Kurt Heinrich Sethe (30 September 1869 – 6 July 1934) was a noted

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ge ...

Egyptologist Egyptology (from ''Egypt'' and Greek , '' -logia''; ar, علم المصريات) is the study of ancient Egyptian history, language, literature, religion, architecture and art from the 5th millennium BC until the end of its native religiou ...

and

philologist Philology () is the study of language in oral and written historical sources; it is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics (with especially strong ties to etymology). Philology is also defined ...

from

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 ...

. He was a student of

Adolf Erman Johann Peter Adolf Erman (; 31 October 185426 June 1937) was a renowned German Egyptologist and lexicographer. Life Born in Berlin, he was the son of Georg Adolf Erman and grandson of Paul Erman and Friedrich Bessel. Educated at Leipzig and ...

. Sethe collected numerous texts from

Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning the North Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via a land bridg ...

during his visits there and edited the ''

Urkunden des ægyptischen Altertums ''Urkunden des ægyptischen Altertums'' is a series of editions of Ancient Egyptian texts, published between 1903–1961. The series comprises eight volumes: * I. Urkunden des Alten Reichs (Old Kingdom) * II. Hieroglyphische Urkunden der Gr ...

'' which is a standard catalogue of Ancient Egyptian literature and text. Among Sethe's many contributions to Egyptology, two are singled out by Gardiner (p. 433): "...the pronunciation of Middle Egyptian... The chief authorities to be consulted are Sethe's great work on the Egyptian verb, and a much later brilliant article entitled ''Die Vokalisation des Ägyptischen'' in ''Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenländischen Gesellschaft''"" (1923). Actually, Sethe was the first one to put forth a systematic theory of the Egyptian verb; it was no easy accomplishment, since the

inflection In linguistic morphology, inflection (or inflexion) is a process of word formation in which a word is modified to express different grammatical categories such as tense, case, voice, aspect, person, number, gender, mood, animacy, and ...

of the Egyptian verb was done mainly by changing the vowels, and the Egyptians only wrote consonants. Among Sethe's students were

Hans Jakob Polotsky Hans Jakob Polotsky ( he, הנס יעקב פולוצקי; also Hans Jacob Polotsky, Hans Jakob Polotzky; 13 September 1905 – 10 August 1991) was an Israeli orientalist, linguist, and professor of Semitic languages and Egyptology at the Hebrew U ...

and

Alan Gardiner Sir Alan Henderson Gardiner, (29 March 1879 – 19 December 1963) was an English Egyptologist, linguist, philologist, and independent scholar. He is regarded as one of the premier Egyptologists of the early and mid-20th century. Personal life G ...

. Sethe's anthology, ''Aegyptische Lesestuecke,'' is still doing sterling service to the beginners in the study of the language. Sethe also published a comprehensive collection of Egyptian

epigraphy Epigraphy () is the study of inscriptions, or epigraphs, as writing; it is the science of identifying graphemes, clarifying their meanings, classifying their uses according to dates and cultural contexts, and drawing conclusions about the w ...

, which he called ''Urkunden der Aegyptologie.''

References

* Kurt Sethe: ''Das aegyptische verbum im altaegyptischen, neuaegyptischen und koptischen'', Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs, 1902. * Kurt Sethe: ''Urkunden des Alten Reichs'' (= ''Urkunden des ägyptischen Altertums.'' Abteilung 1). 1. Band, 4. Heft. 2., augmented edition, Hinrichs'sche Buchhandlung, Leipzig 1933
available online
* at 2terres.hautesavoie.net * Gardiner, Alan. ''Egyptian Grammar. Being an Introduction to the Study of Hieroglyphs''. 3rd Ed., Rev. London: Oxford University Press, 1957 (1st ed. 1927). 1869 births 1934 deaths German Egyptologists German lexicographers Members of the Prussian Academy of Sciences Archaeologists from Berlin People from the Province of Brandenburg University of Tübingen alumni Humboldt University of Berlin alumni Humboldt University of Berlin faculty University of Göttingen faculty Members of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences German male non-fiction writers {{Egyptologist-stub