Southwest and Egyptology
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Throughout history, many famous inventors, scientists, writers, explorers and thinkers have come from or lived in the South West of England. How many men and women can you name who have contributed to Egyptology? Below are some of those who shared our interest in ancient Egypt and left their mark.
Henry Perronet Briggs -
http://rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/370/1666/20140308
Thomas Young (1773-1829)
English physician, scientist and pioneer of Egyptology. He was born at Milverton, Somerset. By the age of fourteen he had learnt Greek and Latin and was familiar with French, Italian, German, Arabic, Hebrew, Chaldean, Aramaic, Syriac, Samaritan, Persian, Turkish and Amharic. In 1796 he was awarded a doctorate in medicine by the University of Göttingen. He then made a significant contribution to the deciphering of Egyptian hieroglyphs.
In 1813, when other scholars were already working on this, Young became interested in the ancient Egyptian language. By 1814 he had fully translated the demotic text of the Rosetta Stone (he had a list of 86 demotic words) and then studied the hieroglyphic alphabet. At first he failed to realise that the demotic and hieroglyphic texts were paraphrases and not simple translations. There was a great deal of rivalry between Young and Jean-François Champollion while they worked on deciphering the hieroglyphs. They worked together briefly, but from about 1815 they kept details of their work from each other. For the 1818 edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica, Young contributed his article Egypt, in which he published some of his conclusions. Young praised Champollion's work when he published a translation of the hieroglyphs and the key to the grammatical system in 1822. However, in order to have his own work recognised as the basis for Champollion's system, Young published an Account of the Recent Discoveries in Hieroglyphic Literature and Egyptian Antiquities a year later.
Some scholars have suggested that Young's real contribution to Egyptology was his deciphering of the Demotic script. He made the first major advances in this area and correctly identified demotic as being composed of both ideographic and phonetic signs.
William John Bankes (1786-1855)
English traveller, collector and antiquary. He was the eldest surviving son of Henry Bankes of Kingston Lacy and Corfe Castle, Dorset. He was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge. He had a political career until 1835 when he inherited the Kingston estate.
He travelled to Syria and Egypt (he visited Egypt twice in his life - in 1815 and in 1818-1819) - as far as Nubia. He made drawings of the temples he visited, the archive of which is in the Dorchester County Archives and History Centre (https://dca-hc.com/).
He brought back to his estate an obelisk found at Philae in 1815, which contained an important bilingual inscription. He noted two inscriptions on the surface of the obelisk,
one in Egyptian hieroglyphs and the other in ancient Greek. By comparing the two texts, although they were not translations of each other, Bankes believed that he recognised Ptolemy and Cleopatra in hieroglyphic characters.
His identification was later confirmed by Thomas Young and Jean-François Champollion, and the obelisk was useful to Champollion in his eventual decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphs.
John Carne (Revd.) (1789-1844)
English traveller and writer. He was born in Penzance, Cornwall. In 1821 he travelled through Greece, Turkey, Egypt and Palestine. On his return from St Catherine's Monastery in Sinai he was captured by Bedouins, but was released after a few days and returned home safely. He was ordained in 1826 after studying at Queens' College, Cambridge.
In the same year he published a 2-volume work on his travels - Letters from the East and 4 years later, in 1830, his Recollections of Travels in the East, also in 2 volumes. He died in Penzance.
Henry James (1803-1877)
English soldier and surveyor. He was born at Rose-in-Vale, near St Agnes, Cornwall. He became Director General of the Ordnance Survey. He published length standards of various countries and a work on the measurements and standards of the Great Pyramid of Giza. From 1869-1871 he was co-author of the Ordnance Survey of the Sinai Peninsula. He died in Southampton.
Charles Brine (d. 1821)
English manufacturer in the service of Muhammad Ali. He was born in Devon. He introduced sugar production to Egypt. While living and working in Raramun, Brine was helpful to travellers in Egypt. In 1817 and 1818 he hosted Belzoni, Irby and Mangles.
The discovery of the "Tomb of Djehutyhotep" at El Bersha, famous for its depiction of a colossus pulled by a sledge, unique in Egyptian art, may have been due to him. Captain Mangles and Lieutenant Irby published their discovery of the tomb in London in 1823 in their Travels in Egypt, Nubia, Syria and Asia Minor, 1817-1818. Brine collected antiquities for Henry Salt. He died in Cairo, apparently murdered by his Sicilian servant.
Alexander William Kinglake (1809-1891)
English historian and travel writer. Born in Taunton, he was educated at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge. In 1835 he travelled in Syria, Palestine and Egypt, and in 1844 he published the account of his journey in the famous account Eothen; or Traces of travel brought home from the East, which became a very popular work.
William Keast Lord (1818-1872)
English naturalist and veterinarian. He was born in Cornwall. He served as a veterinary surgeon in the Crimean War. He became the first director of the Brighton Aquarium.
He undertook archaeological and scientific research in Egypt and his reports appeared in the popular press. In 1871 he published catalogues of his collections of Egyptian Lepidoptera (an order of insects that includes butterflies and moths) and Hymenoptera (a large order of insects that includes sawflies, wasps, bees and ants).
© National Portrait Gallery, London
Richard Francis Burton (1821-1890)
English explorer, linguist, translator and writer. He was born in Torquay. He became famous for his travels and explorations in Asia, Africa and America, and for his extraordinary knowledge of languages and cultures. By one count, he spoke 29 European, Asian and African languages. Burton's most famous achievements include travelling to Mecca in disguise at a time when Europeans were forbidden entry on pain of death, an unabridged translation of the Arabian Nights, the publication of the Kama Sutra in English and being the first European to visit the Great Lakes of Africa with John Hanning Speke in 1856-1860 in search of the source of the Nile.
John Hanning Speke (1827-1864)
English officer in the British Indian Army who led three exploratory expeditions to Africa. He is most associated with the search for the source of the Nile and was the first European to reach Lake Victoria. He was born in Bideford, Devon. He made three journeys to the source of the Nile between 1856 and 1863. He lived near Ilminster and is buried at Dawlish Wake, the ancestral home of the Speke family.
Rischgitz/Stringer - Hulton Archive
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S. Hollyer; Southwell Brothers -
Amelia Ann Blanford Edwards (1831-1892)
English novelist, journalist, traveller and Egyptologist - founder of both the Egypt Exploration Society (EES) and the Chair of Egyptology at University College London. She visited Egypt in 1873 to escape the cold, damp climate of Europe. With several friends, she travelled up the Nile from Cairo to Abu Simbel. During the journey she recorded the events and places they passed through and three years later published her diary as A Thousand Miles up the Nile.
After this, Egyptology became her main interest and she took lessons in reading hieroglyphs. She believed that scientific exploration and accurate recording of surviving monuments was the only remedy for the widespread destruction and mutilation of sites and buildings that was prevalent at the time.
In 1882, Amelia Edwards and Reginald Stuart Poole, a member of staff in the Coins and Medals Department of the British Museum, decided to set up the Egypt Exploration Fund (renamed the Egypt Exploration Society in 1919) to raise funds for further excavations in the Delta, which they noted was rarely visited. For many years she lived in Westbury-on-Trym, in a house called 'The Larches', which was bombed during the Second World War. She is buried under an obelisk and ankh in Henbury churchyard.
There is an album of drawings and watercolours made during Amelia Edwards' visit to the Dolomites, an album of drawings and watercolours made during her visit to Egypt in 1873-4, an album, notebook and packet containing a selection of drawings, letters and notes, two watercolours of the temples on the island of Philae, thought to have been painted by A. Edwards, all dating from 1856-1891, now in the Griffith Institute Archive, Oxford. For further information see
Amelia B Edwards 1890 in America
Henry George Tomkins (d. 1907)
English biblical archaeologist. He lived in Weston-super-Mare and was a friend of Amelia Edwards. An early member, he joined the E.E.F. (EES) in 1883 and served on its committee until 1902. His main interest was in biblical archaeology. He translated Maspero's communication to the Victoria Institute on the names relating to Judea in the lists of Thutmosis III.
Herbert Appold Grueber (1846-1927)
English numismatist and antiquary. He was born at Hambridge, Somerset. From 1866 to 1912 he worked at the British Museum, first as Assistant Keeper and later as Keeper of Coins and Medals. He was vice-president of the Royal Numismatic Society. He was one of the founders of the E.E.F. of which he was Treasurer from 1883 to 1912.
Gerald Avery Wainwright (1879-1964)
English Egyptologist and archaeologist. He was born in Clifton and educated at Clifton College. He was unable to continue his studies at university and it was not until 1900 that he attended evening classes in Egyptian and Coptic at University College, Bristol. In 1904 he travelled to Egypt for the first time. When he met Petrie in 1907, he asked him to join him as an assistant on his excavations. He excavated with Petrie at Sohag until 1912. In 1913-1914 he worked for the EES at Abydos. 1921-1924 he was appointed Chief Inspector of Middle Egypt by the Antiquities Service. In 1926 he retired to Bournemouth and devoted himself to research and publication.
Ernest John Henry MacKay (1880-1943)
English archaeologist. He was born in Bristol and educated at Bristol Grammar School and the University of Bristol. 1907-1912 he excavated in Egypt under Petrie. 1913-1916 he took part in the excavation and photographic survey of the Theban tombs. He then worked in Palestine, Syria, Bahrain, Iraq and India. He was co-author with Petrie of Heliopolis, Kafr Ammar and Shurafa, published
in 1915.
Edward Upham (d. 1834)
English bookseller. He was born in Exeter. After a business career in Bath, he retired early and devoted himself to writing, mainly on Oriental history. Most of his work was published anonymously, including Ramses, an Egyptian History in 3 volumes (1824) and Memoranda on Egyptian Tombs of Mummies (1832). He died in Bath.
Aylward Manley Blackman (1883-1956)
English Egyptologist. He was born at Dawlish, South Devon. He read Arabic and Egyptian and Coptic under Francis Llewellyn Griffith at Queen's College, Oxford. In 1906 he graduated with a first class degree in Oriental Studies.
After graduation, in 1907-1908, he worked in Nubia as an assistant on Reisner's Archaeological Survey of Nubia and the University of Pennsylvania's excavation of Buhen, Wadi Halfa. He also undertook the enormous task of recording the temples of Nubia, including those at Dendur, Biga and Derr. He was unable to complete the survey after suffering a severe bout of typhoid fever at Gert Hussein, which affected his health for the rest of his life. As a result of his research, Blackman was appointed Oxford Nubian Research Fellow and assisted Griffith in his excavations at Farras.
From 1912-1934 he was the Laycock Fellow of Egyptology at Worcester College, Oxford. During this period he became closely associated with the Egypt Exploration Society and was a member of its committee for a number of years. On behalf of the Society he directed the excavations at Meir (1912-1914, 1921, 1949-1950) and at Sesebi, Sudan (1936-1937).
From 1934 to 1948 he was Brunner Professor of Egyptology at the University of Liverpool and taught at the Liverpool Institute of Archaeology. His research during this period was affected by a serious accident in Germany in 1936 which left him hospitalised, and a bombing raid in 1941 which destroyed his home and workplace. He was also special lecturer in Egyptology at the University of Manchester (1936-1948) and tutor to the Crown Prince of Ethiopia (1937-1939). After retiring in 1948, he returned to Meir for a final season and published his research on the site in 1953. He was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 1953. He died in Abergele, North Wales, in 1956.
Reginald Engelbach (1888-1946)
English Egyptologist. He was born at Moreton Hampstead, Devon. His engineering studies were interrupted by a long illness, which led to a convalescent stay in Egypt in 1909-1910, where he became interested in Egyptology. He studied Egyptian, Coptic and Arabic. A year later he became Petrie's assistant and excavated with him at Heliopolis, Shurafa, Kafr Ammar, Riqqeh and Harageh.
At the beginning of the First World War he joined the Artists Rifles and was sent to Syria and Palestine to report on the ancient sites. In 1919-1920 he returned to Egypt to assist Petrie at Lahun and Gurob. In 1920 he was appointed Chief Inspector of Antiquities in Upper Egypt. In 1924 he became Assistant Keeper at the Cairo Museum, becoming Chief Keeper in 1931. His greatest achievement there was the compilation of the Register for Cairo - a huge index of 100,000 museum objects. He retired in 1941, but stayed on as technical adviser to the Cairo Museum until his death in 1946.
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Bibliography:
1. Dawson, Warren R.: Who is who in Egyptology
London : The Egypt Exploration Society, 1972.