Gaston Maspero
French Egyptologist, head of Egypt's antiquities service
- Born
- 1846, Paris
- Died
- 1916, Paris
- Role
- Director general of excavations in Egypt
- Discoveries
- Pyramid Texts (1880–81); royal mummy cache (1881)
- Founded
- Egyptian Museum, Cairo (1902)
The French Egyptologist whose workers opened the inscribed pyramids at Saqqara in 1880–81, revealing the Pyramid Texts.
What is Gaston Maspero known for?
Gaston Maspero taught Egyptian in Paris from 1869 and became professor at the College de France in 1874. In 1880 he went to Egypt to lead a French mission, later the French Institute of Oriental Archaeology, and soon succeeded Auguste Mariette as head of the antiquities service.
In 1880–81 his workers entered the Sixth Dynasty pyramids of Pepi I and Merenre at Saqqara and then the pyramid of Unas, and found the walls covered with the Pyramid Texts, the oldest large body of Egyptian religious writing. Maspero published them. In 1881 he also secured the royal mummy cache at Deir el-Bahari, with about forty mummies including Seti I, Thutmose III and Ramesses II.
He helped found the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, which opened in 1902, and worked to control illegal digging and the antiquities trade.
His workers' entry into the pyramids of Pepi I, Merenre and Unas uncovered the Pyramid Texts.
Mentioned on these pages
- Rabbit holePyramid Texts
- PersonMerenre I
- PersonPepi I
Sources
- Encyclopaedia Britannica, 'Gaston Maspero'Reference
- Wikipedia, 'Gaston Maspero'Reference
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