Gustav Seyffarth (13 July 179617 November 1885) was a

German-American German Americans (, ) are Americans who have full or partial German ancestry. According to the United States Census Bureau's figures from 2022, German Americans make up roughly 41 million people in the US, which is approximately 12% of the pop ...

Egyptologist Egyptology (from ''Egypt'' and Greek , ''-logia''; ) is the scientific study of ancient Egypt. The topics studied include ancient Egyptian history, language, literature, religion, architecture and art from the 5th millennium BC until the end ...

, born in Uebigau, in the

Electorate of Saxony The Electorate of Saxony, also known as Electoral Saxony ( or ), was a territory of the Holy Roman Empire from 1356 to 1806 initially centred on Wittenberg that came to include areas around the cities of Dresden, Leipzig and Chemnitz. It was a ...

. He studied

theology Theology is the study of religious belief from a Religion, religious perspective, with a focus on the nature of divinity. It is taught as an Discipline (academia), academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itse ...

and

philology Philology () is the study of language in Oral tradition, oral and writing, written historical sources. It is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics with strong ties to etymology. Philology is also de ...

at the

University of Leipzig Leipzig University (), in Leipzig in Saxony, Germany, is one of the world's oldest universities and the second-oldest university (by consecutive years of existence) in Germany. The university was founded on 2 December 1409 by Frederick I, Electo ...

, obtaining his doctorate in 1823 with the thesis "De sonis literarum graecarum tum genuis tum adoptivis". He became a

professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other tertiary education, post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin ...

philosophy Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational an ...

at Leipzig in 1825 and a professor of

archæology Archaeology or archeology is the study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of Artifact (archaeology), artifacts, architecture, biofact (archaeology), biofacts or ecofacts, ...

in 1830 (a position he held until 1855).Seyffarth, Gustav
@ NDB/ADB Deutsche Biographie From 1826 to 1829 he visited the principal

museum A museum is an institution dedicated to displaying or Preservation (library and archive), preserving culturally or scientifically significant objects. Many museums have exhibitions of these objects on public display, and some have private colle ...

s of Germany, France, England, and the Netherlands and collected copies of Egyptian inscriptions and

Copt Copts (; ) are a Christian ethnoreligious group native to Northeast Africa who have primarily inhabited the area of modern Egypt since antiquity. They are, like the broader Egyptian population, descended from the ancient Egyptians. Copts pre ...

ic manuscripts. In 1840, on his initiative, a

sarcophagus A sarcophagus (: sarcophagi or sarcophaguses) is a coffin, most commonly carved in stone, and usually displayed above ground, though it may also be buried. The word ''sarcophagus'' comes from the Greek language, Greek wikt:σάρξ, σάρξ ...

was purchased that was to become the centerpiece of the future ''Ägyptisches Museum der Universität Leipzig''. In 1856 he came to America and became a professor of

church history Church history or ecclesiastical history as an academic discipline studies the history of Christianity and the way the Christian Church has developed since its inception. Henry Melvill Gwatkin defined church history as "the spiritual side of t ...

and archæology at Concordia College, St. Louis. From 1859 he resided in

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

, where he conducted research at the

Astor Library The Astor Library was a free public library in the East Village, Manhattan, developed primarily through the collaboration of New York City merchant John Jacob Astor and New England educator and bibliographer Joseph Cogswell and designed by Alex ...

. Seyffarth was an earnest student of Egyptology, but wrongly held that the

hieroglyphic Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs ( ) were the formal writing system used in Ancient Egypt for writing the Egyptian language. Hieroglyphs combined ideographic, logographic, syllabic and alphabetic elements, with more than 1,000 distinct characters. ...

characters, with scarcely an exception, were pure phonograms. His method of deciphering hieroglyphics was fundamentally different to that of

Jean-François Champollion Jean-François Champollion (), also known as Champollion ''le jeune'' ('the Younger'; 23 December 1790 – 4 March 1832), was a French philologist and orientalist, known primarily as the decipherer of Egyptian hieroglyphs and a founding figure ...

— with Seyffarth asserting that the hieroglyphs designated the consonant elements of a syllable and Champollion teaching that the hieroglyphs were symbols standing for definite letters of the alphabet.

Selected works

* "De lingua et literis veterum Aegyptiorum: cum permultis tabulis lithographicis", 1825 (with Friedrich August Wilhelm Spohn). * "Rudimenta Hieroglyphices", 1826. * ''Beiträge zur Kenntniss der Literatur, Kunst, Mythologie und Geschichte des alten Aegypten'', (1826–1840, 7 parts). * "Systema astronomiae aegyptiacae quadripartitum", 1833. * ''Unser alphabet ein abbild des thierkreises'', 1834. * "Alphabeta Genuina Aegyptiorum", 1840. * ''Die Grundsätze der Mythologie und der alten Religionsgeschichte'' 1843. * "Grammatica aegyptiaca", 1855. * "Summary of recent discoveries in Biblical chronology, universal history and Egyptian archæology; with special reference to Dr. Abbott's Egyptian museum in New-York. Together with a translation of the first sacred book of the ancient Egyptians", 1857. * "An Astronomical Inscription Concerning the Year 1722 B.C.", 1859. * "The hieroglyphic tablet of Pompeium, grammatically translated and commented on", 1881. * "The Literary Life of Gustavus Seyffarth ...: An Autobiographical Sketch" (with

Karl Knortz Karl Knortz (28 August 1841 Garbenheim, Rhenish Prussia – 27 July 1918 North Tarrytown, New York) was a German-American author. Biography He was educated at the gymnasium of Wetzlar, and the University of Heidelberg. He emigrated to the Unite ...

), 1886.Google Search
published works

References

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Seyffarth, Gustav 1796 births 1885 deaths People from Uebigau-Wahrenbrück People from the Electorate of Saxony German Egyptologists German male non-fiction writers Archaeologists from Brandenburg German emigrants to the United States American Egyptologists Writers from New York City Academic staff of Leipzig University Leipzig University alumni