Decolonising Egyptology and historical (mis)translations: In conversation with Egyptologist Monica Hanna
When we think of Egyptology, we're likely to picture pharaohs and hieroglyphs, maybe Cleopatra luxuriating in milk baths, or the golden mask of Tutankhamun, distorted by decades of pop culture.
Wrapped in mystique and grandeur, Egyptology has long been portrayed as exotic, sexy, and full of secrets.
However, behind the allure lies a painful and often neglected truth: Egyptology emerged as and remains a colonial discipline.
It emerged from the ruins of an empire, built by Western archaeologists who excavated Egyptian land, extracted its treasures, and in the process, robbed Egypt of its historical agency.
This isn't a harmless misunderstanding; it's a legacy of cultural theft and orientalist myth-making that continues to shape how the world sees Egypt today, through the lens of sand, gold, and static antiquity.
If Egypt is to reclaim its narrative, it must first reclaim Egyptology. According to Egyptian Egyptologist Monica Hanna, author of The Future of Egyptology, this is intrinsically tied to the task of translation, not just of language, but of meaning, ownership, and agency.
The history of the language of Egyptology epitomises its roots as a colonial and orientalist discipline which has subjugated and marginalised Egypt's own narrative.
From its inception, Egyptology has been severed from the Egyptian context, articulated not in Arabic, the language of the land, but in European tongues: English, French, German, and Dutch.
The term 'Egyptology' first appeared in the Oxford English Dictionary in 1841, following Napoleon's invasion of Egypt (1798-1801) and the subsequent publication of the Description de l'Égypte.
The discipline crystallised into a formal science in the early 19th century after Jean-François Champollion deciphered the Rosetta Stone in 1822 — an act widely regarded as foundational to modern Egyptology.
It's very naming marks the moment it was institutionalised within European academia, particularly in France and Britain, and later, Germany.
The coloniality of knowledge production in Egyptology is mirrored in the languages it operated through. The Arabic equivalent, ʿilm al-Miṣriyyāt, remains a somewhat awkward translation — one that is often replaced by the English term 'Egyptology' even in Arabic-language texts.
This linguistic displacement reflects a deeper epistemic exclusion: while European figures such as Champollion and Auguste Mariette dominated the discourse, aggressively shaping a flawed, romanticised, and fetishised version of Pharaonic Egypt, Egyptian voices and the Arabic language itself were muffled.
This erasure is evident in the foundational literature of the field. The 1951 edition of Who Was Who in Egyptology failed to mention Ahmad Kamal, one of Egypt's pioneering Egyptologists and arguably the first native scholar to enter the field. His omission is a symptom of a larger structural silencing.
Egyptology stuck in translation
From its inception to the present, Egyptology has been dominated by Western institutions that shaped not only the global narrative around ancient Egypt but also the epistemological frameworks within which Egyptian Egyptologists operate.
This asymmetry gave rise to a form of double consciousness, where Egyptian scholars must navigate a discipline built on colonial knowledge systems while attempting to assert their own intellectual agency.
"Egyptians themselves feel incapable of preserving their heritage; they believe it's better off in the hands of the West. This feeling of inadequacy, of 'we cannot do it', is the result of a relentless narrative that tells us we're unfit to care for our past," says Hanna.
It is clear that the decolonial struggle to reclaim Egyptology, both physically through the restitution of looted artefacts and intellectually through epistemic reorientation, is not a separate task: they are interdependent, and the first step toward either is translation.
Translating Egyptology is a multifaceted process — one that encompasses language, praxis, and a redefinition of what the term 'Egyptology' has come to mean.
The discipline is riddled with mistranslations and linguistic dislocations that have confined Egyptology to the study of a distant, pharaonic past.
It is stagnant, failing to translate into the present or to foster a vital, ongoing dialogue between ancient Egypt and contemporary Egyptian society.
In the Western imagination, Egypt is lost in translation: as historian Donald Malcolm Reid put it, "when it ceases to be ancient, it ceases to be Egypt".
The phrase "Walk like an Egyptian" — echoed in drunk football chants, parties, and 90s pop culture — encapsulates a broader distortion.
But what does it actually mean? And what does it say about the language we use to frame Egypt and Egyptology, both within and beyond Egypt today?
The task of translation begins with language in the most literal sense.
"Imagine someone studying Shakespeare without knowing English. The refusal to learn Arabic or to engage with Egyptology in Arabic sustains the idea that modern Egypt is irrelevant to the field," says Hanna.
"It keeps ancient Egypt in a glass box — palatable, exotic, and entirely disconnected from its historical context and cultural continuity."
Reclaiming knowledge through Arabic
Even the most prominent Western Egyptologists committed themselves to studying ancient Egyptian languages, deciphering hieroglyphs and mastering Coptic, yet neglected to learn aamiyya, the modern colloquial Arabic spoken across the country.
This omission reveals a deeper flaw: Egyptology has long been falsely understood as entirely divorced from contemporary Egyptian society, when in fact, the two should be in continuous dialogue.
The study of ancient Egypt should not eclipse the present; rather, each should illuminate and inform the other.
"Ancient Egyptian and aamiyya are not so distant," Hanna explains. "We see linguistic and philological echoes between them."
These continuities, often ignored in Western discourse, affirm the living, evolving relationship between ancient and modern Egypt.
Knowledge of Arabic should be considered foundational to the field of Egyptology. Without it, scholars remain disconnected from both the society that lives among the ruins and the cultural memory encoded in its language.
The absence of a large, thriving Arabic epistemology in Egyptology traps Egyptian society in a suspended state: aware of the need to reclaim historical agency from Western epistemic dominance, yet unable to fully do so without accessible, critically engaged knowledge produced in Arabic.
There have been promising beginnings. As Hanna explains, several grassroots movements in Egypt are working to shift Egyptology into Arabic.
"One such initiative is Egyptology bil-'Arabi (Egyptology in Arabic), which emerged from the earlier Anthropology bil-'Arabi project, led by Farah Halaba. Another is a recent effort led by the Bibliotheca Alexandrina to publish the long-overlooked dictionary of pioneering Egyptologist Ahmad Kamal in Arabic," she adds.
Still, these efforts remain limited in scope and reach. The resources are not widely available, and the broader ecosystem needed to sustain Egyptology in Arabic has yet to materialise fully.
A living conversation with history
Egyptology in Arabic remains largely confined to the academic realm, primarily expressed in fusha (Modern Standard Arabic) — a language that, for much of the general public, is as inaccessible as the European languages that first claimed and narrated the discipline.
"To make Egyptology truly accessible beyond academia, you have to meet the people where they are," Hanna explains.
"Public lectures, community engagement, these are essential. People often underestimate the widespread thirst for knowledge across all levels of society. The challenge lies in presenting complex ideas in a way that feels approachable and engaging, without overwhelming or alienating the audience."
The task of decolonising Egyptology, then, is not just to return artefacts or make minor amends to curricula; it is to speak differently and to be heard differently.
It means refusing to see ancient Egypt as a world apart, locked in glass cases and foreign grammars.
Translation, in this sense, is not restricted to words; it's about restoring a living conversation between past and present, in the language of those who have always lived and who continue to live in this history.
Cara Burdon is a freelance writer with an academic background in Arabic and Middle East studies with a particular interest in archive studies, decolonial theory and arts and culture from the Middle East and Northern Africa
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