OXFORD 2011 NINTH BIENNIAL ASTENE CONFERENCE

Friday 15th – Monday 18th July 2011 at St. Anne's College, Oxford

See Calendar for Call for Papers and Registration Form

CALL FOR ESSAYS

In 2012, the journal Studies in Travel Writing will be publishing a special issue on travel in Anatolia, the Ottoman Empire, and Republic of Turkey, co-edited by Gerald MacLean and Donna Landry. Offers of papers for this issue are now invited.

The issue will accept essays of around 7000 - 10,000 words.

Submissions must deal with travel texts, but 'texts' may be broadly defined to include, among other forms, published books, unpublished manuscripts and documents, letters, diaries, journals, tourist literature, postcards, emails, and web blogs. Essays may address travel in any and all regions of Anatolia and the Ottoman Empire. We particularly welcome essays concerned with writing by Ottoman, Arab, Turkish, Asiatic, and African travellers of any period.

Topics might include, but are not limited to: Travel criticism and theory in relation to Turkey / Literary travels / Tourism / Comparative studies of pilgrimage / Expeditions by land or sea / Travel, spies, the 'Great Game' / Walking or riding tours.

The timetable is as follows: Abstracts of around 500 words by 1st September 2010; essays commissioned by end of October 2010; commissioned essays due by 1st October 2011; referees' reports by 10th January 2012; revisions completed by 1st April 2012; editorial process completed by end of July 2012.

Gerald MacLean, FRAS, FRHistS
Professor of English, University of Exeter
Queen's Building, Exeter, EX4 4QH

The Peninsula and Orient (P&O) Steam Navigation Company

Research Resource

At the ASTENE Southampton conference in 2007 we had a most interesting presentation on the history of the P&O line and its connection with Egypt and the Near East. A copy of the booklet on this history was offered at the time, but a resume of this might be of interest and use to readers. To visit the P&O Company Archive contact the Curator at DP World, 16 Palace Street, London SW1E 5JQ (tel. 0207 901 4341).

In early 1833 Lieutenant Waghorn RN became enthused by the idea of making quicker communication – of people and post – between Egypt and India. Earlier travellers had either gone around the Cape or had sailed up the Red Sea to Kosseir and crossed the intervening desert by camel, donkey or horse to the Nile at Keneh, and from there sailed north to Cairo and Alexandria. This is a journey described well by John Hanson, Anne Katherine Elwood and Sarah Lushington a decade earlier. Others sailed north as far as Suez, from where the overland route was shorter, faster but less exciting.

Waghorn’s ideas for an improved overland route via Suez were taken up, and by 1837 the Peninsula and Orient Company came into existence; it ‘soon applied itself to perfecting the overland route.’ In 1840 it opened regular communication with Egypt ‘in terms of the Royal Charter granted in that year.’

Previous to this there had been a complex process by which mail moved between Bombay and Suez, was forwarded to Gibraltar, and then transferred to a British Admiralty Packet for England. From 1839 the British and French governments agreed a convention for sending mail through France and onward to Malta, and then by P&O steamer to Egypt. Eventually there would be a regular steamer service between Southampton and Alexandria, and from Suez to India.

Travellers and mail still had to get across the desert to and from Suez, however. In 1840 agreement was reached with Mehemet Ali that two steamers should start plying to Cairo, and ‘a light iron packet, airy and comfortable’, was sent out to Egypt for passenger accommodation on the Mahmoudieh Canal between Alexandria and Cairo. In 1841, Mehemet Ali – ‘in the most high minded and liberal spirit’ – offered to make the route between Cairo and Suez and ‘Cosseir and Ghenneh’ practicable for carriage travelling, and ‘to furnish escorts as might be necessary to afford perfect security.’

There were, inevitably, teething problems, followed by improvements: ‘the official working of resting stations across the desert, with stables and other conveniences necessary.’ Success led to further developments and cooperation between Mehemet Ali and P&O: wharfs and a coal yard at Alexandria; farms near Cairo and Zagazid to provide a supply of vegetables, fruit, poultry etc. for the steamers at Alexandria and Suez; a sheep farm for fresh meat; a hotel at Suez (accounts of which appear in several travellers’ books); stores and workshops at various points for ship repairs; washing machines, icemaking machines etc.

In 1851, plans for an Egyptian railway – the first to be built outside Europe – were being made under the direction of the Stephenson family. A railway was soon completed between Alexandria and Cairo.

There were problems between the ordinary passengers hurrying to India or home and the gentry come to Egypt for culture. To overcome this, a large Transit Hotel was built by the Shoubra Gate for passengers to and from India. ‘This was found to remedy much of the discomfort hitherto complained of.’ Thus life continued until the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 – and it was the P & O steamer Delta which conveyed guest to the formal opening.

Deborah Manley
Spring 2009

Corfu and Albania
Some ASTENE members may not realise that our borders go around the eastern Mediterranean and beyond, embracing Greece, the Ottoman Balkans and the Arabian Peninsula as well as Egypt, Turkey, the Levant and the Mesopotamian region.

Following our recent fascinating trip up the Nile, our next proposed visit is to Corfu, southern Albania and northern Greece: ‘in the footsteps of Byron and Leake’, including their involvement with Ali Pasha and other travellers in the area. Professor Malcolm Wagstaff, who has generously agreed to lead the group, is finalising details for this 8-day trip, organised in conjunction with Sunvil Travel and planned for May/June 2010. It will include a visit to the UNESCO World Heritage excavations at Butrint in Albania, as well as a stay in the lakeside Greek city of Ioannina.

If you have not yet joined one of our ASTENE trips abroad you are missing out on a very special experience. We envisage a maximum group of 20, so please register an initial interest with ASTENE Events Organiser Elisabeth Woodthorpe (telephone/fax 020 7622 3694) as soon as possible, so that we can take things forward.

Updating Who Was Who in Egyptology

Research Resource

Dr Morris Bierbrier has started work on updating that wonderful tool for ASTENE members, Who Was Who in Egyptology.

Originally put together by Warren R. Dawson and published by the Egypt Exploration Society in 1931, it was updated by Morris and re-issued in 1995 – with some assistance from ASTENE members. No ASTENE member researching Egyptian travellers can afford to be without its meticulously compiled information. I give as an exemplar one of the shorter entries on a well known traveller:

MANGLES, JAMES (1814–1876) British naval officer and explorer; he was probably born at Hurley, Berks, 1786, the son of John M. and Harriet Camden; he entered the Navy, 1800, and saw much service until 1815 when he held the rank of Capt; he visited Egypt, Nubia, Syria and Palestine with the Hon. Charles Irby (q.v), 1817–18; FRS 1825; he died in Fairfield, Exeter, 18 Nov. 1876.

Morris asks ASTENE members to supply any new information they have discovered in their researches. He can be contacted c/o Egypt Exploration Society, 3 Doughty Mews, London WC! 2PG. He would like to include more photographs of the people discussed; if anyone has photos or portraits to submit, please send them to Morris at the EES or, if scanned, to chris.naunton@ees.ac.uk.

The ASTENE Bibliography

Research Resource

Dr Diane Bergman, the Griffiths Librarian of the Sackler Library, Oxford University has over the past months been putting together a bibliography of the many, many publications by ASTENE members in the region of the eastern Mediterranean and Arabian Peninsula between 1997 and the present. It is a fascinating collection of material, showing the very varied, but still interlinked work of our members.

This bibliography will shortly go onto the ASTENE website - to be added to as members and ASTENE continue to research and to publish.

Should you wish to up-date your entry or you have not included your publications, contact Dr Bergman at dianebergman@saclib.ox.ac.uk or write to her at the Sackler Library, St John Street, Oxford OX1.

Travellers in the Near East
The selection of papers from ASTENE's Edinburgh Conference edited by Charles Foster and published by Stacey International is available again from all good booksellers ( £18.99) and at ASTENE events. ISBN 1900988 712.

It includes the following articles:

• A Tale of Two Ciceros: Travels in Asia Minor in the late Roman Republic by Marcha B. McCoy
• Mercantile Gentlemen and Inquisitive Travellers: Constructing the Natural History of Aleppo by Janet Starkey
• Jean-Baptiste Adanson (1732-1804): A French Dragoman in Egypt and the Near East by Jen Kimpton
• The Journey of the Comte Forbin in the Near East and Egypt, 1817-18 by Pascale Linant de Bellefonds
• Travellers, Tribesmen and Troubles: Journeys to Petra, 1812-1914 by Norman Lewis
• Surveying the Morea: The French Expedition, 1828-1832 by Malcolm Wagstaff
• Le Mission Scientifique de Moree: Captain Peytier's Contribution by Elizabeth French
• Christian Rassam : Translator, Interpreter, Diplomat and Liar by Geoffrey Roper
• Mr and Mrs Smith in Greece, Egypt and the Levant by Brenda Moon
• Robert Murdoch Smith and the Mausoleum: Excavations at Halicarnassus (Bodrum) 1856-59 by Jennifer Scarce
• Listening to the Sound of Running History: Sir George Adam Smith, 1856-1942 by Rev Iain Campbell
• Politics and Travel of Gertrude Bell by Richard Long

The Danish Institute in Damascus
The Danish Institute in Damascus was established in 1996 to preserve and develop cultural links between Denmark and Arab and Islamic countries. Its aim is to stimulate research, education and the promotion of culture, classical as well as modern. The Institute carries out these objectives by supporting Danish artists and scholars engaged in archaeology, history, literature, architecture and other areas. The Institute supports and initiates publication of such subjects.

The Institute at the beautiful, late 15th century 'Aqqud-house, a short distance from the Omayyad Mosque, has rooms for visiting scholars and areas for lectures and meetings. The library has been transferred from the Danish Palestine Exploration Fund at Aarhuis. For further information, including pictures of the beautifully restored 'Aqqud-house see www.damaskus.dk. The address is P.O. Box 1262, Damascus.

The ancient ass
New Scientist in March 2008 had an interesting brief report of research on the donkeys of Egypt - a form of travel for many centuries. A study of 5000-year-old skeletons from ancient burial sites indicate that modern day donkeys are descended from domesticated African wild asses. These bones resemble the modern day, larger Nubian and Somali wild asses. The researcher, Fiona Marshall of Washington University, St Louis, Missouri is quoted: "The engine of the Egyptian state ... was the donkey." (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, DOI: 10.1073/prias .0709692105).

THE BRITISH INSTITUTE FOR THE STUDY OF IRAQ

Research Resource

As many members will be aware, the British Academy has recently cut its funding to a number of organisations working in the ‘ASTENE region’, notably the Egypt Exploration Society and the Society for Libyan Studies. One of those hardest hit has been the British School of Archaeology in Iraq (Gertrude Bell Memorial) which was founded in1932. After 75 years of work in Iraq, the School has decided to change its name to The British Institute for the Study of Iraq (Gertrude Bell Memorial). Although the archaeology and ancient languages of Iraq remain central to the Institute’s remit, the change in name is to reflect the broadening of its areas research in recent years. Details of its activities, fund-raising events, and publications can be found on http://www.britac.ac.uk/institutes/iraq/ The secretary is Joan Porter MacIver and the postal address is BISI, The British Academy, 10, Carlton House Terrace, London SW1Y 5AH.