Committed to sharing knowledge, Amandine Marshall has authored several children’s books and launched two Egyptology channels on the internet which she presents and documents, TutankaTube and NefertiTube, dedicated to young audiences. This year, she is preparing two introductory books on reading hieroglyphs and a historical comic strip dedicated to Howard Carter who discovered the tomb of Tutankhamun in 1922.
What’s the first thing you do when you wake up?
I turn on my computer, which takes a long time to start up, I have lunch quietly and I get to work.
What would you take to a desert island?
Books, probably historical thrillers by my friend Delphine Montariol. She is a feather, a modern Agatha Christie whose plots are set in the Victorian era.
What era would you have liked to live in?
In Egyptian Antiquity, during the New Kingdom, under the reigns of Thutmose or Ramses. I would like to know more precisely how people lived and the question of spirituality in Egyptian society interests me a lot.
A taste, a smell that takes you back to your childhood?
The taste of nougat. He reminds me of my great-grandmother whom I adored and who always had some in her pockets for my little brother and me.
An object, a gri-gri that accompanies you everywhere?
A keychain with the pretty faces of my two nieces.
Your favorite number?
None in particular, even though, since childhood, even numbers have always been my preference.
What has made you feel uncomfortable lately?
To read on LinkedIn the testimony of a journalist about his little niece, of Russian origin, beaten in the playground by five boys who had asked her if she was for Putin. This stunned, shocked and angered me: there are not enough dramas for war in France to invite itself on the benches of primary schools!
The discovery you’ve been waiting for about Egyptian civilization?
No discovery especially but the identification of tombs, still not located, of kings and queens in the Theban mountain would be a nice surprise.
What job could you never have had?
Trader. Many people are conditioned by money. I had the chance to receive from my parents the desire to learn for oneself and to transmit to others.
What’s left in you?
Humanist values that place Man at the center of things and not money, a concern for the weakest, the invisible.
And on the right?
I respect people on the right, I have some in my entourage that I appreciate a lot, but I don’t adhere to the general philosophy of the right.
What if you were an ancient deity?
Hermes no doubt. The god of travelers is very ingenious, he has lots of ideas and does what it takes to realize them, which is pretty much like me!
And God in all this?
I am a believer and a practitioner but I make a distinction between the religion of the gods and the religion of men. With regard to what the Church can say on certain subjects, I do not always agree. I have my own opinion.
The last thing you do before turning off?
I read novels, thrillers or essays… Anything as long as it’s historical and it allows me to escape a little from today’s society.
A phrase, a mantra that guides you?
The straight tree ends up in a plank, the twisted tree lives its life.
Interview by Johanna Decorse
Photo credit: Hélène Ressayres