Egyptologists' Fallacies - Books and Journals

138 john gee
survived. Of those that have survived, many have not been discovered
(if they had been, we are wasting our time on archaeology). Of
those that have been discovered, many have been unpublished.
Of those that have been published, many have not been studied
or properly understood. Nevertheless, in Egyptology we still have
thousands of documents, but these cover thousands of years and
millions of people. This means that there is no direct evidence for
the vast majority of ancient Egyptians. Even with the best attested
of individuals in the most heavily studied periods, there is often
not enough evidence to decide between competing interpretations.
While history may have objectively happened, unambiguous and
objective reconstruction of the past is largely impossible, 1 and
objectivity is certainly impossible. 2
To some extent, we can be aided in our treatment of ancient
Egyptian history by observation of methodology. Here, however,
Egyptologists find themselves at something of a disadvantage. As
J. Baines noted over a quarter of a century ago, Egyptologists tend
“not to be very open to issues of theory and methodology, and at
the level of interpretation he will often work without an awareness
of the presuppositions he applies.” 3 An example of this, which I
have previously noted, 4 is R. Ritner, who in one article sets down
a methodological dictum 5 that he then reverses in another article
just a couple of years later. 6 J. Quack has also severely criticized
the methodology of J. Darnell. 7 One could conclude from such
examples that Egyptologists’ reasoning is completely ad hoc, invented
for the exigencies of the moment. There are both positive and negative
approaches to methodology and I will deal with the negative
1 See for example, Baines, “Restricted Knowledge, Hierarchy, and Decorum,”
1: “It would be wrong to jump to the related assumption that the preserved record
gives an adequate picture of the range of ideas and concepts that existed, either
among them or in the elite. Discriminations of knowledge should be expected among
the majority, as should complex attitudes, but these are entirely inaccessible for most
of the society. It is also impossible to know how far elite and nonelite shared the
same ideology.”
2 Novick, That Noble Dream. Novick provides a detailed critique of the notion of
objectivity.
3 Baines, “Introduction,” 2.
4 Gee, “s¡ m nn: A Temporary Conclusion,” 56.
5 Ritner, “An Oblique Reference to the Expelled High Priest Osorkon?,” 359.
6 Ritner, “ ‘The Breathing Permit of Hôr’ among the Joseph Smith Papyri,” 168
n. 45.
7 Quack, “Ein Unterweltsbuch der solar-osirianischen Einheit?”