The beginnings of archaeology in Egypt and in India are the subject of this paper. In both countries, antiquities were carried away by the powerful. Moreover, the hubris of the colonial powers ruling both countries made it inevitable that not only antiquities, but knowledge about the past, were appropriated in different ways. For modern Egyptians, the Pharaonic past was remote in culture and distant in time. The people themselves were until fairly recently prevented from learning the Pharaonic writing, once it was deciphered, by various ways and means. In contrast, in India the colonial administration relied on Indian scholars to teach British personnel the ancient languages, texts, and religion. In neither country was the history of the ancient period taught in schools until the foreign rulers had left. But Indian archaeology became involved in Indian identity and in the framing of the nation as Hindu, and thereby acquired an ugly twist. Self-identification in Egypt in the earlier twentieth century, on the other hand, was possibly more with the Arab world than with the pyramid builders.

本文的主题是埃及和印度的考古学开端。在这两个国家，古物都被强大的人带走了。而且，统治着两国的殖民大国的狂妄自大使得不可避免地不仅以不同的方式挪用了古物，而且还了解了过去的知识。对于现代埃及人而言，法老的过去在文化上遥远而在时间上遥遥无期。直到最近，人们才以各种方式和方法阻止了法老著作的学习。相反，在印度，殖民地政府依靠印度学者向英国人员传授古老的语言，文字和宗教。在这两个国家中，直到外国统治者离开为止，才在学校里传授古代历史。但是，印度考古学开始涉足印度身份，并参与了印度教这一民族的构架，从而产生了丑陋的转折。另一方面，二十世纪初埃及人的自我认同可能更多地是阿拉伯世界而不是金字塔建造者。