Egypt’s pyramids baffled even ancient Egyptians: ruins of a third dynasty (2686-2613 BC) funerary temple in Saqqara impressed and mystified nineteenth dynasty observers many centuries later. Hieroglyphic graffiti at the site include kudos from visitors, as well as critiques of other graffiti: “My heart is sick when I see the work of their hands,” wrote one visitor, who signed himself “a clever scribe without equal among many men of Memphis.” In travel notes from 1849, Gustave Flaubert griped about “the number of imbeciles’ names written everywhere” on pyramids he visited. Emily Teeter, curator of Egyptian and Nubian antiquities at the Oriental Institute, says that the stream of foreign tourists coming to behold, depict, and often deface Egypt’s wonders began with curious Greeks in the sixth century BC. After the Roman conquest of Egypt around 30 BC, a tourist industry arose, with paid guides plying their trade and inns popping up on the route to the ruins. Some six centuries later, the Arab invasion brought another wave of admirers.
