Joy M. Giguere.Characteristically American: Memorial Architecture, National Identity, and the Egyptian Revival.

Abstract

In the first half of the nineteenth century, as a result of Napoleon’s military campaign in Egypt, Jean-François Champollion’s deciphering of the Rosetta Stone, published travel accounts, museum exhibits, and mummy unwrapping ceremonies, the affluent classes of the United States developed a fascination with ancient Egypt similar to that which rippled through Europe. Since Americans associated ancient Egyptian civilization with care for the dead, the principal effect on American culture was a change in funerary practices, including the advent of arterial embalming, elaborate caskets, cemetery gateways ornamented with winged orbs, and sepulchral monuments in the form of obelisks, Egyptian columns, pyramids, and sphinxes. The obelisk also became one of the most widely employed forms for public memorials, the most famous being the Washington Monument. Comprised of numerous stones pressed together, American monumental obelisks are larger than their monolithic precursors and possess hollow interiors containing staircases and observation platforms. The Washington Monument even boasts an elevator and electric lights; its creators thereby blended cutting-edge 1880s technology with the grandeur of the ancient obelisk. Because many of its stones were donated by states of the Union, including southern ones, the monument exemplified the concept of e pluribus unum at a time when reunification of the nation following a bloody civil war was a top priority. Like the pyramid but much easier to produce (provided one used multiple stones), the obelisk represented the durability, power, wealth, wisdom, and majesty of ancient Egypt, which Americans regarded as the first civilization. Speakers at the dedication ceremonies of these American monuments almost invariably expressed a confidence that both the monument itself and the relatively new nation it glorified would last as long as the structures of the pharaohs.