Richard William Howard Vyse

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Richard William Howard Vyse

Sir Richard William Howard Vyse KCMG (born Richard William Vyse; born July 25, 1784 in Stoke Poges , Buckinghamshire , England ; † June 8, 1853 ) was a British officer, politician, anthropologist and Egyptologist .

Vyse is known through his joint research with John Shae Perring at the pyramids of Giza in 1837, in which he did not shrink from using explosives to open closed chambers ("gunpowder archeology") .

Private life

Richard William Vyse was born in 1784 in Stoke Poges, the son of general and politician Richard Vyse (1746-1825) and his wife Ann Howard, daughter of Field Marshal George Howard (1718-1796). On November 13, 1810, he married his wife Frances. In 1812, Vyse adopted his mother Howard's family name as an additional name with royal approval when he inherited their lands. He and his wife, Frances, had eight sons and two daughters. Later in his life he became Knight Commander of the Order of St. Michael and St. George . Vyse died in his native Stoke Poges on June 8, 1853.

Military career

Vyse began his military career as a cornet with the 1st Dragoons Regiment. A year later, he joined the 15th Light Dragoons as a lieutenant . In 1801 he rose to the rank of captain . In 1809 he served as his father's aide-de-camp with Yorkshire District Staff. The University of Oxford awarded him an honorary degree DCL in 1810, in 1813 he was promoted to major . He was transferred to the 87th Foot Regiment in 1815 , to the 2nd Life Guards in 1816, and finally to the 1st / West India Regiment in 1819 . In 1825 he was promoted to lieutenant colonel . His advancement led to his promotion to Colonel in 1837 and finally to the rank of Major General in 1846.

Political career

Vyse was a Member of the House of Commons for the constituencies of Beverley (1807-1812) and Honiton (1812-1818). In 1824 and 1830 he served in the office of High Sheriff of Buckinghamshire .

Egyptology

A breach can be seen on the south side of the Cheops pyramid, where Vyse tried to blast an access from the south side ("Vyse's Hole")

Vyse came to Egypt for the first time in 1835 and began excavations in Giza in 1836 together with Giovanni Battista Caviglia . After separating from Caviglia, he worked with his new assistant, John Shae Perring, on the exploration of the Giza Pyramids .

Vyse was able to make a significant discovery with the violent method of detonation inside the Great Pyramid of Cheops . After Caviglia had tried in vain to blast a way to the southern "air shaft" from the first pressure relief chamber, which was discovered by Nathaniel Davidson in 1765 , Vyse began to blast upwards from this chamber. He suspected there were more chambers there because he could push a thin branch through a crack in the wall. Over a period of three and a half months, Vyse succeeded in discovering four more relief chambers. It was particularly noteworthy that workers' graffiti had been preserved in these chambers, which enabled the building to be clearly assigned to Cheops . He also tried to blast an entrance into the lower half of the south side of the pyramid. The nine meter deep breach between the 18th and 31st stone layers, which is still visible today, is known as "Vyse's Hole" .

In the Mykerinos pyramid , Vyse blasted a vertical shaft from the breach of Othman that was made in 1196 to the pyramid base, but without discovering any further chambers in the pyramid body. Vyse found a splendid sarcophagus in the substructure of the Mykerinos pyramid, which he had removed from the pyramid and shipped to England. However, the ship and the sarcophagus sank during the crossing in the Mediterranean.

Vyse also carried out drillings in the queen pyramid G-Ib and in the Great Sphinx . During the latter drilling, the drill bit got stuck in the Sphinx and could not be blown free, whereupon Vyse left it there in order not to damage the monument by further explosions.

After Vyses returned to the UK, Perring took over the continuation of the research.

Vyse published his research results in 1840 in the two-volume work Operations carried on at the Pyramids of Gizeh in 1837 , which was followed two years later by the supplementary volume Appendix to Operations carried on at the Pyramids of Gizeh in 1837 , edited together with John S. Perring .

  • Sketch of the relief chambers discovered by Vyse above the burial chamber of the Great Pyramid of Cheops

  • The basalt sarcophagus of Mykerinos discovered by Vyse (after Perring)

Fonts

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ 1851 England Census HO107 / 1718; Folio: 579; Page: 17
  2. ^ Abstract of the marriage settlement of Richard William Howard-Vyse and Frances Hesketh 24 Oct 1810 at the Center for Buckinghamshire Studies
  3. ↑ PROB 11/2177 Will of Richard William Howard Vyse, Major General in Her Majesty's Army of Stoke Place, Buckinghamshire
  4. ↑ London Gazette: no. 18174, pages 5–5 , 1825
  5. ↑ London Gazette: no. 19456, pages 7–8 , 1837.
  6. ↑ London Gazette: no. 20670, pages 3–3 , 1846.
  7. ↑ London Gazette: no.18628, page 2085 , 1829.
  8. ↑ London Gazette: no. 18653, pages 262–262 , 1830.
  9. ↑ Mark Lehner: Secret of the pyramids. ECON, Düsseldorf 1997, ISBN 3-572-01039-X , p. 50 ff .: blasting instead of digging.
personal data
SURNAME Vyse, Richard William Howard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British officer, Egyptologist and politician, member of the House of Commons
DATE OF BIRTH July 25, 1784
PLACE OF BIRTH Stoke Poges
DATE OF DEATH June 8, 1853
Place of death Stoke Poges