Red-Haired Ash Reads

As someone who has read quite a lot of books on ancient Egypt, I was extremely surprised that I had never heard of Christiane Desroches-Noblecourt before I saw this book. Christiane was a remarkable woman with an extremely rich career. Her extraordinary contributions to Egyptology, the Louvre, and the world are astounding. 

“You don’t get anywhere without a fight, you know. I never looked for the fight. If I became a brawler, it was out of necessity.”

This book follows Christiane’s life from her initial fascination with Egypt as a child through her career at the Lourve, to fighting in the resistance during WWII, and then back to Egypt to save the temples that were going to be destroyed by the Aswan Dam. From the very beginning I was hooked by the story of Christiane’s life and career. This was a remarkable woman who had no problems standing up for what she believed in. Just to name a few of the barriers this woman broke: she was the first woman to be named a fellow of the French Institute of Oriental Archaeology (IFAO), and was the first woman to lead an archaeological dig.

During WWII, Christiane joined the Resistance and helped hide the Louvre’s treasures in various areas around France. She was even arrested by the Nazi’s at one point but was freed after three days of intense interrogations. Not only did this woman fight for her country, but she also spent her life fighting to protect cultural treasures and promote international cooperation. 

In 1954, a new dam was announced to be built on the Nile. Unfortunately it would flood many ancient Nubian temples and Desroches-Noblecourt was determined to stop that from happening. She partnered with UNESCO and CEDAE to have the temples surveyed and identify which temples needed rescuing. It ultimately took over twenty years, but the 22 temples were transported and reconstructed at new sites along the Nile. While there were multiple temples moved, this book mainly focuses on Abu Simbel, the Temple of Philae, the Temple of Amada, and the Temple of Dendur. This section of the book, which is the majority of it, was absolutely fascinating. The amount of effort and cooperation it took to move these temples is astounding, especially Abu Simbel. I highly recommend looking at photos and videos of the relocation of these Temples because it was definitely a feat of the ages. 

One of the things in this book that was unexpected, was that we also learned a lot about Jaqueline Kennedy, who basically spearheaded the U.S. involvement in the relocation of these Temples. I had no idea before this book that she was the main person pushing for the US to help with this relocation project or that she fought to preserve other historical areas in the US because of this. She was the hidden person behind the creation of the National Historic Preservation Act. So not only do we get to learn about this amazing Egyptologist, we also get to learn about this First Lady who fought to preserve history as well. 

Desroches-Noblecourt went on to do other amazing things in her career while all these temples were being moved. In 1967 she organized and curated the world traveling exhibit for “Tutankamun and His Times: which included 45 artifacts from the tomb, including the gold mask of Tutankhamun. In 1972 she convinced the British Museum to lend the Rosetta Stone to the Louvre for the 150th anniversary of Jean-Francois Champollion’s deciphering of hieroglyphics. This is the only time the Rosetta Stone has left the British Museum. In 1976 she organized and curated an exhibit for the Grand Palais in France, “Ramses le Grand” featuring seventy-two objects of Ramses II and photographs of the many monuments he built. Not only did she help with the exhibit, but she also escorted the body of Ramses II to and from France for conservation because it was deteriorating from an unknown cause. So as you can see, this woman was determined to build international cultural preservation and cooperation, even if it was only for a short time. 

“As long as there’s life, there’s hope.…Never give up. Never abandon what you set out to do. That’s my philosophy.”

Not only did this woman do everything she could to preserve ancient temples, she worked and taught for the Louvre for 50 years. After she retired in 1983, Christine went back to Egypt and started work clearing and mapping the Valley of the Queens, which had basically been ignored up to this point. She also wrote 19 books in her lifetime about Egypt, several of which were bestsellers. This woman was absolutely remarkable and I really wish I had known about her sooner because I might have been persuaded by her courage to study archaeology and Egyptology. 

Overall, this was a well written and extremely informative look at Christiane Desroches-Noblecourt life and career. If you like learning about Egypt and its discoveries, I highly recommend this book. 

Trigger Warnings: misogyny; colonialism discussed; racism; war; torture; imprisonment of friends; 

---

Goodreads | StoryGraph | Amazon

---