Samuel Birch (Egyptologist)

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Samuel Birch

Samuel Birch (born November 3, 1813 in London , † December 27, 1885 ibid) was a British archaeologist who was particularly active in the field of Egyptology .

Life

Samuel Birch was the eldest son of a pastor of the same name in the London Church of St. Mary Woolnoth († 1848), as well as the grandson of the London mayor and playwright Samuel Birch (1757–1841). He attended private schools in Greenwich and Blackheath , then from 1826 to 1831 the Merchant Taylors' School in London. Briefly employed at the British State Archives, he was hired as an assistant to the antiquities department of the British Museum in London in 1836 due to his knowledge of the Chinese language, where he was promoted to assistant curator in 1844. In the department, which at that time still comprised antiquity from all cultures and times, he initially dealt with Chinese coins, but then, under the influence of Champollion's deciphering of the hieroglyphs, turned more and more to Egyptology. After traveling to Italy as early as 1846 on behalf of the British Museum to examine Giovanni Anastasi's collection of Egyptian antiquities , which he was selling in the port city of Livorno , he made a second trip there in 1856 together with Charles Thomas Newton to view the Campana collection of Greek, Etruscan and Roman vases and antiquities in Rome for sale by the British government . When the antiquities department was divided into three departments, he became the keeper of oriental, medieval and British antiquities in 1861, and from 1866 he was the conservator of the now independent department of oriental antiquities of the British Museum. In September 1874 he opened the second international Orientalist Congress in London as President.

Birch's scientific interests were varied, for example, he was not only concerned with Chinese, Greek, Roman and English antiquity, numismatics and ethnography , but he was also active in the publication of the cuneiform inscriptions and published translations from Chinese in the Asiatic Journal . He was particularly interested in Egyptology, and he was one of the most important early researchers of hieroglyphics . A great deal of work in this field has appeared in the papers of the Royal Society of Literature , the Revue archéologique, and the Journal of Egyptian Language and Classical Studies . He was friends with Bunsen , for whose work Egypt's place in world history (5 volumes, Gotha 1845-57) he edited the philological part concerning the hieroglyphs. In particular, the first and fifth parts of the English edition of this work, which appeared in 1867 after Bunsen's death, are valuable thanks to Birch's contributions. In addition to a hieroglyphic grammar and a rich hieroglyphic dictionary, the last volume also contains the first complete translation of the ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead . Samuel Birch was never in Egypt.

Birch was a co-founder in 1870 and from 1870 to 1885 President of the Society of Biblical Archeology in London, on whose behalf he published the Records of the Past of Egypt and Assyrian monuments (Vol. 1–12, London 1875–89), and an honorary member of several scholars Societies, for example the Royal Society of Literature , the Society of Antiquaries of London , the Société Orientale zu Paris, etc. Furthermore, he was a corresponding member (and honorary member of the board of directors) of the Archaeological Institute in Rome (since 1851), the Royal Prussian Academy of Sciences in Berlin (since 1852), the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres in Paris (since 1861) and the Göttingen Academy of Sciences (since 1864). The German Emperor Wilhelm I awarded him the Prussian Order of the Crown in 1874 .

Publications (selection)

  • Hieroglyphics on the coffin of Mycerinus found in the third pyramid of Gizeh . London 1838.
  • with Francis Arundale , Joseph Bonomi : Gallery of antiquities in the British Museum . Weale, London 1842 ( digitized version ).
  • with Owen Jones : Views on the Nile from Cairo to the Second Cataract. Drawn on sone by George Moore, from sketches taken in 1832 and 1833 by Owen Jones and the Late Jules Goury . With historical notices of the monuments by Samuel Birch. London 1843.
  • with Charles Thomas Newton: Catalog of Greek and Etruscan vases in the British Museum . 2 volumes, London 1851.
  • Introduction to the study of the Egyptian hieroglyphics . London 1857.
  • History of ancient pottery . 2 volumes, London 1858; 2nd edition 1873.
  • Description of the collection of ancient marbles in the British Museum . London 1861
  • Description of the Papyrus of Nash-khem . London 1863 (the so-called Papyrus of the Prince of Wales).
  • The Rhind papyri . London 1866.
  • Inscriptions in the hieratic and demotic character from the collections of the British Museum . London 1868.
  • Ancient history from the monuments: Egypt . London 1875.
  • Egyptian texts edited for the use of students . London 1877.
  • Revised edition by John Gardner Wilkinson : Manners and Customs of the ancient Egyptians , 3 volumes, London 1878.
  • Co-editor of Select papyri in the hieratic character . London 1841-1860

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Holger Krahnke: The members of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen 1751-2001 (= Treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Philological-Historical Class. Volume 3, Vol. 246 = Treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Mathematical-Physical Class. Episode 3, vol. 50). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2001, ISBN 3-525-82516-1 , p. 41.
personal data
SURNAME Birch, Samuel
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British Egyptologist
DATE OF BIRTH November 3, 1813
PLACE OF BIRTH London
DATE OF DEATH December 27, 1885
Place of death London