Walter Bryan Emery

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Walter Bryan Emery (born July 2, 1903 in Liverpool , Great Britain , † March 11, 1971 ) was a British Egyptologist .

education

During his childhood, which he spent in Liverpool, he never thought that he would one day become an Egyptologist, rather his parents (Walter Thomas Emery and Beatrice Mary Benbow) dreamed of a career as a marine engineer. Emery's career as an Egyptologist began when he attended St. Francis Xavier College in Liverpool . At the age of 13 he read books about the discoveries in Sudan and Egypt .

After leaving school, he was an apprentice in technical drawing for a short time. 1921–1923 he studied at the Institute for Archeology in Liverpool, where he completed his studies with an honorary degree . In 1923, on the recommendation of TE Peet, he took part in an excavation in Amarna as a student assistant under Newton and Griffith. His first article appeared that year.

activities

In 1924 Emery was excavation manager of an excavation by Robert Mond in Thebes and Armant . This excavation was sponsored by the University of Liverpool . In the following years Emery was mainly busy with the restoration , cleaning and preservation of about 20 graves in Sheikh Abd-el Gurnah . At the age of 22, Emery led a team of 400 men uncovering and restoring Ramose's tomb in Amarna. In addition to this work, he also made drawings of the tomb for a publication by Theodore M. Davis .

Emery excavated the burial place of the sacred animals of God Month during the 1925/26 excavation season. The Bucheion (or Bucheum, ancient Egyptian Bech), as the burial place is called, was built from 1350 BC. Used until 305 AD.

In 1927/28 Emery continued to work for Robert Mond in Luxor and Armant . During this time he also discovered the Buchis Bull catacombs and also the first city of the dead for animals.

In 1928 he married Maria Magdalene ("Molly"), who had served him as an assistant during his excavations in Nubia . For the next six years, Walter and Molly Emery worked intensively on surveying Nubia. After the Aswan Dam was rebuilt , they tried to save and restore the facilities and monuments . During this time, he and his wife also did intensive research on the burial grounds of Ballana and Qustul . It was here that he found burial mounds with wooden chests, furniture and pieces of silver, all of which were made after the fall of Meroe . The remains of sacrificed servants and wives, who were also buried in the hills, were found.

From 1929-1935 Emery worked with his assistant LP Kirwan to investigate the Nubian fortress Quban and uncover hundreds of graves, houses and some settlements. It was here that Emery developed his method of analyzing earth buildings. During this time he and his team also examined and uncovered the burial mounds of Qustul and Ballana . He gained a lot of knowledge about the time of the X group in the Nobatia area . From 1931 to 1934 he was excavation manager for the Cairo Museum in Sakkara , succeeding Cecil Mallaby Firth .

1935–1939 was followed by the uncovering of ancient cemeteries in Saqqara. He started with grave FS3035, which had already been partially uncovered by Cecil Mallaby Firth, and discovered that this grave had 45, instead of the typical one, a magazine. Between 1937 and 1939 Emery dug many graves for the first time or again. In autumn 1938 he found grave S3357, known as the oldest grave in Saqqara. It dates back to the time of Pharaoh Aha . In the grave, which was divided into 27 storage rooms, they found jugs with wine, food, etc. In the vicinity, the remains of a wooden ship were also found, which, like the barges at the pyramids , was supposed to be used to transfer to the afterlife . Emery's last major find before World War II was grave S3471, which contained large amounts of copper .

During the war he served in the 8th Army in the western desert. At the end of the war he was "Director of Military Intelligence". In the first time after the war there was no work for Egyptologists and so Emery was first attaché at the British embassy in Cairo (1947–1950) and later first secretary (1950/51). He was only able to resume his work as an archaeologist with the position of professor at the University of London .

After the Second World War

In 1952 he became excavation director of the Egypt Exploration Society (EES) and in 1953 excavations began again in Saqqara. During this time he uncovered grave S3503 , which had been discovered in 1946, and found four other graves: S3504 , S3505, S3506 and S3507. S3507 was the last mastaba of the 1st Dynasty, which was exposed on the eastern foothills of the plateau north of Saqqara. For the last seven years of his life, Emery worked across the plateau.

Unfortunately, the data on the "smaller graves" of the 1st to 3rd dynasties, on which Emery worked in the years 1933–1939 and 1945–1947, has never been published (Archaic Egypt, pp. 158–164, fig. 94 -97). From 1956 to 1964 he was in Nubia with the recovery of the facility and monuments that were threatened by the construction of the new Aswan dam. During these years he published "Archaic Egypt" (1961), "Egypt in Nubia" (1965) and 1962 a short report on grave 3477 of the 2nd dynasty in which a complete "grave meal" was found. (A Funerary Repast, 1962).

From 1964 he worked again in Saqqara, where he found some mastabas from the 3rd Dynasty on the western part of the northern plateau. He discovered the grave of Hetepka (Martin, 1979) and the Ibis - galleries . It was during this time that the thought occurred to him for the first time that there could be a connection between the necropolis of animals and the masters of the 3rd dynasty. Perhaps also an indication that Imhotep's grave could be very close.

In the 1968/69 excavation season he uncovered a double mastaba from the 3rd dynasty (S3518, Djoser ). This season also saw one of Emery's most important discoveries: the “Mummy Zoo” in Saqqara. He found over four million mummified ibises, 500,000 falcons, 500,000 baboons and 20 cows. Based on Emery's research, it is believed that they were mummified in the same way as the pharaohs.

In 1959 he was elected a member of the British Academy .

death

From the mid-1960s, Emery's health deteriorated. On March 7, 1971, he passed out while doing morning work. Walter Bryan Emery died four days later, on March 11, 1971.

Works

  • The royal tombs of Ballana and Qustul. 2 volumes, Government Press, Cairo 1938.
  • The Tomb of Hemaka (= Excavations at Saqqara ). Government Press, Cairo 1938.
  • Hor-aha. Excavations at Saqqara 1937–1938 ( Publications du Service des Antiquités de l'Égypte ). Government Press, Cairo 1939.
  • Nubian treasure. An account of the discoveries at Ballana and Qustul. Methuen, London 1948.
  • Great tombs of the First Dynasty (= Excavations at Saqqara ). Volume 1, Government Press, Cairo 1949. Volumes 2-3 (= Memoir of the Egypt Exploration Society. Volumes 46/47). Egypt Exploration Society, London 1954/1958.
  • Archaic Egypt. Penguin Books, Harmondsworth (Middlesex) 1961.
    • German translation: Egypt. Early history and culture 3200–2800 BC Chr. Goldmann, Munich 1964.
  • Egypt in Nubia. Hutchinson, London 1965.

literature

  • Warren R. Dawson, Eric P. Uphill (Eds.): Who was who in Egyptology. A biographical index of Egyptologists, of travelers, explorers and excavators in Egypt. Egypt Exploration Society, London 1951.
  • HS Smith: Walter Bryan Emery. In: The Journal of Egyptian Archeology. No. 57, 1971, ISSN  0075-4234 , pp. 190-201.
  • Margaret S. Drower: Emery, Walter Bryan. In: Kathryn A. Bard (Ed.): Encyclopedia of the Archeology of Ancient Egypt. Routledge, London 1999, ISBN 0-415-18589-0 , pp. 293-94.
  • Zahi Hawass (Ed.): The Treasures of the Pyramids. German first edition, Weltbild, Augsburg 2004, ISBN 3-8289-0809-8 .
  • Adolf Klasens: Walter Bryan Emery, 1903–1971 . In: Proceedings of the British Academy . tape 58 , 1974, pp. 379-392 ( thebritishacademy.ac.uk [PDF]).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Deceased Fellows. British Academy, accessed May 24, 2020 .