The title gives the impression that it will be a full account of the aristocratic amateurs who often pioneered archaeology—as opposed to tomb raiding—in Egypt. Instead, the slender volume has a narrower focus: a set of letters written by a young physician traveling in Egypt with a British statesman in 1907-1908. Aristocrats and Archaeologists is compiled and introduced by British Egyptologist Toby Wilkinson and Julian Platt, a descendent of the letter writer, Ferdinand Platt. Those epistles reveal a man who was no mere tourist but a knowledgeable traveler with “a keen appreciation of ancient Egyptian art,” insights into the culture of early 20th-century Egypt and of his own countrymen.
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