Maspero

Maspero, GASTON CAMILLE CHARLES, Egyptologist, was born at Paris, of Italian parents, on 23d June 1846. He began to lecture on Egyptology at the School of Higher Studies in Paris in 1869, and in 1873 was appointed professor of Egyptology at the College of France. In 1881 he founded a school of Egyptian archaeology at Cairo, and succeeded Mariette as director of explorations and custodian of the Boulak Museum. In 1886 he became professor at the Institute of Paris. As an explorer he has excavated or opened the pyramids of the kings belonging to the 5th and 6th dynasties, and the burial-fields of Sakkara and Dahshur, and discovered new sepulchral sites of great value at Deir el-Bahari, near the entrance to the Valley of the Tombs of the Kings, at Ekhmin, 130 miles S. of Thebes, and at other places. His most valuable written work includes the excellent Histoire Ancienne des Peuples d'Orient (illust. ed. 1894; trans. as The Dawn of Civilisation, 1894); La Trouvaille de Deyr el-Bahari; L'Archéologie Égyptienne (1887; Eng. trans. 1887); Contes Populaires de l'Égypte Ancienne (1882); Études Égyptiennes (1879-82); papers in Recueil de Travaux, and several other more technical productions.