Edward Russell Ayrton

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Edward Russell Ayrton

Edward Russell Ayrton , also Edward R. Ayrton, (born December 17, 1882 in Wuhu , China , † May 18, 1914 in Ceylon ) was a British Egyptologist .

Live and act

His parents were William Scrope Ayrton, consular clerk in China, and Ellen Louisa Mc Clatchie. He received his education at St. Paul's School in London. Ayrton began working for the Egypt Exploration Fund as assistant to William Matthew Flinders Petrie from 1902 to 1904 during its excavation in Abydos . Here he learned his systematic and methodical approach in archeology.

Ayrton's first own excavation was the site of Shunet ez Zebib (Abydos). He later dug together with William LS Loat in Ghurab .

From 1904 to 1905 he worked in Deir el-Bahari in the excavation team of Édouard Naville and Henry Reginald Holland Hall , who were there to uncover the temple of Mentuhotep II and the surrounding tombs of royal princes and princesses.

From 1905 to 1908 he worked for Theodore M. Davis in the Valley of the Kings . The discoveries for Davis include the graves of Ramses IV. ( KV2 ), Siptah ( KV47 ), Haremhab ( KV57 ) as well as the well-known "animal graves" ( KV50 – KV52 ) and the "embalming depot" called KV54 .

He also discovered grave number 55 , whose owner could not be determined. Davis attributed this tomb to Queen Tiy in his 1910 publication . However, later examinations of the remains showed that it was a male dead. The magical bricks with his name, the inscriptions with his titles and, last but not least, the destruction of the face and name cartouches on the coffin led to much speculation: had they stumbled upon the grave of the ostracized heretic king Akhenaten? Unfortunately the excavation of KV55 is considered to be one of the worst carried out and documented in the Valley of the Kings. The official publication by Davis and Ayrton is superficial, at times imprecise, and does not even contain a plan of the tomb. Even today, the history of the grave remains largely in the dark without reliable archaeological evidence.

In addition, he also made one of the most famous “Davis discoveries”: a small faience beaker with the throne name of Tutankhamun . The special thing about it was the fact that up to this point the tomb of Tutankhamun had not yet been discovered and this cup was one of the first indications of the existence of this king and his tomb.

From 1908 to 1909 he worked again with Loat in Abydos and uncovered graves from the 6th Dynasty. They later explored the El Mahasna necropolis .

Ayrton left Egypt in 1911 and accepted a position with the Archaeological Survey of Ceylon . He drowned in the Menik River near Monaragala in 1914 during a hunting expedition in Ceylon .

Publications (selection)

  • Discovery of the tomb of Si-ptah in the Bibân el Molûk, Thebes. In: Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Archeology. 28, 1906, ZDB -ID 209191-4 , p. 96, ( digitized version ).
  • The Excavation of the Tomb of Queen Tîyi, 1907. In: The tomb of Queen Tîyi. Constable and Co., London 1910, pp. 7-10, ( digitized ; 2nd Edition. KMT Communications, San Francisco CA 1990, ISBN 1-879388-00-6 ).
  • with William LS Loat: Pre-dynastic cemetery at El Mahasna (= Memoir of the Egypt Exploration Society. 31, ISSN  0307-5109 ). Paul, Trench, Trübner et al., London 1911, ( digitized version ).
  • The Date of Buddhadasa of Ceylon from a Chinese Source. In: Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland. 1911, ISSN  0035-869X , pp. 1142-1144, JSTOR 25189966 .

literature

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