1882 Amelia joined forces with Reginald Stuart Poole and together they set up the Egypt Exploration Fund (now known as the Egypt Exploration Society) it was dedicated to raising awareness and enthusiasm for Egypt’s past and to help preserve what is left of it. The Exploration fund received money by subscribers so that they could systematically codify archaeology, they engaged in research under the management of W.Flinders-Petrie and Edouard Naville. Flinders Petrie would go on to be known as the father of modern archaeology.

 Amelia's book 'Pharaohs Fellahs and Explorers'

Amelia devoted herself to publicising the need for archaeological research in Egypt by means of writing and lecturing. Her lecture tour brought her to the United States in  1889-90 and resulted in her publication of ' Pharaohs, Fellahs and Explorers' that was published in 1891.

Amelia dies at home in England

After catching influenza, Amelia died on 15 April 1892. She was buried in the churchyard of St Mary the Virgin, Henbury, Bristol, where her grave is marked by an obelisk, the Symbolism of an Obelisk is to bring the energy of the sun and the God Ra to the words on the Obelisk praising the Pharaoh giving him renewed life and power. There is also laid on the grave a stone ankh the ancient Egyptian symbolism of the Ankh is to give life again, all the temples and tombs show the gods giving the pharaohs' the breath of Life.

Amelia bequeathed her collection of Egyptian antiquities and her library to University College London, with a sum of £2,500 to found an Edwards Chair of Egyptology

All her many notes on the subject of Ancient Egypt, and her watercolours she left to Somerville College at Oxford