The First Archaeologists of Ancient Egypt Were Ancient Egyptians Themselves

When people think of ancient Egypt, they often think of pyramids, temples, and monuments that have stood for thousands of years. What is less widely known is that the ancient Egyptians themselves sometimes carried out work that looks a lot like what we would today call archaeology.

Ancient Egyptian civilization lasted so long—close to three millennia—that by the time of the later pharaohs, some monuments were already a thousand years old or more. These rulers and their workers not only saw these sites as part of their heritage, they also set out to repair, study, or even re-use them. In other words, they were already interacting with their own distant past.

One of the clearest examples of this is the Great Sphinx at Giza. Built during the Old Kingdom, probably around 2500 BC, the Sphinx was already ancient by the time Pharaoh Thutmose IV came to power in the 14th century BC. When he visited the site, the enormous statue was buried in sand up to its neck.

The story goes that while still a young prince, Thutmose rested near the Sphinx and fell asleep. In a dream, the Sphinx, identified with the sun god, spoke to him and promised that if he cleared away the sand and restored the monument, he would become king.

Thutmose later had the sand removed and repairs made, and to mark the event, he placed what is now known as the Dream Stele between the Sphinx’s paws. This inscription records the dream and the restoration, making it one of the most striking examples of how Egyptians themselves treated their ancient monuments as meaningful relics of the past.

Egyptian rulers also engaged with older monuments in other ways. Some kings restored temples or statues that had fallen into disrepair. Others reused materials from earlier buildings when constructing their own, not only for practical reasons but also because it linked them to the traditions of earlier times.

Amenemhat I of the Middle Kingdom, for example, incorporated blocks from earlier monuments into his pyramid complex at Lisht. Later rulers, like Ramses II, repaired or added their names to structures that had been built centuries before. Thutmose III and Seti I also repaired temples and incorporated earlier works into their own building projects. Saite period rulers (7th–6th centuries BC), more than 2,000 years after the pyramids, carried out restoration projects on Old Kingdom pyramids and temples, consciously reviving archaic styles to connect themselves with Egypt’s earliest kings.

From their perspective, these acts helped reinforce continuity with Egypt’s long history. From ours, it shows they had a clear sense of living among the remains of an earlier world.

The way Egyptians interacted with old monuments wasn’t always about preservation in the modern sense. Sometimes tombs were reopened and reused, statues were reinscribed with new names, or temples were modified to fit current needs. Still, the practice of clearing, repairing, or re-inscribing ancient sites tells us they had a living relationship with their past. They engaged with their ruins, reinterpreted them, and in some cases, honored them with restoration projects.

Evidence of this attitude is not limited to physical monuments. Texts on papyri also reveal that Egyptians copied older writings and studied works that were already ancient in their own time. Scribes took care to preserve texts from earlier dynasties, creating archives that extended knowledge far beyond living memory. This written form of looking back complements the physical care shown to monuments and statues.

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It is important to note that when we use the word “archaeology” to describe these practices, it isn’t archaeology in the modern sense. Ancient Egyptians weren’t digging with the goal of studying history as an academic subject. Their motivations were often religious, political, or practical. Still, the outcome was that they preserved, repaired, and in some ways investigated their own past in ways that echo what later scholars would do.

The sheer length of Egypt’s history makes this possible. Unlike cultures that lasted for only a few centuries, Egypt had continuity across thousands of years. For a pharaoh of the New Kingdom, monuments from the Old Kingdom were already as old to them as the Roman Colosseum is to us today. When Thutmose IV cleared the sand from the Sphinx, he was dealing with something that was already “ancient” by every measure.

This sense of depth—of rulers standing among ruins built by distant ancestors—adds another layer to our understanding of Egyptian history. They weren’t just building new monuments for their own times. They were caretakers, editors, and even interpreters of an already long past. It means that when we walk among the temples and tombs today, we are not just seeing what they left behind for us. We are also seeing how they themselves looked back at what had been left behind for them.

Sources: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5