ABSTRACT
This chapter sheds light on the creation of identity-making narratives in a single concrete location, Egypt, and a physical structure, the museum. When the Museum of Egyptian Civilization opened its gates to Cairo's public in March 1949, a visitor who entered the first section of the museum's concourse encountered an impressive sight: a life-size likeness of a Paleolithic Neanderthal man with a staff in his hand, all naked except for a loincloth, exiting from his cave. In a metaphorical sense, the Neanderthal's emergence out of his cave depicted a coming of age moment, as if foreshadowing Stanley Kubrick's 2001 "Dawn of Man" film sequence. When Western scholars presented the idea of universal science to their counterparts in the East to justify their exploits, they also opened a window to the Easterners to develop indigenous agency based on the same universal principles. The chapter offers an example of this phenomenon.
