Émile Brugsch (February 24, 1842 – January 14, 1930) was a German Egyptologist whose career spanned the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He is known as the official who "evacuated" the mummies from the Deir el-Bahri Cache in 1881 without recording the plan of the tomb which has fuelled speculation that he was involved in the pilfering of antiquities. He was assistant curator of the

Bulaq Museum The Museum of Egyptian Antiquities, known commonly as the Egyptian Museum or the Cairo Museum, in Cairo, Egypt, is home to an extensive collection of ancient Egyptian antiquities. It has 120,000 items, with a representative amount on display a ...

- the core element of what is today's Egyptian Museum. Brugsch was born in

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitu ...

, and was the brother of the Egyptologist

Heinrich Karl Brugsch Heinrich Karl Brugsch (also ''Brugsch-Pasha'') (18 February 18279 September 1894) was a German Egyptologist. He was associated with Auguste Mariette in his excavations at Memphis. He became director of the School of Egyptology at Cairo, producin ...

. He assisted author and

occultist The occult, in the broadest sense, is a category of esoteric supernatural beliefs and practices which generally fall outside the scope of religion and science, encompassing phenomena involving otherworldly agency, such as magic and mysticism a ...

Aleister Crowley Aleister Crowley (; born Edward Alexander Crowley; 12 October 1875 – 1 December 1947) was an English occultist, ceremonial magician, poet, painter, novelist, and mountaineer. He founded the religion of Thelema, identifying himself as the pr ...

in 1904 by having the Stele of Revealing translated by his assistant. The Stele, and the translation, became integral parts of Crowley's subsequent writing of ''

The Book of the Law ''Liber AL vel Legis'' (), commonly known as ''The Book of the Law'', is the central sacred text of Thelema. Aleister Crowley said that it was dictated to him by a beyond-human being who called himself ' Aiwass'. Rose Edith Kelly, Crowley's ...

'' and his founding of the philosophical practice and religion of

Thelema Thelema () is a Western esoteric and occult social or spiritual philosophy and new religious movement founded in the early 1900s by Aleister Crowley (1875–1947), an English writer, mystic, occultist, and ceremonial magician. The word ' ...

. He is mentioned in ''The Temple of Heliopolis'' by Wm. J. Shaw, whom he assisted with translation of hieroglyphics at the temple. Brugsch threw on the rubbish heap an arm found in the tomb of

Djer Djer (or Zer or Sekhty) is considered the third pharaoh of the First Dynasty of ancient Egypt in current Egyptology. He lived around the mid- thirty-first century BC and reigned for c. 40 years. A mummified forearm of Djer or his wife was disco ...

which Ancient Egyptians believed was the tomb of

Osiris Osiris (, from Egyptian ''wsjr'', cop, ⲟⲩⲥⲓⲣⲉ , ; Phoenician: 𐤀𐤎𐤓, romanized: ʾsr) is the god of fertility, agriculture, the afterlife, the dead, resurrection, life, and vegetation in ancient Egyptian religion. He wa ...

. He has been described as leaving "behind him an evil reputation" through his dealings in Egypt.Hatchepsut, Joyce Tyldesley, p. 93 Brugsch died in

Nice, France Nice ( , ; Niçard: , classical norm, or , nonstandard, ; it, Nizza ; lij, Nissa; grc, Νίκαια; la, Nicaea) is the prefecture of the Alpes-Maritimes department in France. The Nice agglomeration extends far beyond the administrative c ...

, aged 87.

References

External links

Giants of Egyptology: 9th of a Series - The Brothers Brugsch
, accessed December 28, 2006 * verland monthly and Out West, The Temple of Heliopolis [Volume 14, Issue 5, May 1875; pp. 438–444 http://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/moajrnl/ahj1472.1-14.005/434] 1842 births 1930 deaths Archaeologists from Berlin German Egyptologists German male non-fiction writers {{Egyptologist-stub

See also

References

External links