Egypt

Published by the Federal Research Division of the U.S. Library of Congress as part of the Country Studies/Area Handbook Series sponsored by the U.S. Department of the Army between 1986 and 1998, offering a comprehensive description and analysis of the historical setting, geography, society, economy, political system, and foreign policy.

Brings to light over five thousand years of Egyptian civilization.

Over the past decade the Ashmolean Museum has undertaken the printing, identification and digitisation of the Creswell Archive with the aim of making this exceptional collection available to a wider audience.

The subjects of the photographs range in place and date from al-Andalus to Iraq, from the late seventh century to the eighteenth. The greater part of the archive consists of images of the architecture of Egypt and the Levant between the twelfth and fifteenth centuries. Most were taken in the second quarter of this century.

Some of the buildings which Creswell photographed are no longer extant, others subsequently underwent drastic, and often poorly-documented campaignes of restoration. The photographs therefore provide an invaluable record for those interested in the history of the major monuments of the Islamic Middle East.