Chicago on the Nile: 100 Years of the Epigraphic Survey in Egypt

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In 1924, an Egyptologist, an artist, and a photographer—the staff of the University of Chicago’s new Epigraphic Survey—began the task of recording the scenes and inscriptions carved on the walls of the enormous, 3,000-year-old temple of Pharaoh Ramesses III at Medinet Habu near Luxor. It was the culmination of a long-standing dream of James Henry Breasted, the first American Egyptologist and founder of ISAC (then the Oriental Institute), to both copy and publish all the historical texts in the Nile Valley. The Epigraphic Survey was established to undertake this unimaginably ambitious program of field research.

A century later, the Epigraphic Survey continues to fulfill Breasted’s mission. Housed at Chicago House in Luxor, the expedition has documented some of the most important—and endangered—records to survive from ancient Egypt, using a well-established and tested method to create highly accurate facsimiles of the carvings and texts and to publish them as a permanent archive.

The special exhibition Chicago on the Nile features photographs, artifacts, original artworks, and publications that illuminate a century of endeavor to preserve the records of Egypt’s ancient past, along with engaging accounts of life and work at Chicago House in Luxor over the past 100 years.