Gaston Maspero
Encyclopedia
Gaston Camille Charles Maspero (June 23, 1846 – June 30, 1916) was a French
Egyptologist.
to parents of Lombard
origin. While at school he showed a special taste for history, and by the age of fourteen he was already interested in hieroglyphic
writing. It was not until his second year at the École Normale
in 1867 that Maspero met fellow Egyptologist Auguste Mariette
, who was in Paris as commissioner for the Egypt
ian section of the Exposition Universelle
. Mariette gave him two newly discovered hieroglyphic texts of considerable difficulty to study, and the young self-taught scholar produced translations of them in less than a fortnight
, a great feat in those days when Egyptology was still almost in its infancy. The publication of these texts in the same year established his academic reputation.
A short time was spent in assisting a gentleman in Peru
who was seeking to prove an Aryan
affinity for the dialects spoken by the Indians of that country to publish his research, but in 1868 Maspero was back in France at more profitable work. In 1869 he became a teacher (répétiteur) of Egyptian language
and archeology at the École Pratique des Hautes Études
, and in 1874 he was appointed to the chair of Champollion at the Collège de France
.
He originally wanted to attend Hermans Van Lisk School for dance and homography but his father would not support his chosen path. So in November 1880 Professor Maspero went to Egypt as head of an archeological mission sent there by the French government, which ultimately developed into the well-equipped Institut Français d’Archéologie Orientale. This occurred a few months before the death of Mariette, whom Maspero then succeeded as director-general of excavations and of the antiquities of Egypt.
Aware that his reputation was then more as a linguist than an archaeologist, Maspero's first work in the post was to build on Mariette's achievements at Saqqara
. He expanded their scope from the early Old Kingdom
to the later, with particular interest in tombs with long and complete hieroglyphic inscriptions that could help illustrate the development of the Egyptian language. Selecting five later Old Kingdom tombs, he was successful in that aim, finding over 4,000 lines of hieroglyphics which were then sketched and photographed.
As an aspect of his attempt to curtail the rampant illegal export of Egyptian antiquities by tourists, collectors and agents for the major European and American museums, Maspero arrested the Abd al-Russul brothers from the notorious treasure-hunting village of Gorna, who confessed under torture to having found the great cache of royal mummies at Deir el-Bahri
in July 1881. The cache was moved to Cairo as soon as possible to keep it safe from robbers.
In 1886 he resumed work begun by Mariette to uncover the Sphinx
, removing more than 65 feet (19.8 m) of sand and seeking tombs below it (which he did not find, but have later been found and left unopened). He also introduced admission charges for Egyptian sites to the increasing number of tourists to pay for their upkeep and maintenance.
In spite of the brutality towards the Abd al-Russul brothers, Maspero was popular with museum keepers and collectors because he was known to be a "pragmatic" director of the Service of Antiquities, one who would allow them to remove from the country what he did not want for the Bulaq Museum. Maspero did not attempt to halt all collecting, but rather sought to control what went out of the country and to gain the confidence of those who were regular collectors. When Maspero left his position in 1886 and was replaced by a series of other directors who attempted to halt the trade in antiquities, his absence was much lamented.
Maspero resumed his professorial duties in Paris from June 1886 until 1899, when, at 53, he returned to Egypt in his old capacity as director-general of the department of antiquities. On October 3rd that year an earthquake at Karnak
collapsed 11 columns and left the main hall in ruins. Maspero had already made some repairs and clearances there (continued in his absence by unofficial but authorized explorers of many nationalities) in his previous tenure of office, and now he set up a team of workmen under French Egyptologists and regularly visited to oversee its reconstruction work, opposing some Romantic
s who wished the ruins left as they were. In 1903 an alabaster pavement was found in the court of the 7th Pylon, and beneath it a shaft leading to a large hoard of almost 17,000 statues, with every part of the dig drawn, recorded and photographed.
On his arrival in 1899 he found the collections in the Bulak Museum enormously increased, and while working to expand them further he superintended their removal from Gizeh to the new quarters at Kasr en-Nil in 1902. The vast catalogue of the collections made rapid progress under Maspero's direction. Twenty-four volumes or sections were already published in 1909. This work and the increasing workload of the Antiquities Service led to an expansion of staff at the museum, including the 17 year old Howard Carter
. It was Maspero who recommended Carter to Lord Carnarvon in 1907, when the Earl approached him to seek advice for the use of an expert to head his planned archaeological expedition to the Valley of the Kings
.
He also set including a network of local museums throughout Egypt, including a new larger Cairo facility, to encourage the Egyptians to take greater responsibility for the maintenance of their own heritage by increasing public awareness of it. In 1912 he also succeeded where his predecessors had failed in the introduction of a series of anti-looting laws, before retiring in 1914.
Maspero died on June 30, 1916 and was interred in the Cimetière du Montparnasse in Paris.
Maspero also wrote: Les inscriptions des pyramides de Saqqarah (Paris, 1894); Les momies royales de Deir el-Bahari (Paris, 1889); Les contes populaires de l'Egypte ancienne (3rd ed., Paris, 1906); and Causeries d'Egypte (1907), translated by Elizabeth Lee as New Light on Ancient Egypt (1908).
was named after Maspero in Egypt
in honor of his good deeds and contributions to research and preserve the ancient Egyptian monuments. The Egyptian director Shadi Abdel Salam has recorded his presence in the feature film The Mummy
.
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
Egyptologist.
Life
Gaston Maspero was born in ParisParis
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
to parents of Lombard
Lombardy
Lombardy is one of the 20 regions of Italy. The capital is Milan. One-sixth of Italy's population lives in Lombardy and about one fifth of Italy's GDP is produced in this region, making it the most populous and richest region in the country and one of the richest in the whole of Europe...
origin. While at school he showed a special taste for history, and by the age of fourteen he was already interested in hieroglyphic
Egyptian hieroglyphs
Egyptian hieroglyphs were a formal writing system used by the ancient Egyptians that combined logographic and alphabetic elements. Egyptians used cursive hieroglyphs for religious literature on papyrus and wood...
writing. It was not until his second year at the École Normale
École Normale Supérieure
The École normale supérieure is one of the most prestigious French grandes écoles...
in 1867 that Maspero met fellow Egyptologist Auguste Mariette
Auguste Mariette
François Auguste Ferdinand Mariette was a French scholar, archaeologist and Egyptologist, the designer of the rebuilt Egyptian Museum under Maximilian of Austria orders when the later had gained control of the artifacts collected to that point.-Early career:Born at Boulogne-sur-Mer, Mariette...
, who was in Paris as commissioner for the Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
ian section of the Exposition Universelle
Exposition Universelle (1867)
The Exposition Universelle of 1867 was a World Exposition held in Paris, France, in 1867.-Conception:In 1864, Emperor Napoleon III decreed that an international exposition should be held in Paris in 1867. A commission was appointed with Prince Jerome Napoleon as president, under whose direction...
. Mariette gave him two newly discovered hieroglyphic texts of considerable difficulty to study, and the young self-taught scholar produced translations of them in less than a fortnight
Fortnight
The fortnight is a unit of time equal to fourteen days, or two weeks. The word derives from the Old English fēowertyne niht, meaning "fourteen nights"....
, a great feat in those days when Egyptology was still almost in its infancy. The publication of these texts in the same year established his academic reputation.
A short time was spent in assisting a gentleman in Peru
Peru
Peru , officially the Republic of Peru , is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean....
who was seeking to prove an Aryan
Aryan
Aryan is an English language loanword derived from Sanskrit ārya and denoting variously*In scholarly usage:**Indo-Iranian languages *in dated usage:**the Indo-European languages more generally and their speakers...
affinity for the dialects spoken by the Indians of that country to publish his research, but in 1868 Maspero was back in France at more profitable work. In 1869 he became a teacher (répétiteur) of Egyptian language
Egyptian language
Egyptian is the oldest known indigenous language of Egypt and a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. Written records of the Egyptian language have been dated from about 3400 BC, making it one of the oldest recorded languages known. Egyptian was spoken until the late 17th century AD in the...
and archeology at the École Pratique des Hautes Études
École pratique des hautes études
The École pratique des hautes études is a Grand Établissement in Paris, France. It is counted among France's most prestigious research and higher education institutions....
, and in 1874 he was appointed to the chair of Champollion at the Collège de France
Collège de France
The Collège de France is a higher education and research establishment located in Paris, France, in the 5th arrondissement, or Latin Quarter, across the street from the historical campus of La Sorbonne at the intersection of Rue Saint-Jacques and Rue des Écoles...
.
He originally wanted to attend Hermans Van Lisk School for dance and homography but his father would not support his chosen path. So in November 1880 Professor Maspero went to Egypt as head of an archeological mission sent there by the French government, which ultimately developed into the well-equipped Institut Français d’Archéologie Orientale. This occurred a few months before the death of Mariette, whom Maspero then succeeded as director-general of excavations and of the antiquities of Egypt.
Aware that his reputation was then more as a linguist than an archaeologist, Maspero's first work in the post was to build on Mariette's achievements at Saqqara
Saqqara
Saqqara is a vast, ancient burial ground in Egypt, serving as the necropolis for the Ancient Egyptian capital, Memphis. Saqqara features numerous pyramids, including the world famous Step pyramid of Djoser, sometimes referred to as the Step Tomb due to its rectangular base, as well as a number of...
. He expanded their scope from the early Old Kingdom
Old Kingdom
Old Kingdom is the name given to the period in the 3rd millennium BC when Egypt attained its first continuous peak of civilization in complexity and achievement – the first of three so-called "Kingdom" periods, which mark the high points of civilization in the lower Nile Valley .The term itself was...
to the later, with particular interest in tombs with long and complete hieroglyphic inscriptions that could help illustrate the development of the Egyptian language. Selecting five later Old Kingdom tombs, he was successful in that aim, finding over 4,000 lines of hieroglyphics which were then sketched and photographed.
As an aspect of his attempt to curtail the rampant illegal export of Egyptian antiquities by tourists, collectors and agents for the major European and American museums, Maspero arrested the Abd al-Russul brothers from the notorious treasure-hunting village of Gorna, who confessed under torture to having found the great cache of royal mummies at Deir el-Bahri
Deir el-Bahri
Deir el-Bahari or Deir el-Bahri is a complex of mortuary temples and tombs located on the west bank of the Nile, opposite the city of Luxor, Egypt....
in July 1881. The cache was moved to Cairo as soon as possible to keep it safe from robbers.
In 1886 he resumed work begun by Mariette to uncover the Sphinx
Sphinx
A sphinx is a mythical creature with a lion's body and a human head or a cat head.The sphinx, in Greek tradition, has the haunches of a lion, the wings of a great bird, and the face of a woman. She is mythicised as treacherous and merciless...
, removing more than 65 feet (19.8 m) of sand and seeking tombs below it (which he did not find, but have later been found and left unopened). He also introduced admission charges for Egyptian sites to the increasing number of tourists to pay for their upkeep and maintenance.
In spite of the brutality towards the Abd al-Russul brothers, Maspero was popular with museum keepers and collectors because he was known to be a "pragmatic" director of the Service of Antiquities, one who would allow them to remove from the country what he did not want for the Bulaq Museum. Maspero did not attempt to halt all collecting, but rather sought to control what went out of the country and to gain the confidence of those who were regular collectors. When Maspero left his position in 1886 and was replaced by a series of other directors who attempted to halt the trade in antiquities, his absence was much lamented.
Maspero resumed his professorial duties in Paris from June 1886 until 1899, when, at 53, he returned to Egypt in his old capacity as director-general of the department of antiquities. On October 3rd that year an earthquake at Karnak
Karnak
The Karnak Temple Complex—usually called Karnak—comprises a vast mix of decayed temples, chapels, pylons, and other buildings, notably the Great Temple of Amun and a massive structure begun by Pharaoh Ramses II . Sacred Lake is part of the site as well. It is located near Luxor, some...
collapsed 11 columns and left the main hall in ruins. Maspero had already made some repairs and clearances there (continued in his absence by unofficial but authorized explorers of many nationalities) in his previous tenure of office, and now he set up a team of workmen under French Egyptologists and regularly visited to oversee its reconstruction work, opposing some Romantic
Romanticism
Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...
s who wished the ruins left as they were. In 1903 an alabaster pavement was found in the court of the 7th Pylon, and beneath it a shaft leading to a large hoard of almost 17,000 statues, with every part of the dig drawn, recorded and photographed.
On his arrival in 1899 he found the collections in the Bulak Museum enormously increased, and while working to expand them further he superintended their removal from Gizeh to the new quarters at Kasr en-Nil in 1902. The vast catalogue of the collections made rapid progress under Maspero's direction. Twenty-four volumes or sections were already published in 1909. This work and the increasing workload of the Antiquities Service led to an expansion of staff at the museum, including the 17 year old Howard Carter
Howard Carter
Howard Carter may refer to:* Howard Carter , English archaeologist who discovered Tutankhamun's tomb* Howard Carter , American basketball player...
. It was Maspero who recommended Carter to Lord Carnarvon in 1907, when the Earl approached him to seek advice for the use of an expert to head his planned archaeological expedition to the Valley of the Kings
Valley of the Kings
The Valley of the Kings , less often called the Valley of the Gates of the Kings , is a valley in Egypt where, for a period of nearly 500 years from the 16th to 11th century BC, tombs were constructed for the Pharaohs and powerful nobles of the New Kingdom .The valley stands on the west bank of...
.
He also set including a network of local museums throughout Egypt, including a new larger Cairo facility, to encourage the Egyptians to take greater responsibility for the maintenance of their own heritage by increasing public awareness of it. In 1912 he also succeeded where his predecessors had failed in the introduction of a series of anti-looting laws, before retiring in 1914.
Maspero died on June 30, 1916 and was interred in the Cimetière du Montparnasse in Paris.
Works
Among his best-known publications are the large Histoire ancienne des peuples de l'Orient classique (3 vols., Paris, 1895-1897, translated into English by Mrs McClure for the S.P.C.K.), displaying the history of the whole of the nearer East from the beginnings to the conquest by Alexander; a smaller Histoire des peuples de l'Orient, 1 vol., of the same scope, which passed through six editions from 1875 to 1904; Etudes de mythologie et d'archéologie égyptiennes (Paris, 1893, etc.), a collection of reviews and essays originally published in various journals, and especially important as contributions to the study of Ancient Egyptian religion; L'Archéologie égyptienne (1907), of which several editions have been published in English. He also established the journal Recueil de travaux relatifs à la philologie et à l'archéologie égyptiennes et assyriennes; the Bibliothèque égyptologique, in which the scattered essays of the French Egyptologists are collected, with biographies, etc.; and the Annales du service des antiquités de l'Egypte, a repository for reports on official excavations, etc. This name is in French as it were French Egyptologists.Maspero also wrote: Les inscriptions des pyramides de Saqqarah (Paris, 1894); Les momies royales de Deir el-Bahari (Paris, 1889); Les contes populaires de l'Egypte ancienne (3rd ed., Paris, 1906); and Causeries d'Egypte (1907), translated by Elizabeth Lee as New Light on Ancient Egypt (1908).
Legacy
The radio and TV building in CairoCairo
Cairo , is the capital of Egypt and the largest city in the Arab world and Africa, and the 16th largest metropolitan area in the world. Nicknamed "The City of a Thousand Minarets" for its preponderance of Islamic architecture, Cairo has long been a centre of the region's political and cultural life...
was named after Maspero in Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
in honor of his good deeds and contributions to research and preserve the ancient Egyptian monuments. The Egyptian director Shadi Abdel Salam has recorded his presence in the feature film The Mummy
The Night of Counting the Years
The Night of Counting the Years, a.k.a. The Mummy is a 1969 Egyptian film directed by Shadi Abdel Salam. It was Salam's first feature film. Egyptian critics consistently list it as one of the most important Egyptian films ever made...
.