Introduction:

New Trends in Egyptology

Abstract

Egyptology has played traditionally a crucial role in building modern Western identities. It provided a prestigious link with \the cradle of civilization" and helped European nation-states to regard themselves as the most accomplished and successful achievements of progress and modernity, thus tracing an interrupted lineage from antiquity until contemporary times. However, the decline of the West, the increasing dynamism of East Asia and a disturbing feeling of uncertainty about the future mean that Humanities face a deep questioning of their cultural role and of their value as tools capable to build social bounds and identities in a changing world. Egyptology is not alien to these challenges, so the recent renewal of some of its methods and perspectives of research should be followed by a greater collaboration with social sciences. Only in this way it may provide useful comparative insights as well as deep historical perspectives about the dynamics of human societies and, in doing so, find definitively a firm place in the construction of non-Eurocentric social sciences.