Miso

Biography

Professor with the college of Boulogne in 1841, it impassions himself for Egyptology, by visiting the Egyptian Gallery of the Museum of Boulogne and by classifying the notes that Nestor the Host, deceased in 1845, collected at the time of its voyage with the free-Tuscany mission on the ground of the Pharaons. To define its passion, he stated, “ I entered Egypt by the mummy of the museum of Boulogne ” and “ the Egyptian duck is a dangerous animal: a blow of nozzle, it inoculates you venom and you are Egyptologist for the life ”.

He learns the Hiéroglyphe S and the Copte and, renonçant with professorship, between as clerk in Louvre (thousand-year-old ex-Charles Ve front J. - C.), accepting an ungrateful work and badly remunerated. Noticed by Emmanuel de Rougé and Charles Lenormant, it was made send in Egypt by the Musée of Louvre, in 1850, to acquire manuscripts coptes.

The business was not done and it used the funds to excavate with Saqqarah, after having admired the plain since the ramparts of Cairo, having under the eyes the spectacle of the pyramids, of the Nile, of the plain of Saqqarah: There was, almost with the range of my hand, a whole world of tombs, steles, inscriptions, statues. What to say moreover?

The following day, it is equipped and on October 20th, it camps with the foot of the Large Pyramid. Whereas it passed by the plate of Saqqarah, it noticed, emerging from sand, the head of a sphinx; he thought then of the description, made by Strabon, of an avenue leading to the Sérapéion, bordered of more than one hundred forty sphinx. The Greek traveller affirmed that it was with Memphis a temple of Sérapis in a so sandy place that the winds amoncellent there heaps of sand under which we saw buried sphinges, the ones with half, the others to the head… . The result was immediate: sphinges are thus put at the day, as well as a statue of the god Apis of beautiful invoice. One owes him the discovery (on November 1st 1850), of the Scribe , one of the showpieces of the Egyptian department of the Louvre, and excavates it (until in 1854) of the Sérapeum of Memphis and of the necropolis of Saqqarah where it released many Mastaba S of the Ancient Empire.

In 1857, it thus returned to Egypt, meeting there Ferdinand de Lesseps, and this last appreciated the turn of mind of Mariette as for the destination of antiquities. Also it was presented to Saïd Pasha which had succeeded Mehemet Ali: It falls to us to take care carefully on the monuments. In will five hundred years, Egypt be still able to show the scholars who will visit it those such as we discover them today?

It opened a building site with Dra Abou el-Naggah (Thèbes) and, in December, the sarcophagus of the king Ahmosis (who reigned until -1567 and which put an end to the dynasty invaders Hyksôs, at the time of the catch of Avaris) is found intact.

He became director of the museum of Boulaq, as of on June 1st 1858, and, with Thèbes, on bank opposed to Louxor, not far from the place where he had exhumed the sarcophagus of Kamosis, its team directed by Maunier, put at the day that of his wife Ahotep, as well as furniture and the sumptuous jewels which accompanied it. In the absence of the French Egyptologist, the Egyptian authorities opened the sarcophagus, “balanced” the mummy and preserved the jewels and objects found that they dispatched, via the Nile, bound for Cairo. The managing director of antiquities intercepted the river convoy and recovered the cases, complained at Saïd Pasha, which preserved two parts for its personal use.

In 1860, it discovers then works with the temple of Edfou which it makes free from sand.

During the World Fair of Paris of 1867, the jewels of Ahotep are exposed to Paris and the Eugenie empress wanted of certain parts very, so much so that she asked them Ismail Pasha, which referred about it to the director of the museum of Boulaq. Mariette opposed the imperial will, which created concern to him.

It is retained by the opera Aïda, of Giuseppe Verdi, of which it would have suggested the topic and who was to be given in 1870, for the opening of the Suez Canal, but because of the war in Europe and the Défaite of Sedan, the date was deferred to the following year.

During this time, the workmen, who released the royal stele of the family members pretense to date from the Ancient Empire, discovered the opening of a well, and one of them progressed in the gallery thus dug, a candle with the hand, and reappeared livid, as emptied of its blood: it had just crossed the glance shining of two people who, disfiguring it fixedly, had frightened it at the most point. When Daninos went to see what it was, it was found vis-a-vis the statues of Rahotep and Néfret which thus went to join the museum of Boulaq.

In 1872, Mariette had 2780 workmen working under her direction in Egypt, and, in 1878, it was accepted with the Académie of the inscriptions and the humanities. In 1880, it was joined by Gaston Maspero, while it fell again seriously sick because of his diabetes. He died in 1881 in Cairo, while having excavated 300 tombs, with Saqqarah and Guizèh, having released of many sites in Egypt and Nubie, and having found surroundings: 15000 objects. Its last work will be published after its death under the control of Maspero, Mastabas of the Old empire . It was buried in Cairo.

It created the service of antiquities of the Egypt and the Egyptian museum of the Cairo in 1858.

Publications

Dendérah , Bookstore A. Franck, Paris, 1875.
Karnak , topographic and archaeological study, 2 vol., J.C. Hinrichs, Paris, 1875.
Voyage in High Egypt , Goupil, Paris, 1878.
general Catalog of the monuments of Abydos discovered during the excavations of this city, HMSO, Paris, 1880.

External bonds

Auguste-Edouard Mariette on Channel Academy

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