Édouard Naville

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Henri Édouard Naville (born June 14, 1844 in Geneva , † October 17, 1926 in Genthod ) was a Swiss Egyptologist .

Life

After graduating from high school, Naville attended the Académie de Genève from 1861 and initially studied classical philology . In 1862 he moved to King’s College in London . He also studied at the Sorbonne in Paris , the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität in Bonn and at the Berlin University , where he completed his training under the Egyptologist Karl Richard Lepsius , with whom he then worked as an employee.

After the death of Lepsius in 1884, the argument began with the Berlin School , which he called Ecole de Berlin . The conflicts with, among others, Kurt Sethe , Ludwig Borchardt and Adolf Erman began when Erman was appointed successor to Lepsius at the university and museum. But even with his colleague from the Egypt Exploration Fund , Flinders Petrie , he was rarely of the same opinion.

From 1898 to 1922 Naville was a member of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), including from 1916 to 1920 as Vice-President. He was also head of the Committee's International Central Office for Prisoners of War and visited prisoner-of-war camps in Great Britain during the First World War . His grandson Marcel Naville also chaired the committee from 1969 to 1973.

He was a member of the Société d'Étudiants de Belles-Lettres .

Services

Naville began his work in 1865 at the age of 21 when he copied Horus texts in Edfu , which were published in 1870. After the Franco-Prussian War in 1870/71 he assisted Eugène Lefébure with his publication of the grave of Seti I ( KV17 ) and edited texts himself that belong to the Egyptian Book of the Dead . At the suggestion of the London Congress of Orientalists, he took over the editing of the Litanie du soleil ( Sun litany ). The texts from Theban royal tombs were published in 1875.

Naville's most important scientific work, however, is connected with his excavations, which he carried out for the Egypt Exploration Fund . They began investigating Tell el-Maschuta in January 1883 . After investigations in the Wadi Tumilat 1885-1886, which he identified as the land of Goschen of the Bible, he excavated the remains of the settlement layers of the 26th Dynasty in Bubastis in the Nile Delta from 1886-1889 . He carried out further excavations in 1887 in Tell el-Yahudiya and in Saft el-Henna , and in 1890–1891 in Herakleopolis and in 1892 in Mendes and Tell Mukdam .

In 1893 Naville returned to Upper Egypt and between 1893 and 1896 exposed the mortuary temple of Hatshepsut in Deir el-Bahari . The documentation of the complex is considered to be his most important achievement and was the basis for the later structural reconstruction of the temple. 1903–1906 the neighboring mortuary temple Mentuhotep II was exposed .

Many of his finds from Bubastis and other excavation sites in the Nile Delta, including the head of the colossal statue of Amenemhet III. (can be seen today in the British Museum in London ) and other finds from his expeditions enrich the museums in Cairo and Boston .

Naville's excavation methods and his personal attitude, "He doesn't care about the little things", regularly led to the loss of valuable small finds. For example, the loss of a large number of Greek papyri has been recorded that were lost in the careless salvage in Mendes in 1892, for which he is nowadays often criticized.

Publications (selection)

  • Myth d Horus . 1870 (regarding Edfu, Horus texts)
  • Litany du soleil . Leipzig 1875 (regarding texts from Theban royal tombs)
  • The Store-City of Pithom and the Route of the Exodus . 1885 (regarding the excavation in Tell el Maskhuta)
  • The Egyptian Book of the Dead of the XVIII. to XX. Dynasty . Asher, Berlin 1886 (reprint Graz 1971)
  • Bubastis , London 1891
  • The Temple of Deir el Bahari. (= Egypt Exploration Fund. (EEF) Volumes 12-14, 16, 19, 27, 29). 7 volumes, London, 1894–1898
  • The Transvaal Question: From a Swiss Point of View , London 1900
  • The XIth Dynasty Temple at Deir el-Bahari. (= EEF, 28, 30, 32) 3 volumes, London, 1907–1913
  • Discovery of the Book of the Law Under King Josiah: An Egyptian Interpretation of the Biblical Account. London 1911
  • Cemeteries of Abydos. London 1914
  • The Text of the Old Testament. London 1915
  • The Higher Criticism in Relation to the Pentateuch.
  • New Archeological Discoveries, and Their Bearing Upon the New Testament and Upon. London 1917

literature

  • AM Blackmann: Professor Edouard Naville. In: Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 59, 1927, pp. 407-409
  • Jean-Baptiste Chabot: Éloge funèbre de M. Édouard Naville, associé étranger de l'Académie. In: Comptes-rendus des séances de l'Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres 1926, pp. 246-250 full text
  • HR Hall: Édouard Naville. In: Journal of Egyptian Archeology 13, 1927, pp. 1-6.
  • Adolf Erman : My becoming and my work. Memories of an old Berlin scholar. Quelle & Meyer, Leipzig 1929 (reprint. VDM Verlag Dr. Müller, Saarbrücken 2007, ISBN 978-3-8364-1338-1 ).
  • Margaret S. Drower: Flinders Petrie. A Life in Archeology. Gollancz, London 1985, ISBN 0-575-03667-2 , pp. 274-294.
  • Denis van Berchem : L'Égyptologue Genevois Édouard Naville. Années d'études et premiers voyages en Egypte 1862–1870. Journal de Genève et al., Geneva 1989, ISBN 2-8257-0182-3 .
  • Warren R. Dawson, Eric P. Uphill: Who Was Who in Egyptology. 3rd revised edition by Morris L. Bierbrier. The Egypt Exploration Society, London 1995, ISBN 0-85698-125-7 , pp. 307-308.
  • Thomas Gertzen: Henri Édouard Naville (1844-1926). An "old school" Egyptologist. In: Kemet. 15, issue 4, 2006, ISSN  0943-5972 , pp. 70ff.

Web links

Wikisource: Édouard Naville  - Sources and full texts

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Denis van Berchem : L'Égyptologue Genevois Édouard Naville. Années d'études et premiers voyages en Egypte 1862–1870. Journal de Genève et al., Geneva 1989, ISBN 2-8257-0182-3 .
  2. ↑ Margaret S. Drower: Flinders Petrie. A Life in Archeology. Gollancz, London 1985, ISBN 0-575-03667-2 , pp. 274-294.
personal data
SURNAME Naville, Édouard
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Naville, Henri Édouard (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss Egyptologist
DATE OF BIRTH June 14, 1844
PLACE OF BIRTH Geneva
DATE OF DEATH October 17, 1926
Place of death Genthod