Institut d'Égypte
The Institut d'Égypte or Egyptian Scientific Institute is a learned society in
Early work
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The Institut d'Égypte was founded on 22 August 1798 by
The institute was organised into sections that cover all the topics of interest and study in mathematics, physics, political economy, literature and arts by the Commission des Sciences et des Arts.
The society first met on 24 August 1798, with Gaspard Monge as president, Bonaparte himself as vice-president and Joseph Fourier and Costaz as secretaries. It had 48 scholars and as with the Institut de France these were organised into sections, divided up as follows:
- 12 members – mathematics section, including Bonaparte himself, Costaz, Fourier, Malus, Monge.
- 10 members – physics and natural history section, including Berthollet, Desgenettes, Dolomieu, Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire.
- 6 members – political economy section, including Cafarelli, Tallien.
- 8 members – literature and arts section, including Denon.
The Institut capitalised on the work of scholars and technical experts of the
The Egyptian Society
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The Institut d'Égypte's activities resumed in 1836 under the name of The Egyptian Society. The work was carried out by French, German and English scholars. It was transferred to Alexandria in 1859, and its name was again changed, this time to Institut Égyptien. The new Institut functioned under the auspices of Egypt's viceroy Sa'id Pasha, and had several prominent members, notably the German botanist Georg August Schweinfurth, as well as Egyptologists Auguste Mariette and Gaston Maspero. Later members included Ahmed Kamal, Egypt's first native Egyptologist, as well as Ahmad Zaki Pasha, a pioneering philologist.[4] The Institut returned to Cairo in 1880. Its previous name was made official by a royal decree in 1918. Henceforth, it was directly under the Royal Palace's auspices. Some of the Institut's more recent members include famed scholar Taha Hussein.[4]
Destruction
The Institute was burnt down on 17 December 2011, as a consequence of continued street clashes in the aftermath of the Egyptian revolution that had erupted on 25 January 2011.[5][6]
Opposing groups of protesters were engaged in street clashes, hurling flammable materials at each other adjacent to the
Before the blaze, the repository had held over 200,000 rare and antiquarian books and texts, many dating from the Napoleonic era. A first estimate says that only 30,000 volumes have been saved.
Renovations
Sheikh Sultan al Qassimi, ruler of the emirate of Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates, had indicated his willingness to bear the cost of reconstruction of the building and to donate some of his own rare possessions to it [citation needed] Other works that might be made available include various copies of the Description available in other countries.[original research?]
See also
- Library fires
- List of destroyed libraries, archives and museums
References
- General
- (in French) article by Francine Masson, director of the library of the École des mines, ABC Mines review (December 1997).
- (in French) Jean et Nicole Dhombres, Naissance d'un nouveau pouvoir: science et savants en France, 1793-1824 (Payot 1989)
- Specific
- ^ Al Shorfa/Waleed Abu al-Khair. "Egypt's Scientific Institute comes back to life". Culture in Development. Archived from the original on 22 January 2018. Retrieved 21 January 2018.
- ISBN 978-0-8166-2262-7. Retrieved 16 July 2020.
- ^ Paul Strathern – Napoleon in Egypt
- ^ a b "Historical Background". L'Institut d'Égypte. Archived from the original on 10 April 2004. Retrieved 14 February 2009.
- ^ "Amid army crackdown, Egypt's richest library set on fire". Egypt Independent. 17 December 2011. Retrieved 11 March 2012.
- ^ Jonathan Downs (March 2012). "Calamity in Cairo". History Today. 62: 5–6. Retrieved 11 March 2012.
- ^ Un incendio durante los disturbios de El Cairo destruye el original de la 'Descripción de Egipto' encargada por Napoleón ( Archived 18 December 2011 at the Wayback Machine)
- ^ Amid army crackdown, Egypt’s richest library set on fire ( Archived 18 December 2011 at the Wayback Machine)
- ^ A black day for heritage: burning the Egyptian Scientific Institute( Archived 8 January 2012 at the Wayback Machine)
Further reading
- Karabell, Zachary (2003). Parting the desert: the creation of the Suez Canal. Alfred A. Knopf. ISBN 0-375-40883-5.