"Let Greece and Rome Be Silent": Frederik Ludvig Norden’s Travels in Egypt and Nubia, 1737¬1738

“Let them speak to me no more of Rome and let Greece be silent lest she stand accused of knowing nothing but what she has derived from Egypt.”

Frederik Ludvig Norden (1708–1742), a Danish naval officer, wrote these words during a 1737 expedition to describe his amazement at the technical ingenuity of ancient Egyptian and Nubian art and architecture. Posthumously published in 1755, Norden’s Travels in Egypt and Nubia proved to be of great importance for eighteenth-century discussions of the role of Egypt and Greece in the creation of European identity. This volume, supplemented by more than fifty of Norden’s own drawings, is an analysis of the publication and its lasting cultural and intellectual influence.